HEAVIEST EVER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 198, 21 August 1943, Page 5

HEAVIEST EVER

TERRIFIC ATTACKS

Southern Italy Pounded From Air, Sea And Land N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 20. Allied artillery, air' forces and naval units for the last 24 hours have been plastering Southern Italy in one of the most formidable attacks ever seen, says Algiers radio. Allied armies stand poised and ready for the next assault, while air and naval forces are staging one of the greatest bombardments in military history against Southern Italy. There is a note of urgency in this terrific onslaught but correspondents are left to guess where the next offensive will fall. The Allies yesterday scarred the toe of Italy with bombs and gunfire, blotting out enemy batteries, smashing bridges and tunnels, tearing up railways, wrecking power stations and making roads impassable for the war-weary Axis forces fleeing from Sicily.

Remnants Of German Army Blasted

These remnants of the German Army of 75,000 men have been battered and blasted for 24 hours in one of the most intensive combined bombardments of the war. They are not being allowed time to regroup, but must trek to the north, menaced from the skies at every step. The Germans already appear to have decided that Southern Italy is too hot for them to attempt to hold. Allied airmen are striking at vulnerable points where roads and railways cross bridges, machine-gunning trains and lorry convoys. Some of the battle-worn Axis forces haye abandoned land routes for small boats on the western coast of the mainland, hoping thus to avoid the dragnet, but our warplanes are catching them.

The British United Press correspondent at Allied headquarters says the isolation of 80 miles of the Caiabrian Peninsula from the rest of Italy has been carried a stage further with attacks on the railways which follow the coast along both sides of the peninsula between the Strait of Messina and the narrow neck of country at Catanzaro. The guns of the Allied forces in Sicily have cooperated in these attacks, pouring a continuous fire across the strait into the Italian defences in the area of Reggio.