DEEP SALIENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 271, 15 November 1943, Page 3

DEEP SALIENT

BY EIGHTH ARMY

Nazis Reported To Be Making

New Line In Italy Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 14. The Eighth Army has launched an offensive against the new German winter line, says Algiers radio. Our troops crossed the Sangro River and established bridgeheads on the north bank. The Germans are launching repeated counter-attacks and are trying to stave off the Allied offensive. General Montgomery's men in other sectors advanced five miles and established a deep salient in the German front directly threatening Alfedena in the German defence line, and also three junctions on the Isernia-Alfedena road. Italians on the northern sector of this front are being used as drivers and attendants in a special mule supply company. Not long ago some reinforcements for this new arm arrived from another sector. They were heard asking their fellow countrymen to which army they were attached. "Fifth Army," replied one. At which a newly-arrived N.C.O. said in a - distinctly haughty tone, "We are Eighth Army Italians, serving under General Montgomery." They were still maintaining their superior attitude about this when I last saw them leaving our forward supply dumps, with long files of Empire coloured troops co-operating as porters, to take ammunition and rations to advanced positions. The hardest fighting in Italy is going on in the western mountains about 20 miles from the sea. There has been tough fighting around the towns of Mignano and Venafro and a little further inland. The Fifth Army captured Filignano, four miles north of Venafro, and Pozelli, two miles to the north-east. A correspondent with the Fifth Army says that the Germans have been counter-attacking fiercely, and it is not yet clear who has got the upper hand. West of Mignano the British are up against tremendous difficulties.