BATTLE COCKPIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1944, Page 5

BATTLE COCKPIT

CARROCETTO FRONT

Gr ° U H d ,A Ost And Regained Half A Dozen Times

Rnn , British Official Wireless Thi n m - RUGBY - F *- 15fhatllH n ( lepoy when tho rains uidi nog tanks have ceased. Of"itadie?lnni m «r ee , fr ° m thG Woods to Roml t e, the lon S Straight road tmed fipiH« u cross a bowl of °P en > view nf a -u H . er , e you get the first threl ™iuP rillas big brick buildings ™f n ™l e s away, on the lip of the fnri w" Slnß £° the Alban foothills! f 1?™ ?" n £. he n °rthern fringe of h h eaa WO batt S le S the C ° Ckpit of the beach " S?lw h l ? th< ? road brid S e and the lunff arC i- h Wlthout attracting the attention of enemy guns. It is not who, day - Wet flelds - with lal <es h a t?il e fi 2'M n T ater stiu lies > a» the battlefield where the enemy was baclc S nights a S° and turned = Q " D + °, Wn lhere ' although you cannot see them, are the men who staved tw e 3? m Y' but il is over Aprilia that the fury of the battle always hangs. The Germans there face us across No Man's Land, where the sniper reigns. Along the straight drive from Carrocetto to Aprilia the enemy is in the trenches we dug controlling all approaches to Aprilia over open fields. This ground has been lost and regained half a dozen times, and is the gateway in and out of the cockpit. "From Carrocetto, a ridge perhaps three miles long sprawls west towards the coast. For each hummock of ground, among trees, on the curving edge of the bowl into which all streams in the beachhead drain there has been bloody fighting. The trees are no refuge. Night patrols seek you out, and in knife battles slaughter has been done silently by both sides. "It was for the contestants' place in the cockpit that the enemy was prepared to pay such a high' price last week. He has still to tight, his way into it, and at Carrocetto we block his attempts to get into the arena."