ARMOURED DRIVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 126, 30 May 1944, Page 4

ARMOURED DRIVE

N.Z. TANKS ADVANCE

ACROSS DIFFICULT COUNTRY

(N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) ITALY, May 28

Attacking pocket after pocket in the German rearguard, the spearhead of New Zealand armour has

knocked out three heavy tanks in the last three days, and is now among the foremost forces of the Eighth Army's thrust toward Rome along the Liri Valley. Closely supported by Indian infantry, including the famous Gurkhas, the New Zealanders have blasted the Germans out of mortar pits and machine-gun and anti-tank strongpoints aud captured scores of prisoners.

So close have they followed on the retreating enemy that they have heard the Germans demolishing bridges along the valley. Where they have met German rearguard pockets the New Zealanders have found them willing to fight at a disstance, but only too eager to surrender once the tanks approached.

Occasionally the New Zealanders have met pockets of young fanatical paratroops, who have fired on the tanks from distances as close as 20 yards. Among the captured paratroops have been veterans of Cassino and Crete. Some of them had been left to hold these rearguard strongpoints for several days with little food and water.

An incident as strange as some that occurred in the enemy's confusion after the El Alamein breakthrough led to the destruction of one German tank, a Mark IV. Panzer. Darkness was falling and a New Zealand tank had stopped on the road beside a dull shape that appeared to be another Sherman. The commander of the New Zealand tank climbed out of his turret, and the crew of the other tank also stepped to the ground. Expecting to meet a Polish tank crew, the New Zealander walked toward the others and spoke to them. As he received no reply he reached for his pistol with one hand and felt in the darkness for the men's hat badges with the other. Two of five men—the crew of a German tank—made off in the darkness and the others surrendered. Backing off a few yards, the New Zealand Sherman then put the panzer out of action.

Early to-day the New Zealanders began an attack across extremely difficult tank country—sheer rocky slopes on ridges that run in a long chain along the edge of the Liri Valley beyond Monte Cassino and Monte Cairo. Their job is to destroy more of these strongpoints through the hills and thus secure the flank of the Eighth Army's drive up the Liri Valley. Already, by following rough cart tracks and in places making their own route directly up steep hillsides, the New Zealand tanks have made considerable progress.