ITALIAN FRONT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 262, 4 November 1944, Page 5

ITALIAN FRONT

AIRFIELD CAPTURED Atrocious Weather Hinders Allied Advance N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 3. Rome radio announces that the Allies to-day captured Forli aerodrome. British infantry ' and armour, despite the bad weather, slogged forward nearly one mile to contain the Forli airfield on two sides, said Reuters correspondent at Allied Headquarters in Italy, in an earlier report. The Germans are desperately defending the airfield at the northwest and north-east corners. They are using Tiger tanks to defend the aerodrome, for which fighting is raging in violent thunderstorms. Only a canal separates the opposing forces. The German tanks are firing at point-blank range supporting the infantry. Eighth Army troops, three miles south of Forli, enlarging the bridgehead across the Ronco River, captured the village of Grisignano, on the east bank of the Rabbi River. The. Germans are established on the heights west of the Rabbi River. The British United Press correspondent says the Germans before Ravenna and Bologna outnumber the Allied forces, but that would not matter if the weather and terrain were not against the Allies because we outnumber the enemy s tanks and guns. The mountain slopes are not only sodden, thereby bogging down the Allies' tar.ks, but are covered with heavy fogs.

The Exchange Telegraph correspondent reports a thunderstorm with torrential rain raged for seven hours yesterday with disastrous effects on roads and bridges. Even the main road between Rome and Siena was temporarily impassable.