GOOD PROGRESS IN ADVANCE ON NAPLES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13265, 1 October 1943, Page 5

GOOD PROGRESS IN ADVANCE ON NAPLES

ALLIES MAY REACH CITY AT ANY TIME NOW MORE TOWNS CAPTURED BY BOTH FIFTH AND EIGHTH ARMIES t MAIN ROAD LINK WITH ROME CUT BY BOMBERS London, September 30. . Allied Fifth and Eighth Armies in Italy have made more and have captured more towns, the advances ranging few miles along the west coast to a good 15 in the east. irnnl , a j ay ' s communique confirms that Pompeii is in Fifth Army lid s 0 i s Avellino an important road junction in the eastern b rnflch to the Naples plain. "'''"on t j ie pi a i n itself the Fifth Army has made further progress • ,J face of heavy German demolition. 111 0 the Eighth Army front, the communique goes on, progress • „ o o in be satisfactory and our troops have reached an imcontiiuitss i" Hint coast town. \ despatch just received from a correspondent states that the . ns ar e,still resisting on the direct route to Naples. It is a rfftiard action they are fighting and they are being hard pressed ?the time by our tanks and mobile forces which now have room 1 deploy on the flat land. rn, e .Germans are making our progress as slow as they can l we are having to fight our way to Naples, but, as the corres"Zlent states, we might reach the city at any time now. What the establishment of the Salerno bridgehead cost the Vfth Army in casualties was revealed to-day. From the day of the first landing on September 8 until September 20 our losses were Mil killed, wounded or missing. Yesterday the weather in Italy improved after three bad davs and our aircraft were out again in good strength. Our medium »nd fighter bombers made heavy attacks on roads, railways, and tribes and it is reckoned that the main link with Rome by road L°cut in at least six places. At almost all the noints attacked 1, aircraft met very intense fire from the ground, but that was a llthe opposition they encountered. Not a single enemy machine was mot. , . tit 4.1 It is revealed that until three days ago, when- bad weather stopped them, our heavy bombers had been out on 61 successive nights pounding important targets north of Naples. r The Germans have made more heavy air attacks on the island nf Cos in the Dodeeanese. They lost one bomber. Our aircraft bombed airfields in Greece and on Rhodes on Thursday night with- \ German warshin was damaged by Allied planes. The "warship the type of which is not revealed, was sighted escorting some armed merchantmen and covered by two aircraft.. One of these was shot clown and the other chased off and then Beaufighters attacked. . ~. ' ,-, , When they left, the warship was enveloped in a heavy pall ot smoke and was listing.