SICILIAN PORT BOMBED

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23946, 13 May 1943, Page 5

SICILIAN PORT BOMBED

300 AIRCRAFT TAKE PART PANTELLARIA AGAIN ATTACKED i8.0.W.) RUGBY. May 11. A special communique from Allied Headquarters in North Africa says: “Very strong forces of heavy bombers, escorted by over 100 fighters, dropped tons of bombs on the suburbs and port installations of Marsala, in Sicily, m daylight to-day. Direct hits were

scored on warehouses and a vessel was set on fire. Vast fires were visible as far as the African coast. (Cape Bon is 100 miles to the south-east.) “Simultaneously the port of Pantellaria underwent its sixth raid in four days. Two vessels were hit.” A correspondent says that the great raid on Marsala was made by nearly 200 bombers. , Yesterday fighter-bombers attacked the Biscari aerodrome, in Sicily, says a Malta message. Bombs were seen to burst in the centre of the aerodrome and in dispersal areas. Last night bombers made another attack on the Marsala railway station. * ires were started on the railway tracks. Installations at the Porto Empedocie power-station were also attacked.

GERMAN PUBLIC. “DUMBFOUNDED”

NEWS GIVEN OF FALL OP TUNIS AND BIZERTE (ffec. 8.45 p.m.) LONDON. May 11. "Neutral correspondents in Berlin report that the public are dumbfounded at the announcement of the simultaneous fall of Tunis and Bizerte," says the correspondent of "The Times” on the German frontier, “The inspired German press to the last moment explained every movement as a voluntary occupation of new and better positions, so most people really nursed the illusion that a favourable turn to the campaign was still possible. "When the press yesterday announced the painful truth, crowds stormed the news stands and besieged newspaper offices*, asking how could that happen and what fate had overtaken the Afrika Korps. Goebbeis’s propaganda had really succeeded in maintaining the fiction that Marshal Rommel’s retreat was part of a master stroke destined finally to destroy the enemy. The morning newspapers are seeking to convince their readers that the ’ltalian’ reverse in Africa cannot shake the Axis foundations.”

CASUALTIES IN U.S. FORCES

(Rec. 7 p.m.) WASHINGTON. May U. The United States Office of War Information has announced that United States casualties total 80,660. Of these 12.964 are dead. 16,201 wounded, 38.168 missing, and 13.327 prisoners of war. Army casualties total 55.729. and Navy. Marine Corps, and Coast Guard 24.931.