GROWING WEIGHT OF AIR ASSAULT

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23948, 15 May 1943, Page 5

GROWING WEIGHT OF AIR ASSAULT

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Bee. 11 p.rn.) LONDON, May 14. Allied air and sea forces are now paj'ing increasing attention to Italy's island strongholds in the Mediterranean. Early yesterday morning ships of the Mediterranean Fleet shelled Pantclleria, in the Sicilian narrows 50 miles east of Cape Bon, for more than 20 minutes. Broadside after broadside crashed into the naval area. Flares to light up the area were dropped by pilots of the Fleet Air Arm. One pilot said: “The shells came in hard, landing well on the target area. They were bursting all along the mole and among shipping.” Correspondents say that the sun was just rising over (he Mediterranean w hen the pilots who took part in the operation returned to Malta. Since the capture of Tunis and Bizerte, Allied air attacks on Pantelleria have developed into a sustained assault. Sicily also has been heavily battered during the week, the highlight being the massed raid by 400 American aircraft on Palermo. Axis airfields in Sicily, says one correspondent, have had a terrific drubbing. The main news from Tunisia is still of the rounding-up of Axis prisoners. Correspondents say that the final count may bring the total to 175,000.

General Messe, the Italian commander in Tunisia, has been captured. Mussolini on Wednesday promoted him to the rank of marshal. The total bag of Axis generals is now 16. The surrender of General Messe was arranged in accordance with his wish to surrender only to the Bth Army. He is reported to have surrendered to General Sir Bernard Montgomery in person. A son-in-law of the King of Italy. General Count Calvi di Bergolo, surrendered with him. General Bergolo is about 42 years of age. He married Princess Yolande in 1923. He was originally a cavalry officer. A famous rider, he has competed at horse shows in London. A correspondent at Cape Bon. describing the wholesale collapse of the enemy and the rush to surrender, says that tens of thousands of Germans and Italians were streaming in from every direction to give themselves up. The roads were choked with them —long columns on foot, staff officers in their own cars, and endless lines of enemy trucks, most of them German made, crammed with men. Men were even perched on the wings, bonnet, and roof of cars driven by their own drivers. Tlrere were ambulances, scout cars, and armoured cars, all packed with prisoners. Axis troops were sitting tightly together on the barrels of their field guns, and on gun carriages, as they were towed back towards Tunis. "I even saw three men coming in fitting astride one motor-cycle,” he added. "All along the road it was the srmc story, everywhere German and Italian officers surrendering and asking where they could send their men. ’ The correspondent says that the Axis abandoned millions of pounds worth of fo equipment. Within 100 yards the cor- ' Wry could see about 30 vehicles. '•■drS' also wireless sets, typewriters, and X-ray equipment. There were Ad'cks of weapons, ammunition, and camp equipment, and complete field workshops. Another correspondent describes a journey he made through the Capo Bon territory after the Axis resistance ceased. Time and again, he said, the car in which he was travelling had to pull in to allow convoys of German and Italian trucks carrying prisoners to pass on the narrow road. As the correspondent’s party went on they came to Axis vehicles abandoned on the roadside. Then the numbers increased until the whole countryside was littered with them. They had been abandoned in such haste that many of them "could be made serviceable without much mechanical adjustment. Tommies were tinkering with the engines of some of the vehicles, find after a few adjustments were driving them off.

Futile attempts by Germans and Italians to cross the Sicilian narrows after the Tunisian debacle have been described by a correspondent with the British naval forces in the Mediterranean. Telling how' destroyers in his division chased and set ablaze two enemy tankers carrying tanks, munitions, and troops, he adds: “Later, outside the Gulf of Tunis. I saw in all its pathetic extent the attempts of the men to get home. Perhaps half a dozen craft of all kinds were spread over the sea. None had travelled more than a score of miles, and all were rounded up by British destroyers. “I saw one soldier pulling like mad in a tiny dinghy. Another small boat contained three men. Another contained eight men, who paddled desperately with shovels.” On Wednesday long-range fighters from Malta attacked shipping off the toe of Italy, says an agency message. A coastal patrol vessel was left burning. Fighters on offensive patrol over Sicily attacked a goods train with cannon and machine-gun fire. The locomotive and several trucks burst into flames. Last night intruder aircraft attacked railway communications and vehicles in Sicily and southern Italy. A Middle East air communique says: “On Wednesday in 9ne of our attacks on enemy shipping in the Aegean Sea and off the west coast of Greece, Royal Air Force long-range fighters sank a small sailing vessel and damaged at least five others, two of which were beached. “Direct hits were scored on quay buildings in a harbour on Syros Island. "One enemy aeroplane was shot down. All of ours returned.”