THREE AIRFIELDS TAKEN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23998, 13 July 1943, Page 5

THREE AIRFIELDS TAKEN

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, July 12. British, Canadian, and American forces in Sicily were adva ™mg steadily inland last night. Since then there has been no official news of their progress; but unofficial reports say that a tierce battle is going on for the town of Ragusa, in the south-east of the island, about 20 miles inland. 08 161 * reports say that the Allies have captured three airfields. One is at Pachino, three miles from Gape Passero. This was taken by British troops who moved on to take a strongpoint a mile and a half further inland. The other two are said to have been taken by American forces to the west. One is the Gela airfield; and an American correspondent quoted by the Algiers radio says that the advancing Americans are engaged in a fierce battle thirteen and a half miles south-east of Gela. The British forces which captured the Pachino airfield have made a junction with the Canadians across Gape Passero, and the Allies have already established regimental and divisional headquarters on the island.

Reuter’s Algiers correspondent says that news was flashed to Allied Headquarters late yesterday afternoon saying that Allied troops were pushing inland and threatening the important coast road which hugs the shoreline in the south-eastern corner of the island. “Great significance,” he adds, “is attached to the Americans’ successful action after the Gela landing in throwing back the first reported German panzer counter-attack.”

The Allies’ front has been widened to 150 miles with the establishment by Canadian forces of an important bridgehead near Porto Empedocle, midway along the southern coast of the island, says the “Daily Mail.”