GERMAN MORALE SHAKEN

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24369, 22 September 1944, Page 4

GERMAN MORALE SHAKEN

ALLIED BOMBING IN ITALY >

WAR CORRESPONDENT’S

IMPRESSIONS

/ The German troops in Italy are still prepared to fight, and to but their morale has been badly shaken by continuous Allied bombing and constant withdrawals from one line to another. This is the impression formed by Lieutenant Bruce Hewitt, who has served with the New Zealand Division as an official war correspondent in North Africa and Italy for two years, and is now back in Christchurch on Hewitt said yesterday that the Allied bombing had affected the Germans not so much in .their static positions as on their lines or communication. They were fearful all the time of being attacked when moving along the roads, and moved all their transport by night. Along the roads behind the lines, particularly in the Anzio area, the Germans had cut pits 10ft or 12ft deep into the roadside. When they were strafed by Allied aircraft they stopped their trucks and ran for shelter. German prisoners also had expressed their fear of Allied bombing. Lieutenant Hewitt, Who is the son of Mr S. J. L. Hewitt, of Mount Pleasant, was on the reporting staff of “The Press.” He left New Zealand as a volunteer early in 1941, seived in the 27th Machine-Gun Battalion, and was a sergeant when he was appointed a war correspondent at the beginning of 1942. Since then he has been in Libya, Tunisia, and in Italy until the fall of Rome. He wears the ribbon of the Africa Star with the Bth Army clasp. Little Air Support

“The Luftwaffe has practically disappeared in Italy, and the German air support is almost non-existent,” said Lieutenant Hewitt, speaking of the fighting in Italy. “The enemy’s air strength was pretty well up at El Alamein, and we used to get at.least three dive-bombing, raids a day. But in Italy