IN VAN OF EIGHTH ARMY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 304, 18 September 1943, Page 7

IN VAN OF EIGHTH ARMY

Pressmen Contact U.S. Patrol TRIUMPHANT RIDE (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, September IdWhile the Fifth Army has taken the offensive between the Sele and Galore Rivers, the Eighth Army has continued its inspiring race to join up with the Fifth Army. Though it is apparently not encountering opposition, the Eighth Army must be enduring a gruelling experience in the temperature of over 100 degrees. The Eighth Army has reached Saipri, 25 miles north of Sealea, and is now within 40 miles of Agripoli, which is the southernmost part of the Allied line in the Salerno area.

Reuter’s war correspondent, in a dispa tcli filed at 4 p.m. yesterday, describes how lie and other correspondents drove across non-man’s-land toward Balerno ahead of the Eighth Army’s vanguard, and linked up with an American patrol about 10 miles south, of the main American positions on the Gulf of Salerno. Salerno Offensive.

While. anxiously awaiting General Montgomery’s men, the Fifth Army today (battled fiercely in the Salerno area. The Allied troops drove the Germans from positions north-west of Altavilla and are pursuing the enemy troops, who are withdrawing between the Sele and Galore Bivers. The Fifth Army, surging inland from the .Salerno beaches at dawn today, smashed through the German defences of the southern sector in the first offensive since the original landings. Algiers radio declared tonight: ‘'The enemy has been dislodged from several positions. The advance, which started north-west of Altavilla, is continuing,”

The British United Press reports: “British and American troops began to advance early this morning. Behind them battleships were in action for the first time, and other Allied warships poured out a devastating shellfire. Overhead the air forces had softened the enemy positions. The main weight of the drive appears to be in the area of the Sele and Galore Rivers, north-west of Altavilla, where the German salient has been already smashed, and the Germans are retreating before our forces. The Allies probably launched strong attacks in oilier parts of the bridgehead.” Reuter says that the crisis of the Salerno bridgehead is over, ami the Filth Army, stiffened by strong reinforcements in tlie past -18 hours, has passed from the defensive to the offensive.