QUIET PERIOD

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 126, 23 February 1944, Page 5

QUIET PERIOD

Lull On All Fronts In Italy MINOR SEA CLASH (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, February 22. The naval section of today’s communique from Allied headquarters in Italy says that enemy E-boats attempting to reach Anzio were detected by American patrol forces. In the action which followed one of the E-boats was hit and blew up, and another also hit, is believed to have been beached. The remaining enemy craft turned away. There were three minor clashes on the Fifth Army’s beach-head front. Both our and the enemy’s artillery fired heavy concentrations. ... On the other fronts patrol activity contin Qur bombers attacked Orvieto, 30 miles north of Rome, and the docks at Leghorn and Imperia. Medium bombers attacked fuel and supply dumps round the beachhead and fighter-bombers troops and posil°We flew approximately 800 sorties against about 60 by the enemy over the beach-head. Three enemy craft were shot down. We lost none.

CARROCETTO CARNAGE Enemy’s Do-or-Die Effort (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) RUGBY, February 21.

All the available German troops were flung into the conflict, with the enemy making a do-or-die effort to sweep the Allies from the beach-head. Engineers, reconnaissance units, antiaircraft gunners and various other non combatant detachments were used as infantry to strengthen the German main line forces. So determined was the enemy and so intent on his effort that five German regiments, equivalent to perhaps 17,000 men, were thrown into a 1000-yard front in one desperate attack. ■ Solid artillery barrages by both medium and heavy guns helped the enemy s forward troops, while at least lour waves of aircraft in formation of 20 bombed and machineguuned the Allied troops. “For four days now the Anzio front has seen carnage done ou a scale that must equal, if allowance is made for the limitation of the battle zone the annihilations of the Germans anywhere in Russia,” writes a correspondent in Italy. “Since' Wednesday morning at least four divisions of some of Germany’s best troops have been “poured by the. High Command into a square-shaped pocket perhaps six square miles in area which has been pushed into our outer perimeter defences. There they have been pouudeu day and night by artillery, caught before they could gain adequate manoeuvring room. Light, heavy, and fighter-bombers, too, have come to bomb aud feed the confusion started by the guns. -For four days and three nights the Germans in this square of death have known no rest or respite. “Nature made this battlefield, in which the Germans have now twice been met, smashed, and thwarted in their drive through to the sea. It is a. square of patchwork plots and brown tilled fields, and others under crops, with Carrocetto at the top left-hand corner and the main Albano-Anzio highway as the western boundary. We hold three sides of this box and contain the enemy infantry aud tanks for our guns to crush with a weight of shells never before equalled in the beach-head. 1 “The roads that gave the German tanks their best though restricted manoeuvring ground became in the end an answer to the gunners’ dreams. I suppose it would not be putting it too high to calculate that some hundreds of guns could be called on to shell a given point in the Germans’ position at any given moment and at the shortest notice.” ' ; Uneasiness Mollified. Public uneasiness about the Anzio beach-head. has been mollified since Mr. Churchill’s pronouncement, and interest is being taken to see whether he will make further reference to it in his fortacoming speech in the House of Commons, says a Press Association message from London. A point about the action which is increasingly engaging attention is the rearrangement in the.beach-head caused in the disposition of the German troops, which have suffered heavy losses. Lave October seven German divisions werefighting south of Rome, but by the middie of January the number had been increased to 12.

The “Evening Standard’s” military correspondent says that the focus of battle has been moved from Garigliano and Cassino to Anzio, which may have been General Alexander’s intention in building up his beach-head and allowing the Germans to assemble in such force. “It mgy well be,” says the correspondent, “that he considered an early breanthrough from .Cassino or the Garigliano River so difficult that he sought another point at which to engage the Germans and inflict a decisive defeat before continuing the advance northward. That point is Anzio.” Another school of thought believes that General Alexander’s intention in establishing the beach-head was also to draw troops, aircraft, and supplies to Italy as part of the preparation for the second front, and that had he cut off the Gustav Line and taken Rome this would not have exerted such an ultimate drain on the German resources as the present tactics This, of course, is conjecture. General Alexander’s optimism and Mr. Churchill’s reassurance relieved the puIP lie mind after such gloomy forecasts a.i that of Mr. Mackenzie King; the Canadian Prime Minister, who spoke of “the. possibility of terrible reverses.” The “Ou server” commented: “We now learn with some amazement that Mr. Mackenzie King uttered his prophecy of woe tocheck complacency in Canada, without any inside information at his disposal. This surely is as far as we want to go in abuse of information from the front.”

QUIET AFTER STORM Germans Thrown Out Of Gear At Anzio

(By Telegraph.—Press . Assn.—Copyright)' LONDON, February 21. “There was a strange quiet over the Anzio beach-head this morning after the storm of the past few days,” says a representative of the Combined British Press, cabling from the beach-head at noon today. “The German artillery occasionally opens up, but there is no doubt that wc have thrown the first stages of the attack out of gear. The blood-stained few square miles between the road junction and Carrocetto which the enemy gained at such high cost has I'eiapsed into a no man’s land. The ground which the Germans hold is too boggy for real deployment of his armour.”

“It is not known how long the Germans will take to regroup, but it may not be long before the next assault. The Allied troops have been greatly encouraged by the result of the latest action, but expect a further test." Infantry and tank units of the Fifth Army in the Anzio beach-head area threw back the enemy after resisting for 48 hours a fierce attack from six enemy divisions, states a communique issued from advanced headquarters in Italy. Our effort was very greatly assisted by magnificent support from Allied naval units and air formations, and also from British and American artillery. Several hundred prisoners were captured, and the enemy suffered very heavy casualties. Both British and American units participated in this successful defence and our counterattack. Enemy air units were roost active, and several times bombed and strafed our troops. French troops on the main Fifth Army front repulsed a strong enemy raid. Eighth Army patrols, as usual, were most active despite bad weather, and inflicted casualties on the enemy. 18 Enemy Divisions. Algiers radio says that the Germans now have 18 divisions fighting in Italy, nine of which are facing our beach-head. The latter are grouped into the German Fourteenth Army under General von Mackensen, who was last reported on the Russain front. German divisions on the beach-head front are the 20th, Fanzep frivisioiu tliQ

Ist Herman Goering Panzer Division, the 3rd and 29th Grenadiers, the Fuhrer’s Panzer Grenadiers, the 715th and 114th Motorized Divisions, the 65th Infantry and 14th Paratroop Divisions. The German divisions pitted against the Fifth and Eighth Armies are the 334th, 350th, 94th, 71st and 44th Infantry, the Ist Paratroop Division, the 15th and 19th Panzer Grenadiers, and the sth Mounted Division. The majority of these divisions face the main Fifth Armg fronts.