FLORENCE CLEARED OF ENEMY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 281, 24 August 1944, Page 4

FLORENCE CLEARED OF ENEMY

More High Ground Won

LONDON, August 22. “It can now be said that the city of Florence has been liberated by troops of the Eighth Army and is firmly in our hands,” says today's Allied communique from Italy. “Our patrols have now pushed on beyond the confines of the city. “Polish and Italian troops of the Eighth Army in the Adriatic sector continued to drive the enemy from high ground between the Cesano and Metauro Rivers. The enemy coastal sector ,has been driven to noath of Metauro.

We have occupied Cerasa, Orciano, and Poggio. Our patrols elsewhere continued harassing the enemy, and in some places penetrated deep into the German lines.

Reuter’s Rome correspondent reports that the Eighth Army between May 11 and August 10 has taken over 13,000 prisoners. Mr. Churchill, continiung his tour of the Allied armies in Italy, was entertained at lunch by Lieutenant-General Kirkman, commander of the Thirteenth Corps, the oldest corps in the Eighth Army. General Kirkman afterward conducted Mr. Churchill to a vantage point overlooking Florence. Mr. Churchill spoke today to Canadian tank men of the Eighth Army behind the Florence front.

He said: “Things within Germany have reached such a state that when a general goes to Berlin he does not know whether he has been called to be promoted or to be hanged.”