NEW INTENSITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 136, 10 June 1943, Page 5

NEW INTENSITY

DOUBLE BOMBARDMENT

TERRIFIC HAMMERING

mcc 215 pm.) LONDON, June 9. <R The merSi battering of Pantel- "& %SSS& Press co-espondent ssSsn. ar*?tssas.sst? t ?d en masse and started in until-it a TEST OF ENEMY'S DEFENCES. "The tremendous synchronised air and sea bombardment" of Pantelleria is described in delayed messages by a correspondent on board one of the attacking destroyers. He writes: "The destroyers, charging in within three miles of the coast, guns blazing in broad daylight, motor torpedo-boats rushing almost to the harbour mouth Shooting up short-range defence batteries with pompoms and machine-guns —these daring attacks were the climax of the tremendous synchronised air and sea bombardment in which the island of Italy called 'Mussolini's unsinkable aircraft carrier' endured the greatest battering since the close 01 the Tunisian campaign and forced it into the unenviable position which Malta occupied for so many weary months." Cruisers, destroyers, and motor tor-pedo-boats composed the bombarding force. The object of the sea bombardment was. to test the enemy's defences. "We tested them all right,' the correspondent continues. So swamped were they by a 50-minutes rain of bombs and shells that apart from wisps of fire around the mam wave of Flying Fortresses only one twin six-inch battery replied to the ships' fire. The gunners of this battery apparently went to earth, as the guns fired only when the ships' work was done and they were turning away. They chose us, the nearest ship, as a target, and dropped one shell near enough to drench the forecastle and bridge with spray. None of the ships sustained damage or casualties." Describing the whole action in detail, the correspondent says:—"With Pantelleria looming upJn-the-morning