WAIT AND SEE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 11, 13 July 1943, Page 5

WAIT AND SEE

SUGGESTED AXIS POLICY

LONDON, July 12. Reuters Algiers correspondent says that the toughest resistance met with in Sicily was near Cape Passero, where British and Canadian troops landed. The primary resistance was from semi-static coastal defence units of Italians, and it therefore appears that the stronger mobile central reserves, including Germans, are being withheld till the Axis commanders are positive that this south-eastern corner is really the most threatened area. The Allies there have both their flanks protected by the sea, and they can aim to lop off the entire corner of1 Sicily and build a "wall" across the neck, forming an impregnable bridgehead, the correspondent says. On the other hand, the defenders may be deliberately delaying a counter-attack m the hope of inflicting more extensive damage on the landing forces. Several thousand Canadian reinforcements landed in North Africa within 24 hours of the start of the Allied landings in Sicily, and a substantial troop convoy carrying additional troops from England followed the ships containing the Canadian assault force, the radio stated, Rome radio reports that" the Allies have established artillery emplacements in Sicily, and are using tanks and aircraft-carriers. A report received m Stockholm from Berne states that the Italian fleet has left Spezia. The Allies have -made a new landing near Marsala, the seaport on the west coast of Sicily, says Algiers radio, quoting an announcement by Berlin radio. The operations are continuing successfully, but the Allies are facing new Axis reinforcements.