PAUSE BEFORE STORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 18, 21 July 1943, Page 5

PAUSE BEFORE STORM

EIGHTH ARMY PREPARES

LONDON, July 20. i A correspondent in Sicily says that the British Eighth Army is gathering itself, for the final assault on Catania and is sending out strong armoured patrols to probe the enemy positions. The Germans learnt in North Africa the significance of, the.-Eighth- Army's pauses and what they lead to. So now they are trying desperately to prevent the offensive they know must come by making the first attacks themselves, but the Eighth Army is holding firm, and time and again the enemy tanks have been flung back. The cox-respondent says that in all these actions the Germans are losing valuable men and material, while on our side more troops, supplies, and weapons are steadily pouring up to the front line.

Further west, the Canadians, on the Eighth Army's left flank, are also meeting strong German opposition. There has been some bitter fighting in this sector, but the Canadians are making headway and are now reported to be 12 miles from Enna.

SIGNS OF MUTINY.

Further west still the Americans have pushed on inland, and are meeting with little resistance. Prisoners are coming in by the hundred," and today's communique says: "There are many indications of mutiny among Italian troops commanded by German officers."

It is reported that some of General Patton's men are near ing Santa Catarina, and may have already taken it. This base is some miles west of En«a, and if the Americans hold it, it means that one of the enemy's few railway links between western and eastern Sicily will be cut. Catania was shelled by a British cruiser this morning which concentrated her broadsides on the railway which carries Axis reinforcements south to face the Eighth Army. The railway station had at least six direct hits. Other targets along the Sicilian coast have been bombarded today. Catania has been attacked also by our bombers. " A Canadian correspondent says that many of the enemy defences in Sicily are very much weaker than they seemed1 at first, and1 many of the gun emplacements and pill-boxes are dummies. Another sign of the poox- organisation in the island's defence system is that not a single road sign has been torn down. He says it is easier to find one's way around Sicily than it was up to a few months ago .in Britain.