VIRTUALLY SPLIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 31, 5 August 1943, Page 6

VIRTUALLY SPLIT

AXIS FORCES IN SICILY

ALLIES CLOSE IN ON ETNA

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. 1.50 p.m. LONDON, August 4. The latest British and Canadian, advances have virtually split the Axis_ forces in the north-east of Sicily in two. The Eighth Army is closing in . against the road and railway around Mount Etna, in the area of Aderno and Biancavilla. These communications are now almost denied to the enemy. Aderno and Biancavilla are now dominated by our guns, says the "Daily Mail" correspondent in Algiers, and the splitting of the- enemy front will be completed with the occupation of either of .these towns, and the Germans are expected to begin two fighting retreats when this happens. With • their right flank menaced in the Aderno-BiancaVilla area, the main enemy, forces,, based on Catania will toe forced to make a fighting withdrawal up the east coast towards Messina, while the second group, at present holding Aderno, will be forced to fall back around Etna, and will probably make a stand at Randazzo, north of the mountain., ■'■'':■ INCREASING FEROCITY. The battle on the Eighth Army's front is increasing in ferocity, states Reuters Algiers correspondent. The Germans are fighting as they have never fought before. The Eighth Army is literally blasting them from one defensive position to another. The Axis retreat in Sicily is so fast, according to the correspondent of the National Broadcasting" Corporation, that the enemy in the central sector has no time to bury Kis dead. The Canadians captured Catenanuova (south of Regalbuto) and are now consolidating a line which is about five miles from the base of Mount Etna. The Germans "on the west Catanian plain have been pushed back to the •highway at the base of Mount Etna. Algiers radio states that the Eighth Army is menacing Biancavilla on the road around Etna, three miles south of Aderno. He added that the Etna coastal road has been • largely de- • stroyed by bombing. • .The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the .Etna line trembled under one of the greatest coricehtratibns'"of fire of the entire war. Huge concentrations -of Allied bombers and fighter-bombers joined British and American warships and hundreds of artillery-batteries in hammering fixed Axis defences. An eye-witness in the. front line declared: "The roar in the sky was deafening. It was a regular traffic jam up there. Bombers caused enormous, destruction. At one point they caught a lorry convoy and destroyed 80 lorries and damaged 100 .others." SKY FULL OF PLANES. ' Reuters Algiers correspondent says that our planes met no opposition as they swarmed over the sides of Mount Etna in great numbers in more determined attacks than at any time since the inital stages of the Sicilian campaign. R.A.F. and United States 'planes fill the skies from dawn to dusk. "When zero hour approaches the roar becomes deafening," said an R.A.F. officer with a forward fighter group. "Continuous streams of Spitfires, Warhawks, Kittyb'ombers, Mitchells, and Bostons go over. There is not a single enemy plane to be seen anywhere except smashed or burnt-out ones on captured airfields." The correspondent .adds that the headquarters of the most advanced Allied air units are within only a few miles of the battlefront. Allied Courier planes land continually within shellfire range of enemy batteries, bringing spare engines, supplies, tools, and men.