KEY TOWN THREATENED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 33, 7 August 1943, Page 8

KEY TOWN THREATENED

ALLIED FORCES IN SICILY

Rec. 1.50 p.m. LONDON,. August 6. British and Canadian troops are at the gates of Aderno, the capture of which will rob the enemy of his last eastward road in Sicily, as well as cut off any Axis troops who are then west of Catania. Algiers radio says that the Germans walked out of Catania, leaving Italians to hold the bag. The Italian commander complained bitterly that the Germans neglected to tell him that they were leaving. More than 800 Axis planes, many of which were serviceable, were found on abandoned aerodromes captured in Sicily, says the Cairo correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." The Allies have destroyed or captured 12.000 German and Italian planes in the Middle East and North African campaigns since Italy entered the war, the correspondent states. An R.A.F. count established these vast enemy losses, involving the smashing of the Italian air force- as a separate fighting machine. He says there are now probably 2500 Axis war planes in Italy, including 350 fighters which the Germans have withdrawn from the Russian front. Britain and the United States everywhere have superior number's, which cannot be revealed.

. An Italian communique states that the casualties in the Allied raid on Naples on Wednesday were 210 killed and 464 injured.