TARANTO NAVAL BASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 63, 11 September 1943, Page 7

TARANTO NAVAL BASE

Beach-heads At

Naples

ADVANCE IN TOE OF ITALY

LONDON, September 10. The Allied offensive against Italy has now spread to the heel. British forces, supported by the Royal Navy, began landing at Taranto yesterday evening and hay? now occupied the great naval base, which is second in importance in the whole country. German resistance has failed to interfere with the plans of the Fifth Army. It has secured its beach-heads on the Gulf of Salerno, and fighting is taking place with, the Germans a little way inland. In the toe of Italy, the Eighth Army is keeping up its swift advance n constant contact with the enemy. The Allied air forces are attacking German communications, road bridges, airfields, and troop positions in southern Italy and are meeting with little opposi-

tion,

The Germans in Albania are reported to be manning the coastal de^fences. Berlin, says that swift motorised troops have seized the ports of Valpna and Durazzo and have also taken over the Dalmatian, coastal defences in Yugoslavia.

A special announcement from Hitler's headquarters claims that the bulk of the Italians in the Balkans have submitted in what he calls a "reasonable manner" to the request of the German commander-in-chief in the area, Field-Marshal yon Weichs, but it admits that in Albania and Greece, there are still Italian troops who have not laid down their arms. The Germans claim to have taken over Italian ships in the Aegean and Italian airfields and ports on the Adriatic coast. They say that sporadic fighting continues.

The German announcement gives a clear picture of the German command along the whole southern front. It says that Field-Marshal Kesselring is in charge of southern Italy. Behind him in the north is Rommel. Rundstedt is responsible for France. These four field-marshals are, of course, answerable to Hitler and his chief of staff, Keitel. The German announcement says that the Italians in southern France have handed over their arms, and that the Germans have occupied the Riviera from Toulon across into northern Italy, including Genoa and Spezia. They claim the roads and railways to Austria and Croatia, but make no mention of the great cities of. Milan and Turin.

Algiers radio reports that Allied troops have occupied the island of Ischia,at the northern tip of the Gulf tt Naples.