CHANGE OF FORTUNE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 64, 13 September 1943, Page 6

CHANGE OF FORTUNE

THREAT FROM THREE SIDES '(By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.) Bee. 2 p.m. J LONDON, Sept. 12. "Every coast in southern Italy has yielded one port to the Allies, and through these stream'troops, munitions, and supplies. Traffic will soon be helped by Italian shipping and will have » further assurance of safety from the Italian fleet," says the Algiers correspondent of "The Times." The air war position is also changing fast. The Apulian Plain is studded with airfields within 150 miles of Naples.

"For the Germans, despite all Hitler has said, there is occurring a very significant change in the fortune of Germany's armies in southern Italy," the correspondent says. "Threatened from three sides, they see their communications destroyed by Allied bombers. They know that the Italians working on them now oppose the Germans, at least passively. They, also know that they may lose the use of coastal seaiborne traffic. Even the Adriatic is no longer safe from our warships or from amphibious expeditions. The Germans, if they attempt to make a stand on any line south of Naples and Bari, will be either very sure of themselves or very desperate. ■ . ■ "The capture of Brindisi not only for.ings two major Italian ports into our .possession, ,but must, imply that the Ofranto Peninsula, with its airfields, jwill'be ours as soon as. we have landed enough troops for its occupation. Our troops from; Taranto have fanned out northwards and have made contact with enemy troops of the Ist German Parachute Division. Our troops are therefore about half-way to Gioja, where there is an excellent airfield.

GERMAN NEED OF TIME. "Opposition in the Naples area is ferocious, as it must be if the Germans are to win time for the evacuation of men and supplies from southern Italy and the establishment of a defence line wherever they consider the rugged Italian peninsula offers the best "The" Times" continues: "The Germans were apparently ready for the Allied' attack. Fighting was fiercest on the southern beaches. Numerous counter-attacks along the front .were repulsed, sometimes with the aid ot the Navy. The penetration over the -whole front averages a depth of about four miles. The position in the Naples area is generally good, but no rapid advance to the north is possible until the position in the south is more strongly consolidated and fighter airfields are in operation." „ . The Eighth Army made striking progress at the weekend, reaching the waist of Calabria. The opposition here was slight, and difficulty was experienced in maintaining contact with the enemy. The total advance from Reggio is now 75 miles.^ The next stage is likely to offer greater difficulties it the enemy offers strong resistance, because the peninsula broadens and the mountains form a broad block and only along the shore to the eastward is there any low land, which is fairly open. The Allies' greater hope^of speedy advance lies in the fact that the Germans dare not delay for fear of what is happening elsewhere.

FEROCIOUS GERMAN AIR ATTACKS.

•The Algiers correspondent of the Mutual Broadcasting, Company says: "The fight for Naples is raging with unabated fury. Thousands of Allied cargo ships and naval landing craft are pouring reinforcements and supplies on to the beaches in the Salerno area. The enemy is throwing against us everything she can get into the Naples area, just as he has done from the moment our armada began unloading early on Thursday. He is smashing ferociously against ground troops with every available fighter bomber. 1 '. Reuters Algiers correspondent says that Allied and German airmen fought desperate air battles almost continuously yesterday over the Salerno area. .The Germans used about 120 planes, nine of which were shot down. _ . • -VicKy radio reports that all- tramc Has been brought to a standstill in Rome. Most shops are closed and the food distribution is chaotic. The authorities are doing their utmost to feed the population.,