INTO MOUNTAIN REGION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 71, 21 September 1943, Page 5

INTO MOUNTAIN REGION

NO HINT OF GERMAN STAND

LONDON, September 20

.The British " and American armies ■ in Italy are moving steadily into the mountain country beyond the Salerno ■bridgehead. The swing-back of the German line is still in progress, and there is no hint of a stand yet. West of Salerno the Allies now hold all the high ground on the peninsula that separates the Gulf of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno/ Their artillery at this point controls a good- deal of the main road between Mt. Vesuvius and the sea. Below, on the Naples Gulf, is the Naples dockyard town of Castellamare, and 20 miles away across the gulf is Naples itself. " ■ Just north of Salerno the Germans are hanging on to their defence positions and pivoting in their swing-back inland. Allied patrols have pushed on but the Germans nSrth of Salerno are still shelling our positions at intervals.

Inland, the steady pressure of General Clark's British and American forces is driving the enemy back in a north-easterly direction,I and we have taken high .ground. Menaced by the Allied advance/the Germans are pulling back. correspondent says that the general tendency of the Allied forces all across southern Italy is an advance northwards.

army seems at present to be rather confused. Unlike the navy, the army as a whole has never received direct orders from the commander-in-chief to lay down its arms, or if such an order was issued it failed to reach many units. Where the Germans hold the upper hand they are disarming Italians as rapidly as possible, demobilising them, and leaving them to their own devices. Thousands of these soldiers are now making their way to their homes in various parts of Italy, and others are making their way to Allied-held territory to offer their services.—B.O.W.

REBUFF TO BERLIN

ITALIANS !N SARDINIA

Rec. 11.30 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 20. "Italian troops answered a Berlin radio appeal to help to defend Sardinia against Allied invasion by driving the Germans from the island. This is a good illustration of Italian feeling," says the Algiers correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." The Germans are belieyed to have had only enough troops in Sardinia to protect the airfields. Two Italian divisions forced them to withdraw to Corsica across the two-mile Bonifacio Strait.

Military observers in London say that the German withdrawal to Corsica can be only a temporary expedient, and the Germans are believed al?;?ady to be preparing to evacuate the island. Once the Allies occupy Sardinia and assemble a reasonably strong air force there the Germans' position in Corsica will become untenable. Sardinia has four main airfields, five satellite airfields, one seaplane base, and three flying-boat anchorages. The German news agency says that German troops evacuated Sardinia according to' plan. "The evacuation was a complete' success, despite adverse circumstances," it says. "Naval units took off all the troops and all their equipment, despite the scarcity of shipping and rough seas."