ENEMY IN A HURRY

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

ENEMY IN A HURRY

RETREAT FROM NICASTRO

RUGBY, September 19

So hurried was the German retreat from Nicastro, on the Italian instep, that they left 100 miles of coast road undamaged; reports a correspondent with the Eighth Army. Small groups endeavoured to get away with all speed through the mountains, but so fast was the Eighth Army's advance that the enemy was forced to fight a rearguard action at Lagonegro, ten miles inland from Sapri. Just south of the town they tried to ambush the British with machineguns and mortars in the hills on either side of the road. These were "rubbed out," but the enemy had tanks and selfpropelled guns in the town itself, also infantry. British infantry, following on reconnaissance units, made contact in Lagonegro, and the enemy were forced to retire up the road under cover of darkness just as the infantry forced their way into the town.

Another clash occurred in the hills a dozen miles north-west of Lagonegro when British armoured cars came on a strong-point covering a hairpin bend. The cars quickly silenced the machineguns, and the small group of Germans were killed or escaped on foot into the mountains. —8.0. W.