German Resistance South Of Rome

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 23, 28 January 1944, Page 5

German Resistance South Of Rome

LONDON, January 27; The British and American troops of the Fifth Army who have landed south of Koine are still building up and expanding their beach-head. ■ • A naval spokesman told correspondents at Allied headquarters today that troops, tanks, guns, and equipment have been flowing into the beach-head ahead of schedule, but he added that the weather might soon slow things down. The Germans are also* bringing up reinforcements, and their resistance continues to stiffen. A correspondent sajjys we can expect increasingly tough fighting from now on. ,

Troops of .the crack Hermann Goering division are reported to be in action against the beach-head. They were beaten off after a fierce local clash south-west of Littoria in which they lost about 120 killed. The United States Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, today described the situation in western Italy as highly satisfactory, but he said the signs seemed to point to a heavy battle south of Rome as the enemy tried to push our troops into the sea and re-establish communications between Rome and the.main front in the south. Such a battle, he declared, would not be the battle of Rome, but the preliminary to it. It was much too soon, he added, to predict disaster for the enemy, but the Allied forces were in a favourable position. It was not certain where the enemy would get the troops to launch a large-scale counter-attack against the beach-head. They might get them from northern Italy and also from the south, but this might force them to abandon the southern line. A correspondent says it is beginning to look as if the Allies had been settled in the beach-head for months. British troops are busy installing themselves, and Italian road signs are already giving place to such familiar notices as "Regent Street" and "Piccadilly Circus." He says the German troops stationed at the coast before the landing looted everything they could lay their hands on. In Anzio every room in every residential house was systematically looted. Every picture was torn from the walls. Furniture was piled in ' the centre of the room, and in some cases set on fire. The enemy blew up most of the centre of the town. Another correspondent said he found the harbour itself practically undamaged, and the magnificent whitedomed casino, with its dance hall and play rooms, all intact, but all around were ruined buildings and the scrunch of broken glass under foot marked one's progress down the streets.