5TH ARMY IN GENOA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 99, 28 April 1945, Page 7

STH ARMY IN GENOA

FORCES.CROSSING THE ADIGE Rec. 12.20 p.m. -LONDON,: April 27. Fifth Army troops entered Genoa today. ■ This is confirmed in a special communique from Allied headquarters in Italy.

An Allied/task force entered Genoa this morning.-. Italian partisans had previously' captured a large part of the city. The" condition of the port has hot yet; been ascertained. : -A "Daily. Express". correspondent says ithat' the partisans who joined the Allies at Genoa Jiave already pushed 20 miles westward and taken Sayona.

The communique added that troops of the sth and Bth Armies were also, crossing the Adige River at many places. This will place them in front of the enemy's Adige line behind the river.

The entry to Genoa means a 50-mile advance along the west coast since the sth Army captured Spezia on Tuesday.

• Allied headquarters officially stated that strong enemy resistance was being met in some localities, but that generally the resistance was slight. The enemy on the Bth Army front has been unable to break off contact with pursuing British forces sufficiently to enable him to reorganise hia scattered and demoralised units.

The -i "Daily Express" correspondent says that partisans hold all the radio stations in northern Italy and also the entire Italian-Swiss frontier. He adds: "The Italian campaign is virtually, over and the German armies' routed. It is just a chase now, and we are finding more and more bridges intact, and even capturing demolition teams on the way to blow up bridges. There are fewer minefields, because the Germans have no time to lay. them. We captured an entire, supply train, and even' a tank column trying to escape. It looks'as though-neither the troops nor equipment Will reach Bavaria in strength."

The sth and Bth Army forces, spreading out rapidly over the whole of the Po Valley and the industrial north of > Italy, are approaching the areas where the partisans are disrupting the German rear, report- correspondents from the Allied headquarters. The Germans are.apparently determined to stand on the Adige River, but only because this line is the only place where they have prepared defences. The Allied air forces have begun a full-scale assault on the Adige Line.

It is officially. stated that the German resistance is generally weak and disorganised, although there are strong pockets fighting in the rear of the advancing Allied forces. Disorganised enemy forces west ot Verona and the Adige River bend are now faced with the alternatives of taking to the Alps west of Lake Garda, where there are" no adequate communications, of surrendering, or of being'ground to destruction between the French forces now across the Franco-Italian' frontier, the Italian partisans, and the sth Army columns striking westward on both sides, of the Apennines. Striking north-westward beyond Bologna, • one of these sth Army columns has captured Reggio and bParma, and is pushing swiftly on in the general direction of Milan.