GERMAN EXPERT'S SUMMARY

Evening Star, Issue 24916, 14 July 1943, Page 3

GERMAN EXPERT'S SUMMARY

ALLIED LANDINGS ELSEWHERE A POSSIBILITY (Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, July 13. Berlin radio's military commentator, Captain Sertorius, says: "The Allies have about 150,000 men iu Sicily. The enemy yesterday and last night, helped by gigantic air and sea superiority, landed considerable reinforcements on the south-east coast of Sicily, amounting to between two aiid three divisions. These reserves are incorporated in the American Seventh Army, allowing General Patton not only to defend tho bridgeheads at Licata and Gela against Italian counter-attacks, but to enlarge them. The enemy advance has been considerable in the bridgehead at Licata, where Canadian troops tinder the command ,of an American general, penetrated eight miles in a westerly direction. The British Eighth Army has landed mainly at Syracuse Bay and the small port of Augusta. Considerable bodies of troops landed in these areas yesterday and immediately proceeded northward. The British general is apparently anxious to reach the plain of Catania as soon as possible. The German reserves north-east of Augusta bar.the way to the British units. Very heavy .fighting is going on in this sector, while the centre of the British Army is at present lagging behind on the slopes of the hills west of Syracuse and Avola. " The ten divisions which may. have been landed in Sicily are about half the number the enemy lately concentrated uear East, and North _ Africa, but it must be remembered that the Allies used only two-thirds, perhaps less, of the tonfiage at their disposal in the Mediterranean for the Sicily expedition. This means that the enemy has the possibility either of sending reserves gradually into Sicily or of landing at other points in South Europe with mass troops at least equal to,' if not more powerful than, those landed in Sicily."