PERFECT CO-ORDINATION

Evening Star, Issue 24917, 15 July 1943, Page 5

PERFECT CO-ORDINATION

STRANGE EPISODES IN FIRST HOURS j LONDON, July 13. j The hackneyed words, " the progress | of'the attack is satisfactory" and " according to plan," really do describe the situation in Siily, says a correspondent at an . advanced Allied base tonight. _ The perfection of the whole operation is due to the wonderful co-ordina- J tion of land, sea, and air forces. Various delayed despatches received to-night give snatches of news. All the airborne troops who landed successfully achieved their objectives, one correspondent was told by the commanding general who landed with them. Chiefly due to the weather, landing difficulties were immense, and some gliders went into the sea. Another report says that the opening casualties of the invasion wore less than 10 per cent, of those expected. Strange episodes happened in the first hours-of the surprise assault. Some Italians fought bravely and others, thunderstruck by the scale of the expedition, behaved like sleep walkers. Three Italians manning a machine gun nest. 200yds from a beach sat for 10 hours without being discovered and without firing a single shot. Finally they showed a white flag and walked out in obvious'terror to surrender to a chaplain, explaining that the sight of tlie armada off shore petrified them into inactivity. But large numbers of Italians fought hard arid well, as the road through Syracuse and beyond proves. It is strewn with bodies, and pillboxes He shattered. Our troops are winning not because of an Italian collapse, but because the Allied soldiers are fighting better, with more and better equipment. Allied air superiority is so great that there has been very little ground strafing by the enemy. .Malta-based aircraft on Sunday night and Monday destroyed 25 enem'v planes, including heavilyescorted .Junkers 52\s. One squadron of Spitfires ended on Monday with a record of 18 enemy aircraft destroyed and three probable, and 10 damaged. Spitfires escorted American bomber* over Sicily during the day.