POUNDING OF MESSINA

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

POUNDING OF MESSINA

." LOOKS LIRE A SCRAP HEAP " LONDON, July 14. j " Messina looks far worse than if an I earthquake had struck it. The port looks like a combination of a scrap heap and a brick kiln." This description, says the Algiers correspondent of the British United Press, was given hy pilots returning from smashing attacks on Sicilian ports and communication, centres.' They say that the devasta- j tion was widespread. One pilot said: " I doubt whether the German North. Sea ports are any worse after three years of bombing." Seventy-three enemy planes were shot down in two days, compared with 20 of ours lost.' A British correspondent say 6 the Allied soldiers in Sicily are fighting smoothly and efficiently, mile by mile, but are not walking in unopposed. " We came up against German units yesterday," the correspondent adds. "They were captured and taken to camp. , They were well, equipped and in excellent physical condition. They i were visibly impressed Iby the large Allied tanks and heavy guns rolling towards the hills." While the advance continues another | chapter of heroism is being written on the beaches, where men are unloading i supplies under the blasting and strafing of German fighters and bombers, which j swoop low, drop homibs, use machine guns, and roar away. I