FORMIDABLE BARRIER

Evening Star, Issue 25180, 20 May 1944, Page 5

FORMIDABLE BARRIER

NEW ZEALAND TANKS STRADDLING ROAD TO ROME (N.Z.E.P. Official War Correspondent.) CASSINO, May 18. Cassino was completely captured by New Zealand tanks and British infantry within half an hour after the direct assault on the town began at ID o'clock this morning. All the main strongpoints which held out through the New Zealanders' battle for the town were occupied without a shot being tired into them by the tanks. The only prisoners so far reported are a small party of Germans who came down the slopes of Monastery Hill under the white flag. It is believed that most of the German garrison and paratroops escaped last night. New Zealand tanks are now sitting astride the inland highway to Rome as a powerful barrier between the German paratroops in Cassino , and their only route of retreat along the Liri Valley. So successful was the New Zealanders' attack across the valley towards the highway early this morning that by sundown they were reported to have formed a strong new section of the Eighth Army front and to be completely controlling one piece of the road. Some of the tank crews who fought through the first days of the New Zealanders' attack on Cassino are now sitting well beyond the town, ready to meet any attempt the Germans may make to evacuate it. Since_ they crossed the Rapido River early in the Eighth Army's assault on the Gustav Line these New Zealanders of a Wellington tank formation have been continuously in the forefront of the attack, pressing forward with each British infantry advance and holding firm against the enemy's counter-attacks. This important achievement in- cutting Highway Six is the climax of five days' hard fighting.