WIPING OFF ITALY

Evening Star, Issue 25471, 30 April 1945, Page 5

WIPING OFF ITALY

German Collapse Almost Complete Milan and Venice Entered Kiwis on Piave River Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright (Bee. 1.15 p.m.) ~~ LONDON, April 29. Allied headquarters in Italy announced that Fifth Army troops have entered Milan. British troops entered Venice, which was earlier reported to have been, partly liberated by the partisans. The New Zealand Division has reached the Piave River, . only 70 miles from Yugoslavia. The New Zealanders are rapidly tightening their hold on the German escape routes from the south. The German army's collapse in North Italy is almost complete, says a correspondent at Allied headquarters, • after a day during which, according to one o! them, events followed 1 each other so rapidly that the army's observers were unable to give a clear picture of what was in progress. ■ ■ ■

The Fifth and Eighth Armies, in a sweeping advance after crossing the flooded Adige River, pursued,. without pause, the Germans across the Brenta River, which was.the last defence line before Venice. Then Eighth Army troops pushed on and captured Mestre, thereby outflanking Venice and cutting off all land routes to the city. '' • The complete German 148th Division, comprising 6,000 men, 1,000 vehicles of all tyyes, and 4.000 horses, surrendered to the Brazilians.

Negotiations are progressing for the surrender of Marshal Graziani's. Ligurian army. Graziani himself was handed over to the Allies by the partisans. The American task force has completed the occupation of Genoa, where they took 60,000 prisoners. They also cleared 'Porta Fina and the' nearby pocket of resistance. The Swiss radio reports that the Germans are withdrawing, through Tonale Pass, north of Lake Garda toward Bolzano, on the way to Innsbruck. All the enemy in North-western Italy has now been cut off, says the Exchange Telegraph correspondent at Allied headquarters. There is no road of any use to the Germans in the three-mile gap between the ' Swiss frontier and our last; reported positions. t -

Fifth Army Mountain Division troops in the Alps north of Lake Garda are threatening Trento, only 70 miles south of Brenner Pass. No more prepared positions face the Eighth Army. Field-Marshal Alexander, in instructions to' patriots in Piedmont and Lornbardy, broadcast by Rome radio, denied that fighting in those provinces had ended.. He addted that there was still a serious menace—the German Fifth Alpine Division west of Turin and the Forty-first Division in the Alexandria area had not yet surrendered. FieldMarshal Alexander appealed to the patriots to attack those units, to . weaken and block them and so help the Allies. "Yon must do this sd as not to delay final victory," he said l . • Paris radio stated that French troops operating in the Maritime Alps were now 20 miles inside Italy.