WITHIN 12 MILES FROM CATANIA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21148, 16 July 1943, Page 3

WITHIN 12 MILES FROM CATANIA

MENACE TO AXIS BECOMING DANGEROUS MORE THAN 12,000 PRISONERS TAKEN (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright) (Noon.) LONDON, July 15. The British forces late last night were about _l2 miles from Catania, according to the Algiers radio in a review of the position of the Sicilian battlefront. The radio added that the Allied advance was progressing well on all sectors. No serious opposition was encountered. The Canadians occupied a further locality south-east of liagusa. The British, Americans, and Canadians north of Augusta are advancing in open fanlike formation towards the interior of the island. The Allied advance since the fall of Augusta has proceeded with clock-like precision. A later broadcast said that the menace to the Axis forces was. taking on dangerous proportions. British troops were making a mass infiltration towards Catania, The Germans on Tuesday succeeded in infiltrating into the Augusta base, but the Eighth Army units strongly attacked and drove them out. The Eighth Army met increased opposition around Augusta from German units to the west and north. There have been several clashes and heavy fighting on the road north of Augusta, where the enemy is striving to hold up our advance. The enemy threw, in a number of tanks, some of which were knocked out. The Algiers radio says .that the Americans arc now 20 miles north of Comiso. German sources state that the Allied troops in Sicily are fighting forward through clouds of smoke from burning olive groves which they set on fire to prevent the Axis forces hidingin them, and also to use as.cover for attacks on machine-gun nests and other centres of resistance. Allied headquarters in North Africa say that more than 12,000 prisoners have been captured in Sicily.