BIG GUNS AT CASSINO

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21385, 21 April 1944, Page 4

BIG GUNS AT CASSINO

NsZ* TANKS PLASTER NAZIS BATTLE DAY AND NIGHT (By, Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (N.Z.E.E. bWciiii War Correspondent.) (it a.m.) CASSINO FRONT, April 20. It is seldom! quiet on the Cassino front. .It: is a month now since the NeV Zealanders began their assault on this great barrier across the road to Rpme: Gunfire has thundered tji.rbfigii the hills almost continuously, day hrid night. . Spattered dyer the ridges to a , of miles behind our . front, thehe,. hHs been during the last four weeks .more ,and heavier, guhs than .\yeye I:l empiqye'd,, in the El, Alamein Their tremendous fife- , power has been used on this comparatively short Cassino . front and directed against the German gun litsh'.Sup'pbrtinX, it across the Liri Valley. Countless thousands of high , a’ftd, smoke shells have burst across the ridges of Monte Cassino,, ..in the ruined town and out across tthe valley, since our artillery 4 took up the, ;offensive.. immediately; after the 1400-tdri bombing attack just a. month ago. ,Ddy, after day, while the attack; lasted, dtir troops and the Germans on the slopes beyond the town! drej shrouded by dense white clouds of siriolte left by thousands of smoke shells. Seldom was Cassino without its thick covering pall of smoke. ‘‘Eyes of tlie Artillery” Familiar to everyone on the front have been the “eyes of the artillery” —saucy little aircraft that take off from crude landing strips just behind our lines. Manoeuvrability is their only protection against German fighter’s and anti-aircraft' lire. These little planes have been over every day spotting enemy gun positions and troop movements and adjusting their artillery fire on ; to them. Often they seemed -to linger uncannily just a few''hundred feet above the German gun pits and several times they had to drop steeply out of the sky and heldge-hop for home while our “ackack” fire held off the enemy lighters. Now that the fighting hag become static again, the daylight war on this front is one of long, noisy'gun duels. In these our field guns have been joined by New Zealand Sherman tanks, using their high velocity guns ' in an' indirect fire role, to reach out across the Liri Valley and strike at. Gerirla'ri gun-pits and multiple mortdfs. Their speed—a group of these 75ihhr. tank guns have fired away OVer 150 shells a minute—and acute accuracy have been used with deadly effect agailist Nebehverfers and guns in enemy strong-points. As soon as their observation post, watching from a. hijjh fin-shaped hill overlooking Gassino. ,sees clouds of dust thrown up by , Nebelwerfer fire, a concentration, of tank guns is directed against them; V/hen they cannot get at the guns and mortars, New Zealand tanks Wldst away at German-held houses andbridges. On these they are using shells which first penetrate through walls of stone and concrete and then explode. So, day and night, the Same goes on.