FIGHTING ON ADRIATIC

Grey River Argus, 12 October 1944, Page 8

FIGHTING ON ADRIATIC

ADRIATIC COAST, October 5. “During the night there were intermittant periods of calm.” This was the phrase used by a New Zealand officer to describe conditions last night in his battalion’s sector on the Adriatic Front, where close-quarter fighting by night patrols and heavy shelling and mortaring by both sideshave been the main activity since our advance was halted on the line of the Fiumecino River by bad weather. Almost every night it is the same story. Patrols go out from dusk onwards to probe the enemy defences, test his strength at various points, inflict damage, and, if possible,, bring back prisoners’ for identification. For although the front is at the

moment static the enemy must be given no rest, and as his policy in this repect is very much the same as ours there is no lack of activity. The experience of one patrol sent' out last night by a motor battalion is characteristic of what is happening along the whole front. Just before nightfall the patrol made [its way cautiously to the river, now I running about knee-deep between the i stopbanks, cast about for a good crossing place and found one below a dam which gave cover from at least one direction. Silently the men crept down the bank and piled across the river, whose surface might at any moment be whipped by a vicious burst from one of the Spandau guns on the far bank. But none came, and, satisfied they had not been seen, the patrol moved forward in the light of a newly-risen moon and began the ascent of the bank on the enemy side of the river. They had gone only a short distance when they came across the first sign that the Germans had defensive positions in the immediate vicinity—a com munication trench between two dugouts some distance apart. Creeping along the trench to one of j the dug-outs the patrol officer called ; to the occupants, if any, to come out and surrender. Covered by the officer’s tommy-gun two Germans emerged—one a youth of 19, obviously very much scared, and the other a more experienced soldier. Silently the party moved off along the trench, but just as they reached the second dug-out the older prisoner dived into it. When the New Zealand officers i called to him to come out the answer was a pistol bullet that whistled close by. There is an effective way of dealing with a situation-of this kind, so the officer reached for a grenade, but

Duwie ne uouia loss it into tne dugout someone inside had thrown one which burst in the trench with a shattering roar. It wounded the officer sufficiently io prevent him taking any more part. Another man in the patrol went forward, grenade in hand,, and after it exploded he called again on the occupants to surrender. Not a sound came from the dug-out. For good measure the New Zealander sprayed the place with tommygun bullets. Once again there was no

answer when he called, so, satisfied the job was finished, the patrol moved off with its prisoner, re-crossed the river, and returned to our lines. This is the sort of thing the infantrymen are doing every night, and their casualties are not always so light. It is a job that requires puts.