LIKE NINEPINS

Grey River Argus, 26 April 1945, Page 5

LIKE NINEPINS

ITALIAN TOWNS FALL To the Fifth Army FERRARA, SPEZIA AND MODENA TAKEN (Rec. 6.30) LONDON, April 25 A communique from Allied Headquarters Italy states: On Tuesday, crossings of the Po River were made by troops of the Fifth Army in locations not yet announced. Other troops of the Fifth and Eighth Army group are along the south bank of the Po River at various localities between Ferrara and Bongoforte. Fairara and Mondena an important road and rail junction twenty-five nines north of Bologna on Panaro River, which is a tributary of the Po have been captured. Our. troops captured large quantities of equipment, and are increasing the number of prisoners, and their drive continues to keep the enemy confused and nis communications disrupted. Over 40,000 prisoners have been taken, and .the count is growing. The town of Codigoro, south of the mouth of the Po River, has fallen to Italian troops of the Eighth Army, including a Garibaldi partisan brigade. The battle for Ferrara an important rail junction connecting the Gulf of Venice with North Italy, has been a bitter one, in which the Eighth Army has kept up unrelenting pressure against the enemy forcing him northward and eastward from the city. T’he Germans are still resisting them. Spezia, on the Gulf of Genoa, Italy’s chief naval base, has been captured. It has suffered from heavy enemy demolitions, but enemy troops offered only rearguard opposition to advancing Fifth Army troops who captured it. Modena was taken without severe opposition. The Fifth Army has also captured Sarzana, and Fosdinovo, and a German field hospital complete with its staff. An American artillery battalion in the Fifth Army’s zone surrounded an enemy field artillery battery, which surrendered. Correspondents at Allied headquarters ■ stated: Allied forces stormed the Po River less than twentyfour hours after an announcement that they had arrived there. “Italian towns are falling like ninepins oefore Marshal Alexander’s drive northward,” said a senior naval officer at headquarters. He described Spezia, together with Taranto, as two of the. finest naval ports in the world.

Lieutenant General John Cannon has succeeded General Eaker as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Air Force. General Eisenhower in a. message to Marshal Alexander to-day described recent successes in Italy as “a real victory.” General Eisenhower thanked Marshal Alexander for the manner in which Allied efforts in the Mediterranean had helped to bring about the success achieved by his own armies. It is estimated that two thousand planes of the Mediterranean 'lactical Air Forces hammered German escape and communication lines, vehicles and rolling stock in northern -Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia on Tuesday says a Rome correspondent. Incomplete figures indicate another large total of German vehicles and railcars were destroyed and damaged. A number of targets attacked were on the Adige River, which flows between 10 and 15 miles northward of the Po River Heavy bombers continued to smash at railway yards on the Brenner line and rail bridges in northern Italy and south-west ot Austria.