Riots and Revolts in North Italy

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 206, 31 August 1944, Page 5

Riots and Revolts in North Italy

GERMANS HELPLESS BEFORE RISING TIDE OF ANGER LONDON, Aug. 29. Northern Italy is erupting with uncontrollable riots and revolts m the Eighth Army presses forward towards the Gothic Line and the Allies knock at the alpine door to Italy from the French Riviera, says the Daily Mail’s correspondent in Italy. The German garrisons and Fascist assistants in Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria are now unable to cope with either the organised patriot battalions or the ordinary populace, who are rising against them. Sabotage is daily increasing. Trains are being derailed, bridges blown up, and telephone and telegraph wires cut. The enemy in his fury is descending on villages and killing hostages. The Eighth Army is advancing along the whole front between Florence and the Adriatic. It has captured the Adriatic port of Fano, eight miles southeast of Pesaro. Polish troops, having extended their bridgehead north of the Metauro River, are meeting stiffening resistance. A correspondent reports that at one point our forward troops are within two miles of the outer defences of the Gothic Line. The Daily Express’s correspondent says that one section of the Gothic Line is under Allied gunfire. The Allies on occupying Fano found the whole town full of booby traps. Polish sappers in one house cleared 25 traps. Then a tired sapper decided to rest in a comfortable chair. His comrades stopped him and examined the chair in which was found the 26th booby trap. The Germans on the Amo front are so uneasy that even a dog’s bark is now the signal for bursts of rifle fire and a blaze of flares.