FURY OF SHELLING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 4 February 1944, Page 5

FURY OF SHELLING

GERMANS BEING PUSHED BACK COUNTER-ATTACK COMMENCED (Rec. 10.20 a.m.) London. Feb. 3. The battle for Cisterna di Lottoria. the kingpin in the enemy's left flank defences, is continuing to-day in a fury of shelling and storming infanfrv assaults, writes a correspondent on Monday. It has now gone on for three days and nights with the German defenders being pressed slowly back into the town. To-day the enemy moved considerable reinforcements into this sector and the news we have been expecting all day has just come—“ They are counter-at-tacking.” It is the first serious counterattack thrown at us since our infantry deployed in quaggy fields to move on the town and is a token of the importance the enemy attaches to holding this controlling point on the Appian Way. also of anxiety at our threat to this position projected into his camp. It endangers his left flank, for with Cisterna di Littoria in our hands his forces holding us off from the Pontine Marshes would be cut off. It is calculated that several battalions of the enemy’s strength is engaged: in this battle for Cisterna. Every house on the town perimiter has been fortified-self-propelled guns are being bridged in to constitute strongpoints that only direct hit by a shell or bomb could demolish and silence. Enemy tanks, too, are disputing any attempts we make to infiltrate or by-pass the town by moving on to the slopes of the Lepini range The enemy in contesting our push on Cisterna is clearly carrying out the Fuhrer’s orders to the letter. Hitler ordered the armies in Italy: “All ground must be held at all costs. Not a metre must be yielded." Under the weight of our combined land and air onslaught the Germans are being pushed back slowly but certainly. It is now obvious that there will be no swift cross-coun-try march on Rome. The enemy blocks our advance whichever way we turn with all the force—and it is considerable—he can summon from other fronts in Italy and from the north. Daily we are drawing more strength against us and are pinning down more divisions. If the bridgehead bursts its bounds the whoTe of his armies in Italy will now be jeopardised. This battering away at the enemy is taking heavy toll of one division after another. Small wonder we are identifying multitudinous and in-co-ordinated units all along this front.

Another enemy reaction to-day to our pressure along the road from Anzio to Campoleone has been to give ground on our left flank after our guns had brought a concentrated barrage down on the woods where they skirt the road which was exposed to machinegun fire. As a result the salient we pushed across the railway from Cisterna to Rome yesterday has been widened.