STERN TASK AHEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25276, 13 July 1943, Page 5

STERN TASK AHEAD

STRONG AXIS DEFENCE ALLIES WELL PREPARED (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, July 12. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent, writing on Saturday night, points out that, while there is gratification at the success of the preliminary landings, there is no attempt to minimise the extent of the task of subduing the island. “To conquer any undue optimism, it must be plainly stated that the Allies never anticipated running through the like a knife through butter. The’ Italians, fighting near their homeland, are likely to- put up an extremely stiff struggle. There is a strong stiffening of German troops, and the whole'defence plan is possibly strongly influenced by German methods. The British and Americans must be prepared for a protracted struggle. The Allied plans are based from the outset on a long, hard struggle. The Allies did not think the landing could surprise the enemy, but their method of carrying it out apparently was a surprise. The enemy has rallied and is now fighting back strongly. The scale of the Allied attacks against this opposition is increasing, and more troops, guns, vehicles, stores, and equipment are being landed.” Like Practice Operations According to an Algiers correspondent, well-informed officers said the services had been' prepared for the heaviest casualties,, possibly up to 50 per cent. There is only one word with which to describe their feelings when everything went so - smoothly, like practice operations at manoeuvres—cimcizixig. 0 | Vivid reports are being brought back by Allied pilots who have had a bird'seye view of the fighting and also of the fires and the ceaseless shuttling of landing barges, as ’ they fly over the island attacking enemy .targets or providing an air umbrella for the landing forces. An Arnprican lieutenant told Reuter’s correspondent: “Allied troops are swarming ashore, pushing into the hills and to the strategic roads in the south-eastern corner of the island. From the way it is going the attack should progress like a forest fire.” Another pilot said: “The boys already seem to have the situation well in hand. Inland there are numerous fires.” A major said hell seemed to be breaking loose everywhere. There were fires all over the place. The beaches were jammed with men'and stuff being unloaded. A lieutenant said that when our troops landed it looked like 1,000,000 flies going up the beaches. “All Canada will be justifiably proud to know that units of the Canadian Army form part of the Allied forces engaged in the attack on Sicily,” said the Prime Minister, ■ Mr Mackenzie King. “The Canadian soldiers have gone into battle exceptionally well trained and superbly equipped. They are keen and full of spirit,, and ready for offensive warfare.” For the first time the 'Canadians feel that their army is really in the war and they are proud of it, says the Ottawa correspondent of the New York Times. After three and a-half years of waiting Canada’s long-time policy of keeping its army as one unit .for use in a single operation has been changed, so that, while a considerable part is in Sicily, a group has been reserved for other operations. The group in Sicily includes a Canadian Lancaster bombing squadron, and a French Canadian Alouette or Skylark squadron. Important Road Threatened News flashed from Allied headquarters late this afternoon stated that the Allied troops were pushing inland, threatening the important coast road which hugs the shoreline of the southeastern corner of the island. Great significance is attached to the Americans’ successful action after the Gela landing in throwing back the first reported German panzer counter-attack. The only obstacles near the coast jn this area agp occasional ravines and scattered marshy areas, which the Americans, advancing on both sides of Gela, appear already to have passed. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent reports that news of the Sicilian landings spread like wildfire round the Soviet capital yesterday. It electrified the public, whose predominant emotion is tense expectancy. The big query in everybody’s mind is: Will this really lead the Allied troops to a successful large-scale intervention on tjie Continent apd draw off big German forces from the Russian front?