LAID WASTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25299, 9 August 1943, Page 3

LAID WASTE

AXIS ESCAPE PORT TERRIFIC AIR ATTACKS (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 8. The blitz against the Axis evacuation route in Sicily has surpassed in concentration anything yet attempted by the Allied air forces during the whole of the campaign, says the Associated Press correspondent at .Allied headquarters in North Africa. , The Allied air fleets laid waste the escape port of Messina in round-the-clock attacks. Fortresses, Wellingtons, Marauders, and Mitchells pulverised the roads leading to the evacuation beaches and other points opposite the Italian mainland. Mitchells and Bostons earlier rained explosives on Aderno, Bronte, and Randazzo. Relays of many types of plane strafed the roads and bombed enemy positions around Etna. The Allied air forces, striking from bases within a few minutes of the battle zones, are increasing the attacks to the tempo of the closing weeks of the Tunisian campaign. Catania was given over to an orgy of looting by the civilian population for three hours following its fall, says Reuter’s correspondent with the Eighth Army. The first British troops passing through Catania in pursuit of the retreating Germans saw strange scenes as looters raided shops. The local police stood, by helplessly until British security troops arrived and restored order. Men and women engaged in wild fighting, slapping and scratching at each other for possession of the few articles the Germans left behind. Even children fought for toys, which were torn apart in the struggle. More than 800 Axis planes, many of them serviceable, were found on abandoned aerodromes captured in Sicily,-.states the Cairo correspondent of the’ Daily Telegraph. The Allies have destroyed or captured 12,000 German and Italian planes in the Middle East and North African campaigns since Italy entered the war. An R.A.F. count established these vast enemy losses, involving smashing the Italian air force as a separate fighting machine. There are now probably 2500 Axis war planes in Italy, including 350 fighters, which the Germans have withdrawn from the Russian front. The British and Americans everywhere have superior numbers, which cannot be revealed.

An Italian communique states that the casualties in the Allied raid on Naples on Wednesday were 210 killed and 464 injured.