RANDAZZO NEXT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25300, 10 August 1943, Page 3

RANDAZZO NEXT

EIGHTH ARMY'S ADVANCE VITAL ROAD JUNCTION (Ret. 7 p.m.) RUGBY, Aug. 8. The Eighth Army has broken through the heart of the enemy’s Messina bridgehead, and to-day our advance troops were reported to be within nine miles of Randazzo, which has been battered from the air. All day yesterday attacks were kept up through the enemy barrage. In the morning some big convoys were seen pulling out, but by evening our air crews reported that Randazzo was blocked to traffic. The two main inland roads join at Randazzo, and the German forces from the central sector must pass through the town if they are to get to Messina. Following the capture of Aderno the British went in pursuit of the enemy to Bronte. The retreating Germans destroyed all communications in this area.

Reuter’s correspondent at Allied headquarters says that with the capture of Troina and St. Agata th. whole German line is shrivelling up. Every important town in Sicily, except Messina, is now in our hands. American naval units bombarded enemy shore positions in North-east Sicily with excellent results. The British Navy, for the third successive day, shelled Taormina and neighbouring railway lines. The capture of Aderno means not only the loss to the Axis of the last east-to-west road, but also the cutting off of the Axis forces who are west of Catania,

The British United Press correspondent says the British troops who occupied Aderno completed the -final destruction of the main Axis defences around the foothills of Etna. The greatest barrage in the Mediterranean area since the Allied guns opened the way to Tunis drove the Axis rearguards from Aderno, says the Associated Press correspondent with the Eighth Army. The tremendous weight of fire from approximately 180 25-pounders and large medium artillery crushed the Germans’ final positions and forced them to evacuate the town. They retired to high ground north of the town.

Correspondents agree that General Montgomery’s outflanking movement, which sealed the fate of Aderno, was effected across the worst country yet encountered in Sicily. The British United Press correspondent says the Canadians carried out an extreme flanking movement, pushing north as far as the area south of Troina, but the enemy’s Etna line would probably still be standing if the 78th Division had not punched its way through the middle of the German defences by taking Centuripe. The movement, which was brilliantly conceived and executed, started after the capture of Agira. The Canadians, even before Regalbuto fell, moved into the roadless mountains on the extreme left of the outflanking move, and gradually won their way north-west of Aderno, from where they menaced the whole southern half of the Germans’ Etna line.