GERMAN STRENGTH

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

GERMAN STRENGTH

40,000 TO 60,000 MEN STUBBORN RESISTANCE (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 9. Although commentators in London are sounding a note of caution in view of the fact that 40,000 to 60,000 Germans are still fighting in Sicily, the Press Association’s military correspondent, summing up the general feeling, says the end is inevitable. The Allies’ advance continues successfully and steadily, with the Germans, in country lending itself to defensive action, fighting determined rearguard actions and gaining as much time as possible tvith the lavish use of mines, booby-traps, and demolitions. The Germans managed to get most of their troops from Troina, where they experienced one of the hardest battles of the campaign, reports the British United Press correspondent with the Seventh Army. Americans who fought in Tunisia say that Troina was worse than anything there. One hill south of Troina was taken and retaken six times before the Germans were driven out under a hail of artillery fire and dive-bombing. The New York Times correspondent says: “The Americans, on entering Troina, found a town of horror, emptied of Germans, but amazingly alive with weeping, hysterical men, women, and children. The Germans made the town a fortress, and deliberately neglected the elementary humanitarian duty of evacuating civilians who were attempting to escape. They looted every house before departing. Everywhere along the line German resistance is most stubborn, and Allied strategy must be based on its continuance. There is no quick, easy solution for fighting in such mountainous country. It is hard, determined slogging every day, in which our artillery, air support, and steady pressure by ground troops should unquestionably bring victory in the long run. If the Germans could not hold Troina they cannot hold anywhere else. We have paid a fair price for victory, but they have paid a heavy price to gain a few days more in Sicily."