TOLL OF PRISONERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25305, 16 August 1943, Page 3

TOLL OF PRISONERS

GERMAN FORCES THINNING LONDON, Aug. 15. The latest figures show that the American Seventh Army to August 12 had taken 95,000 prisoners, including 2000 Germans, and captured 300 guns. The Eighth Army to, August 10 had taken 30,000 prisoners, including 2600 Germans, and captured 200 guns, half of them German.

Infantrymen from the Seventh and Eighth Armies on Friday took possession of the demolished and heavilymined town of Randazzo without firing a shot, states a correspondent. Our bombers had certainly done their work. There was not a single house intact. The main road through the town was piled high with debris. The retreating Germans were forced to build a temporary by-pass which they heavily mined as they left. Every few minutes mines went off as our troops explored the town and several men were killed.

An Agency correspondent with the Eighth Army stated that throughout Friday medium bombers and fighterbombers . attacked beaches and roads af Messina, creating havoc among the enemy unloading from the lorries which had rushed them back from the front.

Our bombers and fighters attacked landing craft, and sank and immobilised several. The enemy forces holding the lines in three sectors are still thinning out. Their rearguards are getting weaker. These groups get little peace as the R.A.F. is bombing and shooting-up all roads leading to Messina.

“It is estimated that the enemy has now withdrawn considerable remnants of his three, fighting divisions and is improvising with mixed units So fight a rearguard action,” the correspondent adds. These rearguards, however, since the fall of Randazzo on FHday, are doing little to stop the advance of our troops from the coastal Sectors. The enemy pulled back some of his forces during the night, ana ®ur troops, headed northwards, were unable to contact main enemy forces. Our patrols are only 10 to 12 miles from the Americans advancing eastwards from Randazzo. Enemy troops between the two forces were in danger of being cut off as the only road of escape was blocked by our bombers at Nuvara.