STEP BY STEP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25372, 2 November 1943, Page 3

STEP BY STEP

GERMANS FORCED BACK

FIFTH ARMY’S GAINS

APPROACHING MASSICO LINE

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 31. The Fifth Army is forcing the Germans back step by step, and now commands strategic positions from which it can either storm or by-pass Marshal Rommel’s line on the Massico heights, which form the last defensive position before Ronie, say despatches from Allied headquarters. The Fifth Army gains in the three-mile advance provide positions from which may be launched one of the most decisive offensives of the Italian cam-

paign. The Allies are slowly but with determination edging their way towards the Massico line, where it stretches from the Madragone area 28 miles inland to Venafro, which is the northeastern anchor of the German line, and is already threatened by the Fifth Army’s advance in the' Upper Volturno Valley. After an advance of 10 miles inland from Madragone, the Allies captured Teano, a success which will deprive the Germans of a railhead important to their retreat to the north.

The Eighth Army is fighting through the hills towards Iserma.

The Berlin radio to-night revealed that the Germans evacuated Frosoione. Reuter’s correspondent with the Eighth Army says tlje Germans concentrated all the forces they could muster to hold back the Eighth Army’s threatened coastal push, outflanking the mountain line. The correspondent says: “No alarm was felt at the reverse when the British were forced to give up some ground.” Air force communiques show that bombers and lighters are striking far ahead of the armies against the Italian Riviera, only 100 miles from Corsica. Correspondents, referring to this chain of harbours as “ the invasion coast,” point out that they are linked by a vital road and railway, which are Germany’s southern Franco-Italian lifeline. Allied headquarters disclosed that British and American casualties in the Fifth Army, including killed, wounded and missing, have been approximately equal since the Salerno landing. The casualties are said to be on “ a moderate scale.”

The western flank of the Eighth Army, after capturing Molise, swung round and has reached a position 10 miles from an important fork on the Isernia road.

Eighth Army units captured two villages 1000 feet up—San Massino, three miles west of Bojano and two miles south of the Isernia road, and also San Elena, seven miles north of Bojano. They dominate to a certain extent the most important road between Bojano and Isernia. North of this bitterlycontested zone the village of Roccavivara, on the south bank of the upper Trigno three miles south-West of Montefalcone, is completely in our hands. Algiers radio says that on the Trigno River sector, where the Germans are reported to have sent 25,000 men, General Montgomery has driven to within six miles of the road between’ Vanto and Isernia. The Eighth Army coastal column is threatening San Salvo.