ADVANCE IN ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25429, 10 January 1944, Page 3

ADVANCE IN ITALY

CAPTURE OF SAN VITTORE CASSINO NEXT OBJECTIVE (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 9. Following the capture of San Vittore by the Fifth Army, the Americans and Canadians have pressed forward and are now attacking three strongly defended heights overlooking Cassino. In the face of heavy artillery fire they are pushing on and at several points there is bitter hand-to-hand fighting. The Gemans obviously intend to hold Cassino as long as possible, as it is their last main stronghold on the road to Rome. The Algiers radio reported earlier that the Fifth Army had captured Giusta, one mile north of San Vittore. The Americans used grenades to blast the Germans from houses in Giusta, says the Algiers correspondent of the British United Press. The Germans turned the dwellings in this village info pillboxes and strong-points, as they did at San Vittore. The Fifth Army spearheads are now within four miles of Cervaro, in which the Germans have concentrated artillery. Announcing the fall of San Vittore, an earlier communique stated: “After two days’ heavy street fighting American troops of the Fifth Army captured the village of San Viltor. In another area our troops fought their way to

the top of a 4000-foot mountain, which they now hold. The advance continues along a 10-mile front. On the Eighth Army front strong patrols acting under conditions of severe cold and deep snowdrifts engaged in sharp clashes with the enemy.” The enemy suffered heavy casualties when the Allied troops occupied San Vittore. One group of 200 scuttled out of their dug-outs and tried to escape over the hills, but the Americans opened a rapid tommy-gun fire on the Germans as they raced up the bald hillside, wiping them out to a man. Many Italians who emerged from the ruins were completely hysterical. For weeks they have lived in basements and dug-outs, eating only popcorn and dried beans, while the heavy battle raged around them. Every German still inside San Vittore when two American columns finally broke into the last streets was dead, wounded, or made prisoner. The city is a shambles. It was wrested from the Germans after some of the most tigerish fighting since the original Fifth Army landings at Salerno. The clearing of the last Germans from the last houses was bitter work, but German resistance crumpled when two infantry forces, which had been working their way through the streets, met in the middle of the town and together stormed the remaining German defence nests.

The German. News Agency’s military commentator says it may be deduced from the increasing activity on the Italian front that the enemy considers that the time has come to launch a general offensive. The arrival of further reserves for both the Eighth and Fifth Armies, also the transfer of General Clark’s headquarters, warrant the conclusion that the present attacks are the transition stage to a large-scale assault against the German front in Southern Europe.