FIFTH ARMY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25431, 12 January 1944, Page 3

FIFTH ARMY

CLOSING ON CASSINO STEADY PROGRESS CONTINUES (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 11. The Fifth Army is steadily closing round Cassino, and yesterday made more gains in the high ground on both sides of the road to Rome. American forces made an advance of two miles in the face of initial stubborn resistance, but later they found that the enemy had abandoned his positions. The Allies are steadily working their way around the last German defences guarding Cassino—the key to the Lari Valley that leads to Rome, says the British United Press. The Allied troops smashed forward at the junction of the Liri-Peccia Rivers, and at two points in me mountains farther east. A fierce thrust in the sector between the Garigliano River and the main Rome road took the Allies two miles inside the strong German positions. They are now consolidating positions on Monte Chiaia, two miles north-west of San Vittore, and on Monte Porchio, about a mile south-west of San Vittore.

The British troops who established a bridgehead north of Rocca de Vandro, after crossing the Peccia, are maintaining their positions in face of heavy enemy shelling. This bridgehead gives the Allies a foothold at the lower end of the broad Liri Valley leading to Rome. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent say* the Fifth Army in a two-miles advance yesterday captured the 3800 ft Catena Vecchio, as well as the height of Monte Chaia, south-east of Cervaro. The Allies are now in a position to subject Cervaro to a pincers attack. Cervaro is only about four miles, as the crow flies, east of Cassino, and stands a mile above the Rome road.

The Fifth Army now holds the dominating features on both sides of the Rome road. In the last few days it has taken hundreds of prisoners, some of whom say the German High Command is prepared for the fall.of Cassino, but the troops have been instructed to hold on to the last.

Allied air. attacks against the sixmile German defensive belt protecting Cassino are growing in intensity as the weather improves. Fighter-bombers and dive-bombers are maintaining the daylight pounding of the German Tines. A great weight of bombs was dropped on the four-mile gap between Cassino and Cervaro, where the Germans are strongly entrenched. The Allied raid on Sunday on the enemy naval base of Pola. on the Adriatic, was the first by any Allied air force. The pilots reported that the target was “ well and truly covered.” No enemy planes were encountered. Reuter’s aviation correspondent says the announcement that Allied heavy bombers are now operating from bases on the Italian mainland means tffst Fortresses and Liberators are now able from the Mediterranean theatre to bomb Hitler’s Balkan centres in addition to southern Germany. The range of these bombers makes possible a round trip of about 10C0 miles, bringing the following targets in their reach:—The whole of Greece, including Athens; Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest, the whole of Jugoslavia, where they will be able to support Marshal Tito’s ground forces; Vienna, southern Germany, including Stuttgart and Nuremberg, and also- the south of France as far as Marseilles. It is officially announced from Algiers that a heavy force of Flying Fortresses bombed Sofia at noon yesterday. Within 12 hours Wellingtons were over the city again in another sharp raid.