AT GREAT COST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25466, 22 February 1944, Page 3

AT GREAT COST

SMALL GERMAN GAINS ENEMY LOSES HEAVILY (Rec. 7 p.m.) ' LONDON, Feb. 20. Reuter’s correspondent at the Anzio beach-head says the Allies have the situation well in hand. General von Kesselring’s gains totalled under 3000 yards. The Germans in their attack down the Carrocetto-Anzio road used six. divisions. Our counter-attack wiped out part of the German gains, which were bought at great cost during three days of the bloodiest fighting along the narrow salient. The rest of the enemy’s penetration is now being rapidly reduced as our infantry and tank counter-attacks drive the German spearheads steadily back along the road. The Allies took 300 German prisoners yesterday, making the total about 500 since last Wednesday. The British yesterday took 100 German prisoners. They were sheltering in a farmhouse. They were hungry, almost without ammunition, and dazed by shellfire. German dead litter the main road south of Carrocetto. Frequently more than 100 can be counted within a smau area.

Some enemy battalions lost 60 per cent, of their effectives. Reuters cjirespondnet estimates that the Germans since the start of the battle have suffered 2000 casualties. The Allies’ artillery bombardments have so disorganised the enemy communications that supplies are being dropped by parachute. The attacking enemy formations were clearly visible to the Allies as they formed up on the sanay flat stretch which constituted the main beach-head battlefield. These targets were readily accepted by the Allied gunners with deadly results for the enemy.

The British and Americans in a series of counter-attacks have reached positions less than two miles from Carrocetto. There is a strong possibility of a renewal of the German attack after General von Kesselring sorts out his battered battalions and restores his shattered lines of communications, the correspondent added. A combined British press correspondent, in a delayed despatch from the beach-head reports that the British battalion which has been surrounded for three days, has not yielded an inch of their ground, although the enemy is well behind them. The battalion on Friday night was still fighting from the trenches dug before the enemy launched his attack three nights previously. The Allied Mediterranean air forces have won a great tactical victory over the Anzio beach-head during the past four weeks, in which they shot down 378 enemy planes for the loss of 106. The Allied air forces between February 12 and February 19, flew 6900 sorties compared with the enemy’s 605.