FIERCE BATTLE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22992, 8 September 1944, Page 5

FIERCE BATTLE

Fighting In Italy Hard Struggle Toward Rimini By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright LONDON, September 6. The fact that the Eighth Army k did not make much progress along | the Adriatic on Tuesday does not «mean that it unexpectedly came against stronger opposition, reports a correspondent at Rome. It is still up against German forces in hill-broken country south of Rimini. A fierce battle is raging around Misano, two miles inland, and along an arc extending six miles inland there is still German opposition from self-propelled and anti-tank guns. The battle now raging may well decide the mastery of the approaches to the southern Po Valley. British troops are making slow but steady progress north of Florence. The Eighth Army has reached points five ir\iles from Rimini, which is the gateway to Italy’s industrial north, says the correspondent of the British United Press at Allied Headquarters in Italy. The Eighth Army had to push crack German paratroops, known as "green devils,” from a ridge north of Cunca in the drive toward Rimini. Paratroops were part of a force of Germans rushed up in an effort to block the breach the Eighth Army had forced in the Gothic Line between Coriano and the sea. Reuter’s correspondent says that German resistance in the Rimini sector is definitely weakening under the Eighth Army’s sustained blows. During July babies younger than 12 months were dying in Rome at the rate of nearly one in two, says the Rome correspondent of the "New York Times.” The situation is still so alarming that babies are getting the milk intended for children up to five years old.