HEAVY DAMAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1943, Page 4

HEAVY DAMAGE

DONE TO THE SICILIAN FERRY TERMINALS RAILWAY YARDS & BRIDGES HIT. FIGHTERS & FIGHTER-BOMBERS .ALSO BUSY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY, July 13. Over 250 tons of high explosives were dropped on the Reggio di Calabria and San Giovanni ferry terminals, on the Italian mainland, in daylight on Monday, by a hundred Liberators, states a Cairo message. The bombers attacked in four waves at San Giovanni. The railway yards were blanketed with hits and bursts were seen all along the railway tracks, with a large explosion in a sidi,ng area.' Hits were also observed near the Central Railway Station, around the ferry terminal and the mole. At Reggio, the centre of the target area was well covered with bomb bursts. Petrol and ammunition dumps were hit and large fires were started. No fighter opposition was met, but anti-aircraft fire was exceptionally heavy, indicating that the defences had recently been strengthened. Only one American aircraft is missing. Another message reports that two vital railway bridges at the ferry terminus at Messina were destroyed yesterday. First a formation of Flying Fortresses scored direct hits on the east bridge and later an entire group covered a target area including both railways and the industrial part of the city. There was plenty of flak, but no fighter opposition. Hundreds of fighters and fighterbombers renewed train-busting and troop-strafing all over Sicily. For more than twelve hours, medium and light bombers plastered airfields still held by the enemy.

SMASHING ATTACK ON ENEMY SEA CONVOY MADE BY ALLIED PLANES IN STRAIT BETWEEN CORSICA & SARDINIA. TWO SHIPS SUNK & OTHERS DAMAGED. (By. Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, July 13. Allied planes have smashed an Axis convoy which was attempting to carry reinforcements to Sicily. Beaufighters on the Sardinian coast on Sunday and yesterday attacked the convoy and sank two merchantmen and badly damaged another. Two destroyers were set on fire from stem to stern. Two large troopships are believed to have been hit. In their attack the Beaufighters had often to fly through withering gunfire from the Italian destroyers and planes escorting the convoy. The attack was carried out under hazardous conditions, in the narrow channel between Sardinia and Corsica. The leader of the Beaufighters attacked the largest troopship from such close range that he could plainly see soldiers crowded on her decks.

ALLIED STRENGTH NAZI WRITER’S ESTIMATE. POSSIBILITY OF LANDING ELSEWHERE. (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, July 13. The Berlin radio’s military commentator, Captain Sertorius, says the Allies have about 150,000 men in Sicily. “The enemy yesterday and . last night,” he says, “helped by their gigantic air and sea superiority, landed considerable reinforcements on the southeast coast of Sicily, amounting to between two and three divisions. These reserves have been incorporated in the American Seventh Army, allowing

General Patton not only to defend the bridgeheads at Licata and Gela against Italian counter-attacks, but to enlarge them. The enemy advance has been considerable in the bridgehead of Licata, where Canadian troops, under the cornmapd of the American general, penetrated eight miles in a westerly direction. The British Eighth Army has landed mainly at Syracuse Bay and the small port of Augusta. Considerable bodies of troops landed in these areas yesterday and immediately proceeded northward, the British general apparently being anxious to reach the plain of Catania as soon as possible. German reserves north-east of Augusta bar the way to the British units and very heavy fighting is going on in this sector, while the centre of the British army' at present is lagging behind on the slopes of the hills west of Syracuse and Avola. “The ten divisions which may have landed in Sicily are about half the number the enemy lately concentrated in the Near East and North Africa, but it must be remembered that the Allies have used only two-thirds, perhaps less, of the tonnage at their disposal in the Mediterranean for the Sicily expedition. This means that the enemy has the possibility either of sending reserves gradually into Sicily, or of landing at other points in South Europe, with; a mass of troops at least equal to, if not more powerful than, that landed in Sicily.”

CANADIAN TROOPS WELCOMED TO EIGHTH ARMY. GENERAL MONTGOMERY’S MESSAGE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) RUGBY, July 13. The invasion forces in'Sicily are known as the Fifteenth Army Group, it was announced officially today. A Press message quotes General Montgomery’s welcome to the Eighth Army of Canadians, who received the greeting on their way to Sicily: “I want to give a hearty welcome to the Canadian troops now joining the Eighth Army. I know well the fighting men from Canada. They are magnificent soldiers, and the long and careful training thqy have received in England will now be put to good use.” It is learned that a monitor, as well as cruisers, took part in today’s bombardment of Augusta.