FIRM GRIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1943, Page 4

FIRM GRIP

ON ORTONA-ORSOGNA ROAD GAINED BY EIGHTH ARMY TROOPS INCLUDING NEW ZEALANDERS I (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, December 19. New Zealand, Canadian and Indian troops tonight are firmly established along the fifteen-mile Adriatic corridor front. The Allied forces, despite fierce German coun-ter-attacks, including those by flame-throwers and • paratroops, control most of the Ortona-Orsogna

Road. Eighth Army troops have captured the village of Poggiofiorito, in the area where the New Zealanders in the past two days have driven a salient into the German defences and cut the lateral road. Pbggiofiorito is four miles from Orsogna. A ferocious tank battle raged around the lateral Ortona-Orsogna road yesterday. The Germans still hold Orsogna, but the New Zealanders yesterday widened their grip on the road. The enemy continues to use tanks and flame-throwers, but all coun-ter-attacks were beaten off, with heavy German losses. The Allied air forces are strongly supporting the advancing Eighth Army. British, Australian, American and South African pilots co-operated in innumerable sorties.

San Pietro fell after Allied troops had practically surrounded the village, which the enemy had made a key position of his Garigliano line. American tanks pierced the town’s defences after a heavy artillery concentration had driven most of the Germans out. The Fifth Army, with the capture of San Pietro, has broken through the last major mountain barrier barring the road to Rome, says the British United Press Algiers correspondent. Fifth Army troops'have also further advanced the northern extremity of their lineo and American patrols, advancing from San Pietro, are now threatening the village of San Vittore, 21 miles west of San Pietro. The enemy has extensively mined and laid booby traps in the area beyond San Pietro.