EARLY SUCCESSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1944, Page 4

EARLY SUCCESSES

MADE BY ALLIED TROOPS IN ITALY ON BEACH-HEAD AND MAIN FRONTS. AIR FORCES GIVING STRONG SUPPORT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, Noon.) LONDON, May 23. First reports indicate that the attacks launched by British and American troops from the Anzio beach-head have been highly successful. Troops on the left sector cracked into the German line 22 miles from the main Fifth Army forces driving up from the southeast. The Swiss radio quotes a Naples message that the Allies have reached the shore of Lake Spoliano, about four miles east of the beach-head perimeter. Reuter’s correspondent at the Anzio beach-head says the opening attack against the left flank had strong artillery support. Light bombers formed the spearhead of the offensive, which was also supported by heavy bombers striking against German supply and troop concentrations within a 50 miles radius of Rome. The second attack had artillery and tank support. EIGHTH ARMY BLOW. A late despatch from the beacn-head declares that the entire front, from the Mussolini Canal to the mouth of the Moletta is aflame. The full weight of the beach-head artillery is now in action. The offensive from the beach-head coincided with a new blow by the Eighth Army against bastions of the Hitlei’ Line in the Liri Valley, where, the Algiers radio says, the French are fighting in the streets of Pontecorvo, after overcoming fierce resistance. Today’s German High Command communique states: “Particularly grim fighting is raging near Pontecorvo and Piedmonte.”

The German news agency announced that the Germans had evacuated Pico, which was an important strongpoint in the Hitler Line and the northern bastion of the Germans’ switch line. Reuter’s correspondent with the Eighth Army reports that Eight Army men, supported by tanks, cracked through some of the main defences of the Hitler Line. Their attack is designed to send the Germans reeling back to Rome. A barrage from several hundred guns preceded the drive, which was launched at the first light of dawn against the sector midway between Pontecorvo and Aquino, Attacking in the first light of morning, Eighth Army troops penetrated the Hitler Line between Aquina and Pontecorvo, capturing, all their first objectives, another correspondent reports. By 10 a.m. they had advanced beyond the Aquino-Pontecorvo Road, which runs through the middle of the Hitler Line defences. Hundreds of guns cracked together and scores of tanks roared towards the solid defences of the vaunted Hitler Line. Through the gloom and mist Allied infantrymen moved steadily forward. Occasionally the Germans threw up flares. The Eighth Army’s major attack to smash the Hitler Line had started.. Their troops knew exactly what they were up against. . The tank crews knew they had to negotiate a least one anti-tank ditch twenty feet wide and eight feet deep. The infantry knew 'they were about to assault the inevitable German minefields, across barbed wire and then steel and concrete pillboxes. FURTHER GAINS MADE BY ATTACKING ALLIED TROOPS. APPROACH TO BEACH-HEAD. (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, May 23. The Eighth Army’s first objectives were reached during the morning and the attackers pushed on in the afternoon. Prisoners were brought in from the defences shortly after the commencement of the attack. Many shell bursts could be seen in and over Pontecorvo, into which elements of the French force endeavoured to fight their way in fSJte of stubborn German resistance. Eighth Army troops at present are in possession of the major part of Piedmonte and are maintaining pressure against the enemy, who are being winkled out of dugouts. . German sources state that Pico was evacuated soon after the announcement from Allied Headquarters that the Eighth Army had penetrated the German line in that sector. The Fifth Army, on the main front, smashed into the reinforced German lines and seized more heights, and American guns are hammering Terracina, says a British United Press correspondent. Terracina, apart from being the anchor of the Tyrrhenian Sea

end of the Hitler switch line, is also in \ rear of the Germans surrounding the beach-head. An Allied attack in this area gives direct land support to the beach-head offensive. German reinforcements are now fighting vigorously from well dug in defences, against the Americans, who, however, are pushing through the mountains and closing in against the town. According to the Cairo radio, Allied advanced troops are only 14 miles from the Anzio beach-head.

TANK BATTLE BIGGEST OF THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. DEVASTATING BLOW STRUCK BY ALLIED AIRCRAFT. (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, May 23. A “Daily Mail” correspondent says the biggest tank battle of the Italian campaign has developed on the Eighth Army front, before the Hitler line. The German., news., agency’s commentator declared: “The front is resounding with Allied drumfire such as has never been witnessed before.” A British United Press correspondent Anzio, describing the launching of the main blow against the containing force, says a violent barrage came at dawn from 'a thousand guns, massed behind tanks and infantry. At zero hour, 6.30 a.rn., men from nicked units rose up from where they had lain all night and disappeared into the gun

smoke and a smoke screen put up before the Allied lines, to attack towards Cisterna, across the no man’s land known as “the bloody mile.” Air Farce pilots who helped to smash a path for the infantry reported striking a devastating blow against large congregations of Germans in an eight miles stretch of a dry river-bed near a railway line north of Cisterna. Bostons from a low altitude showered the Germans with fragmentation bombs and smoke bombs, enabling high-flying Warhawks to pinpoint targets. The air attacks, starting early in the morning, are stated to have saturated the target area. Heavy bombers, ranging farther afield, blocked roads and struck at railway installations leading to the German lines.

MORE ALLIED TROOPS LANDED Q,N BEACH-HEAD. WITHOUT GERMAN OPPOSITION. (Received This Day. 12.35 n.m.) LONDON, May 23. The landing of many troops and hundreds of vehicles, to reinforce the beach -head before the attack, is described by a British United Press correspondent with the landing force. “It is significant,” he says, “that the enemy made no attempt to impede the landing, which very considerably reinforced the beachhead strength. Not only was the convoy not attacked, but the enemy did not produce his routine shelling of the anchorage when the convoy arrived. The only explanation is that the enemy is saving ammunition and planes for a fullscale effort to beat the offensive.” The German radio reports that American paratroopers were dropped to participate in the beach-head offensive. Allied warships are also bombarding the Germans on the fringe of the beach-head. Reuter’s correspondent at Allied Headquarters says Allied fighter pilots report that, the Luftwaffe is increasingly reduced to using second-string planes of Italian and Rumanian construction. The Germans still show plenty of aggressive spirit in their effort to break through the fighter screen and attack the Allied bombers. They use head-on'attack formations, rocket fire, and a variety of other clever tactics, but the inferiority of many of their machines is striking.