DEEP DEFENCES OVERRUN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 197, 18 May 1944, Page 5

DEEP DEFENCES OVERRUN

Steady Advance In Italy STRONG OPPOSITION LONDON, May 17. . For the first time today’s Allied communique from Italy speaks of the Adolf Hitler Line, the German defence system a few miles behind the Gustav Line. AU positions in the Gustav Line south of the Liri River have been overrun, it states, and French and American troops of the Fifth Army continue to fight their way forward to gain contact with the Adolf Hitler Line. In the Liri Valley the British and Indian troops of the Eighth Army have further enlarged their bridgehead across the Kapido River. The Germans are resisting the advance, from further prepared positions in the rear. There is ho change m the hills north of C^ sl "^ respondent says that t h e ma in highway behind Cassino is now under Eighth Army mortar and machinegun fire, though it is believed the Germans are still getting supplies to the garrison inside Cassino.

Yesterday’s advance by the Indian and British tanks and infantry brought them 400 yards nearer the Cassino road, and was made after repelling a German counter-attack. An Indian division in fierce fighting captured the town of Pignataro. The bridgehead is now some three miles deep. The latest report says that the French troops have advanced another two miles against strong opposition. The Americans near the coast have occupied two more towns in heavy fighting.

FRENCH ROUTING NAZI FORCES

Rapid Collapse Of Local Defences (By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.} LONDON. May 16. There are signs that organized German resistance in the French sector of the Italian front is rapidly disintegrating. The headquarters of two enemy regiments have been over-run and the regiments virtually wiped out and one of their commanders captured. A correspondent says that the French are “cracking through the mountains like a house on fire,” with those famous warriors, the Moroccan Goons, swarming up the mountain peaks to demoralize the defenders. French troops, the correspondent says, have put the southern end of the Gustav Line into the past’tense, but’he adds that there is much hard fighting still to be done. The Germans, except at Cassino and Monastery Hill, are already out of the original Gustav Line and are defending hastily-dug defences, states Reuter’s correspondent in a dispatch tonight from advanced headquarters. He adds that the Germans’ reserves are already filling up the Hitler Line. The “Daily Express” correspondent says that the Hitler Line has been prepared for months, with inner and outer defences. It will not be easy. It has got Hitler’s label and the military engineers had to make sure it was good. The Eighth Army bridgehead across the Rapido has been further built up, and according to a correspondent it is now crammed full of tanks, guns, vehicles and men. It is reported' that two.-thirds of the troops in it are from the United Kingdom. Near Cassino Lifeline. Reuter’s correspondent with the Eighth Army says that troops of the Eighth Army in the Rapido bridgehead are assaulting the town of Pignataro, two miles west of San Angelo, in the face of heavy opposition. The bridgehead is now nearly two miles deep at this point, and fresh troops continue to move in. Spearheads of the Eighth Army are now on the point'of cutting the German garrison’s main escape road from Gassino—Highway 6, which is the mam iuland.road to Rome, says the correspondent. In the meantime. General Leese’s men. after severing-the Cassino-Pignataro road, are a little more than one mile from the Appian Way, and parallel to the railway which is the coastal route to Rome. The Germans are hotly contesting the wedge between Highway 6 and the Cassino-Pignataro road. They are. fighting savagely to protect Highway 6. with hastily-organized parachute units backed by tanks. Field-Marshal Kesselring is throwing in numbers of Mark 111 and Mark IV tanks to stave off the threat that would be caused by the fall of Pignataro. French troops driving north and west on the upper Garigliano sector have captured Santa Lucia and Leforche, both of which are south-west of the already Occupied village of San Giorgio. Leforche is the furthest point reached by the French and represents a total advance or eight miles. The French also bold the villages of Casale. Annunziata and Castelnuova, all of which lie between Ausonia and San Giorgio, and have cut the road running north-west from Castelnuova. The French have virtually destroyed the German 194th Grenadier Regiment, with the whole of its headquarters staff, and the 131st Infantry Regiment. Algiers radio reported tonight tliat Allied units of the Fifth Army had captured Monte Frammera, less than two miles from Esperia, the stronghold which lies five miles north-west of Ausonia. French troops on the same front, in a sudden attack, completely routed the German 71st Infantry Division, which Is now in full retreat. American Successes.

lleuter’s correspondent says that French troops on Monte Frainmera now look down on the Adolf Hitler Line. They are less than 1000 yards from Esperiu. The Poleg appear to have been halted, for the moment at least, north of Cassino, Americans on the lower Gangliano have captured Spigno, four miles northwest of Minturno, and have taken Capodacqua. south of Spigno, and also Monte Lttelvita, west of Santa Maria Infante. The Americans have repulsed enemy counter-attacks against their hill positions, and the resistance on this sector has decreased. The Germans holding high ground west of the Fifth Army are now dependent on rough mountain trails for communications. The German news agency’s military commentator, Praegner, admitted tonight that the German troops had withdraws to “prepared positions in the rear,” after abandoning the four towns of Ausonia, Spigno, San Giorgio, and Gastelnuoya. ’ Reuter’s military correspondent points out that Praegner’s admission means that the Gormans have retreated along a 10-mile curved front extending from a few miles from the sea up to the Liri Valley. His report agrees with Allied messages that the lower half of the Gustav Line has been overrun and that the Germans have been swept west of the main lateral road through Ausonia. The to which the Germans say they have retired probably form advance defence works of the Adolf Hitler Line, which is situated about six miles west of the four towns mentioned. The Columbia Broadcasting System in a broadcast from Italy, stated that Allied troops yesterday captured 21 square miles of ground, making the total area captured in the first four days of tne offensive 81 square miles. The prisoners taken by the Allies now total 3000.

GERMANS’ CHOICE

LONDON, May 16. Al giers radio stated that members of the German Army Medical Corps who were captured in the present Allied offensive in Italy, were given a chance to return to their own lines, but all pretarred to stay in the Allied lines.