CASSINO VICTORY SWIFTLY EXPLOITED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 199, 20 May 1944, Page 7

CASSINO VICTORY SWIFTLY EXPLOITED

Allied Impetus Maintained

ENTIRE FRONT OF BATTLE

LONDON, May 19.

A special Allied communique yesterday stated that British troops captured the town of Cassino, and Polish troops captured Monastery Hill, overlooking the town. The enemy had been completely outmanoeuvred by the Allied armies in Italy following the original breach of the Gustav Line by the Fifth Army, the communique said. Troops of the Eighth Army fought their way forward in the Liri Valley and, during the past 24 hours, developed a decisive pincer movement which cut Highway 6 and so prevented the withdrawal of the enemy. A substantial proportion of the First German Parachute Division had been destroyed in its effort to escape. “Both the Fifth and Eighth Armies contributed to this triumph,” the communique added. On the coast the Americans captured Formia, and began heavily shelling Gaeta. .

Later reports show that the Allies have lost no time in getting to grips with the Adolf Hitler Line. This morning s communique says: “Following the capture of Cassino the Eighth Army, swiftly exploiting its successes, has thrust the enemy further back against the new line.

•’French and American troops of the Fifth Army continued their drive, and are now in contact with the enemy in the hills which make up the southern bastion of the line,” the communique adds.

It is disclosed that the Allied air force, as well as striking hard alomr the whole front, is dropping supplies to Fifth Army troops to allow them to keep up the pace of their advance on some of the mountainous sectors. Ho’w far we have driven into the Hitler Line is made clear in correscpondents dispatches this morning. They report another spectacular advance by the French, who have captured an important height seven miles due west of Esperia and 15 miles from the starting-point of the offensive. . The Americans are said to have closed in on the town of Itri, . , The British and Canadian tanks of the Eighth Army have pushed further up the Liri Valley, while the Poles from the hills round Cassino were last reported within a mile of one of the northern strongpoints of the Hitler Line. The ‘‘Daily Telegraph’s” Zurich correspondent reports that the German authorities have ordered the immediate evacuation of the civilian population from several parts of Genoa and also from Jother towns on the Italian. Riviera, illeluding Rapallo, Santa Mnrgharito, Porto Fino, Cbiavari and Sestrilevante.

DEATHTRAP FOR GERMANS

Battle Of Cassino DRAMATIC LAST HOURS

(British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) RUGBY, May 18. It had been clear since Tuesday that the enemy’s position in Ca* sin » w ° u, ‘ l soon become untenable, and that the Ger mans were mailing arrangements to Wltll* draw. Had the Eighth Army made a frontal attack earlier the enemy might easily have inflicted vwy heavy casualties and have succeeded in the end in withdrawing in an orderly fashion. The British tactics prevented heavy casualties to our troops, and the fighting during the last 48 hours had pinned down the enemy so long that a. large part of the first Parachute Division could not bei extricated. The headquarters of this dm »idn was not captured, nor its artillery, because they were-a considerable distance in the rear when the battle started. With the capture of Casino, those which remain of Hitler S lauded Parachute Division, hailed as the best division in the German Army, are now in a prison eamp. ~ Cassino was claimed by the Germans and Italians as a classic example of the defensive line. The Allied command realized that the only way to attack the monastery successfully was from the west, and that, was how it was done, Ihe Poles, after the desperate fighting across Phantom Ridge and San Angelo, went on to wage a bloody battle for the massif of Albeneta, the key position of the German defensive at this end of the Gustav Line. Then they threw in their last do-or-die attackin' the battered monastery itself. They fought across hills and valleys littered with German dead, and stormed the fortress which for seven months had been one of the deciding factors in holding up the Allied, drive along the road to Rome. Fantastic Battle. . Scrambling their way up the steepsloped massif, the Polish troops fougnt gallanWy toward a fortified place known as “The Portress,” which was once the 4iome of the Benedictine monks. It cost many lives to capture it, but as the Ppics stormed the heights and the Huns realized it was all up, Germans, craven and frightened because they knew they were at the mercy of an enemy who hated them, came out with their hands up. Three-Quarters of the massif was in the hands of the Poles by the end of the day. Then came the final desperate assault on the monastery itself. It was a fantastic battle, with the Poles supported by 17-potinder anti-tank guns standing in the front line smashing at pill-boxes. Meanwhile, two famous British divisions down in the Liri Valley, after crossing the River Rapifio, had swung round into Highway 6 and cut it two miles out of Cassino. Then the Poles came down out of the hills to join hands with the British troops, and the pride of the German Army, the First Parachute Division, was trapped. The British and Indian troops advancing across the Rapido with a veteran Canadian tank force inflicted losses on the First Parachute Division amounting to over half its fighting strength. Two other German regiments have also been badly mauled. The remnants of the defenders of Cassino are now being mopped up as they retire along Highway 6. The British United Press correspondent on the Eighth Army front says that ilic Poles, in attacking positions at Cassino, which were considered impregnable, probably accomplished the hardest task yet assigned to any section of the Eighth Army- in this offensive. They fought in an area filled with the stench of deatn,* aud reciprocal hatred turned it into a savage animal struggle, particularly alter reports reached the Poles that German parachutists had killed some wounded Polish prisoners and used a white Sag as a ruse. Bitter Desolation. “Cassino is a scene of bitter desolation, such as only can be produced in this war," states “The Timee” correspondent at Cassino. “Tile last Germans left this relic of the tortured town a few hours before noon today ; they were our prisoners. The last stronghold. the Continen tai Hotel, went up with a bang a little earlier. It was the final retreating blow that the Germans struck. A crypt under a chapel convent, which we had recently used as the forward headquarters, received 11-1 direct hits from German shells.

British troops say that on|y a direct hit from a 10001 b, bomb would have penetrated the crypt, which was typical of the protection the Germans enjoyed hist March during the Allied air force’s record bombing. “Today it is difficult to guess what was the centre of the town. There is a stinking quagmire with disabled tanks half-buried in mud, craters with dirty, slimy, stagnant water, blasted trees, and the gaunt remains of stone walls, and a medley of twisted girders—all a mess of disarray and of horror that comes from the chaos of ceaseless shelling and bombardment.”

"It is a lie that the Germans evacuated Cassino, as they announced,” says the “Daily Express.” "That lie was a propaganda trick to rob us of our triumph. The truth is that the Germans were c»’ight napping.”

Another correspondent says the Germans repeated an old strategic error in leaving their withdrawal till too late. _ “The Germans came out of their holes in Cassino in the morning with their hands up, waving white flags,” states the “Daily Mail” correspondent. A young British colonel told the story of the last battle. “There had been terrific Allied barrages against the town throughout last night,” he said, “and the Germans retaliated with some of the most solid shelling of our part of the town since the offensive opened last week. The British intelligence officers waited for a lull in the artillery pounding so that they could broadcast to the Germans in their fox-holes and dugouts. New Zealand Artillerymen.

“A lull came, and then the British, Polish, and New Zealand artillery started to hammer the town again, and the Germans started to shell us heavily. This lasted nearly all night. In the morning the first German batch of about a dozen scrambled over the rubble waving surrender flags.” A Polish officer who came down Monastery Hill from the shambles of the wrecked stronghold on the summit, said that only 17 Germans were left, and they surrendered, “We hadn’t met the Germans since Tobruk,” he said. “We had been waiting fbr this moment for two years.” Cassino and the monastery fell before noon. „ •So ends the fierce battle for Cassino—a battle in -which men from Britain, New Zealand, India, and the United Stateshave made history in the assault on one of the most formidable obstacles on the way to Borne. . ,

PROMISING ALLIED SITUATION

Two Roads To Rome LONDON, May 18. The Allies now stand on the two great highways to Rome, one inland and the other on the coast, says the British United Press correspondent at the headquarters in Italy. The whole situation on the Italian front has been altered by the capture of Cassino and Formia and the earlier fall of Esperja, enabling a link between the operations in the north and in the south. In addition, troops from Formia have captured Ruazza, to the north-west, which is the furthest westward advance. The “Daily Telegraph’s’* correspondent with the Eighth Army says that the progress of the French and American armies on the loft of the Eighth Army (from the coastal area upward) suggests the possibility that the Hitler Line may be outflanked. The French, after capturing Esperia in hard fighting, pushed on three miles and captured Monte Lago and Monte Martino. The French are shelling the important German supply road running from Formia through I tri to Pico. This road lies well behind Kesselring's defence line. The spearheads of the Eighth Army driving beyond Pignataro south-west of Cassino, are now less than five miles from the strongest defences of the Adolf Hitler Line across the Liri Valley. Frosinone, where a road-block was caused, was one of the towns attacked in the course of yesterday’s intensive Allied air operations.

MANY GUNS SEIZED AT CASSINO

LONDON, May IS. Algiers radio stated that of the total number of prisoners taken since the new offensive in Italy began, 1500 were captured on the Cassino sector. Four hundred guns have also been captured since the offensive began. The estimate of equipment captured in Cassino shows that it is sufficient for two artillery divisions. The grand total of prisoners since the opening of the Italian campaign is now beyond 20,000.