HARDEST TASK OT THREE YEARS CAMPAIGNING

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 65, 20 March 1944, Page 5

HARDEST TASK OT THREE YEARS CAMPAIGNING

BUT NEW ZEALANDERS HOPPED UP CASSINO United Prees Assn. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Sunday, 7.30 p.m. LONDON, March 18. New Zealanders hold the greater part of Cassino with the Germans resisting determinedly in the southwest section of the town, reports the British United Press correspondent at Allied Headquarters. Allied tanks and infantry are pushing the Germans out of the last footholds inside the town, artillery battering their positions outside. German snipers are still holding out in isolated strongpoints in some parts of Cassino, machincgunners using vantage points just beyond the town in an attempt to impede the flow of Allied reinforcements. Bitter artillery duels raged over Cassino during the past 24 hours, the Germans hurling shells against the Rapido Plain and also against the northern part of Cassino which the first section of New Zealanders captured. Assault forces are moving up Mount Cassino against tenacious German resistance. The Germans counter attacked from positions near the crest in an attempt to push the Allies back down the lower slopes but the Allies beat off the counter-attack and infantry resumed the drive up the mountainside under a smokescreen with an artillery creeping barrage moving ahead. A German High Command communique admits the loss of Cassino railway station after fierce fighting. A bitter struggle of unabated, violenco continues in the centre of Cassino, the communique says.