FULL FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1943, Page 3

FULL FORCE

OF BEST AXIS TROOPS ATTEMPTING TO DEFEND VITAL BOTTLENECK. TASK FOR EIGHTH ARMY. LONDON, July 16. A heavy infantry and tank battle is being fought south of Catania, where for the first time advancing Allied forces are meeting with strong resistance. Military observers in London believe taht the full force of the best Axis troops and equipment is now coming into action. The Axis command is reported to be throwing in the only German units in Sicily in order to stiffen the resistance against the Allied threat to the Catanian plain. A report by Algiers radio that the Allies were storming the city of Catania was premature, and the fate of Lentini and Carlentini, whose capture was reported earlier, is still doubtful. Reuter's correspondent at the Allied headquarters says that the Eighth Army spearheads advancing on Lentini encountered the outposts of a powerful German force which was apparently drawn up across the Lentini bottleneck guarding the entrance to the Catanian plain. This bottleneck, which is north of Lentini, is a strip of land 4 miles wide between Lentini and the Lake Carlentini marshes, which run to the sea. A major highway to Catania strikes across the centre of this neck. The Germans are deploying in the. vicinity of the bottleneck in ever-in-creasing strength, hoping to check the Eighth Army’s advance, and remove the threat to the Catanian plain, with its chain of air-bases as well as the city of Catania. The Algiers correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the Axis command has apparently decided to concentrate most of its forces in the eastern coastal area. Our main coastal force is still moving on, but the Germans have drawn up in strength, supported by tanks and artillery.