HOURLY BECOMING MORE CRITICAL FOR AXIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 July 1943, Page 4

HOURLY BECOMING MORE CRITICAL FOR AXIS

But Hard Battles Still in Prospect FORMIDABLE NATURAL OBSTACLES BEYOND CATANIA PROGRESS OF THE EIGHTH ARMY (By -Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, July 18. The situation in Sicily is hourly becoming more critical for the Axis. Catania, for which the Germans and Italians have fought the hardest battle of the campagin, is. reported to be in flames and about to fall, if it has not fallen already. The Press Association’s military writer tonight noted a tendency to agree that the end of the battle for Catania is in sight, but suggested that it would be a mistake to become overoptimistic concerning the subsequent phases of the campaign in that sector. “Our forward elements in the Catania area,’’ he says, “undoubtedly are meeting considerable resistance. It must be expected that their progress, comparatively speaking, will be slow. There will be even harder fighting when we start up the coast, beyond Catania. The Eighth Army will be faced with natural obstacles as difficult as any it has yet overcome. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent meanwhile has reported that one Eighth Army side column has bypassed Catania and is hurrying towards Paterno. It is officially revealed, says the Reuter correspondent, that the Allied air forces attacked Paterno “ahead of the advance of the Allied land troops. ’’ This suggests that the column which bypassed Catania is now threatening* Paterno, which is due north of Gerbini, eleven miles north-west of Catania, at the foot of Mount Etna.

Today’s Italian communique says the latest raid on Naples caused intense damage in the city and suburbs.