GERMAN RESISTANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1943, Page 4

GERMAN RESISTANCE

TO CANADIAN ONSLAUGHT STUBBORN AS AT VIMY RIDGE. SOME BERLIN RADIO CLAIMS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, July 29. Some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign is occurring in the Canadian sector, says the British United Press Algiers correspondent. The German resistance is as stubborn as it was at Vimy Ridge in the last war. The Canadians, fighting extremely well, inflicted heavy casualties, but there have been Canadian losses. The Eighth Army, meanwhile, is encountering intensive mining and also demolitions along the front in the Catania area, where it is facing one of its toughest tasks. Axis sources continue to play up the severity of the Eighth Army’s artillery barrages in the Catania sector, where the enemy claims that General Montgomery has been forced to bring up additional reinforcements. The Berlin radio declared that Montgomery’s artillery fired 16,000 shells in a single two-hour concentrated barrage against a sector of the central Catanian front which is only 550 yards broad. ‘‘The German soldiers have been ordered,” the radio adds, “to dig in deeply in order to be

able to rise up arid beat back the British infantry following up the barrages." Another broadcast from Berlin claimed that the defenders of Sicily were taking a bigger toll of Allied troops and materials. Reuter's correspondent at Allied headquarters states that the Allied forces in Sicily have now taken 75,000 prisoners, of whom the Americans captured approximately three-quarters.