SHRINKING STEADILY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 July 1943, Page 3

SHRINKING STEADILY

AREA HELD BY ENEMY IN SICILY IMPORTANT GAINS MADE BY AMERICANS. SOME GERMANS SURRENDERING READILY ' (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright I (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, July 30. The Axis-held area in Sicily is steadily shrinking under mounting Allied pressure, but there is no dramatic change in the general position. Pivoting on the Eighth Army positions before Catania, the Canadians in the centre and the Americans in the northern sector are wresting ravines and defiles from the enemy, who is being squeezed more tightly into the island’s northern corner. Today's Italian communique states: “Our forces in Sicily are being tried sorely and without respite by renewed and violent developments in each sector.” The battle for Catania is in its twelfth day, with artillery and warships pounding the German positions and also the town, which is reported to be almost completely evacuated by civilians. The Berlin radio says the battle for Catania continues with the Eighth Army using gigantic quantities of ammunition. A British United Press correspondent, cabling from the central Sicilian front, says: “Germans who had fought in Poland, France and Russia surrendered almost like Italians after the great three-hour artillery barrage that opened the way to Agiro. The Americans on the northern front, pressing on after the capture of Nicosia and Agiro, have caled three ridges a thousand feet high and outflanked German batteries by circuitous, mountain routes and are now exerting relentless pressure on the hastily-entrenched enemy. The American line has been pushed on at several points towards San Stefano.” Reuter says the American progress is expected to be slowed up somewhat because the 29th Panzer Division of Grenadiers apparently has taken over the whole extreme north sector.