GERMAN DEFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1943, Page 4

GERMAN DEFENCES

SHATTERED WEST OF ETNA ***?JS& BY CAPTURE OF BRONTE & ADERNO. SUCCESS OF ALLIED FLANK ATTACK, (By Teletraph—Press Association —Copyright' (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, August 8. With the capture of Bronte and Aderno, important road and rail centres, Reuter’s correspondent in Sicily says, the whole German defence system west of Mount Etna has been shattered. The capture of Aderno means not only the loss by the Axis of their last east to west road, but also the cutting off of Axis forces who are west of Catania.

A BKish United Press correspondent s:he British troops, who occupied /..! crno, completed the final destruction of (he main Axis defences around the fm.-bills of Mount Etna. ■ The greatest barrage in the Mediterranean area since the Allied guns opened the way to Tunis drove the Axis rearguard from Aderno, says the Associated Press of Great Britain’s correspondent with the Eighth Army. A tremendous weight of fire from approximately 180 25-pounders and larger medium artillery crushed the Germans’ final positions and forced them to evacuate the town. They retired to high ground to the north. Correspondents agree that General Montgomery’s outflanking movement which sealed the fate of Aderno was effected across the worst’country yet encountered in Sicily. The British United Press correspondent says the Canadians carried out an extreme flanking movement, pushing north as far as the area south of Troina. but the enemy’s Etna line would probably still be standing if the Seventy-Eighth Division had not punched their way through the middle of the German defences, by taking Centuripe. The movement, which was brilliantly conceived and executed. ' started after the capture of Agira and the Canadians, even before Regalbuto fell, moved into the roadless mountains on the extreme left of the outflanking move and gradually won their way north-west of Aderno, into an area from which they menaced the whole southern half of the Germans’ Etna line.

EIGHTH ARMY STRIKING AT HEART OF BRIDGEHEAD. ALLIED BOMBERS PULVERISE RANDAZZO. LONDON, August 8. In Sicily the Eighth Army has broken through into the heart of the Messina bridghead, and is now within nine miles' of Randazzo, the main enemy communications centre north of Mt. Etna. A few miles ahead of the troops, Allied bombers attacked a big enemy convoy. The attack started just after dawn, and by evening the air crews reported that the roads round Randazzo were blocked. STAFF TALKS NAZIS & ITALIANS AT VERONA. (Received This Day, 1.25 p.m. LONDON, August 8. The British United Press correspondent on the Italian frontier reports that German military leaders, headed by General Keitel, are holding important military talks with the Italian Chief of Staff, General Ambrosio, and his experts, at Verona.