HAIL OF SHELLS POURED INTO RANDAZZO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 August 1943, Page 4

HAIL OF SHELLS

POURED INTO RANDAZZO

GERMAN DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN ON APPROACHES.

WHOLE MOUNTAINSIDES BLOWN UP.

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, August 10. British gunners are now under five miles from Randazzo and are already pumping a hail of shells into the town, says the British United Press Algiers correspondent. The Germans are not expected to give up Randazzo without the stiffest fight.' They are using every trick they have learned in the long retreat from. El Alamein to try to hold up the British and American forces before Randazzo as long as possible, realising that if the town falls too quickly the Axis forces retreating to Messina will be gravely endangered. The enemy has begun a dynamite campaign on a really large scale. Whole sides of mountains are being blown up, often wiping out the narrow roadways below them, over which our men must advance. The left wing of the American Seventh Army, moving along the north coast, is less than five miles from Cape Orlando, after advancing six miles in the past 24 hours. The Seventh Army is also advancing eastward from Troina and has junctioned with the Eighth Army in front of the Randazzo Pass, between Bronte and Troina, thus completing an unbroken Allied front and possibly cutting off a number of Germans. It • is a month today since the British and Americans landed at. different points .on the south coast. Since the opening of the campaign the Eighth Army has advanced 80 miles and the Seventh Army 120 miles. AXIS TROOPS TRAPPED. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent says that, by sealing up the triangular trap south of Troina, the Eighth Army, m a rapid advance north of Aderno, has cut off all possible escape for German troops. It is uncertain how many Axis troops are caught in the trap, but it is unlikely that rearguards, who were told to fight to the last man, got away. The correspondent continues that General Montgomery, whose movements on the right coastal flank are now severely limited by the narrow deployment area between Mt. Etna and the sea, has been able to send the bulk of his army around Mt. Etna for a big blow against Randazzo. The converging Allied forces are now bearing down against Randazzo over roads thickly sown with mines and with road-blocks barring every defile. The German resistance in this vital salient is stiffening hourly. The ground is essentially .suited to the enemy’s delaying type of warfare. Every feature of the fantastically rugged terrain can be used to form natural defences. It is a tremendous task trying to clear every ridge, cave and rock offering the enemy concealment. ■ The Allies- are maintaining absolute air superiority and throwing the full weight of the North-West African Air Forces against the enemy’s lines of communication and supply. Bombcarrying fighters all day swept up and down the roads, bombing lines of motor transport and causing blocks on the narrow highways leading from the German front. The naval bombardment is making the entire coastal road northward through Taormina extremely hazardous for the Germans’ retreating columns. A British United Press correspondent reports that Flying Fortresses have now joined in an increasingly heavy day and night shuttle service maintained by Allied planes over tho tip of the Messina bridgehead and the Messina Straits. R.A.F. Halifaxes and Liberators have also made new attacks against San Giovanni, the Italian terminus of the Messina Ferry. Our planes significantly found no fighter opposition worth mentioning over the Messina “Dunkirk” area, including the Messina Straits and the toe of Italy, but Messina’s anti-aircraft barrage is still being maintained.