BRISK AIR ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1943, Page 3

BRISK AIR ATTACKS

ON GERMANS ESCAPED FROM SICILY HARRIED ON BEACHES & ROADS. TORPEDO HITS ON SEVERAL SHIPS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.15 a.m.) RUGBY, August 17. The retreating Axis forces which have been able to make their way to the Italian mainland are finding even there that they have little respite from the fierce air attacks which the NorthWest African Air Force is maintaining, says a correspondent in North Africa. The evacuation was chiefly carried out by night and last night, for over 100 miles along the Italian coastline, Wellingtons of the R.A.F. patrolled the beaches between Palmi and Pizzo, in the toe of Italy, attacking concentrations of coastal vessels and concentrations of troops disembarking. Other Wellingtons, in bright moonlight, bombed the airfield of Viterbo, 45 miles north of Rome, while Wellingtons of the Coastal Air Force went inside the boom defences of Port Imperia, in the Gulf of Genoa, and torpedoed a medium-siz-ed merchant vessel. Reconnaissance reports from pilots later in the same area showed no sign of the vessel. During the day there was a continuous attack against enemy communications, railways and bridges being bombed on land and merchant vessels attacked in the straits. A Beaufighter squadron missed breakfast to carry out an attack on coastwise shipping and, after the attack, saw smoke coming from a merchant vessel which was hit by a torpedo. A second merchantman in the same convoy was hit amidships by a torpedo.