ALLIED FORCES ON ITALIAN MAINLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1943, Page 3

ALLIED FORCES ON ITALIAN MAINLAND

Thirty Miles of Coastline Occupied STRONGER OPPOSITION EXPECTED FURTHER NORTH r'' ' ENEMY COMMUNICATIONS SEVERELY DAMAGED LONDON, September 5. British and Canadian troops have now occupied 30 miles of the Italian coastline and the advance is continuing. Many more prisoners, mostly Italians, have been captured. General Montgomery is directing operations from Beggio, where he arrived a few hours after the invasion began. Later, he reviewed Canadian troops. Italian civilians are just as friendly as they were in Sicily. Very little active opposition has so far been encountered. There has been only a limited amount of artillery fire. The British and Canadian troops have not yet come up against Nazi minefields, but enemy demolitions have slightly affected the progress of the forward troops. It is considered likely that the Germans will make a stand north of the bottleneck to the Calabrian Peninsula. The real fight has yet to come. Allied aircraft are finding a great scarcity of targets m the invasion area. Twenty, Italian fighters off the south-west coast appeared to be looking for Allied shipping. They ran into a patrol of Spitfires, which shot down eight of the enemy planes and damaged eight more. . Photographs taken by reconnaissance planes show that Axis railway communications have been severely damaged throughout the length and breadth of Italy. The chaotic condition of Italian communications is playing a considerable part in the lack of Axis opposition to the invasion forces in the south.