HIGH COUNTRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1943, Page 3

HIGH COUNTRY

FACED BY INVADING TROOPS MORE ABOUT INVASION PRELIMINARIES. PASSAGE OF THE STRAITS. ♦ (British Official Wireless.) 'RUGBY, September 3. « A correspondent says the coast all along the Italian mainland; opposite Messina, rises to 6,000 feet a few miles back from the sea and offers good shelter for defending troops and guns. This mountain ridge runs right up the centre of the foot of Italy and it is so steep that transport can only move along the coast road. This road is very much like the one from Catania to Messina .and it presents the enemy with a good opportunity for the demolitions and delaying actions which held up the Eighth Army’s advance in Sicily. For the last'ten days, large numbers of men and vehicles have been pouring to the invasion ports. One correspondent says: “If you imagine a pre-war London traffic jam magnified a hundred times you get some idea of the state of .the roads leading to those ports.” Meanwhile a great fleet of invasion barges was being brought up the coast, under cover of darkness, to take the troops on board. Last night the Allied preparations were completed and the silence over the > Strats was broken by a terrfic artillery barrage as. our guns opened' up. Allied warships joined in the bombardment, while waves of bombers swept over the enemy beach defences, plastering hit; strongpoints and ma-chine-gun positions. Under cover of this incessant bombardment, which knocked out a good number of the enemy’s batteries, the fleet of invasion barges, troop landing-craft and amphibious jeeps, crowded with men and machines, began their journey to the Italian mainland. They were escorted by British cruisers, destroyers, gunboats and small craft.

NEWS ACCLAIMED IN ALL ALLIED COUNTRIES. ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL SIT UP TO HEAR IT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 3. News of the landing in Italy has been received with satisfaction throughout the Allied nations. In Washington President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill sat up until early this morning waiting for the first news flash. The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) described the invasoin as the first step in the occupation of Continental Europe by the Allied armies. The Russian Ambassador to the United States said: “This is good news.” He was calling on Mr Hull with a communication from his Government, but refused to discuss his visit.