HARD FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1943, Page 4

HARD FIGHTING

EXPECTED IN MAINLAND CAMPAIGN DIFFICULT COUNTRY FAVOURS GERMANS. NARROW CORRIDOR BETWEEN SEA & MOUNTAINS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) RUGBY, September 12. “If the Germans in the Naples area “ go on fighting as hard as at present their expulsion from Italy may take some time,” reports a British correspondent near Salerno. “They have ■' here all the conditions which made defence easy in Tunisia and Sicily. The stretch of coast and mountains is, in fact, rather easier to defend. There is less room for an army to spread out than on the coast of Sicily. Enormous quantities of heavy equipment have been driven from the beaches up the very narrow one way tracks and sandy , lanes, between orchards and tomato vines. Even when you push further 1 into the Sele plain, bordering the Gulf of Salerno, the country does not open out. The Germans are using every rise of ground to delay us. They do not have to pull back to the higher mountains which ring this plain. If they did * that it might be easier to shell them oft these bare rocky slopes. Before you .come to the steeper hills there is - a gradually rising series of small foothills and, as the German fall back, they can place 88-millimetre guns, machineguns and mortars behind each row of foothills in turn. There has to be a set battle for each fresh position instead of a smooth advance. It should be remembered that our landing in J. the Gulf of Salerno was, by all military rules, one of the boldest landing ever made. We deliberately chose to land beyond the normal range of fighter aircraft against an enemy known to have strong fighter and bomber forces on many airfields within easy reach. Over this battlefield, as the enemy well knew, Spitfires from Sicily can stay only about twenty minutes. We should have been bombed and strafed off the beaches and harried mercilessly from the air, but, apart from a few uncomfortable moments each day and night, _ nothing of the sort happened. The" reason may be that the day and night offensive against railways and airfields, " which went on for weeks before the in- - vasion, disorganised the Luftwaffe. All the same, this campaign should not be expected to be more fast until we have - several airfields in working order. To get them our infantry have to fight in the hard, uphill way of Tunisia and Sicily.” 2 The correspondent added that the invaders did not meet resentment from - the Italians, some even making the inT nocent suggestion that they were now ■> almost allies. There were a few who H resisted at first, not having heard of the armistice, and there might have been some who would have liked to go on fighting? The desire of the majority • was to go back to their homes and re- . sume family life, but there might be a small, fretful minority. THREE MORE DESTROYERS ARRIVAL AT MALTA. AT LEAST 14 SUBMARINES ACCOUNTED FOR. (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 12. The Algiers radio says three additional Italian destroyers arrived at 2 Malta this morning. At least fourteen ■ Italian submarines have been accountbed for, although some of them are still “ at sea : MARTIAL LAW DECLARED BY GERMANS. 2 I - IN OCCUPIED ITALIAN TERRITORY. (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 12. - The German controlled Italian radio 2 broadcast a proclamation by Air Mar'“shal Kesselring, declaring martial law .; over all Italian territory under German control, providing the death penalty 2 for organisers of strikers, saboteurs and ■jfrahc-tireurs, ordering an immediate 2resumption of train and postal services 7_and forbidding private correspondence.