REST CHANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1943, Page 3

REST CHANCE

LOST BV THE GERMANS NO EFFECTIVE OPPOSITION TO LANDING. I BUT ENEMY HOLDING STRONG 'j POSITIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, September 13. A correspondent who landed with the Fifth Army, in a cable message last Friday from the Sal- - emo battlefront, gave a picture of the battlefront which is probably ' descriptive or the ding-dong battles that have been going on since. He says that the Germans started off with a big mistake. They should have made a concentrated tank attack in the early stages of the landing before the Allied guns had been got ashore in any number. Such an attack was expected, but it never came. The enemy thus lost his best chance of nipping the landing in the bud. t •. But the Germans were not by any, means unprepared. From the beaches right back to the rugged hills inland they were in prepared defence positions. They had plenty of their deadly 88mm. guns carefully placed and ready along with many machine gun nests and sniper positions in ditches, orchards, and hedges. All this was in close country, extremely easy to defend, and the Germans made the best use of every opportunity. In fact, he says, there are snipers dug in everywhere, holding out in some of the country that has been captured, and our men are steadily weeding them out. The greatest credit must go to the Allied airmen. Though Salerno is at the extreme limit of fighter range from the nearest air bases in Sicily, they have managed day and night to keep an air umbrella over our forces. It has taken them many hundreds of aircraft to do this because Spitfires can spend only 20. minutes at a time over the front and Lightnings about an hour.