RACE TO THE NORTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1943, Page 4

RACE TO THE NORTH

IN TEMPERATURES OF 100 DEGREES ADVANCE OF THE EIGHTH Army. NOT ENCOUNTERING OPPOSITION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, September 16. .-■ CT While the Fifth Army has taken „ the offensive between the Sele and Colore rivers, the Eighth Army has continued its inspiring race to join up with the Fifth Army. Though - apparently' not encountering opposition, the Eighth Army must be enduring a gruelling experience, in a temperature of over 100 degrees. The Eighth Army has reached Sapri, 25 miles north of Scalea and - is within 40 miles of Agropoli, which is the southernmost part of the Allied line in the Salerno area. Reuter’s war correspondent, in a despatch filed at 4. p.m. yesterday, described how he and other correspondents drove across No Man’s Land to- ■ wards Salerno, ahead of the Eighth Army’s vanguard, and linked up with an American patrol about .ten miles south of the main American positions ? on the Gulf of Salerno. ' While anxiously awaiting General Montgomery’s men, the Fifth Army to- ■ clay battled fiercely in the Salerno area. The Allied troops drove the Germans ) from positions north-west of Altavilla and are pursuing enemy troops withdrawing between the Sele and Colore rivers (the Colore runs' into the Sele just north of Albanella). The Fifth Army, surging inland from the Salerno beaches at dawn today, smashed through the German defences in the southern sector, in its first offensive since the original landings. The Algiers radio tonight reported: ‘•The enemy has been dislodged from several positions. The advance which started north-west of Altavilla is continuing.”