TO NEW LINE COVERING NAPLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1943, Page 3

TO NEW LINE COVERING NAPLES

Allied Troops on High Ground in Sight of Goal MERCILESS AIR POUNDING OF ENEMY TRANSPORT BADOGLIO CALLS ON ITALIANS TO RESIST BY EVERY MEANS LONDON, September 20. On the Italian front, the Fifth and Eighth armies are pressing on into the mountains north-east of the Salerno bridgehead. General Clark’s forces have extended their grip west of Salerno and now are firmly in control of the high country on the peninsula between the Gulf of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno. Twenty miles away across the gulf is the big objective of Naples. The Allied forces are looking down on a great dockyard. Allied aircraft have been paying a good deal of attention to the main road running between Mount Vesuvius and the sea. North of Salerno, the Germans are still clinging to their defence positions, the pivot on which they are swinging back their line under the pressure of the Fifth and Eighth armies. There is no doubt that they are moving back to a new line, as big columns of enemy transport are on the move. Twenty miles away, Allied fighter-bombers spotted a huge traffic jam and hammered it without interference. They knocked out well over 100 vehicles and shot up as many more. Allied aircraft are making day and night attacks on enemy roads, railways and transport. British troops continue to advance on other parts of the Italian front.

The withdrawal of German forces from Sardinia to the French island of Corsica has been followed by a statement from the Algiers radio station, issued under the name of General Giraud, that men in Corsica wearing white armlets and a black death’s head must be considered as regular soldiers of France. Marshal Badoglio has called on the Italian people to resist the Germans by every means. In view of the German acts of aggression, he said, he was collaborating side by side with the British and Americans, who were now accepting his assistance to drive the enemy from Italy. He asked Italians to cut the enemy’s communications, blow up bridges, destroy their material and above all, not to give in.