GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1943, Page 3

GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACKS

In Italian East Coastal Sector ALLIES ADVANCING STEADILY ON BROAD FRONT POWERFUL AND WIDELY EXTENDED AIR . ATTACKS LONDON, October 5. The Fifth and Eighth armies in Italy are advancing slowly. German resistance is rather more strong than before. A correspondent states that the Allied forces are maintaining their pressure all along the 100-mile line. The line runs north-east from a point just north of Naples for more than 30 miles and then due north for another 60 miles to the Adriatic coast,’near.Termoli, 125 miles east of Borne. Enemy resistance is particularly determined in the coastal sectors. At Termoli, both the Eighth Army and the Germans have been reinforced, but the Allies have decisively beaten off German counter-attacks. The Allied forces are advancing north of Naples at the rate of miles a day through thickly wooded orchard country. They now hold the two chief airfields near Naples and possess all airfields of any consequence south of Rome. Allied medium bombers were out attacking road traffic all along the' German line of retreat north of Naples. At night, bombers again pounded enemy communications on the road to Rome. American Fortresses penetrated deep into Northern Italy and achieved their most destructive raid on a key railway junction just south of the Brenner Pass. The marshalling yards at Pisa were also attacked. Enemy airfields in Greece were attacked for the first time yesterday by the North-West African Air Fot’ce flying from their new bases in Italy. They bombed an airfield in the extreme south of Greece and Liberators went for an airfield ten miles north of Athens. Middle East bombers also attacked airfields in Greece. Fighting on the island of Kos continued yesterday. The Germans claim that the island is now in their hands. There is no confirmation of this report in Cairo. In the Western Mediterranean, Corsica is now completely liberated. The French National Committee has decreed that flags throughout French territory shall be flown tomorrow in honour of this victory.