RISING ACTIVITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1943, Page 4

RISING ACTIVITY

IN SPITE OF WEATHER IN ITALY VERY HEAVY AIR ATTACKS. • ON GERMANS OPPOSITE EIGHTH ARMY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, November 23. Gradually improving weather in Italy has led to an intensification of battle in the past 24 hours, with frequent patrol clashes, heavy artillery exchanges and increasing air activity from coast to coast. According to the Algiers radio, the Eighth Army has captured Castel di Sangro and Alfedena, but this is not confirmed. The latest reports from the front say the Eighth Army’s left flank has considerably tightened its grip on the German defences in the upper Sangro mountains and is advancing slowly on the road to Avezzano. Eighth Army troops south-west of Alfedena have wrested further ground from the Germans, who at present are making a determined resistance. * Numerically superior Germans northwest of Agone yesterday heavily attacked light Canadian forces. A battle went on for two hours before the Germans withdrew to their old positions. What is officially described aS a fair amount of gun movement has been observed south-west of Mignano.

The situation is static in the Fifth Army’s coastal sector, though German (patrols are operating in greater numbers. along the upper Garigliano. Allied front line troops have been heartened by bomb bursts, fires and explosions throughout the day in the German positions. Allied air forces on the Eighth Army front harried the Germans on a scale not previously seen in Italy. Wave after wave of bombers and fighter-bombers blasted the enemy gun positions and strongpoints on the north bank of the Sangro.