SANGRO ASSAULT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1943, Page 4

SANGRO ASSAULT

ESGHTH ARMY’S SMASHING BLOW FURTHER BATTLE DETAILS. ROAD CUT BEHIND GERMAN LINE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, November 30. A war correspondent with the Eighth Army describes how, smashing forward from its bridgehead at dawn on Monday, the army had, six hours later, driven a wedge into the German winter line. The Germans fought fiercely to defend it, but the British forces pressed resciiHely up rising ground, getting astride a road which runs along the top, behind the German positions. The Germans had already had an ample taste for a few days of the weight the British artillery and bombers could put down on them, but it was only a sample compared with the weight of high explosive rained on them that day. Eventually the British forces, succeeded in cutting a road to Lanciano, although the Germans launched tanks against them, which resulted in heavy fighting. GAP TORN IN ENEMY DEFENCE BARRIER TREMENDOUS SHELLING BY ALLIED GUNS (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) LONDON, November 30. The Eighth Army, in ten hours of stiff fighting, tore a gap in the German Sangro line which means that the line is lost as a defence barrier. It was in every sense a smashing attack, supported by more guns than the Germans have been able to mass for a single battle even at the height cf their triumphs. Over 100,000 shells blasted the German positions between midnight on Sunday and dusk on Monday. The attack opened at the first light yesterday. British assault infantry moved forward up slopes and less than an hour later they charged headlong straight at the German defences, while a mighty barrage from hundreds of l guns continuously pounded the defences. The Eighth Army captured Mozzogrogna village, three miles north of the Sangro and four miles from the Adriatic, on the road to Lanciano, which is only three miles ahead. Correspondents say there was bloody street fighting in Mazzogrogna, in which German flame-throwers spat sixty foot jets against the British, but the defences were overcome by brilliantly conceived and' skilfully executed tactics. A British United Press correspondent on the Sangro bridgehead says are artillery barrage and Ghurka knives won the day. The artillery bombardments were so heavy that many German prisoners admitted that they were glad to get out. Many were shell sick and bomb dizzy'. There were Germans who cried for mercy when the Ghurkas charged with their kukris. Mazzogrogna was turned-slowly into a smouldering pyre under shelling and bombing.

AIR ACTIVITIES

OVER THE BATTLE AREA .— * AND MUCH FURTHER AFIELD MITCHELLS RAID SARAJEVO (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.50 a.m.) RUGBY, November 30. “General Montgomery’s battle-tough-ened troops have done it again,” writes a correspondent. The British, Indian and New Zealand troops who pushed back the Germans and Italians so many times in the Desert have once more broken into the main defences of the Germans north of the Sangro River. Marshal Von Kesselring expected a standstill during the winter months, but General Montgomery took the opposite view. He issued his famous order of the day:- ‘Onward to Rome!’ “Today the bridgehead on the enemy side of the river runs 12 miles inland," the correspondent adds, “and while it is not yet linked with the second bridgehead at Archi, we are crossing the river there as well. We are fighting for a high ridge rising 750 to 1,000 feet, running north-west from Mozzogrogna and south-wes’t to Fossacesia, with San Maria in the middle. We have captured a number of prisoners.” On the Fifth Army front a slight advance is reported in the American sector, where, a forward move in the area of Castel Nuovo represents an advance of about a mile.

Sarajevo, reminiscent of the start of the last war, was attacked for the first time from the air by Mitchells, whose bombs fell on an explosive factory, barracks, railway tracks and other objectives. The raiders did not have to trouble to avoid hitting the statue of the Serbian national hero, for that had already been removed by .the Germans. Flying Fortresses, unescorted, as were the Mitchells, flew to an airfield and railway at Grosseto, 80 miles northwest of Rome. Twenty-two hits were recorded on railway yards and forty railway cars were destroyed. The airfield was also severely handled, bombs falling on runways and among parked aircraft and administrative buildings. The two raids were made within an hour.

Fighters and fighter-bombers, with little pause, maintained their bombing and strafing attacks on enemy troops, transport concentrations, strongpoints, machine-gun nests and other targets. On the previous night, Bostons set fire to the railway junction at Pescara and also attacked port installations. Three of .our aircraft are missing.