ADVANCES MADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1943, Page 4

ADVANCES MADE

BY BOTH ALLIED ARMIES IN ITALY AIR AND NAVAL ATTACKS ON TARGETS IN ITALY & YUGOSLAVIA (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, December 3. An Algiers communique says the Eighth Army, on the Adriatic coast, has made further progress towards San Vito. Castel Frentano was captured in face of desperate resistance from prepared positions and several counter-attacks. On the Fifth Army front advances were made in one area despite heavy machine-gun fire, mines and barbed wire. The enemy artillery was less active. Both the Eighth and Fifth armies have taken more prisoners. Numerous demolitions and mines are being encountered. Destroyers on Tuesday night bombarded Durazzo, in Albania. Large fires were started and the return fire was ineffective. Escorted heavy bombers attacked the railway yards at Bolzano. Medium bombers attacked a railway bridge* at Chieti. Formations of aircraft continued to co-operate with the Army, attacking enemy positions and communications and destroying motor transport. Light bombers attacked shipping off the Yugoslav coast. Bombers last night attacked Arezzo, a railway centre 37 miles south-east of Florence:

Seventeen enemy aircraft were destroyed and eight of ours are missing. Castel Frentano is eight miles inland and four beyond the Sangro. Flying Fortresses attacking the new submarine pens at Marseilles yesterday shot down eleven intercepting fighters, probably destroyed six and damaged two, says a war correspondent at Allied Headquarters. These figures probably comprise almost the whole of the interceptor force. The main concentration of bombs hit the centre of the submarine pens and left the targets entirely covered by smoke. The correspondent states that Lancrano, south of San Vito, is still in enemy hands.