MIGNANO TAKEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1943, Page 4

MIGNANO TAKEN

ACCORDING TO SWISS RADIO GERMANS FORCED BACK. TOWARDS FLOODED RIVER'. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) LONDON, December 9. The Swiss radio tonight reported that the Fifth Army had occupied Mignano. Reuter says the British forces which yesterday stormed and captured Monte Croce are forcing the Germans back towards the Garigliano River, which at present is flooded. The Germans, however, still hold lofty defences north of the Capua-Rome road. The Americans, fighting west of Filignano and also north of Venafro, are still meeting a heavy resistance. The Germans have reinforced their artillery in the Venafro area and are now hurling down fierce barrages. Americans in the rugged area west ’of Filignano are storming and wiping out rockbound concreted pill-boxes one after another. The Germans have brought in Alpine units to man their' west flank in the Apennines. According to the Paris radio, Eighth Army advanced units have reached the suburbs of Ortona. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent reports that Marshal Kesselring is throwing in fresh panzer grenadiers in an effort to stem at all costs 'the Eighth Army drive for Pescara. Allied fighterbombers in Italy are employing a new method of attack which is known as “cabrank - ’ bombing, says Reuter. Instead of waiting at an airfield for Army instructions to bomb an objective, fighter-bombers patrol the battlefront. The pilots, while airbound, are ordered by radio telephones to attack a target marked by a smoke flare. Each patrol is regularly relieved. The Berlin radio stated that about a division of Italian troops is at present operating in the American sector of the Fifth Army front. air operations. “The Eleusis and Tatoi airfields, near Athens, were attacked by heavy bombers yesterday,” states Allied Headquarters in North Africa. “A small force also bombed the harbour and shipping at San Stefano. In each case the target was well covered. The railway centre of Orte and Civita Vecchia Harbour were bombed by medium bombers and a viaduct at Spoleto was attacked. Lighter aircraft operated on an increased scale against enemy ground positions and communications. During these and other operations, four enemy aircraft were destroyed. Seven of our are missing.”