RELENTLESS PRESSURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 December 1943, Page 3

RELENTLESS PRESSURE

MAINTAINED BY FIFTH ARMY AMERICANS FIND NEW USE FOR .BAZOOKA. EFFECTIVE IN CLEARING • STRONGPOINTS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, December 10. Better weather in Italy is resulting in more activity along the whole front. The military commentator of the United Nations radio at Algiers states that on Friday the flood waters of the Garigliano River and its tributary the ■Liri, were receding. He added: “In this area of the Fifth Army front the Germans are doing everything they can to delay our advance. They have placed minefields, demolitions and long stretches of barbed wire along the soggy river bank. The main German positions in the region of the Mignano gap were threatened with envelopment after British and American units had struck in separate thrusts. Steady and relentless pressure by the Fifth Army continues and they are wiping out German gun positions and entrenchments in the hills. The entire range of hills directly south of the gap is now in Allied hands, but there are still German defensive positions on the upper side of the gap, north of the road from Capua to Rome.” A war correspondent with the Fifth Army says steady progress was made on the Fifth Army front on Thursday, where the main activity consisted of the consolidation of gains and disposing of enemy pillboxes in mountainous positions. The bazooka, the Americans’ successful anti-tank weapon, figured in a new role in the day’s operations, when American troops, operating the weapon from close range, found it extremely effective in clearing German strongpoints. A considerable quantity of small arms was included among the day’s booty. The advance took our troops to even ground, from which the Germans finally counter-attacked on Wednesday. ,