EIGHTH ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1943, Page 4

EIGHTH ARMY

POSITIONS METHODICALLY BROADENED

IN SPITE OF GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACKS WIDE-RANGING ALLIED AIR ATTACKS (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) RUGBY, December 14. The Eighth Army yesterday continued to broaden its positions south and south-west of Ortona, in spite of German counter-attacks, which were repelled, says a correspondent at Allied Headquarters. During those counterattacks. several enemy _ tanks were knocked out. Further inland Indian troops captured another 500 German prisoners, after pushing the Germans back.

On the Fifth Army front there was considerable artillery fire in the Liri Valley. Prisoners confirm that the Germans suffered heavy casualties in the mountains. Invaders bombed quays, roads, railvzays and gun emplacements at Terracina, 25 miles west of Gaeta. Nine guns and a building are believed to have been destroyed. The severity of the task confronting the Eighth Army may be judged from the estimate of an Algiers radio commentator that, along a front of some 14 miles, on and beyond the Moro River, 43,000-German troops are massed, with at least three panzer divisions.

An air communique states that Split and Sibenik (Dalmatian ports) were each attacked by medium bombers yesterday. At Split an oil depot was set on fire. At Sibenik the railway yards were all covered. The activity of fighter-bombers and fighters was intensive. A number of gun positions and communications were bombed and motor transport was set on fire. Bridges were damaged at Ponte Corvo and Casello. The Terracina railway centre was well covered. Two of our aircraft are missing.

Terracina is a bottleneck of the coastal road, 55 miles south of Rome.