GREAT DIFFICULTIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1943, Page 4

GREAT DIFFICULTIES

OVERCOME BY ALLIED TROOPS MR ANTHONY EDEN’S SURVE,Y (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, December 14. Reviewing the Italian campaign, in the House of Commons, Mr Eden said the Allied advance in the last three or four months had not covered quite the spectacular distances achieved in the first two months’ fighting. This, was not in any sense due to lack of initiative. We had now reached the narrowest part of the Italian peninsula —the Apennines stretched almost from coast to coast and where they did not swollen rivers took over. These natural features afforded exceptional facilities for successful defence and the Germans, as they were forced relentlessly back, were making extremely good use of those defences. Added to this was heavy and persistent rain, which swelled every river and made everywhere a sea of mud. Touching on the details of the campaign, Mr Eden spoke of the arrival on the Eighth Army front of the Second New Zealand Division—“that most gallant veteran division”—prior to the launching of the main assault on the Sangro. He said that in the present operations (on and beyond the Moro) the New Zealand Division was trying ot gain high ground from which it would .be able to help the in the coastal zone.

Of the struggle on the Fifth Army front, Mr Eden said the enemy had had plenty of time to prepare formidable mountain defences, but thanks to the gallantry of the Allied infantry all the more important hill features were now in our hands and it seemed that the •Germans must be forced to withdraw further to positions covering Cassino. “Great battles are impending,” he said, “and for this effort we shall need all our strength, courage and unity in a greater measure perhaps than ever before.” Mr Eden said the casualties from the landing in Italy to November 23 for the British , were 3,212 killed, 9,709 wounded and 3,153 missing. The American casualties to November 24 were 1,603 killed, 6,361 wounded and 2,685 missing. Just over 6,000 German prisoners had been taken. The German News Agency war correspondent reports violent fighting at the Eighth Army bridgeheads at the Moro River, where he says the British have thrown in strong formations of Empire troops. Although claiming that the majority of the attacking units were repelled the correspondent admits that “the attackers succeeded in forcing a temporary break through at, one point.” AMERICAN VIEW ITALY TAKING SECOND PLACE TO IMPENDING ONSLAUGHT IN WESTERN EUROPE (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, December 14. Mr .Hanson Baldwin, writing in the “New York Times,” says: “The chief motive for the relatively slow progress in Italy is deliberate, The spotlight of strategy has shifted to Western Europe, where a great amphibious invasion is obviously prepared. “Italy (he adds) is becoming a secondary theatre. W T e are pushing back the Germans there with the utmost possible economy, reserving our main strength for concentration in Britain. Undoubtedly we shall try, with armour, to punch through some of the defiles on the road to Rome but there is little reason to believe that the infantrymen’s slow and painful job can be materially speeded up.”,