BLASTING THEIR WAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1943, Page 3

BLASTING THEIR WAY

ALLIED ARMIES IN ITALY

Through One Enemy Counter-Attack After Another

BATTLE AREAS LITTERED WITH GERMAN DEAD BERLIN REPORTS LANDING ATTEMPT IN DALMATIA LONDON, December 21. Both Allied armies in Italy continue to beat back the Germans yard by yard. The Eighth Army particularly is having to blast its way through one counter-attack after another. The Germans are paying a very heavy price without obtaining’ results and the Allies are battling their way forward. The ground that is being won is more and more thickly covered with German dead. One attack was launched against a sector held by New Zealanders, in an attempt by the Germans to push our troops back across the Ortona-Orsogna Road. The attack began at 3 o’clock in the morning, with two flame-throwers spurting flames 50 yards long backed up by strong forces of infantry and tanks. One flame-thrower was quickly knocked out by our tanks and the other expended its flames on positions the New Zealanders had left empty as a blind. An Allied barrage then opened up and quickly smashed the attack. One New Zealand, major with plenty of battle experience said he had never seen so many dead Germans in one place. The Eighth Army is across the lateral road in a number of places, in some as much as a mile. Fighting is reported in the streets of Ortona. On the Fifth Army’s front, German aircraft were out in greater strength. Allied anti-aircraft gunfire shot down three out of a force of 21 enemy planes and damaged two more. The German news agency reports a landing attempt near Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. The report is not confirmed from any Allied source.