Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 April 1944 — Page 9

Here Is Your War—the Boys in Italy Want The Folks Back Home to Know It's Tough

(Continued From Page One)

but with these considerable advantages won: ; 1. The Mediterranean cleared for allied shipping to the Middle East. 2. Italy knocked out of the war except for a Fascist remnant scarcely holding propaganda value to its Nazi masters. i 3. The great network of air fields at Foggia nesting allied planes that fly down daily to pound German targets in southern Europe and the Balkans—now hammering enemy communications centers just ahead of the onrushing Russian army. .

Hard Lessons Learned

These are substantial achievements but the limited nature of allied investment of forces has sometimes resulted in spectacular disappointments such as at Cassino and Anzio, Correspondents at those fronts believe that allied leaders have learned many lessons which will be applied to the forthcoming battle in western Europe. Here are the front-by-front reports of the correspondents: James E. Roper, Cassino front— The allies’ latest attempt to overrun Cassino was an example of trying to do too much with too little. They over-estimated the ability. of allied bombers to destroy the dug-in German garrison and under-estimated the amount of infantry needed to take the town after the bombardment. Cassino offers lessons that every

allied general will study. before the opening of the western front, along which the Germans probably will be dug in even deeper than they were at Cassino and will resist even more methodically.

Miscalculation Seen The failure to use more infantry seems to have been due primarily to miscalculation, although allied generals have not had unlimited resources at their disposal. They have been far short of the 3-to-1 superiority an attacking force is supposed to have in four major assaults—the Americans’ bloody

‘|failure to cross the Rapido river,

three miles south . of Cassino, in mid-January; the Americans’ first

thrust into Cassino with 38 men and

two tanks in early February; the New Zealanders’ attempt to capture the Cassino railroad station Feb. 18 with two companies and the latest New Zealand and Indian assaults on Cassino.

‘Tragic Mistake’

On Feb. 8 the allies came close to capturing the Monte Cassino Monastery, which would have cut off the Germans and provided a dominating height to fight from. I watched that attack from a dugout 400 yards from the abbey and saw allied troops get within 75 yards of the walls. If a French regiment of infantry had been thrown into the fight that night I believe the mountain would have been taken.

The failure to provide more in-

r——

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from a Liberator a my vantage point, which the time with Lt.

nels to resist the infantry. \ Allied intelligence apparently had not considered the possibility of the Germans utilizing the ancient tunnels under Cassino, although the Todt labor groups were known to have been working in Cassino as far back as January, Some officers now feel they should have guessed the tunnels were being incorporated in Cassino’s defensive network. The one thing the bombing has done is to make the streets impassable for armor. With the armor stuck, Cassino remains a job for infantry and that's what the allies haven't had enough of.

New Attack Brewing

Robert Vermillion, Anzio beachhead—the beachhead south of Rome | has been quiet for the last 30 days; and everywhere in the 90 square] miles of American and British-held| soil there is an awareness that the! curving front is likely to expand in the direction of Rome, Neither side holds the initiative at the moment but the balance is so delicate either may seize it with brief preparation. Both sides have powerful artillery concentrations and armored forces ready to speadhead an attack. This situation has prevailed since the last German attack in March between Carroceto and Cisterna, which was beaten off with heavy losses to the Germans in men and armor and not without considerable American casualties. Both ‘sides have repaired the damage and now! each waits for the other's next! move,

Commander Confident

Both sides have reached the highest point of defensive strength. The Germans are laying minefields, stringing barbed wire and erecting strong points all around the allied perimeter. The allies also lie behind wire and mines. The beachhead commander fis confident the Anglo-Americans can withstand another attack as great as the Germans launched in mid-

American soldiers on the beéichhead, fighting for the first time in flat land where movements by day are suicide and by the bright Italian moon are almost equally dangerous, are becoming increasingly “attack-minded.” They are tired of lying all day in slit trenches or crouching in foxholes exchanging a few shots with the enemy or engaging him in inconclusive “combat patrol” action.

Anxious to Attack

Many of the allied soldiers express a desire to attack, take the losses “at one crack” and “get somewhere.” Clinton B. Conger, 8th army front -—S8ince Montgomery's Sangro offensive last November expired two miles above Ortona with a counterattack by German paratroopers, the rain has kept the 8th army almost static in its Adriatic coastal positions. The only offensive action was the New Zealanders’ gallant but unsuccessful charge aaginst Orsogna in December. The right flank of the $th faces almost insurmountable obstacles in a series of river crossings between its present line and Pescara. To the southwest the Germans are anchored to the snowcovered Maielll mountains, ranging from six to 10,000 feet high. Frequent rains are melting the snows but mud and mire still rule this battlefront.

4TH TERM? MRS. R. ‘HASN'T. AN IDEA’

WASHINGTON, April 7 (U. P.).—~— Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt has absolu no idea, she says, if the President will consider running for a fourth term, but she is positive that nothing on earth could persuade her to accept a public office. “I don't intend asking him,” she told her press conference yesterday. “These are things he would have to ‘decide for himself.” The . question of the dent’s candidacy arose after Roosevelt was asked for comment on Wendell Willkie’s withdrawal from the presidential race. | She had none.

‘IMPOSSIBLE’ INSIDE

LOOP MADE BY ‘FORT’

(Continued Pfom Page One) we grabbed the control column

and helped the plane continue

through its arc. : “When we came out, we slipped into a left wing spin. After two turns, I ordered the crew to prepare to bail out and put ,all possible pressure forward on the controls. Hide in Cloud

“We dropped to 12,000 feet and began a straight dive. The tail gunner yelled that five German

fighters were on our tail, so I let the ship continue to dive. The air speed indicator showed well

over 400 miles per haur. “We finally hit a cloud at 4500

feet and stayed in it until we

shook the fighters.”

As the battered plane hobbled homeward, Raedeke found that during the loop, a waist gunner

broke his heel

The bombardier, 2d Lt. Sidney Melshenker of Chicago, was held

in his seat by centrifugal force.

Navigator 2d Lt. Edward Zimmerly of Socotto, N. M., stuck to the ceiling and dropped on his head when the plane swung back

to normal.

The plane landed at an R. A. F. base with a flat tire, no rudder control and only five minutes of

gas in the tanks.

|Odessa Besieged by Russians ~ From the Land, Sea and Air|

(Continued From Page One)

to mud, but it appeared to be ham{pering the German retreat more than the Soviet advance. Gen. Rodion ¥Y. Malinovsky's 3d Ukrainian army swept up more than 100 towns and villages on the near approaches to Odessa yesterday, severing the last vestiges of the enemy's escape routes except for a single inadequate coastal railway that depends on a ferry line to ford the five- - Imile-wide Dniester lagoon. Some 250 miles to the northwest, the battle of annihilation against the 400-square-mile German Skala pocket appeared to be entering its final phase with the enemy attempting to evacuate high-ranking officers from the encircled area by transport planes. Russ air force fighters blockading the shrinking pocket shot down 19 German planes in dogfights yesterday . while ground forces captured 29 big transport planes on airfields overrun in their advance. Nearly 4000 more Germans were killed inside the pocket yesterday, boosting the toll since the encirclement was completed to 12,200. Four towns were seized, including the main center of resistance, Skala, 38 miles northeast of Cernauti. Front reports said the Germans

but futilely in attempts to break through the Soviet ring, then blowing up their tanks and heavy equipment to prevent their falling into Soviet hands after they were repulsed. Other elements of Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov's 1st Ukrainian army beat off all German attempts to break through from the southwest to the relief of the encircled garrison of Tarnopol in old Poland, where one of the flercest street battles of the Russian war was in progress. © Official dispatches said the Germans were suffering heavily in men and armor. For the fourth straight day, there were no new reports of the Soviet advance across the plains of northeastern Rumania. The Russians advanced to within 14 miles northeast of the center of Odessa, biggest Soviet city still in German hands, yesterday with the capture of Sverdlovo, only nine miles from the mile-wide land corridor into Odessa from the east between the Black sea and the Kuyalnitsi lagoon. To the northwest, the Russians drove down the Odessa-Kiev railway to Karpovo, 23 miles from Odessa and 21 miles north of the Odessa-Ovidopol railway, the only land escape line remaining in Ger-

were counter-attacking fanatically

man hands.

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