Word: catania
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...slopes of Mt. Etna and its foothills and on ridges overlooking the Plain of Catania, the Germans had every advantage. Their heavy artillery, anti-tank guns and machine guns bore downward at the British attackers. Northwestward, where the Canadians and Americans were advancing to aid the British and encompass Etna, every hill and defile could become a similar fortress when the Ger mans chose to make...
...Eighth Army. But the Germans were not unmindful of the Americans in the west and in central Sicily. Unopposed, the Seventh could close in on Messina behind the Germans, shutting their only way out. This week Allied headquarters reported that the Germans had flung a line from Catania and volcanic Mt. Etna in the east to the northeastern coast, between the Seventh and Messina...
...Axis anchor of this line was on the plain of Catania, some three miles south of that stoutly defended port. There, for ten days, Germans of the agile Hermann Göring (armored) Division had held the British, waging battles which were still scantily reported in the U.S. press last week. One explanation of this temporary German success probably lay in an Allied communiqué of July 16: "The speed of the advance is very satisfactory, but transport and supporting weapons are of necessity limited during the present stages...
Both in retreat and in their stand near Catania, the Germans already had shown the signs of defeat. Prisoners complained that they were short of tanks, that what tanks they had left were short of fuel. In demolition the Germans had been as skilful as ever. But they were even short of land mines, old standbys of the Wehrmacht in retreat. At this season the rivers were dry, and the Allies had only to march around the ruined bridges. The Germans grew weaker & weaker in the air, until finally Allied soldiers on the ground seldom looked up when they heard...
...bombers and fighter-bombers struck its inner vitals-at Enna, Leonforte and Caltagirone, at the tunnels which pierce the Sicilian hills and offer rare opportunities to block the rail lines. By week's end the R.A.F. reported that the main line along the east coast from Messina to Catania had been blocked, the north Coastal railway from Palermo to Messina cut in one place, the winding line from Palermo across Sicily to Syracuse "destroyed...