Evening star., 1943-09-19

Tor any comprehension of the battles to
come. The north coast road is an ex-
cellent motor highway-perhaps the best
in Sicily. It is paralleled all the way to
Messina by railroad. But all the way
high, mostly barren mountains come
down to within few yards of the beach,
and in many places the road is cut out
in the sides of these mountains To the
left going toward Messina there is no
level ground anywhere In the rainy
season torrential rivers pour out of the
mountains into the sea. At this time
they are dry, their beds forming deep,
stone-Strewn gullies. One crosses the
road every few miles, necessitating a
bridge.
With this picture it can be appreciated
how easy 1t was for the enemy to defend
this road with relatively small force of
infantrymen and few pieces of artillery
In the hills so as to sweep the highway.
constant series of outf1anking move
ments through the well-nigh impossible
hills was necessary. This required ex-
ertions almost beyond human endurance.
AS for progress down the road itself,
every bridge was blown as the enemy
retreated and all the possible detours for
many yards around were strewn with
mines.
The first fight of any significance came
at Cefalu, the largest town between Pal
ermo and San Stefano, where the enemy
was shelling from a hillside to the east
ward. The bridge over deep gorge was
blown so that it seemed impossible to
move artillery across. But here the gen.
eral commanding the divisions artillery
encountered rare bit of luck in the
form OF former Birmingham, Ala,
grocer and Buffalo, N. Y, cabaret pro-
prietor who had been marooned in his
native Sicily at the outbreak of the war.
He had known every step of the terrain
from childhood. He revealed the exist
ence of an old Roman road through the
hills which had not been used for CEN
turles except as a foot trail, which was
overgrown with bushes and completely
concealed. Even the German and ItaI-
ian troops did not know about it.
Roman Roads.
What magnificent road builders were
those old Romans! More than 1000
years ago they had laid this stone road
bed-perhaps in one of the Sicilian cam
paigns against the Carthagenians. It
had hardly been touched since The
frosts, floods, storms, earthquakes of two
millenniums had done their worst. And
in July, 1943, the general found that it
n oof al
thing on wheels, including some 155-mm.
guns 1t afforded passage for three ar
tillery batteries and vastly facilitated the
taking of Cefalu, an important port for
bringing In supplies. 1t was rough rid
ing, but all riding had been rough in
this Sicilian campaign. Few of Americas
adopted citizens have rendered more
valuable service to Uncle Sam than this
nameless Buffalo hoity-toity joint pro-
prietor.
The Germans-apparently the 45th's
opponents now were almost entirely
German-made their biggest stand at
Tusa, q little mountain town about
miles of the coast road. 1t was captured
by one infantry regiment and another
moved few miles beyond to one of the
bloodiest, most picturesque battles of the
Sicilian campaign-the taking of barren,
desolate, 00-foot-high Motta di Al
fermo. The men of the 45th call this
the Battle of Bloody Ridge In previous
dispatch I referred to it as the Battle OF
the Garden of Olives because of the olive
grove on its summit which was the two
day objective.
The mountainside was subjected to
three-battery concentration of fire under
cover OF which the infantry advanced up
the nearly unclimbable slopes. 1t was
almost impossible to get the weary men
food or water during two days of terrible
ordeal. Communicated mules loaded