The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-01-31

Continued from Page D toll of German aircraft destroyed in the past four days to 152-at a total cost of 19 American and Brit ish planes.
 While the German ground forces below Rome braced for 8 stand against the 5th army invasion thrust, the NaI defenSeS north of CaSsino showed signs of collapsing under the American hammer blows.
 Heavy fighting continued all along the Gustav line, which NaZi prison CTS admitted they had been ordered to hold at all costs, but the Ameri- can drive appeared to have broken a big segment of the enemy fortifica- tlons.
 Although German engineers changed the course of the Rapido river and flooded the surrounding countryside, the Americans forded the stream with tanks and assault troops and threw a savage left hook at the enmey lines above Casino.
 DTlVe NdZS
 The heavy tanks rumbled through a maze of barbed wire entangle- ments and exploding mines to knock out scores of enemy pillboxes. h. fantrymen attacking in their wake drove the Nazis from hills 167 and 223, just north and northwest of CaSSinO.
 Front reports said the doughboys were mopping up enemy remnants in the villages of Cairo and Monte Villa, the latter slightly less than two miles frrno Casino.
 Further north, French Poilus and and Moroccan troops consolidated their newly-won positions on the nrothern slopes eof the Belveder mountain mass and sent patrols stabbing into the enemy positions on Mount Croce.
 On the left wing of the American advance, British troops drove for ward mile up the northern slopes of the Garigliano Valley and cap tured the 1000 foot heights of Mount Tuga, three miles northeast of Cas- telforte.
 Other British units seized Mount Rotondo, a 1,000-foot slope two and one-half miles northwest of Castel- forte, leaving thta enemy strong point virtually encircled.
 The British also advanced slight ly at number of points along the seven-mile line running westward from Castelforte to the sea.
 Anglo American 5th Army troops striking inland from their invasion beachheads below the Italian capi- tai, meanwhile, ran into increasingly heavy German counter attacks.
 officials reports indicated the Nazis were digging in for determ- ined stand along the highways and railroad lines south and southwest of Cisterna.
 GA dispatch from Reynolds Pack ard, United Press correspondent at the invasion front, indicated that the Germans might already have begun to evacuate Rome. Refugees into the Allied lines from the capital, now less than 20 miles from the Anglo-American spearhead, that the NaZis were mining all strategic points in Rome and withdrawing virtually all their troops.
 Another dispatch from Walter Logan, United Press correspondent with the fleet, said six Allied divis- ions. possibly 9O,O0O men, already have been landed on the beaches and that tank and artillery rein forcements were arriving in steady stream.
 The Germans were reported dig ging in on @ five-mile front west of the Terracine-Rome railroad. The new line, along which the Nazis planned to make stand to prevent an Allied thrust against the rear of their Gustav line, ex- ended westward from a point two miles west of Cisterna to within three and one-half miles of the Anzioalbano highway.
 The Allied coulmuniQue again re-