The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-05-31
BRITISH TROOPS
BEAT BACK COUN7ERA7TACKS
MADVANCE ON ROME HILLS
|LANUVIO SMOKES
AFTER BARRACE
Two New Ridges Captured
By Tank-Led Yanks
Attacking Town

A l. l. l 3 D -HEADQUAR
TIERS, Naples, May 30.-(P)
American and BIRTHS h
troops ground yard-by-yard
into the Nazis' final fortress
wall before Rome today, re-
polling scores of flaming coun-
terattacks as they made sat
isfactory gains" through the
bristling Alban foothills with
in 16 miles of the Italian CAP
ital.
I'VE now stand on the threshold
OF Rome" declared 1t. Gen. Mark
W. Clark, commander of the Fifth
army, in an address over the
graves of American dead on the
Anzlo beachhead. Before m any
days have passed We shall have
freed this firet of the European
capitals from Nazi domination
The Nazis were offering savage
resistance in an effort to stem the
immediate threat to Rome until
the bulk of Field Marshal Albert
~Kesselring's shattered 10th armv
could be withdrawn up the Via
Casllina and along two secondary
highways from it's disastrous stand
on the Hitler line.
In a frontline dispatch filed at
7:30 pm, Daniel de Luce of the
Associated Press. said tank led
American troops had captured two
ridges 500 yards apart after slug
glng all day in the midst of Ger.
man strongpoints southwest of La
nuvio.
He said that Lanuvio, is miles
southwest of Rome, was smoking
from a daylong Allied artillery
barrage, but that defenses of the
fortified hilltop town still were un-
broken.
Struggle of Attrition
1T is more a struggle of attri-
ton than humiliation, at least in
It's present aspects De Luce said
of the battle. The Fifth armys
prolonged attacks obviously are
draining Kesselring's reserves"
From enemy sources came word
that the sounds of battle we're be-
coming hourly more clear as the
Allied drive crawled relentless
ly toward the outskirts of the Eter.
nal City. In an order of the day,
Marshal Kesselring told his troops
that "everything ie at stake"
Reinforced by the bulk of the re-
organized Hermann Goering para
chute division and supported by in
tensified artillery fire, the Nazis
continued to stave off the Ameri-
can drive on Valmontone, a kew
stronghold of the new last ditch
line 20 miles east and slightly south
of Rome. Two days ago Yank in
fantry and tanks were reported
within 1000 yards of the n.
which is situated astride the Via
Casilina, the Nazis' main escape
route from the Liri valley.
Road Use Impaired
The Via Casilina still was under
intense American artillery fire.
however, and it's use to the long
enemy conveys of material and
men streaming up before the
Eighth army was thought to have
been greatly impaired.
German counterattacks also had
temporarily checked American in
fant-y on the rolling meadows be.
fore Lanuvio and before Velletri,
two other strongpoints in the enc
my's last natural defenses before
Rome. Both towns were under
heavy artillery fire. Nazi artillery
also laid down a curtain against
the advancing Americans and Brit
ish, but in general the enemy was
being outgunned by high ratio
NEW YORK, May 3d. R-A
British broadcast recorded bv
NBC said tonight the Allies had
captured Ardea, five miles south
west of the American-held Campo
leone station and three miles from
the Tyrrhenian coast.