Bombers, guns shatter town
Yanks soften up Troina for ground attack
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
Outside Troina, Sicily, Italy – (Aug. 4, 9 p.m., delayed)
Fifteen hundred death-bound Germans who have held off Yankee assaults on the mountain fortress of Troina for five days learned about hell today from waves of dive bombers and the greatest American artillery bombardment since El Guettar.
Prisoners told us the German officers in Troina threatened to shoot any man who retreated. The Yankee job today probably saved them some cartridges.
Close to 200 guns and 106 dive bombers were turned loose on Troina. Through tremendous clouds of smoke over the town aerial observers saw piles of masonry and huge chunks of earth tumbling.
Softened for attack
Not since Jebel Berda at El Guettar in Tunisia had the Americans had just a fight and not since then had such an artillery job been necessary. Col. Robert B. Cobb, of Ulm, Washington, a 28-year-old hero of Tunisia, testified to that.
But the planes and guns have set up the town for the final assault.
As I write this at the frontline, the Yanks are 2,500 yards from the northwest approaches to Troina. They were ready to move up after the bombing.
Guns follow planes
The artillery barrage was at its height at 5:20 p.m., five minutes after the last wave of 36 dive bombers hit the city and the supply roads over which the Germans could be seen rolling up ammunition trucks.
The guns boomed for a half-hour. One three salvoes of 155 howitzers set up an explosion in what must have been an ammunition or gasoline dump. At another point, the church steeple was toppled. The Germans had been using it for an artillery observation post.
Before the sun went down, U.S. soldiers were scrambling out of their foxholes on three sides of the city. Once a German mortar tormented them, hit two men and their broken bodies were flung into the air.
Regiment pinned down
Directly ahead of me, a regiment was pinned down by machine-gun fire a foot over the heads of the men concealed in shallow holes. On my right was a regiment that had already gone through 18 hours of constant bombardment.
They had been shoved off a hill directly south of the town last night but counterattacked and regained it at 11:30 a.m. today. Again, the Germans threw in a heavy assault which pushed it back down into a gully where they had to stay until the dive bombers went to work.