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Show ITALY IS INVADED English-Canadian Troops Hit Messina . British and Canadian troops struck at the toe of the Italian mainland Friday at 3:45 a.m. and the invasion of Italy is on, according to Associated Press reports from the North African headquarters of General Dwight G. Eisenhower. The troops crossed the Messina Mes-sina straights under command of General Bernard L. Montgomery Mont-gomery with orders to "knock Italy out of the War," according accord-ing to Eisenhower's statement. Late dispatches Friday afternoon after-noon told of German evacuation evacua-tion of the southern part of the peninsula to escape being put off from the rear by further Allied landings. The Nazis deserted de-serted the poorly equipped Italian Ital-ian soldiefris, seized all aa.il. able mehcanized equipment and left the scene of battle in such an orderly pattern that it appeared ap-peared the evacuation of Cal-labria Cal-labria by the Germans had "been planned in adance." If these reports are true, commentators com-mentators said, it would shatter shat-ter the remaining hopes of the Italian command that the Nazis might be willing to cooperate in the defense of Southern Italy. Reports indicated that the invasion continued all day Friday Fri-day with warships of allied navies guarding the invasion boats that streamed into southern south-ern Italy. The British were reported re-ported to have been rapidly expanding their bridgehead. Conspicuous absence of American Amer-ican troops under command of Lieutenant General George S. PaUon -caused German officials to speculate that the Italian invasion was only a "cover'' for a surprise thrust at some other point on the continent. |