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Show , J, S. Troops Overcome Early Reverses j To Advance on All Fronts During 1943: ! Italy's Surrender Cracks Axis Bloc " J,p, Pushed From Pacific Outposts After Jungle Fighting; Aleutian , Victory Removes Threat to West Coast. By AL JEDLICKA ; On July 25 1943 the world was electrified by the news that Benito Mussolini had resigned y fiS premier of Italy. Although details of the Duce's downfall were meager there was a L Axis tracked, and this was coScd SepteXr 8 vhen Gen. Dwight Eisenhower announced Italy's surrender Thus did events shape in accordance with Prime Minister Winston Churchill's calculations of Italy being the "soft underbelly" of Europe. From January 14 to 24, Churchill and President Presi-dent Roosevelt had conferred with their war chiefs at Casablanca, North Africa, where mill- eycar were laid, and Ihe general j rrinciple of "unconditional surrender" surren-der" was established. There was fitter development of these plans when tfce Allied leaders met again " t Quebec. August 17. The year 19-13 saw a new phase . World War II. with the Allies isringinfi into the offensive and the ' resorting to rearguard action lo slow the drive on their main tastions. Not only was this phase exemplify exempli-fy in Europe, but it also was brought to the fore in the South Pacific, Pa-cific, where dynamic, imaginative Gen. Douglas MacArlhur began the pxh to oust the enemy from their culposts in the Solomons and New Guinea and clear the path for the reconquest of the Philippines and (he defeat of the Japs. Even as Churchill and Roosevelt conferred in Casablanca, Gen. Ber-k Ber-k tard Montgomery's British Eighth t, rmy was pursuing Nazi Marshal Errin Rommel across the North U African desert. To the west along 4 &t Tunisian border, U. S. forces were moving into position to pinch il oSthe enemy as they fought back t toward Bizerte and Tunis. On May 1, these two seaports fell, and five h fcys later organized Axis resistance tt h North Africa ceased, with the Al- L'e5 taking 150,000 prisoners. General Montgomery had begun fcis drive at El Alamein In Egypt, where Rommel, famed fox of the 11 desert, had holed up, just G7 miles I my from the great British naval base of Alexandria, U. S. troops " ; . ' .' ..'w.x'i --y ''.$''; .' .'Cv, ' h ', i- ' ;V ;:v r."...,i . V ; ' ;. i f.S-. . y J -Wiiiliifir'iin-rr-?"-'-''liif-'vr -K" -' - ( The wreckage-strewn naval air ilatlon at Pearl Harbor following the hp sneak attack on the morning of ' Otcember 7, 1941. An explosion j, "ids a mass of flames and smoke j Wo the sky. i ooved in position along the Tuni- tsn border from Morocco to the st and Algeria where they had , '--'St set foot during the invasion of r ''orth Africa. ' On February 11 Gen. Dwight isenhower had been made supreme ommander of Allied forces in North Africa, and it was under his leader- 8 that the North African campaign i i concluded and the first attack p launched directly against Italy on 10 when Sicily was invaded, il Over 3,000 ships of all types bore LVe British, Canadian and American koops which cleaned out the island kJ August 18. Moody Battle at Salerno Although Italy's surrender was cWiated by General Eisenhower "ti Marshal Pietro Badoglio on Member 3, announcement was de-ed de-ed for five days to give the Brit- chance to land on the toe of Italian boot and draw German wees southward, while Americans to land farther to the north d trap the Nazis from the rear. But the ruse failed, German Mar-Jal Mar-Jal Albert Kesselring refusing to for the bait. Kesselring kept I troops concentrated around Ples, so when Lieut. Gen. Mark $ is Fifth U. S. army landed at ' ierno' e Nazi commander rushed !avy artillery and tanks to the re-and re-and a bloody battle ensued be-we be-we the Americans established their B faWilh Allies firmly established Italy, the Germans strived to , delaying action in the moun- ' fhlf0"8 Country below Rome to give t fortify the Po valley r fjna Benito Mussolini opportunity j I id tSlabUsh a Fascist republican J l'nuaent in the north following v v; Ml k v.,. .v. A fcatfAv.tfttiA H,ttf.i- . lc..t .,-.f.t J. Leaders of U. S. armies on world's far-flung fronts: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who pushed Japs from Pacific outposts; Gen. George C. Marshall, chief of staff; Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, hrrader of North Africa, Af-rica, Sicily and Italy. his release from captivity by Nazi parachutists September 12. On September Sep-tember 20, the Italian government of King Victor Emmanuel declared war on Germany. On the Russian front, February 2 saw the end of the great battle of Stalingrad, with the repulse of Nazis, but only after the big industrial city had been pounded into ruins. The Reds claimed virtual destruction of the German Sixth army and Fourth tank army, and capture of Field Marshal Frederick von Paul-us Paul-us and 14 other generals. June 26, the Nazis launched heavy attacks at Orel and Belgorod, at the two ends of the big bulge in the rich agricultural and industrial province of Ukraine. But the Reds broke through their lines and they slowly fell back to the banks of the Dnieper river. Below Kiev, the Dnieper swings duo east before curving southward for some length, and then cutting back toward the west again, forming form-ing a huge bulge. To trap the German Ger-man army in this bulge, the Russians Rus-sians spilled over the Dnieper below Kiev, but strong German rearguard action at Krivoi Rog gave their forces time to escape encirclement. During the height of the Russian advance in the south, U. S. Secretary Secre-tary of State Cordell Hull met with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and Russian Foreign Commissar Commis-sar Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow, where with China, the representatives representa-tives of the three great powers signed, a historical pact, agreeing to fight Germany and Japan until they surrender sur-render unconditionally, and determining deter-mining to establish on International organization based along the lines of the old League of Nations to assure collective security. While battles raged on land in Europe, they raged in the air, too, with U. S. and British bombers battering bat-tering Germany's great industrial cities of Hamburg, Cologne. Dussel-dorf, Dussel-dorf, Essen and Berlin, and dwarfing dwarf-ing the Luftwaffe's early attacks on London. Port and manufacturing center, Hamburg, was virtually wiped off the map, and, in all, it was reported 1,200,000 Germans were killed as a result of Allied air raids. In the distant Southwest Pacific, with the memory of heroic resistance on Bataan and Corregidor still impressed im-pressed in his mind, and with them his vow to return to the Philippines to avenge the U. S. setback, Gen. Douglas MacArthur struck out against the Japanese in the Solomons arid New Guinea. Following their rapid conquests after the paralysis of Allied forces at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the Japs had surged within striking distance of Australia, before they were stopped short in the historic battle of the Coral sea In May, 1942. Ousting of the Japs from southeastern south-eastern New Guinea, January 24, and the smashing of all organized resistance on Guadalcanal, February Febru-ary 10, giving U. S. control of the southern Solomon islands, set the stage for General MacArthur's big push to drive the enemy from his remaining advance posts In the two areas. , , . The first gun was fired June 30, with U. S. forces landing on Ren-dova Ren-dova Island in the central Solomons. On the following day, U. S. troops set foot on Nassau bay, New Guinea, to fight inland for a junction with Aussies moving northward through the jungles. Jungle Cover Slows Fighting Jap troops made use of the dense tropical foliage and rocky, mountainous country, for cover to slow the advances. But especially espe-cially in New Guinea, General Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur adopted the policy of concentrating concen-trating against enemy bases only and cutting off Jap supply sources for cross-country fighting. Salamaua fell September 15, Lae three days later, and Finschhafen October 3. Meanwhile in the Solomons, U. S. forces hacked their way to Munda airfield on New Georgia island, August 6, after 38 days of bitter fighting. On October 9, it was reported re-ported that the Japs abandoned their last big base of Kolambangara in the central Solomons. During the Solomons fighting, U. S. naval and air forces took a high toll of Jap ships and barges used to supply or evacuate troops, especially at night. As a result of the New Guinea and Solomons campaigns, cam-paigns, U. S. and Aussie forces stood squarely between Rabaul on New Britain island, the enemy's nerve-center nerve-center for resistance in their advance ad-vance positions in the Southwest Pacific. Pa-cific. Even as the Japs rushed naval and air reinforcements to Rabaul to hold it as a supply center and strategic strate-gic fortress to threaten the flank of any Allied movement to the north toward the Philippines or Tokyo, cTwy.'. wary ' igsgggw.rww One Russian soldier aims and fires the heavy anti-tank rifle while another an-other hands him the ammunition to blast at an oncoming German tank on the Soviet battlefield. U. S. airmen dumped hundreds of tons of bombs on the big base. On October 11, doughboys swarmed ashore on Bougainville, in a fight to throw the Japs from their last northern holding in the Solomons. The Japs' direct threat to the American mainland posed with their occupation of the Aleutian islands June 12, 1942, was ended August 15, 1943, with announcement of U. S. occupation of Kiska. Doughboys setting set-ting foot on Kiska found no trace of 8,000 Japanese, with evidence their evacuation had taken place within the two weeks prior to the island's fall. The enemy had quit their Aleutian holdings of Attu and Aggatu October 7, 1942. i |