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Show U. S. Troops Overcome Early Reverses To Advance on All Fronts During 1943: Italy's Surrender Cracks Axis Bloc i Japs 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 Jie news that Benito Mussolini had resigned as premier of Italy. Although details 01 the Duce's downfall were meager, there was a feeling that the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis had cracked, and this was confirmed September 8 when 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 mili- frrr&rrmWGs.'ffr?f'.varn?-v&.'''W'-m-Yfr r r - tary as well as political plans for the year were laid, and the general i principle of "unconditional surrender" surren-der" was established. There was further development of these plans when the Allied leaders met again at Quebec, August 17. The year 19-13 saw a new phase , In World War II. with the Allies swinging into the offensive and the Axis resorting lo rearguard action to slow the drive on their main bastions. Not only was this phase exemplified exempli-fied in Europe, but it also was brought to the fore in the South Pacific, Pa-cific, where dynamic, imaginative Gen. Douglas MacArthur began the push to oust the enemy from their outposts in the Solomons and New Guinea and clear the path for the reconquest of the Philippines and the defeat of the Japs. Even as Churchill and Roosevelt conferred in Casablanca, Gen. Bernard Ber-nard Montgomery's British Eighth army was pursuing Nazi Marshal Erwin Rommel across the North African desert. To the west along the Tunisian border, U. S. forces were moving into position to pinch off the enemy as they fought back toward Bizerte and Tunis. On May 7, these two seaports fell, and five days later organized Axis resistance in North Africa ceased, with the Allies Al-lies taking 150,000 prisoners. General Montgomery had begun his drive at El Alamein in Egypt, where Rommel, famed fox of the desert, had holed up, just 67 miles away from the great British naval base of Alexandria. U. S. troops 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, invader of North 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 due 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 an international with U. S.' forces landing on 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 Sloivs Fighting Jap troops made use of the dense tropical foliage and rocky mountainous country, for covei to slow the advances. But espe cially in New Guinea, General Mac Arthur adopted the policy of concen trating against enemy bases onlj and cutting off Jap supply source! for cross-country fighting. Salamau fell September 15, Lae three dayi later, and Finschhafen October 3. Meanwhile in the Solomons, U. S forces hacked their way to Mund: airfield on New Georgia island August 6, after 38 days of bittei fighting. On October 9, it was re ported that the Japs abandoned theii last big base of Kolambangara ii the central Solomons. During the Solomons fighting U. S. naval and air forcesi took i high toll of Jap ships and bargei used to supply or evacuate troops especially at night. As a result o. the New Guinea and Solomons cam paigns, U. S. and Aussie forces stooc squarely between Rabaul on Nev Britain island, the enemy's nerve center for resistance in their ad vance positions in the Southwest Pa cific. Even as the Japs rushed nava: and air reinforcements to Rabaul ti hold it as a supply center and strate gic fortress to threaten the flank o: any Allied movement to the nortt toward the Philippines or Tokyo. The wreckage-strewn naval air station at Pearl Harbor following the Jap sneak attack on the morning of December 7, 1941. An explosion sends a mass of flames and smoke into the sky. moved in position along the Tunisian Tuni-sian border from Morocco to the west and Algeria where they had first set foot during the invasion of r - , " i s : i 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 and 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, North Africa. On February 11 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had been made supreme commander of Allied forces in North Africa, and it was under his leadership leader-ship that the North African campaign was concluded and the first attack launched directly against Italy on July 10 when Sicily was invaded. Over 3,000 ships of all types bore the British, Canadian and American troops which cleaned out the island by August 18. Bloody Battle at Salerno Although Italy's surrender was negotiated by General Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio on September 3, announcement was delayed de-layed for five days to give the British Brit-ish a chance to land on the toe of the Italian boot and draw German forces southward, while Americans were to land farther to the north and trap the Nazis from the rear. But the ruse failed, German Marshal Mar-shal Albert Kesselring refusing to fall for the bait. Kesselring kept his troops concentrated around Naples, so when Lieut. Gen. Mark Clark's Fifth U. S. army landed at Salerno, the Nazi commander rushed heavy artillery and tanks to the region re-gion and a bloody battle ensued before be-fore the Americans established their beachhead. With the Allies firmly established in Italy, the Germans strived to fight a delaying action in the mountainous moun-tainous country below Rome to give them time to fortify the Po valley and Benito Mussolini opportunity to establish a Fascist republican government in the north following 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. |
