TUNISIA VIMS SPRINGBOARD FOR EUROPE’S SOUTHERN CO AS!
I -
conditional surrender from Germany, Italy and
Japan. They predicted sensational offensives for
I the new year. They produced agreement between the
French forces of Giraud and de Gaulle and they
let it be known that far from splitting with their
Allies they would send more supplies to the Rus
sians and Chinese.
The Axis—and the world—would learn the mean
ing of these broad phrases only when events un
folded. Meanwhile the Axis could wonder about
them more—and worry.
UP TO THE UNDER BELLY
THE Russians announced the end of the “historic
battle near Stalingrad” on the second day of
February, and as a result of that engagement alone
i they counted 330,000 Nazi casualties, the utter de
struction of Germany’s Sixth Army, and the cap
ture of von Paulus and 23 other generals. 3y then
their second winter offensive was rolling all along
a front from Lake Ilmen to the Caucasus.
The Americans completely occupied Guadalcanal
on February 9, and in New Guinea MacArthur
moved up to defeat the Japanese near Wau, 35
miles from Salamaua.
The main spotlight focused on the battle for
Tunisia. “Ike” Eisenhower held his troops in the
■west while Monty chased the “Desert Fox” up the
Libyan' coast.
The Nazis had two main ground forces—Rom
mel’s Afrika Korps and the German-Italian rein
forcements under General Jurgen von Arnim. The
Allies had Montgomery’s “desert rats,” the, British
1st Army under General K. A. N. Anderson, the
U. S. 2nd American Corps under General Lloyd
Fredendall and Fighting French forces which had
come up from Lake Chad.
By mid-February Rommel had retired to the
Mareth Line, a strongly fortified position near the
southeastern Tunisian border.
But the Nazis still had plenty of sting. Panzers
crashed through Faid Pass to surprise an American
tank battalion and sent the raw Yanks racing into
the Kasserine Pass, leading to the Algerian border.
The panzers might have smashed the Americans.
Instead they brashly turned to move against Thala
on the north.
The Yanks counter-attacked. Their planes blasted
the Germans still holding the pass, and when Amer
ican tanks whipped through they discovered the
abashed Nazis in full Bight
Into the campaign now went America’s blood
and guts, hell and thunder tank ace, General
George S. Patton Jr„ to replace Fredendall. Patton
had often expressed a desire to meet Rommel in
a private tank duel. The chance never came: in
March- the “very ill" Nazi general was recalled to
Berlin
A new weapon also was introduced in Tunisia:
the bazooka Using the rocket principle, this long
straight pipe which looked as though it had been
disconnected from a water line and turned into a
gun. ideally answered the huge German tanks.
Now he’ Allies put on the squeeze. Monty op
ened another artillery barrage like El Alamein s
and drove a hole in the south. The Yanks and
French hit from the southwest Anderson’s British
struck ac the center.
Once the nutcracker broke the shell, the enl
followed quickly. Early in April the British com
ing up trom Gabes met the Americans coming over
from Ga-efsa. Together they raced up the coast.
The Nazis knew their Dunkerque was at hand.
They sent hundreds of transport planes to Tunisia
to evacuate the best troops. Their planes were shot
into the Mediterranean by the scores. They tried
to send fishing craft to pick survivors off the Bon
peninsula Few got past ferocious Allied patrols.
On May 8 Tunis and Bizerte collapsed togetnei
On May 12 von Arnim bitterly repeated the phrase
of Casablanca: Unconditional Surrender.
ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO
Even while 300.000 Axis prisoners were being
tagged in Tunisia. Eisenhower looked across the
Mediterranean to what Churchill had termed the
“sott under-belly o, the Axis.”
There were a few barriers to be hurdled first.
The little island of Pantellena stood midway in the
Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily. General
CaU Spaatz, commander of the northwest African
an torces undei Britain’s Air Marshal Tedder, gave
Parue-tteria a mere taste of the pounding that Malta
had taken for two years. Less than a month after
Tunisia fell, Allied- fliers suddenly saw a large
white cross laid- on Pa-nielieria's airport. It was the
first tune a position that strong ever surrendered
to an air force.
On July 10 some 5,200 ships—some from north
Africa, some from Britain, some all the way trom
America—sailed up to Sicily. Allied planes crowded
the skies and warships pounded the shore defenses.
It was a perilous undertaking, with the wind howl
ing overhead and the choppy seas buffeting the
transports and landing barges.
The landings were made between Licata and his
toric Syracuse. In ten days the Allies held almost
halt the island and were quickly moving north.
It was obvious the Italians had little taste for the
scrap. Many Sicilians welcomed the invaders as
li bera tors. Many though t the appearance of the
Americans automatically made them citizens of
the United States.
In Rome, the rail yards of which were bombed
for the first time on July 19, the Italians’ butter
like defense of Sicily had serious repercussions.
Mussolini went hat in hand to plead for reinforce
ments from Hitler, but der Fuehrer had troubles
of his own. The Russians in their winter offensive
ending in March had driven the Nazis out of 185,000
square miles of territory; they claimed to have
killed 850,000 and imprisoned 350,000 more; they
had cleared out the Caucasus and had lifted the
seige of Leningrad; they had come back to Rostov
and Rzhev. An attempted Nazi offensive begun
July 5 had been hurled back; and now the Reds
were plunging toward Orel, over the charred ruins
caused by their own artillery barrage.
II Duce went back with empty hands to face a
hostile Fascist Grand Council. In a bitter session it
demanded his resignation. Little King Victor Em
manuel named Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Italy’s
new prime minister—and Mussolini was taken into
“protective custody” only to be rescued by Nazi
paratroops who carried him north to serve Hitler’s,
purposes as a Fascist puppet.
The Sicily drive sped on, with Germans offering
almost the only resistance. Patton slapped a soldier
in a hospital, and before the “Patton incident” was
over the impulsive general was rebuked by Eisen
hower and apologized publicly to his troops. His
command dangled precariously while some home
front Americans demanded his recall. However, he
soon proved his. ability so- well that Congress later
awarded him a full' generalship.
On August 17 conquest of the island was com
pleted. War-weary Italy lay ahead.
THE REICH TASTES TERROR
MARSHAL BADOGLIO announced that the
Italian people were at war and would remain
at war. But the Nazis now were rushing down
into- Italy and Allied airplanes were plastering the
country from the Alps to the boot in an obvious
prelude to invasion. Badoglio sent envoys to try
for a soft peace; but Eisenhower firmly repeated
the Big Two s two words of Casablanca. It would
be unconditional surrender or nothing.
Badoglio capitulated September 3, as British
troops began stepping across the Messina Strait to
Italy’s toe. The surrender, however, was kept secret,
for Eisenhower wished to spring it in his own good
time. Badoglio was to continue token resistance and
hold the airfields near Rome. Allied paratroops
would drop in and take the fields and the Nazi
force in Italy would be cut neatly in two.
Meanwhile, the British under Montgomery
swarmed up the toe and made a second landing to
capture the naval base at Taranto.
The Nazis by this time were acutely suspicious.
Reinforcements by the thousands shot through the
Alpine, passes to strengthen Axis garrisons and
seize control of the airfields around Rome. Badoglio
messaged Eisenhower he was unable to fulfill his
bargain and the paratrooping expedition was hast
ily called oft.
The surrender was announced September 8. just
as units of General Mark Clark’s. U. S. Fifth Army
and some British detachments were establishing a
beachhead at Salerno, south of Naples. The landing
was intended as a surprise, but wasn’t. Marshal
Albert Kesselring. Nazi commander in south Italy,
had defenses ready in the -lifts beyond the beaches
and at least five crack divisions to man them.
Salerno became tough and bloody. The Yanks
dug into the sand while warships offshore sought
to knock out the hill positions. One German coun
ter-attack almost reached the sea. But the war
ships and planes continued a seemingly endless
pounding, the beachhead widened, and the invad
ers inched inland. Kesselring mounted new counter
attacks, and the issue was in doubt until September
15 when, after 150 hours of steady fighting, the
Germans started to withdraw. Salerno opened
the way to Naples, the big pert Eisenhower needed
to supply his offensive. It also hastened the capture
on September 28 of the valued airfields at Foggia.
Foggia’s tall was bad news for a Reich that now
cringed as air raid sirens wailed and blockbusters
crashed. Almost daily, from Britain, came the
mighty four-motored- Liberators, and Flying For
tresses of the American air fleet, pin-pointing their
targets, and the Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirling
of the R.A.F laying waste to huge sections wit
devastating area bombardments. No city wa
immune. Berlin, with huge electrical and plan
works, was taking assaults greater than anythin
London had seen. Hamburg was reported 77 pe
cent destroyed in an almost hour-long, 50-ton-;
minute R.A.F. raid; every key city in the Rut
industrial hub had been bombed at least once, an
repeated blows had paralyzed the monstrous Krup
munitions works at Essen. With planes based ;
Foggia, the Italian industrial belt in the Po valle
and factories in the Balkans feeding Hi.ler’s war
machine could be more easily reached, and the in
dustries tne Nazis had moved into southern Ger
many to escape the R.A.F. would come under Allie
bombsights.
Naples was occupied on October 1, and the slog
ging foot soldiers began to dream of Rome b
Christmas. But autumn rains bogged the roads an
mired the airfields, and Kesselring set up astui
machine gun and mortar defenses along the Apes
nine mountain passes. Badoglio by now had brougl
Italy back into the war, against Germany. U !
infantrymen starting the new year in muddy t'oj
holes found it hard to guess the origin of the e>
pression “sunny Italy.”
MacARTHUR MOVES UP
THE war in Europe swept along on single, mai
sive fronts; in the Pacific, in 1943, it travels
piecemeal, little island by little island.
Most of America’s men and supplies were mo\
ing into position against Hitler. And while son
Americans decried1 the strategy that gave the Nat
priority on the knockout list, MacAi thur ai
nounced his plan to get back to the Philippi™
fastest at the lowest cost.
It would involve, he said, “the continuous, calct
la ted application of air power . . employed in tl
most intimate tactical and logistical union wi1
ground troops.” The result would be 1 swift, ma
sive strokes rather • han, dilatory and costly islani
to-is land advance.” There would be overwhelms!
attacks against the enemy’s key positions whi
lesser ones were left to wither on the vine.
It was not tong before MacArthur’s air office
General George C. Kenney, demonstrated “ca
culated air power.” On March 2, Kenney's airrrn
sighted a convoy swinging into Huon Gulf in Ne
Guinea. They moved out to meet it. Medium ai
light bombers raced over the convoy at mast-ti
level. Their bombs hit the watei horizontally ai
bounced into the tragets. This was skip-bombin
The “Battle of the Bismarck Sea" cost the Jap
nese 22 ships, 61 planes and 15,000 men. Kerim
lost four planes and 13 crewmen It was one of tl
war’s most decisive victories.
What was meant by “swift, massive strokes" s«
also became apparent. By March MacArthur w
in complete control of the Mombare River area
New Guinea; in June he moved onto Woodlark Islai
off New Guinea’s east tip and sent forces und
Admiral Halsey to Rendova and New Georgia I
lands in the Solomons. While a Navy task tor
under Admiral W. L. Ainsworth trapped a convi
riding the Tokyo Express” sea lane in the Ku
Gulf and sank 13 to 15 cruisers and destroyers. Ma
Arthur was landing on Munda In August he we
into Vella Lavelta and Arundel in the Solomor
Meanwhile, the last of the Aleutians was ba
in U. S. hands. A force landed on Kiska to di
cover the Japs had fled before sea and air pressu
that had already knocked out their companion toe
hold at Attu amid bitter land fighting at Massac
Bay and around hilly Chicagof harbor.
By September, MacArthur was stepping faith
along New Guinea as his ground troops captur
Salamaua and paratroops leaped down to grasp L,<
A ten-day campaign won Finschhafen; he mov
up to the Treasury Islands, Kolombangara, a.
Bougainville in the Solomons.
The fighting often was bitter, for the Japane
were shrewd and determined. They crept
stealthily behind Allied lines at night and silenl
kilted sleeping troops; they tied themselves to tre
and sniped; they spoke phrases in English and^t-h
opened fire in the direction of the answering Ym
But the Americans and Anzacs soon learned to pr
tect themselves against such tricks, and as tw
materiel superiority increased they could strike
force, slash the foe, seize the position, strength
it, and move on before protracted jungle operatic
would be involved.
As the Allies climbed up the Solomons and ato
New Guinea, it became obvious that the a-tm a
to knock out Ratoaul on New Britain, the "
Japanese naval and air base in the south- Pacii
When the menace of Rabaul ceased to ex®4-*
way would be cleared into- the central racr
Bombers from the newly won bases converged