Brooklyn Eagle (January 24, 1943)
Eighth Army streams through Tripoli
British chase Rommel as U.S., French, halt Nazis in Tunisia
Cairo, Egypt (UP) – (Jan. 23)
The victorious Imperial Eighth Army swept through Tripoli tonight, completing the destruction of Benito Mussolini’s dreams of empire, and on toward the Tunisian frontier and the expected final battle against the Axis in Africa. All day long, dusty, battle-scarred veterans of the 1,500-mile trans-African pursuit of Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps streamed into the queen city of the once-great Italian Empire.
But there was no relaxation of the 30-mile-a-day pace which Gen. Harold Alexander’s forces had set all the way across Africa from their breakthrough and takeoff at Alamein.
Even before the first main troop contingents had rolled into Tripoli, advance scouting forces were driving on relentlessly to the west.
Nazis bolt for Tunisia
The Tunisian frontier lies only 100 air miles west of Tripoli and the remnants of Rommel’s once-proud army were seeking desperately to get across the border and obtain at least temporary shelter 100 miles deeper in Tunisia behind the French-built Mareth Line of fortifications.
The straggling Axis troops were under constant harassment from U.S. and British planes which rained bombs along the road known as the “Hundred Miles of Hell” and dove low over transport columns to rake them with murderous machine-gun fire.
A U.S. air communiqué reported heavy damage inflicted to the fleeing Axis army with many fires started in convoys to the west of Tripoli and one particularly large explosion, possibly caused hv detonation of an ammunition train.
Navy shells Axis post
The Axis, driven buck to air bases in Tunisia, offered virtually no challenge to the Allied rule of the skies.
Along the African coast west of Tripoli, British light naval forces added to the punishment being inflicted on the Afrika Korps.
They blasted at Zuara, a small harbor about 65 miles west of Tripoli, which remains the only port east of Gabes in Tunisia, which the Axis can employ for even small coastal shipping. The British ships suffered neither damage nor casualties.
Both fighter and bomber planes also attacked Zuara, causing great damage to small ships attempting to scurry out of the harbor.
Other squadrons raced ahead to Ben Gardane, just over the Tunisian frontier, where Rommel was reported to have located his advanced field headquarters, and blasted the newly-established German airdrome there.
With their range steadily increasing through the use of advanced airfields in Tripolitania, Allied planes dropped bombs rom Sicily to the Tunisian shores.
Allied intruder planes took the air over Sicily during the night, inflicting heavy damage on railroad targets and store warehouses, while long-range fighters carried out daylight attacks on Axis shipping along the Tunisian coast.
Two columns enter city
The entry into Tripoli of advance Imperial elements started at 5 a m. today with the British coastal column moving in through Castel Verde, the big Axis air base site, and the southern column through Azizia.
The troops found the city itself little damaged. However, the Germans carried out extensive demolition of the dock and storage facilities.
The Germans fought a strong rearguard action to delay the British entry as long as possible and afford additional time for the escape of their troops into Tunisia.
British engineers were expected to lose no time in starting the rehabilitation of Tripoli port facilities.
After you, Duce
By the United Press
Berlin today let Rome take the Axis honors in announcing the fall of Tripoli.
Despite the fact that Marshal Erwin Rommel is in command of the joint German-Italian forces in North Africa, the first Axis admission of the fall of the city came from Rome.
German news agencies circulated the report of the capitulation under a Rome dateline and the initial version of the day’s Nazi High Command communiqué did not even mention the loss.
Several hours later, a “corrected” version of the communiqué was circulated by radio which included the news of Tripoli.
Allied HQ, North Africa (UP) – (Jan. 23)
U.S. and French troops, fighting side by side, stopped a German drive today along the mountain ranges that line the Ousseltia Valley southwest of Pont du Fahs, while elsewhere in Tunisia, Allied planes blasted Axis airdromes, supply lines and communications.
The Allied forces were reported to have bent back both prongs of German tank and infantry attack. A British and French spearhead halted the northern German thrust along the Kebir River Valley and drove the enemy back four miles. Fighting was last reported in progress six miles north of Rebaa.
There were indications that the Germans had abandoned the northern drive and were concentrating toward Ousseltia. This attack, too, stalled in the mobile battle with the Americans and French.
‘Chutists rounded up
German parachutists dropped behind the Allied lines were rounded up quickly with the aid of French gendarmes and Arabs, an Allied spokesman said.
Positions changed quickly in what was described as a “fluid battle.” Allied bombers and fighters bombed and strafed German communications at the northern end of the Ousseltia Valley in an effort to halt reinforcements. Warhawk fighters flown by Americans and members of the French Lafayette Escadrille attacked vehicles and machine-gun posts, while Douglas A-20s scored direct hits on German tanks 17 miles northeast of Ousseltia.
Raid Tunis airdrome
Between 15 and 20 enemy machine-gun emplacements were destroyed.
U.S. planes destroyed nine Axis aircraft and damaged five in yesterday’s operations. Allied losses were placed at five planes.
U.S. heavy and medium bombers made three strong attacks on the El Aouina Airdrome at Tunis within three and a half hours, causing heavy damage to planes on the ground and to airport installations. Flying Fortresses, Mitchells and Martians, escorted by Lightning Fighters, set fire to buildings and parked planes.
Fifteen Messerschmitts challenged the raiders. Three were shot down and four damaged. One U.S. medium bomber crashed in flames.
French troops were reported holding a height southwest of Pont du Fahs.
The Méharist Camel Corps, cutting across the Libyan desert from southern Tunisia, was reported by the French to have captured the oases of Seheuet and El Barka, near Gat, taking more than 200 prisoners.
The Royal Navy announced that a British submarine operating in the Tyrrhenian Sea off Italy had reported sinking two Axis merchant ships and an anti-submarine schooner. A trawler was also hit and driven ashore.