America at war! (1941--) -- Part 2

Auch am Sonntag schwerste Sowjetverluste an allen Kampfabschnitten
Feindliche Verbände eingeschlossen und vernichtet

dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 16. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Am Kubanbrückenkopf und am mittleren Donez scheiterten örtliche Vorstöße des Feindes. Im Abschnitt von Bjelgorod wurden die immer wieder anflutenden Angriffswellen der Sowjets im erbitterten Nahkampf von unseren Grenadieren zurückgeschlagen. Gegenangriffe von Panzerkampfgruppen des Heeres und der Waffen-SS drangen tief in die Flanken der feindlichen Stoßverbände ein, schlossen größere Teile von diesen ein und vernichteten sie.

Während im Raum westlich Orel die Angriffskraft der Sowjets nachließ, verdoppelten sie ihre Anstrengungen, um in den Abschnitten von Wjasma, Belyj und am Ladogasee unter Einsatz von Panzern, Schlachtfliegern und starker Artillerie durchzubrechen. Auch hier scheiterten alle Angriffe an der entschlossenen Abwehr unserer Infanterie- und Panzergrenadierdivisionen.

Überall, wo die Sowjets angriffen, erlitten sie auch gestern wieder schwerste Verluste an Menschen und Material. 193 Panzer wurden abgeschossen.

Kampf-, Sturzkampf- und Schlachtgeschwader unterstützten besonders im Süd- und Mittelabschnitt die in schwerem Ringen stehenden Erdtruppen durch erfolgreiche Angriffe gegen die Bereitstellungen und Marschbewegungen des Feindes.

Während es im Südabschnitt des Brückenkopfes auf Sizilien zu keinen wesentlichen Kampfhandlungen kam, verstärkte sich der Druck des Feindes im Nordabschnitt.

Wie bereits durch Sondermeldung bekanntgegeben, griff in den Abendstunden des 13. August ein deutsches Torpedofliegergeschwader unter Führung des Majors Klümper ostwärts Gibraltar einen starken, in das Mittelmeer einlaufenden Geleitzug überraschend an. In schneidig durchgeführten Angriffen erzielten unsere Besatzungen Torpedotreffer auf 32 Schiffseinheiten. Zwei Zerstörer und vier vollbeladene große Handelsschiffe, darunter ein Tanker, sanken sofort. Acht weitere Schiffe blieben brennend mit starker Schlagseite liegen. Wegen hereinbrechender Dunkelheit und starker Flakabwehr konnte das Schicksal der übrigen torpedierten Schiffe zunächst nicht erkannt werden. Die laufend durchgeführte Aufklärung bestätigt aber, daß mindestens 179.000 BRT. aus dem Geleitzug versenkt oder vernichtend getroffen wurden. Sieben eigene Flugzeuge kehrten nicht zurück.

Ein deutsches Unterseeboot versenkte an der Nordküste Siziliens in kühnem Angriff einen durch Zerstörer stark gesicherten nordamerikanischen Kreuzer der Brooklyn-Klasse.

Bei Vorstößen feindlicher Fliegerkräfte in den Küstenraum der besetzten Westgebiete schossen deutsche Jäger und Flakartillerie in den letzten 24 Stunden 16 Flugzeuge, vorwiegend schwere Bomber, ab. Weitere fünf feindliche Flugzeuge wurden in Luftkämpfen über dem Atlantik vernichtet.

Eine geringe Zahl feindlicher Störflugzeuge flog in der vergangenen Nacht in das nördliche Reichsgebiet ein.

Das Gebiet des Kriegshafens Portsmouth wurde in der vergangenen Nacht von deutschen Kampffliegerverbänden bei guter Sicht aus geringer Höhe wirksam mit einer großen Zahl von Spreng- und Brandbomben bekämpft.

Von deutschem U-Boot versenkt –
Kreuzer der Brooklyn-Klasse

dnb. Berlin, 16. August –
Der nordamerikanische Kreuzer der Brooklyn-Klasse, dessen Versenkung der Wehrmachtbericht vom 16. August meldete, gehörte zu einer Serie von leichten Kreuzern, die in den Jahren 1937 bis 1938 fertiggestellt wurde. Die Kreuzer dieser Klasse haben eine Wasserverdrängung von 9.400 bis 10.000 Tonnen und verfügen über eine Bestückung von fünfzehn 15,2-, acht 12,7-, vier 4,7- und acht 4-Zentimeter-Geschützen. Zu ihrer Ausrüstung gehören ferner zwei Flugzeugschleudern und vier Bordflugzeuge.

Diese Kreuzer, die zu den neueren Kampfeinheiten der nordamerikanischen Flotte gehören, haben eine Geschwindigkeit von 32,7 Seemeilen. Ihre friedensmäßige Besatzung besteht aus 868 Mann. Die Versenkung des Kreuzers gelang dem deutschen Unterseeboot, obwohl das feindliche Kriegsschiff durch einen Zerstörerverband besonders stark gesichert war.

Durch die italienische und die deutsche Luftwaffe –
12.000 BRT. versenkt, 9.000 schwer beschädigt

dnb. Rom, 16. August –
Der italienische Wehrmachtbericht vom Montag lautet:

Italienisch-deutsche Truppen verlangsamten auch gestern in den Peloritanischen Bergen durch Widerstandskämpfe den Vormarsch feindlicher Kräfte.

Im Gebiet der Meerenge von Messina griffen Jagdflugzeugverbände des römischen vierten Sturmes und der römischen 21. Gruppe verschiedene feindliche Formationen an. Im Verlaufe der wiederholten harten Zusammenstöße schossen unsere tapferen Jäger fünf „Spitfires“ und drei „Curtiss“ ab.

Unsere Torpedoflugzeuge versenkten in mutigen Angriffen auf Geleitzüge im westlichen Mittelmeer zwei Dampfer von 12.000 Bruttoregistertonnen, während ein Dampfer mittlerer Tonnage, der von einem Torpedo getroffen worden war, explodierte. In den Gewässern von Sizilien beschädigten deutsche Kampfflugzeuge zwei Transporter mit insgesamt 9.000 BRT. schwer.

Italienische Flugzeuge warfen auf die Hafenanlagen von Biserta zahlreiche Bomben ab. Drei unserer Flugzeuge kehrten nicht zu ihren Stützpunkten zurück.

Bei Morgengrauen des gestrigen Tages unternahmen unsere Schnellboote unter dem Kommando von Kapitän zur See Franchesco Mimbelli aus Livorno einen tapferen Angriff auf einen britischen Flottenverband in der Nähe von Kap Spartivento Calabro und versenkten einen leichten Kreuzer.

Luftangriffe wurden unternommen auf Viterbo, Novara und in der vergangenen Nacht wiederum auf Mailand. Der Feind verlor in Viterbo vier und in Mailand drei Flugzeuge durch die Flak. Die in Mailand verursachten Schäden sind schwer – Ein weiterer Bomber stürzte, durch die Flak getroffen, in der Nähe von Cagliari ab.

Die Versenkung des Britenkreuzers

Die im Wehrmachtbericht vom Montag bekanntgegebene Versenkung eines leichten britischen Kreuzers durch italienische Schnellboote erfolgte, so meldet die Stefani-Agentur, in den Gewässern zwischen Sizilien und Kalabrien. Im Morgengrauen sichteten die Schnellboote einen Verband leichter Kreuzer und griffen ihn ohne Rücksicht auf die sehr heftige Abwehr an. Das Boot des Leutnants zur See Scialdone, auf dem sich auch der Flottenchef, Kapitän zur See Mimbelli, befand, traf mit seinen Torpedos einen der Kreuzer unter der Brücke. Der Kreuzer blieb sofort liegen und stellte das Feuer ein, die übrigen eilten ihm zu Hilfe. Die Schnellboote erreichten unversehrt ihren Stützpunkt. Aufklärungsflugzeuge sichteten am Morgen nur noch ein Floß mit Schiffbrüchigen des gesunkenen Kreuzers.

Feindliche Teilgeständnisse über die Schiffsverluste –
Auszehrung der britischen Tonnage durch die USA.

Zur Drosselung des englischen Exports –
Neue Forderung Washingtons an London

Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“

The Pittsburgh Press (August 17, 1943)

YANKS POUR INTO MESSINA; BATTLE FOR SICILY ENDS
Italian mainland shelled

Allies mop up Axis suicide units remaining in trap on island
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

Screenshot 2022-08-17 104318
Capture of Messina by U.S. forces was announced today as the end of the Sicilian campaign was only hours away. Late developments on the island included:
1. The U.S. 7th Army drove into Messina and American guns were shelling the Italian
2. The British 8th Army drove northward along the coastal road, cleaning out Axis troops left as a rearguard.

A. Another landing on the north coast was made by the Americans, who went ashore near Milazzo, speeding up land drive.
B. A similar operation was performed by the British in a landing eight miles south of Messina.

Allied HQ, North Africa –
The Battle of Sicily ended today in a smashing Allied victory as U.S. troops stormed into Messina in the wake of an Axis evacuation to the Italian mainland and official announcement of the island’s complete occupation was expected at any moment.

Radio Algiers reported that the Americans had captured Messina. Reliable reports reaching London also said Messina had been taken. The Axis claimed to have evacuated all troops from Sicily.

All that remained for the U.S. 7th and the British 8th Armies on the narrow strip of Sicily along the Strait of Messina opposite Italy were cleanup operations against German and Italian suicide units.

A dispatch from United Press writer C. R. Cunningham, with the U.S. Army before Messina, reported that all ordered resistance had ended last evening and German noncommissioned officers falling into American hands explained they were expendables left behind to slow the Allied advance. Their officers and the German main body had fled.

U.S. artillery was shelling the Italian mainland, two miles across the Strait of Messina from Sicily, in a thunderous prelude to the next step of the Mediterranean offensive – the invasion of Italy proper.

A terrific artillery barrage unleashed at 3 a.m. yesterday (8 p.m. Sunday ET) softened the outer rim of Axis defenses for the successful American thrust into Messina, Sicily.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in an address to a group of WACs, predicted that all of Sicily would be in Allied hands by midnight or earlier.

“Messina will fall tonight or tomorrow,” he said. He had just returned from Sicily by plane where he had conferred with field commanders.

Already, big guns were thundering the overture to the Battle of Italy proper. Allied and Axis artillery traded fire across the watery no-man’s-land of the Strait of Messina.

Axis demolition activity on the mainland was seen for the first time, indicating that the enemy was already preparing for whatever eventuality might result from the mop-up in Sicily.

Destroyers on patrol at the south end of the Strait of Messina clearly saw flames and smoke of explosions which marked the destruction of mainland installations that might be useful to the Allies later on.

The Northwest African Air Force yesterday turned much of its power against the Germans trying to escape northward through the toe of Italy, where roads and railways are barren, exposed targets.

The British push up the east coast highway toward Messina, bringing steadily closer a junction with the Americans along the north coast, was impeded by artillery fire from the mainland.

Some of this shellfire was also aimed at the Americans moving into Messina, but the terrain in the northern tip afforded them better protection.

A lightning advance of at least 20 miles brought the U.S. Army 3rd Division to outskirts of flaming, bomb-battered Messina last night and they moved into the city this morning.

The British 8th Army was believed only a few miles south of Messina following a daring commando landing eight miles south of the city and only nine miles across the Strait of Messina from Reggio Calabria on the Italian mainland.

Another U.S. amphibious landing – the third in a week – was also announced. The Americans pushed ashore from assault boats early yesterday near Milazzo, 16 miles west of Messina, but the town was soon far in the rear as the main forces effected a junction and slashed eastward.

Enemy resistance crumpled rapidly in the face of the final Allied onslaught and it was apparent that the Sicilian campaign had virtually ended five weeks and four days after U.S. and British troops first landed on the southern shores of the island.

The Axis command had apparently evacuated all the troops it could. Reconnaissance planes reported only a trickle of boats running the gauntlet of Allied bombs across the Strait of Messina yesterday.

Messina itself was only a burned-out shell of the former modern city of 176,500. The ruins resembled those left by the great earthquake of 1908, which razed the city.

It had been bombed without respite since the last days of the Tunisian campaign with particularly heavy raids being directed against it in the past week during the small-scale Italo-German “Dunkirk” evacuation to southern Italy.

Gen. Eisenhower’s communiqué revealed that the next-to-last chapter of the campaign yesterday saw the U.S. 7th Army overrunning enemy defenses as far east as San Giorgio, on the north coast within five miles of the eastern tip of the island, and Gesso, five miles west-northwest of Messina, before pushing on into the base itself.

The British 8th Army drove on through Santa Teresa di Riva, 18 miles south of Messina, in an eight-mile advance from Taormina, the communiqué said, and then leapfrogged their line 10 miles to the north with a commando landing on the east coast across from Reggio Calabria.

The commandos were shelled by Axis guns near Reggio Calabria, but quickly overcame sharp resistance put up by Axis rearguards and pressed northward toward Messina and a rendezvous with the 7th Army.

The day’s only counterattack on either coast was repulsed by the British about five miles north of Taormina.

Captured documents showed that the Germans left two Italian coastal regiments to hold a line between Taormina and the north coast to cover the evacuation from Messina, but this line was shattered by the commando landing south of Messina.

The collapse of enemy resistance along the north coast was demonstrated by the ease with which U.S. warships landed amphibious troops near Milazzo early Monday. Only last week, a bloody battle developed when a similar force landed west of Capo d’Orlando.

Allied reconnaissance pilots reported decreased anti-aircraft fire over the Strait of Messina beginning yesterday and it was soon apparent that the Axis was about to end its evacuation attempt. Soon afterward, fire from the Italian mainland was stepped up, indicating that some guns had been ferried across from Sicily.

Allied and Axis artillery were dueling across the Strait of Messina.

A naval communiqué said Allied naval forces sighted Axis demolitions in northern Sicily and also on the mainland near Reggio Calabria Saturday night.

That same night, it added, the warships bombarded southwestern Italy, sending 1,000 shells into Scalea on the south side of the Gulf of Policastro and hitting shore batteries on Cape Pellaro. Early Monday, other naval forces bombarded Port Vibo Valentia on the Gulf of Saint Eufemia. Gunboats and destroyers also bombarded the east coast road to Messina daily while light coastal forces operated in the strait nightly.

British warships were credited with sinking an armed light cruiser and two escort craft early Monday south of Cape Boniface. U.S. naval units drove off a light formation of enemy torpedo boats north of Messina yesterday.

Axis claims success in evacuation

Berne, Switzerland –
A DNB communiqué just issued in Berlin admits the end of military operations in Sicily and claims the complete evacuation of the island by Axis troops.

The evacuation, says the communiqué, was completed early this morning.

The Germans declare boastfully that all war materials and supplies of the Axis in Sicily have been transferred successfully to the mainland, contrasting it with the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk.

Now the communiqué concludes, the entire Axis army awaits an Allied landing on the mainland, ready to fight until the last machine gun.

Push on France reported near

Invasion may result from Québec Conference
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

Québec, Canada –
An invasion of Western Europe by way of the English Channel may be one of the first tangible results of the sixth war conference between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, it was believed here today.

This city was marking time awaiting the President’s arrival. Meanwhile, the military staffs of Great Britain, Canada and the United States continued at work in the Château Frontenac, completely inaccessible to all outsiders.

The London Daily Mail printed a dispatch from its Québec correspondent that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theater, was expected to arrive in Québec soon.

It was believed that the military staffs had long since completed plans for the Mediterranean Theater and were now concerned exclusively with an offensive based upon Great Britain utilizing the British, Canadian and U.S. troops gathered there, which could include attacks on Norway as well as against France with Paris as the first objective.

As far back as January 1942, Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill considered throwing the Allied weight against Western Europe, it was said, but their military advisors told them the probable casualties made the cost prohibitive.

Yanks skirt Jap bases, seize island

Soldiers, Marines capture Vella Lavella in Solomons
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer

Wasp launches as heroes’ sons stand in salute

Ration Book 3 in use Sept. 12

Brown stamps A to become valid then

I DARE SAY —
Unfair enough

By Florence Fisher Parry

48-hour week is authorized in U.S. mines

Action may hasten peace between operators and union

Soldiers blast Senators’ trip to war fronts

Thousands of gallons of needed gas wasted on them, sergeant says
By Helen Kirkpatrick

U.S. bombers down

Zürich, Switzerland –
Two U.S. heavy bombers made forced landings in Switzerland today and their crews, totaling 20 men, were interned. One bomber came down at a Zürich airport. It was damaged slightly. The other landed in the Berne area.

Battlefronts used as citizenship sites


Court, Army at odds over Hawaii rule

Major battle still faced, Byrnes warns

Roads to Berlin and Tokyo remain ‘long, hard and bloody’

Editorial: The relaxing is premature

Edson: Small war plants first to covert to civilian goods

By Peter Edson

Ferguson: ‘The marriage evil’

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson