WLB to wait only ‘so long’ on mine case
But, another delay like that of 1941 may be ‘too long’
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
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U.S. due to ban job switching
Order to be aimed at ‘bigger-pay migration’
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Roosevelt to deliver Jeffersonian address
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt will deliver an address Tuesday on the occasion of Thomas Jefferson’s 200th birthday anniversary.
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said the speech would be “brief and Jeffersonian.”
War reporters read soldier’s press in Africa
Pittsburgh corporal keeps writers informed on news from home
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WAACs in Africa gripe: ‘We’re not doing enough’
Girls fail to complain of their primitive environment
By Donald Coe, United Press staff writer
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Strong Senate support hinted for Hobbs bill
Backers cite overwhelming vote in House against union racketeering
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Rent ceilings under attack in courts and in the House
Hearings this week to show trend of newest battle on the anti-inflation front
By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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U.S., Britain try to disabuse Russia’s insistent suspicion
Moscow clings to idea that while we extend aid militarily, we’re planning a big holdup diplomatically
By Carroll Binder, foreign editor of The Chicago Daily News
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Millett: Rationing shows need for full time housekeeping
Woman worker who keeps house before and after hours will feel hardships of food shortage
By Ruth Millett
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U.S. Navy Department (April 12, 1943)
Communiqué No. 341
South Pacific.
During the night of April 10‑11, Catalina patrol bombers (Consolidated PBY) bombed Japanese installations at Munda on New Georgia Island, starting a small fire.
On April 11:
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In the early morning, Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated B‑24) attacked Kahili in the Shortland Island area. Hits were made on the airfield runway and adjacent antiaircraft positions.
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On the same morning, a force of Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF) carried out an attack on Munda. Fires and heavy explosions resulted.
North Pacific.
Warhawk (Curtiss P‑40) and Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters twice attacked Kiska during the afternoon of April 10. Results were not observed.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 12, 1943)
8th Army captures Sousse; Rommel flees toward Tunis
British drive 46 miles in day; Kairouan falls; planes rip foe
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Fleeing toward Tunis, the Afrika Korps today abandoned its last supply port on the east coast of Tunisia as the British drove into Sousse after a swift 46-mile advance. On Sunday, British and U.S. forces captured Kairouan, which is 50 miles inland from Sousse. The British have made new gains beyond Medjez el Bab and the Axis forces are now being pressed into the small Tunis-Bizerte area.
Bulletin
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied anti-aircraft gunners and the Northwest African Air Force have shot down 1,253 Axis planes during the campaign in this theater, it was announced today.The U.S. Air Force announcement said that Allied losses were 498 planes. Axis losses in the last 14 days were 318 planes, the announcement said, of which 88 were big air transports. In the same period, Allied losses were 100 planes.
Allied HQ, North Africa –
The British 8th Army seized Sousse, the last Axis-held supply port on the Tunisian east coast and pressed northward in pursuit of fleeing Italo-German armies today while Allied forces 50 miles to the west occupied the holy city of Kairouan.
Speeding 46 miles in the last 24 hours, Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s victorious 8th Army troops passed through Sousse at 8:30 a.m. today (2:30 a.m. ET) after overwhelming light rearguard opposition and penetrating heavy minefields.
The Allied advances along the coast as well as in the mountains to the west were accompanied by renewed air attacks that destroyed many enemy vehicles and brought down 31 enemy aircraft in another clash with Axis fighters and Ju 52 air transports over the Sicilian Strait.
100-mile retreat
The interception of enemy air supply ships was again made by U.S. Lightning fighters, who shot down 79 Ju 52 transports in the last week.
Nazi Marshal Erwin Rommel’s battered Afrika Korps, fleeing 100 miles northward since Friday, was now driven back with the forces under Gen. Jurgen von Arnim to the strong semicircular mountain positions before Tunis and Bizerte, where they apparently intend to fight a bitter, last-ditch battle designed to delay the Allied invasion of Europe as long as possible.
1st Army advances
The capture of Sousse and Kairouan reduced the last Axis bases south of the mountains guarding the outer approaches to Tunis and Bizerte. The 8th Army was less than 25 miles short of Enfidaville, eastern harbor of the mountain line.
The British 1st Army, to the northwest, was already driving into the mountain bastion from the west within 30-40 miles of both Tunis and Bizerte.
Today’s communiqué issued from headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower told of reduced but still heavy aerial operations against fleeing enemy columns, against the port of Tunis, where a large ship was hit by Flying Fortress bombs, and against Marsala and Trapani, in Sicily, where many hits were made on docks and ships, starting fires. Three ships were hit at Trapani.
In all, at least four ships were directly hit and a barge was sunk by the Fortresses.
The Admiralty in London announced today that British submarines had destroyed two medium-sized supply ships, one tanker, and five small supply ships in the Mediterranean Narrows. Seven other vessels, including three large supply ships and a big tanker, were hit by torpedoes.
Allied airplanes again made a record of more than 1,000 sorties by fighters and bombers and brought down a total of 41 enemy planes compared to 14 Allied aircraft lost on Sunday.
On the ground, the communiqué said the 8th Army was meeting little opposition as it made giant strides of more than 20 miles a day up the coastal road past Sousse and toward Enfidaville, 25 miles to the north, where the rough countryside offers Rommel a better defensive position.
French push ahead
Fifty miles northwest of Enfidaville, the British 1st Army and French native troops under Lt. Gen. K. A. N. Anderson made additional progress in the Medjez el Bab sector.
South of Medjez el Bab, French troops advanced to capture high ground in the Ousseltia mountain sector and British and U.S. armored forces and infantry crashed through the Fondouk Pass and seized the Muslim holy city of Kairouan, which Rommel had used as a major air base. This put them on the plains, only 27 miles from Sousse and another junction with the 8th Army.
Kairouan was entered by the Allied forces at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, after the French had announced the capture of more than 500 prisoners in the Pichon sector which was cleared in the advance on the holy city.
Tanks in battle
Allied tanks engaged Axis tanks to the northwest of Kairouan and knocked out ten of the enemy machines, but there was apparently little or no fighting for the city itself.
Radio Dakar, heard by CBS, said today that the Germans were already starting to transport contingents of the Afrika Korps to Italy and Greece by air, and had concentrated 40 or 50 submarines to protect troops to be evacuated by ship. Other advices, however, emphasized that there had been nothing to indicate a wholesale Axis attempt at evacuation from Tunisia so far, although some exhausted contingents had been taken out.
Rommel’s threat to the Tunis-Bizerte-Enfidaville zone was under constant aerial attack by Allied bombers and fighters. Hurricane bombers set 50 enemy vehicles afire in one attack. U.S. Warhawks reported 75% of a large concentration of enemy vehicles were in flames after an attack in the Enfidaville-Kairouan area.
Martin Marauders, escorted by Spitfires, dropped heavy loads of bombs on eight Ju 52 transport planes and about 25 other aircraft parked on Oudna Airfield near Tunis.
The area into which Rommel is retreating will probably be defended along a line running from a point near Mateur on the north, thence south to Medjez el Bab, and thence southeast to the Gulf of Hammamet, between Enfidaville and Hammamet. This area contains mountains, gorges, valleys and wooded hills, as well as high positions for gun emplacements.
Allied fliers sink cruiser, down 85 Axis planes
By Donald Coe, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied fliers sank one 10,000-ton Italian cruiser, badly damaged another and shot down 85 enemy planes in weekend blows against Axis sea and airpower in the Mediterranean.
In addition, British Middle Eastern Liberator bombers raided Naples, Italy’s second port, on Saturday.
Sixty-one of the enemy aircraft shot down were transports attempting to fly urgently-needed gasoline and oil to German forces in northeastern Tunisia.
Total of 79 transports downed
The loss came at a time when some observers believed Rommel might soon want all the transport craft he can lay his hands on to evacuate key personnel to Italy before the complete collapse of his Tunisian forces. Altogether, the Allies shot down 79 transport planes in the six days ended Sunday.
The Italian cruiser Trieste was sunk at the La Maddalena Naval Base in northern Sardinia Saturday during a raid by one of the largest forces of Flying Fortresses yet used in a single operation anywhere in the world, an indication that upwards of 100 of the big four-motored bombers must have participated. They flew without fighter escort.
The 10,000-ton cruiser Gorizia, hit in the same raid, was still afloat but badly damaged when reconnaissance planes flew over La Maddalena yesterday.
Bombing from an altitude of 20,000 feet, the Fortresses also hit at least one submarine and started large fires in the dock area.
All Fortresses returned safely.
Sunday’s toll of enemy aircraft totaled 27, including 21 transports. All fell to twin-engined U.S. Lockheed Lightning fighters over the Sicilian Strait.
Six-engined plane bagged
One formation of Lightnings attacked a group of 20 Ju 52 three-engined transports off the coast of Sicily and destroyed all of them. Some of the Axis pilots were so panic-stricken that they crashed without even being hit.
Another unit of Lightnings accounted for two Ju 88 dive bombers, one Me 109, one Me 110 and one Me 323, the latter a six-engined power glider.
Of the 58 aircraft destroyed Saturday, 40 were Ju 52s and the rest fighters.
Rommel may make Bizerte a German Sevastopol
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer
London, England –
Allied military sources believed today that Marshal Erwin Rommel may attempt a Nazi Sevastopol at the strongly-fortified Tunisian naval base of Bizerte.
Regarded as the strongest position both naturally and artificially in the country, Bizerte could probably be held by a force of no more than 30,000 for a considerable time. Compared with the open desert base of Tobruk, it is a veritable Gibraltar.
Bizerte lacks some of the natural advantages of the Russian Sevastopol base but its chances for a lengthy siege are increased by its nearness to Sicily, from which fighter air coverage could be obtained.
May lose all air bases
Rommel can maintain some fighter and bomber strength to aid his Afrika Korps as long as he holds a fairly sizeable area in Tunisia but the growing Allied air superiority may prevent the Luftwaffe from operating from northern Tunisian bases when the final stand comes.
Bizerte is in a much stronger position than Tunis, which can be reached from at least three comparatively open routes. Situated at the tip of a rocky peninsula protected by fixed batteries, Bizerte is secure from the seaside. The landside is guarded by an elaborate system of pillboxes.
The Allies approaching on the land would run into a bottleneck from Mateur and Ferryville. Bizerte is situated about 20 miles north of Mateur on the tip of Tunisia at Cap Blanc.
Heavy fortifications
The protection is increased by its almost-landlocked harbor area. On the shore, heavy tanks would have difficulty going through sand dunes.
The strong fixed defenses along the coast are backed up by the Soumeur Fortress plus additional installations on the small coastal islands of La Goulette and Petit Gaiton.
The approaches from the Tunis Gulf to the east and south are protected by a line of batteries which protect the advances from Tunis and Goulette.
The Korbous Fortress, equipped with 16-inch naval guns, takes on Cap Bon, east of Tunis, and to the south of Tunis, there are other lines of batteries.
It is assumed the Germans will try to hold these installations even if forced to evacuate Tunis itself.
Stoneman: Yanks have their troubles in fighting at Fondouk
By William H. Stoneman
With the Allied armies in central Tunisia – (April 10, delayed)
By dusk Saturday evening, when this was written, the combined U.S.-British forces which had been harassing Rommel’s rear on the north-central Tunisian front, had pushed advanced armored units towards fabled Kairouan.
The high ground south of Fondouk, which had been holding up operations, had been swept clear of enemy or voluntarily evacuated after the British had cut into his rear.
It is already high time to clear up one point of confusion regarding this battle for Kairouan which is now three days old. It was a joint Anglo-American show with the British, including one force largely supplied with Americans Shermans, predominating numerically.
British push succeeds
It was the British job to take high ground north of Fondouk, gateway to Kairouan, and to push through Fondouk with the aforesaid tanks manned by highly experienced veterans from three famous British cavalry regiments. It was left to the Americans, who were there making their first offensive push, to take the high ground south of the town.
The British accomplished their job and the Americans never really did for the following reasons which must be enumerated now in order to prevent any meddlesome talking in the days to come.
It may be stated from the beginning that this is more or less the opinion of the distinguished American genera; who is commanding on the spot, backed up by the observations of another general, who is here observing on behalf of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Why Yanks failed
We did not take out assigned high ground, south of Fondouk, because:
- Our forces had never participated in an organized assault before in their lives. They had been in retreats and they had held defensive positions, but the infantry was not used to charging well-held positions. In the words of the general:
Nothing is wrong with our training. It was the same in 1918. The boys simply have to do some fighting before they can do it well. They will be very much better the next time.
The main trouble was that we dispersed our attack instead of swamping them.
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Djebel Hallouf, which we had to attack, is as “bald as a man’s head” and the Germans had arranged their machine-gun and anti-tank posts to deliver deadly crossfire. This was a case of nature and German efficiency against us, and not our fault. Not only our infantry, but a good many of our tanks which were being used as infantry support, paid the penalty.
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Enemy minefields were thick and widespread ion keeping with the topography of the gulley-scarred plain which we had to cross. Both we and the British were held up by them.
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We had some bad luck due to late change of plans. We had planned an early dawn attack in conjunction with aerial bombardment and when we later decided to attack earlier in the night, it was too late both to retard aerial attack and to inform the infantry it was retarded. The aerial attack was delayed but we could not get word to the infantry in time to allow an earlier zero hour.
This may all sound very confusing back home but that technical detail may explain why we did not perform more heroically.