ROMMEL FLEES AS BRITISH BREAK MARETH LINE; R.A.F. AGAIN HITS BERLIN, RUHR AND ST. NAZAIRE (3/30/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 3/30/43 | C.L. Sulzberger, Don Whitehead, Sidney Shalett, Herbert L. Matthews

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Tunisia, 1942: Situation 22 April and Operations Since 26 February 1943
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Status of Forces and Allied Theater Boundaries, 2 July 1942
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-1943

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from yesterday.

Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate

[Homer_J_Simpson]

“ROMMEL FLEES . . .”

Rommel left Africa for good on March 9, yet here he is still making headlines three weeks later.

Main Forts Taken (Sulzberger) – 2-3
‘Impossible’ Waste Crossed by British Flanking Column (by Don Whitehead, first-time contributor) – 4
Yanks Scale Peak Under German Fire – 4-5
Italians Prepare Nation for Worst – 5
War News Summarized – 5
Air Blows Heavy – 6
Russians Gain Toward Smolensk; Tanks and Infantry Hit Defenses – 7
Six-Week Old Baby Gets Father’s Medals (photo) – 7
When Stalin Put Russia’s Scorched Earth Policy in Force (photos) – 8
U.S. Strategy Set for Pacific ‘Action’ (Shalett) – 9
U.S. Navy On Alert in the Aleutians – 10
Chinese Score Coup in Hupeh-Hunan Area; Strike Behind Enemy Line in Fierce Attack – 10
College Students Unruly in India (Matthews) – 11
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 13-14

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/mar1943/f30mar43.htm

Nazi blockade runner torched
Tuesday, March 30, 1943 www.onwar.com

In the North Atlantic... In the Denmark Strait, the crew of the German blockade runner Regensburg set fire to the ship to avoid capture when intercepted by the British light cruiser HMS Glasgow. Only 6 members of the German crew survive.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm

March 30th, 1943 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Britain suspends the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union because it cannot provide enough escorts to guard against the increasing number of German warships in Norway.

NETHERLANDS: RAF Mosquitoes bomb the Philips radio factory at Eindhoven.

BALTIC SEA Sea: U-416 (type VIIC) is sunk near Bornholm Island (precise position unknown) by a mine laid by Soviet submarine L3. The number of crew lost is not known, but the U-Boat is raised on 8 April 1943 and put back into use for training. (Alex Gordon)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin is furious to hear that Allied convoys to Murmansk are to be suspended because of heavy losses, suspecting political rather than military motives.

TUNISIA: Allied troops of the Eighth Army today moved up to a new German defensive line in the Tunisian desert at Wadi Akarit. The ten-day battle to breach the Axis defences of the Mareth Line is over, with Montgomery a decisive victor in his first confrontation with the new Axis commander, General von Arnim.

For many observers, this was Monty’s finest battle. After two days of fighting, a direct assault on the Mareth Line was proving to be fruitless, with heavy losses in men and tanks from ruthless Axis counterattacks. Then Monty revised his original plan by ordering Lt-Gen Brian Horrocks to move his tanks by night to join Maj-Gen Sir Bernard Freyberg’s New Zealanders, who had begun an encircling move. The breakthrough came with the attack on the Tebaga Gap during the night 26-27 March. The movement of so many men and tanks in darkness was a move previously favoured by Rommel, but not the Allies; another tactic deployed to a greater extent than has been customary for the Allies was the use of air power to support attacking land forces.

Forward air-controllers were in the front line of the Tebaga attack, using radio to direct pilots in Spitfires and other aircraft to attack tanks and enemy defences. The land forces advanced behind an aerial barrage of cannon fire and bombs from fighter-bombers flying over them in 15-minutes relays.

Some 6,000 Axis soldiers, mostly Italian, have been taken prisoner. But although most of the Mareth defenders escaped, they have had little time to prepare new defences against the inevitable next move by Monty’s masters of the desert.

Not since the age of Hannibal has such a polyglot army fought over these desolate wastelands. Men from all over the world have shared the dangers and discomfort, the defeats and the triumphs, the intense daytime heat and bitterly cold desert nights. The blood of many races and nationalities has soaked into the North African desert.

Here are the Australians who fought so stubbornly on the north flank of Alamein, with losses so huge that their government feared the loss of an entire generation; and New Zealanders whose tanks have excelled in encirclement operations and whose Maori infantrymen became as feared as the Indian Division’s Gurkhas in the fighting around Tobruk. The Free French stand at Bir Hacheim brought respect even from Rommel; and few have fought more fiercely than the Palestinian detachment and the Poles.

The Greek Brigade has shown the same tenacity as it showed against the Italians and Germans in defence of its homeland.

The Scots regiments have distinguished themselves throughout the campaign, often fighting alongside South Africans and English, Welsh and Irish county regiments, happy and honoured with the rest to call themselves “Desert Rats”.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Having scuttled their ship, all but six of the crew of the German blockade runner REGENSBURG, from Rangoon, kill themselves when they are intercepted off Iceland by the British cruiser HMS GLASGOW.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: 2nd Engineer Officer Gordon Love Bastian (1902-87) rescued two injured men from the engine-room, dark and filing with water and fumes, of the sinking SS BOWMAN. (Albert Medal)

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The Scots regiments have distinguished themselves throughout the campaign, often fighting alongside South Africans and English, Welsh and Irish county regiments, happy and honoured with the rest to call themselves “Desert Rats”.

Good name for a TV show.

[Rebelbase]

TV show of similar name:

[Amberdawn]

I also notice a story about R.A. John McCain on page 6, right hand column.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

That’s what I was thinking of - Rat Patrol. I believe henkster even mentioned having one of those lunch boxes as a lad.

[Rebelbase]

I got the equivalent GI Joe rat patrol jeep for Christmas in the 3rd grade.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Sweet.

[untenured]

From the article about student unrest in India:

If American boys at Columbia, Harvard or Yale struck or picketed or committed sabotage and, to say the least, absented themselves from classes, one can imagine what short shrift they would get from the university.

Ah, the things that were unimaginable in 1943.

[henkster]

I did have a Rat Patrol lunchbox. It was cool.

The German guy on Rat Patrol is still acting as a character in a daytime soap opera.

[Tainan]

Short bit about Madame Cash-My-Check 'inspiring the workers' as usual.
Always a good read. Thanks.

[colorado tanker]

Nice to see Monty do something daring. His left-hook against the Afrika Corps was downright Pattonesque.