AMERICANS GAIN 5 MILES IN NORTH AS ALL TUNISIAN DRIVES PROGRESS (4/25/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 4/25/43 | Drew Middleton, Hanson W. Baldwin, A.C. Sedgwick, Tillman Durdin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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THE NEWS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

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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: Final Allied Offensive – 22 April Attack, 3 May Attack, and Exploitation
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]

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War and Minister of Works 25 Apr 43

I am informed that arrangements had been made for weekly and week-end courses to be given in Balliol College, Oxford, for Dominion and American troops, where the university atmosphere would be particularly valuable in giving these troops from overseas a further insight into English life and history. I understand that this proposal is in jeopardy because the War Office are proposing to take over Balliol College for a senior officers’ course.

I am sure that Balliol College would be of more value in the former role, and I can hardly believe that no alternative accommodation for the War Office could be found. Let me have a report on some of the alternatives.

Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate

[Homer_J_Simpson]

U.S. Push Resumed (Middleton) – 2-3
Commanders Observing the Operations of Allied Troops on the Tunisian Front (photos) – 4
Foe’s Sea Line Hit – 5
War News Summarized – 5
Palestine Called Main Hope of Jews – 6
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones – 7-8

The News of the Week in Review
The Pattern of Allied Advance in Tunisia (map) – 9
Battle of Tunisia – 10
‘Japanese Justice’ – 10-11
Twenty News Questions – 12
March, 1918, Stage is Reached in World War II (Baldwin) – 13
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 14

The New York Times Magazine
General ‘Monty’s’ Brotherhood (Sedgwick) – 15-16
G.H.Q., Somewhere in Australia (Durdin) – 17-19

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/apr1943/f25apr43.htm

Italian mainland bombed by USAAF
Sunday, April 25, 1943 www.onwar.com

Over Italy... American bombers raid an airfield around Bari in the south.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

April 25th, 1943 (SUNDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Escort carrier HMS Ravager commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

FINLAND: Five Baglietto-type MTBs (”Hurja-class”) purchased from Italy arrive in Turku. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Free Poland.

CHINA: Sun Tien-ying, the commander of the Chinese Fifth Army, defects to the Japanese.

NEW GUINEA: A party from the Japanese “Provisions Transportation Unit”, carrying supplies from Salamaua to Komiatum is ambushed by Australian commandos. The commandos counted 60 men before they sprang the ambush. (Michael Alexander)

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Quinte arrived Pictou , Nova Scotia under tow for repair. Quinte had completed a 6-week refit in Lunenberg just before she went aground on 30 Nov 42 at the entrance to St Peter’s Channel, Cape Breton Island. The damage to her hull was so extensive that she had to be beached to prevent outright sinking. Salvage operations were conducted over the winter of 1943. Her repairs were not completed until Jun 44. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: The Hays Office, the motion picture censorship group, bans “zoot suits” from the movies. (Jack McKillop)

That is because of the Zoot Suit Riots.

Against this backdrop of hate and vengeance toward the Mexican American community in Los Angeles, what is known as the “Zoot Suit Riots” (though they are now often referred to as the “sailor riots”) occurred. On the night of June 3, 1943, eleven sailors on shore leave stated that they were attacked by a group of Mexican pachucos. In response to this, a group of over 200 uniformed sailors chartered 20 cabs and charged into the heart of the Mexican American community in East Los Angeles. Any zoot suiter was fair game. On this and the following nights, many a zoot suiter was beaten by this mob and stripped of their clothes, their zoot suits, on the spot. Nine sailors were arrested during these disturbances, not one was charged with any crime. On the following nights of June 4th and 5th, the uniformed servicemen (by this time the sailors had been joined by soldiers) again invaded East Los Angeles, marching abreast down the streets, breaking into bars and theatres, and assaulting anyone in their way. Not one was arrested by the Police or the Sheriff. In fact, the servicemen were portrayed in the local press as heroes stemming the tide of the “Mexican Crime Wave.” During the nights of June 6th and 7th, these scenes were again repeated. Time Magazine later reported that, “The police practice was to accompany the caravans of soldiers and sailors in police cars, watch the beatings and jail the victims.” According to Rudolpho Acuña in Occupied America, “Seventeen-year-old Enrico Herrera, after he was beaten and arrested, spent three hours at a police station, where he was found by his mother, still naked and bleeding. A 12-year-old boy’s jaw was broken. Police arrested over 600 Chicano youths without cause and labelled the arrests ‘preventive’ action. Angelenos cheered on the servicemen and their civilian allies.”

Finally, at midnight on June 7th, because the navy believed it had on actual mutiny on hand, the military authorities did what the city of Los Angeles would not, they moved to stop the rioting of their personnel. Los Angeles was declared off limits for all military personnel. Though there were little consequences for the rioters (servicemen and local law enforcement authorities alike), there was some public outcry. On June 16th, 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt commented in her column that, “The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should.” Los Angeles’ response was typified by the June 18th headlines of the Los Angeles Times, “Mrs. Roosevelt Blindly Stirs Race Discord,” and she was accused of communist leanings in the accompanying editorial. Governor Earl Warren (later Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during their landmark desegregation cases) convened a committee to investigate the riots and recommended punishment for all involved in the riots, servicemen and civilians. Other than the charges filed against the Mexican American victims, no punishment was ever meted out.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The British escort carrier HMS BITER scores the first “kill” of her class when one of her Swordfish and the destroyer HMS PATHFINDER sink U-203. The aircraft attacks with a bomb, but misses. Later the U-boat is sunk south of Cape Farewell, Greenland, in position 55.05.N, 42.25W, by depth charges from Swordfish and PATHFINDER. 10 dead and 38 survivors. (Dave Shirlaw)

U-533 attacked by an American USN VP-84 PBY-5A. Three of U-533´s gun crew were injured by the Catalina’s .30 cal. gunfire. They were - (Bootsmaat Buttkus, Matrosengefreiter Ludwig and Matrosengefreiter Fekken). All of them went again out to sea and Buttkus and Ludwig perished with the boat the following October.

SS Empire Morn was damaged by a mine laid on 11 April by U-117. She reached Gibraltar and was used as store ship.

At 0143, the Rosenborg, a straggler from Convoy RU-71, was hit by two torpedoes from U-386 north of Rockall and sank within 30 seconds. The master, 21 crewmembers, four gunners and two passengers were lost. Two crewmembers were picked up by the British rescue ship Goodwin and landed at Clyde on 28 April.

SS Rouennais struck a mine laid on 2 April by U-455 and sank off Casablanca. (Dave Shirlaw)

[BroJoeK]

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April 25, 1943:

• April 22: "The Jews of Amersfoort, Holland, are deported.

• April 25: "As fires set by Germans consume the Warsaw Ghetto, a German Jew named Hoch desperately leaps from a fourth-floor window, breaking both arms and his spine; See Late April 1943

• Late April: "Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto begins to falter as bunkers are broached by German troops.
  Artillery bombardment of the ghetto has foiled Jewish strategy of engaging Germans in costly hand-to-hand combat; See May 1943."

The Katyn Massacre

"In April 1943 members of the German Army discovered a mass grave in a heavily forested area just outside of Katyn, a remote Soviet village. An international commission of physicians identified the bodies -- 4,143 discovered, but thousands more believed to be killed -- as Polish officers and soldiers.
According to the report issued by the German government, the men were captured by the Soviets during the 1939 Polish campaign; each was killed with a single shot to the nape of the neck just prior to the German invasion of Russia.

"When the Polish government-in-exile in London concurred with the report, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin broke off relations with the civilian regime and claimed that the Germans had committed the murders.
The Allies upheld Stalin's claim until 1952, when a United States congressional inquiry concluded that the Soviet secret police were responsible.
In April 1990 the Soviet Union acknowledged its responsibility for the Katyn Massacre."

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[colorado tanker]

They're ivory. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

colorado tanker gets extra credit for today’s contribution.

[Seizethecarp]

Page 8: “Haifa has an air raid”

Today, 70 years later, Haifa had a drone raid! Drone shot down just off the coast of Haifa.

“Israeli military shoots down drone”

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/israel-says-it-shoots-down-hezbollah-drone

[colorado tanker]

Thanks for the extra credit, Homer. With grades like mine, you need everything you can get.

I have one more comment on today's stories, however. In the war news quiz is the question who are the Gurkhas? The Times' answer is they are natives of India. That is wrong and the reason it is wrong has to do with why Gurkhas are not from India.

In the 19th Century the British invaded Nepal, seeking to add it to British India. It is one of the few colonial wars they lost (our own Revolution being the worst defeat, of course). But the Brits were so impressed by Nepal's Gurkha soldiers that they sought to recruit them into their army. Gurkhas have served ever since and served with distinction in WWII. At Indian independence the British and Indian armies split the Gurkha regiments. Still with the Brits, the Gurkhas scared the hell out of the Argies in the Falklands war.