http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/may1943/f07may43.htm
Axis lines broken in Tunisia
Friday, May 7, 1943 www.onwar.com
A destroyed German column [photo at link].
In Tunisia... Tunis and Bizerta are both captured in the afternoon by British and American forces, respectively. The Axis defenses can no longer contain the Allied pressure.
In the Solomon Islands... Americans lay mines in the waters around New Georgia to prevent Japanese supplies reaching the island.
In Burma... The Japanese force the British to withdraw from Buthidaung. The city is occupied by the Japanese.
Two comments today:
It’s pretty clear that the Allies have a massive air superiority in the Mediterranean. The lesson of allied air power was not lost on Rommel, who feared it greatly. The experience of North Africa will dictate his strategy in France next year. He knows that the allies must be stopped at the water’s edge, as once the allies gain a lodgement, allied air power will make them invincible. He will make note of this in his memoirs, the manuscript of which he is even now writing. His Normandy strategy will be in contrast with the strategy espoused by his panzer commander, Geyr von Schweppenburg, who prefers to allow the allies to come ashore and then defeat them inland in a war of maneuver. Schweppenburg was an accomplished panzer commander, but all his experience was on the Eastern Front, where the vast spaces made such a strategy viable. Rommel had the relevant experience western allies and knew that in an open mobile battle, allied airpower would crush the panzers before they even engaged the allied ground forces.
The other item is the bio of Jacob Devers.
Devers was an under-appreciated commander by any measure. As you can see from the appointment to supreme commander, he is clearly a rival for position with none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a result, once Ike had maneuvered himself into the top spot, he made sure that Devers was relegated to backwater and lesser commands. In France, his 6th Army Group got much lower priority for new units, and had to slog it out in the toughest contested terrain. In November, he was the only allied command to achieve any decisive movement by breaking out of the Vosges into the Alsatian Plain to seize Strasbourg. Yet his reward for this success was to have Ike, Bradley and Patton pay him a visit to poach units from his command to support Patton’s planned Saar offensive. Devers was left wondering if everyone was on the same team.
The official history of 6th Army Group, “Riviera to the Rhine” was the last operational history of the European Theater published by the Army, and as a result, the accomplishments of his command were never given the historical credit I believe they deserved.