Saturday, March 12, 2011

Current Events March 11, 1943; / SABOTAGE, RESISTANCE SPREADS IN FRANCE / COUNTERATTACKS FORCING RUSSIANS BACK / BOMBING DAMAGE HEAVY IN GERMANY / JAPANESE BOMBERS HIT SHORTLAN ISLANDS NEAR NEW GUINEA / JANANESE THREAT TO AUSTRALIA STILL EXISTS / GERMAN AIRMEN SHOW FIGHT IN TUNSIA:


                     THE STARS AND STRIPES
Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations
                         London, England Thursday, March 11, 1943

Guerrilla Outbreaks
In Channel Ports;
Deal Attacked
French guerrillas carried their attacks on German occupation troops
to the frequently bombed Channel ports of Brest and Lorient yesterday.
Other outbreaks occurred in Lyons and Marseilles and in the industrial
centers of Normandy, Brittany and Alsace Lorraine.
Advices to Fighting French headquarters in London estimated that
close to 300 Germans, mostly officers, had been killed in the last three days

Nazis Block
Red Drive in
Donetz Basin
Outreaching Supply Line,
Russians Retreat from
Important Towns
MOSCOW, Mar. 10 (UP)—Fierce
counter-attacks in the Donetz Basin area forced Russian units to retreat
today—the first setback the Soviet fighters have received in more than
three months of offensive warfare. Elsewhere along the far-flung front
the Russians hold the advantage, pushing ahead against wavering
German defenses or, at least, holding the positions they had already won.
Russian communiques admitted that Krasnograd, Lozovaya, Pavlograd,
Krasno-Armeisk. Kramatorskaya, Barvenkovo, Slaviansk and Lisichansk—
several of them important points—had been abandoned, and that Russian troops
were meeting heavy German attacks on a new line east of those points.
Red Star. Russian Army newspaper, summed up the new situation by assigning
a defensive role to Russian units in the southern area. Their duty, said the
paper, would be to " wage defensive warfare and stubbornly and firmly hold their
positions and repulse all attacks."
Outreached Supply Lines

Munich Digs
Out of Ruins 1 J :
Nazis Cry
Second RAF Night Raid
Brings Howls From
.German Radio

German radio said yesterday “The enemy has no pity. . . We hate
this kind of warfare."
The statement came while Munich and Nuremberg were still digging
their way out of the wreckage left by two consecutive RAF night raids
to southern Germany.
The Allied air offensive, which has pounded around the clock for 14 days
with only one night's interruption, continued Tuesday night with what the Air
Ministry said was a " heavy " attack on "Munich, birthplace of Nazism and manu-
facturing and rail center. The night before, the RAF hit Nuremberg, leaving
great fires and causing what the Germans admitted was heavy damage.
The Munich raid, along with smaller bombing missions to western Germany,
where the sirens have wailed almost every night for a month, and the laying of
mines in German coastal waters, cost a total of 11 aircraft, the Air Ministry said.
\\ St. Nazaire Still Burns

26 Bombers Hit
Allied Air Base
Light Damage, Casualties;
Libs Blast Targets in
Shortland Islands
ALLIED HQ, Southwest Pacific, Mar. 10—Twenty-six Japanese twin-engined
bombers attacked the Allied airdrome at Wau, New Guinea, yesterday,' causing
little damage and light casualties, according to the official communique issued here
today.
Escorted by 21 fighter planes, the enemy bombers came in from the northwest
flying at 15,000 feet and dropped their bombs on the base all at once.
No mention was made in the communique of any planes shot down. Wau
is about 35 miles southwest of Salamaua and 425 miles south of Rabaul, main
operating base of the Japs in New Britain.



(Page 4)
Pacific Victory
Not Decisive'
By No Means Ends Threat
Of Australian Invasion,
Curtin Warns
ALLIED HQ, Southwest Pacific, Mar. 10 (UP)—In spite of the Allied victory
in the Bismarck Sea, suggestions that the Japanese threat to the Australian mainland
has been removed were bluntly rejecied today in authoritative circles in
Australia. .
Only 136 aircraft carrying a total bomb load of only 226 tons sank the Japanese
convoys of ten warships and 12 transports off New Guinea, John Curtin. Australian
Premier, pointed out. This small force put the Bismarck
battle in its proper perspective, he said, since cables from Britain and the United
States had indicated a tendency on the part of the Press to assume that the oestruction
of the Japanese convoy meant that an overwhelming air superiority had
been established north of Australia. That was not the case.

German Airmen
Now Show Fight
In Tunisia Skies
Desperate, Nazis Give Up
Policy of Avoiding
Air Combat
A U.S. FIGHTER BASE, Southern Tunisia, Mar. 10 (AP)—Apparently in
desperation, German pursuit pilots have changed their combat tactics since the
battle of El Alamein and are engaging more frequently in dogfights with Allied
fighters sweeping over the Mareth Line on strafing and bombing missions.
That is the report from U.S. fighter
pilots who have battled the Luftwaffe trom El Alamein into Tunisia. • i
In addition to more dogged enemy resistance, pilots return from minions with
reports that the German anti-aircraft fire from Gabes south is the heaviest they
have ever encountered.
Lt. Col. Arthur Salisbury, of Sedalia, Mo., returned from one strafing mission
with six planes in his flight punctured by bullets and shrapnel.
Cornered, Must Fight

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