THE STARS AND STRIPES
Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations
London, England Monday, Jan. 25, 1943
Tripoli Taken, British Pursue
Rommel Toward Mareth Line;
City's Fall Severe Blow to Italy
Fleeing Axis Columns
Pounded Heavily by
Allied Planes
The conquering Eighth Army which wrested Tripoli, Mussolini's
last and greatest African colonial city, from the Axis on Saturday, swept
on along the coastal area well to the west yesterday and engaged the withdrawing
enemy in new combats. Marching into Tripoli at 5 o'clock
Saturday morning, Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery's troops hoisted the
Union Jack over the richest tactical prize of the campaign. It followed a 1,400-mile
desert trek unequaled in military history for speed and organization.
While some Eighth Army units occupied the city, others shot through the city in
hot pursuit of Rommel's forces retiring toward Tunisia.
The remnants of Rommel's Afrika Korps, fleeing westward be3rond Tripoli, are expected to make a stand at the Mareth Line on the Tunisia-Tripolitania frontier, where the French years ago built an " African Maginot Line."- While some units of the Eighth Army occupied Tripoli, others raced westward on the coastal road, and still another column plunged on south of the fallen capital in an effort to strike at Rommel before he can effect a junction with Axis Tunisia forces.
Soviet Drive May Isolate Foe in South
Reds Advance Down Vital
Railroad Leading To Crimea
MOSCOW, Jan. 24 (UP)—The Red Armies on the Voronezh front are now
smashing southwestwards in an effort to isolate the whole German position in
Southern Russia, which obviously is the meaning of the vast turning movement
now being executed by Gen. Golikov's forces there.
His men have already reached a point 45 miles from Belgorod junction on the
great north-south railway line from Moscow, through Kharkov to the Crimea.
The cutting of this line would complete the destruction of the communications
between the German forces in the south and their formations in Central Russia.
French Warned Against
Cheering Nazi Reverses
Paris radio before yesterday's news bulletin warned those Frenchmen who
" today rejoice at the news of the Russian successes in the east."
Rumors have spread through France of German withdrawals and
of the possibility of an early German defeat, the radio admitted, adding:
“ The German High Command acknowledges the Soviet offensive, but
the German defense has not collapsed." People should remember that last
year the Russians gamed initial successes but-were overrun by the
sweeping German offensive."
Japs on Papua Destroyed After 6 Month Fight
Liquidation at Sanananda Completes Allied Rout
Of Enemy Forces
ALLIED HQ, AUSTRALIA, Jan. 24
(UP)—All organized ground fighting in Papua has now ended, with Allies tracking
down Japanese remnants and snipers, thus marking the end of a six-month campaign
in which Australian and U.S. troops turned an immediate Jap threat
to Australia into a Jap disaster, involving the destruction of an army estimated
to number 15,000 men.
The campaign, starting with the Jap landing at Buna on July 22 of last year,
brought the invaders within striking distance of Port Moresby on the south coast
in September, only to be chased back across the Owen Stanley mountains by
the Australians and mopped up by them and the Americans in the fierce battles
in the jungles and swamps around Buna, Gona and Sanananda.
Enemy Takes Hill in Tunisia,
Is Halted by French Americans
ALLIED HQ, Tunisia, Jan. 24 (UP)—A battle for a vital valley was in
progress tonight in Tunisia. The Germans have managed to advance halfway
down the Ousseltia valley and now hold the eastern end and the heights
on each side. French and American troops have stopped their advance
and are maintaining their hold on the western end of the valley.
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