Current Events November 15, 1943; Rabaul Bombed:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY NOVEMBER 15, 1943:
Red Army columns smashed ahead both north and south from newly captured Zhitomir last night after an
85-mile advance in the week following the storming of Kiev had resulted in seizure of the town, cut .the vital
Leningrad-Odessa railway there and virtually split the German armies of Russia in two.

American heavy bombers over the weekend struck their fifth blow at Nazi targets in 13 days, spreading fear and destruction in the German port of Bremen and maintaining an operational average which, with good weather, may make November the biggest month since the USAAF came to the ETO.

American arrmert punctuated the end of one of the blackest weeks of he war for the Japanese with more
vicious air attacks on Rabaul, sinking one cruiser and two destroyers, besides damaging 11 other warships,
Gen. MacArthur's communique said yesterday.

Steam engines for aircraft, burning "non-refined oil and requiring less space than internal combustion gas engines, could be.put to large-scale production for military purposes within nine months, a Chicago inventor
told a meeting of military engineers yesterday. Louis Trosky, who claims he has flown 800 hours in -a steam-driven plane, said that he uses a piston-type engine and a boiler of thin tubing. The burner is a "combination of automobile carburetor and paint spray gun. It will use almost any fuel," he said, "from crude oil to lard."
                        THE STARS AND STRIPES
 Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces   in the European Theater of Operations
                           New York, N.Y.—London, England                    Monday, Nov. 15, 1943

Soviets Split Nazis' North-South Armies
Zhitomir's Fall Cuts
Important Rail Line;
Red Drive Continues
Russians Advancing
Toward Other
Key Routes Red Army columns smashed ahead both north and south from newly captured Zhitomir last night after an
85-mile advance in the week following the storming of Kiev had resulted in seizure of the town, cut .the vital
Leningrad-Odessa railway there and virtually split the German armies of Russia in two. Cutting of the rail line meant thatthe Germans now would have to shuttle men and supplies from the north into Poland and thence back again into southern Russia below Zhitomir, which is within 70 miles of the Polish border.
Last night Gen. Vatutin's armies were driving northward from Zhitomir toward Korosten, junction of five railways south of the Pripet marshes. One column was within 25 miles of the town. Another thrust from Zhitomir -was aimed at Berdichev, 21 miles south. From Berdichev it is only 60 miles to the Odessa-Lwow rail line over which supplies are moving to Hitler's hard-pressed armies in the south.
                                          Big Drive in Gomel Sector
To the north of the Kiev salient another Russian drive was being made toward Ryechitsa, south of the great Nazi base at Gomel, anchor of the enemy's line in White Russia. Cossacks and tanks were striking for the important Gomel-Pinsk railway in an attempt to sever one of the last two remaining escape routes from Gomel.


Bremen Raid
Hints Record
U. S. Month
Blow at Biggest Seaport
Is Fifth for Heavies
In 13 Days
American heavy bombers over the
weekend struck their fifth blow at
Nazi targets in 13 days, spreading fear and destruction in the German port of Bremen and maintaining an operational average which, with good weather, may make November the biggest month since the USAAF came to the ETO.
' The U.S. heavies have achieved ten raids in a month three times, the last in September. With 16 days to go, the Eighth Air Force formation seemed likely to score a new monthly high for operations, while a new monthly mark for total bomb tonnage is almost a certainty in view of the  steadily increasing force of bombers which Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, air chief in the ETO, promised last summer.
                                                       Escorted All the Way
A fleet of Flying Fortresses and Liberators, accompanied all the way by P38 Lightnings and P47 Thunderbolts, struck Bremen in early daylight Saturday, beat off attacks by hundreds of German fighters
and rocket planes, and came back with the loss of 15 heavy bombers and nine fighters, according to Eighth Air Force headquarter.
A total of 43 enemy planes were destroyed, an official communique claimed ; 33 by bomber gunners and ten by the escorting fighters.
It was the longest mission—;about 750 miles' round trip)—the fighters have yet completed with the bombers.

Planes Blast
Rabaul, Hit
15 Warships
Cruiser, 2 Destroyers Sunk
, 11 Other Warships
Are Damaged
 American arrmert punctuated the end of one of the blackest weeks of he war for the Japanese with more
vicious air attacks on Rabaul, sinking one cruiser and two destroyers, besides damaging 11 other warships,
Gen. MacArthur's communique said yesterday.
In Washington, meanwhile, the Navy Department announced U.S. subs, harassing the Jap's much-battered
Pacific supply lines, had sunk seven more ships, including one described as a "plane carrier." In the Rabaul onslaught, U.S. airmen, many of which operated from aircraft carriers, destroyed.88 Jap fighters and bombers for the loss of 17 planes. Allied warships sustained only "minor damage," according to the official communique.
Sixty-four of the Jap planes were destroyed n four Jap air attacks on the Allied surface fleet, while the U.S.
bombers were virtually cleaning out Rabaul's Simpson harbor.
The task force ventured to within 200 miles of Rabaul when a wave of Kichi 99 dive-bombers peeled off from 12,000 feet toward two U.S. carriers. Their bombs burst near the carriers—but there were no hits, ~ Only nine crew members were injured by a "close hit."
                                                       Jap Torpedoes Miss
. Two more waves of Jap torpedo planes, single-engined Mitsubishi 97s and twin engined Mitsubishi 11s, then came in for an attack. Only three torpedoes released by the planes ever got past the. Allied destroyer screen around the carriers, and all went wide of the targets.
That was fhe end of the Jap attack. There was another wave of dive-bombers but U.S. fighters from the carriers prevented the Japs from getting anywhere near the naval task forces.
On Bougainville, Marines and Army troops hacked their way through dense, damp jungle to kill 300 Japanese in an advance toward Buin. U.S. troops have not been dry since they landed because of the continual rains. The roads are 18 inches deep in mud. The jungle is so thick that mortars and hand grenades are almost unusable because they can't be thrown far enough without hitting an obstruction and exploding
too close to the thrower.
Added to that, the jungle smells with a smell of its own. and is made worse by typical battleground stenches. Stretcher bearers have to wade waist deep to get the wounded out.

' James Watt' of 1943 Says
Steam-Driven Planes Are OK
CHICAGO. Nov. 14 (AP)—
Steam engines for aircraft, burning "non-refined oil and requiring less space than internal combustion gas engines, could be.put to large-scale production for military purposes within nine months, a Chicago inventor
told a meeting of military engineers yesterday. Louis Trosky, who claims he has flown 800 hours in -a steam-driven plane, said that he uses a piston-type engine and a boiler of thin tubing. The burner is a "combination of automobile carburetor and paint spray gun. It will use almost any fuel," he said, "from crude oil to lard."
Trosky asserts the plane will take off in a third the distance of a gas-powered plane, and climb at unthought of angles. He told the engineers that the Armyhad tried one of his steam engines in an automobile. The only trouble, he said, was too speedy acceleration—a 100 miles an hour in the first city block. The Chicago engineers asserted that it would be possible to build a steam plane that would fly non-stop around the world at the equator without refueling.