Current Events November 5, 1943;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY NOVEMBER 5, 1943:

The combined American-British aerial operations against Germany and its occupied countries on Wednesday constituted the greatest single round the- clock air offensive in the history of warfare, statements made in Washington and London indicated last night

Marshal Stalin's long-awaited grand summary of the great Russian campaign which began in July was flashed to the world late last night via Moscow radio and gave the almost incredible news that the Germans had
lost 2.700,000 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner. A total of 900,000 Germans were killed, the summary revealed, with 98,000 Nazis captured.

U.S. bombers and fighters yesterday smashed Japanese preparations for a counter-blow in the Bougainville area with another crushing attack at Rabaul which cost them 15 ships sunk and 85 aircraft destroyed.

A charge that the Japanese used poison gas in the battle in the central Yangtze now raging around Tungting lake, was made by the Chinese high command today.

            THE STARS AND STRIPES
                       Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces the European Theater of Operations
                                       New York, N.Y.— London, England         Friday, Nov. 5, 1943
War's Greatest 24-Hr. Air Assault Hailed
4,000 Tons Dropped
By USAAF and RAF
In a Day and Night
War Secretary Confirms 1,000 U.S. Planes
Struck Wifiielmshaven and Airfields;
Crews Praise Fighter Support
The combined American-British aerial operations against Germany and its occupied countries on Wednesday constituted the greatest single round the- clock air offensive in the history of warfare, statements made in Washington and London indicated last night.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson declared in Washington yesterday that the Eighth Air Force's assaults Wednesday against Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and Nazi airfields in France and Holland, in which he said more than 1,000 planes took part, was the "greatest daylight aerial operation in history."
Simultaneously the British Air Ministry announced that the tonnage of bombs dropped by the USAAF in its daylight raids and by the RAF in its subsequent blows at Dusseldorf, Cologne and other targets was the heaviest ever to be hurled at Germany and its occupied territories in any 24-hour period.
Four thousand tons of high explosives and incendiaries, the Ministry said, were
dropped in the day and night assaults. Nearly half, it disclosed, had been dumped by the USAAF.
Meanwhile, crew members of returning Liberators and Flying Fortresses, which formed "the largest number of heavy bombers ever dispatched in daylight," reported that the target areas in Wilhelmshaven were covered with bombs and that both fighter and anti-aircraft opposition was the lightest encountered on recent
j missions. They were loud in their praise of the P47s and P38s, which shepherded them to and from the target.
Only five heavy bombers, two medium bombers and three fighters failed to return from the day's operations in which 48 Nazi planes were recorded as destroyed by the Liberators, Flying Fortresses, Marauders, P47 Thunderbolts, P38 Lightnings and Spitfires engaged in the attacks.



Reds Bare
 Vast Results
Of Big Push
900,000 Germans Killed,
98,000 Captured; 9,900
Planes Destroyed
Marshal Stalin's long-awaited grand summary of the great Russian campaign which began in July was flashed to the world late last night via Moscow radio and gave the almost incredible news that the Germans had
lost 2.700,000 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner. A total of 900,000 Germans were killed, the summary revealed, with 98,000 Nazis captured.
Declaring that the entire Dnieper River line was now in Russian hands, the statiement added that in the crushing offensive that followed the smashing of the Germans' own summer offensive early in
July, 15,400 enemy tanks were destroyed' or disabled.
A total of 144 enemy divisions, including28 tank and motorized divisions, were routed in this liberation of the entire Ukraine on the east bank of the Dnieper, which carried the Red Army between 190 and 290 miles to the west.
Destroyed were 9,900 planes, 890 armored "cars. 13.000 guns, 13,000 t.rench mortars, 50.000 machine-guns. 60.500 motor vehicles and more than 300 railway locomotives.   
  

  Isernia Seized;
Nazis Give Way
OnWlioleFront
Driven Out of Massico
Line as Allies Capture
Strategic Base
  ALLIED HQ, North Africa, Nov. 4 (AP)—
Isernia, strategic Nazi base dominating a whole network of roads in the central Italy battle zone, fell to Allied
troops late today after a ten-mile advance in 36 hours.
The vital junction was wrested from its German defenders after a day that saw some of the most important Allied gains in weeks. '
Beaten out of the strongest defense line they had yet established in two months of fighting'in Italy, German armies facing the Fifth Army retreated along both main roads to Rome with British and American troops in close pursuit.
The loss of Isernia cut off the German left flank, facing the Eighth Army, from lateral communications with other enemy forces facing the Fifth. At the same time it put the Allies astride the Vasto-Venafro road and the railway from Venafro to Sulmona.






Chinese Say Japs Used
Gas in Recent Battle
CHUNGKING, Nov. 4 (AP)—
A charge that the Japanese used poison gas in the battle in the central Yangtze now raging around Tungting lake, was made by the Chinese high command today.
The high command said that the Japs resorted to this method of war near Manhsien, 70 miles south of the former Yangtze treaty port of Shasi.









 U.S. Fliers Halt
ConvovyEnroute 
ToBougaiiiville
15 Jap Ships, 85 Planes
Destroyed in Blow
At Rabaul



ALLIED HQ. Southwest Pacific-. Nov.. 4—
U.S. bombers and fighters yesterday smashed Japanese preparations for a counter-blow in the Bougainville area with another crushing attack at Rabaul which cost them 15 ships sunk and 85 aircraft destroyed.
The American fliers caught a supply convoy and its warship escort in the snug Rabaul harbor and broke through murderous anti-aircraft barrage to wreck a major part of the fleet. Two heavy cruisers also were badly damaged with direct hits besides 11 other merchant vessels.
The air battle, called the fiercest since the Battle of Bismarck Sea. saw eight Jap float-type planes and two fourengined flying boats sunk and 67 enemy fighters shot down over and near the target.