Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-11-29
Mediterranean Front

admiral JEAN DdTldIl, TIE CIllel Ol llle
Vichy Army and Navy, who has been col
laborating with the Allies in North
Africa, spoke over the Algiers radio
Monday night. He announced good
news, saying:
French West Africa has placed itself
freely under my orders"
French West Africa is a mighty stretch
ct land-seacoast, jungle and desert.
Most of the sandy Sahara lies within it.
France itself could fit 10 times in French
west Africa. But it was a pinpoint of
west Africa that was important in the
oarlan announcement-Daka the sea-
tort nearest South America. The de-
cision about Dakar meant that the 18
Carships there might become available
10 the Allies-or at least unavailable to
the Axis They are the 35,000-ton bat
sleship Richelieu, the 7600-ton cruisers
Gloire, Montcalm and Georges Leygues;
sbout 10 submarines and the subtender
Jules Verne.
Africa is Just about the Allies con-
tinent. Except for Tunisia and the sea
fringe of Tripoli,
Armistice they have it all
Brought Chonee excluding the
neutral regions.
They began the war in control of most
Ct it. but the armistice of Compiegne in
1910 swept the French African regions
out of Allied control. The British and
3elgians drove the Italians from their
East African empire and put Halle
Selassie back on the throne of Ethiopia.
Gen. Charles de Gaulle won French
equatorial Africa, with strategic Lake
Chad, to the Allied cause. The Anglo
american invasion of North Africa and
the collaborat ton there of Admiral OAR
ian has put Morocco and Algeria into
Allied hands. The United States dead
IN the Moroccan and Algerian campaigns
number 800. the War Department an
nounced last week.
The struggle for Tunisia began to gain
momentum Tuesday, when violent fight
for air supremacy over the country COM
menced The Algers radio said that
nine Axis planes were destroyed in an
enemy held airfield in Tunisia while the
Germans and Italians raided three AL
,ied-held ports in Algeria from the air
Algiers. Bone and Bougie. The Raj
conducted a heavy bombing assault on
Bizerte, the key point in Tunsia, which,
with the city of Tunis, is held by the
Axis. The showdown fight for Tunisia
will center around those two points. Ger
man bombers operating from Italian
bases in Sardinia and Sicily can make
the hop across the narrows of the Medi-
terranean in about an hour.
Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told
the House of Commons in London
Wednesday that the contest for North
Africa had reached IAN extremely criti-
cal STAGE The scale of Axis air attacks
in North Africa was taken as the sign
that Hitler vas backing up his land
forces in Tunisia with great airpower for
a bitter-end sss.nd on the Mediterranean
shore.
A mighty cunisian battle on the
ground is in the making. The Allied
assaults will be waged by forces led by
1t. Gen. f. A. N. Anderson, commander
Of the Britist LIST Army, and by Maj.
Gen. George S. Patton, jr., the American
French regiments will support both. The
Morocco radio said that the equipment
of Gen. Patton's detachments, made up
largely of specialists, includes heavily
armored tank destroyers on caterpillar
treads. The Allied force is thought to
number about 10000 men.
The LIST Army opened its big push Fri
day, the Algiers radio reported The
period of patrol activity
Big Push is finished the radio
Is Opened said. Already Allie
spearheads had reached
within Is miles of the city of Tunis.
They clashed with Axis patrols at
Mateur. Is miles south of Bizerte. The
first Allied objective was to sever con-
nections between Bizerte and Tunis, both
coastal cities.
In publicizing the Axis preparations
to thwart the work of Anderson and
Patton, the Berlin radio declared that
the German air force had gained air
superiority over Tunisia with lightning
speed" and added: Naval and land
forces have been able to pour men and
materials into the country Deployment
Of Axis forces is still in progress Fri
day) and consequently fighting Is re.