Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-11-23
Big Drive in Bizerte-Tunis Area
Is Reported Launched by Allies;
Nazis Face Enlightenment by Reds
RommeI Said to Be
In Command of
Axis Defenders
By the Associated Press.

ish LIST Army. with American and
French support, was reported
today to have launched a big
attack against the German Ital-
ian positions in the defense
perimeter of Bizerte and Tunis,
where Marshal Erwin Rommel,
one time German master Of AZ
rican desert warfare, was said
to be in command with perhaps
a part of his Africa Corps.
The radio in Allied-held Morocco
said prisoners already had been
brought in as result of the British
attack which the Allies have been
preparing for week. and Berlin
broadcasts limited that Marshal
Rommel had transferred his head
quarters and perhaps some of his
Libyan forces to Tunisia.
Previously the British and Ameri-
can forces which had streamed
across North Africa for hundreds
of miles in race to get control of
Tunisia's Middle Mediterranean
bases were reported to have tested
the defenses in the northern tip Of
the French protectorate, and radio
Morocco quoted an Allied spokes-
man as saying their attacks were
growing in violence.
The broadcast said that one clash
occurred % miles south of the coast
and that the engagement remained
indecisive.'
Axis Well Established.
Allied spokesman were quoted as
admitting that the Germans and
Italians were we'll established with
a strong air force at Bizerte and
Tunis and it was apparent that the
Axis was going to make fight to
retain its dominance of the Sicilian
straits.
Allied forces have launched an
attack against enemy armored forces
intrenched around the towns of
Tunis and Bizerte," said the Mo-
rocco radio announcement this
morning.
THE main Allied forces are being
actively brought up to the front to
attack the whole of the Axis
occupied positions. The first prison.
ers have been brought back to the
rear"
French reports told OF attempted
Axis infiltrations in South Tunisia
and other reports from Allied head
quarters in North Africa said similar
tactics were being attempted from
the north, where the main Axis
forces have been landed by sea and
air.
Attempting Flank Attack.
These suggested that Marshal
Rommel, who more than once has
foiled Allied strategems to trap him,
was attempting flank attack from
Tripolitania against the British and
American forces converging on the
northern tip of Tunisia.
II Marshal Rommel has split his
forces, it was presumed here that
he had dispatched some armored
units from Tripoli, either overland
or by sea, to Gabes or Sfax on the
East Tunisian coast.
Both lie south and southeast of
the routes of the main Allied forces
driving eastward from Algeria, but
pro-Allied French forces have been
reported in control along most of the
coast, and, according to French
North African broadcasts, some
British and American forces had
joined these French Allies.
A North African broadcast, pur-
porting to quote pro-Allied French
communique, said German infiltra-
ton units had ben thrown out OF
the oasis of Gafsa. west of Gabes.
but other inflltrations were being
attempted as far north as Kairouan,
IS miles south of Tunis.
The German broadcast concern
Ing Rommel came from the Zeesen
station near Berlin and was not
repeated on most German stations
Many informed observers were in
clined to doubt that Rommel per-
sonally was in Tunisia
Some informed quarters believed
he Is responsible for the entire North
Africa and possibly the whole Medi-
terranean area, however, and
pointed out that he could be in
command in Tunisia without &C
tually being on the ground.
Berlin Praises Rommel.
The Berlin radio, in consoling
tone, thus referred to Marshal
Rommel:
With Tunisia. Rommel has ex-
changed useless strip of desert for
battle zone akin to European con-
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