The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-08-19
THE WAR ON MANY FRONTS
(By United Press)

the Allies will strike next became an important political and military issue today as western and southern Europe felt the extreme tenseness of the pre-invasion lull.
 In London, there was feeling that opening of a second front in Europe was imminent. Italy ap- peared to be the most logical spot for 8 quick thrust onto the conti- nent because powerful American and British armies that swept through Sicily in 39 days were look ing across the Messina Straits at the Italian toe, barely three miles away.
 Richard D. McMillan, United Press War Correspondent who went to Algiers after covering the Sicil- ian campaign, wrote that Allied forces were regrouping at Mediter- ranean bases for the biggest of- fensive yet against Europe. He thought the next phase of the war to crush the Axis would show even greater speed of execution than the battle of Sicily.
 Instructions To Patriots
 Allied broadcasts instructed French patriots to hasten prepara- tions to Allied landings.
 Invasion problems undoubtedly were receiving foremost attention from President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at their Quebec conferences.
 The great Russian offensive in the Kharkov area was rolling for ward toward the Dnieper river again after fierce German counter attacks had been broken in great battle.
 Reports from the Soviet fighting front said the Red Army had oc- cupied the main German defense line along the right bank of the northern Donets river, 18 miles south of Kharkov. Another Soviet advance in the Ukraine had taken Russian forces across the Vorslka river, a tributary of the Dnieper, to Oposhnaya, which was captured. This put the Russians little more than 20 miles north of the big Ger man base at Poltava. Red Army Moves The Red Army also had moved forward up to six miles toward Bry- ansk. taking some 40 towns and villages.
 Poor visibility over the continent stalled the Allied air offensive last night, but British fighter planes sank German motor torpedo boat off Belgium and attacked locomo- tiveS and an air field in northern France.
 Southern Italy underwent shat tering sea and air bombardment, however.
 American warships, shelling the Italian coast for the first time trained their guns on Palmi and Gioia Tauro on the northern DOT tion of the toe, northwest of Mes sina. Their targets were railways and bridges.
 Allied planes kept up vicious at tacks on railroads and highways in southern Italy.
 Meanwhile, shattering blows by Allied sea and air forces against the Japanese on 8 3,200- mile South Pa cific front were announced. They included:
 Shattering Blows 1. A Japanese aerial disaster in New Guinea, with 215 planes des- troyed from an enemy fleet of 225 gathered at WeWak. 2. Sinking or wrecking of a ma. jor portion of Japanese convoy, ambushed by American warships while trying to run troops to Vella Lavella for an effort to retake that island which was seized by Amer ican jungle troops last Sunday and relieve threat to enemy strong holds thhroughout the Solomons. 3. The third raid in less than a week on Balikpapan, Dutch Borneo, captured oil port and refinery cen ter used by the Japanese to fuel their war machine in the South Pa- cific zone.
 These blows were combined with other air attacks that left 10 to IA enemy cargo ships sunk or damaged and many barges destroyed.