Evening star., 1943-09-19

nghtlng and heavy casualties in the
Nazis stand face to face in campaign
which Germany cannot afford to lose.
The Allies had to throw in about
everything available, including aircraft
and naval ships ranging all the way up
to battleships, and Gen Montgomery was
forced to speed units of his British 9th
Army up the coast and across from the
Adriatic side of Italy before it became
certain that the American 5th would be
able to hold its narrow beachhead with
out disaster.
In the end, the Allied position was
made secure and now all of the foot of
the Italian boot running from Salerno
is under control and any German units
which failed to get above that line are
due for annihilation or surrender.
Many Courses Open.
From the new bases now available, the
Allies will be better able to take the air
warfare to interior Germany and Aus
tria. Land forces are in position to move
northward to the Po River line where
Germany will make her final effort to
halt the invasion. Convenient hopping
oil bases are under Allied control for
move across the Adriatic to Albania or
Yugoslavia, If that should be the plan,
and the fact that Yugoslavians have
captured a number of important coastal
cities, including one across from Fiume
in Northeastern Italy, lends some weight
to that possibility.
Russia, driving forward irresistibly,
has taken Bryansk, most important rail-
road center above the Dnieper River,
and has approached to within SIS miles of
Kiev. capital of the Ukraine, and to the
south on the 6O0-mile front has ad-
vanced toward Melitopol, only IS miles
from the Dnieper.
Down in the Caucasus, Novorossisk,
the Russian naval base to which the
Nazis have clung tenaciously, has been
recaptured by the Reds as indications
grow that Germany will have to aban-
don the entire Kuban Peninsula and the
Crimea or face loss of large number
Of troops.
In the Pacific theater, Australian
troops under Gen. Macarthur have cap
tured Lac, completing the Allied drive
to gain bases for an effort to wipe out
the Jap base at Rabaul on New Britain
Island. Rabaul, most important jap
anese strong point in that area, now will
be menaced by attack both from New
Guinea and from New Georgia, about
equal distance to the south and the east.
President Roosevelt, reviewing the
progress of the war in a special message
to Congress, declared that great Allied
drives against the Axis will come soon,
He made it clear that the time and
place for each has been set. He re-
iterated the often-issued warming that
the war Is far from ended, that heavy
fighting lies ahead and that casualties
will undoubtedly be heavy, but he ex-
pressed his confidence that the end will
be victory.
Amid rumors that the British 9th
Army Is on the move toward the Balkans,
there were other reports of weakening
morale among the lukewarm allies of the
Nazls in that area AS preliminary to
Balkan invasion by the Middle East
army which is under command of 1t.
Gen. w. H. Holmes, it was stated that
the Greek island of Samos and the
Dodecanese island of Lero have been
occupied. These two islands lie off the
Turkish coast near the mouth of the
Aegean Sea and considerably north of
Crete.
Partisan forces in Yugosavia hold
more than 100 miles of the Dalmatian
Coast line which they seized after the
surrender OF Italy. A state of near crisis
has developed in Rumania with Premier
Antonescu slowly losing his grip Agi-
tation for a break with Germany is
growing In Bulgaria, alarmed over the
action of the Italian government. And
In Finland, it was stated that a definite
effort to get out of the war shortly is
under way.
Germany, scraping the bottom of the
barrel, has called men born between
1884 and 1898 to the colors.