Rise and Fall

Gited States Enters
he War

“LMOST to the day that the
' Red Army won the battle be-
te Moscow, President Roose-
jt led the United. States into
fe war against the Axis. The
panese sneak attack on Pearl
rbor on December 7, 1941,
ought a declaration of war
ainst Japan on that day. The
owing day Congress extend-
‘the declaration to cover Ger-
ny, ltaly and other Axis sa-
Nites. The third great democ-
2y, With its boundless produc-
‘e machinery already set in
‘ition by Roosevelt and its
/mpewer in process of mobil-
tion under the previously
"ssed Selective Service Act,
“i new entered the struggle as
ally of Britain and the Soviet
"ion. The pre-conditions for
> Big Three alliance, which
"re to spell doom for German
ism, had been laid.

|Nevertheless the year 1942
"=ned with the democracies still
the defensive. The Japanese
-litary fascists had extended
ir conquests throughout the
‘uth Pacific and the East In-
| s. Singapore fell on February
_and the Philippines had been
srrun except for American
sitions on Bataan, which held
-; until April 9 after an epoch-
“fight which wrote one of the
' st heroic chapters in the his-
‘y of American arms.

= 9n the Russian front the Ger—
» n Wehrmacht began prepar-
|; for a new offensive which
= =ned on May 19 along the
* ithern part of the front. The
© zi objective in this drive was

overrun the Caucasus, take
‘ilingrad on the Volga, roll up
'> entire Red Army defensive
'sition in the south and take
'oscow from the flank.

i=)

1» Pe ntiesie Nai tne oe

“Vieantime the western Allies
» -ed a new threat in North Af-

| a. The German Afrika Korps
> der Rommel had moved in to

GENERAL

reinforce the Italians in Tripoli.
Egypt and the Suéz Canal were
in danger. British troops were
rushed in and American tanks
and war supplies poured up
through the canal to counter the
threat to the Near East.

Politically the war was enter-
ing a new phase. The early meet-
ings between leaders of the Big
Three nations were getting un-
der way. Foreign Commissar V.
M. Molotoy had gone to Wash-
ington to confer with President
Roosevelt in May to discuss the
speeding up of war supplies to
the Soviet Union under TLend-
Lease, and to urge the opening
of a secotid front in the West to
aid the hard-pressed Red Army.
In August, Prime Minister
Churehill paid his first visit
to Moscow for discussions which
laid the basis for the Anglo-
Soviet Pact.

Demand For Second
Front :

HE demand for the second

front was growing. Labor
and progressive movements
took up the ery. Great mass
meetings were held in many of
the United Nations countries.
President Roosevelt was said
to be in fayor of opening a land
front as early as possible but
Churchill was urging more time
and preparation.

This was the situation when
the German army opened its
drive on the great city of Stal-
ingrad on August 31. The Wehr-
macht had already driven deep
into southern Russia, overrun-
ning the Caucasus and the Cri-
mean peninsula. The military
“experts” were forecasting a
complete Soviet collapse and a
possible withdrawal behind the
Urals. Then the Red Army took
its stand, with its back to the
Volga, and hung on grimly
through that long and bloody
fall and early winter.

The city was levelled. Several

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, Supreme command-
er of Allied Armies.

times the invaders broke
through to the Volga, only to be
hurled back. On November 19
the Red Army under Zukhov,
launched its counter-offensive.
The German Sixth Army under
von Paulus was surrounded.
Von © Mannstein’s attempt to
break through the encirelement

JOSEPH STALIN

from the south was smashed
back. On January 31 the Sixth
Army surrendered. Stalingrad
was saved, the Nazi attempt to
outflank Moscow was stopped,
and the southern German armies
began their long retreat west-
ward. The battle of Stalingrad
had proved the turning point of
the war, for the Germans,
though they were to launch one
more offensive the following
year, were no longer able to
mount an attack in anything like
the power necessary for a de-
cision at any point.

Invasion of North
Africa

T the height of the Stalin-
grad battle, on November 8,
1942, the Anglo-American arm-
jes entered their first large-
scale engagement with the in-
vasion of North Africa. It was
not the second front. But it did
mark the beginning of coordin-
ated warfare and the beginning:
of offensive action by the west-
ern allies. :

The North African campaign
was relatively brief. American
troops, untried in battle when
they first landed, quickly devel-
oped into a first-line fighting
force. While British troops un-
der General Montgomery, who
had already opened their drive
against Rommel at EJ] Alamem
earlier, drove westward, Ameri-
ean forces marched east from
French Morocco into Tunisia,
capturing Tunis and forcings the

Two Down—One to go

Afrika Korps to surrender at
Cap Bon on May 12.

Meantime, in January of 1943
Roosevelt and Churchill met at

Casablanea in a 10-day confer-
ence at which coming invasion
of Sicily and Italy was planned
and where the famous “uncondi-
tional] surrender” terms respect-
ing the Axis powers were first
announced.

While these developments
were taking place in the West,
the Germans on the- Mastern
Front were preparing their
third and final offensive against
the Red Army. The attack broke
on July 5 in the Kursk-Orel
Sector, and it was indicative of
the changed relationship of
forces that in this offensive the
Nazis could only muster the
strength to attack on a com-
paratively narrow front of some
200 miles. Ten days later, with
their best armored divisions cut
to pieces against the rock wall
defenses of the Red Army, and
with gains limited to a few
miles, the Nazis faltered and
stopped. Simultaneously Soviet
armies counter-attacked. The
Wehrmacht began falling back,
first in the center, then all along
the southern front.

On July 10 the Anglo-Ameri-
can armies launched their second
invasion in foree, this time
against Sicily, and this time
Canadian forces went along un-
der Canadian command. Fifteen
days later Mussclini’s fascist
government broke up, Marshal
Badoglio became premier, and
the fascist Duce fled to the pro-
tection of the German army-
The Sicily campaign was over
by August 18, and on Septem-
ber 3 the Allied armies crossed
the Straits of Mescina te land
in southern Italy. Five days af-
ter Canadian, British and Am-
erican troops swarmed ashore,
Premier Badoglio sued for an
armistice. Only the occupation

BRITISH GENERAL SIR
BERNARD L. MONTGOMERY

of Rome by the Wehrmacht and
the establishment of a German
line of defense south of that city
prevented Italy’s complete col-
lapse.

The Red Army was by then
well into its great offensive.
Orel and Belgorod had been
taken. Kharkoy was back in
Soviet hands in August, and in

_GEN. GEORGE 8S. PATTON

October, after taking Smolensk,
the Red Army had swept across
the Dnieper. The Hitlerites were
cleared from Kiey and Melito-
pol, the Kerch peninsula was re-
captured.

On all European fronts, fas-—

cism was being pressed back,
and the Nazi bombings of Rot—
terdam, Warsaw and Stalingrad
were being avenged by the mas-
sed airpower of British and Am-
erican bombers beginning their
systematic levelling of German
cities.

Concord of Teheran

The tide was beginning to
turn, too, in the Pacific. As early
as August, 1942, American
naval and land forces had open-
ed the fight for the Solomons
by attacking Guadalcanal. On
February 9 1943, that island fell
to American troops. In May a
United States task force took
the’ Aleutian island of Attu,
forcing the Japanese to with-
draw their advanced bases from
the entire Aleutian area and
ending the threat to Alaska. In
August the first Quebee confer—
ence of Churchill and Roosevelt
resulted in a coordinated plan
for the Pacific. In September
Australian troops took Lae and
landings were made on New
Guinea. In November American
troops stormed and took Tarawa
and Makin islands in the Gil-
berts. The drive on Tokyo was
getting under way.

In November the

of 1943