Stars and Stripes Review: April 19, 1943

In this issue, the headline story details the efforts of the Allies to destroy the German war machine by destroying their factories, in this case a plane factory in Bremen. The article describes a week-long endeavour of bombing raids, both day and night and post mission reconnaissance missions showing Bremen as a pile of rubble, her factories annihilated. While it is true that German cities were severely damaged in Allied bombing raids, nearly 1/3 of Berlin's housing was destroyed by wars end, German factories were inexorably rebuilt and hidden. The Germans became very adept at camouflaging their factories, either in dense forests or inside mountains or underground. It was even considered to build a rocket-launching facility inside a mountain to prevent its destruction. In the end, though, it wasn't Germany's loss of factories that crippled their war effort but rather the Allies continual destruction of their supply convoys: war material was being produced but wasn't getting to the front.

Other stories in this issue include a progress report on the North African campaign from Dwight D. Eisenhower: the German Afrika Corps has been pushed back to Tunis and is clawing for whatever time it can get for evacuation. Also, there is a remarkable story about a soldier whose troop ship was torpedoed and sunk. The soldier was rescued out of the Atlantic by an Allied destroyer only to have the destroyer torpedoed as well. The soldier was picked out of the water by a French ship, who in turn sunk the two subs in the area responsible for sinking the troop ship and the destroyer.

Also, there is a story speculating on the Republic P-47 acting as a bomber escort in light of heavy bomber losses and the lack of a plane with sufficient range to escort the bombers all the way to their targets. Unfortunately, the P-47 was especially fuel-hungry, and could only escort the bombers a third of the way to Berlin at the most. Of course, this would all change with the later introduction of the legendary P-51 Mustang.

Finally, this issue has lighter news, such as the beginning of the year's Army boxing tournament, the start of baseball season, comic strips such as Blondie and Joe Palooka, as well as some pictures of the lovely Rosemary LaPlanche, Miss America 1941, and some ladies from the Women's Army Corps to cheer the boys up up at the front. All in all, a typical issue of the Stars and Stripes. Until next time, take care and thank you.