Liveblogging World War II: January 19, 1943
General Montgomery's Eighth Army was pursuing Rommel to within 40 miles southeast of Tripoli, at Tarhuna. The day before, the closest British force was reported still 100 miles from the Libyan port. Another column had pushed along the coast road through Misurata to Zliten, 90 miles from Tripoli. The plan apparently was to drive both columns either headlong as pincers to capture Tripoli or to use the coastal column as the capturing vehicle while the other bypassed Tripoli to cut off Rommel's approach to Tunisia.
As the Eighth Army had swept, uncontested, through and beyond Misurata, a central narrows on the coast between the sea and marshes which would have provided Rommel the best position for a stand before Tripoli, it now appeared, accurately, that Rommel was simply conceding Tripoli and was instead concentrating on shifting as much manpower and equipment as he could into Tunisia to shore up the forces of General Walter Nehring….
From the northern Russian front, in the vicinity of Leningrad, news came for the first time in several weeks, indicating, significantly, that the Soviets had recaptured the fortress town of Schluesselburg, 22 miles east of Leningrad, a transportation depot, opening up a five-mile wide land corridor to Leningrad and ending the blockade of that key city endured since August, 1941. During the siege, the only means of supply to the city’s million inhabitants had been either by air transport or over the frozen winter ice of Lake Ladoga.
In the Ukraine, the Russian armies moved to within 118 miles of Russia’s primary steel city, Kharkov.
Finally, from New Guinea came word that MacArthur’s forces had captured Sanananda, the last toehold for the Japanese on the Papuan Peninsula…
