Three to Make Ready

The first phase of the battle for Axis-held southern Europe has already begun. Since the fall of Tunis, Allied airmen of the Strategic Air Force have smashed steadily at Axis first lines of defense on the Mediterranean islands of Pantelleria, Lampedusa, Sicily and Sardinia. Last week the range and tempo of these attacks increased.

Armadas of Wellingtons and Marauders, Fortresses and Mitchells flared out from North Africa and the Middle East to continue these attacks against island airfields, harbor installations and gun emplacements, to strike at railway yards, airfields and ports on the Italian mainland. The damage to defense bases was great ; the damage to aircraft greater. In four days Allied airmen knocked out 305 Axis planes. Allied plane losses: 17.

Along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, from Algeria to Syria, Allied infantrymen, paratroopers, tank drivers and gun crews were waiting for the zero hour--the hour when the bombers had battered Europe's underside enough for the land fighting to begin.

Ready in the South. From Algeria last week TIME Correspondent Will Lang cabled: "Most of the men are resting, but there are others for whom there is no rest. There are secret maneuvers and rehearsals here, just as there are in England and other invasion springboards, and no soldier can forget that the biggest test is yet to come. There is a growing impatience among Americans to 'cross the gap' and get it over with and return home. British Tommies are happy to have avenged Dunkirk, but now they want to see German homes in ruins, as homes in England were when many of them left. The French poilu is impatient to prove that he has a special vengeance; he is going to be a tough customer for the Boche. All of these men are looking north and waiting."

Ready in the East. In the Middle East, in Syria and Iraq and Persia, men in the British Ninth and Tenth Armies are also waiting. There, too, are the Poles of the Carpathian Brigade, who after the defeat of Poland sifted through the Carpathian Mountains, or through Russia or Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey and finally into the Middle East. Some of them have already fought with the Eighth Army. Now they are part of the new Polish army in Iraq. After nearly four years, they are eager for the battle to begin.

Is Germany Ready? In the Balkans Germany is hurrying to complete defense lines against an expected Allied onslaught. The Germans have three major defense lines in southeastern Europe. One line starts on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, curves south along the ragged border of Turkey to Alexandroupolis and Salonika, then cuts across Greece to Corfu and the Adriatic Sea. The second starts at the mouth of the Danube, runs up to Vienna and the Alps. The third follows the Danube to Vienna, then runs along the northern spur of the Carpathians to the main German defense lines in Poland.

The strength of these defense lines will not be known until they are tested. But German military strength on the Continent is formidable. Correspondent Lang had a word to say about that, too:

"Tunisia was a small show compared to the battles coming. The German Tunisian army was a small fraction of the Wehrmacht's total strength. Hitler wrote off this force by dwindling its supplies and withdrawing air support. The Germans had to fight overwhelming Allied forces. These conditions are apt to be reversed on the Continent."

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