Site Ed. Note: The front page reports of the wholesale surrender to the Allies by the Germans and Italians on Cap Bon Peninsula. Only a few holdouts remained at large in isolated pockets within the mountains and they were not disposed to fight. Bombing of the peninsula had been halted for fear of hitting friendly troops.

Southwest of the peninsula, in a small circular area with a 15-mile diameter in the vicinity of Zaghouan, the Axis forces continued to fight as the area was saturated with bombs. It remained the only area where intense fighting continued in Tunisia.

Daniel De Luce reported that truckloads of dejected German and Italian soldiers lined the roads in procession, lasting through the night and stretching into the streets of Tunis, all trying to locate the barbed-wire pens of the prison camps at which to surrender. They were not under guard and Allied sentries were stationed along the route only every ten miles; nevertheless, no one was seen seeking escape across country, though easily accomplished.

The Jerries were not only beaten, but eager to reach the solace of hot meals in the prison camps, to the surprise of all onlookers. No one any longer was determined to fight to the death. The concept of Aryan superiority had somewhere dropped out of these men, within the desert climes of North Africa, before the barrage of Allied artillery and aerial bombing which had now besieged them for not only days and weeks, but months.

A report came from the Office of War Information, raising the thorny issue of what was to be done to feed the 94,000 Italian civilians of Tunisia, now that the surrender of the country was complete. Those compared to 100,000 French, but the French had been supplying labor while the Italians were mostly dependent on jobs. That, plus the fact of mistreatment by the Italians of the Muslim population during occupation, had led to bitter feelings with the remaining portion of the civilian population which was Arab. Resolution of the problem was under consideration.

The fifth conference of the war began in Washington between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt, two of which had previously been held in Washington, in December-January after Pearl Harbor and in June, 1942, while the Atlantic Charter Conference had been held off Newfoundland aboard ship in early August, 1941 and the Casablanca Conference, the latter half of January, 1943. This latest conference would focus on the planning of the invasion of Sicily and Italy, but would also include discussions of the Pacific theater, as evidenced by the fact that Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, commander of British operations in India, had accompanied Churchill to the conference.

And, increased rationing of coffee was still under study, after having been reported in March as under consideration for an increase in light of better than expected stock on hand. The increase was to be a pound every four weeks or per month rather than the current allotment of a pound every five weeks.

On the editorial page, "The Cemetery" pictures the scene of utter Axis defeat on the Cap Bon Peninsula as resemblant to Dante’s Inferno, a scene not ever observed before in Tunisia, even when the Carthagenians had conquered and held it against the Romans between the Tenth and Second centuries B.C. The land of the peninsula, where lay the strewn cemetery of the Axis dead, was now, suggests the piece, cursed of the evil of the modern empire which those dead had foisted on Tunisia. It was signal, predicts the editorial, of what was to come.

"Good Omen" welcomes the visit of Churchill to Washington as auguring well for the Allies and badly for Hitler. The quicker than expected victory in North Africa had brought the Prime Minister once again to consult with FDR for planning the next move, one which the editorial believes would surely spell the end of the Reich.

It would not be quite so easy as that, though signs of a crumbling German state internally, crumbling from within occupied nations, combined with the winter offensive in Russia and the success in North Africa gave the certain bellwether signs that Germany was in the throes of final defeat.

Festung Europa, however, being designed by Albert Speer, would yet hold back the Allies for another year, and then another year.

Samuel Grafton examines Axis double-talk and finds it plentiful. On the one hand, for instance, Tojo informed the Filipinos that they would achieve freedom when they re-attained their true Oriental character. Yet, Hitler had invaded Russia on the premise that it was dangerously Oriental, had executed Jews on the theory that they were Oriental. He spoke of a war against Occidental peoples to the Japanese and war against Oriental peoples to the people of Europe. Mr. Grafton concludes that the war was against humanity.

Raymond Clapper continues to examine Sweden, the focus this date being on the ability of ships to pass the German blockade to bring in certain items of necessity, fodder, cotton, rice, and oilcake. Twelve ships were on their way, the first since January. Still badly needed was oil. The U.S. War Department was reluctant to trade oil with Sweden, fearing it might be seized by the Nazis; the State Department, however, was more hospitable to the idea.

Though the Nazis had sought to discourage the showing of American films or other films besides Nazi propaganda by providing badly needed film stock, the arriving ships were also bringing films from America.

Everywhere within Swedish culture, from the plays in the theaters to the movies being viewed to the books being read, the sentiment expressed was anti-Nazi and pro-American.

As further evidence of an hospitable attitude toward the United States, the Swedish government allowed Mr. Clapper and other American reporters, plus an American naval attache, to tour its naval facilities, something not thus far permitted other foreign correspondents. The Swedish Navy primarily consisted of sixteen motor torpedo boats, each of which was equipped to carry two torpedoes and could reach 60 knots, with more being built, and at least 25 submarines, all useful in protecting Sweden from invasion by sea. Nevertheless, Mr. Clapper observes, the reality was that should the Nazis bring to bear the full weight of their military strength on Sweden, it could not defend for long. But, for the present, that appeared unlikely.

Dorothy Thompson looks at the modern substitute for educating soldiers with deficient reading skills, the movie. The latest contribution from Hollywood was Frank Capra's "Prelude to War", set to be released to the public very shortly. She finds the film, unlike her scathing review given the advanced release of "Mission to Moscow" the previous week, to be an accurate portrayal of the Pacific War and its causes, stretching back to the invasion by Japan of Manchuria in 1931, and fairly portraying of Japan, not as a uniform enemy, but full of well-intentioned leaders who fought to stop the bellicose warring class of the country at the expense of their lives.

Mr. Capra's propaganda films for the Allied war effort are legend and include not only "Prelude to War", but the other six segments produced through the end of the war, comprising the entire series collectively titled "Why We Fight". They include "The Nazis Strike", "Divide and Conquer", "The Battle of Britain", "The Battle of Russia", all released in 1943, "The Battle of China", released in 1944, and "War Comes to America", released in 1945.

So, get your popcorn, sit back, and watch the entire six hours and forty minutes--and then you won’t have to read anything more anent World War II, ever.

Actually, not. But it will provide an overview into which you may pour your diligent and scholarly research to fill in all the details you might pick up herein and elsewhere.