NEW BRIDGEHEAD

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20919, 20 October 1942, Page 3

NEW BRIDGEHEAD

U.S. FORCES IN AFRICA LANDING IN LIBERIA THREAT TO DAKAR ( 11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 20. There has been no official explana lion of the landing of American troops in Liberia, observes the New York Times, though it coincides with reports that German submarines have been operating against Allied convoy routes from Cape Palmas just across the border of eastern Liberia. "Vichy will not fail to note that Monrovia, the Liberian capital, is only 750 air miles from Dakar,” says the paper. . Berlin says that Liberia will soon join the United Nations. In that event French West Africa will be entirely blocked off in the southeast by' territory hostile to Germany. It is not surprising that German propaganda is nervous about Dakar and the Hinterland or that Herr Hitler is exerting the utmost pressure to obtain military control of the area. Liberia is the closest we have come to Dakar, although the British at Freetown arb even close'r, but the landing is apparently only the latest of a series of bridgeheads ;\ve (have llnng around the Gulf of Guinea.'The Axis has reported that American troops, are in the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa and Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, The military resources of this vast section are now very considerable, even without the influx of Americans. The map reveals how completely the Axis flank and rear in North Africa and Vichy’s stronghold at Dakar lie open to an advance from the south.