The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 12, 1942, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE / “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” VOL. LVIIL, NO. 8980. JUNEAU, ALASKA, THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1942 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICE TEN CENTS STEAMER MOUNT M'KINLE TWODAYS BATTLING TERRIFIC Island Beacmads Won by Nipponese Litfered with Wreckage AUSTRALIANS GET CHANCE T0 MUSTER Imperial Headquarters at| Tokyo Admit Losses | Among Fleet ; CANBERRA, Australia, March 12 —Two days of violent air attack has littered the Japanese-won beachheads of New Guinea with wreckage of the invasion armada, | and the battered potential Japan- ese bases gave Australia valuable hours to muster fighting power for | a stand on her own shores. | Japan’s first spearhead apparent- | ly was blunted by flerce aerial] blows landed yesterday on the| hangars and runways of Salamaua Lae, following up the aerial on-| slaught of the day before. The slashing attack sank, burned or| beached at least seven ships and | brought to at least 13 the num-| ber of Japanese transports put out | of action off New Guinea.and New. Pritain. | No ‘word of new actien was re-| (Continued on Page Three) Nicked by Jap Bul lefs G These men are inspecting bullet holes in an American Flying Fortress inflicted by Jap fighter planes while the Fortress was raiding enemy territory after flying to & flying field “somewhere in Australia” after action in the Philippines. Photo airmailed to The Empire; BIG CLAIMS NoFighting BEING MADE Is Reported BYJAPANESE On Peninsula Premier Tojo Makes Re- port of Victories During Past Three Months TOKYO, March 12 — Japanese Premier Tojo told a special session of the Japanese Diet today that Japan has captured more than 210,000 prisoners since the start of the war in the Pacific. The Diet was summoned to cele- brate the conquest of the Dutch East Indies and hear reports for the first three months of the war. WASHINGTON—Here is the in- side story on how the Army fin- ally got permission to improve an%; develop a new short-cut air route over the prairies of Canada to Al- aska. Last Sunday night, Senator Scoit Lucas of Illinois telephoned Under- secretary of War Robert Patter- son. “If the Army doesn’t act on this immediately,” Senator Lucas said, “I'm going to start a Senate in- vestigation within 24 to 48 hours. It's about time we knew whether the, Canadians are with us or not. I'm Premier Tojo repeated the claims a friend of the President’s and a|that the “main fleet of the United strong administration supporter, but States and Great Britain has dis- if he doesn’t act, the Senate is appeared from the surface of the going to.” Pacific Ocean and all enemy The Senator from Illinois was Strongholds in the Southwest Pa- referring to the fact .that two days cific are in our hands.” before, a Northwest Airlines plane| Premier Tojo added that “Japan's had left to pioneer the new air defense positions along the morth- route over Canadian prairies, had | ern border and frontier of Russia been stopped by Canadian officials,{is solid.” impounded for 48 hours and then| Japan’s Navy Minister, Admiral forced to return to the United|Shimada, reported that 130 United States. ‘Nations warships have been sunk Lucas’s threat was sufficient.|and further declared that Japan- Early next morning, White House | €S€ losses were “only four destroy- Secretary Marvin MacIntyre phoned '€rs, four submarines, five special him to “hold his horses” that ev-|subs, one special vessel, five mine erything would be OK. | sweepers and 27 transports.” A few hours later, the North-' west Airlines plane flew back to| Canada to begin setting up ground; crews, radio equipment, and tech-, o er osc nicians, not for a commercial route | but on behalf of the Army. | p A The man who has caused count-| es way less delays to the Army in get-| ting a commercial airline to pio-, BERLIN, March 12—Robert Bosch, neer this route is C. D. Howe, Can- 80, German inventor, died today adian Minister of Munitions and 8t Stuttgart following a brief ill- Supply, and Acting Minister of | D€SS. Transport. Bosch was the inventor of the C. D. Howe is a native Ameri- Mmagneto and other automotive ma- can, born in Waltham, Mass. and chinery. educated at the Massachusetts ln-‘[ stitute of Technology. Later he| Carriages in England during the 5 s . 'reign of Queen Elizabeth were . (Continued on Page Four) called “whirlicotes,” CANADIAN YANKEE ————— For Fourth Consecutive Day Military Action Re- mains in Lull WASHINGTON, March 12 — The War Department, in the com- munique issued this morning, re- ports a lull still continues'in the nghiing in the Philippines, especial- ly on Batan Peninsula against Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s American and Filipino defenders. This lull has now continueg for four consecutive days, and no ex- planation for the absence of ac- tivity ins fighting on the front is given. P R 4 3 BRITISH SHIPS HIT IS CLAIM Italian ng] Command Announces Bomber Raid on Formation ROME, March 12—Three British cruisers were hit, and one of them probably sunk, and other ships dam- aged in an attack on a large Brit- ish naval formation in the Mediter- ranean, the Italian High Command announced tonight. The announcement further stated that successive waves of torpedo bombers carried out the attack on the formation which was sighted following several days of recon- naissance planes. The scene of ac- tion is given as in the eastern RED ARMY IN SMASH [ ¥ i UPONNALZIS Break Thra_u—gh Strongly Held German Lines- Attacks Successful BULLETIN — London, March 12—A dispatch received tonight from Moscow reports the Red Army has thrown 1,500,000 men into violent fighting on the broad scuthern front, attacking primarily in the direction of Kharkov, Stalino and Tagan- rog. o GERMAN LINES BROKEN MOSCOW, March 12—The Red Army has broken through the strongly held German lines at sev- eral places on the southern front, killing 2,000 Nazis and seizing two {large junction points. | Prontline dispatches today |port the Germans rushed up re- | serves for counter attacks but| | failed completely after two days of | re- | i The crew of one ef the U. prepare to enter their machine Telemat airmailed to The Em | violent fighting. | Dispatches from the front said the suceesses in the south state that hard hitting offensives have now endangered the German po- sitions on the whole vast central | front and also the area north of | Smolensk at the cost of hundreds of German lives and seizures of | munitions and other war supplies. JAPSRAPED, BAYONETTED CIVILIANS Eyewitness Gives Firsf Ac-| count of Invaders’ Afrocities CHUNGKING, China, March 12 —Phyllis Harrop, the first foreign woman to escape from Japanese-| occupied Hongkong, gave an eye: witness account of atrocities com- mitted by the invaders and said that both Chinese and Europeans were victims, She declared, “my own houseboy was killed and bayonetted in the stomach for no apparent reason Fourteen other Chinese in the same house were killed “My own Amah (Chinese nurse) was raped three or four times by Japanese soldiers and left in se jous condition. Foreign women, in- cluding one Englishwoman, also were raped. I knew one who first |slashed the faces of soldiers with | her belt. Her husband afterwards found her dead with bayonet |wounds in her stomach. | “The Japanese didn't shoot their | victims but invariably bayonetted them to death,” she stated. | BRSSO s, el Dist | Firms Under - Indicments ‘Federal Grand | Jury Makes Refurn on Alleged Fixing of Prices DENVER, Colorado, March 12 Nineteen of the Nation’s major dis- tilling companies have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of fixing wholesale and retail liquor vrices in violation of the anti-trust| laws. The indictments also named eight wholesale liquor dealers, two | liquor associations and 54 indi- viduals, Mediterranean. - BUY DEFENSE BONDS 7 Army Air Fc Australia after sccing 2 Americ: Taking Oi in the Philippine area. Model for An Air Raid Is Perfeded and Right In the National Capital s By JACK STINN WASHINGTON, March 12. — In this sea of civilian defense unpre- paredness called the national tapi- tal, there is one little “island” where the inhabitants have done their job 50 well that the effort is worth re- porting. It is the National Geographic So- ciety, naticnal headquarters of which fill the five-story building at Sixteenth and M, a few blocks north of the White House When the call came for organiza- tion of ecivilian defense, Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, President of the society, | decided cooperation in the district | and area civilian defense program | wasn't exactly complete. He set some | of his bright young men to survey | the building and’ work out an air | raid protection service. The result is just about as near | perfect protection from death from sky as any five-story building could summon up. Probably only | that million-to-one-shot, a head-on | hit from a demolition bomb could | cause more than a scratch to any of the society’s 226 employees and | officers or more than quickly l'epm'-‘ able damage to the building or its valuable archives. One designated eraployee and his assistant warning wardens are con- itly on the alert for an air raid yarning. One of these pushes a but- ton and three blasts sound on seven wtomobile horns located through- out the building. Within two and a half minutes (the time I was check- ng) the 226 employees and officials of the society are assembled in the basement cafeteria, all valuable rec- ords, manuscripts, and photos have been trundled into a hombproof fireproof vault, and the society’s auxiliary police, firemen, airplane spotters, first aid nurses, and so on are at their stations The society’s quarter of a million unpublished photographs and orig- inals of 38,000 published pictures are locked in a fireproof vault Sandbags are going up against the swinging doors that lead to the many-windowed Kkitchen. Monk’s cloth is being fastened securely over glass panels in other doors. Out of the back windows that fofmerly op- (ened on an alley, one now sees a | 16-inch brick wall that reaches well (Continued on Page Three) ifo Engage E_pemy ng Fortresses, built in Scattle, which fought the Japs in the Philippines, ‘somewhere in Australia,” to take part in a raid over enemy territory. Y IS AGROUND Jap Invasion In Southwest Pacific Is Halted Just Befere ALASKA SHIP RUNS ASHORE, NAVY REPORT ' Matson linfieigh!er Ma- lama Given Up as Lost on Pacific |TWO VESSELS ARE TORPEDOED IN SOUTH i } Public Announcements on | Sea Casualties fo Be “ Limited ngeafler SEATTLE, March 12—The Thir- !teenth Naval District announces the steamship Mount McKinley of the | Alaska Steamship Company 18 | aground off the Alaskan coast. No | further details are given. The | steamer is one of the well known | craft operating on the Seattle-Al- | aska route. | MALAMA PRESUMED LOST | SAN FRANCISCO, March 12— |The Navy revealed today that the | Matson line freighter Malama is presumed lost in the Pacific. The | Navy disclosed that radios sent out | from the ship several weeks ago | indicated the craft was being fol- {lowed by an unidentified plane .. | which demanded she halt. crew members walk in front f a Seattle-built Flying Fortress on its arrival in inst the Photo airmailed to The Empire. 'PLEASURE AUTO " DRIVING T0 BE CUT IN ENGLAND p Reducfion in Fuel Is Announced in New Rationing LONDON, March 12—All unessen- tial motoring will disappear this coming summer from England’s roads under a new rationing system to withhold gasoline from every- ocne except those proving of “gen- uine need.” This s officially discloged today as the Government clamped down on wartime frivolities with sharp new measures to r t sports in various parts of the country Geoffrey Lloyd, Parliamentary Secretary of Petroleum, said there will be a replacement of the pres- ent basic gasoline ration which al- |lows fuel for 200 miles driving in one month by more rigorous con- trols for gradual “ending of pleas- ure motoring.” Ultimately, Lloyd said, all unessential cars will be taken off the roads. It is believed that a scarcity of small mammals, such as rats, mice and lemmings in the Arctic is the cause of the flight of large num- bers of snowy owls to Eastern “Cnnadn and New England | After making the announcement, |the Navy added that hereafter the | names and deseriptions of lost ves- sels will not be made public and announcements will be limited to whether the ship is big or little. First person experience stories will | however be permitted. TWO TORPEDOED | WASHINGTON, March 12 — The Navy announced today that two ships . described as medium sized, a British tanker and small Swed- |ish freighter, otherwise unidentified, | have been torpedoed in the Carib- bean Sea area. i The Navy's announcement did not |say whether the two vessels were |sunk under the new Navy policy not to disclose the identity of ships /sunk in enemy action. Therefore the names of the ships torpedoed lare withheld. BRAZIL NOW THREATENING AXISPOWERS War May Be Declared Fol- lowing Preliminary Step of Confiscation RIO DE JANEIRO, March 12 — Brazilian President Gerulio Vargas today issued a decree for confisca- tion of all party and property funds of Axis citizens and firms in Bra- zil, The decree ‘is the first action taken against the Axis Nationals and is in retaliation for the sink- ing of four Brazilian ships by en- emy submarines. There is a widely held belief in Brazilian circles that this decree may prove only as a preliminary to an eventual declaration of war against the Axis Powers by Brazil. The Brazilian Government broke off diplomatic relations with Ger- many, Italy and Japan on Janu- ary 28. PRI PSR L BARNYARD HAZARDS CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. This little piggie didn't go to market; instead, his owner went to the hos- pital. The porker squirmed so hard while Farmer G. L. Potts, was car- rying it that Potts slipped, fell and fractured his left knee. R J BUY DEFENSE STAMPS