The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, January 3, 1944, Page 1

o i * VOL. XLIL, NO. 9539. 'CANADIANS FIGHTING WAY TO PESCARA " U.S. Dest K3 - L3 - R i v <« 18 4« G BLAST TAKES PLACE EARLY, THIS MORNING One Hund;&_Siny-ihree{ Known Survivors, Many Suffering from, Burns ! | | { iy | NEW YORK, Jan. 3.—A United States destroyer today sank in lower New York bay, after an ex- plosion of undetermined origin, which shook many sections of the metropolitan area and awakened thousands of persons before dawn this morning. 4 | At least 163 men aboard the de- stroyer are known to be survivors, including 108 injured, 54 of them with third-degree burns and who were rushed to hospitals. No an- nouncement as to the loss of life has been made. The wartime com- plement of the typp of vessel on which_ the explosion occurred varies from 150 to 300 officers and men. The explosion occurred at 6:10 o’clock this morning. The ship nad been anchored three hours earlier, six miles northeast of Sandy Hook, N. J., and was preparing to move. So terrific was the explosion, Navy men said, that many men were blown overboard. o ) (Continued on Page Two) | i | The Washington Merry - Go-Round By DREW PEARSON I (Major Robert 8. Allen on sctive duty.) WASHINGTON—The . other day.’ Walter George, distinguished Sen- ator from Georgia, issued a sum- mons for me to appear before his Senate Finance Commtitee. He proposed cross-examining me about my statements in this column re- garding his friendship with, and the influence of Ellsworth C. Al- vord, powerful tax lobbyist of the U. 8. Chamber of Commerce. 1 gladly accepted Senator George's summons, though a standing com- mittee of the Senate has no power to subpoena witnesses. Unfortun- ately, he was ill the next day and, though 1 have held myself in| readiness, I have heard nothing of the matter since. Senator George is an able, astute | member of Congress and I havei frequently paid tribute' to his achievements, particularly his statesmanlike policy on: foreign af- fairs. Howeyer, the activities of tax lobbyist. Alvord and the power which the U. S. Chamber of Com~ merce appears to exercise on tax Jegislation® is_something which the| American: people are entitled to know dbout. ‘This power may e/ greater than Senator George real- izes. 4 Since he took the initiative in calling me and sjnce various editors have inquired about the outcome of the matter, I shall endeavor to re- port in‘ this and subsequent col- umns regarding the background and activities of tax lobbyist Alvord. CUTTING PROFITS OUT OF WAR Most important tax question being debated in the Senate today is renegotiation of war contracts. Start of this debate dates back to a statement made by Alvord be- fore the Senate Finance Commit- tee last year, when he said: “Mr.. Chairman and gentlemen, 1 invite each of you to join an of- fensive. It is an offensive, which, like all other offensives, will quire courage, precisely the same kind of courage our boys are show- ing in action.” Tax Jobbyist Alvord then proceed- ed to outline his definition of bravery—the end of rénegotiating war contracts—in other words, leav- ing the profits in war. Renegotiation is the system by which the Army and Navy call in a manufacturer who has made mil- lions on a cost-plus contract and (Continued on Page Four) “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” JUNEAU, ALASKA, MONDAY, JANUARY 3, 1944 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE PRICE TEN CENTS = AFTER RAF CALL ON JAP EMBASSY IN BERLIN Leaning on his cane for some needed support, Jap Ambassador te Germany Oshima looks over the damage’ to his embassy after the recent RAF blitz on the: German capital. of the shattered masonry as a military attache lend; what moral support he can to Hirohito's harassed an exclusive photo radioed from Sto:kholm to New York. helper. NEW GUINEA This "POINTTAKEN, ALLIED UNITS Forces MovéAShorewar Under Smoke Screen- Japs Are Surprised ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC, Jan 3.—Following heavy bombardment, then moving shoreward under a smoke screen, Allied forces have landed and taken possession of Jap- anese held St. Oro on New Guinea, Gen. Douglas MacArthur announces. Not a soldier lost his life in the action and the Japanese were taken completely by surprise and routed. CAPT.DONNELL TRANSFRRED; LEAVING WEST Public Relaiio‘ns and Intel- ligence Officer Here 21 | Months, Ordered Out Capt. Newman R. Donneil, Public Relations and Intelligence Officer for this area, stationed at Duck Creek, has been transferred and is royer Explodes, New BERLIN IS (U.S.Destroyer Is Sunk By Torpedo in Atlantic; Paramushiro Bombed | | | GIVENBATH, FIRE BOMBS, %Royal Air Force Strikes; ‘Saturday and Sunday- | BULLETIN —WASHINGTON, Jan. An American destroyer was torpedoed and sank in the Atlantic on TDecember 24, the Navy Department revealed in a Capital in Flames | ST | i (By Associated Press) The Royal Air Force's first target |in 1944 received a seething bath of | |fite bombs on New Year's Day byi British airmen who delivered the | tenth blow against the charred capi- | |tal city of Berlin. | | The next attack came Sunday | |while the fires were still burning | |from the 1,000-ton or bigger assault land while German rescue workers | | were still digging the dead or injured (from the ruins. ! | The British Air Ministry described | | the attack as “heavy.” Twenty-eight | |aircraft were lost in the raid. 1 Fires were left burning, roaring | ithrough Berlin and firemen were i pawerless to stop the flames. | Bwedish dispatches declared the |torfured German capital had its ___ | Wworst night since the ““destroy Ber- | lin” campaigt began on Nuvem-‘ ber 18. | About 21 hburs elapsed between | StatemenfOn REDS WITHIN 2cx oo o e L o | ishy /correspondents said the menace i (of delayed action”bombs kept ‘the rl es e!s ILES OF residents of Berlin in city shelters | |until 3 o'clock in the afternoon and | i 5 | less than eight hours later, sirens| Denunciation POLISH LINE | shrieked again. The main blow then | fell several hours later, however. WASHINGTON, Jan. 3.—The Tru- 5 Swedish reports said Hitler's lux- } . - Commitiee deidea mot to S0Viets Are Smashing Inf | urious new Chancellory on Wilhelm- | undertake the investigation of a! Two Nazi soldiers help to remove some lying areas were hit first then the | communique this afternoon. The communique only said the ship was sunk by a torpedo, not disclosing whether launched Walt Disney Now in Washingfon; " Secret Mission” Indicated BEAT JAPAN NOW WARNS MARINE GEN. Edson Says Negotiated Peace Would Mean 30- Year Armistice Only 3, — The WASHINGTON, Jan. |Marine commander Wwho led the i g P A SRR |attack at Tarawa asserted that the plat was one of the places hit in| the aerial barragé. Industrial out- ! statement made by one of the high- est authorities in official Washing- ton that threats of steel and railroad | trikes delayed victory over Ger-1 many. 1 Whzn asked if he had aay per- sonal comment to make on the story, Senator Truman replied, “All i Approaches of Last official residential area in the heart | of the capital. Japs in the Pacific ave at this York Harbor 3 ALLIED UNIT IS NEARING PORT ON ADRIATIC ;01her Italién*(-iro'und Ac- | tions Limited by Weath- er-Planes Make Raids ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN ALGIERS, Jan. 3.—Heavy fighting ~lrages north of Ortona where Can- {ndlan troops have fought their way {to within nine miles and artillery | range of the strategic Adriatic port |of Pescara, Allied headquarters said. Rain, snow and high winds limited ground operations elsewhere in Italy !to patrolling but strong forces of medium bombers attacked the rail communications at Taggia, Venti- miglia and Armariver on the Italian | Riviera yesterday and other medium bombers attacked the rail yards at | Terni, 49 miles northeast of Rome, causing explosions and fires. Thirty-eight snowbound German Disney in town on a “secret mis- |trucks were shot up in the Ap- sion. It has to do with the Army, |peinnes by Spitfires and War- but neither Disney nor the War hawks and Kittyhawks attacked a convoy between Pescara and Avez- | from a submardine, airplane or | surface craft. | The Navy in another com- | unique also says that on “De- cember 31, a group of Army | bombers bombed Paramushiro but results were not observed and all our planes returned safely.” By JACK STINNETT WASHINGTON, Jan. 3. — Walt | Department will say anything about |it. When the whole story is written zano and near Chietl, The official | about what part animated cartoons |statement said the Germans are have played in training our arthed [showing signs of éxhaustion after forees, it'll be one of the best chap- | throwing divisions piecemeal into ters in the Hollywood annals and it | tHe battle of Ital may be the b 4 “something .. The Alied-Fifth Army has 50 all-fired new in education that it’ ered strength on the Cassino road iwill result in revamping the whole | to Rome and made a new bold foray |system. Pictures have been used In across the Gariglanio River, pene- | education for years, but not the way | trating to Castle Forte, then with- | Disney has used them. ;draw]ng, | Walt tells me that 80 percent of | | e his “plant” in Hollywood is working | 3 full time these days on war work.| ' He has lost more than 170 of hls! artists to the armed forces, a dozen | because lady animators, once so rare, have become quite commonplace. ' Important Town (By Associated Press) | Advance columns of General Vatu- tin's Ukrainian Army smashed into the approaches to Novograd-Volynsk, B RUMORS OF ;moment in their possession every- Ithing that they started the WAY e jisrary of Congress announces | for.” that the world’s longest “talking \ Brig. Gen. Merritt Ed:\on. back book” for the blind has just been {from the Pacific battlefronts for completed. Tt consists of 119 records. conferences, told reporters about.yi.g g reading by Alexander Scourby, Ithe difficulties in the capture Of gt 5 foreword by Clifton Fadiman. of them in the WACS and WAVES, | | | ~ WITHCOLD I can say is I wish the spokesman ,,;;yqy center about 15 miles from had not made it. to | Tarawa and declared it to be "typlv‘ - e —— _INVASION IN Ithe old Polish border, and the last cal of what you've got 8o If Scourby ever gets to town, lMay NO' Be Able '0 De- want an interview. If ever a man | important obstacle between the So- viet forces in the Zhitomir sector through,” as advance toward the .46 119 records before in con- liver Annual Message ‘and the pre-war boundary. Farther to the north in the drive |northwest of Korosten, the latest communique broadecast from Mos- lcow and recorded in London placed DRAFTLAW |S upHElD’ {another Red Army column within | Poyaski, railway town only 10 miles ifrom the old Polish frontier. | Fortifications along the railway 2 {line extending into the Novograd- | Volynsk are reported under attack YUGOSLAVIA 'Allies Re p;r_ted Sefting| Stage for Movement, Dalmatian Coast ¥ ' ‘itoday by the Red Star. Several | gTOCKHOLM,Jan.3.—A dispatch | Reg]stran' Mus' Re“o[t for | stations within the junction’s sub- from Budapest to Stockholm’s Tid- | X {urbs are already captured. The Red | pingen said rumors are being cir- Duty Before Testing = (siar termed the situation there as|culated in Belgrade that the Aliics v e e {“very serious” for-ihe Germans, The | are setting the stage for an invasion Board sClassfll(ahon |Red Army newspaper said the Ger- | of yugoslavia by making landings WIASHINGTON, Jan. 3. — The |/8ns are counterattacking desper- ang establishing bridgeheads on the Supreme Court has ruled that a:ntcly with large tank and infantry |small islands off the Dalmatian forces, but are being forced to fall Coast on the Adriatic Coast. |Jap homeland progresses, he said. gooutive sittings, I never heard of it. Negotiated peace with Japan would !mean only “30 years of armistice ,¢ war is Count Leo Tolstoy’s “War | REP. CURLEY INDICTEDFOR SECOND TIME 3.—Repre- Massa~- WASHINGTON, Jan. sentative James Curley, to Congress in Person |and Peace,” that Russian epic which | s sHINGTON, Jan. 8.—Still guf- ;bvch_ne a b;:sl-s(llur as no other foring the effects of a cold that de- ‘clahsw ever as: i oloped into grippe, President Despite politics, the progress °“;lr::$3:l:v :‘:Mpn:dmhmm w‘?":e mmlhyf |the war, world-rocking cunrerencewte unable to deliver his annual of United Ngtions leaders, and 50 | message in person to Congress. The forth, one of the most "eq"e""‘President has no fever, but his ill- The book, incidentally, in the midst | topics of discussion in Washington [these days is juvenile delinquency. | (50 o ';]M sapped some of his Like the weather, it'’s one of those 3 things everybody is talking about, but nobody is doing much about. | i - . e e et Ra“'oad Men is planning something, though just what sn’t clear at this point, It's| Sen. Claude Pepper’s (D-Fla,) com- draft registrant who objects to clas—l sification given him by a draft board, must report for duty hefore he can test in the courts the val- back before the flanking attack by | small mobile Russian forces. | Both Markhlevsk, 22 miles to the | southeast, and Vershnitsa, 10 miles | leaving today by steamer for a idity of the draft board’s action. |.,nneust of Novograd-Volynsk, were | new post. added - the large The dispatch | majority of Partisans and guerrillas ! operating against the Germans in Yugoslavia and also Greece are now united under the leadership of Mar- | chusetts Democrat, has been indicl- mittee on wartime health and edu- | Ask (harge Be i led for the second time by a federal cation. The committee got a shock grand jury in connection with the the other day when Miss Katherine operation of an Engineer's Group, Lenroot, head of the Children’s Bu- |Inc., as described by the Depart- | reau, appeared to give her testi- |ment of Justice, as a “government mony on what’s happening to the Investigated An eight to one decision, Assoc- captured by General Vatutin's forces | shal Tito, the dispatch said, and also war contracts brokerage racket.” * NICE RAIDED Capt. Donnell was also Provost | iate Justice Frank Murphy dissent- Marshal until last March . He has | ing, said it is “well understood 'made a host of friends in Juneau in 'that dire consequences might flow | | the 21 months he has been here, who | from apathy and delay” in the wish him the best of luck in his|Selective Service Act “passed to assignment to the Westward. Those |mcholize the national manpower.” | |who have contacted him in official _ The case involved Nick Falbo, of matters on Public Relations have West Newton, Pa., member of Je- found him thoroughly capable and hovah Witnesses. Falbo contends reasonable on all issues and this he should have been classified as| goes too for newspaper correspond- 2 minister, completely exempt from ents and especially the Associated military training service, but in- | Press representative. stead he was classified as a con- | ‘ R scientious objector and ordered to i report for work under civilian di-‘ rection at Big Flats, N. Y. He failed to report and was sentenced | to five years’ imprisonment by the Federal District Court at Pittsburgh, | Pa. MONTGOMERY (By Associated Press) | | The Vichy radio broadcasts a re- yesterday. :atflrmed that many of Tito’s divi- The l;_atest advance marked the |sions are now commanded by Al- penetration of the dense swamps at | jied officers, presumably Americans the southern edge of the Prlpet‘m- British. mARYMccorMAck ~ BANK CALL BREAKS ANKLE IN_ | SK ' I “ G A((IDE“]’ | Comptroller of Currency has issued | call for a statement from all na- | tional banks at the close of business First casualty reported as a re- sult of the recent snowfall is Miss! |on December 31, The Federal Reserve Bank, at the Mary McCormick, popular hostess at the USO. Miss McCormick suffer- ed a broken ankle as the result of a skiing accident yesterday morn- ing about 11 o'clock on the Douglas ski trail, Taken to St. Ann’s Hospital by’ members of the medical unit who! | members of the Federal Reserve {also insured banks not members of the Federal Reserve. — e FROM WHITEHORSE ame time, issued a call to all banks, | | System, Federal Deposit Insurance | {und corporations for statements and | In addition to Curley, former Mayor of Boston and Governor of | Massachusetts, the indictment names six defendants. The indictment charges violation of the mail fraud statute, as did the first indictment set aside on technical grounds. The order im- vaneling the grand jury was not signed by the Chief Justice of the WASHINGTON, Jan. 3. — The Ipjgurict of Columbia Federal Court. i SV, o B 'STEAMER BRINGS 8 PASSENGERS ON A steamer docked here this fore- noon from the south with the fol- lowing passengers from Seattle—M. Stephen O’Hearne, here from M. Bulmer, Mrs. T. J. Bulmer, Flos- TRIP FROM SOUTH | youngsters of our country. | Miss Lenroot is ordinarily a mild | person and she didn’t say much that| WASHINGTON, Jan. 3. — Presi- some juvenile court judges and FBI |@éntial Secretary Stephen Early iDXrocmr J. Edgar Hoover hadn’t al- |said that President Roosevelt ready said, but she didn’t mince|“seemed to have been thinking words and the committee sat up and |along the same lines” as the high took notice. official who asserted that the rail She said very frankly that thou- ‘lund steel controversies strengthened sands upon thousands of the nation’s |the German morale and will to re- children are on the “threshold of |sist. jail, and in many cases something | Early cited remarks President |worse than jail” She brought out |Rcosevelt made to the chiefs of Ithe starting fact that three times|the Railroad Brotheshoods on De- as many girls as boys have been |cember 23, telling them if they |caught in the wartime wave of fcouldn’t take action by agreement, juvenile delinquency and that in|he would have to act himself, and most cases, the delinquency of these [that he “was thinking about Am- rls takes the form pf sexual |erican forces all over the world who offenses. are trying to win this war.” [ — ., The anonymous statement was | WILLIAMS IN AIR made on New Year's Eve and stated Pvt. Lew Williams spent Christmas |that the strike situations, and the with his parents in Wrangell and |taking over of the railroads by the now reports to Fort Lewis, Wash., |government may have delayed the |for assignment to an Air Corps victory over Germany. The state- port claiming the suburbs of Nice, in southern France, have been at- tacked by British or American planes. The broadcast gave no date on which the attack was made. e 15 IN LONDON, were fellow skiers, Miss McCormick | Whitehorse, is at the Baranof. |sie M. Doolin, Mrs. Goodreig Pres- training school. ment was denounced by railroad UY WAR BONDS LONDON, Jan. 3—Gen. Sir Ber- Wwas attended by Dr. W. W. White- nard Law Montgomery has arrivec | head, who reduced the fracture. in London from Italy. R — ., — He has béen named to lead the NORA CHASE IN British ground force under Gen | In from Gustavus, Nora B. chasel Dwigkt D. Eisenhower, is a guest at the Baranof Hotel. ——————— WITH N. C. COMPANY Winifred Ervih, Jr, with the Northern Commercial Co. at An- chorage, is at the Baranof. and Thomas G. Smith. —e— BUY WAR BONDS i ton, Marie Preston, Herbert Waugh, From Ketchikan—Otto H. Peters.! union leaders, who said they would ask the Truman Senate Committee to investigate the source. - — BUY WAR BUNDS oS S S | STAN GRUMMETT LEAVES Stan Grummett, local insurance man, left yesterday for Seattle by steamer for a month’s business trip. j ; 1 ) #