The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, February 5, 1944, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” VOL. XLIL, NO. 5968. — - — JUNEAU, ALASKA, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1944 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS — " 7 PRICE TEN CENT3 | BIG LOSSES AS GERMANS IN ATTACKS Desperate Struggle for| Cassino Which Nazis | Holding ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN ITALY, Feb. 5—The Germans have launched a new attack in a deter- mined offensive smash at the Allied | beachhead, this time striking at British troops in the area north| of Aprilia, 20 miles southeast of Rome, but the Nazis have been 1epulsed with heavy losses on the main Fifth Army front. Desperate fighting raged today in the streets of Cassino. and in| the mountains north of the town the Germans were holding on, de- spite sledgehammer attacks by Am- erican infantry, artillery and arm- ored divisions. The Germans are still in posses- sion of the main part of Cassino, holding the Americans to outskirt The Washingion; Merry-Go-Round, By DREW PEARSON (Major Robert 8. Allen on active duty.) i (Continued on Page Six) ————— WASHINGTON — Not long ago, | the Justice Department brought an anti-trust suit against two members | of the British House of Lords a_ndl one of Britain’s biggest companies,| Imperial Chemical Industries. No‘{v.l the Justice Department is investi-| gating anather British group of companies in connection with an| alleged monopoly of a vital wa\'} material—mica. | Most people don't realize it, butz today mjca probably is the most| important single material of the| entire war. Without it there would be no radar, no radio, no electric| gun controls and no detector de- vices. Yet there are indications that the U. S. Government has allowed itself to be restricted in the pro- duction and impottation of mica| by a British trust. The trust hah“ been operating right under the noses | of American officials. | What the Justice Department is interested in is why production of mica is low, and whether monopoly tactics are to blame. Today, despite the vital role mica plays in the war, we are®forced to| use paper dielectric devices as a substitute for mica. This is not| satisfactory, and General Electric has spent $100,000 trying to find a} better substitute, without success. | In order to get out from under | the British control of mica, thei .War Production Board some time ago urged the production of mica in the United States. To this end, Jesse Jones set up a special sub- sidiary of his Metals Reserve Com- pany, called the Colonial Mica Cor- poration. | BRITISH CONNECTIONS | However, it doesn't look as if he had done much about escaping the British control. The Justice De-| partment finds that the man Jones has placed in charge is George A. Purcell, who in private life used to| head a mica company known as| Colonial Mica Company. Now he is running, for Jesse Jones, the Col- onial Mica Corporation. Further- more, it is. considered significant| that Purcell was recommended for this Jesse Jones job by Howard C l Sykes, who is intimately connected | with the British mica interests, and | heads one company affiliated with the British group. Significant also is the fact that| Purcell is a neighbor of another AR ASSAULT 'MAYSTOP U.5. FORCES FORGE 3¢ SLIPPER SHORTAGE_Toe shoes have been added to the list of rationed footwear, much to the chagrin of dancers Nelle Fisher, Jane Deering and Elissa Minet (left to right), who appear on New York stages. What with matinees and all, ballet dancers wreck a pair of shoes every week or so. ONGERMANY WORK AT (ONTINUING Mass Raid on Airfields in Getfing OUIASbfuce in Ton- ! France Carried Out Today 5,—~A great mada of Am n heavy bombers and fighting planes smashed at the Nazi plane nests in Central France today in the eighth shattering blow against Hitl war machine in nine days of battering day-to-day assault LONDON, against German occupied territor- ies. The offensive was pt rolling through last night by RAF Mos- quito bombers which raided West- ern Germany. Today's American foray was the fourth straight daylight assault by the giant American bombers. and the airfields atiacked were not spec- ified. The preliminary announcement made it appear as if the raid was even on a greater scale than the| ones of the last two days. which left fi raging at the U-boat bases of Wilhelmshaven and Frankfurt. Wilhelmshaven was hit by 1100 bombers and fighters Thursday, and yesterday’s blow at industrial Frank- furt was carried out at the cost of 21 Allied bombers by Fortresses and Liberators, escorted by hundreds of fighter planes. One Allied fighter plane was lost. The Germans lost 12 of their in- terceptors, knocked down by the gunners of the American bomber: as the big ships lumbered throug! |flaming fields of anti-aircraft fire. SOLDIER VOTE SHOWDOWN 1S AGAIN DELAYED WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—Lack of a quorum forced the Senate to re- cess today and postponed until next week a showdown on the soldier vote legislation. ar- EDNA BAY | [ gass National Forest I" Very Costly, Claim WASHINGTON, Feb. 5. — Con- ! gressman Fred Norman, Republican, of Washington State, announces that prospects appear good the Gov- HEAD IN MARSHALLY NAZI AIRMEN TRY RESCUE OFGENERALS Atempt Frustrated by Red | Air Force-73 German Planes Destroyed | MOSCOW, Feb. | l [ | | 5.—Major deci-| ' Death Struggle Rages at Rome Beachhead ONEMORE ISLAND IS TAKEN OVER Two Other Isles Occupied- ‘\ Bombardment Starts | | | | | | ~Proclamation 1 | PEARL HARBOR, Feb. 5. Troops | of the Seventh Army Division have !sions are being won all along the| | 3 Russian front, and the onslaught| | landed on Ebeye Island, north of | 'against Hitler's battered armies is :Kwn[nleln Island, and occupied halt *‘: {continuing in the Baltic and Middie! fok-1s Admitel R W, NG ¢ Ukrainé | i o 7 i | | The new landing was practically General Govorov's Leningrad { unopposed the only resistance being larmy has reached the mouth of the | |a short distance from the beach. Narova River nine miles inside the | ./ Since half of the island is already Estonia border on the Gulf of Fin-| occupied, presumably resistance is land, and advanced to Lake Peipus. |not great. 35 miles south, thereby sealing Hmf | Admiral Nimitz also reported two land gap which forms the Cvmt.e-i | small islands between Kwajalein way to the Baltic. The Nerova 4 o and Ebeye have been occupied fol- River, running across this bottie- 1 . — R 4 lowing neutralization and moderate Lieck parallel to the border offered! CHILLY WINTER ROAD—_Winter view of ; { Beposttion, the Germans a natural defense River on the Alaska-Yukon border. All road work is nm:'hsnr:xl:::r: h::::‘l“‘grbh::l‘(‘: :: D’:::ol'l‘ 'é':‘eeerl:‘. ‘Gugewe and 4p|, - juat. riovhls af | line. There is no information yet| "hbflye. :re beh;z ’“b({'c'e‘:hw bomb- |ing and naval gunfire, the enemy whether the rallway and highway running parallel to the Gulf and from the Reval to Riga was cut, | General Govorov's army, in con-, junction with the Baltic army of General Meretskov are squeezing the Germans tighter against Lake , | Peipus on the Latvian border. | To the south in the Dnieper NEw SMASH - | bend, Red Army. groups.drev. closer the noose thrown arund 10 Gei- | man divisions believed to number | more than 100,000 men between i Cherkasy and Kinev. The German Airforce sought to extricate Hitler's Japs Ha dWPaiinsiakingly best generals and officers as toe extermination of the Nazis wiilin ReStored Bases A"er the encirclement mounted. August Raid r (BY ASHEL BUSH) { Associated Press War Correspondent FORWARD ALLIED AIR BASE eq IN NEW GUINEA, Feb. 5.—More than 100 heavy and medium Fifth Airforce bombers concentrated in LONDON, Feb. 5—The Germans are rushing big Junkers transport planes to rescue 10 trapped div ns in the Ukraine. The Red force shot down 13 and destro 60 on the landing grounds in the area of entrapment, a Russian » bulletin reported. the strike that devastated the string PR of four airdromes which make the Wewak area of New Guinea one of the enemy's chief air centers m the Southwest Pacific. Liberator hombers struck first and DETAILS OF |Furloughs for Home And Fireside Sought - ByMen Long at War " INTERNATIONAL PIN-UP GIRL |answering our fire. Casualties continue to be moder~ | A proclamation setting up a mili- tary government in the occupied portions of the Marshalls and “sus- !pending the powers of Emperor Hirihito of Japan in these areas," i s annouiged. aig_copies <9€ the.s proclamation have W‘?m /by American ‘Marine ‘sand dough- The proclamation is signed by T ek ! Admiral Nimitz, as Military Gov- BY JACK STINNETT ernor of the Marshalls, The pro- WASHINGTON, Feb, 5.—The agi- clamation is in a friendly tone but tation for home-furloughing men the document is firm and gives the K who have long been overseas has inhabitants to understand orders . the Army and Navy worried, simp- Mmust be obeyed. There will be no ly because failure to do anything about it is likely to become a mor- ale factor on the home front and in the service, yet there isn't much they can do about it, The agitation seems two-fold. At !home, parents, wives and sweet- *hearts can’t understand why men who have been in far places a year or two can't be brought back for a short vacation, Abroad, hun- dreds of thousands of men who have fought bloody battles or spent interference in the normal peaceful lives of the civilians “so far as war necessities and their own behavior permits.” The native population is of Poly~ nesian type. ——pe R.R.HERMANN PASSES TODAY ernment will halt the high cost project of getting airplane spruce | out of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, operati now being ! conducted on Edna Bay | unloaded than 175 tons eof A'I'Ro ( I TIES | bombs directly on two runways, de- molishing approximately 20 enemy, | field unser more aircraft and rendering at least one able Norman said he has suggested the | | War Production Board's project be (OMIN 0 T Mitchell mediums followed about discentinued ' because of the high | an hour later, bombing and strat and the mills and forests of | ing two other air strips, flying as Washington and Oregon could eas- | low as 20 The MacArthu ily supply all spruce needed for air- i Sty e eitore. | Escaped Prisoner of Japs Norman said the Tongass project DeS(rIbeS Irea'meni 5 already cest several million dol- communique reported that least eight of 40 of the were downed, and T were destroyed in all at enemy Oour planes casuai- Jars and produced little lumber. The r " | it . ? = . | Bebett was fihciakii whes sprics as "Foul |tse were vight, the communiqy was badly needed but lately excess SN e s production of aluminum has caused | SEATTLE, Feb. 5. — Just ten| ‘It was a perfect mission from {months ago, Comdr. Melvin McCoy StaIt to finish,” Capt. Merton Kil- id, “I don’t think coming till we' a drop in the demand for spruce. | Norman said the WPB replied in 'and nine other fighting Americans 60T¢, Pasadena, | & “substantial agreement” to close escaped after 11 months of impri- they knew we wer: the project. J. Philip Boyd, hea_(l sonment, during which they suf- SWept over the hill.” of the Lumber Products .Dlvision, “"rere'd atrocious treatment from! Wewak is Japan's main air sup- |also convinced (b project should 4y jap captors in the Philippines. [ply base in New Guinea, and was be discontinued in the near future.| age. o jong silence, the lean ra- smashed last August 18 and 9 S e e |dio officer tells the story reluctant- when 225 planes were destroyed ia| {ly, declining to give many details of |the air and on the ground | SIO[K ouolA“oNs incidents he describes “as foul as; Japan painstakingly rebuilt the | — janything in history.” airbase, and Thursday's sma NEW YORK, Feb. 5. — Closing, Last night in & radio broadcast caught the enemy just as Wewak quotation of Alaska Juneau mine he described how one prisonet was was restored to normal strngth. tock today is 6, Anaconda 247, forced by Jap guards to bayonet The planes outside the revetmenis Beech Aircraft 94, Bethlehem Steel and kill a fellow prisoner, and with on the ground were duck soup for 58%, Curtiss Wright 5%, Interna-'a shovel bury him in a roadside the first attack, and the Mitchells | |tional Harvester 72, Kennecott 30%, ditch, after an infamous “marchfollowing got those parked in the) |New York Central 16%, Northernof death.” revetments, H acific 1442, United States Steel 52.| Although systematically starved, ————-— | Dow, Jomes averages today are he and three companions risked I ias follows: industrials 135.13, rails death stealing 133 chickens in D' H 136.10, utilities 22.32. three menths to build up their! Imo“d, Gemml" strength for their escape. “The most important thing is to| have the will to escape. That's| what makes the difference,” he said. | DEMOCRATS OF Nominations Held ~ IDAHOENDORSE =< - Up Until Monday | FDR 4IH IERM!HILDA KASHEVAROFF | WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—The | MARRIED YESTERDAY | Senate Judiciary subcommittee de- The pin-up fad has taken on international proportions, now that a group of soldiers in Chile picked Movie Actress Evelyn Ankers (above), who was born in that South American country, as their favorite pin-up girl. 1 sia monotonous months in lonely out- posts feel that it is time they were | relieved by some of the youngsters in training who are keen to see action. Several men back from the Med- iterranean theater told me that troops in North Africa felt cer- tain that when the Battle of Tuni-! was over, they would be fur- AT ST. ANN'S Death Comes Early This Morning for Well Known at Sty and aow the voys'im ety | JuMGAl Druggist are*wondering why they aren't sent ¥ home for a rest and a visit with' Russell R. Hermann, 53, Juneau family and loved ones, druggist, and one of the foremost However, the greatest dissatis- business men of the Territory, faction seems to come from the passed away this morning at 7:40 men and families of those in the o'clock at St. Ann’s Hospital after Arctic. In the South Pacific, too, an extended illness, He went south however, there is a strong feeling for surgical care in the autumn, but that once troops have served thetr Upon his return to Juneau, grew stretch under fire, it should mean Stéadily worse, entering the hos- home and fireside for awhile. pital ‘several weeks' ago. Mr. Hermann was born June 28 '1891, in Seattle, one of a family of Although I am not authorized tive brothers, four of them drug- to quote official sources, T do know gists, and two sisters. The four that the Army and Navy are working surviving brothers are William G. hard on-this problem and that in Hermann and George Hermann of a small way something will be done.|Seattle; Harry E. Hermann, Wen- That “small way” will be just about atchee; and Frank M. Hermann, the maximum that can be done. | Who is now in Juneau managing the The Army is trying to work out Juneau Drug Store. Sisters of Mr. a general policy of at least 30- Hermann are Martha and Minnie day furloughs for men who have Flermann, both of Seattle. served 18 months in particularly| AlSo surviving “are the widow, hazardous or isolated posts. This MIS. Mildred R. Hermann and a won't, however, mean that these daughter Barbara Ann, of this city. men will be brought home. The 2P & son Russell (Chee) Hermann, {shipping situation, though not asl::l ‘:{"g:;:;"flso‘:e'”u‘t\;:y‘ station- |acute as a year ago, stll prevents| ™o n Tl TN UM s My | shuttle-ferrying. Such shij too,! would have to be convoyed and, ::rg'p::f:m;:dv::dv“gez' "g:"e {aside from the hazard of - lostng] g B | for sev 3 men and boats to submarines, there | our years x?::nchf:;": p B 15 tremendous cost and loss in man-{pay © 1920, he ma,.,.f“i Mildred hours in such a non-fighting ven-|Robinson. He served in the last ture. war, and was a charter member of big British mica official. Purcell; Only 43 Senators answered the| | SR 7 f . Jives at 21 Collins Ave., Bloomfield,|roll at an unusual Saturday ses- | i TO EDWARD JAMES |laved until Monday final action in LIVES UP TO NAME There is also the problem of re- the Valdez Post of the American N. J., next door to J. P. French,!sion. [ - BOISE, Idah‘o. Feb. 5.—The Idaho = :unprovnl of the nominations of An-| DANVILLE, Va. Mrs. C placing battle-experienced men | Legion, later transferring here. Vice Prosiaent. of Eikere Munsell| Lop e Sl | SR g Do at ) Hilda Kashevarotf, of Finter Bay, (thony J. Dimond to be Judge of Brumtield. of Gretna, reported to with green hands and this prob-| The family came to Juneay in & Cgmpany, which is part of the| MOES FROM SKAGWAY |Jacheon.: Sy SR ast night,and Edward James, of Douglas, were |the Third Judicial Division in police the loss of her purse con- lem is insurmountable. To replace|1925, where Mr. Hermann was first junanimously endorsed a fourth married yesterday by Capt. T. J. Alaska and Lynn J. Gemmill to be taining $500 in cash, It safely veterans with lads who have hndim\mcmtm with the Butler Mauro British trust. (Continued on Page Four) (Sykes, who put Pur-| Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Moe, Skflgwa}'it(rm for Roosevelt by a standing Dyck of the Salvation Army,Aue:’m.[Unlmd States Attorney in the First returned to her by a service station ' — couple, are guests at the Baranof. vote, ants were Frank and Annie James, Division, attendant. His name—Dan Algood, (Continued on Page Three) § & (Continued on k"MeA Two)