The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 6, 1945, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE VOL. LXIV., NO. 9902 ONE THIRD OF COLO “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” et ot e JUNEAU, ALASKA, TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1945 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICE TEN CENTS NETAKEN BY YANKS G - Russians Make Big Gains Toward Baltic Sea RED ARMY CLOSES IN ON STETTIN! Naugard Rep?ied Captur- ed, Also Greifenhagen Taken by Soviets NOW THERE'S FUN IN BILIBID X GEMMILL TRIAL IS | UNDERWAY Jury of Ten Men and Two Women Is Selected- 1% Testimony Starts - ) | SEATTLE, March 6—(Special to | JAP PRISONERS AND DISLOYAL FILIPINOS INTERNED DEFENDERS 'OF COLOGNE - FORCED BACK {Three Other American Di- [ visions Are Closing in 1 on Rhine Areas BULLETIN — PARIS, March 6.—American forces fought their | Empire) — The Lynn J. Gemmill {4 | trial opened at 10 a. m. today in fthe court of District Judge John way through Cologne to the Rhine tonight and in the south the U. S. Third Army spurted 25 BULLETIN—LONDON, March 6.—Stalin announces the capture of Grudziadz, and the town has been cleared of the Germans in block to block fighting. The cap- ture of the town, 55 miles south of Danzig, clears the road for communications and feeding of troops with military require- ments. LONDON, March 6.—The Russian | troops are closing in on Stettin and have reached the Oder River near | Greifenhagen, 11 miles south of the | port, Moscow dispatches state. ! The Germans declared the Soviets | have thrust to within 13 miles of Stettin and 35 miles of the U-boat | base at Swinemuende. The Red Army artillery is shelling | Stettin port. The German communique says Marshal Zhukov’s army is wheeling westward on a 40-mile front from Stargard to Greifenhagen, the latter | BORN BEHIND BARS, these innocents knew nothing but life in jail with their parents — till MacArthur's men shattered the gates of Bilibid prison in Manila, and, liberating everybody, made fun with games like this in which little Ronnie Barz wears the helmet of Pic. H. C. Coxen of Marion, Ohio. Signal Corps photo. “International Soundphoto) Target for Today {C. Bowen. U. S. Prosecuting Attorney J. Charles Dennis and Defense At-| torney Will G. Beardslee selected a| jury of 10 men and two women to éhcar the testimony, which starts| !@ 3 this afternoon. f : ; Gemmill, United States Attorney, for the First Division, Alaska, is| charged with soliciting $3,000 and | accepting $1,500 from Cleo Patricia | Wilkins, one of the defendants in a WITH PART OF THE BEIIIUI'IFUI city of Manila still smouldering and Jap and American soldiers fight- ing in the streets, these' Japanese prisoners and Filipino collaborationists march through one of the' .main city streets to a stockade_under guard of U, S. soldiers., Signal Corps photo. (International) |larceny case pending in the District | Court in Juneau. FBI agents who were connected | with the arrest of Gemmill in a Seattle hotel room November 4 of | |% S8 {last year, have resigned. ! i"_ { United States Attorney Dennis |asserted at the opening of the trial that Gemmill is charged with bribery, that he told Mrs. Wilkins he would recommend & suspended _MINUS EVERYTHING--BUT v i . HIS LIFE miles toward the Rhine in the Coblenz area. The American First Army tanks and troops fought their way past the the famous Cologne Cathedral. A front line dispatch tonight declared that “Cologne, to all military purpoeses, has fallen,” Pt o PARIS, March 6.—The American troops captured at least one-third of Cologne by mid - aorning and forced the German efenders back | to the old city section around the FOURBLASTS % & SHAKE SHIP, - sitris «d, Eighth and 104th Infantry have reached Ringstrasse against surpris- ingly little fon. % The Germens fewght in what Ay BIGBLOW town 14 miles from the Baltic coast. “'sentence i her grand larceny ‘case 1 Naugard has been -captured, the German Command states, and also says Zhukov's spearhead has Been | stopped northeast of Gollnow. { The Berlin radio asserts Khukov ; has massed five infantry and two | tank armies in the central sector for a push westward of Berlin. Zhukov's and Rokossovsky’s arm- ! fes seized a total of 230 towns and | villages yesterday and gains aver-) aged 10 miles. t VINSON OKEHED | WASHINGTON, March 6.— The! President’s nomination of Judge! Fred Vinson, to be Federal Loan Ad- | ministrator, has been approved un- animously by the Senate Banking Committee without any hearings. The Washingion A [ Merry - Go - Round NOMINATIONOF | IWO JIMA Final Assault as Sup- lies Landed BULLETIN' — NEW YORK, March 6. — A Tokyo broadeast picked up here by the FCC de- clares the American Marines on Iwe Jima “lsunched a violent attack on the Japanesé lines and fighting has reached 4 most de- cisive stage.” | POSEDAT Marines Are Preparing for| if she would pay him $3,000. The conversation topk place over four | bottles ‘of beer in Gemmils hotel | room here last November. | Dennis said Gemmill, former | Wenatchee, Washington attorney, | was indicted on charges of solicit: ling a $3,000 bribe and accepting I8 { | | |+ 1,500. | Dennis, in relating the casc. said | & December, 1943, a trunk con- |taining money and jewelry was |stolen from the owner of a house jof ill-fame in Sitka, Alaska. | Mrs. wilkins was identified by |Dennis as the woman employed in |the house, and was subpoenaed ilast October to appear before a igrand jury. She, another girl and 'two soldiers were indicted. Her {pail was set at $3,000, which she | j | deposited in cash. | Dennis said the Government will | prove that when she learned she U. S. PACIFIC FLEET Hmp.!had been indicted, she talked with QUARTERS, GUAM, March 6 — A|Gemmill and he said he” would Iclincher blow in the 16-day-old recommend a suspended sentence battle for little Iwo Jima, where. if she would testify against the hundreds of Marines have died others and she “would have nothing while killing more than 12,000 to worry about.” Japs, poised today while more Subsequently, came here and met Gemmill. She Dennis said, she ! power from supplies poured ashore By DREW PEARSON _ | (Lt. Coi Robert 8. Allen mow on sstive service with the Army." P —_— 3| WASHINGTON—President Robse- | velt got back “from his notable achievements at Yalta to find seri- | ous problems awaiting him at home, | particularly on the labor front.| Some of his advisers felt, however, that these problems, especially the coal erisis, could have been averted | by beginning to prepare for it earlier and by appointing .a new Secretary of Labor. | The President left for Yalta al- most immediately after his in- auguration. And, up until a day or two before his inauguration, he| had not made up his mind what to | do about appointing a new Sec-| retary of Labor. In the end, he did| nothing and Miss Perkins con- tinued, despite her very firm desire to resign. | Meanwhile, various moves could | have been made to head off the| coal crisis. One of them, discussed | in the background but mnever! brought forward, is an annual| wage for miners. If the miners; knew they would be able to work all the year around, especially in peace times when they have been laid off for about one-third of the time, they might forego wage in- creases now. Another move, proposed back-| stage, was to appoint ‘coal mine! representatives on local OPA] boards to make sure the cost of living did not go up, or if so, under circumstances they understood. But the most important move was . to have appointed a new Secretary of Labor, with a new, fresh out-| ook, untarnished prestige, who could have tackled the job first- HERE’S ONE of the prettiest targets | a bombardier or gunner ever drew a bead on. She's Ardis Sheffer, St. Petersburg, Fla., who posed in this attractive fashion for returned combat fliers at the Don Ce-Sar Convalescent Center. To tell the {ruth, the boys twanged their bows from one inch range to avoid injury to their target. (International) 'CHURCHILL ON VISIT T0 FRONT LONDON, Marcii 6—Prime Min- ister Winston Churchill has re- turned to London after a visit to the battle front, where he con- {ferred witk Gen. Dwight D. Eisen- hower and Field Marshal Mont- gomery, and covered a considerable part of German territory in his tour. Churchill, with his chief mili- tary adviser, Gen. Sir Hastings Is- {may, spent the weekend at Allied garvester Headquarters with Eisenhower and Montgomery “for the purpose of Allied Commanders a wide field of military matters,” the announce- ment said. ‘The Premier also visited troops on the east and west coasts. notified the Secret Service, who in ! There were no appreciable turn notified the FBI agents and changes in the lines yesterday as they were in a nearby room when the Leathernecks, holding more|the money transaction occurred. ! than two-thirds of the island, built|The FBI agents entered the room | | and arrested Gemmill. up positions for a grand-scale as- sault on the defenses of the rocky | north end. | WASHINGTON, March 6—James| V."Forredtal, Secretary of the Navy. | who returned yesterday after a mp! in the Pacific war zone, said the| loss of Marine lives on the island, is not out of proportion to the| importance of taking Iwo Jima, as it is needed to put the American| fighter planes and Liberator bomb- | ers within range of Japan. H Forrestal gave no figures on the wounded and missing in the Iwo Jima campaign, but praised the three Marine Divisions. He said the Japs on the island were much stronger than was expected, and made good use of their weapons. STOCK QUOTATIONS CUT NOW Enfire Enemy Position Is i Threatened by Decisive Move of British By FRANK L. MARTIN (AP War Correspondent) NEW YORK, March 6 — Closing quotation of Alaska-Juneau Mine stock today is 7%, American Can 93%, Anaconda 34%, Beech Air- craft 12%, Bethlehem Steel 76%, Curtiss-Wright 6%, International 81%, Kennecott 39%, North American Aviation 11, New York Central 24%, Northern Pacific \discussing with them ‘and other 937 U, S. Steel 66%. Dow, Jones averages today are as follows: Industrials, 161.50; rails, 52.51; utilities, 28.38. {of | vmmw far the greatest traffic center in | western Germany. To the north, Simpson’s Ninth |Army wiped out all but one small | pocket on the Rhine south of Dues- seldorf, in’'the suburb of Neuss. The Canadians have driven into Wesel, a pocket farther down the Rhine, Several Believed Dead and Scores Injured- Windows Broken — The First Army has driven swiftly VANCOUVER, B. C, March 6—|to the middle of the Rhine and Several men are believed to have | have struck within six miles of the | | | | i | been killed and scores were injured | river center city of Bonn. at noon today when four henvyI Patton's Third Army, according blasts shook a ship at the CPR'toa German communique broadcast, idocks near Vancouver's downtown has made a deep breach in the | district. | Nazi lines northeast of Kyllburg. | The Vancouver Sun said it learn-| Patton’s movements are largely ,ed about 150 men were aboard the | blacked out, similar to the great | vessel, Greenhill Park, a 10,000-ton | secrecy prevailing during the great | freighter, when the explosions toc- | Rhine_breakthrough. His nearest curred. About 45 minutes after the | official reported distance from Cob- {blast the ship, operated by the Do- 'lenz is 44 miles. | minion Government and owned by | |Park Steamship Ltd., was towed to i Burradd Inlet.It was reported there | ;were fears.there might be other ex- | Michael Giraud, Canadian Press| " | several:men were still trapped In the | THE FIGHT FOR COMPLETE liberation in the Philippine capital city of i ,Manila continues as doughboys engage in house to house street fight- ing in their effort to push the Japs from the burning metropolis. Above, one of the few Japs taken prisoner is escorted to jail where he will be questioned by U. S. intelligence officers. {International) IN INDIA RichTakesHardRap At Congressmen Who By JACK STINNETT WASHINGTON, March 6—When finally get down to the business ‘streamlining” Congress (if we {erer do) give a hand to Rep, Robert CALCUTTA, March 6 — British p pich, of Pennsylvania, Change Recor Con- | | Record” could be spared some bore- dom. Members discovered, however, that they coula virtually re-write their speeches. Rich says: “I believe that when al . plosions if the flames reached other FORCES OF - holgs. 3 | reporter, said a guard told him | "lps BE'NG ' vessel, including the chef and the| known immediately how many are still in the ship. |chiet ‘engipeer. He added it is not' BonlED m | | 7 | The outlines of the freighter could be seen through the dense smcke and haze, It is several hun- dred yards out in the inlet. A small- ;nr vessel, possibly about 2,000 tons, |is burning nearby. It appeared it is planned to let the smaller vessel ) ‘burn and sink, The other, a 10,000 tonner, was| |hauled into the inlet from the CPR v‘doclu and appeared out of danger. | Hundreds of plate glass windows jand thousands of office windows | were, broken in the downtown busi- ness section as the explosions rocked Ilhe central section of Vancouver jabout the time the streets began to {get crowded in the noon hour. | Officials of the Canada Shipping |Cnmpany, agents for the vessel, ‘e;ud it was not an ammunition ship. | They did not know what caused the | blasts. } — .t FAIRBANKS MAN - Remnants on Luzon Atfack- ed from Ground, Air- 90,000 Japs Killed By C. YATES McDANIEL . (AP War Correspondent) MANILA, March 6—Six Japanese divisions, perhaps 90,000 troops, of 10 divisions defending Luzon, have been destroyed, together with con- siderable war material, and, the re- |maining forces are bottled up in |the mountains and are undér con- tinuous attack by forces and from the air, Gen. Douglas MacArthur announces. Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita's forces are still on this largest is- ‘land of the Philippines, but are (split into a number of different }groups and all of their positions 1are critical. Only yesterday, MacArthur an- DIES SUDDENLY nounced, thousands of Japs have armored units, cutting across the gyessman Rich would like to see the {Irrawaddy River Valley in an 85- congressional Record, supposedly the mile dash, have severed the main|;ccurate report of everything that |Japanese land, air and water lines goes on verbally in Congress be just {between Mandalay and Rangoon, exactly that and nothing more. Few and have seriously threatened the people who see the Congressional entire enemy position, Allied Head- | Reccrd ever realize it, but there of- quarters said. ten are occasions when the Record With the aid of British air-|is about as accurate as a kinder- borne infantry flown in at the!gartner's blueprint for a skyscraper. climax of the operation, the ar-| The reason is that’ somewhere mored column seized the sh'drcmes‘ulong the line, members of Congress intact, killed more than 1,600 Japs, got in the habit of asking “unani- captured 40 guns and destruyed‘muus consent to revise and extend enough enemy supplies to feed a my remarks.” Students of legislative |man stands on the floor of the| | House (he might have added that| the same thing is true in the Senate) | |and makes a statement mndemnlng“ a 'measure as being unsound and un- sensible, and then adds that he is going to vote for it, he should not be permitted to delete those remarks | from the Record. 3 “If we make an error, correct it, but I personally want my people to know just how I talk, I want them| to know exactly how I feel about | legislation.” | It may be appended right hete ON SEATTLE TRIP SEATTLE, March 6 — Peter 8. Malone, Fairbanks store aged about 50, collapsed and died hotel - at which he was a guest. Malone only arrived here Saturday via Panair, ‘The coroner said apparently Ma. lone suffered a sudden heart tack. e — owner, | ,be!n cleaned out of Ilocos Norte Province, in Luzon’s northwest jcorner by guerrillas operating junder American Army Officer Col. |R. W. Volckman. On bloody Leyte, south of Luson, more than 125,000 Japs were killed Monday a few blocks from the and this makes a total on the two |islands alone of more than 215,000 iJapanese troops killed, including |some of the Japanese Empires best. | The largest single engagement in |which the enemy sustained heavy losses, was the three-week-old battle of Manila. — BARANOF GUEST jJapanese division for 10 days. The | procedure say this was started as a[,m, Rich has about as much charice' Jeannette T. Davenporp, register- important communications center | time-saver, so that colleagues of ¢ getting his suggestion into the! 70 miles south of Man-'long-winded members Wwho were { making speeches purely “for the| hand, and, if necessary, ,of the First Canadian Army units wnthe mining areas to x::;e w‘:;: and the United States Ninth Army g 5 taking . part in the drive on the ing from Anchorage, is a guest at of Meiktila, (Continued on Page Io-) Rhine. the Baranof Hotel, dalay, was also captured. FROM HOONAH Slow enveloping movements M. Hegeberg, registering from against the Japanese mountain Hoonah, is now at the Baranof. Jpomlonx are reported. (Continued on Page Siz)