The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 13, 1945, Page 1

HE DAILY ALASKA “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” MP RE VOL. LXIV., NO. 9908 JUNEAU, ALASKA, TUESDAY, MARCH 13 |945 MHV[BI R ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICL TEN CEN'IS AMERICANS NEAR EDGE Soviets Capture Fortress RED FORCE EXPANDING ODER FRONT Three Grou;sBisposed for Berlin Assault-Siege on Konigsberg BULLETIN—LONDON, March 13—A German broadcast to- night declared that at least nine Soviet Divisions have crossed the Oder River be- tween Kuestrin and Frankfurt and are attempting to beat to- ward Berlin. The Berlin radio tonight said’ Red Army forces are striking toward the German Capital City from Kietz on the Oder’s west bank, opposite fallen Kuestrin. | | To._UN, Marcn 13, — Soviet troops are attacking powerfully | north of Frankfurt in an attempt | to expand their bridgeheads over the | Oder River, the German Command | said, after Moscow had announced the capture on the east bank of the | fortress city of Kuestrin. | Nazi reports said the Russian as- ‘ saults were held, and declared the | Germans were still fighting in the | southern fringes of Kuestrin, which | is 38 miles east of Berlin and 16! miles north of Frankfurt. ' Moscow still had not officially re- | poried any crossings of the Oder, but dispatches said there Red Army, groups are apparently being disposed | for the assault on Berlin. Kuestrin, now churned to rubble, fell after five days of hand-to-hand battle, Russian dispatches said. (Continued on Page Eight) ——————— The Washington Merry - Go- Round | | By DREW PEARSON [ (. ot Robert 8, Allen_ now_on sctive | service with the Army.’ i WASHINGTON—German prison- érs of war get such excellent treat- ment in American hands that the| 'MARINES IN » o WINTER FIGHTERS —Pvt. H. A. Slater (left) of Jo- hannesburg, South Africa, and Pvt. T. L. Steyn of Frankfort, South Africa, man a forward observation post along the Fifth Army sector of the Italian front. Complete Fomluahon 0f Aleufians Demanded BySenaforA.B. Chandler | WASHINGTON, March 13.—Sen- ator Albert B. Chandler, Democrat of Kentucky, demanded complete | fortification of the Aleutian Islands at a secret meeting of the Senate Military Affairs Committee with | Undersecretary of War Robert Pat- terson. Sen, Chandler told a reporter af- ter the meeting: “because we didn't ]*:nc this area well fortified before his war we came close to losing it m Japan in the early days of the war. My idea is to bolster our outer defenses now, for if we wait until the war is over any such activity will be construed as an unfriendly act.” C. Hull May MOPPING UP DRIVE, IWO Stubborn Resistance, How- ever, on North Tip- Warships Shell U. 8. PACIFIC FLEET HEAD- F RUHR BASIN GEMMILLTO COME BACK T0 ALASKA Atforney Roasts Seatle FBI ! Agents in Statements Madeto Jury | 12-(Delayed )~ Agnew, n Remagen { SEATTLE, March |Attorney Henry Clay behalf of his client, Mrs. Ruhy Hazlewood, has filed with the United States Attorney and Federal| Bureau of Investigation, a demand | § for the $1,500, restitution money, | taken from Lynn J. Gemmill at the time of his arrest by FBI agents. Agnew represents Mrs. Hazlewood | in a civil action filed recently in| Seattle charging Mrs. Cleo Patricia | Wilkins allegedly stole a trunk| valued in excess of $10,000 and asks restitution. Gemmill is eager to return to Juneau where he is United States| Attorney for the First Division - of Alaska. He will return to active | g "7770 status following acquittal on the | | . i e charge of seeking a bribe of $3,000 | and accepting $1,500 from Mrs, | Wilkins. Gemmill was placed on leave of absence following his ar- rest here on November 4. FBI Castigated Gemmill's attorney, will G. Beardslee, in his closing arguments before the jury of 10 men and two ,women last Saturday morning, bit- 'terly castigated the Seattle Fedoraly Bureau of Investigation agents for | arresting Gemmill “after such a | short, flimsy investigation.” He termed the investigation “incom- | petence of the rankest sort,” and said Gemmill was not even ques- | tioned by United States Attorney Hile, and that reporters were brought in before the hearing ended. “Apparently, the FBI agents were overlooking no bets to have a field-day of publicity while the agent in charge was out cf town,” Beardslee said. No Cop As Dumb As FBI Beardslee further attacked the FBI for sticking to an “un-Ameri- can regulation” that prevented the Juneau agent from revealing in- formation, which might have cleared Gemmill immediately. the capture of the span. Russian Government has now ac- QUARTERS, GUAM, March 13 —| ‘tually asked that its civilians in- Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey’s th side Germany be treated as pr&son- Marine Division' has reduced the efs after they are liberated by the Allles. There are about 4,000,000 Soviet | civilians held as forced laborers| inside Germany, and their status| has been the subject of a signifi-| cant controversy. | When U. S. and British Armies| first began liberating these work-| slaves they were held as prisoners| of war, but soon a deluge of com- plajnts came from Red Army of- ficers that the Russian civilians were being insulted. Whereupon the Allies segregated Russian work battalions and put them into refugee camps where they were given rations similar to that of the civilian population. However, civilian ration are so meager in France and Belgium that the Russians have now re- versed themselves and want all Russians captured or liberated by the Allies to be treated as prisoners of war. This means that they will get the same food as German prisoners who get the same ration as the American or British Armies. ! The whole question of handling displaced people, including slave laborers, refugees, and war pris- oners, is one of the major Allied! headaches. Some 10,000,000 people | are involved. Note: The French, who also com- plained when the Allies treated their repatriated citizens as war prisoners, have now changed their minds, are pressing the U. S. and Great Britain to treat all non-| collaborationist Frenchmen freed in Germany as prisoners so they will get Allied rations. P BELIEVE IT OR NOT ‘The Office of Defense Transpor- tation, the Army, Navy and the Office of War Mobilization have a| Joint board which passes on all| requests to hold conventions. La.sm' week, believe it or not, the ODT| | (Continued on Page Four) N Attend Meel area of the last sizeable pockem held by the Japanese around Ki- | tano Point, but enemy resistance still continued to be stiff. Headquarters said a smaller pocket on the northeast coast con- tinued to hold out against Maj.' Gen. Graves B. Erskine’s Third . Graves. After Three Months in Bed Marine Division and Maj. Gen.| Clifton B. Cates' Fourth Divison. | He [S Greafly Im- The Navy Communique’s wording, however, made it evident that in a| OlNafions large sense, the 23-day-old Iwo Jima operation is in the mop-up stage. proved in Health WASHINGTON, March 13—Cor- dell Hull's physical condition has Inecks close support. Warships of the Fifth Fleet reatly. .improved. in ‘the last few shelled the rugged portion held by geeksy He ‘:ww definitely hopes to the enemy on the “l""'he";] tlg attend the San Francisco United while army fighter planes based waiions Conference. on southern Iwo gave the Leather-|" \ypoiner he actually makes the | itrip, however, will depend on con- ‘tinued improvement durin); the KURILES BOMBED MONDAY :::: Liberators Leave FII’ES—} An! Fa_la Papa Smoke Goes Up EOI Twins; Two 15,000 Feet ! Daughfers i | RHINEBECK, N. ¥, March 13— U. S. PACIFIC FLEET HEAD- Fala is the father of twins. Dr. QUARTERS, Guam, March 13 — Thcemas Sheldon, veterinarian, an- Army fighters flew north Monday nounces two daughters, born March to keep enemy bases on the Bonins 9. Sheldon operates a canine hos- neutralized. pital. Eleventh Airforce Liberators The dog parents are Fala, the bombed the Kuriles north of the President’s famed Scottie, and But- State, 73, has been one of the |capitals most closely-guarded se- |labout 170 pounds, and his appe- 'tite is good. He has been confined to bed for the past three mcnths but now is able to sit up every |Japanese homeland Sunday, hitting tons, owned by Miss Margaret Suribachi on Paramushiro, and |Kataoka on Shumushu, leaving fires which sent a pillar of smoke 15,000 feet into the air. Suckley of Hyde Park. Fala’s ddughters are named Muggy and Peggy and have been /sent home with the mother, | “You would not even find a ' Seattle Policeman making such a stupid investigation. They might arrest an innocent man but they ‘would not blacken his name before completing an investigation,” said Beardslee. Judge Aids Gemmill Judge John C. Bowen, of the Fedmul bench, instructing the Jjurors, who returned the verdict of acquittal in 12 minutes, declared ’thnt Gemmill, as a United States |Attorney, had a right to receive money from a defendant to return te its rightful owner. During the trial, Gemmill re- peatedly claimed he had accepted the $1,500 to return to Mrs. Hazle- wood, operator of a house of ill- fame in Sitka, as part restitution for her loss. The Sunday Post-Intelligencer carried a two-column picture of Mrs. Gemmill with her arms over any doubts of her husband’s inno- cence. CONGRESS ASKED | FOR BILLIONS BY FDR FOR NAVY |crets, but today it is possible to re- port his weight is back to normal, Addilionalatrad Funds, Are Asked for New Fiscal Year WASHINGTON March 13 — The President asked Congress today to 'appropriate $23,719,000,000 for the Navy for the fiscal year, 1945-1946 | He also requiested an additional contract authorization of $3,088,- 1000,000, of which $1,513,000,000 will represent new authorizations and $1,575,000,000 to be continued avail- able during the current fiscal year. City of Kuestrin ridge Taken by Americans The Ludendorff bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen Germany, captured intact by troops of the Ninth Armored Division, First Army, stretches l‘rom the eastern bank, where this photo was made one day after (AP “lrpehutn from bipnl (ums ru.dlopnnw) Yanks Cross Captured Rhine Span BRIDGEHEAD ALONG RHINE IS WIDENED First Army-fives East fo Less than Two Miles from Superhighway PARIS, March 13—First Army infantrymen drove east from the Rhine bridgehead to a point less than two miles from the six-lane super-highway linking the Ruhr with Frank-On-The-Main. New gains widened the bridge- head to nearly six miles at points along its 11-mile breach in the German Rhine Line. The Germans, estimated at from 60,000 to 70,000, are in a critical area. The Americans, using hundreds of rockets from concealed places, have prevented any assistance from reaching the imperilled Nazi forces. Gen. Hodges' troops have cap- tured a hill north of Hoenningen, 16 miles northwest of Coblenz. At the south end of the crossed Rhine salient, gains have been made eastward in the rugged hills and sheer cliffs of the valleys of Westerwald, but the Germans are making their strongest stand at the north end of the ghead where the Americans arc but 20 miles from the edge of the Ruhr s TRy e T . s.nd First Armies has virtually eli- | minated the pocket of Germans in | Eifels, west of the Rhine. The two American Armies have captured 32,000 prisoners in the | past eight days. ———————— DORTMUND SHATTERED IN ATTACK About 5,00_0—Tons of Ex- plosives Dropped on ) ; ot s L i Foot soldiers and equipment of the Ninth Armed Division, First Army, move across the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen, Germany, after the capture of the span intact March 1. (AP Wirephoto from Signal Corps radlophow) XA HELA (GERMANS High Grade Alcohol City in 29 Minutes LONDON, March 13.—Another German city in the path of the | Allied armies on the Western Front can be written off as dead after a | shattering attack on Dortmund, as more than 1100 British heavy bomb- ers dropped about 5,000 tons of ex- | plosives in 29 minutes yesterday. This was the biggest daylight at- tack ever staged by the RAF, which To e Produced from . BLASTED also kept the Allied aerial offensive rolling through the nighit by sending its Mosquito bombers against Ber- ON MOUNT lin for the twenty-first successive By JACK STINNETT WASHINGTON, March 13.—The wonders that have come out of this war are a dime a dozen. On some {pext month. Since last fall the ..~ yychand's shoulders. She said occasions we have had to follow health of the former Secretary of (o never for a moment entertained OUr enemies and race to catch up. On others we have been far ahead. Those who expect a new world to bloom immediately our foes have unconditionally surrendered are go- ing to be disappointed. But those who think that the technological advances, discoveries and inventions of wartime won't eventually make over-the United States are still rid- ing the horse and buggy. Some time ago the War Produc- tion Board tossed into the lap of a number of agencies concerned with research, discovery and invention, |all the problems that couldn't be |solved by any known methods of | production from existing or vanish- ing raw materials. Wood Chips, Sawdusi the problem that it became commer- cially feasible to turn that stuff you can't eat into something you can drink (but it isn't mrommond-‘ ed). Sometime this summer, out in Fu- gene, Oregon, a factory will get un-| der way which will preduce a high | grade alcohol from wood chips and sawdust. It may be the forerunner of scores of factories which will take the pressure off grains for alcoholic production. The importance of this shouldn't be brushed off. Under wartime con- ditions, the average production cost of alcohol is around 90 cents a gal-| lon The Alcohol produced from mo one-third of that. grains runs up ‘lhut. Production of a high-grade pure range is wide, Alcohol from to almost twice s costs about | One of these, hardly publicized | yiconc) from sawdust &nd wood at all, was the production of alco-|cpjps will have a cost quotient in hol from wood chips and sawdust.|gne jowest brackets. Officials in It wasn't so far back in our tme the Forest Service already have that sawdust and wood chips were woikeq it out, but they are being considered about as useless as the cpgey about committing themselves| hackles on a dead rooster. They|ypti] costs under actual production have come in for a number of uses conditions at the Eugene plant are recently, but it wasn't until the U. 8. getermined. /Forest Service laboratory at Madi- | ‘lsoh. Wisc., really went to work on! . (Continued on Page night. The RAF lost five bombers during the attack on Dortmund, | which is the second largest city in the industrial Ruhr Valley. Fifth Army in lfaly Win Stand in Forbidden STOCK QUOTATIONS ; COUM[Y | NEW YORK, March 13 — Alaska . |Juneau Mine stock closed today at |7%, American Can 93%, Anaconda ROME, March 13—Fifth Army 32%, Beec Aircraft 11%,. Bethle- troops have blasted the Germans hem Steel 737%, Curtiss Wright 6%, from the 590-foot-high Monte International Harvester 78%, Ken- Spigolino, in the forbidding moun- 'necott 38%, North American Avia- tain country 14 miles northwest of tion 10%, New York Central 23%, Pistoia, and repulsed enemy counter Northern Pacific 21%, U. 8. Steel attacks upon the peak, Allied Head- 066%. quarters said, as activity flared in| Dow, Jones averages today are as |the section southwest of Monte follows: Industrials, 157.59; rails, Belvedere, which the Americans 50.83; utilities, 27.80. hold. | Monte Spigolino is about three| Closing quotation of Alaska Ju- miles east of Piansinatico, on High- neau Mine stock Monday was 7%, way 12, running from Lucca to American Can 92%, Anaconda 32%, Modena. Beech Aircraft 11%, Bethlehem Like the action in the Belvedere Steel 73!, Curtiss Wright 6%, In- region, the advance is apparently ternational Harvester 79'%, Kenne- designed to strengthen Fifth Army cott 38, North American Aviation positions for whatever may be in 10%, New York Central 23%, Nor- store on the Italian Front in the thern Pacific 21%, U. S. Steel 63%. coming months. | Dow, Jones averages Monday German units further west and were as follows: Industrials, 157.88; along the coast sent artillery sal- rails, 50.70; utilities, 27.84. vos against the Allied forward posi — .- |tions, while Allied patrols made FROM SEATTLE |contact with the enemy in the| Earl Davey, Seattle, is a guest at | coastal section. the Baranof Hotel.