The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, April 12, 1945, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE “ALI, THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” VOL. LXIV., NO. 9934 MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICE TEN CENTS JUNEAU, ALASKA, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1945 =————— | RESIDENT ROOSEVELT DEAD | [ U.S.TANKS 57 MILES OF BERLIN Simpson’s fie—nMay Reach Gateway fo German Capital Tomorrow PARIS, April 12.—American Ninth Army tanks crossed the Elbe River, and debouched onto the flat unbroken plain leading 57 miles to- ward Berlin, and 115 miles from the Russian Siege lines. - | | A front dispatch said General Simpson’s men could reach Branden- burg, gateway to Berlin, by tomorrow night or Saturday, provided the Germans switched no tank forces from the east. One report, how- ever, said the Germans were indeed shifting the battered Sixth Panzer Army from the eastern front. A special French communique an- nounced the French First Army had captured Baden Baden on the Rhine, crossing at the town of Ras- tatt in the Black Forest southeast of Karlsruhe. The American First Army ap- proached Leipzig in Saxony, over old battlefields of Frederick the Great, while one unconfirmed report placed American tanks near Halle, 15 miles from Leipzig. Allied planes destroyed or disabled 120 tanks near Halle, while cities fell like tenpins, including Weimar, Helibronn, Essen, Coburg, Nord- hausen, Schweinfurt, Halbertstadt, Emmen, Neustadt, and, by German account, Bochum. The Third Army, farther to the south, broke out again in armored gains of up to 46 miles, which car- ried. them within 42 miles of the Czechoslovak border, and 32 miles of Bayreuth in the Bavarian redoubt where the Nazis may make a last stand. A DUELS ARE FULLBLOWN Marines on— idrth End of Island Run Info Stiff Resistance By MURLIN SPENCER (AP War Corvespondent) ilmlmn civilians and a number of GUAM, April 12.—American cas- American and British servicemen |ualties in the first nine days of the were killed in Bari Harbor Mon- | |Okinawa invasion are set at 2,695. day in an explosion of an Ameri- |Of these, 342 are reported killed, can Liberty ship loaded with mu-/ 2,103 wounded and 160 missing, as nitions. announced by .Admiral Chester W. {Nimitz, in a communique which re- man said more than 1,000 others {ported bitter fighting on both ends were injured. The cause of the ex- of the island. 'plosion, one of the major disasters Doughboys of the Twenty-Fourth of the war in the Mediterranean Army Corps are stalemated in the theatre, is not yet known. The southern sector for the seventh gpokesman said the authorities straight day amid a fullblown ar- gig not disclose the identity of the tillery duel, while for the first time ghjp since the Easter Sunday invasion, I Marines in the north ran into organ- | ized resistance. ———,——— | The Third Marine Amphibious | MIT Corps scored some advances but' their speed was slowed materially.| \Marines now hold about two-thirds |of Motobu Peninsula on Okinawa'sl RAN RTILLERY Explosion Of Liberty Kflls Many Servicemen Die when Ship Blows Up west coast. Americans on this vital Ryukyu |Island are killing Japanese at the rate of about 11 to 1, considerably |less than the ratio on Iwo Jima and Saipan. i Admiral Nimitz again reported! “no substantial changes in the Italian Civilians and Allied | Guns May_R;{ar Out Cily; | ROME, April 12—Hundreds of} LONDON, April 12 — Marshal |dispatches said, while Berlin re- | An Italian Government spokes- | FREEING OF | VIENNA IS DUETONIGHT, Conquered - German Tolbukhin’s Third Ukrainian Army has punched a big hole in German defenses west of Viemia, Moscow ported Soviet armor had reached a point between Krems and Melk, 115 miles from Berchtesgaden. ; Dispatches from Moscow said So- \viet troops have virtually completed !occupation of Vienna, adding, “Mos- \cow guns may salute the freeing of the ancient capital tonight.” Northwest of Bratislava, the Rus- sians are fighting within sight at |least, of the Bruenn Highway, last, escape route for the Germans FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT northward out of the capital. i Zero Hour Push | The German commander on the |Berlin front is reported by the !German radio to have issued an |order to his troops warning of a zero-hour push by Marshal Zhu- HOMELAND sy ins OF JAPAN HIT TODAY {kov's Army from its bases along the any time. | ’ The German communique said !Gen. Lasch, commander of Koenigs- | berg, had been courtmartialed for ;cowardice in surrendering the East | Prussian capital, and sentenced to lines,” in the southern sector, where strongly entrenched Japanese are putting in artillery, mortar and small arms - fire in increasing amounts. Admiral Nimitz’s com- munique also reports night fighter raids on Haha Jima, and Chichi Jima in the Bonins, while medium bombers made raids on the Palaus and Yap Islands. Alaskans Have Rights Now to Construct Whatvesin | | Bays and Harbors | | SEATTLE, April 12—The U. S.! | Army Engineers of the Seattle Dis- trict announced today the granting, |of War Department permits to the, i following : | william Durney, to maintain an| The~British Second Army thrust !death, in absentia. “Reprisals would » ~-%fer-of Koriyama Bomb- be taken against his family, German war bulletin said. In Czechoslovakia In Czechoslovakia, meanwhile, the !Second and Fourth Ukrainian Ar- mies linked up in the Carpathian Mountains and cleared the supply road from Poland to the Vienna front. The Soviet command reported Austrians who were forcibly mobi- lized by the German Volkssturm ed in Daylight GUAM, April 12—Tokyo and the industrial center of Koriyama on Honshu Island were plastered by bombs from American Superforts roaring out on a 3,800-mile round- trip mission from their Marianas ATROCITIES ARECHARGED T0 GERMANS Tokyo, Also Industrial Cen- Cruelly in Treatment of‘l U. S. Departments WASHINGTON, April 12—The U. S. Government has charged Ger- many with “deliberate neglect, in- difference and cruelty” in their treatment of American prisoners. The War and State Department base at Naka Jima, with the Mu- |declared in a joint statement that CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF ~ UNITED STATES DIES ATWARMSPRINGS, GA. BULLETIN - WASHINGTON, April 12.- President Franklin D. Roosevelf is dead as the result of cerebral hemorrhage. BULLETIN-WARM SPRINGS, April 12.-The Presi- dent died unexpectedely as the result of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3:55 o'clock this affernoon, Ceniral War Time, in the bedroom of his little whife bungalow alop of Pine Mountain where he had been coming for 20 years. The President and his party came here March 30 for what was fo be a three weeks' rest. BULLETIN — WASHINGTON, April 12. - The Whife House announced lafe foday that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died this afternoon at Warm Springs, Georgia. The statement said: ""Vice-President Harry S. Tru- man was nofified. He called the White House and was informed by Mrs. Roosevelt. ; Cabinef meefing will be called. iy 4 "The four Roosevelt boys in the service were sent this message by their mother: | "'The President slept away this aflernoon. He "did his job fo the end as he would want fo." " | | | | 'Laohokow Base Is Caplured by Nips’ CHUNGKING, April 12 — The' Independent Salmon Canneries| Chinese command announces to- | INC. to construct a wharf exten- All along the western front it is & night that Jap troops have cap- | sion of the cannery at Ketchikan. | existing residence and to build ex- vithi SS o1 = oy, e U R e 10 DA, |tensions thereto at Tongass Nar- burg, Germany's greatest port, cap- tured Celle and Rathen, and cross-| ing the Aller River they shelled Bremeén, second largest German port. sashiho Aircraft engine plant at|actions are being uncovered daily| Tokyo as one of their targets, | which “shocked the entire civilized | Returning pilots who made the World’ The statement issued by @g§| flight, the longest Central Pacific Secretary of War Henry Stimson bombing mission to date, termed|&nd Secretary of State Edward the attack “very successful” The Stettinius was read by Stimson at Superforts were- escorted by Iwo |his weekly news conference wda\y.I > ‘The statement declared atrocities, The funeral will be Saturday affernoon in the t room of the Whife House. Interment will be at Hyde Park Sunday affernoon. All flags on buildings have been ordered at half are joining the Red Army, and that anti-Nazi demonstrations have oc- curred in several Austrian towns. - irows near Ketchikan. A. F. Rowley, to construct a boat- house in Sitka Harbor. hound and hare chase of the disor- tured Laohokow, the former ad-| Robert R. Wheeler and William ganized, shattered German armies]vanced pase of the U. S. Four- who may soon lose the last water teenth Air Force, 200 miles from barrier before Berlin, the Elbe Hankow and 350 miles from Chung- |W. Wimms, to construct a machine | shep at Jamestown Bay, near Sitka. | Union Oil Company of California, to construct a wharf and dredge a JAPS BEING MOPPEDUP Jima-based fighters. Koriyama targets were not iden- tified except as “industrial,” in the city 110 miles north of Tokyo. Bombing was done visually from against American pgisoners is “doc- umented by the pitiable condition of American nation will not forget liberated American soldiers, and the | staff and flags on ships af sea af half mast. Vice-President Harry S. Truman, the former Sen- River, with traps containing up to ging, | them. It is our relentless determin- 8,000 feet, and with the aid of un-| 100,000 Germans in the Ruhr and 200,000 in Holland under vigorous| assault. The last river before Berlin was forced by the Second Armored Di-| vision of the Ninth Army which blazed more than 50 miles to Mag-! deburg yesterday in a 12-hour dash.' ‘The precise spot of their crossing was not announced, but Germans| said it is ten miles south of Mag-| deburg in the area of Schoenbeck,! 63 miles below Berlin. | The crossing of the Elbe River by! American forces marks the first| crossing made hy a conqueror since | Napoleon besieged the country, while cities falling in the path of the! Ninth Army troops included Bruns-| wick, Dortmund and Erfurt. | The Germans said Bremen is un-| der an all oud British assault, while| infantry, following the swift tanks of the Third Army, beat within 40 miles of Leipzig, and 95 miles of Dresden. A juncture with the Rus-| sians may come between those two great Saxony cities within a week. The German Gestapo Chief, Him- mler, issued a decree saying “every German town, every house must be defended.” 4 HARBOR LIGHTS - 'NOW PUT BACKIN 'OPERATION HERE el Sl ek S50 | passage canal at Whittier. C. G. OFFICERS HERE Coast Guard officers stopping at the Baranof include. Lt. Comdr. J. F. McCoy and Ensigns James P. Gwynn and A. T. Blanchard, all from Ketchikan. i PSR i MRS. DICK HERE Mrs. H. M. Dick, of Whitehorse, | is a guest at the Baranof while in Juneau. 1Sound. | Three extensions to December 31, 9947 were granted to the Kensing- ton Miness Inc, to construct a wharf in Lynn Canal. General Equipment dredge sand and gravel from Boca De Quadra, near Ketchikan. A. H. Stensland, wharf construc- tion on Gravina Island, near Ketch- (ikan. CITY VOTES T0 ' RAISE RENT ON DOCK PROPERTY Merry - Go- Roun By DREW PEARSCN @Lt. Col. Rovert 8. Allen new on setive | » . § | service with the WASHINGTON—Despite the in- 1 Ellamar Packing Company, Inc, to construct a wharf in Prince William | Company, | creasing U. S. Meat shortage, it/ At a special meeting last night, _|red tape, it is still sitting there. |remains an unpublished but actual the City Council voted unanimously ifact that 2,000,000 pounds of Ar- to raise the rent on the City Dock gentine beef has been sitting se- |from $300 a month to $500 a {renely in Mexico for two years month. |awaiting admission into the U. S.| The Northland Transportation |And because of British-American Company holds a lease on the “property which still has five years | So far no Government officials to run at the option of the com- have been able or willing to cut'Pany, but the agreement provides the red tape and permit this that the City Council can con- |canned beef to cross the Rio sider a change in the rent this {Grande northward. It is among the Year. choicest corned beef ever produced! The company has until May 4 in Argenting and there is no sani- to notify the ecity as to whether itary restriction against it. Only red OF not the new terms are accepted. | | { | | i usually good weather. While Jap fighters were encoun- tered, Superfort crewmen said they were “on the timid side.” There were no reports of Superfort losses. orgamled S'a'e Of escorted by a ‘“sizeable” Enemy in Areas fighter planes, attack on Tokyo's west section, By FRED HAMPSON (AP War Correspondent) |while “some 50" Superforts bombed |Fukishima Prefecture, north of Tokyo. | MANILA, April 12.—American forces moving swiftly to liberate southern Luzon are exploiting the enemy'’s disorganized state: i Gen. Douglas MacArthur announ-| ced dismounted troopers of the First| D (Canol Oil Project Inquiry Is Made force of | concentrated their Cavalry Division had advanced 14! miles from Lucban, occupying Sam-| paloc, and had sent dvance units WASHINGTON, April 12—Sen- ator E. H. Moore, of Oklahoma, to- | day asked the War Department jation that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against American citizens and against civilization it- self be brought to jusi g >, — 2TANKERS INCONVOY IN CRASH |Fire Breaks Aboard One Vessel-Men Jump Into Sea and Are Lost | | to Mauban on the east coast. In southeastern Luzon, elements of the Eleventh Airborne Division what steps are being taken to carry out provisions of the Surplus Prop- gy NEW YORK, April 12—The War hipping Administration discloses meanwhile moved in force into the €rty Act in disposition of the Canol Atimonan area. On the east coasts of the island, the 158th Regimental Combat Team pressed the attack in the Legaspi- area, capturing 14 piecess of artillery and other mili- tary equipment. The Fortieth Division on Negros Island, advancing 30 miles around/ the northern end of the island, forc- er enemy remnants into a narrow | pocket, and Gen. MacArthur said; the civil government on the island is rapidly being restored. Oil Project. Senator ‘Moore said he presumed operation of the refinery and pipe line were discontinued by the Army on April 1, as nounced. - STOCK QUOTATIONS NEW YORK, April 12 — Closing e quotation of Alaska-Juneau Mine| previously an-| Under direction of the U. 8, Coast ‘tape keeps it out. |If “ no- agreement \ s, reached, | Guard, work has been comipleted| Here are the inside facts as to Poard of arbitration will settle the here recently on reconstruction of what happened. Late in 1942, one question. Each party to the con- aids to navigation in Junday Har-|year after the war started, the S. 8. |tract would appoint one member of bor, substantially improving the saf- Rio de la Plata steamed into Man- |the board and these two members ety of the harbor area, it is afinoun- 'zanita, Mexico, carrying a cargo of [Would choose the third member. ced by Lt. Warren M. Caro, Captain'2,000,000 pounds of canned Argen-‘ The city’s operation of the dock, of ghe Juneau Port. tine beef. It was shipped by the according to city records, has re- Pl]u‘m has been replaced in f"ur;Argemine Meat Cooperative com."sult,ed in the city losing money on dolphins with lights and all four posed of 50,000 Argentine cattle- the operation in the last five years, light are now in.operation, Lt. Cn_ro men. At that time no permit was, it Was pointed out last night. .'-.tntedA One of the pile dolphins required to import meat into the,‘ Attorney R, E. Robertson repre- is known as Lawson Creek Bnr‘U' S. by Mexico overland. isented the sEenmahlp company at Lllght and is located on the Douglas, However, just as the good the meeting and stated that the Island side of the entrance to Ju- ship Rio de la Plata was about to COmpany believes the $300 monthly neau Harbor. The other three are| —— |rental charge is high enough for located at the Small Boat, Harbor,' (Continued on Page Four) the property. istock today is 17, American Can In the air war, heavy bombers hit|95%, Anaconda 32, Bethlehem Steel the Victoria docks in Hongkong,|74%, Curtiss-Wright 5%, Interna- bombed two radio stationss, and|tional Harvester 78%, Kennecott rail installations on Hainan Island 387, New York Central 23, Nor- Hongkong Bombed that 34 men are missing, two known to be dead, as the result of a col- {lision between two tankers on Mon- ;day, about 700 mniiles from New | York. | {were the Nasbulk and St. Mihel, |which were in a convoy when the accident occurred about 7 o'clock ‘in the evening. | The St. Mihel took fire, but this ,was controlled after abandon ship (orders had been issued. | Both ships returned to New York. | All but one of the dead and miss- ‘ing are of the crew of the St. Mihel. Those missing were lost | The statement said the tankers “aor from Missouri, will become the thirty-third Presi- dent of the United Stafes and Commander-in-Chief of ithe Army and Navy. | President Roosevell had been in Warm Springs for more than one week, Secretary Early informed {reporfers. ' | "Mrs, Roosevelt, Admiral Ross Mcintyre, the President’s physician, and | will leave Washingion this afternoon by air for Warm Springs.” Truman was af work in his office when the news came. He received a call about 5:25 o'clock and a few minutes later, Secret Servicemen came and whisk- ed him away in a White House aufomohile. | The death of the President was announced a few 'minutes later and about his fime high Army officials said the war in Europe will soon be over in Germany. - (abinet members began assembling at 6 o’clock. The first fo arrive were members Perkins, Ickes, then {Mat Connelly, Truman's executive secrelary, who said the new President will take the oath immediately. FOREMOST LIBERAL OF DAY The thirty-second President of the' United States was born on January 30, 1882, A |when they jumped overboard when | He threaded his way through a maze of pelitical barriers in the China Sea, sank a small' freighter off Luichow Peninsula,| while farther to the south in French| Indo-China, an enemy troop train| was destroyed with direct hits. i e | THOMAS VISITS JUNEAU | Ralph R. Thomas, CAA, from’ Anchorage, is a guest at the Bar- anof . Hotel. thern Pacific 2214, U. S. Steel 64““.}“"3 seemed about to envelope the Pound $4.04. {tanker. Dow, Jones averages today are as; RITES FOR MUSCHICK follows: Industrials, 158.48; rails, . | Funeral services for John P. 52.74 ilities, 28.24. % |Muschick will be held tomorrow - | lafternoon at 2 o'clock, in the ;Charles W. Carter Mortuary Chapel. |Rev. Peter J. Nickel of the Douglas P. J. Johnston and M. Bradshaw, |Bible Church will conduct the ser- of Sitka, are guests at the Baranof |vices. Interment will be in Ever- Hotel during their stay in Juneau./green Cemetery. JOHNSTON, BRADSHAW HERE and physical obstacles to reach the White House on March 4, 1933, and within six months became kvwn as the foremost liberal of his day. " ’ Revolutionary economic policies marked his program which became known as the “New Deal,” and world attention was focused upon him. He started America upon a vast, new scheme of government controlled agriculture, industry, fin- ance and employment. He unleased forces which clashed with every conservative tradition and received popular sup- (Continued on Page Eight)