The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, April 17, 1945, Page 1

» [y . VOL. LXIV., NO. 9938 Japan Homelan | SUPERFORTS | - MAKERAIDS PLANES ARE ON KYUSHU Neutralizing_of Nip Bases .Underway by large Forcce U. S. Planes GUAM, April 17 — Six separate groups of Superforts today blasted enemy airfields on the homeland Island of Kyushu with the avowed purpose of neutralizing southern Japanese bases, from which the Nips have been hurling suicide 368 NIPPON " KNOCKED OUT | | Fanatical JaTanese Aerial Raids Result in Heavy Losses Says Nimitz By ELMONT WAITE (Associated Press War Correspondent) | GUAM, April 17.—A new series of fanatical Japanese aerial raids on | the American forces on Okinawa and United States Carrier-plane strikes !on the Japanese homeland island of Kyushu cost the enemy 368 war- The Washington Merry - Go- Round By DREW PEARSON | (Lt. Col. Robert 8. Allen now on sotive service with the Army.) WASHINGTON—It happened be- hind closed doors, but a lot of house- |wives would have relished being !present when Congressman Clinton | Anderson’s special food committee quizzed an array of Washington big-wigs. A lot of star witnesses were | present, but the Army, represented by Maj. Gen. Carl Hardigg of the | Quartermaster. Corps, chiefly took |it on the chin. : | War Food Chief Marvin Jones started the ball rolling when he produced figures showing that last year, when meat was plentiful, the 'Army gummed up .the works by |failing to take anywhere near the “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” JUNEAU, ALASKA, TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1945 ALLIES IN ADVANCEON ITALY FRONT Yards Are Gained in Of- fensive Drive Against Enemy Defenses ROME, April 17 — Fifth Army troops fought through bitterly de- fended and heavily-mined areas south of Bologna, measuring their advance by yards in the second day of the general Allied offensive drive against the Germans in Iuly.! Toward the west coast, Lt. Gen.| Lucia Truscott's men gained 1,000 | iaé possible. 'ALLIES SMASHING GERMAN L. d Isle Airfields Are POLICIES OF - TRUMAN ARE GIVEN OUT President Gives His Posi- | tion at First Talk with Newsmen WASHINGTON, April 17—Presi- dent Harry S. Truman told a news qflerence he would be very happy meet the heads of the other “Big Five” Allied powers as soon | In his first condference with news- men since he succeeded the late President Franklin Roosevelt, Tru- T'HE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS Lend-Lease Bill Signed By_Truman Extension of Bill Is for An- other 12 Months or Until War Won WASHINGTON, April 17—Presi- {dent Truman has signed the Lend- Lease extension bill. In a statement, he declared the measure is a mighty instrument for victory and is “one of the grow- |ing monuments of the boldness, im- agination and effective statesman- ship- of Franklin Roosevelt, and planes against American Naval and | planes destroyed and 60 damaged in quantity allocated to it. In the land forces around Okinawa for four days, Admiral Chester w.!fourth quarter of 1944, the Army to 2,500 yards, but on his army's man said he had not initiated any |Lend-Lease will be carried on until one week. It was the third day of American | Nimitz announces. | These losses increased to 1674 the (had asked for one and a quarter billion pounds of meat. Actually, raids on Kyushu Island airdromes, number of Japanese planes destroy- the Army took half a billion pounds 325 miles north of Okinawa. Carrier aircraft destroyed 109 Nip planes and damaged 60 others in sorties over Kyushu Sunday and Monday, 1674 Jap aircraft destroyed in a month around the Kyushu and Ryukyu Islands. Many of the Nip planes were brought down in suicide attacks by Mustang fighters from Iwo Jima, which also raided Kyushu yester- day. Today’s blow was struck by “large task force” of Superforts against six airfields, five of them on southern Kyushu. It was the fourth. Superfort. _blow . against Japan's southernmost home island in three weeks. —r . JAP TARGETS AREBOMBED, WIDE AREA Heavies Atfack from Luzon .fo New Guinea-For- mosa Also Raided » paign. |ed off Ryukyus and Kyushu since | March 18. i ! Admiral Nimitz also reports that |elements of the Twenty-Fourth isle of Shima, three miles west of | Okinawas' Motobu Peninsula yester-‘puhuc then got back to the habit| |day morning against only light in- \itial resistance and quickly took over three runways of the airfield. ! The Yanks have killed 9108 Jap- anese and taken only 391 prisoners |through midnight last Friday, the first 13 days of the Okinawa cam- In addition 85,000 civilians have been brought under the juris- diction of fhe American Military Government. Land based Army Mustang fight- ers from Iwo Jima bases attacked I ground installations at Kanoya and +Kushira on Kyushu yesterday. This [ is the first reported raid by bomb-! \ers smaller than B-29s on any of the | Japanédse Empires’ home islands. | S 'SUPPLY BILL IS ' GIVEN APPROVAL ~ BY HOUSE COM. ‘\Over Twenty-eight Billion Dollars fo Be Spent for U. S. Navy less, | That, accordinng to the closed- door testimony, was the chief reason why ration points on meat contributing a total o1:Arl'ny Corps landed on the little were dropped last year and the housewives got a windfall. The of eating meat. But today, with meat far less plentiful, the Army has ordered even more than allo- cated to it last year. Gen. Hardigg was unable to sat- isfy the Congressmen as to why the Army failed to take up its meat last year, or at least failed tb put it in cold storage for later ,use. Had this been done, Army |demands would now be asked to report back to Congress on meat consumption per soldier in ,the British- Army, also in the Rus- sian Army. Congressmen also asked |Hardigg to report on how much !meat was consumed by U. S. troops loverseas, as compared with that consumed by troops in the United | states. ! o owow i RELAXED MEAT INSPECTION One proposal to ease the meat shortage is to abolish federal in- |spection in small local slaughter |houses. These slaughterers have to lpass state inspection anyway, and !most of them are thoroughly repu- table. But to sell inter-state they ‘must pass federal inspection, so imany now sell only within state limits. This -is one reason why Jcactle-ramng states are experienc- much |ward rapidly 2,000 yards, entes smaller ‘&’-'M’M'fl{gnfira: about 12% ‘nilles east o |right flank advances were limited by interlacing enemy defenses and closely-coordinated enemy small arms and mortar fire. However, Truscott, declaring that {“this army is fit and ready to fight,” said “such resistance was | still estimated to have 25 divisions.” The Eighth Army, which was already driving up the Po Valley in its phase of the offensive before the Fifth Army jumped to the attack yesterday, has now taken a total of 6,000 prisoners since the beginning of its advance, April 9. The Gurkha Brigade of the Eighth Army consolidated its bridgehead over the Silaro River, southwest of Massa, and drove foi logna. | Polish troops advanced northwest | and west against opposition after |is backing to the hilt the American move toward a new meeting of Allied leaders, but in response to a | question, he said he would be very | happy to meet Prime Minister Churchill, Premier Stalin and Gen- eralissimo Chiang Kai-Shek soon. He added he would also be glad |President Truman conferred briefly !points 20 miles northeast and 28 cared to arrange a conference with him. Outlines Policies Before a record-breaking crows of newsmen who jammed the oval | Room and overflowed onto the nearby patio, the new President otttlined briefly his major foreign and domestic policies. On the foreign front, he said, he delegation to the San Fran He. does ot expect to attend the conference, but will wel- come the delegates at the opening session by radio. Truman expects to see Soviet capturing Casyel Guelfo, while Eighth Army forces also pressed | beyond Argenta. | The veteran U. 8. Thirty-Fourth | iDivision marked its 500th day of combat by capturing a church in' |Gorgognana, after fierce hand-to- | hand fighting developed when the Americans advanced over ground |well sown with mines. ! | ATROCITIES OF | " JAPANESETOLD | Foreign Commissar Molotov before the latter goes to the San Fran- cisco meeting, he told newsmen. On the domestic front, he said, he supports wholeheartedly Roose- | velt’s program, as well as the inter- | national monetary agreements, in- cluding the Bretton Woods Pact. He has always been for the recipro- cal trade agreements program, and | backs it as submitted recently to| Congress. Rules For News Conferences Dressed in a dark blue suit and| blue tie, President Truman made his announcements while standing, | to the 347 newsmen and women packed tightly around his desk. unconditional surrender or com- plete defeat of Germany and Japan. The bill, extending Lend-lgase, aids the United Nations for an- other 12 months from June 30. The measure was signed after expected, because the Germans are (to see Gen. DeGaulle if DeGaulle |With delegates to the forthcoming United Nations Conference in San Francisco. It is the first time White House d,nnaches can recall in which a|Berlin, and Russian tanks in action President has signed a bill he pre- viously signed as Vice-President and presiding offjcer of the Senate, NEW POLISH GOVERNMENT ' NOW LOOMS Reported Stalin Breaks Big Three Stalemate by Agreement WASHINGTON,, Aggil 17 — The Washington Star says it is reported Stalin has agreed to the establish- ment of a new Polish Government, thus breaking the Big Three stale- mate in Poland, diplomats hear. The Star adds the agreement was reached 48 hours after Presi- SR ling no meat shortage today. WASHINGTON, April 17 — The| Gen. Hardigg, however, sat on itwenty-four billion, eight hundred the idea of relaxing federal in- By RICHARD BERGHOLTZ (Associated Press War Correspondent) MANILA, April 17—Strongly sup- | ported by bombers and fighters,' the Thirty-Third Division Dough- { | \ to support the Navy's knockout inspection must continue. War (drive against Japan, today won the Food Chief Jones and War Mobi- approval of the House Appropria- lizer Vinson were not impressed and seventy-nine dollar Supply Bill, 'spection. He argued that federal| dent Truman entered the White House. , It is reported the agreement calls Truman began by reading the!‘ . BY MacARTHUR rules under which his news con-i ;Summary Is Released by {ferences will operate. They are sub- | |stantially the same as those under|for a new government truly repre- iwhich Roosevelt worked. The basic 'sentative of the Polish people and {rule is the President may not be'is viewed a8 making wide conces- | General-Romula De- boys drew the noose tighter around the summer capital city of Baguio in Northern Luzon Sunday while Liberators swept choice targets from Formosa south to New Guinea, Gen. MacArthur reports. The Yanks around Baguio are within three miles of the important city at one point, overcoming strong Japanese pockets of resist-: ance. Several enemy counter-attacks during the night were repulsed. Supporting aircraft raked the entire Luzon area with 700 tons of explosives. Heavy bombers, with fighter es- cort, dropped 1,100 tons of bombs on four airdromes in western For- mosa, destroying at least 16—prob- ably 21—parked planes. Bombers patrolling the China Sea sank 19 ships, including a de- stroyer escort. NO LIFTING, THREE BANS WASHINGTON, April 17—There will be no lifting of the ban on horse racing, the midnight curfew or brownouts in the near future, President Truman said. The Chief Executive added that all of these restrictions, in his opinion, are good for the morale of the country. —————-———— SIDES TO WRANGELL Deputy Customs Collector M. H. Sides left' for Wrangell on the Princess Louise on an official busi- ness trip. tions Committee, and it will be sent to the floor of the House in hopes “the end may not be far (distant” where heavy spending will \not be necessary “to crush our {enemies.” ! The bill includes two billion, jeight hundred and seventy million used for 308 combat vessels, in- lcluding .two big. battleships, two |45,000-ton carriers, and 12 scout |carriers. 'SNYDER IS NAMED 1S AMINISTRATOR ' OF FEDERALLOANS WASHINGTON, April 17—Presi- dent Truman has appointed John W. Snyder of St. Louis, Missouri, to, be Federal Loan Administrator. \has been named Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion after James Byrnes quit. the First National Bank of St. Louis and has been a warm per- {than 25 years. He has been in the banking business since serving in |the first World War. ———— COMMISSIONER HERE Harold F. Dawes, U. S. Co;lzmis- sioner at Petersburg, arrived on the steamer North Sea, and expects to return to Petersburg this week. Commissioner Dawes is ‘a brother to Dr. L. P. Dawes, Ju- neau Physician, dollars for ship construction to be| |Snyder succeeds Fred Vinson, who | Snyder is now Vice-President of | sonal friend of Truman for more; is now in| Juneau taking a brief vacation. He| {with Hardigg's argument. “I never tasted federally in- 'spected meat until I was in my |twenties,” scoffed Texas-bred Jones. | “Out in Kentucky we did all right without federally inspected imeat,” Vinson agreed. “I never saw it until I was out of my ’teens.” Representative Anderson of Al- buquerque, New Mexico, chairman of the committee, then took Gen. ‘Hnrdlu to task for the Army's system of poultry buying. “Out my way, where we've got plenty of meat,” Anderson said, “the Army isn’t l{)melt&d in buying {poultry. Here in the East, where meat is scarce, you're taking all the poultry. Why not spread your poul- try buying so that In areas where the public has a hard time getting meat. it can a ieast get a little poultry.” He pointed out that the Army is |taking 100 per cent of the poultry | T (Continued on Page Four) . STOCK QUOTATIONS | NEW YORK, April 17 — Closing {quotation of Alaska-Juneau Mine !stock today is 6%, American Can 98, Anaconda 33%, Bethlehem Steel 5%, Curtiss-Wright 6, Interna- tional Harvester 84%; Kennecott 39%, New York Central 24, Nor- thern Pacific 23%, U. 8. Steel 66%. Dow, Jones averages today are as follows: Industrials, 162.60; rails, 54.54; utilities, 29.77. ——————— FOSS, GOLDSTEIN SOUTH Harold Foss and Charles Gold- stein have gone south via Pan American plane in connection with !construction of .t h e Goldstein Buildifig. % WASHINGTON, April 17 — The Japs are accused of “barbarous, appalling atrocities” during the de- | fense of Manila, in a report by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, which was re- deased today by the War Depart- ment. | | A summary of the report, which |said 1t is based on «documented | |evidence and sworn testimony, | jcharged the Japs “repeatedly stabbed and slashed with bayonets even mothers with babies in their | arms, and violated women and| young girls.” | The report was issued as Brig. Gen. Carkos Romulo went before the House to recite the grisly ac- count of Jap atrocities in the Philippines. Hundreds of persons, MacArthur’s | statement- declared, were bound | and soaked in gasoline or “en- circled with blazing fuel.” “Manila is dead,” Romulo as-| serted, adding “Tokyo must die, not | in reprisal, but as a defense mea- sure necessary to insure Pacific| peace.” 1 e o o ] i GREEN GOES TO SKAGWAY | Richard 8. Green, Director of the1 Division of Public Health Engineer- | ing, Territorial Department of Health, left today by plane for| Skagway on Department business. | He expects to return by the end of this week. —l e NEWLYWEDS GO SOUTH Newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Dave Kenway, the latter the former Corrinne Jenne, left for Seattle Sunday aboard a Pan American plane to resume their positions with Pan American, i \ pressed permission, or when his statements are made in writing. | Then President Truman read a letter from Mrs. Roosevelt, asking| after her husband’s death. NOMINATIONS ARE MADE PROMOTING MANY ARMY MEN WASHINGTON, April 17—Presi- dent Truman has nominated Patton and Hodges to be full Generals and | also nominated Joseph Collins, Oscar Griswold, Luctus Clay, Geof- frey Keyes, Edmund Gregory, Wal- ton Walker, Levin. Campbell, Wade | Baislip and Eugene Reynolds, now Major Generals, to be Lieutenant Generals. g S A Tk B FT. RICHARDSON MAKES BIG RED CROSS GIFT I | | Red Cross officials congratulated Brigadier General R. E. Mittelstaedt of Fort Richardson on the splendid showing made by civilians and mili- tary personnel of the fort in the re- cent Red Cross drive in which $6,267 was contributed by the Fort. This was an increase of nearly three thousand dollars over the amount raised at the Fort a year ago. 3 This sum, added to the total raised | by Anchorage and vicinity brings the | total to $25,767 according to Marshall C. Hoppin, chairman of the drive. The total is expected to be even higher when all reports are received. viewpoints. The article says officials are un- able to confirm the news. (The Moscow radio today said the mands Reprisal iquobed directly withoyt his ex-|sions to the. American and British |him to express for the Roosevelt Soviet Government continues to in-| |tamily their appreciation of the‘mc on the absolute necessity of |“outpouring of affection” received participation by the Polish Provi- sional Government at Warsaw in ’(.he San Francisco Conference.) e 'PAN AMERICAN BRINGS IN SEVEN ON MONDAY| A Pan American plane flying from Seattle to Juneau yesterday brought the following passengers: Mary McCann, Martha Cawthon, John Likeness, Patricia Conner, Earl Lahmeyer and Patricia Wil- {kins. Whitehorse to Juneau Carl Stolberg. A Pan American plane left to- day with the following passengers: For Seattle — James Tropea Robert D, Smith and Thomas T. |Gary. For Fairbanks — Miss Josephine Lynn, Frank Marshall and Lynn Eslinger. L e — GETS THREE MONTHS Eddie Murphy, arrested here February 19 and released on his| own recognizance on February 24, has pleaded guilty before U. 8. Commissioner Felix Gray to a charge of assault. He was sen- {tenced to serve three months, and was committed to the Federal Jail here. STOLBERG IN JUNEAU Carl R. _Stolberg, Pan American employee 'rom Seattle, is a guest at the Baranof Hotel. SOVIET ARMY IS 20 MILES - FROMBERLIN ;German Broadcast Makes t Statement-No Moscow Report, However LONDON, April 17 — Russian spearheads have cut the Seelow- {Alt Friedland road, less than 20 imiles from Berlin and have pene- trated deeply into the staggered defenses beyond, a German broad- cast said. + Simultaneously, Marshal Konev's First Ukrainian Army surged across the Neisse River farther south, reaching a point only 75 miles from |a juncture with the American Third Army, knocking: its way toward ! Dresden. Enemy reports said the massive |Soviet drive on Berlin has reached miles southeast of the capital, as Iwell as plowing in from due east, claiming Soviet airborne troops| jwere landed less than 23 miles from “east of Eberswalde,” on the main highway and railroad to Stettin. According to German réports, Konev's forces are attacking along a 33-mile front from Forst to Rothenburge, near the Saxony border. Moscow has not yet confirmed | {the German reports of the Soviet Tdrive of - Berlin, althdugh reporting the Red Armies drove steadily for- ward in Austria and Czechoslovakia, capturing Fuerstenfeld, 29 miles north of Graz. LATE WAR BULLETINS LONDON — The prisoner bag taken by the Allies on the Western {Front during April ballooned past 750,000 when 144,000 more Germans |were captured yesterday in the Ruhr pocket, which was all but| {erased. LONDON—On the French Atlan- tic coast, the port city of Bor- deaux is being pried open. It is {also indicated, by reports from pilots, that the Germans are try- ing to abandon The Netherlands to ireinforce their lines guarding Berlin and threatened North Sea ports. Canadian troops have cleared out jall northern Holland except iso- |lated pockets. LONDON—The Allied Elbe River bridgehead has been strengthened {by a First Army crive which has linked up with the Ninth Army at Bernburg, 12 miles southeast of Barby. PARIS—Assoclated Press Corre- spondent Robert Euson reported that British forces have besiegtd Bremen. PARIS—German military mental cases and uniformed Nazi women auxiliar] are among those cap- tured before Leipzig. PARIS — The Allied Seventh| Army’s Thunderbird Division has fought into she second largest Ba- varian 3.lty, Nuernberg, while other ‘tmopq have captured picturesque Rothernburg, which was more than a third destroyed by bombs the day before. — e NEW FISHING UNION | FORMED AT ANCHORAGE With Anchorage as its headquart. ers, the first meeting of the West- ern Alaska Fishermen, Cannerymen and Allied Workers Union, Local 260 of the Fish, Food and Agricultural Workers, CIO, was held in that city recently with an attendance of 20 members. Officers were elected and )a constitution adoptetl. PRICE TEN CENTS FTWAFFE Blasted GREATRAIDS -DESTROYING NALZI CRAFT Over 1,000 Planes Demol- ished in One Day-Air Strength Being Cut LONDON, April 17 — American bombers and fighters ripped south- ern Germany again today as a final tabulation showed a total of 1,013 German planes were destroyed yesterday by AMled pilots during a record assault on Nazi airfileds. ‘The new figures boosted the tally of enemy aircraft knocked out on the ground or in the air by Allied pilots in the past 10 days’'to 2,480 and this represents about half of the estimated reserve strength of ° the German Luftwaffe at the time of the Rhine crossing. In the first 16 days of April, at least 3,121 German planes were gle- stroyed. Airforce officials worked all night checking and re-checking the record of the smashing claims turned in by fighter pilots, and all claims have been verified by combat films, N Capt. Robert Ammon, of Reading, Pennsylvania, set the individual scoring record by destroying 11 enemy planes on the ground in what fleld correspondents called the “first tactical joining of the East and. Weat air fronts., American and Russian . fighter planes met and exchanged greets ings yesterday over the Central German battle zone. The Eighth Air Force announces eight heavy bombers and 34 fight- ers are missing as the result of yesterday's operations that were carried out by nearly 2,100 planes. ALLIES BEAT OFF GERMAN ELBEATTACK Reich Bisected by Caplure of Rail City of Plauen -Leipzig in Sight PARIS, April 17—Germans today launched a heavy attack on the U. 8. Ninth Armys’ Elbe River bridgehead, pointing toward -Berlin, but the American forces beat off the attack without losing ground. To the South, the Third Army has captured the big Saxony rail center of Plauen, in effect bisecting Ger- many. More than half of Germany has been conquered, with 100,000 square miles under Allled and Rus- to the Germans. k The PFirst Army has cracked the defenses of Leipzig and fought to within sight of the city. British armor drove to within 30 miles of Hamburg and 15 of the Lower Elbe against resistance deteriorating rapidly that “a quick breal C to the river on a broad front soon be expected.’ The Second Armored and the 83rd Infantry Division beat back Germans drawn before Berlin from the Eastern Front, inflicting serious losses and destroying five to twenty tanks. In the center of the Western Front First Army troops crashed through and crumpled a belt of 1,000 levelled anti-aireraft guns within sight of the ruined towers of Leopzig, Ger- manys fifth city. LATHROFP ANCI TRE IN \GE WILL BE COMPLETED BY FALL With work, which was halted in 1941 by the inability to obtain mater~ ials, renewed on the new theatre building Capt. A. E. Lathop is erect- ing in Anchorage, it was stated that The work is to be finished by fall. The group is made up of Alaska domiciled and controlled labor and received its charter March %9, building will contain a new, theatre as well as office space. g 3