Evening Star Newspaper, April 26, 1940, Page 18

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. O, FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1940. Weather Forecast Partly cloudy tonight and tomorrow; little change in temperature; lowest to= night about 38. Temperatures today— Highest, 60, at 1 p.m.; lowest, 36, at 4:30 am. From the Onited States Weather Burean revort Pl heraie on Pase A3 New York Markets, Page 22. . 88th YEAR. No. 35,038. WASHINGTON, The Foening Star D. C, THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1940—FIFTY-TWO PAGES. ‘From Press to Home Within the Hour’ Most.people in Washington have The Star delivered to their homes every evening and Sunday morning. (P Means Associated Press. THREE CENTS, ILL-EQUIPPED BRITISH CUT DOWN BY NALIS 4+ 3-Way Drive Breaks English Lines; Allies Repulsed at Oslo Ga’reway 1,500 Sent to Namsos Wlth| No Artillery at Mercy Of Planes, Stowe Reports By LELAND .STOWE, f \_/ (Copyright, 1940, by Chicago Daily News, Ine.) GAEDDEDE, Norwegian-Swedish Frontier, /f""\“‘\ Here is the first and only eyewitness »~—~-v ;Ihapter of t}l:e rBrmsh expW orway, north of Tro~—"~ and almost un By . ?,Jf’ N> trate al mhtln: in ....‘ | consoudmnz 7 lines. _AW TROND- Bitter Battle in Progress. 1. . TAKEN—Capt. William McHale, skipper of the Ameri- can freighter Mormacsea, pictured as he brought his ship in here today, disclosed Qult Llllehammer, I ared w be kjer north- [dheim, in a lull both sides were The bitterest. fighting of the en- tire Norwegian front. occurred nurl Myra, north of Steinkjer on Trond- heim Fjord, it was learned sut* tatively. In last nl(h!l bmr German that a smallforce of 500 Ger- |van~ mans captured Trondheim, »t of /lace .ue most g A fodern weapons majority of these yommuhers averaged but one year of military service. They have already paid a heavy ; for a major military blu which was not committes page advertisements in daily papers detail- ing how he broke the story of Norway’s Benedict Arnolds. Time said in part: their immediate command in London. Unless they receive large plies of anti-airguns and quate reinforcements ‘% very few days, th- these two Brit be cut to rit Har LELAND STOWE Exclusively s HE WAR CORRESPONDENT who startled the Nation with his story of the treachery which led to the successful Ger- man invasion of Norway yesterday gave the readers of The Evening Star another news beat, the tragic story of a handful of brave British infantrymen armed only with rifles and light machine guns who fought hip-deep in snow against German artillery and bombing planes at Steinkjer and who clung tenaciously to their position facing the German advance until finally, their ranks pitifully reduced, they were forced to fall back. The first and exclusive eye-witness story of the battle which Mr. Stowe de- tailed in The Evening Star yesterday is one of the most dramatic to come out of the war. It is anéther in a long series of outstanding news stories appearing in The Star bringing to the readers the news when it happens. Most of the activities in Europe occur in the hours in which The Evening Star is published. Evening in Europe is midday here. * * When the Germans invaded Norway on April 15, the speed with which the occupa- tion of Oslo was accomplished left the world amazed and bewildered. For days discus- sion was intense, the appetite for news avid. It fell to the lot of Mr. Stowe to dis- close the treachery in Norway and the du- plicity in Germany, the modern adaption of the Trojan Horse to present-day war- fare. Repercussionsfromthisamazingand almost unbelievable revelation were felt all over the world. Other nations whose future is in doubt as they struggle to retain their neutrality, took immediate steps to prevent treachery at home from bringing a fate similar to that of Norway. * * * In an almost unparalleled tribute to Mr. Stowe, Time Magazine yesterday ran full | X “On Monday evening, April 8, Leland Stowe —white-haired, 40-year-old corre- spondent for the Chicago Daily News and its syndicate—sat in Oslo’s Grand Hotel talking idly about Europe’s dormant war. “No guns rumbled nearer than the,Sylt. The good burghers of Oslo were safe in their beds. The hot breath of battle seemed far away. “At half past midnight the city heard its first warlike sound in a hundred years. A noise like a thousand angry motorists stalled in a traffic jam—the raucous bellow- ing of air-raid sirens. “At7:45 the next morning, Stowe and his colleagues, Edmund Stevens of the Chris- tian Science Monitor and Warren Irvin of N.B.C,, watched Nazi bombers roar over the trim Norwegian housetops. All morn- ‘ing the German Junkers came, not in sky- darkening swarms, but by twos and threes. No bombs fell. Scarcely a shot was fired. “In the streets, at public buildings, men acted like curious children. There was little terror. Only bewilderment. “By 2 in the afternoon, the incredible had happened. The tramp of Nazi boots, the rumble of Nazi lorries, were echoing through Oslo streets. The conquerors, marching by threes, made the thin gray column look longer. Unarmed. city police held back a crowd that numbered thou- sands of brawny young Norsemen of fight- ing age. People gaped like yokels on the Fourth of July at the spectacle of 1,500 Germans. taking possession of a city of 253,000—a handful of invaders so sure of easy conquest that they had a brass band! “Was this an instance of awesome Nazi might?. .. of a little neutral’s pathetic un- JAMES ALDRIDGE. LOUIS P, LOCHNER. - ‘ ,\ 1mmm/»mmmwam. 3 preparedness? To the keen mind of Leland Stowe, sharpened by experience with Euro- pean intrigue, familiar with Oslo’s de- fenses, the thing didn’t make sense. “Stowe got busy and, little by little, began to pick up the pieces of the most fan- tastic story of the war. A story of a small but potent Norwegian war fleet in the harbor whose crews had been deliberately ordered ashore. A story of fortresses and anti-aircraft batteries that didn’t fire, or fired startlingly wide of the mark. A story of mines whose electrical control system had been disconnected. A story of a free people infested through and through with spies, who could never have crept in to key positions without the aid of traitors. “Chauffeured by a fair compatriot with a smiling comeback to German gallantries, Stowe escaped to Stockholm and gave the world the news of Norway’s gigantic inside job. Another feather in the cap of the re- porter who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930 . . . the man who wrote the most eloquent dispatch of the Finnish ‘incident’ . .. the 40-year-old man who was told by a New York newspaper last fall that he was ‘too old to cover a war.’” * * * “Take a poll among newsmen for ace correspondent of World War II, and Leland Stowe’s name would probably top the list.” Mr. Stowe’s story, carried in Washing- ton exclusively by The Evening Star, was outstanding, yet it is only one of many which The Star has brought its readers from the many sources of news at The Star’s disposal. There was, for instance, the account during Russia’s invasion of Finland, by James Aldridge of the North American Newspaper Alliance which seemed fantas- tic inits details ashe described the freezing of the poorly-clad Russian soldiers who fought in the thirty and forty below zero temperatures of the Finnish warfare. His dispatch which tested credulity to.the limit was verified days later by other writers and even later by news pictures from the frozen regions of Finland. WILLIAM L. WHITE. CONSTANTINE BROWN. A \ 7y .\w,,.ngumzer Tells L Dies Commnttr Br the Assocudted Press. Ezra Chase, who said he hld been an organizer for the Communi” party at Los Angeles ' */ Committes * tended eivi? The North American Newspaper Alli- ance dlspatches occur exclusively in Wash- ington in The Star. Earlier this week, through the North American Newspaper Alliance, The Star was able to give its readers an eye-witness account of the heroic battle of the British Destroyer Hardy against five-to-one odds in the Narvik naval engagement. A hard-hitship with only a boy handling the wheel, with most of its guns out of action and Wlth the greater part of its officers killed or fatally wounded kept firing to the end which came when the Hardy poked her nose aground. The unparalleled Associated Press serv- ice from the war front and from the seats of government the world over together with outstanding individuals such as Edgar Ansel Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News Foreign Service and William L. White, keep Star readers always informed of authentic news as the news occurs. * * * In warfare these days more than ever in the hlstory of the world, a newspaper must give its readers somethmg besides the bare thread of events. The puzzling moves which are difficult for the lay mind to weigh need explaining. There must be inside knowledge of military tactics and of di- plomacy. The Star brings to its readers the opinions of outstanding individuals. There are the daily interpretive articles of Constantine Brown of The Star’s staff, the writer who forecast the landing of Br1tlsh troops in Norway. In the diplomatic field are the artlcles also of Lloyd George which appear in the Editorial Section on Sunday and the dispatches of Pertinax, famous French journalist. In military afi'alrs Maj. George Fielding Eliot and Col. Frederick Palmer explain military strategy as it un- folds, Maj. Eliot on this side and Col. Palmer from Europe. In Berlin is one of the outstanding re- porters in the world, Louis P. Lochner, who writes for The Assoclat.ed Press. His integrity and unbiased presentation of facts have won him the confidence of the Nazi government, and he obtains news from authentic sources which from his long experience he is able to judge for relia- bility. Backing the reporters is the Wirephoto branch of The Associated Press which flashes from Europe in a matter of minutes newspictures of the outstanding events and exclusive to The Star in Washington, the Wide World Photo Serv1ce In picture and story, the sources avail- able to The Star assure you of complete and accurate coverage and, coverage which brings you the news as it occurs. When the day’s fighting is over in Europe, The Star is going to press. You need not wait until the next day to find out what happens. The news that breaks each day reaches you through The Star the day it breaks. For complete, accurate, unbiased and spot cov- erage of the news read Che Enening Sfar