Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 43, Number 59, Decatur, Adams County, 10 March 1945 — Page 1

|+\ DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT I— ■ •' ONLY DAILY NEWSPAPER IN ADAMS COUNTY \j

I XLIII- N°- 59 -

XTEND BRIDGEHEAD OVER RHINE RIVER

ip Resistance ■Diminishing |i Iwo Island ■Japanese Waging* [Battle Jo Death [Against Marines Lm. Mar. 10—(UP)— Japan■resistance on Iwo island ap■d to be diminishing today ■] iri>l > U. S. marine divisions L in on the trapped enemy ■i<on pinned against the sea ■<, the rocky northern beaches. Keet headquarters announced ■ the marines were smashing ■,i relentlessly in the face of Kerate sniper fire from JapKe troops clinging tenaciously ■prepared strong points. The ■iiif’S continued their attack Ey and by noon had widened ■r hold on the northeast ■hes. ■ appeared that the end of ■niZHl Japanese resistance ■ climax of the 20-day-old cam■n was near, but the enemy ■ waging a battle to the death Knst superior American forces. Ehe 3rd division smashed to | northeastern beaches Friday ■moon. The. attack continued E Saturday against “very stiff ■stance.” Ehe 4th division on the eastern ■t. facing the toughest JapanE positions in the northward ■p, wiped out 564 Japanese ■ps Thursday night in repulsE large-scale enemy attempts Enfihrate U. S. lines. ■cavy mortar and sniper fire Eported the desperate break■ough attempt, but the 4th E'ines hurled the enemy back E pushed on relentlessly. ■he general advance continued ■day. Gains of several hundred ■ds were marked up as the 3rd ■ision pushed to the northeast ■cites, splitting the Japanese |o two pockets. El' 1 ' Japanese were pinned be■en the third marines in the E ter of the northeastern beaE s and the fifth pressing along E northwestern shoreline to ■bin 1,000 yards of Kitano, ■them tip of the tiny island, ■feanwhile the fourth division E hacking its way into the desE a|, 'ly resisting Japanese, who ■e being pushed into the eastE corner of Iwo. E’icious hail of small arms fire ■ thrown against the marines I they pressed forward against E Japanese doggedly holdink E in pillboxes and steep crevE Pav y artillery fire plastered E Japanese positions before the ■antry attack. Army fighters | in * from the southern Iwo airE joined carrier planes in proE ng dose support for the Eps and fleet units continued ■ shell the enemy. E sniall sroup of Japanese ■ nps approached Iwo early FriE' ' ,u t retired without attacking, * communique said. ■Meanwhile, other U.' S. planes to strike at Chichi ptiirn Tn Page 6. Column 2) ' f'Jniglit Is Deadline F Gates Signature | ,:i(i,ai! apolis, Mar. 10. — (UP) r, e ’ n ° r(htes faced a bus, y timc |s.'" Ul approximately 125 bills f* y the 84th Indiana general . Btin !ackin S the chief F«htlves approval. leb? mU J !t sign the bu,s midI. th <r ni 6ht, or allow them to die ■mint o , POC . ket veto ” “ethod. The f Stratton’s liquor control bill, lolic h Mgan ’ zes the Indiana alcolenni erase commission, was Ktmhl iraportant measure lacklTh« raatoria! approval. r ed eight bnia knine L f them minor - w hile Iroiight " t 0 law 21 others. This ■umber api>roxi mately 300 the ly the L meaßUres actwl upon tssed 425 ern ° r ’ The afisemb ly Lemocrst TUßß read| ng I 8:oo°f RAT THER MOMETER I ”too.:; - 34 r ~:—; X a t * EATH oi I ln a rtSL*”* tan ’Oht, be- | ,l 'M ml |J. 6Udy eon-

Township Assessors Make First Reports The township assessors met today with E. J. Worthman, county assessor, making their first reports on the assessing of personal property in the county. The work is progressing as rapidly as possible, The assessors were comparing averages today and otherwise checking up on the policies followed in the townships as a step toward making the assessing plan uniform. o — Russian Forces Are Driving For Stettin, Danzig Great Baltic Ports Are Under Fire Os Advancing Russians London, Mar. 10. —(UP) —Soviet troops and tanks were reported battling today through the streets of Altdamm, directly across the Oder river from Germany’s great Baltic port of Settin. Nazi accounts indicated the northern army of Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov’s first White Russian army already has seized several streets in the east-bank suburb, ae well as valuable ground from which Soviets guns can pour shells directly into Stettin. Far to the east. Moscow dispatches said, Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s second White Russian army pushed to within miles of the former free port of Danzig. One second army column east of Danzig was heading toward the former Polish naval base of Gdynia, 13 miles north of Danzig. (A Moscow broadcast said the Soviets had broken into the "southern outer suburbs” of Danzig.) The Soviet high command continued its security blackout on developments along the embattled Berlin front pending a decisive development. A Berlin broadcast said Nazi propaganda minister Paul Joseph Goebbels had visited the Silesian front southeast of Berlin and sought to whip iup the morale of German forces with an assertion that Adolf Hitler still could lead the reich to victory “if he has the support of every German.” “There will never come an hour when we will capitulate,” he said. “The enemy can be beaten because we have beaten him often.” A German Iransocean broadcast (Turn To Page 6, Column G) — O Indo-China Under Full Jap Control Stock Pattern Os Axis Is Followed Washington, Mar. 10 —(UP) — Japan clamped a dictatorial grip on Indo-China today, accusing the French colony of aiding American planes and submarines and calling on the people for help against an expected Allied invasion of southeast Asia. Tokyo broadcasts revealed that the Japanese had cast off the cloak of simulated “cooperation” with Indo-China, the French possession isolated in the midst of Japan’s aggression-won empire, and taken over full military control. The Japanese appeared to have met only a flurry of token resistance. At Saigon they disarmed whatever French troops were there and said that all the fighting was over in an hour and a half. By last midnight, Tokyo said, “complete silence reigned” throuhout the colony. The seizure of Indo-China, as recounted by Tokyo, followed the stock pattern of Axis aggression. The Japanese charged French authorities with “treacherous acts” in “taking up armaments against Japan”; with cooperating with U. S. planes and submarines attacking Japanese shipping along the coast; with furnishing supplies to China-based American air forces; and with refusal to fire on American planes flying (Turn Tc Page «, Column 6)

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HERE ARE VIEWS of the town of Remagen, Germany, and the huge bridge which spans the Rhine river there The Germans say that the Yanks surged across the Rhine at this point, using this 1,063-foot bridge, which was seized undamaged. The bridge is a five-span, double-track structure. 1 he- Rhine is a quarter of a mile wide at this point. .

Strict Application Os Midnight Curfew Regulations Issued On Fort Wayne Area Stricter application of the Byrnes midnight curfew law regulating eating places, bars and taverns where drinks are sold, have been issued by Roland R. Schulz, director of the war manpower commission in Fort Wayne, affecting this area. Instructions for owners of establishments covered by the latest. interpretation of the Byrnes order were listed by Mr. Schulz as follows: 1. Restaurants customarily open 24 hours a day and/or those customarily open during the entire period from 12:01 a. m. to S:00 a. m., are exempted from the curfew provided that such establishments shall not provide entertainmen or sell, serve, or permit the consumption of intoxicating liquor between the hours of 12 midnight and 8 a. m. 2. All restaurants located within establishments engaged in production or a service essential to the war effort, and serving only the employes of the establishment, are exempted from the curfew provided they do not sell, serve, or permit the consumption of intoxicating liquor on the premises at any time. 3. Food serving establishments customarily opening for business between the hours of 5 a. m. and 8 a. m. may continue to open at the customary hour for the purpose of serving food. 4. Establishments licensed to sell or serve alcoholic beverages may open for business at the customary hour set forth by local ordinance or state laws or regulations without being considered in non-compliance. U. S. 0., Y. M. C. A., American Legion and other non-profit agencies maintaining special facilities for serving transient war workers. Mr. Schulz explained, may apply for exemption from the order by making application to the appropriate area office of the WMC. Additional interpretations covering affected establishments providing “room service” or dispensing alcoholic beverages were: 1. Any hotel, transient or residential, or both, customarily engaged in providing "room service’* (Turn To Page 3, Column 2)

Decatur, Indiana, Saturday, March 10,1945.

New Appeal Made To Salvage Tin Cans Indianapolis, March 10 —(UP) — A new aippeal to Hoosier housewives to salvage tin cans was made today by Albert O. Evans, district manager for the iwar production board. “The tin in one can is the exact amount used in making a 75 MM. artnOr-piercing shot,” he said. The supply situation has become critical in recent weeks, he said. o Flood Walers Recede Through Ohio Valley Danger Os Further Damage Subsiding By United Press Flood waters receded through most of the Ohio Vafiey today and danger or further devastation suihsided. The Red Cross and local agencies ■were caring for thousands of refugees from lowlands — 8,000 families were evacuated in Ohio alone' —and crop, plants home and production interruption losses were estimated in the millions. It was still touch-and-go at Portsmouth, O„ as the Ohio river flowed against the sandbagged floodiwall protecting the industrial city. (Mayor John J. Salladay said that he was confident, the makeshift (barricade would hold. The stage was 64.42 feet,- after a crest of 64..9 The floodwall is only 62 feet, and patrols watched the piles oif sandbags atop it for week points caused by softening of the watersoaked sacks. All persons were still banned from the river front areas, and (business establishments were not permitted to reopen. ITo the north, evacuees returned to their homes around Wheeling, W. Va„ and industry returned to uormal as the river dropped below flood stage. • Busses were able to cross the bridge again to Bellaire, O. The Cincinnati area breathed easy gain. At (Louisville, Ky., the task of cleaning up debris and rehabilitating refugees was being directed for a long string of river communities. Un some places, plants still were shut down, but the water was receding. -Downstream, the Ohio was rising gradually (but officials were encouraged by favoraible weather rejorts, and anticipated no serious (Turn To Page 3, Column 3)

Think Crucifixion A Publicity Stunt Police Convinced Os Publicity Aim Chicago. Mar. 10. —(UP) —Police were convinced today that the crucifixion of Fred Walscher, 44, an Austrian-born tavern porter, was a publicity stunt designed to focus attention on his world economic plan. Assistant state's attorney Wilbert F. Crowley said that some of the admissions that Walscher had made under questioning could be regarded its a confession that the stunt was a hoax. However, he said, police would continue their investigation until the perpetrators had been identified. They immediately began a search for Walscher’s followers ill an attempt to determine if they had had anything to do with it. Walscher was found early yesterday lashed to a huge cross erec’ed underneath the elevated tracks on the near north side. His hands were nailed to (the cross and a crown of thorns rested on his head. Blood flowed from a wound in his side. ■ Two police officers erasing by in a squad car were attracted by his tortured cries and rescued him. He was taken to St. Joseph’s hospital where the nails were pulled out of his hands by a burly policeman and he was treated for shock and exposure. Dr. Emil Bronner, a chemtet who said he fled Nazi Germany after the Nazis killed his father, a wealthy manufacturer, said he thought Walscher was the victim of his own crucifixion plan. Bronner, identified by police as a co-worker of Walscher’s in a universal brotherhood plan, said the victim had been talking at many meetings and “always ended by saying that people were bo stupid and ignorant that something violent was needed to awaken them.” “He always said- a crucifixion would do it,” Bronner said. “I believe that some of the men Walscher had been talking to got so aroused that they decided to crucify him,” Bronner added. “I don’t believe they understood that he did not intend to be the victim.” Walscher, however, would admit nothing. Several times during the questioning he wae on the verge of an admission, police said, then he would change him mind.

Weak Counter-Attack By Germans Repulsed; 50,000 Nazis Trapped

Tokyo Radio Warns Os Pending Landing Says Americans Are Planning Invasion By United Press A Tokyo broadcast said today that the “enemy is now attempting to make a landing on Japan proper,” but it appeared the announcer was referring to admitted American preparations for an ultimate invasion of Japan rather than an actual landing at this time. The reference to the landing came in a routine news broadcast announcing Japan’s army day. It was recorded by United Press in San Francisco. “Due to their heavy casualties,” the broadcast said, “the enemy trying to make a swift conclusion of this war is now attempting to make a landing on Japan proper. “The Japanese army, on the other hand, is inflicting decisive blows against the enemy and is awaiting an opportunity to make a large-scale counter-offensive.” Military sources in Washington were skeptical that any landing attempt had been made. They pointed out there had been no preliminary sea and air bombardment such as always precedes an amphibious invasion. There was a possibility that the announcer was referring to the American invasion of Iwo, which is administered by the Tokyo prefecture and is considered part of the Japanese home islands. Iwo is 710 miles south of Tokyo. The broadcast followed a warning by war minister field marshal Gen Sugiyama that an Allied invasion of Japan Was inevitable. “Judging from .the recent progress in the war situation,” he told the Japanese army, “that the enemy is contemplating a plan to invade this divine land is as obvious as that we see the sun.” Sugiyama called upon the army to “defend this divine land and our national policy.” The statement was broadcast by Tokyo radio, which called it the first (Turn To Page 6, Column 4) o Japs Report Heavy Fight On Mindanao No Confirmation Os Enemy Broadcasts Manila, Mar. 10 —(UP)— Tokyo reported today that American invasion forces were fighting in Zamboanga, second largest port on Mindanao, after landing on the southwest tip of the island Thursday. An enemy broadcast said the U. S. assault troops have been lainding since early Thursday morning from a big task force, including battleships and cruisers. (A Tokyo German-language broadcast directed to Europe and beard by FCC monitors said the landing; occurred Friday mornr ing. It claimed that the fleet also included aircraft carriers and that tanks accompanied the troops ashore.) A heavy bombardment from surface craft and approximately 140 planes covered the invasion operations at Zamboanga, Tokyo said. “Grim fighting is now raging in that area,” the broadcast added. The enemy reports still were not. confirmed. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s communique today reported only that heavy, medium and fighter bombers raided Zamboanga for the second successive day Wednesday. A total of 107 tons of bombs were showered on Japanese per(Turn To Page 6, Column 6),

Fires Raging In Tokyo After Raid By B-29s Heaviest Superfort Attack In History Fires City's Heart Guam, Mar. 10. — (UP)—Fifteen square miles of war factories, business houses and other buildings in the heart of Tokyo lay in flaming ruins today following the heaviest Superfortress raid ever made on Japan. A Japanese communique said the imperial stables on the grounds of Emperor Hirohito’s palace, was set afire. The stables also wei» burned in a B-29 raid F*b. 25. Fires visible for 200 miles were kindled by 1,000 to 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs in the two-hour raid shortly after midnight this morning. More than 300 giant B--295, the greatest force ever assembled, thundered over the capital three abreast in a 300-mile-long parade of death and destruction. The devastated target area, equal to southern Manhattan and Brooklyn combined, extended to the eastern edge of the imperial palace and house 1,000,000 persons. A medium force — probably 50 strong —of Superfortresses from the 20th bomber command in India, meantime, struck in daylight at railway yards’ in the vital communications center of Kuala Luampur on the Malayan peninsula. Eye witness reports from returning crewmen indicated that the raid on Tokyo seriously diejointed .the capital’s war effort. The attack was three to four times heavier ithan the famous German fire raid that burned out the center of London in December 1940 and approached in weight the 1,000-plane American daylight raids on Germany. The target area originally charted covered an area 50 blocks long and 10 blocks wide —lO square miles —'packed with vital war factories, military objectives, business districts. Conflagrations already engulfed another five square miles before the raid was over. Crewmen said the mile and a half stretch from the moated imperial palace to the Sumida river and another huge area on the opposite (Turn To Page 3, Column 8) O Decatur Girl Scouts To Observe Birthday March 12 Anniversary Os Scout Founding The De.”i'.:ir Girl Scoute, aiong with mere than 1,000,000 members of the organization throughout the United States, will celebrate the 33rd 'birthday of Scouting next week. The first Girl Scout troop in the United States was founded 33 years ago March I'2 in Savannah, Ga., by Mrs. Juliette Low. The first ti-oop consisted of eight members and the movement in this county has grown to inchide more than 1,6i00,000 girls. Approximately 200 Decatur girls are now enrolled and extremely active in the Girl S'couts and the Brownies, the “little sister” organization of the Scouts. The organization has expanded greatly in Decatur in the past several months and activities of the Girl Scouts are being widened by the adult leaders who are devoting much time to this organization. The Decatur Scouts, planning observance of the organization's birthday, will have ‘an exhibit in the chafer Store window all next week, and a special meeting will (Turn To Page 3, Column 5).

Price Four Cents.

Paris Broadcasts High-Speed Highway In Rhineland Cut By Yankee Forces Paris, Mar. 10— (UP) —Reinforced American first army troops beat off weak German counterblows against their deepening Rhine bridgehead today and joined with U. S. third army forces west of the river in a mass roundup of perhaps 50,000 Germans trapped in the Eifel mountains. (Radio Paris broadcast an unconfirmed but possibly correct report that, the first army already had stabbed eight miles or more east of the Rhine to cut the broad, high-speed military highway linking the Ruhr and Rhineland to Berlin and central Germany.) The university city of Bonn, on the west bank of the Rhine 13 miles north of Remagen and 12 miles south of Cologne, was captured by the first army’s first infantry division yesterday, along with Bad Godesberg, three miles to the south. Bonn fell after a savage street battle in which casualties on both sides were reported heavy. The Rhine bridge in the town was blown up, however, before the Germans quit. Unofficial information, reaching headquarters from the blacked out first army front across the Rhine said the bridgehead opposite Remagen last night covered an area of more than 50 square miles and was being built up steadily against sporadic and still disorganized German resistance. The Rhine break-through revived rumors that Field Marshal Kart Von Rundstedt had again been removed from the German western front command. The U.S. army newspaper Stars and Stripes quoted Nazi prisoners as saying Rundstedt had been replaced by Field Marshal Walther Von Model. The Americans were fanning nut rapidly through the rolling hills overlooking the Ludendorf bridge from the east, northeast and southeast, clearing their invasion gate from the direct fire of German artillery. Front dispatches said a swelling tide of men. guns and tanks was rushing across the bridge under heavy but ineffective enemy shellfire. German military Spokesmen indicated tank and infantry units of the American ninth armored division east of the Rhine already had reached or entered the ancient city of Linz, 2% miles southeast of the Ludendorf bridge, as well as Unkel, two miles to the northeast.’ Almost 72 hours after the in-credibly-easy capture of the Ludendorf gateway, the Germans still were trying desperately to move reinforcements into the breakthrough area under a terrific ' pounding from hundreds of patrolling American planes. United Press war correspondents C. R. Cunningham and John McDermott reported from the Remagen sector that elements of one German panzer division were fighting a weak delaying action against the advancing Americans, trying to hold on until their reserves reached the scene. Seven German fighter-bombers, some of them reportedly jet-pro' pelled planes, struck at the Ludendorf bridge yesterday in a futile attempt to choke off the flow of American men and armor into the German hinterland. Six of them were shot down in flames by hundreds of anti-air-craft guns massed around the bridge, and not a single bomb hit (Turn To Page 6, Column 5) Bed Cross Fund One-third of the county’s quota of the Red Cross War Fund has been raised, today’s report reveals. -* County's quota. $16,700.00 Donated to date— 5,561.51 Turn to page 4 for list of section reports.