Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 43, Number 87, Decatur, Adams County, 12 April 1945 — Page 7

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1111. No. 87.

ROOSEVELT DEAD

tarry S. Truman fl Sworn In As S2nd President

>w President Os lited States Asks I Os Roosevelt's ibinet To Remain BULLETIN ashington, Apr. 12.—(UP) ie White House said tot that President Truman authorized Secretary of e Edward R. Stettinius to the San Francisco security erence on April 25 “as duled." hington, Apr. 12. (UP) ent Roosevelt died of cerelemorrhage today at Warm s, Ga., and Vice President S. Truman was sworn here ceed him, becoming the 32nd ent of the United States. Roosevelt was 63 years old, by the burdens of a war ency. Mr. Truman will he irs old May 8 of this year. re was immediate speculation he United Nations San Franeonfercnce might be postponhe late presdent was to have ssed the April 25 opening n. Secretary of State Edward ttinius, Jr., said he could not et whether the conference be postponed. Roosevelt died at 4:35 p. m. The new president was at 7:08 p. m. EWT. Roosevelt had served 12 one month and eight days i unprecedented four terms to ihe had been elected. Mr. an had served as vice presiiince a few months after noon, last Jan. 20. e oath was administered to ’rnman by Chief Justice Har- ■ Stone in a brief ceremony in tablnet room of the White tnesses included the cabinet, i the new president asked to in in office, and other top ng government officials. unan picked up a Bible rest>n the end of the big conferee. held it with one hand, placed his right hand on top ! Justice Stone pronounced the from mem0ry,...... Oman repeated the oath, after Justice Stone pressed his ‘mbers of the cabinet were ;p 'l around Truman and the Cf> during the ceremony, which uo more than a minute. ‘"ding behind Truman was his "hose eyes were tear stainIP new president wore a gray p . double-breasted suit, white t ."d ulua and white polka dot '° r tlle oath taking, Tru--Bat in one of the over-stuffed chairs in the cabinet room m om Witll varioH|S members a met and other officials. . CWe <nony was held up for . min »tes pending the arBe Mps - Tr »man at the White e ®^ ra ot the White House and stenographies e . of them w ith tear stainrway; * X B “ en l! y ln the three ehod n ! be ca,l,ne t room and dent Roosevelt’s suesworn in. ' f ” neral * ni be it ea . t ay afternoon in the se. T h /° om of the White ’PPeared 6 ,he Ute preßident to ° n coun tl»SB oceasstate di SUeSf * before hls forniat«to?m> S , i an<l meet Wtth r ®U»IC.

DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT

Battle Flares On East Front Before Berlin Reports Indicate Long-Awaited Red Drive Is Underway London, Apr. 12 —(UP) —Moscow reported today that violent fighting had blazed up in the Red army’s Oder river bridgehead on the approaches to Berlin as American mobile forces raced toward the Nazi capital from the west. “Soviet troops are waging fierce battles beyond the Oder on the approaches to Berlin,” a Moscow broadcast said. The report indicated that Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov had lighted the fuse of his long brewing push against Berlin, synchronizing it with U. S. ninth army drive to squeeze the heart of Nazidom in a nutcracker. Zhukov’s reported onslaught hit the German defenses in the Oder valley about 30 miles due east of Beilin. There he had massed in his bridgehead across the Oder a great array of Soviet troops and arms. Only yesterday formidable forces of Cossack cavalry were reported on the move, evidently into positions to spearhead a lightning sweep westward. The Soviet high command never officially reported the Oder crossing in front of Berlin. But Berlin and Moscow reports have made it evident that Zhukov has won a springboard beyond the river for the climactic assault, now apparently beginning. The Germans reported last night that their army had lost Klessin, on the Berlin side of the Oder 33 miles east of the capital. In the Danube valley west- of virtually-conquered Vienna, another Red army push was aimed at Berchtesgaden and the Bavarian Alps touted as a sanctuary for the Nazi hierarchy. Soviet armor was reported far up the Danube from Vienna and a Nazi commentator, Lt. CJol. Alfred Von Olberg, bluntly admitted that the Germans were retreating in Austria. Von Olberg said that stiff resistance between the Danube and Drava in Austria” merely screens disengaging movements of the German formations which are falling back toward the northwest.” Two Russian armies were clo|F ing in on the last two districts of burning Vienna still in Getman hands. The Leopoldstadt commercial district, including the 2.000-acre Prater amusement park, was cleared yesterday by troops who forced the Danube river canal. Ernst Von Hammer, German DNB military commentator, reported the new Russian offensive west of Vienna. He conceded that Marshal Feodor I. Tolbukhin’s third Ukrainian army had iriven 20 miles beyond the Austrian capital along the Danube valley toward Hitler’s Alpine redoubt around Berchtesgaden. The Soviet thrust was halted temporarily, Hammer said, south of the Danube river at a point 10 miles east of the junction of St. Poelten, 75 miles from Linz and 145 miles northeast of Berchtos(Turn To Pago 2, Column 2)

American 9th Army Storms Across Elbe Ninth Army Tanks Smash Nazi Lines, 50 Miles To Berlin - Paris April 12. — can army tanks smashed through the Elbe river defenses today, striking into the last 50 miles before Beilin, and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s third army splintered Germany’s east front supply line with a 46-mile dash for Halle and Leipzig. Elements of the ninth army’s second “hell on wheels” armored division stormed across the Elbe at an unspecified point near the fortress city of Magdeburg, 60 miles of Berlin. First reports indicated the Americans may have captured intact one of the six Elbe bridges in the Magdeburg area, opening the way for a fullscale armored drive into the doomed German capital. The ninth army troops spurted 55 miles through the weakest enemy opposition to reach the Elbe late yesterday, a pace if it Wire continued would threaten to carry their battle flags into Berlin by nightfall. The slashing drive across Berlin’s late western water barrier raised the imminent threat of disaster for perhaps 1,000,000 Germans facing the Red army along the Oder river line 117 miles to the east. Four more ninth army divisions were crowding on the heels of the second armored division, ready t« swing across the Elbe and break into the rear of the German’s Oder river defenses. Simultaneously, Patton's charging third army tanks were cutting across the German escape routes south of Berlin against equally disorganized opposition. American reconnaisance fliers reported sighting Patton’s tanks at Halle, 77 milts south of Berlin and 15 miles northwest of the big communications center of Leipzig. There, the third army would be barely 90 miles from a juncture with the Russians. Patton’s fourth and'sixth armored divisions, both operating under a rigid security blackout, sprinted 25 and 46 miles beyond their last reported positions 120-odd miles south west of Berlin, apparently headed for Halle-Leipzig area. The ninth army’s breakthrough carried to within at least 117 miles of a junction with the Russians along the Oder river northeast of Berlin. The junction may come by Saturday. military sources said. Elsewhere along the 400-mile western front, six other allied armies also chalked up new gains against the disintegrating Wehrmacht. They included: American first army—advanced across the Thuringian plain to within 116 miles southwest of Berlin from. Leipzig in an end run around (Turn To Page 2, Column 2) O Gov. Thomas Dewey Sends Condolences On Roosevelt Death Albany. Apr. 12. — (UP) —Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, 1944 Republican presidential nominee, said late today that President Roosevelt’s death will be “mourned by all of the freedom loving people of the entire world.” Dewey sent the following telegram to Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House: “Please accept our deepest sympathy in your great loss which will be shared by every American and mourned by all of the freedom loving people of ,the entire world.”-. The message was signed "Governor and Mrs. Thomas E. Dewey,”

.ONLY DAILY NEWSPAPER IN ADAMS COUNTY

Decatur, Indiana, Thursday, April 12, 1945.

ilwl BF v ■ JF***Rjk • .OMMf RBBiB fl 'if - x f JIB vPRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

No Extension Os Mandate By Slate Cessation Os River Pollution Demanded No extension of the mandate to cease the pollution of the waters of St. Mary’s river with raw sewage from Decatur, will be granted by the stream pollution control board of the state board of health, Mayor John B. Stults and other city officials were informed yesterday when they conferred with state officials in Indianapolis. However, it was indicated that if the city proceeded to make preliminary plans and engaged an engineer within the next 30 days, that the October 1 deadline to comply with the state order issued last year would not he enforced, in view’ of wnr-time conditions and manpower shortage. Mayor Stults and the city officials w’ere informed by Joseph L. Quinn, Jr., technical secretary of the board, that the order would not be modified, as the state wanted compliance with the mandate. The city officials were informed that the state board was proceeding to eliminate river pollution throughout Indian®, and that cities located at the headwaters of streams were the first notified. The state expects to carry out its program as a postwar project. Mayor Stults said that local officials - were in agreement, and so informed the state board, that storm sewers should be built at the same time as the interceptor sewer for the sewage disposal plant is constructed. The mayor said that Ralph Roop, city engineer, was working on several plans for storm sewers and that (Turn To Page 2, Column 1) O Child Loses Arm In Farm Accident Larry Brunner, 5, eon of Mr. and Mrs. Laster Brunner of near Babo, auffeed the-toss of an arm Tuesday night when it was caught in a grain drill at his father's farm. The arm was amputated just above the elbow.

Big Fleet Os B-29s Blasts Al Tokyo Area 400 Superforts Hit War Industries On Japanese Mainland Guam. Apr. 12. —(UP)—Four hundred or more Superfortresses and escorting fighters — possibly the largest land-based air armada ever to hit Japan —bombed war plants in the Tokyo area and in Koriyama, 110 miles to the north, today. The giant bombers flew 3,800 miles round trip between their bases the Marianas and Koriyama, their deepest penetration yat of the enemy homeland. Escorting Mustang fighters look off from Iwo island, 750 miles south of Tokyo. Three great fleets of planes made, up the armada, which was believed to have equaled if not exceeded the record force of more, than 400 aircraft which hit Tokyo and Nagoya last Saturday. The fleets split up over Japan and half the bombers blasted the Musashino aircraft plant at Nakajima in the suburbs of Tokyo for the eighth time. The remainder struck Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture for the first time. It was assumed their targets were the aircraft and airframe assembly plants there, as well as power plants. Tokyo broadcasts said the planes also attacked the port of Shizuoka. 100 miles southwest of Tokyo. The raid on the Musashino plant was the 15th major B-29 attack on the Tokyo area. The plant proproduces a large proportion of Japan’s aircraft and plane parts and its importance was emphasized by the repeated attacks on it. o TEMPERATURE READING DEMOCRAT THERMOMETER 8:00 a. m — 61 10:00 a. m. — - 68 Noon 69 2:00 p. m 70 WEATHER Partly cloudy tonight and Friday. Cooler north portion tonight.

At Warm Springs

Great Britain Is Shocked By News Os Death Britons Staggered By Sudden Death Os President Roosevelt London, Friday, Apr. 13. —(UP) — Great Britain received the news of President Roosevelt’s death shortly before midnight as a shock of staggering degree from Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s entourage to the man in the street. The British public heard the news first in the midnight news broadcast of the British Broadcasting corporation and within a few moments shocked Britons were telephoning the United Press for confirmation. American officers and enlisted men in lite west end night life district were among the first to telephone. The first enemy broadcast of the news was given by the German official DNB agency at 12:05 a. m. DNB broadcast the news without comment under an Amsterdam dateline, quoting a broadcast of the British information service. The* United Press telephone the news to Prime Minister Winsiqn Churchill’s office shortly before midnight. “Good Lord!” the prime minister’s secretary exclaimed, horrified. He said he would telephone the. prime minister at once. He added that Churchill might make no public statement until he told the news to the house of commons, to which he is officially responsible as adviser of grave developments. Shortly before the announcement at Washington of the president’s death the Daily Express diplomatic correspondent wrote that news of such importance was reaching the government that politicians were discussing the possibility of an early announcement. of Germany’s collapse. It appeared, however, that the news might have been that, of the president’s death, sent to an Allied government even before the public announcement in the United States. It. was indicated that all cabinet ministers and other key ministers in the government were urgently advised of the president's death. (The powerful French station at Brazzaville, in far-off Africa, broadcast, the news at 6:15 a. m. Thursday EWT, interrupting its routine broadcast. It. gave the news of the president’s death without comment and added that Vice President Harry S. Truman would succeed him as president. The Brazzaville broadcast was recorded by the United Press in New York.) 0 _ Mrs. Roosevelt Tells Four Sons In Service Os Death Os Father Washington, Apr. 12—(UP) — To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt today fell the unhappy task of telling her four sons in the armed services that their father was dead. White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said the sense ot her message was that the president slipped away this afternoon. He did his job to the end (the message said) as he would want you to do. Bless you all and all our love. Early said Mrs. Roosevelt signed her message, “Mother.”

Warm Springs, Ga.. April 12 — (UP) — Franklin I). Roosevelt, president for 12 of the momentous years in this country’s history, died suddenly at 4:35 I’. M. (EWT) today in a small room in the “little White House’ here. Mr. Roosevelt had been in Warm Springs — which he liked to call his “second home”—since March 30. The week preceding he had spent at his home in Hyde Park. N. . He was 63 years of age and had served as president longer than any other American. News of Mr. Roosevelt’s death came from Secretary William I). Hassett. He called in three press association reporters who had accompanied the president here and said: “It is my sad duty to inform you that the president died at 3:35 (CWT) of a cerebral hemmorhage.” Simultaneously the news: was telephoned to the White House in Washington and announced there too. In Washington, where the news of the president’s death at first produced shocked disbelief, officials immediately wondered what effect the tragedy would have on the many domestic and international projects the president was guiding. Whether it would cause postponement of the United Nations security conference at San Francisco remained to be seen. No one knew in the confusion of the tragic moment. But the conference was perhaps the project closest to the president’s heart, and there was some belief that in tribute to him the United Nations would carry it through. He had planned to open the conference in person—to lay before the United Nations his own ideas for world peace. The president had spent a leisurely two weeks in Warm Springs. And al no time was there any indication that he was sick, beyond the fact that he had not made his usual visits to the Warm Springs swimming pool wherein 1924 he began his life-long battle to overcome the withering effects of infantile paralysis. Almost daily during his stay he took long automobile rides in the soft Georgia spring sun and had been keeping up constantly with developments in Washington and abroad by telephone and through official papers flown to him every morning. Mr. Roosevelt was the,3lst president of the I nited States. His successor. Harry S. Truman who was expected to be sworn in momentarily, becomes the 32nd. The president’s death was announced in Washington by Stephen ,T. Early, his secretary and confidante since he first took office in 1933. Truman was called to the White House immediately and an emergency cabinet meeting was called. Mrs. Roosevelt, Early and Admiral Ross Mclntyre, the president’s physician, arranged Io leave for Warm Springs by plane immediately. The four Roosevelt sons, all in the armed forces, were notified by their mother. She told them that the president had done his job to the end and that she knew he would want them to do likewise. Early said the party will leave Warm Springs for Washingion tomorrow morning by train. Funeral services will be held Saturday afternoon in the east room of the White House. Burial will be at Hyde Park Sunday afternoon, he said. His every movement—except for a few politically expedient weeks in the last election campaign—was a secret as closely guarded as the movement of a battleship in enemy waters. No disclosure of his activities outside the White House was permitted until they were accomplished facts. During the last election campaign some of the president’s critics, including some within his own party, said he would not live out his fourth term. And his death today bore them out. Doctors say that a cerebral hemorrhage is not something that can he spotted in advance. And the president’s death today caught his entire staff, people who live with him 24 hours a day, by complete surprise. It was a soft summer-like afternoon in Warm Springs when he died. He was relaxing with complete leisure in a large arm chair, tolerating, as it were, the artist who was sketching him, when the sharp, piercing headaches began stabbing the hack of his proud, leonine head. It was just a matter of minutes more before he slumped over unconscious. In a fleeting instant he was a gray, withered old man instead of the smiling “boss”—the constant battler for the underdog and his own political fortune.

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