Newspapers / Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, … / Dec. 30, 1943, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
HUf] ilmington Horning §>tar ! Say] V0T-7^°^6 _ WILMINGTON, N. C., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1943 FINAL EDITION ESTABLISHED 1867 Possible Rail Tie-Up Called Off By Unions Efforts Underway To Wind Up Entire Wage Dis pute Quickly UNION HEADS CONFER Conferees AEW Close Mouthed About Their Tolks With Officials WASHINGTON, Dec. 29.— UP) — The threat of a railroad strike dis solved today and there were indi cations in a series of union-gov ernment conferences that efforts are underway to wind up the whole wage dispute quickly and let the roads return to private manage ment. Leaders of the firemen, conduc tors and switchemn—the three un ions which had not previously re scinded orders for a strike tomor row—agreed to do so at a fore noon conference with War depart ment officials. Several Deveiopments Then followed these develop ments: , 1. The heads of these unions conferred at the WTiite House with War Moodization Director James F. Byrnes. (President Roosevelt, who has been handling the rail road case personally and had of fered to arbitrate all wage dis putes, was keeping to his room be cause of a head cold ) 2. The li> non-operating unions, together with representatives of railroad management, conferred at the War Department with Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somerveil. appointed to operate the roads when the gov ernment seized them Monday night because oi the strike threat. | 3. Leaders of the firemen, con ductors and switchmen went back to the War Department for a fur ther conference with Somervell. 4. The trainmen and engineers, ; who agreed v.heu the Presidnt first proposd arbitration, signed a contract with the railroads em- ^ bodying his awards—4 cents an hour general wage increase and 5 cents in lieu of overtime and away-from-home expenses. All the conferees were close mouthed about their talks. The War Department disclosed that wage matters were involved, how ever, by saying in a statem#nt that Somervell reiterated to the ' ''non-op” group that the Army was ; concerned only with operating the railroads; that the matter of wages was up to other government agen cies. : Orders Held Up Late in the day, the firemen, conductors and switchmen had not formally recalled their strike or ders although informed sources said there was no likelihood they : would reverse the agreement to , do so. It was indicated the orders were held up in hopes that they could ' (Continued on Page Five; Col. 4) I STEEL WORKERS RETURN TO JOBS Reheating And Repair Of ; Furnaces Is Slowing Production : PITTSBURGH, Dec. 29.— W — , While the CIO-United Steelworkers Union continued negotiations of ■ renewal of contracts which expire shortly after the first of the year, the last of 170,000 workers who Participated in stoppages in nine j •tates were returning to their jobs tonight. Reheating and repair of blast, furnaces and other units taken out | of production during the work tie- j ops kept several thousands from their jobs after the main body of workers had gone back. Full pro duction was expected in most plants by tomorrow or Friday. , A'l Republic Steel Corp. Plants ln Ohio, New York and Indiana wele operating, but about 3,000 Republic employes at Cleveland 3 waited completion of repairs scheduled for tomorrow. Youngs town Sheet & Tube Co. was oper ®ting at about 60 per cent, with the 13 st 5,000 workers due to return by Friday. A back-to-work vote taken at a general meeting of Wheeling £tee]-s 20,000 employes put that company's West Virginia and Ohio plants back on an operating basis. Two Pennsylvania plants of cru mble Steel Co., and several Rlaw-Knox Co. plants were among the larger Pittsburgh district Mills resuming full operations. hi Newport, Ky., full production v- :'1S expected by tomorrow at the Andrews Steel Co. plant, only one :| that state affected by the stop page. 4 Britons Are Appointed On The Invasion Team Ramsey Named Commander Of Naval Forces While Lehigh-Mallory Will Head The Air Forces—Hour For Attack Draws Nearer LONDON, Dec. 29— UPI — Two Britons filled with a spirit of au dacity and attack were appointed today to stand at the side of Gen. i Dwight D. Eisenhower as top of-1 ficers of the grand arms that will support the Allied invasion of west- j ern Europe: Admiral Sir Bertram j Ramsey as commander-in-chief of i the Allied navies and Air Marshal Trafford L. Lehigh - Mallory as I commander-inchief of Allied air forces. These selections, announced at Prime Minister Churchill’s official residence at No. 10 Downing Street, completed the team of the top command for the victory assault directly against Hitler's innsr bar ricades, and they brought meas urably nearer the fateful hour of attack for which preparations are proceeding at a makedly quick ened pace. American and British plans are being drawn closely together so that Gen. Eisenhower will step into an organization that in many senses is all ready to go now. Both Admiral Ramsay, who is 30, and Marshall Leigh - Mallory, who is 51, are improvisers and sive traditions of the British mili tary forces. From the beginning of the war through the Allied operations in North Africa and Italy Admiral Ramsay, nicknamed “Dynamo has fought his ships to the utm and laid his plans with calculates daring. It was he who brought the Brit ish home from the tragedy of Flan ders and Dunkerque, somehow as sembling a fleet of nondescript ships that took 335,000 exhausted British troops off beaches shaking under the fury of the German at tack. He also helped plan and com mand the greatest naval operations in history—those that landed the Allied armies in Tunisia and then carried forward through Sicily and Italy. Marshal Leigh - Mallory is the sort of commander known in his profession as a ‘brains officer.” He fought in the RAF during the Battle of Britain in command of some of those few to whom Church ill said so many owed so much. He had been the head of Britain’s school of army cooperation and now heads the RAF fighter com mand. 3 LARGE GERMAN i SHIPS ARE SUNK Destroyers Go Down In Battle In The Bay Of Biscay LONDON, Dec. 29. — W—Allied var planes, including U. S. Navy Liberators, and British Royal Na vy cruisers have sunk three Nazi iestroyers and a speedy 5,000ton Nazi blockade runner in a two-day sea and air battle in the Bay of Biscay this week. An Admiralty communique to light gave details of the engag« nents, which started Monday vhen a Sunderland flying-boat sighted the blockade runner about 500 miles west and northwest of lape Finisterre, Spain. Allied planes set her aflame and eft her listing fatally and aban loned by her crew, about 70 men >n rafts and rubber lifeboats dot ed the sea. At dawn yesterday a U. S. Liber ator operating with the RAF coast il command sighted a Nazi flotilla >f 11 destroyers about 200 miles rom the spot where the blockade ■unner had been 3unk. The Liber itor flashed the position of the lotilla to the British light cruisers Glasgow and Enterprise, which vere steaming between the de stoyei's and their Nazi bases in southern France. Flaming shellfire from the cruis :rs sank three of the destroyers md damaged several others in the jattle, in which United States na ;al Liberators and RAF coastal iuuiv ii ^ ” w*; ! mnounced. * The destruction of the destroy :rs capped the spectacular day ifter-Christmas sinking of the 26, )00-ton German batleship Scharn lorst off North Cape by other units sf the Royal Navy. The Allied forces came out of ;he Biscay battle, the Admiralty -eported, with only a few casual ties on the Glasgow and minor image” to the two cruisers. One :oastal command Halifax and one Beaufighter were reported miss ng. The Germans scattered in run ling from the Royal navy units but he cruisers concentrated on a ;roup of four and sank the three n the running fight which lasted mtil dusk. Planes spotted about 150 survi vors from the sunken destroyers. The six-inch guns of the two :ruisers outranged the guns of the lestroyers. The 9,100-ton Glasgow has main catteries of 12 six-inch guns while he smaller 7,580-ton Enterprise ias seven 6-inch guns. BOWLES IS PROUD OF COURT RECORD He Says Price Office Has Won 94 Per Cent Of Its Cases WASHINGTON. Dec. 20. — OB— The Office of Price Administration cites its record in courts as the best answer to charges in . Con gress that it has operated without proper regard for the rights of citizens. This record, the agency an nounced today, has been called to the attention of the Smith com mittee of the house ill a 20,000 word statement replying to the committee's charges of usurpation and abuse of powers by OPA. The committee, reporting Nov. 15, accused by OPA of issuing "il legal. absurd, useless and con flicting" regulations. construing its power so as to authorize it to “sentence citizens of the United States to starvation." and seeking through complicated procedure, to block legal redress. In a letter to Representative Howard W. Smith, chairman of the House committee to investi gate executive agencies. Price Administrator Chester Bowles wrote: “The report fof the committee! deals largely with the past, but I believe it is important that mis conceptions with respect to the past be cleared up and a common ground of understanding be estab lished for the future.” The agency's reply states that of 4.991 OPA price, rent and ration ing cases decided through last September, the government has won 94 per cent, with defendants prevailing in “only 291 cases." The statement asserts that OPA derives authority from the second war powers act to suspend the al location of rationed commodities to sellers who violate ration or ders. Lacking such authority the report declares, “the administra tor would be compelled to contin ue authorizing delivery of rationed scarce commodities to persons and companies that he knew to be black market operators." Price control and rationing, the statement continues, are “closely related, inter-dependent means of coping with the same situation — scarcities in supply. If either form of control fails, the other cannot succeed." Replying to committee criti cisms of suspension order proceed ings before OPA commissioners, the agency asserts such orders do not call for judicial proceedings but instead are administrative ac tion. Notice Is Served On Germans That Allied Assault Is Coming By KIRKE L. SIMPSON .. Associated Press War Analyst With the practical completion of the joint Allied staff for the west front attack on Germany, notice has been served on the Nazi lead ership and the German public that the assault is coming soon and there also is a grim intimation of its nature. Massed sea and air power is destined to blast a way ashore for the troops at the selected beach heads of the continent. And be yond the beaches the whole weight of Anglo-American combined air power in the west will lead the way in the'march on Berlin. Aside from final selection of General Dwight D. Eisenhower for commander-in-chief, the most sig nificant name on the roster of his newly - chosen staff is that of his deputy, British Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder. The fact that an air officer was picked for that Dost—and the most seasoned Brit ish technician of air warfare at that—speaks volumes for the na ture of the campaign. General Horace Sewell, official British war commentator in Wash ington, noted that Tedder’s selec tion meant that “the same prin ciples of air and ground cooper ation which proved successful in North Africa and Sicily” are to be applied against the Continent from the west. It was Tedder who directed the Anglo-American air coverage of the British 8th Army retreat into Egypt and later su pervised joint air operations which lagely contributed to the British (Continued on Page Five; Col. 4) RUSSIANS PRESS KIEV OFFENSIVE, CAPTURING RAIL HUB OF KOROSTEN; MERLIN A TTA CKEDBY RA F BOMBERS M A_ RUINS * ^ Claim Bombs Vv dropped In Resi dential Areas HEAVIEST OF THE WAR Communications Are Cut For Two Hours With Stockholm _ LONDON, Thursday, Dec. 30. — UP}— Large RAF bombers attack ed Berlin last night for the eighth time in a six-week period, it wap announced today, and indication jfrom the Nazi capital and neutral j Stockholm was that the raid wa$ i one of the heaviest of the war. ; v. London officially announced th^ raid on Berlin shortly after thij German radio had reported in i broadcast from the Nazi capital that large formations of the bia black RAF night bombers hadj smashed the city with explosives!. [and incendiaries. Layer of Clouds The obliteration campaign open-! ed Nov. 18, when 2,50r long tons of explosives and fire bombs were dropped on Berlin and Ludwigsha Ifen. The Berlin radio announced the new thrust. “The sky was covered with a thick layer of clouds and British planes dropped explosives and in cendiary bombs on thickly popu lated residential districts,” the German station announced. Telephonic communications be tween neutral Stockholm and Ber lin were severed for almost two hours—-from. 7:50 p. m. to 9:30 — and this indicated the duration of the alert. Live In Ruins A dispatch from Stockholm said' a Swedish correspondent in the German capital told his home of fice after telephone service was restored: “We now live in an im mense ruin in which there is noth, .ing more to bomb.” Five major raids were made up on Berlin by the RAF between Nov. 18 and Dec. 2 and hundreds of British bombers loosed explo sives upon the Nazi nerve center again the night of Dec. 16. Ex plosives and fire were estimated then to have destroyed three-fifths of Berlin and left 2,000,000 home less. The campaign to ivipe out Ber lin as a Nazi war center was launched Nov. 18. when the great est force of night bombers yet sent over Germany dropped 2,500 long tons of high explosives on the German capital and Ludwigshafen. Review of Raids On Nov. 22, in what has been described as the heaviest single raid of the war, 1,000 night raiders sent 2.300 long tons of bombs crashing on Berlin. -V ADMIRAL DOENITZ QUITS HIS POST Moscow Says Supreme Head Of German Navy Has Resigned LONDON, Thursday, Dec. 30— OP)—Admiral Karl Doenitz has re signed as supreme commander of the German navy as an aftermath of the loss of the 26.000-ton Nazi battleship Scharnhorst on a Ba rents Sea mission which he had ordered to boost his reputation, the Moscow radio said early to day. The broadcast was recorded by Reuters. The Scharnhorst was sunk in an engagement with British home fleet units including the 35,000-ton Duke of York in an all-day sea battle Sunday off North Cape aft er she attempted to attack a Mur mansk-bound convoy. Admiral Doenitz, 52. developed German subanmine tactics and be came commander in chief of the Navy last January. Many of the technical improvements on the German submarines were credit ed to Doenitz. Doenitz, only a commodore at the start of the war, rose rapidly jand finally was elevated by Hit ler over the heads of two admirals to the top command not quite a year ago. Ife supplanted Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. Doenitz was primarily a sub marine man. His elevation was said' at the time to have been prompted by Hitler’s demand for all-out U-boat warfare Americans Inspect Ja p Gun On New Britain American troops examine a Japanese field gun which was captured when Sixth Army units landed on New Britain Island. (AP wirephoto from Signal Corps Radiofoto). - * New Britain Beachhead Being Held By Marines — ADVANCED ALLIED HEADQUARTERS, New Gui nea, Thursday, Dec. 30.—(/P)—An outnumbered American fMarine force is holding its positions on the eastern flank Iof the Cape Gloucester, New Britain, invasion beachhead while other Marines on the western flank have overcome sharply stiffening' Japanese resist-*--—— ance to advance half a mile in the direction of the vital airdrome. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s com munique today reported that the Marines drove ahead under artil lery and aerial support and used flame throwers to eliminate pill boxes and strong pockets of re sistance about a mile from the airstrip. The fighting reported in the communique took place Tuesday. The information came in brief re ports from the field headquarters of Maj. Gen. William H. Rupertus. Marine Corps commander of the action on the northwestern tip of New Britain. At least 200 Japanese were kill ed in a hot action on the banks of a river, rupertus reported, The river was not named. Attacks against the Marines’ eastern line running inland from the shores of Borgen Bay, on the east flank of the invasion, were delivered by at least one regiment of Japanese, a headquarters spokesman said. The enemy's growing opposition and increasing numbr of troops apparntly involved indicated that the fight for possession of the airdrome would be a bitter one. Fflrty fighters from Adm. Wil liam F. Halsey’s South Pacific command dipped their wings over the enemy air and supply base at Rabaul, on the northeastern tip of New Britain, and invited the Japanese to come up and fight. The enemy sent up 60 planes, losing at least eight to American Consairs and Hellcats. One of our planes is missing. (A spokesman at Halsey’s head quarters said pilots making late reports of the Rabaul fight which occurred Monday claimed they downed 17 of the enemy fighters.) American cruisers and destroy ers steamed boldly into waters vv/vuMimeii vn rage ngm; uoi. b) WEATHER FORECAST NORTH CAROLINA: Fair and con tinued cold Thursday and Thursday night Friday partly cloudy and warmer. (Eastern Standard Time) (By U. S. Weather Bureau) Meteorological data for the 24 hours ending 7:30 p. m., yesterday. Temperature 1:30 am, 47, 7:30 am, 42, 1:30 pm, 35. 7:30 pm, 33. Maximum 49, Minimum 32, Mean 40, Normal 47. Humidity 1:30 am, 100, 7:30 am. 95, 1:30 pm, 90, r:30 pm, 98. Precipitation Total for the 24 hours ending 7:30 pm, 3.49 inches. Total since the first of the month, 3.73 inches. Tides For Today (From the Tide Tables published by U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey) High Low Wilmington _ 7:04a 12:30p 7:44p Masonboro Inlet -10:17a 3:51a 10:38p 4:35p Sunrise, 7:17 am, Sunset, 5:12 pm, Moonrise, 10:15 a., Moonset, 9:22 p. Cape Fear River stage at Fayette ville, 14.80 feet. (Continued on Pate Five; Col. 5) | NAZI AIRDROMES NEARJIOME HIT Germans Claim Allies Raided Rome For The Third Time ALLIED HEADQUARTERS, Al giers, Dec. 29.—UP) — American two-engined Mitchell and Marau der bombers of the 15th air force struck hard at three Nazi air dromes on the outskirts of Rome yesterday, tearing up hangars and other installations and destroying at least five parked enemy planes, it was announced today. (A German news agency broad cast said that Rome was bombed at noon yesterday. The Nazi-con trolled Paris radio asserted heavy bombs fell near St. Peter's Basili ca while the Pope watched from a Vatican window and asked to be informed of any damage, (The German broadcast said that Allied bombs dropped heavy bombs on an outlying residential quarter, and that six hits near the Basilica of San Paolo killed and injured many persons. It added that about 50 were wounded by machine-gun fire. There was no confirmation of these Axis reports from any Allied source.) Marauders attacked the Guido nia and Centocelle airfields east of Rome, while Mitchells swept over the Ciampino field, south of the capital, in two waves, spreading havoc with high-explosive and fragmentation bombs. The Marau ders reported five enemy planes destroyed for sure, and Mitchell crewmen said they saw several craft burning. An Allied communi (Continued on Page Five; Col. 3) CANADIAN TROOPS CAPTURE ORTONA Roar Of Battle Lifts From Ruined Streets Of Italian Town ALLIED HEAD-DARTERS, Al giers, Dec. 29.—(IP)—The roar of battle lifted from the ruined streets of Ortona today as Canadian troops who took the town in a savage eight-day battle, pushed on up the Adriatic coast oi Italy toward the port of Pescara in the face of snow, sleet, piercing w i n d and stubborn Nazi resistance. Ortona, once a neat town of 9, 000, resembled a tomb. Every street was piled high with debris and the dead still lay in the streets and doorways, dispatches said. Those civilians who lemained in the town through the bitter, bloody street fighting were too dazed to realize the Germans had gone. While the victorious Canadians drove on toward Pescara, Indian troops of the Eighth Army wiped out pockets of resistance in Villa Grande, a hotly-contested village about three miles inland from Or tona. Farther inland, other Eighth Army units were reported within eight miles cf the provincial capi On the extreme opposite end of the Italian fighting line, British troops of Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark’s Fifth Army fought fiercely to re pel a full-scale German attack on the town of Ponta Fiume at the mouth of the Garigliano river. The Nazis struck suddenly yesterday in clear, cold weather, evidently at tempting to forestal' an Allied as sault in that area as the rain flooded Garigliano began to sub side. No decisive result yet was in sight. Other vigorous fighting on the Fifth Army front occurred high in the mountains of central Italy, where French Moroccan infantry seized several peaks of Catenella Degli Mainardi. a 3.000-foot ridge controlling a road to Atina. The Germans still held the vil lage of San ViPore, s.x miles from Cassino, in full strength, and the American patrols saw every indi cation that 1he enemy intended to defend the village as desperately (Continued on Page Five; Col. 5) Allies Reported Massing Large Number Of Ships At Gibraltar LONDON, Dec. 29.—W)—’With the hour of the Allied invasion of Hit ler’s Europe approaching, the Ger mans sounded double invasion alarms tonight, reporting a series of British Commando thrusts on the Channel islands within 22 miles of French Normand;, in the north and a big-scale massing of Allied ships at Gibraltar in the south. DNB, the German news agency, asserted that British commandos had stabbed twice at, the defenses of Nazi-occupied Sark island with in the past three days—presuma bly in quest of information on Ger man preparations to counter the forthcoming Allied grand assault on western Europe. At the same time the Axis-con-; trolled Vichy radio and DNB re- \ ported the heaviest shipping move-i K merits at Gibraltar since the Ital ian invasion. The German account of the Commando raids on Sark followed an official Nazi announcement Sunday of a combined British and French raid Christmas Eve on an undisclosed point on the German oeld French Channel coast. Official British comment. was lacking on the raids, but it can be assumed that lightning hit-and-run raids to test German “Atlantic Wall” defenses will increase as the invasion hour approaches. The Sark assaults, DNB said, “failed like all similar attempts of this kind.” The Vichy radio reported that a British cruiser and nine torpedo ooats have left Gibraltar and that (Continued on Page Five; Col. 4), A, 250 TOWNS TAKEN Reds Surge To Within 48 Miles Of The Old Po lish Border GREAT POWER DRIVE Most Of The Bulge Around Kiev Has Now Been Recaptured LONDON, Thursday, dee. 30.— UP—The Red Army has surged to within 48 miles of the prewar Po lish border west of Kiev in a spectacular bread-through along a 110-mile arc. continuing today its offensive across flat steppeland that offered the Germans few nat ural defenses short of the Bug river, 200 miles away. The Soviet power drive took 230 communities in 24 hours, including the major rail hub and fortress town of Korosten as powerful Ger man defenses were suddenly shat tered. Moscow announced. Beyond Previous Mark Capture of the town of Vygov, 12 miles beyond Korosten,' and Ushomir, in between, on the rail way line southwestward to Novo grad Volinsk placed the Russians well beyond the Zhitomir-Korosten highwater mark of their earlier offensive toward Poland. Additional details of the Moscow communique, recorded by the So viet monitor, also put the swift moving Red army 13 miles from the important rail junction ol Berdichev as they captured Byelo pole to the southeast in a signi ficant 10-mile push from Nekhvo rosch, taken Tuesday. Byelopole__/, is on the Berdichev-Kiev high way. Advances in the past 24 hours gave the Russians complete con trol of a 35-mile sector of the trunk railway line from Leningrad to Odessa as they captured Chern akhov. 12 miles north of Zhitomir, Turchinka and Fassovo, rail sta tions between Korosten and fh rp a t priori 7!hifnrrt!r* Important Thrust In an important thrust south westward at the lower end of this advancing Russian arc the second Ukrainian army captured Skvira, 50-miles southwest of Kiev, termi nus of a short feeder railway into the Kiev-Zhmerinka line. With today’s gains, which in cluded one of the war’s highest one-day totals of recaptured ham lets, the Russians had recaptured in a week of irresistible offensive almost all of the big Kiev bulge which the Germans had painfully W'on in five weeks of bloody coun ter assault beginning in mid-No vember. The Russians onre more, as they had in late November, were threat ening to smash through to the old Polish and Rumanian borders and perhaps even cut off the vast Ger man forces in the Dnieper bend of the southern Ukraine. Nazis Crumbling The powerful Nazi nefpnse belt which the Germans hoped would hold the battle on Soviet soil ap peared to be crumbling fast under the impact of this great display of Soviet offensive power, which was sparked by an appeal to the Red army in its official newspaper Red Star not to let the enemy re form his lines again on Russian territory. Other outstanding developments of a victory-packed day for Rus sian arms, reporten by the Mos (Continucd on Page Five; Col. 5) RETAIL STORES WILL STAY OPEN Merchants’ Association De cides To Remain Open New Year’s Day The postoffice and banks of Wil mington will observe a holiday on New Year’s Day, but retail stores will remain open Saturday, it was announced Wednesday. John A. Sheehan, secretary ot the Retail Merchants association, said merchants have voted to re main open January 1, because stores were closed last Saturday, for the benefit of county shoppers and military personnel at Camp Davis. The postoffice will generally ob serve the holiday and no rural deliveries of mail will be made. City delivery service will be fur nished, and from 10 a. m. to 12 o’clock the general delivery, reg istry, C. O. D. and parcel post windows will be open.
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 30, 1943, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75