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__ » [=z? 1 timimilmt iUnming i’lar "vOL/^—:NO-105- WILMINGTON, N. C., THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1945. FINAL EDITION * .—-— . "5£-- ----— ----- — Marines Overrun Town Of Motoyama On Iwo Other Forces Gain In Push Toward Baltic Reds Consolidating Posi I tions In North; 50 Towns Captured LONDON. Feb. 28.— (Si —The Russians seized the five-way rail road hub of Neustettin in Pomer ania today and gained five to six miles in their drive aimed at cut ting off the Germans in the Bal tic coastal area of Danzig, the Polish Corridor and northeast Pomerania. Unofficial dispatches from Mos | cow said the northward-racing tank spearheads of the Second White Russian Army had reached the coastal highway and railroad which are the last escape routes of the Germans, but the nightly Soviet communique disclosed offi cially no advances narrowing the 22-mile gap which remained after Tuesday's capture of Bublitz and Drawehn. Instead, the communique an nounced capture of more than 50 towns in a general line-straighten ing and solidfying operation along (he 40-mile-wide front of the ad vance, from Schwornigatz, 11 miles north of Chojnice westward to Bublitz. Premier Stalin announced the capture of Neustettin, 88 miles northeast of Stettin, in an order of the day following a German broadcast that the outflanked slrongpoint had been evacuated. The Soviet communique added the capture of Streitzig, two and one half miles west of Neustettin, put ting the Russians out in the open past Neastettin’s difficult position between the Vilm and Streitzig lakes. The east-front spot light contin ued to beat strongly on the So viet offensive in Pomerania, the Moscow communique saying only that on other fronts the Russians had captured half a dozen villages in East Prussia and took another 10 blocks and the suburb of Klein ischank in surrounded Breslau, capital of Lower Silesia. The Germans also placed great est stress on the Pomeranian struggle, broadcasting that the So viet vanguards had reached Poil now, 12 miles north of Bublitz and 16 miles from the Baltic coastal railway, and making no secret of the peril posed for the defense by Marshal Rokossovsky’s rampage toward the sea. mu oesi iace me tsiazts succeed ed putting on the situation was in the broadcast words of a Eer “n military spokesman who said German alarm units were thrown into this critical area and succeeded in holding up some of the Russian infantry forces which were closing up.” ( F'le German communique said hai Rikossovsky had “advanced lar to the north” of Bublitz, his most northerly point of Tuesday, *n said that Soviet tank forces were “strongly backed by infan Apparently the Germans had Jiven up trying to stop the speed g tanks, their communique say [ J? ^ efforts were concentrat inf.® trying ,0 check “part of the try Allowing up the tanks.” \ tvei°SC°-W news disPatches, how Ws Sd,d ‘ke German resistance »eamc!lff^nins a‘ s°me places ; fierceti ,Soviet forces “fighting nr .l • 0 complete encirclement German forces to the east.” that^n3*1, aceounts emphasized dottedhwithUSiht terrain oi forests »arv f akes made it neces roads °r tanks to stick to the •rations meWhat handicapping op Th over6t^ed A‘r force was busy 1116 ‘arks l°nriT gap’ supporting reserve d hamPenng German Gr, .6 tm°verncnts. White Prateglc aim of the Second ‘he L v !3n drive was to cover sianTil0* the first White Rus f°r a y °.n. ‘he central front The r'l. drive towards Berlin, first w lmans hoadcast that the day h'K6, Russi'ans during the on !■ :ldened their brideheads 0 ■1ndcs °f Kuestrin on the lin ■ ' j8 miles east of Ber Forrestal on Iwo lima Secretary of Navy James Forrestal stands ankle deep in the black volcanic sand of Iwo Jima, while Marines were waging their hardest fight in 168 years on this strategic Japanese island 750 miles from Tokyo. (AP Wirephoto from U. S. Navy via Navy Radio). FDR Hopes For A Peace To Permit Disarmament WASHINGTON, Feb. 28.—(A?)—President Roosevelt, back from Yalta, will tell the Nation tomorrow of his hopes for such a secure peace that the victory-bound Allies can gradually cut down their armaments. His hopes extend even to the day—50 or 60 years from now, he BAILEY PLEADS FOR WORK BILL Senator Says Men At Front Should Be Considered Over Labor WASHINGTON, Feb. 28—(UP)— Sen. Josiah W. Ba ley, (D-N. C.) pleaded with his colleagues today to give “our sons in battle a work-or-fight manpower law in stead of the “wait-and-see bill they now are considering. A slender, customarily soft-spok en Southerner, Bailey took the floor during the third day of Senate de bate on the Kilgore substitute man power bill. He bitterly attacked tl>e legislation for having “no work and no fight in it.” He pleaded, ca joled and even threatened his at tentive fellow senators, asking them to throw away the “big words’’ and get down to busi ness. He scorned any further consider ation of the Kilgore Bill providing for surveys to eliminate labor hoarding and waste and giving le gal backing to the War Manpower Commission regulation of labor ceilings. But he boosted the House approved May-E'ailey Bill, which he helped uicm, -.— all men between 18 and 45 into v/ar jobs under penalty of stiff fines and imprisonment. Recalling that the Army and Na vy are for his measure while cap ital and labor favor the Kilgore version, Bailey shouted: “I>d rather please the boys who are fighting than all the labor leaders and capitalists that ever lived.” In sarcastic vein, he read the Kilgore Bill aloud, section by sec tion. He laughed at such phrase ology as "co-ordinate,” "activate,” “co-operate,” "regulate” and sur vey*” ‘Mr. President,” he said. “We propose to win the war with big words. What a picture we make; what,a figure we cut.” “What a word army we are mus tering. That’s throwing the re serves in. That’s meeting the Ger mans and the Japs with all we got. Those words ‘regulate’ and ‘transportate’ will put the fear of God into Hitler’s heart.” And turning to that section which (Continued on Page Three; Col. 2) says—wnen a spim ui peace may embrace Germany and Japan, now reaping the wages of aggression. The President at 12:30 p.m., will go before a joint session of Con gress to report on his victory-and peace mission to the Crimea with Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin. What he says will be broadcast. But Mr. Roosevelt’s report will not tell all. Some understandings reached at the Big Three meet ings in an old Czarist resort on the Black Sea are secret, he said. Whether they involve political or military, or both, is part of the secrecy. It is no secret that the Presi dent exhibited the strongest sort of hope for an increasingly bet ter world to grow out of the suf ferings of this war. He told a miniature news con ference aboard the cruiser that brought him home that the Yalta conference, wherein German downfall and lasting peace were topics, was one of a series of steps toward this better world. To Douglas B. Cornell of the (Continued on Page Two; Col. 2) Half Of Isle Now Held By Leathernecks Gains Range Up To 800 Yards; Foe Gradually Compressed U. S. PACIFIC FLEET HEAD QUARTERS. Guam Thursday March l.—(A>)—Snapping the bat* of Japanese resistance on Iwo Jima three Marine divisions gained sev eral hundred yards all along the line Wednesday and overran -the island's main town of Motoyama. Winning a hold'on more than one half of the island on the 10th day of invasion, the Leathernecks roil ed backward still fiercely resisting Nipponese whose counted dead already totals 4,784. : Gains ranged up to 800 yards, i On the west shore, Maj. Gen. Keller E. Rockey’s Fifth Division, which had been stalled while the other two divisions inched ahead Tuesday, drove northward, paced by tanks. In the center. Maj. Gen. Graves B. Erskine’s Third Division, finally capturing the Japanese fighter air field, plunged past Motoyama town and reached the edge of a third airfield which still was under con struction when the island was in vaded February 19. On the east side, Maj. Gen. Clif ton B. Cates’ Fourth Division hurled back bitterly resisting enemy forces. Adm. Chester W. Nimitz an nounced the progress in a communi que this morning which pointed up the stiff type of fight still raging by reporting enemy prisoners in 9 days total 10—an average of one a day. Warships of the Fifth Fleet, Marine artillery and carrier based planes poured it on the foe but the Japanese still were sending back heavy mortar fire. ine weanesaay oig pusn, one oi the most impressive in more than a week, followed enemy infiltration attempts Tuesday night which were' foiled by the fleet illuminating the scene with star shells. Supporting carrier planes flew north of Iwo and touched off ex plosions at the enemy seaplane base at Chichi in the Bonin Is lands. The Iwo Japanese, fighting from a maze of pillbox and blockhouse defensives and having the ad vantage of higher ground, limited the Marines Tuesday to small gains. Field dispatches indicated the aerial and big gun barrages had done their utmost to tear apart the hundreds of enemy pillboxes and it would take troop assaults to break through the core of en emy resistance. The bitter fight centered round the northern end of the central airfield. Marines holding high ground battled to loose the ene my’s last grip there. They were (Continued on Page Three; Col. 6) Local Veterans’ Agency Praised For Initiative Thirteen members of the Wil mington Veterans’ Service Com mittee heard their group praised for its initiative yesterday after noon by Lt. Col. Thomas H. Upton, State assistant director of Selective Service and key official of the North Carolina Veterans’ Assist ance Program. He went on to outline for them the place of local agencies in State and national planning for returned servicemen and to warn then to forearm against “the quick trans ition from hero to bum”, in the eyes of Ihe public, of veterans re turning alter the novelty has worn off. Representing the State agency authorized in November by Gov. J. Melville Broughton and headed by Brig Gen. J. Van B. Metts, State adjutant general and di rector of Selective Service, Lt. Col. Upton was introduced to the com mittee membership by Henry R. Emory, chairman and representa tive of the City Planning Board. He was accompanied to the meet ing in the Tidewater building by Lt. Col. Hugh L. Caveness, also of the State Selective Service of fice. Pointing out that the committee had followed “Wilmington’s usual procedure of stepping out ahead of anyone else”, he said it had afford ed him pleasure to recognize it in December as the official local vet erans’ agency, despite the fact that authorization for definite action had been dubious at that time. As a preliminary to outlining the functions of local veterans’ agencies, he noted that the con solidated Wilmington group took in the responsibilities of the two committees usually planned for ci ties, one centering its activity around an information center and service clearing house to be oper ated by local selective service boards, the other focusing its ‘‘pressure group” efforts on shap ing public opinion and civic or ganization sympathies toward ser vice to veterans. This latter function, he explain ed, must be carried out with the realization that as the current “dribble” of returning veterans grew to a torrent, spontaneous pub lic inclination to help would vanish, dropping ex-servicemen in the fick le estimate of their fellow citizens from “hero to bum.” Organization must forestall this development, which he called “a natural human (Continued on Page Three; Col. 5) Yanks On Daylight Patrol in Enemy Country Wary as huntsmen stalking dangerous game, innfantrymen of a U. S. Ninth Army patrol move cautiously past the railroad station in Rurich. Germany, their eyes and ears alert and four of them with rifles ready for any sign of the enemy. The fifth man (right) balances a “bazooka”, with which the patrol can throw heavy stuff at some chance tank or maybe a machine-gun. Signal Corps Radiuphoto. U. S. Ships Steam Into Manila Bay; ~~Corregidor Campaign Is Completed COMMONS FAVORS POLISH DECISION Churchill Virtually Upheld Although Final Debate Is To Come LONDON, Feb. 28 — (UP)- The House of Commons today defeated 396 to 25, an amendment by rebel conservatives attacking the Crimea Conference decision on Poland as a violation of the Atlantic Charter and a betrayal of British princi ples. The ballot was in effect a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Churchill’s coalition government. A similar test after the last war de bate resulted in a vote of 340 to 7. It is doubtful now whether a vote will be taken tomorrow on the gov ernment's formal motion for ap proval of all the Crimea decisions. The feeling of the House was clear ly shown cn the Polish issue, the only strongly controversial sub ject to stem from the Crimea Con ference. The revolt within his own party, however, caused Churchill to change the order of the three-day debate on the Crimea Conference, which he opened yesterday with a 10 000-word speech. Foreign Secre tary Anthony Eden, who was to have closed the debate tomorrow, spoke today instead. The Prime Minister himself will give the con cluding argument to the govern ment. Churcniil devoted much of his speech yesterday to justifying the Big Three decision on Poland, and today Eden, the Prime Minister’s closest collaborator and principal (Continued on Page Nine, Col. 5) 4,215 Japanese Bodies Are Counted On Once-For midable ‘Rock’ MANILA, Thursday, March 1.— (/P)—Gen. Douglas MacArthur to day announced the entrance of American shipping into Manila Bay and the end of the Corregi dor campaign just 14 days after paratroopers and infantrymen landed on the fortress island to engage a well-armed enemy dou ble the size of the Yank force. The Americans took “The Rock” at the entrance to Manila Bay in just half the time the Jap anese required to defeat the gal lant defenders under Lt. Gen. Jon athan M. Wainwright in early 1942. A force of 3,038 Americans, landing under fire February 16, avenged that surrender by smash ing approximately 6,000 Japanese. MacArthur termed Corregidor “a strongly-fortified island for tress defended to the point of an nihilation by a well-equipped, fa-1 natical enemy practically double the size of oiir force.” * The Japanese on Corregidor, he said, were reduced in a period of 12 days by a combination of surprise, strategy and fighting technique and skill, perfectly co ordinated with supporting naval and air forces.” American shipping was using Manila harbor today, sailing past the once-formidable “Rock” at the bay’s entrance. MacArthur said 4,215 Japanese bodies had been counted on Cor regidor and many hundred have been sealed in tunnels and caves where they were buried alive or blown to bits as they touched off underground ammunition dumps. (Continued on Page Three; Col. 3) BERLIN POUNDED FOR NINTH NIGHT 6,000 Allied Planes Sweep Germany In 16th Day Of Air Drive LONDON, Feb. 28.— (UP) — Some 6,000 Allied bombers and fighters blasted Germany today through the 16th day of the Al lied day-and-night victory blitz and tonight RAF Mosquitos drop ped 4,000-pound bombs on Berlin for the ninth consecutive night. Eleven hundred American For tresses and Liberators escorted by 600 fighters smashed five Ruhr railway centers and other targets. A "heavy force” of RAF Lancas ters struck a benzol plant near Gelsendkirchen to add to the more than 100,000 tons of bombs cascaded into Germany during February by E'ritain-based planes. The RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force flying from bases in Bel gium and Holland flew 1.100 sor ties, and the U. S. Ninth Air Force flew 1,500 sorties in close support of advancing Allied armies on the Western Front. The Ninth struck the village of Rheydt near Muen chen-Gladbach where some Ger mans were holding cut and the Second TAF destroyed barges the Germans had assembled to with draw across the Rhine. The Eighth Air Force’s 1,700 planes struck the freight yards at Kassel and Soest, 15 miles south east of Hamm; Schwerte and Ha gen, in the southeast corner of the Ruhr near Dortmund, and Siegen, (Continued on Page Three; Col. 4) State Planning Board Urges Creation Of Authority To Develop Local Port The State Planning Board yester day recommended the creation of a North Carolina State Ports au thority with power to issue reve nue bonds, not to exceed $1,000, 000, for the development of the ports of Wilmington, Morehead City and Southport. Establishment of such an au thority, it added, should be ef fected at the current session of the General Assembly. The recommendations, contained in a lengthy report, were given to Governor R. Gregg Cherry yes terday. The Governor and three mem bers of the Planning Board—Act ing Chairman Capus M. Waynick, Managing Director Felix A. Gris sette and Bruce Etheridge, a member—went over the report and r e c o m m e ndations “at some length,” John Harden, executive secretary to the governor, said. Mr. Harden added that a Wil mington delegation will confer with Governor Cherry today. It is expected to go over the report, point by point. This group will include Cyrus D. Hogue, chairman of the Wil mington Port Commission, J. T. Hiers, executive general agent of the commission, City Manager A. C. Nichols, and Addison Hewlett, chairman of the County Commis sioners. Immediate local reaction to the report was that, as a whole, it was sound but there were one or two possibly unfavorable points. Among the most significant proposals in the seven-point pro gram was that “development is sufficiently important and far reaching to become a State under taking rather than a Wilmington project.” The seven recommendations and conclusions given in the report are as follows: “1—Adequate port facilities con stitute a first requirement for the (Continued on Page Two; Col. 4) r --— l First Crosses Erft River At Three Points Enemy Resistance Stiffens Against Canadians In , The North f PARIS, Feb. 28-UP)— Gen. Eisen hower’s rampant Western Front offensive smashed to within 6 1-2 miles of the great industrial city of Cologne today with the U.^a. First Army making three crossings of the shallow Erft river near Modrath. There were indications that the Germans were being forced to withdraw from their positions west of the Rhine as tanks and infan try of Lt. Gen. Hodges’ First Ar my went crashing through the main defenses guarding Cologne and other Allied forces pressed their assault all along the front. The U. S. Ninth Army continued to close around the big railway center of Muenchen-Gladbach, but the exact movements of these troops remained masked behind a security news blackout. Front dis patches said Simpson’s doughboys were advancing with great speed in some places and slowly at oth ers. The Germans threw in King Tiger tanks, their latest and most powerful armor, in an attempt to halt the Americans. Enemy resistance stiffened against the Canadian First Army, which was held to an advance of about a mile in the north. Even so it was reported Field Marshal von Rundsledt had withdrawn some of the German defenders from this end of the front with the obvious intent of trying to bolster the en emy line in the center, where the industrial metropolis of Dues seldorf was being imminently threatened as well as Cologne. “Task Force Church,” the light ning column of infantry and armor which drove 10 miles yesterday in a flanking thrust past Muenchen Gladbach and which threatened to plunge into the heart of .the Ruhr industrial region, was reported to have met stiffening resistance to day. The extent of its progress be yond Waldniel, which it reached last night, was not revealed. jc iguiiiig wda xc^uncu jji pro .gress in the outskirts of Muenchen Gladbach, nine miles from Dues seldorf and probably the biggest German rail hub west of the Rhine As doughboys and armor deep ened the bridgeheads across the Erft and additional forces poured up to the stream on a wide front, indications mounted that the Nazis were making only a rearguard fight before the Rhine and were to tally incapable of halting the pow erhouse American drive. ’ Pilots reported columns of ene ; my transport streaming toward th» ' Rhine and an American officer de ; dared the enemy was withdraw ing his artillery toward the broad stream which guards the heart of , Germany. Thousands of German prisoners • were being taken, all the fight knocked out of them by six days of ceaseless battering. It was the greatest rout since Normandy. There now was nothing between the First Army and fire-blackened Cologne expect open plain. Engi neers worked under fire during the day strengthening bridges across the Erft to carry hundeds of tank* into the fight. The famous First Infantry Divi sion was among units participating in the drive on Cologne, now clear ly within sight of the advancing forces and under heavy fire of American artillery. The Nazis threw three counter attacks against the bridgehead* during the day, but all were re pulsed by First Army infantry, tanks and tank destroyers. Veter an American officers declared Ger man artillery fire against the bridgeheads was the heaviest en-' countered since the present offen sive began. Thousands of German civilian refugees were reported streaming into Duesseldorf ahead of the Ninth Army’s avalanche. More than 30, 000 prisoners had been captured by the American First and Ninth and the Canadian First Armies in their sweeps toward the Rhine. Tank - led- Canadian infantry (Continued on Page Three; Col. I) i
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