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FORECAST ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Served By Leased Wire* 1 Uumttujtmt IHnrmttg mar ^M£ 78.—NO. 152. WILMINGTON, N. C., THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1945_ - ESTABLISHED 1867 Reds Cross EJbe, Drive For Link With Yanks; Doughboys ^ish Within 15 Miles Of Austria; Truman Dedicates Meeting To World Peace f -- — - rJt-—-—-- ^-— ★ * <4* - 46 Nations Open Talks On Security President Addresses Dele gates At San Francisco By Radio SAN FRANCISCO, April 25—(Ah —President Truman opened a con ference of statesmen of 46 United Nations today and solemnly dedi cated them to the task of forg ing a permanent peace, to becom ing the architects of a better world." In a single, succinct sentence the President brought sharply into a_ nliollomfincf nnnnrtnnitv confronting them: "We still have a choice between the continuation of international chaos--or the establishment of a world organization for the enforce ment of peace.” Into an impressive stone build ing, whose flag flew at half staff in honor of the late President Roosevelt, the voice of his succes sor was brought from Washington to launch one of history’s great i international meetings. Other voices were raised in ex | pressions o* confidence and hope —the hope o. a world scourged for years by bursting steel — that delegates from many lands will I weld their polyglot tongues into one mighty voice for enduring tranquility among nations. * | The delegates themselves in San 5 Francisco’s War Memorial Opera ! House appeared grimly determin f ed to succ^d. Prospects for success seemed bright—save for serious Anglo 1 American differences with Russia ; over a new Polish government and giving it representation here in United Nations councils. And there were the inevitable comments 1 when an April sun was lost be hind rain clouds as early comers reached the Opera House. Perhaps in indirect recognition of the Polish threat to unity at the very beginning of the confer ence. Mr. Truman declared: “Differences between men, and between nations, will always re main. In fact, if held within rea sonable limits, such disagreements are actually wholesome. : "All progress begins with dif : ferences of opinion and moves on l ward as the differences are ad jusied through reason and mutual understanding.” The sole objective at San Fran cisco. the President said, is to construct the delegate machinery 'Continued on Page Two; Col. 5) PROPERTY-OWNER BODY IS FORMED Organization Named For ‘Protection And Better ment Of City’ At a meeting of property owners on South Third street between Mar *et and Castle streets, at St. James Parish house last night, Mrs. Walter ft. Marvin was un animously elected president of a newiy-formccl permanent organiza 10n for the “protection and bet | erment' of that section of the tommunity. , ^er officers and directors also “Oanimouslv elected were Col. ^“wrence Simpson. U. S. Army n.glaeers (Ret.), Vice President^ ii * ElllPie Latimer, secretary and treasurer. From Market to Castle, the “»cks are numbered from one to ix with Robert Strange, St. James, and Mrs. Walter William a 1J1 Colonial Dames. Directors for Oloek 1; for Block 2, Emipe Lati W r' Arrlerican Legion home, and , M. Dickson; for Block 3, H. Edmund Rodgers and Mrs. E. Jor r?f; ,r,r B1ook 4, Mrs. David Mur vin Vnd Mrs- WaRer R. Mar ana ,f.lock 5’ Mrs. Isabel Scott for o, ,s Emma Woodward; and Tm ® Waddell Watters and MarreH, it was reported. Slmpson, chairman of the i in k°f,ary organizing committee, samwmilg the aims ol.the or iobs ?,10n’ said that four ma3tr i-enpric616 necessary to prevent a lion of the Chestnut street (Continued on Page Three; Col. 1) Old Glory Flies On Nazi Shrine Carrying two battle-worn American Rags, soldiers of the TJ. S. 45th Division mount the tiers of the Luitpold Arena in Nuernberg, Germany, where Adolf Hitler formerly rallied his Nazi party follow ers by the thousands for his reviews of the army and the Hitler Youth members. (AP Wirephoto from Signal Corps Radiophoto). War Production Let-Up Seen Within Few Months WASHINGTON, April 25—(iP)—A sharp drop in war spending and a let-up in civilian production controls within a few months were predicted today as the United Nations plunged on toward victory in Europe. » Three high government officials painted the brightened domestic picture. 1. Rep. Snyder (D-Pa), chairman of the House subcommittee which handles War Department appropriations, informed President . ___kTmman tnHnv that a rmirlr virtnrv MILITARY CHIEFS, PRESIDENT MEET Truman Becomes First President To Visit Pen tagon Building WASHINGTON, April 25.— UR — President Truman made a mys terious and unprecedented visit to the Pentagon building today to confer with his top military lead ership. There was nothing but silence from the high command partici pants in the one hour, 48-minute conference, but the imminence of a junction of American and Sov iet forces in Hitler’s Reich gave rise to much speculation. The elaborate communications system in the huge war depart ment building, across the Potomac from Washington, would make it possible to bring into the confer ence General Eisenhower or vir tually any other commander in the field. The White House and the War (Continued on Page Seven; Col. 3) in Europe may mean a cut in Army spending amounting to bil lions of dollars next fiscal year as compared to last. 2. War Production Chief Krug estimated that WPB may be able to release 'nearly one-third of its controls on industry in the next four months. (Continude on Page Three; Col. 2) -—V Giant Aircraft Carrier, *Franklin D. Roosevelt/ Will Be Launched Sunday WASHINGTON, April 25.—W— A giant aircraft carrier to be launched at the New York Navy yard Sunday has been re-named the "Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” The 45,0000 ton vessel, sister ship of the Midway launched last month at Newport News, Va., will be sponsored by Mrs. Roosevelt. In an unprecedented move the Navy assigned the name of the late President to the carrier as a token of honor for his long and intimate association with the Naval service It will be the first carrier to bear the name of an individual The vessel originally was as signed the name* of "Coral Sea ” in recognition of the battle which occurred , in that area in May, 1942. City Discards Rating System For Employes The City Council yesterday abolished the employe merit-rat ing system it authorized in 1943 on the theory that it was the wrong grading method. At the same time, the municipal body followed through on the rec ommendation by Councilman Rob ert S. LeGwin that a new type of system, evolved by himself and Robert R. Romeo, be presented at the group’s next meeting for “con sideration and action.” The committee was named to consider a new method of grading the efficiency of City employes shortly after the Council forward ed a recommendation for promo tion of two firemen to the City Civil Service Commission, it was learned yesterday. The three councilmen, who vot ed on this action, gave little dis cussion to the matter yesterday, but it had been understood from in dividual city employes that the ef ficiency #rating system was not entirely satisfactory with them. Mayor W, Ronald Lane, Garlaa^l S. Currin’ and Mr. LeGwin voted to discard the present system. Other councilmen were absent. Wilmington policemen and fire men were members of the first City departments to receive the grades they had been given by (Continued on Page Ten; Col.’5) U. S. Troops Hit Mantova, Nearing Alps Yank Fifth Army Reaches Area 25 Miles From Foothills ROME, April 25.—WPj-U. S. Fifth Army troops today reached the area of Mantova (Mantua), 25 miles from the foothills of the Alps, taking thousands of prisoners as the routed Germans fled pell mell towards Hitler’s mountainous retreat. The First French army mean while drove a wedge two miles wide and five miles deep into Italy in the Maritime Alps 25 miles north of Nice. Both the Fifth and the British Eighth Army were pushing swiftly northward from the Po river. Man tova is seven and one-half miles north of the Po and 36 miles north of Modena. A special Allied communique an nouncing the pursuit, said* “Every road is jammed with the retreating enemy, who is using not only horses but oxen, cows and human beings to draw his trans port. The desert air force reports seeing 300 enemy vehicles set on fire by the Germans south of the Po. Thousands of prisoners of war and vast quantities of every type of equipment continue to be taken by our forces.” (Swiss press reports relayed by the U. S. Office of War Informa tion said the Germans had aban doned Milan, that Italian patriots had occupied part of Genoa, and that Benito Mussolini had fled his Villa east of Milan after telling his staff that the war was lost, that it was only a quesion ‘‘of days, perhaps weeks, but it is lost.”) The Eighth Army, whose New Zealand infantry and third battalion of grenadier guards were the first to cross the Po, reported capture of Lt. Gen. Graf von Schwerin, commander of the 76th Panzer Corps, along with his staff, by the British 27th Lancers. The Fifth Army’s 88th Division, led by Maj. Gen. Paul W. Ken dall of Palo Alto, Calif., captured Maj. Gen. Schellwitz, commander of the German 305th Division. Allied planes steadily strafed and bombed the fleeing Germans while tank forces eliminated trapped pockets of the enemy. Substantial gains up the west coast of Italy were reported by American troops moving toward the big port of Genoa, 53 airline miles beyond capured La Spezia. A security blackout still prevent ed disclosure of where the two Allied armies crossed the Po but they were known to have been massed along the south bank of the (Continued on Page Two; Col. 2) Yanks Within 76 Miles Of Nazi Retreat Seventh Breaks Enemy Positions, Is 45 Miles From Munich PARIS, Thursday, April 26.—OP) —U. S. Third Army tanks punch ed within 15 miles of the German Austrian border last night as other American and French forces raced almost "unchecked across southern Germany, threatening Munich and Hitler’s Berchtesgaden retreat, which the RAF attacked yesterday with 12,0000 - pound “earthquake” bombs. The Third Army spearhead, al ready east of Berlin although 250 miles to the south, cut the last direct route to the Nazis’ so-called national redoubt by mopping up the rail and highway center of Regen and then drove straight for the frontier of Austria at Passau. This column was 76 miles north of Berchtesgaden. To the west the American Sev enth Army broke through German positions and fanned out on an 80 mile front along or across the Danube river within 45 miles of Munich and the French First Army completely smashed Germany’s Veteran 19th Army in the Black Forest. The Allied armies—estimated at nearly 400,000 men and thousands of tanks—were charging into the Alpine foothills along a 200-mile front in a determined effort to crush any last-ditch .Nazi stand in the southern redoubt before it coyld get started. Resistance at most points was extremely light, bearing out an official announcement from Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters that “the German Army has ceased to exist as an integrated fighting force.” An Associated Pres field dispatch declared that the encirclement of Munich, birthplace of the Nazi party, was shaping up swiftly. Leading the rapid surge of Allied forces today was the 11th armored division of Geri. George S. Pat ton’s Third Army, which stabbed 18 miles southeast beyond captur ed Regen to a point only 15 miles from the Austrian border and 76 miles due north of Berchtesgaden. Striking ahead of the advanc ing armies, two waves of British Lancasters escorted by fighters deluged the entire Berchtesgaden area with six-ton bombs, many of whose fuses were set to explode at a great depth in underground emplacements, One w'as seen to score a direct hit on Hitler’s cha let. There was no official suggestion that the bombing was a direct at tempt on Hitler’s life, but unoffi cially an allied spokesman pointed (Continude on Page Three; Col. 2) Gerdes Is Renamed Head Of Wilmington Red. Cross At the annual meeting of the Wilmington chapter of the Ameri can Red Cross yesterday, Chair man J. Henry Gerdes was re elected for the following year Other selected were E. A. Laney vice-chairman; Mrs. J. B. Sidbury secretary; L. D. Latta, treasur er; and Mrs. Harriss Newman, as sistant treasurer. Directors elected to serve three years were Paul Wilson, Mrs. Har riss Newman, J. Henry Gerdes Mrs. J. K. Wise, Mrs. J. B. Sid bury, Mrs. Lawrence Sprunt, L. A Raney, E. A. Laney, C. McD Davis, Bishop Thomas C. Dars and Charles D. Parmele. Elected to serve two years fill ing the unexpired term of B. B Cameron was Mrs., Graham Ke nan. Members at* large choser were Mrs. W. A. Dick, Mrs. J. D Freeman, Mrs. George L. Mitchell Walker Taylor, Robert Strange Paul Wilson, Alex Sprunt and H Edmund Rodgers. It was recommended and ap proved that the chairmen of Hom< Service, Volunteer Special Serv ices and Junior Red Cross serve on the Executive Committee bj virtue of their positions. By-laws were amended to permit this. Gerdes revealed that during the past War Fund Drive $127,604.75 was. received with' approximately -7,000 in pledges to be collected. The goal was $88,000. Of this 68 per cent will go to the national organisation and the remainder stayin this area. Robert Strange, chairman of the ' War Fund drive was presented a certificate of honor for his work. In expressing his feeling he said that he “was'more indebted to the Red Cross than the Red Cross was to him.’’ The type of work to be carried out by the American Red Cross at Camp Davis was outlined by Field ■ Director Harold Arnoff. Arnoff, who is stationed at ' Camp Davis, told the group that the primary job to be done there by the Red Cross was one of sup 1 plying the men with recreation. In this respect he pointed out that there were men at the camp rep ■ presenting all theaters of war, in dicating that the work is one of re habilitation. At present the Red Cross has : a staff of 14 workers at the camp, the field director said, and it is hoped that a staff of 60 profession al workers can be secured. Forty five of this number may be girls, he added. • (Continued on Page Two; Col. 1) Hitler ’sA IpineHome Wrecked By RAF Raid Berchtesgaden Retreat Obliterated, Return ing Bombardiers Say; Six-Ton Bombs Shatter Eagle’s Nest LONDON, Thursday, April 26.— WP)—Adolf Hitler's chalet near Berchtesgaden was obliterated and the adjoining weird “Eagle’s Nest” fortress was damaged yesterday by more than 350 RAF heavy Lan casters which raided, the mountain retreat for the first time in an ap parent attempt on the Fuehrer’s life. The big barracks of Hitler’s bodyguard, munitions stores, and the whole fabulous establishment from which the Nazi overlord once ruled German Europe were smash ed by the six-ton British bombs while American Eighth and Ninth Air Force planes by the hundreds ravaged selected targets through put the Berchtesgaden area. Simultaneously the Eighth Air Force hurled more than 300 Flying Fortresses at the Skoda munitions works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, advertising the devastating attack in advance with a radio warning to slave laborers to flee from that last great Nazi war plant. Whether Hitler was at the sump tuous Berghof chalet or inside the almost-impregnable Kehlstein fort ress was not known, but returning fliers left no doubt that the two story chalet had been wiped off the face of the earth by a direct hit of a 12,000-pouad bomb, and said delayed-action bombs of the same great weight had buried themselves deep in the Kehlstein (hollow^tone) mountain of the Eagle’s Nest. The nest itself, with a roof 17 yards square protruding above the mountain peak, apparently was straddled but not squarely hit. German radio propagandists in (Continued on Page Two; Col. 4) 21,269 Japanese Die In Okinawa Fighting GUAM, Thursday, April 26—(2P)—The first general advance on the fiery southern Okinawa battlefront since the all-out offensive began just a we^ek ago was reported by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz today. The communio.ue reported 21,269 Japanese had been killed and 399 prisoners taken In the 25-day Okinawa campaign as of yesterday. By midnight last Sunday, American casualties were 7,424—1,146 dead, 5,982 wounded and 296 missing. The ratio of nearly 20 Japanese killed for every American was the best for any major invasion of the Pacific war. The Iwo Jima U. S. COMPLETING MINDANAO DRIVE Yanks Push Within 2,000 Yards Of Shattered Summer Capital MANILA, Thursday, April 26.— (^—Mindanao, last large Philip pine island in Japanese hands, is passing swiftly into American control. Maj. Gen. R. B. Wood ruff’s 24th Division veterans rc led to within 57 road miles of D-/ao Tuesday. By far the toughest of many fights in the islands was that around Baguio, where the Yanks were pushing down highway No. 9 from the northwest to within 2,000 yards of the center of the shattered summer capital on north Luzon. Guerrillas on northern Luzon have captured the good port ot Vigan, its adjacent airfield and the city of Bantay Nearoy, and are clearing the entire province of Ilocos Sur of Japanese, Gen. Douglas MacArthur reported to day. Vigan was one of the original Japanese invasion po nts in 1942. Far to the south on Mindanao island, meantime, 24th Division Doughboys, with strong air sup port, advanced 16 miles along a fair highway to within 45 miles of Davao, one of the major ports oi the Philippines. (Continued on Page Seven; Col. 5) aeaxnraxxo was aDoux a xo i. xne Japanese count on Okinawa cov ered nearly three days more fight ing than did the American toll. Yanks of Maj. Gen. John R. Hodge’s 24th Army corps, which included the Seventh, 27th and 96th Divisions, captured the village of Kakazu in the center of the stub bornly-held line on southern Okin awa and seized an important strong point at hill 168 on the east coast. Japanese defenses around the town and airfield of Yonabaru on the east coast were being reduc ed by Naval gunfire and low-level plane raids as the infantrymen ad vanced. Nimitz in his summary of ene my casualties on Okinawa, where (Continued on Page Seven; Col. 6) -V Court Writ Enroute To Philippe Petain Ordered By France PARIS, April 25.—UR—A court writ addressed to Philippe Petain summoning him to Paris to answer charges of “Plotting against the state’’ was enroute tonight to a Swiss frontier point where the silver-haired Marshal is expected to re-enter France. The document was carried by a court official. It was tlie first for mal step to bring back Petain, who reached Switzerland from Germany yesterday offering to re turn to France for trial. For reasons of national security his return is being shrouded in the greatest secrecy but it is un derstood the formalities will be completed tomorrow and Petain will then be arrested by French border guards and brought into French territory. Edouard Herriot Freed From Nazi Camp By Reds LONDON, April 25—(iP)—Portly Edouard Herriot, three times pre mier of France who was thrown into a German concentration camp in 1942 after criticizing Marshal Petain’s collaboration policies, has been liberated by the Russians, the Soviet communique announced tonight. No details were given of the liberation of the 72 - year - old Frenchman who was serving as president of the Chamber of Depu ties in the Vichy government when his blunt protest at a decree by Pierre Laval was followed by an nouncement of his arrest. Three times he was reported dead—once by the German news agency DNB—and each* time back came other reports that the sturdy head of the French Radical-Social ists survived. Exact location of the camp from which he was liberated was not given, the Russian communi que saying only that “west of Ber lin troops of the First Ukrainian front freed from German captiv ity the former Prime Minister of the French Republic Herriot.” Son of a poor policeman, Her riot was elected mayor of the im portant industrial city of Lyons at 33 and has held the post con tinuously since, being last re-elect (Continued on Page Seven; Col. 8) Soviet Units Have Circled Nazi Capital 500,000 German Troops Reported Trapped In Wrecked City LONDON, Thursday, April S6.-« (/P)—Doomed Berlin was complete* ly encircled by two mighty Soviet armies and as the Russians fought through subways and streets to ward the city’s blazing heart, Red Army spearheads to the south west swarmed across the Elbe river toward an imminent link-up with American forces. Perhaps 500,000 Nazi troops were trapped in the historic encircle ment of the wrecked capital, and late German broadcasts reported that massed waves of Soviet armoT had smashed through jungles of twisted steel and stone and had reached the “center” of the half conquered city. There was a possibility that Adolf Hitler and Nazi Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels had been caught in the Red Army trhp at Berlin. Throughout last night the Hamburg radio—principal Nazi station still operating—began ev ery report with the slogan: “The Fuehrer is in Berlin.” No less momentous than Pre mier Stalin’s triumphant announce ment of Berlin’s encirclement — three years and 10 months after Hitler’s legions invaded the So viet Union June 22, 1941—was the Soviet high command’s disclosure that Bed Army forces were pour ing across the Elbe, There, in the narrowing waist of Hitler’s “Fortress Europe”, Mar shal Ivan S. Konev’s First Ukrain ian Army surged across the water barrier and captured the west bank fortress of Reisa, 22 miles northwest of the Saxony capital of Dresden. These forces were 22 miles west of American positions on the Mulde river — but only 18 miles from German-reported Am erican bridgeheads across the Mulde. German broadcasts said that Konev’s troops had reached the Elbe on a 24-mile front between „ Reisa and Torgau and indicated that Russian engineers were pour ing men across the Elbe along the entire sector at points less than 17 miles from the Americans. On top of these victories on the central front, Marshal Alexander Vasilenvsky’s Third White Russian Army captured the East Prussian port of Pillau and cleared the east ■ Prussian mainland of the last Ger man hold-out troops. Far to the south, Marshal Rodion Y. Malinovsky’s Second Ukrainian Army was fighting in the outskirts of the Czechoslovak arsenal city of Bruenn (Brno), one of Hitler's last war production centers, after capturing the suburbs of Lisen, Cernovice and Prizrenice on the east and south. The Moscow radio, meanwhile, announced that nearly 2,000,000 German troops had been killed or captured on the Eastern Front nlnnn T nnl in r-TT 1 vqieirirf VYI nV* than 11,000,000 the vast toll of Ger man casualties announced by the (Continued on Page Three; Col. ■) -V German Officer Appeals Over Luxembourg Radio For Nazis To Surrender LONDON, April .25.'— UP) —Lt. Gen. Heinrich Kirchheam in a Luxembourg Radio broadcast to night appealed to the German high command to “make the Fuehrer cease fighting at once” Because “the waf is irrevocably lost.” He was the first high rank ing German officer captured by the Americans to make such an ap peal. Directing his remarks to chief of staff field Marshal Wilheilm Keitel, but privately admitting he thought the effect “very doubtful,’’ Kirch heim said: “You, Field Marshal Keitel, are the Fuehrer’s highest military ad viser. It is your duty to stop this senseless slaughter of our youth and destruction of our last cities. You must succeed in making rea son conquer against military ama teurs and make the Fuehrer cease fighting at once. i -5 -*
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
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April 26, 1945, edition 1
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