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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 1944)
Canucks and British Add Weight to Paris Drive ARMORED FORCES Weather Forecast: Partlr cloudy to night and UXIncsdav, with Mattered thunder norms and showers In mountains. I.lttle change In temperature. Temp. Highest yesterdnv 8 Lowest tills morning 49 Medford 3 1 MBUNE CRASH DEEP INTO CAEN AREA LIO Tremendous Rolling Barrage Precedes Attack; Yankees Converge on Le Mans. United Prut Full Leased Wire United Press Full Leased Wit Thirty-ninth Year MEDFORD, OREGON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1944 NO. 117. American Troops Receive Ovation . , ... ,JL ( v4rm Rndio-Telephoiof French civilians oj liberated Rennes. provisional capital of Brittany, give American armored columns a tumultous ovation as they pour through the city in pursuit ol swiftly retreating German occupation army which had held the people in bondage-for I:ur years. Photo by NEA-Acme stall photographer Andy Lopes lor War Picture PooL I1PAMRF Tfil n Ji II I lii-UL. I ULL By United Press Premier Gen. Kuniaki K0I50 warned the Japanese people to day that Japan faced 'difficul ties of unprecedented serious ness" as further Allied progress was reported through Ihe Pa cific. Koiso's message, broadcast by the Domei News Agency and re corded by the United Press in San Francisco, cited the Amer ican occupation of the Marianas as "an attempt to obtain a quick decision in the war and presents the appearance as if to strike at our homeland in a single blow." Advance In Guam On Guam, American forces' with air support struck three miles northward in a day to squeeze Japanese defenders into a tiny area at the northern end. A communique from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz revealed that carrier aircraft bombed and strafed Japanese Sunday on Mount Santa Rose, one of the last two remaining elevations on which the enemy could mount defense bastions. Nimitz announced that navy and army Liberators continued attacks in the Carolines and nearby enemy bases Friday and Saturday. In the southwest Pacific, the far eastern air force was be lieved to have successfully com pleted an intensive two-months campaign to neutralize Yap isl and in the western Carolines. American forces continued counter-attacks against Japanese forces trapped on British New Guinea and the total enemy death toll in the campaign was estimated at nearly 6000. Allied planes were disclosed to have sunk a 1300-ton freighter transport at the Banda islands south of Coram in the Dutch East Indies. Pvt. Stanley Morgan In Hawaii Hospital Pvt. Stanley Clyde Morgan, wounded during the battle of Kninnn In its latter stapes, is now In an army hospital in Hawaii, according to information re ceived by his grandmother, Mrs. Tessie Morgan, and a brother, Richard Morgan, of 850 King street. Pvt. Morgan has been awarded the Purple Heart medal. The serviceman has been in the army abeut a year and a half and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. F. N. Morgan, Lakevicw. He had been serving with a medical corps unit. SIDE GLANCES By TRIBUNE REPORTERS Roy ("Noah") Hockathorn busily at work constructing a boat in his Haven street home garage. Medford Conch-Elect Al Simp son scouring the city in search of a domicile. Annis Scripter almost but not quite making the sale of a well viewed dress. -. Giant, Armored Trucks Take British Into German Lines With the British and Canadians Advancing Beyond Caen, Aug. 8 (U.R) The big bombers faded away in the darks and streams of colored tracer shells spurted across No-Man's Land. Then the British and Canadian? rolled out their secret weapon giant, armorplated lorries jam-packed with assault infantry. The big break-through was on. Down highways marked off; on either side by streaks of bril liant tracers, the armored lorries smashed through the enemy; lines, unloading their cargoes of tough fighting men deep inside the German positions to rip and disorganize the foe. Surprise for Nazis Engineers had been busy for days preparing the lorries and they came as a complete sur prise to the Germans. A surprise also was the method of guiding them by tracers, as pathfinders guide the big bombers in the air. The lorries followed the first wave of tanks. They swept up to the battlcfront directly from the machine shops where they had been fitted with special ar mor, paused to take on their loads of infantrymen, and then rolled on across the bomb-pocked pathway carved by the bombers which had just dropped 6000 tons in the biggest tactical bomb ing of the war. They came up to the front un der heavy camouflage and the enemy could not have known about them until his machinegun and artillery shells were bounc ing 'harmlessly off the plated monsters. OPEN NEXT WEEK Packing plants of the city and valley are scheduled to start op erations for the season next Tuesday, with most of them run ning by Thursday. Picking of Bartletts will start next Monday in some orchards, and be general by mid-week. Clarence Pankey of the Reter Fruit company re ports a fair crop, with good size and quality He also states that as a result of a campaign waged by growers there is less scab than last year and the year be fore. , Wages in orchards and pack ing plants, under an OPA ruling, will be the same as last year, it is reported. SCORCHING EARTH Moscow, Aug. 8 (U.R) The Germans burned houses, farms and other installations along the East Prussian frontier today in the first application of the scorched earth policy to their "holy" soil as Red armies closed in along a 215-mile arc. Two more Russian armies the 1st Baltic and 2nd White Russian were revealed to have Joined In the mounting battle for East Prussia as Gon. Ivan D. Chcrniakhovsky's 3rd White Russian a;my bogged down five to 10 miles from the border In the face of heavy resistance from reinforced Nazi troops. in Rennes EIGHTH AND NAZIS IN FURIOUS FIGHT ON BANK OF ARNO Rome, Aug. 8 (U.R) Eighth army troops pushing to the southern bank of the Arno river five miles southeast of Florence, encountered strong German po sitions today, and were locked at once in furious battle. In the southern suburbs, other British soldiers prepared for a final assault against the ancient city. While allied patrols crossed the Arno east and west of Flor ence in advance of the Impend ing battle, an estimated 100,000 refugees crowded in the British and German held sections of the city imperturbably carried on a normal routine. Despite the German shelling of southern Florence, Italian families carry ing market baskets thronged the streets. British forces, trying to ex tend their holdings on the south ern bank of the Arno before launching the push aimed at driving the enemy northward to his gothic line, were held up at a hill known as Point 557. Germans there fought desper ately against being driven back against the southern bank of the Arno. At that point there were no significant changes in the lines, and the balance of the sector stretching from Florence to the Tyrrhenian sea was generally quiet. . LIEUT. BEASLEY LISTED MISSING Second Lt. Harry M. Beasley, bombardier of a B-17, has been declared missing in action over enemy territory in Europe, ac cording to Information -oceived by his wife, the former Barbara Schmidt, Riverside, Cal and his parents-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Schmidt, 325 West Fourth street, Medford. Lt. Beasley had been In England since March and In the last letter from the officer, dated July 20, he stated that he had just returned from his fourth mission, with the plane full of flak hdles and one dead motor. Lt. Beasley had been In serv ice since October of 1941. gradu ating as a bombardier from the Carlsabd. N. M., field. He later trained at Alexandria, La., leav ing there for England Before entering the service he was em ployed by Fluhrer's bakery. Mrs. Beasley is emploved at a post exchange at March Field, near Riverside. INTERVENTION IN TRUCKER STRIKE BELIEVER LIKELY Roosevelt May Act to Halt Walkout of 50,000 Driv ers and Freight Handlers. By United Press Presidential intervention was considered likely to be the next step today in a strike of an esti mated 50,000 truck drivers and freight handlers in the midwest as an army officer reported that the labor dispute was interfer ing with the movement of war materials at Omaha and Min neapolis. The strikers, members of the General Drivers' Union (AFL), were protesting against the re fusal of more than 100 motor freight companies to grant a 7 cent hourly wage increase or dered by the War Labor Board. War Goods Bogged The strikers, by agreement with the army, promised to keep vital war materials moving, but Major Alec Baxter, chief of the highway branch of the army transportation corps at Chicago, said the movement of war goods was "bogging down in the Oma ha and Minneapolis sections" be cause operators did not want trucks to leave the terminals. Meanwhile, at Philadelphia, two of four employes of the P h 1 1 a d e 1 p h n a Transporta tion company, who were dis missed "for cause" during their alleged leadership of the six-day transit strike which ended there yesterday, faced military Induc tion after cancellation of their I occupational deferments. The other two are over mjjitary age, but all four are under bond Im posed after their arrest during the strike. Return Ordered ' At Cleveland, the regional WLB directed the return to work of striking members of the United Automobile Workers' Union (CIO) at the National Sup ply company, Toledo, O. About 1400 workers have been on strike since last Friday. At Montreal, the strike of 4000 tramway company employes en tered its sixth day with no set tlement in sight. An estimated 800 to 1000 workers failed to report for the day shift of two plants of the Wright Aeronautical corporation today at Paterson, N. J. TIREDlllRAL TAKES OWN LIFE Washington, Aug. 8 (U.R) Secretary of Navy James Forres tal announced today that Rear Admiral Don P. Moon, command er of a task force In the invasion of Normandy, committed suicide on Saturday, ' apparently as a result of combat fatigue " Moon, 50-year-old native of Kokomo, Ind., commanded na val forces on the east face of the Cherbourg peninsula In the Inva sion operation under Rear Ad miral Alan G. Kirk. He carried out one of the most successful of the beachhead landings. He Is survived by the widow, Mrs. Sybil H. Moon, of Arling ton, Va., and two children, Don P. Moon, Jr., and a daughter, Miss Meredith W. Moon. NAZIS POUNDED BY BIG BOMBERS London, Aug. 8 (U.R) More than 600 American heavy bomb ers pounded enemy troop con centrations in support of the all out Allied offensive in the Caen sector today, while about 400 other Flying Fortresses and Lib erators attacked enemy air dromes and flying bomb instal lations in northern France. During the shattering aerial assault to flast a way for ad vancing Canadians south of Caen, the Americans dropped more than 20.000 100 pound fragmen tation bombs on German troops who were still dazed from the 6000-ton RAF bomber command attack only 13 hours earlier. POW's at Ft. Ord Forced to Refill 120-Foot Tunnel Fort Ord, Calif., Aug. 8 (U.R) An undetermined ' number of German prisoners of war at tempted unsuccessfully to es cape from the Fort Ord stockade by digging a tunnel from the recreational hall to a point out side the enclosure, Maj. Karl F. Bichler, commander of the camp, announced today. The tunnel was discovered prior to its completion, and the prisoners of war who had dug it were assigned to refill it. Major Bichler said the pris oners had been working on the tunnel for "some time." Using a short-handle shovel and a hoe. The tunnel's total length was 120 feet, and it averaged two and one-half square feet. The dirt shaft was supported by lengths of rough lumber. MCNAIR SON ALSO DIES IN SERVICE Washington, Aug. 8 (U.R) The War Department today sought further details of the death on Guam of Col. Douglas McNair, 37, son of the late Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair. News of Col. McNair's death was received only a few days after the announcement that his father, who had just relinquish ed command of the army ground forces, had been killed by an American bomb In Normandy. Santa Barbara, Cal., Aug. 8 U.R) Shocked at the double tragedy which struck the fam ily during the past month, Mrs. Frieda McNair, widow of Col, Douglas McNair, remained in seclusion at her Hope ranch home today with her 10-months- old daughter, Bonnie Claire, . Washington, Aug. 8 (U.R) Close friends of Clare Huster McNair, who had to face the deaths of her husband and her only son In battle a few days apart, said today that she was taking the double loss "like the good soldier she is. Mrs. McNair, who has been active in Red Cross and other home front war activities, was notified yesterday of the death of her son, Col, Douglas Mc Nair, 37, In action on Guam. Her husband, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, was killed by an American bomb in Normandy two weeks ago. TO BERLIN By United Press The shortest distance to Berlin from advanced allied lines today: Russia 328 miles (gain of two miles In one week.) Italy 604' miles (gain of three miles In one week.) France 623 miles (un changed for week.) American Blitz Toward Paris Reminds Of German Drive Which Took France By Ralph Helnien UP Staff Correspondent Cincinnati, O., Aug. 8. (U.R) There's a remarkable parallel between the smashing American blitz toward Paris and the Ger man blitz of 1040 that tumbled France In 45 days. Indeed, lt is the same thing In reverse. Both are overwhelming tank operations In which the break through permits a swift, deep penetration that plays havoc with the costliest and best laid defense. There's a parallel, too, be tween the swift capture by the allies of key points behind Hit ler's Atlantic wall which his Todt organization built In three years at a cost of $30,000,000 out of the French taxpayers' pockets and the turning of the $50,000,000 Maginot line by the Germans In 1040. Took 43 Days Forty-five days after the Ger mans broke Into the tank coun try of north France in 1940, France surrendered. The Ameri cans broke into tank country on July 25. Tho terrain from Normandy, Brittany, or tho Loire valley to Paris is perfect tank country. It's hilly, but smooth with roll ing, green fields interspersed with forests and excellent na tional roads. It Isn't greatly dif ferent from the Ardennes and Somme valley country where Reichenaa'i tanks smashed the C"cvf If All I ft hr. . u$ - j- lis it f 4 fo&ii (Acme Tehphato) Pretty Jnne Churchill, Kansas City, Mo,, socialite and third cousin ol Britain's prime minister, sent Holly wood actor Jon Hall back to apart-, ment of bandsman Tommy Dorscy (or her purse, which resulted In bat Uft that sent Hall to hospital. BLAZE DESTROYS Fire early today destroyed the jemnjl sawmill of H, F. Swingle Xil Trail, but pumpers irom me Rogue River National Forest Service and the state forest pa trol prevented its spread to near by fields and forest land Cause of the fire was unknown. The mill ws located about six miles from Trail on the old Tiller-Trail road. The blaze broke out about 8:15 a. m., shortly after workers had arrived to fire up for the day's run, and the forest pumpers were summoned from Medford about 9 a. m. The mill was to tally destroyed, but lumber and logs were saved, it was reported. It was thought that machinery could be salvaged. Telephone connections to the mill were out and no figures on the loss were obtainable from Mr. Swingle. At the Medford office of the Rogue River Forest Service it was said that three small fires, reported yesterday In the Union Creek district, were thought to be holdovers from the Ust elec trical storm. French army to bits and made tho 45-day conquest of 1940 pos sible. The new battle for Paris rcal fy is being fought in western Normandy where four German panzer divisions counter-attacked yesterday. If we win that bat tle finally there should be no further difficulties in reaching Paris within a matter of weeks. There's really no defendable line between the present American positions and Paris. Can Deiend Paris Paris can be defended If the Germans decide to risk the de struction of the city. In 1871 Paris resisted the besieging Prussian armies for many bitter and hungry months. I remember the French gov ernment's last day In Paris, June 10, 1940. The previous evening Propaganda Minister Jean Prou vost, the owner of Franco's big gest daily newspaper, the Paris Solr, told the American corres pondents: "Paris will bo defend ed from house to house, from street to street, from roof to roof." It sounded nice, but we all knew Premier Paul Rcynaud had assembled cars that very evening to take the whole gov ernment and the ministers and their wives and sweethearts to Tours. Prouvost'i good Intentions really were bravado. Certainly they didn't make military sense because Generalissimo Mnxime Weygand, as supreme allied com NAZIS HANG EIGHT RANKIN. OFFICERS FOR CONSPIRACY Sentence Carried Out Two Hours After Court Con fession in Murder Try. London, Aug. 8. (U.R) Eight high German officers involved In the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20 and overthrow his Nazi regime were hanged to day only two hours after sen tence of death had been passed on them by the provincial court in Berlin following a sensation al two-day trial. Berlin announced officially that the eight men were sen tenced to dca'th for "honorless ambition, for high treason and treachery." Abrupt Ending The trial came to an abrupt end today after the eight made a "confession" of their guilt and official German accounts indi cated that the conspirators, in cluding a field marshal and three generals, had been hanged pub licly. The condemned traitors were Field Marshal Erwin von Witz leben, who, according to some German accounts, directed the anti-Hitler conspiracy; Col. Gen. Hoeppncr, Maj. Gen. Stieff, Lt. Gen. von Hase, Lt. von Hagen, Lt. Col. Bernardis, Capt, Fried- rich Klausing, and Lt. Count York von Wartcnburg. The "confessions" came at the close of a carefully staged two day trial in the plenary cham ber of the provincial court in Berlin, where a hand-picked tri bunal of Nazi judges and Ger man general staff officers heard a damning indictment that charged the eight officers with attempting to murder Hitler on July 20 in order to take over tho government and sue for peace with the allies. In addition to the eight ex ecuted, the army court expelled the following from the army: General of Communications Troops Frllgicbcl, Maj. Gen. von Trcsckow, Col. Hansen, Maj. Haycsscn, Lt. (retired) Count von dcr Schulenbcrg. The expulsion and death sen tences were carried out at the same time, the Transocean news agency said. The alleged testimony Indi cated that as far back as Feb ruary, 1043, tho plot against Hit ler was brewing, and that by the end of that year negotiations were underway among the group to actually carry out the attempt on the fuehrer's life. Soldiers customarily are ex ecuted by the firing squad and death by hanging is employed only for the lowest criminals. mander, had told the govern ment that Paris couldn't be de fended even if every house was used to shelter snipers. Wey gand told Rcynaud that any army with a hundred bombers and a thousand tanks could cap ture Paris in 24 hours despite any defense but would destroy the city in doing so. That same formula stands today 100 bombers and 1000 tanks and Paris lost In flames if it li de fended. Pari. Rail Hub Paris Is militarily important, however, and beyond the morale building aspect of Its recapture. All railroads have their termi nals in Paris. None runs through. They are linked by a belt line which our bombers have cut often In past months. By taking Paris, the allies would immediately cut the five main French railroad systems. One of the most dramatic yet hopeless, costly, and futile pha ses of the war was the 1940 flight from Paris. I closed the United Press bureau and follow ed the government to Tours on June 10th, about 12 hours after the government fled. I drove 100 miles through roads packed solidly with humanity. All Paris fled tho approaching Nails, either afoot or In automobiles and on bicycles. The flight block ed the French army's retreat and permitted the Germans to cap ture more than a million French prisoners. Supreme Headquarters, AEP, Aug. 8 (U.R) Two Canadian and British armies, striking be hind a tremendous rolling bar rage of aerial bombs and artil lery fire, crashed deep into tha German battle lines below Caen in a full-scale drive on Paris to day, while American flying col umns from Brittany converged! on Le Mans, little more than 100 miles from the French capital. At both ends of the twistina; 100-mile front Allied armored forces were tearing to shreda the long-prepared German de fenses barring the western and southwestern roads to Paris. Left Flank Falters The enemy's left flank already was disintegrating under tha lightning thrusts of Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's American tanks and mechanized infantry, and the right flank below Caen appeared to have been gravely menaced by the new Canadian British offensive. The main Allied power ap parently was concentrated on the Caen sector, where tha Canadian first army pushed off shortly after midnight this morn ing and advanced almost four miles on both sides of the Caen Falaise highway in the first few hours. All Initial objectives wera taken In the opening phase of: the attack, and front reports In dicated the Canadians still wera pounding ahead against strong enemy opposition. Planes Add Havoc Massed Canadian and British guns poured murderous shellflra Into the German lines, whila wave upon wave of Allied war planes streaked In' over tha charging troops to spray tha Nazi defenders with bombs and gunfire. More than 600 American heavy bombers hit the enemy's front line positions shortly after mid-day, splattering 20,000 100 pound fragmentation lines across the three -mile -wide corridor through which the Canadians were attacking. The RAF opened the bombard ment at midnight, sending mora than 1,000 four-engined bombers across the channel to unload 6.000 tons of bombs on tha enemy Just 15 minutes befora the zero hour. The Canadians officially wera reported holding Garcclles, St. Aignan do Cremesnil, and Roo quancourt, all within a six-to-seven-mlle arc southeast of Caen, after bypassing- strong enemy positions nt Tilly-La Cnmpagne, May-Sur-Orne, and Fontenay-La Marmlon. Mop Up Mines Infantrymen following up tha armored thrust' presumably were monplng un the screen of minefields, dug-ln tanks, and antitank guns thrown up around those enemy strongholds. British armored forces on tha Canadian right flank battled to extend their bridgehead arross the Orne north of Thury-Har-court, while the Americans swept In on the Sarthe river Una from the west at a pace that ap peared to have demoralized tha retreating Germans. ' Only at tho center of tho bat tle line was the Allied advanca on Paris Imperiled, and front dispatches Indicated that Ameri can troops were beating back four German tank divisions hurled Into a desperate counter attack that the Nazis hoped would drive through to the sea- coast at Avranches and split tha Allied armies In two. Peril On Flanks The German panzers wera fully committed to the counter blow at thb hinge of the Ameri can and British lines northwest of Mortaln, and faced possible encirclement If their flanks to the north and south should give way. No new developments wera reported from the Brittany front, where Bradley's armored units were fighting In the outskirts of Best, St. Mnlo and Lorient. Part of the Lorient garrison was re ported trying to quit In defiance of their commander's "stand-and-die" orders, and a German communique hinted the port may already have fallen. Last Anchorage Restaurant Burns Anchorage, Alaska, Aug. 8 (U.R) A fire believed caused by a short circuit burned tho roof off the one restaurant which has remained open for business dur ing the strike of the Culinary Workers union, now In its fiftll day. Forced to close Its doors be cause of the fire, not the strike, the owner estimated damage at several thousand dollars.
