Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989, April 20, 1945, Image 1

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Medford mail tribune., April 20, 1945, Page 1, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextWeather roreaU Oenerally elondy to- . nlrht and Saturday. Con tlnued warm tonight. Coolar and occasional ihowera Sat urday. Temp. nliheat yaaterday it I owrst thli mornini ......... 41 precipitation to k a. m., Bona Fortieth Year Truman Greets 5l.ii)iiiiiim.i'Wiiiii(fira, k x.. ., Miirr,iifiiiiianiiiBaiMiirn'iaiiMiaiiiiirBr'-rrtTinirii t . . t President Harry S. Truman greets George Bldault (left). French minister White House after his arrival In Washington with other French delegates to right George Bldault. James E. Dunn, assistant secretary of state, and Representatives Converge For San Francisco, April 20 (U.R) representatives or. me anti-Axis world converged by train and plane on San Francisco today for the United Nations' conference on International or ganization. The few empty hotel rooms tilled as statesmen, newsmen, official secretariats and nonoffi cial observers arrived In ever Increasing numbers for opening of the Uncio Wednesday, April 25. The men and women selected TO By Richard D. McMillan United Press War Correspondent Belsen Camp Near Hannover, Germany, April 20 U.R Nazi SS elite guardsmen were put to work today gathering the bodies of the hundreds of inmates who died in this hell hole. Hungarian prisoners of war also were brought in to help with the mass burial. British troons already had entombed hundreds of bodies from the mounds of dead the nazls left behind.' ' ) Bodies Heaped When 1 visiieo. me ramp w day I had to stand in line with 150 or more of the Hungarians and like them be fumigated be fore I could pass down the lines of huts where British doctors estimated more than 300 persons men, women and children died last night. Bodies still were being piled In heaps outside the huts in ooen spaces beside burial pits. Beans of hundreds of bodies awaited burial. Women among the nazls who ruled the camp were kept in cells. I was told that "if we take them out, the inmates would try to kill them." . . A British medical officer said that one of these women used to reserve her torture of the In mates for Sunday afternoons, when she lnshed her victims. In mates said the women guards , would tie a living body to a corpse and burn both together. Cremation Stopped British doctors believed the Germans stooped using mass cremation to dispose of the dead because they wanted to save fuel. Instead they were believed to have dug the burial pits, only to fall behind the death toll. I have seen many grusome Ishts in this war, but never have I set eyes upon such hor ror as this. SIDE GLANCES Br TRIBUNE REPORTERS Gene Thomdike asserting that Palm Springs and Califor nia weather can't compare with the Rogue River valley's balmy spring days. Clarence Wlnetrout admitting 1 that a change of residence brings a change of viewpoint. Commissioner Arthur Powell Wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to give Klamath county back to the Indiana. M U Mted Prase Full Leased Wire French Deleaates Of Anti-Axis Countries San Francisco Conference by the governments of 46 Uni ted Nations to draft a World Se curity formula represented many shades of political thought. Farce to Indians Dr. Anup Singh, secretary of the national committee for In dia's - freedom, issued a state ment saying the people of India consider their participation at the San Francisco conference a "farce." Dr. Singh said the three offi cial Indian delegates "would get their instructions from London ' and would not represent the In dian people. He is here to pre pare for arrival next week of Mrs. Vijaya Lakshml Pandit, sister of Indian National Party Leader Pandit Jawaharlal JJeh: ru. Tha nnpstlnn nf India's future will be represented at the con ference, Dr. Singh said, Decause the problem of India's freedom must be solved before a stable peace can be realized In India. John C. Ross, ueputy secre tary General of the 'Conference, nnnnnncpri that the United States will propose that the conference be divided Into four commis sions. The commissions in turn would be divided Into two to four committees for a total of 12. Tf such nlan Is adoDted a delegates' proposal would be In troduced in a steering commit tee which in turn would refer it 4n th. nrnnpr commission for handling. The commission would send it to a committee for con sideration. The committee would return it to the commission. Finally it would be given to a conference plenary session ior rejection or adoption. Tain arrival! included a 10 man delegation from Haiti head ed by Gerald E. Lescot, secre tary of state, Velly Thebaud, secretary of national defense, Bombers, Fighters Busy On Continent LONDON, April 20 (U.R More than 1.600 American hnmhora and fiehtcrs raided prime targets throughout Ger many and CzechoslovaKia toaay in Hirect suoDort of the Ameri can and soviet armies. The big 8th air force fleet oi 800 Flying Fortresses and Lib erators with an equally strong fighter escort concentrated the attacks on railway Installations in the Berlin area and between Munich and Prague. Mrs. Roosevelt Departs From White House With Fastest Exit on Record - Washington, April 20-flJ.B Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt de parts from the White House to day leaving nothing undone. She is on schedule to the last minute, thereby completing the fastest exit any retiring first lady ever made. Except for Dolly Madison, who was running from a fire set by the British. Mrs Roosevelt held her last press conference yesterday after noon over tea in the sof . y-1; state dining room. She couldn t go, she said, without bidding goodbye to the friends she had met so regularly for so many years. She told her all-female au dience that she is going directly r tirrioro ht has an io new .7 . apartment on Washington EDFOED to Conference (Acme Telephoto) of foreign affairs. In garden of tha to San Francisco Conference. Left French Ambassador Henri Bonnet nnrl Gen. Alfred Nemours, rjresl dent of the senate. Sir Anthony Rumbo, assistant secretary to thr Rritish delegation. and Fran cis Williams, controller of the British Press and Censorship, also arrived. Srjeeial Trains Comina Arrival of dignitaries will rpn ch Its nonk Sundav. Monday and Tuesday. State Department officials announced five special trains were scheduled to reach hprA nn Ihnsp three daVS. Tha Pacific Telenhone and Telegraph Co., announced it had put in operation a conterence telephone exchange. It will be serviced by 35 operators divided n4n craws cnpnirinff bDanisn, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese and mignsn. . . POSTAL OFFICIAL MS AT Ml SITES Pursuant to an announcement made in Washington, D. C, re cently that Senator Guy Cordon had stated federal building needs In Medford would be sur veyed, it was learned today that such a survey was made yester day. J. E. Fitzgerald, Seattle, post office inspector, spent the entire day here conferring with Mayor Clarence A. Meeker, City Re corder J. R. Woodford, Chamber of Commerce officials. Postmas ter Frank DeSouza, and others. He inspected the present fed eral building, looked at possible sites for a new building and will report on his finding to the postofflce department, It was stated. For P. O. Use It Is believed that if a new building is erected, the new structure would be used as a postoffice and the present build ing would house other federal offices, some of which are now scattered In offices throughout the-clty. Mayor Meeker Informed the inspector that postofflce officials should prepare for an Increase In population of Medford and vicinity, expected to reach 39,000, it Is reported. . Square, then to Hyde Park on Sunday. First off she will dispose of Mr. Roosevelt's belongings. That will take some time, she ex plained you know. Franklin's great Interest in things his torical. Most of them will go to Hyde Park after the children have made their selection. It Is espe cially difficult to decide about these things, she explained, with two boys In the Pacific from whom we haven't heard since their father's death. She revealed that she expects to keep on writing, though her definite plans will not be made until she is settled again. She resumed her syndicated column "My Day" last Tuesday. ' She stated definitely that she doesn't aspire to public office. MEDFORD, OREGON, FRIDAY, AMERICANS TAKE OLD NUERNBERG, E Once Beautiful City Gutted in House to House Battle; Vanguards Race South. Paris, April 20 (U.R) Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said today in an order of the day that the "ragged remnants of Hitler's armies of the west now are tottering on the threshold of defeat." Eisenhower's order of the day was addressed to "ev ery member of the allied ex peditionary force" on the con clusion of the battle of the Ruhr, where more than 300, 000 German troops were trapped and eliminated as a fighting force. Paris, April 20. (U.R) The American seventh army cap tured the ruined Nazi shrine city of Nuernberg today and struck south for Munich to open the battle for Hitler's last retreat In the Bavarian Alps, All organized. resistance ended in Nuernberg after a savage, house-to-house battle that front despatches said had gutted the once-beautiful medieval city. Last Elites Quit The last survivors of a Nazi Elite Guard corps surrendered to the Americans inside the old walled city in the center of Nuernberg late this afternoon Ironically on the 56th birthday of the fuehrer who had ordered his party shrine defended to the death. It was the 15th city of the reich and the third big Nazi stronghold to fall to the rampag ing American armies in the past 24 hours. Halle and Leipzig were taken by the U. S. first army yesterday. Armored vanguards of the seventh army were racing 25 miles and more beyond Nuern berg even beore the last enemy resistance ended there. They struck within 70 miles or less of Munich, cradle of the Nazi party and northern outpost of the Bavarian redoubt where Hitler had boasted his followers would continue to fight even if all else in Germany fell. Important Gains The seventh army triumph highlighted a day of unspectacu lar but strategically Important gains scored by the allied armies against by-passed German strong holds up and down the western front. In the north, Canadian first army troops completed the liber ation of northeastern Holland and wheeled northeast and west for the naval base of Emden and the V-bomb coast of western Holland. British second army forces sealed off all but the sea escape route for the Germans in the burning port of Bremen, ram med an armored spearhead with' in three miles or less south of Hamburg, and battled for a crossing of the Elbe fewer than 120 miles from Berlin. U. S. ninth army troops on the British right flank deepened their Elbe river bridgehead southeast of Magdeburg against fierce opposition add dispersed a strong Nazi counterattack near the American-British hinge after the enemy had madosome Initial gains. 9th and 1st Team Up Units of the ninth army team' ed up with Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges' first army troops to overrun all byt about one-fourth of the Harz mountain pocket, where thousands of by-passed Nazis were trying to wage a semiguerllla war from the wood ed caves and ravines. The mop-up bagged a secret hideout of the Berlin foreign office and 30 carloads of German army and foreign office papers. APRIL 20, 1945. fjfr!fo)n nir 0) !MLM POWERFUL DRIVE TAKES YANKEES TO Three Divisions Smash Bulges in Jap Line Defend ing Okinawa Capital City. n,,om Anril 90 fll.B American troops lunged to with in 4hrA an4 o half miles nnrth of Naha, capital of Okinawa, in the most powerful offensive o: tne cacuic war toaay. Rarllc. TnWvn snid other troODS attempted to land on the south coast of Okinawa aDoui eigni miip southeast of Naha yester day from a 30-ship Invasion fleet, including ZO transports ana sev eral battleships. Would Flank Town Such a landing would deeply outflank Naha, a city of 65,000, and clamp a pincers on its garri son of 60,000. Three army divisions possi bly 45,000 men smashed deep huiifps intn hnth flanks of the Japanese line across southern Okinawa yesterday unaer mci -c .1 l.r.. nnrrilnntcri shlD UL Ilia Kica.ab v"w--- 1 nrfit1nr.r hnmhttniment CVCt CtllU Cll'SAfcT prfVSA---- given American troops for the size of the target anywnere .i.. -1 ,i Front reports said Americans now were less than o.uu yarua north of Naha and approaching Machlnato airfield on the west coast and nearing the northern end of Yonabaru airstrip on im east coast. Marines on northern Okinawa continued mopping up enemy remnants on Motobu Island. Td-va Stated Army Mustangs from Iwo bas es truck the first heavy ngni blow against Tokyo yesterday with an attack on the Atsugl air field. Preliminary reports listed 102 enemy planes destroyed or j i American troops on Mindinao In the Philippines arove uny posed to within 80 miles of the L:- i novnn The drive, moving a mile an hour, already had secured a uu-squmc-i.... beachhead on Moro uuu. rn . tl Q Assault trOODS OC cupied Balabac Island, south of American coniroiiL-u rj.A". without opposition. Balabac Is only 45 miles from the northern tip of Borneo. On northern Luzon, American troops met continued fierce re- slstence in the oauieior 750 LIBERATED AT Boston, April 20 (U.R) Some 750 American soldiers, lioeratea from German prison camps by Russians, hurried eagerly off an army transport onto their native soil here toaay on the last lap of their trip home. Tanned and somewhat rested, the soldiers disembarked to mar tial music and immediately en trained for Camo Mylcs Stand- Ish at Taunton, There they were welcomed home by Brig. Gen. raivin DcWitl Jr.. commanding officer of the Boston port of embarkation. The men then received part of their back pay in preparation for 43-aay turiougns inning to morrow. Their first meal at the camo Incltirilne- ateak and Ice cream. was In sharp contrast to the moldy sawdust bread and nors meat stew they had been doled out daily by the Germans. The nrlsnnera said "the Gcr mans kept marching them thru Germany and Poland. More than 4,000 uses of wood have been counted, and the lilt is still growing. RIBUNE United Praia Full Leased Wire Nazis' Last Bastions Falling a. GERMANY vuv. :'Tm'7. J IM1 wa r-r polano. rr" " 7 ' ' CZECHO. C . ITl Vt. -J . MUtNA . !TvrrAr oakum j "N : 3 n.tmj' v ; ,rm : .... AUSTRIA ' vayjf (Acme Telephoto) Capture of Leipzig by V 8. First Army toppled keystone fortress of Oer man aelensea oelow Berlin. Americans also battled Inside Nuernberg, Halle ana Chemnlts. with fall of those three major bastions expected loon General Bradley announced Americans In eastern Oermany havi reacneo Uieu immediate obiectlves and would pause ostensibly to wait development oi Russian drive which Berlin said had reached within 14 miles ol Nazi ?spltai after seizing Seelow and Wrlezen Far to the north, British and Canadians closea rapidly on Hamburg, reached Zulder Zee. drove for Amsterdam. No Celebration As Hitler Passes 56th Birthday, and Probably Last By W. ft. Hlgglnbotham United Press Correspondent London, April 20 U.PJ Adolf Hitler, defeated dictator, passed his 66th, and probably last, birthday today. There were no celebrations in his dying empire for tha most hunted man in history. The only victory salutes came from the guns of allied armies closing in on him from east and west. Berlin, where in Hitler's hey day the red flags with the black swastikas flew and his storm troopers paraded, echoed with the artillery of the oncoming red army. The German radio which once boomed Hitler's birthday speeches from Berlin, had only news of fresh defeats td offer. There was no Indication the fuehrer would make a birthday broadcast, although a Swiss re port said 21 gauleiters had asked Goebbels last week to persuade Hitler to speak for the sake of morale. The only birthday greeting to Hitler made publicly was by the NEW BLOWS HIT London, April 20 (U.R) Ger many's already Impotent navy has suffered two further crip pling blows, with the sinking of the pocket battleship Luetzow and the announcement that the 26,000-ton Gneisenau Is now In Russian hands. The 10,000-ton Luetzow, a sis ter ship of the sunken Admiral Scheer, was sent to the bottom of the Baltic harbor of Swlne- muende by RAF bombers last Monday, the British air ministry said today. The RAF put the Luetzow out of action with six-ton bombs and the ship Is lying on her bottom in the shallow water. In addition to the Gneisenau, the Russians may have captured the heavy cruiser Seydlltz. Ski Luxembourg radio, In a broad cast directed to the fuehrer per sonally. Said Luxembourg radio: "If the date is remembered at all lt will be with horror and disgust. You have had the war you planned, the one you said you would rather have at 50 than at 00. And now the war will end long before your six tieth birthday, which you will not live to see." nr 111 UT LOCAL COUPLE LISTED MISSING For the second time In recent weeks Mr. and Mrs. Elverton R. Claflln of Route 1, Box 343, have been Informed by the gov ernment that one of their sons Is missing In action. The second message, received Wednesday, stated that Sgt. Lynn E. Claflln USMC, Is missing after action In the Pacific area. First mes sage Informed the parents that Sgt. Cecil Claflln, member of a B-25 crew, was missing after a flight over the Brenner Pasa in the Italian theater. Mrs. Claflln Is reported to be prostrated with grief and anx iety and permission has been se cured for a third son, Flight Offi cer Vincent Claflln, to spend an emergency leave here and was expected U arrive today from Texas. Sgt. Lynn Claflln has been In the marine corps for the past two years and was wounded earl ier In the war during the battle of the Solomon Islands. BASEBALL American Chicago 3 11 2 St. Louia 2 9 0 Lopat and Tresh; HolUngs worth and Hayworth. Of The Mall Tribune Want Ad Way Quick RaiulU At Small Coil NO. 25. CAPTURE VILLAGE 1 MILES EAST OF Moscow Reports Red Patrols and U. S. 3rd Army Prob ably Linked Near Dresden London. Anril 30 aim n,, slan troops storming the last kmn iHin Derore Benin Droke Into a village seven miles en of n k caDltal todav. the nn7l nmrt and a moscow dispatch said U. s! aa army ana soviet patrols prob ably had met in the Dresden sector. 'The battle for TWltn h.. reached the decisive stage," Ger. man broadcasters anlrf p.n.oi.. ly during the day in describing- ma struggle at tne gates of the) burning and shell-swept city. Ia Hangelsberg The left wine of an intense! concentrated mass of soviet tanks and men charslna atralaht In against Berlin was reported Dy me uermans to have pushed Into the streets of Hangelsberg, on the Frankfurt highway seven miles short of the city limits. A Moscow dispatch Said the outriders of the Russian and American armies probably had made their first contact around Dresden. Relayed to Lt. Gen. Georee S. Patton'a 3d r m v front, a high-ranking source denied that any such meeting had taken place, "unless," ha added jokingly, "some of our troops deserted us." But the nazls were paying most of the!.' attention to tha Berlin front, where their radio commentators said the Russian! had driven into the capital's "de fense zone proper." Situation Bad The German high command, acknowledging widespread re verses in the fortifications in front of Berlin, said frankly that "the situation has deterior ated." Other nazl broadcasters re ported soviet tanks and infantry were moving directly against Berlin between Muencheberg and Wrlezen. Their center had reached Strausberg, nine miles from the capital, and the lower wing was at Hangelberg, seven miles from Berlin. Moscow dispatches, following up the first soviet high com mand confirmation of the show down offensive on a broad Ber lin front, reported that the Rus sians had broken across the) Spree river and were closing against Dresden. It was in that region that, ac cording to a Moscow dispatch, outriders of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's U. S. 3d army and Mar snal Ivan S. Konev's 1st Ukrain ian army, probably have met. 20 KILLED WHEN T Sweetwater, Tex., April 20- (U.R) Between 20 and 25 passen gers aboard a twin-engine army transport plane were killed to day when it crashed and burned three miles south of here. Arrny officials refused at first to release the number of men aboard the plane until an ac curate check of the badles could be made, but local undertaker said that "more than 20 bodies" were In Sweetwater funeral parlors. President Names Press Secretary Washington, April 20 U.R President Truman announced to day that Charles O. Ross, 69-year-old Washington correspond ent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will become hi press secretary on May 15, , .