W ith the German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge by January 1945, the way was open for the final push to bring Germany to accept the Allied demand of unconditional surrender. On the Eastern Front, after months of preparation, the Red Army renewed a major offensive. “Five Armies on the March” ran the Times’s headline, but these were actually entire army groups. The Vistula-Oder operation from eastern Poland opened with attacks on January 12 by Marshal Ivan Konev’s First Ukrainian Army Group, followed two days later by Marshal Zhukov’s First Belorussian Army Group, which took Warsaw and drove toward Lodz. Against the Red Army’s 2.2 million men and 7,000 tanks, the revived German Army Group Center had only 400,000 men and 1,136 tanks. The disparity explains the ease with which the Soviet armies swept across Poland into East Prussia and by February 2 across the Oder River.

The Times received little news of the campaign, but it was only a matter of time before Berlin would fall. There was no hint of the atrocious treatment meted out to the German civilian population by Soviet soldiers maddened by the destruction they had seen in the Soviet Union and the evidence of the extermination centers for Jews, one of which they liberated in January when Auschwitz was occupied. On the Western Front progress was again slower. Eisenhower favored the strategy of the broad advance and launched four separate operations against thin German resistance. On February 8, Montgomery began a campaign in the north to clear the area between the River Meuse and the River Rhine. The U.S. Ninth Army reached the Rhine at Düsseldorf on March 1, Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group reached the Rhine six days later, while in the south the Sixth Army Group reached Mannheim in the south that same day. On March 7 American soldiers surprised German guards at the Remagen Bridge over the river and captured it intact, opening the way for speedy deployment to the eastern bank. By late March, crossings had been made all along the river and the drive into Germany could begin.

With the rapid progress made in early 1945, fighting in winter weather, the major Allies realized that there was real urgency now in reaching political agreements about the peace. The final wartime summit at the Crimean resort of Yalta was to be Roosevelt’s last. The three leaders decided to set up the United Nations Organization and a conference was arranged for San Francisco in May 1945. Stalin agreed to intervene militarily against Japan once the war in Europe was over. Most important of all, the Western Allies finally accepted Stalin’s plan for Poland: territory seized by the Soviet Union in September 1939 would remain Russian, while Poland would be compensated for its loss with territory carved out of eastern Germany. The London Poles rejected the Yalta decision but The Times, which had shown increasing impatience with Polish opposition, ran an editorial that regretted Polish intransigence in the face of a solution that “has much to recommend it.” Tito, on the other hand, got everything he wanted. In early March he became the new Communist prime minister and would soon become dictator of a reconstituted Yugoslavia.

When it came to accepting Soviet help against Japan, the Western Allies had mixed feelings, since it was now evident that Japan could perhaps be defeated by American efforts alone. Bizarrely, however, a poll of captured Japanese showed that the majority still thought Japan might win the war in the end.

On January 9 the American Army landed on Luzon and by March 3 the capital, Manila, was again in American hands. On February 19 a force of 60,000 marines, brought by a fleet of eight hundred ships, landed on the island of Iwo Jima, within striking distance of the Japanese home islands. There were 22,000 Japanese dug into deep defensive positions and the battle was long and fierce, but on February 23 the iconic image of the Stars and Stripes flying on Mount Suribachi was photographed and two days later the photo appeared in The Times. By March 26 the island was secured at the cost of almost the entire Japanese garrison and 5,931 Marine deaths. At this point the Twenty-First Bomber Command, under Maj. General Curtis LeMay, had launched the first firebombing attacks on Japan, killing 100,000 people in the raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945. The Times had announced a few days before in an editorial that “Japan cannot be knocked out of the war with bombings alone,” but the U.S. Army Air Forces commander, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, hoped it could.

JANUARY 5, 1945

BESIEGED AMERICANS MOVING OUT TO ENGAGE NAZIS AT BASTOGNE

Germans Now Threaten Alsace and Lorraine in New Offensive

By DREW MIDDLETON
By Wireless to The New York Times.

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Paris, Jan. 4 —Armored and infantry units of the American First Army, fighting over rugged terrain in the teeth of a snowstorm, smashed into the northern flank of the German salient in Belgium on a thirteen-mile front today, hammering out gains of three and a half miles in some sectors.

Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton’s American Third Army, after having repulsed a series of ten heavy German counter-attacks in thirty-six hours, has regained the initiative and is again striking northeastward from Bastogne and toward St. Hubert on the west. At last reports only eleven miles separated the two American armies struggling to close the neck of the Belgian salient against bitter opposition from German infantry and tanks.

Meanwhile Allied troops striking from the west into the head of the salient have driven the Germans out of Bure, four and a half miles southeast of Rochefort, six and a half miles northwest of St. Hubert.

SEVENTH OUT OF REICH

The growing success of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s counter-offensive against the German salient in the north must be balanced by an Allied withdrawal in the south.

American Seventh Army troops have now withdrawn from German soil from Sarreguemines east to the Rhine.

The Germans thrusting southward on the flat ground east of Sarreguemines have advanced five miles from their starting point and have reached the neighborhood of Achen, three miles southwest of Rimling and six to seven miles west of Bitche.

An American withdrawal from the Wissembourg gap, gateway to the German Palatinate, was forced by further German progress southeastward through the Bannstein forest southeast of Bitche. The Germans are attacking anew at Barrenthal and Philippsbourg, threatening to break through onto the plain northeast of Hagenau forest.

GERMANS GAIN ADVANTAGE

The American withdrawal back to positions, which in some areas are based on the Maginot Line, covered five miles and more in some areas. Although it may turn out to be an unimportant move strategically, it is tactically important at the moment and it is certainly a decided political advantage for the Germans, who have now cleared German soil of invaders on a wide stretch and once again have invaded Alsace, as important politically to the Germans as to the French.

The Allied armies attacking the German salient in the north fought without air support today for weather grounded the Ninth Air Force and only the British Second Tactical Air Force farther north and the Twelfth Tactical Air Command, American component of the First Tactical Air Force in the south, were able to maintain the aerial offensive against the German ground forces.

A tank and other equipment from 212th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, sixth Armored Divisions under camouflage near Bastogne, Belgium, in January 1945.

ALLIED OUTLOOK BETTER

It is perhaps too early to speculate on when the two American Armies will unite across the neck of the salient. It is, however, clear that the possibility of turning the German offensive into a costly defeat by cutting off and destroying some of the best German Panzer divisions is better today than it has been for the last week.

JANUARY 6, 1945

SPLIT OVER LUBLIN

Soviet Recognizes Polish Provisional Rule—U.S., Britain Back Exiles

By CLIFTON DANIEL
By Cable to The New York Times.

LONDON, Jan. 5 —The Soviet Union extended diplomatic recognition to the self-appointed Provisional Government of Poland in Lublin today despite appeals by Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt to defer this action until it could be considered in a joint meeting of all three great powers.

The British and American Governments had exchanged correspondence with Moscow on this question ever since the Lublin Committee of National Liberation had constituted itself a government. It is presumed that since the Big Three previously had been personally concerned with the Polish question the correspondence was between Messrs. Churchill and Roosevelt and Premier Stalin themselves.

The correspondence produced no agreement and the Soviet Union decided to act alone. Its decision was known in advance in both Washington and London.

[Washington and London reacted promptly to the Moscow announcement, reaffirming their recognition of the Polish Government in exile. France’s position was described by Ambassador Henri Bonnet in Washington as the same as Britain’s and the United States’.

A result of the Soviet recognition of the Lublin Government is that the “unhappy spectacle of rival governments in Poland, one recognized by the Soviet Union and the other by the Western Powers,” of which Mr. Churchill warned in his speech Sept. 28 urging the Poles to accept Russia’s frontier terms, has now come to pass.

The Soviet recognition of Lublin was no surprise, however, to anyone. It was inevitable since, as almost everyone here concedes, the Lublin Government was the creation of Communist party agents in Poland.

Moscow’s decision is significant mainly for its bearing on inter-Allied relations and for the fact that it represents one more unilateral action in a series that seems to grow longer each week that a Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin meeting is delayed.

It is the general opinion here that the Polish question will top the political agenda of the tri-power meeting, which Mr. Roosevelt indicated today would be held after Jan. 20. Hope that the Big Three may agree to a common policy on Poland was encouraged by the fact that Moscow recognized the Lublin regime as the “provisional Government.” This seems to leave the way open for a broadening of the Lublin Government or its amalgamation with elements of the Polish Government in exile here.

Meanwhile the policy of the British and American Governments remains unchanged. They still recognize the Polish Government here, although since the retirement of Stanislaw Mikolajczyk as Premier they find its composition distasteful.

LONDON, Jan. 5 (AP) —The London Poles officially expressed “regret from the point of view of United Nations unity” at the Soviet decision, but said they were not surprised at the development. Their spokesman said the Soviet action “makes more difficult our position and any hopes of reaching a settlement.”

Diplomatic and military observers here believed that the Russians were now ready to launch their long expected offensive in Poland.

The Soviet Union severed relations with the London Polish Government in April, 1943, in a dispute over the finding of the graves of thousands of Polish officers in the forests near Smolensk. Russia accused the Germans of having killed the officers, but the London Poles asked the International Red Cross to investigate a counterclaim by the Germans that the Russians had committed the atrocity.

JANUARY 9, 1945

Editorial

WINTER WARFARE

One of the outstanding characteristics of the war—and, as such, a token of its growing bitterness—has been the development of large-scale winter offensives on all fronts, to the complete abolition of the formerly customary winter pause. That winter pause was never certain in the east, as past invaders of Russia, including Napoleon, found out, and in this war the Russians developed the technique of winter warfare to a fine art. But “going into winter quarters” used to be a recognized rule of warfare in the west, and though the winter quarters of the last war were only muddy trenches, fighting died down during the winter months to a minimum. In fact, the German offensive against Verdun had to be postponed for ten days on account of a blizzard, which contributed to its failure. Even in this war, Hitler waited with his campaign against the west in 1940 till the balmy days of May.

This time, however, the Germans launched their most ambitious offensive in the west in the midst of winter, and at this very moment American and British troops are battling the enemy amid a raging snowstorm which would have made fighting unthinkable in the past. The great Battle of the Bulge is assuming more and more the aspect of the final stages of the Battle of Normandy, which led to the establishment of a huge pocket with a narrow opening at Falaise. Not only is the bulge shrinking which the Germans drove into our lines; it is assuming the contours of a sack which the British are holding tight at the western end and which the American First and Third Armies are trying to close farther east by concerted counter-offensives from the north and south. They have already succeeded in cutting one of the last two roads open to the Germans for supplies and retreat; they have brought the last remaining road under artillery fire from both sides; they have narrowed the remaining gap between them to less than ten miles. Within the sack thus forming are reported to be three German armored divisions and considerable numbers of other German troops.

It would be premature to expect too much, for the Germans are masters in escaping traps. Even in Normandy they slipped out most of their troops through the Falaise gap when it was only six miles wide. But the chance for great success is there, and it appears unlikely that the Allies will permit themselves to be diverted from making the most of it by the German efforts around Strasbourg and Venlo.

JANUARY 10, 1945

Yanks Land from 800 Ships; MacArthur Ashore With Men

By GEORGE E. JONES
By Wireless to The New York Times.

ABOARD AMPHIBIOUS FLAGSHIP, in Lingayen Gulf, Jan. 9 —History’s greatest overseas invasion is landing thousands of troops on the road to Manila today. American soldiers are pushing through marsh-studded beachlines, heading for the open country and near-by hills, from which the enemy can reinforce troops and support them with artillery.

More than 800 ships participated in this convoy, which traveled under constant surveillance from aircraft and submarines. Not a single troopship was damaged as the line of transports and escorts, stretching for eighty miles, threaded its way through the narrow channels and glassy open seas.

The climax of a hazardous voyage came west of Corregidor when a Japanese destroyer, putting out from Ma nila Harbor, attempted to break into the troopships. The destroyer was sunk within our vision by American destroyers before it could do any damage.

In number of troops involved this invasion may not compare with Normandy, but that fact is offset by the long, hazardous journey of the Lingayen force under the over-all command of Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid.

ON FIFTEEN-MILE BEACHHEAD

By WILLIAM C. DICKINSON
United Press Correspondent

WITH MacARTHUR’S FORCES, on Luzon, Wednesday, Jan. 10 —American Sixth Army forces, completing under the personal direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur the largest amphibious operation of the Pacific war, today held a fifteen-mile beachhead on Lingayen Gulf.

With almost no initial ground resistance and with but slight loss to our shipping despite fierce and fanatical Japanese air attacks, vast numbers of men and enormous quantities of guns, armored equipment and supplies have been placed ashore.

While no exact information was forthcoming from General MacArthur’s advanced headquarters on Luzon as to the exact depth of our advances from the four landing beaches, it was known that deep penetrations had been made at some points and only scattered light resistance had been encountered anywhere.

It was believed that all units had reached or passed beyond their first day objectives in the daylight hours following our landing at 9:30 A.M. yesterday.

Battleships and other units of the Seventh Fleet began fierce preliminary bombardments which knocked out every Japanese shore battery which might have ranged on our vast armada of more than 800 vessels with their supporting and protecting hundreds of warships.

Coast Guard landing ships carrying the first wave of American soldiers to invade the beaches of Luzon, Philippines, January 1945.

General MacArthur went ashore only a few hours behind his assault troops and only a short time after Lieut. Gen. Walter Krueger Sixth Army commander, had established headquarters ashore and taken over active command of the operations from Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, Seventh Fleet commander.

General MacArthur waded ashore from his barge accompanied by Lieut. Gen. Richard K Sutherland, his chief of staff, and congratulated his leaders on the progress so far made. He urged them to keep driving ahead—no letting the Japanese get set in any position to bar our advance.

General MacArthur told correspondents that the entire Lingayen Gulf operation was progressing “better than could have been expected” and that all units were making good progress against little or no resistance.

“The Jap was apparently taken completely by surprise,” he said “He apparently expected us from the south, and when we came in behind him he was caught off base. The entire operation so far had been a complete success.”

He said it was not yet apparent where the Japanese would make their main defense stand, but that there “is no doubt that the battle for Manila and the entire Philippines will be fought and won on the great central plain north of Manila.”

He was smoking a new corncob pipe and appeared bronzed and rested.

“I slept well last night,” he said “in spite of some little disturbance created by the Japanese during the night.”

Although our ground forces went ashore standing up with almost no opposition, we suffered some loss and damage to shipping en route here and during the preliminary bombardments and carrier activities.

The Japanese lost heavily, seventy-nine planes shot down, a midget submarine, two destroyers, one coastal vessel and many small craft sunk by our attacks. These losses are in addition to those inflicted by the Third Fleet forces of Admiral William F. Halsey which gave coordinated support to our landings.

A considerable measure of strategic surprise was attained through our recent feints in the direction of Batangas and other points.

The landing itself was completely uneventful. Not a shore battery fired as the hundreds of American vessels steamed into the gulf before dawn. After a shore bombardment of more than two hours, in which battleships—including restored pre–Pearl Harbor veterans—participated, in greater strength than in any previous Southwest Pacific operation, the swarms of amphibious tanks, alligators, buffaloes and larger landing craft moved in almost unmolested.

A little mortar fire at one point was quickly silenced. During S-day, as the landing date for this operation was named, only a few sneak raiders disturbed the routine of pouring in supplies and men.

The troops were still on the alert on the beach when General MacArthur waded ashore, but the general started right off in a jeep to find the nearest divisional command post. When the jeep broke down, the general took off across the sand dunes on foot and in a few minutes was firing questions and nodding his head with very apparent satisfaction as the divisional commander reported the progress made.

JANUARY 20, 1945

5 ARMIES ON MARCH

New Russian Offensive Scores 50-Mile Gain Above Carpathians

By The United Press.

LONDON, Jan. 20 —The Red Army yesterday reached the border of German Silesia, captured the great Polish cities of Lodz, Cracow and Tarnow and hammered thirty-one miles inside East Prussia after advances of up to twenty-eight miles in one of two new offensives opened on the blazing Eastern Front.

Adding victory to victory, the Red Army was forging a great encirclement of East Prussia as it approached within three miles of the southern frontiers of the Junker stronghold on a sixty-mile front. Simultaneously, the Red Army opened another new offensive in southern Poland, driving fifty miles forward to outflank the city of Nowy Sacz.

Berlin said that almost 3,000,000 Soviet troops were on the march along a twisting 650-mile front from East Prussia to Czechoslovakia. In one of the greatest days in the Red Army’s history Premier Stalin issued five orders of the day.

Five Soviet armies, carving out gains of up to thirty-one miles, seized 2,750 localities in East Prussia and Poland and killed thousands of enemy troops fleeing under the lashing blows of Soviet planes.

ENEMY DEFENSES OVERPOWERED

Every German river and railroad defense line was being shattered and Russia’s eight-day-old offensive still was gathering momentum.

Giant Stalin tanks of Marshal Ivan S. Koneff’s First Ukrainian Army reached the border of German Silesia in an unexpected area. Veering northwest from the Polish city of Czestochowa his forces followed the border line for twenty-eight miles and reached the frontier at the Polish town of Praszka, 225 miles southeast of Berlin.

At the same time other spearheads advanced twenty-eight miles along the Radom-Breslau highway, cutting across the vital north-south railroad linking Danzig with Silesia to take Wielun, which in turn severed the rail line between Silesia and the great Polish city of Posen.

The Russians crossed the Warta River, a tributary of the Oder, and cut the Danzig-Silesia railroad along a twenty-mile front. A twelve-mile stretch of the Danzig-Posen railroad defense and supply line was shattered between Wielun and Rudniki.

STEEL CENTERS OUTFLANKED

The advance to Praszka outflanked by fifty-two miles on the northwest the great German coal and steel-producing centers of Beuthen, Hindenburg and Gleiwitz, the loss of which would be a heavy blow to the German war machine.

Koneff’s troops approached the border of Germany and its rich Silesian cities along a fifty-five-mile front, and for thirty miles southeast of Praszka they were but three to five miles from the frontier.

It was troops of Koneff’s army who captured Cracow, ancient capital of Poland Thirty-one miles northwest of the city, guarding the approaches is the Dabrowa coal-mining region, they seized Ogrodzieniec, sixteen miles northeast of Dabrowa and twenty-six miles from Beuthen.

Cracow, fourth largest city of Poland, with a pre-war population of 259,000 and former seat of the Nazi puppet Government General of Poland, was captured when Koneff’s troops severed the city’s connections with Silesia in an outflanking movement that won them the railroad stations of Zabierzow, Rudawa and Krzeszowice.

Forty-seven miles east of Cracow, other troops operating south of the Vistula River captured Tarnow.

South of the Tarnow-Cracow railroad and west of Sanok, Gen. Ivan I. Petroff’s Fourth Ukrainian Army went over to the offensive and, breaking through powerful enemy fortifications, advanced fifty miles along a thirty-seven-mile front in the Carpathian foothills.

LODZ BARRIER CONQUERED

Fifty-one miles northeast of the point where Koneff’s army reached the Silesian border, Marshal Gregory K. Zhukoff’s First White Russian Army advanced on an eighty-five-mile front south of the Vistula River and captured Lodz, Poland’s second city and its largest industrial center.

Lodz, a pre-war city of 672,000 persons, was captured in a twenty-four-mile advance. Twenty-nine miles to the north the town of Kutno, on the Warsaw-Berlin railroad, was seized and, between Kutno and Lodz, Zhukoff’s fast-moving spearheads captured Leczyca, 100 miles east of the Polish city of Poznan.

The capture of Lodz, a great twelve-way road and rail center, and of Cracow collapsed the so-called German “middle European Wall.” The fall of Lodz also left western Poland wide open for rapid conquest by the Russian juggernaut.

TRANSIT CENTER SEIZED

Advancing along the south bank of the Vistula River, Zhukoff’s northern wing seized Gostynin, fifty-three miles southeast of the great Polish city of Torun. It also outflanked the Vistula road and rail crossing town of Plock, ten miles to the northeast.

Plock, on the north bank of the Vistula, also was menaced by troops of Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s Second White Russian Army which was advancing westward north of the Vistula along a fifty-four-mile front. In a seven-mile gain his troops drove to within twenty-three miles northeast of Plock by capturing Raciaz, on the Warsaw-Torun railroad. A few miles to the north, Radzanow, sixty-one miles east of Torun, was taken in a nine-mile advance.

Other troops of Rokossovsky’s army were advancing on East Prussia’s southern borders along a sixty-mile front, and, in a twenty-one mile dash they seized the fortress transit hub of Mlawa, seven miles south of the border and pushed the Germans northward to take Dzialdowo, three miles from the frontier.

Berlin said that Marshal Rokossovsky was attempting to reach the Baltic Sea near Danzig and effect a huge encirclement of East Prussia in conjunction with Gen. Ivan D. Chernyakhovsky’s Third White Russian Army pushing into the province from the east.

At Dzialdowo, Rokossovsky’s troops were 75 miles south of the Baltic and ninety miles southeast of the former free city of Danzig.

TILSIT HIGHWAY CUT

Chernyakhovsky’s army, Marshal Stalin revealed, launched a great offensive in east Prussia five days ago and, crashing through deep enemy fortifications, advanced up to twenty-eight miles along a thirty-seven-mile front.

Seizing more than 600 towns and villages, his troops cleared almost the entire northeastern corner of east Prussia—an area of about 750 square miles, and were thirty-one miles inside the frontier at the town of Breitenstein. While other spearheads pressed to within four miles southeast of the great rail center of Tilsit by winning Ragnit and cutting the Gumbinnen-Tilsit highway along a nineteen-mile front between Ragnit and Neusiedel, the troops who captured Breitenstein crossed the Inster River.

Russian soldiers, with cases of explosives, meet German resistance and smoking ruins in Cracow, Poland, 1945.

JANUARY 21, 1945

RHINE PUSH BEGUN

U.S. 1st and 3d Armies Further Compress the Belgian Salient

By The Associated Press,

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Paris, Jan. 20 —The French First Army struck a surprise blow for Alsace’s liberation today with a new offensive on a twenty-five-mile front that rolled up three-mile gains seventy miles south of where American comrades-in-arms battled to save the imperiled capital of Strasbourg.

The French jumped into the mounting battle, with the fate of Alsace and Strasbourg in the balance, after tank-led German troops drove United States Seventh Army lines back five miles and threatened to undermine American positions in the northeast corner of France.

FRENCH SURPRISE GERMANS

The assault, rolling out under the cover of a blinding snowstorm from the Vosges eastward to the Rhine in the Mulhouse area, achieved complete surprise and still was pressing forward tonight against that tough German core known as the Colmar pocket from which the enemy was menacing Strasbourg from the south.

At the opposite end of the 300-mile western front, the British Second Army ran into enemy tanks for the first time, but plowed on three miles into western Germany and the Netherlands appendix, seizing at least six more towns.

The British cut off a German area five miles by three miles with a pincers movement of two armored columns northeast of Sittard. One British unit attacked eastward from Echt and the other pushed north from Hoengen until the junction was made. More than 400 prisoners were taken by the British.

The American First Army was methodically tightening the screws on St. Vith, the Belgian highway and rail center four miles from the Reich border through which the Germans must retire.

THIRD NEARS VIANDEN

The American Third Army was driving in from the west against stout resistance, and to the east was battling over northern Luxembourg’s snow-clad hills within three miles of Vianden, on the Reich border where Hitler’s legions swept across in the Ardennes offensive.

A dispatch from the front said there were signs that the Germans were withdrawing into the Siegfried Line as the Third Army pressed on a mile and a half, deepened its Sauer River bridgehead to three miles near the Reich border and moved up to the frontier along a three-mile front on the Our River.

In the Netherlands, British units of the Canadian First Army lifted the threat to Nijmegen by routing crack German parachute troops from the village of Zitten, six miles to the north.

TANKS ATTACK BRITISH

The attack by tanks came east of Echt, seven and a half miles southwest of the German Meuse River stronghold of Roer-mond.

While the British under Lieut. Gen. Miles C. Dempsey were slowed here in the push toward the Roer, they were lashing out aggressively to the east and west, using white camouflaged tanks in the snow that blanketed the battlefield.

They crossed the Meuse unopposed and captured Stevensweert, seven miles southwest of Roermond, as the Germans pulled out under the gathering threat of encirclement from the east. The small German panhandle jutting into the Netherland appendix a few miles to the south was virtually severed as Tommies struck nearly a mile through the fog and seized Saeffelen.

Two miles to the east another British column plowed a mile and a half through the slush and snow and captured Breberen, three miles inside the Reich.

JANUARY 27, 1945

FIRST RED IN BERLIN TO GET $1,000 PRIZE

Native of Lublin, Now Citizen of U.S., Offers Reward—Also Wants to Aid Stalingrad

The rapid advance of the Russian armies has given David Kay no end of joy. Yesterday, Mr. Kay, a native of Lublin, Poland, and a businessman with offices at 450 Seventh Avenue, offered $1,000 to the first Russian soldier or unit to enter Berlin.

His offer was contained in a letter to the Russian Consul General’s office in New York, and a spokesman of the Consul’s office said that the offer would be “accepted as a token of appreciation.” Mr. Kay also offered an extra $1,000 that would start a fund toward the rebuilding of Stalingrad. The spokesman, however, explained that a fund was being raised for that purpose in this country.

“This may appear to be a strange letter,” Mr. Kay wrote, “but I should like to emphasize that it is written in all sincerity and with the hope that you will cooperate with me.” The letter went on to mention the first offer of $1,000 to start the fund for the rebuilding of Stalingrad, “that it may be the start of a special fund, perhaps a memorial fund in grateful memory to the valiant and successful stand of the Soviet forces in that city.” Then followed Mr. Kay’s reference to the second offer of $1,000:

“The second check is a prize for the first Russian soldier to enter Berlin. Should it prove impossible to determine who that individual is, then I should like the money to be divided equally among the men comprising the first Russian unit to enter the German capital.”

Soon after the Allied invasion of France, Mr. Kay offered a $1,000 War Bond to the first American soldier to reach Paris. Since the liberation of Paris, he explained, the authorities have not been able to determine the rightful recipient.

JANUARY 28, 1945

LUFTWAFFE AGAIN A MENACE WITH ITS JET-DRIVEN PLANES

Allies Have No Fighters Which Can Deal With the Latest German Sky Raiders

By HARRY VOSSER
By Wireless to The New York Times.

LONDON, Jan. 27 —Six months ago the Allied public, rejoicing over the successful achievements of their armed forces on the Continent, was indulging in the comfortable assumption that the much-vaunted German Air Force was no more. “Where is Goering’s Luftwaffe now?” was the question, asked with some sarcasm.

Today the situation has changed once more. Not only is the Luftwaffe fighter-plane production on the increase, not only is it able to conduct an occasional mass attack such as the recent sortie against Allied airfields in Belgium and Holland, but there is a chance now that it may develop once more into a serious threat to the Allies.

Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the Luftwaffe resorted to the employment of the unorthodox, and this, like so many of Germany’s other innovations, has succeeded in temporarily nonplussing the Allies. The jet-propelled and rocket-assisted fighters and fighter-bombers with which the Germans are stiffening their air force are potentially a great danger to us. And if, in fact, the threat doesn’t develop into something more than it is now before the end of the war, it will be only because the Germans have again started with too little and too late.

BUILT FOR QUICK WAR

In common with all German weapons, the Luftwaffe was built for a quick war. Design and production of aircraft were frozen to about six standard types to insure uninterrupted output. As the Allied forces grew in size and strength, it became clear to the Germans that they had no chance of ever regaining their lost numerical superiority. Technical superiority of their planes by the production of a revolutionary type of aircraft against which the Allies would at first be powerless was their only hope.

The Focke-Wulfe 190 was their first effort at gaining the technical lead, and for a while this machine did give them a slight technical advantage over the Allies. For many months, however, it has been clear that the Nazis have given up trying to achieve technical advantages over the Allies by improvements on their regular aircraft and are pinning their hopes on the revolutionary jet planes with hitherto unobtainable speeds of 500 miles an hour or more and rates of climb around 10,000 feet a minute.

By the end of 1944 the ME-163—the Comet—a rocket-assisted glider-fighter, and the ME-262—the Swallow, a twin-motored, jet-propelled reconnaissance fighter-bomber—were in operation over Germany and the Western Front. Other types of German jet-propelled planes are known to exist, but they do not seem yet to have progressed into the full operational stage.

Will the Luftwaffe be able to stage a real come-back with these new types? The answer depends to a large extent on whether the Germans will be allowed the time and the opportunities to develop their “jets.” They are already appearing in gradually increasing numbers—mainly the ME-262 over the Low Countries, while the ME-163 is kept for the home defense forces and used for attacking heavy bomber formations.

It is no secret that we equally possess jet planes. Nevertheless, the Allies, so far as is known, are not producing them in sufficient quantity to provide an effective opposition to the enemy.

The Allies have successfully, but not generally, used jet planes in the battle against the V-l. Apart from that, we have no indication that Allied “jets” have been pitted against the enemy—or, that, in fact, ours are in any more than a purely experimental stage.

WHAT ALLIES ARE DOING

Are the Allies planning increased production of “jets” to fight the new German weapon? So far there is no known evidence that they are. What are the Allies doing then?

At present, our main defense seems to consist of attacks on the factories and machine shops engaged in production of jet planes.

At present, the jet and rocket types of aircraft are encountered only in twos and threes—not in formations—and experts think this method of attack is only a tryout for an entirely new technique of formation attacks on raiding bombers. One thing that pilots and experts are agreed upon is that at present the Allies have no motored plane that can successfully chase a jet.

Pilots who have succeeded in shooting down this type of plane report that they have caught the German pilot when he has been coasting—that is, between jet-driven bursts of speed—and have gone into action before he has had time to turn on his extra power. It seems to be generally agreed, too, that German pilots are not willing to enter into an air fight, probably because their missions are at present confined to reconnaissance and photographic work.

‘JETS’ POSE PROBLEMS

Of course, before the Germans can operate jet-propelled aircraft in any great numbers, they have many difficulties to overcome. Both the jet and rocket assisted types are difficult to fly and re-quire specially trained top-category pilots. In addition, they are not as maneuverable as the orthodox fighter and have only a short flight duration.

Allied pilots have confirmed that these jet machines are not easily thrown about in the air and pilots who have found themselves placed in combat position with either the “Swallow” or the “Comet,” say they can easily turn inside them, as they are no good at quick turns.

The Allies believe that the Germans have not been able to produce and bring into operation as many jet machines as they would like because their aircraft industry is so dispersed to avoid bomb damage. They are still in the position of being forced to rely on tried types because of the urgent requirements of the Luftwaffe on both home defense and tactical work.

JANUARY 29, 1945

NEGRO UNIT AT BASTOGNE

969th Field Artillery Battalion Filled Heroic Role

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 (AP) —The 969th Field Artillery Battalion, with Negro enlisted men manning its 155-mm. howitzers, has fought all the way from Normandy to Bastogne.

The War Department reported today that the battalion stuck to its guns and helped beat off waves of German attackers at Bastogne, where for a time American forces were isolated in the German breakthrough push.

In the heaviest fighting at Bastogne all except the actual cannoneers fought infantry fashion, taking thirty or forty prisoners.

The battalion set up its guns under the direction of the 101st Airborne Division, to which it was attached. Enemy tanks and infantry approached. With the help of a few scattered tanks, the battalion poured out fire that held the enemy at bay. Casualties became heavy before the tide turned with the appearance of supply planes and armored forces from the south.

FEBRUARY 8, 1945

PATTON OVER RIVER; WIDE FRONT ABLAZE

By CLIFTON DANIEL
BY Wireless to The New York Times.

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Feb. 7 —The coordinated attack by two American Armies against the Siegfried Line broadened to a front of seventy miles today when four divisions of Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army renewed their eastward thrust and burst over the German border at ten places beyond the Luxembourg frontier.

American infantrymen, who had already been thrusting into the Siegfried Line to the north, meanwhile drove clean through the main permanent defenses of the last remaining zone of the Siegfried Line in two places, one on the Olef River southwest of Schleiden, the other only three miles from Pruem, vital road junction in Germany southeast of St. Vith.

Allied advances had left a fat salient bulging as much as fourteen miles into our lines along the Luxembourg frontier, and the Third Army forces struck a series of determined blows today to flatten that bulge. Striking across the distended Sauer and Our Rivers, which mark the German border, they pushed into Germany as much as a mile in one place and an average of a half mile elsewhere.

Broadening of the offensive brought a total of at least twelve divisions into the attack on the Siegfried zone between Echternach in the south and Schmidt in the north, a distance of seventy miles. Beyond Schmidt and around Aachen the Westwall has already been effectively reduced, and the American Ninth and British Second Armies are standing along the Roer River awaiting developments while the methodical attack proceeds toward the Siegfried Line and, incidentally, toward the dams that control the Roer’s level.

Although a dozen divisions are now battering away at the Westwall or moving up to within range of it, these forces are only a token of the total that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower can swing into action at a chosen moment. This moment seems to await developments in the Siegfried Line battle.

In the interim the former German salient jutting into the high Vosges south of Mulhouse dwindled today until it was nothing but a slender bridgehead across the Rhine, east of Colmar and Mulhouse.

At the northern end of the front on which two American armies are attacking, the forces bearing south from Bergstein into one of the thickest parts of the Westwall are unable to move across the Kall River toward the biggest of the Roer dams because of mines and small-arms fire spewing out of Siegfried pillboxes.

To the south and west, however, the Seventy-eighth Division with the aid of tanks managed to drive 1,000 yards farther northeast along the valley floor toward Schmidt, stubborn strongpoint of the Siegfried system. Its infantry is now within rifle range of the village, which is 500 yards away.

Just a thousand yards northwest of Schmidt, which also guards Schwammenauel dam, other Seventy-eighth Division troops edged into the outskirts of Kommerscheid. How thickly studded the defenses are in this area was demonstrated by the fact that in its slight advances of the past few days the Seventy-eighth Division has already captured 159 pillboxes, most of them defended. In this area the pillboxes, painted green to match the evergreen woods, are blended into the terrain on twisting roads and steep valley walls.

The line of the new Third Army advance into Germany begins southwest of Brandscheid, at the northern side of Luxembourg, and stretches south to the Echternach area. Generally, the drive seems to be aimed not only at the Siegfried Line, but at a useful communications network lying beyond it and centered on the hubs of Pruem in the north and Bitburg, seventeen miles to the south. The attack went forward at points on a twenty-two-mile front.

Doughboys of the Sixth Armored Division, leaving the division’s tanks on the west bank, crossed the Our River in three places two and a half miles northeast of Dasburg, which is due east of Clerf, and advanced a half mile beyond the river. The Seventeenth Airborne Division, spanning the river due east of Clerf, also advanced a half mile against small-arms fire from the Dasburg area.

At 3 A.M. the Eightieth Division, after an hour and a half of artillery preparation, moved over the Sauer River two miles northwest of Bollendorf, which is four miles northwest of Echternach, and units of the same division crossed the Our at two points and speared forward a half mile due east of Diekirch, where the Our joins the Sauer. They entered Bettel, northeast of Diekirch.

FIFTH GETS OFF FIRST

The Fifth Division moved off earliest of all at 1 A.M. and caught the first counter-attack. Its thrust was made across the Sauer at three points northwest of Echternach. It extended into Germany for a mile after a counterblow against one of its crossings had been beaten off.

The crossings were accomplished despite the swift current and high water. Fire from the opposite bank, which was guarded by a thick tangle of barbed wire, sank some of the assault boats on swirling streams.

French First Army forces, including an American corps, meanwhile were making a clean sweep of the Colmar pocket south of Strasbourg. Remnants of the German forces in the Vosges were being swept into prisoner cages. Along the Rhine American forces overran Neuf-Brisach, on the northern side of the German bridgehead, yesterday, and pushed five miles south of that town. All territory west of the Rhone-Rhine Canal, which parallels the Rhine, was cleared by the American Twenty-eighth Division and the French First Armored Division. A bridgehead established across the canal at Ile de Napoleon, in the south, by the French Ninth Colonial Division, was extended toward the Rhine today.

All that is left to the Germans west of the Rhine now is a strip five or six miles wide and ten miles long up to the Rhone-Rhine Canal. At the rate at which they are evacuating by ferry and pontoon bridges they will not hold that long.

The western zone along the German border has been effectively penetrated along a forty-five-mile stretch from a point north of Aachen to a point due east of Malmedy. The attack now proceeding is against the second zone, which is based roughly on the Olef River at Hellenthal, Schleiden and Gemuend and then continues north into Huertgen Forest along both sides of the Roer River, into which the Olef runs. The main part of this line was cracked, if not broken, today with the crossing of the Olef at Hellenthal.

FEBRUARY 13, 1945

Text of the Big Three Announcement On the Crimea Conference

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (AP) —The text of the report on the Big Three conference in the Crimea, released at the White House today, follows:

REPORT OF CRIMEA CONFERENCE

For the past eight days, Winston S. Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain; Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Marshal J. V. Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, have met with the Foreign Secretaries, Chiefs of Staff and other advisers in the Crimea.

The following statement is made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of the United States of America and the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the results of the Crimean conference:

THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY

We have considered and determined the military plans of the three Allied powers for the final defeat of the common enemy. The military staffs of the three Allied nations have met in daily meetings throughout the conference. These meetings have been most satisfactory from every point of view and have resulted in closer coordination of the military effort of the three Allies than ever before. The fullest information has been interchanged. The timing, scope and coordination of new and even more powerful blows to be launched by our armies and air forces into the heart of Germany from the east, west, north and south have been fully agreed and planned in detail.

The “Big Three” at the Crimea Conference, 1945.

Our combined military plans will be made known only as we execute them, but we believe that the very close-working partnership among the three staffs attained at this conference will result in shortening the war. Meetings of the three staffs will be continued in the future whenever the need arises.

Nazi Germany is doomed. The German people will only make the cost of their defeat heavier to themselves by attempting to continue a hopeless resistance.

THE OCCUPATION AND CONTROL OF GERMANY

We have agreed on common policies and plans for enforcing the unconditional surrender terms which we shall impose together on Nazi Germany after German armed resistance has been finally crushed. These terms will not be made known until the final defeat of Germany has been accomplished. Under the agreed plan, the forces of the three powers will each occupy a separate zone of Germany. Coordinated administration and control have been provided for under the plan through a central control commission consisting of the Supreme Commanders of the three powers with headquarters in Berlin. It has been agreed that France should be invited by the three powers, if she should so desire, to take over a zone of occupation and to participate as a fourth member of the control commission. The limits of the French zone will be agreed by the four Governments concerned through their representatives on the European Advisory Commission.

It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and nazism and to insure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world. We are determined to disarm and disband all German armed forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly contrived the resurgence of German militarism; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German industry that could be used for military production; bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment and exact reparation in kind for the destruction wrought by the Germans; wipe out the Nazi party, Nazi laws, organizations and institutions, remove all Nazi and militarist influences from public office and from the cultural and economic life of the German people; and take in harmony such other measures in Germany as may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world. It is not our purpose to destroy the people of Germany, but only when nazism and militarism have been extirpated will there be hope for a decent life for Germans, and a place for them in the comity of nations.

REPARATION BY GERMANY

We have considered the question of the damage caused by Germany to the Allied Nations in this war and recognized it as just that Germany be obliged to make compensation for this damage in kind to the greatest extent possible. A commission for the compensation of damage will be established. The commission will be instructed to consider the question of the extent and methods for compensating damage caused by Germany to the Allied countries. The commission will work in Moscow.

UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE

We are resolved upon the earliest possible establishment with our allies of a general international organization to maintain peace and security. We believe that this is essential, both to prevent aggression and to remove the political, economic and social causes of war through the close and continuing collaboration of all peace-loving peoples.

The foundations were laid at Dumbarton Oaks. On the important question of voting procedure, however, agreement was not there reached. The present conference has been able to resolve this difficulty.

We have agreed that a conference of the United Nations should be called to meet at San Francisco, in the United States, on April 25, 1945, to prepare the charter of such an organization, along the lines proposed in the informal conversations at Dumbarton Oaks.

The Government of China and the Provisional Government of France will be immediately consulted and invited to sponsor invitations to the conference jointly with the Governments of the United States, Great Britain and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As soon as the consultation with China and France has been completed, the text of the proposals on voting procedure will be made public.

DECLARATION ON LIBERATED EUROPE

The Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States of America have consulted with each other in the common interests of the peoples of their countries and those of liberated Europe. They jointly declare their mutual agreement to concert during the temporary period of instability in liberated Europe the policies of their three Governments in assisting the peoples liberated from the domination of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis satellite states of Europe to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems.

The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter—the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live—the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations.

To foster the conditions in which the liberated peoples may exercise these rights, the three Governments will jointly assist the people in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite state in Europe where in their judgment conditions require (A) to establish conditions of internal peace; (B) to carry out emergency measures for the relief of distressed peoples; (C) to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people; and (D) to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections.

By this declaration we reaffirm our faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter, our pledge in the Declaration by the United Nations and our determination to build, in cooperation with other peace-loving nations, world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and the general well-being of all mankind.

A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of her complete liberation by the Red Army. This calls for the establishment of a Polish Provisional Government which can be more broadly based than was possible before the recent liberation of western Poland. The Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad. This new government should then be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.

M. Molotoff, Mr. Harriman and Sir A. Clark Kerr are authorized as a commission to consult in the first instance in Moscow with members of the present Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders from within Poland and from abroad, with a view to the reorganization of the present Government along the above lines. This Polish Provisional Government of National Unity shall be pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot. In these elections all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates.

When a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity has been properly formed in conformity with the above, the Government of the U.S.S.R., which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States of America will establish diplomatic relations with the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity and will exchange Ambassadors, by whose reports the respective Governments will be kept informed about the situation in Poland.

The three heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon Line, with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. They recognize that Poland must receive substantial accessions of territory in the north and west. They feel that the opinion of the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity should be sought in due course on the extent of these accessions and that the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference.

FEBRUARY 14, 1945

RAF HITS

DRESDEN HEAVY NIGHT BLOW

LONDON, Feb. 14 (AP) —The RAF, launching one of the greatest night attacks of the war, sent 1,400 aircraft over Germany last night and delivered a smashing blow to Dresden in support of the Red Army’s drive on that city.

Attacks also were made on a synthetic oil plant at Bohlen, south of Leipzig, and on Magdeburg, seventy-five miles southwest of Berlin.

Dresden, however, was the main target, an Air Ministry announcement said.

“As the center of a railway network and a great industrial town, it has become of the greatest value for conducting any defense the Germans may organize against Marshal Koneff’s armies,” the announcement added.

The devastation in Dresden after the Allied bombing in 1945.

FEBRUARY 14, 1945

Editorial

THE CASE OF POLAND

Until the spokesmen of the Big Three Powers met at Yalta the outlook was bleak for any satisfactory, or even acceptable, settlement of the controversy over Poland. The Russians, who had twice within one generation been invaded by the Germans across the Polish plains, insisted upon a new strategic frontier farther west, along the so-called Curzon Line. Their claim for such a frontier was buttressed by the fact that east of the Curzon Line there are fewer Poles than non-Poles, and by the further fact that the old frontier had been established at the end of the last war by force of Polish arms. Meanwhile, in opposition to this view, the Polish Government-in-Exile, functioning in London, insisted that it had no mandate from the Polish people to surrender any part of Polish territory and that Russia was attempting to force a settlement of the whole question by unilateral action.

That was true before the Yalta conference met. It is now no longer true. The solution proposed at Yalta is a three-Power plan, supported not only by Russia but by Britain and the United States. To be sure, the Polish Government-in-Exile had no hand in this decision. But the fact remains that the decision was made in the name of the three Powers which alone are capable of defending the integrity of Poland against a renewal of German aggression, and by the three Powers which will once more have to bear the brunt of the fighting in case such a threat develops.

Moreover, the solution has much to commend it on other grounds than this vital one that it represents a decision which the Great Powers are prepared to defend in Poland’s interest. For while Russia’s claim to the Curzon Line is recognized, with certain minor digressions in Poland’s favor, Poland is assured of “substantial accessions of territory in the north and west.” Meanwhile, the present puppet Government set up in Warsaw by Russia’s unilateral action is to be reorganized “on a broader democratic basis” under the aegis of an international commission of three members, in which Russia will have a minority of one, and the new provisional Government thus formed is to be “pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible, on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot.” In these elections “all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates.”

Because we believe that this plan offers the Polish people west of the Curzon Line an opportunity to choose their own Government by democratic methods; because we believe that the Curzon Line itself, judged historically, is not unfair or unreasonable; because we believe that, with the accession of some new territory in the west and north, there will be ample living space in which a sturdy Poland can prosper, and because we believe that the guarantee of Polish integrity implied in this three-Power decision is of great importance from the point of view of the long future, we regret the action of the Polish Government in London yesterday in flatly rejecting the Yalta plan. We think that history will say that it missed an opportunity.

FEBRUARY 16, 1945

JAPANESE EXPECT TO WIN, POLL FINDS

Concede Our Industrial Might But Put Faith in Japan’s ‘Spiritual Superiority’

By ROBERT TRUMBULL
By Wireless to The New York Times.

SAIPAN, Feb. 15 —What does the average Japanese feel and think—about the war, about the United States, about democracy?

How well informed is he on the progress of the war? Does he still believe after having seen some of America’s armed might that Japan will win? To get the answers to questions such as these, language officers on Saipan conducted a poll, in Camp Suspe, where 13,243 Japanese on Saipan are housed.

The poll was limited to 500 Japanese civilians selected according to education, station in life and sex so as to give the nearest possible cross section of civilian Japanese opinion as it might exist in the homeland. The results are admittedly inconclusive in some respects—for instance in evaluating the answer to the question whether Japanese civilians will fight to the death if Japan is invaded it must be borne in mind that those answering were Japanese who did fight.

However, the poll does lift a small corner of the veil that has hidden the average Japanese mind since the outbreak of the war. It disproves a few fallacies—such as the American belief that hara-kiri is widespread—and something of the attitude of the average Japanese toward his Emperor. It also discloses contradictory habits of thought that American officers have found to be characteristic of the Oriental enemy here and elsewhere.

SOME NEVER HEARD OF U.S.

The officers taking the poll chose the 500 civilians with care for the preservation of a proper ratio between Okinawans, who make up the bulk of the Japanese population on Saipan and Japanese from the home islands. It was noted, incidentally, that 5 per cent of the homeland Japanese considered the Okinawans inferior people but the Okinawans themselves were practically unanimous in their belief that there is no difference between themselves and other Japanese. The only actual difference in the poll as found between the two groups was that the Okinawans were less educated. Some had never heard of America.

Another factor considered in evaluating the answers was that the Saipan Japanese have received considerable information about the war since their capture. The Chamorro natives in Camp Suspe who hear of American victories from their soldier guards take delight in carrying this news to their Japanese fellow refugees. Also the Japanese on Saipan have seen with their own eyes considerable evidence of American strength. In this respect they have an advantage over their countrymen at home.

Fewer than 40 per cent of the Japanese in Suspe surrendered voluntarily; of the 500 queried 309 had been captured while only 191 gave up. Many said they would have surrendered had they not believed they would be tortured. This belief was based on horror stories disseminated by the Japanese army.

FEAR A MAJOR FACTOR

The Japanese encountered canards emanating from Guadalcanal that captured Japanese men and children would be run over by tanks while the women would be removed to ships and despoiled. Some of these stories were put into Japanese newspapers and magazines but most had been told by soldiers. Some civilians said they would have surrendered but were prevented by soldiers.

Answers to the “How did you feel when you were captured?” bore out a growing belief here that fear rather than fanatic patriotism ruled the Japanese civilians in resistance to capture. Only seventy-nine said they were “ashamed” while 348 admitted fright was the dominant emotion.

Incidentally, officers here believe that stories of civilian suicides on Saipan were greatly exaggerated; it is doubtful if the suicides exceeded 200, or 1 per cent of the population.

“If the Japanese homeland is invaded what do you think that the civilians will do?” Fight to the last, said 281; fight until it looks hopeless, said twenty-seven; the civilians won’t fight, said seventy-nine. (Half of these said “it will be like Saipan.”) About a quarter of those questioned had no opinion.

Three-fifths to four-fifths of the Japanese queried had the correct answers to questions on the progress of the war. They knew that Japan had been bombed, they didn’t believe that Japan had invaded Australia or bombed California or occupied a large part of India. It is possible, however, that they had obtained much of this information since their capture.

Of the 500, 412 believed United States was more powerful industrially than Japan, and this was surprising to the interrogators. However, many qualified their answers, saying “but Japan is more powerful spiritually,” and a number believe Japan will equal or surpass us in production when full use can be made of the resources in occupied countries.

Now comes a contradiction. Despite what they can see with their own eyes as great numbers of American ships moving in and out of Saipan harbor, more than half the group still believes Japan has the strongest navy in the world. Some confessed that their faith in the Japanese Navy was shaken by events in Saipan but others insisted that the Japanese Navy was still superior by some mysterious “spiritual power.” Only 100 think the United States Navy has been sunk, however.

LONG WAR PREDICTED

As to who will win the war, a majority believe Japan will. Significantly these same persons think it will be a very long war. Frequently those answering revealed that their confidence in Japan was based on national pride. Many said something like this: “I think Japan will win, since I am a Japanese.” It was evident that the Battle of Saipan had given many Japanese here a more realistic outlook on the facts of this war than they had had before.

More results of the questionnaire add no hope to any plans being held for a democratization of Japan after the war. There was a division of opinion as to actions of Japanese leaders, only 185 backing army and navy policies while seventy-four were opposed and 241 offered no opinion. Here an inconsistency appears. Asked if the Emperor favored the war 138 said “no,” yet half of this group when asked the question, who actually controls the Japanese Government, answered “the Emperor.”

There was little desire shown for a democratic form of government and three-fifths of those who wanted it did not think it would work if they got it.

Japanese opinion of American troops differed sharply before and after capture. Whereas 376 had thought American soldiers “barbarous and cruel” before capture, 422 now think them “kind, generous and friendly.”

The Japanese here hold, however, to their previously inculcated opinions of the American people in general as distinct from the soldiery. Of the 500, a total of 330 think we are “soft, luxury loving, rich, spiritually weak”; 139 had no opinion.

FEBRUARY 17, 1945

Dresden Dead Put At 70,000

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Feb. 16 (AP) —The German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau said today that 70,000 persons had been killed in this week’s Allied bombings of Dresden. The city has been cut off from all communication with the rest of Germany as a result of destruction of the telegraph station, post office, railroad station and high command headquarters, the report said.

FEBRUARY 19, 1945

GERMAN LINER SEEN SUNK

Finnish Radio Says Only 1,000 of 8,700 Aboard Were Saved

LONDON, Feb. 18 (AP) —The Finnish radio reported tonight the sinking of the 25,000-ton German liner Wilhelm Gustloff with the loss of 7,700 persons while she was evacuating refugees and sailors from Danzig.

[The Wilhelm Gustloff, a passenger liner before the war, had been converted into a troop transport.]

The broadcast did not state how or when the German ship was sunk, but said that of the 3,700 naval personnel and 5,000 refugees aboard only 1,000 were saved.

FEBRUARY 22, 1945

Windbreaker Jacket Named For Eisenhower Is A Feature in Spring Style Collection

By VIRGINIA POPE

A complete review of the spring collection of one house of design was shown yesterday noon in the Cotillion Room of the Hotel Pierre, by Sada Saks, specialty shop of 671 Madison Avenue. It is usually the custom of stores to show styles from many houses. Yesterday’s collection was from Anna Miller and designed by Henry Patrick.

Several main lines ran throughout. One of the most attractive was the windbreaker jacket used as the blouse of two-piece dresses. In honor of the Commander in Chief of the Allies’ European armies it was called the Eisenhower. The feminine version was developed in crepes, sometimes in monotone effect and again in a two-color scheme. To soften it it was gathered into the waistline. Appliques on the sleeve or a bit of jeweled embroidery at the front added decorative interest.

Applause greeted dresses made with long gathered tunic tops. These came in prints or plain crepes. Large square-cut topaz-tinted stones made the buttons on one such model of banana-yellow rayon crepe. The chic look that one associates with New York women in the spring and summer was seen in simple crepes made on shirtwaist lines fastened with pearl or jeweled buttons. Stripes were used to their best advantage. A black and white dress had a wide cummerbund of red that tied at the side. Suits were made with hipbone length or bolero jackets.

There were refreshing black crepes for restaurant dining. Here the trump was a crepe with a tunic top of net. The lower portion was gathered full, ballerina style. Less formal was a frock with a Mexican pink skirt and a black bodice.

FEBRUARY 25, 1945

JAPANESE OVERRUN

Marines Smash Through Maze Of Defenses in Bloody Iwo Battle

By WARREN MOSCOW
By Wireless to The New York Times.

ADVANCED HEADQUARTERS. Guam, Feb. 25 —Despite bazooka-type weapons and new 1,100-pound rocket bombs used by fiercely fighting Japanese in a mass of powerful interlocking defenses, the marines on Iwo Island pushed northward 300 to 500 yards to overrun half of the fighter airstrip in the center of the island on Saturday.

In a general push they widened the beachhead on the eastern coast by 600 yards, overcoming a maze of connecting pillboxes, blockhouses and fortified caves. They passed through heavily mined areas to make the advances, the greatest in one day since the landing on Monday.

In a single area of 400 by 600 yards on the east coast, the marines had to neutralize about 100 caves, thirty to forty feet deep, indicating clearly why the seventy-four-day aerial bombardment of the island and the three-day ship shelling prior to our landing failed to decimate the garrison or its supplies.

SUPPLIES POURING ASHORE

The marines are benefiting from the capture of Mount Suribachi, volcano at the southern end of the island, and the advance northward. Enemy artillery fire no longer is dominating the interior area under American control. The mortar fire on the marines’ landing places has been reduced and supplies are pouring ashore.

Apparently the Japanese on Iwo are using new techniques developed from lessons of previous American landings, making our advances more costly.

While there is no recent report on American casualties, this morning’s communiqué reported a total of 2,799 enemy dead had been counted.

Something less than half of Iwo now is in our possession. Many Japanese strong points and small groups probably have been bypassed in the drive.

Mopping-up operations continued on Mount Suribachi. The marines reported 115 enemy emplacements destroyed in that area while squads of Leathernecks picked their way up and down the volcanic slopes. The planting of the American flag on Suribachi two days ago marked a definite change in American fortunes on Iwo.

Meanwhile the fleet units continued furnishing aerial support while Seventh Army Air Force Liberators worked away neutralizing Japanese bases on Chichi and Haha Islands in the near-by Bonins.

A previous communiqué issued last midnight covering operations up to noon reported the start of the general marine attack now paying dividends. American tanks are leading the way.

TOKYO’S VERSION OF IWO BATTLE

An unsupported claim that American casualties on Iwo Island up to Friday night “totaled 17,000” was broadcast by the Tokyo radio yesterday, The Associated Press reported.

The broadcast, beamed to North America and recorded by the Federal Communications Commission, said that “the enemy’s advance has been stemmed—as a matter of fact, the enemy has had to withdraw his line somewhat.”

The Japanese radio had nothing to say about the American capture of Mount Suribachi, claiming instead that fighting continues there “without distinction to day or night, as our matchless drawn-swords continue to penetrate into the enemy midst.”

“More than 40,000 enemy troops are caught and. unable to move in a small area about three kilometers in length running from the south dock toward the west, and one kilometer deep from the coastal area to Sunajigahara,” Tokyo said. “With this concentration of enemy men as a target, our shells are being well aimed, and not one shell explodes but that it makes its mark.”

MARCH 6, 1945

39 NATIONS INVITED TO SECURITY PARLEY AT SAN FRANCISCO

Poles Are Omitted Until New Government Is Set Up as Proposed at Yalta

By LANSING WARREN
Special to The New York Times.

WASHINGTON, March 5 —Invitations to attend the security conference in San Francisco April 25 were conveyed today by United States diplomatic representatives to the governments of thirty-nine nations, the State Department announced.

In extending the invitations to the conference, which was decided on at Yalta as a sequel to the Dumbarton Oaks meeting, this country was acting on behalf of the other sponsoring powers, the United Kingdom, Russia and China.

Included in or accompanying the announcement were these other four major developments in the preparations for the San Francisco meeting: Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr., in a statement issued here and in Mexico City, where he is attending the meeting of Inter-American States, gave a detailed explanation of the settlement at Yalta on the voting procedure in the proposed Security Council. Under this compromise, the unanimous consent of the Big Five would be required in deciding certain questions involving the use of force, and any one of the five could veto a move to enforce peace.

FRANCE WILL ATTEND PARLEY

France, while agreeing to participate in the conference, declined to serve as an inviting power, owing to the fact that she made this contingent on conditions which the other major powers could not agree to approve, but it was learned that France’s status as a permanent member of the security council would not be affected by her refusal to be an inviting power.

Poland was temporarily not invited, and her invitation was made conditional on the reorganization of her Provisional Government in conformity with the provisions of the Crimea Conference.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, the only one of the Republicans on the American delegation who had not already accepted, announced that he had agreed to be a delegate. He said that an exchange of letters with President Roosevelt had convinced him of his right of free action, adding that he would exercise it to insure that “justice” should be made the “guiding objective” of the peace.

The invitations issued today, besides the omission of Poland; showed several divergences from the lists of countries previously invited to United Nations conferences. It was explained that since Jan. 1 eight countries had signed the United Nations declaration. It was decided to invite all signatory powers to the declaration as of Feb. 5, 1945, as well as Turkey and any country which had declared war on an Axis power up to March 1.

A special invitation was decided later in the case of Saudi Arabia, following the conference between Mr. Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud on a warship near Cairo.

NEUTRALS NOT INVITED

Syria and Lebanon, Iceland and Denmark, which had sent representatives to previous gatherings, were omitted from the conference, as were such neutral countries as Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Ireland and Argentina. Liberated countries, such as Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Baltic nations, several of which under new governments have declared war on Germany, also were excluded.

Neutral countries, it was explained, cannot share in the peace settlement, and the former enemy countries, even though now recognized diplomatically, cannot be admitted to the security negotiations until after the organization has been set up. There was no explanation of the omission of Syria, Lebanon, Iceland and Denmark.

FRANCE RAISES PROBLEM

One of the problems disclosed in today’s announcement is the defection of France, widening the rift caused by General de Gaulle’s recent refusal to meet Mr. Roosevelt in Algiers. The French leader has complained that France was not informed sufficiently of the Crimea decisions, and not having been represented at Yalta had framed several objections and suggestions which it desired to make.

After study of the French propositions and consultation among the inviting powers, it was found impossible to accept her proposals and France was so informed. Her reply was to agree to attend the conference, but to refuse to be a sponsor. The action is equivalent to serving notice that France intends to defend her proposals to amend the Yalta and Dumbarton Oaks decisions in conformity with French views.

Although nothing was disclosed officially on the proposals, it is known the French Government is especially interested in the peace settlement with Germany and the disposition of the Rhineland.

MARCH 6, 1945

TITO IS BELGRADE PREMIER

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, March 5 (Reuter) —After the formation of the Regency Council here at noon today, Marshal Tito and Premier Ivan Subasitch of the Yugoslav Royal Government conferred.

In the afternoon Dr. Subasitch handed the resignation of the Royal Government to the Regency and later Marshal Tito presented to the President of the National Liberation Assembly, Dr. Ivan Ribar, the resignation of the whole National Committee, which for the last two years has acted as a Government and carried on the war.

The Regents, on the advice of Dr. Ribar and Dr. Subasitch, then entrusted the Marshal with the mandate to form a united Yugoslav Government, which is expected to be completed by tomorrow.

MARCH 11, 1945

FURIOUS FIGHTING RAGES AT BRIDGE

Germans Pour Shells On U.S. Forces—Air Attack Fails—Men Pour Over Rhine

By GLADWIN HILL
By Wireless to The New York Times.

AT THE RHINE BRIDGEHEAD, March 10 —While American forces pressed steadily east of the Rhine under the secrecy of a blackout, a furious many-sided battle raged all day at the Remagen bridgehead today.

German guns shelled the bridge and both banks of the river from lateral positions on the east bank outside the bridgehead. German bombing planes came over at scarcely more than ten-minute intervals from noon on, evoking flaming barrages from hundreds of American anti-aircraft guns on the hills around and even from pistol-packing GI’s, who cheered our ack-ack blasts and blazed away from the ground with their own small arms.

But at the end of the day, our reinforcements were still pouring across into the growing piece we are biting out of Germany’s interior fortress.

American engineers worked on the more vulnerable west bank—because it is not protected by bluffs such as those that overhang the east side—under a succession of screaming shells that, as this correspondent can testify, were far from reassuring. Some hit vehicles and other equipment on the river bank, starting fires that roared for hours, and sent up great columns of smoke.

Against an obligato of shell whines and the tat-tat-tat of ack-ack fire, Brig. Gen. William T. Hoge, who directed the original coup of capturing the bridge, coolly continued in his temporary command post in a dark cellar on the east bank the supervision of his forces in the exploitation of the break.

GERMAN AIR BLOW SMASHED

A special squadron of eleven German fighter planes made a desperate attempt late today to bomb the Remagen Bridge leading to American positions across the Rhine, but a United States Thunderbolt squadron stopped them before they could reach their objective.

Six Messerschmitt 109’s, carrying “heavy bombs,” escorted by five Focke-Wulf 190’s, made the attempt. The Thunderbolts intercepted them above the town of Linz and a spectacular dogfight developed in which two of the German planes were shot down and the others were forced to jettison their bombs and scurry for inner Germany.

Two American fighters were lost but the vital bridge, feeding Lieut. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges’ First Army troops, suffered not the slightest damage.

First Lieut. Norman D. Gould of Erie, Pa., shot down one of the bomb-carrying Messerschmitts and two other Thunderbolts shot down one of the escorting Focke-Wulfs. Another Messerschmitt was damaged.

U.S. GUNS HIT AMERICAN

The some 100 American fighters patrolling the bridgehead throughout the day had to brave both their own and enemy antiaircraft fire and a solid cloud formed a 2,500-foot ceiling over the sector. United States gunners clustered around the bridge itself were firing at every plane that appeared without taking time to determine its identity.

One of the Eighth Air Force’s leading aces, Capt. Ray Wetmore of Kerman, Calif., narrowly escaped when gunfire from United States batteries crippled his fighter plane and forced him to make an emergency landing.

His plane was set afire by flak, which also crippled his hydraulic system. But Captain Wetmore made a successful belly landing and reported by radio that he was not hurt.

He holds a record of twenty-one planes shot down in combat in addition to two destroyed on the ground.

A First U.S. Army tank rolls off the east end of the Rhine River bridge at Remagen, Germany as U.S. infantrymen advance to consolidate and expand the east bank bridgehead in March 1945.

MARCH 11, 1945

GIANT TOKYO FIRES BLACKENED B-29’S

Correspondent in One Reports Soot and Smoke Reached Planes High in Skies

By MARTIN SHERIDAN
Boston Globe Correspondent for the Combined American Press.

OVER TOKYO, March 10 —I not only saw Tokyo burning furiously in many sections, but I smelled it. Huge clouds of smoke billowed high above the city. The conflagration was so great that the bomb bay doors of this Superfortress, the underside of the fuselage and the gun blisters were blackened with soot.

This bomber was one of more than 300 from American bases in the Marianas—forming the greatest fleet of Superfortresses ever put in the air—which gave the Japanese capital the hotfoot early today.

Our navigator didn’t have to give the pilot a bearing on Tokyo. Other bombers were ahead of us and forty miles from the city we could see the reddish glow of fires already started.

As soon as we reached the Japanese mainland we saw scores of smaller fires, en route to Tokyo, and possibly set by the Japanese as diversionary ruses.

The Superfortresses went in singly, a complete change from their previous formation tactics.

Over the outskirts of Tokyo our plane tore through high, somber clouds of smoke and fires. The smoke seemed inside the plane. It smelled like the interior of a long burnt building.

A DISPLAY OF DESTRUCTION

Suddenly there was an opening through the pall of clouds, and there was Tokyo.

I have never seen such a display of destruction, nor had such an experience.

Fires were raging in several multi-block areas and creating almost daylight conditions. In addition, there were hundreds of blazes throughout the waterfront area, the most densely populated section in the world.

Another indication of the conflagration’s intensity was the turbulent air conditions we encountered over the target. Our plane named Patches and bearing a semi-nude painting on its nose struck down and up drafts and bounced 2,000 feet in split seconds. Crewmen were tossed from their seats. Several struck their heads violently against the top of the plane. They were protected from injury by helmets.

Maj. Walter F. Todd of Ogden, Utah, operations officer and command pilot, said he thought we were hit by anti-aircraft fire, but speeedy examination proved everything was operating satisfactorily.

A moment later Second Lieut. Lee P. Ziemiansky of Buffalo, N.Y. navigator, sang out: “Three, two, one, mark!” At the last word of the count the bombardier, Second Lieut. Thomas C. Moss of Aurora Ill., dropped the “eggs” in the target area.

SEARCHLIGHTS FINGER PLANE

As a civilian noncombatant, my contribution was limited to a brown beer bottle—empty, of course. Several searchlights played on the plane a few moments, but we saw no interceptors and only a few scattered anti-aircraft shell bursts.

We did see the city getting a terrific plastering and they’ll need a highly efficient fire department to put out the blazes.

During the night trip out, the plane passed through several sharp squalls which would pass quickly and then the sky would be full of lights of other bombers.

We passed too close to Raha Island, north of Iwo. The Japanese probed the sky with searchlights.

Second Lieut. Richard W. Metcalfe of Chicago, flight engineer, at midnight broke out a cart containing sandwiches, a few oranges and several cans of grapefruit juice.

The crew was perturbed about “stateside” stories describing facilities on a bomber for keeping chow hot and other stories of fabulous meals. “That doesn’t happen in the Pacific,” they said.

WORRY OVER GASOLINE SUPPLY

The plane commander, Second Lieut. Leon L. Ballard of Houston, Tex., has been a second lieutenant for twenty-one months. The copilot, Second Lieut. Melvin Barnes of Blackfoot, Idaho, has gone fifteen months without a promotion. Moss, the bombardier, has been “frozen” sixteen months as a second lieutenant. The flight engineer, Metcalfe, hasn’t been promoted for nineteen months and Lieutenant Zlemianski has not progressed in seventeen months.

Others in the crew were: S/ Sgt.1 Frank A. Gish of Chicago, Ill.; S/ Sgt. Elmo G. Hodges of Smithville, Tex.; Sgt. Joseph F. Kelly (address not included), and Cpl. Emerson B. Burke of Sapulpa, Okla.

These men and their enlisted mates sleep on cots in Quonset huts and tents at their base, eat mediocre chow and yet fly one of the Army’s most difficult missions without complaints. They have had twelve Superfortress missions.

They have been flying through miserable weather, minus fighter escorts and without complete weather and navigational aids. I saw them in action this morning. under completely new conditions, and a crew couldn’t have looked better.

The greatest worry after the target is left behind is stretching the gasoline supply over 3,300 miles (the round trip) and making it despite head winds and squally weather.

The hardest worker is the navigator, who fiddles with his instruments and charts every moment. His computation was on the nose and I can see Saipan again. After Tokyo, Saipan appears beautiful.

MARCH 17, 1945

3D CUTS FOE APART

Armor Slashes Up Links of the Enemy—Others Flank Him on Saar

By DREW MIDDLETON
By Wireless to The New York Times.

PARIS, March 16 —The battle for the rich Saar Basin has been won almost before it got well under way. The Fourth Armored Division of Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton’s United States Third Army has dashed from the Moselle to beyond Simmern, only sixteen miles from the Rhine at Bingen, according to front-line reports, while along the Saar River itself other Third Army forces have turned the right flank of the German defenses and the United States Seventh Army, attacking frontally, has driven through German positions for substantial gains on a front of sixty miles.

The tactics of envelopment that General Patton and Lieut. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges, commander of the United States First Army, practiced north of the Moselle are being brought to perfection south of the river by General Patton and Lieut Gen. Alexander M. Patch, commander of the United States Seventh-Army. Already Allied air forces report German withdrawals eastward toward the Rhine from the great quadrilateral whose corners rest on Coblenz, Mainz, Karlsruhe and Merzig.

KAISER’S STATUE SMASHED

Coblenz itself, standing at the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine, should fall in a matter of hours. General Patton slipped strong forces across the Moselle six miles south of Coblenz at 3 A.M. today. After a terse “surrender or die” ultimatum was broadcast to the German garrison, Third Army artillery hammered the city with 5,000 shells, which, according to one report from the front, destroyed 75 per cent of the city. One shell blew the famous statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I, symbol of German imperial militarism, to bits.

But Coblenz is only a minor prize compared to the great victory that has been won generally throughout the area. The Germans may fight a number of stiff defensive actions. But the tacti cal decision has been made by General Patton’s armor. The Germans now must either get out of the Saar, withdrawing eastward across the Rhine, or be surrounded and chopped up.

Elsewhere on the front the most important news was the northern thrust of the United States First Army forces in the Remagen bridgehead, which have pushed troops through Koenigswinter on the left and across the Autobahn in the center, bringing the latter forces onto the edge of the flat plain that extends northward. General Hodges has now developed the bridgehead, despite stout opposition, to a point from which a really damaging offensive can be launched.

BITCHE CAPTURED EASILY

The capture of Bitche, long a German stronghold barring the Americans’ path into the eastern edge of the Saar Basin, was the outstanding feat of the Seventh Army front today. It fell to the 100th Infantry Division without much of a fight, and only fifty-eight German soldiers were found in the city, according to reports from the front.

Apparently there has not yet been any effort to take Saarbruecken, for the only action mentioned in that sector was around Feschingen, where infantry of the Sixty-third Infantry Division advanced several thousand yards to the north, after having cleared a town that lies four miles Southeast of Saarbruecken.

Habkirchen was cleared and troops advanced two miles to the north into Pebelsheim. Other elements of the Sixty-third entered Ensheim yesterday and cleared the woods southwest of Omersheim.

The battle line is now two miles from Saarbruecken at the nearest point. Patrols have advanced to within 1,000 yards of the town.

German Army medics surrendering to American troops in Coblenz, Germany, 1945.

Chapter 22

“JAPANESE EXPECTED TO WIN, POLL FINDS”

January–March 1945

SEVENTH OUT OF REICH

GERMANS GAIN ADVANTAGE

ALLIED OUTLOOK BETTER

ON FIFTEEN-MILE BEACHHEAD

ENEMY DEFENSES OVERPOWERED

STEEL CENTERS OUTFLANKED

LODZ BARRIER CONQUERED

TRANSIT CENTER SEIZED

TILSIT HIGHWAY CUT

FRENCH SURPRISE GERMANS

THIRD NEARS VIANDEN

TANKS ATTACK BRITISH

BUILT FOR QUICK WAR

WHAT ALLIES ARE DOING

‘JETS’ POSE PROBLEMS

FIFTH GETS OFF FIRST

REPORT OF CRIMEA CONFERENCE

THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY

THE OCCUPATION AND CONTROL OF GERMANY

REPARATION BY GERMANY

UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE

DECLARATION ON LIBERATED EUROPE

SOME NEVER HEARD OF U.S.

FEAR A MAJOR FACTOR

LONG WAR PREDICTED

SUPPLIES POURING ASHORE

TOKYO’S VERSION OF IWO BATTLE

FRANCE WILL ATTEND PARLEY

NEUTRALS NOT INVITED

FRANCE RAISES PROBLEM

GERMAN AIR BLOW SMASHED

U.S. GUNS HIT AMERICAN

A DISPLAY OF DESTRUCTION

SEARCHLIGHTS FINGER PLANE

WORRY OVER GASOLINE SUPPLY

KAISER’S STATUE SMASHED

BITCHE CAPTURED EASILY