WLB pressure ends two strikes at plants here
‘Just like WPA’ at transformer
…
Millett: Parents often at fault in wartime divorces
‘Innocent’ help may cause misery
By Ruth Millett
…
Poll: Dewey choice of businessmen of nation
But trend since 1940 has been to Roosevelt
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
…
Davis calls Dulles ‘highly informed’
Washington –
John Foster Dulles, representative of Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey in foreign policy discussions here, conferred with a number of Republican Senate members yesterday, including Senator James J. Davis (R-PA).
Mr. Davis, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said their talk concerned post-war international cooperation and world peace and that he found Mr. Dulles “highly informed on the outstanding issues of this problem.”
The Senator said:
Mr. Dulles was particularly anxious to learn the attitude of the people of Pennsylvania regarding the entire matter of post-war international organization and world peace.
Mr. Dulles, between two conferences with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, also conferred with Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) and Wallace H. White Jr. (R-ME), both of whom indicated they believe Mr. Hull and Mr. Dulles in accord on fundamentals of post-war security.
Roosevelt in touch with Willkie
Washington (UP) –
Commenting that he sees lots of people privately, President Roosevelt said today that he had been in private contact with Wendell L. Willkie.
Mr. Roosevelt, under news conference questioning, said he knew of no plans for a “private” meeting with the 1940 Republican presidential nominee. Then he went on to say he might meet him, but that no date had been set.
Asked whether he had been in touch with Mr. Willkie, the President said, well, yes; privately.
“Does privately preclude any…” a reporter started to ask. But he was quickly cut off by the President who said, yes, it precluded.
U.S. State Department (August 25, 1944)
Lot 60–D 224, Box 55: DO/PR/5
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State to the Secretary of State
Washington, August 25, 1944
Subject: PROGRESS REPORT ON DUMBARTON OAKS CONVERSATIONS – FIFTH DAY
Meeting of the Joint Steering Committee
This meeting, the only one held today, was the most important of the entire conversations so far.
a) Relation of the world organization to economic and social matters
This important topic, which when previously raised had been postponed for future discussion, was considered fully for the first time.
-
UNITY OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN VIEWS: The British indicated that they are prepared to accept our views that an Economic and Social Council should be created and should be an organ of the Assembly.
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FULL PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF SOVIET VIEWS: The Russians earnestly and exhaustively argued that the League’s experience demonstrates that an intermingling in the same organization of responsibilities for both the maintenance of peace and for economic and social matters will work out to the detriment of security. We presented at length our reasons for believing that the general organization must concern itself with all matters which bear upon the maintenance of conditions conducive to peace. We also urged that our proposal not only accomplishes this but leaves the executive Council free to concentrate on the primary task of security, thus obviating the defects in the League’s structure. We were encouraged by the attention which Ambassador Gromyko and Mr. Sobolev paid to our arguments. It was agreed that Ambassador Gromyko would report fully to his Government.
b) Regional organizations
We agreed to postpone consideration of this topic.
c) Composition of the Executive Council
We agreed to postpone consideration of this topic.
d) Expulsion and withdrawal of members
Ambassador Gromyko insisted that the power of expulsion is desirable for the “discipline” of members. The British, as a substitute, proposed suspending the privileges of membership of those states against which action is taken by the Council. This proposal was tentatively accepted, ad referendum.
e) Should the Council make decisions by ⅔ or majority vote?
We stated that we could agree to the British proposal that important questions should be decided by a ⅔ vote (including the unanimous vote of members having permanent seats on the Council). Ambassador Gromyko indicated no dissent and said he would inform his Government.
f) Should parties to a dispute vote?
We agreed to state our views early next week.
g) Composition of military staff committee
The British clarified their proposal and said their military authorities regard it as of very great importance. We agreed to present our view on the British proposal next week. There was also tentative discussion, with little apparent divergence of view, of the question of the supreme commander for joint security forces.
h) International Court of Justice
There appeared to be general agreement (1) that there should be a Court, (2) that the Court should be a part of the Organization, and (3) that there should be no attempt to draft the actual Statute of the Court during these conversations.
i) Authority of Council to make its decisions obligatory
There appeared to be tentative agreement with the British proposal that the Council should have authority to make its recommendation obligatory in any dispute involving a clear threat to peace when all other methods of settlement have failed.
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Lot 60–D 224, Box 56: DO/ConvA/JSC Mins. 1–12
Informal minutes of Meeting No. 5 of the Joint Steering Committee
Washington, August 25, 1944, 11 a.m.
[Extract]
| Present: | Sir Alexander Cadogan and Mr. Jebb of the British group; |
| Ambassador Gromyko, Mr. Sobolev, and Mr. Berezhkov of the Soviet group; | |
| Mr. Stettinius, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. Pasvolsky of the American group. | |
| Mr. Hiss also present, as secretary. |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Committee then proceeded to consider part A of the list of questions which had been prepared by Mr. Pasvolsky, Mr. Sobolev, and Mr. Jebb yesterday afternoon.
Economic and social questions
Sir Alexander Cadogan pointed out that the British position is that important economic and social questions should somehow be dealt with as a part of the general organization. He said that he understood that the American view was somewhat similar to the British view but that the Soviet view lays emphasis upon the desirability of keeping these questions separate from matters of security. He said that he understood that the reason for the Soviet position was the feeling that the League had been overloaded with matters unrelated to security. He made the point, however, that economic and social questions might lead to acute differences from which there might result threats to security. Consequently, he said, there was need for some liaison in this connection. He suggested that perhaps the Director General of the international organization might effect such liaison.
Ambassador Gromyko then stated that the Soviet Government considers that it is desirable that there be a separate economic organization. He pointed out that the League had actually considered more questions relating to general welfare than it had questions relating to security. He said that estimates prepared by Soviet officials indicated that some 77 percent of the questions dealt with by the League did not relate directly to the maintenance of peace and security. He said that the public in general had the impression that the League had constantly under consideration important matters relating to peace and security when in reality it was usually engaged only in consideration of secondary matters. The Soviet view, he said, is that the primary and indeed the only task of the international organization should be the maintenance of peace and security. This should satisfy the general aspiration for an organization having as its aim the preservation of peace. He added that some kind of liaison may be found between the security organization and other organizations, at least for purposes of information.
Mr. Stettinius stated that he was impressed by Ambassador Gromyko’s emphasis upon the main task of the proposed organization. He said that he did not consider that the various views were very far apart. He said that we are all agreed that the council should have the maintenance of peace as its task but that in the American view there should be only one overall organization. He said that in the American opinion it is desirable that there be “one tent” covering international relations generally. He suggested that perhaps there might be general agreement upon a formula to the effect that from time to time the assembly may create such subsidiary commissions or bodies as it considers necessary to facilitate the maintenance of peace and security. The American group, he said, does not wish to press its suggestion for a definite detailed plan in this connection. For example, the reference to an Economic and Social Council of twenty-four members is merely a suggestion. The American group has an open mind on the whole subject but it does desire that the way be left open for action by the international organization in this general field.
Mr. Pasvolsky then stated certain of the reasons which had led the United States to the conclusion that an Economic and Social Council is desirable. He explained that it had been recognized that one of the difficulties with the League of Nations had been that the League’s Council was charged with the same responsibilities as was the League’s Assembly. Consequently, the League’s Council had had its attention diverted from security questions. Because of the League experience, it appeared desirable to provide that the council should be the primary body charged with the maintenance of peace and security. The assembly should not be an action body in the same sense as should be the council although it also should be concerned to some extent with the question of peace and security. He said that it is the American view that it is desirable to bring within the general scope of international concern as many economic and technical questions as possible. However, this in turn raises the question of the desirability of coordinating the policies of agencies established to deal with such matters. He emphasized that the international organization, in the American view, should not take over these functional agencies. They would remain quite autonomous but by the “tent” to which Mr. Stettinius had referred we would have a means of obtaining the coordination of these various international activities so as to obviate conflicts between agencies. Moreover, there will for some time, probably indefinitely, be various fields of economic and other activities for which no functioning international agencies will be in existence. The international organization, if the American view were to be adopted, would be able to promote better relations in these fields of activity. So long as no serious conflict arises, or is threatened, in regard to these matters, all such activities would be conducted entirely outside the council.
Mr. Stettinius pointed out that last winter President Roosevelt had suggested to Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin the need for an overall steering committee to coordinate economic policy.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reading Eagle (August 25, 1944)
Pegler: Roberts Commission issues
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
The subtle nature of the executive order defining, but also limiting, the duties of the Roberts Commission in its investigation of the Pearl Harbor disaster, may have escaped most of the people at the time when the report was published, only 16 days after the attack. The whole country was still stunned. The people wanted information but were willing to concede that many details could not be revealed just then without advantage to the Japanese. Therefore, attention centered on the commission’s sketchy and restricted version of the facts and its conclusions. The preamble evoked no comment, but that preamble, nevertheless, shows that the executive order was a self-serving document so written as to preclude any criticism of the civilian authorities in Washington, including President Roosevelt, the Commander-in-Chief.
The preamble says, “The purposes of the required inquiry and report are to provide basis for sound decisions whether any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United States Army and Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were achieved by the enemy,” and if so, who was responsible?
If President Roosevelt had committed any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment, the commission was not authorized to “provide basis for sound decisions” on that score. He was not of the Army or Navy personnel.
But although the commission had no mission to pass judgment on the conduct of civil authorities in Washington, it did presume to report that the Secretaries of State, War and the Navy had fulfilled their obligations. The report says the Secretaries of War and the Navy fulfilled their obligations by conferring frequently with the Secretary of State and with each other and by keeping the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations informed of the course of the negotiations with Japan and the significant implications thereof.
The report does not fully demonstrate that this actually was so, and it certainly leaves doubt that Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short were thoroughly warned of the “significant implications.” Moreover, it says flatly that the last warning to these commanders, “indicating an almost immediate break in relations,” dispatched from Washington at 6:30 in the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Honolulu Time, was not delivered until after the attack, which came at 7:55, one hour and 25 minutes later.
The delay is attributed to “conditions beyond control of anyone concerned” but the warning is evaluated as only “an added precaution,” which still would have come too late to be of substantial use. Yet, the fact remains that the two commanders were still under restraints, forbidden to adopt a state of preparation that might have caused alarm among the civilians.
The limitation of the Roberts Commission’s field of inquiry so as to exclude examination of official conduct in Washington obviously blocked access to historic facts which are an important part of the whole story, and should be the property of the people. And, although the commission had no right to pass judgment on Kimmel and Short, considering that it was instructed only to provide a basis for sound decisions, it nevertheless went beyond that limitation in convicting these two men of dereliction. The preamble does not say who was to make those “sound decisions” after it had provided the basis for them. Possibly the public was to make the “sound decisions.” But in that case the commission’s conviction of the two officers, the vindication of the three secretaries in Washington and the implied vindication of the President, were prejudicial to Kimmel and Short and politically favorable to Mr. Roosevelt. The conclusions were gratuitous in two respects, first in exonerating civilians whose conduct was not within its scope. Second, in condemning men who had not been placed on trial or even served with charges according to law.
The report becomes a political issue in a presidential year because it has been introduced into the campaign by Senator Truman, the running mate, on the Democratic ticket, of the President who might be shown by history to have had a share of the responsibility.
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Letter from President Roosevelt on Reconversion Planning
August 26, 1944
My dear Mr. Smith:
The recent favorable development of the military situation on the world’s battlefronts has emphasized the need to speed up preparations for the eventual reconversion of the Nation’s productive energies to peaceful pursuits. This will be a huge and intricate task, requiring careful preparations. In addition to legislative action already under consideration it will call for a great deal of accurate and comprehensive information concerning industrial production, the status of industry, and the wellbeing of the Nation’s workers. Such information should be currently maintained as we move from war to peace.
In particular I believe that the statistical record should include an account of our industrial system while it is geared up for maximum production during 1944. This may well be the peak year of production for many years to come. An intimate knowledge of the main characteristics of the economy during this war year will be important not only as a guide to our steps toward reconversion but as a part of the record which is essential for military preparedness in the future. I should think it would be possible, if production data were obtained for 1944, to avoid the necessity of appropriations for the regular biennial census of manufactures pertaining to 1945.
Again, it is important that we should have a running account of the status of employment, unemployment, and wages in the Nation as a whole and in the principal industrial areas. With this we should know more about the effects of the war on the incomes, expenditures, and savings of the great masses of our people whose work in the factories and mines, in transportation and on the farms, has equipped our armies in the field.
I believe that the costs of obtaining such information for the use of business, large and small, labor, agriculture, the general public, and governmental agencies themselves may properly be regarded as an essential part of the costs of the war emergency. In conjunction with the agencies concerned will you please undertake the preparation of plans for providing these types of information, and report to me at your early convenience upon the ways and means by which these plans can most appropriately be effectuated.
Stimson macht Teilgeständnis –
Die Feindverluste in Frankreich und Italien
Stockholm, 25. August –
Kriegsminister Stimson machte ein neues Teilgeständnis über die US-Verluste. Hienach sollen die Verluste des Heeres bis zum 6. August 48.880 Tote, 125.931 Verwundete, 42.956 Vermisste und 43.822 Gefangene, zusammen 261.569 Mann betragen.
Die US-Verluste in Südfrankreich seit der kürzlichen Landung sollen sich nach, einem vorläufigen Bericht vom 20. August auf 1.221 Tote und Vermisste sowie 1.754 Verwundete belaufen.
Die US-Verluste der Armee an Boden- und Luftstreitkräften im Mittelmeergebiet sollen seit der Landung in Italien bis zum 7. August 1944 betragen: 17.035 Gefallene, 54.377 Verwundete und 20.411 Vermisste.
Der Stützpunkthunger der USA
Der US-Senator Harry Truman, Mitglied des Ausschusses für militärische Angelegenheiten im Senat und Kandidat für die Vizepräsidentschaft, erklärte laut Reuter am Mittwoch:
Es ist von Bedeutung, daß wir Stützpunkte auf der Inselkette unterhalb der Aleuten erhalten. Es ist von ebensolcher Bedeutung, daß wir uns Stützpunkte im Südpazifik sichern, um die Zufahrtstraßen zum Panamakanal zu schützen. Es ist von ebenso großer Bedeutung, daß wir noch näher an Japan gelegene Stützpunkte besitzen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 26, 1944)
Communiqué No. 140
More Allied armor and infantry are in PARIS, following the entrance of the 2nd French Armored Division Friday morning, and all resistance in the southern and southwestern outskirts has been overcome. By noon yesterday, one armored column had crossed the SEVERES bridge over the SEINE and another column had progressed into the southern part of the city. Infantry followed the armor and advanced to the CATHEDRAL of NOTRE-DAME.
South of PARIS, the enemy holds to the east edge of the SEINE between VILLENEUVE-SAINT-GEORGES and CORBEIL. Between CORBEIL and MELIN, reconnaissance elements have crossed the river. No changes have been reported from the areas of MONTEREAU, or MONTARGIS, both of which are in our hands.
The enemy is withdrawing northeast from MONTARGIS and we have patrols as far east as TROYES.
ELBEUF had been liberated and Allied troops between there and the sea are rapidly approaching the SEINE. The river RISLE has been crossed at many places and our troops hold both banks ad far north as MONTFORT-SUR-RISLE. We have taken HONFLEUR and BEUZEVILLE.
Further to the southeast, ÉPAIGNES and SAINT-GEORGES-DU-VIÈVRE are in our hands, and British and Canadian forces have made contact with American troops.
Brest was subjected to attack by land, air and sea. Enemy strongpoints, including the arsenal, were attacked by medium and heavy bombers yesterday afternoon and last night. Coastal batteries and selected targets were bombarded from the sea.
A fuel dump at CLERMONT, east of BEAUVAIS, was attacked by medium bombers during the afternoon.
Fighters and fighter-bombers attacked tanks, motor vehicles and barges, particularly in the Lower SEINE and eastward from the river. Medium bombers also hit concentrations of motor vehicles near ROUEN.
There was more opposition in the air, and 51 enemy aircraft were shot down, and others were destroyed on the ground. Twenty-one of our aircraft are missing.
Motor transport and trains in northeastern FRANCE were attacked during the night by our light bombers.
U.S. Navy Department (August 26, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 531
For Immediate Release
August 26, 1944
Forty‑seven tons of bombs were dropped on Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands by Liberators of the 7th AAF during daylight on August 24 (West Longitude Date). Three of approximately ten intercepting enemy fighters were destroyed, and one was damaged. Two Liberators were damaged. Anti-aircraft fire ranged from moderate to intense.
In the Marianas, Rota Island was attacked by our aircraft on August 23, and Pagan and Aguijan Islands were bombed on August 24. Gun positions and other defense installations were the targets.
A single 7th AAF Liberator bombed barracks on Yap Island in the western Carolines on August 24, encountering meager anti-aircraft fire.
Nauru Island was attacked by Ventura search planes of Group 1, Fleet Air Wing Two on August 23, and on August 24, Venturas and 7th AAF Mitchells again heavily bombed the runways, gun positions, and the town.
In the Marshalls, Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed and strafed barracks and gun emplacements at Mille Atoll on August 23.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 26, 1944)
REACH FRENCH-SWISS BORDER
U.S. columns advancing up Rhône Valley
Spearhead nears Italian frontier
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
Rome, Italy –
U.S. armored columns captured Avignon, Tarascon and Arles on the Rhône River and swung northward today in a powerful drive up the Rhône Valley, ancient invasion route to central France and Germany.
A London broadcast said U.S. spearheads were reported 17 miles northeast of Avignon.
A German communiqué said fierce fighting was in progress in the Rhône Valley, where motorized U.S. detachments “are attempting to prevent our movements in the direction of Lyon.”
To the northeast, other U.S. forces seized the fortress town of Briançon with the aid of French patriots after 10-mile advance through the French Alps from L’Argentière to within five miles of the Italian border.
Briançon lies 20 miles south of the Turin–Lyon railway and only 50 miles west of the Italian industrial center of Turin itself.
Battle in Toulon
Gen. Sir Henry Wilson, Mediterranean commander, announced in his daily communiqué:
Except for pockets of enemy resistance, notably at Toulon and Marseille, nearly all of southern France east of the Rhône and south of Avignon and Briançon has now been liberated.
French forces waging a battle of annihilation against the encircled German garrison in Toulon further compressed the enemy pocket yesterday, capturing the Maritime Arsenal, the Fort of Colle Noire and Cap Brun.
Dana Adams Schmidt, United Press writer, reported from Toulon that though most of the naval base city had been cleared of Germans, the enemy was still resisting stubbornly from Fort Malbousquet, dominating the main road from Toulon to Marseille, and from the Napoleon coastal forts of the Saint-Mandrier Peninsula.
Bombard strongpoints
Allied warships and planes continued to join land artillery in bombarding strongpoints in Toulon. A U.S. destroyer landed a small force of French troops without opposition on the Giens Peninsula, 11 miles southeast of Toulon, after a heavy attack on the area.
In Marseille, French troops consolidated their positions and attacked an enemy pocket around Notre-Dame de la Garde in an effort to complete the liberation of France’s second largest city.
At the opposite end of the Riviera, U.S. troops pushed four miles northeast of Cannes and captured the resort town of Antibes, 10 miles southwest of Nice.
Hit oil depot
Allied destroyers engaged enemy coastal batteries on the islands below Cannes and started numerous fires, including one in an oil storage depot. Several gun emplacements were destroyed.
U.S. infantry, with armored support, captured Avignon, 50 miles northwest of Marseille and famous for its mineral waters, after taking Carpentras and Cavaillon, 3½ miles northeast and southeast respectively.
Allied headquarters announced that the Americans had swung north from Avignon up the Rhône Valley, part of a complex system of rivers and canals linked with Germany itself by way of the long and winding Rhine.
Thirteen miles south of Avignon, the Americans captured Tarascon, and 8½ miles farther south, Arles, both also on the Rhône River.
Reported near Lyon
There was still no official word of the progress northward of U.S. forces who captured Grenoble, 58 miles southeast of Lyon last Wednesday, though a Rome newspaper yesterday said they had penetrated to within 20 miles of Lyon, also on the Rhône 120 miles above Avignon.
Disclosed that one column had captured Briançon, 22 miles southeast of Grenoble, however, indicated that the Americans were fanning out toward the Italian border to threaten the rear of German forces in the Po Valley.
Headquarters also announced that U.S. troops in force had occupied Sault, 20 miles east of Avignon; Gap, 12 miles southeast of Grenoble, and Saint-Bonnet, two miles north of Gap. U.S. light armored forces had passed through both Gap and Saint-Bonnet in their thrust north to Grenoble.
Yanks reported over Marne
Alsace-Lorraine told to prepare for Allied invasion armies ‘soon’
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Racing toward Germany, German forces today were being pounded on all fronts in France, as Allied troops hammered the Nazi pocket south of the Seine (1) and closed on Le Havre, while the enemy troops (2) were threatened in their race toward the border by U.S. columns fanning out from Paris.
SHAEF, London, England –
U.S. armored spearheads were reported striking for the German border beyond Troyes and Reims today as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters warned the people of Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine that Allied invasion armies may “very soon” roll through their lands into Germany.
Slashing almost unopposed through the rear of the disintegrating German armies in northern France, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. tank columns were reported barely 100 miles from the German frontier after crossing the Marne River below Reims.
Headquarters announced that one U.S. force broke into the railway hub of Troyes, 65 miles south of Reims, and about twice that distance from the Reich.
Fan out from Troyes
The Yanks fanned out beyond the city and, according to a still-unconfirmed German report, raced northward to Reims in a thrust pointed straight at Sedan and the Ardennes Forest where the German Army broke through the French “hinge” in 1940 and won the first Battle of France.
Luxembourg was barely 80 miles beyond the American spearheads and Alsace-Lorraine only about 65 miles away, and the allied warning made it clear that Gen. Eisenhower’s armies were on their way into the Reich itself.
A high staff officer broadcast the invasion proclamation early today, warning residents of the threatened areas against helping the fleeing enemy or exposing themselves to the Allied air attacks which, he said, will be carried on by night and day wherever the German armies are to be found.
Battle decided
He said:
The elimination of the German 7th Army as a fighting entity has decided the battle of France. The survivors of the Normandy battle and a handful of German divisions north of the Seine can at best fight a series of delaying actions on their retreat into Germany.
The areas in which you live are already today in the rear area of military occupations. Very soon they may become a theater of war.
There was no immediate indication of the strength of the U.S. columns now pounding toward the Nazi frontiers, but they were believed to be operating in considerable force with the aid of French Partisan units known to be prowling through the countryside.
Cut across escape path
Their dramatic thrust carried squarely across the path of the German 15th Army, now in full flight eastward from the robot bomb coast.
The Stockholm Dagens Nyheter said that Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, commander-in-chief of German forces in northern France, was reported to have been killed. The report, said to have come from Germany, gave no details and a spokesman for the Nazi Legation in Stockholm was quoted as saying that he was unable to confirm or deny it.
The first word of the reported thrust into Reims came from German military commentators, who said the Americans crossed the Marne yesterday and lunged on 15 miles northward into the cathedral town.
Report unconfirmed
Allied headquarters refused to confirm the German report but it was admitted probable that Gen. Patton’s rough rider had turned north from Troyes over the excellent hard-surfaced roads running through Châlons, Epernay and Château-Thierry into Reims.
The capture of Reims would place the American armor within 50 miles of the Belgian border and completely outflank the German 15th Army pulling back at top speed from the Dieppe–Amiens–Beauvais triangle above Paris.
Imperils Nazi escape
Couple with the seizure of Troyes, which appeared to have fallen almost without a fight, the American breakthrough into Reims imperiled the entire German position in northern France and the line of escape for the Nazi forces in southern and central France.
Official sources confirmed the headlong flight of the German 15th Army from the Channel coast, and aerial reconnaissance reports said the main highways leading eastward to the Rhineland were jammed with retreating Nazi troops and transport.
Allied warplanes bombed and strafed the fleeing enemy columns all day yesterday and on into the night, while other aerial formations piled the Seine River crossings high with Nazi dead and the wreckage of enemy tanks and equipment.
Wreck 270 trucks
About 270 German trucks and 56 tanks were destroyed by low-flying U.S. fighter-bombers and rocket-firing British planes, along with 29 troop-packed barges caught on the Seine yesterday.
Allied ground forces crowded in from the west and south on the Seine pocket, moving in for the kill on an estimated 90,000 Germans squeezed against the river in a triangle measuring less than 300 square miles.
U.S., British and Canadian forces linked up just south of Rouen and threatened momentarily to break into that key river port, while British and Canadian units from the west broke across the Risle River at a half-dozen points and fanned out along the Seine estuary within artillery range of Le Havre.
Le Havre itself was reported a “dead” city, and Allied troops moved freely along the opposite bank of the Seine without drawing fire from the big German coastal batteries there.
Swarms of German minesweepers, torpedo boats and coastal craft jammed the harbor, however, in a desperate and apparently doomed effort to evacuate part of the garrison.
U.S. and British warplanes smashed repeatedly at the Nazi evacuation fleet, sinking a number of vessels and turning most of them back into port.
Fan out from Paris
Below the vanishing Seine pocket, U.S. and French troops fanned out on all sides of liberated Paris, sending armored patrols across the Seine between Corbeil and Melun south of the city and on northward toward the Marne.
Far to the west, heavy fighting flared up around the besieged Breton port of Brest as U.S. troops launched a climactic assault on the city under cover of shattering air and sea bombardment. Swarms of bombers pounded the cornered enemy garrison while Allied warships, including the British battleship HMS Warspite, poured round and round of high explosive shells into the port.
Allies mop up virtually all Nazis in Paris
De Gaulle establishes headquarters in city
London, England (UP) –
U.S. soldiers strolled the streets of Paris today and Gen. Charles de Gaulle triumphantly set up headquarters in his liberated capital after surrender of the Nazi commander had ended German resistance except for a few isolated pockets.
As SHAEF announced the cessation of virtually all hostilities in Paris, United Press writer Robert Richards filed a dispatch from the city, dated at 9:10 a.m., reporting that fighting had subsided and that the main concern now was the feeding of the population of five million.
Mr. Richards said that American doughboys were on every street corner and that jeep-towed trailers loaded with food were rolling into the city. Parisians were not starving, Mr. Richards said, but he was told that another month of German occupation would have created an acute food situation.
Commander surrenders
The virtual end of fighting in Paris came only a few hours after the surrender of the Nazi commander, SHAEF announced.
The German commander signed a six-point surrender demand last night and then toured the city with Allied officers, ordering his troops manning strongpoints to lay down their arms, a headquarters spokesman said.
The spokesman acknowledged that some resistance was still being encountered at Davron, 15 miles west of the center of Paris, and possibly in isolated parts of the capital, but the surrender terms provided that any German troops who ignored the “ceasefire” order would no longer come under the “laws of war” and could be summarily shot as guerrillas when captured.
Surrenders to Leclerc
The Nazi commander, whose name was not disclosed, surrender to Brig. Gen. Jacques Leclerc, commander of the French 2nd Armored Division, the first Allied army unit to break into the city.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s daily Western Front communiqué said:
More Allied armor and infantry are in Paris following the entrance of the 2nd French Armored Division Friday morning, and all resistance in the southern and southwestern outskirts has been overcome.
Amends announcement
The headquarters spokesman later amended the announcement to include the quelling of virtually all resistance in the city. Thousands of prisoners were believed to have been taken, but the total was not announced.
A Berlin broadcast, for German consumption, said the surrender order was “forced and freely invented” and claimed that Nazi troops were still fighting inside the French capital.
Gen. de Gaulle entered Paris at 7:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. ET) yesterday while French and American tanks and troops, aided by tens of thousands of Parisians, were still battling Germans and collaborationists in the streets and buildings of the world’s fourth largest city and the first Allied capital to be liberated in this war.
To place wreath
His arrival ended an odyssey that began in June 1940 with his departure – alone of the Reynaud government, in which he was Undersecretary of War – for England, there to rally under the Fighting French banner the forces that eventually were to rise up and help free France.
Today he was to receive the acclamation of Paris, which had listened over forbidden radios to his counsel during the four years and two months of German occupation.
Radio Paris said Gen. de Gaulle would lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe at 3:00 p.m. and drive along the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde where national anthems of the Allied nations will be played. He will later attend a service of thanksgiving in Notre-Dame Cathedral, the broadcast said.
Whereabouts unknown
Gen. de Gaulle’s entry into Paris wiped out the last claim of the Vichy Government to authority over France. The whereabouts of the Vichy regime was a mystery and its envoys throughout the non-Axis would either had disowned it or had been notified by the countries to which they had been accredited that they were no longer recognized as the representatives of France.
Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, Chief of State in the Vichy government, was reported by Madrid to have addressed letters to Prime Minister Churchill and Pope Pius XII in which he defended his policy and handed over his disputed authority to Gen. de Gaulle.
The letters were delivered to the Papal Nuncio at Vichy before Pétain was arrested by the Germans and taken to the Reich, Madrid said.
Help Patriots
U.S. and French armored columns finally rolled into Paris yesterday to relieve Patriots who were near exhaustion after battling the Germans since last Saturday under the battle cry of an earlier revolution, “Remember the Bastille!”
Sporadic resistance was met along the way, but it was quickly put down. Men and women swarmed out of their homes and underground hideouts to point out nests of snipers and strongpoints, and soon hundreds of prisoners were filing through the streets they once had tread as conquerors.
One Paris broadcast said some snipers even held out for a while in Notre-Dame Cathedral. Six hundred Germans were captured in the Chamber of Deputies.
Hold Renault plants
James McGlincy, United Press writer and the first American newspaperman to enter the liberated capital, said in a broadcast over the Paris radio that U.S. tanks fired on German forces holding out in the Renault factories.
He said:
It was like Bastille Day in the streets, with crowds eagerly following the battle and taking cover only when shells came their way. Many people held telephone lines open and gave running commentaries to their friends who were not in the battle zone. Then they made appointments for celebrating the victory together.
When Gen. de Gaulle entered the city and his car pulled up outside the War Ministry, tanks which had been his escort closed in on a building only 20 yards away and began firing.
Warns of fight ahead
Gen. de Gaulle went almost immediately to the Prefecture of Police, where cheering crowds greeted him and an orchestra played the “Marseillaise.” Responding, he hailed the liberation of France, but warned:
The enemy is still on our soil. We have to aid the Allies to chase him out. That is one reason why French troops have come with Allied troops in the south of France. All together we shall drive the enemy out of France.
Long live Paris! Long live France! Long live the Republic!
Armistice terms given
Then a few hours later came the news that the German commander in the Paris area had signed an armistice providing that:
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Commanders will be ordered to cease fire immediately and hoist a white flag. Arms will be collected in an open space while awaiting orders. Arms are to be handed over intact.
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Military dispositions of mobile units and equipment depots are to be furnished. Depots must be handed over intact with their records.
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Particulars of destruction of defense works and depots are to be furnished.
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German staff officers equal in number to the strongpoints or garrisons are to be sent to Gen. Leclerc’s headquarters.
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Gen. Leclerc’s staff will determine conditions of evacuation of German Army personnel.
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Once the orders to cease fire have been transmitted, those forces that continue to fight will no longer come under the laws of war, but those who continue to fight unaware of the surrender will be treated humanely.
Other Paris broadcasts said the first consignments of American wheat had already begun to arrive in Paris to relieve a drastic food shortage. Water and gas service was also said to have been restored in the capital.
Jean Le Fèvre, provisional secretary-general for agriculture, set up headquarters in Paris to handle the feeding of the city, the Paris station said, and had broadcast an appeal to farmers of the region to “thresh and deliver grain with the utmost haste.”
Gen. Alphonse Juin, Chief of Staff of National Defense for the French Committee of National Liberation, ordered the population of the Paris region and neighboring areas to stay off roads leading into the city for imperative military reasons.