America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

4881

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (November 28, 1944)

FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN

ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section

DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
281100A November

TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR
(2) NAVY DEPARTMENT

TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(3) TAC HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) MAIN 12 ARMY GP
(5) SHAEF AIR STAFF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) UNITED KINGDOM BASE
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM ZONE
(18) SHAEF REAR
(19) NEWS DIV. MINIFORM, LONDON

(REF NO.)
NONE

(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR

Communiqué No. 234

Allied forces made slow progress yesterday in the Jülich–Hürtgen sector. House-to-house fighting continues in Koslar, and farther south, we have advanced to the vicinity of Altdorf. Northeast of Weisweiler, we have captured Frenz. Our units have reached the outskirts of Langerwehe, and we have driven the enemy from the high ground near the village. House-to-house fighting is in progress in Hürtgen.

Fighter-bombers supporting our troops in this sector attacked enemy artillery, flak positions and troops near Düren, and troop concentrations in the Jülich area and damaged a railway bridge crossing the Roer River south of Jülich. Other fighter-bombers went for transportation targets near Köln and disabled locomotives, railway cars and horse-drawn vehicles. Heavy bombers, escorted by fighters, attacked a railway yard in the Kalk district of Köln.

We have made gains up to several miles in the area east of Metz. Our units have reached Teterchen, approximately 20 miles northeast of Metz, and we have entered Saint-Avold and a number of small towns in this area.

North of Sarrebourg, we have taken Honskirch and Wolfskirchen and have reached Durstel and Gungwiller. Considerable enemy armor has been encountered in some parts of this sector.

Fighter-bombers attacked troop concentrations in the area north of Saarebourg and in the vicinity of Strasbourg they struck at tanks and road vehicles.

West of Strasbourg, our units cleared Mutzig and continued their drive eastward through Molsheim on the Alsace Plain.

A rail bridge over the Rhine River at Breisach, a pontoon bridge in the same area, and the rail center of Freiburg were bombed by fighter-bombers.

Two of our aircraft are missing from yesterday’s operations.

In the Vosges Mountains, additional gains were made against scattered resistance.

Our advance northeast of Belfort continued and several villages were freed.

An enemy salient south of the Rhône–Rhine Canal was virtually wiped out. The town of Dannemarie and several nearby villages were taken after a stiff fight in which many enemy tanks were destroyed and 1,000 prisoners were taken.

Last night, heavy bombers were over Germany in great strength with Freiburg and Neuss, railway centers and advanced supply bases for the enemy’s western front, as the main objectives. Berlin was attacked by a force of light bombers.

COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S

THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/

Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others

ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section

NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA2409

AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/
4882

The Pittsburgh Press (November 28, 1944)

YANKS 21 MILES FROM COLOGNE
Third Army races for Saarbrücken

‘Great’ tank battle near German border reported by Berlin
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer

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4883

Tokyo believed still smoldering

All B-29s return safety from raid

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4884

Luzon ship toll raised to 48

119 Jap fighters also blasted

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4885

Stettinius lauded by Senators

Early confirmation is predicted

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4886

In collapsing Reich –
Mere robots cower under Nazi terror

Germans goaded into choosing death
By Nat A. Barrows

This is the second of a series portraying conditions in a country near collapse – Germany.

Stockholm, Sweden –
Across the Rhine, inside Germany, awaits a nation of suicidal fanatics.

Goaded by the most insidiously cunning propaganda campaign any country has ever known, these home front Germans are prepared to make every sacrifice before accepting defeat.

Himmler, Goebbels, Ley, Bormann and all the rest of the mad Nazi gang have administered their stimulants cleverly… so cleverly that the average citizen’s fear of Nazi terrorism against pro-Allied sympathizers or partisans overshadows everything. The Nazis have tried to inculcate into every home front brain their ghastly version of the consequences following German defeat.

Would rather die

From all the evidence I have been able to appraise as provided by deserters, war prisoners, impartial travelers and other eyewitnesses, they have succeeded only too well.

Today, most Germans think that they would rather die fighting with clubs than submit to what Goebbels tells them will be a fate worse than death.

They have swallowed such Nazi terror talk as Gauleiter Koch fed the East Prussian Volkssturm, or People’s Army, recently:

German men may be buried under the ruins of their towns, and their villages, but this soil, this Heimat of ours, cannot be evacuated… Every village will now become a stronghold, every town a fortress… We’ll stand to the last round against our subhuman enemies… Don’t believe in the enemy a single second before you see him, and when you see him, just shoot him down.

In such an atmosphere, civilians drag themselves along and prepare for greater sacrifices.

Scarcity, more scarcity

Scarcity, and more scarcity, conditions every home front German. A year ago, the Germans thought they had touched rock-bottom in privations and restrictions, but as they look back now, out from their daze of claustrophobia, they realize that they were having incredible luxuries then.

Life could hardly be more regimented; no man can call his soul his own – or anything else. Everything must be sacrificed in the interests of what Dr. Robert Ley, Labor Front leader, calls the “Holy German national war.”

Food gets scarcer and black market prices soar astronomically, despite brutal punishment or death for both buyers and operators.

No one can travel more than 12 miles without written permission. No one can change the use or ownership of motor vehicles without written permission. No one can utter the slightest anti-Nazi criticism or hint about defeat without risking execution.

As never before, Himmler’s Gestapo and SS spies are trying to catch listeners to the BBC, ABSIE (American Broadcasting Station in Europe) and other Allied radio stations. Nazi terror psychology tactics spread the rumor of a new device enabling the Gestapo to identify such listeners in a few seconds. The usual penalty awaits those arrested for tuning in non-German stations – death.

Himmler’s fears that a semblance of truth would penetrate inside Germany have been reduced, however, by the number of radios destroyed by bombings.

Millions uprooted

The impact of saturation bombings touches every phase of life inside Germany, to say nothing of the millions who have been uprooted and obliged to take improvised shelter in barracks and half-repaired houses, or to lodge with strangers.

It is going to be a bitterly cold winter for the Germans. If present predictions of the coldest winter in a century are anywhere near correct, the growing shortage of all kinds of fuel portends a taste of some of the misery the Germans have inflicted upon so many innocent millions in other winters.

“We cope with difficulties never experienced before,” accurately says Dr. Ley.

He doesn’t have to tell that to the people of the Heimat, compressed behind the 400-mile West Front, behind a vast trench system to the east, behind unfinished defenses to the south. Every move they make tells them the gnawing, bitter truth of what total war really means.

Sugar ration reduced

The sugar ration has just been reduced again; sugar is needed for industry. Women can select new hats from only seven standardized types; cloth is needed for uniforms.

The Hitler Youth, those fanatical, frenzied teenage Nazis, now beyond all hope of redemption, must practice fencing with canes instead of rapiers; all swords have been thrown in the maw of the steel mills.

“Ausverkauft” greets weary housewives at store after store – sold out. Shortages and sacrifices… shortages and sacrifices. And the more sacrifices they make, the more they are called upon to make.

Philosophy summed up

Dr. Ley, writing in Der Angriff a few days ago, summed up the National Socialist philosophy of sacrifice thus:

The Germans are willing to make all further sacrifices and not to omit anything to mobilize their last resources.

If there is justice and a Lord in Heaven, then this sacrifice, which is the greatest any nation ever made, will be placed on the scales of justice. Victory is linked with sacrifices, hence, victory must be ours, because Germany has made the greatest sacrifices.

Just what the average, mature German beyond, say, 30 years of age, thinks of such rubbish – is not on the record. Himmler’s brutish, unmerciful reign of terror and Goebbels’ unending propaganda hypodermics have reduced the average German to a mere robot, overstrained, undernourished, unable to think clearly for himself.

Each new Allied advance only intensifies the cleverly directed fanaticism boiling inside Germany today.

4887

Dorsey’s trial is uproar as gangster is mentioned

Defense attorneys demand mistrial but judge overrules their motion

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Doris Duke’s divorce upheld; Cromwell accused of fraud

Nevada judge says husband had ‘ulterior purpose of extorting money’ from heiress

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4888

Pilot who killed Rommel revealed

Santa Ana, California (UP) –
It was indicated today by films synchronized with his guns and from his account of the action that Lt. Harold O. Miller, 20-year-old Santa Rosa pilot, was the airman who killed Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

The German radio announced that Rommel met his death when his staff car was strafed by a plane July 24. Only one car was strafed on that day, and the films in Lt. Miller’s gun camera recorded it.

Lt. Miller is resting at convalescent center here, July 24, when flying about 20 miles behind the lines in France, he noticed a German staff car moving toward the front.

With his four .50-caliber machine guns whanging away, he swept closer. A tire blew out and the car swerved. He kept pouring bullets in. Flames spurted from the gasoline tank and with a mighty lurch, the sedan whirled into a field and rolled over and over, flames leaping from it.

4889

I DARE SAY —
Born to be

By Florence Fisher Parry

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4890

Senate moves to curb Petrillo

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4891

Lucille Ball and actor call off their divorce

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Film star Lucille Ball and Cuban actor Desi Arnaz, who interrupted a cocktail date to get married and were then divorced after an overnight separation, today announced a reconciliation – after a day’s deliberation.

Arnaz, who is now a staff sergeant stationed at Brimingham Hospital, Van Nuys, California, was moving back into the couple’s nearby ranch home, “Desilu,” they said.

When she filed suit for divorce last Sept. 7, Miss Ball said Arnaz’s “extravagances” led to the final crackup of their four-year marriage.

Lupe finds man and promises to marry him

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Mexican film star Lupe Vélez said today she had finally found a man – French actor Harold Raymond – who “tells me where to go” when she tries to control him, and that she had promised to marry him.

She said they had been going together for a year and that he popped the question Thanksgiving Day.

She declared:

I am very happy. Harold knows how to handle me. I’ve always been used to controlling men, but I try it with Harold; he tells me where to go.

The peppery actress was formerly married to swimmer Johnny Weissmuller against whom she filed three divorce suits before going through with one.

4892

Soldiers to make ammunition plea

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4893

Davis leads, Dewey trails in state G.I. vote

Official Philadelphia count to alter total

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4894

RAF batters rail centers in Rhineland

Mosquitoes attack German capital

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4895

Ship losses through 1943 total 5,758

British, U.S., reveal Allied sinkings

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4896

Sensational radar device ‘sees’ for U.S. bombers

‘Mickey’ makes precision bombing possible around the clock; had been guarded zealously

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4897

To the top of the world –
Tibet abounds in high mountains, huge, unplowed grazing grounds

Villages fortified against wind, cold
By A. T. Steele

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4898

8th Army troops cross river in Italy

Seek to trap Nazis inside Faenza

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4899

Monahan: A lady playwright discusses her maiden effort, Darkling Plain

By Kaspar Monahan

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4900

Editorial: Secretary Hull

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