America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

8572

Führer HQ (February 12, 1945)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

Östlich des Plattensees und im Südteil der Slowakei scheiterten zahlreiche Einzelangriffe der Bolschewisten.

Zwischen Bielitz und Ratihor wurden starke, von Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützte feindliche Angriffe in heftigen Kämpfen aufgefangen. In Niederschlesien nahm die Schlacht an Ausdehnung zu. Westlich Breslau warfen unsere Truppen im Gegenangriff den nach Süden stoßenden Feind bis in den Raum Kanth–Kostenblut zurück und verhinderten damit seine Vereinigung mit den aus dem Brückenkopf Brieg nach Nordwesten strebenden feindlichen Kräften. Am Bober-Abschnitt sind nördlich Bunzlau und östlich Sagan heftige Kämpfe im Gange. Zwischen Fürstenberg und dem Oderbruch hat sich bei harten, jedoch örtlich begrenzten Kämpfen die Lage nicht verändert.

Im Südteil von Pommern und Westpreußen wurden nordwestlich Deutsch Krone und an der Front zwischen Landeck und Graudenz Durchbruchsversuche starker sowjetischer Kräfte nach anfänglichem Geländegewinn vereitelt. Die Verteidiger von Schneidemühl und Posen stehen in schweren Straßenkämpfen mit dem in das Innere der Festungen eingebrochenen Gegner. Nach wochenlangem heroischem Kampf ist die Besatzung von Elbing der Übermacht des feindlichen Ansturms erlegen. Ein Teil hat sich unter Mitnahme der Verwundeten zu den eigenen Linien durchgeschlagen.

In Ostpreußen zerbrachen heftige Angriffe des Gegners gegen die Abschnitte von Wormditt, Preußisch-Eylau und Zinten an dem hartnäckige», Widerstand unserer Divisionen, die 46 Panzer und 47 Geschütze zerstörten. Im Samland wurden die nordöstlich Fischhausen eingeschlossenen Teile der sowjetischen 87. Gardeschützendivision vernichtet.

Schlacht- und Jagdflieger vernichteten 39 Panzer, 12 Geschütze und 257 motorisierte und bespannte Fahrzeuge. 21 sowjetische Flugzeuge wurden, zum Absturz gebracht.

In den bisherigen vier Wochen der Winterschlacht im Osten vernichteten Truppen des Heeres und der Waffen-SS sowie fliegende Verbände und Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe 7.986 Panzer, viele hundert Geschütze und mehr als 10.000 motorisierte und bespannte Fahrzeuge der Sowjets. Außerdem wurden 457 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen oder am Boden zerstört. Die blutigen Verluste des Feindes sind gewaltig.

Zwischen Niederrhein und Maas konnten die Engländer nach erbitterten Kämpfen zum Ostrand des Reichswaldes vorstoßen. Der angestrebte Durchbruch blieb ihnen jedoch dank der Standhaftigkeit unserer Truppen wiederum versagt.

Durch das Öffnen der Rurtalsperre wurde das Rurtal weithin überschwemmt und der Feind dadurch gezwungen, seine Steilungen in mehreren Abschnitten am Flussufer zu räumen und seine Angriffsvorbereitungen zu unterbrechen.

Im Abschnitt von Prüm sind eigene Panzer zum Gegenangriff übergegangen und haben den Feind auf das Westufer des Prümflusses zurückgeworfen. Die Stadt selbst wurde befreit. Südwestlich davon wird um einzelne Ortschaften in unseren Westbefestigungen gekämpft.

An der unteren Sauer, wo der Feind vor allem an der Oure-Mündung und bei Echternach seine örtlichen Brückenköpfe auszuweiten versucht, wurde in heftigen Kämpfen ein größerer Erfolg des Feindes verhindert.

In Mittelitalien warfen unsere Truppen, hervorragend von eigener Artillerie unterstützt, beiderseits der Straße Via Reggio–Massa vorübergehend vorgedrungenen Feind wieder zurück und vernichteten dabei 15 feindliche Panzer.

In der Herzegowina wurden fortgesetzte feindliche Angriffe fm Raum von Mostar abgewiesen. Die Säuberung der Bilo Gora und des Gebietes zwischen Virovitica und der Drau ist im schnellen Fortschreiten.

Im westlichen Reichsgebiet setzten anglo-amerikanische Terrorflieger ihre Tiefangriffe gegen die Zivilbevölkerung fort. Nordamerikanische Bomber griffen erneut Orte im Münsterland an.

Das Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert an.

Im Kampf um Posen schlagen sich die unter Führung des Generalmajors Gonell stehenden Angehörigen der Fahnenjunkerschule 5 mit vorbildlicher Tapferkeit.

8573

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (February 12, 1945)

FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN

ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section

DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
121100A February

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) 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) AFHQ for PRO, ROME
(20) HQ SIXTH ARMY GP

(REF NO.)
NONE

(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR

Communiqué No. 310

Allied forces have occupied Millingen, on the Dutch-German border east of Nijmegen, and Keeken across the border south of Millingen. Our advance continues despite difficult ground conditions and stiffening resistance.

Fighting continues in the devastated town of Kleve. We have made further progress in the Reichswald Forest and have taken the towns of Middelaar, Ottersum and Ven-Zelderheide to the south.

Enemy troop concentration northeast of the Reichswald Forest, and focal points for communications at Kevelaer and Sonsbeck north of Geldern were attacked by medium, light and fighter-bombers.

Our forces have cleared the enemy from the area north and west of the Roer River between the Schwammenauel Dam and Heimbach.

West and southwest of Prüm, we have captured Steinmehlen and Weinsfeld and have pushed to the Prüm River in several places from three fourths of a mile to two miles southwest of Prüm.

Farther south, our units have cleared the enemy from Biesdorf, one mile northeast of Wallendorf, and have advanced in the area north of Echternach to reach the outskirts of Ferschweiler.

Our forces in the Sinz area, southeast of Remich, have repulsed two counterattacks by infantry and tanks.

Southeast of Haguenau a tank supported enemy counterattack was repulsed in Oberhöfen after it had made initial gains. In stiff fighting our forces regained the lost ground and took 150 prisoners including a battalion commander.

Hard fighting also continued in the vicinity of nearby Drusenheim.

South of Strasbourg, enemy raids from east of the Rhine were repulsed.

Northeast of Mulhouse, harassing enemy artillery fire was received in the Chalampe Bantzenheim area.

Transportation targets in northwest Germany were hit by fighter bombers and rocket-firing fighters. Many locomotives and rail cars were destroyed or damaged and barges, tugs and road vehicles were shot up.

Medium and light bombers struck at railway yards at Mödrath and Kierberg near Cologne, and at Bingen. Bridges, rolling stock and railway lines mainly west of the Rhine in the areas of Cologne, Bonn and Koblenz, and rail traffic in the upper Rhine region northwest and southwest of Mannheim, and at Heilbronn, were the principal targets for other fighter-bombers.

In Holland, fighter-bombers struck at rail supply routes, German units moving in the Rotterdam area and an airfield and barracks at Steenwijk, north of Zwolle.

Escorted heavy bombers attacked a motor fuel depot at Dülmen southwest of Münster.

One enemy aircraft was destroyed during the day. Eight of our fighters are missing.

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/
8574

U.S. Navy Department (February 12, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 256

Army Liberators of the Strategic Air Force, Pacific Ocean Areas, heavily bombed airfield installations and other targets on Iwo Jima in the Volcanos on February 11 (East Longitude Date). Five enemy aircraft were observed in the air.

On the same date, StrAirPoa Army bombers attacked Marcus Island with unobserved results.

Navy search planes of Fleet Air Wing One bombed Truk in the Carolines on February 11. Two enemy aircraft were airborne over the target.

Fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing sank a barge and set nine others ablaze and destroyed six trucks on Babelthuap in the Palaus on February 11. Attacks were also made on targets on Arakabesan in the same group. Installations on Yap in the Western Carolines were bombed by Marine aircraft on the same date.

Marine fighters attacked targets on Rota in the Marianas on February 11.

8575

The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1945)

Big Three agrees on plan to rule ‘doomed’ Germany

Poland to receive government based on national unity

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Big Three has agreed on plans for enforcing unconditional surrender terms on Germany, the calling of a United Nations’ conference on world security organization problems, and future quarterly meetings of their foreign secretaries.

This was announced in a communiqué issued by the White House. It said the meeting lasted eight days and was held in the Russian Crimea. The meeting has now been concluded.

President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin also agreed to form a new government for Poland to be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.

Their joint communiqué declared that in the future the Big Three powers will “immediately consult” on problems arising in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite.

The plans for occupation and control of Germany were agreed upon.

They provide control of the Big Three powers, but France will be invited to take over a zone of occupation and become a fourth member of a Central Control Commission.

The commission will have headquarters in Berlin and will include representatives of all the big powers.

The communiqué, six pages long, was divided into nine sections.

The first, devoted to the military aspects of the conference, said that the big three meeting had been “most satisfactory from every point of view” and had resulted in an interchange of the fullest information.

It promised “new and even more powerful blows” to be launched by the United Nations armies and air forces into the heart of Germany from the east, west, north and south.

The communiqué said:

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 communiqué revealed that the three leaders had solved the major unfinished business of the Dumbarton Oaks World Organization Conference – the voting procedure question – but gave no details of the solution.

The text of the proposals on voting procedure will be announced as soon as China and France have been consulted.

The Big Three agreed that the full United Nations Conference to set up the world organization should meet at San Francisco April 25.

The communiqué said a new situation had been created in Poland as a result of her “complete liberation by the Red Army” and called for establishment of a more broadly based provisional government in that country.

It proposed reorganization of the provisional government which is now functioning in Poland on “a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.”

The three leaders said they considered 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 recognized that Poland must receive substantial territory in the north and west as compensation.

The Curzon Line would give Russia a substantial amount of Polish territory.

The final delimitation of the western Polish frontier should await the peace conference, they said.

The Big Three recommended to Marshal Tito and Premier Ivan Subasic of Yugoslavia that the agreement between them should be put into effect immediately and a new government formed on that basis. They further recommended that the new government should immediately declare extension of the anti-Fascist Assembly to include members of the last Yugoslav Parliament “who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy”

The communiqué said the three leaders had considered the question of damage caused by Germany and recognized it as “just” that she be obliged to make compensation in kind “to the greatest extent possible.”

A commission will be established in Moscow to consider the extent and methods for compensating such damage.

The Big Three declaration on Liberated Europe said in part:

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 domestic means their pressing political and economic problems.

The Big Three promised jointly to assist the people of Europe “to establish conditions of internal peace; to carry out emergency measures for relief of distressed people; to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledge to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the peoples, and to facilitate when necessary the holding of such elections.”

They affirmed “our determination to build with other peace-loving nations world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and general well-being of all mankind.”

The three powers expressed the hope that France would be associated with them in the procedure suggested, apparently recalling Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s recent assertion that France would not be bound by any decisions reached at the Big Three conference in her absence.

The Big Three said it was their “inflexible purpose” to destroy German militarism and Nazism so that Germany will never again disturb the peace. It would do it this way:

We are determined to disarm and disband all German forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly tried the resurgence of German militarism; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German industry that can be used for military production; bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment and exact reparation in kind of 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 with such other measures in Germany as may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world.

The Big Three said it does not intend to destroy the future of Germany. but it said that only with the elimination of Nazism and militarism could there be hope for “a decent life for Germans, and a place for them in the comity of nations.”

8576

Allies seize 2 key bases in Siegfried Line

Canadians capture Kleve, Yanks Pruem

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8577

Record raid on Corregidor softens up Jap defenses

U.S. tanks splinter enemy force in southern Manila into isolated pockets

MANILA, Philippines (UP) – The fortress of Corregidor in Manila Harbor where Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Americans made their last stand against the Japs rocked today under the heaviest saturation bombing attack yet launched in the Pacific.

For nearly a week, the Jap anti-aircraft guns on the rocky fortresses have been silent, presumably knocked out by American bombs.

The terrific air attack, softening up Corregidor for an American landing, came as U.S. tanks and infantry columns splintered the Jap forces in southern Manila. The Japs were cut into scores of isolated pockets and infantry patrols were sweeping down burning streets to destroy them.

In the last 48 hours more than 500 bombing sorties have been flown against Corregidor and southern Bataan. Nine hundred tons of bombs have been dropped, 200 tons on Corregidor alone. In one attack

Hard-hitting armored units of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division broke open the Jap defenses Saturday with two quick thrusts across the Pasig River on the east side of Manila. One column drove south toward Fort McKinley while the second wheeled westward to link up with doughboys of the 37th Infantry Division in the Pandacan District.

The sudden breakthrough promised to close out the bloody street battle for Manila in short order. After eight days of fanatical resistance, the Japs were breaking up into small suicide squads.

Probably the strongest remaining Jap positions were around Fort McKinley on the southeastern outskirts of the capital and in the old Walled City on Manila Bay.

The 1st Cavalry Division forced the Pasig River in amphibious tanks early Saturday, crossing just beyond the capital’s eastern outskirts. Advancing rapidly southward, the Americans reached Nielsen Airfield a mile southeast of the city limits and just north of Fort McKinley.

A few hours later, a second armored spearhead crossed the river a half-mile to the west, near the Santa Ana racetrack, quickly mopped up Jap resistance in the area and pushed westward to join up with the 37th Division.

Drive mile from river

The 37th Infantry Division’s advanced spearheads were already more than a mile south of the Pasig at some points and their right wing was reported moving against the main Jap strongpoint behind the massive stone walls of the Intramuros on the waterfront.

Elements of the U.S. 11th Airborne Division, meanwhile, were moving up along the shores of Manila Bay into the Jap rear. By Saturday night, they were reported north of Baclaran, two miles south of the city limits and about the same distance southwest of Fort McKinley.

Other units of the 11th Airborne Division were still locked in a blood struggle for Nichols Field, five miles south of Manila, where a strong Jap force had been cut off from the main garrison inside the capital. The Americans captured 10 eight-inch guns and two six-inch guns in the area Saturday after a hard fight.

Race toward coast

Almost 70 miles north of Manila, spearheads of the 6th Armored Division were well on their way to cutting Luzon in two with a dash overland to the island’s east coast. Two columns advanced well beyond Laur and Bongabon and were reported 20 miles or less from their objective – Baler and Dingalan Bays.

Northwest of the capital, other U.S. forces continued their methodical destruction of the Jap units trapped in the foothills of the Zambales Mountains overlooking Fort Stotsenburg. The Japs were well-entrenched in a network of rock caves, and the Americans were using airpower and artillery to the utmost in order to keep down casualties.

Jap broadcasts asserted that the Americans have lost more than 30,000 men in the month-old battle for Luzon, half of them killed, against Jap losses of 6,500 killed or wounded. Last week, however, Tokyo placed the American losses at about 11,200 men.

Strong forces of Liberator bombers hit Corregidor Island on Friday, and more than 70 attack bombers worked over the southern shores of Bataan Peninsula on the same day, bombing and strafing the enemy without opposition.

American PT boats ranged north of Lingayen Gulf to sink 20 coastal craft near San Fernando and La Union.

8578

Elliott Roosevelt opposed by GOP

Senators challenge promotion right

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8579

Sinatra heads for coast – draft decision due today

Crooner insists he doesn’t know whether he’s been accepted or rejected

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8580

I DARE SAY —
Simple duty

By Florence Fisher Parry

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8581

Legion pledges fight to create U.S. need for 55 million jobs

Posts and auxiliaries ‘from bottom up’ included in move to create markets
By Edward A. Evans, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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8582

Senate seeks work-or-else ‘compromise’

Solution without ‘big stick’ is goal
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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Showdown due on George bill

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8583

Senate checks report that Col. Roosevelt is ‘unfit for either combat or flying duty’

Statement made by Air Force general leads to delay in action on promotion
By Douglas Larsen

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8584

29 persons hurt in train crash

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8585

World bank approval asked

Roosevelt backs Bretton Woods plan

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8586

AFL proposes housing plan to give jobs

Program provides 15 million homes
By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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Perkins: New world labor group may be Russian-dominated

British leaders favor union with present federation – move complicated by AFL attitude
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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8587

Indian chief quits

WASHINGTON – The White House today announced the resignation of John Collier as commissioner of the Interior Department’s Office of Indian Affairs. Mr. Collier has held the post since soon after President Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933. Later the White House sent to the Senate the nomination of William A. Brophy, 41, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to succeed Mr. Collier.

8588

German soldiers yield en masse

May be forerunner of crack in Reich
By L. S. B. Shapiro, North American Newspaper Alliance

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8589

Yanks driven back on Italian front

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8590

Old maids lauded by First Lady

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8591

War costs U.S. $238 billion

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Income payments total $157 billion

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