Tornado deaths now exceed 110
…
Roosevelt death to spur last-ditch stand by Nazis
Hitler expected to seize on event to demand just a little more resistance by followers
PARIS (UP) – A senior officer at Allied Supreme Headquarters said today that the death of President Roosevelt would encourage a German withdrawal into “national redoubts” in the northern port area or the Southern Alps.
Such a movement, in apparent preparation for a last-ditch stand, has been evident for several weeks. But it is believed that not all Nazis were convinced they would win anything from a long-drawn-out suicide stand.
It is believed that Adolf Hitler’s strategists may view the death of President Roosevelt as weakening the bond among Britain, Russia, and the United States.
Hope to escape justice
The Allied officer pointed out that Berlin repeatedly has denounced Mr. Roosevelt as the man who welded the three major Allied powers against Germany and the Nazis may feel that there is a greater chance now of a falling-out among Allied powers which would give the Nazis a chance to escape justice if they held out long enough.
Therefore, they are driving their forces at top speed, first north of a line running roughly from Emden east to Luebeck, secondly into a resistance zone running from the Black Forest of Germany to Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Kiel, former headquarters of the German Grand Fleet, would be the capital of the northern “redoubt” and Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s hideout, would be the capital of the southern.
Without commenting upon the merits of the Nazi belief of the effects of Mr. Roosevelt’s death, it obviously is the kind of occurrence which Hitler and Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels would seize upon as an excuse to demand just a little more resistance by their followers.
According to some observers here, in the beginning Hitler’s demand for protracted resistance was based on the claim that Nazi inventors soon would bring new weapons from their laboratories to change the face of the war and to nullify Allied superiority in manpower and weapons.
Plants smashed
As the battle of Germany roared to a climax, more and more of the laboratories and factories which might have produced a new weapon were reduced to ashes. Hitler’s weapon argument lost its punch.
At the same time, German desertions increased manyfold. Prisoners admitted their high hopes for the effect from a new weapon were shattered.
The tragedy of Mr. Roosevelt’s death gives Hitler something new to use.
“Fight a little longer,” he will say. “Soon our enemies will be quarreling with one another. Perhaps we can escape the trap. Only keep fighting.”
On Luzon –
Battle-weary Yankees sent to rest camp for four days
6th Division in combat 64 straight days before officers find a relief center
By Lee G. Miller, Scripps-Howard staff writer
…
Jap counterattack fails on Okinawa
U.S. troops resume slow advance
GUAM (UP) – Troops of three Army divisions battled slowly through Southern Okinawa today after turning back a strong Jap counterattack along the Naha defense lines.
The attack was made by between 500 and 750 Japs and a large proportion of them were killed in the futile attempt to check the American drive.
Although ground artillery and heavy naval guns continued an intense pounding of the enemy positions, the troops were unable to make any substantial gains and their advances were measured in yards.
Marines gain
Marines in Northern Okinawa, however, were moving ahead on Motobu Peninsula and Ishikawa Isthmus against ineffective resistance.
A Jap communiqué claimed that suicide planes were still attacking U.S. warships around Okinawa and that an additional 12 vessels were sunk or damaged.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz disclosed that Vice Adm. Marc A. Mitscher’s fast carrier force had destroyed 1,200 Jap planes in less than four weeks.
In the last three days alone, more than 228 planes were destroyed throughout the Ryukyu chain, of which Okinawa is the principal island.
Blast Formosa
Disclosure of these results indicated that some 2,000 Jap planes had been destroyed or damaged since March 18. The others were accounted for by British carriers, land-based Army, Navy and Marine planes and Superfortresses.
The British task force destroyed 17 enemy planes and damaged five in an attack on airdromes on Formosa Thursday. Tokyo reported that about 70 carrier planes raided Formosa again yesterday for the second straight day.
U.S. carrier planes destroyed 13 other Jap aircraft in the Northern Ryukyus yesterday and in addition sank 23 barges and small craft.
Patton leads prayer
WITH THE U.S. THIRD ARMY, Germany – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, in the absence of his chaplain, today led a one-minute silent prayer for the late President Roosevelt during a staff conference.
Raise in pay refused, Cooper brothers quit Cards ‘never to return’
…
Misleading sign leads to rumor Dempsey dead
NEW YORK (UP) – A sign in the Broadway restaurant bearing his name apparently led to the circulation of rumors late yesterday that Lt. Cmdr. Jack Dempsey of the Coast Guard had been killed on Okinawa.
The sign said: “Closed on account of the death of our beloved President. – Jack Dempsey.”
Some persons apparently took that to mean that Dempsey had died.
Dempsey, former heavyweight boxing champion, recently left his Coast Guard base here for a tour of the Pacific and was last reported at Okinawa, where he witnessed the invasion of that island off Japan.
A couple dozen telephone calls were received at The Press yesterday asking about the “death” of Dempsey, so the rumor apparently spread throughout the country in a short time.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
OKINAWA (by Navy radio) – The bulk of the battle of Okinawa is being fought by the Army – my old friend, the doughfoots. This time the Marine had it easy, and by the turn of circumstance the Army is the one that has the job to do.
But my self-assignment on the Okinawa blitz was to write about the Marines and that’s what I continue to do. I landed with the Marines, crossed the island with them, and have been living with them amidst fleas, mosquitoes, goats and a few Japs, hiding under bushes. So naturally I want to tell you about them.
Marine Corps blitzes out here have all been so bitter and the Marines have performed so magnificently that I had conjured in a mental picture of a Marine that bore a close resemblance to a man from Mars. I was almost afraid of them myself.
I did find the Marines confident, but neither cocky nor smart-alecky. I found they have fears, and qualms, and hatred for war the same as anybody else. They want to go home just as badly as any soldiers I’ve ever met. I found them good, human Americans.
They are proud to be Marmes. They wouldn’t be in any other branch of the service. Yet they are not arrogant about it. And I found they have a healthy respect for the infantry.
One day we were sitting on a hillside talking about the infantry. One Marine spoke of a certain Army division – a division they had fought beside – and was singing 15 praises.
In peacetime, when the Marine Corps was a small outfit, with its campaigns highlighted, and everybody was a volunteer you could understand why Marines felt so superior.
But since the war the Marine Corps has grown into hundreds of thousands of men. It has been diluted, so to speak. Today it is an outfit of ordinary people – some big, some little, some even draftees. It has changed, in fact, until Marines look exactly like a company of soldiers in Europe.
Yet that Marine Corps spirit still remains. I never did find out what perpetuates it. They’re not necessarily better trained. They’re no better equipped and often not as well supplied as other troops. But a Marine still considers himself a better soldier than anybody else, even though nine-tenths of them don’t want to be soldiers at all.
The Marines are very cognizant of the terrible casualties they’ve taken in this Pacific War. They’re even proud of that too, in a way. Any argument among Marine units is settled by which has had the greatest casualties.
Many of them even envisioned the end of the Marine Corps at Okinawa. If the Marine divisions had been beaten up here as they were on Iwo Jima, the boys felt it would have been difficult to find enough men of Marine Corps caliber to reconstitute all the divisions.
They even had a sadly sardonic song about their approach to Okinawa, the theme of which was “Goodbye, Marines!”
So, you see, Marines don’t thirst for battles.
I’ve read and heard enough about Marines to have no doubts whatever about the things they can do when they have to. No Marine need ever apologize for anything.
The Marines are O.K. for my money, in battle or out.
Report from inside Germany –
People lose their interest in Hitler
But Fuehrer is still most active
By Curt Riess
…