America at war! (1941–) – Part 5

2007

U.S. Navy Department (April 20, 1945)

CINCPOA Communiqué No. 338

After a day of heavy attacks on the enemy’s fortified positions in the Southern Okinawa Sector, the XXIV Army Corps had advanced about 1,000 yards generally by the morning of April 20 (East Longitude Date). The 7th Infantry Division penetrated enemy defenses up to 1,400 yards in its zone of action near the east coast. Heavy naval guns continued to bombard enemy strong points and Marine and Army artillery supported the advancing infantry with carrier aircraft delivering close support. Most of Yonabaru Town was destroyed. The enemy resisted our attacks bitterly in all sectors of the fighting in the south.

On Ie Shima, Tenth Army troops continued to drive eastward against strong resistance from isolated enemy positions on April 20. Simultaneously, operations were began to destroy enemy forces holding Iegusugu Peak. At the end of April 18, 736 of the enemy had been killed on the island.

Patrols of the Marine III Amphibious Corps continued to cover the rugged country in Northern Okinawa on April 20 while operations against small groups of the enemy in Motobu Peninsula were continued.

In the early morning hours of April 20, several small groups of enemy aircraft approached our forces in the Okinawa Area and retired without causing damage.

The following is the complete list of ships sunk by enemy action in the Okinawa operation and the associated attacks on Japan from March 18 to April 18:

Destroyers:

  • HALLIGAN (DD-584)
  • BUSH (DD-529)
  • COLHOUN (DD-801)
  • MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733)
  • PRINGLE (DD-477)

Minecraft:

  • EMMONS (DMS-22)
  • SKYLARK (AM-63)

Destroyer Transport:
DICKERSON (APD-21)

Gunboat:

  • PGM 18
  • LST 477
  • LCI (G) 82
  • LCS (L) (3) 30
  • LCT (6) 876

Ammunition Ships:

  • HOBBS VICTORY
  • LOGAN VICTORY

During the same period the following Japanese ships and aircraft were destroyed by our forces participating in the same operations:

  • 2,569 aircraft destroyed
  • One YAMATO-class battleship
  • Two light cruisers
  • Five destroyers
  • Five destroyer escorts
  • Four large cargo ships
  • One medium cargo ship
  • 28 small cargo ships
  • 54 small craft

Numerous enemy torpedo boats, speed boats and other types of small craft.

Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force on April 19 bombed installa­tions on Truk in the Carolines. On the following day, a search plane of Fleet Air Wing One sank a small sailing vessel in Truk Lagoon.

Army bombers of the 7th AAF also struck Arakabesan and Koror in the Palaus scoring hits on antiaircraft emplacements on April 19. Corsair and Hellcat fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed miscellaneous targets in the Palaus and on Yap in the Western Carolines on the following day.

2008

The Pittsburgh Press (April 20, 1945)

REDS 7 MILES FROM BERLIN
U.S.-Russian juncture indicated

Soviet tanks smash into defenses before burning Nazi capital

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2009

Yanks capture Nuremberg

Seventh Army strikes for Munich to peril Hitler’s last retreat

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2010

‘Salutes’ from Allied guns mark Hitler’s 56th birthday

German radio broadcasts news of defeats instead of usual speech by Fuehrer

LONDON, England (UP) – Adolf Hitler, the defeated dictator, observed his 56th, and probably last, birthday today.

There were no celebrations in his dying empire for the most hunted man in history. The only victory salutes came from the guns of Allied armies closing in on him from east and west.

Berlin, where in Hitler’s heyday the red flags with the black swastikas flew and his storm troops paraded, echoed with the artillery of the oncoming Red Army, reported only 10 miles away.

The German radio, which once boomed Hitler’s birthday speeches from Berlin, had only news of fresh defeats to offer. The re was no indication the Fuehrer would make a birthday broadcast, although a Swiss report said 21 gauleiters had asked Goebbels last week to persuade Hitler to speak for the sake of morale.

The same dispatch, quoting a Munich source, said Goebbels and Himmler had refused to act on the matter.

The Fuehrer was believed to be in his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, planning a “twilight of the gods” finale to his career of conquest. Some recent reports have suggested Hitler still was in Berlin, but few believed he would remain that close to the Red Army if he could help it.

A Zurich dispatch, quoting a German diplomat who supposedly left Berlin last week, said the Reich capital had been stripped for its capture. According to the report, all Nazi organizations and government offices had been evacuated to the Bavarian redoubt, where Hitler plans his last stand.

Martin Bormann, Nazi Party leader for Southern Germany including the Bavarian Alps and Berchtesgaden, warned potential deserters of sinking Germany, “whoever breaks his oath is a scoundrel. We will observe with watchful eyes.”

Expels Nazi official

Hitler himself expelled from the party a deputy gauleiter named Tesche, from the Gau area including captured Halle and Merseburg, according to a DNB report. Hitler ordered, “I degrade you and expel you from the party for the cowardly attitude expressed in your phone call. You can regain honor only by trying yourself to the utmost in immediate front service.”

In a different tone, Hitler thanked the gauleiter of Franken Province, where a few thousand Nazis made a desperate last-ditch stand in the capital of Nuremberg.

Hitler said in his message:

We are now starting a fight as fanatical as that we had in our ascent to power years ago. However great the enemy’s superiority may appear at the present moment, we will yet break it as we did in the days of old.

Split indicated

Similarly, Goebbels in his weekly article in the magazine Das Reich said, “the hour of last triumph awaits us,” but he at least tempered it by adding, “it may sound fantastic today but it is nonetheless true.”

But there were signs of a split in the propaganda line as Hitler’s henchmen made their last, desperate attempts to keep the Germans fighting. Goebbels in his article called for a “people’s war,” saying that “m the fight against the terrible aims of the enemy all means are justified and permitted.”

The German radio, on the other hand, issued what it called “important instructions” to German civilians to comply strictly with the rules of international warfare, which limit fighting only to soldiers uniformed or otherwise clearly identified.

2011

A good job for Hitler –
SS guards bury ‘hell hole’ dead

Arrogant Nazis work under British bayonets
By Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff writer
BELSEN CAMP NEAR HANOVER, GERMANY, APRIL 20-Nazi SS Elite Guardsmen today gathered the bodies of the hundreds of inmates who died in this hellhole.
Guarded by British troops with tommy guns ready and bayonets fixed, the once arrogant guardsmen dragged the bodies from huts and hoisted them into trucks.

Hungarian prisoners of war were brought to help with mass burial. British troops had entombed hundreds of bodies from the mounds of dead the Nazis left behind.

When I visited the inernment camp today I had to stand in line with 150 or more of the Hungarians and like them be fumigated before I could pass down the lines of huts where British doctors estimate more than 300 persons - Men,

(continued on Page 4, Column 4.)

2012

Okinawa Japs pounded from air, sea, land

Greatest offensive in Pacific underway

map.042045.up
Heaviest offensive of the Pacific war has been launched by U.S. forces in Southern Okinawa. The Americans pushed to within 3½ miles of the capital, Naha. Tokyo reported a landing attempt southwest of Naha which would flank the capital. The Japs held only small pockets on Motobu Peninsula and Ie Island. U.S. fighters from Iwo airfields raided a Tokyo airfield (inset map).

GUAM (UP) – U.S. troops lunged to within three and a half miles north of Naha, the capital of Okinawa, in the most powerful offensive of the Pacific war today.

Radio Tokyo said other troops attempted to land on the south coast of Okinawa about eight miles southeast of Naha yesterday from a 30-ship invasion fleet, including 20 transports and several battleships.

Such a landing would outflank Naha, a city of 65.000, and clamp a pincer on its garrison of 60,000.

Smash deep bulges

Three Army divisions – possibly 45,000 men – smashed deep bulges into both flanks of the Jap line across southern Okinawa yesterday under cover of the greatest coordinated air, ship and artillery bombardment ever given American troops for the size of the target anywhere in the world.

Front reports said Americans now were less than 6,200 yards north of Naha and approaching Machinato airfield on the west coast and nearing the northern end of Yonabaru airstrip on the east coast. They were 3½ miles from the town of Yonabaru.

A hill overlooking Shuri, two miles inland from Naha, was all but cleared in the center of the line. The town of Machinato, a mile north of the airfield of the same name, was captured in the initial phases of the offensive yesterday.

Key ground won

Maj. Gen. John R. Hodge, commander of the XXIV Army Corps, said his forces had made “good gains” in the heart of the enemy’s main line of resistance. Key ground had been won, he said.

Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, commander of the Tenth Army, said the offensive was going “just about as we expected.”

“The Japs have as well an organized line as I have ever heard of anywhere,” Gen. Buckner said. “We all know that we still have to use a blowtorch and corkscrews to get them out of their caves.”

Tokyo radio said the amphibious forces attempted to land on the southern coast at Chinen and Minatokawa, 4½ to 5 miles south of Yonabaru, but were driven off.

Tokyo also claimed that Jap naval units had entered the Okinawa area and shelled two American-held airfields.

A Melbourne dispatch said the Australian Information Department intercepted a Tokyo broadcast that the Jap army and navy had launched a general attack in the Okinawas. The information department was quoted as saying that the broadcast suggested the Jap navy may have gone out for a big engagement.

While the troops were battering through the strong Jap lines on Okinawa, Army Mustang fighters from Iwo heavily raided the Atsugi airfield at Tokyo in the first large-scale fighter attack on the enemy’s capital.

Early reports listed 102 Jap planes as destroyed or damaged in the surprise attack on Atsugi yesterday. Returning American pilots said they sighted rows of from 200 to 300 Jap bombers and fighters lined up on the field.

In the raid, 21 Jap planes were shot down, 22 probably shot down, 26 destroyed on the ground and 33 damaged. A large cargo ship was also sunk off the coast and a medium-sized freighter left burning south of Tokyo.

Lt. Gen. Buckner launched the big offensive on Okinawa with elements of the 7th, 27th and 96th Infantry Divisions early yesterday.

Swarms of carrier planes and the big guns of battleships, cruisers and destroyers off shore also aided the infantrymen.

A Blue Network correspondent described the fighting on Okinawa as the heaviest of the Pacific War and “it is going to be bloodier by the moment.”

Gain on Ie Island

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz disclosed that Tenth Army troops on nearby Ie Island moved south of Iegusugu Peak, further compressing the small enemy pocket in the southeastern corner. He said the island’s airstrip was already being used by observation planes.

2013

Work in White House done, Mrs. Roosevelt moving out

Former First Lady going first to New Yor, facing big task in disposing of belongings
By Gwen Morgan, United Press staff writer

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2014

Senator proposes medal for Pyle

WASHINGTON (SHS) – Sen. Raymond Willis (R-Indiana) has prepared a resolution to bestow a congressional medal posthumously upon Ernie Pyle and expects to introduce it today.

He will ask Sen. Homer Capehart (R-Indiana) to join in its introduction, he said. Sens. Carl Hatch and Dennis Chavez, from Ernie’s adopted state of New Mexico, may also be invited to sponsor the introduction.

Sen. Willis said:

Ernie Pyle belongs to all Americans. But we Hoosiers have a special claim on the memory of this great historian of G.I. Joe. He was our best beloved native son. In this war he moved to the unchallenged rank of our greatest war correspondent.

As a newspaperman, I feel another personal tie. For he was a martyr to his profession.

The medal would be awarded to “That Girl” Mrs. Jerry Pyle, who lives in their home at Albuquerque.

2015

Over 20 killed in Army plane

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2016

I DARE SAY —
Risky business

By Florence Fisher Parry

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2017

Seaman Pyle of World War I buried with military honors

Beloved writer laid to rest on Ie while thunder of battle increases

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2018

Pyle helped British understand G.I.’s

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2019

Clapper Memorial Award won by Pyle

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2020

Allies urged to make Germans see horrors

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2021

First Army seizes secret documents

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Yank executed

LONDON (April 19) – Pvt. William Harrison, 22, of Ohio, who was condemned by a court-martial last November for murdering a seven-year-old girl, was executed April 7, it was reported today.

2022

Wage boost may increase clothing output

Lower-priced goods due by late summer

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2023

Perkins: Miners’ portal-to-portal pay idea spreads

By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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2024

Revision urged in FEPC bill

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2025

Yanks gain mile an hour on Mindanao

Opposition slight on Philippines isle

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2026

Officer missing, sergeant holds off panzer attack

Louisiana Yank leads men in knockout of 100 tanks, wins Medal of Honor

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