German prisoners stone Nazi ‘sadist’
British move chief of Belsen camp
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Documents, effects of ‘missing’ found
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
Saturday, April 21, 1945
NUREMBERG, Germany – The fate of thousands of American and British airmen listed as “missing” will be known soon. Documents recording all Allied fliers downed in German territory during the war were captured today.
A master file, containing the histories of more than 45,000 British and American airmen, was found in the nearby town of Buchenbuehl. Officers consider it one of the most important finds in Germany to date.
The last entry, dated April 7, was of an American pilot who, it said, was found dead. The records revealed that more than one million dollars in various kinds of currency had been taken from captive airmen. Of this amount, only $4,000 was recovered.
Find rings, watches
Bushels of rings, watches, jewelry, flying orders, love letters, photographs and other items taken from fallen airmen – whether alive or dead – were on file. Some 400 displaced persons, including Russians, Dutchmen, Yugoslavs, Poles, Frenchmen and Italians, worked in the center. When Germans authorities fled, they took many valuables. Slave clerks – 350 men and 50 women – lived in the same camp.
When Lt. Col. D. T. Fuller of North Tarrytown, New York, heard that women slave workers were wearing American fraternity pins, he assigned Capt. Carl Luetke of San Antonio, Texas, to investigate.
Cases recorded
Capt. Luetke discovered the file and the stored valuables. Individual cards listed the place where the airman had been brought down, whether he had been alive or dead when found. Those who died after capture were recorded with cause of death and the burial site.
Capt. Charles Richard Sattgast, President of the Minnesota State Teachers’ College, was put in charge of the file. He ordered the workers to return all rifled possessions. They claimed German authorities had invited them to help themselves when American artillery began shelling the town.
Munich center of U.S. plane attacks
By Leo S. Disher, United Press staff writer
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Rumblings already started against occupation – armies greeted with relief – not welcome
By Henry J. Taylor
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Americans scheduled to smash redoubt
Saturday, April 21, 1945
WASHINGTON (UP) – The final military plan agreed upon by the Big Three to knock out Germany calls for the Russians to capture Berlin while the Americans take on the tough job of reducing Hitler’s Bavarian redoubt, authoritative military observers believed tonight.
The British forces, in turn, are scheduled to continue north through Hamburg, and probably on to the Luebeck area on the Baltic to cut off Denmark.
This plan would give each county the assignment of cleaning the last fanatical Nazi resistance out of the area of Germany they reportedly will control after the war – Russia, the eastern part of the Reich; United States the south, and Great Britain the industrial northwest.
Americans hold back
It hourly appears more probable the observers said, that the Americans intend to hold back their full strength along the Elbe River line to permit the Reds to capture Berlin.
Such a decision would be based on good tactical principles. If both sides attacked simultaneously under separate leadership, the result might well be tremendous military waste, the observers said.
The function of the U.S. Ninth Army forces along the Elbe, it was believed, will be to prevent Gertman forces there from being turned to the defense of Berlin. But observers here were not looking for any large U.S. gains in this sector in the near future unless German resistance collapses more swiftly than is expected.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops to the south will be regrouped to carry through the Third Army’s thrust toward the Bavarian Alps.
Which task hardest?
Observers were in disagreement as to which would be the more difficult operation – taking Berlin or digging a strong force of, say, 25 divisions out of the Alps.
Berlin, they believe, will prove to be “hundreds of square miles of booby traps.” Even the fact that Berlin has been bombed to a rubble aids the defenders because smashed buildings make good defense positions.
The Bavarian redoubt is in the most rugged section of the Bavarian Alps, extending 200 miles from Lake Constance to Salzburg. The area is nearly 100 miles wide. Its unsurpassed natural defense positions may make it necessary to take the whole area a yard at a time.
Take road hub in amphibious advance
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Raid is second on homeland in 2 days
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WPB wants 225,000 extra workers
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Commerce official predicts new post-war jobs for discharged Army, Navy pilots
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3 votes for Russia is one question
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By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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This week will be Ernie Pyle week at the Red Cross blood bank.
If you read Ernie’s columns from the war fronts – and who didn’t? – take an hour off one day this week and donate a pint of blood.
That pint of blood will make a greater contribution to the war effort than any other single thing you could do.
It may save the life of one of our fighting men.
Apparently because favorable news from the war fronts has made many people forget there is still much fighting to be done, blood donations have fallen off sharply.
Months ago, Ernie wrote from Sicily:
I beg you folks back home to give and keep on giving your blood. We’ve got plenty on hand here now, but if we ever run into mass casualties such as they have on the Russian front, we will need untold amounts of it.
We’ve now run into those mass casualties on Iwo Jima, on Okinawa. There’ll be more when we assault the main islands, of Japan. We’re still getting heavy casualties in Germany. Those casualties will continue until all the pockets and lines of resistance in that mad country are wiped out.
A pint of blood is a cheap price for you to pay for the life of a man fighting for his country. But it will do the job.
Ira Wolfert tells skipper’s story
By John D. Paulus
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