America at war! (1941–) – Part 5

2348

CINCPOA Press Release No. 87

For Immediate Release
April 25, 1945

In the Okinawa campaign the enemy has attempted the use of rocket-propelled suicide bombs against our forces. These weapons, which are similar to a small single‑seat airplane, carry a pilot and are generally launched from the underside of the fuselage of a bomber. They have a wingspan of about sixteen feet, a length of more than 19 feet, and a tail plane of about eight feet. Constructed of light metals and wood, these bombs carry a heavy warhead of explosives. They are capable of high speed which reduces their qualities of maneuverability to a low point. The enemy has used them in limited numbers in the Okinawa operation up to this date, offering little op­portunity for observation of their powers or effects. U.S. forces have designated these missiles by the term “baka bomb.” “Baka” Is Japanese meaning “stupid,” “foolish,” or “silly.”

2349

Statement by President Truman Announcing Junction of Anglo-American and Soviet Forces in Germany
April 27, 1945

The Anglo-American armies under the command of Gen. Eisenhower have met the Soviet forces where they intended to meet – in the heart of Nazi Germany. The enemy has been cut in two.

This is not the hour of final victory in Europe, but the hour draws near, the hour for which all the American people, all the British peoples and all the Soviet people have toiled and prayed so long.

The union of our arms in the heart of Germany has a meaning for the world which the world will not miss. It means, first, that the last faint, desperate hope of Hitler and his gangster government has been extinguished. The common front and the common cause of the powers allied in this war against tyranny and inhumanity have been demonstrated in fact as they have long been demonstrated in determination. Nothing can divide or weaken the common purpose of our veteran armies to pursue their victorious purpose to its final triumph in Germany.

Second, the junction of our forces at this moment signalizes to ourselves and to the world that the collaboration of our nations in the cause of peace and freedom is an effective collaboration which can surmount the greatest difficulties of the most extensive campaign in military history and succeed. Nations which can plan and fight together shoulder to shoulder in the face of such obstacles of distance and of language and of communications as we have overcome, can live together and can work together in the common labor of the organization of the world for peace.

Finally, this great triumph of Allied arms and Allied strategy is such a tribute to the courage and determination of Franklin Roosevelt as no words could ever speak, and that could be accomplished only by the persistence and the courage of the fighting soldiers and sailors of the Allied nations.

But, until our enemies are finally subdued in Europe and in the Pacific, there must be no relaxation of effort on the home front in support of our heroic soldiers and sailors as we all know there will be no pause on the battlefronts.

ПРИКАЗ
Верховного Главнокомандующего

ВОЙСКАМ ДЕЙСТВУЮЩЕЙ АРМИИ

Войска 1-го УКРАИНСКОГО фронта и союзные нам англо-американские войска ударом с востока и запада рассекли фронт немецких войск и 25 апреля, в 13 часов 30 минут соединились в центре Германии, в районе города ТОРГАУ. Тем самым немецкие войска, находящиеся в Северной Германии, отрезаны от немецких войск в южных районах Германии.

В ознаменование одержанной победы и в честь этого исторического события сегодня, 27 апреля, в 19 часов столица нашей Родины МОСКВА от имени Родины салютует доблестным войскам 1-го УКРАИНСКОГО фронта и союзным нам англо-американским войскам – двадцатью четырьмя артиллерийскими залпами из трёхсот двадцати – четырёх орудий.

Да здравствует победа свободолюбивых народов над Германией!

Верховный Главнокомандующий
Маршал Советскою Союза И. СТАЛИН
27 апреля 1945 года. № 346

Address by Soviet Marshal Stalin to Red Army and Western Allied troops
April 27, 1945

От имени Советского Правительства я обращаюсь к вам, командиры и бойцы Красной Армин и армий наших союзников.

Победоносные армии союзных держав, ведущих освободительную войну в Европе, разгромили германские войска и соединились на территории Германии.

Наша задача и наш долг добить врага, принудить его сложить оружие ин безоговорочно капитулировать. Эту задачу н этот долг перед нашим народом и перед всеми свободолюбивыми народами Красная Армия выполнит до конца.

Приветствую доблестные войска наших союзников, стоящие теперь на территории Германии плечом к плечу с советскими войсками и преисполненные решимости выполнить свой долг до конца.

2350

The Pittsburgh Press (April 27, 1945)

U.S. First Army, Reds join

Historic juncture cuts Reich into 3 pieces, seals doom of Nazis

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2351

Lacking orders to halt, patrol hooks up with Reds

Unofficial juncture takes place by accident before formal linkup of Allied armies
By John B. McDermott, United Press staff writer

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2352

Genoa captured by U.S. Fifth Army

Allies advancing at will in North Italy

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2353

Japs cracking in South Okinawa

map.042745.up
Spurting ahead on Okinawa, U.S. troops seized a ridge overlooking the capital, Naha, and Shuri village. To the north, the Japs reported U.S. troops landed on Motobu Peninsula, behind holdout Jap forces. U.S. Superfortresses raided Kyushu Island of the Jap homeland, while carrier planes hit the Sakishima Islands below Okinawa.

GUAM (UP) – Jap resistance began to crack on Southern Okinawa today.

Tokyo reported a new American landing on the northwest coast of the strategic island.

U.S. troops assaulting the southern defenses shielding Naha, capital of Okinawa, captured bitterly-contested Sawtooth Ridge, highest point on the island. The Yanks wedged deeply into the enemy line less than a mile from the inland town of Shuri.

Radio Tokyo said the Americans were landing men and materials from barges in the vicinity of Minatagawa on the Motobu Peninsula, which juts out of Northwest Okinawa.

The landing put American units in the rear of Jap pockets still holding out on the peninsula and should speed the opening of the Unten Harbor navy base to American ships.

Capture of bloody Sawtooth Ridge was regarded as the turning point of the Okinawa campaign. From here out, it is a downhill battle with the Americans looking down the enemy’s throat.

Two of the last three airfields on the island, Machinato on the west just north of Naha, and Yonabaru on the eastern coastal plain, were almost within the Americans’ grasp. The Yanks also outflanked the inland town of Urasoe Mura from the west.

Maj. Gen. John R. Hodge, commander of the XXIV Army Corps, said that numerous Jap troops were deserting to the American lines.

“Soldiers don’t do this until they begin to crack,” Gen. Hodge said. “I think the Jap is pretty well disorganized and in my opinion the time for a possible counteroffensive has passed.”

Some 400 miles to the northeast, a fleet of 150 B-29 Superfortresses today hit seven Jap suicide-plane bases on Kyushu, southernmost of the enemy’s home islands, for the second time in 24 hours.

Weather good

Early reports indicated good weather favored the raiders in marked contrast to the extremely bad conditions which handicapped yesterday’s force of 200 to 250 bombers over Kyushu and adjacent Shikoku.

U.S. carrier planes continued their neutralizing attacks on airfield installations in the Sakishima group south of Okinawa Wednesday. Navy search planes strafed and sank a number of fishing craft, a small picket boat and a torpedo boat east of Kyushu yesterday.

2354

Yank, Red generals drink champagne

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2355

Russians win 2 big demands at conference

Parley deadlocked on chairmanships
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

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2356

Goering reported to have killed self, daughters

LONDON, England (UP) – A Zurich dispatch of the Exchange Telegraph said today that Reich Marshal Hermann Goering shot his five daughters and then himself when the Nazis sentenced him to death and ordered him to execute his own death sentence.

The British Who’s Who says Goering has only two daughters.

The Exchange Telegraph dispatch said the commandant of Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler’s bodyguard read a Nazi death sentence to Goering, newly replaced as head of the German Air Force, and ordered him to carry it out.

An unidentified Zurich diplomat was quoted by the Exchange Telegraph as giving this melodramatic account of the crackup in the top ranks of the Nazi Party:

Last Monday, Goering sent Hitler an urgent letter requesting him to accept with the Nazi Party the consequences of a lost war and thus spare the Germans further bloodshed.

The same night Himmler replied by sending his own bodyguard to Goering’s home, where his wife, Emmy, was present, and Goering’s fate was sealed.

The diplomat was quoted as saying that, according to one version, the bodyguard shot down Goering and his wife without warning. Goering was married to former actress Emmy Sonneman.

2357

I DARE SAY —
Don’t blame it on the schools!

By Florence Fisher Parry

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2358

Stuttgart capture starts dispute

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2359

In Washington –
House extends draft but adds restriction

Bans combat duty for green ‘18s’

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2360

Big ship named for Ernie Pyle

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Maritime Commission announced today that it will name one of its largest ships for Ernie Pyle, the famous Scripps-Howard war reporter who was killed on Ie Island April 18.

The Maritime Commission said:

Pyle many times honored the men of the Merchant Marine for the vital, and often heroic, part they have taken in the war effort. Millions of Pyle’s G.I.s have crossed the oceans to the fighting fronts on ships manned by his friends in the Merchant Marine.

The Ernie Pyle will be a C-4 military type cargo ship – 522 feet long, 14,600 deadweight tons, 9,000 horsepower, and 14,000-mile cruising radius.

2361

Perkins: Lewis forgets past – slugging away at critics

By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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2362

Baden major bags eight Jap planes

Beat accomplished in only 20 minutes

(SHS) – It took Maj. George C. Axtell Jr. of Baden nearly five years to get into action. But he made up for it when he did get there.

In his first 20 minutes of combat near Okinawa Monday night, he became an ace by shooting down five enemy planes, war front dispatches revealed.

In addition, the 24-year-old Marine fighter pilot damaged three other Jap planes which may have gone down.

A son of Mr. and Mrs. George C. Axtell of Baden, he graduated from Ambridge High School and attended the University of Alabama before entering service in 1940.

He was seriously injured in a plane collision in 1942, but fell in the sea and was rescued. He went overseas last summer, but only got into action this spring.

Eisenhower offers evidence of atrocities

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2363

OPA orders crackdown on black market

Fines, jail await violators in new drive

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Pews challenge Fascist charge

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2364

Japs protest sinking of relief vessel

By the United Press

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2365

Goering’s escape reported – Mussolini may be prisoner

By the United Press

Allied armies, herding the remnants of Nazi fighting forces into a dead-end corridor of Germany for the kill, were smoking enemy ringleaders from their hideaways today.

According to various European reports, the following headliners had been captured or were being driven toward capture although Allied confirmation of these reports was lacking:

  • Reich Marshal Herman Goering: Radio Moscow said the “eagle of the Luftwaffe” had escaped from Berlin by plane with a $20 million “nest egg.” Earlier, Radio Hamburg said Goering had “resigned” his command of Germany’s beaten air force because of heart trouble.

  • Lt. Gen. Kurt Dittmar: The spokesman of the German High Command and widely-quoted military commentator of Radio Berlin was reported in Allied hands. A BBC broadcast today reported his capture by Allied armies in the west.

  • Benito Mussolini and Roberto Farinacci: The former Duce of Italy and the former secretary of the Fascist Party were hounds and hares in today’s dispatches. Radio Rome repeatedly broadcast a Swiss agency report that Mussolini was in Allied hands at Palanza on Lake Maggiore. The Italian government did not confirm or deny the report. Another unconfirmed report located Mussolini and Farinacci in a monastery at Como after a flight from Milan. But a Zurich dispatch said Mussolini had not reached Como.

    The Milan radio reported that Benito Mussolini had been arrested by customs guards at Lecco on Lake Como.

  • Lt. Gen. Emil Remer: According to a British broadcast, this loyal henchman of Hitler committed suicide April 20 after his division broke before Russian pressure on the Eastern Front. Remer was credited with foiling the bomb plot against Hitler last July and was rewarded with command of a division.

  • Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler: The London Evening News reported that Himmler was dead. Reports are current in London, the Evening News said, that Himmler met his end in an unknown manner. The newspaper recalled that the British recently shelled a car in which Himmler may have been riding in Northwest Germany.

Meanwhile, Radio Hamburg insisted that Adolf Hitler was leading the defense of Berlin in a “martyr’s” last stand.

And British dispatches said Rudolf Hess, an early fugitive from Nazi circles, reportedly had gone insane in captivity.

Marshal Erwin Rommel’s widow told her U.S. Seventh Army captors that the “Desert Fox” died in bed a “broken man.” Mrs. Rommel, found in her home in Herrlingen, said her late husband “knew the fight was hopeless” after he had witnessed the crushing of his Afrika Korps. She said Rommel disagreed with Hitler’s military strategy. A heart attack finished him, she said, as he apparently was recovering from shrapnel wounds inflicted by an Allied fighter pilot.

Zurich reports said King Leopold of Belgium had been taken into the southern redoubt by the Nazis.

There was growing suspicion in London that other Nazis – possibly including Hitler himself – were using the battle of Berlin to cloak their disappearance into hiding.

The usually-reliable diplomatic correspondent of Exchange Telegraph reported no definite evidence had reached London that Hitler was still in Berlin.

2366

Yanks on Luzon smash into Baguio

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2367

Patton’s men get Reds’ radio call

By Robert Richards, United Press staff writer

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47 Nazi prisons already overrun

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