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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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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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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Parliament group reports on Nazi camp
Women were moved into brothel
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Medal of Honor urged for Pyle
LONDON, England (UP) – Pvt. Karl Detzer Jr. and “50 other Joes” proposed in a letter to the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, today that the Congressional Medal of Honor be awarded posthumously to Ernie Pyle, war correspondent recently killed on Ie Island.
Editorial: They are Americans, too
Two American soldiers have asked the U.S. government to protect their parents from terrorist shooting raids on their California home. Vandals ride by in an auto, firing into the house of the invalid father.
How can such a thing happen in this country? Well, the victims are Japanese-Americans. And there are some in this country who don’t think those people have the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to protection by the law, as the rest of us American citizens.
Because Japan is our enemy and guilty of atrocities, some think we should take it out on these Americans of Japanese ancestry. Fortunately, they don’t try to punish Americans of German ancestry for Nazi barbarism. But they think that Japanese-Americans somehow are different.
The record shows the Japanese-American units fighting in Italy are among our finest soldiers. They have earned fair treatment for themselves and their families here at home.
Not only in justice to these fellow Americans who have proved their patriotism the hard way, but also for our own self-respect and the preservation of American ideals, our law officers must protect the equal rights of all citizens regardless of ancestry. We can’t win a war against barbarism by becoming barbarians ourselves.
Permanent peace plan must be developed, Big Four leaders warn
Foreign ministers pay tribute to Roosevelt – Europe saved by Russia, Molotov asserts
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Simms: Mutual aid pacts set off fireworks
French fear league can’t act fast enough
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Mexico leads fight to make Stettinius chief
Molotov’s objection delays showdown
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Truman ‘fills in’ Stalin on rejection of Poland
Question is subject of diplomatic exchanges – U.S. studies Dumbarton amendments
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Stock market rises to new high since 1937
Rails feature in volume, strength
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Maverick gets ‘middle man’ surplus role
His agency to buy, sell, lease millions
By Roger W. Stuart, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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