Big Spring Daily Herald from Big Spring, Texas • Page 11

Today's News TODAY IG SPRING DAILY HERALD WHAT HAVE YOU? Herald classifieds will put In touch with sellers. VOL. 17; NO. 179 BIG SPRING, TEXAS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1945 Ten Pages Today Tank-Paced Americans Head Across Luzon Toward Manila Withdrawal Said Orderly By Nazis By JAMES M. LONG PARIS, Jan.

11 troops captured strategic Laroche today and British patrols in a swift ten mile advance through the collapsing western end of the Belgian bulge reached the Champion area, a mile east of the north- south road between Laroche and St. Hubert. The road was cut without opposition. The Germans quickened their skillful, orderly withdrawal in the deep snow as the American First and Third armies drove in from north and south and the British Second army pursued through profuse minefields from the west. The main British force was four miles behind the patrols which penetrated the Champion area, almost through the difficult Freyr forest.

The town is 13 miles west of Houffalize, which the Germans may High Command Announces Nazi Belgian Retreat attempt to make the center of a new defense front shielding the eastern half of the bulge. The Allies captured the strategic road center of Laroche (pop 1928) on the North side of the salient at 9:05 a. m. Patrols entered the town 1 14 miles northwest of Bastogne, yesterday and found it light- LONDOX. Jan.

11 UP) The ly held. German high command announc- The cruelest enemy for both ed today the withdrawal of Ger- sides the continuing blizzard, man troops from the entire tip of with temperatures nine.above zero the Ardennes salient west of the Ourthe river. "In order to support the deep flanks of our front bulge in the Ardennes more effectively, the out-jutting part across the Ourthe toward the west was taken back," the broadcast communique said. St. Hubert was evacuated, the communique added.

The German radio said that that Canadian troops had launched an attack against German positions south of Nijmegen in Holland. There was no immediate Allied confirmation of any sizable Canadian attack. Supreme-headquarters said yesterday the Canadians had gained a mile in an area seven miles west of Kleve, northern anchor of the Siegfried Line. The German broadcast declared the Canadian attack "broke down under concentrated German defensive fire." Fahrenheit. With the bulge battle going well, the tenderest spot on the Allied side of the western front was Strasbourg.

Germans threatened the Alsatian capital from positions ten to 17 rallei couth and from Nine miles north. Planes spotted 100 tanks below Strasbourg, evenly deployed on both sides of the Rhine, and claimed the destruction of nine and the damaging of 19. The Germans did not appear to have exerted iheir full strength in that area, but neither the American 7th army on the north nor the French First army on the south had yet shown strength to reduce the threat. A short break in the clouds allowed a few Allied planes to get into the air above the Belgian bulge for a change. Two squadrons of fighter-bombers raided two areas eact of the key German base of St.

Vith and pilots reported they exploded several stacks of ammunition, a train and ten railroads. Two other trains were reported badly damaged. First army patrols tested a new sector and stabbed deeply below Malmedy, encountering no opposition. The first also threw a bridgehead across the Salm river within nine miles of St. Vith and fought in Vielsalm, a river stronghold.

Signs today were that the Nazis commander hoped to establish a new line 15 miles or so west of the German border between Vielsalm, already entered by the U. S. First army, Houffalize and the Bastogne sector. A dozen or more towns fell. By latest reports, Von Rund- stedt has pulled out of the toe of the Ardennes sock with all possible speed.

But there was no sign of a stampede such as that in which Field Marshal Von Kluge's German 7th army was partly destroyed in the Falaise massacre in Normandy. Snow and mist gave the Nazis cover. (The German communique nounced a withdrawal from the shopVriaundryTn'thTs'Wn'of area west of the steep banked 12,000 is closed today and resi- Ourthe river, which flows through dents are under orders to boil all by-passed Laroche, "In order to drinking water, as officials contin- secure the deep flanks of the front ue their struggle with a growing in the Ardennes." The enemy water shortage. claimed to have "liberated sev- The reservoir which has been eral towns in Alsace Lorraine, supplying Columbia since including Rimling. The commum- day, when a Susquehanna river que said encircled troops had been ice-jam flooded the water works annihilated south of Erstein, 10 pumping station, is now down to miles below Strasbourg, and that less than one-day's normal supply.

300 were captured.) New York Girl Says She Will Marry POW WHITE PLAINS, N. Y-, Jan. 11 (IP) Nineteen year old Eva Caprari, displaying a diamond ring, says she is engaged to marry an Italian prisoner of war now interned at but army authorities indicate the marriage might constitute a violation of the Geneva convention and edicts of the provost marshal general. Officers at nearby Fort Slocum said a prisoner of war is supposed to be returned to his own country in the same status as when captured. They added that matters of wartime propriety and immigration also were involved.

The prisoner is Corp. Delfino Rosatti, 24, was captured in Tunis. Columbia Fighting Acute Water Shortage COLUMBIA, Jan. 11 OT Every bar, soda fountain, barber Allied Troops Capture Laroche As Germans In Retreat Major Battle Impending As Japs Use Human Bombs Company Of Texas State Guard To Celebrate Third Anniversary Here Officers and men of company 34th battalion, Texas State Guard, will observe the third anniversary of the organization of the unit with a special affair at the county warehouse at 8 p. m.

today. It was in this same place, which has served as armory for the company, that the original muster was accomplished on Jan. 12, 1942, climaxing many months of effort to secure a guard unit for Big Spring, Among out of town officials to be here for the event are Lt. Col. Joseph W.

Pyron, commanding officer of the battalion, and these members of his staff: Maj. Fred A. Haish, executive officer, Capt. Robert M. Neill, organization training officer; Capt.

Isaac W. Ussery, commanding officer of company 1st Lt. Warren B. Hisel, assistant O. T.

officer; Wd 1st. Lt. Samuel A. Moore, commanding officer headquarters detachment. All are from Odessa.

Capt. O. B. Jarvis of the Texas State Guardsman is due to be on hand for the celebration. Capt.

Hudson L. Bohannon, commanding officer of company announced that families of company members had been Invited to participate in the program, which includes a meal prepared by the men. Highlight of the program will be presentation of bronze stars for three years of service to Capt. Bohannon, 1st. Lt.

Leslie D. Thompson, 2nd Lt. Joseph E. Pond, 1st Sgt. Cyril 0.

Bishop, S- Sgts. James A. Falkner, Schyler Robinson, J. D. Sitchler, Kelley E.

Lawrence, and Sgts. Lonnie B. Dempsey, John L. Dibrell, James G. Glenn, Oscar Glickman, James A.

Selkirk and Roy Tidwell. Sgt. Joe Blum already holds (See GUARD, Pg. 10, Col. 2) ALLIES ADVANCE ALONG ENTIRE Arrows show Allied drives Jan.

10 against the German salient in Belgium and Luxembourg. Shaded areas have been taken from Germans. U.S. First army captured Samree, near Laroche, and moved into Bihain, northeast of Houffalise. British advanced in the Rochefort-Marche sector, and U.S.

Third army pushed northward from Bastogne. (AP Wirephoto Map). Hungary Fight Enters Climax As Nazis Give Nazis Sent From Norway To Italy ROME, Jan. 11 (AP) Nazi troops shifted from Norway have been thrown into battle in Italy with orders from Hitler to hold the Reno river line in the Adriatic sector "at all costs," according to German prisoners captured yesterday. Nazi resistance has already stiffened considerably along this east- west waterway and the strip of land between the Valli Di Comacchio and the Adriatic, where the Admiral Byrd Is Given Medal For New Discoveries WASHINGTON, Jan.

11 (JP) For finding Pacific airfield sites that will cut future air travel time, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, retired, today received the Legion of Merit medal from President Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt himself disclosed the nature of Byrd's outstanding services. Previously it had been announced only that the Arctic and I Antarctic explorer had been on aviation duty with the commander I in chief of the United States fleet and that he will return soon to the, Pacific.

In awarding the medal at a White House ceremony, the president, addressing a small group, told how Byrd in 1943 took an old gunboat, went to the southeastern Pacific, and found out about all the islands there which might be i used by the United States and oth-1 ers of the United Nations as airfields for future airplane travel. Addressing him as "Dick," Mr, Roosevelt said Byrd had found a lot of things that this nation didn't know about'Since the days of our' ancestors, He did not specify any of the islands visited but said Byrd touch-1 ed many of the places visited by i Commodore David Porter, who dis- tinguished himself in that region in the War of 1812. The president pinned on the medal with the comment "you certainly deserve is one of the nicest medals we've got." Byrd accepted his newest honor with an informal, "Thank you, Franklin." escape lifeline is still open after the Nazi fight from San Alberto. A patrol clash near the Senio gave further evidence of the critical Nazi manpower problem. A Nazi patrol from the 278th division fled after being shot up by the British.

Prisoners and dead left behind were found be Italian members of the Todt organization, a semi military labor corps. The prisoners claimed to have been driven ahead of the enemy patrol against their will as a protective screen for the Nazis. Meanwhile, drifted snow and icy roads continued to confine action all along the Fifth and Eighth army fronts to patrol operations. Fighters and fighter-bombers were out in strength yesterday making widespread attacks on enemy communications in northern Italy. Officials Disappointed In Lumber Allotments NEW ORLEANS, Jan.

11 (IP) Officials of the Central Procuring agency expressed disappointment here today over obtaining only 2,500,000 feet of southern yellow pine lumber when 31,000,000 feet were sought for immediate war purposes at a letting here last Tuesday. Lieut. L. G. Moore, acting head of the navy lumber coordinating unit of the procuring agency here, said the CPA's backlog of lumber now amounted to 70,000,000 feet.

He said that "if the backlog is not made up our millions of fighting men in Europe and in the Pacific area may continue to feel the efforts of shortages of essential material and fighting equipment." Lumber producers reported that their output was "hard hit by certain specifications of the OPA," an acute shortage of manpower, a growing scarcity of heavy duty truck tires and heavy winter weather. Wife Of Austin Mayor Suffers Back Injury AUSTIN, Jan. 11 (ff) Mrs. Tom Miller, wife of Austin's mayor, suffered a serious back injury today when she fell down the steps of the Miller home. Miller said his wife will be confined to" the hospital for several weeks.

After the accident Miller cancelled an engagement to address the Corpus Christ! Citizens Committee tonight. By EDDY GILMORE MOSCOW, Jan. 11 battle for Hungary entered what appeared to be the final stage today, with the Germans making an all-out effort to reach the collapsing Nazi garrison in Budapest before being outflanked by the westward Russian north of the Danube. From inside the devastated capital, three-fourths of which is now in Russian hands, the Red Star correspondent reported Hungarian soldiers have bolted and surrendered in such great numbers that the Nazis have broken all Hungarian units and attached them in company numbers to German regiments. Repeated German counterattacks northwest of Budapest have been smashed and Soviet forces threatening to cut the Nazi left flank have driven to within a mile and one quarter of Komarom, the Soviet communique disclosed, Other frontline reports said rail traffic out of Komarom, i communications hub on the Danube 40 miles northwest of Budapest, had been blocked by Red army artillery.

The eight-day Nazi drive to break the Soviet arc around Budapest and reach the Nazis inside the capital has cost the Germans 625 tanks and more than 14,700 men, the Russians said. Army Casualties Soar With Nazi Counferotfensive WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 '(ff) Secretary of 1 War Stimson disclosed today that army casualties have reached 564,351, exclusive of losses suffered in the German counteroffensive launched Dec. 16 on the Western front. The array's total coupled with the latest navy figure of 82,029 pushed overall casualties to 646,380 since Pearl Harbor, and increase of 8,241 since last week's report.

Of the increase, the army casualties accounted for 7,999 and the navy for 242. Stimson said his report covered the figures compiled in Washington through Dec. 29 but actually reflected casualties two or three weeks earlier. He said, however, that he expected to have next week a report on casualties from the German counter-offensive. The army's latest report on killed, wounded, missing and prisoners of war: Killed wounded missing prisoners of war 59,267.

Navy figures: Killed wounded missing prisoners of war 4,479. Yonks Reach For "Pa's Longhandles" WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 UP) The American people reached for red flannels and extra blankets today after James F. Byrnes Issued an appeal that appeared likely to leave the country cold. Without exception, the war mobilizer requested last night that temperatures ia all homes and public buildings be held to 68 degrees.

The proposal was made to save coal, meet an impending shortage of fuel and avoid its rationing. WARSHIPS TO FRANCE LONDON, Jan. 11 UP) The Paris radio said today, without elaboration, that four American warships had been transferred to the French fleet at Toulon. By LEONARD MILLIMAN Associated Press War Editor Tank-paced American- infantrymen speared toward Manila today from an expanded 22-mile beachhead while Japanese converged for the impending major battlt of the Philippines and hurled planes, torpedo boats and human bombs at U.S. shipping.

Imminent enemy counterattacks were forecast by field commanders as U.S. Sixth army troops spread almost unopposed across the swamps and upwards of four and five miles down the highways leading from Lingayen Gulf. Tokyo propaganda broadcasts indicated American forces were attempting to stretch their beachhead over 30 miles with another amphibious landing near Rabon, eight milea north of the Yank left flank. Propaganda broadcasts claimed shore guns wiped out the assault within ten minutes. Gen.

Tomoyuki Yamashita hurried reinforcements northward over bomb-splattered roads to join his Lingayen garrison that he had pulled back in the face of Tuesday's invasion. Most Japanese sorties against massed shipping in Lingayen gulf were futile but some damage was inflicted on a convoy carrying 14th army corps reinforcements and supplies The Navy announced (he recent loss of three the Hull, Spence and Monanhan a typhoon while in operations in the western Pacific. Eight smaller vessels were sunk by the Japanese. Eighty- four of the 520 men aboard, the destroyers were rescued. Superforts from India, perhaps heralding a British fleet strike at Japan's southern possessions, bombed military installations on the Malay peninsula.

Official Japanese broadcasts said the target was Singapore, former British naval base. They said 20 B-29s made the attack with two shot down and 14 damaged. On Luzon Gen. Douglas MacArthur reported that Gen. Yamashita "as yet has been unable to gather his forces to offer any serious resistance" but "is now feverishly bringing up troops" from the south.

U. S. warplanes, ruling the skies, bombed out three bridges on reinforcement routes near Calumpit, strafed enemy columns hurrv- ing north and destroyed more than 40 Japanese planes on their home fields. So far Japanese counter- thrusts have been confined to the sea. These were largely futile.

The hopelessness of these attacks was typified by Japanese soldiers swimming into Lingayen gulf with home-made bombs and grenades. It was a puny effort to blast the mass of the 7th amphibious force ships pouring tens of thousands of tons through the heavy surf onto the consolidated beachhead. Ashore Japanese fought only small rear guard actions as. the Yanks probed for a contact with the main enemy force. MacArthur reported average advances of four miles along the entire front.

In some places patrols reached out far ahead while on the right flank the 14th corps pushed inland for an average, gain of five miles. Front dispatches reported more than 20 towns and villages securely held in U. S. hands with Yank artillery-spotting planes already operating from captured Lingayen airfield. Major towns in U.

S. hands are the Pangasinan provincial capital of Lingayen, San Fabian, Mangal- dan and Dagupan. The 14th corps drove west from Lingayen toward Port Sual. The Yanks were two miles away from this first port city to be threatened. Twenty-two miles away the eastern flank of san Fabian was protected by constant air cover.

PHILIPPINE TRIBUTE CHICAGO, Jan. 11 UP) The Chicago Daily Times began today a campaign to erect a replica of the Statue of Liberty in the Philippine islands as a gift from this nation "to commemorate one of the great epics in the struggle 'or human liberation of the Philippines." "Army Under Strength" Stimson HOW AMERICANS THREATEN JAPANESE ON addition to the invasion of Luzon launched at Lingayen Gulf, where U.S. forces have gone ashore in the Linrgayen-San Fabian aea, Americans on Mindoro and Marinbuque pose threats (broken arrows) from the south. (AP Wirephoto Map). Revision Forced On Allied Plans By JOHN M.

HIGHTOWER WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 iweeping review of Allied grand strategy is now expected to be made by military and political chiefi beginning with the big three conference around February-1. A whole series of events is forcing this review and probably drastic revisions of Allied thinking, the latest being the American invasion of Luzon. The problem is to relate future operations in the Pacific, where the war is moving at high speed, to coming operations in Europe where the developments are on a badly delayed time-table. Estimates that as a result of the German offensive that the European war might be prolonged three to six months, which are stiU held here despite recent optimistic reports from France, furnish the key to the problem.

Western Reich Hears Air Raid Warnings Today LONDON, Jan. 11 raid warnings sounded in western Germany this afternoon heralding an by RAF Lancas- ters. The morning and early afternoon, the usual hours for blows by U. S. heavy bombers, passed uneventfully as weather reports from the continent told of howling blizzards reaching to four miles high.

Some 1,100 U. S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators struck German targets yesterday in the 17th raid in 19 days, the hazard of take-offs and landings on icy runways and cruelly cold weather. RAF Mosquitos bombed Hannover last night without loss, and coastal command Beaufight- ers yesterday hit a small enemy merchant vessel and minesweeper off the Norwegian coast. WASHINGTON, Jan.

11 War Secretary Stimson said today the army "when measured in terms of effectiveness" is under-strength. He made the assertion at a news conference to explain the current call for an accelerated induction rate. That call threatens to lake some 200,000 to 250,000 young men out of war plants this spring to help meet demands from the armed forces for 900,000 men by July 1. Col. Francis V.

Kcesilng, testifying for the selective service system in support of national service legislation, told the house military committee today that draft calls would be jumped to an average 132,000 men for each of the four months starting with March. January and February calls are for 112,000 men a month. Navy and marines enlistments among youths under 18 are expected to make up the 900,000 grand total. The question of the army's need for additional men arose when newsmen asked Stimson if the army is not already over- strength when its announced ceiling 1 of 7,700,009 men Is considered. Replying in the negative, Stimson asserted tht "measured in terms of effectiveness the army is under-strength, not over-strengthened." He said there are approximately 450,000 wounded and sick in army hospitals now and that these men are ineffectives for purposes of conducting a war.

In addition, the rotation policy leaves some 85,000 men ineffective while they are in the process of moving in and out, he added. "If the needs of the armies at the fronts are to be met," Stimson said, "there seems to be no escape from calling Into the armed services during this year, substantially all physically qualified men below 30 years of age from factory, farm and government. But when we do this the places of these young men will have to be taken by older men, Stimson Says Number Of Commanders Changed WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 UP) Secretary of War Stimson said today a "number" of field commanders have been relieved because they failed to measure up to their particular assignments. He declined to make public the names of the men.

telling a news conference that such reassignments "are made without public announcement in order that the not Over all strategy has to be planned, where, possible, years In advance. The Allied chiefs of staff, taking into account production factors in this country, began charting a return to Luzon not long after American forces were compelled to evacuate that bastion in early 1942. From the first it was assumed that any major operations beyond that point would require maximum concentrations of force which would not be possible until Germany had been defeated and armies and supplies shifted from Europe to the Pacific-Asiatic front. It is a more or less open secret that originally military leaden figured on making that shift ing the past fall or the current winter. When it became evidenl that German strategy was to hold out as long as possible rather than surrender to overwhelming Ai lied power, the European ble was moved back to next spring or early summer.

Now it has been shifted to late summer or fall ban ring unforseen developments weakness in German resistance. This means that If the European war goes as planned it will be many months before maximum concentrations can be employed in the Pacific. Such concentrations would be necessary, for the invasion of Japan, where American troops would meet large masses of the Japanese army, or for the invasion of China where similar resistance must be counted on. CITRUS MAGNATE DIES WINTER HAVEN, Jan. II tS 5 Everett Street, 77, pioneer in the Florida citrus can.

ning Industry which he is credited with starting, died at the home of women and younger men not ac- 1 notmd aft hCM tas ceptable for military service." me j), lmpauea ms new assign- an illness of about.