The Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune from Muscatine, Iowa • Page 1

-WEATHER- Mn.ciMne— Tair and coldor tonight; Tri- daT Increasing- cloudiness with occa.ional in afternoon. 2fot cold. Iowa Tatr and continued cold tonight; Friday moderating- temperatures, with light fnow. Hirer 5.8; fall 0.3. MUSCATINE THE PORT CITY OF THE CORN BELT THE MUSCATINE JOURNAL AND NEWS-TRIBUNE ASSOCIATED PRESS and NEA SERVICE PRICE FIVE CENTS NO: 302 MUSCATINE, IOWA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1944 SIXTEEN PAGES ESTABLISHED 1840 Nazis Miles Inside Mukden Raided; Yamashita Line Shattered teyte Battle Nearly Over; Japs Fleeing (By LEONARD MILLIMAN) (Associated Press War Editor) bombed Mukden today in the fourth successive day of mass B29 raids on scattered Japanese industries as U.

S. infantry- shattered the 1 a st vestiges of the Yamashita defense line and drove surviving enemy soldiers into the hills of western Leyte Leige-Bastogne Road Cut, Germans Report island. advances by two American divisions on Leyte cut off the Japanese escape highway, captured huge stores of supplies that would have lasted enemy for six months, and r3h the total of Nipponese- soldiers known to have been killed on the island to 43,096. Japanese Flee Scattered elements of Japanese, no longer able to pu; up organized defense, are fleeing toward the northwest coast, Gen. Douglas Mac-Arthur reported.

"The battle is rapidly drawing to an end," MacArthur exulted. ttToday's daylight air raid on Mukden, center of Japan's Manchurian arsenal, was made by a "substantial foroo" China based -629s the war department announced. Washington clis- Mtches estimated as many as 60 Superforts may have in rations. The Japanese Hsink- ing radio said approximately 30 planes struck in waves for 50 isinutes at both Mukden and WJiren," blindly bombing from a high altitude." The broadcast claimed four attackers were shot down. Air Offensive Planned The Manchurian raid came on 'Ae heels of a Chungking radio warning that a great American aerial offensive would be launched against Japan and her continental industries and military installations.

radio reported two pairs of Superforts flew over Aichi and Shizuoka prefectures, southwest of Tokyo on the main island of Japan, Wednesday night and early today. The Broadcast said bombs were drop- pTd only on the second foray, apparently made to observe weather conditions. Liberators, clearing the way for renewed Saipan-based Su- radios on Tokyo, bombed Sipanese fields on Iwo Jima for the twelfth consecutive day and pock-markod tire airdrome on Marcus island. A patrol plane damaged a 6,000 ton freighter-transport in a (Lmvoy 300 miles west of Manilla in what may have been an opening aerial blow by Philippine-based planes against Nippon's lifeline through the south China sea. Bombers operating from newly built fields on Mindoro island in the western Philippines, coulri patrol the sea to the coasts of China and French Indo-China.

U. S. ground forces continued to Advance on Mindoro without op- 'osition. Jap Line Collapses On Leyte the Yamashita line collapsed under smashing advances by the 7Tth division drove four miles north Valencia, and the first dis- London The German high command declared today that nazi spearheads had cut the Liege-Bastogne highway xvhich runs 12 miles west Stavelot and taken 20,000 prisoners in this week's offensive. The highway, runs from Liege, Belgian fortress city, to Bastogne 43 miles farther south.

It was cut "on a broad front," the bulletin said, without specifying where the road was crossed. A penetration to Stavelot, 20 miles inside Belgium, has been the deepest announced by the Allies. "Enemy supply columns moving toward the Meuse river were caught up with and overtaken by German tanks. Freshly-brought up American units were split up into single groups and did not succeed in checking our advance," the broadcast communique said. Advanced German units have "penetrated into the Ardennes," it added.

Americans in the Schnee Eifel forest in Germany "far behind the front were either wiped out or taken prisoner yesterday. Seven thousand Americans were captured," the bulletin asserted. In Wednesday's lighting 43 tanks and armored vehicles as well as 50 guns were captured, and 136 tanks were knocked out." Elsewhere on the western front, Allied attacks continued -without success, it added. Scobie Reports Effort to Clear Athens Athens Lt. Gen.

R. M. Scobie, British commander in Greece, announced 1 progress today in clearing insurgent forces from Athens and Piraeus in a routine statement isued three hours after the time he had set for beginning a full-scale attack on the rebel gun positions. In an ultimatum Wednesday night the British general said that'as of 9 a. m.

today (2 a. m. mounted cavalry, which pushed three miles south from Lonoy. The 77th captured Libungao at the junction of the Ormoc highway and tile escape route to on the coast. The first cavalry captured Kanango, only a mile from the 77th.

MacArthur announced 1,541 more enemy dead were countec on Leyte. This runs the tota" Estimated Japanese casualties virtually all killed or for th-e two months old Philippines campaign to nearly 127,000 This figure includes an estimated 30,000 drowned in convoys sunk Jurying to reach Leyte, and 35,000 lost in the second naval battle of the Philippines. In central Burma three Japanese divisions retreated toward Mandalay, offering little resist- to British, infantrymen ad- down the railway from Myitkyina. The British occupied Mankan and Wuntho, 135 miles north of Mandalay. To the east, the Chinese 30th division trying to reopen the Burma captured three villagse near the Bhamo-Namkham road.

Central War Time.) any Elas forces still holding out would be attacked "with all the arms at my disposal." A communique issued at noon made no mention of this warning, but said further prisoners and weapons had been captured. Jean Rallis, the pro nazi former premier who escaped from the Averoff prison two days ago when the insurgents stormed the building, recaptured Wednesday night. A reply was awaited from King George II in London on whether he would accept or reject a suggestion that the nation's leadership be turned over to Archbishop Damaskinos as regent. It was stated Wednesday night that Premier George Papandreou had advised the king by message to accept such a regency. Some cabinet members, however, are understood to have urged the king to oppose such a StimsonRemarks Ability of Foe to Launch Drive Secretary Stimson said today that if the German counter offensive fails it definitely will shorten the war.

He coupled with this assertion, however, the statement that the Germans' ability to launch the uge offensive is significant. He said te nazis had penetrated Allied territory for distances ranging from five to 20 miles. Stimson, in his weekly review of the war given at a news conference, said the Germans chose for their attack a -sector "which had been looselv held by both sides. It was a terrain which had not offered to the Allies much incentive for The secretary commented thai the nazis did not have a great deal to lose in risking the offensive and that it might gain foi them a few months of time before they must account for "the misery they have inflicted upon the world." Discussing the power of the German trust, Stimson said thai despite losses uffered by the naz in land and air attacks in recenl months "they have been able to build up nthe westwall a very substantial fowe for tltfs 'All-Out Interpreting the enemy offensive a.s "an all-out effort to halt our advance into the Cologn plain and the Saar basin," he added: "I have the utmost confidence in the wisdom, energy, and aggressive fighting attitude of General Eisenhower and his In response to a question Stimson said he based his statemen concerning a possible shortening of the war on his recollection events 25 years ago when he fought in World War I. Referring to the enemy offensives in the latter stages of that war, he said "I was there when they drove almost to the channel, again almost to Armentieres.

Again when they drove to the Marne. 4 I re member how we if thej would never stop. And then I re member how, suddenly, on 18th of July (1918) we bit into the German salient and shriveled up like a toy balloon. "And I remember how in wha seemed a very short time after the surrender came." Yanks Reinforced. Stimson made these othe points in his estimate of the Euro pean situation: "Our armies are being steadil reinforced and the movement Illinois Youth Held for Death of Small Niece Princeton, 111.

Norman Burton, 15 year old boy who had been released on probation to an elder sister, confessed today, Sheriff Frank Grissll said, that he killed his old daughter knife. When I asked sister's five year with a skinning him why he did it, he just gave me a silly grin and said, 'I don't know'," the sheriff declared. The boy, surrendered to authorities this morning by his parents here, was questioned and taken to Dixon, seat of Lee county, in which the farm home ol the victim's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Tyne, is situated near'Ohio, 111., where the body of Sara Jane Tyne was found Wednesday afternoon, bruised and cut.

Norman Burton had been released from the county court into the custody of Mrs. Tyne, his sister, after his arrest in September, 1943, on a delinquency charge. He had been taking care oi the Tynes' four children while the parents worked in a war plant. The authorities said that after the killing the boy rode away supplies to support them ha been greatly enlarged and im proved. Germany, with the win ter upon her, is being subjecte to a steadily increasing aerial tack which has assumed vas proportions.

"But menacing to the German as the situation has been on th western front, the German lug command must also be prepare to meet the Rxissian winter o. tensive wherever it may strike Stimson said that iiaturall Allied are un der way. Stalin Observes 65th Birthday With No Fanfare Moscow Premier Josep Stalin celebratde his 65th birthda today with a complete absence official fanfare. Although the Soviet union tool no formal notice of the occasion telegrams from all over the na tion, 'as well as from many of th world's capitals, poured into th Kremlin. Neither press nor radio made any mention of the occasion, but like Washington's birthday in the United States the date is known to every Russian, JAP PUPPET in the southern tip of Manchuria, was toe target for American suiper- forts on the fourth-, successive day of massed raids on scattered Japanese industries." the center of Japan's Manchurian arsenal.

Planes strtiick siijwav-es for 50 'minutes at both. Mukden Photo). Highway Program Signed by FDR Washington State aud- ioes! governments can start planning today their projects under the $3,173,250,000 three year postwar highway program. The 44 stale legislatures meeting in 1945 should give "prompt and vigorous attention" to the highway program, President Roosevelt said in signing measure setting it up. The program, Mr.

Roosevelt said, "becomes a challenge to the states, counties and cities which must originate the specific projects and get the program ready for construction after the irar ends." Funds Matched. States would supply $1,500,000,000 on a 50-50 matching basis to be eligible for the larger share oji the-federal funds authorized by the bill. Congress in authorizing the federal contribution did not make an actual appropriation for this purpose. That will come later. Designed partly to help ease possible after-war unemployment, the legislation embodies several significant changes in national policy for highway development, Mr.

Roosevelt said. He mentioned the authority for designation by federal and state governments of an interregional highway network. The measure likewise "gives practical recognition to the transportation problem of our cities by extending federal aid to projects in urban areas which, will reduce traffic congestion and accidents," he noted. Serve Rural Areas. Included were sizeable authorizations for farm to market roa-ds serving rural areas, the president said-.

The program calls for the federal government and the states to pay $225,000,000 each for each of the three years on the regular federal-aid highway system, $150,000,000 each on secondary, including farm-to-market roads and $125,000,000 each on federal highways entering cities. Allies Repel Nazi Thrust NearFaenza on)e German force are throwing heavy tank-spear headed counterattacks agains the Canadian bridgehead acros the Canale Naviglio northeast Faenza but the Canadians ar holding fast despite the ferocit; of the thrusts, Allied headquar ters said today. Other Eighth army troops crossed the Lamone river at two points near Ronco, occupied Formellinoj a half mile north of the Bolorna-! tional units north ol Faenza in Rimini highway and joined addi- seizing San Silvestro and Sail Pietro Laguna. At the same Zealanders cleared the east bank of the Senio river for three miles north of the highway. South of the highway the action was confined to patrol operations.

It was disclosed that the 751 St. Tank battalion, commanded by Maj. C. J. Madden, Des Moines, Iowa, is in action on the Appenine front.

This battalion has been in Italy since the start of the Italian campaign and has destroyed more than 100 German Mark IV tanks. Reds Pursue Nazis on 125 Mile Front BY EDDY GILMORE Moscow (fP) The Red army pushed the Germans back on a 125-mile front in southern Slovakia today and battled with battered nazi garrisons on the outskirts of the strongholds of Kassa and Rimaszombat. Soviet columns Wednesday night were on three sides of both these heavily defended southeastern towns which control highways and railways connecting with direct routes to Bratislava, Vienna and Prague to the west. Nazi Strongpoints Fall. In advances up to five miles, a communique saM, the Russians captured 13 towns in the Rimas- zombat area in a drive aimed at the key citadel of Losonc, 17 miles westward.

Chief of them was Tornala, 13 miles east of Rimas- zombat and a strongpoint of formidable enemy defenses on the east bank of the Slana rvier. Latest reports had Soviet forces preparing a climactic attack on the Torysa river fortifications two miles outside Kassa. Front reports said the great battle raging further to the west, north of the Danube bend, was going favorably for Red army troops struggling for other routes westward toward Bratislava and Vienna. The German high command reported thrpwingj-in. numbers of reserves and new air units in an effort to check the Soviet push, which threatened to spill out across the Danube and block escape routes from beleaguered Budapest.

Gain In Solvakia. The southeastern Slovakia Soviet drive appeared almost certain of throwing the nazis out of Kassa and Rimaszombat within the next few days. Capitulation of the towns would loose the nazi hold from a huge segment of eastern Slovakia, if not all of it. An Izvestia report from the Slovakian battlefront hard winter weather had set in. Ski men both' German and Russian were taking a more active part in the fighting.

In 41 days, the war bulletin said, the Russian Second Ukraine army had taken 41,244 prisoners in fighting along the Hungarian- Slovak border. German Armor, Infantry Pours Into Wide Breach; Advances In Luxembourg (By JAMES M. LONG) Paris (AP) The German counter-offensive has driven 35 miles into Belgium beyond Malmedy, Supreme Headquarters disclosed today. Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt's massive winter rush across Allied lines of communication had developed into two deep wedges as massive formations of from five to six armored divisions and eight to nine infantry divisions poured into a wide breach under the concealment of fog and cloud. The second deep wedge had penetrated three-fourths of the way across Luxembourg.

This drive farther south appeared directd toward. Sedan, scene of the 1940 breakthrough. This drive carried 14 miles from, the frontier town of Vianden to just east of Wiltz, 10 miles east of Bostogne and 43 mites northeast of Sedan. Wiltz rth of the city of Luxembourg. A parallel German column was in the vicinity ot Clervaux, seven miles northeast of: Wiltz.

These were the positions at noon Tuesday. Thrust Continues. Supreme headquarters still did not permit up-to-the-hour pinpointing of German positions, and House Group Finds Yank Morale field dispatches quoted authority" on the First good army front as saying the German drive was not likely to be checked this week although the northernmost prong of the German attack had been stemmed. American troops were fighting back in their greatest battle of the war, giving and receiving their heaviest losses of the conflict, as Von Rundstedt concentrated from 13 to 15 armored and infantry up to 200,000 en into a massive a (The high command declared its spearheads had-fene- trated the Ardennes forest and cut the 45-mile Liege-Bastogne highway, one of the main north- south highways binding the First and Third armies. (Bastogne is a Belbian town on his bicycle, slept all night in the park north of here, and this morning went to the home of his parents, Mr.

and Mrs. Charles Burton. They had heard of the-killing, the sheriff said, and surrendered the boy to authorities. The sheriff said th-e boy had been arrested three times previously-. A A BuiLQPistmas Seals Des Moines War Factory Gutted by Morning Fire De-s Moines Fire gutted a two-story brick building used by the New Monarch Machine Stamping in downtown Des Moines early this morning with loss estimated at approximately A month's supply of production parts was destroyed.

All available downtown fire equipment battled the blaze, flames from which shot 150 feet, into the air. Additional equipment was called in from four outlying stations. War contracts were held by the firm. No one was in the plant at the time the fire started, and no one was reported injured in the blaze. The building occupied about half a block.

ONAYVA BANKER DIES. Onawa (if) Funeral services for Charles H. Huntington 90, will -be. held here today. Founder of Onawa State bank.

Huntington died Tuesday, Illness Fatal to George Moses, Former Senator Concord, N. H. George Higgins Moses, 75, former U. S. senator from New Hampshire and a widely known republican leader, Wednesday night at his home.

Once described as "the most exciting man in American pub- lie life," he served three times in the United States senate. He lost his seat in the democratic landslide of 1932. He had been ill a Concord hospital for over a year and had just returned to his home for the Christmas holidays when death came of coronary thrombosis. four miles west of the Luxembourg border and 40 miles northeast of Sedan. It was through the Ardennes forest that the Germans made their great breakthrough in 1940, smashing across the Meuse at Sedan.) Security regulations still blacked out the names of towns which German advanced elements had reached 48 hours ago, Casualties Heavy.

American troops suffered considerable casualties and several elements were completely surrounded south and west of St. Vith. (Crossing on the Liege-Bastogne road would represent a 17- mile advance west of St. Vith for the Germans, or a minimum, penetration of Belgium and Luxembourg 14 miles. The road approximately 35 miles east of the north-south course of the Meuse as it flows through Givet, Dinant and Namour.) The German 60-mile front hac been contained on its north flank along the line from Monschau Butgenbach and Stavelot after a 20-mile penetration into Allied rear areas 22 miles from.

Liege. But on the enemy's southern flank the Germans were reported surging forward in a possible turn toward Sedan on the Meuse 65 miles southwest of their las reported positions at Maspelt south of St. Vith. Low grey clouds and fog foi the second day bound Allied enforces to the ground and robbed Lt. Gen Courtney H.

Hodges' First army of its best chance of pulling down the German offen- WILLIAM F. Washington House members back from Europe left the definite impression today they found everything going well at the more ammunition could be used. Hoarse and travel-weary, fifteen members of military committee returned Wednesday night by army plane and arrang- Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson 'of their four-weeks inspection tour of battlefronts. Although bound by a self-imposed censorship not to discuss in detail what they had seen until they had talked with army bosses, the returning legislators left these impressions with interviewees: Yank Morale- High. American troops want for noth-.

ing, including cigarets, gasoline and supplies of all kinds; their morale is high, although they want to get the war over with quickly and return home; the supply organization, from buttons to tanks, is, as one member put it, "just simply amazing and will be recorded by history as the greatest job of its kind ever undertaken." This appraisal of the situation output of heavy ammunition, followed recent expressions of alarm by military men over the trucks and other critical items. Even the selective service regulations have been revised to help increase this production. However, most of these calls were based on increasing, output to meet greater demands which are developing, rather than on actual combat 'shortages now. As acting chairman of the returning group, Rep. Costello (D- Calif.) summed up the trip by saying the committee "found things in excellent condition." Committee "Satisfied." "They are doing an exceptionally fine job," he added.

Rep. Brooks (D-La.) said the committee was "satisfied" with things in general, although "some shortage" of shells was noticeable. On one occasion, Brooks said, the group was less than a mile from a German lookout post when a signal corpsman commented that "if we had enough shells we could get that look-out." "The war is a good deal tougher than the American people think it is," he added. The group traveled an estimated 20,000 miles and returned out two of its number who left Washington four weeks ago. Rep.

Merritt (D-N. was stricken with pneumonia and remained in His widow and his only son, sive to a complete halt immedi- Gordon, were with him when he died. Moses was president pro tern- pore of the U. S. senate for eight years before his enforced retirement in 1932.

He enjoyed a reputation as one of the nation's most pungent phrase makers during his career as a legislator, diplomat and scholar. Funeral arrangements have not been completed. Stores to Remain Open Nights Rest of Present Week Muscatine retail stores today adopted a longer schedule of store hours which will remain in effect for the remainder of the holiday shopping season. Stores tonight will remain open until 9 o'clock. The schedule of store hours as is followed regularly on Saturdays, from 9 a.

m. to 9 p. m. will also be observed Friday night and Saturday night. Stores will remain closed on Monday, Christmas" day.

Paris, while Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-Conn.) was reported as indisposed and remained in With the fields crawling withj Florence, Italy. German armor and roads jammedj with German transport, the I weather was a tragedy for Allied! WORKER FATALLY BURNED. Sioux City (fP) Victor i vivjuui rrai air Only six Allied planes ey, 16, was burned fatally Wed- for the ground Wednesday nesday when his Qn Qn Other dispatches from fire as he was cas British Second army front to thej paint at the Rocklill Manufactur- north said Allied counter-measures on the north side of the German wedge were beginning to take effect, 'out that the German offensive must be expected to make more progress. The dispatch did not explain what these counter-measures were.

Patton's Army Gains. From Monschau, the northern shoulder of the German wedge, north along the Roer front to Duren and Linnich the situation was unchanged. South of the First army sector, the Third army of Lt. Gen. George S.

Patton, hacked deeper into the Siegfried line after penetrating its primary defenses, by finally clearing the Germans out of all Dillingen, three miles north of Saarlautern. The Seventh army in slow go- ing here. IOWAN GRADUATES. Omoha Richard Miller of Davenport, will be one of 10 men receiving diplomas at Western Seminary commencement exercises here today. west of Bitche, and hammered at Siegfried line defenses in the Wissembourg gap near the Rhine after penetrating seven lines of dragons teeth.

The Third army repulsed two east of Sarreguemines. The Sev- German counterattacks north- enth army intense artillery fire, was thrown out of Bundenthal, two miles inside the Palatinate and seven miles northwest of Wissembourg. The French in the Vosges ad- ing, drove the Germans.out of a mile south of Lake two Maginot line forts, Simserhoff Noir, 13 miles west of Colmar, and Schiesseck. one and Iwo miles and reached Les Haules Hutlefc.