The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 1

Hilmroiitip'ii Latest City Edition Cloudy, moderate temperature. (Weather Conditions, Tides, Etc, on Page 15.) VOL. 126 NO. 62 WILMINGTON. DELAWARE.

MONDAY. SEPTEMBER 11, 1944 EIGHTEEN PAGES PRICE THREE CENTS HURL FIRST SHELLS INTO REICI Delaware's Morning Paper First with the Latest News United Press Associated Press International News Service 0. GUNS FRENCH 5,000 PLANES RIP WIDE AREA REDS' ADVANCE PERILS BIG NAZI RAIL JUNCTION YANKS ATTACK ALONG FRONT OF 60 MILES Opening Shots Fired Into German Soil Near Churchill Arrives For Quebec Parley; Roosevelt Awaited Prime Minister, Accompanied by Aides, Lands at Halifax for Sessions to Map Total War on Japan; President Due In Canada; Movements Secret Navy Will Induct 600,000 in Year, Forrestal Asserts WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (U.P.) Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal said tonight the Navy, charting knockout blows against Japan, plans 600,000 new inductions during the current fiscal year to bring its strength to 3,389,000 by July, 1945.

"The collapse of Germany will result in no curtailment of the Navy's training program," he said. He disclosed the mighty U. S. fleet was augmented by 4.063 new ships during the fiscal year ended last June, an average of 11 vessels a day. In addition, new landing craft were launched, and the Navy air arm doubled in numerical strength.

To man these ships, the Navy trained personnel through a vast program which he said has produced the "greatest citizen naval force In history." Aachen to Prepare for Smash by First Army Against Siegfried Line; Nazi Loss Since D-Day 700,000 By WILLIAM F. BONI Associated Press Correspondent SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, Monday, 11 Artillerymen of the American First Army In Belgium fired their first shots onto German soil near Aachen at 3:30 p. Sunday as other First Army units formed a Army on the Albert Canal above juncture with the British Second Hasselt. American Army patrols are port during the hour between the time of his arrival and the departure tor Quebec of the two special trains carrying his party. The time of Mr.

Roosevelt's arrival was not made known, nor was the full make-up of his official staff. But the military corps accompanying Churchill, by their presence, stressed the war emphasis of their talks even though past Roosevelt-Churchill meetings have disregarded all fixed agenda. Canadian Prime Minister W. L. MacKenzie King arrived here tonight from Ottawa to act as host to Churchill and Roosevelt.

It was said officially although the meeting primarily was one between the British Prime Minister and the President, King, as last year, was expected to confer with them frequently. Churchill brought with him the First Sea Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham; Lord Leathers, minister of transport a first and Dutch frontiers. Liberation for Luxembourg approached as the Paris radio unofficially reported the capture by U. S. troops of the duchy's capital.

Other Americans pressed deeper into the Ar By WILLIAM L. BEALE Associated Press Correspondent QUEBEC, Sept. 10 Prime Minister Churchill arrived in Canada by ship today and is coming to Quebec to meet President Roosevelt in a victory conference packed with gold-braid commanders assigned to crush final German resistance and speed the Allied onslaught against Japan. Official confirmation of this much-rumored meeting was made late this afternoon in the historic Chateau Prontenac hotel following Churchill's arrival at Halifax. The President, the Prime Minister and top Allied commanders met here a year ago.

The Canadian and American Offices of War Information announced Churchill was in Canada again, accompanied by Mrs. Churchill and the military and naval leaders who have directed Britain's successful war against Germany. Churchill, wearing his Trinity House uniform and flourishing his cigar, led a crowd in song at the FREED HERO WINS MEDAL SAME DAY Sergt. G. V.

Deputy En Route Home After 2 Months as Captive Wife, in Hospital, Learns Of His Award, Return 24 Hours After Baby's Birth News that her husband, Just released from a Romanian prison camp, will soon arrive home, was re ceived by Mrs. George V. Deputy, 610 West Sixth Street, last night just 24 hours after the birth of their daughter. In a i tion, she learned that he had been awarded the new Soldiers Medal at his port of embarkation a day, the day their daughter was born. Sergeant Dep- ftf Deputy uty, a radio-gunner on a Mitchell medium bomber, was reported missing in actiort over Romania on June 24, a little more than a month after he arrived overseas.

On Aug. 20, his wife was notified that he was a prisoner of war, and last week received a cable from him that he had been freed from the camp and was "safe and well." How ever, there was no way the family could communicate with him to notify him of the birth of his daugh ter, and information that he will soon be home for a 30-day furlough was first learned when a Morning News reporter called last night to check a report from Noland Nor-gaard. Associated Press correspondent in Rome. Relatives who immediately rushed to St. Francis Hospital to tell Mrs.

Deputy the news, reported she was almost hysterical with joy, crying See FREED HERO Pare 4 DAUGHTER IS BORN If 16 FROiyELFORT Nazis Battle Grimly To Hold Gap Leading To Reich's Black Forest; Americans Advance Big German Force in Dijon Apparently Trapped After Escape Route to Homeland Is Closed by Allied Armies By NOLAND NORGAARD Associated Press Correspondent ROME, Sept. 10 French troops have struck within 16 miles of Bel-fort and are engaged in bitter fighting against Germans defending the gap leading into the Black Forest of southwestern Germany, Allied head quarters announced tonight. The battle raged near the village of Blamont. 16 miles south of Bel-fort, and 36 airline miles from the German frontier. The French had pushed on through the Jura Alps after taking the villages of Pont de Riode and St.

Hippolyte. Americans- striking toward Belfort from the southwest had driven along the Doubs River to within 24 miles of the sentinel city, covering half the distance from Besancon. Nasi Retreat Route Cut Far to the west, other French units pushed up the west side of the Saone River against apparently large German forces whose retreat route to he Reich already had been cut, and occupied Urvy and Chamboeuf, nine miles southwest of Dijon. Americans captured Dole, 25 miles southeast of Dijon, in the Doubs Valley, as enemy resistance there began to weaken. Belfort fortifications can both defend the town itself and harass with artillery the entire pass between the Vosges and Jura moun tains.

A front dispatch declared the pass which for centuries has protected France against Germany may be come the first bloody battleground of a Nazi attempt to beat back the southern phase of the Allied march on Berlin, especially if the enemy has thrown reinforcements into that mountain area. A headquarters officer commenting on broadcast reports that the Sev enth Army had joined with the American Third Army declared such reports arose from a meeting of Alexander Patch's troops with a certain group of armed French patriots. Prisoners Exceed 70,000 The bag of prisoners swept up 4n the push from the Mediterranean soared beyond 70,000, some 40,000 of them taken by Frenchmen, mainly in the ports of Marseille and Toulon. There were indications consider able numbers of Germans were vir tually trapped in the Dijon area, 47 miles west of Besancon and 87 miles west of Belfort. Opposition to a French advance 12 miles below Dijon and west of the Saone River was stubborn.

This suggested there were substantial forces of Germans there whose avenues of retreat to the homeland already had been cut See SOUTH FRANCE Page 4 PERIOD 4, 5 OIL COUPONS GOOD THROUGHOUT YEAR OPA Announces Extension of Their Validity Beyond Sept 30 WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 W) Period 4 and 5 fuel oil coupons, scheduled to expire Sept. 30, will be good throughout the coming heating year, the Office of Price Administration said today. Definite value coupons left over from this year's ration will also be good for the new extension, OPA stated. Extending validity of the coupons will avoid necessity for making coupon exchanges at local ration boards during October, OPA ex plained.

OPA also said that each dealer who has a customer's ration on deposit should notify the customer by mail between Sept. 30 and Oct. 10 of the gallonage value of period 4 and 5 and definite value coupons not yet detached from the cus tomer's coupon sheet. POLICE RETAKE 2 OF 5 PRISONERS WHO ESCAPED Three Others Believed Headed For N. Aided by Woman MINEOLA, N.

Sept. 10 Five prisoners escaped from the Nassau County jail tonight after binding and gagging three guards. Two of the men were re-captured but the others were believed headed for New York city. Harvey Pecan, a guard at the jail was taking a prisoner to the second tier of cells. The prisoners took the second guard, Charles Eihle, to the office of the jail, where they held up the tnira guard, William Hays- man.

The keys to the jail were taken and three doors unlocked to effect a getaway. The officers said a woman, driving a Packard sedan was believed to have assisted the men to flee. ill MILES dennes Forest toward the Siegfried Line. (The Germans declared the Americans had launched a great drive all along a 60-mile front from east of Liege to the southern border of Luxembourg aimed at piercing the heart of the industrial Rhineland.) Day of Swift Advances Associated Press correspondent Don Whitehead reported from his post with the U. S.

First Army near the German frontier that eight rounds from old long barrel French 155-mm. rifles mounted on tank chassis crashed on or near a crossroads in the vicinity of the German frontier city, preparing the way for Courtney H. Hodges' great drive to smash through the Nazi Siegfried defenses. The guns which fired the first rounds were used in support of armored artillery. They were made in the last war for long-range fire.

It was another day of swift-moving advances for the First Army, which up until midnight Saturday had taken 168,047 prisoners since D-Day. From no single sector of the wide advance was there any Indication of a serious check to First Army forces, which are rapidly closing in to deliver the Allies' first massive blow against the Reich's western defense line. Verviers, Zeebrugge Fall 0 The First Army also captured the city of Verviers, east of Liege, and supreme headquarters confirmed the unopposed entry of Canadian patrols into Zeebrugge, which took them within three miles of The Netherlands frontier. Verviers is 15 miles east of Liege. American infantry and tanks are standing only a few miles from the Siegfried forts and anti-tank defenses, the only great barrier between the Allied armies and Germany itself.

In the latest fighting east of Antwerp where Sir Miles C. Dempsey's British Second Army men, aided by a Dutch brigade, are fighting their way toward Holland it has been reported Germans troops were brought in from Denmark to aid in staving off invasion- of the Reich. (A SHAEF spokesman, in an ABSIE broadcast by CBS, reported Allied forces in France and Belgium "have killed, wounded or taken prisoner a total of 700,000 Germans since the Allied landings in The British Second Army captured 12,135 prisoners in three days. Yanks Cross Border A field dispatch from Third Army headquarters reported without confirmation the entry into the city of Luxembourg, lying in the southern section of the tiny duchy overrun by the German in 1940, but it followed closely an official announcement that Americans had crossed the Luxembourg border. To the north of Luxembourg, the First Army unmasked a powerful offensive which rolled east toward the Siegfried Line fortress of Aachen, gateway to the Rhineland and Berlin, 340 miles beyond, without a hint of a serious check.

On the northern reaches of the front both Americans and British were on the march toward the Dutch frontier. With Hodges' See WEST FRONT Page 2 Yanks, ailed by Belgians, Ponder Greeting in Reich By DON WHITEHEAD Associafed Press Correspondent WITH THE U. S. FIRST ARMY, Near the German Frontier. Sept.

10 As American 'artillerymen wheeled their guns into line opposite the Siegfried Line and fired their first shots onto German soil today, behind the front lines the Belgians in their Sunday best lined the roads for miles waving and cheering passing vehicles moving forward to battle. There was much speculation among the troops as to the reception they will get in German towns OF Motor, Aircraft, Tank Plants Blasted in One Of Biggest Dawn-To-Dusk Aerial Assaults Marauders and Havocs Hit Bridges, Troop Concentrations in Path of Third Army Advancing Against Reich By ERNEST AG NEW Associated Press Correspondent LONDON, Monday, Sept. 11 R. A. F.

Mosquitos bombed Berlin last night, following up Sunday's daylight assaults by nearly 5,000 planes that blasted enemy targets from the channel to Germany and Austria in one of the heaviest dawn-to-dusk assaults since June 6. More than 1,100 Britain-based Fiying Fortresses and Liberators fanned deep into Germany, smearing the Daimler Benz motor plant at Gaggenau, southwest of Karlsruhe; aircraft and tank factories in the Stuttgart, Nurnberg and Ulm areas and a large airport at Giebel-stadt, south of Wurzburg. R. A. F.

planes battered besieged Le Havre during the morning and again this afternoon. Refineries Hit From Italy 500 heavy bombers of the 15th Air Force attacked oil re fineries and other targets in the Vienna area, flying through a sec tor which once swarmed with enemy fighters without encountering opposition. Fortresses attacked the Lobau and Nava Schwechat re fineries about seven miles south east' of Vienna, and second wave of Liberators battered the same targets, which were burning fiercely from the earlier attack. Anti-air craft fire was intense over the tar gets. Other Italian-based Liberators and medium' bombers attacked targets in northern Italy and Hungary, including the Trieste harbor.

Ninth Air Force Marauders and Havocs, in direct support of the Allied armies fighting their way to ward the German border, blasted bridges, troop concentrations and communications and transport immediately ahead of George S. Patton U. S. Third Army in the Metz-Nancy areas. Patton Calls Planes General Patton summoned the Marauders and Havocs which blasted enemy installations in his path.

Pilots reported medium to light flak directly over the targets but no enemy fighters, and said the results were excellent. All Marauders and Havocs returned. A Swiss air patrol was engaged by an American fighter over the western Jura area of Switzerland during the day, and one Swiss fighter had to break off combat and make a forced landing after being hit 12 times, an official broadcast Swiss communique said. None was injured and no Americans were downed, the broadcast added. The day's air operations started just before dawn with R.

A. F. Lan-rasters making a heavy attack on Munchen-Gladbach, key communications center through which traffic from the Ruhr and Cologne is funneled to the Belgian border and Holland. More than 239,000 incendiaries alone were hurled down on railway yards and warehouses, causing fires which were visible more than 60 miles. Many Planes Destroyed Fighters and Thunderbolts which strafed enemy airdromes in western Germany shot down six German fighters and destroyed 119 on the ground.

Twelve bombers and 15 fighters were reported missing from the day's British-based operations. Meanwhile, almost constant attacks on enemy harbors and shipping perhaps engaged in evacuating German troops from Aegean Islands during the past week, in which four ships were hit by rockets and cannon shells from beaufighters, were announced in a Middle East air communique yesterday. An escort vessel was left burning and three other ships were hit in attacks on two convoys, the communique said. Maleme airdrome on Crete was bombed on two nights and one day. FIRST TO ENTER BERLIN, TOKYO TO SHARE AWARD Miami Post, V.

F. Starts to Raise Fund of at Least $1,000 MIAMI. Okla, Sept. 10 (JP The first Ottawa County service man to arrive in Berlin and the first to enter Tokyo are to share equally in an award of at least $1,000, according to plans by the Miami Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which has chipped in $100 to start the funds campaign rolling. A board of judges has been named to determine winners.

The money is not to be paid until the service men return home. CONTENT Closing on Cluj in 18-Mile Drive Into Transylvania; Force Another Mountain Pass Enemy Reports Other Columns Speeding Through Bulgaria Toward Greece; Warsaw Battle Continues 'By TOM YARBROUGH Associated Press Correspondent LONDON. Monday, Sept. 11 Russian troops attacking on a 225-mile front yesterday penetrated 18 miles into Hungarian-annexed Transylvania In their accelerated drive to knock Hungary out of the. war, and a Moscow dispatch said they were closing fast on Cluj.

capital of the big plateau province and ran heart controlling Axis defenses. (Bern radio in a roundabout report said Cluj had been captured, but this was not confirmed by Moscow.) Although Moscow did not announce any gains on the western end of the curving front since Saturday's capture of Teius, only 37 miles south of Cluj, a dispatch said the Russians in that area were within 100 miles of the pre-war Hungarian border and within 220 miles of Budapest. The Soviet communique said Soviet column attacking inside southeastern Transylvania and along the eastern side almost as far north as the old Polish frontier had captured "nearly 40 towns' and villages during the day, and forced another Carpathian Mountain pass into Transylvania. German broadcasts, reporting meanwhile on other sectors about which Moscow was silent, said Soviet units racing through capitulated Bulgaria had crossed the eastern Balkan mountains in their drive toward Greece's Aegean Sea coast. Report 250,000 Cut Off Berlin also said Soviet parachute troops had landed south of Turnu-Severin, on the Danube River section of the Yugoslav frontier.

This possibly meant a Red Army junction with Marshal Tito's Partisans, although the Germans declared the parachutists had been wiped out. It is estimated that 250.000 Axis troops already are cut off in Yugo slavia, Greece and Albania. In the Transylvanian operations. Red Army columns pushing up the Brasov-Turgu-Mures railway captured Sfantul-Gheorghe, 18 miles above Brasov. and pushed on through Bicsad.

15 miles to the north an overall penetration of 18 miles into present Hungarian territory. In this area, the Rusisans were attacking a strong defense line of long standing which contained reinforced concrete firing points, a midnight bulletin said. The Russians again gave credit to the Romanians for their aid in the capture of Sfantul-Gheorghe, where a great number of Germans and Hungarians was killed or captured, the bulletin said. Force Bekas Pass Farther north another Soviet column climbing across the Carpathian Mountain wall from Moldavia forced the Bekas Pass and captured Gyergyo-Bekas, just inside Transylvania and only 17 miles from Gheorgeni, an important point on the Brasov-Tugu-Mures railway forms the backbone of Axis defenses. Vama, six miles northeast of Campulung and 35 miles from Hun- See RUSSIA Page 15 NOTE DROPPED FROM CAR TELLS OF NAZI KIDNAPING Woman in Speeding Auto" -Pleads For Rescue.

MEMPHIS, Sept. 10 (U.R The Commercial Appeal in a copyrighted story tomorrow relates a mystery thriller of a note being thrown to three girls on the way to Sunday School today, by a weeping woman in a passing car. "Dear friend," it read, "Am being kidnapped by German spies. Get help quick." The girls were walking along Highway 6, about 10 miles east of Oxford, Miss when the approaching car forced them to the side of the road in time to glimpse a weeping woman who tossed the note. The girls took the note to Elton Ramsey, who hurried to Oxford and gave it to Sheriff R.

C. Jones, who asked the Mississippi State Patrol office at Grenada to establish a road block, and notified the FBI. The girls stated they saw the woman and three men in the car. Four German prisoners escaped from Camp McCain last Tuesday and are still at large, which leads to the possibility that they could have kidnapped a lone woman in a car. within 8 miles of the German I and machine-.

gauged accurately at present. The strength of his defenses will depend largely on how well the command has been able to reorganize troops who have been battered and demoralized by the series of catastrophic defeats administered to them. "If they have time to get set in See GREETINGS Page 3 Index of the News H. HINKSON, KILLED IN AIR RAID; FOUR AHSSI Announcing of Engagement Awaited Sergeant's Return Home C. B.

Jackson, G. L. Sanders, J. R. Wheatiey and Dallas Bowden Listed as Lost Sergt.

Harry M. Hinkson, 21 of 1022 Monroe Street, who was waiting to corns home before his en gagement was announced, was killed Aug. 5 in a flight over Germany. The sergeant was one of seven war casualties announced over the week-end by Delaware a ra llies. They in elude four men missing in action and two wound ed.

The others are: Second Lieut. Clarence B. Sergeant Hinkaes Jackson, 1025 Adams Street, missing over Czechoslovakia. Pfc. George L.

Sanders. Oak Grove, a Marine missing after action on Guam. Staff Sergt. Joseph R. Wheatiey, Bridgeville, missing over Europe.

Pfc. Dallas Bowden, Blades, missing in France. Private George O. Gross, 24, of 115 Westmoreland Avenue, Belle-moor, wounded in France. Private Frank F.

Brank, 25, of 621 North Adams Street, wounded Aug. 7 in France. Sergeant Hinkson, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Harry M.

Hinkson, Sr, was a radio gunner on a B-17 bomber and was reported missing to his parents after a flight on Aug. 5. Another telegram was received by his parents last week informing See CASUALTIES Page 15 AT LEAST 100 DIE El Thousands Left Homeless As Heavy Rains Continue To Drench Large Section MEXICO CITY, Sept. 10 MP) Rains continued to drench most of Mexico today as flood-stricken areas counted their dead, expected to exceed 100, and took stock of extensive property damage. The important Chihuahua mining town, Parral, lay isolated, by flood waters, and reports from Torreon stated that the Parral 1 death toll had mounted to 100.

Earlier reports from Chihuahua City, 125 miles north of Parral, stated there were 42 known dead, 150 persons missing, 200 miners trapped, and 1,000 houses damaged. Chihuahua reported that rescue crews are attempting to reach 200 miners trapped by flood waters while they worked in a mine at San Francisco del Oro, near Parral. The entrance to the mine was inundated. Highways, rail, telephone and telegraph communications to Parral, a town of 10,000 inhabitants 200 miles from the U. S.

border, are disrupted. The Florida River overflowed there. South of Parral, where the Nazas River left its banks, hundreds and perhaps thousands of persons were believed homeless. Fear was expressed that some villages may have See FLOOD Pace I IN (I AN FLOOD See CHURCHILL Page 2 TWO EXPLOSIONS AT SUN OIL PLANT Two" Workers 'Burned Seriously; Building Partly Demolished Blasts Caused as Gas Fumes Leak From Defective Valve And Ignite at Marcus Hook Four men were Injured, two seriously, in two explosions at the Marcus Hook refinery of the sun Oil Company yesterday morning. A compressor building was partly demolished by the blast and a fire was started in a sump pit but the blaze was extinguished by plant employes before it could do any serious damage.

A spokesman for the company said the explosions were caused when gas, leaking from a valve, was ignited. The injured are: George Maculley, 55, an operator, 49 East Twenty-second Street, Chester; burned on the neck, arms, hands and back. He is in Crozer Hospital, Chester. Arbie C. Pullin, 45, an operator's helper of Hanby's Corner; burned on the hands, arms, face and upper body.

He also is in Crozer Hospital. Charles Reilly, 36, a zone mechanic, of 1034 Toll Street, Eddy-stone; burned on the back of the neck. P. E. Farrelly, 35, mechanic's See EXPLOSIONS Page 4 CORNWALL IS ROCKED BY ANOTHER TEMBLOR Additional Damage is Caused in Canadian City CORNWALL, Sept.

10 MP) A moderately severe earth tremor rocked this Industrial city Saturday and added to the extensive damage caused last Tuesday by a quake which was felt in various parts of Canada and the United States. The tremor, felt at 7:27 p. shook plaster from walls and widened cracks that appeared in buildings following the previous quake, which caused more than 1,000,000 damage in Cornwall alone. parents that he hoped to be home for a furlough in June or July. Two other sons of the Murphys are in the nation's armed forces, Harry and William.

About 1,000 persons witnessed the ceremonies which were preceded by a parade of veterans of World War members of Diamond State Post, No. 2863, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Richardson Park; a color guard from the New Castle Army Air Base; about 75 members of the Holy Name Society of the Woodcrest church: the Boy Scout troop affiliated with the Diamond State Post of the V. See STATUE Fife I RE FOUR IN if; STATUE HONORING HERO UN VEILED AT WOODCRES Image of Virgin Mary is Donated to Church By Parents of Sergt. G. J.

Murphy, Killed in Action Over Italy with opinion divided. Some believe the Germans will be so happy to realize the war is near an end they will give the Americans an open welcome. Others think the Germans will be cold and sullen and that fanatical Nazis will be a dangerous problem long after towns are occupied. But there was no doubt of the Belgians' sincerity in the continued welcome they were giving the troops. The enthusiasm of the children remains keyed up by gifts of chocolate and chewing gum tossed from the passing trucks.

The older people are genuinely happy over the end of the long oppression of German occupation. As the columns halt beside the roads, men and women often rush up with gifts of apples, pears and plums. In the outskirts of Liege they were passing out ice cream to the troops. Virtually aU of Belgium now is freed of German troops. Those who remain are fighting only withdrawing actions.

Just how strongly the enemy is able to man the Siegfried Line's staggered system of small fortresses A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title, "Our Lady of Victory." was unveiled and dedicated on the lawn of the Catholic Church at Woodcrest yesterday afternoon in honor of one of the parish's World Wai II heroes. Stall Sergt. George J. Murphy, son of Mr. and Mrs.

James F. Murphy, 2 Westmoreland Avenue, Bellemoor. Gov. Walter W. Bacon and Joseph A.

L. Errigo. Wilmington attorney, spoke. Sergeant Murphy, a waist gunner in a Flying Fortress, was killed in action over Italy last Feb. 14, following completion of more than 40 missions.

In a letter three days before his death, he had written his Page Amusements 15 Births 2 Classified 16-17 Comics 14 Deaths 2 Editorials 6 Ernie Pyle Marquis Childs Obituaries 2 Radio 9 Society News 8 Sports 12-11 State News 1 Westbrook Pegler With the Service Men 14 Woman's Page.