The Bakersfield Californian from Bakersfield, California • Page 1

YANKS STOP GERMAN DRIVE 40 MILES INSIDE BELGIUM THE WEATHER Temperature High yesterday 6-1 Low today 55 Rainfall 24-Hour Total (Airport) CM Season (Atrport) 2.28 Year Ago (Airport) 37 84-Hour Total (Land Tear ABO (Land Company 1.91 Forecast Mild temperature, occasional rain today, tonight and Saturday. Few Japs Will Return to Kern County See Page 7 Vol. 57 TWO SECTIONS BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1944 14 PAGES No. 124 Huge Red Smash Predicted Berlin Says Russians Hurl 27 Divisions Into Latvian Drive By BRUCE W. MUNN LONDON, Dec.

22. Berlin said today that the Red army, launching a new offensive at the northern end of the eastern front, hurled 27 divisions possibly 400,000 irien against the southern rim of the German pocket in northwest Latvia and conceded that the Soviets had broken into the Nazi lines at several points. The offensive, if confirmed, would appear an all-out attempt to liquidate tens of thousands of German troops trapped against the Baltic and'thus release additional Russian forces for the Soviet winter offensive in East Prussia and Poland. A United Press dispatch from Moscow said the Russians were believed massing: the-greatest concentration of men, artillery, tanks and aircraft yet seen on the Isr'expeced to conclude the war." "Observers confidently expect that the Red army hits the German fortified lines from East Prussia to the Carpathians, it will break to Germany in successive, fast operations," the dispatch said. Ernst Von Hammer, German mill' tary commentator, reported the Latvian offensive in a Berlin broadcast, He said the Soviets had attacked along a 22-mile front southwest and south of Saldus, 65 miles east of the Baltic port of Liepaja (Libau), yesterday with strong.air, artillery and tank support.

The r.ttack began with a 90-minute artillery barrage, during which at least 1170 shells were fired into the German lines, Von Hammer said. He called the attack the start of the Soviet's "third winter offensive." The Russians cut off the Geriwans In northwest Latvia last fall with a thrust across Lithuania to the Baltic coast north of Memel. The subsequent fall of Riga to the Red Army pinned the remnants of the Wehrmacht's Baltic garrison between the sea and the Gulf of Riga with no hope of escape except by eea. NEW RUSSIAN CITIES LONDON, Dec. 22.

The Moscow radio declared today that plans already under way for the construction of 90 new cities in the Soviet Union to replace those shattered by war. More than 1000 architects htwe been put to work drawing up preliminary plans. Index to Advertisers Page Abrams, Dr. R. 6 Arvin Theater 13 Ashe, Dr.

Esther 6 Barn hart, C. 2 Beardsley Dance 13 Book Shop 5 Booth's 5, 8 Boynton Bros 6 Brock's 2 Citron, Harry 5 Citizens Laundry 6 Cornish Laboratories 3 Culiton, John 6 Eastern 8 East 2, 3.S-0 El Patio Payilion 8, 13 El Tejpn Drug 4 Flicklnger-Pigier 12 Fox Theaters 13 Hrench Village 13 Granada Theater 13 Greyhound Restaurant 3 Harrison's 5 Hazel's 5 Ivers Furniture 6 Jess and Polly's 13 Jeweler's Co-op 2 Judds 5 KPMC 10 La Siesta Lounge 13 La Granada 13 Lawson's 2 Lim, T. 6 Minnesota Mutual 13 Montgomery Ward 2 National Dollar Store 4 Nile 13 Liquor 2 Phillips Music Co 2 Pioneer Allen Cleaners 8 Red Barn ..13 Rlalto Theater 13 River Theater Rutter Army Machine 8 San Joaquin 3 Sears Roebuck 3 Bherrys Liquor 8 Southside Assembly of 3 Town House Beauty Salon 5 Turkey Shoot Union Avenue Dance. 'Union'Cemetery 18 Virginia' Theater 8 Zimmy'8 Telephoto UNITED STATES TANKER billow of smoke marks the spot where naval auxiliary oiler, Mississippi, went down in central Pacific due to enemy action. Normal complement of ship is about 250 officers and enlisted men, about 80 per cent of whom were rescued by nearby ships.

Navy did not disclose nature of enemy action. LEYTE NUTCRACKER CLOSED; 100 B-29S BLAST NAGOYA FACTORIES CAVALRY DIVISIONS JOIN IN ORMOC VALLEY; 2032 MORE NIPS KILLED Below-Zero Temperatures North By LEONARD MILLIMAN' Associated War Editor A hundred Saipan-based bombed aircraft plants in Nagoya on Japan's main island today while United States fighter planes in the Philippines began operating from newly built airfields on Mindoro, only half nn hour from'Manila. American ground troops closed their nutcracker on Leyte island's shattered Tamashita Line. The Seventy-seventh Infantry Division and the First (Dismounted) Cavalry Division joined forces in Ormoc studded with Japanese fortifications. They counted 2032'more enemy dead.

That makes 11,327 Nipponese soldiers slain in a seven-day climactic drive. "Enemy remnants," General MacArthur said, "are desperately but futilely trying to cut their way out" to the northwestern corner of Leyte. Tokyo claimed 10 Superforts were shot down in today's daylight raid on fourth B-29 strike this against Japanese aircraft factories; Factory Bombed Dispatches from Salpan reported a sizeable force of Superforts, striking in waves, bombed the Hatsudoki aircraft factory for two and a half hours ea-ly this afternoon. It was the sec- end raid this week on a Mitsubishi aircraft plant 'at -Nagoya. The raid may have been designed to finish off the Hatsudoki works, badly damaged 10 days ago.

Toyko said about 100 Superfor- tresses were in the attacking waves, with the usual claim that little damage was done. The war department made the first announcement of the raid scarcely 12 hours after reporting about 60 China-based B29s effectively bombed an aircraft plant at Mukden, Manchuria. Two attacking.planes were lost. At least 15 and possibly 22 interceptors were shot down. Dogfight Toll Eleven or more Nipponese aircraft were knocked out in dogfights over the newly completed United States airstrips on Mindora Island.

Twenty- Continued on Page Four WARMER WEATHER DUE FOR MIDWEST, COLD PREDICTED FOR SUNDAY By United Press The season's worst cold wave gripped the northern tier of states from Iowa to tho Atlantic coast today with the mercury dipping to 25 degrees below zero at Black Moshannon, and the weatherman promised little relief before Sunday night at least. Temperatures will rise slightly throughout the midwest today and tonight, but will drop below the zero mark again Sunday morning, the federal weather forecaster at Chicago predicted. Although the coldest weather was reported along the northern tier of states from Iowa east, the weatherman said below freezing temperatures prevailed as far south as the Texas panhandle and the Ohio river. Sub-zero temperatures were reported throughout eastern Iowa, southern Wisconsin, Illinois, northern Indiana, lower Michigan, Ohio. Joan Berry to Take Stand Again After 4-Day Recess LOS ANGELES, Dec.

22. Joan Berry, who wept copiously three times on the witness stand yesterday, has a four-day court-free holiday in which to recover her composure and celebrate Christmas with the baby she Is suing to establish as Charlie Chaplin's. The 24-year-old screen aspirant, who will return to the witness chair when the case resumes next Tuesday, fled from the stand to the arms of her attorney yesterday as the comedian's lawyer introduced a letter she had written to Chaplin. Said Sick of Lite "I'm. so sick of life as it stands today," the missive, which she said was penned in November, 1942, from a hotel in Tulsa, related in part, "Why am 1 here having to go through with cheap intrigue for a few stinking dollars? "When I was in school" I things stirring me that were "Why do we have to grow up into cheap little good-digging bitches?" Chaplin's lawyer, Charles E.

Millikan, asked her: ''Did you mean 'gold' instead of 'good'?" don't know," Joan replied slm- She had returned to the stand after crviiur on the of By QENE HANDSAKER haired, 77-year-old Joseph Scott, at the ciunsel table. Scott is prosecuting her suit to Chaplin, 55, British-born movie star, declared the father of Joan's 14-months-old daughter Carol Ann. Admits Bills Paid Earlier in the day she had denied that she spent a day and a night with J. Paul Getty in a Tulsa hotel room. She acknowledged that she saw Getty there and that she arranged with him to pay! a number of her thought the sum involved was $800.

At Chaplin's Mann Act trial last spring, in which he was acquitted of transporting Miss Berry to and from New York for immoral purposes, a J. Paul In newspaper clippings as a wealthy oil he knew Berry, and had seen her in Tulsa. Joan also on further cross- examination by Chaplin's attorney, Charles E. Millikan, that she had slept "on many occasions" at the Beverly Hills apartment of Hans Ruesch, a writer. She did say.

'however, that an apartment manager admitted her the night of December 30, 1942, to quarters while he was not there and that she donned a pair of Continued no Four' F. R. Asks Steady Output President Calls for Maintaining Steady Supplies for Fighters WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. The War Production Board today cut the scheduled output of passenger car tires in the next three months by 3,000,000 to facilitate increased production of military tires.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. UP) Roosevelt said today the best way fighting men could be assisted on the home front is by people sticking to jobs which maintain the steady output of needed supplies. Mr. Roosevelt began a news conference by declaring that several persons had asked him to say bow Americans at home in this Christmas season can most help the fighting forces.

All should resolve, he said, to stick to the job. The President also asserted that budget for the 1040 fiscal year was coming along toward completion, but he said the new Nazi offensive in Belgium had not caused changes in It. The Mr. Roosevelt declared, has to be based on assumptions that he war will last a certain time and that is being worked out now. He added parenthetically that he was one of the few persons that had not made a prediction as to when the war would end.

Mr. Roosevelt had nothing to add on plans for another Roosevelt- Churchill-Stalin meeting. He said Tuesday that time of a get-together was highly speculative. A reporter said that a congressman back from the front had said American forces twice had been so shy of ammunition that it gave the enemy a chance to build up the drive now under way in Europe. It depends, the President commented, on which congressman you talk to and which paper you write" for.

Mr. Roosevelt was asked whether there was anything at all he could tell the press about the war situation. He didn't think so. It would be only the expression of one individual, the President said, who does not know much more than the press about conditions. He indicated his latest dispatches from Paris carried through only Tuesduy or Wednesday.

During his mention of budget preparations, the President emphasized that any assumption on how long the war is going to last is impossible. The new budget, he said, contemplates continuing the war until victory. The grinding fury of the German winter offensive resounded across the ocean today to drive home to Americans the grim prospect of a really long war. Word that freeze of civilian production (except for vitally needed items) probably will be prolonged came from Samuel W. Anderson, vice-chairman of the WPB.

LASHES COLONEL CONVICTED LOS ANGELES, Dec. 22. Colonel Joseph James Canella, veteran army officer and former quartermaster of the Santa Ana Air Base, was given the maximum sentence of two years Imprisonment today on his conviction of conspiracy to defraud the government in connection with nis official duties. Two Santa Ana creamery company officials convicted with him were given lesser sentences, Ray AVykoff one year in jail and Harry W. McCormac six months.

BAND LEADER IN HOSPITAL BERKELEY, Dec. 22. Neil Bondshu, 30-year-old band leader missing since Wednesday night, was found unconscious today in the Claremont hotel here and taken to a Berkeley hospital where attendants said he was In "serious condition." WARREN ON RACING SACRAMENTO, Dec. 22. Governor Earl Warren today declared that it is up to the federal government to determine whether or not recreational activities interfere with the war effort in commenting on protests of southern California cities against the opening of Santa Anita race track on December 80.

STARS TO WED, HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 22, Film Stars Gloria DeHaven and: John Payne will be married next Thursday at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, the actrtes revealed today. British Up Draft Quota by 250,000 CHURCHILL ANNOUNCES INCREASED INDUCTIONS FOR COMING MONTHS LONDON, Dec. 22. The British will draft 250,000 more men for the army in the "coming months" than was previously planned, Prime Minister Churchill's office announced tonight.

A large part of those in the now call-up will be taken from civilian jobs the announcement said. But some personnel will be transferred to the army from the navy and R. A. F. administrative services also will be combed for men.

WAR SPREADS TO NORTH GREECE RESISTANCE STIFFENS IN INTERIOR AREAS ATHENS. Dec. 22. Reports circulated today that the civil war had spread to northern Gfeece and that left, wing E. L.

A. S. forces had captured eight villages from ihe rightist E. D. E.

S. followers of General Napoleon Zervas. Northern Greece was reported seething with unrest, accentuated by an infiltration of hot-blooded elements from Bulgaria and Albania. Move Toward Ridge Open warfare between the E. L.

A. S. and E. D. 8.

factions threatened or already had begun. Reliable information reaching 'British sources here said the E. L. A. S.

men, clearing eight villages of E. D. E. S. sympathizers, were moving toward the Dhriskls ridge, a dominating height east of lonnina, site of E.

D. E. S. headquarters. Other E.

L. A. S. forces were reported massing along the border territory, and Zervas sources claimed that the E. L.

A. S. men had attacked the E. D. E.

S. near the town of Arta, 40 miles south of loannina. The reports said that 300 Bulgarians who were supposed to be deserters from the Bulgarian army had been counted in the area, northeast of Salonika, big port in northeastern Greece. In E. L.

A. S. Territory A number of Albanians were reported moving through E. L. A.

S. territory toward zones controlled by Zervas followers in Epirus. Coincident with the mounting unrest, German broadcasts were reported to have begun a propaganda campaign to "free Macedonia." The Greek government was described as fearful that Bulgarians and Albanians were planning some kind of coup to split Macedonia from Greece. On the Athens "front," British troops and tanks crossed Piraeus harbor in assault craft, landed on the northern rim and drove inland, bringing the entire port under British control. The landing in the former E.

L. A. 8. stronghold was carried out virtually without opposition, but resistance stiffened several hundred yards inland and fighting stilt was going on at noon. Left wing ELAS troops seized the northern part of the harbor with its main docks and warehouses in the early stages of the civil war' some two weeks Is the main port for Athens, 5 miles to the northeast, and the bottleneck through which most supplies for the capital pass.

Men Convicted of Extortion Released NEW YORK, Dec. 22. Willlam Bioff and George Browne, theatrical union executives convicted in November, 1941, of extorting more than $1,000.000 from the movie industry, were ordered released from federal prison in Sand Stone, today. The releases were ordered by Fed- etwl Judge John C. Knox.

Bloff was serving 10 years and Browne, 8 years. Judge Knox ordered the releases because of the two convicts' good behavior and because of testimony they gave at the trial of Chicago gangsters. Langdon, Comedian of Films, Dies HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 22. Harry.

60. deadpan comedian who skyrocketed to filmland fame in the old pie throwing days, died today In St. Vincent's Hospital of a cerebral hemorrhage. Ill for two weeks at in North: Hollywood, Langdon was taken to the hospital Thursday afternoon. In recent years, Langdon starred In several short comedies for Columbia Pictures, last being a burlesque western, "Out West" NAZI FORCES HALF ACROSS LUXEMBOURG IN ARDENNES DRIVE German Command Claims Bridgeheads on Ourthe River PARIS, Dec.

22. German armored forces have been stopped in Belgium with a maximum penetration of less than 40 miles, but in the Luxembourg sector they still are advancing and the situation remains "critical," front reports said late today. Berlin reported that on the southern flunk, the Germans in "central Luxembourg" were meeting stiff resistance by American divisions freshly brought up from Lieuten- ant-Genernl George S. Put ton's Third Army front In the Siuirliiiul. An American staff officer told United Press Correspondent Jtick Fleischer that the advance In the southern penetration continued, and that the nemy could be halted and eventually thrown back only at a high cost in American men and material.

There "had" 'beeVi no report on the extent of the German drive across Luxembourg since yesterday, when supreme headquarters released a two-day-old report that Marshal Karl von Rundstedt's forces were half across the dutchy in a plunge toward the Ardennes gateway to France. Another late front dispatch said Rundstedt appeared to have shifted the main weight of his drive southward toward the Bustogne area, in southeast Belgium the Luxembourg frontier, where "considerable enemy progress was believed to have been made." Slaughter Predicted At Lieutenant-General Courtney H. Hodges' First Army headquarters, a staff officer said that "the biggest battle of the war and the greatest slaughter man has ever known" is likely before the overall picture of the German counteroffensive was completed. "The maximum penetration into Belgium is under 40 miles, and the long German salient reaching out toward the Meuse would be particularly vulnerable to heavy counterattacks or to air assault should the weather clear," United Press Correspondent Ronald Clark reported from the Twenty-first Army group in the low countries. Clark said the Germans drove within 20 miles of the Meuse at one place, an unrevealing figure since the river, which angles across Bel- glum, flows through Liege.

However, the German high command claimed that several bridgeheads had been established points across the at unspecified Ourthe river in Belgium, which flows on an irregular north-south course from 13 to 21 miles beyond the Llege-Bastogne highway. Crisis Not Past "The crisis is not yet past, though the enemy now is believed to have committed a substantial part of the forces hold for the operations," Clark's dispatch from Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's sector above the broken First Army front said. Clark said that after the westward rush of the Germans In the first three or four days of the counteroffensive, they had advanced a maximum of 10 miles in Belgium, and heavy fighting continued around a number of key points and bastions that the Nazis obviously had hoped to overwhelm in the first onsurge. As Elsenhower's dramatic order was flashed to grim-faced American Continued on Page Four LUXEMBOURG BELGIAN DRIVE encouraging reports since the German counteroffensive stated came today with word that the thrust, which penetrated 35 miles Inside Belgium with severing of Liege-Arlon highway, had been halted.

Fierce fighting was reported, at Stavelot. St. Vlth was still in American hands, although the Germans had drive two wedges far beyond it on either side. There were no indications that the Nazi Luxembourg drive had been stopped, and all southeast Luxembourg was reported overrun. FACTORS BEHIND NAZI SURPRISE THRUST ANALYZED BY REPORTER RECONNAISSANCE, INTELLIGENCE BLAMED IN FAILING TO DETERMINE GERMAN STRENGTH KDITOJI'S German offensive ban changed the strategic picture on western frgnt and to prolong the wur.

What llea behind the initial Bucress? McGlincy, United Press wur correspondent at Allied headquarters, uttemptH to answer this and other pertinent questions in the following dispatch. By JAMES McGLINCY PARIS, Dec. 22. (U.P>—Military observers believed today that the German offensive in Belgium and Luxembourg caught the Allies off balance to a greater extent than any development since the tide of war turned at Stalingrad two years ngo. It would be difficult and possibly undesirable: to delineate the Allies' failure at the present stage of the offensive, bat the progress of the Germans makes outstanding surprise.

The linger of blame seems to point at Allied military intelligence, which critics already were saying terribly underestimated the strength of the enemy's mobile reserves. Intelligence would appear to have neglected was Ignorant enemy concentration of no less than 15 divisions in the Elfel mountains east of Belgium and Luxembourg. Reconnaissance Neglected Similarly either air reconnaissance over the Elfel mountains was neglected or its reports disregarded by the Allied high command out of belief that a German attack in its Continued on Pact Four German Spies Defy Geneva Rules to Wear U. S. Uniforms By HAL BOYLE PARIS, Dec.

22. sources charged today that German troops were using American uniforms and American-marked tanks and other vehicles in their all-out counteroffensive in flagrant violation of the Geneva convention. NEAR STAVELOT, Belgium, Dec. 21 (Delayed). (JP) spies were Inside the Amerlcarf Army's front lines today.

A captain and three prlvatea wearing Uncle Sam's uniforms drove along a forest road in a jeep. They halted near Captain Fordyce dorr ham of Coudersport, Pa. Gorham, like all other soldiers, had been warned to watch for enemy or spies dressed in American garb, But Gorham was busy with own battlefield problems. He noted only that the man in the front seat wore a macklnaw and helmet with captain's bars, and that the other three apparenyy wore sweaters and carried rifles and carbines. "I'm from Blank Corps," the strange officer said pleasantly.

"I'm looking for my tanks. Have you seen some go along that to the next village?" "All Fouled Up" "I hear some have, but you can't get across the river because' the bridge lg out," Gorham replied. "How. are things the other Captain casually. Gorham gave him the usual army answer to such a question: "All fouled up," "Well, I've heard some good CoBtlnurd on Four it obvious that they scored 911 HANNEGAN DENIES RIFTWHF1 PRESIDENT REFUSES COMMENT ON STORY WASHINGTON, Dec.

22. Robert E. Hannegan, Democratic national chairman, said today a recent conference with President Roosevelt involved "no controversies and the postmaster generalship was never even mentioned." His statement. Issued by party headquarters, in response to published reports that Hannegan and Mr. Roosevelt had a "none too friendly" talk during the recent vacation at Warm Springs, Ga.

Mr. Roosevelt, asked about the report at his news conference In the day, said he did not think he wanted to comment on stories of that kind. The Chicago Sun account said that Hannegan went to Warm Springs to discuss his own political future and that the rewsraen.accorah panying the President were ited from mentioning the visit since the chief executive was there "off the record." It went on to say that after the re-election of Mr. velt. felt confidently that he would be rewarded with appoint postmaster general.

It added. ever, that Postmaster General C. Walker had decided to remain the cabinet and that would stay on as Democratic man. DUCK'S MISTRESS ROME. Dec.

23. Tanzl, former mistress Mussolini, was sentenced years imprisonment for ing with, the eneiny..