The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 1

1944 DECEMBER 1944 Sue. Mm. Tum. W(d. Thure.

fri. Sit, 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13" 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Weather Forecast Southern California Partly cloudy today and tomorrow; early morning fog locally along coast; little change In temperature. San Bernardino range yesterday: 81-35. Central and Northern California Bernardino range yesterday; 8135. Cloudy with Intermittent rain today and tomorrow; little temperature change.

ft FIFTY-FIRST YEAR TWENTY PAGES UP) Associated Press OP United Press oopy 11.10 mentk TUESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 19, 1944 1W HI OIUNOS (TtWS wn rvn 51 UVJ UUll iKir fur imn nnrnaTmnn mm mm mmf VWmV (o) .13 U. S. Lines Deeply Dente MYSTERIOUS BALLOON FOUND IN MONTANA MOUNTAIN AREA Huge Paper Bag Bearing Jap Characters, Incendiary Device Studied by Military November West Front Casualty Total 57,775 8,259 Troops Killed; January, February Draft Calls Raised Japs Expected To Be Slow in Returning West Reaction to First Trickle Will Be Watched by Others Allied Fliers Bag 96 KALISPELL, Dec. 18 (AP) The federal bureau investigation announced tonight that a paper balloon 33 feet in diameter, bearing Japanese characters had been found in a mountain region near here. An official statement said th balloon had attached to its side an incendiary device, apparently intended for destruction Nazis Use New MysteryWeapon; Censorship Tight ri 'J jSr BUGIUM Honidjffv, tePfeX of the balloon.

An F.B.I. spokesman gave this explanation of the find: "On Dec. 11, 1944, a woodchop-per named Owen Hill, and his father, O. B. Hill, who had been working in a mountainous forest region 17 miles southwest of Kal-ispell, reported to the sheriff's office the discovery of an object which was to be a parachute.

"It was brought into town the next day and the F.B.I, office at Butte was advised. Upon examination, the object was discovered to be 336 feet in diameter, with a gas capacity of over 18,000 cubic feet and a carrying capacity of at By GEORGE TUCKER PARIS, Dec. 18 (AP) The great German counteroffensive, hammering a deep dent in U. S. First army lines, plunged at least 18 miles inside Belgium today despite a lashing ground defense and allied air blows that knocked out 95 enemy tanks and armored vehicles and damaged 26 more.

Firsts indication of the extent of the German drive came from the U. S. Ninth Air force, which announced that British Typhoons had attacked 20 German armored vehicles "west oi St. Avelot," which is 18 miles west of the frontier, 24 miles southeast of the fortress of Liege, and five miles southwest oi Malmedy, important Belgian road junction. This was 15 miles from where the lines stood before the German push began.

(The London News Chronicle, in a dispatch from its correspondent with the second tactical air force, said that the Germans had captured Malmedy, which lies 20 miles' south of Aachen and 14 miles west of the German frontier. He said the Germans put at least 1,000 fighters and bombers into the air ovei the Aachen area yesterday. Both the First and Ninth army sectors were bombarded day and, night by a new German V-weapon of undisclosed nature. The front rocked to the explosions of the weapons and the thunder of American antiaircraft fire. Flares lighted the night sky.

33 More Jap Ships Sunk by U. S. Submarines WASHINGTON, Deo. 18 (IP) American submarines have sunk 33 more Jap vessels, including 12 warships, in sweeps against the enemy's supply lines, the Navy announced today. The combatant ships sunk were one light cruiser, three destroyers, six escort vessels, one mine sweeper and one mine layer.

Enemy nonoombatant losses In the latest submarine attacks were two tankers, 17 cargo vessels and two cargo-transports. The announcement boosted the total of enemy ships sunk by U. S. submarines to 907, of which 94 were fighting ships. Japs Lose 742 Planes in Week Americans Meet No Mindoro Opposition GEN.

MacARTHUR'S HEAD QUARTERS, Philippines, Dec. 19 (Tuesday) UP) Destruction or serious damaging of 742 Jap war-planes during the past week was disclosed by Gen. Douglas Mac-Arthur today as American invasion troops met no resistance on Mindoro island. The Jap planes were bagged by land-based American aircraft and planes operating from Adm. Wil-lim F.

Halsey's Third fleet. The chief American purpose in seizing Mindoro island is the con struction of airdromes from which further to harry the Japanese. Manila is only a half hour's flight from Mindoro. American and Australian construction men were busy putting airstrips into shape. The communique said the Yankee landing on Mindoro had "caught him (the enemy) completely off balance," and except for a few nuisance air attacks, the Americans were making their scheduled progress.

Invasion of Mindoro has been the easiest major job of the Pacific war. Associated Press Corre- Continued on Page 2, Column 4) Bong Downs No. 40 AT A LEYTE AIR BASE, Philippines, Dec. 18 CP) Major Richard I. Bong of Poplar, America's top-ranking ace, ran his string of Jap air victims to 40 planes by bagging a fighter over Mindoro yesterday.

GERMAN OFFENSIVE Arrows In shaded area Indicate major attacks of German counteroffensive which has thrust at least 18 miles into Belgium through U. S. First army positions. To the south, the American Third army improved its position at Dillingen and advanced north of Walsheim. Seventh army troops captured Kapsweyer.

First and Ninth army forces maintained their pressure on the Roer river line to the north despite the weight of the German assault south of it. ((P) wire photo.) Tanks Russians Press Near Nazi Base In East Slovakia LONDON, Dec. 19 (Tuesday) (JP Russian alpine troops, swarming down out of the Kee-ske mountains of northeastern Hungary, yesterday crossed the Czechoslovak frontier on a 10-mile front and drove to within two miles of the Germans' southern escape route out of Kassa, big east Slovak stronghold. Simultaneously, the Russians reached the Slovak frontier on a 68-mile front, pushed to within 14 miles of outflanked Kassa on the southwest, and to within 112 miles on the southeast as Berlin reported that other Soviet troops were attacking within 15 miles east of the communications center. The communique announced the capture of 1,850 prisoners, making a total of 36,590 taken in 39 days by the Russians.

It did not announce any new gains In the savage battle for Budapest. R.A.F. Attacks I Port of Gdynia 1,10.0 U.S. Planes Raid Nazi Railheads LONDON, Dec. 19 (Tuesday) (JP) A strong force of perhaps 500 R.A.F.

Lancasters smashed at German shipping in the big Polish port of Gdynia north of Danzig last night after 1,100 British-based American warplanes made emergency daylight attacks through clouds agajnst three railheads used' to supply the Nazis' new western front offensive. The British heavyweights ranged 1,600 miles to deliver a mighty blow estimated at 2,500 tons of bombs against the Baltic port. This assault brought to more than 7,000 the number of allied planes which have pounded Nazi targets with an estimated 14,000 tons of explosives in a furious 48-hour aerial campaign. The American operation yesterday struck at Cologne, Coblenz and Mainz, three rail centers supplying the Germans' stab into Belgium, with 2,000 tons of bombs. More than 500 Fortresses and 600 escorting Mustangs of the U.

S. Eighth Air force were risked in weather so hazardous that three bombers and five fighters were missing. The Mustangs kill td off three Messerschmittj. SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18 AP) Best estimates tonight were that 60,000 of the 119,000 Japanese excluded from the Pa cific coast beginning March 23, 1942, will return now that the western defense command has revoked its mass exclusion or der.

It was indicated that even this number will be slow about coming back, taking a year and a half to complete the move Japanese from Southern Califor nia at the Manzanar center acta ally were represented as being more in favor of relocating in the east or middle west than returning to their homes. Director Ralph Merrit said that a few property owners among the 3,600 American born and 1,800 aliens at the camp might go to their former homes, but that the majority were loathe to return to Southern California. The Heart Mountain, relo cation center likewise estimated that only 900 or less than 10 per cent of the Japanese there would go back to the west coast. CAUTION DISPLAYED Otherwise reports indicated that the 60,000 estimate by W.R.A. sources were fairly accurate, although caution in testing west coast reaction was displayed at all the relocation centers where 61t- 000 Japanese still live.

Some been relocated in inland states, nearly 19,000 are at the Tule Lake, California, segregation center, which the justice department has indicated it expects to take over, and 13,000 are in the armed forces. The rest are in institutions, or on harvest leaves. Director Luther Hoffman of the Topaz, Utah, center said not more than 10 per cent of the 5,841 Japanese now at the camp mostly from the San Francisco bay area and Sacramento are expected to return in the next three months. He said he expected it to be a year before the camp was disestablished. REACTION AWAITED Officers of the Minidoka center Jn Idaho where some 7,500 Japanese from the northwest are located said that a few property owners would go back to their farms at first and the reaction would be watched by the others before the move became general.

Like reports came from the two Arizona centers at Pcston and Gila River, and from the Rowher center in Arkansas. Coast reaction to the return of the Japanese generally was voiced Jn terms of Gov. Earl Warren's advice to Californians to see that constitutional rights of the returning Japanese were respected. San Diego County Sheriff Bert Strand said he expected to double his officer patrol along the county coast line because of the possi- (Continued on Page 2, Column 5) Supreme Court Rules Loyal Japs Must Be Freed WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 UP) The supreme court ruled, 6 to 3, today that the Army had a right to remove all Japanese from the west coast in 1942 because American shores were "threatened by hostile forces." But the court said there was a difference between the exclusion order and others under which Japanese were detained in relocation centers in the interior.

Unanimously, it ordered unconditional release of Miss Mitsuye Endo, American woman of Japanese ancestry, from a relocation center at Topaz, Utah. The tribunal ruled that the war relocation authority had no right Ho detain loyal citizens under the Circumstances. It held no military law was involved. The 6 to 3 decision on the ex-fclusion order drove squarely across a blunt dissent by Justice Murphy, who described the order "obvious race discrimination." WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UP) The war department disclosed tonight that U.

S. ground forces in western Europe suf fered 57,775 casualties during November, bring the; total since day to 258,124. At the same time, the depart ment announced that the Army's January and February calls on se lective service have been increased from 60,000 to 80,000 men and that the air forces and service forces have been instructed to turn over 80,000 men to the ground forces. Since last July Army calls have been lower than' actual estimated requirements. During this inter val the Army combed its ranks for troops no longer needed in their current assignments.

8,259 AMERICANS KILLED Under this system 100 antiair craft battalions were retained as infantrymen and other antiaircraft units were trained as individual infantry replacements. The November western front casualties included 8,259 dead, 43,330 wounded and 6,186 missing. The total figure, covering all western front operations in France, the Low countries and Germany, Included 44,143 dead, 189,118 wounded and 24,863 miss ing. The department said the ground forces figures covered a period up to Dec. 1.

It had been disclosed last Thursday that Army casual ties in all theaters through Nov. 23 totaled 483,95792,135 killed, wounded, 62,786 missing and 56,685 prisoners. REEXAMINATION ORDERED Navy, marine and Coast Guard casualties totaling 78,511 brought the total to 122,164 dead, 306,854 wounded, 72,279 missing and killed. Selective service meantime announced that all men under 30 who had been rejected for military service since last Feb. 1, except those with obvious physical defects, will be reexamined next year.

Greek Leftists Capture Prison ATHENS, Dec. 18 (tPl E.L.A.S. leftist forces drove British and Greek government troops from Averon prison in Athens today and also clamped a siege ring around R.A.F. headquarters outside the city, cutting off its supplies except by air, as E.A.M. political leaders The E.L.A.S.

attack against the prison opened at 3 a.m. and, in a 12 -hour battle, the British and Greek government troops were forced to retreat, evacuating some 920 prisoner, but releasing about 100 because of the tactical situa tion. Superforts started "large fires at the Mitsubishi aircraft plant in the Nagoya raid. The crews were reported as observing "heavy explosions" in the plant. Only "slight" aerial interception and moderate" antiaircraft fire were encountered, all plane returned.

While the Saipan planes were on their way, Brig. Gen. Haywood Hansell commander of the 21st, reported that photographs taken after the Dec. 13 Nagoya bombing showed greater damage to the Hatsudoki factory of the Mitsubishi aircraft works than had been expected. Two assembly buildings of and 656,000 square feet were respectively 13.5 per cent and 48 per cent burned out, he said.

Two others of 180,000 and 216,000 square feet were 70 and 60 per cent gutted. least 800 pounds net. USE NOT DETERMINED "The bag itself is of high grade processed paper. There appeared on the balloon Japanese characters indicating completion of construc tion at the factory on Oct. 31, 1944.

Attached to the side of the balloon was an incendiary device with a fuse apparently intended for its destruction. A typical balloon rope structure attached to the flange around the bag ended in an elastic type cable at the bot tom which had been severed. "No determination has been made of the use for which it was intended. Prevailing winds on the west coast have blown strongly directly from the west or northwest in recent weeks and persons experienced in the use of free balloons report they are known to travel at speeds well in excess of 200 miles an hour. The balloon has been turned over to the mili tary authorities who together with the Navy checked into the matter with the F.B.I.

GREEN RISING SUN The balloon was found by Rancher Hill and his son while cutting wood in a grove of trees. The balloon apparently had set tled into the soft snow at night. Deputy Sheriff Royal Hopkins said, "There was a rising sun in green painted on it, and there was oriental printing on it that looked Jap to me. It was cream colored, about 50 feet long and about 150 feet around. The bomb-looking thing about a foot long was attached to the ballon and there were several fuses on it." Wesfbrook, Famed Pacific Fighter Pilot, Shot Down HEADQUARTERS, THIRTEENTH AIR FORCE, Dec.

19 (Tuesday) (TP) Lt. Col. Robert B. Westbrook of Hollywood, California, one of the leading fighter pilots of the Pacific theater with 20 Jap planes to his credit, was shot down over the Macassar straits Nov. 22, it was disclosed today.

(At the same time Superforts of the Twentieth Bomber command, striking from an Asiatic base blasted docks and storage facilities at Hankow, Japanese-occupied Chinese city on the Yangtze river, with "good" results, the war department said. The circumstances indicated there were upwards of 100 B-29s in the raid. All returned to their base They probably shot down five Jap fighters and damaged seven others. (Possibly 200 of the giant planes participated in these operations. The Japanese said there were 70 in the Nagoya raid and admitted they had done damage, including the starting of fires which required "resolute efforts" by air raid defense workers before they were put out.

(A late war department com munique in Washington said the German Thrust Will Be Halted Hopes of Paris by Christmas 'Hogwash' "By JACK FRAN KISH WITH FIRST U. S. ARMY NORTHWEST OF ST. AVELOT, Rplcium TW 18 (TP) Thp Opr. man army has reached the village of St.

Avelot, 20 miles inside the border, but any German hopes of being in Paris by Christmas is the purest hogwash. A strange air of expectancy hung over the entire front tonight as rumor followed rumor and the roads became jammed with traffic moving toward the rear as well as men and supplies moving forward or to new defensive positions. Panzer after panzer roared over the rolling hills of this lush Belgian countryside, and many tanks were manned by fanatical crews wearing the black uniforms of the schutzstaffel. Along every road American en gineers worked feverishly, laying mines and high explosives, cutting down trees for road blocks, plac- (Continued on Page 4, Column 5) Through heavy of ground troop movements on the First army front came reports of pilots participating in the greatest mass destruction of enemy armor siice the battle of the Fa-laise gap in Normandy last summer. U.

S. fighter-bombers lending priceless aid to ground troops, many of whom had their positions overrun, ripped up and down the western front, destroying an additional 265 transport vehicles. They also pounded German troops and gun positions, bombing and strafing. 46 NAZI PLANES DOWNED The German high command hurled scores of thousands of crack troops and large numbers of tanks into the great fluid battle that may decide the entire course of World War II. Once more the Germans threw their air force into the battle, at tacking up to 300 strong, but 46 of them were knocked from the sky in swirling aerial dogfights abov the battlefield and 32 dam.

aged, Ten U-Cs. fighter-bombers and one R.A.F. fighter were lost today. Front-line officers of the First army made no attempt to minimize the seriousness of this supreme effort to stall the allied drive on the Rhine a counteroffensive reminiscent of Luden-dorf's final push in the spring of 1918. IRONCLAD CENSORSHIP At 4 p.m.

an ironclad censorship of news was imposed on the entire length of the First army front which earlier dispatches had said was alive with German attacks of varying strength from Duren 80 miles south to southern Luxembourg. As the battle mounted in intensity, the Germans uncorked a (Continued on Page 2, Column 7) tack was thrown, officials explained, was weak because of the wide dispersion of allied divisions. The sector was lightly held, because the-terrain in front and behind the line was not considered very important. The Germans, it was said, have thrown in a substantial part of their strategic general reesrves, including at least three panzer units, and now have a numerical superiority on that sector two to three times allied strength. These sources declined to speculate how far the German offensive might carry, but said that it still could go a lot farther without causing serious damage.

Ward's Defies W.LI Order Avery Declines To Accept 'Advice' CHICAGO, Dec. 18 UPl-Sewell Avery, chairman of the board of Montgomery Ward notified the war labor board tonight that if it desired "a further hearing, Ward's, as always, will be happy to attend," and declared the com pany cannot "in good citizenship" accept the board's "advice. The statement was a reply to the war labor board concerning the strike at four Detroit stores and the board's demands for minimum wages and maintenance of union membership at Ward plants in seven cities. The board had set midnight tonight as the time limit for compliance to its directives. In Washington earlier today, W.

L.B. Chairman William H. Davis said "if we don't hear anything from Ward's by tomorrow morning we will take the next step right away." He had offered as the only alternative "the usual course" of action in noncompliance cases. "The usual course" would be reference to Economic Stabil izer Fred M. Vinnson, necessary preliminary to government seizure or economic pressures.

The company statement tonight said the W.L.B.'s orders were "unenforceable," and that they "are merely 'advice' which no one has any legal duty to obey." It further stated "that the reprisals with which it threatens Ward's are illegal." Two Men, Girl Face Bogus Coupon Probe LOS ANGELES, Dec. 18 (IP) Two men and a 17-year-old girl were under investigation today by O.P.A. officers who suspected them of connection with nationwide bogus gas coupon operations. Earl Sutton, 36, Don Hunt, 39, and Barbara Drake were booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, suspicion of escape and suspicion of attempted murder after a chase and gun battle with deputy sheriffs. Scores of B-29s Start Large Fires in Nagoya Plane Factory, Blast Hankow Docks; None Lost GERMANS HIT WEAKEST PART OF ALLIED LINE WASHINGTON, Dec.

19 (Tuesday) (fl) China-based Superfortresses, in medium force (up to 40), today attacked industrial targets on Kyushu, one of the main Islands of the Jap homeland, less than 24 hours after their strike at Hankow, China. TWENTY-FIRST BOMBER COMMAND, SAIPAN, Dec. 18 UP) Superfortresses pounded Japanese war plants with new ferocity today, hitting particularly at the aircraft factories of Nagoya. For two hours the big planes from Saipan ranged over the important war industry city in the heart of the Japanese' mainland on Honshu island, duplicating in numerical strength the devestat ing raid they made on that same target Dec. 13, WASHINGTON, Dec.

18 UP) The German counteroffensive struck the weakest part of the allied line on the west front, war department sources disclosed today. They concede that some allied units may get bottled up in the advance. On the whole, however, these sources were inclined to minimize the force of the Nazi thrust. They said it probably was aimed: 1. At drawing allied reserves from seriously threatened points on the German defense line.

2. At giving the German home front a lift at Christmas time with a report of "victory." The sector at which the Nazi at.