The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 1

MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Special Correspondents over Worth' Carotina an South Carolina WASHINGTON AND RALEIGH BUREAUS First America No newspaper morning or evening published in the in a city of com parable size has i circulation equal to that of The Charlotte Observer The Ob server carries more advertising than any other newspaper in the two Carolinas Current net Paid circulation In excess Doily 108000 Sunday 117000 1250150 PEOPLE live within 60 miles of Charlotte hours SLOW Driving time te Carolinas shopping center ii Cl Ci 1 Mfc i 4 i VOL No 19 18 PAGES TODAY CHARLOTTE MONDAY MORNING APRIL 23 1945 PRICE 5c DAILY-lOc SUNDAY in LnJ Hll 1 i Allies Cross Danube River MS BAUER Urgent Conference Between Big Three Ministers Is Begun Bombs Are Poured On Port- Of Bremen In Knockout Attempt IN ON TIME Sessions Arc Opened srrrrr Germans in Headlong Retreat Toward Po River Yanks and Reds Reported 15 Miles Apart Less Than Four Hours After Commissar Molotov Arrives by Plane From Russia LONDON April 32 Cf) Heavy Lancaster bombers of the RAF bombed Bremen tonight striking second largest port less than 24 hours after RAF Mosquitoes hammered Kiel The British planes pounded Bremen after fighter-bombers of the continent-based Ninth Air force slashed German rail lines and highways along the path of Lt Gen George Third Army drive into Czechoslovakia Both Bremen and Kiel are keys to northern defense area which is now virtually cut off from the rest of the Reich by the impending linkup of the American and Russian armies south of Berlin Bremen which the Lancasters attacked with an esrort of Mustangs has direct rail eommuni-rations to Hamburg greatest port and to Berlin where the Russians were battling through the streets into (See PORT Page 3 Col 5) CLOSING IN ON MODENA FRENCH TAKE STUTTGART Airmen Pound Columns of German Transport Vehicles and Marching Men Southbound Armies Press Nearer Last Stand Redoubt of Hitler Yanks Aiming True 11738 Japs Slain In South Okinawa BY LEIF ERICKSON GUAM Monday April Doughboys of the 24th Army Corps have killed 11738 Japanese and captured 27 on southern Okinawa alone Fleet Adm Chester Nimitz announced today This excludes Japanese killed by the Marines on northern Okinawa In an action-packed communique Nimitz also reported: Desperate Japanese defenders held BY AUSTIN BEALMEAR PARIS Monday April 21 (F) The thunder of and Russian guns 15 to 20 miles apart blended into a single victorious roar on the Berlin front Sunday as southbound Allied armies hurdled the Danube and reached Lake Constance 37 miles from last stand in the Alps Besides reaching the big lake that forms the western bulwark of redoubt the French seized most important industrial city of south Germany with a population of 459000 and sealed off thousands of Germans in the Black forest by ramming to the Swiss frontier COMMISSAR MOLOTOV ROME April 22 (P) Allied armor in headlong pursuit of badly disorganized Nazi forces fleeing toward the Po river from Bologna today was within two miles of Ferrara and closing in on Modena Ferrara immediate objective of the British Eighth Army is 30 miles northeast of Bologna while Modena is 22 miles northwest of that fallen Nazi bastion on the edge of the Po plain A partial news blackout was imposed on the progress of the Allied forces with the names of towns overrun in the chase being withheld temporarily The Fifth Army driving toward Modena important highway town reported "fairly strong enemy it As of Historical guara polish man BY WES GALLAGHER EAST OF THE ELBE RIVER IN GERMANY April (12:15 EWT) ()P) The Western front has gone Russian wacky seeing Marshal troops around every bend hsar ing strange voices on the air and developing rumors 20 to the ute Up to thevpresent moment no Up to invresem niunirm mu ARE CAPTURED the 27tb 77th and 9eth Infantry di visions to no gains through Sunday as heavy artillery naval and air bombardment continued all along the southern front Marines of the Third Amphibious corps occupied Taka Island east of Okinawa and seized half of Sesoko island one mile west of Motobu peninsula yesterday Tanks of the Seventh Army in a 30-mile dash seized a bridge and sped across the Danube less than 10 miles from a superhighway leading 50 miles east to Munich WASHINGTON April 22 (JF) Urgent conferences of the Big Three foreign ministers started at the State depart ment tonight less than four hours after the arrival of i a Foreign Commissar Molotov by air from Moscow Molotov made a call on President Truman just after 8:30 (Eastern war time) Then with Sccre- 5Jary of State Stettinius who had accompanied him to see the chief 'executive at the Blair house he moved across the street to (he State department There the two were met by Anthony Eden British foreign secretary and by 9:30 they were in business session The meeting broke up at 11:20 and Stettinius said it was adjourning for the night He had nothing else to say The talks went en actually for an hour and 20 minutes since the first half hour was spent in preliminaries Including the work of news photographers flight from Moscow was completed at 5:48 While a call on the Chief Executive was required proto- col and a Sunday night visit not unprecedented the Sunday formalities and the speed of the program just after a long and tiring trip emphasized the urgency of the Soviet official's business )- Molotov is en route to the San Francisco United Nations conference opening Wednesday and there are pressing Russian-Brif ish-Amer-ican problems to be settled before then particularly on Poland There was no immediate announcement whether meeting with the1 President was strictly formal or a business session The Truman-Molotov meeting was arranged as a next-door neighbor affair Molotov was assigned quarters in the adjoining Blair-Lee House The two residences across the street from the State department are maintained for visiting government dignitaries Molotov visited the United States in 1942 but during most of his stay he was incognito and the State department had no record that he had met Mr Truman then a Senator The speedy arrangement of the meeting with Mr Truman underscored the importanre of pending Big Three conferences preliminary to the United Ns- tions meeting After meeting the Russian party at the airport Stettinius rode with al of in ed American and Soujh African troops were reported to have seized two bridges across the Secchia river intact The Secchia flows about a mile west of Modena north-MOSCOW April (JV-Signa-1 ward into the Po indicating that ture of a 20-year treaty of friend- the Allied troops possibly were ship mutual aid and postwar col- planning to outflank the city Japanese aircraft made strong a(J birthplace of Hitlers Nazi move-tacks on forces around Okina- me Third Army on the Member of Philippines Puppet Government Caught in Drive on Baguio Fanatical Nazis Pulling Up Block-By-Block Defense as Thousands Perish 21 of Districls in Russian Hands 3000000 Frightened Civilians Jammed Underground BY ROMNEY WHEELER LONDON- Monday April 23 Red Army shock troops were reported fighting in the very heart of Berlin today against fanatical Nazis who lost at least 8000 dead Sunday in a desolating block-by-block defense of the German capital Twenfy-one of the districts comprising onfc sixth of its urea already were in Russian hands the Soviet communique said Sunday night and an early-morning Mos- cow official bulletin said the fighting was "raging day and night without dying down a single The Paris radio reported that Russian troops had reached Unter den Linden in the heart of Berlin and declared fierce fighting was raging around the Brandenburg Tor Last previous reports had indicated the Russians were within about a mile of the junction of Unter Den Linden and the Fried-richstrasse The Paris broadcast quoted "a secret German language as the source of its information The Russians were back in Berlin for the first time slnre they occupied the city in 1760 during the Seven Year war The Germans themselves said through the Scandinavian Telegraph bureau which they control that Russian tanks and infantry reached the center of Berlin Sunday and related a frank tale of the horror of 3000000 civilians packed so closely in undreground shelters that they could not sit down and dared not go outside even momentarily while the tremendous and destructive battle raged over their heads TAKE 18 INNER DISTRICTS The Soviet communique more conservative than the German accounts said nevertheless that 18 of Berlin's inner districts and three outer suburbs had been taken and that fighting now was in progress in the area of the Berlin belt railway after the crushing of suburban resistance centered around street car stations The Berlin radio was silent and the huddling millions in the shelters followed the course of the battle from wall maps These showed the Germans themselves said that by Sunday morning the Russians were wilhin a mile of the famous intersection of Unter Den Linden and the Friedrich-strasse As whole acres of the nnre-proud center of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich were churned into a smouldering tangle of wreckage victory-flushed Russian troops by account were within 34 miles of a juncture with American troops But reports from Allied headquarters indicated 20 miles or less separated the western and eastern allies Begrimed dust-laden -Russian fighters who have fought their war from Moscow and Stalingrad swarmed through streets as 23000 Nazi soldiers gave up one of greatest struggles and were roped into Red army prisoner cages during five days WRECK 945 TANKS By account since the great offensive began a week ago more than 945 Nazi tanks have been destroyed or captured and 780 of the last planes have been shot down or seized Smashing forward under a hail of fire from the heaviest concen-tration of artillery employed in this war the Soviet wall of steel swept into northern and eastern districts on a twisting 30-mile front from the northwestern 1 nZ a y- 1 Russians havHrqeen sighted by the Ninth Army which has the only bridgehead across the Elbe But Russian officers have been heard giving firing orders American Army reconnaissance re ceivers And tactical reconnaissance planes the Ninth Army have reported seeing Russian armor And higher echelons such as Su preme Headquarters have forward special sets of recognition sig nals to be used for contacting Russian forces The 83rd Division which holds this bridgehead east of the rivJr a special task force led by former Davidson star football player all ready to go out and meet the advance Red Army ele ments when the time comes to do so Everyone has a favorite Russian story There is no doubt that a meeting the Russian and American armies can be termed imminent that if the Red Army decides to come the way to the river It all de pends on the Russians because the American armies are staying where are for the moment at least Sitting in the front lines of their bridgehead over the E-lbe GIs could hear Russian shouting to one another over Army radio jeeps Each unit had Russian translator hurriedly combed from the ranks of Russian prisoner of war camps Through the translators the doughboys on this quiet front heard one Russian tankman shout am on and another apparently reply "Pull to one side let me Several attempts were made by 83rd division to get in touch these Russian forces by radio ascertain their positions One these efforts resulted in a false that the Russians were in territory One of two had Russian officers from prisoner of war camps Red army units from field One heard the other and thought he had contacted the Russian army and so reported was considerable excitement headquarters until it was discovered they had been talking to another Times Finance Editor Dies NEW YORK April Alexander Dana Noyes 82 editor of The New York Times 1920 died today district wa yesterday sinking "one light unit" and causing other damage Forty-nine attacking planes were destroyed in one attack and four in another The light unit may have been a destroyer might have been a smaller ship PLANES SWEEP ISLANDS Carrier aircraft swept the Sakish ima islands southernmost of the Ryukyus Saturday and Sunday and Amami and other northern Ryuky us islands Wednesday through Fri- common wealth summer capital on day destroying 26 Japanese planes east drove 11 miles on southeast in its envelopment of Czechoslovakia within about 185 miles of the Russians fighting up through Austria While trip-hammer blows fell In the aouth the world awaited the electrifying news that the Allies of the East and West had met in the heart of Germany Correspondents on the 8 Earlier he same units were reported to have crossed the Panaro river in several places Northwest of Bologna the Fan-aro flows roughly parallel to and within three (o five miles east of Secchia Then it swings eastward 'and flows Into the Po about 12 miles northwest of Ferrara Associated Press War Correspondent Maurice Moran who rode over the wide battle area in a bomber laboration by the Soviet Union with the Warsaw Polish provision-1 government marks the binding three Slav governments to Moscow in solid accord After signing the pact last night the Kremlin Marshal Stalin hail- it as of "great historical and declared it is possible to say with assurance that German aggression has been checked from the The treaty gives the rapidly ex- panding Polish provisional govern- Plote( by Capt William Dotson of of ed has of is all they American tankmen a nearby and the with to of alarm 83rd regiments released calling sets each Tljere at one San Antonio Texas reported roads were choked with fleeing German troops and vehicles The only town specifically mentioned as having fallen to troops under Lieut Gen Lucian Trus cott was Castelfranco seven miles southeast of Modena With the Eighth Army only two miles from Ferrara the Allies were only five miles from the Po river Another Eighth Army force moved on to the banks of the Po di Volano river at Sabbioncello 10 miles due east of Ferrara and at ment new prestige (The Polish Warsaw government is not recognized by Britain and the United States which nations denied a Soviet request for representation of that regime at the San Francisco World Security conference opening Wednesday Negotiations are in progress in Washington seeking to establish a broader united Polish government along lines set forth in the Yalta agreement among the three big powers) The newest of the Soviet pacts I signed for the Poles by Prime Minister Eduard Osubka Morawski does not differ in any major respect from the treaties which Russia signed earlier with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia Both these countries like Russia have recognized the provisional government as the government of Poland a fact which strengthens the bond between the four Slav governments PRAISE FROM STALIN Stalin gave an indication of thel Importance he attached to the treaty by a lengthy speech overflowing (See NAZIS Page 3 Col 2) Ninth Army front were hurriedly assembled and told that news of the junction would come in the form of a announcement probably simultaneously from Washington London and Moscow The note of urgency in the state ment to correspondents came at a time when the Russians southwest of blazing Berlin were reported 15 to 20 miles from American lines on the Elbe river and indicated that the historic tour was near American troops ahady schooled to recognize the silhouettes of Red Army tanks Were memorizing enough Russian to greet their ally of the East Adolf Hitler himself admitted his armies of the West were beaten and reduced from their once-pow-erful stature to the role of guerrillas An order signed by Hitler captured on the British Second Army front said that major military operations no longer were possible and told his troops to practice the guerrilla tactics to us by the great redoubt in the Alps of Bavaria and Austria was in the direct peril as three Allied armies pounded on south The Seventh Army broke across the Danube by seizing a bridge intact at Dillingen only 53 miles northwest of the Nazi and heavily damaging Amami airfield installations Army Mustang fighters from Iwo Jima heavily raided Suzuka airfield 32 miles southwest of Nagoya on Honshu island Sunday They destroyed 26 Japanese planes and damaged 21 exploded a 6000 to 8000 ton ship in Ise bay south of Nagoya sank two small oilers and one small tanker and damaged one small coastal vessel Yanks on Iwo secured March 16 killed 60 Japanese and captured 64 in a 24-hour period ending at 6 pm Friday This increased Japanese casualties on Iwo from the American invasion on February 19 through Friday to 23049 killed and 850 captured Nimitz corrected his Saturday communique to eliminate LST (landing ship tank) No 477 from the list of those sunk by enemy action in the Far Western Pacific between March 18 and April 18 This reduced the total US losses for that period to 14 In lesser operations a Navy search plane fired a small cargo ship and left it dead in the water off the Ryukyus and Army and Marine planes raided Marcus and Yap island airfield installations TOTAL OF 15000 DEAD report that Maj Gen John 24th corps troops have killed 11738 Japanese since their Okinawa landings April 1 Indicates that many more than 15000 of the enemy have been killed in (See MOLOTOV Page 2 Col 4) Goebbels Quits Capital Tells Others To Stay JO JO SAYS Hear a werewolf howlin' tapin' mighty low An Adolf Hitler growlin' To start the after show northern Luzon Gen Douglas MacArthur said in his communique today Ihe cabinet members were Claro Recto minister of foreign affairs and Rafael Alunan minister of agriculture and commerce Four members of the cabinet were captured last week as Yanks of the 33rd Division closed in on Baguio They were Joe Yulo chief justice of the Supreme Court Antonio de las Alas minister of finance Teo-filo Sison minister of the interior and Quentin Paredes minister of justice All are to be confined for the duration as a matter of military security and then turned over to the government of the Philippines for trial On Mindanao island meantime the 24th Division continued its drive eastward toward Davao along the highway and the valley of the big Mindanao river while bombers swept enemy concentrations and lines of communication Heavy bombers sank or damaged ifn 8000-ton transport and four other vessels off Formosa and wrecked a 7000-ton freighter-transport at Saigon French Indo-China Rail installations in Indo-China were heavily pounded Bombers of all categories dropped 130 tons of bombs on northern Borneo at the cost of one plane lost to antiaircraft fire Targets included airdromes oil producing areas and barracks MacArthur announced that Aus tralian ground forces had killed an additional 1214 Japanese troops on Bougainville New Guinea and New Britain islands In the lightly-opposed drive toward Davao the Yanks captured Fort Pikit 40-odd miles inland on the main trans-island highway Saturday This gave them control of a junction where a new feeder high way from the rich Cotabato valley of the south joins the main Davao road The Davao city limits were 42 miles away The Japanese are expected to make a bitter stand at Davao Some 50000 Nipponese troops are estimated on the island serond largest of the Philippines On central Luzon the 112th regiment of the 32nd division counted its 1000th dead Japanese in current cave fighting in the Santa Maria valley northeast of Manila The Japanese still were strongly dug in and fighting was slow By The Associated Pres LONDON April Dispatches with praise Hecafled It "a 'guar-1 rom Stockholm quoting the Ger-anty of the independence of a new man-controlled Swedish Telegraph democratic Poland bureau said today that Gauletier It meant he said "a liquidation If au! Joseph Goebbels had fled Ber-of the old destructive political play Mecklenburg after promising (by Poland) between Germany and Pamc-stricken residents to stay the Soviet Union and replaces It tbe burning capital and appeal-icy of alliance and friend- and phlldren t0 with a policy financial since (See ALLIES Page 2 Col 7) (See OKINAWA Page 3 Col 2) Congressmen Get Eyewitness Proof Of Horrors In German Prison Camp ship between Poland and her eastern neighbor" He added: it is possible to say with assurance that German aggression Is checked from tile east Undoubtedly this barrier on the east will be supplemented by a barrier from the west that is by an alliance of our countries with our Allies on the west Then it may boldly be stated that German aggression will be restrained and will not be easily "For this Stalin concluded do not doubt that our Allies in the west will hail this treaty" The treaty runs for 20 years and is automatically renewed for five' year periods Indefinitely after that expiration The preamble states as Its first aims wage war jointly against the German invaders to complete and final vietory" and consoli- mount its defenses Communications between Berlin and Stockholm were broken just after this report was received the dispatch said Rumors some fantastic fed on an atmosphere of panic in the German capital One of these rumors the German-controlled STB said spread word of a i lation But this like the report- concerning Goebbels could not be checked the agency added It was clear the Berlin dispatch was quoted that great part of the Berlin population" was not going to follow the appeal and take up and the civil population was said to be remaining passive" A report from Switzerland said that Nazi party leaders Gestapo men and collaborationists of all nationalities who had swarmed recently into the Lake Constance area from Berlin were fleeing there now of Glienick to Wilhelm-shagen and Friedrichshagen on the east Moscow revealed While ihe Soviets pushed as much as seven miles inside the city by official reports a dispatch from the biasing capital to the Scandinavian Telegraph bureau said the escape gap to the west had been harrowed to nine miles There was no confirmation from the Soviet High Command or from radio transmitters but the dispatch said the Russians had swept beyond the southwestern suburb of Potsdam and that is not impossible that the capital will be entirely encircled within the next 24 In an effort to bring about the capture of the city for the (See REDS Fags Column 4J worst" said Representative Gordon Canfield Republican of New Jersey it is a bad commentary on civilization General Eisenhower has presented proof of the atrocities This bears out everything he or anyone else has With Canfield were Representatives Carter Manasco Democrat of Alabama Henry Jackson Democrat of Washington Earl Wiln Republican of Indiana Albert Rains Democrat of Alabama Eugene Worley Democrat of Texas Marion Bennett Republican of Missouri and Francis Walter Democrat BY DON WHITEHEAD BUCHENWALD PRISON Germany April 22 UP) Eight American congressmen walked among the horrors of Buchen-wald prison today and got shocked eyewitness proof of a Nazi world in which human life was not worth that of an animal They came at the personal Invitation of General Eisenhower who wanted them to see for themselves this village where decency was torn aside and men died like beasts in one of worst butcher shops is barbarism at its of Pennsylvania They were in England on various missions when they received the invitations from Eisenhower to make a special trip to Buchenwald Each said he was shocked almost beyond belief at what he saw and was told by the prisoners "This was the most horrible thing that anyone could conceive" said Manasco Jackson said "We heard atrocity stories from the last war which were not verified but now we have seen them with our own eyes and they are the (See CONGRESSMEN 2 3) Temperature 89 58 Year ago 81 80 North Carolina: Monday rain and cooler Tuesday partly cloudy and warmer scattered showers extreme north and west South Carolina: Monday showers and cooler Tuesday partly cloudy and mild (Further Weather Bureau data on Page 2) plodding eastward as French tanks (See STALIN rage 2- Col 1) plundered toward the Swiss border.