The Idaho Statesman from Boise, Idaho • 1

IDAHO UNBAY STATESMAN A State Notes No 25 ESTABLISHED 1864 Boise Idaho Sunday Morning December 20 1942 ASSOCIATED PRESS and UNITED PRESS DAT AND NIGHT LEASED WIRES Price Ten Cents Christmas Comes to Pacific avell Leads Allied Plunge Into Burma In Offensive to Open Lifeline Nazis Reel Under Third Russian Smash Germans Use Poland As Abattoir Statement Tells Mass Murder To Wipe ut Race British Nip At Heels of Axis Army Pursuers Pound 35 Miles Back Of Africa Corps 4 CORP ROBERT CHAMBERLIN USMC who Is stationed somewhere in the southwest Pacific carries his Christinas package with a happy smile The from Painted Post (AP Wirephoto from Marine Corps) Red Army Strikes Deep Into Axis Line Along Don River Germans Lose 30000 Soldiers i MOSCOW CP) The third great Russian winter offensive within a month has struck deep into German defenses along the Don in the Voronezh area and 20000 Germans have been killed and 10000 captured the Soviet information bureau said in a special communique today In the three offensives the bureau reported 189000 Germans and satellite soldiers have been killed and 84000 captured a total of 273500 including the 30000 killed and captured in the latest double-barreled thrust Striking from the northwest four days ago Russian forces southwest of Moscow opened a breach in German lines 60 miles wide while another army in the Voronezh region chopped a hole 12 miles wide and advanced to the west Capture 200 Points The two spearheads advanced from 30 to 37 miles after the hardest fighting capturing more than 200 populated places and a great array of enemy fighting equipment the communique said The new offensive patently threatened the extended German flank which has reached from the region of Kursk down to Stalingrad The lower end of the flank already had been dented by a series of salients driven across the Don bend and from southwest of Stalingrad in the offensive launched Nov 19 Now the Russians are striking at the upper flank while continuing to bear down still farther north in the Velikie Luki and Rzhev regions northwest of Moscow where a second offensive was started Nov 25 Strike Two Ways offensive is In two said the special communique the northwest in the sector of Novaya Kalitva and Mon-astrischina and from the east in the area of Bokovskaya Having pierced enemy defenses in the sector of Novaya Kalitva and Monastirschina over a distance of 60 miles and in the area of Bokovskaya over a distance of 12 miles our troops in four days of tense fighting overcame enemy resistance and advanced a distance of 30 to 37 In the advance nine infantry divisions and a brigade were shattered and thrown back in retreat while four other infantry divisions and a tank division were separately mauled Captured booty Included 84 tanks 1102 guns 508 mortars and 2720 trucks while destroyed equipment included 64 planes 88 tanks and 120 guns it was stated Triumphantly communique concluded' offensive of our troops continues" Japanese Sank Own Warship Marines Tell How Heroic Cruiser Confused Enemy SAN FRANCISCO The report that ships of the Japanese navy helped out the Americans by shelling each other in the strategic naval battle of Savo island last menth was substantiated with new detail Saturday by three wounded Marines The three men members of the anti-aircraft gun crew on the heroic cruiser San Francisco told how their ship steamed deft antly down through two lines of Jap warcraft and of how confu sion seized the Japs I saw a battleship blow up one of the (Jap) cruisers with broadside that arched over our own ship as we steamed between related Private (first class) Forrest Poore 24 of Sacramento and Cedarville Calif could see the shells scream ing red hot over The Marine buddies who nodded in agreement were Sgt John Egan of Chicago and" Private (first class) Clifford Spencer Anderson Ind The men are now recovering from their wounds at a bay region naval hospital Bolivia Crushes Plot to Revolt LA PAZ Bolivia The government announced Saturday night that a plot by the leftist revolutionary party to unseat the government and destroy Bolivia's Republican poetical system had been discovered Several directors of the party were arrested in the Potosi tin mining area and in La Paz Announcement of the plot came five days after a strike of thousands Assault From India Carries 40 Miles Into Enemy Area Japs Retreat Without Fight NEW DELHI India UP) A part of the million-man army of Gen Sir Archibald Wavellhas passed to the attack after months of preparation and has advanced about 40 miles into Burma in the first phase of an offensive to reopen the Burma road to China A cautiously worded communique telling this latest addition to the list of worldwide United Nations offensives said: the past few days some of our troops have advanced southward from the Arakan border into Western Burma and occupied the Maungdaw-Buthidaung area about 60 miles northwest of Akyab enemy who had been In occupation of this area since our withdrawal from Burma and had prepared defenses withdrew without offering opposition" Direction of Drive Maungdaw and Buthidaung are about 40 miles south of the Indian border Akyab a small seaport and air base on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal is to the south down the Mayu river While the restraint of the announcement gave no hint as to the scope of the offensive observers noted the reference to of our and wondered if other parts of the huge army which Gen Wavell has drilled and equipped in India might not be ready to strike elsewhere Ever since Lieut-Gen Joseph Stilwell came out of Burma at the head of a few score men and American officers from his Chinese army with the acknowledgment that he had taken a of a beating" the recapture of Burma and the restoration of the supply link with China has been high on the list of objectives of United Nations strategists Aerial Sweeps The thrust down the difficult jungle shore of northern Burma through a land inhabited by redskinned Naga headhunters was accompanied the communique said by aerial sweeps in which the village of Rathedaung slightly more than half way between Maungdaw and Akyab was bombed and the Mayu river swept clear of Japanese boats and other craft Akyab itself was bombed at night by big Wellington bombers Fires were left along the Rathedaung waterfront it was said Before the beginning of the offensive British and American planes carried out a series of intensive day and night bombings of numerous objectives in the Arakan area and for many weeks have been hitting at railways stations bridges and airfields along the Mandalay line of communications and docks airports and barracks in the Akyab zone In turn the Japanese claimed to have sunk seven transports and set fire to four or fire others in raids on Chittagong Indian port 60 miles north of the Burma border on Dec 5 and 10 The British said only relatively minor damage was done in these Japanese attacks The Japanese also attacked Fenny near Chittagong last Wednesday and lost three of their planes Four British planes were lost in the combat Allies Wrest Cape from Japs Capture of Position Virtually Finishes Buna-Gona Campaign ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN AUSTRALIA UP) Allied shock troops smashing through a belt of heavy infield fortifications have wrested the Cape Endaiadere area from the Japanese along the northwest coast of New Guinea while heavy bombers sank a Japanese light cruiser far to the northwest General headquarters reported today Capture of Cape Endaiadere three miles southeast of Buna village which waz taken by American troops Monday pocketed Japanese troops at nearby Buna Mission and virtually ended the Allied -Buna-Gona campaign The Japanese now are firmly entrenched in New Guinea only in the strong points of Jae and Sala-maua farther up the coast northwest of Buna In this campaign personally conducted by MacArthur Allied troops have steadily pushed the Japanese back all the way from across the Owen Stanley mountains where they had threatened the Allied stronghold of Port Moresby on the southern coast to the sea on the opposite coast The action saw the capture of Gona then Buna and now the encirclement of remaining Japanese troops in the Buna area with the taking of Cape Endaiadere To the left of Buna Allied troops mopped up enemy remnants near the Amboga and Kumusi river mouths 40 miles up the coast from Buna the noon communique added Nazi Demands Sliock Laval LONDON (IP) New German demands on the puppet Vichy government are so harsh they shocked even Pierre Laval advices from the continent said Saturday sudden return to Vichy from Paris where he had vainly awaited a summons by Adolf Hitler to a conference in Germany was explained as due to extreme anxiety over his own future and that of the Vichy government generally Spanish dispatches said he had gone to Vichy to consult Marshal Petain but all of tin miner? started with a 100 per cent wage increase demand causing the government to declare nationwide state of siege and to establish martial law in five mining districts The tih strike occurred at belonging to the Patino in-erests and it has blocked production of tin ore for the war efforts of the United Nations A government spokesman said hat tiie tin strike was promoted the revolutionary party and the government was seeking to establish documented connection of Nazi agents with the strike East Can Buy Gas Monday Sales Will Resume Willi Reduction In Rations WASHINGTON Price ministrator Leon Henderson nounced Saturday that gasoline sales would be resumed in the east at 12:01 a Monday with the coupons of all A and ration books good for three gallons In the case of the B' and books this is a reduction of one gallon At the same' time he reported a bootlegging and black market problem had arisen and promised to deal with it vigorously A total of 190 dealers have been suspended ten of them Saturday he said and future deliberate violators will the a suspension for the duration means they will be out of Earlier James Byrnes the director of economic stabilization stepped abruptly into the gasoline and fuel oil situation He asked Henderson Petroleum Administrator Ickes and Transportation Director Eastman to submit reports showing in what way present policies and machinery had proved inadequate together with recommendations for remedial action Byrnes said he would confer with the three Monday morning The day also brought action to relieve the plight of some householders who heat their homes with oil OPA announced that those who have exhausted their present ration could buy fuel oil with ration book coupons originally intended for redemption at a later period SAFER AT FRONT HAMILTON Ont CP) Maj Dennis Whitaker who won the during the Dieppe raid and who came through that assault without injury was in a military ibspital here Saturday with a possible ankle fracture suffered when he slipped on an icy pavement LONDON UP) The inter-Allied information committee declared Saturday that the Germans have transformed Poland one vast center for murdering by mass shootings electrocutions and lethal gas poisoning and that 99 per cent of the Jews who lived in Yugoslavia or took refuge there are dead The statement by the committee which represents the Alliec governments in London gave country by country resume of Nazi measures against Jews in occupied lands The Allied governments recently protested agains crimes against the Jews and warned that those responsible Would be punished The statement repeated the estimate by Dr Stephen Wise American Jewish congress president that since 1939 2000000 Jews in Europe have been deported or have perished and 5000000 are in danger of extermination" Crowded Into Ghetto In Warsaw it said 500000 Jews were crowded into one ghetto anc their ranks reduced by starvation and disease and shootings until March 1942 more direct methods of annihilation were instituted" Before the German attack upon Yugolsavia the statement con tinued Yugoslav Jewry numbered about 80000 persons and more than 6000 others had fled there from German-occupied countries majority 99 per of the Yugoslav Jews and those who had taken refuge in Yugoslavia are now dead" No Other Nations The committee gave this picture of other countries: Belgium Increasingly stringent anti-Jewish measures with forced labor regardless of health and mass deportations of Jews to Poland and other places until a German newspaper estimated that 25000 of 52000 Jews (by German estimate) living in Bel gium in 1941 have been accounted for in this way up to the end of November Czechoslovakia Of about 95-000 Jews in Slovakia at the time of the German occupation 65000 have been deperted to Polish (Please Turn to Page 2 Column 4) Jury Frees Girl Of Death Guilt BISBEE Ariz IS) Margaret Herlihy was acquitted Thursday night of the murder of Capt David Carr 27-year-old Fort Huachu-ca anti-tank officer who was fatally shot in the home last Aug 14 The jury of miners and ranchers were out only 37 minutes The 21 year old defendant daughter of Lt Col Edward Herlihy of Fort Benning Ga and a former commander of infantry at Fort Huachuca where he was Carr's superior officer waited in the courtroom surrounded by members of her family and Army officers As the jurors were dismissed they filed by the counsel table and shook hands with the red-haired girl and wished her happiness John Ross county attorney who prosecuted the girl also congratulated her I been a juror I would have done the same thing" he said thing for you to do now Is to go home and get some rest" Although Margaret said she fell desperately in love with the handsome dashing officer she testified that on the night of the shooting he suddenly turned into 'a blood crazed beast" who assaulted her without warning and threatened to kill her She fought off his attacks she said until they reached her home from a Mexican night club then seized a gun from a bureau drawer in her bedroom and shot him Three Perish as Fire Ravages Cheap Hotel CHICAGO CP) Three persons died today and nine were burned or injured in an extra alarm fire that raged for two and a half hours and sent occupants of a 50-cent-a-night hotel jumping from windows and scrambling down fire esc a pcs Firemen poked through the smouldering embers in search for possible additional victims of the noonday blaze that Fire Commissioner Michael Corrigan described as the worst in Chicago in 1942 THE WEATHER FORECAST: For Boiae and vicinity little change In temperature today BOISE WEATHER: Dec 19 1 942- 1 ft 9 2f Henri Philippe Retain told him was that he had better go back to Paris renew contact with Otto Abetz the German envoy arrive at some agreement at any cost and try to get in personal touch with Hitler Spain received direct word from France through channels said to be reliable that one of principal new demands was that Laval form at once a single French political party on national socialist (Nazi) lines and organize a body or armed national police to enforce on the country President Promotes Two Cruiser Officers PHILADELPHIA UP) The fourth naval district announced Saturday that President Roosevelt has promoted two officers of the Cruiser Boise the which recently sank six Japanese warships off the Solomons from lieutenant commander to commander They are Commander Thomas Michael Wolverton La Mesa Calif and Commander John James Laffan Irvington State Court Rules Bank Nights Legal HELENA Mont The state supreme court Saturday ruled that theater are legal in Montana Affirming a decision by Judge Ewing in the eighth district court of Cascade county the court held that the holding of bank nights does not constitute a violation of the state lottery law CARS JUMP RAILS LUMBERTON a Several cars of two Atlantic Coast Line railway trains were derailed Saturday night about nine miles west of here at a rural crossing Fire Chief Ed Glover who said no one was hurt estimated that 15 to 20 cars went off the tracks LONDON The British Eighth Army in swift pursuit of Marshal Erwin remnants ipushed its spearhead 120 miles west of El Agheila Saturday some 35 miles behind the Germans and Italians whose main force reached the Sirte area 240 miles short of Tripoli despite intense bombing In flight across last African colony the African Corps abandoned Zaunta en Nofilia a natural defense position without a fight but leaving thousands of mines and booby traps to slow the pace of Gen 'Sir Bernard Montgomery The Morocco radio said the most advanced elements of the Eighth Army had reached a point 19 miles from Sirtd1 which is 155 miles beyond El Agheila but there was no confirmation from any other source May Have Escaped The British made no mention of the Axis troops said to number 10000 reported trapped between Marble Arch and the Wadi (gulch) Matratin indicating the Germans might have broken the block and enabled at least some to continue (Please Turn to Page 2 Column 6) Air Medals Go To Idaho Men ALLIED HEADQUARTERS North Africa (IP)-Maj Gen James Doolittle has announced the award of 84 decorations to members of the Twelfth United States air force for heroic and meritorious service in the North African theater -Capt Perrine of Twin Falls Idaho and Staff Sgt A Hartley of Gooding Idaho were awarded air medals TWIN FALLS UP) Capt Perrine who has been awarded an air medal for heroism in Africa is the only son of Mr and Mrs Perrine of Twin Falls He is 23 years old He is a graduate of Twin Falls high school and attended the University of Idaho southern branch where he took civilian pilot training Staff Sgt A Hartley of Gooding also a medal winner enlisted at Spokane Sept 24 1940 PLANT BUILDS PLANES DALLAS Texas Iff) Bombers fighters and training planes are now being built in two big units of North American Aviation plant at Grand Prairie between Dallas and Fort Worth Kindelberger president announced Saturday lieved It for their tremendous successes in combat they possibly last physically or mentally very long But due to the great stimulus of their successes they are all happy and anxious to keep Japanese ground troops he said are the hardest he had ever known Japs have no regard for their own lives They be taken prisoner If you want you have to kill and our boys are doing it very His inspection tour took him to New Guinea where he found General Douglas MacArthur one of the greatest for air ever Rickenbacker also went to Brisbane Australia where he visited Brig Gen Hanford Mac-Nider who was in a hospital recovering from wounds suffered when splinters from a hand grenade struck his face while leading a night patrol But it was the story by Ricken-backer of his 21 days in a rubber boat that particularly gripped the scores of Army officers and newspaper men who heard him and humbly we prayed for he related Nightly and morning prayer meetings were held beginning on the second of 21 days with each of the eight men in the rubber boats taking turns reading passages from a Bible carried by a member of the crew Four oranges provided food end drink for their first eight days in the boats (they had been forced to abandon their plane so hurried- (Please Turn to Page 2 Column 3) Heroic Flagging Of Aged Woman Prevents Wreck COLORADO SPRINGS Colo Seventy-year-old Mrs Ida Peck veteran master of the little Husted station heroically prevented a collision Saturday oh the Santa Fe railroad mainline north of here A northbound passenger train its engineer unable to see the cross arm signal was thundering toward a stalled freight train and another passenger train blocked behind it The aged woman was struck down by the speeding train but she succeeded in flagging it down just short of the She was brought to a hospital here for treatment of a severely gashed arm A broken draw bar stalled the freight Later a north bound passenger train pulled up behind it to wait for a clear track Mrs Peck peering out of the Husted station north of here saw the sec ond passenger train speeding toward the motionless trains She dashed out of the station with a red lantern and waved it frantically at the oncoming train In her anxiety she stood too close the tracks and the engine swept her aside and smashed the lantern Undeterred by injury to her arm she ran back into the station for a white lantern and came out wav ng it at the train in the hope that a crew member would see it But the engineer had seen her first signal and was pulling up to a stop just short of the stalled trains New Ration Books Ready Next Month WASHINGTON CP) Distribution to consumers of the ration book" should be completed during January the office of price administration reported Saturday night and added that the job of printing 150000000 such looks was the biggest in history Eighteen printing firms in the country are turning out the books at a rate in some plants of 500-000 a day Each book has 192 stamps making a grand total of almost 30 billion stamps which OPA said to exceed twelve years continuous operation of all the postage stamps used in the United States" The books are printed in paper which will a real headache anyone 'foolish enough to try counterfeit ration books" the OPA warned French Warships Pro led Convoys ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN NORTH AFRICA Small warships from the French fleet at Dakar already are being used to escort Allied convoys in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham Allied naval commander in North Africa revealed Saturday in an optimistic survey of the shipping situation In this war theater Allied ships have freedom of movement at both ends of the Mediterranean" he declared at a press conference adding that Allied troops in Algeria and Tunisia not be going short of anything" The Axis Cunningham asserted is losing an average of a ship a day on the other hand in its efforts to rush supplies and reinforcements to its troops in Tunisia and Libya Rickenbacker to Speak On Army Hour Program WASHINGTON (jP) Capt Eddie Rickenbacker is scheduled to appear on the Army hour radio program this afternoon The program heard over the NBC network from 1:30 to 2:30 Mountain wartime each Sunday is rebroadcast by shortwave to the fighting forces overseas No announcement was made by the part Rickenbacker would have on the program Manicured Nails Give Female Santa Away SALT LAKE CITY UP) The Salt Lake Telegram assigned Reporter Mary Margaret Hills to dress like Santa Claus and see what the youngsters had to say Her disguise including a beard and carefully rehearsed deep voice functioned nicely in a department store until a small boy piped: not Santa Claus Look at your hands" She had a new manicure Bombers Pour Death on Kiska Home Front Complaints Seem Ridiculous to Rickenbacker After Seeing Living Hardships of War in South Pacific WASHINGTON UP) Army bombers smashed Japanese base installations at both ends of the Pacific ocean late this week the Navy reported Saturday with heavy explosions and fires on the Island of Kiska in the Aleutians the result of one of the raids Kiska one of two islands in the Aleutians chain occupied by the enemy was attacked Thursday by Army bombers The raid was the first since Dec 11 so far as was known here explosions and fires were a Navy communique said About the same time but on Friday due to time differentials Army Flying Fortresses accompanied by fighter planes made two attacks against enemy installations in the Munda area of New Georgia Island in the Solomons Jones Forecasts Income Will Exceed 117 Billions WASHINGTON UP) Secretary of Commerce Jones estimated Saturday that this national income would exceed $117000000-000 nearly three times the depression low and that next year it would climb to 3135000000000 Part of the 822000000000 gain over 1941 can be attributed to higher prices Jones said in a statement "but the major share represents an increased volume of productive The estimate for this year compares with the 1929 income of $83265000000 a record until last year and the 1932 mark of $39-991000000 since when the national income has climbed each year except 1938 President Roosevelt set a 3100000000000 income as the goal for recovery from the depression A WASHINGTON UP) Back from tiie South Pacific where a young soldier died in his arms where he saw American soldiers in holes of where he had floated for 21 days in an open boat Lt Col Edward Rickenbacker asserted Saturday to rubber and gasoline rationing seem ridiculous" as he prefers to be called bronzed slightly nervous and thin talked swiftly and seriously at a press conference calling for greater production of war supplies hope our hardships will be a stimulus to the people back home to drive on to greater effort because without the materials they are producing those boys out there do their he said Given the seat of honor in War Secretary conference room the secretary moved back to a comer chair told for the first time of the harrowing 21 days he and seven companions spent in rubber 4ife boats after their plane was forced down out of gas in the Pacific He told also of an inspection trip through the South Pacific as representative of Stihlson and of his personal conviction that the quality and experience of the Japanese pilots is down while that of American flyers is increasing swiftly is quite he declared the great majority of Japanese pilots are inexperienced and Telling of Guadalcanal in the Solomons where soldiers and A1 LIEUT COL RICKENBACKER and humbly wo prayed for Chicago Kanni City Omaha Denver ysiemarelc Cheyenne St Louie New York Washinalor I i doing for us what they are putting up with I think they would take this war more Rickenbacker added that he be have been battling the Japanese since August he said: only the people back home could know what those boys are I i.