Monday, April 30, 2012

Apr 30, 1944; GREATES AERIAL BATTLE CONTINUES:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY APRIL 30, 1944:

LONDON, April 29.—(/P)—
Two thousand United States w a r  p l a n c s smashing through box-like stacks
of hundreds of German fighters in the greatest daylight battle of the war casting a 2,500-ton torrent of exploding steel and Incendiaries on invasion- jittery Berlin Saturday at a cost of 63 bombers and  fighters.

London, April 29.—(AP)—
The allied war of nerves Saturday kept Germany tensely expectant of momentary
landings on the continent, and Berlin itself said "The invasion air force Is now actually In the fight."

London, April 29.—(U.P)—
Amphibious Yugoslav forces, in their most ambitious operations so far, have captured the strategically-important Dalmatian island of Mijet, a partisan headquarters communique announced Saturday. It appeared that other invasion units were mopping up on Korcula, 19 miles to the northwest.


BILLINGS,  MONTANA,  APRIL 30, 1944

2,000 U. S. Planes Figure

In Greatest Aerial Battle
77 Are Shot Down
In Berlin Raid;
Toulon Also Target
LONDON, April 20.—(/P)—
Two thousand United States w a r  p l a n c s smashing through box-like stacks
of hundreds of German fighters in the greatest daylight battle of the war casting a 2,500-ton torrent of exploding steel and Incendiaries on invasion- jittery Berlin Saturday at a cost of 63 bombers and  fighters.
R. A. F. bombers carried on the onslaught Saturday night, smashing  unidentified targets In German occupied territory. A United States communique said that 88 German planes were destroyed In combat, 72 by the guns of the Plying Fortress and Liberator crews, and 16 by a powerful escort of American Thunderbolt, Lightning and Mustang fighters and R. A. F, Mustangs which also wrecked parked nazi aircraft and shot up 21 Locomotives.

Invasion Rumors
Keep Europe's
Nerves on Edge
Berlin Says Air
Attacks Mark
Start by Allies
By ALEX SINGLETON
London, April 29.—(AP)—
The allied war of nerves Saturday kept Germany tensely expectant of momentary
landings on the continent, and Berlin itself said "The invasion air force Is now actually In the fight." Thus, for all practical purposes, Berlin said the invasion began a . week ago, when the Americans and British hurled great numbers of
reserve air crews and planes into the bombing of the continent.
Perhaps Illustrative of the shattered state of Europe's nerves—in neutral countries as well as occupied and Germany itself—was one rumor out of Finland that the land assault was already In progress.

Allied Airmen
Hit Jap Bases
In New Guinea
Points in Carolines
And Marshalls
Also Are Blasted
Advanced Allied Headquarters
Southwest Pacific, April 30.—(UP)—
General Douglas MacArthur's airmen carried on their sweeping offensive against. Japanese bases in northern New Guinea, the Carolines and the Bismarck archipelago with heavy attacks on enemy airfields and supply installations, it was announced early Sunday
Lieutenant General George C Kenney's Fifth air force in New Guinea sent heavy and medium bombers against the Wake Island airfield 110 miles west of the new
American base of  Hollandia In a 79-ton attack, MacArthur's communique said. The bombers hit the airfield and also attacked the town of Sarmi on the mainland.
Solomons-based heavy bombers of  the Thirteenth  A. A. F. ranged over the Pacific to carry out their fifteenth  attack of the war against Truk atoll, dropping' 22 tons of bombs on Eton and Dublon Islands spreading fires and explosions through the area. One enemy night fighter was shot down and one American bomber was lost, the communique said.

Yugoslavs Take
Another Island
London, April 29.—(U.P)—
Amphibious Yugoslav forces, in their most ambitious operations so far, have captured the strategically-important Dalmatian island of Mijet, a partisan headquarters communique announced Saturday. It appeared that other invasion units were mopping up on Korcula, 19 miles to the northwest.
Partisan control of the two islands, where heavy fighting has been under way since last week end when Marshal Josph (Tito) Bronz' troops -supported by allied planes
and warships swarmed ashore, could give the allies new footholds for a possible Balkan invasion and seriously threaten the Germans' Adriatic sea life line.



ejt

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Apr 29, 1944; Germans reveal invasion of western Europe

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, APRIL 29, 1944:

'London, April 29—(AP)
Berlin dispatches to Stockholm declared today that the invasion of western Europe, practically speaking, began a week ago when the American; and British threw great numbers of reserve air crews' and aircraft into the continuing continental air assault.

London, April 29—(AP)—
Two thousand U. S. warplanes mashed at Berlin today with probably the greatest daylight attack in history.

April 29.—(/P)—
Allied heavy bombers struck at the Italian west coast ports of Piombino, Orbetello and Santo Stefano yesterday, and other planes raided Genoa and other harbors by night, Allied headquarters announced today.

BURLINGTON, N. C_ SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1944

BerlinMade
MainTarget
When 2,000
Planes Raid
Europe Is Blasted
By 75,000 Tons
In Two Weeks
London, April 29—(AP)—
Two thousand U. S. warplanes mashed at Berlin today with probably the greatest daylight attack in history. Bombers flying from Italy at the same time hit the port and submarine pens of Toulon, Franee, to cap the 15th day of the pre-invasion onslaught in which Allied aircraft have rained approximately 75,000  tons of bursting and flaming steel upon Hitler territory.

Reserve Air
Crews Seen
As Opening
Up Assault
Recently Captured
Airmen Quoted
By Germans
'London, April 29—(AP)
Berlin dispatches to Stockholm declared today that the invasion of western Europe, practically speaking, began a week ago when the American; and British threw great numbers of reserve air crews' and aircraft into the continuing continental air assault.
The Stockholm Tidningcn's Berlin correspondent quoted captured Allied fliers as saying they regarded themselves, "as invasion troops and the invasion began for them when they went into' action.
The dispatch added: "German military circles interpret the fliers' statement as meaning the invasion air force now is actually in the fight." ,
The .Helsinki newspaper Sanomat said today without disclosing the source of its information that the Allied invasion of Europe is already under, way, .according to
 a dispatch to the Stockholm Aftonbladet. -
Landings Probable.
"Landings probably are in progress –at several placesc now, theHelsinki .newspaper said it had "learned."
(There was no information from any Allied source to substantiate this rumor.)
The Germans announced today their' anti-invasion command was ready to go into action and simultaneously Nazi occupation authorties in Denmark suspended telephone communication bctween Copenhagen and Stockholm for the second time in a week.


Italian West
Coast Ports
Hit By Bombs
Allied Headquarters, Naples,
April 29.—(/P)—
Allied heavy bombers struck at the Italian west coast ports of Piombino, Orbetello and Santo Stefano yesterday, and other planes raided Genoa and other harbors by night, Allied headquarters announced today.
All land sectors were quiet during the day, a communique said. Medium forces of heavy bombers raided Orbetello and Santo Stefano, 75 miles northwest of Rome, and Plombino 120 miles northwest of the Italian capital.

ejt

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Apr 28, 1944; British Isles isolated:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY APRIL 28, 1944:

 LONDON (UP)—
Approximately 50,000,000 persons in the British Isles were isolated from the outside world at midnight Thursday night when all normal travel to points abroad ceased under one of the most drastic anti-spy decrees ever promulgated.

LONDON (INS)—
A powerful force of British bombers carried the greatest aerial offensive in history through it’s  llth straight night with a shattering attack against the industrial center of Friedrichshafen in southwestern Germany.

LONDON (UP) —
G e r m a n broadcasts said Thursday that Soviet troops have opened a powerful attack on the Romanian rail function of lasi (Jassy), achieving local penetrations, while Moscow in turn reported that strong Nazi counter-attacks have been turned back for the ninth straight day near Stanislawow in old Poland.

Naples (UP)—
Newly-formed German paratroop units have been thrown into action on the Anzio beachhead to halt the swelling power of Allied thrusts, it was disclosed Thursday in an Allied announcement revealing Adolf Hitler's desperate need for defensive troops.
 

 Twin Falls, Idaho, Friday Morning, April 28, 1944

Heavy American Raiders Land First
One-Two Punch; Record Assault
Hits Friedrichshafen, Other Cities
LONDON (INS)—
A powerful force of British bombers carried the greatest aerial offensive in history through it’s  llth straight night with a shattering attack against the industrial center of Friedrichshafen in southwestern Germany.
The Thursday night assault on Friedrichshafen, on the northern shore of Lake Constance, followed in the wake of two smashing daylight attacks by some 2,750 American planes against the northern French invasion coast. These constituted the first "doubleheader" attacks of the air by heavy American bombers flying from bases in Britain.
Well over 10,000 tons of bombs have been unloaded in Nazi-held western Europe in the past 24 hours—a record for any similar stretch of time.

Soviets Drive on
Romania Junction
Germans Report
Moscow Says Enemy
Push Again Hurled
Back in Old Poland
LONDON (UP) —
G e r m a n broadcasts said Thursday that Soviet troops have opened a powerful attack on the Romanian rail function of lasi (Jassy), achieving local penetrations, while Moscow in turn reported that strong Nazi counter-attacks have been turned back for the ninth straight day near Stanislawow in old Poland.
Nazi reports also admitted the Soviets had made some progress in the lower Dnestr sector toward Chisinau but Moscow's broadcast communique did not mention either area of the southern front, adhering to its policy of withholding news of fresh drives until they have taken a decisive turn.

PARATROOPS FILL DEPLETED
GERMAN RANKS AT ANZIO
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS,
Naples (UP)—
Newly-formed German paratroop units have been thrown into action on the Anzio beachhead to halt the swelling power of Allied thrusts, it was disclosed Thursday in an Allied announcement revealing Adolf Hitler's desperate need for defensive troops.
German "green devil" paratroopers previously had been used in the battle for Cassino on the main Fifth Army front, and Canadians on the Eighth Army's Adriatic front also met paratroopers in Ortona.
Prisoners captured on the beach head revealed that they were members of the recently-formed Fourth parachute division and that they had been in action at Anzio since early April. Other prisoners were identified as members of the 362nc infantry division, also moved into the front line this month, and the third panzer Grenadier division which has been fighting in Italy since the fall of Naples.

Drastic Decree
Isolates British
LONDON (IP)—
Approximately 50,000,000 persons in the British Isles were isolated from the outside world at midnight Thursday night when all normal travel to points abroad ceased under one of the most drastic anti-spy decrees ever promulgated.
From now until the time when Allied Invasion forces have established their positions in western Europe, no one may leave this country except on specially approved war business so urgent that it cannot be postponed.
The new order means that only a trickle of high priority men will . go abroad and all means of communication by wire, wireless or mail were under
one of the most drastic censorships ever imposed.
French radios in Algiers and Brazzaville persistently broadcast to France, urging workers to strike between 11 a. m. and noon May 1—the European Labor May Day—and generally to make the .day one of preparation for the invasion.
Naval activity in the channel is increasing, and watchers on the English coast hear gun flashes and machine gun fire frequently. Occasionally there is a heavy explosion on the French coast.
There is continued talk here of the possibility of German attacks either in western Europe or on the Russian front, or both—such as a big counterattack against the Red army or a suicide attack by a few divisions on Britain.

ejt

Friday, April 27, 2012

Apr 27, 1944; Hollandia Airdromes seized:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY APRIL 27, 1944:
April 27. — (AP) —
Powerful United States Sixth Army forces seized two Hollandia airdromes Tuesday and were closing in on a third key airfield objective of the campaign launched less than four days before

April 26.—(U.P.)
American troops, giving a bold advance notice of their attack by a, "voice of
 doom" warning for Germans to surrender, have moved to within 24 miles of Rome in a series of thrusts miles of Rome in a series of thrusts at the center of the Anzio head line, dispatches revealed on Wednesday.

April 26. — \AP)
Waves of Japanese jungle troops fire throwing themselves desperately against Allied  
 r o a d  blocks in central Burma and are "perishing in droves" as they try to b r e a k the stranglehold clamped on their communications by thousands of airborne "chindits," an Allied spokesman announced Wednesday.

LONDON, Thursday, April 27.—(AP)
Blasting at an Axis fleet presumably attempting to evacuate large numbers of the besieged forces at Sevastopol, the Russians have sunk five German and Romanian
transports and damaged two others in the past 24 hours, Moscow announced Wednesday night.

' LONDON, April 26.—(AP)
An American bombing force of more than 1,000 planes attacked Brunswick and targets elsewhere deep inside Germany "Wednesday—carrying the monster Allied air offensive into the twelfth consecutive day—without loss of a single bomber and without being attacked once by enemy fighters.


BUTTE, MONTANA, THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 27, 1944

Australians
Occupy
Madang Base
American Forces
Meet Few
Japanese Troops
By, YATES McDANIEL
ADVANCED ALLIED HEADQUARTERS,
New Guinea,
April 27. — (AP) —
Powerful United States Sixth Army forces seized two Hollandia airdromes Tuesday and were closing in on a third key airfield objective of the campaign launched less than four days before. One hundred and f i f t y miles to the southeast, other American troops pushed northward from the
Tadji airdrome to occupy Aitape v i l l a g e after a short skirmish in which Just one Japanese was killed.
Occupy Madang
Two hundred and eighty miles farther south, an Australian force occupied the enemy supply base of Madanq — with it’s airdrome — on Thursday a f t e r overcoming an enemy rearguard and then pushed northward from the coastal town
from which the bulk of the enemy force was believed to have withdrawn a month ago.

Yanks Advance
on Beachhead
Are Now Within 24
Miles of Rome
By REYNOLDS PACKARD
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS, NAPLES,
April 26.—(U.P.)
American troops, giving a bold advance notice of their attack by a, "voice of
 doom" warning for Germans to surrender, have moved to within 24 miles of Rome in a series of thrusts miles of Rome in a series of thrusts at the center of the Anzio head line, dispatches revealed on Wednesday.
Only eight of the enemy heeded the broadcast  to surrender warning and the rest were steamrollered -under an  a r t i l l e r y  and i n f a n t r y attack as the Americans generally improved their positions around Carano. This advance, followed swiftly upon the deepening of the American right flank below Cisterna, four miles to the east.

Japs Perish in
Droves in
Burma Area
Allies Mow Them
Down by the Thousands
By THORBURN WIANT
SOUTHEAST ASIA HEADQUARTERS,
Kandy, Ceylon,
April 26. — \AP)
Waves of Japanese jungle troops fire throwing themselves desperately against Allied  r o a d  blocks in central Burma and are "perishing in droves" as they try to b r e a k the stranglehold clamped on their communications by thousands of airborne "Chindits," an Allied spokesman announced Wednesday.
Preceded by heavy artillery and mortar fire and supported by light tanks, the yelling, yowling Japanese came charging into the Allied wire and through mine fields at numerous points on a broken 100-mile front and are being mown down by British, American and Indian troops, he said.
Fail to Break Through

Russians Sink
Five Axis
Troop Ships
Germans Report
Offensive on
Romanian Front
By TOM YARBROUGH
LONDON, Thursday, April 27.—(AP)
Blasting at an Axis fleet presumably attempting to evacuate large numbers of the besieged forces at Sevastopol, the Russians have sunk five German and Romanian
transports and damaged two others in the past 24 hours, Moscow announced Wednesday night.
The Soviet daily communique reported once again "there were no essential changes at the front" during the day, but official German and Romanian announcements said the Red army had broken the land lull by opening a large-scale offensive Tuesday on the Romanian front, scoring local break-throughs
which were sealed off.

Yank Bombers
Hit Germany
“Without Loss”
Gigantic Pre-Invasion Air Offensive
Goes Into Its 12th Day as
Brunswick, Other Targets Are Blasted
LONDON, Thursday, April 27—(AP)—
R. A. F. bombers were out in great strength over Germany and occupied
territory Wednesday night, with Essen as the main objective, it was disclosed authoritatively Thursday.
By W. W. HERCHER
' LONDON, April 26.—(AP)
An American bombing force of more than 1,000 planes attacked Brunswick and targets elsewhere deep inside Germany "Wednesday—carrying the monster Allied air offensive into the twelfth consecutive day—without loss of a single bomber and without being attacked once by enemy fighters.
The thundering overture to Invasion was beaten out with another 1,500 tons of bombs. Between 250 and 500 Fortresses and Liberators made the 900-mile round trip to Brunswick, and a communique said none of the fighter escort, ranging  from 500 to 750 Mustangs, Lightnings and Thunderbolts, made any contact with German interceptors,
 Night Raiders Out
The Nazi-controlled Luxembourg radio went off the air In the night, warning that Allied planes were approaching. Later the Berlin radio said Allied raiders were approaching western Germany.


ejt