August 29, 1944;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, AUGUST 30, 1944:

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA: WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 30, 1944.

American Armored Units

Sweep Through Reims and

Storm Across Vesle River

Whirlwind Advance Carried Several Miles

Beyond Cathedral City While Another Unit

of Patton's Army Crosses Marne at Epernay

By George Tucker.

ROME,' (AP)—

American 7th army troops and German forces fleeing up the Rhone valley from southern France were locked in heavy battle Wednesday near the Drome

river a dozen miles north of captured Montelimar.

The Americans struck Tuesday night while the enemy was making a desperate effort to cross the Drome, which runs into the Rhone from the east midway between Montelimar and Valence. The heaviest fighting centered around Loriol, south of the Drome along highway seven. The Germans threw pontoons across the stream, but whether they succeeded in getting any sizeable group across was unknown.

Meanwhile, due east near the Italian frontier, American troops were forced back to the outskirts of Briancon, a city on a 4,330-foot elevation in the Hautes-Alps, 90 miles north of Nice, by an enemy force which was reported here to have crossed into French territory from Italy.

Nazis Facing

Full Collaose

in the Balkans

Expected Bulgarian

Withdrawal to Place

Germany in Bad Spot

LONDON (AP)

Russian troops have captured Ploesti, Premier- Marshal Stalin announced Wednesday

night.

The whole Ploesti oil region is in the hands of the red army, Stalin declared in an order of the day.

Free French to

Join Allies in

Japanese War

Will Enter Conflict

After Nazi Legions

Have Been Whipped

By Leonard Millman.

(Associated Press War Editor.)

The Free French and the American navy joined Wednesday in threatening Japan with new power blows, leading Rear Adm. Alfred E. Montgomery to "look with confidence to the future and early extermination of the Japanese."

These predictions were underscored by daily air blows reaching into Nippon's inner defenses and Japanese losses in China, Burma and New Guinea.

Radio France said Free French forces would join the Pacific war after Hitler's defeat. Their .eyes will be on French Indo-China, whose doors were thrown open to Japan by the Vichy government, but the radio -promised the French would fight "until the final crushing of our "enemy in Asia."

Naval Striking Power Grows.