Wednesday, December 5, 2012

December 5, 1944; RATIONED CIGARETTES RETURN TO THE WAR FRONT:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, DECEMBER 5, 1944
With the lifting of the ban on cigarette sales in the U.K. yesterday, GIs swarmed into the London PX to grab up their butt rations. PX clerks were kept busy handing out seven packs to combatants and five to the noncombatants, and  the boys accepted them with obvious pleasure. The ban on cigarette sales to noncombatant troops went into effect Nov. 28 because of what was described as a "shortage." No official explanation of what happened to the
smokes, sufficient quantities of which were reported to have been shipped to troops overseas, has yet appeared.



New York          London Edition       Paris
Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces
VOL. 5 No. 29—Id.
in the European Theater of Operations
TUESDAY, Dec. 5, 1941

  Deny Smokes
Being Sent Japs
Communications Zone Headquarters in France last night released a War Department cable from Washington denying that American cigarettes were "being
sent to the Japanese Imperial Army by Jap-American internees held in relocation centers in the U.S.
The War Department cable was prompted by a reproduction in the Nov. 30 Stars and Stripes of the front page of the Oct. 16 Co-Operator, mimeoraphed
newspaper at Tule Lake (Calif.) Relocation Center, which announced that two cases of Lucky Strikes had been saved "to send the cigarettes as a gift to
Japanese Imperial soldiers."
The War Department said: "This story is absolutely a falsehood. No cigarettes have, or can be, sent to Japanese soldiers by these people (internees) or anyone else. No cigarettes have been sent to Japanese prisoners of war."

___________________________________________
1st and 9th
Consolidate
Along Roer
Elements of three Third Army divisions were reported yesterday to be striking northeastward within nine miles of Saarbruecken and seven miles of Sarreguemines, border cities in the path of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's sweep into the Saar, while farther north, troops of the 95th Division broadened their wedge into the eastern part of Saarlautern and made gains both above and below the river-straddling town.
The 377th Regiment of the 95th, clearing a three-mile salient northwest of Saarlautern. pushed on to the west bank of the Saar, giving Patton's troops a solid 16-mile hold along that water line. 35-Mile Front in Reich
A Reuter dispatch from SHAEF said that Patton now had a 35-mile front inside Germany following an advance by the Fifth Division across the border south
of Saarlautern. which was under fire from Siegfried Line guns.
Dispatches said that ack-ack gunners on the First Army front had accounted for more than half of the 70 German planes which came over that zone in soupy weather Sunday, crediting them with 41 kills.
Hold High Ground
The Ninth's main positions along the flooding Roer are on high ground about a mile from the low land along the bank, and the Germans hold corresponding positions on the far side. One of the chief enemy defenses at Julich is a large sports stadium, manned by about 90 men, but backed up by heavy artillery across the river.

Reds Within
60 Miles
Of Austria
Tanks of Marshal Tolbukhin'; Red Army force, smashing northward across the rain-soaked plains of southern Hungary, last night were reported within 60 miles of Austria. There was no official news of the Soviet 20-mile a day drive from the south, but the Germans admitted that Russian spearheads had reached Lake Balaton, southern tip of which lies 55 miles from the Austrian border. The northeastern end of the lake is approximately the same distance from Budapest.
The Nazi announcement, however, did not state at what point the Russians had reached the lake, one of the most formidable natural defense barriers in central Europe.
Marshal Tolbukhin thus has driven a wedge between the German armies in Hungary and Jugoslavia. According to reports from the front, the roads have been turned into sticky quagmires by recent downpours. One report said the mud was knee deep.
The Germans appear to be fighting for time to form a new defense line hinging on Lake Balaton, with the left flank extending between the lake and Budapest
and the right flank between the lake and Slovenia.
Across the Danube and northeast of Budapest troops under Marshal Malinowsky followed up their capture of Miskolc and Sartoral-Jaujhely with a drive toward eastern and central Slovakia. Their next objective appeared to be Rozsnyo, 40 miles away.

Planes Attack
In Philippines
Heavy .attacks by American fliers against Jap airdromes and shipping throughout the Philippines were reported by Gen. MacArthur yesterday. As U.S. airmen in the Far Pacific continued to neutralize the Jap aerial threat to American forces on Leyte Island, it was officially disclosed that Liberator-blasted Iwojima, in the Volcanic Islands, along the Sunerfort pathway to Tokyo.
Iwojima, hit for the fifth time in four days, is 750 miles south of Tokyo. The Japanese have used it as a base from which to attack Superfort fields on
Saipan.
Torrential rains bogged down all but the most minor ground action on Leyte held air activity to a minimum.

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