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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