January 18, 1945;Russians reach Sileasia/Modlin;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JANUARY 18, 1945:

West Front Losses

74,788 in December

Total of U. S. Casualties Since D-Day Now

332,912—Last Month's Figure Included

10,419 Killed and 43,554 Wounded.

JOPLIN, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1945.—TEN PAGES.

Another Force

17 Miles South

Of East Prussia

Berlin Admits Wholesale Disengaging

Movement Is in Process and Reports

Say Enemy May Pull All Way

Back to Oder, 30 Miles From Berlin

—Stalin Says Forces Striking for

Junkerland Take 1,000 Towns and

Villages, Including Modlin

BULLETIN.

London, Jan. 18.—(AP)—

The German radio tonight announced that Russian troops had reached the German border of Silesia and that Volkssturm units already had gone. into action to defend the fatherland soil.

By W. W.^HERCHER.

London, Jan. 18.—(AP)

Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's. Second White Russian army drove to within 17 miles of East Prussia's southern border today. The right wing of the mammoth Soviet offensive in Poland may already have crossed the frontier of German Silesia.

Berlin admitted a wholesale disengaging movement was in process, and one Moscow dispatch said it was believed Germany was now fighting on home soil on the eastern front in Silesia as well as on the western front.

Marshal Stalin announced that more than 1,000 towns and villages, including the, fortress of Modlin, 15 miles northwest of Warsaw at the confluence of the Vistula and Bug, were captured by Rokossovsky. Prussian border, also was captured in the thrust along the main Warsaw-Konigsberg highway.

PUSH THREE

MILES INTO

THE REICH

Attack, Still on Front of

About 2,000 Yards, Is

Expanding in Area of

Hongen—Third Army

Over Sure River.

BULLETIN.

With U. S. Third Army, Jan.18.—(AP)—

The Third army advanced up to two miles today after pre-dawn crossing of the Sure' river along a seven-mile front northeast of Luxembourg.

Paris, Jan. 18. — (AP) —

British troops advanced almost three miles into Germany today to near Hongen, center of a reich district jutting into the Dutch panhandle.

U. S. Third army troops stormed across the Sure river near Diekireh, 15 miles north of Luxembourg city, in a new assault upon the base of the flattened Ardennes

salient.

American First army troops picked up yardage in the slush leading to St. Vith, last Belgian road center in German hands. They were closer than four miles and gaining along the main road northwest of L the town in the Reich sector.

The British offensive from the Maas (Meuse) river toward the Roer, overran at least five more Villages and was widened to a 28- mile curving front from Geilenkirchen to Ormond.

Report Landing.

(A German broadcast said British troops landed on Schouwen island just north of Walcheren, in Holland at dawn yesterday.)

Lieutenant General Sir Miles C. Dempsey's columns slicing across the hookshaped tip of Germany northeast of Sittard advanced up to 2,000 yards before dusk while

other troops rolled up gains of ,l000 yards elsewhere on the widening front.

(insert map)

West Front Losses

74,788 in December

Total of U. S. Casualties Since D-Day Now

332,912—Last Month's Figure Included

10,419 Killed and 43,554 Wounded.

Washington, Jan. 18.—UP)—

American army casualties of 74,788 in December alone on the western front have brought the total from D-day in June ' to January 1, to 332,912.

Secretary of War Stimson, reporting this today, said the total forthat period includes 54,562 killed, 232,672 wounded and 45,678 missing.

The 74,788 figure for December included 10,419 killed, 43,554 wounded and 20,815 missing. Most of the missing in December, Stimson said, are probably German prisoners.