February 8, 1945; BERLIN THREATENED:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1945:

JOPLIN, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1945.—TEN PAGES

SEE DIRECT

ASSAULT ON

BERLIN SOON

Moscow Hourly Expecting

Official Announcement

Which Will Signify

Complete Breakdown

of River Defenses/

BULLETIN.

L o n d o n , Feb. 8.—US)—

 A Finnish broadcast recorded by the British Broadcasting: Corporation said today that "Russian tanks have probed to the outskirts of Berlin."

London, Feb. 8.— (AP) —

The Moscow radio said today the "Oder line has been pierced and Berlin in panic is witnessing the crumbling of the last obstacle in it’s forefield."

A prior broadcast by an American chain commentator said Marshal Stalin's capital was hourly; expecting an official announcement that the First White Russian army had smashed across the river in force, "signifying the complete

breakdown of the Oder line."

Berlin accounts said the Russians had hammered out seven bridgeheads on the Berlin front, one of them 30 miles northeast of, the capital, and a dozen others

along 185 miles of the river from Ratibor in Silesia to Gruenberg, 50 miles southeast of Frankfurt. ..≪

SS Troops in Capital. ;

The Moscow radio said Heinrich Himmler had massed SS troops in the capital. Roads south and west of Berlin were reported jammed with the traffic of refugees "in flight. “

FIRST ARMY

TAKES TOWN

OF SCHMIDT

Bloody Bastion Is Just

Northwest of Last German-

Held Dams Controlling

Floodwaters of

the Roer River

By JAMES M. LONG.

Paris, Feb. 8. — (AP) —

First army troops bored clear through the double Siegfried line at a new place today and captured bloody Schmidt, just northwest of the last German- held dams controlling the Roer river.

Third army soldiers poured through another break in the west- wall farther south to within a mile and a quarter of Pruem. The attacks of the American First army in the Roer headwaters area and the American Third army in the Eifel mountains gained the proportions of a major offensive.

The seventy-eighth Lightning division drove into the anchor bastion of Schmidt last nightstand had virtually cleaned it out by daybreak, nearby Kommerscheidt was occupied.

13-Mile Penetration.

The 310th regiment, commanded by Colonel Earl M. Miner, Bridgeport, Conn., took the village. Another combat force drove along the north banks of the Schwammenauel reservoir, backed up by the biggest dam in the system. Schmidt is 13 miles inside Germany.