WAR AT GLANCE
March 19, 1945
WESTERN FRONT:
Third and Seventh army
drives threaten 80,000 Germans in Saarland with double entrapment;
Americans e x p a n d Rhine bridgehead, where collapsed Ludendorff
span is termed repairable;
Germans reported withdrawing from
Dutch sector north of Nijmcgen.
EASTERN
FRONT:
Soviets push westward on Baltic
coast after fall of Kolberg; tighten pressure to seize Stettin and Oder's mouth
to set up spring drive on Berlin.
PACIFIC
FRONT:
Japan bombed Sunday and today by
hundreds of carrier planes and 350 Superfortresses, with airplane and steel plants
at Nagoya and on Kyushu main targets; Americans advance on Luzon; planes hit
Japanese positions around Bagnio.
ITALIAN FRONT:
Limited to patrol raids.
ST. JOSEPH, MICH., MONDAY, MARCH
19, 1945.
VIEWS
HANGING
FILMS
TO PEP
SELF FOR END
Fuehrer
Left Mentally Unbalanced
By July
Bombing
Louis
P. Lochner has obtained a remarkable account of last July's attempt on Hitler's
life directly from one of the participants. Lochner, who was chief of the former
Associated Press bureau in Berlin, is again in Germany hoping- to return soon
to the Nazi capital)
BY
LOUIS P. LOCHNER
Copyright,
1945, by Associated Press
BONN, Germany, March 19 (AP)
—A man who is a fugitive from
German authority because he was implicated in the July 20 bombing attempt on
Hitler's life has told me that the fuehrer, fully aware that the war is lost,
now peps himself up from time to time watching movies
showing the purging of generals
and, nobles who died tor their part in the past.
My informant, who gave a complete
story of the bomb plot, is a man I have known for years and, whose integrity
and veracity I have a firm belief.
This man, because he has been hunted,
has not seen his home since July and has changed sleeping quarters constantly
to avoid detection.
He desires even now, when under
allied rule, to have his name withheld because he has numerous relatives beyond
the Rhine.
Here is his story:
Fate Fails Plot The bomb attempt
failed because Hitler did not receive his officers
in a concrete bunker July 20, but
in a wooden shed to show Mussolini and high Italians he was not afraid of air
raids. The Italians were scheduled' to attend a ceremony incorporating remnants
of the fascist army into the Wehrmacht.
The bomb's effectiveness had. been
calculated on the assumption that the explosion would occur in a much smaller
room than where Hitler at this time sat. The bunker,
with concrete walls, was to
heighten, the impact of the blast.
Secondly, it failed because at
the moment of the explosion. Hitler stepped to a cupboard to look for a magnifying
glass. The bomb had. been placed under his chair.
Hitler
Badly Hurt
Even so, Hitler was badly hurt. His
hearing apparently has been, impaired permanently. His right arm was injured,
but nursed back to health by Professor Gohrband, noted Berlin physician. He
also suffered some burns.
U.
S. 3RD, 7TH
ARMIES
BATTLE
TO
CLOSE TRAP
Disorganized
Nazi Columns
Ripped
to Shreds by
U. S.
Warplanes
PARIS, March 19 (AP)—
An estimated 80,000 Germans ran
for the Rhine today in desperate daylight
retreat under p e r f e c t
strafing weather which turned the northern half of the Bavarian Palatinate into
a slaughter ground and the rich
Saarland into a death trap.
Swift tank and infantry columns
of the Third and Seventh Armies surged within 15 miles of each other between St.
Wendel and the Zweibruecken areas of the Saarland and within 42 miles of a
junction farther west in the Palatinate.
Tanks shot within 14 miles of Mainz
on the bend of the Rhine.
THis was the last debacle west of
the Rhine and the German First and Seventh armies were losing terrific numbers
of men and machines in their rout.
Threaten
5 Great Cfties
Lt. George S. Patton's Third Army
threatened the great Rhine valley cities
of Mainz, Frankfurt on the
Main,
Weisbaden, Ludwigshafen and Mannheim.
His assault troops crashed into St.
Wendel, closing all but the eastern
end of a death box 25 miles long and
15 miles wide along the whole Saar line.
JAPS REELING
AFTER RECORD
TWO-DAY RA!D
Superforts
Batter Nagoya
Anew,
Carrier Planes
Blast
Kyushu
GUAM, March 19 (AP)—Hundreds of
carrier planes and probably 350 Superforts—flying an cstimanted 300-plus
sorties — bombed
Japan with more than 5000 tons of
incendiaries and high explosives
Sunday and Monday. The giant
B-29's, paying a predawn return visit to Nagoya to finish up the destruction
started just one week ago, loosed 2,500 or more tons of incendiaries on Japan's
sixth largest city and principal airplane manufacturing center.
WAR AT GLANCE
March 19, 1945
WESTERN FRONT:
Third and Seventh army
drives threaten 80,000 Germans in Saarland with double entrapment;
Americans e x p a n d Rhine bridgehead, where collapsed Ludendorff
span is termed repairable;
Germans reported withdrawing from
Dutch sector north of Nijmcgen.
EASTERN
FRONT:
Soviets push westward on Baltic
coast after fall of Kolberg; tighten pressure to seize Stettin and Oder's mouth
to set up spring drive on Berlin.
PACIFIC
FRONT:
Japan bombed Sunday and today by
hundreds of carrier planes and 350 Superfortresses, with airplane and steel plants
at Nagoya and on Kyushu main targets; Americans advance on Luzon; planes hit
Japanese positions around Bagnio.
ITALIAN FRONT:
Limited to patrol raids.
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