April 12, 1945:First Army in Saxon/Leipzig:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, APRIL 12, 1945:

RACINE, W.S., THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 12, 1945.

Nazis Moving

Panzers From

East, Report

PARIS. — (AP) —

American Ninth Army tanks crossed the Elbe river today and debouched onto the flat, unbroken plain leading 57 miles toward Berlin and 115 miles from Russian siege lines.

A front dispatch said Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson's men could reach the Brandenburg gate in Berlin by tomorrow night or Saturday, provided the- Germans switched no tank forces from t h e east. One. report, however, said the Germans; indeed were shifting their battered Sixth panzer division from

The eastern front.

The First army approached Leipzig in Saxony over the old battlefields of  Fredrick the Great.

One unconfirmed report placed American tanks near Halle, i5 miles from Leipzig. Planes destroyed or disabled 120 German tanks near Halle.

Big Cities Topple.

Cities fell like tenpins: Weimar,. Heilbronn, Essen, Coburg, Nordhausen,

Schweinfurt, Halberstadt, Emmen, Baden Baden, Rastatt Neustadt and—by German acount—Bochum.

Big Battle Reported

Raging Beyond Oder

LONDON— (UP) —

Moscow r e ported today that violent fighting had blazed up in the red army's

Oder river bridgeheads on the approaches to Berlin, as American mobile forces raced toward the nazi capital from the west.

"Soviet troops a r e waging fierce battles beyond the Oder on the approaches to Berlin," a Moscow broadcast said.

The report indicated that Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov had lighted the fuse of his long brewing push against Berlin, synchronizing it with U. S: Ninth, army drive to

squeeze the heart of nazidom in a nutcracker .

Zhukov's reported onslaught hit t h e German defenses in the Oder valley about 30 miles due east of Berlin. There he had massed in his bridgehead across the Oder a

great array of soviet troops and arms. Only yesterday formidable forces of Cossack cavalry were r e ported on the move, evidently into positions to spearhead a lightning sweep westward.

Push Toward Berchtesgaden.

The soviet high command never officially reported t h e Oder crossing in front of Berlin. But Berlin and Moscow reports have made it evident that Zhukov has won a springboard beyond the river for the climactic assault, now apparently beginning.

U.S. Casualties

Reach 2,695 in

Okinawa Battle

GUAM.—(AP)—

Southern Okinawa's grim, no-quarter artillery battle went into its eighth day today

as t h e n a v y announced American casualties of 2,695 for t h e first nine days of the campaign. The Yanks Were killing 11 Japanese for every American.

Japanese in the bitterly contested  southern sector hurled four determined

And well prepared counte r - attacks against Maj. Gen. John

B. Hodge's 24th corps doughboys yesterday after firing 4,000 rounds

of mortar and artillery fire.

The Japanese were calling for supporting mortar fire even though some of it was falling into their own lines. Artillery shells and small arms fire poured into the

American positions in increasing amounts along the " little Siegfried

line " about four miles north of Nana, the capital.

"No Substantial Changes."

Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz again reported "no substantial changes in the lines in the southern secto.