April 21, 1945: Allies Enter Berlin:

PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS. SATURDAY. APRIL 21, 1945.

Third Army Smashing

Toward Czech Cities

Of Pilsen, Prague

PARIS, April 21 (INS).—A German radio report that American and Soviet troops- have effected a junction In the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia was heard in Paris today. There was no immediate confirmation at headquarters.

By James M. Long

PARIS, April 2 I (AP)

U. S. Third Army troops, smashing into Czechoslovakia, captured Asch today in a drive toward the munitions cities of Pilsen and Prague. At the same time Moscow dispatches declared Soviet and American outriders were but 25 miles apart south of Berlin.

The latest word at supreme headquarters put the two main forces within 40 to 45 miles of a linkup.

Allies Drive On Munich

Three Allied armies—the French First and the U. S. Seventh and Third—hammered southward toward the Nazis' Bavarian-Austrian redoubt, and fought within 70 miles of Munich and 30 from Lake Constance.

Asch, just inside the old Czech border, fell to Third Army units fighting to cut off the redoubt from Czechoslovak war factories.

Asch is 60 miles from Pilsen.  Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's troops farther south in Grafenworh were 58 miles from Pilsen and 125 from Prague.

Red Army front dispatches said Russian and U. S. patrols were as close as 25 miles south of Berlin, and a junction on the Elbe 75 miles south of the German capital was believed imminent. It was clear that the two forces now could meet almost at will, perhaps within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Doomed City Is

Outflanked In

Southern Push

Soviet Artillery Begins Pumping Shells Into

Heart Of Capital, Gloomy Nazi Broadcast*

Say; Final Breakthrough Is Imminent

By Robert Miuel

LONDON. April 21 (UP).—The German high command

acknowledged today that Russian siege armies were storming

Berlin and that a Red Army lightning thrust of more than 50

miles had outflanked the doomed capital completely on the ring

south.

Gloomy Nazi broadcasts said converging Soviet armies had!

clamped a blazing siege arc against the eastern, southeastern

and northeastern suburbs of Berlin, and that Red Army'artillery

had begun pumping shells into Potsdamer Platz in the  heart of the city.

 Only Two Miles To Go'

The London Evening Standard said today under a bannerline

"Only Two Miles To Go" that the American radio had reported Russian troops only two miles from the Berlin boundary at the ring motor road around the city.

A German communique reported that a Soviet column had raced up the Spree valley, bypassed Berlin on the south, and reached the area ot Jueterbog, 20 miles southwest of the city and 40 miles from the U. S. Ninth Army's bridgehead across

the Elbe.

Bologna Seized By Americans, British

Allies In Italy Are Continuing Advances

By Herbert King

 ROME, April 21 (UP).—

American and British troops today captured Bologna, big Italian gateway city to the German-controlled Po plain, as troops of the American Fifth and British Eighth Armies smashed into the great Italian stronghold from three sides.

The city's capture will enable the Allies to use their great superiority in armored forces in the –battle for northern Italy.

Main Highway Cut

Doughboys of the Fifth Army already were astride the Nazi main escape northwest of Bologna and hundreds of Allied tanks and armored cars spilled out into the flat floor of the Po valley for the crash northward...