Current Events January 11, 1944;

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY JANUARY 11, 1944:

Unconfirmed reports that Marshal Von Manstein has been fired by Hitler as a result of the German collapse in the Ukraine circulated in Stockholm yesterday as two Russian armies pouring west and southwest toward Poland and Rumania reached the Nazi railway center of Sarny, 35 miles inside Poland, outflanked the Ukraine rail junction of Vinnitsa and tightened a giant pincers inside the Dnieper bend.

 Heavy damage to German shipyards and aircraft plants during the American bomber assault across France and the northwestern Reich last Wednesday was shown yesterday in reconnaissance photographs.

 American forces are hammering now at the outer of three circular defense lines which Japanese military authorities are building around their empire and Japan proper

                   New York, N.Y.—Belfast, Northern Ireland. Tuesday, Jan. 11, 1944.


2 Soviet Armies
Peril Nazis
In BendUnconfirmed reports that Marshal Von Manstein has been fired by Hitler as a result of the German collapse in the Ukraine circulated in Stockholm yesterday as two Russian armies pouring west and southwest toward Poland and Rumania reached the Nazi railway center of Sarny, 35 miles inside Poland, outflanked the Ukraine rail junction of Vinnitsa and tightened a giant pincers inside the Dnieper bend.
The Stockholm Aftontidningen, quoting private informants, said that Von Manstein was seen in civilian clothes in Vienna January 2, bearing out rumors that he had been relieved as Ukraine commander after a dispute with the Fuehrer.
American newsmen'in the Swedish capital, relaying the reports to London, said confirmation of the report
was impossible and cautioned that it should be treated with reserve. Aftontidningen said Marshal Von Rundstedt. hitherto in command of the invasion coast, was rumored as Von Manstein's successor.
Moscow, meanwhile, described the battle as developing into a "massacre" and even Berlin permitted foreign
correspondents to describe the situation as chaotic.
Junction of Armies Near
Smyela, from which good railways lead south to Odessa and west to the Odessa-Lwow line at Mogilev Podolski, became the focal point of the fighting in the Dnieper Bend as the Russians First Ukranian Army moved south from the Belaya Tserkov area to a junction with the second Ukrainian Army driving westward
from Kirovograd.


Heavy Damage
To Kiel Bared
By Photographs
Week's Assaults By U.S.
Planes Strews Ruin On
Important Targets
Heavy damage to German shipyards and aircraft plants during the American bomber assault across France and the northwestern Reich last Wednesday was shown yesterday in reconnaissance photographs.
The photos, studied in conjunction with scores of reports from neutral sources in the first few hours after last week's three big attacks, supported indications that Kiel, prime German port and shipbuilding center, has
been heavily battered by a. bomb tonnage beginning to approach the 10,000 ton figure which put Hamburg
out of commission as a port last summer
U-Boat Yards Hit 
Fires started by incendiaries coupled with the blast of heavy Bombs left "carpets of devastation across the submarine yards and industrial areas of Kiel, according to an official report. Full assessment of the damage was impossible as PRU planes flew over Kiel because large fires were still burning it was reported.
The main railway line, the station and the Germania Werft U-boat yards took direct hits and later were swept by fires, the photos showed. Other fires blazed through parts of the buat-up industrial area back from the docks.


Whatls the JapaneseDefensePlan?
 They Believe Visions
    Of Heavy Losses
     Will Deter U.S. 
Russell Brines, who spent ten years in
the Pacific war area and recently returned
from Japanese internment, cells in the
following story what he has learned of
Japanese military plans for meeting the
coming Allied assault. 
 
                This map shows the three defense lines believed prepared for the protection of
                Japanese Empire: ( 1 ) The solid black line, the outer barrier ( 2 ) Dotted line, the central
                                           fortress ( 3 ) Broken line, the home defense.
                
By Russell Brines
Associated Press Staff Writer NEW YORK, Jan. 11—
American forces are hammering now at the outer of three circular defense lines which Japanese military authorities are building around their empire and Japan proper.
This is the picture presented in the Orient through the sometimes revealing remarks of censored newspapers and statements by Japanese officials. Informed Japanese expect their troops to fight viciously on the New Guinea-New Britain line, the vital southwesterly arc of the outer defense circle. This circular line swings through the outermost edges of the empire.
Behind it are the approaches to valuable raw material areas in the Netherlands East Indies and Malaya, on the west, and to Mindanao in the Philippines one of Japan's key points in the southern defense zone.
If the New Guinea-New Britain line.falls, however, the Japanese do not expect a direct Allied thrust against the East Indies, although bombing raids are anticipated. A direct assault would precipitate heavy loss of life, not only among the opposing armies but among natives in the thickly populated islands. The
Japanese believe the United Nations an anxious to avoid the inevitable native reaction such a campaign would cause, preferring to limit assault warfare to more thinly populated areas.
                             
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