Sunday, December 23, 2012

December 23, 1944; Nazi Offensive Halted:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, DECEMBER 23, 1944:




LAWRENCE, KANSAS, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22,1944
NAZIS SLOW UP AFTER 40-MILE DRIVE
Eisenhower Calls on Troops
to Deliver Crushing
Defeat
MANY ROVING GROUPS
In a Confused Situation
Further German Moves
Are Possible Paris, Dec. 22. (AP)—
The Germans' winter offensive slowed down today after a 40-mile penetration into Belgium, field dispatches reported, and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called upon all his armies to administer a crushing defeat.

The German high command said several spearheads crossed the Ourthe river, which at one point in its meandering course is seven miles west of Werbomont, the deepest previously announced point of the enemy's dagger-like wedge. At this point the river is about 30 miles from the Meuse at Namur and about 16 miles south of Liege, also on the Meuse.
 "Last Great Gamble"
The Ourthe is about 40 miles inside Belgium.
[The Germans also told of heavy fighting on both their flanks. They name the localities of Butgenbach and Lagleize, four miles northwest of Stavelot, as focal points on the north. Consdorf, southwest of Echternachv and Waldbilling, three miles northwest of Consdorf, were listed as centers of attack on the
south.] . .

Eisenhower declared Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt had made a last great gamble in coming out of his fixed defenses and called upon every man under his command to turn the opportunity into the enemy's "worst defeat."
The offensive "will completely fail," he declared. . .
Supreme headquarters still imposed a -48-hour delay on announcements of the actual positions.
The next announcement from headquarters, was not to come until after 5 p. m., Eastern War time, and it was scheduled to cover developments only up to Wednesday night

Russian Soldiers
In New Operation
Powerful Red Troops Battle
to Seal Off Budapest From West
TWO CENTERS SEIZED
Soviet Shock Troops Are Wedging Into Southern Slovakia
Bulletin
London, Dec. 22.( UP)—^
The Berlin radio said today the Russians, in a attack in the long-dormant northern sector, had hurled 27 divisions' against the Germans on a 22-mile front south of the Latvian town of Saldus (Fraudenburgh) about 60 miles southwest of Riga and approximately the same distance from the Baltic coast.
Moscow, Dec. 22. (UP)
Russian shock troops wedged deeper into southern Slovakia today while new operations by two powerful Russian army groups threatened to seal off beleaguered Budapest from the west.
Units of Marshal Rodion Y. Malinovsky's Second Ukraine army drove to within 14 miles east of the big Slovak rail cityiof Losonc (Lucenec), seizing 30 OB more localities,including the (important communications center of Rimaszombat, on the Kassa-Losonc highway.

American Planes from New Base
Range Over Philippine Islands
General MacArthnr's Headquarters, Philippines, Dee. 22. (UP)—

Tank pincers have snapped shut on the hapless Japanese on northwest Leyte
and pocketed Nipponese troops are being destroyed while American
planes range over the Philippines from a new base on Mindoro, less than
150 miles south of Manila, headquarters reported today.

Climaxing a laborious fight north and south along the Ormoc corridor  road, the 10th and 24th army corps fought to a juncture near the point where a supplementary road forks west to the enemy escape port of  Palompon.
Scattered Japanese units are trying frantically to slip thru gaps from the east and get to Palompon.
Today's communique reported that an additional 2,032 enemy dead have been counted in the closing stages of the Leyte campaign.
On Mindoro, which  has -the advantage of being on the western side of the Philippines where torrential rains do not fall as they have on Leyte, the air base completed there in five days already is demonstrating its importance.
The communique told of Mindoro- based planes downing 11; of 29 enemy raiders Wednesday at a cost of one plane.

SUPERFORTS BOMB
INDUSTRIAL BASES

Targets on Honshu and in
Manchuria Are Sky
Raid Targets

FORCE FROM SAIPAN

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