March 4, 1945; Bridges Blown Up Over Rhine:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, MARCH 4, 1945:

RACINE, WIS., SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1945

Elements of Two Allied Armies

Join to Form Solid River Front

PARIS. — (U.P) —

The Germans blew up the three great Rhine bridges at Dusseldorf Saturday in a desperate bid to block a crossing by three Allied armies storming up to the  river on a 75 - mile front.

A fourth Rhine bridge at Uerdingen, linking Krefeld with the Ruhr arsenal city of Duisburg, also was reported to have been wrecked in what appeared to be the last act of the battle for the Rhineland.

The nazis were writing off their entire front west of the Rhine, except for a beleaguered pocket around Cologne.

Elements of the American Ninth and Canadian First armies clinched the victory in the Rhine-Maas corridor north of Krefeld with a juncture in t h e village of Berendonk that closed a solid wall of Allied troops and armor against the Rhine.

Fall of 2 Forts

Clears Russian

Path to Baltic

LONDON.—(U.P)—

Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky's red army Saturday captured the Pomeranian strongholds of Pollnow and Rummselburg in a drive which the Germans said had carried with in four miles of the Baltic.

Moscow broadcast an order of the day by Marshal Stalin announcing the capture of Pollnow, 23 miles from the Baltic and 20 miles southeast of Koeslin: and Rummelsburg, 37 miles from the Baltic and 24 miles northeast of

Neustettin. Clears Way to Baltic.

The fall of the two strong points cleared the way for Rokossovsky's White Russian army to push on to the Baltic and cut off the German troops to the

northeast. Nazi broadcasts said he already had cut the Baltic coastal railway and highway, the last land line of escape for the Germans in northeastern Pomerania and Danzig Free State.

Hospital Ship

Brings First

Woman to Iwo

Editor's Note: The following dispatch was written by the first woman to land on

bomb and shell scarred Iwo Jima and one of the first women war correspondents permitted in a Pacific combat zone:

By BARBARA FINCH

Distributed by United Press.

MOTOYAMA AIRFIELD NO. 1,

IWO JIMA—(U.P.)—

I was aboard the first hospital supply transport plane landing here Saturday

morning, the first American woman to step ashore on this pitted, black-sanded isle where thousands of gallant marines have fought and died to gain an essential foothold in Japan's "front yard .

Our's was strictly a mercy ship—carrying doctors, corpsmen, medical supplies and 2,000 pounds of mail—flying to the leathernecks who have been fighting our battle

for the past 11 days.

Get Warm Reception.

We also carried tents and shovels to set up a temporary clearing

hospital for wounded later to be evacuated by plane.

Our reception could not have been warmer from the Japanese entrenched on high ground beyond Motoyama airfield No. 1, although my first glimpse of Iwo was idyllic — a pastel-colored Japanese print dominated by the conventional volcano.

Then Nipponese’s manning deadly mortars got our range and lite rally shot us into the airstrip.

fortunately their aim was bad and our pilot, Cmdr. Clarence A. Keller, U. S., Wichita, Kans., commander of an air evacuation squadron, is one of the best. We

sat down smoothly on t h e strip and started to unload our cargo.

The major "cargo" aboard the "Peg-O-My Heart” were two doctors: Lt. Cmdr. John B. MacGregor, USN., Afton, Va., and Capt. B. S. Baker, USA, Camden, N. J.

Barred from Air Trip.

MacGregor, senior flight surgeon of a naval evacuation unit, will stay in Iwo to screen the wounded, selecting wounded marines who can make an air trip to Saipan' or G u am hospitals. Baker, an army flight surgeon, also will remain in Iwo.