May 4, 1945; GERMANS QUIT:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, MAY 5, 1945:

Salt Lake City, Utah, Friday Morning, May 4, 1945

Hamburg Taken;

Kiel Open City

North Sector Completely Collapses

As Nazis Stage Own Dunkerque

In Mass Attempt to Reach Norway

Exclusive; N. Y. Times-Salt Lake Tribune

By Drew Middleton

PARIS, May 3—This is the hour of victory, complete and overwhelming.

The German front in the north has collapsed completely. American and French troops are mopping up the national redoubt while Gen. George S. Patton's iron-clad cavalry dashes toward Linz and eventual junction with the red army, isolating

western Czechoslovakia, last of the nazi bastions.

Thursday British, American and Russian divisions ended the war in north Germany east of the Elbe, smashing remnants of two German armies and capturing huge numbers of prisoners— estimates vary from 150,000 to 500,000—and the great port of Hamburg, second city of the reich.

British Contact Russians in Area of Wismar Troops of the Sixth British air-borne division of the Second army made contact with Russian tanks in the area of Wismar early Thursday, thus creating a great pocket northwest of Berlin

between the capital and the Elbe river.

The once orderly provinces of northwest Germany have dissolved into chaos, and remnants of the disintegrating German army are fleeing north into Denmark, whipped on by shells from pursuing British tanks and scourged by swarms of British fighter-bombers.

New Reich

Fuehrer

Flees Allies

Russians Search

For Body of

Hitler in Ruins

Copyright by New York Times

STOCKHOLM, May 3— Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz' government has moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. It has been learned from a reliable source that Dr. Werner Best, nazi governor of Denmark, has left the capital to negotiate

capitulation with Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery at Aabenraa, inside the Danish frontier, which British forces have taken. Fighting has

broken out in the Aarhus region between the SS and the wehrmacht.

LONDON, May 3

Germany's new fuehrer, Grand Adm. Doenitz, was reported to have fled to the naval base of Kiel Thursday as British forces swept through capitulated Hamburg, 50 miles to the south, and victorious Russian troops searched for Hitler's body in the ruins of Berlin.

Chaos Reigns

So swift was the disintegration of German resistance and so chaotic the general

situation inside the reich that it appeared Thursday night there might be no necessity to negotiate a formal surrender.

S. F. Parley Chisels Out

Rough Draft of Pact

SAN FRANCISCO, May 3 (UP)—United nations architects chiseled out the rough outline of their proposed world security charter Thursday night in reportedly harmonious concert accompanied by some signs that the big three may yet solve their Polish headache. The conference big four had already achieved agreement on joint sponsorship of an unknown number of amendments to the  Dumbarton Oaks outline, including several American proposals Secy, of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Foreign Secy. An thony Eden, Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov and Foreign Secy T. V. Soong were engaged in a careful examination of all proposed changes with the prospect that considerable slate would be presented to the conference with the mutual sponsorship of all four powers.

American Amendments

The chief agenda of the big four was the American list of 16 proposed amendments. These were being redrafted in some instances to fit the ideas of the other three powers. Some were understood to have been accepted as written.

Stettinius conferred late Thursday with Foreign Minister Georges Bidault of France. It was the first private conference between Stettinius and Bidault since the

conference opened.

May 3, 1945; PEACE MISSIONS PREVAIL:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, MAY 3, 1945:

Lowell Mass. Thursday May 3 1945

Reported in Germany as

Hamburg Falls to British

Some Sources Report Capitulation

May Be Announced by Nightfall

LONDON, May 3. (UP) — ;

Negotiations for the capitulation of Germany were believed in some quarters to be under way today.

There was widespread speculation in London that Prime Minister Churchill may

have gone to Germany on a mission to negotiate for the:

end of the war in Europe.

The speculation embraced the possibility that Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower might be engaged in a similar task, together with British and Russian military and political leaders.

British Troops

Batter Way

Into Rangoon

Imperials Enter

Burmese Capital

Asia HQ Reveals

COLOMBO, Ceylon, May 3

British troops have entered the Burmese capital o£ Rangoon, special communique from Allied southeast Asia command headquarters

announced today.. Headquarters disclosed yesterday that British forces had been landed on both banks of the Rangoon river after the way had been prepared by an airborne operation.

Other British forces driving down on Rangoon -overland from the north last were reported within 35 miles of the city. A regular southeast Asia command

communique reported British 14th army troops had entered the town of Prome, 178 miles north-northwest of Rangoon and had advanced as far as the railway

station within the city.

The town of Pegu, northeast of Rangoon, and Pyawbxve, west of the Irrawaddy river and 19 miles southwest of Minbu, have been captured.

Eastern air command aircraft yesterday attacked Japanese targets along the Rangoon river, ahead of the seaborne landings. Heavy bombers hit gun positions

beside the river and fighterbombers and fighters bombed and strafed beach positions, bunkers, trenches, gun pits and anti-aircraft defenses.

109,163 US

Casualties in Italy

WASHINGTON, May 3 (IP)

—The conquest of Italy from the time of the Allied landing in September, 1943, until April 28 cost the American Fifth army 109,163 casualties.

Secretary of War Stimson, reporting this today, said the total included 21,577 killed, 77.248 wounded and 10,338 missing.

At the same time, Stimson disclosed that army casualties in all theaters since the beginning of the war have reached 848,089 on the basis of names compiled here through April 21. With navy losses of 102,383, this pushed the losses for both

services since Pearl Harbor to 950,472—an increase of 21,099 since last week's report.

PEACE BULLETINS

NEW YORK, May 3. (INS)—A correspondent from General Bradley's headquarters "reports that Admiral Doenitz assumed leadership with the express purpose of surrendering the remaining German armies," said ABSEE radio in a propaganda broadcast to Europe recorded at the CBS short wave listening station.

WASHINGTON, May 3. (AP)—Secretary of War Stimson subscribed today to President Truman's belief that Adolf Hitler is dead. Said Stimson: "It is apparent that the war against Germany has not long to run.

WITH BRITISH FORCE IN GERMANY, May S. (UP) —The British Second army took an estimated 500,000 German prisoners in the last 24 hours. Many German generals approached the British to surrender their forces.

LONDON, May 3. (INS)—The London Evening Standard reported today that fleeing Nazi soldiers have told their British captors that they believe a general surrender of the German army has taken, place.

Ronald Monson, correspondent of the Standard with the British Second army in the Wismar sector where the Britons linked up with the Reds, emphasized that the reports could not be confirmed officially

May 2, 1945; SURRENDER IN ITALY:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, MAY 2, 1945:

HUNTINGDON,  PA WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1945.

EISENHOWER SAYS

FUEHRER'S DEATH

DUE TO APOPLEXY

London, May 2, •— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said today there was some evidence that Adolf Hitler had died of a brain hemorrhage instead of a hero's death in battle as the Nazis claimed.

The statement by Eisenhower was the first from any Allied official to shed light on the mystery of Hitler's reported death. .

Eisenhower said the enemy claim that Hitler died fighting the Russians in Berlin was "in contradiction

of facts" given by Heinrich Himmler at a conference with Count Folke Bernadotte

of Sweden at Luebeck eight days ago.

Himmler and a General Schillenbrug, who accompanied him to the conference, said Hitler had a brain hemorrhage and might not live 48 hours, Eisenhower said in a statement issued through supreme headquarters in France.

Even though this version of Hitler's death was based on Nazi information, it had the merit of coming to Eisenhower through Bsrnadotte, a neutral. Observers

were inclined to put more credence in the Himmler version than in the melodramatic account broadcast by the Hamburg- radio yesterday.

U.S. FORCES SMASH

JAP DEFENSE LINE

IN OKINAWA PUSH

By FRANK TREMAINE

United Press Correspondent

Guam, May 2.—American armored forces pushed through strong Japanese defenders on southern Okinawa today to within a. mile and & half of Naha,

capital of the island.

The drive southward along the west coast by the 27th Division paced a general advance of American troops on a five-mile front across the island.

On the east coast, Seventh Division troops pushed to the northern end of strategic Yonabaru airfield and other elements of the same division stormed into Kuhazu village on a hill overlooking the coastal side of the airfield.

May 1, 1945;SOVIETS IN HEART OF BERLIN:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, MAY 1, 1945:

ABILENE, TEXAS, ABILENE, TEXAS, TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1945

Hope Held for Fall

Of City by Tonight

LONDON, Tuesday, May 1—(AP)—Red army troops, storming the blazing administrative heart of Berlin, captured the gutted shell of the German reichstag yesterday, running up the Russian "victory" flag over the Nazi monument in a sweep that threatened to split the last defenders of the Nazi capital.

The fall of all Berlin appeared imminent. The Russians stepped up their overwhelming struggle for the city to unprecedented proportions in a possible bid to win the entire city today while Moscow celebrated May day.

Soviet troops were -within a mile of tearing the capital into two isolated pockets each less than nine square miles. They had won the ministry of interior near the reichstag, were laying siege to Hitler's underground fortress in. the Tiergarten,

were at Berlin's triumphal arch, the Brandenburg gate, and were across the Spree river from Berlin's cathedral.

German broadcasts admitted the 10-day battle for the divested capital was as good as lost.

'London Says Peace Plans Move Swiftly

Himmler In

New Huddle

LONDON, April 30—(AP)—The free Danish press service in Stockholm said that Heinrich Himmler conferred in Den mark this morning with Count Folke Bernadotte, the neutral Swedish emissary by whom he sent his offer to surrender Germany to Britain and the United States last week.

In London British cabinet ministers held a long meeting today, then some of them met with Prime Minister Churchill late tonight, studying the latest reports on the situation.'

 A full cabinet meeting is scheduled for early Tuesday, before the House of Commons meets, at which time likely will be decided whether Churchill might make a statement in the Commons during, the afternoon.

The British press association stated that "there is no longer any doubt that armistice moves are in progress and moving swiftly." The Himmler-Bernadotte meeting, said to have taken place at Aabenraa just north of the German-Dan-

_____________________________________

STOCKHOLM, Tuesday, May

1.—(/AP)—The newspaper Dragens Nyheter said today Count Folke

Barnadotte, Swedish emissary who reportedly has been acting as a go-between for peace between the Allies and Germany, had forwarded the German, answer to capitulation demands to an Allied legation In Stockholm yesterday.

____________________________________________

ish border, was believed to be the second conference of the two men in two days.

Since it had been officially disclosed that lost week's surrender offer by Himmler reached the western Allies through Bernadotte, reports of a new contact gave rise to speculation that a new phase in German surrender attempts had opened.

The first offer was refused because was not addressed to Russia as well as to Britain and the United States.

There was no indication whether Himmler was now ready to yield to all three powers.

Doughboys Take

Machinato Field

Two Miles of Naha

By The Associated Press

Plunging southward in 'the wake of terrific naval gun, artillery and plane bombard-

ments, American doughboys on. bloody Okinawa island  have captured the important Machinato airfield on the west coast, Fleet Adm.-Chester W Nimitz reported late Monday The field is less than two miles from Naha, island capital.

This major Yank victory in one of the bloodiest battles' of the Pacific war was scored Sunday, Okinawa time, while other American forces were fighting their way over hilly ground in the center of the flaming battle line.