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VOL. LIV No. 95 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1944A
PRICE FIVE CENTS
Allies Mop Up in
Battle for Cassino
Hundreds of Shells Are Poured into
Abbey Used as Nazi Observation Post
By The Associated Press
WITH TH EFIFTH ARMY AT CASSINO, March 16.-Allied troops,
occupying three-quarters of the pile of rubble that once was Cassino, fought
surviving Germans in the southern part of the town today and otherb,
clawing their way up Monastery Hill, seemed to be nearing their goal-the
Nazi-occupied ruins of its Benedictine abbey.
Late today Allied gunners poured hundreds of shells into the abbey,
some of them high explosives, other smoke shells aimed at cutting off
German observation of Allied activities in the valley before the town.
Late in the day four Allied tanks could be seen on Highway 6 leading
into Cassino and they were taken under heavy mortar fire by German
batteries. Smoke shells were thrown
American Guns
Shoot Down
O'wn Planes
410 Air-Borne Troops
Lost Through Mistake
In Invasion of Sicily
WASHINGTON, March 16.-(IP)-
The loss of 410 American airborne
infantrymen in 23 transport planes
shot down by anti-aircraft fire from
their own ground and naval forces,
plus enemy guns, during the invasion
of Sicily was disclosed today by the
Army after a sergeant told of the
incident which military censorship
had kept secret eight months.
Without explanation of the secrecy
previously imposed, an official mem-
orandum was issued describing the
mistake which occurred as airborne
reinforcements were being flown into
the Gela sector the night of July
10-11, 1943.,
News Slips Out
Sergeant Jack Foisie, a correspon-
dent of the Army's overseas news-
paper Stars and Stripes, made the
first public announcement of the
affair in a speech yesterday to San
Francisco's Commonwealth Club.
Foisie said "some 20 of our planes
went cqown" from Allied anti-aircraft
fire.
Asked about the sergeant's state-
ment at his, press conference today,.
Secretary of War Stimson replied
that incidents of that nature had
occurred during the war, but that he
was unable to give details of the par-
ticular case and "did not recognize
the figures" used by Foisie.
Details Told
Reports of the Sicilian incident
had Been current for several months,
although official confirmation could
not be obtained, and the War De-
partment, after requests were made
for a more definite reply than the
Secretary's, made public several
hours later the details of the action.
The operation was intended, the
Army said, to land 2,500 troops of
the 82nd Airborne Division as rein-
forcements within the Allied lines in
the Gela area.
Circumstances Blamed
"This force, consisting of 170 air-
craft, received anti-aircraft fire from
enemy ground forces and from
friendly naval and - ground forces
with losses of 23 aircraft and 410
personnel," the memorandum said.
"The' combination of circumstan-
ces involving the approach immedi-
ately in the rear of a hostile bombing
attack at night at a relatively low
altitude were the responsible factors
in the loss of the planes."
Union Smoker To
Be Given Sunday
A smoker will be held at 4:30 p.m.
Sunday in Rooms 316, 318 and 320 of
the Union, to which all Michigan
men are invited.
At the meeting various committee
chairmen will explain their work and
the opportunities for tryouts on their
committees.
This is the second time freshmen
have been allowed to participate in
extra-curricular activities. Bob Gau-
kler, orientation advisor, has sent
invitation cards to all freshmen.
Refreshments will be served.
Suspension Hearings
Continue at Ford Plant
DETROIT, March 16.-t)--Sus-
pension hearings continued tonight,
the Ford Motor Company said, against
employes charged with participating
Wednesday in a blockade during a
labor demonstration at the gates of
Ford's River Rouge plant.
Fifty employes already have been
suspended indefinitely.
Gov. Kelly said any assignment
into the valley and a number .of
smoke pots set out in the northern
end, filling the valley with heavy
fog. s it lifted occasionallytanks
could be seen maneuvering on the
road.
The astonishing thing about today's
fighting was the fierceness the Ger-
mans displayed after the smothering
aerial attack of yesterday. The Ger-
mans had been driven from many
of their reinforced dugouts or buried
in them under an avalanche of de-
bris, but they still clung to their po-
sitions at the important cross-roads
in the southern part of the town and
they were entrenched behind a for-
midable line of machine-guns.
Oberserves said they saw large
number of Germans running out of
town after the first two waves of
bombers struck yesterday.
Gustav Favors
Finnish Pea ce
STOCKHOLM, March 16.- (P)-
The Swedish foreign office said in a
communique tonight that King Gus-
tav V had communicated to "proper
Finnish authorities" his view that'
Finland should accept Russia's arm-
istice terms.
(A Moscow dispatch by Associated
Press correspondent Eddy Gilmore
said that Soviets had printed no
news from their own sources since
the initial report of the terms for
negotiation, in which they told the
Finns they expected a quick reply.
The Russian people appeared to be
getting in "an ugly mood towards
the Finns," the dispatch said, and,
are suggesting immediate military
operations.)
A spokesman for the Swedish for-
eign office explained that the com-
munique was prompted by a pub-
lished report that the Swedish mon-
arch had sent a letter to Field
Marshal BarontCarl Gustaf Manner-
heim and other high Finnish figures
advocating acceptance of the terms.
The Dagens Nyheter said it ap-
peared that the king did not write
Mannerheim personally.
Relax Restrictions,
Sen. Truman Asks
DETROIT, March 16.-(A)-Sen-
ator Harry S. Truman (Dem., Mo.),
chairman of the Senate War Inves-
tigating Committee, said in an ad-
dress here tonight that he believed
"the time has come to begin to re-
lax rather than to increase" the
number of war-time restrictive reg-
ulations.
"We now have the capacity," he
said, "to produce some basic com-
modities in quantities greater than
required for dwindling war needs. We
must determine whether and to what
extent these should be utilized to
make additional goods available to
civilians."
U.S. Planes
RAER1a id
American Fliers Meet
Powerful Nazi Defense
Force, Win 6-1 Victory
By The Associated Press
LONDON, March 16.-(A')-Ameri-
can fliers attacking southern Ger-
many in great strength fought one
of the most spectacular aerial bat-
tles of the war today in a smashing
sequel to record RAF night raids on
Stuttgart and other targets by more
than 1,000 heavy bombers which
dropped a staggering 3,360 tons of
bombs.
The Germans threw up a powerful
defense fighter force which for the
first time used swift four-engined
planes and fired rockets in mass, but
the American fighters alone shot
down 76 of the Nazis against a loss
of 13. The German bag of American
bombers was 22.
The American fighters in their
6-to-1 victory were only 7 short of
their all-time one-day record of 83
German fighters downed in attacks
on Berlin earlier this month.
The Brussels radio left the air late
tonight, indicating the RAF might
be carrying the attack into another
night.
Bern said the American targets,
bombed through clouds, were the
aircraft city of Augsburg and the
ancient garrison town of Ulm, which
lie in southern German between
Stuttgart and Munich, a secondary
RAF target in last night's record
raid.
Goal Neared
For Red Cross
Drive Will Continue
For 13 More Days
The City of Ann Arbor is nearing
its $62,500 goal in the current Red
Cross Drive, with 13 days yet re-
maining in the campaign, according
to Charles Henderson, chairman of
the Washtenaw County drive.
Quota for the county as a whole is
$92,500, which $30,500 in excess of
iIVEMOIRE+ last year's goal.
Of the total, the
City of Ann Ar-
bor is to make
up $62,500, of
which the Uni-
versity campus
has been asked to
contribute $5,-
000.
Two women'sj
.n ,4 league houses
yesterday turned
in the first donations for the League's
part of the drive, according to Mar-
jorie Hall, '45, chairman of the coed
campaign. Mrs. Pray's house turned
in $23.72. greatly exceeding its quota,
and Mrs. Tansey's was the other
house reporting, with $9.00. Other
campus cod groups are urged by
Miss Hall to turn in their contribu-
tions as soon as possible, to avoid
confusion toward the March 29 dead-
line.
The latest Red Cross project, re-
ported recently from national head-
quarters at Washington, D.C., is the
distribution of vegetable seeds and
small garden tools among Americans
in German prison camps. Purpose
of this latest type of consignment is
to provide more balanced diets for the
prisoners by correcting inadequacies
in camp food through cultivation of
gardens by the prisoners themselves,
besides providing occupational hob-
bies.
.Reds Seal Of f
Nikolcaev, Big
Black Sea Port
By The Associated Press
LONDON, March 16. -The Red
Army has cut the Odessa-Zhmerinka
trunk railway serving hundreds of
thousands of disaster-ridden Ger-
mans insouthern Russia, sealed off
the big Black Sea port of Bikolaev
on three sides, and wiped out three
encircled German divisions origin-
ally estimated at 45,000 men, Moscow
announced tonight.
Nikolaev's capture was believed to
be imminent.
Vapnyarka, 25 .miles from the
Dniester River frontier of Ruman-
ia's Bessarabean territory, fell on
Wednesday to Marshal Ivan S. Ko-
nev's victorious Second Ukraine Ar-
my, said an order of the day issued
by Premier-Marshal Stalin. Whole
trainloads of equipment were seized
and the Russians pushed on to en-
velop 32 more localities in the drive
toward Rumania, a later communi-
que said.
Two Escape Routes Left
The seizure left the Germans to
the east only two slender rail escape
routes into Rumania, and the Rus-
sians now drawing within artillery
range of pre-war Rumania appar-
ently were seeking to crash into that
country and head off the retreat of
huge German forces falling back in
confusion on Odessa.
Tarnopol, inside old Poland where
the Russians already had cut a sec-
tion of the Odessa-Lwow trunk line
between Tarnopol and Porkurov, was
not mentioned by Moscow.
Vapnyarka Falls
The announcement that Vapny-
arka had fallen Wednesday revealed
that Konev's troops, which had
bridged the middle Bug River on a
60-mile front to crush the last natur-
al Axis defense line in lower Russia,
had rolled up gains of 2 miles or
more on the first day.
JAG Meeting
To End Today
Three Day Conference
Reviews Procedures
Approximately 80 members of the
Judge Advocate General's Depart-
ment, the lawyers of the Army, will
conclude a three-day conference to-
day at which they have reviewed
present procedures, policies and prob-
lems of the department and discussed
future plans.
Col. R. A. Cutter, chief of the
legal branch, Office of Director of
Material, Hg. Army Service Forces,
will discuss "Contract Termination"
before the assembled group of ex-
perts on military law.
Other topics to be discussed are
"Reclassification and Separation" by
Col. Irwin Schindler, Chief of Military
Affairs Division, JAGO, and "Taxes
Affecting War Department Agencies"
by Maj. Thomas G. Carney, Tax
Division, JAGO.
Maj. Gen. Myron C. Cramer, the
Judge Advocate General of the Army,
is chairman of the conference which
is the first of its kind ever to be held
in Ann Arbor.
Americans Invade Manus Island;
Russians Cut Odessa-Zhmerinka
Railway, Destroy 3 Nazi Divisions
TOP: THE GNOME-LE-RHONE Aero-Engine Works at Limoges,
France, producing engines for German aircraft, is shown before a Royal
Air Force fleet of Lancasters showered it with six-ton bombs. Below:
Twenty-one of 48 units are completely destroyed and the rest damaged
in varying degrees .after the raid in which many of Britain's new
12,004-pound super blockbusters were dropped on the night of Feb. 8-9.
Grandson of 'Tiger of France' Urges Chance
For French To Rebuild Country Themselves
<.~
"You in America live in a para-
dise; and you are lucky to live in a
paradise," Pierre Clemenceau, grand-
son of France's great premier during
the first World War and a member
of the French National Committee,
said yesterday, speaking at Hill Aud-
itorium.
French Need Tools
"What the French need most of
all," he continued, "are the tools.
We have to work fort ourselves. We
are not begging. It's just something
to work on that we need. With that
we will rebuild our country." "It is
not at all in my mind just to cry
about France. But I am French and
I am very devoted to my country.
"We from the devastated coun-
tries do not want to inspire in you
the will to fight-you already have
that-or pity-we are too proud.
We would rather inspire in you the
memory of our plight and show
that your effort is worthwhile.
"Nations," he said, "like individ-
uals, can only live if they preserve
their dignity and their self-respect.
A big country like France cannot be
just rubbed away from the may. And
France will live."
In considering the future, Clem-
enceau stressed repeatedly the role
Land Based
Bombers Make
First Truk Rald
By The Associated Press
American amphibious forces in-
vaded Manus Island, largest of the
Admiralty group in the southwest
Pacific, Wednesday, while land-based
Liberators made their first raid on
Truk presaging frequent bombings
of Japan's greatest central Pacific
stronghold..
Infantrymen splashed ashore on
Manus under the cover of a heavy
barrage from warships, planes and
artillery, the latter firing from
nearby islands, Gen. Douglas Mac-
Arthur reported today (Friday). The
invaders suffered only minor losses
as they pushed to within half a mile
of Lorengau airdrome, the only one
in the Admiralty group that Allied
air ofrces aren't already using.
New air successes-over Truk, We-
wak and Rabaul-were reported as
a high ranking naval officer pre-
dicted the American fleet would be
close enough to Tokyo in another
year to blast the reluctant Japanese
Navy out of its harbors.
The Liberators rode in on Truk
under cover of darkness to drop their
bombs just before dawn on Dublon
and Eten Islands. Dublon is a major
supply and ship repair base. Eten is
an air field. They flank the anchor-
age where carrier-borne American
planes surprised Japanese warships
Feb. 16 in a two-day foray that cost
the Japanese 23 ships and 201 air-
planes.
Wednesday's raiders flew from
recently captured air fields in the
western Marshals-either Eniwetok,
750 air miles from Truk, or Kwaja-
lein, about 1,000 miles distant.
The Truk strike was coordinated
with attacks on three other eastern
Caroline islands and two atolls in the
eastern Marshalls. The blow at Truk
is the most advanced action by land-
based central Pacific forces.
"In another year we'll be pretty
close to Tokyo," said Rear Admiral
Frederick C. Sherman, an aircraft
carrier task force commander. "If
the Japs won't come out and fight,
we'll sink them in their harbors with
our carrier-borne planes."
Variety Show
To Be Given
Tomorrow
7 Professional Acts,
10 Piece Orchestra
To Highlight Program
Seven professional vaudeville acts
and a ten-piece orchestra will head-
line the first Victory Varieties show
to be presented by the University at
8:15 p.m. tomorrow in Hill Auditor-
ium.
"Since the doors will be open at
7:15 p.m. and there will be no re-
served seats, students, servicemen
and townspeople who plan to attend
the show will find it advantageous
to buy .their tickets in advance,"
Dean Walter B. Rea said.
Tickets Available
Tickets may be secured at Univer-
sity Hall corridor, the East and West
Quadrangles, the USO, the Union
and League, University Hospital
newsstand, women's dormitories, sor-
orities and various State Street and
downtown stores.
The committee of students and
servicemen who have assisted in dis-
tributing tickets emphasized that
Victory Varieties has been planned
to furnish some first class entertain-
ment in Ann Arbor and that the
show will be repeated if it is a suc-
cess.
Performers Named
Feature attractions include the Six
Brucettes, popular dancing line for
night clubs and hotels, Georgie
Tapps, internationally famous for
his tap routines, the Five Taylor
Kids, acrobatic perfectionists, Bert
Lynn and his vibrolyn guitar, Joy
Adrienne and her pal Hank-a com-
edy novelty act, Lischeron and Ad-
ams, successful ballroom dance team
of the midwest, and the Singing
Commanders.
which America can play. "There is
a big task," he said, "for the young
men who want to go into Europe."
He said they must first be taught
the language of the country and also
the psychology of the populations.
For, he said, "they have lived on
their nerve and they are just wait-
ing to be saved." He urged that the
minimum'utensils be supplied and
that the public utilities be repaired.
The distribution of materials, he
said, must be done by the national
authorities. "If we expect the French
to cooperate, they must have one
representative group and the prom-
ise that they may later choose their
own leaders."
"Tonight," he said, "have a
thought too for our occupied coun-
tries. And tomorrow do your work,
whether it be in a war plant or in
school.
"Back the attack with your
money, your blood and your work.
"But do not stop until it is fin-
ished. You will have to back the
attack until the Axis is at your
feet-and not before.
"And when that day comes, back
the peace with the same will and
stubbornness. But back it."
He said that the underground has
done its work in silence "and we
must keep that silence for the pres-
ent."
"I was not pro-Vichy," he said at
one time during the speech. "A
Clemenceau cannot collaborate."
Introduced by Talamon
Prof. Rene Talamon of the depart-.
ment of Romance, languages intro-
duced Clemenceau. He said we have
been wondering "who will be the
See CLEMENCEAU, Page 6
WSSF 'Dive
T o End TodaVy
Designed for the pur ose of creat-
ing a stockpile of textbooks of be
sent to prisoners of war all over the
world, the local World Studern Serv-
ice Fund campaign will terminate at
5 p.m. today.
Up to date 500 books have been
contributed to the drive which is
200 PAPERS TO BE PRESENTE):
Michiga~n Aca+demy To0 Begin Meetings Todaxy
Featuring a panel discussion on
adult education, a general address
by Henri Seyrig of the New York
bureau of the French Committee of
National Liberation and more than
200 papers on new discoveries and
developments in 17 different fields,
the 49th annual meeting of the
Michigan Academy of Science, Arts
and Letters will meet here today and
tomorrow.
It is expected that more than 300
scholars from all over the state will
come to Ann Arbor to take part in
the two-day program. All section
meetings and addresses will be open
to the public.
Ruthven To Speak
One of the highlights of the con-
ences in Adult Education" to be held
at 12:30 p.m. today at the Congrega-
tional Church. Among the 11 promi-
nent persons scheduled to discuss
this problem are President Alexander
G. Ruthven, Willard Martinson of.
the UAW-CIO, Helen Bryant of the
League of Women Voters and Prof.
Harold Dorr of the political science
department.
In the economics section, control
of the cost of living, evaluation of
price control by OPA and equality of
sacrifice in relation to war policy
will be discussed at 10 a.m. today in
the west conference room of the
Rackham Building. At 3 p.m. today
the section will re-convene to hear
a talk on the "International Eco-
nomic Problems of Transition."
sions in the sociology section at 3
p.m. today in the east lecture room
of the Rackham Building.
The psychology section will feature
a symposium on "The Outlook for
Psychology in the Post-War World"
at 2 p.m. today in Rm. 25 of Angell
Hall and a Michigan Psychological
Association Dinner at 6 p.m. at the
League at which "Adjustment Prob-
lems of Young Adults in Wartime"
will be dischssed.
'U' Development
"Possible Bases for Unicameralism
in Michigan" and the "Labadie Col-
lectign" will be among the subjects
discussed in the history and political
science section which meets at 10
a.m. today in Rm. 302 of the Union.
Other Sections Scheduled
University at their meeting to be
held at 10 a.m. at the League.
Other section meetings scheduled
on the Academy program are anthro-
pology, botany, fine arts, folklore,
forestry, geography, geology and
mineralogy, language and literature,
mathematics, philosophy, sanitary
and medical science and zoology.
The all-academy lecture by Seyrig,
who is recognized as the leading
authority on Syrian antiquities, will
be held at 4:15 p.m. today in the
Rackham Building. He will speak
on "Palmyra and the Ancient Cara-
van Trade."
Prof. Leigh J. Young of the fores-
try department will deliver the pres-
idential address, speaking on "Michi-
gan's Forest Potential" at 8 p.m.
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