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VOL. LV, No. 104 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 1945
PRICE FIVE CENTS
'End-the-
ar Offensive
oves Deep into Ruhr
Allied Forces Push Ahead
k *k
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TRUCKS CROSS RHINE ON PONTOON BRIDGE-Heavy supply trucks cross the Rhine River on a
pontoon bridge erected by U. S. Army Engineers. The War Department does not reveal where this bridge
is located. Censorship also has toned down background of picture.
STALIN CALLS HIS SHOT:
RedsRoll OWthin 40 MilesfAustria
By The Associated Press
LONDON, March 25, Sunday -
Russian tanks and infantry, smash-
ing within 40 miles of Austria and
81 miles southeast of Vienna, have
surged 43 miles across western Hun-
gary along a 62-mile front in a great
new. offensive timed with the Allied
assault in the west, Premier Stalin
disclosed last night.
Moscow said 76,000 Germans had
been killed or captured recently in
Hungary.
The massive break-through in
Hungary, thrusting to southern
Germany's "mountain redoubt,"
where the Nazis are-expected to
make their last-ditch stand, came
as Berlin reported a savage, sway-
ing battle raging in the Nazi capi-
tal's outer defenses 31 miles east
of the city.
The Vienna-bound offensive ex-
ploded as the enemy said the Red
Army had built up a 17-mile long,
six-mile deep bridgehead across the
Oder River before Berlin and had
hurled new powerful forces into the
assault.
At the same time, Moscow an-
nounced that Soviet forces in up-
per Silesia had captured the indus-
trial cities of Neisse and Loeb-
schuetz and were probing the Sude-
ten mountain defenses leading
from Silesia to Brno, Prague, and
Hitler's Czechoslovak arsenal.
Far to the north, the battle for the
twin isolated Baltic ports of Danzig
and Gdynia was drawing to a close
French Movie
'Grand Iallusion'
To Be Shown
Designed to bring films of artistic
value to the campus and to pro-
mote interest in these films, the Art
Cinema League will present "Grandl
Illusion" starring Jean Gabin and
Eric von Stroheim at 8:30 p. m.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at
Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre.
Tickets for this second Art Cinema
League presentation since its reor-
ganization at the beginning of the
semester may be purchased at the
Lydia Mendelssohn box office starting
Wednesday.
Proclaimed "best film of the year"
by the National Board of Review,
"Grand Illusion" ran six months on
Broadway. The film is a French
production with English subtitles.
CAMPUS EVENTS
Today Kathleen Rinck presents
an all-Beethoven piano
recital in School of Music
faculty series at 8:30 p. m.
in Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre.
March 27 Assembly Red Cross
Night at 7:30 p. m. in
Rackham Amphitheatre.
March 27 Study group to discuss
"Workshop on Anti-Sem-
itism: Its Causes and
as Russian forces ground to within
three miles of Danzig and less than
two miles from Gdynia.
In Hungary, Marshal Feodor I.
Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Army
captured the great rail city of Vesz-
prem and swept up more than 350
other towns and villages, Marshal
Stalin announced.
Routing the Germans, Tolbu-
khin's troops killed 70,000 and cap-
tured more than 6,000, Moscow
said. Soviet communiques during
the last three days have announc-
ed the capture or annihilation of
Wolverines Win
econd Purdue
elays Crown
Special to The Daily
LAFAYETTE, Ind., March 24. -
Scoring heavily in the distance relay
events and displaying traditional
team balance, Michigan's track team
successfully defended its title in
the University division of the Purdue
Relays here last night.
The Wolverines, although they fell
far below last year's record 49-point
total, almost doubled Illinois, their
nearest competitor, as they scored
36V2 points to 20 for the Illini.
Miami' 'U' Repeats
Miami University also pulled off
a repeat performance in the College
division by rolling up a new record
43-point total in that division. West-
ern Michigan placed second to Miami
with 25.
Records fell with reckless abandon
as the select field of cinder stars
from all over the nation showed top
form. Competition was unusually
keen in all events.
As expected, Michigan piled up its
winning margin in the four relays,
placing first in the two-mile and dis-
tance medley, and second in the mile
and sprint medley. Individual per-
formers picked up points in the 60-
yard low hurdles and the pole vault.
Relay ream Wins
The two-mile quartet got the Wol-
verines off on the right foot, breezing
home in 7:52. Chuck Birdsall, Archie
Parsons, George Vetter. and Dick
Barnard formed the winning team.
In the distance medley, Bob Thom-
ason got Michigan off in front with
a fast quarter mile. He was followed
by Dick Forrestal, Ross Hume, and
Bob Hume, running a half mile,
three-quarter, and mile respectively.
See WOLVERINE, Page 3
Beethoven Program
To Be Given Tonight
Kathleen Rinck, teaching assist-
ant in the School of Music, will pres-
ent the third program in a series of
faculty piano recitals at 8:30 p. m.
today in the Lydia Mendelssohn The-
atre.
Opening her all-Beethoven recital
with the "Sonata, Op. 2, No. 3" in
for movenn+e Miss Riner wil a
121,000 enemy troops. Some 745
German tanks and 800 guns were
destroyed in the Hungarian drive.
The Russians recaptured the great
rail center of Szekesferhvar, 32 miles
southwest of Budapest, then rolled
forward as much as 27 miles beyond
their December positions.
They seized Bakonyszentlaszio,
40 miles from the Austrian frontier
and 81 miles southeast of the Aus-
trial capital, and thus moved to
within 22 miles southeast of Gyor,
the greatest communication center
in western Hungary and one of
the outer defense fortresses of
Vienna.
Ten miles east of Veszprem and 18
miles southwest of Szekesferhvar,
the Russians reached the north shore
of Lake Balaton at Balaton Kenese.
There were indications a sizeable
enemy force that had driven east
toward the Danube south of Buda-
pest had been trapped and wiped out
there.
The battle before Berlin-which
Moscow has not yet announced and
which the Nazis called a bloody
preliminary to an impending all-
out Russian frontal assault on the
capital-was "now raging to a cli-
max," the Nazi DNB agency said.
The Nazis said that Marshal Greg-
ory K. Zhukov's First White Rus-
sian Army troops had been at least,
temporarily held at Golzow, six miles
west of captured Oder fortress of
Kuestrin.
Manpower Bill
Gives Byrnes
New Anthority
WASHINGTON, Mar. 24-(AP)-A
compromise manlpower bill giving
War Mobilizer James F. Byrnes auth-
ority to regulate employment, with
fines and jail sentences backing up
his edicts, was approved by a Senate-
House conference committee today.
Eliminated was a House provision
vesting local draft boards with power
to order workers from job to job, on
pain of being drafted, fined or sent
to jail.
Chairman Thomas (D.-Utah) of
the Senate conferees announced th'e
vote of agreement on the comprom-
ise was substantial but not unani-
mous.
Yank Panes
Hit HUge Jap
Aircraft Plant
225 B-29s Bomb
Nippon Homeland
By The Associated Press
21ST U.S. BOMBER COMMAND
HEADQUARTERS, Guam, March 25
-One of Japan's biggest aircraft
engine plants on the outskirts of
Nagoya was the target of the greatest
Superfortress demolition raid against
the Nippon homeland an hour after
midnight this morning.
A force of B29's estimated to total
at least 225 swept in over the sprawl-
ing Mitsubishi plant at unprecedent-
ly low level for a high explosive raid,
it was learned unofficially at head-
quarters here.
Weather Was 'Stinko'
The weather according to pre-raid,
reports was "stinko," possibly pre-
venting visual bombing even from
the low level of 6,000 feet.
It was the fifth attack against the
great plane engine plant which is
located there March 12 and March
19.
The raid was the third on Nagoya's
big aircraft production center by
large fleets of Superforts since March
12, when two square miles in the
heart of the city were destroyed by
incendiary bombs.
Nagoya Smashed
In another pre-dawn attack March
19, 350 Superfortresses destroyed
more of Nagoya with a record 2,500-
ton incendiary bomb shower.
The new raid was the fifth by
great fleets of Marianas-based Super-
fortresses since March 10 on Japan's
industrial cities. Other cities hit
were Tokyo, Osaja and Kobe.
Prior to these raids, the B-29s had
carried on a series of attacks in
smaller force. Today's was the first
great demolition, attack.
Aircraft Plant Objective
Smaller attacks were made on Na-
goya, starting Dec. 13 of last year.
The city's aircraft plants were raided
seven times in this type of attack.
The Kokuki factory of the Mitsu-
bishi company was hard hit in a
Dec, 18 raid. Bombs knocked the
plant at least 40 per cent out of
commission in that raid, headquar-
ters here said.
* * *
Navy Discloses
Four-Day Air
Attack on Japan
U. S. PACIFIC FLEET HEAD-
QUARTERS, Guam, Sunday, Mar.
25-(P)-Vice Adm. Marc A. Mit-
scher's carrier task force extended
its attacks, begun March 18 on south-
ern Japan, through four straight
days, the Navy disclosed today. Then
it sent carrier raids Friday and Sat-
urday against the Ryukyu Islands
despite bad weather.
The communique said a heavy toll
of Japanese planes was taken dur-
ing raids on southern Japan March
20 and 21 which took the Kyushu,
Shikoku and Honshu Islands.
During the attacks, a destroyer of
the task force was seriously damaged
and a heavier warship suffered some
damage.
Adm. Chester M. Nimitz, who pre-
viously had disclosed that 17 enemy
warships were crippled and more
than 700 enemy planes destroyed or
damaged in the raid on southern
Japan, said the March 21 action was
so intense that in one phase alone
50 enemy aircraft were downed at a
cost of three American fighters.
'Mightiest' Air
Attack Rocks
German Capital
Bombers Hit Berlin
From Base in Italy
By The Associated Press
LONDON, March 25, Sunday-Mos-
quitoes lashed Berlin last night for
the 33rd consecutive night, continu-
ing unchecked the mightiest aerial
offensive in history, which yesterday
saw 11,000 planes join the assault
across the Rhine in support of troops
charging toward the heart of the
Reich.
The huge airmada, which con-
verged on the Rhine crossing area
from England and continent-based
airdromes, laid a protective wall of
fire in front of the Allied trcops.
Defense Thrown into Turmoil
'With Nazi defenses thrown into
turmoil by this tremendous attack
from the west, American heavy bom-
bers from Italy leaped the Alps and
smashed a tank factory in Berlin in
a 1,600-mile round trip, the longest
escorted mission ever flown over Eur-
ope.
From dawn to dusk one great pro-
cession of bombers and fighters swept
across the channel to be joined over
the continent by thousands of other
warplanes streaming up from ad-
vanced bases in Belgium, Germany,
Holland and France.
Each phase of the mammoth oper-
ation was run off with split-second
timing, with as many as five layers
of planes roaring toward their objec-
tives at the same time or criss-cross-
ing at different altitudes.
Airborne Troops
Sixty seconds after a group of
transports towing gliders filled with
combat troops passed over one Bel-
gian city there came the roar of 200
swift American fighters diving into
the fray. A. total of 1,500 transports
and gliders showered fighting men
into the seething battle east of the
Rhine. A force of 240 Liberators
dropped 600 tons of supplies to the
airborne troops.
In the crucial hours before day-
break 1,900 American bombers and
fighters beat un a dozen Nazi air-
fields around the battle zone and
made searing attacks on German
positions near the Rhine. Late in the
day another 450 Flying Fortresses
and Liberators smashed four enemy
night fighter bases in Germany and
Holland. And on Friday night RAF
Lancasters smashed the German gar-
rison in Wesel, paving the way for
British commando assaults.
Germans Face
Death or Defeat
WASHINGTON, March 24-(P)-
Germany's choice now is between un-
conditional surrender and pulveriza-
tion, and if they choose pulverization,
they will have only themselves to
blame for following vicious leader-
ship, a government official said to-
night.
This point in Allied policy toward
Germany was outlined in a radio
broadcast by assistant Secretary of
State James C. Dunn, Robert Mur-
phy, political adviser to General
Eisenhower, and assistant secretary
Archibald MacLeish.
"This time," said Murphy, "The
Germans will not be able to claim
that they were duped into laying
down their arms. They are now wit-
nessing the thing they understand
best-superior force of arms."
Other points of Allied policy
towards Germany the speakers out-
lined were:
(See ALLIED, Page 5)
March Fun Fest Is
Scheduled at Hillel
rrhp Mnrn 'E'rin "Wc' npr. on rori
crossing two to four miles south of
Wesel. It likewise ground out a
solid 12-mile wide bridgehead, and
was but four miles northwest of
Duisburg, Europe's greatest inland
port.
Airborne troops and naval forces
were thrown into the greatest opera-
tion since D-Day. The First Air-
borne Army plummeted possibly 40,-
000 troops down five miles beyond
the Rhine north of the Ruhr's gate-
way city of Wesel and joined with
the British Second Army within six
hours. The air train was at least 500
miles long.
More than 10,000 Allied planes
ruled inner Germany's skies, fer-
rying parachute troops, scattering
the ground defenders with bombs,
bullets and rockets, or heaping
fresh destruction on already bat-
tered enemy communication lines
to the flaming front.
Eisenhower had committed possib-
ly1,250,000 men to the Battle of the
West with this latest offensive, and
to the : South Lt. Gen. George S.
Patton, Jr., crossed the Rhine per-
sonally to direct the Third Army's
See eye-witness account on Page
Two.
offensive into Middle Germany, now
powered by tanks.
The Rhine had been bridged 'by
pontoons both in the Ruhr and the
Third Army's middle Rhine crossings
and the big and final push was on to
knock Germany quickly from the war.
Alarmed German broadcasts said
that more Allied troops of the air
were descending tonight over a broad
front north of the Ruhr, whose loss
will rob the enemy of power to resist.
German forces, stunned by the
terrible drum fire of 1,100 guns
massed on the Rhine's west bank,
'began surrendering by the hundreds
as the first waves plunged out on
the east bank from naval landing
craft like those used on Normandy's
beaches.
Smashing into open country 290
miles from Berlin the troops of Field
Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery
were told by the 21st Army Group
commander that "the enemy is driv-
en into a corner."
"It will be interesting to see how
much longer the enemy can stand
it; the complete and decisive defeat
of the Germans is certain," declared
Montgomery.
The long-rested British Second Ar-
my, out of action since last Septem-
ber, opened the attack by crossing
on the north flank at 8 p. m. last
night. An hour later waves began
moving across on the south flank.
The Third, exploiting to the hilt its
surprise crossing between Worms and
Mainz, bridged the river with pon-
toons and poured tanks across onto
the mid-German plain-natural ave-
nue to Berlin, 262 miles in front off
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton's north
wing.
SKY ARMADA:
Rhine Observer
Tells of Mighty
Air Offensive
By ALEX H. SINGLETON
Associated Press Correspondent
ABOARD A GLIDER TUG EAST
OF THE RHINE, March 24.-I saw
history's mightiest air armada-of-
ficially 500 miles long-soar trium-
phantly across the placid Rhine to-
day, and deposit thousands of battle-
toughened American and British air-
borne troops in the thick of an en-
emy defense zone plastered in ad-
vance by an unprecedented artillery
and bomb barrage.
The size of the airborne army was
not announced-although some said
it ranged up to 40,000 men.
Paratroopers Descend by Thousands
But. from a bird's-eye view in the
co-pilot's seat of a sturdy RAF Stir-
ling transport, I saw thousands of
American paratroopers spill into the
air and descend to the smoke-shrou-
ded battlefield within sight of the
Rhine.
Simultaneously, gliders carrying
British troops cut loose from tugs
and swooped gracefully to the shell-
pocked ground. Sharp fire bursts
around gliders showed the troops
almost immediately wheeled into ac-
tion.
Flak Brings Down Tug and Glider
For a few breathless minutes, it
was an aerial traffic jam made dou-
bly hazardous by bursts of flak which
brought down at least one transport
tug and one glider.
Swirling, darting, and curving in a
dance of the sky to the tune of en-
gines of 1,500 transports, overtoned
by those of hundreds of fighters, the
air armada poured out at least 16,000
to 18,000 men in one area. alone.
victory Near,'
Churchill Says
LONDON, March 24--(P)-Prime
Minister Churchill, at Field Marshal
Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's head-
quarters, told troops of the 21st
Army group today that the "decisive
victory in Europe will be near" once
the Rhine River line is pierced and
the crust of German resistance brok-
en.
A similar message of confidence in
speedy victory was issued by Mont-
gomery while Gen. Eisenhower warn-
ed German officers, soldiers and civil-
ians that the Allies would hold them
to strictest account and punish them'
according to their deserts if they be-
came involved in the execution of
Allied airborne troops.
On Front 25 Miles
Wide
British Second Army, Canadians Secure New Bridgehead
Between Rees and Wesel for Plunge Into Munitions Center
By The Associated Press
PARIS, Sunday, March 25-Four Allied armies ripped Germany's Rhine
River line in a historic crossing yesterday, invaded the flaming Ruhr' afid
north German plain on a solid front of more than 25 miles, and plowed
four to five miles inland in the long-awaited end-the-waroffensive.
In the most massive operation since D-Day, the British Second Army
and elements of the Canadian First Army gouged out a 12-mile wide
bridgehead stretching from Rees to Wesel, northwestern gateway to the
vital Ruhr's huge munitions cities.
The U. S. Ninth Army, with Gen. Eisenhower looking on, plunged
four miles east into the Ruhr itself with a crossing two to four miles
east into the Ruhr itself with a C' * *
MARTHA COOK MUSICAL:
Variety Program To Be Given
Today for U' Foreign Students
$79,000 WORTH OF MERCY:
Ann Arbor Exceeds Its Quota
In Red Cross War Fund Drive
A musical variety program will be
presented by Martha Cook dormitory
for the International Center at 7:30
p. m. today in Rm. 320, the Union.
The program, under the direction
of Bethine Clark, social chairman of
Martha Cook, is sponsored annually
by Mrs. Leona Diekema, director, as
a nart of the norintation of fnrign
Betty Godwin will give interpretive
readings of two numbers by Ogden
Nash, "Spring Song" and "Waiting
for the Birdie." "West Wind" by
Masefield will be given by Dorothy
Servis, and music by Debussy will be
played by Lou Dell, pianist. The tunes
of Duke Ellington will be furnished
Ann Arbor went over the top in it.
Red Cross War Fund Drive yesterday
with a total of $79,129.15, exceeding
the quota of $79,100, set by county
officials.
This increases the total for Wash-
tenaw County to $142,481.16. The
county quota of $134,300 was reached
last Wednesday, and returns ax still
coIning in from outlying commumi-
ties.
U~nivnemityChnrt of Ona.
groups, $5,359.21; public employees,
$1,865.75; bank booths, $1,56138;
group contributions, $1,767.25; and a
credit from the area office in St.
Louis of $10.00.
Drive To Continue Through March
The Red Cross War Fund Drive
will continue until the end of March.
The campus drive, under the com-
bined direction of the Union and
Traft urillmm zfritra fn r--aa h fh