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VOL. LIV No. 37-S ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN THURSDAY, AUG. 24, 1944
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French Troops Take Marseilles; Parisians Liberate (
apital
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Grenoble
Is Seized by.
Americans
Sweep 140 Miles
Inland From Sea
By The Associated Press
ROME, Aug. 23 - Marseille,
France's 2nd largest city and greatest
seaport, fell to the swift onslaught of
French infantry and armor today as
American forces swept 140 miles in-
land from the Mediterranean, cap-
turing Grenoble, to within less
than 240 miles of a junction with
Gen. Eisenhower's legions below lib-
erated Paris.
Only eight days after the land-
ings in southern France the inspired
Poilus battered their way into the
heart of Marseille against slight Nazi
resistance and tonight were cleaning
out pockets of last-ditch defenders.
Easily Captured
The unexpectedly easy capture of
the great port insures the Seventh
Army of Maj. Gen. Alexander M.
Patch an adequate flow of supplies
and reinforcements for speedy con-
tinuation of their thrust toward
northern France. Prior to the city's
fall, other French troops had cut the
last escape route for the German gar-
rison along the coast to the west.
The encircled and doomed Nazi
force in Toulon, big naval base 27
miles east of Marseille, still was hold-
ing out tonight, but French troops
had fought their way within a few
hundred yards of the docks and the
city's fall was expected any hour.
Bisection Threateled
Matching the French victory in its
spectacular quality was the dash of
American forces into the big indu-
strial city of Grenoble-a reckless
drive that threatened to bisect France
and trap every German soldier in the
southern and western parts of the
country.
.As the swift American column of
a'rmor, self-propelled gus and
s motorized infantry plunged almost
unopposed through the French Alps
it appeared that the two Allied fronts
would be joined much sooner than
was originally thought possible-
perhaps in a matter of days. Nazi
resistance to the Allied Seventh Ar-
my's smashing drive was officially
described as "weak and disorganiz-
ed." More than 17,000 prisoners had
been taken.
Advance 80 Miles
In their dramatic dash to Greno-
ble, an important communications
center of about 100,000 population,
Yank tanks and doughboys advanced
at least 80 miles beyond their last
' reported position. Tonight they were
less than 70 miles from the Swiss
border near Geneva and virtually
had severed communications between
German forces in France and. Italy.
Allied Headquarters credited
French patriot forces with "playing
an effective support role" in the ac-
tual capture of Grenoble, long a hot-
bed of opposition to the Nazis. The
city was the first one of importance
to open its gates to Napoleon upon
his triumphal return from exile on
Elba 129 years ago.
54 Londoners
Killed When
Plane Crashes
LONDON, Aug. 23-()-Fifty-four
persons, including 35 children all
under five, were killed today when a
flaming American bomber plunged
into a church school infants' depart-
ment in the quiet Lancashire village
of Freckleton.
Eight American soldiers were
among those' killed, including three
members of the plane's crew. Nor-
mally ten men comprise the crew.
The death toll was expected to reach
75 in Britain's worst accident of the
kind.
The U. S. Strategic Air Force an-
nounced that the bomber, a Liber-
-Associated Press Photo
CLOSING THE FALAISE GAP-Allied infantry and armor move up a
dusty road toward Falaise, forming part of the force which trapped
German Seventh Army units in France. Smoke from burning German
equipment rises in the gackground.
150 MILES FROM BORDER:
Americans Make New Gains
Southeast of French Capital
By The Associated Press
SHAEF, Aug. 24, Thursday-Am-
erican armor hammered out fresh
gains south and southeast of Paris
todaywhile to the northwest of the
capital-now fully in control of
French patriots - Americans and
Canadians clamped a tightening
stranglehold on remnants of the;
German army still below the River
Seine.
Allied fighters and fighter bomberts
harried the Germans' frantic efforts
to withdraw across the river by any
possible means.
The latestnadvance south of Paris
saw armored reconnaissance units
drive more than 15 miles east of Sens
while others passed through Corbeil
and Melun, and still others gained
Yanks, French
N ear Bordeaux
On New Front
By The Associated Press
IRUN, SPAIN, Aug. 23-American
and French forces, reinforcedg by
troops landed last night from the
sea, were reported by French author-
ities at Hendaye to be pushing stead-
ily, toward Bordeaux from both sides
tonight.
Frontline messages said Americans
had reached Libourne, on the Dor-
dogne River 15 miles northeast of
the great Atlantic port of Bordeaux,
which is the last center of German
resistance in southwestern France.
French military authorities at
Hendaye, French border town, said
800 French commandos were among
Allied forces that landed last night
south of Arcachon, below Bordeaux.
They said the French landed from
a French destroyer. Exact size and
composition of the force were not
known here but border reports said
it was mostly American.
The French at Hendaye said aerial
reconnaissance indicated the Ger-
mans had given up previous attempts
to organize an armored column and
fight their way northward to the
Reich, and now appeared to be pre-
paring to make some sort of stand at
Bordeaux.
positions between Orleans and Sens.
Chief prize in the drive on the
lower reaches of the Seine was Ev-
reux, which the Americans freed,
while a parallel Yank advance near-
ed Conches farther west. Resistance
everywhere was light except where
the Germans slowed the Canadian
advance in the 45-by-30 mile pocket
by blocking further bridgeheads a-
cross the Toques River.
(A Belgian communique said Bel-
gian troops fighting beside the Allies
had advanced 12 miles along the
channel coast, overcoming stiff resis-
tance as they fanned out above
Deauville, but inflicting heavy losses
on the Germans.)
"The main battle for France is
already over," declared Associated
Press Correspondent Harold Boyle,
who watched U.S. tanks drive 15
miles east of Sens to within 150 miles
of the German border with no sign
that the Germans were rallying for
a stand.
Truckloads of prisoners streamed
back in the wake of the American
advance, but there was not a single
smoldering enemy vehicle to indicate
the enemy had put up a determined
fight, said his dispatch, datelined
"en route to Berlin."
Supreme Headquarters withheld
from the world the progress of Amer-
ican forces charging forward from
Sens, 65 miles southeast of Paris,
and those forging north across the
Seine in an effort to pin the battered
Seventh and 15th German armies
against the sea.
But the speed with which these
spearheads have been moving, and
with the power of German arms
sapped by the Normandy beatings, it
was difficult to see how an enemy
stand could be organized short of the
Siegfried Line along Germany's wes-
tern and southern frontiers.
Headquarters also had no com-
ment on the deliverance of Paris,
which Lt.-Gen. Joseph Pierre Koen-
ig, commander of French forces of
the interior, proclaimed four years
and 74 days from the hour that
Adolf Hitler's legions marched under
the Arc de Triomphe.
Presumably American forces which
drove through Rambouillet and Et-
ampes, 27. and 30 miles respectively
southwest of Paris, were engaging
German forces fighting with their
backs to a city now in hostile hands.
Capture of Pithiviers, 48 miles south
of Paris, also was confirmed.
Paris Won
From Foe
By People
City is Occupied by
Armored Division
By The Associated Press
PARIS, Aug. 23-(By Radio via
London)-The second French armor-
ed division entered Paris today after
the Parisians arose as one man to
beat down the motley, terrified Ger-
man troops who had garrisoned the
city.
It was the people of Paris who
really won back their city It all hap-
pened with fantastic suddenness.
Americans Will Follow
The American army was occupied
with the drive through Evreaux to
the mouth of the Seine, after which
it was planned to invest Paris.
Then yesterday, a Frenchman
burst into Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley's
headquarters. He was the Chief of
the Forces of the Interior in Paris
and he had a staggering, incredible
story to tell.
He said he'd concluded an armis-
tice with the German forces in Paris.
The people of Paris had risen, and so
hounded the Germans that the Ger-
man commander requested an ar-
mistice. He wanted to withdraw
troops from the road blocks west and
south of Paris where they had been
facing the Americans and pass them
through the city.
Armistice Expires
The armistice was to expire at noon
today.
This news caused a sensation in
Bradley's headquarters because al-
though he had known that rioting
had been going on in Paris since Sat-
urday, we had not known things had
gone so far that obviously the French
had given the Germans a terrific
beating.
The whole operation was geared
to the complete encirclement of the
Germans west of the Seine, but Gen.
Bradley decided we must go into
Paris. It was short notice, for the
troops had to be ready to enter at
noon today. Bradley ordered the
Second French Armored Division out
of the line and told it to start mov-
ing east toward Paris.
(Note: The Second Armored Divi-
sion is part of Brig. Gen. Le Clerc's
French forces attached to the Ameri-
can Third Army. The Third Army
is part of the Twelfth Army group
headed by Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley.)
Certain American forces were sent
the same way. On a moment's notice
the whole machinery was set in mo-
tion to occupy the world's third lar-
gest city.
Blood Bank
Registration Is
Now Lagging
More 'than two-thirds of the Uni-
versity's largest blood bank quota,
450, remains to be filled before the
end of the registration period Satur-
day.
The campus has been assigned
Washtenaw County's entire quota for
the September Blood Bank drive.
The RONAG's and the Veterans'
Organization have arranged to give
REGISTRATION FOR
BLOOD BANK
Booth on Center of Diagonal
Today and tomorrow, 9 a.m. to
noon, 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Saturday,
9 a.m. to noon.
Director's Office in the League
Today and tomorrow, 10 a.m. to
noon, 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday,
10 a.m. to noon.
Student Offices in the Union
Today and tomorrow, 3 p.m. to
5 p.m.
Servicemen in the Army and
Navy will register at noon today
in the East and West Quadrangles.
,nn no a r- mn arnmi nra-ni A_
I
Vaslui Is
Taken by
Russians
Reds Topple Three
Bessarabian Forts
By The Associated Press
LONDON, Aug. 24, Thursday-The
two - fisted Soviet offensive that
knocked Romania out of the war
roared through its fourth day yester-
day, capturing Vaslui, 140 miles
northeast of the Ploesti oil center,
and toppling the three big Bessarab-
ian bastions of Tighina, Cetatea-
Alba and Paris on the west bank of
the Dniester, and more than 400
other towns.
Disregarding developments on the
political front, at least for the pres-
ent, the Second and Third Ukrain-
ian Armies deepened to as much as
60 miles the holes they have ripped
in the German-Romanian defenses
and advanced within 167 miles of the
capital city of Bucharest.
Nazis Still Remain
Romania still was garrisoned with
thousands of German troops, and the
Russians were likely to continue their
lightning campaign to drive the
Nazis entirely out of the country,
regardless of what Romanian troops
chose to do.
While this campaign was bearing
its first great fruits in Romanian
surrender, the First Ukrainian Army
of Marshal Ivan S. Konev in south-
ern, Poland lashed out westward and
seized the city of Debica, a large
aircraft industry center and com-
munications point 64 miles east of
Krakow and 19 miles east of Tarnow,
next probable objective of the offen-
sive.
Take 70 Towns
Konev's drive swept up more than
70 towns between Debica and Rzes-
zow to the east.
The flowering new offensive north-
east of Warsaw advanced the Rus-
sians to within eight miles of he
formidable Nazi fortress of Lomza,
20 miles below the East Prussian bor-
der, and freed another 80 towns, the
Russians announced.
The Germans counterattacked
from the Warsaw suburb of Praga,
on the left flank of the Russian
operations, but the Soviet communi-
que said they were driven off with
sharp losses.
The swift advance of the Second
Army supported the Russian state-
ment that with the capture of Iasi
Tuesday they had broken through
the most serious defensive system to
be found before Bucharest.
Iasi Is Intact
The Iasi defense zone included
three series of pillboxes and trenches
with communicating tunnels and
wide barbed wire and mine belts, yet
Malinovsky's men lifted the mines
and broke through the German fire
curtain so quickly that Iasi itself was
reported to be generally intact.
Contrary to German claims that
they had been able to perform ex-
tensive demolitions, Russian accounts
said the neat stone city was in good
shape and that the enemy pulled out
so fast he left behind many wounded
and 147 freight carloads of ammu-
nition and food.
The magnitude of the German-
Romanian disaster was typified by
the numbers of enemy wounded that
Red Army men found abandoned in
fields and ditches as the Soviet offen-
sive rolled steadily southward, nearer
to Bucharest and Ploesti.
Battle Germans
Eden Says Britain Conferred
With Soviet on Armistice Terts
By The Associated Press
LONDON, Thursday, Aug. 24-Romania announced last night that
she was switching from the Axis to the Allied side in the war and a subse-
quent Soviet communique reported that shooting had broken out between
retreating Romanian and Nazi soldiers on the eastern front.
Acceptance of armistice terms offered by the Soviet Union, Great
Britain and the United States was announced in a proclamation broad-
cast from Bucharest.
The early morning Russian communique, recorded by the Soviet mon-
itor from a Moscow broadcast, told of clashes on Romanian soil between
the Romanians, ordered by King Mihai to cease hostilities against the Red
army, and the Germans.
I
Fires Started
On Davao After
Bombing ,Raid
Yank Planes Sink
Ship near Mindanao
By The Associated Press
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS,
Southwest Pacific, Aug. 24, Thurs-
day - Bombers from the South
west Pacific started large fires in a
raid upon Davao in the Philippines,
headquarters announced today.
Navy Liberators patrolling the wa-
ters of the southern Philippines sank
a small freighter northeast of Min-
danao Tuesday.
Although Davao has been bombed
before, this was the first time that
pilots reported starting large fires
there.
Freighter Destroyed
Other planes destroyed or dam-
aged a small freighter near Celebes
Island, west of New Guinea, and
blasted Ceram Island in the Moluccas
with 39 tons of bombs Monday.
Southwest Pacific bombers also
raided Palau in the Carolines Mon-
day, and left a Japanese destroyer
tender dead in the water.
Air Resistance Ceases
Japanese air resistance over Hal-
mahera has ceased. Airfields and
dromes not destroyed by the enemy
to prevent their use later by Allied
forces apparently have been bombed
into uselessness. Destruction of park-
ed planes is reported frequently, in-
dicating the enemy cannot get them
into the air.
Supply dumps, bivouac areas, per-
sonnel and defense positions are be-
ing leveled by the sustained cam-
paign to knock out the island, last
major barrier to a southern invasion
of the Philippines.
Heaviest blow of the campaign fell
Monday on enemy defenses around
Wasile and Kaoe Bays. Heavy med-
ium bombers scathed the area with
135 tons of bombs. Explosions and
fires in supply dumps and probable
destruction of eight parked planes
were reported.
Japs Checked in Attempt
To Outflank Hengyang
CHUNGKING, Aug. 23.-( P)-Two
Japanese columns attempting to out-
flank Chinese positions northwest of
the enemy-held Canton-Hankow rail
junction of Hengyang have been
halted, and to the south a battle was
in progress with another Japanese
columns pushing eastward from the
suburbs of captured Leiyang to pre-
pare the way for a drive down the
railway, the Chinese High Command
announced tonight.
Romanian prisoners were quoted as
saying that the Germans were firing
on the Romanians and blocking their
withdrawal.
Large Number Killed
"A large number of Romanian of-
ficers and men have thus been killed,"
said the communique, "in armed
clashes between the retreating Ro-
manian detachments and German
frontier detachments in several
places."
A proclamation by young King
Mihai, read over the Bucharest ra-
dio, said all hostilities against the
Red Army as well as Romania's state
of war with Britain and America
would cease "from this moment."
Russian armies were stabbing into
Romania to within 167 miles of Bu-
charest and threatening the Ploesti
oil fields as the announcement went
on the air.
Romania Will Fight
Romania, the King said, will fhdht
"at the side of the Allied army and
with their help."
There was no immediate official
confirmation of the royal proclama-
tion, by any of the three Allied na-
tions, but London showed no incli-
nation to doubt the broadcat-the
first crack in Hitler's Balkan struc-
ture.
On Aug. 2 Churchill told the House
of Commons, "Russia has offered
generous terms to Romania and I
have no doubt that they would be
accepted with gratitude by the Ro-
manian people if only the Romanian
leaders had not a Prussian auto-
matic pistol pressed closely against
their breast or at the nape of their
neck."
Britain Concurred
That same day Foreign Secretary
Eden said Britain had concurred in
the terms before they were offered.
The King's proclamation indicated
the terms offered Romania were to
help in routing the German forces
from inside her borders and recov-
ery of Transylvania from Hungary.
which was given the province by Hit-
ler in the Vienna award of August,
1940.
"The United Nations have recog-
nized the injustice of the dictate~ of
Vienna, under which Transylvania
was torn from us," the King said.
"At the side of the Allied army and
with their help we will cross the fron-
tiers unjustly imposed upon us at
Vienna."
U.S. Files Suit
Against Group
Of Railroads
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22-(P)-In
one of the largest anti-trust suits in
history, the Justice Department to-
day charged a group of railroads,
trade associations,' investment houses
and rail executives with conspiracy
to restrain and monopolize trade in
the transportation of freight and
passengers in the west.
Defendants named in the suit, filed
in Lincoln, Nebr., include the Asso-
ciation of American Railroads, the
Western Association of Railway Ex-
ecutives; J. P. Morgan and Company
and Kuhn, Loeb and Company; New
York investment houses; 47 railroads
and several score of individuals as-
Mihai's
Troops
Hull, Dulles Make 'Considerable
Progress 'in Foreign Policy Talks
Union Calls for Consolidation
Of Labor for 'Unified Front'
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23.- (P)-
John Foster Dulles, foreign affairs
advisor to Republican presidential
nominee Thomas E. Dewey, talked
peace plans for two and one-half
hours with Secretary of State Hull
foreign policy as far as possible from
the political campaign overshadowed
for the moment the work of the
Dumbarton Oaks conferees.
The delegates broke off their dis-
cussions of the form a world security
organization should take in order to
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GRAND RAPIDS, Aug. 23.-(IP)-
Merger of the American Federation
of Labor and the CIO for a "unified
labor front" was called for today by
the International Typographical Un-
in (ATP). a+ its 7th annuna on-
most critical period and will make
demands on labor which will require
"its strongest efforts to withstand."
Following two and one half hours
of stormy debate late Wednesday,
delegates voted by roll call that
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