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ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1944
PRICE FIVE CENTS
------ ----
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,100
Bombers
Raid
German
Oil
Plants
- a
U.S. Troops
In Cherbourg
Surge Ahead
La Haye Du Puits
Appears Doomed
By the Associated Press
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, AL-
LIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE,
July 8. -- U. S. troops surged for-
ward along a flaming 33-mile battle-
front today in a drive to crush the
whole German line based along the
marshes at the base of the Cher-
bourg Peninsula, and the outflanked
enemy anchors of La Haye Du Puits
and St. Jean De Daye seemed
doomed.
Spectacular American Drive
The most spectacular American
drive was a new one southeast of
Carentan, where doughboys struck
under one of the heaviest artillery
barrages of the campaign, forced the
Vire River so swiftly the dazed Ger-
mans did not even blow up the main
bridge, and thrust spearheads north
and south of St. Jean in a three-mile
advance which all but isolated that
enemy road junction.
Engineers Make Foot Bridge
Supreme Headquarters in a brief
communique, No. 64, reported the
drive southwest along the Carentan-
Periers road, which threatens to by-
pass the marshes in the center of the
American front, had made some
progress.
Swift-moving infantry seized dom-
inating high ground west of St. Jean
and other doughboys moving down
from the northeast late in the after-
noon bridged the canal linking the
Vire and Taute Rivers which form a
natural barrier on the northern ap-
proaches to the town.
Fight in Ruins of La Haye
This pincers movement was made
possible by engineers who throw a
foot bridge across the canal in 20
minutes.
La Haye was in even sorer straits,
and it appeared that the enemy soon
must fall back to Lessay, four and
one-half miles south, or let the
Americans spring the trap which was
a scant two miles from closing south
of the city.
There the Americans were in pos-
session of the wooded heights of1
Mont Castre, two miles east of La
Haye, unhinging all German hold-
ings in the sector and leaving thes
Americans in a position tostrike for
the dry soil of the plains below,
toward Lessay, less than five miles
away.
As doughboys fought back into the1
ruins of La Haye, the Germans threw
reinforcements into battle in an at-
tempt to salvage a rapidly deteriorat-
ing situation, counterattacking all
the way from around La Haye to the
Carentan marsh, but the Americanst
hurled them back.
Play Season d
OnWednesday
FLAME RACES THROUGH CIRCUS TENT-Flames and smoke burst from mje main tejt of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey
circus at Hartford, Conn., just after the start of the fire which claim ed 152 lives while 250 other persons, burned or injured were scattered
in three hospitals. The majority of the victims in the greatest fire in circus history were women and children. Not a single circus em-
ploye was known to have perished and none of the animals died.
!i>
4'>-
* * *
* * *
FDR, De Gaulle
To Discuss Fight
Of Underground
National Committee
Question To Be Ignored
By the Associated Press
WASHINGTON, July 7-President
Roosevelt told a news conference
yesterday the talks with General
ly with the fight of the French un-
Charles De Gaulle would deal chief-
derground,n now approaching the
Germans in southern France, and
scale of full-fledged battle with the
would touch in a general way on
problems of civil administration.
Mr. Roosevelt declared that the
question of recognition of the
French National Committee would
not come up, as it had not come up
in De Gaulle's recent talks with
British Prime Minister Churchill.
Military Problems To Be Discussed
With this prime obstacle out of
the way, it appeared that the two
leaders would be able to discuss
military problems and the recon-
struction of a free France on a basis
that could lead to complete erasure
of the strain which has character-
ized Franco-American relations dur-
ing the past few months
Before going to the White House
for lunch with President Roosevelt
and the start of their talks, De-
Gaulle made two brief speeches, one
before the French civil missions here
and the other before the French
military and naval missions. His
theme was that France must rise
Five Oficials o Circus
Hl d for Manslauhter
By the Associated Press
HARTFORD, CONN., July 7 -
With five persons already under
charges of manslaughter, state's at-
torney Hugh M. Alcorn, Jr., asserted
tonight that more arrests were
"probably" on the basis of prelim-
inary inquiries into yesterday's cir-
cus fire which cost the lives of 152
persons and injuries to 200.
The state's attorney, in a formal
statement issued while state police
Third Air Raid
On .h'p Islands
Hits Steel Mills
By the Associated Press
American bombs fell on the Jap-
anese homeland for the third time
last night.
Simultaneously Chinese'{spokesmen
announced their troops in a surpris-
ing counteroffensive broke the 12-
day seige of Hengyang and reversed
the Japanese advance throughout
southeast China.
Superfortresses showered explo-
sives and incendiaries on Sasebo, one
of Japan's naval bases, and the in-
duptrial center of Yawata which pro-
duces a fifth of Nippon's steel.
Both are on Kyushu, southernmost
of the main islands of Japan. Ya-
wata's steel plants were the target
of the first B-29 raid on Japan June
15.
Saipan Defuense Futile
The brief U. S. Army announce-
ment gave no details. But presum-
ably B-29s aimed their bombs at
steel mills in the process of recon-
struction and naval drydocks busy
repairing warships damaged in the
futile defense of Saipan in the
southern Marianas Islands.
Carrier planes raided Guam and
Rota, flanking Saipan, without
meeting a single enemy fighter.
Troop Trcain
Crash Kills 19
Search Continues for
40 Missing Soldiers
JELLICO, Tenn., July 7.-(A)--The
engine and four cars of a southbound
troop train plunged 50 feet into a
desolate mountain gorge today, with
a possible death toll of 40 soldiers
and trainmen,
Wreckage of four cars-two of,
them burned-rested in the rocky
Clear River after leaving the Louis-
ville and Nashville Railroad tracks
11 miles from here. A fifth car hun
commissioner Edward J. Hiceky still
questioned witnesses, said there ap-
peared to have been "inadequate
fire fighting equipment" on the
grounds of the Ringling Brothers-
Barnum and ailey tircus.
What equipment there was, said
Alcorn, was manned by "inadequate
personnel.".
Tent Treated with Gas
"There is also in our possession,"
he asserted, "information that the
tent itself had been in use only since
the road show started this season
and that it had been treated with
paraffin which was diluted with
gasoline, making the entire tent
highly inflammable."
In his capacity as state fire mar-
shal, Hickey questioned between 40
and 50 persons. In the group were
circus officials and workers and
spectators who saw the big top
collapse in a fiery heap.
Approximately one-third of those
who lost their race with death in
the terrifying scramble of the tent
remained unidentified.
Many Victims Unidentified
One by one numerous dead were
identified but many victims, so bad-
ly charred as to be unrecognizable,
may be given a municipal funeral
with scant hope, Mayor William
Mortensen said, that they would
ever be definitely identified
Five officials of the Ringling
Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus,
whose big top went up in a puff of
black, oily smoke yesterday, had
been arraigned and held in high bail
on a charge of manslaughter
Police court prosecutor James F.
Kennedy declared that premiminary
investigation had established that
the huge canvass had been water-
proofed a few months ago with a
solution of gasoline and paraffin.
Commissioner Hickey, who es-
caped with his life at the fire, or-
duered immediate disuse by a small-
er show in Waterford of a tent pro-
cessed in similar fashion. Hichey
said such topping would not be per-
mitted in Connecticut.
While state flags were at half-
staff on orders of Governor Ray-
mond E. Baldwin,. in Hartford's
three hospitals surgeons and nurses
toiled to save the more seriously
burned. They used quantities of
blood plasma.
Patterson Will
Address JAG's
Here Tuesday
1,000 Army Men Will
March in Review Parade
Undersecretary of War Robert P.
Patterson will be the main speaker
at the graduation exercises of the
Sixth Officer Candidate Class and
the 17th Officer Class of the Judge
Advocate General's School, Tues-
day morning. in the Rackham audi-
torium.
Approximately 1000 men including
235 from the JAG school and more
than 700 more troops of the 3651st
S. U. ROTC-ASTP will march in a
review parade at 5 p. m. Monday in
Ferry Field, according to an an-
nouncement made yesterday by Col.
Edward H. Young, Commandant of
all Army units in the Ann Arbor
area and Commandant of the JAG
School.
The public has been invited to
attend this parade which will be the
first time in history that all the
troops in Ann Arbor have paraded
together. The troops will be divid-'
ed into six companies for the pa-
rade. The music will be provided
by the 40 piece navy band which is
being loaned to the army for the
occasion by Capt. Richard E. Cas-
sidy, USN, commanding all naval
units in Ann Arbor.
Maj. Gen. Henry S. Aurand, Com-
manding General of the Sixth Serv-
ice Command, and Maj. Gen. Myron
C. Cramer, the Judge Advocate Gen-
eral of the Army, will also attend the
graduation exercises.
Soviet Troops
100 Miles from
East Prussia
Reds Encircle Wilno;
Lett Revolt Reported
Through Underground
By the Associated Press
LONDON, July 7.-Russian troops
closed tightly around the outer per-
imeter of Wilno today, placing that
ancient city, less than 100 miles from
East Prussia, under artillery and air
bombardment, and continued their
westward sweep all along the 350-
mile central front, Moscow an-
uounced tonight.
South of Wilno the Red Army
ploughed within four miles of the
important railway junction of Bar-
arowicze and in the area of the pripet
marshes Soviet forces captured the
district center of Stolin, only 38 miles
from Pinsk, the broadcast Russian
communique said.
Nearly 800 towns and villages were
taken by the sweeping advance on all
fronts and more of Germany's dis-
organized forces were killed or cap-
tured.
The Germans themselves conceded
that the Russians were within ten
miles of Wilno and their hopes of an
effectual resistance along the 300-
mile Daugavpils-Wilno-Brest-Litovsk
line seemed to be fading rapidly.
Brest - Litovsk and Daugavpils
(Dvinsk) both were bombed heavily
Thursday night. The communique
said many military trains were
destroyed.
In Moscow Yustas Paletskis, chair-
man of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet for Lithuania, announced that
the Germans had put Wilno under
close martial law, with a curfew from
8 p.m. to 5 a.m., and no one permitted
to walk the streets at any time with
more than one other person.
Quoting underground sources, he
said civilian uprisings had occurred
in Kaunas (Kovno) and other cities
in the confines of old Lithuania and
that great- guerrilla groups were-
gathering to greet and aid the Red
Army.
Battle Raging
13 Mlles Below
Port of Livorno
By the Associated Press
ROME, July 7 - A bitter strug-
gle reminiscent of the fight for
Cassino several months ago raged
today in the ruined village of Rosig-
nano, 13 miles below the big Italian
port of Livorno (Leghorn), as the
Germans struck back furiously at
American forces along a 30-mile
front extending inland from the
west coast.
After three days and nights of
savage house-to-house fighting in-
side Rosignano, American infantry
was reported in possession of two-
thirds of the flattened village. At
best it was a grim 'yard-by-yard ad-
vance for Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clrk's
doughboys as they tackled succes-
sive Nazi strongpoints and repulsed
the inevitable enemy counterattacks.
Inland from Rosignano American
and French troops engaged in in-
creasingly furious combat as they
probed into the mountainous out-
posts of the Germans' formidable
Gothic line, the strongest natural
defenses in Italy. Just ahead of
Allied forces are peaks rising to 6,300
feet.
Remnants of 24 German divi-
sions reinforced by hundreds of new
guns, mortars and other weapons,
fought hard to give Nazi engineers
and labor battalions time to com-
plete this defense belt. Reconnais-
sance disclosed, for example, that
the enemy is working feverishly on
fortifications in the Futa Pass area,
20 miles north of Florence, though
Allied troops still are 20 mountain-
ous miles south of Florence
Although the enemy was knocked
off high ground at several points
yesterday, the day's fighting left
the front substantially unchanged
I
Nazis Put Up
Heaviest Fight
In Six Weeks
Yanks Shoot Down
114 Enemy Planes
By the Associated Press
LONDON, July 7-More than 1,100
U. S. heavy bombers under strong
escort drenched 11 high-priority tar-
gets in central Germany with 3,000
tons of bombs today, stinging/ the
Germans to put up the biggest aerial
battle in six weeks, in which 114 en-
emy planes and 36 American bomb-
ers and six fighters were shot down.
Battle Over German Silesia
Another great battle in the clouds
raged over German Silesia, where
about 75 miles southeast of Breslau
more than 500 heavyweights from
Italy struck oil plants near Blech-
Hammer and Odertal, leaving them
wreathed in fire and explosions. An
undisclosed number of German in-
terceptors was shot down.
The big task force from Britain
went after an assembly plant at
Mockau, synthetic oil plants at
Lutzkendorf, Bohlen and Merseberg,
a bomber assembly plant at Bern-
burg, a bomber component plant at
Ashersleben, engine works and ball-
bearing plants at Leipzig and an
assembly and repair plant at Halle.
Twin Attacks Synchronized
Some of these plants had been
partly rebuilt since being hit pre-
viously.
The twin attacks were closely syn-
chronized, the bombers from Italy
striking at the targets near the Po-
lish border only 15 minutes after
the last bomber had left Leipzig for
the return to Britain.
At the same time smaller forma-
tions of Liberators bombed an air-
drome and rail yards in Zagreb,
Yugoslavia, against lesser opposi-
tion.
Air Battle in Leibzig Area
But the day's big air battle was
over the Leipzig area, where Eighth
Air Force bombers from Britain sent
3,000 tons of bombs screaming down
through the cloudless skies
The German airforce, long semi-
dormant, rose in fury to defend these
vital targets, and American fighters
reported 75 of the enemy destroyed
in raging dogfights. Many of the
German planes were Junkers 88's,
not usually used for straight-away
fighting combat.
The Germans threw heavy smoke
screens over the Leipzig area but
this failed to guard the targets from
the high-flying Fortresses, and the
German fighters failed in most cas-
es to reach the bombers.
The American fighters lost six
Planes. Their day's bag of 75-plus
was the best since April 8, when 120
of the enemy were downed.
State Primary
To Be Held
Next Tuesda
Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County
voters will ballot Tuesday in a state-
wide primary to select Republican
and Democratic candidates for state
executive posts, national and state
legislators and county officials.
Incumbent Gov. Kelly is unopposed
for Republican nomination while
Democratic party members can
choose from candidates Earnest C.
Brooks, William J. Cody and Edward
I. Fry.
What looms to be the hottest race
is for nomination as lieutenant-gov-
ernor. Incumbent Eugene C. Keyes,
(Rep.), is opposed on the GOP slate
by Vernon J. Brown, present Auditor
General. James H. Lee is the sole
Democratic contestant for the nomi-
nation.
Earl C. Michener, Republican sec-
ond district Congressional Represen-
tative, is opposed for nomination by
Galen Starr Ross of the same party
and Redmond M. Burr and Donald
Gay on the Democratic ticket.
No Democrats are competing for
nomna-on as state senator from the
12th district. Republican candidates
are George N. Higgins and J. Daniel
Thorn.
County voters will also ballot on
C''. 'j ''l -e - e' F ... 1... L "__
Opening the sixteenth summer sea- from the war as a great, strong an(
son of the Michigan Repertory Play- free power.
ers of the Department of Speech, Pershing Believes War Near End
"The Damask Cheek," a new comedy
described as "an amusing frolic in General John J. Pershing, 83
the family album," will be presented year-old Commander of the Worl(
at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through War A.E.F., told General Charle,
Saturday at the Lydia Mendelssohn De Gaulle in, a dramatic interviev
Theatre. today that he believes the presen
"The Damask Cheek" is the first struggle is nearing its end.
In the series of four outstanding The aged and ailing Pershing re-
plays by well known dramatists to be ceived the leader of the French Na
presented during the summer session. tional Committee in his room a
John VanDruten, the brilliant the Army's Walter Reed Hospital.
playwright, and Lloyd Morris, critic Pershing rose despite his illness t
and pedagogue, have combined to greet De Gaulle. They exchange
turn out a new comedy laid in New views on the war and when Pershing
York in 1909. The play unfolds the was asked whether he believed "W
tale of a plain looking but lively and are nearing the end of the worl
interesting English girl of good fam- conflict," he replied, "I do."
ily who is visiting her American
relatives.
She always has been in love with E-Bond uota
her cousin Jimmy, who, however, is
engaged to a pert little actress, but
as the "damask cheek" quotation for ort
"'twelfth Night" would inply, "she
never told her love." . With the Fifth War Loan driv
How she captures, with suitable officially closing today, Ann Arbo
displays of modesty, the coveted and Washtenaw County bond buyer
Jimmy and how Ile happily discovers have topped every quota set for th
that he had taken her too long for city and county except the E-Bon
granted to realize that he was in love goal, it was announced yesterday.
with her,. forms the basis for the play. Sales of E-Bonds in Ann Arbo
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d
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es
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On account of thep
duties, Mr. PattersonL
until Tuesday mornin
the formal graduation
is going to fly here f
ton, D. C., and thet
graduation will be set
of the time schedule
arrive, which is as y
The 134 men in the
Candidate Class will
sioned as second lieul
graduation ceremonies
Young will administe
office and Maj. Jerem
nor, Executive Officer
letter of appointment.
pressure of his
will not arrive
ng just before
exercises. He
rom Washing-
time for the
t on the basis
d for him to
et unknown.
e Sixth Officer
be commis-
Uenants at the
Tuesday. Col.
r the oath of
niah J. O'Con-
will read the
to
r
s
e
r
c4.
JAG TO BE HONORED:
Cand. Cole To Be Awarded Soldier's SMedal
Cand. Buster Cole, a member of "
the Sixth Officer Candidate Class
aboard the ship on which he was'
. an.Qvpc n era,. 4an it wav 00 .lraA
all the injured had been cared
for." the citation continues.