BIG ALLIED SQUEEZE FROM ALL SIDES COLLAPSED THE REIC
of Romania, had knocked Bulgaria out of the Axis
and into the war against Hitler, and had won a
second surrender from the Finns.
They had been held on the banks of the Vistula
before Warsaw, however, where the Polish under
ground had risen up and held a large section of the
eity awaiting the Soviet arrival. The Poles had
fought savagely, but without the assistance they
had counted on, and growing desperately short of
food and ammunition, they had finally given up.
By the end of the year, the Soviets were a few
miles into East Prussia, traditional home grounds
of Germany's war-minded Junkers. They still stood
across from Warsaw but held one-fifth of Czecho
slovakia and were beyond Budapest although they
still were fighting the Nazis block by block in the
Hungarian capital.
Now, on January 12, 1945, they were ready for a
big drive again. Eight Red armies, numbering 4,000,
000 men, lined up along the 600-mile front from
the Baltic to Budapest. Within a week they were
battling deep into east Prussia and overwhelming
Warsaw. Two armies of Marshals Konev and
Zhuvok raced across the Polish plains, less than
100 miles from Berlin. Farther south, other Rus
sians cut into Silesia, a vital mining and industrial
area to which Nazi industries had been removed to
escape the bombers from England. Hungary—the
last of the satellites—dropped out of the war. Ger
many, for all practical purposes, was alone.
Quickly the clock was moving to midnight for
the Reich. Early in February the Russians pulled
up to the Oder River, only 40 miles from Berlin,
and waited to draw up strength for the final plunge.
Then Eisenhower hit again from the west.
UP TO THE RHINE
IN February the original “Big Two” met at Malta
and the “Big Three” met at Yalta. Hitler’s “flying
telephone poles” already had failed to turn the tide
of war and now the bottom also fell out of his long
used propaganda weapon: Suspicion and mistrust
among the Allies. He had clung to a dim hope that
somehow traditional capitalist distrust of com
munism, and vice versa, would split the Anglo
Americans from the Russians and give him the
wedge to make a separate peace.
The now fourth-term President, the Prime Min
ister and the Premier dispelled that hope. They an
nounced flatly that Germany was doomed. They
laid plans to cement their relationships in a world
organization to preserve postwai peace. Secretly,
they made arrangements for Russian entry into
the Japanese war once Hitler was disposed of.
Eisenhower planned to do his part of the dispos
ing quickly. After the Ardenne break-through and
the “Battle of the Bulge,” Eisenhower’s armies had
moved cautiously through the winter snows. In the
north, Crerar’s Canadians started pressing down
the west bank of the Rhine at Kleve. The British
2nd and U. S. 9th and 1st armies stood facing the
Cologne plain. Th, neavily armored 3rd was de
ployed against the Saar. The American 7th and
French 1st armies lined up in Alsace, ready to push
up the historic river from the south.
On F ebruary 23 the offensive started rolling,
accompanied by the now inevitable fierce artillery
and aerial bombardment. Two armies hopped the
Roei River and headed down the Cologne plains.
The whole front broke open. Simpson's 9th sliced
through the citadel of Muenchen Gladbach and
reached the Rhine March 3. Hodges’ 1st bulled
across the Erft River and stormed Cologne to find
a city almost dead from Allied bombings.
The fleeing Nazis had blown the big Rhine bridge
at Cologne as well as other spans across the river.
But the U. S. 1st army, rolling along the east bank,
suddenly discovered a span intact.
' It was the Remagen bridge. A platoon charged
across the river, feverishly cutting demolition
charges the Nazis had neglected to explode. More
troops poured ovei the picturesque span to estab
lish a bridgehead.
Patton's 3rd now was on the loose, cutting zig
zag across the Saai, crushing the last resistance in
a 32-mile stretch of the westwall east of Luxem
bourg, cutting across the Moselle and pushing huge
pockets of befuddled prisoners into the 7th Army's
dustpan.
While Alsace and the Saar were being thoroughly
mopped, the forces in the north stood all along the
rivet and prepaied to spring.
BATAAN IS AVENGED
''THE idpanese were taking a beating everywhere.
■ 11 or tresses now were bombing from the
Marlaoas Warships off the shores of Iwo Jima
htirled t -ns of shells on that rocky little island,
which , -od along the line of flight from Saipan
to Japan - home islands and had a radar station
to warn iokyo of the bombers’-coming. Flattops
prowled the Pacific. The Allies were advancing in
Burma, and bulldozers snorted along the last
stretches of the Ledo-Burma Road.
Without fanfare or publicity, the Navy’s “silent
service”—the submarine fk ,'t — was ranging the
ocean, hitting at supply lines, searching enemy
harbors, standing off breakwaters and sinking ships
as they came out. Under Admiral Charles A. Lock
wood, the underwater ships lurked in the China
Seas, in wait for Japanese vessels coming up with
their rich treasures from the East Indies. For
months at a time their crews worked in cramped
quarters, without the conveniences of sailors on
the bigger surface ships or the applause that greeted
the Navy’s other sea and air successes. Yet they
were cutting the very lifeline of Japan’s maritime
empire.
MacArthur had landed on Mindoro December 15,
1944, and he now prepared to make his most
momentous jump—to the island of Luzon, to
Manila, Bataan and Corregidor.
General Krueger’s 6th Army hit the Luzon
beaches at Lingayen Gulf on January 9. The Japa
nese had landed at that gulf, and it was a logical
place to expect another invasion. Yet they were
outsmarted.
They had concentrated artillery on the northerly
shore, where the beaches led to firm land. Krueger’s
forces went in on the southern side, where rice
paddies and marshes lay beyond the beach. Before
the Japanese could recover the Yanks were past
the marshland with low losses and were heading
down the plains to Manila.
The Nipponese commander, General Yamashita,
tried a series of delaying actions. But most of his
tanks and other mechanized equipment were
knocked out in a battle at San Manuel.
Filipino guerrillas and American fugitives from
Corregidor who had hidden in the hills during the
occupation arose to hit the enemy’s rear and pass
on information they had gathered about Japanese
concentrations.
As the Yanks rolled down from Lingayen, two
other landings were made—one near Subic Bay,
designed to close off Bataan and prevent a last
enemy stand, and the other to the south of Manila.
MacArthur, in his long drive back, had often em
phasized that his mind was on the fate of the sur
vivors of Corregidor. Now a series of daring raids
on prison camps began to free the Bataan death
marchers. On January 23 the Yanks overran Camp
O’Donnell with its grass-covered graves of thou
sands of prisoners who had died of starvation
and disease. On January 30, a hand-picked Ranger
battalion sneaked 25 miles behind the enemy and
raced into Cabantuan prison to free 513 Americans.
Four days later, a motorized flying column stormed
into Manila and streaked for Santo Tomas concen
tration camp to release 3,700 deliriously happy
prisoners. The next day the Yanks overran notori
ous Bilibid penitentiary to free 1,350 more. Later
Los Banos was freed.
The Japanese, however, were determined to hold
Manila. They laid the torch to the once-glittering
“jewel of the Orient” and set up snipers’ nests atop
buildings. They even made a fortress of Manila’s
baseball park. For three weeks the battle raged as
many of the city’s landmarks burned or tumbled
from artillery blasts but finally the Yanks pushed
into the Intramuros—the old walled city—to end
virtually all resistance on February 25. More than
2,000 square blocks were destroyed — along with
bridges, the waterfront, power systems, part of the
street railways.
Meanwhile Manila Bay had been opened after
another landing on the tip of Bataan and a para
trooper jump onto Corregidor. General Krueger
now moved up from Lingayen and Manila to flush
out the Japanese fighting in the mountainous caves
and tunnels of central and north Luzon.
MacArthur sent General Robert L. Eichelber
8th Army to clean up the rest of the islands. I
sion followed invasion in such rapid order
observers lost count of them—Palawan, Minds
Panay, Basilan, Cebu, Negros and many other
MacArthur had made good his promise f
than anyone had hoped.
TO THE SHORES OF IWO JIMA
NT AVAL warships had thoroughly shelled !
^ bachi mountain on the south side of little
chop-shaped Iwo Jima and the Motoyama he
in the north. Great fleets of planes from the
riers had gone over and over the island, borr
every military installation they could see.
The Marines in landing barges, manned as u
by the Coast Guard moved toward the black
beaches on the morning of February 19, 1945. 1
began the battle of Iwo Jima—a battle never 1
forgotten.
The Marines raced ashore and their ankles
into loose volcanic sand. They raced into me
artillery and machine gun fire such as they r
had experienced before.
The Japanese were in caves and pillboxe
Suribachi and Motoyama. They were on
beaches. They were in ravines on every side. 1
hundreds of expertly camouflaged positions
concentrated fire on the beach.
When Leathernecks stepped onto Iwo’s ash
met the fire. Many fell, but many—somehow
through. And they kept coming.
Two divisions made the first landing. W
three days General Holland M. Smith ser
another. The beachhead soon was dotted with de
Japanese and American. But slowly it wid
The Marines reached the crest of the beach,
one regiment swung along the island’s narrow
to turn north while another moved onto i
studded Suribachi.
Every inch up Suribachi was paid in blood
four days Marines crawled over the narrow up
path to the sharp cliffs on the summit. They h
their K-rations in the mountain’s sulphurus fi
Finally they captured the prize — Suri
Bomber Field No. 1, a three-strip airfield ii
island's center. And then, with flame throwers
artillery, they struck at the enemy nests, or
one. Almost every cave produced its casualty
It took 26 days and 19,938 U. S. losses, inch
4,189 dead, before Iwo was cleared of Japa
The enemy lost 23,244 dead and 1,038 prisoners
Iwo soon was turned into a base for fighter p
to accompany the Saipan Superfortresses to J
and even while the fighting continued, its las
fields became places of refuge for big bor
making forced landings.
THE LAST SQUEEZE BEGINS
ON the other side of the world, Eisenhower b:
ened his territory across the Rhine at Rent
while Nazi dive bombers tried to knock the b
down. Allied artillery brought up to the Rhine
pounded at the bomb-battered Ruhr industrial
ley across the river. Smudge pots burned alon
western bank to hide Allied maneuvers ant
Nazis waited fitfully for the final blow.
The Berlin radio spoke candidly of the appr
ing last great battles. There was talk insidi
Reich, however, of bands of werewolves who *
lash out at the invaders from the underground
Allied airplanes bombing Germany’s key
noted the virtual absence of opposition, and <
of death seemed to be descending on the coi
Patton’s forces, still racing along the Rhine,
bly ferried across the river on the evening of S
22 and kept rolling on the other side.
In two days they were followed by four a.
in the north and four days later by the 7th j
in the south. Navy men in Army clothing f£
the troops in barges trucked over from Bel
and France. Commandos and sky troops dr<
behind the river, north of the Ruhr.
The race that began with the Rhine crossing:
as wild and thrilling as the great breakthrou
France.
Kesselring now was reported in Nazi top
mand, but it no longer really mattered. The (
dians shot up to trap the foe in the Nether
The British thundered toward Bremen and j
burg. Simpson’s 9th Army, which had hurled
across the Rhine north of Essen, cut around at .
mund to meet units of the I/. S. 1st Army,
other units were racing up and nieeting aga
Lippstadt. The Ruhr was caught in a doubif
velopment, one of the great feats in military i.
Steel fingers clutched at the Heart of Gem
Spearheads of the 9th swung onto the
superhighway to Hannover and Brunswick.