Sherbrooke daily record, 22 avril 1944, samedi 22 avril 1944

[" V Sherbrooke Satlu merorb ^ U/PAl WEATHER THE PAPER OF THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS Cloudy.Established 1897 SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1944.Forty-Eighth Year.BATTLE SEVASTOPOL ENTERS FINAL PHASE Thousands Of Huns Die Endeavoring To Escape On German Scrub Fleet Red Artillerymen Hurl Tons of Shells into Churning Mass of Enemy Troops Trapped Inside Sevastopol\u20141.500 Enemy Troops Killed and 68 Tanks Destroyed as Reds Repulse Attacks Southeast of Stanislawow in Pre-War Poland.\t*- London, April 22.\u2014(&) \u2014 The Red Army killed 1,500 enemy troops and destroyed 68 tanks in repulsing: attacks by large German tanks and infantry forces Southeast of Stanislawow in pre-war Poland, Moscow announced last night in a brief communique which again omitted mention of besieged Sevastopol in the Crimea, Dispatches from the Soviet Capital, however, said that the battle of Sevastopol was in its final phase.J Russian troops captured key posi-: tions in the Mt.Sapoun Valley [our miles Southeast of the city, : these advices said, and Red artillerymen hurled tons of shells into a churning mass of enemy troops trapped inside the city.Soviet naval airmen inflicted j thousands of casualties on those j troops trying' to escape across the , Black Sea to Romania aboard ships j of an Axis \u201cscrub fleet.\u2019\u2019\tI The Russians made no effort to cover the persistence of the German assaults in Southeast Poland, but insisted the Nazis were beaten back.! The German communique said that \\ German and Hungarian troops had | \u201cgained further ground\u201d against : stubborn Russian resistance South- ! east of Stanislawow, and declared j that the Hungarians had captured ! the village of Ottynia, twelve miles | Southeast of Stanislawow.A dispatch from Red Star\u2019s front j correspondent said the Germans were using the flooded Prut and Dnestr j livers for protection of their flanks, i hurling a great weight of men and ! machines down the intervening val- j ley in an offensive apparently aimed i at relieving Soviet pressure on ! Lwow, big communications hub 65 miles Northwest of Stanislawow.German airmen aiso entered the action, the report said.On the Estonian front, where the Russians on Thursday had said troops had killed 2.000 counterattacking Germans Southwest of Narva, the bulletin reported only long-range bombing activity in which shale oil distilleries, a rail station and a camp were attacked.Pilots returning from dawn patrols | were quoted as saying they saw! many bodies floating in the Black Sea after enemy ships had been sunk by Soviet bombers.With the coming of daylight hun- > dreds of duels between trim sharp-nosed Russian fighters arid German Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs occurred in the bright sun over-wrecked Sevastopol, dispatches said.; The Russians have seized all the fighter airports in the Crimea and the German fighters now have to, take off from mainland bases in : Southern Bessarabia and Romania.1 CONFERENCE OF EMPIRE LEADERS MAY OPEN SOON By D\u2019ARCY O\u2019DONNELL, Canadian Press Staff Writer.Ottawa, April 22.\u2014\t\u2014 Prime Minister Mackenzie King told the Commons yesterday that he expects to leave \u201cshortly\u201d for the Empire Conference of Prime Ministers in London.Mr.King made the announcement after telling the House that financial experts of the United Nations have agreed on the principles which should govern the constitution and operation of an international monetary fund.\u201cSince I shall not be able to be in the House this evening, I would like to take this opportunity of making an announcement which is being made today in other capitals,\u201d said Mr.King in revealing the agreement had been reached.Copies of the agreement were later tabled in the Commons by State Secretary McLarty.The Prime Minister spoke after Finance Minister Ilsley announced that special financial arrangements under the Hyde Park Declaration have been ended, but the declaration of principle of close collaboration in war production between Continued on page 2, col.3.Gen.Patton With Invasion Forces London.April 22.\u2014(Æ\u2019)\u2014Lt.-Gen.George S.Patton, tough tank speiialist whose 7th Army helped in last summer\u2019s Allied conquest of Sicily, has arrived in Britain to take a place among\u2019 Gen.Dwight D.Eisenhower\u2019s chief lieutenants for the invasion of Western Europe.Out of the public eye since the soldier-slapping incident which almost wrecked his military career last year, Patton is known to the Germans as.a rough-and-ready foe and veteran soldier.To his troops the General is known variously as \u201cOld Blood and Guts,\u201d \u201cthe General whp never lost a battle,\u201d and \u201cthe man in the gilded helmet.\u201d Patton arrived recently in a natty uniform, including a new battle jacket, and the censors permitted disclosures of his presence only last night.It was disclosed last November that Patton, in a moment of emotional strain, had slapped an American soldier during a field hospital inspection in Sicily in August and then apologized publicly to troops of the Seventh Army.Germans Using Human Torpedo And Robot Tank The Fifth Army Beachhead at Anzio, April 22.\u2014(/P)\u2014Two of Germany\u2019s secret weapons\u2014 a \u201chuman torpedo\u2019\u2019 and a robot tank called the \u201cdeath wagon\u201d __ fell into Allied hands yesterday.The \u201chuman torpedo\u201d ran ashore just North of the Anzio beach and two American soldiers lifted out of it a seventeen-year-old German marine who explained he had \u201crun out of gas.\u201d After a week of hazardous night work in No-Man\u2019s Land British engineers gleefully hauled into their lines with a winch a wrecked robot tank called the \u201cdeath -wagon\u2019\u2019 or the Goliath tank, which they discovered could be operated by remote radio control.By coincidence the first known use of the \u201chuman torpedo\u201d came in the same week that the Royal Navy announced in London that it had used a similar contrivance to raid Palermo Harbor fifteen months ago when a new Italian cruiser was sunk and a large transport destroyed.The skinny young sailor had set out on the seeming suicide mission from a motor torpedo boat.His craft consisted of a conventional torpedo about 12 feet long attached beneath a similarly shaped steel case.He rode in the top compartment and looked out through an airtight glass cover.His strategy was to spot Allied shipping in Anzio Harbor, fire his torpedo, then make a getaway in the upper compartment which was a virtual one-man submarine.Both submarine and torpedo below had individual sources of power for propulsion.The \u201cdeath wagon\u201d is about half the size of a British Bren Gun carrier, weighs 8,267 pounds and is technically classified as a B-4 armored vehicle.It is designed to dump a 1,000-pound explosive charge on a pillbox or other strongpoint and withdraw before a time fuse sets the mine off.One-man crew is supposed to ride as far as possible then dismount and do the rest by remote radio control.It hasn\u2019t been very effective either on the Russian or Anzio fronts.FINANCES HAVE Japanese Reinforcements, Including Tanks, Thrown Into India Invasion Churchill Urges Frequent Meetings Of British Empire Prime Ministers London, April 22.\u2014 (C.P.Cable) \u2014Frequent meetings of the Empire Prime Ministers\u2014whether in London or in other parts of the Commonwealth in peacetime\u2014were advocated yesterday by Prime Minister Churchill as he reaffirmed his belief in Imperial preference and proudly declared the Commonwealth never had been more united.\"There must be frequent meetings of Prime Ministers,\u201d he said, winding up a two-day Empire debate on the eve of the war\u2019s first meeting of Dominion Prime Ministers.\u201cThey must be attended by those they (the Prime Ministers) chose to bring with them to discuss all aspects of Imperial policy and Imperial safety.Because of this meeting, Mr.Churchill refrained from any definice commitments but he did assure the Empire it would emerge from the war with its Imperial preference plan unhampered by the Atlantic Charter or the 1942 Lend-Lease Agreement with the United States.With air travel in peacetime it would be easy to have Prime Ministers\u2019 meetings every year or more often on every serious occasion, he said.During the period of the war those ipeetings would be encouraged at any time.Then, as members cheered, he said it would not be necessary for the meetings always to take place in London, adding, with a smile \u201cI am quite ready that we should take wing in the future.\u201d About 200 members listened attentively as the Prime Minister ranged eloquently over Empire topics, looking confidently to the future and finding no cracks in the Commonwealth structure.The Dominions were praised by the Prime Minister for the way they rallied behind Britain in war, and he said: \u201cHere amid the wreck of empires, states and institutions of every kind we find the British Commonwealth and Empire more strongly united than ever before.\u201d The meeting of Prime Ministers, he explained, will examine means of improving these close ties and gaining greater results.They will have to discuss the question of establishing a standing and perpetual committee of the Empire and -whether it should extend into the sphere of maritime, economic and financial affairs.Describing how he \u201csafeguarded the structure of Imperial prefer- Continuetl on page 2, coi.3.OWNERSHIP OF BRITISH-LEASED BASES OPPOSED Chairman of U.S.House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Believes Step Would Prove Extravagant.Washington, April 22.\u2014 (fP) \u2014 Blunt opposition to the proposal that the United States obtain permanent ownership of British-leased bases in the Western Hemisphere was voiced yesterday by Chairman Sol Bloom (Dem., N.Y.), of the United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.Mr.Bloom said it would raise too many thorny problems and in time prove extravagant.The plan, advanced by Naval Subcommittee which visited South America and the Caribbean area, on the other hand won the prompt support of Rep.Melvin T.Maas (Rep., Minn.), ranking minority member of the Naval Conmittee.Mr.Bloom suggested hat the Government obtain from Britain a renewal option to take effect when the present 99-year leases expire, explaining to a reporter: \u201cBy that time we may never need j those bases, anyhow.We don\u2019t know what will happen in^ the way of j aviation, for instance.\u201d (Mr.Maas, a dive bomber piiot and j reserve Marine Corps officer, took the opposite view: \u201cI\u2019ve been hammering at this for ! a lone time.I have said repeatedly : we should own the=e bases in the | Pacific and the Atlantic as well, j The important thing is that when | we don\u2019t own them we are apt to be drawn into every war that the ; owner gets into henceforth.\u201d Mr.Maas agreed with Chairman ; F.Edward Hebert (Dem.La ), of the Investigating Subcommittee that an agreement might be worked out with Britain to gain title to the bases in exchange for lend lease | obligations, but said the time to have done that was \u201cwhen w-e start*1 ed to give them lend-iease.\u201d\tj BEEN IMPROVED BY DECLARATION U.S.Improvements to Airfields in Canada to Be Paid for and Some U.S.War Contracts in Canada to Be Cancelled.Ottawa, April 22.\u2014ffl\u2014\u201cComplete understanding\u201d with the United States in respect to mutual financial arrangements which had their origin in the Hyde Park declaration of 1941.was ann'ounced yesterday in the Commons by Finance Minister Ilsley.A statement read by the Minister, who recently conferred with Henry J.Morgenthau, United States Secretary of the Treasury, said that Canadian and United States exchange holdings are such that United States permanent improvements to airfields in Canada now can be paid for and some of the United States war contracts in Canada will be cancelled.Finance Department officials said the statement could not be taken as meaning there, would be early relaxation in foreign exchange restrictions, such as those limiting amounts Canadians may take to the United States.Spécial financial arrangements entered into last year have been ended.Under the Hyde Park declaration, decided on by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and President Roosevelt, United States agreed to make purchases of war supplies in Canada so that the Canadian foreign exchange reserves, then at a dangerously low level, could be maintained.In addition, the declaration provided for cooperation of the war production of the two countries to prevent duplication.Mr.Ilsley said the successful working of the Hyde Park declaration hed.been so effective that last year he had been able to announce that a Canadian shortage, of United States dollars had ceased to be a major problem.Because of this improvement, Canada and the United States entered into another understanding in 1943 which provided that if Canadian holdings of gold and United States dollar reserves should tend to rise above an agreed maximum Canada would take steps to offset that tendency.The United States agreed to follow a programme of purchasing war supplies which would prevent Canadian holdings falling below an agreed minimum.Mr.Ilsley said he would not assist speculators by disclosing Canadian exchange holdings, but the range agreed to was \u201cmeasurably below\u201d Canada\u2019s total holdings of gold and United States dollars at the outbreak of war, \u201c'when they were not unduly large.\u201d During 1943 Canadian supplier of United States exchange increased in spite of action taken to offset such expansion under the agreement made last year.The new arrangement provides for Canadian steps to cut the holdings of United States exchange to the agreed level.These include payments for purchases from the United States for which bills have not been presented; reimbursing of the United States for airfields constructed by it in Canada and for a telephone-line from Edmonton to the Alaska boundary, and the United States cancellation of certain army and navy contracts placed in Caada.These cancellations will affect only \u201ca relatively small part\u201d of the United States contracts in Canada.The productive capacity thus relear.-ed will be taken over by orders placed by the Mutual Aid Board to meet the war needs of other United Nations.A second provision concerning the shipment of lend-Ieaee supplies for Britain to Canada also remains in effect.It provided that when Can- Continued on page 2, col.5.Southeast Aria Headquarters, Kandy, Ceylon, April 22.\u2014