Reading the paper on Nov. 30, 1944
The US Army has engaged German field divisions in a sudden assault launched along a broad front in northwest Germany, as a thousand heavy bombers of the US Eighth Air Force struck German industrial and rail targets.
Retreating German forces have opened or destroyed river dams in their wake, adding floodwaters to the difficulty of fighting in heavy mud.
The difficult job of clearing German defenders from the Hürtgen Forest is nearly finished and hundreds of German prisoners have been taken.
The British have succeeded in opening the port at Antwerp, the second largest port in Europe, allowing the regular delivery of supplies needed to keep Allied armies marching towards Berlin.
The German High Command has ordered the civilian evacuation of the Baden region of southwest Germany.
Civilians report that the first people to leave were Nazi officials and their families, who had previously fled from Stuttgart and Berlin.
Representatives of the forty-five member League of Nations will meet in London in a few days to plan for the transfer of its treaty obligations and assets to a new world peace organization.
The New York Herald Tribune has announced its European edition, published in Paris until the 1940 German occupation, will be resumed in a few weeks.
In a nighttime attack, US bombers based in Saipan struck Tokyo for the third time in six days, dropping incendiary bombs across the city.
The commanding general of the US Army Air Forces, Gen. Hap Arnold, said the Air Force will bomb Japanese industry “into a state of paralysis,” adding ‘they asked for it and they’re going to get it.’
General MacArthur has commended the bombers, saying the Tokyo attacks divert Japanese attention from the Philippine Islands and aid his job clearing them of Japanese forces.
American planes destroyed a thirteen-ship Japanese convoy attempting to resupply and reinforce its troops on Leyte, an island in the Philippines, in a two-day air battle.
Reports have reached Switzerland that German authorities have executed hundreds of workers in Mannheim and Dusseldorf in an effort to compel laborers to remain at armament factories despite Allied air attacks.
Berlin radio says an Allied bomb has pierced the roof of the Cologne Cathedral and exploded inside the building.
A large railroad yard sits adjacent to the Cathedral.
The War Department has rejected a suggestion put forward by a group of Harvard University professors that German prisoners of war held in US camps receive education in democracy, noting that such efforts would be met with hostility.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has recommended that Jews be given free entry to British-controlled Palestine for the purpose of colonization, a view espoused by both party platforms in the recent election.
The British curtailed Jewish entry into Palestine in 1939 in response to Arab unrest.
The collision of a B-17 and a train was narrowly avoided yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina, when Peggy Parsley saw the aircraft crash land on railroad tracks in heavy weather.
With an oncoming train hidden around a bend and oblivious to the danger, Peggy found a broom, lit it on fire, and dashed out onto the tracks, waving it in warning.
The train saw Peggy’s broom torch and stopped in time, sparing all of the aircraft crew, but the engineer said the distance between his train and the B-17 ‘was about the width of a finger.’
World heavyweight champion Joe Louis reported to New York’s Camp Shanks yesterday where he will assist in the camp’s physical fitness program for sixty days.
Having completed ninety exhibition fights for the troops in England, Africa and Italy, Louis is then expected to ship out to the Pacific for more exhibition fights there.
And finally…
War-weary Americans could escape the news at the movies, and their choices included two of Hollywood’s best films:
— “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” starring Van Johnson and Spencer Tracy; and
— “Meet Me in St. Louis,” starring Judy Garland, a role which confirmed her status as an adult actress and is considered her finest film performance.
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I’ll see you on Monday.
— Brenda
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