As Soviet assault forces mass along Germany’s Oder River, thirty to forty miles east of Berlin, armored units of General Patton’s Third Army have reached the banks of the Rhine near the western German city of Coblenz.
To the north, the entire west bank of the Rhine, from Cologne to Dusseldorf, is now in Allied hands.
Nearly 100,000 German prisoners have been taken in this region in the last month and massive German supply dumps have been seized.
Many are surrendering, including Russians, Frenchmen and others who say they were forced to fight in the German army or work in German war factories.
The five bridges across the Rhine at Cologne are down and, as of today, the Allies have not attempted to cross the river.
The Cologne Cathedral still stands but the city has been termed “lifeless.”
Most of its 3/4 million residents have evacuated.
There has been no running water in the city for four or five weeks and Cologne’s children have not attended school for nearly a year.
Only 100 of Cologne’s 16,000 Jewish residents avoided being deported to concentration camps.
These few have survived by constantly changing their hiding places to avoid capture by the Gestapo.
An Army staff sergeant and veteran of the Battle of the Bulge is currently visiting war production plants in the US, telling workers stories about the war.
Here is his account of the Third Army’s crossing of the icy, 150-foot-wide Sauer River, from Belium into western Germany, in January 1945:
“Just before dawn we started going across in three-man boats while under heavy Nazi fire.
After a while though, General Patton called the boats back and ordered the men to swim across with rifles, bazookas and everything they could carry because they were sitting pigeons for the Germans in the boats sitting two or three feet out of the water.
He figured the men would have a better chance swimming.
To show us it could be done and to inspire the troops, General Patton jumped in the water and swam across to the opposite bank then swam back.
Thousands of troops followed him.”
In the Pacific, US Marines on Iwo Jima have notched a 500-yard gain against Japanese defenders in three days of hand-to-hand combat.
The high US casualty count on the island, from fighting US officials have described as “desperate,” has prompted questions whether mistakes were made in planning the assault.
They include the failure to take into account the difficulty of maneuvering in the island’s cover of volcanic ash and the lack of effective weaponry for attacking defenders in caves.
In the meantime, the Red Cross is rushing 5,000 white surgical masks to the Marines to protect them from breathing in sulphur dust.
Citing an overwhelming need, the House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday to draft nurses into the US military, a measure which FDR had proposed in his January State of the Union address.
[fyi, The House action triggered a rush of voluntary nurse enlistments and the Senate did not act on the bill.]
The War Production Board announced that it will make penicillin available to doctors and hospitals across the country beginning on March 15.
The drug is called ‘the latest wonder drug to spring from the nation’s wartime research.’
California officials report a rise in black-market adoptions in the state.
One state executive says ‘it is an old story.’
“The sweethearts of service men will come to San Francisco for a ‘last goodby.’
Then they will remain here to have their babies and leave them before they return to their home town.
Or, what is frequent, the wife of a service man who has been overseas a year or more will have a child.”
The state legislature has appropriated funds to study the matter and develop recommendations for improving adoption laws.
And finally…
The Pennsylvania House passed a bill yesterday awarding free dog licenses to all dogs honorably discharged from military service.
About twenty thousand American dogs served in the war.
I’ll see you on Monday.
— Brenda
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