Evening star., 1945-12-30
Vital Year Ends 2 Wars,
Opens New Atomic Era
Nations Strive for Peace Formula After Worst
Blood Bath of History With New Weapon
Threatening Chaos in Future Conflict
By Howard p. Bailey

hS OIlc VI tilt lilUSt ueC1SiVe LII Lie lOue
story of mankind.
The most brutal devastating war ever
known has been brought to successful
conclusion, and the three principal ag-
gressor nations lie in exhausted defeat
Yet 1t still remains to be determined
whether the world has learned its les
son fully, whether the millions of deaths
and incalculable destruction will serve
to awaken civilization to realization
ofiwhat another war generation hence
could mean.
AS new year approaches it finds
unsolved disturbing number of issues,
theological differences within the liber-
ated countries, aspirations for inde-
pendence among colonial peoples, serious
disturbances in the Holy Land, eco
nomic crises throughout the world
bringing industrial unrest, and the
frightening spectre of the atomic bomb
should the nations fail to agree upon
and make unbreakably effective plan
to outlaw war.
The year now dying witnessed the
lynching of Mussolini, the probable
death of Hitler in the raging flames of
devastated Berlin, the execution of the
French traitor, Laval, and of the Nor
wegian, Quizling, whose name has be-
come synonymous with betrayal.
UNO Charter Written.
1t saw the death of President Roose-
welt, whose courage and determination
carried him along far beyond the limits
of his waning strength, and it saw the
reputation at the polls of another
great war leader, Winston Churchill,
whose government was Overwhelmingly
defeated by the Labor party in Britain.
1t saw the hopeful formation of the
United Nations Organization, which
seeks to bind the nations of the world
into federation for defense against
the common enemy, war, just as the 13
original Colonies banded together into
the United States for mutual protec-
tion against any external foe.
The year ended on an optimistic note
as the foreign secretaries of the United
States, Great Britain and Russia reached
an agreement to seek United Nations
control over atomic energy, to set up
commission and council to fix policies
on Japan, to support democratic gov
ernment in China under Chang, to set
up a preindependence trusteeship over
Korea, to liberalize the governments of
Romania and Bulgaria and to conclude
final peace treaties with Italy, Finland,
Romania. Bulgaria and Hungary.
The high lights of this, one of the
most significant years in history, follow:
JANUARY.
German collapse on both east and west
fronts, starting with Pattons Sd Army
smash into the waist of the Belgian bulge
on New Year Day, gained momentum
rapidly. Gripping Nazi losses occurred in
Ardennes area on the 9Th, followed by
Red drive into Poland on the 18th, into
East Prussia on the 18th, into Warsaw
on the 18th and into Silesia the day
after. By the 26th, the Allies occupied
40 miles of the Roer River bank and on
the 30th, the start of Hitler's 18th wear
as Fuehrer, Yanks broke into the Sieg-
fried Line and the following day made
two more crossings of the German bor-
der. Red troops broke into Branden-
berg Province after smashing the East
Wall.
Turkey broke off relations with Japan
and opened the Dardanelles to Allied
ships.
In the Pacific Macarthur caught the
Japs mapping with an unopposed land
ing in Lingayen Gulf, which, by the end
of the month, brought the Yanks well
on their way to Manila Three power
full air raids in Luzon, Formosan. Indo-
Chinese and Ryukyu waters cost the Japs
266 ships sunk, % damaged and 68 planes
destroyed. The Ryukyu Islands were
bombed and Two Jima was shelled.
Congress convened on the Sd and
shortly received budget requests for
S83,0o0,0 900 and presidential re-
quest for drafting of labor and nurses
and postwar universal training. Pres
ldent Roosevelt was inaugurated for
his Fourth. term on the Goth. Henry
Wallace was rejected for the dual post
OF Secretary OF Commerce and head
OF lending agencies.
FEBRUARY.
The Allied drive into GERMANY gained
speed in February with at least two
thirds of the Siegfried Line taken by
the lst and 9th Armies on the third
day and Belgium cleared of Nazis the
day, following. In desperation the Nazis
opened the Roer dams on the 7th. A
week later the Canadians were at the
Rhine at Emmerich and in another week
Patton's tanks crossed the Soar River.
The next day Eisenhower launched his
grand assault on the Ruhr and the
Rhine and as the month ended, Allied
troops were in Cologne. With the COL
lapse of the Oder Line, the Reds entered
Frankfurt on the 9th. Early in the
month Berlin was hit by 4,00o-plane
raid followed by 7,00O-plane massed
raid on several cities on the 22d.
The drive for Manila brought liberia
tion of the Philippine capital on the
25th but not until after the Japs had
set the city afire with widespread
devastation
American troops landed on Two Jima
on the l7th and Tokyo was hit by a
1.5o0-plane raid.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stain met at
Yalta after which Roosevelt visited
Cairo to meet with Farouk, Selassie and
Ibn Sahd. An early Russian break with
Japan was indicated.
The 1nter-American Conference to
study hemisphere problems opened in
Mexico City on the 22d.
John L. Lewis gave a 30-dav notice of