GOOD
EVENING
EVERYBO Y:
I am broadcasting from Washington
again
.,
tonight, coming up from Charlottesville,
la., where
our plane was
grounded
for Christmaa.
Everywhere we've
been grounde
by the recent murky, soupy weather these
past few days, the to ic of conversation has been
the
big German drive, and the great job our people are
doing in the Pacific.
Here's a christmas present for the American
people
a gift from YacAr¥bur.
In a dispatch this
afternoon he announces:
"The leyte campaign has been dlosed."
It
was closed in dramatic fashion --
wit
•
another of those
bold
amphibious landings, taking the
enemy
by surprise.
After a previous
amphibious
blow
had
deprived the Japs of their prindipal base, the
b
Port of Ormoca, they retired to a secondary
-
ort,
LEAD
- 2
----
Palompon,
and
that
p
lace
t ay
have
been
defen
d
in
ever
since.
Today,
on
Christm
8
mornin
g
, at
dawn,
American
assault
boats went speedin
g
for the
surprise.
And amphibious force
drove
ashore at reat of
the
Japs defending ~alompon.
And simultaneously American
troops on the other side launched a frontal attack.
Caught between the two forces, the Japs were swiftly
beaten down -- so that tonight only a few scattered
enemy parties remain for the easiest kind of moppin
g
up.
And that completes tbe conouest of the first
island of the
Phillipines
to be invaded by American
forces
the end of a sixty-eight day campaign for
Leyte.
The MacArthur bulletin also includes -- Samar,
that larger island just across a narrow strait from
Leyte.
However, Saaar was e sy all along.
Invaded
shortly after the landings on Leyte, it
was
not
de-
fended by the Jape to any extent.
The enemy concentrated
on Lejte and made a desperate attempt to
hol
d
it;
putting
up
a battle under the command
of
one of Japan's foremost
LE
D -
J
----
g
ener
al
s,
Ya
mo
s ita
.
To
ni
g
ac
rt
h
ur bul
li
t
i
n s
tates
:
"
G
en
e
r 1 Yamo
s ita a
s s
us
a
in
e
perh
a
ps
b
e gre
a
test
e ea
t
i
n th
e annals of the Japanese
Army."
G
eneral M
a
cArthur gives us the fi
g
ures for the
losses on
o\h si
d
es.
The fi
g
ure for the Japs is
h
uge,
more than one hundred
a
nd twelve thousand killed.
That's ten times the American total for casu
a
lties of
all kinds, killed and woun
d
ed.
T
h
e
figure includes
the many thousan
d
s lost by the Japs in trying to
g
et
reinforcements to Leyte - crowded troops ships sunk.
Only four hundred and ninet· -three Japanese prisoners
were taken.
Our casualties ~re eleven thousan
d
, two hun-
dred and seventeen of which two thousand, six hundr
eo
and t
w
enty three were men killed.
During the •ampaign
the Jape lost two-thousand-seven-hundred and forty-
eight p
l
anes, forty-one
troo
p
s ships, and twenty-seven
tar
ships.
PACIFIC
-------
The flee
has
delivered
a tremendous
assault
against
Iwo Jima, the
bi'
J
b
ap
ase in the volcano
islands.
For seventeen days Iwo Jima
has
been
hit
by
a
mountin
series of
air
attacks, and now for
a
clim
a
x the guns of wa
r
ships
have
joined with the bombi~
of
the
p
lanes.
For two hours and
a
half a powerful American
Naval Squadron
poured
tons of shells into the fortifica-
tions, while a rain of bombs hit Iwo Jima from
the
sky.
All of which made hash of that important
Japanese base.
Tojyo reports that a naval attack on the ad-
jacent Bonin Islands.
Possibly this occurred after
the assault on Iwo Jime, with the J,ps reporting the
blow at the Bonine in advance of our own communiaues.
Une begins to become suspicious
about
the
might offensive against the island Iwo Jime.
The
Volcanos and the
Bon
ins are only six hundred miles from
Japan proper.
Tye lie, of course, directly between
th B
d th t
Umber
one obJ'ective,
e
-28
base at Saipan an
a
n
Tokyo.
e
ave
1
i
t
explained that in the volcanos
and
the
Bonina
are b
e
from
which
Japanese
lanes
have
rai
d
e
d
S
i
p
n
and
from
*hich
they
c
n conve
n
iently
fly to intercept the superfortresses on
heir
ay
to
Tokyo.
So to hit Japanese bases and knock them out is
altogether
logical.
But it may it not be that so pr
ol
onge
and
savage an
assault
might be a harbinger of invasion?
Time and a
g
ain in the American island campaign, violent
and continuous a·r attsaks have been followed by landin8
And it certainly is exhilirating to think of the
possibility of a conquest of the Bonina and Volcanos,
onl six hundred miles from the main islands of Japan.
The l
·
tes• picture from
~
he Western front is
one of American drives to cut into the flank of the
salient that the Germans hage thrust forward __ while
Nazi
forces continue to advance at the tip of the
bulge.
Drives
against
the flank of the s~lient are from
the south,
with
Ber
l
ih stating that General Patton's
thiri
Army
is doing the attacking.
A dispatch
from
Allied Headquarters states that progress is be-
ing
made, with American
assaults ripping into the
s
outhe
ern side of the long narrow bulge that the enemy thrust
forward in Von Rundstedt's powerful offensive.
The
Razi salient is now only thirty miles wide, and that's
dangerously narrow for a wedge that we know bas been dri-
ven forward for at least forty miles.
It the tip of the
wedge,
however, the Nazis
S
t
.11
!though the latest news
l
continue to advance -- a
Pictures nothing very fomidable.
We are told of light panzer units rippin
g
ea
d
,
_
_
but are assured that these continuing armore
d
t
h
rust
s
J
are being made by comparatively small forces __ noth-
ing
large.
T~e bulletin issued today gives an account of
the situation as of yesterday morning.
Hiteerto, the
high command, fol
l
owing a po
l
icy of military secrecy
has been releasing the news of forty-eight hours be-
fore.
Now
the time lag is cut to thirty hours
and that perhaps may be an indication that the
crisis
has diminished.--Better news than we've been
having.
The general tone from headquarters, in fact,
is one of opti
m
ism -- though there is a note of caution.
It's pointed out, that, while our forces are bitting
h
ard
at the southern flank of the German salient, an
d
w~
il
e
the enemy advance is no longer at headlong speed --n
the front at the tip of the German wedge is still
(luid.
No American line has been stabilize
d
there -
ae
is indicate
d
by
today's news of further forward
thrusts
by
light panzer forces.
f
Optiml·sm is the twofol
d
combi-
One reason
or
nation -- weather and
air
power.
r-~
wuay for
the
third
day in succession,
the
weather
permitted
the Al
l
ied Air
Forces to
harress
the enemy
witb huge
and ·ncessant
action.
A
dispatch
this evening
tells•
us
that
4
o
sorties were flown to
ay.
Violent sky battles raged today,
count told of sixty
German
planes shot
down.
iveness
of
the plane attacks on Nazi supply lines
and armament is
illustrated by the following figures
one hundred and seventy-seven
·
erman
trucks destroyed
today and two hundred units of armor wrecked or
damaged.
As on the previous two
days,
air action, today
was spearheaded by American heavy bombers, four
r.undred
of them,
including flying fortresses.
They smas ed
at
twelve
targers
in
the enemy salient -
transport
targets.
The
heav
y
bombers
destroyed
two
undre
d
ra
·1
t
place,
hi'tting the German drive
1
way cars
a
one
•here it hurts most -- transport.
t from
.,
he early
All of which is very
differen
days
of
the
German
offensive,when
the
weather was a
most
effective ally of eht enemy,
f
pea
soup
ogs
and rains
tying down the Allied Air Force ~nd re
d
ucin our
overwhelming air
power
to a virtual zero.
One
of
the heroic episodes of the war is being
played this Christmas Day-
-
right inside
thet German
salient.
At the town of
8
stogne,
a
surrounded America
force is holding out behind the enemy line.
Bastogne
was
a
key point in Von Rundstedt's
iii■•
drive.
Wr.en
th
Germans advanced past it,
they
cut one of the most
important highways for the American army.
They
drove past Bastogne but not into it. The American
garrison held uot.
And today over the radio
the message crackled:
wwe are still holding out."
The radio message had in fact, a cocky tone,
using the words __ "mopping up.• Mopping up is usually
done by a victorious force,
~ut
there we
have
t
h
at sur-
rounded American
unit
reporting today that tJ•x
th ey
lopped
up armor and infantry
which
had b
t
o
k
en
into
t
eir
positions.
A relief column is
driving
towar Bas
t
o
g
ne,
an
ar■ ored
American thrust to
liberate
the surroun e
d
G.I.'s.
The last word is
that the
relief
column
is puming its way forward, witr the
Germans
figrting
for every inch of ground, trying to keep the trap
cloaed
on the Americans in Bastogne.
The prospects ar,
though, that the surrounded G. I.
1
s will be relieved.
The Russians
ave
co
m
lee
the
encir
clem
en
of Budapest.
A Soviet push, announce
late this
afternoon, cut the last railroa escape line for
the Germans and Hungarian troops in
t
be city.
That
escape line was the main trunk railway from Budapest
to Vienna - one of the most important rail lines in
Europe.
The Russians scored an advance of ten miles,
and pushed their troops across the tracks.
At the same time Red Army forces r· ache
t
e
city
limits of Budapest,
by
capturing a suburban
town
just outside the
Hungarian
capital.
It is believed
that a huge number of German and Hungarian soldiers
are trapped
in
Budapest.
And soon there will be,
I suppose, another one of
those
streaming processions
of
enemy
tro ps ~aptured
by
the Russians.
GREECE
------
From the civil war in
G
reece
c
omes a drama
t
i
story
by
a newspaperman who was caught in no man's lan
For three days he was trapped between t
e
hostile
forces -- British Gree
k
uovernment troops and the in-
su1gents
of the Elas.
Now he
has got out, and he call
cables a
vivid description of the leftwing insurrections.
•B~refooted Gypsy women with gold-spangied
ribbons
in
their hair have joihed members of the anti-
government Elas in the bitter fighting.
I
aaw
these
gypsy
women
stuff bandoliets with machine gun
bullets and great chunks of blakt brea un er their
yellow
blouses and crawl forward to supplJ tre Elas
fi~
fighters at their guns.•
This United Press Correspondent describes scenes
of devastation in Athens, the left wingers having dyna-
•ited
many
buildings to get stone for barricades.
And he gives a graphic picture of the Elas
left
wingers.
•They suffer from cold, hunger, and
sometimes
exhaustion," he relates, "bu
t
trey
fight
as
.
1
and uncompromising
only
civil war is fought -
wi
th crue
cunning and fanaticism that is almost unbelievable
and the fighting is still going on.
Today the Arcbbislop of Athens and
Pri■ ate
of
Greece delivered a special message appealing for an end
to the Civil
war.
Archbishop Damaskinos, speaking
to tbi1e, bis countrymen, sais:
•Fling away your weapons!
and tear up that funeral shroud
of Greece which your
aurderous conflict
is weaving!•
Here's
the latest from Greece --- Winston
Churchill toda1 is in Athens.
Today the British
Prm■ e
Minister,
with foreign secretary Anthony Iden, and the
coaaander
of the Mediterranean Theater, General
Alexander, arrived in the Civil-War-Torn Greek capital
in a draaatic aove
to end the internecine strife that
ia tearing Greece asunder.
Churchill immediately called
the leaders of the left
wing
Elas to
a
conference.
They will negotiate with Churchill and Eden for a
•ettleaent to end the Greek Civil War.
This is the quietest Washington I've ever
seen -- in
war time-or peace time.
Most of official
Washington is taking the day off for the only day in
the year
except some of the departments where they
Just bad to stay on the job.
I am told that
■ore
than 300,000 men and women in uniform, attended
Christ ■ aa
services here.
As a couple of us came in to Washington
this afternoon after being forced down by bad weather,
we paased
where
just
ahead
of us
an Army plane had
oraha ad
a little earlier. Capt. I.
U.
Offley was
flying north, on
in ■ trumentsl
Bis compass and radio, and
then
his instrument board lights went out -- and, be
ran out
of g•s•
So at 40000 feet
up
there in that soup,
he and sgt. Bob Swinford -- both on their way home to
Fairfax,
Va.
they bailed out.
The air Force Captains chute didn't open for
the
first
3000
feet.
So be was
spinning
earthward
head
first.
Finally it opened at 2000 feet --
aD
d
he
!lilllg!Q!
10
uld
up
in someone's apple tree -- froa which he made
bis way home to his own Christmas Tree ••
IUBBlll
----
There is one little lad
in
this
country for
whom today was not Christmas.
Santa Claus didn't come
to
bi•• and there
was
no holiday cheer at his home.
Be
got no presents, nor was there any Christmas
dinner
.
..
.
,,
.
....
..
"
It was just another
Monday,
so
far as
he was concerned.
e
Be!s three-year-old Nubbins Hoffman, the lad
whose pathetic
case
was
nation-wide
news some weeks
ago.
Suffering
from a malady rbat was tbougbt to be
incuralbe.
The doctors said be would not
live
to
aee
another Christmas.
And Nubbins
was constatly ask-
ing about
Cbristaas ans Santa Claus.
So bis parents,
aided
by
neighbors, decid
·
ed that
Nubbins
should
have
aaother
Cbrist■ as
--
even though he might not live
until
December
25.
So,
as
you
know tbey staged tbat
Yuletide celebration back in Novermber, with Santa,
Claus, Christmas tree and all.
Since then Nubbins bas improved.
Ani
operation
tt
Not only is he alive
taa performed,
and
be
got be
er.
0
t
f
fth b
t the dioto•s
say
he
n
his
December
twenty-
i
, ·
:
,
·
u
•ill
eee man
another
Cbristaas
.
•
IIU!ll -
2
They didn't want the little lad to think
anything
was amiss, so the family had no Christmas
today.
Even at the age of three, a fellow to
whom
Santa
Claus had
coae
in November might suspect that
so■ething
was wrong is Kris Kringle showed
up
again so
soon.
So today was just Monday for Nubbins, but be
had a high old time just the same -- playing busily
with the toys that he got for Christmas in
Bove ■ber.
Juat
another Monday!
As it was for some of us -- no
aoubt
■ any
of us, who have been marooned at one place
or another
fortunately notall of us windini up in an
apple
tree after falling 2000 feet like Army Air Force
Capt.
Offley of Fairfax, Jirginia.
And now I hope you have all had a reasonably
•erry
Christmas.
And here's a Christmas
massage
from Stand.
of Calif.