30TH DIVISION CAPTURES BANK AND 70 MILLION
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A cache of 708,110,070 Reichsmarks - worth about $70,000,000, according to American exchange rates - was discovered today in the Magdeburg branch of the Reichsbank by a former cowpuncher from Casper, Wyo., who also collared several bank officials attempting to flee with suitcases bulging with millions of marks.

The money was found in bomb-proof underground vaults as this division and the 2d Armored Division drove through Magdeburg to the Elbe River.  Captain Virgil Happy, former rancher in command of a company of the 2d Battalion, 117th Regiment, was leading his men toward the river this afternoon when he spotted the bank, the only structure in the town not flattened by air bombing.

Happy deployed man around the stone building. As he skirted a rear entrance he saw four men, with suitcases in hand, leaving the building. He shouted to them to halt.  They obeyed when he aimed a tommy-gun at the first man, who turned out to be Walter Lubzka, president of the bank.

Happy opened Lubzka's suitcase  and his eyes bulged out when packages of 1,000 mark notes spilled out.  Happy decided that the building was a bank and with a little persuasion, directed the group into the building.

The captain, a wiry, thirty-one-year-old officer, who walks with a slight list, prowled around the bank. As we caught up with him he shouted and pointed to a heavy iron door, which lead to the vaults. Unhappy bank officials were convinced that they should open it.

Inside three trucks loaded with 5,000,000 marks each were parked in front of a stairway leading to the vault downstairs.  Lubzka led the way to the cages, each of which was about ten feet wide and thirty feet long.  Most of them were filled with stacks of marks ten feet high.  A few cages contained silver ingots, but bank officials said they were uncertain about the value of them.

Lubzka, who seemed to be a Caspar Milquetoast with an itching palm, watched us closely.  He insisted the money was not Nazis property.  On a third level of the vault were paintings and other objects of art, covered with cloths.  These, according to Lubzka, were removed from the Magdeburg museum.  Asked if any of the paintings were Nazi loot from occupied counties, Lubzka said he did not know.

After his inspection, Happy notified Major Jasper Ackerman, of Colorado Springs, Col., military government official.  Ackerman, who in civilian life was was vice-president of the Exchange National Bank of Colorado Springs, went to the bank.  He impounded the treasure and placed "Geschlossen" (Closed signs on the bank's doors.)  Taking over the bank represented a boost in the world of finance for Ackerman.  The Exchange National Bank has only $13,000,000 in assets.

With only a Browning Automatic rifle, two M1's and a pistol, the squad held the beach until the remainder of A Company could cross on the footbridge.

Members of the squad were: Pfc George N. Kareha, Meadville, Pa., Pvt Paul Bock, Pittsburg, Pa., Pfc Vergyl Clark, Pocatello, Idaho, Sgt Edwin Andres, Grand Rapids, Mich., Cpl Marion L. Boles, LaMan, Mo., Pfc Theodore Meredith, Pittsburgh, Pa., Pfc Calvin F. Ball, Louisville, Ky., Pfc Charles Baize, Hartford, Ky., and Pvt John L. Cofer, Norfolk, Va.

The American 30th division had captured 10 carloads of red tape used by the Germans to make armbands for the Nazi party.  Now former Russian prisoners of war are cutting red stars out of it.

The advance of the Second Armored Division and attached doughboys of the 30th Division placed the Ninth Army spearhead less than 130 miles from Berlin today, at Sarstedt and Hindesheim.

A sergeant from the 30th riding a second armored tank saw a wisp of smoke curl from a pier on the approach of one of the Leine bridges south of Sarstedt.

Realizing the smoke came from a German fuse and the bridge was about to be blown up, the sergeant rushed forward and tore out the burning fuse with his bare hands.

It was attached to 1,200 pounds of explosive, and the fuse had been burning so near the charge that a detonating cap exploded in his hands.

The explosion blew off two of his fingers, and for this reason under censorship rules he must remain nameless for the moment.

The sergeant's act allowed the combat command to rush forward across the bridge unhampered, forcing a general German withdrawal at to the south, with the result the Second Armored's other command found several more bridges intact and passed rapidly over to invest them and take Hildesheim early Sunday.

Although Sgt. McLaughlin vouches for the excellent quality of the cigars, some of his buddies developed an unnatural green tint.

Today, the fifth day of the Ninth Army's bridgehead offensive, the found the redoubtable German 116th Panzer Division still grimly carrying out they meet as infantry rather than from the Netherlands to perform - that of staying the Ninth's advance and thus averting outflanking of the Ruhr from the north.

Until today the 116th had battled with the Thirtieth Infantry Division of Lieut. Gen. William H. Simpson's command. But today the tired Thirtieth, which had fought without rest since the Rhine, opened its ranks to let armored elements through to take on the Panzers.

When the armored forces fight each other Greek meets Greek, but they meet an infantry instead of armor. Up to today the 116th had been observed to employ at most twenty-five and the role they played was that of mobile artillery for defense or counter-attack.  Similarly, the American armored elements that challenged the 116th today fought as armored infantry.

Break-Through Essential

They could not have operated in what has become the classic manner for the armored force - that is, a hell-for-leather dash through the enemy's lint into his rear - unless the hard crust of his defense had been penetrated.  No penetration had, in fact, been made, and, therefore, it was up to the American armor to make its own breakthrough - a difficult and ungrateful task.

What made it hard today was the 116th's skillful employment of the dual-purpose 88mm and 105mm high-velocity anti-aircraft guns, with which his rear is stuck full as a pincushion with pins.

Since these guns can fire at any elevation, they are equally effective against targets in the air and on the ground, and probably no more effective all-round weapon has yet been used in war. Despite them, the skillful mining of roads and fields and the launching of short, sharp counter-attacks against American armored infantry from the flanks by German infantry supported by tanks  and half-tracks, the Americans advanced about two miles and late this afternoon they were over the ridge on which the 116th had been entrenched everywhere except in the north.

There the Germans were able to hinge their line on Dorsten, which, like every other sizable town in this area constitutes strong point easy to defend and difficult to take.

What may make it easier for an attacker is the fact that the British Sixth Guards Armored Brigade has penetrated Dorsten's environs on the northern side of the Lippe River, thereby not only partly flanking Dorsten's defenders but cutting off remaining elements of the German Eighty-fourth Infantry division, which had been holding the line before the Seventeenth Airborne invasion on the Ninth Army's left flank.

The German 116th Panzers have acquitted themselves in this bridgehead sector in a manner befitting their reputation, but have paid dearly for their stubbornness. The First Battalion of the 116th's 160th Regiment has been reduced by artillery fire to about half strength, and is now amalgamated with the Second Battalion, which has also been badly chopped up. It is believed the 156th Regiment is now minus a third of its strength. But as a whole the 116th is still fighting effectively, and at its back, if driven from its present positions, it still has a water line to retreat to - the Lippe and Rhine-Herne canals which meet each other to encircle the territory in which the Ninth Army is fighting.

Take it from 12 of the happiest fighting men on the front, crossing the Rhine on and bursting thru German defenses was 10 times as easy as getting thru the Siegfried line last October.

These men from the 117th Infantry regiment of the 30th Division suddenly were yanked out of battle east of the Rhine and told they were going home on 45 day furloughs.

They had been in the thick of the fighting since Normandy.  One sergeant was the only survivor of an original company of 150 men.  Another was one of six left in a company that started out last June.

TOUGH BATTLES LISTED

They listed in order the toughest battles fought in Europe.

1 - The original breaking of the Siegfried line north of Aachen last September and October.

2 - The bitter fighting around St. Lo last July when the division lost a large number of men in an allied bombing.

3 - The battle of the bulge, when Von Rundstedt broke thru last December and January in the Ardennes.

4 - The Mortain battle when the 30th broke up a German attempt to cut off Lt. Gen. Patton's army by driving to the sea at Avranches.

The Rhine, they agreed was easy.  But the eager doughboys and Capt. Victor Salem, 35, Kew Gardens, N. Y., wanted to talk about everything except battles.

"I thought they were kidding when they yanked me off the tank the attack just when we were going to start the attack and said I was going home", said Capt. Salem, who has won the Silver Star with two clusters, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

"I never save anything like it when we crossed the Rhine. The boys were hot and just wanted to keep on going until they got to Berlin.  Tow or three of the boys go would out on their own and come back with 50 prisoners."

No one man knew his leave was coming up. Most were notified until just as they were going into battle.

ILLINOINISAN'S SECRET OUT

Tech. Sgt. George G. Hegler, Northport, Ill., a platoon sergeant at first didn't want to give his name because he wanted to "surprise my folks", but then decided that he would because "the rest of the fellows did."

"I was just going on a task force", said Tech. 4th Grade John Esson, a radio operator, Flint, Mich.  "Boy, I felt good.  I just headed for a deep cellar, out of the way of shells, before something happened to me."

"I didn't waste any time hanging around the front", said Pvt. Harry Stahl, Newton, Ks.,automatic rifle man who had been in the line for months.

Tech. 4th Grade Donald Berg, Cannon Falls, Minn., had to flip with another doughboy to decide who went home.

"I must have been living right, because I won", he said.

ANOTHER GOOD ON THE DRAW

Pvt. Henry V. Ciozynski, Naticoke, Pa., who worked in regimental headquarters, considered himself luckiest of all.  Headquarters was notified it had one place to fill.  Names of eligible men were put in a hat and Ciozynski won the draw.

Tech. Sgt. George Morris, 22, Bemis, Tenn., said the first thing he wanted to do when he got home was get married, but said he couldn't think of anything to say to his fiancée that he "could tell her in the newspapers."

Leave came almost too late for Staff Sgt. Joseph Bednarczyk, Willimantic, Conn.  The day before he got orders to leave, a shrapnel fragment ripped though the sleeve of his coat.

It fell to F Company to take the first and a portion of the last objective of the 120th infantry regiment, with a lot of tough fighting between, when it jumped across the Rhine and punched 15 miles during a five-day battle as the 30th division spearheaded the Ninth Army's latest drive.

The Second battalion commanded by Lt. Col. James Willis Cantley, of 1011 Bull street, Columbia, S. C., drew the assignment to lead the way during the river crossing.  F company, led by Capt. John Jacob, of Omaha, Neb., stormed the beaches shooting as it went and tossing hand grenades into German holes along the banks.

S/Sgt. Sam Javitch, of Cleveland, Ohio led a platoon into the town of Mehrun, killing 50 Germans and taking 75 prisoners.

The company then mounted tanks of the 743rd tank battalion and shoved its way six miles beyond the Rhine.

Up the line F company met its severest test at a strongpoint protecting a vital crossroads, and dubbed "Hell's Corner".  With rifles only, the company routed three German tanks, a self-propelled gun and a company of infantry from the woods around the strongpoint.

"We laid down such a heavy fire that the Jerries thought that we had more than we did", Captain Jacobsen said.  "My communications sergeant and myself even fired our pistols at the tanks."

S/Sgt. Leo T. Carey, of Willimantic, Conn., and First Sgt. Thomas M. Weems, of Ventor, N. J., took over and led a platoon after their officers were wounded.

F company closed out the five days fight by staging a spectacular night attack and had it's objective within 30minutes.

INNOCENCE PROFESSED

Voelkner was discovered by the 30th's CIC men in Schierke hospital near Halberstadt, disguised as a Wehrmacht officer. The first thing he said after his arrest was that he had nothing to do with the horrors of any camp had guarded.

In fact, he said, once when he took over a small camp of Jewish slaves near Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, he actually improved conditions.  He said that when he arrived were so brutal that he realized the Jews soon would be dead and he would be out of a job. So, he said, he eased things up so that not so many died each day as before.

Even as he talked the evidence slowly built up against him.

He joined the SS forces in 1932 and was such a "good" chieftain that in 1940 he was given command of one of the infamous SS Totenkopf battalions to guard concentration camps. "That was when he was first sent to Buchenwald - but nothing which happened there was his fault he repeated.

The counter-intelligence corps men had heard that song before.

They listed what evidence he had given, labeled his case "attention war crimes" and ordered him shipped back.

Oberstrumfuehrer Karl Voelkner moved out in short mechanical steps under guard, his eyes jerking furtively from face to face to see how much impression his plea of innocence had made.

Of the glorious stand at Avranches, the citation said in part --

"In the face of numerically superior numbers, all available troops of the First Battalion, including messengers and truck drivers, were committed to action to fill gaps in the line. When the command post was overrun, the command group personally fought its way out.

"Throughout the entire battalion area riflemen fought and outwitted hostile troops in fierce hand-to-hand fighting.

"Antitank gunners and rocket launcher teams in the face of intense small-arms fire, combined their attacks to annihilate numerous enemy tanks. In the midst of incessant and withering fire, the personnel of the First Battalion remained at their posts  unhesitatingly and performed magnificently."

A real athlete at West Point and still a pretty fair tennis player, Gen. Hobbs is massive, with black, bushy eyebrows, over snapping blue eyes.

He doesn't get to New England much except for an occasional Summer vacation on the North Shore, but he recalls 1939 as the year he spent attending the Naval War College at Newport, R. I., and calls it, "about as pleasant a duty as any to which a United States Army officer could be assigned."

It as at this time, too, that he took journalism as a sideline, doing articles for the Christian Science Monitor. Today the General as busy awarding to his much-decorated division - he thinks he ought to do it personally, because the outfit is doing so much fighting there hasn't been much time for ceremonies.  Decorations have piled up and he had almost a full day of it today.

No less than 4,000 medals have been earned by the men under his command.

A battalion commanded by Lt. Col. Robert E. Frankland of Jackson, Tenn., has won a Presidential Citation for turning back one of Germany's finest panzer divisions during the fighting at Avranches, France, last summer.

This was the first battalion of the 117th Infantry Regiment. It stemmed the tide of Nazi tanks which tried to drive through to the sea between the American First and Third armies on Aug. 7, 1944, during the battle of Mortain in the vicinity of St. Barthelmy, France.

Since then the same battalion also has distinguished itself by cracking the Siegfried line north of Aachen and at Stavelot in the battle of the Belgian Bulge.

(The 117th Infantry Regiment of the 30th Division is composed largely of former Tennessee National Guard units, including companies from Cleveland, Dayton, Etowah, Sweetwater, Lenoir City and other points in East Tennessee.)

Music an Speeches

Today the heroes of Avranches, Aachen and Stavelot lined up in a muddy field beside their camp and received the citation from President Roosevelt in a formal ceremony that included band music, speeches and all the trimmings.

Frankland told the battalion: "I think you are the best fighting battalion in the army."

The 30th Division's commander, Maj. Gen, Leland S. Hobbs, gave out the individual certificates and ribbons and then told the honored battalion it had "just received the highest unit honor given by the U. S. Army. It compares with an individual award of the Distinguished Service Cross."