Lehman pleads for more relief
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Japs gaining in drive south of Hangchow
Seek to clear escape path to port
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Planes push out Japs on Borneo
Aussie troops pound retreating enemy
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Nazis increased output to the end
Captured document gives production data
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Allied control plan set up for Austria
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Frau Goering lives in hope that Hermann will return
Wife of No. 2 Nazi leader considered just another Hausfrau by Yanks
By Curt Riess
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Background of news –
Universal military training
By Bertram Benedict
Members of the House Military Affairs committees of the Senate and House were quoted by The United Press Monday as saying chances of adoption of a post-war military training law were being rapidly diminished.
They gave these reasons: (1) Heavy Army spending; (2) Army insistence on a force of seven million men for the remainder of the war; (3) charges of excessive Army stockpiling of food; (4) Army reluctance to release miners, railroaders and other skilled workers to aid war production.
The War Department’s campaign for a permanent policy of universal military training was opened September 1, 1944, with the submission to the House Committee on Post-war Military Policy of a memorandum by Chief of Staff Marshall which recommended maintenance of the smallest possible professional Army organization after the war, with the largest possible number of civilian reserves.
Gen. Marshall called for a system under which “every able-bodied American shall be trained to defend his country” and every trainee would be kept in reserve status for a reasonable term of years after completion of his compulsory training.
Wave of pacifism feared
The Army program received the endorsement of the House Committee on Post-war Military Policy in a report last July 5 which called for “action now.”
Chairman Woodrum (D-Virginia) had been quoted earlier as saying: “There very likely will be a wave of pacifism after the war and any legislation of a military nature will be difficult to enact.” Mr. Woodrum feared a repetition after this war of the experience after World War I, when dissatisfactions both with Army policies and with the peace settlements reached at Paris combined to defeat the plan then desired by the General Staff.
A bill to reorganize the Army on a peacetime footing, favorably reported from the Senate Military Affairs Committee in January 1920, proposed a system of compulsory military training somewhat less drastic than that set forth in the now pending military training bill.
The 1920 plan was offered by Chairman Wadsworth (R-New York) of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Mr. Wadsworth now is a member of the House and was co-sponsor in 1940 of the present Selective Service Act.
The 1945 plan is sponsored by Chairman May (D-Kentucky) of the House Military Affairs Committee and Sen. Chan Gurney (R.-South Dakota).
The 1920 plan called for four months of military training for all male citizens at 19 years of age, with deferment up to three years allowed for cause.
Six years in reserves
The present plan calls for a full year of training at age 18 (or at 17 with the consent of parents) and would permit deferment for four years under certain circumstances.
After training, the men would have been enrolled in the reserves for five years, under the 1920 plan, and required in each of these years to spend at least two weeks in military maneuvers.
The period in the reserves, under the May-Gurney bill, would be six years. There is no present provision for the “refresher” courses which the War Department says are necessary.
The 1920 plan met overwhelming defeat in the Senate, April 9, 1920 – three weeks after the Senate’s second rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. The Senate voted 46-9 to substitute a plan of voluntary training in summer camps to be maintained by the Army or in the militia organizations of the states.
Two awarded Medals of Honor
WASHINGTON (UP) – Two American soldiers – one of German descent, the other a native of Mexico – won the Medal of Honor for single-handedly saying their respective companies from annihilation in Germany. They are Sgt. Robert E. Gerstung, 30, of Chicago, and Sgt. Marcario Garcia, 25, of Sugarland, Texas.