America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

NormanStewart · December 13, 2020, 3:24pm

Mussolini announces war declaration

ROME (UP, via Buenos Aires) – Italy declared war on the United States today when Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano summoned U.S. Charge d’Affaires George Wadsworth to the Foreign Office and handed him his passports.

“His Majesty, the King-Emperor of Italy, declares that Italy considers herself in a state of war with the United States of America from today,” Ciano said in a communication to Wadsworth.

Italy’s war declaration was proclaimed by Premier Benito Mussolini in a speech before a vast assemblage of cheering Italians from the balcony of Venice Palace.

Mussolini said that “one man alone” is responsible for “this new war because by his continued provocations he has prepared for war day by day with diabolic persistence.” (The reference presumably was to President Roosevelt.)

Promises victory

“Italian men and women will be worthy of this great hour,” he added.

“Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany have allied themselves with Japan in a war against the United States of America,” he said.

“We shall bring you victory.”

“This is a great day in the history of the continent of Europe,” Mussolini continued.

“Italy and her ally Germany together with Japan enter the war against the United States.

“One hundred and fifty million men are resolute to do everything to reach final victory.

“We shall wage war in order to conquer.

“After an infinite series of provocations, the Japanese have struck in the Pacific and have achieved great victories.

“It is a privilege to fight at their sides.

“The Tripartite Pact [the German-Italian-Japanese alliance, now brought into active force] is a sure guarantee of victory and a powerful instrument for a just peace for the nations.”

The approximately 100,000 persons who crowded the Venice Square and overflowed into nearby streets called Mussolini back to the balcony nine times to acknowledge their cheers.

ARMY BOMBERS SINK JAP BATTLESHIP
Planes blast Jap vessel in Luzon action

Stimson confirms report of success – invasion continues

Where fighting rages in Philippines

U.S. forces fought off the Japanese from Manila to the top of Luzon Island today. (1) A Japanese battleship was set afire and sunk off the north coast. (2) An invasion thrust was beaten back at San Fernando. (3) Mopping-up operations against Japanese landing parties was in progress at Lingayen, 100 miles north of Manila. (4) Japanese planes continued to raid the great Cavite Naval Base and the Army air base at Nichols Field.

WASHINGTON (UP) – Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson today confirmed the sinking of the 29,000-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off the northern coast of Luzon yesterday by U.S. Army bombers.

Mr. Stimson told a press conference that the Office of Naval Intelligence had just “confirmed the sinking by Army bombers of the 29,000-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off Luzon.”

He made the announcement just before the War Department issued a 10:30 a.m. communique on Philippine operations in which the sinking of the battleship was reported.

The Haruna (a vessel of 29,330 tons) was built in 1913 and carried 980 officers and men. The ship was armed with eight 14-inch guns, 16 6-inch guns and lesser arms. The Haruna carried three aircraft, which were added to her equipment in 1927. The ship was refitted between 1926 and 1930.

Thus the United States has revenged at least in part the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Sunday in which the loss of one old U.S. battleship has been officially announced and other losses reported.

The War Department communique said that there were continued attempts by strong Japanese forces to establish themselves along the northern coast of Luzon.

“Determined resistance has confined this action to the attack in the vicinity of Aparri, at the extreme northern tip of Luzon, where the Japanese attempted to establish a beachhead yesterday,” the communique said.

“Air activity continued in the vicinity of Manila, with intermittent attacks on airfields at Cavite and Nichols Field throughout the day.”

Mr. Stimson said that Aparri is just a “small landing place,” which is shut off from the main part of the island by mountains, and that if the Japanese attempt to transport an army through the passes, it will “be a slow job.”

Mr. Stimson said that he had sent a message to Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Far Eastern forces, congratulating him on the sinking, his defense against “great odds” and the conduct of the U.S. Army and Philippine troops.

Heavy loss of planes

Mr. Stimson predicted the ultimate triumph of the United States cause over the “autocratic” powers.

He said there was a “heavy loss” of planes in Hawaii as a result of Sunday’s surprise raid, but said that it “can and is being made good at the present moment.”

He also said that full details of the attack are not yet known, but that the principal concern of the War Department is getting defenses strengthened everywhere.

“We do not believe in recrimination of placing of the blame on anybody at this time,” Mr. Stimson said. “We believe that is a sign of immaturity. The investigations can come later. Now we are stressing preparedness.”

Praises aviators

He said that one incident had given him great encouragement during the attack on Hawaii. While the bombing was in progress, he revealed, a flight of Flying Fortresses arrived at Hawaii from San Francisco. Mr. Stimson said that the first of these planes was shot down, but the others were able to land safely at other airports. Of these, he said two suffered slight damage which has been repaired.

He said that this showed the ability of American soldiers to keep their heads and take care of themselves.

Mr. Stimson told newsmen that we must expect initial reverses but that it is “the last shots and not the first that count.”

Early reverses seen

He said the American people should be careful never to underestimate the ability of the Japanese seamen, because “I’ve seen enough of them in the Far East to know.”

“The American people have been put through a very heavy test during the past few days,” Mr. Stimson said. “When we survey the situation cold-bloodedly, we must expect initial reverses.”

He said that history shows there are three periods in a war. He said that the first is the so-called “unset” during which governments of free peoples are at a distinct disadvantage. The others are the periods when the drag begins to weigh down on the nations involved, and the finish.

“It has almost been proved a fact that the free people win because of their endurance,” Stimson said. “Such governments have a momentum from the people that no one man can possibly have.”

Army beats off Luzon invaders

By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer

MANILA, Philippines – An Army communique announced today that the situation was completely in hand in the fight against a Japanese attempt to invade the Philippines.

Later communiques, indicating an increasingly favorable United States position, said a Japanese detachment which landed near Lingayen on the west coast of Luzon Island was being disposed of in mopping-up operations and that interceptor planes had driven off a Japanese bombing formation which brought a noon air raid alarm to Manila.

The Army reported the sinking of the Japanese battleship Haruna off the northern coast of Luzon and said it was set afire by three direct hits from a bombing plane. Beside the direct hits, the plane dropped two bombs close to the ship’s sides.

As regards the fight against the Japanese attempt to invade Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, in a threat to Manila, the great Cavite Naval Base and the Army airfields, the communique asserted that a Philippine Army division had beaten back light Japanese troop attacks near Lingayen, in Pangasinan Province, 100 miles north of Manila.

This point is the closest to which the Japanese had come to Manila in their invasion attempts, which previously had been reported as centering farther north on the west coast and on the north coast. Lingayen, an important trade center, is on the Gulf of Lingayen. A direct mainline railroad connects it with Manila.

The Army communique:

“The situation is completely in hand. There have been no major developments since yesterday with the one exception of light attacks by ground troops in the vicinity of Lingayen which were repulsed by one Filipino Army division.

“One of our Army bombers late yesterday attacked a Japanese battleship of the Hiranuma 29,000-ton class, a capital ship, 10 miles northeast of northern Luzon and scored three direct hits and two very close alongside.

“When the bomber left, the battleship was blazing fiercely.”

The Manila Tribune reported that an American tank ship was sunk during yesterday’s Japanese raids on Manila and that one American and one British freighter were damaged. Several seamen were killed and at least 24 wounded, the Tribune said.

The Tribune said 15 Japanese planes were shot down in yesterday’s raids, the Bulletin nine.

Deaths reported

The Tribune reported 30 civilians killed and 250 wounded in all. The Bulletin reported 37 killed and 46 wounded in the Pasay suburb alone and said at least 140 wounded were brought to Manila from the Cavite Naval Base.

The Bulletin reported that two priests had been arrested in San Fernando, Pampanga Province, for alleged fifth column activities.

San Fernando, mentioned in the War Department communique as a zone of Japanese invasion attempts, is on the west coast of Luzon, north of Lingayen Gulf.

The Bulletin also asserted that in Manila, a signal line between Nichols Field and an air raid tower was cut, supposedly by fifth columnists, and delayed the alarm when the Japs raided the Manila Bay area yesterday.

Gas instruction given

Air Raid Chief Warden Alfredo G. Eugenio issued detailed instructions to the public for procedure in event of gas attacks.

The Tribune reported that a Filipino air squadron under Capt. Jesus Villamor chased a superior force of 20 enemy planes from Zablan Field, near Manila, yesterday and hit and possibly downed one.

An anti-aircraft gun crew at Zablan Field was credited with downing another bomber.

Both Nichols Field and nearby Nielson Airport were reported damaged slightly.

Reliable informants said Lt. Andrew Krieger of the U.S. Army Air Forces parachuted to safety from his plane during yesterday’s raids after seeing three Japs parachuting from a plane.

One raid alarm

Philippine Army men fought off one low-flying Japanese plane with machine guns, and it was believed that the plane crashed in the hills near Manila.

Radio Mexico, quoting Manila advices, reported that the Japs lost 54 planes yesterday in Philippine operations.

There was a one-hour air raid alarm in Manila during the night, ending at 1 a.m.

Japanese reconnaissance planes were reported to have flown over the city, circled the Cavite Naval Base, and to have flown off westward.

Maj. LeGrande A. Diller, Army spokesman, said a checkup showed that there was no truth in a report that a German pilot had been shot down in a Japanese plane.

WAR BULLETINS!

U.S. ambassador and Petain meet

VICHY – Adm. William D. Leahy, U.S. ambassador to Vichy, conferred with Chief of State Marshal Henri Philippe Petain for 30 minutes tonight.

British commander missing

SINGAPORE – Sir Tom Phillips, commander-in-chief of Britain’s Far Eastern Fleet, is missing in the HMS Prince of Wales-Repulse disaster, an official communique said tonight. Capt. John Leach of the Prince of Wales is also missing, the communique said.

Autos on Turnpike searched

SOMERSET, Pennsylvania – All autos entering the tunnels on the Pennsylvania Turnpike are being searched by State Motor Police against any possible acts of sabotage.

British hold in northern Malaya

SINGAPORE – A British communique reported today that Japanese air and sea forces still appear to be engaged in raiding operations over wide areas of the Pacific. The communique said that British defenses in northern Malaya are holding firmly against Japanese attacks and that “there appears to be no change in the enemy’s plans.”

No further Japanese efforts to land in the Kuantan area, north of Singapore, were reported.

18-64 draft ages suggested

WASHINGTON – Brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, director of Selective Service, said today that it might be desirable eventually to register all men between the ages of 18 and 64, inclusive, for military service, civilian defense and other purposes.

Roosevelt praises ‘political truce’

WASHINGTON – President Roosevelt today expressed his appreciation to leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties for their “political truce” invoked for the duration of the emergency and suggested that the facilities of the party organizations be used in civilian defense.

Casualty list received

WASHINGTON – Chairman David I. Walsh, D-Massachusetts, of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee said today that the Hawaiian casualty list was received by the Navy this morning but will not be made public for two or three days so that next of kin can be notified first.

Foreign service approved

WASHINGTON – The Senate and House today swiftly passed legislation permitting President Roosevelt to use U.S. troops anywhere in the world in prosecution of the war against the Axis. The measure also extends the term of service for selectees to six months past the duration of war.

Honolulu evacuation plans ready

WASHINGTON – Plans have been completed to evacuate 60,000 civilians from the city of Honolulu if it is threatened with sea or air attack again. The program provides for the movement of 40,000 civilians to camp sites scattered over the island of Oahu, and another 20,000 to small villages on the lee side of the island.

Attack on Jap base reported

BATAVIA, NEI – The official Aneta News Agency today reported that Australian bombers have attacked a Japanese air base on the island of Pobre, between the Celebes and the Japanese island of Palau. Pobre is southeast of the Philippines.

Nazis execute 11 Frenchmen

VICHY – German authorities in Brest have executed 11 Frenchmen for illegal possession of arms. The executions bring to a total of 199 the number of persons executed in occupied France in reprisal for anti-German activities.

Americans seek way home

LONDON – The Exchange Telegraph Agency reported from Lisbon today that many Americans had arrived there from France in hope of getting passage to the United States.

Filipinos to ‘do part to the end’

MANILA, Philippines – President Manuel Quezon, replying to President Roosevelt’s “heartening message,” today asserted that the Philippines “will do their part to the end.” The Malacanan (Philippine White House) announced that Quezon is reorganizing the Civilian Emergency Administration to enable its more efficient operations.

U.S. correspondents restricted

LONDON – The United Press listening post heard the official German news agency report that American press correspondents in Paris have been banned from press conferences there and ordered to remain in their homes.

Trading in Axis dollar bonds suspended

NEW YORK – Trading in Italian and German dollar bonds was suspended by the New York Stock Exchange today following the declarations of war on the United States by both those countries.

Writer hits Axis hard

LONDON – German soldiers “cry like children” and Italians “die like flies” in the severe cold on the Russian front, Radio Moscow said today.

Taft predicts unlimited support

WASHINGTON – Sen. Robert A. Taft, R-Ohio, said today that President Roosevelt will have the unlimited support of every American in the all-out war which he predicted will last at least five years.

Radio advised to be careful

Avoid ‘horror and undue excitement,’ it is told

WASHINGTON (UP) – President Neville Miller of the National Association of Broadcasters advised radio stations today to use “unusually careful editorial judgment” in selecting war news.

Mr. Miller said it was equally important that announcers and newscasters report war news “calmly, slowly and deliberately, so as to avoid horror, suspense and undue excitement.” He agreed with the War Department that definite periods should be established for handling of war news “except for news of transcendent importance.”

Chairman James Lawrence Fly of the Federal Communications Commission, meanwhile, assured the radio industry that their facilities generally would remain in private hands. He said censorship was not being undertaken.

An order signed by President Roosevelt yesterday gives the Defense Communications Boad authority to designate radio facilities for the “use, control, inspection or closure” by the War or Navy Department or other government agency. It was explained that the order mainly affected stations used for point-to-point broadcasting of messages which could be used to augment the communication facilities of the Army and Navy.

Raid closings hamper coast defense work

Four aircraft plants are forced to shut in new blackout
By the United Press

Southern California’s defense industries, including aircraft plants building $1 billion worth of warplanes, sought today to bolster defense precautions to prevent costly shutdowns during air raid alarms.

Four aircraft plants were closed last night, their production of vital planes and parts halted, because of a three-hour air raid alarm during which the Army said an enemy plane was overhead.

Consolidated Aircraft, building $750 million worth of heavy bombers, Ryan Aeronautical and Solar Aircraft, building training planes, and Rohr Aircraft, manufacturer of equipment, were told by the Army to order their 17,000 night-shift workers home because their planes could not be completely blacked out.

Shipyards hampered

Shipyards, where most of the activity is outdoors, were also hampered by the blackouts and production was delayed.

The Army said it would cooperate to prevent delays when possible and ordered elimination of all practice blackouts. The alert signals will also be dispensed with and henceforth warnings will be flashed only when aircraft is approaching and immediately full blackouts are necessitated.

The alarm last night was spread throughout Southern California from Bakersfield to the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, and the southern tip of Nevada where Boulder Dam is located, when the Army heard an unidentified plane “over and south of Los Angeles.”

Planes sent up

Planes of the Interceptor Command were sent up, anti-aircraft units were ordered to blast the plane if it were spotted, and the entire area was blacked out. Army searchlights pierced the night.

Col. Harry S. Fuller, air raid warning official here, said that “by a process of elimination” the Army concluded the unidentified plane was an enemy craft.

The blackout through the area was “near perfect” with the exception of Los Angeles where it was “spotty,” he said.

The Pacific Northwest, from Roseburg, Oregon, to Alaska and west of the Cascade Mountains, underwent its third night of blackout. Radio stations closed down at 7:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. EST), although lights were not turned off until 1:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EST) in Washington and Oregon. British Columbia, blanketed by a heavy fog, went on a complete blackout basis at dusk.

Perfect ARP systems

Prodded by New York Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, director of Civilian Defense, Pacific Coast cities began perfecting their air raid warden systems. He said San Francisco, and all other exposed cities, needed gas masks, more firefighting equipment, more air raid wardens, more auxiliary firefighters, more drills.

LaGuardia said he was “not satisfied with civilian defense forces anywhere,” but that the United States, after three days of war, was ahead of Great Britain at a corresponding period of the European war.

In Portland, Oregon, the city council passed an ordinance providing $500 fine and six months’ imprisonment for violation of blackout regulations.

Has third alarm

Metropolitan New York had its third alarm in 24 hours yesterday.

The eastern alarm was attributed, as were the two before it, to overzealousness on the part of warning signal operators. Planes were spotted, but they turned out to be U.S. naval craft. Tuesday’s two alarms were traced to a “phony tip.”

The latest New York alarm caught the city’s millions during the morning rush hour. Air raid wardens herded crowds off the streets, stopped children en route to school and sent them home.

Lasts 12 minutes

The alarm lasted 12 minutes in Manhattan, longer in other boroughs and counties on Long Island, where the sirens first began shrieking.

All patients who could be removed were ordered evacuated from the U.S. Veterans Hospital near San Francisco’s Golden Gate.

Canadian and U.S. military planes scoured the fog-shrouded Pacific coastal waters from Vancouver Island to Alaska for Japanese aircraft carriers and other enemy craft.

RCAF authorities refused to comment on the results.

Senator halts vote to allow troops abroad

Johnson says AEF sought; draftee age minimum slash opposed

WASHINGTON (UP) – Immediate congressional approval of legislation authorizing use of selectees and National Guardsmen outside the Western Hemisphere was blocked today by Sen. Hiram W. Johnson, R-California, because he understood “it’s for an AEF.”

The House was prepared to pass the legislation, but deferred action pending Senate approval.

Mr. Johnson objected after there developed a parliamentary tangle requiring unanimous consent to bring up the proposal in advance of action on the chamber’s “unfinished business” – a tristate river compact.

He told reporters later that his maneuver gave him time to study the measure.

The legislation was called up by Chairman Robert R. Reynolds, D-North Carolina, of the Military Affairs Committee, who believes that an AEF of millions of men will be needed to crush Japan and defeat Germany if formal hostilities with that nation begin.

In the House, Chairman Andrew J. May, D-Kentucky, of the Military Affairs Committee announced he would oppose any proposal to lower the minimum draft age from 21 to 18 years. He said the War Department had sent the committee no request for legislation to broaden the present age limits of 21-28 to 18-44, but that such a proposal would be given “fair and impartial hearings” if offered.

“I am ready to do whatever is necessary to help this country win,” he said, “but I don’t want to go below the age of 21.”

Rep. Hamilton Fish, R-New York, who returned recently from active duty with the Army, said he would support the bill eliminating hemisphere restrictions on use of troops because “it is very proper in time of war.”

Mexican troops rushed to defend Pacific Coast

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (UP) – All Mexican troops, airplanes and gunboats “that can be spared” were moving west today and it was revealed that Gen. Lazaro Cardenas, former Mexican president, had been named commander of Mexico’s entire armed forces on the Pacific from the American border to Guatemala.

President Manuel Avila Camacho designated Gen. Cardenas to coordinate the nation’s emergency defense plans in cooperation with the United States against a possible invasion threat by Japan.

In a special presidential decree, President Camacho consolidated 12 western military zones and two naval zones to be commanded by Gen. Cardenas from headquarters at Ensenada, Baja California.

Meanwhile, six generals and one admiral of the Spanish Republic, now refugees in Mexico from the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco, offered President Avila Camacho the service of hundreds of other refugees with military and technical training.

The Defense Ministry did not reveal the exact number of troops or planes to be concentrated on the Pacific. The force would admittedly be limited since first-line troops under arms now total less than 60,000 men and the air force can count on less than 100 planes.

Nevertheless, the concentration will be of inestimable value in strengthening vigilance against surprise attacks along the 4,574 miles of Mexican coastline in the Pacific.

May be fighting Japs in Philippines

The picture above and the one immediately below, just received from the Philippines, are among the latest showing U.S. defense forces in the islands. A battery gun section is shown above in action during maneuvers. It was made just before the war started. This unit may be in actual combat with the Jap invaders today.

Men of the Coast Artillery are shown loading a 10-inch gun during Army maneuvers in the Philippines.

This telephoto shows a battleship of the Haruna class of Japanese warships, one of which was sunk by a U.S. Army plane off the Philippines.

197 U.S. airplanes lost in Philippine fighting, Japs say

Prisoners, ships seized at Guam, submarine and service vessel sunk off Hawaiian Islands, Tokyo radio reports – Lexington sunk, Berlin says
By the United Press

Japan asserted officially today that its forces had destroyed 197 U.S. planes in two-day operations in the Philippines and had sunk an American destroyer, a submarine and a special service ship in operations off the Hawaiian Islands.

A German broadcast quoted Tokyo as claiming the sinking of the 33,000-ton aircraft carrier USS Lexington off Hawaii.

Imperial Headquarters at Tokyo asserted that Japanese troops, landing on America’s outpost islands of Guam, had taken about 350 prisoners, captured much material and seized key points in the harbor without loss.

A 3,000-ton American oil tanker was captured in the harbor, Tokyo asserted, and its captain and crew of 30 made prisoner.

Plane losses listed

It was asserted further that five of a formation of seven American planes had been shot down in air attacks on Wake Island and that numerous “military objectives” had been destroyed.

Tokyo claimed that 45 American planes were shot down and 71 destroyed on the ground in Japanese attacks on Iba and other airfields in the Philippines Tuesday against the loss of five Japanese planes.

Imperial Headquarters claimed that in big-scale attacks on the Manila zone yesterday, 45 American planes were shot down and that 36 grounded planes were destroyed.

Tell of suicide attacks

A later communique asserted that in the Manila attacks, a transport was heavily damaged and that an arsenal was exploded at nearby Cavite Naval Base.

Loss of five Japanese planes was admitted. Two of the planes, it was said, dived headlong into their objectives in suicide attacks.

It was said that two British gunboats were sunk by direct bomb hits in an attack on Hong Kong.

Admit ‘warship’ lost

It was asserted that only three Japanese planes were lost in the attacks by which the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk, and Japanese naval planes, attacking the Kuantan Air Base in Malaya, destroyed 10 British planes. It was asserted that other Navy bombers destroyed a 7,000-ton British freighter off eastern Malaya.

Radio Vichy reported a Japanese naval admission that “a warship” had been sunk yesterday. Germany reported from Tokyo the admission that a submarine chaser had been lost in Philippine landing operations.

Radio Vichy said Tokyo “confirmed” that attacks on U.S. warships had been made by torpedo-carrying planes, none of which was lost.

Fleet supremacy claimed

Radio Vichy quoted the Japanese that considerable numbers of troops had landed on Luzon Island in the Philippines and that the position of the American troops was “gravely endangered.”

A Tokyo Navy spokesman said Japan was determined and prepared to assume control of the air over the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

“Contrary to Anglo-American expectations,” the spokesman said, “the qualitative strength of the Japanese fleet increased after the Washington Naval Conference of 1928. The United States and Great Britain forced Japan to have a weaker fleet as compared with theirs, believing thus to prevent the Japanese fleet from maintaining supremacy.

“The unexpected naval victory off Hawaii reversed completely the proportion established by the Washington Conference.

“The Japanese fleet will now let the facts talk, showing the entire world its supremacy.”

Indies surrender seen

Another Japanese broadcast suggested that in view of “tremendous Japanese success,” the Netherlands East Indies would soon surrender “to prevent needless sacrifice.”

Tokyo said that it had concluded a defensive and “offensive” pact with Thailand today (Thursday), “similar to that with French Indochina.”

It was added that the Thai government had proclaimed “a state of war” – possibly martial law – and asked its public to respect order.

The Japanese government information board said that 270 Americans and Britons had been detained in Tokyo “as a precaution for their protection and well-being.” Three to four newspapermen were included.

NormanStewart · December 13, 2020, 9:30pm

Casualty list

By the United Press

The War Department today made a new list of three officers and 87 enlisted men killed in the Japanese air raid on Hawaii Sunday.

The list brought to nine officers and 115 enlisted men killed and two wounded, the number thus far announced.

The department said the next of kin had been notified.

Dead:

NAME	AGE	UNIT	HOMETOWN
Pvt. Garland C. Anderson	24	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Omega, Georgia
Pvt. Manfred C. Anderson	23	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Houghton, Michigan
Cpl. Robert L. Avery	20	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Lincoln, Nebraska
Pvt. Gordon R. Bennett Jr.	21	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Clio, Michigan
Pfc. Edward F. Bernick			San Francisco, California
Pvt. Arthur F. Boyle	23	22nd Materiel Squadron	Lowell, Massachusetts
Staff Sgt. Billy O. Brandt	24	22nd Materiel Squadron	Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
Cpl. Harold W. Borgelt	23	7th Air Corps Squadron, Weather	Scribner, Nebraska
Pvt. Robert S. Brown	26	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Chatham, Massachusetts
Pvt. William J. Brownlee	19	22nd Materiel Squadron	Corpus Christi, Texas
Pvt. Brooks J. Brubaker Jr.	20	22nd Materiel Squadron	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Donal V. Chapman	27	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Wheeler, Illinois
Pvt. Jack W. Cox			Culver City, California
Pfc. William Coyne Jr.	20	42nd Bombardment Squadron	Kansas City, Kansas
Pvt. Russel C. Defenbaugh	20	19th Transport Squadron	Peoria, Illinois
Cpl. Richard A. Dickerson	22	HQ Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group	El Paso, Texas
Pvt. Joseph R. Drisner	23	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	East Chicago, Indiana
Tech. Sgt. Daniel A. Dyer Jr.	30	7th Air Corps Squadron, Weather	Beverly, Kansas
Pvt. Lyle O. Edwards	20	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Leslie, Michigan
Staff Sgt. Harold C. Elyard	28	18th Air Base Squadron	Parsons, West Virginia
Pvt. Malcolm W. Fairchild		Hickam Field	Chicago, Illinois
Pvt. Jack H. Feldman	19	22nd Materiel Squadron	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Tech. Sgt. Homer E. Ferris	50	18th Air Base Squadron	Patoka, Indiana
Pvt. Stuart H. Fiander	27	18th Air Base Squadron	North Quincy, Massachusetts
Staff Sgt. George K. Gannam	22	17th Air Base Squadron	Savannah, Georgia
Cpl. Robert R. Garrett	26	42nd Bombardment Squadron	Galesburg, Illinois
2nd Lt. William Grover			Needles, California
Staff Sgt. Elwood R. Gummerson	39	26th Bombardment Squadron	Uniontown, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Albert Hays	25	HQ Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group	Wyaconda, Missouri
Pvt. John P. Holloway		24th Bombardment Squadron	Green Bay, Wisconsin
Pvt. Robert Hull Jr.	19	72nd Pursuit Squadron	Wheeling, West Virginia
Pvt. James R. Johnson	26	22nd Materiel Squadron	Springfield, Illinois
Pvt. Marion E. King Jr.	29	22nd Materiel Squadron	Hunter, Kansas
Pfc. Conrad Kujawa	21	Battery A, 98th Field Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps	Hammond, Indiana
Cpl. Theodore J. Lewis	21	63rd Field Artillery Battalion, 24th Infantry Division	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Richard E. Livingston	24	HQ Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group	Westerville, Ohio
Pvt. Howard N. Lusk	25	23rd Bombardment Squadron	Lynwood, California
Pvt. Lawrence P. Lyons Jr.	20	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Chelsea, Massachusetts
Pfc. Harrell K. Mattox	21	50th Reconnaissance Squadron	Shawnee, Oklahoma
Pvt. Herbert E. McLaughlin	31	HQ Squadron, 17th Air Base Group	Shawano, Wisconsin
Pfc. William W. Merrithew	28	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Onenota, New York
Pfc. Horace A. Messam	22	22nd Materiel Squadron	Barberton, Ohio
Pvt. George A. Moran	25	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Somerville, Massachusetts
Pvt. John F. Morris	23		Greensburg, Pennsylvania
2nd Lt. Louis G. Moslener Jr.	23	88th Reconnaissance Squadron (H)	Monaca, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Victor L. Myers			Hendley, Nebraska
Pfc. Charles W. Narehood		42nd Bombardment Squadron	Pine Glen, Pennsylvania
Sgt. Roth J. Narramore		HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Elmdale, Kansas
Cpl. LaVerne J. Needham	29	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Walla Walla, Washington
Pvt. William H. Offutt	21	50th Reconnaissance Squadron	Connersville, Indiana
Pvt. Hal H. Perry Jr.	20	42nd Bombardment Squadron	Newellton, Louisiana
Pfc. Thomas F. Philipsky	21	22nd Materiel Squadron	Horicon, Wisconsin
Pfc. Charles P. Porterfield		42nd Bombardment Squadron	North Platte, Nebraska
Pvt. George Price	23	72nd Bombardment Squadron	Lake Arthur, New Mexico
Tech. Sgt. Herman C. Reuss	33	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Menominee, Michigan
Cpl. Thomas E. Roberts		HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Westminster, California
Pfc. Ruperto B. Rodrigues		HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Del Rio, Texas
1st Lt. William R. Schick	31	38th Reconnaissance Squadron	Chicago, Illinois
Pvt. William F. Shields	24	22nd Materiel Squadron	Bisbee, Arizona
Pvt. Harry E. Smith	19	HQ Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group	Harvey, Illinois
Pfc. Ralph S. Smith	20	22nd Materiel Squadron	Essington, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Elmer W. South	23	18th Air Base Squadron	Indianapolis, Indiana
Pfc. J. B. Sparks	22	22nd Materiel Squadron	Fort Worth, Texas
Pvt. Julian C. Stultz			Zionsville, Indiana
Pfc. Jerome J. Szematowicz	21	22nd Materiel Squadron	Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania
Cpl. Antonio S. Tafoya	25	26th Bombardment Squadron	Albuquerque, New Mexico
Pfc. Anderson G. Tennison	22	HQ Squadron, 18th Bombardment Wing	Canadian, Texas
Pvt. Ernest M. Walker Jr.	20	22nd Materiel Squadron	Shelocta, Pennsylvania
Pvt. James I. Wells			Browder, Kentucky
Pfc. Marlon H. Zaczkiewicz	26	HQ Squadrpn, 11th Bombardment Wing	Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Pvt. Joseph S. Zappala	21	23rd Materiel Squadron	Mattapan, Massachusetts

Two more soldiers added to district’s casualty list

Two more Pittsburgh District soldiers were added today to the growing list of known dead in the Japanese air raid on the Hawaiian Islands Sunday.

They were:

Pvt. John F. “Jack” Morris, son of Mr. and Mrs. Calvin F. Morris, of Greensburg.
Pvt. Ernest M. Walker Jr., 20, son of Ernest M. Walker, RDL, Shelocta, Indiana County.

Parents of both men have been notified. Both were in the Air Corps, stationed at Hickam Field.

Pvt. Morris was 23 years old, a graduate of Greensburg High School, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps on November 10, 1939. He was a bombardier.

His parents heard from him Friday last week when he wrote that he had passed examinations to become a Flying Cadet. Besides his parents, young Morris leaves four brothers and two sisters, all of Greensburg.

In Wheeling, West Virginia, today, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hull was notified by the War Department that their son, Robert Jr., had been killed in the raid on Hawaii.

Three others from the district were reported among the casualties yesterday. They were 2nd Lt. Louis G. Moslener Jr. of Monaca, Sgt. Elwood R. Gummerson of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and Pvt. Brooks J. Brubaker Jr. of Altoona.

Sgt. Gummerson was serving his fourth enlistment in the Air Corps and was stationed at Hickam Field. He is survived by his mother, a widow, two sisters and a brother.

The death toll for Western Pennsylvania now stands at eight.

Atlantic losses down –
Victory over all of Axis predicted by Churchill

Prime minister calls German march on Russia one of outstanding blunders of history
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

LONDON (UP) – Prime Minister Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons today as Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, said the British Empire, America, Russia and China were fighting for their lives “and will go forward to victory – not only Japan alone but over the Axis and all its works.”

In a sweeping review of the war, he said Adolf Hitler in attacking Russia had made one of the outstanding blunders of history, that the German and Italian forces in Eastern Libya most probably faced complete destruction, and that in the battle of the Atlantic net shipping losses were now much less than one-fifth of those for the four months ending June 30.

Discusses Libya

Starting off one of the major speeches of a war which now extends to all the continents, he said of the Libyan situation:

“On November 18, Gen. Claude Auchinleck set out to destroy the entire armed forces of the Germans and Italians in Cyrenaica [the eastern part of Libya]. Now, on December 11, I am bound to say, that it seems very probable he will do so… the German army in Libya is stubborn and in every way worthy of the tomb prepared for it.

Turning to Russia, he said:

“We can already see after six months of fighting in Russia that Hitler has made one of the outstanding blunders of history and the results so far realized constitute events of cardinal importance in the final decision of the war.”

Of the sinking of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse off Malaya, he said Prince of Wales was sunk by repeated attacks of bombing and torpedo-carrying planes and there was no reason to suppose that any new weapons or explosives had been employed.

Seven of the attacking planes were destroyed, he said.

Commander missing

He announced that Adm. Sir Tom Phillips, commander-in-chief of the Far Eastern Fleet, who was aboard his flagship Prince of Wales, was missing, and added: “I regard Sir Tom Phillips as one of the ablest and bravest men in the naval service.”

There were two high-level attacks by three waves of planes on Prince of Wales and Repulse, he said, and commented: “The loss of life was less heavy than was first feared.”

It had been announced at Singapore that more than 2,000 of the normal complements of 2,700 of the two ships had been saved.

He emphasized that Germany had been brought to a standstill everywhere in Russia.

Tells of retreat

“On large portions of the front they are in retreat,” he said. “Their losses have been enormous.”

He said he could not discuss yet the results of the Far Eastern and Pacific situation to date or measures which must be taken.

“It may well be that we shall have to suffer very considerable punishment but we shall defend ourselves everywhere with utmost vigor and close cooperation with the United States and the Netherlands Navies,” he said.

No one can underrate the gravity of the losses inflicted on the United States or underrate the length of time it will take to marshal the great forces necessary in the Far East for absolute victory, he said.

“The Japanese government or the ruling elements of Japan made a cold-blooded, calculated, violent, treacherous attack on the United States and ourselves.

“It seems to me quite certain that Japan when she struck her treacherous blow at the United States counted upon the active support of the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists.

Loss is grave

“The naval power of Great Britain and the United States is largely superior to the combined forces of the three Axis powers, but no one could underrate the gravity of the loss which had been inflicted in Malaya and Hawaii or the power of the new antagonist who has fallen upon us.

“We must expect that the volume of American supply reaching Britain and the degree of help from the United States Navy will be reduced… I cannot doubt that the 130 million people of the United States have bound themselves to win this war and once they get settled down to it and bend themselves to it as their main purpose in life, that flow of munitions and aid of every kind will vastly exceed anything that could have been expected up to the present.”

Regarding Germany and Italy aiding Japan, he said:

“…I know that I speak for the United States as well as for the British Empire, when I say that we would all rather perish than be conquered.

“Not only the British Empire but the United States are fighting for their lives.”

He said that the attacks on Prince of Wales and Repulse were delivered with skill and determination.

“In my whole experience I do not remember any naval blow so heavy or so painful,” he commented.

He said it was impossible for shore-based British planes to support Prince of Wales and Repulse. Attacks were made by shore-based planes.

New commander

Of the situation in Libya, he disclosed that Sir Alan Cunningham, 54, commander of the Eighth Army, had been succeeded by Maj. Gen. Neil Methuen Ritchie, 44, “a much younger man,” November 26.

He said Cunningham had been granted sick leave.

“Although the battle is not yet finished, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that for good or ill it is Gen. Auchinleck’s [Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck, commander-in-chief in the Middle East] battle.”

He admitted that British losses in tanks had been a good deal heavier than expected. But he said the British had maintained air superiority.

“The enemy, stripped largely of its armor, is now retreating to defensive positions west of Tobruk,” he said. “Substantial reinforcements are available to us close at hand.

“In no other way than an attack in Libya could a second front have been brought into action under conditions costlier to the enemy and more favorable to ourselves…”

Infantry weaker

He said Britain had never been able to place in the desert infantry forces numerically equal to those of the enemy.

Britain was superior in numbers of armored vehicles and tanks in Libya, he said, but he suggested that the somewhat heavier tank losses than had been expected were partly due to some German tanks being armed with six-pounder guns.

But numerical superiority had gradually given the British mastery in the first phase of the battle, he said.

“It may well be that in the second phase we shall gather more easily the fruits of the first,” he said.

Of the battle of the Atlantic, he said that the November figures for shipping losses “fully maintained the great recovery of the previous four months.”

He pledged the fulfillment of Great Britain’s engagements to Russia regarding supplies.

Nazi losses immense

“Hitler everywhere has been brought to a standstill – on a large portion of the front he is in retreat and the sufferings of his troops are indescribable,” he continued.

“Their losses have been immense.”

He said that winter, guerillas, the Russian army and air force and the stubborn unyielding resistance of the Russian people “have inflicted on the German armies and the German nation bloody losses almost unequaled in the history of war.”

In his review of the battle in which Prince of Wales and Repulse were lost, he said that Sir Tom Phillips proceeded in the action on the basis that the clouds, which were very low, would afford effective protection for an offensive stroke which was being made.

“At a certain period, a lift of the clouds enabled the movements of ships to be discerned,” he said.

He said Phillips acted on sound naval lines.

White House Statement on Wartime Labor Policy Conference
December 11, 1941

The President today issued invitations for a conference to be held between industry and labor to consider the problem of labor disputes during the war.

The President invited the Presidents of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations each to designate six representatives from different unions affiliated with their organizations. He also invited the Chairman of the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce to choose, after appropriate consultation, twelve representatives of industrial management. He will later appoint someone to serve as Moderator and Associate Moderator.

The conference will be held at Washington and will commence during the early part of the week of December 15.

The first and essential objective of the conference will be to reach a unanimous agreement to prevent the interruption of production by labor disputes during the period of the war. It is not expected that there will be any hesitation on the part of either labor or industry to accept this basic condition of the nation’s safety.

The conferees doubtless will find it necessary to agree upon machinery by which these disputes may amicably and finally be settled. It is thought this machinery might include appropriate procedures for adjusting disputes, for mediation, and for resort in defense industries to some tribunal whose decisions will be binding by agreement on all parties. But it is for the conferees to decide what form the machinery shall take so long only as an agreement is reached. Since the efficacy of that agreement will depend upon the voluntary cooperation of all concerned, emphasis is placed on the fact that it must represent a unanimous accord.

The agreement, it is pointed out, might include or be followed by an agreement defining appropriate practices for both labor and management to secure maximum production for war needs. In view of the gravity of the emergency now confronting this country, the President urges that the conferees reach a conclusion, at least upon the primary agreement preventing interruptions to production, and report to him within a very few days after convening.

NormanStewart · December 13, 2020, 9:52pm

The Pittsburgh Press (December 11, 1941)

Food supplies of nation high; prices to rise

Rationing unlikely next year with record 1941 crop gathered

WASHINGTON (UP) – There will probably be no rationing of food supplies in the United States at least for another year and then only in the event 1942 crops are short.

Food will cost more – prices are already higher. Officials said “proper measures” are being prepared to prevent profiteering and control speculative trading.

President Roosevelt told the nation Tuesday that there is plenty of food for everyone and enough left over for our allies. The 1941 crop as a whole was the largest on record. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard said reserve food supplies are the largest in history and that shipments to Great Britain would be increased and total about $1 billion next year.

Staple foods stored

Farm officials urged consumers to forego hoarding. They expect some shortages of luxuries such as prices, teas and oils customarily imported from the Far East, but promised substitutes for most of them.

Large quantities of staple foods have been stored under the ever-normal granary program and they will not have to be drawn upon during 1942, officials believe.

Here is the situation with respect to principal food items:

WHEAT: The 1941 crop of 961,194,000 bushels was more than 200 million bushels above the 1930-39 average and was one of the largest on record. Including reserves of 350 million bushels, the total supply of 1,311,000,000 bushels is sufficient for two years of domestic consumption.

CORN: The 1941 corn crop of 2,675,000,000 bushels gave the nation a record total supply of approximately 3,200,000,000 bushels.

DAIRY PRODUCTS: Milk production on December 1 averaged eight percent above a year ago and was the highest on record. The production of eggs was at the highest rate on record. Cheese stocks are exceptionally high despite heavy shipments to Britain.

VEGETABLES: Those grown for canning and processing set new high records this year for corn, peas and tomatoes. The total for all principal kinds is more than 20 percent above previous records.

FRUIT: Production at a near record.

MEAT: Supplies are exceptionally large.

SUGAR: Officials are taking every precaution to prevent a shortage such as set prices to 35 cents a pound during the First World War. Supplies on hand are near a record high.

Hawaii attack kills admiral

Isaac Kidd commanded battleship division

admkidd.killed
Adm. Kidd

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Navy announced last night that Rear Adm. Isaac Campbell Kidd was killed during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Sunday.

The Navy said he was in command of a battleship division of the Pacific Fleet. It did not disclose the name of his flagship which he was presumably aboard.

Adm. Kidd was born in Cleveland March 26, 1884. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1906. On February 3, 1940, he was assigned as chief of staff and aide to the commander of battleships of the battle force. He held the Cuban Pacification Medal, the Mexican Service Medal and the Victory Medal of the Atlantic Fleet class.

His home was in Washington, D.C.

Pershing volunteers; Roosevelt accepts

WASHINGTON (UP) – Despite his 81 years, Gen. John J. Pershing today offered to serve his country again in a letter to President Roosevelt, and the president replied that “your services will be of great value.”

The commander of the 1917 AEF wrote:

“All Americans today are united in one ambition – to take whatever share they can in the defense of their country.

“As one among millions, I hasten to offer my services, in any way in which my experience and my strength, to the last ounce, will be of help in the fight.

“Will supreme confidence that, under your calm and determined leadership, we will retain our balance, despite foul blows, I am faithfully yours.”

The president replied:

“You are magnificent. You always have been – and always will be. I am deeply grateful to you for your letter of December 10.

“Under a wise law, you have never been placed on the retired list. You are very much on the active list and your services will be of great value.”

Audience reaction brings cancellation of ‘Mikado’

WASHINGTON (UP) – The National Theater has cancelled three scheduled performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” an operetta about the court of a Japanese emperor.

The theater management said that in Baltimore, where the operetta was staged Monday, the audience received the production coolly, particularly the opening line, “We are gentlemen of Japan.”

Capital’s cherry trees become war casualties

WASHINGTON (UP) – The capital’s famed Japanese cherry trees, mecca of tourists from all over the world, were today a casualty of the war in the Far East.

Four were chopped down last night. The vandals attached to one stump a note saying, “To hell with those Japanese.”

Economists draw outline for long, hard-fought war

Although average American will have to tighten his belt as never before, experts say he will be vastly better off than Axis civilians
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON (SHS) – Here’s a blueprint for the battle on the home front, as it is seen by economists and experts who are drawing the broad outlines for a long, hard war:

The average American will have to tighten his belt as never before.

His taxes will be the highest ever, and the government will appeal for more and more of his income to buy bonds for bombers and bullets.

He will work longer hours, but advancing living costs – despite control attempts – may more than offset his paycheck bulge.

He will have plenty of food and clothing – at much higher prices. Living costs are already up 12 percent, with some wholesale advances not yet translated into retail increases.

He and his family will get along without most of the frills and some of the modern “necessities.”

Excess food stored

If he lives within bombing distance of a coast, he will probably give part of his spare time to civilian protection programs.

As Washington is planning it, this is to be everyone’s war.

With all the belt-tightening, your average American will be vastly better off than people in the Axis countries. We go to war with enough cotton in warehouses for a normal year’s consumption; excess wheat for nearly a year, and 600 million bushels of corn. But there must be expansion, and the American farmers are already signing up for it.

The government is planning an increasing of eight billion pounds in milk production, 300 million dozens in egg production, eight million more slaughter hogs, three million more slaughtered cattle, 70 million more chickens. Wheat production – much of the wheat export market has been lost with the war, of course – is to be cut seven and a half million bushels.

In fruit production, which cannot be expanded in a single year’s planting, the emphasis will be on better distribution so that millions of tons of edibles do not rot in fields and orchards. The housewife will be asked to eliminate kitchen waste.

But on civilian supplies that come from the factories, the problem to be met by the average American will be almost the reverse. Piling a war program of $150 billion or more on the industrial structure, the economists agree, means drastic curtailment of civilian production.

Hardly any metal household articles will escape curtailment. And substituting plastics may be difficult for two reasons – plastics will be used increasingly in war goods, and they require chemicals which will be needed for munitions.

Items will be scarce

Scores of small items will be scarce or unobtainable. Interruption of imports from the Pacific may mean less soap, for lack of copra and coconut oil; less cold cream, for lack of cocoa butter; less of many products using glycerin; less camphor and other medicines; less spice from the East Indies; less tea from China.

Already cuts of 50 percent in auto production mean the average citizen will make his car last another year, or maybe three or four; and despite large rubber stockpiles, new tires may be hard to get. The auto owner is likely to have his tires retreaded.

One official said: “It isn’t possible to list everything the average citizen to going to find scarce or is going to have to get along without. But I believe we must be extremely pessimistic about it. We’ve been coasting in both raw materials and manufactured goods.”

Government planners are looking to Latin American possibilities for offsetting shortages in both raw materials and manufactured goods.

Fiscal leaders to meet

Congress turned back a recent bid by Secretary Morgenthau for sharply increased taxes. But that was before Pearl Harbor. Mr. Morgenthau and congressional fiscal leaders take the first step on a conference tomorrow toward deciding what taxes must be levied for next year.

The average citizen, especially in urban areas, will probably go to the volunteer office of the local civilian defense unit to offer his services. He may be an air-raid warden, a firewatcher to guard against incendiary bombs, a member of a rescue, bomb or demolition squad, a guard at a public utility plant, an auxiliary policeman or fireman.

He may become responsible for perhaps 500 persons in the area in which he lives – the man who instructs in proper conduct during air raids, and who knows where the water-heater pilot lights must be turned off during a bombing. He may have the less dramatic task of improving community health, nutrition or recreation.

The average American, say the men planning war on the home front, must get ready for America’s own blood and sweat and tears. No one here doubts that he will.

Stokes: Here’s how Roosevelt flashed Jap attack on Hawaii

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Steve Early was lolling at home, reading the Sunday papers. The telephone rang.

“Steven,” said President Roosevelt, “I have a bulletin here I want to give you to give the newspapers. Got a pencil?”

Steve got one, and slowly took down the message as the calm voice came over the wire:

“The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor from the air and all naval and military activities on the island of Oahu, principal American base in the Hawaiian Islands.”

It was enough to raise the hair even of an ex-newspaperman who covered the last war here and who for more than eight years has sat in the midst of big events at the president’s right hand; but no time to get excited.

Typical Roosevelt touch

Then the calm voice again, after the message had been checked back carefully.

“Have you got any news, Steve?”

The typical Roosevelt touch. Steve smiled.

This little incident tells the whole story of the orderly atmosphere which had prevailed at the White House since the war broke out.

Four days later, everybody at the White House, from the president down, is about caught up on the sleep lost those first two nights. You’d never know a war was on, except for the appearance of many new faces in a greatly increased Secret Service staff about the White House and executive offices, a few more reporters in the Press Room, a new, white sentry box for the enlarged police detail at the only gate which is open now, and the brisk military guards at the entrances of the two streets which flank the White House grounds.

Message in error

Most of the excitement at the White House those first hectic hours was brought in from outside – by the horde of newspapermen who rushed to the center of things. By radio newscasters who, that first night, set up their equipment on spare desks.

For that first flash from Steve Early’s home telephone set them in motion on the double-quick. Before Steve could get dressed and out of the house, the president had called back with another message, about the attack on Manila – which was in error, but only in being premature.

Soon Steve was behind the desk in his office, and there he sat until 1 a.m., only to go home and answer the telephone there all night long, and also the next night. Calls came not only from reporters and officials, but from people far away offering their services.

Reporters come and go

The president, likewise, was on the phone far into that first night, getting reports on developments, after his earlier conferences with State, War and Navy officials, his Cabinet and congressional conferences. He was up early the next morning, and ready for a long day that included his speech to Congress.

The president has been dividing his time between his office in the executive offices and his study in the White House proper, a cozy and homelike room where some of the conferences of the last few days have taken place.

Crises are nothing new for the White House personnel, not even war crises.

Steve Early was a reporter during World War I, covering the State, War and Navy Departments – whose top personnel was in the present State Department building across from the White House. There started his friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the Navy.

“He’s moved 100 yards in 28 years,” Steve remarked today.

Secretary sees 3 wars

William D. Hassett, Steve’s assistant today, was covering Congress as a newspaperman during the last war. Marvin McIntyre, another of the president’s secretaries, was also a newspaperman here during World War I.

Maj. Gen. Edwin M. Watson, another secretary, was overseas during the last war with the 12th Field Artillery in the second division, and fought in all of that famous outfit’s engagements.

Rudolph Forster, executive clerk at the White House since March 1897, has seen three wars from the mansion. He goes about his business these days with perfect equanimity.

Martial law is proclaimed in Honolulu

Military rule for Hawaii is running smoothly, Army reports
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

The following is the first dispatch received by the United Press from Honolulu since late Sunday.

HONOLULU, Hawaii (Dec. 10, 12:10 p.m.) – Martial law has been proclaimed for the Territory of Hawaii with the full approval of President Roosevelt.

It is reported to be functioning smoothly and the method of operation and results to date have been reported directly to the president.

An Army announcement today said the military government of Hawaii is functioning well according to plan. The population of the territory (which includes many thousands of Japanese) is generally cooperating with the military authorities and is well behaved.

No attacks against the islands have been reported since Sunday.

A blackout was enforced throughout the islands last night and was intended to safeguard civilians as well as military installations, according to an official statement.

Results of the blackout were described as “impressive.”

There have been few cases of non-cooperation (on the part of the civilian population) and these have been “severely dealt with,” military authorities said.

A provost court, presided over by Judge James L. Coke, has been established and has disposed of 15 cases. Fifteen more cases are under investigation. Two persons who failed to obey the blackout regulations were fined $10 each. Two other cases, described as more flagrant, were also disposed of and the persons convicted were fined $100 each and sentenced to 100 days at hard labor as enemies of the territory. The sentences to hard labor were suspended but the fines stood.

Roosevelt approves Honolulu evacuation

WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt has approved a plan for the emergency evacuation of 60,000 civilians from Honolulu City, Delegate Samuel W. King, Hawaii’s representative in Congress, disclosed today.

Mr. King emphasized the plan does not contemplate immediate evacuation, but will provide facilities for an exodus if sea or air attack again threaten the island fortress. Although civilian casualties from Sunday’s air blitzkrieg were comparatively small, Mr. King said tremendous carnage was possible if the Japanese should launch an all-out attack against civilian centers.

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, as assistant director of Civilian Defense, sent a message today to the people of Hawaii, praising their courage.

War zone air chief in States

Manager of Manila stations here on vacation
By Si Steinhauser

George J. Vogel, for seven years manager of radio stations KZRM and KZRF in Manila arrived in the United States for a vacation shortly before the Japanese bombed the Philippines. Naturally, he is a greatly perturbed visitor.

His stations broadcast in Chinese, Spanish and English beside five dialects used by the natives. Time signals are broadcast every hour in native jingles, including such phrases as “time to go to school,” “time to eat” or “time to go to bed.”

On Thursday nights, reports Mr. Vogel, the natives make almost a national holiday of an amateur hour awarding musical educational scholarships to winners.

Even the beleaguered islands have their “soap operas.” The outstanding daytime serial is about a native family whose members believe themselves to be movie stars. This, explains Mr. Vogel, is in keeping with the fact that American movie magazines are largest sellers on the islands.

Ironically enough, one of the most popular programs of recent weeks has been a national defense hour staring native actors. Mr. Vogel claims an audience of 500,000 for his stations and adds that there are some 300 movie houses on the island group.

Heavy guards now watch visitors to New York studios. Special passes are provided even for stars of the highest rank Nobody save engineers are permitted on Radio City’s fifth floor control room, where bulletproof glass is now replacing the heavy plate glass is now replacing the heavy plate glass windows through which several million tourists have inspected the nerve center of radio. Studio tours detour from the control room floor.

Transmitters are impossible to approach except by those who really have business there.

Electric eyes are located at many points in radio stations and transmitters just in case someone tries to enter with something he shouldn’t have around. The photoelectric cells will set off alarms, detecting metals at a distance of 1,000 feet.

The Columbia Network has banned studio audiences from its main building on Madison Avenue in New York.

As you listen to broadcasts from the other side of the world pause to recall that 40 years ago tomorrow, December 12, Marconi transmitted the letter “S” from England to Nova Scotia. That was the first wireless message.

Dorothy Maynor, Negro soprano of world fame, will sing with the Philadelphia Orchestra over WCAE at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon.

Jack Oakie will add to the bedlam provided by Joan Davis on tonight’s Rudy Vallee Hour.

Bing Crosby’s guests will include the blond bombshell, Veronica Lake; Paul Robeson, great Negro baritone, and Robert Coote, former screen actor now a member of the RAF.

Edward G. Robinson, star of radio’s “Big Town,” has named his California ranch “Little Town.”

“Service With a Smile,” the network show in which boys in training try their luck at answering quizzers, will be broadcast from Indiantown Gap one week from tonight. It’s at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, tonight. On Christmas night, the first 13 weeks conclude at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The Pittsburgh sponsor has already extended the contract for a second 13-week period.

Roger Pryor will give his own life orders Sunday night when he directs Ann Sothern and William Powell in the Screen Guild play, “My Life with Caroline.”

Maestro Al Kavelin’s heart is really skipping beats for sheer happiness. His little daughter Edythe has completely recovered from infantile paralysis. The Kavelin twins, isolated from their sister, escaped the scourge.

Shannon Day, who pens many “Shadow” stories, will go on the air as lead in her own (that’s right, the author is a girl) stories, a once-a-week mystery series.

Walter Kinsella joined the Mr. Meek cast yesterday, as a conductor.

Starring in Edna Ferber’s “So Big,” starting on the air January 12, will be nothing new to Joan Blaine. She played the same role in a Connecticut little theater group.

America’s Town Meeting of the Air will go on the air at 9 p.m. instead of 9:15, starting January 1.

Kay Kyser has been chosen grand marshal of the Rose Bowl floral parade.

Pert Kelton, comedienne of the Frank Fay broadcasts, got her start on the stage in musical comedy.

Ellery Queen returns to radio January 10 via KDKA.

Radio’s “School of the Air” will take a Christmas vacation just like other schools. It leaves the air after the December 19 broadcast, returning after the holidays.

They’re saying it with musical flowers. “Orange Blossom Lane” and “Magic of Magnolias” were the most played tunes on the networks last week.

NormanStewart · December 13, 2020, 11:39pm

War declaration on Berlin, Rome is voted quickly

Members of both houses unanimous on resolutions against Axis; race for seizure of neutral Atlantic islands anticipated
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

WASHINGTON – The United States today went to war against Germany and Italy, making it an all-out battle against the Axis, including Japan.

President Roosevelt sent to Congress his second war message within 70 hours and the legislators snapped through resolutions recognizing existence of hostilities with Germany and Italy.

Notification of German and Italian declarations of war against the United States reached the State Department, respectively, at 9:25 and 9:50 a.m. today.

Acts quickly

Congress received Mr. Roosevelt’s message at 12:34 p.m. and adopted appropriate war resolutions by 1:04 p.m.

“The long known and the long expected has thus taken place,” the president told Congress in a message read separately by clerks in each House.

“The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world are now moving toward this hemisphere.”

Vote is unanimous

We went to war unanimously this time. There were no dissenting votes to either war resolution, although Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Montana, voted “present” instead of “yea” or “nay.” She voted against the Japanese war resolution Monday.

The Senate jig-timed the German resolution through 88-0 and voted 90-0 for war with Italy. The House vote on Germany was 393-0, with Miss Rankin voting “present.” On Italy, the House voted 399-0, with Miss Rankin again “present.”

May race for islands

The first move in the Atlantic may be a race for seizure of neutral islands which Germany or Italy could use as bases for aerial attack against the richest and most populous seaboard in the world – the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

The formalities to be completed after action by Congress include only signature of the resolution by Speaker Sam Rayburn and Vice President Henry A. Wallace before submitting them to the White House for Mr. Roosevelt to sign.

But the war wheels were moving with the first word from abroad that Germany and Italy had come in to help Japan.

Cools heels

At the State Department, German Charge d’Affaires Hans Thomsen had to cool his heels for over an hour in order to deliver his nation’s war declaration.

Before going to the department, Thomsen had called Secretary of State Cordell Hull by telephone to advise him of the German announcement in Berlin.

Mr. Hull, however, did not hurry to the department. When Thomsen arrived there about 8:30 a.m., he had to wait one hour and 10 minutes before he was received – not by Mr. Hull but by Ray Atherton, acting chief of the European Division, who was handed the declaration.

Prince Colonna, the Italian ambassador, arrived at the State Department at about 10:30. His mission apparently was to confirm the declaration delivered by Count Ciano to our charge d’affaires at Rome.

The German note, signed by Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, placed the blame for outbreak of the war on President Roosevelt.

Copy given to envoy

The note, an identic copy of which was handed to American Charge d’Affaires Leland Morris in Berlin this morning, charged the United States with “having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever-increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany” and of being guilty of the “most severe provocations” ever since the outbreak of war in 1939. It asserted the United States has “finally resorted to open military acts of aggression.”

Officials took the bad news with the good and waited patiently for more – probably of both.

Early today they were cheered by announcement of the sinking of a 29,000-ton Japanese battleship. It followed by only a few hours the War Department’s second communique revealing that a strong Japanese attack against the west coast of Luzon in the Philippine Islands had been repulsed “with apparent heavy enemy losses.”

The bad news, which President Roosevelt told the nation Tuesday night it must be prepared to receive, still came from Hawaii – the scene of the first Japanese attack upon American territory.

The only additional information of that “serious naval setback” was the Navy’s announcement that Rear Adm. Isaac Campbell Kidd was killed in action at Pearl Harbor Sunday. He was in command of a battleship division of the Pacific Fleet but the Navy did not reveal the name of the vessel which was his flagship.

There were these other developments in the capital:

Gen. John J. Pershing*, commander-in-chief of the AEF during the First World War, offered his services to President Roosevelt – “to the last ounce.” The president accepted in a letter saying: “You are magnificent. You always have been – you always will be.”
*Chinese Ambassador Dr. Hu Shih notified the United States officially of China’s declaration of war against Germany, Italy and Japan.
President Roosevelt messaged China’s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek that he is “wholly confident” of ultimate and complete defeat of Japan, but he repeated his earlier warning that it will be a long, hard war.
The State Department announced that the foreign ministers of the 21 American republics would meet at Rio de Janeiro the first week in January to mold a solid hemispheric front against the aggressors.
The Army revealed that signal fires in the form of arrows and pointed toward Seattle were found by Washington State Police last night near Port Angeles, Washington, and were extinguished.
The commanding general of the Ninth Corps Area said an extensive search for fifth columnists is underway.

Senator keeps Hawaii inquiry demands alive

Ouster of any ‘negligent’ officers asked; Allies retain supremacy

WASHINGTON (UP) – Sen. Styles Bridges, R-New Hampshire, today called for removal from command of naval officers who may have been “negligent” in the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The new criticism came after Congress clamped the lid on its inquiry into the cause of Sunday’s setback at Hawaii.

The House Naval Affairs Committee, after hearing Rear Adm. Ross T. McIntire testify that “the Navy is physically OK,” closed up shop indefinitely on its inquiry, and Chairman David I. Walsh of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee said his committee would seek no further information.

Meanwhile, naval experts ridiculed Japanese claims of naval supremacy as a result of the U.S. losses and the sinking of two British capital ships.

Asks thorough inquiry

Mr. Bridges, who has supported President Roosevelt’s entire defense program, said he spoke as a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee and as a ranking member of the War and Naval Appropriations Subcommittee. He asked for a thorough investigation.

News of the British losses had the possible effect of forcing revision of the grand naval strategy mapped by the Allies.

Naval experts here said the U.S. Navy had geared its operations to a worldwide strategy plan in anticipation of an outbreak of formal hostilities with Germany. It was understood the plan envisaged linking of American, British, Dutch and other Allied naval forces into a vast combination of seapower.

Allies still superior

Sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse appeared to confirm belief that the Japanese strategy is to try and knock out as much of the Allied Pacific fleet as swiftly as possible and force the rest to disperse over a wide area.

Before the Japanese attack the British and American navies combined had 33 battleships and 13 aircraft carriers as against the combined Axis seapower of 16 modern battleships, two 26,000-ton lighter battleships and two 25,000-ton pre-World War battleships.

On the basis of confirmed Anglo-American losses, the combined Allied battleship strength has been reduced to 30, since the United States acknowledged the loss of an “old battleship” at Pearl Harbor.

Naval experts said that in spite of the losses the coordinated operations of the Allied naval forces over the seven seas and now concentrating in the Pacific, reduces Japanese claims to naval supremacy to absurdity.

2,303 nationals of Axis seized in Hawaii, U.S.

Government takes steps to break potential ‘fifth column’

WASHINGTON (UP) – Federal agents today pressed their drive against “fifth column” threats in American territory as the Justice Department revealed that 2,303 Axis nationals had already been seized in a roundup of potential spies and saboteurs.

Attorney General Francis Biddle said the suspects were taken during a three-hour raid by military intelligence agents in Hawaii, and in a two-hour sortie by FBI men in the continental United States.

They included 1,291 Japanese, 865 Germans and 147 Italians, most of whom will be confined in Army concentration camps.

Three steps taken

The government simultaneously took these three more counter-Axis steps:

The Justice Department suspended for the duration citizenship applications filed by German and Italian nationals (Japanese nationals are not eligible for American citizenship).
A new division was set up in the department to deal with patents and other property of Axis nationals. It will be headed by Leo T. Crowley, present director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The agency will be comparable to World War I’s alien property custodian office.
Congressional leaders conferred on a plan to require every American to be fingerprinted and to carry an official card of identification. Rep. Sam Hobbs, D-Alabama, said this would “go a long way toward discouraging saboteurs.”

‘Free movements’

The State Department made clear that the United States looks with disfavor on any activity designed to divide the allegiance of American residents. Its statement of policy was made in connection with the so-called “free movements” in which political leaders from other nations engaged in organization activities in this country.

Mr. Biddle said some of the aliens would be granted their freedom while others would be given permanent paroles, a system used successfully by the British.

The aliens seized, he said, represent only a small number of the 1,100,000 in the United States, and those still at liberty would be treated fairly so long as they comply with government orders.

The roundup brought a demand from Rep. Leland M. Ford, R-California, for the arrest of Harry Bridges, Australian-born West Coast labor leader.

Princess Stephanie seized by FBI

PHILADELPHIA (UP) – Princess Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenbourg-Schillingfurst, friend of Adolf Hitler, has been seized by the FBI and locked in the detention home of the Gloucester, New Jersey, immigration station, The Philadelphia Inquirer said today.

Stephanie, who was believed to have been in Mexico, reportedly slipped across the border recently and secluded herself “somewhere in the East” to write a book.

Friend of many high-placed Nazis, she was revealed in the hearing of a suit in England to have been one of the chief promoters of the Munich pact.

File reveals names of Japs in U.S.

NEW YORK (UP) – Files of the Japanese Associations of New York, containing the names of 15,000 Japanese nationals in United States territory, were seized today by New York police.

In the files of the association were found communications from the Japanese intelligence, marked with the admonition “burn immediately,” police said.

The list was believed to include the most ardent Japanese nationals in the United States and its possessions.

U.S. ship docks safely after 3 days on Pacific

San Francisco, California (UP) – The SS Lurline, caught between Honolulu and San Francisco when the Japanese attack began, arrived here yesterday with 500 passengers after a three-day zigzag run to safety.

The Lurline was 1,000 miles from Honolulu when ship’s officers learned of the outbreak of war. Most of the passengers refused to believe the news until the ship was blacked out, portholes were painted blue and all passenger radios were confiscated.

Simms

Pledge against separate peace –
Simms: Five-power pact expected among anti-Axis nations

Alliance would unite countries engaged in hostilities against Nazis, Italians and Japs
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

WASHINGTON – A formal five-power alliance pledging the members not to sign a separate peace with the Axis powers and setting up a supreme war council with an Allied general staff is expected.

Included would be the United States, Great Britain and the Dominions, Soviet Russia, China and the Netherlands – that is to say all the nations now engaged in actual hostilities against Germany, Italy and Japan.

The purpose of the step would be unity of counsel and unity of action. Without it, team play would be a hit-or-miss and eventual victory problematical.

It is believed that the formula will follow somewhat along the lines laid down in the First World War. Throughout the first three years of that conflict, the Allies felt the need of some central planning authority in general and a unified command in particular. National jealousies, however, stood in the way. If there was to be unified command, who would be the generalissimo? Would he be French or would be he British? So the idea of an inter-allied supreme war council remained on ice for a long time.

Agree on council

The events of 1917, however, forced the die-hards to change their minds. The Allied offensive had failed materially to alter the military status quo on the vital Western Front. The Italian campaign had wound up with the debacle of Caporetto. Rumania had been knocked out 12 months earlier, and Russia, after two revolutions, was suing for a separate peace.

Thus it was that on November 9, 1917, the prime ministers and chiefs of staff of Great Britain, France and Italy conferred at Rapallo and agreed to create a supreme war council. It was composed of the prime minister and one other member of the government of each of the great powers whose armies were then fighting on the Western Front. Said its first communique:

“The Supreme War Council… is to supervise the general conduct of the war, prepare recommendations for the consideration of the governments, keep itself informed of their execution and report thereon to the several governments.”

U.S. not represented

The council’s first act was to appoint an inter-Allied general staff. The members were Generals Foch of France, Wilson of Britain and Cadorna of Italy. Though President Wilson had long insisted on some such inter-Allied cooperation, the United States was not represented at Rapallo. We had declared war against Germany but were still without an army on the battlefield.

In December, the council created an inter-Allied naval board. By this time, the United Sates and other allied and associated powers had representatives present. All, that is, except Russia, then negotiating with the Kaiser for an armistice.

Even at this late day, however, the Allies could not agree on absolute unity. They had got as far as unity of counsel and unity of action but not unity of command. It took the German breakthrough in March 1918 to scare them out of their stubborn pride. Foch was not named generalissimo until the invaders were again at the gates of Paris and defeat stared the Allies in the face.

Integration intimated

Today there is reason to believe that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill will not allow the present every-man-for-himself situation to continue indefinitely. There are the battle of Britain, the battle of the Atlantic, the battle of the Pacific, the battle of the Far East, the battle of Russia and the battle of North Africa, with innumerable problems in between.

The president has intimated that he regards it as imperative that the efforts of Britain, Russia, China, the Netherlands and the United States be integrated. War materials have to be allocated. Mutual assistance is to be thought of. And as soon as the enemies of the Axis can manage it, they will pass to the offensive. When that time comes, each blow, if it is to be really effective, will have to be timed carefully to make it fit into the picture as a whole.

editorialclapper.up

Clapper: Build planes!

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – Don’t think for a minute that we can’t do the job.

How have the Japanese won their victories?

They have won them with airplanes.

What nation can outfield any other nation in planes?

The United States.

Then let’s go. Build planes. Build planes. Build planes. They can avenge Pearl Harbor and the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.

We are building more Navy and all that. Everything will be needed, more ships for hauling, more Navy for convoying, more guns, tanks and trained men to handle them. But none of it will be of much use without control of the air. We can get that. Once we do, then the power of everything else we have will be multiplied automatically. Without it the rest of the stuff will be as useless as were those ships in Pearl Harbor when there wasn’t enough in the air to protect them.

U.S. must continue shipbuilding

We don’t need to revive that feud between the battleship and the plane. Each has its uses. We lost some of our heavy ships because they were poorly protected against the air. We would be fools to quit building battleships until we have more than anybody else in either ocean. Perhaps we should have used them differently. I don’t know. Some expert opinion undoubtedly would have preferred to keep the fleet along the coast rather than at the Hawaiian outpost, exposed on all sides. Nobody thinks they should have ganged up for a weekend in Pearl Harbor.

But it is too late to bother about that now. Capital ships lost cannot be replaced for a long time. The question is how to deal with the new situation. It can be dealt with, and the announcement by William S. Knudsen of OPM shows that we are proceeding to do so. Our present heavy-bomber program calling for 500 a month will be doubled, with the intention to produce 1,000 four-motored bombers a month by the end of next year. That, plus the necessary proportion of fighter planes, is what we must depend upon. The plane is the quickest weapon to produce in quantity. Individual losses are the easiest to replace. Enormous damage can be inflicted and the way opened for the sustaining follow-up attacks, whether by land or sea.

Singapore vital to Allied position

As the problem is seen here, Singapore must be held at all costs. Everything we can spare needs to be thrown in. Planes and submarines are the most effective contributions we could make now. If they are made in sufficient quantity, we will have good news out of Singapore. That will be good news indeed. Because then the Pacific can be held and our sources of materials maintained. I am saying nothing here that your own common sense doesn’t tell as you as you look at the map. None of this can be news to the Japanese.

We may have to lengthen our shipping routes by going around under Australia. That would add several thousand miles to the haul. Convoying probably will be necessary in the Pacific, which means slower traveling. Japanese raiders will get some ships. But when you see how the Germans have been unable to cut off shipping to England with their enormous numbers of submarines operating over comparatively small areas and congested routes, it is impossible to believe that the Japanese can cut off the Pacific, in spite of the position they have achieved this week.

So if Singapore can be held, the Pacific is not a hopeless loss at all and we can continue to obtain supplies necessary for war production. When we begin to have planes swarming into the air from Singapore, we can push back the Japanese advance and turn the tide.

P.S. Planes cost money. Buy defense bonds and stamps.

Editorial: So what!

So we’ve lost the first round? So what!

American and British capital ships have been lost at Pearl Harbor and off Malaya? We apparently still have more than the enemy. And today we hear of a Japanese battleship sunk by our planes.

Bombers have proved their superiority over battleships? We presumably have more planes than Japan. More oil and gas to fly them. More factories, more machine tools, more skilled workmen to produce them.

Hawaii, our western Gibraltar, has been knocked out? So goes another rumor. It is strong enough that the Japanese have not dared approach it since their surprise blitz in the Sunday dawn before the declaration of war.

Our fleet is at the bottom of Pearl Harbor? Another panicky exaggeration. Most of the fleet is said to have steamed out to its battle stations, where it is relentlessly stalking the enemy.

Where is the fleet now and what is it doing? Tokyo would like to know.

The Army and Navy were caught napping? The Panama Caal, our vulnerable lifeline in the midst of Japanese spies and wreckers, was so closely guarded enemy agents could not get started. In the Philippines our Army and Navy were not surprised – the Asiatic fleet was not resting in port but sweeping the sea, the Army coped with the largest and hardest alien-fifth-column movement in the world, and both Army and Navy air forces are battling superior attacks on widely scattered fronts.

Why doesn’t the president get rid of the high admirals, who are sleeping in the pre-plane age; and the bespurred generals, who think they won the air battle when they butchered Billy Mitchell, and whose idea of a tank is something to swim in? The president knows more about the Army and Navy, their strong men and their incompetents, than we civilians do. And he has learned more since Sunday. He will handle the problem.

But why doesn’t he act quickly? He has been reorganizing quietly for several months. The Army commander of the Caribbean-Panama area is a flier. The commander of the Atlantic Fleet is a flier. The favored Army services now are the modern ones – aviation, anti-aircraft, tank, paratroops and flying infantry. There has been much Army and Navy reorganization, and there will be a great deal more – steady and constructive; instead of the indiscriminate head-lopping, goat-sacrificing holiday desired by the hysterical.

Yes, we have lost the first round. And we shall lose many more rounds unless we have learned our lesson. But, if we have learned, we still have the superior strength, actual and potential, to start winning.

Ferguson: Hollywood’s challenge

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

In what has been called the best book ever written about Hollywood, Leo C. Rosten, after careful analysis, sums up his findings in these words:

“It seems self-evident that Hollywood represents a challenge to the sovereignty of Church, School and Family.”

Mr. Rosten proves with facts and figures what his column has long held to be true – that the movies exercise a more powerful influence over our people than any other institution.

Now children comprise a part of the people – the most important part – the part we are forever spouting off about and trying to guide. Our expenditures to educate them are vast. We pay heavy sums to keep our churches so that they may learn to walk in righteous ways. And surely you can’t have forgotten all the lovely platitudes about the American home and about mother, its ruler and queen. The “hand-that-rocks-the-cradle” cultists still hold the nation that, if only mother is good, all will be well.

But it isn’t. For, by the time little Jack and Jennie turn six, they’re devouring comics and quivering with excitement over gangsters and wild westerns. Add a few more years, and their gods and goddesses dwell, not upon Olympus, as did those of the little Greeks, but in Hollywood.

Allies steel output twice that of Axis

U.S. industry alone can produce 12½ tons for each ton by Japan

NEW YORK (UP) – The United States’ war effort is backed by a steel industry that can turn out three tons of steel for every two tons produced by Japan, Germany, Italy and all the Axis-dominated nations combined, the American Iron & Steel Institute asserted today.

On the basis of a survey, the institute also declared that the combined steelmaking capacity of the United States, the British Empire and Russia is more than twice that of the Axis powers. The United States steel industry alone can produce 12½ tons of steel for each ton turned out by Japan, the institute added.

Even if the vulnerable two-thirds of Soviet capacity which is located in central and southern Russia should fall into German hands, the institute added, the United States and her allies still could produce 60 percent more steel than Germany and the rest of the world.

The institute estimated that total U.S. capacity at the end of 1941 will be 88,000,000 net tons of steel annually, compared with approximately 60,600,000 tons for Germany, Japan and continental Europe steelmaking countries except Russia.

Steelmaking capacity of the British Empire was placed at 20,600,000 tons a year and that of Russia at 21,800,000 tons, giving the three nations a combined steel potential of 130,400,000 tons.

The institute’s estimate of Axis-dominated steel facilities included all the European countries defeated and occupied last year on the basis of the highest production ever attained by them – a figure which probably could not be equaled at presented under German control.

In the Axis lineup, the institute calculated steelmaking capacities as follows:

	Tons (annual)
Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland	29,600,000
Japan	7,100,000
Italy	3,000,000
Luxembourg	3,000,000
France	10,700,000
Belgium	4,500,000
Hungary, Spain and Sweden	2,700,000

18 Jap planes rake island with gunfire

Clipper chief gives eyewitness account after rescue

SAN FRANCISCO (UP) – Eighteen Japanese planes raked Wake Island with machine gun bullets and bombs last Sunday as part of Japan’s surprise attack against the United States, Capt. John H. Hamilton, commanding officer of Pan American Airways’ Philippines Clipper, said today in a graphic eyewitness account.

Japanese surface vessels shelled Midway at about the same hour, Capt. Hamilton reported.

The Clipper was refueling at Wake at the time. Capt. Hamilton later rescued Pan American’s entire ground personnel on Wake and flew them safely to Honolulu.

Camp machine-gunned

“One squadron (of nine planes) started machine-gunning the construction camp,” Capt. Hamilton’s report said. It was released jointly by Pan American Airways and the 12th Naval District Public Relations Office after Capt. Hamilton returned to San Francisco with his ship from Honolulu. It omitted any reference to possible casualties.

“The other squadron,” the report said, “immediately launched the attack which I saw. They were over the island for five minutes, dropping what I judged to be fairly small bobs, about 150 pounders.

“The bombs fired the hotel, destroyed other Pan American buildings and the docks, but did not hit the Clipper.

16 bullet holes in ship

“However, there were 16 bullet holes in the wings and fuselage. By good fortune, no bullet struck a vital spot.

“The attacking planes left the vicinity then and we prepared immediately for departure. We rounded up Pan American ground personnel. We felt it was imperative to take the aboard with us.”

Thirty-seven persons, including 11 crew members, were aboard the Clipper when it left Wake. All but the crew and one company official were left at Honolulu.

NormanStewart · December 13, 2020, 11:56pm

Völkischer Beobachter (December 12, 1941)

Das Reich und Italien an Japans Seite:
Kriegszustand mit USA

Leidenschaftliches Bekenntnis des Führers: ‚Gemeinsamer Kampf mit allen Mitteln bis zum Endsieg‘

In einer Stunde weltgeschichtlicher Entscheidungen sprach der Führer zum deutschen Volk und zur Welt. Während im Pazifik seit vier Tagen die Waffen Japans dem Kriegsbrandstifter Roosevelt die einzig mögliche Antwort geben, versammelten sich am Donnerstag im Reichstag die Abgesandten des deutschen Volkes, um eine Erklärung der Reichsregierung entgegenzunehmen. Sie ist so ausgefallen, wie sie dem Wesen, der Ehrauffassung und der Mission des deutschen Volkes entspricht: Das Reich und Italien treten mit ihren gesamten Machtmitteln an die Seite Japans, um Roosevelts und Churchills Weltbrand zu ersticken. Die Waffen werden erst ruhen, wenn der Endsieg erfochten ist.

Leitartikel: Zweiweltenkampf

Die angekündigte und nicht nur vom deutschen Volk, sondern von der ganzen Welt mit größter Spannung erwartete Regierungserklärung im Deutschen Reichstag wurde durch die große Führerrede zu einer geschichtlichen Kundgebung von einmaliger Größe. Nachdem im Pazifik die von der plutokratischen Herrschsucht und Überheblichkeit in die Enge getriebene und gepeinigte tapfere japanische Nation in kühnem Entschluß Roosevelt die einzig mögliche Antwort mit scharfen Waffen erteilt und den Schleier der pazifistischen Heuchelei des Hauptkriegsschuldigen zerrissen hatte, ging offenbar der Kampf zwischen zwei Welten seinem Höhepunkt entgegen.

Der Führer hat ihn in seiner großen Rede vor den Männern des Deutschen Reichstages bis in seine letzten jüdischen Wurzeln hinein allseitig und mit erschütternder Eindringlichkeit aufgezeichnet. Er stellte seinen Lebensweg und sein Werk als das eines schlichten und ehrbaren Arbeiters und Soldaten symbolhaft gegen den Werdegang dieses typischen Plutokratensohnes und Schiebers Roosevelt, der die Welt und die Völkerschicksale nur unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Geldverdienens kennt. Wie noch nie zuvor sprach der Führer im Namen Europas und bekannte sich zu seiner alten stolzen Kultur und zu der Ehrauffassung seiner Völker. Er zeichnete ein leuchtendes Bild von den opfervollen und kühnen Leistungen des deutschen Heeres und seiner Verbündeten im Ostfeldzuge, wo sie die alles zu verschlingen drohende Gefahr des jüdischen Bolschewismus siegreich gebannt haben.

Mit großem Jubel nahmen die Männer des Deutschen Reichstages die Meldung des Führers auf, daß soeben in Berlin zwischen den drei Mächten Deutschland, Japan und Italien ein Abkommen getroffen wurde, in dem ihre verschworene Kampfgemeinschaft gegen den jüdisch-plutokratisch-bolschewistischen Weltfeind zum Ausdruck kommt. Er zeichnete in großen Linien und mit einer glühenden Leidenschaft diesen Zweiweltenkampf, den die nationalsozialistische Revolution in 16jährigem Kampf schon im Innern Deutschlands gegen den gleichen Feind siegreich bestehen konnte. Die Vorsehung habe diesen Kampf bisher in sichtbarer Weise gesegnet, und wir haben allen Grund, zu glauben, daß sie ihn auch jetzt, nachdem er auf dem weltweiten Höhepunkt angekommen ist, weiterhin segnen wird.

Die deutsche Nation ist in dieser geschichtlichen Stunde sich der Größe ihres geschichtlichen Auftrages voll bewußt. Wie ein granitener Block steht sie Schulter an Schulter in Front und Heimat geschlossen in diesem größten und ehrenvollsten Kampf ihrer Geschichte. Noch nie war ihr die Notwendigkeit ihres Kampfes klarer Und noch nie ihre Entschlossenheit, Opferfreude und Gläubigkeit so groß wie heute.

Der Kriegszustand mit Roosevelts plutokratischer Weltdiktatur ist nur die äußere Bestätigung einer schon längst tatsächlich von der Gegenseite systematisch herbeigeführten Lage. Er wirkt auf das deutsche Volk wie eine Befreiung von einer unerträglichen Belastung. Herr Roosevelt hat nun seinen Krieg! Mag er sehen, wie er damit zurechtkommt!

K. N.

81 USA-Flugzeuge über Manila vernichtet:
Flugzeugträger ‚Lexington‘ versenkt

dnb. Tokio, 11. Dezember – Die Marineabteilung des Kaiserlichen Hauptquartiers gibt bekannt, daß die japanische Luftwaffe am 10. Dezember auf nordamerikanische Armeestreitkräfte auf den Philippinen einen großen Angriff durchgeführt hat. Bei einem Luftkampf über Manila wurden 45 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen. 36 feindliche Flugzeuge wurden am Boden zerstört. Bei Hawai wurden ein USA-Zerstörer, ein U-Boot und ein weiteres Spezialschiff durch direkte Treffer vernichtet. Der japanische Generalstab gab außerdem bekannt, daß der 33.000 Tonnen große nordamerikanische Flugzeugträger „Lexington“, über den wir bereits in unserer gestrigen Ausgabe berichteten, in den Kämpfen um Hawai versenkt worden ist.

Die „Lexington“ ist ein Schwesterschiff der „Saratoga“. Beide Flugzeugträger sind die größten, die die Vereinigten Staaten besitzen. Sie können 90 Flugzeuge befördern. Sie sind bewaffnet mit acht 20,3-Zentimeter-Geschützen, zwölf 12,7-Zentimeter-Flakgeschützen, vier 5,7- und acht 4-Zentimeter Flakgeschützen. Beide Flugzeugträger sind im Jahre 1925 vom Stapel gelaufen und 1926 in Dienst gestellt. Die Besatzung beträgt 1400 Mann.

Luftabwehr erfolglos

Aus Manila hier eingetroffene Berichte bestätigen im Übrigen die Wirksamkeit der japanischen Bombenangriffe und die Erfolglosigkeit der philippinischen Luftabwehr, wobei die Tatsache ausdrücklich betont wird, daß lediglich militärische Anlagen das Ziel der japanischen Luftangriffe waren. Das Hauptziel der japanischen Luftangriffe sei Cavite, der Flugplatz Nicholsfield, der Nilson-Flugplatz, das Fort McKinley und das Fort William gewesen. Auf die Stadt Manila seien keine Bomben abgeworfen worden.

Die japanischen Flugzeuge flogen, wie weiter berichtet wird, in geordneter Formation teilweise in großer Höhe unbekümmert um die Flugabwehr zurück, deren Geschosse zwar den Himmel mit kleinen Wolken punktierten, jedoch viel zu kurz lagen. Die Fliegerabwehr wurde stark behindert einerseits durch das grelle Sonnenlicht, andererseits durch die riesigen Rauchwolken, die die Ziele der japanischen Bomben umlagerten. Jeder der vier Angriffe wurde in mehreren Wellen durchgeführt. Die Angriffe galten vor allen Dingen dem USA-Stützpunkt Cavite, wo Augenzeugen die gewaltige Wirkung von mehreren hundert Bomben beobachtet haben. Die dortigen Öllager wurden offensichtlich in Brand geworfen. Auch die in der Bucht von Manila liegenden Schiffe wurden mehrmals mit gutem Erfolg angegriffen. Die nordamerikanischen Flugzeuge waren außerstande, die japanischen Flugzeuge vor Ende des Bombenangriffs zu erreichen, nur einmal wurde ein Luftkampf beobachtet.

Die japanische Landoffensive auf der größten philippinischen Insel Luzon ist amerikanischen Rundfunkberichten zufolge in vollem Gange. Die Japaner, die ursprünglich am Nordende von Luzon, bei Aparri, zur Landung ansetzten, konnten weitere Truppen landen und beherrschen zurzeit fast das gesamte Nordende der Insel sowie das zwischen San Fernando und Vigan gelegene Gebiet an der Westküste Luzons. Die japanischen Landungen erfolgten in einer Küstenausdehnung von etwa 250 Kilometer.

U.S. State Department (December 12, 1941)

The Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the American Legation in Denmark

PJIA Journal Nr. 84 B.2.a.
Copenhagen, December 12, 1941

NOTE VERBALE

The American Chargé d’Affaires in Copenhagen has been good enough to leave with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs a copy of the note which the State Department in Washington recently transmitted to the former Danish Minister there, M. Kauffmann, concerning his status and authority particularly with regard to Greenland.

The Royal Danish Government has taken notice of this document with the greatest anxiety as it appears to indicate that M. Kauffmann has now obtained recognition in relation to the United States of America as an organ competing with the lawful Danish Government having been invested with all the Danish Government’s authority with regard to Greenland and Danish property in the United States of America and in Greenland.

This is the regrettable result of a development in which M. Kauffmann himself appears to have been the impelling force; for according to the information available here, there is nothing to indicate that the Government of the United States of America would itself have taken the initiative to bring about the status which M. Kauffmann has gradually succeeded in obtaining, if he himself on April 9, 1940, had loyally followed the lawful Danish Government like Denmark’s other Ministers in foreign countries.

M. Kauffmann has achieved this status after an usurpation in explanation of which he merely states that the Danish Government is acting under duress as a result of the occupation and that it is therefore incompetent. In this respect, however, he has evidently acted as early as on April 9, 1940, in the expectation of developments in Denmark under the occupation of an entirely different nature to those which actually ensued. His attitude is based on illogical reasoning; Denmark is certainly under the occupation of German troops, but this does not prevent the lawful Danish Government, which is composed of representatives of all the great political parties from directing all affairs in the country. In all essential respects, Danish social life is continued normally, the powers of State – legislative, judiciary and executive – carrying on their functions independently and without interference from the occupying power.

M. Kauffmann was Denmark’s Minister in Washington and had no function beyond that. A diplomatic agent cannot be or become anything different or more than what his Government has entrusted him to be, and neither under international law nor under Danish constitutional law can he acquire any independent political authority without a special mandate. The Danish people is represented by its King, Government and Parliament, and how can the authority of these lawful instances with any justification be transferred to a chance diplomatic agent by a mere act of usurpation?

To the extent to which M. Kauffmann is in a position to act on the basis of his being recognized by the Government of the United States of America the anomalous situation is now in fact established that there are so to speak two Danish “Governments,” one being the lawful Government appointed by the King, recognized by the people, and domiciled in Denmark, at which foreign powers (including the United States of America) maintain legations, the other being the “Kauffmann usurper Government” which on the basis of certain ideas of duress and negotiorum gestio has obtained the authority which the lawful Government in Copenhagen would normally be able to exercise through its (law-abiding) Minister in Washington.

It should be remembered that the position of Denmark is quite different to that of States whose Governments after the failure of their resistance against German military power have left their country and established themselves abroad. In Denmark, the King and Government remained in the country on April 9, 1940, and resolved by constitutional means “to direct the affairs of the country in view of the occupation which has taken place”. From the outset, the King and Government have thus had and still have the direction of all the affairs of the country, and the conditions, as far as Denmark is concerned, for establishing anything analogous with the exile Governments of the aforesaid countries are therefore entirely missing.

M. Kauffmann has undoubtedly himself felt the weakness of having no mandate from the people whose interests he claims to defend. He has therefore endeavoured to obtain the adherence of Danes living abroad, but even if this adherence may be felt as a moral support by M. Kauffmann personally, it is evident that it is of no significance from the point of view of constitutional law; for how can the attribution to M. Kauffmann of Government authority, the exercise of which presupposes all the elements which according to universally-recognized opinion enters into the conception of a State, be based on the mere presence of a strictly limited number of partisans or adherents? These adherents are, moreover, largely persons who have acquired another nationality and who are not only under a formal obligation to their new country, but may also be presumed to share the sympathies prevalent there.

The fact that M. Kauffmann has felt the weakness of acting without any mandate from the King of Denmark appears clearly from the surreptitious inclusion, on his initiative, in the preamble of the so-called Greenland Agreement of April 9, 1941, of a passage to the effect that he acted “on behalf of His Majesty the King of Denmark in His quality of Sovereign over Greenland.” This passage was inserted by M. Kauffmann not only without the existence of any trace of authorization, but even directly against his better knowledge of being guilty of an abuse of the King’s name. By this action it became clear that M. Kauffmann from the occupation of Denmark on April 9, 1940, had adopted an attitude directly contrary to the policy laid down by the King and Government.

M. Kauffmann having no other authority than that which he had received from the State Department, it was a fiction to speak of “negotiations” in connection with the conclusion of the Greenland Agreement. Article 10 in particular of the Agreement concerning its duration has evidently been drafted in such a way that the Government of the United States of America will be in a position unilaterally to decide, and therefore indefinitely postpone, the date of an eventual conference for the amendment or termination of the Agreement.

The Agreement having thus been concluded without the participation of the Danish Government it has been a reassurance to this Government to receive – directly irrespective of the Agreement – the promise of the American Government that Greenland will be restored, but the fact that Denmark has to see its policy and its interests, insofar as the United States of America and Greenland are concerned, placed in the hands of a man whose only title is based on his own act of usurpation, fills the Danish Government with profound anxiety as to future developments.

The Danish Government fails to understand that the American Government, in spite of all that has taken place, not only does not refuse its recognition of M. Kauffmann but even considerably extends that recognition.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs requests the American Chargé d’Affaires in Copenhagen to communicate the above to the State Department in Washington.

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France

Washington, December 12, 1941 — 2 p.m.
914

Your 1523, December 11, 7 p.m.

We have noted the statement made by Admiral Darlan to you to the effect that with regard to naval ships in French colonial ports in the Western Hemisphere the Admiral stated that they have no intention of leaving port and that they are disarmed.

You should see Marshal Pétain or Admiral Darlan immediately and say that your Government has taken note of this statement and that in view of the fact that the United States is at war, all necessary measures must accordingly be taken by this Government, particularly in the defense areas off our shores and in the Caribbean region. This Government will undertake to safeguard the French colonial possessions in this area as part of our general defense operations. Because of the necessity of carrying out our defense plans, we cannot permit the movement of other than American or associated naval or air units operating in these areas. We must, therefore, request, as an evidence of the friendly attitude of France toward this country, that the measures of disarmament of naval or air units, which are now being undertaken by the French Government with respect to any ships or aircraft now stationed in the Caribbean or French colonial territories, be carried out to an extent satisfactory to the United States. In order to insure this degree of demobilization of naval or air units, we request that American naval survey parties be permitted to inspect the state of disarmament and immobilization which has been or is to be carried out with respect to the naval units and aviation units in these areas. Inspection parties have already been organized and are ready to proceed and we request that the French authorities in the Antilles and French Guiana be duly informed and authorized to grant the necessary facilities to the American inspection parties.

HULL

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom

Washington, December 12, 1941 — 5 p.m.
5842

The Thai Minister here received this morning a telegram from the Thai Foreign Minister at Bangkok, stating that Thailand and Japan had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance. It is understood that the Thai Minister here is today making public a repudiation on his own responsibility of the above mentioned alliance. Yesterday the Minister stated to the press that he intended to work for the re-establishment of an independent Thailand.

You may wish to communicate the above to the British Foreign Office and, in your discretion, to your Thai colleague.

Further developments will be telegraphed to you.

HULL

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France

Washington, December 12, 1941 — 11 p.m.
920

The following press release is being issued today:

“As a measure of necessary protection to the crews and vessels, arrangements have been made to remove the French crews of all French vessels now in United States ports. This action does not preclude return of the crews to any vessel the resumption of service of which may be determined.”

It has been explained to the French Embassy that this measure was determined as necessary for the safety not only of the ships but of the crews themselves and that it does not apply to any of the vessels which may be engaged in supply service to the French West Indies. It was further pointed out that should the North African service be resumed, the crews of the LEOPOLD L. D. and the ÎLE DE RÉ could promptly be returned to that vessel.

You may wish to convey the foregoing promptly to the French Foreign Office.

HULL

The Ambassador in France to the Secretary of State

Vichy, December 12, 1941 — 11 p.m.
[Received December 13 — 11:30 a.m.]

1531

My 1523, December 11, 7 p.m.

We called on Rochat this evening who officially delivered to us three memoranda containing the replies to the question [s] I delivered yesterday [to] Marshal Pétain in the form of three memoranda. He said that “the Marshal has been happy to give you complete satisfaction and assurances on all the questions which you raised.”

The following is a translation of the first memorandum dealing with the points raised in Department’s 898, December 6, 4 p.m.

“Referring to the note handed by Admiral Leahy to Marshal Pétain and Admiral Darlan on December 11 the French Government renews the assurances that the French Fleet will not be utilized against Great Britain except in the case of hostile action on her part and that French territory will not be used as a base for operations by German armed forces.

It also renews the assurance that the departure of General Weygand did not entail any change in the political position of France in North Africa or any modification of the status governing these territories.

On the other hand it confirms the agreement concluded on March 10 between the Embassy of the United States at Vichy and the French Government on the basis of the memorandum drawn up following the conversation of February 26, 1941, between General Weygand and Mr. Murphy.

It hopes that the renewal of these assurances will cause the American Government to resume the program of supply for North Africa. It would be happy to receive confirmation thereof.”

The second memorandum dealing with the question of the carrier BEARN and other Naval vessels reads as follows:

“The President of the United States has asked the Marshal to issue orders to Admiral Robert not to allow the departure of any French Naval ship from Martinique or from any other port in the Western Hemisphere.

The French Government has the honor to inform the Government of the United States that it is sending the said order. These instructions, moreover, are but a confirmation of those which were sent last year to Admiral Robert following the agreement reached between the two Governments in order to maintain the status quo of French possessions in the Western Hemisphere. The French Government does not doubt that the American Government continues to give, under present circumstances, its full value to this agreement. It would be happy to receive confirmation thereof.”

The third memorandum states that, “As a result of the declaration of war by Germany and Italy against the United States, the French Government intends to maintain an attitude of neutrality during this conflict.”

After handing us these notes, Rochat said that he was particularly glad that we had brought up the possibility of continuing our economic assistance to North Africa at this time. While he understands that as a result of our entry into war the possibility of our giving economic assistance to North Africa, as originally envisaged, may have to undergo drastic change, he said that the continuation of our economic assistance to North Africa will strengthen at the present time France’s hand in resisting German demands there. He went on to say that if we resume sending supplies to North Africa, the French will be in a position to argue with the Germans that any additional material concessions to them insofar as North Africa is concerned will lead to the discontinuation of our program and will create a “serious situation very disadvantageous to the Germans insofar as North Africa is concerned.”

We asked him whether he really believed the French Government could resist a German demand or ultimatum for the withdrawal of code privileges and the departure of our consulates from North Africa. He replied with embarrassment that he could not answer this question. He went on to say that France would resist German demands in this regard with every possible argument but only the future can tell what the final decision will be. He stated that up to the present time no demands have been received from the Germans insofar as this mission or any of our consulates are concerned.

Repeated to Algiers for Murphy.

LEAHY

Press Release

December 12, 1941

An exchange of telegrams between the President of the United States and the President of the Philippine Commonwealth follows:

December 9, 1941
I have just arrived from Baguio the summer capital of the Philippines where I was when the war between the United States and Japan was declared. I have covered the country by automobile and I am happy to report that everywhere the people are loyal to America and determined to stand by her in testimony of their gratitude to you, to the Government of the United States and to the American people and because of their devotion to the cause of Democracy and freedom. I am proud therefore that the reiterated assurance I have given to you: to the effect that you can count upon us was no empty word.

MANUEL L. QUEZON

December 11, 1941
Your renewed assurances of the devotion and loyalty of the Philippine people to the United States and to democracy are particularly appreciated in this grave hour. The hearts of all Americans are deeply touched by the fortitude and gallantry being shown by your people in this present ordeal. We are at one with you in our faith in the ultimate triumph of our common ideals.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

U.S. Navy Department (December 12, 1941)

Communiqué No. 4

Naval forces continue to coordinate their efforts with the Army on land, sea and in the air against heavy Japanese attacks on the island of Luzon. There is no confirmation of the alleged occupation of Guam by the Japanese. The resistance of Wake and Midway continues. No further air activity over Hawaii has been reported. The situation in the Atlantic remains unchanged.

The above is based on reports up to noon today.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 12:32am

The Pittsburgh Press (December 12, 1941)

U.S. Navy routs Jap fleet

Enemy threats at Luzon from 3 sides, meets fierce resistance
By Joe Alex Morris, United Press war editor

Japan attempted to tighten a steel circle around the island of Luzon today, but met sturdy opposition from American airplanes, land forces and warships which chased an enemy battle fleet from the Philippines coast.

Sinking a battleship, a cruiser and a destroyer and blasting a second 29,000-ton battleship out of control, the defenders of the Philippines and of the little island of Wake appeared to be holding their ground against strong enemy assaults.

A Japanese battle fleet fled to avoid a clash with American warships, Adm. Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, said at Manila.

The enemy appeared to be putting his main effort into the offensive against Luzon, striking at three main coastal sectors with still undisclosed results and heavily bombing our main naval, air and military bases in an effort to disrupt the defense system.

Losses on both sides were vague, but the Japanese apparently paid heavily for such progress as they have made so far in attempting to carry out concentric attacks designed to find a soft spot in our defenses in the Nazi manner.

Developments on Luzon

The strategical situation, which favors the Japanese and puts a heavy burden on the outnumbered and outgunned defenders, showed these developments on Luzon:

NORTH: Japanese forces landed in the Aparri sector, reportedly using parachute troops, and later were reinforced.

The Aparri attack apparently was designed primarily to get an air base for bombing attacks against the southern areas.

WEST: Japanese forces made their most important attacks at two coastal points – Vigan and the Zambales province – in an attempt to flank and seize the main U.S. defense bases and win control of roads and railroads over which they might drive toward Manila.

These enemy concentrations appeared to be directed against such bases as Iba and Olongapo, both in Zambales Province, and against the Lingayen Gulf sector, where they might hope to reach the coastal highway and the railroad leading south.

SOUTHEAST: Japanese forces landed at Legaspi, on the extreme southeastern tip of the island, presumably attempting to seize a small Marine station and open a road over comparatively flat country toward Manila.

Difficult to defend

The trend of these operations and the success of the defense forces in breaking up attacks remained t be clarified, but it should be emphasized that strategists have regarded the Philippines as difficult to defend and that the American forces there are fighting an unequal battle.

According to Manila dispatches, they appeared to be holding their ground and putting up strong aerial opposition to the swarms of Japanese planes – one estimated said 113 were overhead in one wave - that struck at Cavite, Iba, Batanga, and other targets.

In Northern Luzon, the enemy “is augmenting its forces at Aparri and Vigan,” communique No. 5 issued at Washington, said. German reports said that Japanese parachutists were landing along a 155-mile coastal sector, apparently between Vigan and Aparri.

Dispatches and communiques began to make clear that the Japanese were using large sea, air and land units in a campaign designed to cut off and attack Luzon from all sides, seeking to divide the defense forces at the same time that aerial attacks pounded at our main military bases on the island.

Bases considerably damaged

Official statements at Manila acknowledged considerable damage to such bases as Cavite, adjacent to Manila, as a result of air attacks which continued against stiff American opposition today. But there was no definite indication of the extent of enemy penetration of the coastal areas, most of which present formidable obstacles such as mountain ranges and narrow passes.

Adm. Hart gave no details of the American attempt to engage the Japanese fleet except that the action was off Manila.

Details of the sinking of the Japanese battleship Haruna, however, brought the first American aerial heroes of the war into the picture. They were Capt. Colin Kelly, 26-year-old Army flier from Florida, who dived to his death in blasting at the Haruna; Lt. Boyd D. Wagner, who downed two enemy planes and destroyed a dozen on the ground at Aparri; and Lt. C. A. Keller, who shadowed a battleship of the 29,000-ton Kongo class and led an aerial attack that damaged it.

Marines hold Wake

A Marine garrison that held out against four Japanese air and sea attacks on little Wake Island was believed to be still in action, although it was presumed that new enemy assaults had been made. The Wake defenders already had sunk a Japanese light cruiser and a destroyer by aerial action.

The Japanese, in broadcasts from Tokyo, claimed that they were making progress in landing operations against the Philippines, but gave no details. They claimed to have destroyed 238 of 250 American planes which Tokyo said were known to be in the Philippines when war started.

The Japanese reported they were continuing heavy air attacks on Philippine targets and at Manila it was acknowledged that the Navy’s base at Cavite had been hard hit as was Batanga, 50 miles southeast.

On other fronts:

MALAYA: Patrol fighting continued against the Japanese offensive toward Singapore, which has been held in the extreme northern part of the Malaya States near Kota Bharu and also on the west coast. Japanese attempts to land at Kuantan were repulsed and Japanese air raids seemed to be decreasing.
HONGKONG: Chinese forces, reported to have wiped out 15,000 enemy troops, were attacking strongly against the Japanese rear lines in an effort to relieve pressure on Hongkong. The British defense lines were withdrawn slightly to improved positions but there was no indication of a heavy assault.
AUSTRALIA: An air raid alarm was sounded in the Port Darwin area.
LIBYA: British forces attacked in the Ain El Gazala sector, 40 miles west of Tobruk, in a new attempt to wipe out Axis armored strength in North Africa and prevent a retreat to the Derna defense line.
RUSSIA: Red Army attacks continued to gain ground in the Yelets sector, southeast of Moscow, where about 100 villages were reported retaken near Kalanin, where heavy casualties were inflicted on the Germans and in the Volokolask region, west of Moscow. On the Northern Front, the Finns claimed to have wiped out three Russian divisions.
WESTERN EUROPE: The Royal Air Force heavily attacked Western and Northwestern Germany, striking hardest at Cologne, where fires were started. Brest and Le Havre also were bombed.
ATLANTIC FRONT: The Berlin radio claimed that four British ships totalling 27,000 tons had been sunk.

Russia clarified stand

Of greatest importance in developments outside the fighting fronts was a partial clarification of the positions of the Soviet Union toward the Far Eastern war.

The newspaper Pravda, according to dispatches from Kuibyshev, bitterly attacked Japan, taunted Hitler because of the collapse of the great Axis offensive against Moscow and declared that Russia would never make peace with Germany until Britain and the United States agreed and Hitler had been overthrown.

The pledge not to make a separate peace did not directly involve the Soviet Union in the Far Eastern war but it seemed to leave no doubt as to the solidarity of Russia, America and Britain in the war against all of the Axis powers, including Japan.

The question of direct Russian aid in the war against Japan was left in abeyance for obvious geographical and strategical reasons. The United States eventually may want bases in Siberia for bombing attacks on Japan but at present the Allies are fighting defensively and presumably would not want to invite a Japanese Army thrust from Manchukuo against the Soviet’s Siberia strongholds.

WAR DEPARTMENT OFFERS 18-64 DRAFT BILL
Women ‘deferred’ – Full survey of manpower in U.S. asked

Only those from 19 to 45 face actual call, Rayburn says

WASHINGTON (UP) – The War Department today presented to Congress legislation that would require all men in the United States between the ages of 18 to 64, inclusive, to register with the Selective Service System.

Only those from 19 to 45, Speaker Sam Rayburn said, will be liable for military service.

The broad registration will be for the purpose of getting an accurate survey of American manpower.

Chairman Andrew J. May, D-Kentucky, of the House Military Affairs Committee introduced the War Department’s legislation shortly after the House convened at noon.

Reviewed at conference

The legislation was reviewed in a conference at Mr. Rayburn’s office also attended by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson; Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey; House Majority Leader John W. McCormack, D-Massachusetts; Rep. James Wadsworth, R-New York, co-sponsor of the original Selective Service Act; Rep. Walter G. Andrews, R-New York, ranking minority member of the Military Affairs Committee, and War Department and Selective Service aides.

Men who have already registered will not be required to do so again.

The new registration will take in all unregistered men who have reached the age of 18 and have not reached the age of 65.

New registrants may be called up for military service ahead of those who were entered in the past two registrations.

The bill provided that alien residents of the United States holding citizenship in neutral nations may apply for exemption for registration for military service under the American flag but if they do, they are forever barred from becoming citizens of this nation.

Mr. May announced that hearings in the bill will start tomorrow and that Gen. Hershey will be the first witness.

Selective Service officials said they had no intention at this time of seeking authority to register women.

Mr. May said his bill will not change the existing system of classifying Selective Service registrants.

Mr. Hershey disclosed that a proposal was now under consideration to establish some sort of government support if married men and other with dependents, who are now deferred, were found to be needed.

Million already available

Mr. Hershey told the conferees that an additional million men can probably be combed out of present registrants between 21 and 27 and that 1,200,000 men reach the age of military service annually.

“We may need a lot of men,” he said, “and we’ve got to find out now where we can get them.”

Gen. Hershey told reporters yesterday that he favored a long-range registration of the 40 million men between 18 and 64 years. He estimated that 10 million could be made available to the Army and Navy for actual service. Registration of women, he said, would be handled by such agencies as the Office for Civilian Defense.

The first phase of the program probably will be to draw upon the 17,500,000 men in the already registered 21-35 age group. Only about 800,000 inductions have been made to this class, but Gen. Hershey believes this could be increased to four million men.

Immediate reclassification of the 10 million registrants in the 21-27 age bracket is possible and legislative action may be sought to make available the 7,500,000 men in the 28-35 age group.

Gen. Hershey suggested that lowering selection standards in the 21-27 group would yield more than a million men to the current million in Class 1-A, and that “fully a million able-bodied men” might be obtained from the 28-35 group, now exempted.

The Army is expected to notify Selective Service headquarters at once of its needs for January and February quotas. They have been averaging about 65,000 per month recently. Gen. Hershey indicated that they would be “doubled or tripled.” That might mean that 500,000 men would be called to the colors during the next two months.

Loopholes sought

Authorities are seeking to close loopholes on occupational deferments. Conferences with defense manufacturers have been held recently, and Gen. Hershey believes 200,000 men may be made available for military service from defense industry workers.

Selective Service headquarters have notified local draft boards to reclassify ex-servicemen who were deferred in Class 4-A. They were told that the provision permitting deferment from service in peacetime no longer applies.

Men who had served three years in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps, National Guardsmen with two years’ service in the militia and one in federal service, National Guards with six years’ service, the reserve officers with six years’ service were in that category.

WAR BULLETINS!

British, Reds to map strategy

LONDON – Important British-Russian negotiations, it was learned tonight, will be held shortly to deal with political collaboration and the grand strategy of the war against the Axis.

Japs gain near Hong Kong

SINGAPORE – British forces held off the Japanese attack on Malaya today but Hong Kong reports admitted some Japanese penetration of the outer mainland defense of that island fortress. British reports said the Japanese strengthened their hold on the Kota Bharu Airdrome close to the Malaya-Thailand border. Japanese artillery was reported to be shelling Stonecutters Island which lies off Hong Kong Island.

Chiang offers all-out aid

WASHINGTON – Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, in a message to President Roosevelt has offered on behalf of China “all we are, and all we have, to stand with you until the Pacific and the world are freed from the curse of brute force and endless perfidy.”

Planes strafe Jap barges

LONDON – The Air Ministry reported today that Royal Air Force and Australian Air Force planes attacked and set afire to between 50 and 60 Japanese power-driven boats and barges in the first stages of the Japanese attack on Kota Bharu, Malaya.

British sub hits cruiser

LONDON – The Admiralty said today that a British submarine torpedoed and probably sank an enemy cruiser in the Central Mediterranean. The date of the attack was not given.

Marines still hold Wake Island

WASHINGTON – The small U.S. Marine garrison is still holding Wake Island against Japanese attacks, President Roosevelt said today. He told his press conference that the Marines at Wake Island – a lonely station in the mid-Pacific – is small and has done a magnificent job in withstanding Japanese assaults. Last night, it was announced that the Marines had sunk a Japanese light cruiser and a destroyer in air action from Wake.

Japs seize 1,000 American workmen

WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Labor said today it has been advised by the Navy that more than 1,000 American workmen were “captured and taken prisoner” at Midway and Guam Islands in the Pacific. The men were all members of the AFL’s Building Trades Union, and were sent to the island to construct military facilities. The Navy did not specifically say whether Midway or Guam had fallen into the hands of the Japanese.

Haiti joins U.S. against Axis

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti today declared war on Germany and Italy. A declaration of war against Japan was made last Monday.

Slovakia declares war on U.S.

slovak.flag

LONDON – The official German news agency broadcast a Bratislava dispatch today saying that Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain.

Indian leader arrested

NEW DELHI, India (Dec. 11, delayed) – Sarat Chandra Bose, brother of Subhas Chandra Bose, former mayor of Calcutta and former president of the All-India Nationalist Congress, has been arrested at Calcutta because of his “recent contacts with the Japanese,” it was announced today. Subhas Chandra Bose fled last January and is reported in Germany.

Nazis claim four sinkings

BERLIN (by Berlin radio) – German submarines in the Atlantic have sunk four British ships totaling 27,700 tons, the High Command said today.

The ships included a tanker. In addition, two patrol vessels and a tanker were damaged by torpedo hits.

Vichy declares neutrality

LONDON – Radio Tokyo said this morning that the Vichy government has informed the Japanese ambassador that France will maintain strict neutrality in the war between the United States and Japan.

San Diego blacked out

SAN DIEGO, California – San Diego was blacked out for an hour early today and Los Angeles was placed on “alert” when the Fourth Interceptor Command reported unidentified aircraft offshore.

Here the command said the planes were heard off Point Loma at the entrance to San Diego Bay. At Los Angeles, the command said merely that they were “probably offshore.”

Australia has air raid alarm

NEW YORK – The British radio reported today that Port Darwin on the north coast of Australia had an air raid alarm during the night, the first in the commonwealth. No details were given.

Japan, Indochina sign pact

LONDON – The official German news agency reported from Tokyo today that Japan and French Indochina concluded a military alliance Monday.

The Berlin broadcast attributed the report to Japanese Imperial Headquarters.

Brussels University closed

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported from Berlin today that German military authorities had closed the University of Brussels to its 3,000 students and arrested 10 of its officials. The university board refused to accept five German appointments to the faculty.

Uncle Sam hits back –
U.S. aircraft begin to even Pacific score

Second Jap battleship hit; Axis satellites may declare war
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

WASHINGTON (UP) – Further war declarations or ruptures of diplomatic relations with the United States by Axis satellites were likely today as American airmen began to even the naval score with Japan in the Pacific.

The successful bombing of a second Japanese capital ship cheered the capital.

The nation is at war on two points – Atlantic and Pacific. But the Western Hemisphere is becoming more solidly aligned by the minute against the Axis and the period of disunity at home seems to have ended with the first bomb explosion in Hawaii.

Good news starts

Against Germany, Italy and Japan is being thrown the force of the world’s most perfectly machined and industrialized nation. And the good news is beginning to come in.

First word is awaited from the Atlantic front, where war began yesterday with declarations of hostilities by Rome and Berlin which were immediately acknowledged by the United States. Whether the Axis will attempt a “morale” air raid on Washington, New York or some other seaboard city is not known. The fighting forces hope to stop it offshore if it comes.

Bombs of Army, Navy or Marine fliers have already sunk one Japanese battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer and badly damaged a second battleship.

Seek to restore balance

At that rate, it appears the American flying men shortly will be able to restore the balance of naval power in the Pacific as it existed before Japan sank the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and inflicted unrevealed damage on our own fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was announced by the Hawaiian governor that 20 Japanese planes were lost in Sunday’s attack on Hawaii.

The last “good news” came in the Navy Department’s communique No. 3, which said:

“Adm. Thomas C. Hart, commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet, reported that Navy patrol planes scored bomb hits on a Japanese battleship of the Kongo class off the coast of Luzon. The ship was badly damaged.

“This is the second Japanese battleship to be bombed effectively by U.S. forces.”

Haruna sunk

The first battleship attacked by U.S. forces was the 29,000-ton Haruna. It was sunk. The second, Adm. Hart reported, was believed to be the 29,300-ton Kongo.

Earlier in the day, the Navy has revealed that a small garrison of Marines were making a valiant stand to defend Wake Island, the tiny outpost between Hawaii and Guam. That garrison sunk one cruiser and one destroyer which had tried to attack.

Sufficiently accurate information on what was lost in Pearl Harbor is now common knowledge here – although unpublishable – and the rate at which American fliers are reducing the Japanese fleet is encouraging.

Remains less favorable

But the balance of naval power remains considerably less favorable to the United States than it was before Sunday’s attack. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox arrived in Honolulu last night for a personal survey of the damage which the public will scarcely minimize after White House emphasis upon its seriousness.

Hungary is almost in step with the Axis today with the formal announcement in Washington that diplomatic relations with the United States have been broken. Hungary explained here that she was not declaring war.

Radio Berlin broadcast that Hungary has declared war against the United States.

Rumania may follow

Rumania is another subordinate European state which may follow that course.

The course of the neutrals – Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Portugal – remains to be seen, nor is it known here what Germany may demand of that part of France governed from Vichy.

Finland, already at war with the Soviet Union and with Great Britain, is seeking to avoid involvement in the general war flaming throughout the world. The situation is further complicated by Great Britain’s recent declaration of war against Hungary and Rumania.

Greece, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway are captive countries, seized forcibly by Nazi arms, and Albania fell early to Italy.

Meets in January

The Western Hemisphere was rapidly falling in line with the anti-Axis powers in a worldwide choose-up-sides for battle and there will be a conference in Rio de Janeiro in January among the 21 American republics.

Here next week, Mr. Roosevelt has called a conference of management and labor to agree on a changeover from war to peace production efforts which must adopt a seven-day production week, and without strike or lockout interruptions, too. The accomplishments of the conference are expected to take the place of drastic anti-strike legislation which was roaring through Congress when Japan struck.

The congressional isolation bloc has vanished as though bombed and it is the present intention of Congress to vote all the funds and authority the administration and its military advisers ask to prosecute the war. Restrictions against sending National Guardsmen and selectees outside the Western Hemisphere were voted away unanimously yesterday and the Senate turned immediately to consideration of a $10 billion supplemental national defense appropriation. The sum of the bill was increased by about two billion dollars by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Taxes will rise

Taxes are going up soon and far. Congressional leaders agreed that the burden will increase tremendously and other officials are arranging simultaneously to reduce the number of variety of things the public may buy with what is left over from the paycheck after taxes are paid.

National Selective Service headquarters are pondering plans for registration of practically everyone for such essential service as may be necessary and draft deferment lists are already being revised to make more men immediately available for the armed services.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet ambassador, conferred and predicted increased collaboration against the common enemy. But there is no word here about bases for our planes in Siberia so that they may shuttle back and forth between the Philippines and the Asiatic mainland, dropping their bombs on Japan as they cross each way. The Soviet Union and Japan are not at war. Instead, they have a mutual non-aggression pact.

Mowrer: Keep a close eye on Hitler for surprise

Nazis still main show, and Atlantic may be next background
By Edgar Ansel Mowrer

WASHINGTON – Repel the Japanese but keep your eye on Hitler – this is the policy being followed today by the American administration, the Army and the Navy.

The sinking of a Japanese battleship, a cruiser and a destroyer makes it just that much easier. People here are convinced that in preparing for Japan the magnificently audacious plan that the Nipponese carried out so effectively (and treacherously) last Sunday, the Germans wanted to create a diversion serious enough to force the American authorities to strip the Atlantic and rush to repair the damage in the Pacific and avenge it.

Since the work of avenging has begun without any reinforcements from the Atlantic, for the main route to the Philippines is now largely in the hands of the Japanese, there will be less temptation to forget that, outside of the main area of Singapore, Hitler and his Nazis are still the main show.

In order to induce the Japs to go all out and risk their precious material, Hitler, it is believed here, must have promised them powerful support. What people here intend to find it – and expect Hitler to reveal soon – is what form this support is going to take.

Several things are open to the Nazis, now that they have admitted they cannot take Moscow this winter and must wait until spring. A Russian announcement claiming that they now have control of the air over the front suggests strongly that the Germans have withdrawn a portion of their air force from that region. This might take the form of a new air onslaught against Great Britain, and/or an intensified airplane, plus submarine, plus surface, campaign in the Atlantic.

Defeated in his frantic effort to reach the oil of the Caspian, Hitler’s marshals, by shortening their lines and withdrawing divisions from Russia, may amass a powerful mass for a campaign all along, or in special parts of, the Mediterranean.

This might mean a smash at Turkey, with the idea of reaching the Caucasus along the southern shore of the Black Sea, or turning down toward Iraq and eventually Iran, or driving straight south on Syria, Palestine and the Suez Canal. It may mean an intensified effort to cross the Mediterranean and get into North Africa in time to reinforce Gen. Erwin Rommel’s battered divisions before they have to give more ground. For this purpose, Hitler desperately needs the French fleet.

Pessimists in Washington believe that Japan’s success at Pearl Harbor may have been the final argument in convincing the men of Vichy that Americans are blunderers anyway. Without this fleet, and a fine French base like Bizerte or Oran to land at, the Germans and Italians will have some difficulty sending reinforcements across the British-controlled Mediterranean.

Spain a pushover

They can, however, take over Spain and Portugal anytime they choose. A somewhat sinister statement from Madrid that Spain will soon announce its position toward the war with the United States leads people here to believe that the Franco Spaniards, despite more than generous handling from the United States, have decided to proclaim non-belligerence favorable to the Axis and allow German troops to pass freely.

This would mean a siege of Gibraltar and the unquestioned crossing of the straits there by at least some German troops. It would mean the taking over of French Morocco, probably of Algeria as well. It might mean an attempt to take over Dakar, though Dakar is a long walk from the straits.

In any case, many possibilities are open to Hitler, and those who have given most attention to studying the man and his works are convinced that he will not wait long to act.

U.S. bans casualty lists as giving aid to enemies

WASHINGTON (UP) – No more casualty lists will be issued by the War and Navy Departments.

President Roosevelt explained to his press conference today that the Army and Navy felt that publication of lists of men killed or wounded in action would provide information of aid to the enemy, enabling the enemy to determine where and when large numbers of American soldiers and sailors suffered losses.

He said the Army and Navy would notify next of kin of the casualties immediately by telegram. The government will release for newspaper publication only total figures on casualties.

The president asked that press associations, newspapers and radio stations refrain from compiling their own casualty lists from the notices sent to next of kin.

Newspapers, he said, should confine themselves to brief stories that the next of kin – wife, mother, or whatever the case may be – of a given man in the paper’s individual areas has been notified by Washington. This information from next of kin, the president felt, should not be made into the form of lists covering even a given community.

All belligerents in the war, prior to the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and the United States, followed the policy of not making casualty lists public, the president said. They have notified next of kin, and from time to time made public figures on total casualties.

The War Department has issued three casualty lists – one each Wednesday, yesterday and today. The Navy had not released any casualty list up to the time of today’s decision. The Navy is now preparing figures on the dead and seriously wounded to date.

A Navy announcement said:

“The Navy Department today announced that for military reasons no list of names of casualties will be released to the public. The next of kin and dependents of naval casualties are being notified and are being asked not to divulge the names of the ship or station to which the relative was attached.”

To requests for additional information on the Japanese attack against Hawaii, the president replied that further statements must await the return or report of the Secretary Frank Knox, now in Honolulu.

The president said strongly that no one should publish anything about the Hawaiian attack or present conditions there until the government has heard from Mr. Knox. He added, in response to a question, if such stories are published the government will remember well the people who did it.

He was asked about the propriety of reporting statements made in Congress, giving purporting details of the situation in Hawaii. Correspondents referred particularly to statements made in the Senate yesterday and told the president they had no choice but to print them.

The president agreed that such reports from Congress could not be ignored, but said they should be characterized as not entirely factual.

The president said one senator yesterday made certain statements about Hawaii with knowing a thing about the situation.

This senator, the president said, reported somebody’s gossip and made his report as a statement of fact which he had no right to do.

Sen. Charles W. Tobey, R-New Hampshire, told the Senate yesterday that there had been a “debacle” at Pearl Harbor and charged that the defenses of Pearl Harbor were unprepared.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:11am

Latin America rallies to U.S. support in war

War declarations and assurances of solidarity are issued

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (UP) – Latin America rallied strongly to the support of the United States today with four nations having already declared war against Germany and Italy and others expected to follow soon.

Nine Latin American countries declared war on Japan after Sunday’s attack on Hawaii and four followed yesterday with declarations against Germany and Italy.

Cuba went to war with the three major powers at midnight, when President Fulgencio Batista signed a declaration that had been passed by the Senate, 50-0, and by the House of Representatives, 222-0. Cuba declared war on Japan Tuesday.

Mexico breaks relations

Costa Rica, the first Latin American nation to enter World War II with a declaration against Japan, declared war on Germany and Italy yesterday. Guatemala and Nicaragua, both already at war with Japan, also declared war against Germany and Italy.

Mexico broke diplomatic relations with Germany and Italy, severing all ties with the Axis powers and becoming an ally of the United States in everything short of an actual war declaration.

Mexico ordered the freezing of German and Italian funds, as it had frozen Japanese funds, and continued movement of troops to its west coast to protect Baja California.

Solidarity reaffirmed

Argentina reaffirmed its solidarity with the United States and sent a message to the American Congress condemning the “treasonable” Axis action. It was expected to proclaim the United States “non-belligerent” as regards Germany and Italy today, paralleling a similar declaration as regards Japan. The action permits U.S. warships to enter Argentine ports without risking internment under neutrality regulations.

Sources at the Foreign Office said German and Italian funds would probably be frozen today.

San Salvador, already at war with Japan, and Bolivia have already blocked Axis funds. The Bolivian order was regarded as a major blow to Axis operations in Latin America, because most Bolivian business is controlled by German, Italian or Japanese interests. The Bolivian decree also applies to non-belligerent Axis allies, the Finance Ministry said.

Will buy arms from U.S.

In Uruguay, which had also declared the United States non-belligerent in its war with Japan, the Senate passed a bill authorizing a $17 million purchase of arms in the United States.

President Getulio Vargas of Brazil reaffirmed his nation’s solidarity with the United States in view of the spread of the war. He ordered six infantry companies to guard strategic air bases.

Peru, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic also assured the United States of their support.

President Manuel Prado of Peru cabled President Roosevelt a few moments after the German and Italian declarations: “I reaffirm the principle of solidarity which emanated from the inter-American pacts. Peru reiterates at this opportunity, its firm decision to omit no effort in favor of common defense of the continent.”

Oil lines protected

In Venezuela, the world’s third largest petroleum producer, President Isaias Medina said “the aggression against the United States places a tragic threat at the very doors of America and makes it imperative that each country of the New World fully assume its responsibilities.”

He said the government was “cooperating fully” with petroleum companies for the protection of oil fields, pipelines, refineries and other facilities.

In Washington, Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, strongman of the Dominican Republic, said his country, already at war with Japan, would declare war against Germany and Italy. He said the “land, sea and air of the Dominican Republic are available to the land, naval or air forces of the United States at any time they may desire to use them.”

‘Mikado’ to be given despite Pacific war

WASHINGTON (UP) – Performances of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, “The Mikado”, will be presented here next week as scheduled, it was announced today, but the printed program will carry an explanatory note, saying, in part: “Almost three-score years have passed since William Gilbert wrote this, depicting the Japanese in the light that history now records – sly, wily and deceitful, unconscionably corrupt and treacherous.”

The operetta satirizes British characters who are given Japanese names.

An employee of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company yesterday announced that three local performances at the National Theater had been cancelled because Baltimore audiences Monday received the production coolly, particularly its opening song, “We Are Gentlemen of Japan.”

U.S. and Axis reporters expected to return home on ‘truce’ ships

By the United Press

American newspapermen in Axis countries were under arrest or police supervision today and were unable to communicate with the United States.

It was understood that the U.S. State Department was arranging for the exchange of the newspapermen for Axis reporters under arrest in this country. The correspondents would leave Axis countries with U.S. diplomatic personnel and would return to America on a “truce ship” guaranteed safe passage of the Atlantic. Axis diplomats and reporters would return home by the same method.

German and Italian journalists detained in America were being kept in hotels rather than locked up, and were being well treated. Information from abroad indicated that American correspondents were receiving the same treatment. They were barred from filing news dispatches since early Wednesday.

When American correspondents in Berlin appeared at the Foreign Office press conference Wednesday, they were asked to leave the room and go to their apartments because Axis correspondents in the United States had been arrested. Wednesday midnight, they were rounded up and placed under arrest. They were first taken to Alexanderplatz Police Station and then confined in a private villa.

The offices of American press associations and newspapers were closed Thursday afternoon, according to a Berlin dispatch of the Swedish newspaper Tidningens of Stockholm, after the heads of the bureaus had been allowed to cable the U.S. State Department protesting against the arrest of German correspondents in Washington and New York.

It was understood, Tidningens said, that this cable was approved by the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy.

A broadcast of DNB, the official German news agency, said the American correspondents in Paris were barred from official press conferences yesterday and asked to go to their homes. Later, they were also placed under arrest.

DNB said that, in Rome, working American newspapermen were put under police surveillance or arrested. The agency said that four American correspondents were arrested and two others ordered to remain in their apartments.

It was not revealed whether any action was taken against employees of American press associations or newspapers who are citizens of Axis countries.

The names of American correspondents arrested were not announced by the authorities, but the only exception reported was Guido Enderis, Berlin correspondent of the New York Times. Tidningens said that he had been exempted and allowed to remain at the hotel. In New York, the Times said it knew of no reason why an exception was made in the case of Mr. Enderis, but that he was not being allowed to work.

Tokyo reported that three or four unidentified British and American newspapermen were detained “as a precaution and for their protection and well-being.”

Connally shies from phrase in war resolution

‘World conquest’ allusion deleted from draft of State Department
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – If the State Department suggestion had been followed, Congress would have acknowledged formally that Germany and Italy are working together on a plan for world conquest.

But at the insistence of Sen. Connally, D-Texas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the declarations of war against the Axis powers contained no such preambles as the department suggested.

Confusion over whether to accept the State Department version accounted for the interruption in Senate proceedings between the reading of the president’s war message and the Senate’s unanimous vote to declare war.

Confer on floor

During this interruption, Sen. Connally conferred on the Senate floor with Rep. Bloom, D-New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and House Majority Leader McCormack, D-Massachusetts.

“Sol and Tom are having a joint session of Congress right here on the floor,” said one senator in a stage whisper.

Before calling the Foreign Relations Committee to meet at 11:30 a.m. yesterday, Sen. Connally had conferred with Secretary Hull. He went back to the Capitol, and said the State Department was drafting a proposed war resolution. At the same time, his office put the legislative drafting service to work on a similar resolution.

Preamble opposed

The department’s proposal made known both to Sen. Connally and House leaders, started this way:

“Whereas Germany is pursuit of a plan of world conquest has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States, and has now declared war on the United States…”

Sen. Connally wouldn’t accept this. He said it was true the Nazis have a plan of world conquest, and that they have committed repeated acts of war against us. But we have known these things for months, he said, without declaring war. Moreover, he wanted the full support of his committee on both resolutions of war.

So, he and the committee deleted this preamble.

House leaders agree

Rep. Bloom and McCormack, who were prepared to accept the State Department preamble, heard that the Senate was not, and hurried over to find out the facts. The Senate, without formality, suspended its business; Messrs. Connally and Bloom held their “joint session” in the center aisle; the House leaders were informed the Senate was not accepting the State Department preamble; they agreed and the war declarations were speedily approved.

Following the signing of the declarations by the president later in the afternoon, Sen. Glass, D-Virginia, related how Mr. Roosevelt commented to legislators at the signing ceremony that some members of the Connally Committee had wanted to phrase the declarations in a manner to spare the feelings of Axis civilians.

“Hell, we not only want to hurt their feeling, we want to kill them!” Mr. Glass told the president.

Plane-vs.-ship case reopened by sea losses

Reappraisal of value of aircraft and vessels due in Congress
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – The destruction of naval vessels by airplanes in the Pacific appeared likely today to bring a reappraisal by Congress of the relative importance of aircraft and warships.

Sen. Walsh, D-Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, commented that this week’s events seemed to indicate a new shift of strength from surface vessels to aircraft.

He pointed out that he had stressed repeatedly the importance of aircraft in naval warfare, and expressed a belief that his committee would reexamine the old controversy of plane-vs.-battleship in the light of the new developments.

Sinkings provide test

Sen. Wiley, R-Wisconsin, a member of the Walsh Committee, went further. “Recent events,” he said, “show that the navies of the air are more significant than the navies of the sea.”

Mr. Wiley said the record of Norway and Crete, as well as this week’s news from the Pacific, had demonstrated the growing supremacy of aircraft.

Sen. Lucas, D-Illinois, also a committee member, said: “I certainly would think that some more emphasis should now be given to the bombing plane.”

He said the sinking of British capital ships by the Japanese, and of Japanese ships by U.S. fliers, presented a much fairer test than the Honolulu engagement Sunday, where planes attacked ships which were apparently tied up in harbor.

Too early for answers

There was less inclination among members of the House Naval Affairs Committee to accept the plane-battleship tests on the Pacific as indicating a need for greater emphasis on aircraft.

Rep. Maas, R-Minnesota, the committee’s ranking minority member, warned against jumping at conclusions. He said a navy must be strong both in the air and on the surface, and pointed out that German aviation had not been able to bring defeat of England.

But Rep. Cole, R-New York, also a Naval Affairs Committee member, said that “developments have caused all of us to question the military usefulness of the battleship.” But it is still too early to get a final answer, he said.

$10 billion war bill placed before Senate

Congress moves to gear U.S. Armed Forces for long, hard struggle

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Senate votes today on a $10 billion supplemental national defense appropriation – the first step since the declaration of war against the Axis to gear the armed forces for a “long, hard war.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee will send the bill to the floor at noon after adding nearly two billion dollars in cash and contract authorizations, including $500 million for naval warplanes, to the House-approved version.

The bill, boosting the war program to more than $69 billion, was approved by the committee yesterday only a few hours after the declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

Called first in series

Acting Committee Chairman Kenneth McKellar, D-Tennessee, said the bill was the first of what may be an extensive series “necessary to supply the implements and arms for a long and hard war against three foes.”

Rear Adm. John H. Towers, chief of the Bureau of Naval Aeronautics, asked the committee to increase funds for naval fighting planes from a House-approved total permitting construction of an additional 2,020 airplanes. McKellar did not reveal the type or number of fighting craft to be constructed from the $500 million fund.

Votes power program

In an effort to provide power necessary “to make aluminum needed for the defense of the country,” the committee added a power facility program embracing four additional dams in Tennessee. Initial construction costs provided in the bill total $25 million for the dams located on the Watauga River, near Elizabethtown; the Holston River near Bristol; at Dole Hollow on the Obed River, and at Center Hill on the Caney Fork River.

Other items added by the committee include: Another seven billion dollars for Army and Civil Aeronautics Administration land fields raising the total for this purpose to $57 million; $100 million for the president’s emergency blank check fund, and increased appropriations for government buildings in the District of Columbia.

Transfers funds

The committee transferred $1,500,000,000 of funds set aside by the House for lend-lease purposes to the general War Department account. McKellar declared that this move indicated no innovation in lend-lease administration, adding that it was considered advisable by War Department officials to lump the lend-lease monies with general War Department appropriations “to free the department’s hands in spending.”

Other expenditures include $742 million for feeding and clothing Army personnel; $269 million for vessel construction and machinery; and $33 million for the Interior Department for defense construction purposes.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:26am

Today’s developments in the war in the Pacific

pacmap.dec12

U.S. subs hunt near Manila; Japanese lose 27 planes

By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer

The Philippines battlefront

U.S. forces reported heavy fighting against the Jap invaders in the Philippines today at points indicated on the map above.
1) U.S. admits Japs land in large numbers in north. Aparri area reported recaptured by U.S.
2) U.S. Navy admits heavy damage at Cavite; Manila has two alarms, no bombs. Jap battleship knocked out of control by Navy planes.
3) Americans fight Jap landing parties in Legaspi region.

MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Adm. Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, revealed today that a Japanese battle fleet fled to avoid battle when American warships approached.

Official communiques reported that American warplanes have taken a heavy toll of Japanese planes and ships.

Adm. Hart said a 29,300-ton Japanese battleship of the Kongo class had suffered one heavy hit and two lighter hits when bombed by a naval plane. The bombs put the warship out of control. This success was in addition to the sinking of 29,300-ton Haruna, Adm. Hart added to information released in Washington last night.

Adm. Hart said the American fleet “contacted” the Japanese war fleet a considerable distance off Manila. The enemy ships sheered off to avoid battle.

Developments today:

American submarines are ranging the narrow seas of the war zone and are expected to report major success when they communicate with their home bases.
American and Philippine planes have struck hard at the Japanese Air Force; Filipino pilots were credited with shooting down two Japanese planes in action and the Americans bagged 25.

One American Army aviator singlehandedly accounted for 14 of the Japanese planes, shooting down two in the air and knocking out 12 on the ground at Aparri on the northern tip of Luzon this morning.

Japs’ attacks heavy

The Japanese Air Force continued its heavy attacks, raiding Batangas, capital of Batangas Province, 50 miles southeast of Manila, twice and causing two more air raid alarms in Manila.

An NBC reporter in Manila said it had been officially confirmed that the Kongo-class battleship hit by U.S. bombs was the Kongo itself. He reported that the Japanese sent at least 113 bombers over the Philippines today, attacking various objectives including an airfield at Batangas.

The attack on Batangas was carried out by two flights of 27 Japanese bombers each, the Philippines Constabulary reported. There were a number of casualties, it was reported.

To decide on Spaniards

In Manila, all Axis aliens were placed in protective custody and a decision was being pondered concerning action against Spanish nationals and members of the Falange Fascist Party.

U.S. pilot killed

The Army announced that Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., 26, who scored the three direct hits which sank the first battleship, had been killed in action.

Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commanding the American forces in the Far East, replied today to a message from President Roosevelt, congratulating the American forces on their defense: “The Far Eastern Command appreciates deeply your message. We shall do our best.”

Heavy damage at Cavite

U.S. and Philippine forces were reported to be fighting Japanese landing parties in the Legaspi area, at the southeast tip of Luzon Island, 210 miles from Manila, and it was admitted that Japanese troops were now in greater force in Northern Luzon.

Adm. Hart said the Navy’s Cavite base, eight miles southwest of Manila, had been hit by a powerful Japanese airplane attack. There were extensive fires and great damage was done, he said. Small ships lying at the yard were also damaged.

One bomb directly hit a dispensary, Adm. Hart said, and everyone in it was killed, including nurses and doctors. He emphasized that the dispensary was in the center of a fortified area.

Await subs’ reports

He said that loss of life figures had not been completed but that it was known most of the dead were civilians.

Adm. Hart said that submarines of the Asiatic Fleet had not yet reported.

“But we expect big results,” he added. “When a torpedo hits a ship, it stays hit.”

The submarines were the big game hunters of the fleet and they used only elephant guns, not shotguns, Adm. Hart said.

He announced that Lt. H. A. Utter had been attacked by three Japanese fighters. He shot down one, Hart said, and then made a forced landing, taxied his seaplane to the coast, repaired minor damage and took off next morning, returning to his base.

Filipinos win air victory

Describing the attack on the second Japanese battleship, Adm. Hart said Lt. C. A. Keller sighted it off Northwestern Luzon and held contact with it for a long time despite anti-aircraft fire, guiding the attack of bombers led by Lt. Cmdr. J. V. Peterson.

The Navy fliers then pressed their attack despite heavy gunfire, he said.

Adm. Hart said that the Navy had lost two large planes in the Gulf of Davao Monday, approximately one hour after a Pearl Harbor attack. One pilot was lost and some members of the crews were wounded, he said.

Since Monday, he added, one large Navy plane had been shot down at Laguna de Bay, 30 miles from Manila, and all members of the crew were killed.

He said Navy pilots had been most active and that several planes had suffered minor damage. Some fuel tanks had been punctured, he said. One pilot landed successfully with one of his two motors burning, he commented.

Philippine town raided

Discussing naval operations, Adm. Hart said that no Japanese battleship had yet approached within sight of the Philippine coast, and he deprecated reports which “always call every craft a battleship.”

An Army communique said a small Japanese force was reported to have pushed ashore at Legaspi, on Albay Bay.

Despite the improved position of the Japanese at the northern end of Luzon, the Army communique said the situation there had not changed materially.

BBC, heard by CBS, quoted a Manila dispatch as saying that U.S. forces in Northern Luzon had recaptured the Aparri region on the north coast.

BBC said: “United States troops are reported to have smashed every Japanese effort yesterday to set invading forces firmly ashore and it is reported that the enemy is even being driven back at Aparri, where they had established a temporary foothold. The region around Aparri is said now to be back in American hands.”

Seven thousand civilians held to be non-essential were evacuated from the walled area of Manila, which contains the general headquarters of U.S. forces in the Far East, Fort Santiago and other military establishments.

The Philippine National Assembly, at a special session, approved an emergency powers bill which authorized President Manuel L. Quezon to spend all available unexpended public funds for national defense and civilian protection.

U.S. pilot dives into Jap ship’s guns, vanishes

Battleship goes down in blast; ex-Pitt student wrecks 14 planes

ckelly.westpoint
Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., vanished in explosion

MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Three daredevil American aviators flew to fame – and one to death – today against the Japanese.

Terse statements from military and naval sources in Manila told the story of how U.S. and Filipino aviators struck back against powerful enemy assaults. The name of 26-year-old Capt. Colin Kelly Jr. of Florida, who was killed in action, heads the roll of the heroes.

His diving airplane vanished in a roaring explosion that sank the 29,000-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off the coast of Luzon Island as the pilot plunged his craft straight down at the enemy and released a stick of high explosives almost into the mouths of flaming Japanese guns.

Capt. Kelly was only one of the defense fliers and who made American skill and daring in the air felt against the invaders.

Around the air bases, they told of blows struck by Lt. Boyd D. Wagner of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who like Kelly flew an Army Air Corps plane. Lt. Wagner raced northward to the tip of Luzon Island as the Japanese sought to land reinforcements under aerial protection in the Aparri sector.

Half a dozen enemy craft tackled him and two of them went down after a fierce dogfight. Lt. Wagner then streaked on toward the enemy landing field and dropped down until his plane was skimming treetops, his machine guns spattering bullets against Japanese craft on the ground. A dozen planes were wrecked when, his fuel running low, he turned back toward his home base.

Lt. Wagner is a former University of Pittsburgh student.

They were talking, too, of Lt. C. A. Keller of the U.S. Navy Air Force, and how he “shadowed” a Japanese battleship of the Kongo class northwest of Luzon despite steady and fierce enemy anti-aircraft fire. Lt. Keller kept his plane within sight of the 29,000-ton enemy craft until naval bombers led by Lt. Cmdr. J. V. Peterson arrived and pressed home an attack that put the vessel out of action.

But the American fliers were not the only ones who stood out in the battle against invasion forces.

Adm. Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, told how Filipino fliers in the defense forces had shot down two Japanese planes out of 11 bagged since early this morning. Hart also said that Lt. H. Tutter of the U.S. Navy Air Force, had been attacked by three Japanese fighter planes at sea. He shot down one and then made a forced landing on the water, taxiing his plane to the shore where he repaired minor damages. The next morning, he returned to base.

Capt. Kelly was 26. He graduated from the University of Florida, and then went to West Point, from which he graduated four years ago. He was married and had one son.

In 1938, he finished the Primary Flying School of the Army, and the Advanced Flying School bombardment course in 1939.

He was accepted as a combat pilot in September 1940 and served in Hawaii until he was assigned to the Philippines.

Hero always wanted to be a soldier

MADISON, Florida (UP) – Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., who died in successfully dive-bombing the 29,300-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off Luzon, his father said today, “always wanted to be a soldier – ever since he was about 12 years old.”

“He always had talked about aviation. Sometimes, I thought he was almost too crazy about it,” the father said.

“But I’m proud that he did his part for our country. He was a fine specimen of manhood and I guess fairly bright. That’s how he got an appointment to West Point.”

Capt. Kelly visited his home here last February. His father said he was stationed at March Field, California, before being transferred to Honolulu. He was a graduate of Madison High School and attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama for one year.

Hero’s mother has busy day

JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania – As it had been every day since the war began, the Wagner home was quiet and unmoving this morning.

Boyd D. Wagner Sr., the father, had gone to work. Mrs. Wagner, herself a clerk in a store here, sat at the breakfast table, her thoughts wandering to the far-off Philippines.

If only there would be some word of their son…

To be sure, they had received a radiogram Tuesday from Lt. Boyd D. Wagner Jr., saying he had received the Christmas gifts, thanks, and everything is all right.

Radiogram sent Friday

But the radiogram had been sent out Friday – and since then the Japanese had attacked the Philippines and the very air base at which their son was stationed as a commander of the 17th Pursuit Squadron.

If only…

Then suddenly the radio boomed. It was Manila coming in.

“Among the first heroes of the war announced by the Navy today,” it said, “was Lt. Boyd D. Wagner, who accounted for 14 enemy planes singlehandedly.”

“I just can’t explain the feeling I got then,” Mrs. Wagner said. “I was happy enough just to hear he was alive. But to be a hero – my!”

Breakfast was forgotten.

Mrs. Wagner grasped a phone to call her husband, an electrician, and tell him of the good news. But the line was busy.

“And it’s been busy all day,” she said.

“All of Johnstown – and more – has been calling me. I haven’t been able to get a bit of work done. I guess it’s the same with Mr. Wagner.”

And so it’s been here all day long – ever since the Navy first announced that Lt. Wagner had earned a hero’s rating by downing two Japanese planes in dogfights above the Philippines and destroying 12 others on the ground at Aparri, in northern Luzon, where the Japs are fighting to gain a foothold.

Studied at Pitt

Only 25, Lt. Wagner is a native of Emeigh, near here, and a graduate of Nanty Glo High School. He studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh for three years, joining the Flying Cadets in 1937.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant July 17, 1938, after completing his course at Randolph and Kelly Fields, in Texas, then ordered to active duty at Selfridge Field, Michigan.

Promoted to a first lieutenant September 9, 1940, he was shifted to Manila three months later. He was made commander of the 17th Pursuit Squadron four months ago.

Soviet Union, U.S. pledge rising war collaboration

Russia leaves no hint on possible aid in fight against Japan; Litvinov announces ‘full understanding’ reached in talk with Hull

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Soviet Union and the United States are informally pledged to increased collaboration against their common enemy, the Axis, but there has been no hint as of today whether the Soviet plans to offer this country the use of Siberian air bases for its war against Japan.

The Soviet Union and Japan are not at war. They have a mutual non-aggression pact.

Diplomats here have felt that the Soviet Union would probably continue its present status with Japan unless attacked, because of the necessity of concentrating all efforts on the front threatened by Germany.

However, air and naval bases along the eastern Siberian coast would be strategic points for U.S. bombers to start raids over the Japanese mainland.

Nothing was mentioned about such aid yesterday after a conference between Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov.

Litvinov said after the conference that the Soviet Union and the United States had reached a “full understanding” on their common struggle.

Soviet ‘to do share’

Mr. Hull said in a statement earlier that the Soviets “will do their full share” in the all-out fight against the Axis. He also pointed out that when Litvinov arrived here Monday – the day the United States declared war on Japan – President Roosevelt assured him of his “firm determination” to continue aid to the Soviets.

The Hull and Litvinov remarks came amidst reports from Europe that the Soviets had rejected Nazi proposals for peace. Some reports speculated that the halting of the German drive on Moscow might be a preliminary to a Russo-German peace. But Litvinov said: “I have no doubt whatever that we will continue resistance against the Germans to a final complete victory.”

Mr. Hull’s statement – given out before he met Litvinov – appeared to be designed to refute reports that Russia was reluctant to move in the Far East lest she becomes involved in war with Japan.

Litvinov sidestepped all inquiries as to what assistance the Soviet Union might give this country.

“We shall see,” was his only answer to specific questions about bases.

“Naturally we have a common cause and a common enemy. We are fighting Hitler more than anyone else. We fully understand each other.”

Litvinov’s conference with Mr. Hull was one of a series which included a talk with Harry L. Hopkins, lend-lease supervisor, and Lord Halifax, British ambassador.

Nazi peace feeler spurned by Russia; Japan denounced

‘We shall see,’ Litvinov says about Soviet plans for bombing Tokyo after he confers with Roosevelt; Reds rap Nipponese treachery
By the United Press

Russia’s official Radio Kuibyshev broadcast today that the Soviet Union would never sign a peace treaty with Germany except in agreement with the United States and Britain and added: “By that time, there will no longer be a Hitler in Germany.”

There was as yet no official announcement from Russia as to what action it will take in the Pacific war.

But in Washington, Maxim Litvinov, the new Russian ambassador, the one man among great European statesmen who for years had said that joint defense by the democracies against aggressors was the sole hope of civilization, said to questioning newspaper correspondents: “Naturally we have a common cause and a common enemy. We are fighting Hitler more than anyone else. We fully understand each other.”

Litvinov sees Roosevelt

Mr. Litvinov conferred yesterday with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Lord Halifax, the British ambassador.

Asked as to the extent of assistance Russia might give in the Pacific, such as bombing Tokyo from its Siberian bases, he said, “We shall see.”

“Fine!” he exclaimed when informed that a Japanese cruiser and a destroyer had been sunk off Wake Island.

Henry Shapiro, United Press correspondent in Kuibyshev (temporary Russian diplomatic headquarters), reported that Pravda, the official Communist Party organ, bitterly denounced Japan today, saying it had attacked the United States and Great Britain treacherously and obviously after long preparation.

See defeat for Japs

“The Japanese aggressor has plunged into a very hazardous adventure which bodes him nothing but defeat,” Pravda said.

“And if he counted on the possibility of a ‘lightning victory,’ he is in for a disappointment no less than that suffered by the bloodthirsty Hitler as the result of his bandit attack on the Soviet Union.”

In Washington, denying reports of a possible Russo-German peace, Mr. Litvinov said: “I have no doubt whatever that we will continue resistance against the Germans to a final complete victory.”

Reds cite ‘powerful front’

Asked regarding the possibility of a firm American-British-Chinese-Dutch-Russian alliance, he said: “We shall see. Naturally we have a common cause and a common battle. I cannot make any statement about Japan.”

Radio Moscow quoted an editorial in Pravda, which, in discussing the Pacific situation, mentioned the United States, Britain and China as constituting a “powerful front.”

“The first partial successes by Japan in the Pacific are not decisive,” the editorial said. “The fact that Germany and Italy have declared war on the United States does not alter the position materially.”

“The Japanese wanted a quick victory, but they will be disappointed. They are confronted by a powerful front of the United States, Britain and China.

Expect long war

“The opening of a new front in the Pacific will mean increased activity on the Chinese front.

“The United States, which was already against the Hitler front, has used the interval before the war declarations to increase its production of war materials. Its production is not on full scale so far, but that will soon be made up.

“The war in the Pacific will be long and difficult. The colossal superiority of manpower and the possession of raw materials by the United States will prove decisive.”

A CBS correspondent in Kuibyshev said that the Russian government was advised officially of Japan’s declaration of war on the United States only yesterday when a State Department message reached the American embassy.

‘Dreams buried in snow’

He quoted Pravda as saying in substance:

“Hitler hoped to capture Russia up to the Ural Mountains in one or two months. Now his dreams are buried in snow.

“Hitler is ready to talk peace with Russia tomorrow if Russian leaders are willing to talk peace with him. Hitler is now dangling peace proposals before the Soviet Union, hoping that they will nibble. But the Soviet Union will sign a peace treaty with Germany only in common with Britain and the United States.”

It was added that the article was written before the German declaration of war on the United States yesterday.

Walsh raps Tobey’s plea for inquiry

If Navy was derelict, Roosevelt will act, senator says

WASHINGTON (UP) – Sen. David I. Walsh, D-Massachusetts, in a stirring rebuttal to renewed demands for a congressional inquiry into Sunday’s Hawaiian setback, said yesterday that if the Navy high command in Hawaii was derelict in its duty, President Roosevelt will act “in such a manner as to retain the confidence of the American people.”

The Senate Naval Affairs Committee chairman pledged he would make every effort to “strike a blow against inefficiency, against anyone derelict in his duty, against anyone slackening in the defense of our country.”

“But,” he pleaded, “at least in these early days of war and said disaster, let us have confidence in our president and trust he will lead us to victory.”

His impassioned oration was in reply to Sen. Charles W. Tobey, R-New Hampshire, who demanded to know whether Mr. Walsh’s committee contemplated an investigation of the initial “disaster.”

Former isolationists

Mr. Tobey’s question pitted against each other two men who only a week ago had been eye-to-eye as members of the isolationist bloc.

The “time is past” for criticism that is not constructive, Mr. Walsh told Mr. Tobey, who only a few minutes before had voted for the declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

“We must have confidence in our war president – not a Democratic president, not a New Deal president, but a war president serving in a new role which will mark his place in history; and I hope and pray it will be a high place.”

He told Mr. Tobey, “It is not always possible to obtain accurate information of a naval encounter immediately after it has happened.

Two questions

“Every man there in the service had to ask himself the question, ‘Are they [the Japanese] coming back and what can we do to meet them?’ rather than ‘Gather all the details, find out what has happened and report to Washington.’”

“Every man out there in the service must know the facts – they cannot be kept silent,” Mr. Walsh said.

He pointed out that a war president must check “his natural impulse” to reveal all the facts; he must remember that “we cannot disclose too much that will comfort the enemy.”

“I think we should wait,” Sen. Walsh concluded, “until the commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thinks it is his solemn duty – to retain the confidence of the American people – to speak for our information.”

Tobey insistent

Mr. Tobey had insisted earlier that “the people in this crisis want the truth” and said he had “listened in vain” to Mr. Roosevelt for information on the Hawaiian attack.

His remarks came after Mr. Walsh had told the Senate the Navy had just received the Hawaiian casualty list, but that it would not be made public for two or three days so the next of kin could be notified first.

They were countered by Sen. Millard E. Tydings, D-Maryland, World War veteran, who told Mr. Tobey the president “would be wrong” to disclose the facts of the naval engagement to the Japanese.

Mr. Tobey then read from a Christian Science Monitor article of December 9 and, emphasizing such phrases as one asserting that the Navy had been “caught napping,” said he had been told by two senators that “the mechanical listening devices [at Hawaii] were not in working order.”

Sen. Scott W. Lucas, D-Illinois, accused Mr. Tobey of being willing to “indict all those men in Pearl Harbor on information of a newspaper article and two senators.”

Mr. Tobey shouts

“Why wasn’t the steam up?” Mr. Tobey shouted. “I could ask a thousand questions. I wouldn’t want to tell all I heard.”

Mr. Lucas labelled Mr. Tobey’s remarks as “billingsgate and harangue,” based on admittance of a lack of facts.

“You may think you can run the war from the floor of the Senate,” Mr. Lucas said angrily, “but you can’t. When you come to the Senate and give to the world such information, you do an injustice to your country and your people.”

Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Michigan, said, “The one consolation in this affair to me is that the distinguished senator from Massachusetts is chairman of our Naval Affairs Committee. I have confidence that he is on guard and that he will move with courage and effectiveness whenever it is necessary.”

Newspapers assure Roosevelt of support

NEW YORK (UP) – The American Newspaper Publishers Association said today that the nation’s newspapers had assured President Roosevelt of their support and “await your call for any service we can render.”

Press Secretary Stephen Early said in reply that Mr. Roosevelt “is most appreciative of the pledge of active support for the defense of the American way of life which you give on behalf of the newspapers of the United States.”

Italians urged loyalty

NEW YORK – The supreme duty of six million Americans of Italian origin is loyalty to the United States, Generoso Pope said today in a signed editorial in his daily newspapers, Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Corriere d’America.

Roosevelt says ore supply is adequate

WASHINGTON (PWB) – President Roosevelt, in a press conference announcement today, showed optimism over the winter supply of iron ore for defense manufacturing.

Noting that the Great Lakes ore traffic has now been closed down by ice, the president said that during the past season, ore deliveries had been boosted to 86 million long tons, in contrast to 60 million last year and the 66 million record in World War I.

Mr. Roosevelt said the result is that ore stockpiles contain two million more tons than at this time last year.

Additional ore boats will go into service next season, he added.

‘Dangerous’ aliens will be interned

WASHINGTON (UP) – Enemy aliens will be interned for the duration of the war only in cases where there is “strong reason to fear for the internal security” of the United States, the Justice Department announced today.

This announcement, however, was not expected to save from detention camps the bulk of the 2,303 Germans, Japanese and Italians already seized as “dangerous” aliens. They will be given hearings by review boards in each judicial district. Altogether there are more than 1,100,000 German, Italian, Japanese nationals in the country.

Attorney General Francis Biddle informed U.S. attorneys and the Immigration and Naturalization Service that aliens seized were to be permitted to see attorneys and their families. They may also send and receive censored letters and use telephones under supervision.

Companies reject air raid insurance

NEW YORK (UP) – Insurance companies refused today to insure property in the United States and its territories against air-raid damage although demands were heavy and increasing.

The companies could not agree on a standard rate.

To determine what course to take, the Executive Committee of the General Brokers’ Association of the Metropolitan District, Inc., appointed a committee to confer with federal and state authorities.

Another group of insurance men was reported to be already in Washington, trying to find out whether the government is willing to take complete assumption of war risks as the government of Britain did when the Germans were air-raiding the British Isles.

Practice blackouts urged

CHICAGO – Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York, director of the Office of Civilian Defense, said today he believed Chicago and all major cities of the United States should have practice blackouts soon.

ABCD means JIG is up for Axis bloc

MEXICO, Missouri (UP) – Col. C. R. Stribling of Missouri Military Academy, when informed of America’s declaration of war, said: “It’s as plain as ABCD [America-Britain-China-Dutch East Indies] that the JIG [Japan-Italy-Germany] is up.”

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:28am

Mowrer: Keep a close eye on Hitler for surprise

Nazis still main show, and Atlantic may be next background
By Edgar Ansel Mowrer

Washington –
Repel the Japanese but keep your eye on Hitler – this is the policy being followed today by the American administration, the Army and the Navy.

The sinking of a Japanese battleship, a cruiser and a destroyer makes it just that much easier. People here are convinced that in preparing for Japan the magnificently audacious plan that the Nipponese carried out so effectively (and treacherously) last Sunday, the Germans wanted to create a diversion serious enough to force the American authorities to strip the Atlantic and rush to repair the damage in the Pacific and avenge it.

Since the work of avenging has begun without any reinforcements from the Atlantic, for the main route to the Philippines is now largely in the hands of the Japanese, there will be less temptation to forget that, outside of the main area of Singapore, Hitler and his Nazis are still the main show.

In order to induce the Japs to go all out and risk their precious material, Hitler, it is believed here, must have promised them powerful support. What people here intend to find it – and expect Hitler to reveal soon – is what form this support is going to take.

Several things are open to the Nazis, now that they have admitted they cannot take Moscow this winter and must wait until spring. A Russian announcement claiming that they now have control of the air over the front suggests strongly that the Germans have withdrawn a portion of their air force from that region. This might take the form of a new air onslaught against Great Britain, and/or an intensified airplane, plus submarine, plus surface, campaign in the Atlantic.

Defeated in his frantic effort to reach the oil of the Caspian, Hitler’s marshals, by shortening their lines and withdrawing divisions from Russia, may amass a powerful mass for a campaign all along, or in special parts of, the Mediterranean.

This might mean a smash at Turkey, with the idea of reaching the Caucasus along the southern shore of the Black Sea, or turning down toward Iraq and eventually Iran, or driving straight south on Syria, Palestine and the Suez Canal. It may mean an intensified effort to cross the Mediterranean and get into North Africa in time to reinforce Gen. Erwin Rommel’s battered divisions before they have to give more ground. For this purpose, Hitler desperately needs the French fleet.

Pessimists in Washington believe that Japan’s success at Pearl Harbor may have been the final argument in convincing the men of Vichy that Americans are blunderers anyway. Without this fleet, and a fine French base like Bizerte or Oran to land at, the Germans and Italians will have some difficulty sending reinforcements across the British-controlled Mediterranean.

Spain a pushover

They can, however, take over Spain and Portugal anytime they choose. A somewhat sinister statement from Madrid that Spain will soon announce its position toward the war with the United States leads people here to believe that the Franco Spaniards, despite more than generous handling from the United States, have decided to proclaim non-belligerence favorable to the Axis and allow German troops to pass freely.

This would mean a siege of Gibraltar and the unquestioned crossing of the Straits there by at least some German troops. It would mean the taking over of French Morocco, probably of Algeria as well. It might mean an attempt to take over Dakar, though Dakar is a long walk from the Straits.

In any case, many possibilities are open to Hitler, and those who have given most attention to studying the man and his works are convinced that he will not wait long to act.

Latin America rallies to U.S. support in war

War declarations and assurances of solidarity are issued

Buenos Aires, Argentina (UP) –
Latin America rallied strongly to the support of the United States today with four nations having already declared war against Germany and Italy and others expected to follow soon.

Nine Latin American countries declared war on Japan after Sunday’s attack on Hawaii and four followed yesterday with declarations against Germany and Italy.

Cuba went to war with the three major powers at midnight EST, when President Fulgencio Batista signed a declaration that had been passed by the Senate, 50–0, and by the House of Representatives, 222–0. Cuba declared war on Japan Tuesday.

Mexico breaks relations

Costa Rica, the first Latin American nation to enter World War II with a declaration against Japan, declared war on Germany and Italy yesterday. Guatemala and Nicaragua, both already at war with Japan, also declared war against Germany and Italy.

Mexico broke diplomatic relations with Germany and Italy, severing all ties with the Axis powers and becoming an ally of the United States in everything short of an actual war declaration.

Mexico ordered the freezing of German and Italian funds, as it had frozen Japanese funds, and continued movement of troops to its west coast to protect Baja California.

Solidarity reaffirmed

Argentina reaffirmed its solidarity with the United States and sent a message to the American Congress condemning the “treasonable” Axis action. It was expected to proclaim the United States “non-belligerent” as regards Germany and Italy today, paralleling a similar declaration as regards Japan. The action permits U.S. warships to enter Argentine ports without risking internment under neutrality regulations.

Sources at the Foreign Office said German and Italian funds would probably be frozen today.

San Salvador, already at war with Japan, and Bolivia have already blocked Axis funds. The Bolivian order was regarded as a major blow to Axis operations in Latin America, because most Bolivian business is controlled by German, Italian or Japanese interests. The Bolivian decree also applies to non-belligerent Axis allies, the Finance Ministry said.

Will buy arms from U.S.

In Uruguay, which had also declared the United States non-belligerent in its war with Japan, the Senate passed a bill authorizing a $17-million purchase of arms in the United States.

President Getúlio Vargas of Brazil reaffirmed his nation’s solidarity with the United States in view of the spread of the war. He ordered six infantry companies to guard strategic air bases.

Peru, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic also assured the United States of their support.

President Manuel Prado of Peru cabled President Roosevelt a few moments after the German and Italian declarations:

I reaffirm the principle of solidarity which emanated from the inter-American pacts. Peru reiterates at this opportunity, its firm decision to omit no effort in favor of common defense of the continent.

Oil lines protected

In Venezuela, the world’s third largest petroleum producer, President Isaías Medina said:

The aggression against the United States places a tragic threat at the very doors of America and makes it imperative that each country of the New World fully assume its responsibilities.

He said the government was “cooperating fully” with petroleum companies for the protection of oil fields, pipelines, refineries and other facilities.

In Washington, Generalissimo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, strongman of the Dominican Republic, said his country, already at war with Japan, would declare war against Germany and Italy. He said:

The land, sea and air of the Dominican Republic are available to the land, naval or air forces of the United States at any time they may desire to use them.

Mikado to be given despite Pacific War

Washington (UP) –
Performances of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, The Mikado, will be presented here next week as scheduled, it was announced today, but the printed program will carry an explanatory note, saying, in part:

Almost three-score years have passed since William Gilbert wrote this, depicting the Japanese in the light that history now records – sly, wily and deceitful, unconscionably corrupt and treacherous.

The operetta satirizes British characters who are given Japanese names.

An employee of the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company yesterday announced that three local performances at the National Theater had been cancelled because Baltimore audiences Monday received the production coolly, particularly its opening song “We Are Gentlemen of Japan.”

U.S. and Axis reporters expected to return home on ‘truce’ ships

By the United Press

American newspapermen in Axis countries were under arrest or police supervision today and were unable to communicate with the United States.

It was understood that the U.S. State Department was arranging for the exchange of the newspapermen for Axis reporters under arrest in this country. The correspondents would leave Axis countries with U.S. diplomatic personnel and would return to America on a “truce ship” guaranteed safe passage of the Atlantic. Axis diplomats and reporters would return home by the same method.

German and Italian journalists detained in America were being kept in hotels rather then locked up, and were being well-treated. Information from abroad indicated that American correspondents were receiving the same treatment. They were barred from filing news dispatches since early Wednesday.

When American correspondents in Berlin appeared at the Foreign Office press conference Wednesday, they were asked to leave the room and go to their apartments because Axis correspondents in the United States had been arrested. Wednesday midnight CET (5:00 p.m. Tuesday EST), they were rounded up and placed under arrest. They were first taken to Alexanderplatz Police Station and then confined in a private villa.

The offices of American press associations and newspapers were closed Thursday afternoon, according to a Berlin dispatch of the Swedish newspaper Tidningens of Stockholm, after the heads of the bureaus had been allowed to cable the U.S. State Department protesting against the arrest of German correspondents in Washington and New York.

It was understood, Tidningens said, that this cable was approved by the Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy.

A broadcast of DNB, the official German news agency, said the American correspondents in Paris were barred from official press conferences yesterday and asked to go to their homes. Later, they were also placed under arrest.

DNB said that, in Rome, working American newspapermen were put under police surveillance or arrested. The agency said that four American correspondents were arrested and two others ordered to remain in their apartments.

It was not revealed whether any action was taken against employees of American press associations or newspapers who are citizens of Axis countries.

The names of American correspondents arrested were not announced by the authorities, but the only exception reported was Guido Enderis, Berlin correspondent of The New York Times. Tidningens said that he had been exempted and allowed to remain at the hotel. In New York, the Times said it knew of no reason why an exception was made in the case of Mr. Enderis, but that he was not being allowed to work.

Tokyo reported that three or four unidentified British and American newspapermen were detained “as a precaution and for their protection and well-being.”

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:30am

Today’s developments in the war in the Pacific

Screenshot 2021-10-21 030432

U.S. pilot dives into Jap ship’s guns, vanishes

Battleship goes down in blast; ex-Pitt student wrecks 14 planes

colinkelly.westpoint
Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., vanished in explosion.

Manila, Philippines (UP) –
Three daredevil American aviators flew to fame – and one to death – today against the Japanese.

Terse statements from military and naval sources in Manila told the story of how U.S. and Filipino aviators struck back against powerful enemy assaults. The name of 26-year-old Capt. Colin Kelly Jr. of Florida, who was killed in action, heads the roll of the heroes.

His diving airplane vanished in a roaring explosion that sank the 29,000-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off the coast of Luzon Island as the pilot plunged his craft straight down at the enemy and released a stick of high explosives almost into the mouths of flaming Japanese guns.

Capt. Kelly was only one of the defense fliers and who made American skill and daring in the air felt against the invaders.

Around the air bases, they told of blows struck by Lt. Boyd D. Wagner of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who like Kelly flew an Army Air Corps plane. Lt. Wagner raced northward to the tip of Luzon Island as the Japanese sought to land reinforcements under aerial protection in the Aparri sector.

Half a dozen enemy craft tackled him and two of them went down after a fierce dogfight. Lt. Wagner then streaked on toward the enemy landing field and dropped down until his plane was skimming treetops, his machine guns spattering bullets against Japanese craft on the ground. A dozen planes were wrecked when – his fuel running low – he turned back toward his home base.

Lt. Wagner is a former University of Pittsburgh student.

They were talking, too, of Lt. C. A. Keller of the U.S. Navy Air Force, and how he “shadowed” a Japanese battleship of the Kongo class northwest of Luzon despite steady and fierce enemy anti-aircraft fire. Lt. Keller kept his plane within sight of the 29,000-ton enemy craft until naval bombers led by Lt. Cdr. J. V. Peterson arrived and pressed home an attack that put the vessel out of action.

But the American fliers were not the only ones who stood out in the battle against invasion forces.

Adm. Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, told how Filipino fliers in the defense forces had shot down two Japanese planes out of 11 bagged since early this morning. Hart also said that Lt. H. Tutter of the U.S. Navy Air Force, had been attacked by three Japanese fighter planes at sea. He shot down one and then made a forced landing on the water, taxiing his plane to the shore where he repaired minor damages. The next morning, he returned to base.

Capt. Kelly was 26. He graduated from the University of Florida, and then went to West Point, from which he graduated four years ago. He was married and had one son.

In 1938, he finished the Primary Flying School of the Army, and the Advanced Flying School bombardment course in 1939.

He was accepted as a combat pilot in September 1940 and served in Hawaii until he was assigned to the Philippines.

Hero always wanted to be a soldier

Madison, Florida (UP) –
Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., who died in successfully dive-bombing the 29,300-ton Japanese battleship Haruna off Luzon, his father said today, “always wanted to be a soldier – ever since he was about 12 years old.”

The father said:

He always had talked about aviation. Sometimes, I thought he was almost too crazy about it.

But I’m proud that he did his part for our country. He was a fine specimen of manhood and I guess fairly bright. That’s how he got an appointment to West Point.

Capt. Kelly visited his home here last February. His father said he was stationed at March Field, California, before being transferred to Honolulu. He was a graduate of Madison High School and attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama for one year.

Hero’s mother has busy day

Johnstown, Pennsylvania –
As it had been every day since the war began, the Wagner home was quiet and unmoving this morning.

Boyd D. Wagner Sr., the father, had gone to work. Mrs. Wagner, herself a clerk in a store here, sat at the breakfast table, her thoughts wandering to the far-off Philippines.

If only there would be some word of their son…

To be sure, they had received a radiogram Tuesday from Lt. Boyd D. Wagner Jr., saying he had received the Christmas gifts, thanks, and everything is alright.

Radiogram sent Friday

But the radiogram had been sent out Friday – and since then the Japanese had attacked the Philippines and the very air base at which their son was stationed as a commander of the 17th Pursuit Squadron. If only…

Then suddenly the radio boomed. It was Manila coming in.

It said:

Among the first heroes of the war announced by the Navy today was Lt. Boyd D. Wagner, who accounted for 14 enemy planes single-handedly.

Mrs. Wagner said:

I just can’t explain the feeling I got then. I was happy enough just to hear he was alive. But to be a hero – my!

Breakfast was forgotten.

Mrs. Wagner grasped a phone to call her husband, an electrician, and tell him of the good news. But the line was busy. She said:

And it’s been busy all day.

All of Johnstown – and more – has been calling me. I haven’t been able to get a bit of work done. I guess it’s the same with Mr. Wagner.

And so it’s been here all day long – ever since the Navy first announced that Lt. Wagner had earned a hero’s rating by downing two Japanese planes in dogfights above the Philippines and destroying 12 others on the ground at Aparri, in northern Luzon, where the Japs are fighting to gain a foothold.

Studied at Pitt

Only 25, Lt. Wagner is a native of Emeigh, near here, and a graduate of Nanty Glo High School. He studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh for three years, joining the Flying Cadets in 1937.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant July 17, 1938, after completing his course at Randolph and Kelly Fields, in Texas, then ordered to active duty at Selfridge Field, Michigan.

Promoted to a first lieutenant Sept. 9, 1940, he was shifted to Manila three months later. He was made commander of the 17th Pursuit Squadron four months ago.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:49am

Uncle Sam hits back –
U.S. aircraft begin to even Pacific score

Second Jap battleship hit; Axis satellites may declare war
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Further war declarations or ruptures of diplomatic relations with the United States by Axis satellites were likely today as U.S. airmen began to even the naval score with Japan in the Pacific.

The successful bombing of a second Japanese capital ship cheered the capital.

The nation is at war on two points – Atlantic and Pacific. But the Western Hemisphere is becoming more solidly aligned by the minute against the Axis and the period of disunity at home seems to have ended with the first bomb explosion in Hawaii.

Good news starts

Against Germany, Italy and Japan is being thrown the force of the world’s most perfectly machined and industrialized nation. And the good news is beginning to come in.

First word is awaited from the Atlantic front, where war began yesterday with declarations of hostilities by Rome and Berlin which were immediately acknowledged by the United States. Whether the Axis will attempt a “morale” air raid on Washington, New York or some other seaboard city is unknown. The fighting forces hope to stop it offshore if it comes.

Bombs of Army, Navy or Marine fliers have already sunk one Japanese battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer and badly damaged a second battleship.

Seek to restore balance

At that rate, it appears the U.S. flying men shortly will be able to restore the balance of naval power in the Pacific as it existed before Japan sank the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and inflicted unrevealed damage on our own fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was announced by the Governor of Hawaii that 20 Japanese planes were lost in Sunday’s attack on Hawaii.

The last “good news” came in the Navy Department’s Communiqué No. 3, which said:

Adm. Thomas C. Hart, Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic Fleet, reported that Navy patrol planes scored bomb hits on a Japanese battleship of the Kongo class off the coast of Luzon. The ship was badly damaged. This is the second Japanese battleship to be bombed effectively by U.S. forces.

Haruna sunk

The first battleship attacked by U.S. forces was the 29,000-ton Haruna. It was sunk. The second, Adm. Hart reported, was believed to be the 29,300-ton Kongo.

Earlier in the day, the Navy has revealed that a small garrison of Marines were making a valiant stand to defend Wake Island, the tiny outpost between Hawaii and Guam. That garrison sunk one cruiser and one destroyer which had tried to attack.

Sufficiently accurate information on what was lost in Pearl Harbor is now common knowledge here – although unpublishable – and the rate at which U.S. fliers are reducing the Japanese fleet is encouraging.

Remains less favorable

But the balance of naval power remains considerably less favorable to the United States than it was before Sunday’s attack. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox arrived in Honolulu last night for a personal survey of the damage which the public will scarcely minimize after White House emphasis upon its seriousness.

Hungary is almost in step with the Axis today with the formal announcement in Washington that diplomatic relations with the United States have been broken. Hungary explained here that she was not declaring war.

Radio Berlin broadcast that Hungary has declared war against the United States.

Romania may follow

Romania is another subordinate European state which may follow that course.

The course of the neutrals – Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Portugal – remains to be seen, nor is it known here what Germany may demand of that part of France governed from Vichy.

Finland, already at war with the Soviet Union and with Great Britain, is seeking to avoid involvement in the general war flaming throughout the world. The situation is further complicated by Great Britain’s recent declaration of war against Hungary and Romania.

Greece, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway are captive countries, seized forcibly by Nazi arms, and Albania fell early to Italy.

Meets in January

The Western Hemisphere was rapidly falling in line with the anti-Axis powers in a worldwide choose-up-sides for battle and there will be a conference in Rio de Janeiro in January among the 21 American republics.

Here next week, Mr. Roosevelt has called a conference of management and labor to agree on a changeover from war to peace production efforts which must adopt a seven-day production week, and without strike or lockout interruptions, too. The accomplishments of the conference are expected to take the place of drastic anti-strike legislation which was roaring through Congress when Japan struck.

The Congressional isolation bloc has vanished as though bombed and it is the present intention of Congress to vote all the funds and authority the administration and its military advisers ask to prosecute the war. Restrictions against sending National Guardsmen and selectees outside the Western Hemisphere were voted away unanimously yesterday and the Senate turned immediately to consideration of a $10-billion supplemental national defense appropriation. The sum of the bill was increased by about $2 billion by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Taxes will rise

Taxes are going up soon and far. Congressional leaders agreed that the burden will increase tremendously and other officials are arranging simultaneously to reduce the number of variety of things the public may buy with what is left over from the paycheck after taxes are paid.

National Selective Service Headquarters are pondering plans for registration of practically everyone for such essential service as may be necessary and draft deferment lists are already being revised to make more men immediately available for the armed services.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Ambassador, conferred and predicted increased collaboration against the common enemy. But there is no word here about bases for our planes in Siberia so that they may shuttle back and forth between the Philippines and the Asiatic mainland, dropping their bombs on Japan as they cross each way. The Soviet Union and Japan are not at war. Instead, they have a mutual non-aggression pact.

Soviet Union, U.S. pledge rising war collaboration

Russia leaves no hint on possible aid in fight against Japan; Litvinov announces ‘full understanding’ reached in talk with Hull

Washington (UP) –
The Soviet Union and the United States are informally pledged to increased collaboration against their common enemy, the Axis, but there has been no hint as of today whether the Soviet plans to offer this country the use of Siberian air bases for its war against Japan.

The Soviet Union and Japan are not at war. They have a mutual non-aggression pact.

Diplomats here have felt that the Soviet Union would probably continue its present status with Japan unless attacked, because of the necessity of concentrating all efforts on the front threatened by Germany.

However, air and naval bases along the eastern Siberian coast would be strategic points for U.S. bombers to start raids over the Japanese mainland.

Nothing was mentioned about such aid yesterday after a conference between Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov.

Litvinov said after the conference that the Soviet Union and the United States had reached a “full understanding” on their common struggle.

Soviet ‘to do share’

Mr. Hull said in a statement earlier that the Soviets “will do their full share” in the all-out fight against the Axis. He also pointed out that when Litvinov arrived here Monday – the day the United States declared war on Japan – President Roosevelt assured him of his “firm determination” to continue aid to the Soviets.

The Hull and Litvinov remarks came amidst reports from Europe that the Soviets had rejected Nazi proposals for peace. Some reports speculated that the halting of the German drive on Moscow might be a preliminary to a Russo-German peace. But Litvinov said:

I have no doubt whatever that we will continue resistance against the Germans to a final complete victory.

Mr. Hull’s statement – given out before he met Litvinov – appeared to be designed to refute reports that Russia was reluctant to move in the Far East lest she becomes involved in war with Japan.

Litvinov sidestepped all inquiries as to what assistance the Soviet Union might give this country.

His only answer to specific questions about bases was:

We shall see.

Naturally we have a common cause and a common enemy. We are fighting Hitler more than anyone else. We fully understand each other.

Litvinov’s conference with Mr. Hull was one of a series which included a talk with Harry L. Hopkins, Lend-Lease supervisor, and Lord Halifax, British Ambassador.

Nazi peace feeler spurned by Russia; Japan denounced

‘We shall see,’ Litvinov says about Soviet plans for bombing Tokyo after he confers with Roosevelt; Reds rap Nipponese treachery
By the United Press

Russia’s official Radio Kuybyshev broadcast today that the Soviet Union would never sign a peace treaty with Germany except in agreement with the United States and Britain and added:

By that time, there will no longer be a Hitler in Germany.

There was as yet no official announcement from Russia as to what action it will take in the Pacific War.

But in Washington, Maxim Litvinov, the new Russian Ambassador, the one man among great European statesmen who for years had said that joint defense by the democracies against aggressors was the sole hope of civilization, said to questioning newspaper correspondents:

Naturally we have a common cause and a common enemy. We are fighting Hitler more than anyone else. We fully understand each other.

Litvinov sees Roosevelt

Mr. Litvinov conferred yesterday with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador.

Asked as to the extent of assistance Russia might give in the Pacific, such as bombing Tokyo from its Siberian bases, he said, “We shall see.”

“Fine!” he exclaimed when informed that a Japanese cruiser and a destroyer had been sunk off Wake Island.

Henry Shapiro, United Press correspondent in Kuybyshev (temporary Russian diplomatic headquarters), reported that Pravda, the official Communist Party organ, bitterly denounced Japan today, saying it had attacked the United States and Great Britain treacherously and obviously after long preparation.

See defeat for Japs

Pravda said:

The Japanese aggressor has plunged into a very hazardous adventure which bodes him nothing but defeat.

And if he counted on the possibility of a “lightning victory,” he is in for a disappointment no less than that suffered by the bloodthirsty Hitler as the result of his bandit attack on the Soviet Union.

In Washington, denying reports of a possible Russo-German peace, Mr. Litvinov said:

I have no doubt whatever that we will continue resistance against the Germans to a final complete victory.

Reds cite ‘powerful front’

Asked regarding the possibility of a firm American-British-Chinese-Dutch-Russian alliance, he said:

We shall see. Naturally we have a common cause and a common battle. I cannot make any statement about Japan.

Radio Moscow quoted an editorial in Pravda, which, in discussing the Pacific situation, mentioned the United States, Britain and China as constituting a “powerful front.”

The editorial said:

The first partial successes by Japan in the Pacific are not decisive. The fact that Germany and Italy have declared war on the United States does not alter the position materially.

The Japanese wanted a quick victory, but they will be disappointed. They are confronted by a powerful front of the United States, Britain and China.

Expect long war

The opening of a new front in the Pacific will mean increased activity on the Chinese front.

The United States, which was already against the Hitler front, has used the interval before the war declarations to increase its production of war materials. Its production is not on full-scale so far, but that will soon be made up.

The war in the Pacific will be long and difficult. The colossal superiority of manpower and the possession of raw materials by the United States will prove decisive.

A CBS correspondent in Kuybyshev said that the Russian government was advised officially of Japan’s declaration of war on the United States only yesterday when a State Department message reached the U.S. Embassy.

‘Dreams buried in snow’

He quoted Pravda as saying in substance:

Hitler hoped to capture Russia up to the Ural Mountains in one or two months. Now his dreams are buried in snow.

Hitler is ready to talk peace with Russia tomorrow if Russian leaders are willing to talk peace with him. Hitler is now dangling peace proposals before the Soviet Union, hoping that they will nibble. But the Soviet Union will sign a peace treaty with Germany only in common with Britain and the United States.

It was added that the article was written before the German declaration of war on the United States yesterday.

Newspapers assure Roosevelt of support

New York (UP) –
The American Newspaper Publishers Association said today that the nation’s newspapers had assured President Roosevelt of their support and “await your call for any service we can render.”

Press Secretary Stephen Early said in reply that Mr. Roosevelt:

…is most appreciative of the pledge of active support for the defense of the American way of life which you give on behalf of the newspapers of the United States.

ABCD means JIG is up for Axis bloc

Mexico, Missouri (UP) –
Said Col. C. R. Stribling of Missouri Military Academy when informed of America’s declaration of war:

It’s as plain as ABCD [America-Britain-China-Dutch East Indies] that the JIG [Japan-Italy-Germany] is up.

Roosevelt says ore supply is adequate

Washington (PWB) –
President Roosevelt, in a press conference announcement today, showed optimism over the winter supply of iron ore for defense manufacturing.

Noting that the Great Lakes ore traffic has now been closed down by ice, the President said that during the past season, ore deliveries had been boosted to 86 million long tons, in contrast to 60 million last year and the 66-million record in World War I.

Mr. Roosevelt said the result is that ore stockpiles contain two million more tons than at this time last year.

Additional ore boats will go into service next season, he added.

‘Dangerous’ aliens will be interned

Washington (UP) –
Enemy aliens will be interned for the duration of the war only in cases where there is “strong reason to fear for the internal security” of the United States, the Justice Department announced today.

This announcement, however, was not expected to save from detention camps the bulk of the 2,303 Germans, Japanese and Italians already seized as “dangerous” aliens. They will be given hearings by review boards in each judicial district. Altogether there are more than 1.1 million German, Italian, Japanese nationals in the country.

Attorney General Francis Biddle informed U.S. attorneys and the Immigration and Naturalization Service that aliens seized were to be permitted to see attorneys and their families. They may also send and receive censored letters and use telephones under supervision.

Walsh raps Tobey’s plea for inquiry

If Navy was derelict, Roosevelt will act, Senator says

Washington (UP) –
Senator David I. Walsh (D-MA), in a stirring rebuttal to renewed demands for a Congressional inquiry into Sunday’s Hawaiian setback, said yesterday that if the Navy High Command in Hawaii was derelict in its duty, President Roosevelt will act “in such a manner as to retain the confidence of the American people.”

The Senate Naval Affairs Committee chairman pledged he would make every effort to:

…strike a blow against inefficiency, against anyone derelict in his duty, against anyone slackening in the defense of our country.

He pleaded:

But at least in these early days of war and said disaster, let us have confidence in our President and trust he will lead us to victory.

His impassioned oration was in reply to Senator Charles W. Tobey (R-NH) who demanded to know whether Mr. Walsh’s committee contemplated an investigation of the initial “disaster.”

Former isolationists

Mr. Tobey’s question pitted against each other two men who only a week ago had been eye-to-eye as members of the isolationist bloc.

The “time is past” for criticism that is not constructive, Mr. Walsh told Mr. Tobey, who only a few minutes before had voted for the declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

We must have confidence in our war President – not a Democratic President, not a New Deal President, but a war President serving in a new role which will mark his place in history; and I hope and pray it will be a high place.

He told Mr. Tobey:

It is not always possible to obtain accurate information of a naval encounter immediately after it has happened.

Two questions

Every man there in the service had to ask himself the question:

Are they [the Japanese] coming back and what can we do to meet them?

…rather than:

Gather all the details, find out what has happened and report to Washington.

Mr. Walsh said:

Every man out there in the service must know the facts – they cannot be kept silent.

He pointed out that a war President must check “his natural impulse” to reveal all the facts; he must remember that “we cannot disclose too much that will comfort the enemy.”

Senator Walsh concluded:

I think we should wait until the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thinks it is his solemn duty – to retain the confidence of the American people – to speak for our information.

Tobey insistent

Mr. Tobey had insisted earlier that “the people in this crisis want the truth” and said he had “listened in vain” to Mr. Roosevelt for information on the Hawaiian attack.

His remarks came after Mr. Walsh had told the Senate the Navy had just received the Hawaiian casualty list, but that it would not be made public for two or three days so the next of kin could be notified first.

They were countered by Senator Millard E. Tydings (D-MD), World War I veteran, who told Mr. Tobey the President “would be wrong” to disclose the facts of the naval engagement to the Japanese.

Mr. Tobey then read from a Christian Science Monitor article of Dec. 9 and, emphasizing such phrases as one asserting that the Navy had been “caught napping,” said he had been told by two Senators that “the mechanical listening devices [at Hawaii] were not in working order.”

Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL) accused Mr. Tobey of being willing to “indict all those men in Pearl Harbor on information of a newspaper article and two Senators.”

Mr. Tobey shouts

Mr. Tobey shouted:

Why wasn’t the steam up? I could ask a thousand questions. I wouldn’t want to tell all I heard.

Mr. Lucas labelled Mr. Tobey’s remarks as “billingsgate and harangue,” based on admittance of a lack of facts.

Mr. Lucas said angrily:

You may think you can run the war from the floor of the Senate, but you can’t. When you come to the Senate and give to the world such information, you do an injustice to your country and your people.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI) said:

The one consolation in this affair to me is that the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is chairman of our Naval Affairs Committee. I have confidence that he is on guard and that he will move with courage and effectiveness whenever it is necessary.

Italians urged loyalty

New York –
The supreme duty of six million Americans of Italian origin is loyalty to the United States, Generoso Pope said today in a signed editorial in his daily newspapers, Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Corriere d’America.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 1:53am

U.S. subs hunt near Manila; Japanese lose 27 planes

By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer

The Philippines battlefront

U.S. forces reported heavy fighting against the Jap invaders in the Philippines today at points indicated on the map above.
1) U.S. admits Japs land in large numbers in north. Aparri area reported recaptured by U.S.
2) U.S. Navy admits heavy damage at Cavite; Manila has two alarms, no bombs. Jap battleship knocked out of control by Navy planes.
3) Americans fight Jap landing parties in Legazpi region.

Manila, Philippines –
Adm. Thomas C. Hart, Commander of the Asiatic Fleet, revealed today that a Japanese battle fleet fled to avoid battle when U.S. warships approached.

Official communiqués reported that U.S. warplanes have taken a heavy toll of Japanese planes and ships.

Adm. Hart said a 29,300-ton Japanese battleship of the Kongo class had suffered one heavy hit and two lighter hits when bombed by a naval plane. The bombs put the warship out of control. This success was in addition to the sinking of 29,300-ton Haruna, Adm. Hart added to information released in Washington last night.

Adm. Hart said the U.S. fleet “contacted” the Japanese war fleet a considerable distance off Manila. The enemy ships sheered off to avoid battle.

Developments today:

U.S. submarines are ranging the narrow seas of the war zone and are expected to report major success when they communicate with their home bases.
U.S. and Philippine planes have struck hard at the Japanese Air Force; Filipino pilots were credited with shooting down two Japanese planes in action and the Americans bagged 25.

One U.S. Army aviator single-handedly accounted for 14 of the Japanese planes, shooting down two in the air and knocking out 12 on the ground at Aparri on the northern tip of Luzon this morning.

Jap’s attack heavy

The Japanese Air Force continued its heavy attacks, raiding Batangas Province, 50 miles southeast of Manila, twice and causing two more air-raid alarms in Manila.

An NBC reporter in Manila said it had been officially confirmed that the Kongo-class battleship hit by U.S. bombs was the Kongo itself. He reported that the Japanese sent at least 113 bombers over the Philippines today, attacking various objectives including an airfield at Batangas.

To decide on Spaniards

In Manila, all Axis aliens were placed in protective custody and a decision was being pondered concerning action against Spanish nationals and members of the Falange Fascist Party.

U.S. pilot killed

The Army announced that Capt. Colin Kelly Jr., 26, who scored the three direct hits which sank the first battleship, had been killed in action.

Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commanding U.S. forces in the Far East, replied today to a message from President Roosevelt, congratulating U.S. forces on their defense:

The Far Eastern Command appreciates deeply your message. We shall do our best.

Heavy damage at Cavite

U.S. and Philippine forces were reported to be fighting Japanese landing parties in the Legazpi area, at the southeast tip of Luzon Island, 210 miles from Manila, and it was admitted that Japanese troops were now in greater force in northern Luzon.

Adm. Hart said the Navy’s Cavite base, eight miles southwest of Manila, had been hit by a powerful Japanese airplane attack. There were extensive fires and great damage was done, he said. Small ships lying at the yard were also damaged.

One bomb directly hit a dispensary, Adm. Hart said, and everyone in it was killed, including nurses and doctors. He emphasized that the dispensary was in the center of a fortified area.

Await subs’ reports

He said that loss of life figures had not been completed but that it was known most of the dead were civilians.

Adm. Hart said that submarines of the Asiatic Fleet had not yet reported.

He added:

But we expect big results. When a torpedo hits a ship, it stays hit.

The submarines were the big game hunters of the fleet and they used only elephant guns, not shotguns, Adm. Hart said.

He announced the Lt. H. A. Utter had been attacked by three Japanese fighters. He shot down one, Hart said, and then made a forced landing, taxied his seaplane to the coast, repaired minor damage and took off next morning, returning to his base.

Filipinos win air victory

Describing the attack on the second Japanese battleship, Adm. Hart and Lt. C. A. Keller sighted it off northwestern Luzon and held contact with it for a long time despite anti-aircraft fire, guiding the attack of bombers led by Lt. Cdr. J. V. Peterson.

The Navy fliers then pressed their attack despite heavy gunfire, he said.

Adm. Hart said that the Navy had lost two large planes in the Gulf of Davao Monday, approximately one hour after the Pearl Harbor attack. One pilot was lost and some members of the crews were wounded, he said.

Since Monday, he added, one large Navy plane had been shot down at Laguna de Bay, 30 miles from Manila, and all members of the crew were killed.

He said Navy pilots had been most active and that several planes had suffered minor damage. Some fuel tanks had been punctured, he said. One pilot landed successfully with one of his two motors burning, he commented.

Philippine town raided

Discussing naval operations, Adm. Hart said that no Japanese battleship had yet approached within sight of the Philippine coast, and he deprecated reports which “always call every craft a battleship.”

An Army communiqué said a small Japanese force was reported to have pushed ashore in Legazpi, at Albay Bay.

Despite the improved position of the Japanese at the northern end of Luzon, the Army communiqué said the situation there had not changed materially.

BBC, heard by CBS, quoted a Manila dispatch as saying that U.S. forces in northern Luzon had recaptured the Aparri region on the north coast. BBC said:

United States troops are reported to have smashed every Japanese effort yesterday to set invading forces firmly ashore and it is reported that the enemy is even being driven back at Aparri, where they had established a temporary foothold. The region around Aparri is said now to be back in American hands.

Seven thousand civilians held to be non-essential were evacuated from the walled area of Manila, which contains the general headquarters of U.S. forces in the Far East, Fort Santiago and other military establishments.

The Philippine National Assembly, at a special session, approved an emergency powers bill which authorized President Manuel L. Quezon to spend all available unexpended public funds for national defense and civilian protection.

British estimate Jap fleet strength

London, England (UP) –
The Press Association, a British news agency, giving “reliable approximations” of the strength of the Japanese fleet, said today that the most recent information credited Japan with 15 aircraft carriers “not taking into account ships sunk by the U.S. Navy.”

The Japanese craft were said to include six seaplane carriers and nine other aircraft carriers.

Japan’s naval strength, which has been one of the world’s most closely guarded secrets, was believed to include 10 battleships, 12 8-inch gun cruisers, six 6-inch gun cruisers, 14 cruisers armed with 5.9-inch guns, about 126 destroyers and 86 submarines, the Press Association said.

The Japanese were also said to have a force of destroyers and small craft used in northern waters for the protection of the fishing industry and in the mandated islands.

The strength of the Japanese Fleet Air Arm was estimated at about 1,550 planes, about 500 of which were embarked on carriers and other ships. The rest were reported shore-based in Japan, Formosa, Indochina and the mandated islands.

There is no separate Japanese Air Force. The Army and the Navy each has its own. The Press Association gave no estimates of Japanese Army air strength.

Hitler nervous, Swiss paper says

Zurich, Switzerland (UP) –
The newspaper Die Tats reported today from Berlin that although Adolf Hitler spoke calmly in yesterday’s war speech to the Reichstag, definite nervousness could occasionally be detected in his voice.

Die Tats said that once while slowly approaching one theme, Hitler broke a match or pencil and at another time tore a scrap of paper to bits.

War Department gives communiqués

Washington –
A War Department communiqué indicated today that Japanese forces are making persistent attempts to land on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines group, from several directions.

The communiqué – the Army’s fifth of the U.S.-Japanese War – reported the Japanese to be making “a series of concentric thrusts” to Luzon.

It told of “enemy concentrations” off the coast of Zambales, a province just north of Manila, and at Legazpi, a port on the tip of Luzon about 200 miles south of Manila. It was the first mention of activity off Zambales, which is immediately north of the chain of forts protecting Manila.

The communiqué also reported that:

The enemy is augmenting its forces at Aparri and Vigan.

Communiqué No. 4, issued last night, said there was “reason to believe” that defenses in the north and northwest of Luzon – Aparri is in the north, Vigan in the northwest – were “continuing successfully.”

Today’s communiqué said nothing about progress of fighting.

It noted “no operations reported” in Hawaii, and “no change in the situation” on the West Coast.

The text of Communiqué No. 5, issued by the War Department as of 9:30 a.m. EST today:

Philippine Theater.
The Commanding General of the Far Eastern Command reports the Japanese are making a series of concentric thrusts on the island of Luzon. Enemy concentrations are reported at Legazpi and off the west coast of Zambales. The enemy is augmenting its forces at Aparri and Vigan.

Hawaii.
No operations reported.

West Coast.
No change in the situation.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 2:29am

Ford to extend UAW contract to bomb plant

At least 60,000 men will be employed at Ypsilanti, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
An agreement, under which provisions of the Ford Motor Company’s union shop checkoff contract with the United Automobile Workers (CIO) would be extended to employees of the firm’s vast $58,500,000 bomber plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan, was disclosed today.

Ford personnel director Harry Bennett said no new contract would be required but that the 60,000-70,000 men eventually to be employed at the plant will be blanketed under the existing agreement with the UAW-CIO. Union sources confirmed the plan.

Extension of the agreement which already embraces 120,000 Ford workers throughout the country followed disclosure by CIO president Philip Murray last month that he had conferred with Ford officials on the matter during the CIO national convention.

Although present orders call for Ford to turn out 75 completed bombers and 100 complete sub-assemblies a month, they are expected to be stepped up considerably in view of the war against Japan, Germany and Italy. The bomber plant, which with the airport cover 975 miles, can be geared to build a four-motored bomber every hour.

‘I’ll go where my husband goes,’ says U.S. citizen wed to Nazi naval attaché

American wife of German envoy declares ‘I won’t go home’
By Evelyn Peyton Gordon, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
I telephoned the California-born wife of VAdm. Robert Witthoeft-Emden, German naval attaché here. A solemn but pleasant admiral answered the phone personally.

“Darling,” I heard him summon his wife.

I asked her:

Are you an American citizen?

“Yes,” said Frau Witthoeft.

What will you do when members of the German staff start for Europe?

I will go where my husband goes. Wouldn’t you?

At Warrenton, Virginia, is the Countess Caracciolo di Melito, visiting her father, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Oscar T. Crosby.

Miriam Crosby married her handsome Italian count at Naples in 1915, a few days after Italy declared war on Germany. She is an Italian citizen. Her husband is in unoccupied France on a repatriation commission, and their son, Ludovico, is in the Italian Navy. She has been in this country nearly two years.

For some weeks, the countess has been consulting the State Department and the Italian Embassy about her status, and both have advised her not to worry. But today the situation is more complex. Will she return to an Italy which at the moment is empty of both her husband and son? Can she remain at her father’s estate? Can she be interned?

Up in New York are Signore Lais and her daughter, Edna. Signora Lais is the American-born wife of a former naval attaché of the Italian Embassy. When Adm. Lais was recalled to Italy months ago because of a “leak,” his wife and daughter remained in New York. But they are Italian citizens, or were at least until recently.

In a beautiful villa in Florence, Italy, is Signora Rosso, the former Frances Wilkinson Bunker of Washington and Chicago. When she was married in Paris a few years ago to the then Italian Ambassador at Moscow, she became an Italian citizen, and eventually her assets in this country were impounded. Her ex-husband, Arthur Bunker, an OPM dollar-a-year man, has had no word from her. Neither has their daughter, Adele, who is selling Christmas books at Brentano’s.

Frau Thomsen, wife of the German Chargé d’Affaires, was not answering the telephone. Some time ago, when there was a threat that diplomatic relations would be broken, she said:

I won’t go home – ever. I won’t go back to that place.

Nobody believed that she felt as she often said she felt about Hitler. These next days will tell whether the titian-haired Hungarian Bebe Thomsen was only acting a part.

U.S. to recruit closed plants as arms works

Government will utilize factories shutdown by shortages
By John W. Love, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Until the government gets a better slant on the present supplies and future flow of vital materials from the Far East, severe reductions will be applied to all the civilian industries using them. That appears to mean practically all metal industries.

The new case of factory shutdowns thus created, it is disclosed, will be utilized to turn over still more of these plants to armament manufacture. The emphasis is now definitely swinging to such conversion. Though a number of new plants are yet to be erected, the transformation of existing works is to be the main order of expansion in arms production for winter and spring.

Certainties of heavy disemployment in any circumstances for intervals of weeks to months, plus an imperative need for every tool which can be utilized are ending the long argument over whether planes and tanks should be turned out in revamped old plants or in specially designed new ones.

Auto rationing seen

For these reasons, members of the auto industry here would not be surprised to see the manufacture of passenger seats cease altogether by March, if not sooner. Rationing of new cars is expected in any event, with buyers required to have priority tickets.

Makers of cars were notified yesterday they could produce 102,000 passenger models next February, or a little more than a fifth of last February’s output, but the order temporarily stopping the sale of tires at retail impressed them more.

This order is expected to be followed by others which would husband the strategic metals derived from Chinese, East Indian and Philippine sources. Though all of these, except tin, can be obtained from American or nearby sources, time is needed to open new mines and enlarge others, and the risks are regarded as too great to permit chances to be taken until the whole story is known.

Agencies study supplies

Half a dozen agencies in Washington have been going over the American outlook for supplies which have been interrupted by the Pacific War, and in today’s meeting of the Supply, Priorities and Allocations Board, under the management of Donald M. Nelson, all this information was being brought together.

Orders similar to that applied to tires would remain in effect either until the naval situation cleared somewhat or the government determined the assured American supply.

May centralize purchasing

Out of the present uncertainties may come a centralized importing agency under RFC management, government takeovers of warehouse space for storing the materials it is about to acquire, and general standardization of the civilian goods still allowed to be made, from refrigerators on down.

Another upshot may be centralized purchasing by the Army, Navy, Maritime Commission and Lend-Lease.

Machinery adaptable

The uncertainty is partly the result of incomplete reorganization of the OPM and its related supply agencies. Further moves in this process are expected next week or the week after.

In the movement to convert existing plants to the production of arms, defense agencies have collected a quantity of information on the mechanical resources of these plants. It is understood that in the Chevrolet works in Buffalo, now being converted to make airplane engines, about 30% of the machinery is adaptable.

In a typical Detroit assembly system, about 40% of the machines and machine tools can be used to make bomber engines; about 50% can be used to make tanks; for machine guns, the proportion is lower. The rest of the tools would be greased up for storage.

Known as the Reuther Plan – for the officer of the United Auto Workers who proposed it – the conversion movement has not been so enthusiastically supported by workers in the industry in recent months because of the layoffs required during the changeover, and the discovery that fewer men would be employed afterward than before. This number may be increased, however, by running the plants day and night.

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Women needed for defense jobs, but not as wardens

They can be ‘much more valuable’ in other posts, officials say; work categories listed
By Maxine Garrison

WANTED: 500 first-aid instructors.
500 volunteer housing canvassers.
200 ambulance attendants.
200 water safety guides.

As many stenographers, typists and file clerks as are available.

NOT wanted: Women air-raid wardens.

There, in a classified ad nutshell, is the story of Pittsburgh’s Civilian Defense needs at the moment.

The great preference of women applicants for air-raid warden posts, coming on top of the fact that there have been 3,000 applicants (both men and women) this week alone, complicates matters at Civilian Defense offices in the City-County Building.

Men are preferred

It is explained that air-raid wardens are not the most immediate need and, besides, men are preferred for those posts.

But that women need not feel slighted… […]. Instructors are needed for the primary first air course (an instructor must have completed the first two courses).

There is an immediate call for canvassers to compile lists of available houses, apartments and rooms for defense workers. There is a shortage of ambulance attendants (who require first-aid training in such matters as lifting a patient from stretcher to ambulance).

Rush of clerical work

Water safety guides will be those people who can swim well and can handle small river craft in case of emergency.

The 3,000 applications within a week makes it clear why stenographers, typists and file clerks are wanted.

In brief, say Civilian Defense authorities:

We do want women – lots of them. But we don’t want women air-raid wardens, and we hope they’ll understand how much more valuable they can be in other capacities.

For efficiency’s sake, Pittsburgh’s Civilian Defense organization next week will inaugurate a method used here, as far as is known, for the first time in such work. To facilitate the enrollment of thousands of department store workers, registration centers will be set up in four downtown department stores.

Donate Christmas boxes early, Henderson urges

Washington (UP) –
If you’ve received any packages marked “Don’t Open Until Christmas,” please ignore that injunction.

That appeal was made today by Price Administrator Leon Henderson who asked that gift boxes and wrappings be contributed to the national waste paper collection campaign.

Mr. Henderson explained that paper board is in great demand to package war materials and the “raw material” from which it is made is used paper and cardboard cartons and boxes.

U.S. in seventh war

By the United Press

The United States was engaged in its seventh war today. They are:

War Started Ended

Revolutionary War April 19, 1775 Jan. 14, 1784

War of 1812 June 18, 1812 Feb. 17, 1815

War with Mexico April 25, 1846 May 30, 1848

Civil War April 15, 1861 Aug. 20, 1866

War with Spain April 21, 1898 April 11, 1899

World War I April 6, 1917 July 2, 1921

World War II Dec. 11, 1941

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 2:54am

America First set to disband; victory urged

National directors’ action approved ‘in advance’ by Lindbergh

America_First_Committee

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
The America First Committee, pre-war foe of administration foreign policy, prepared today to disband its organization.

In a final statement announcing dissolution plans, national directors of the committee reaffirmed their belief in its principles but said the nation’s only wartime goal was “victory.” The statement said the committee’s objectives had been “an impregnable defense for our nation and avoidance of involvement in the European and Asiatic war.”

It said:

Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been obtained…

We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory.

Gen. Robert E. Wood, national chairman, said the national directors’ action had been approved “in advance” by Charles A. Lindbergh, one of the committee’s principal spokesmen.

The statement appealed for preservation of “fundamental” American rights during the war and expressed hope that “secret treaties committing America to imperialistic aims or vast burdens in other parts of the world shall be scrupulously avoided.”

It also urged its members to support the nation’s war effort.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8972
Authorizing the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy To Establish and Maintain Military Guard and Patrols, and To Take Other Appropriate Measures to Protect Certain National-Defense Material, Premises, and Utilities From Injury or Destruction

WHEREAS the United States is now at war; and Whereas there exists a serious and immediate potential danger of sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities which may menace our maximum productive effort; and

WHEREAS the Congress of the United States has in recent enactment recognized this danger by enjoining efforts to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense, and providing severe penalties therefor; and

WHEREAS it is considered necessary in the interests of national defense that, in particular situations where hazardous, dangerous, or other unfavorable conditions may from time to time exist, special precautionary measures be taken by establishing and maintaining military guards and patrols or other appropriate means to protect from injury or destruction national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, whenever he deems such action to be necessary or desirable, and the Secretary of the Navy, whenever he deems such action to be necessary or desirable, to establish and maintain military guards and patrols, and to take other appropriate measures, to protect from injury or destruction national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities, as defined in the Act of April 20, 1918 (40 Stat. 533), as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940 (54 Stat. 1220), and the Act of August 21, 1941 (55 Stat 655).

This order shall not be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 12, 1941

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8973
Transfer of Employees Possessing Qualifications For National-Defense Work

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 12, 1941

WHEREAS there exists a critical shortage of persons qualified in certain occupations and professions essential to the successful prosecution of the national-defense program; and

WHEREAS there are in the executive branch of the Government employees possessing skills and qualifications in such occupations and professions who are employed in positions in which they can be replaced:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Civil Service Act (22 Stat. 403) and by Section 1753 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U.S.C., Title 5, Sec. 631), it is hereby ordered that whenever the Civil Service Commission shall find (a) that there is employed in the executive civil service of the United States any person who is qualified to perform work directly connected with the national-defense program for which there is a critical shortage of qualified persons, and (b) that the position occupied by such person can be filled, the head of the department or agency concerned shall be requested by the Commission to authorize the release of such person for transfer to a public or private agency to perform work directly connected with the national-defense program; but no transfer under this order shall be made without the consent of the head of the department and of the employee concerned.

Any person, except one holding a temporary position, transferred under this order whose services are subsequently terminated without prejudice shall be entitled to reemployment benefits as stated below provided that he is still qualified to perform the duties of his position and that he makes application for reinstatement within forty days after the termination of his services or forty days after the present national emergency shall have ceased to exist:

He shall be reinstated within thirty days of his application in the same department or agency, and in approximately the same locality, in his former position or in a position of like seniority, status, and pay, provided that such a position then exists.
If such a position does not exist, and such person is therefore not reinstated within thirty days of his application, his name shall be entered on the Reemployment List established pursuant to Executive Order 5924 of September 20, 1932, to be considered for certification to positions for which he is qualified elsewhere in the Government service.
No employee reinstated under this order shall be discharged from such position without cause within one year after his reinstatement.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 12, 1941

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 2:57am

Romanian declaration of war on the United States
December 12, 1941

Guvernul Regal Român are onoarea de a comunica Guvernului Statelor Unite ale Americii că, în conformitate cu dispozițiile Pactului Tripartit și respectând obligațiile de solidaritate cuprinse în acest pact, ca urmare a stării de război care a avut apărută între Statele Unite ale Americii, pe de o parte, și Reich-ul german, Italia și Japonia, pe de altă parte, România însăși se află în stare de război cu Statele Unite ale Americii.

The Royal Romanian Government has the honor to communicate to the Government of the United States of America that, in conformity with the dispositions of the Tripartite Pact and respecting the obligations of solidarity contained in this pact, as a result of the state of war which has arisen between the United States of America on the one hand, and the German Reich, Italy and Japan on the other, Romania herself is in a state of war with the United States of America.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 2:59am

Bulgarian declaration of war on the United States and Great Britain
December 12, 1941

След като Германия и Италия обявиха, че се намират в състояние на война със Съединените американски щати, тъй като смятат, че Съединените американски щати са извършили през последните месеци редица вражески действия, българското правителство, за да изпълни задължението си съгласно член III от Тристранния пакт, реши също да скъса дипломатическите отношения със Съединените американски щати и да обяви наличието на състояние на война с тях, както и със съюзника на Съединените щати - Великобритания.

After Germany and Italy declared that they are in a state of war with the United States of America, because they consider that the United States of America has committed in recent months a series of enemy acts, the Bulgarian Government, in order that it may fulfill its obligation in accordance with Article III of the Tripartite Pact, has decided also to break diplomatic relations with the United States of America and to declare the existence of a state of war therewith as well as with the United States’ ally, Great Britain.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 3:36am

Völkischer Beobachter (December 13, 1941)

Japans Wehrmacht

Von Generalmajor Okamoto

Der ehemalige Militärattaché an der kaiserlich japanischen Botschaft in Berlin, Generalmajor Okamoto, hatte die Freundlichkeit, uns den nachstehenden Aufsatz zur Verfügung zu stellen. Der Artikel aus der berufenen Feder des ehemaligen kaiserlich japanischen Militärattachés zeigt den stolzen Geist der traditionsreichen japanischen Wehrmacht.

Die Wehrhaftigkeit einer Nation ist stets von der Stärke des Nationalstolzes und von der Höhe des kulturellen Standes abhängig. Nur ein Volk, das einerseits seine geistigen Fähigkeiten auf das höchste zu entwickeln vermag und auf der, anderen Seite das Soldatische und Kämpferische im Herzen besitzt, kann insbesondere heute allen Waffenerfordernissen und Wirtschaftlich politischen Voraussetzungen entsprechend die stärkste Wehrmacht entwickeln. Trotz allen modernen Errungenschaften ist für die Wehrhaftigkeit doch das Entscheidende, ob ein Volk in seinem innersten Kern die soldatische Natur besitzt oder nicht. Deutschland mit seinem Germanentum, Italien mit seinem Römertum und Japan mit seinem Bushido (Ahnenkult und Ehrenkodex) sind in der Weltgeschichte drei kulturbringende Völker mit glänzenden Traditionen des Soldatentums.

Die heutige japanische Wehrhaftigkeit ist unmittelbar auf den Geist des Samurai (Ritter) zurückzuführen. Der Samuraistand, der seit dem 13. Jahrhundert die führende Schicht des japanischen Volkes bedeutete, zählte bei seiner Auflösung im Jahre 1868 drei Millionen Familien.

Die Grundsätze der Samurai

Die Grundprinzipien des Bushido waren das Führerprinzip, absolute Treue der Gefolgschaft mit Lebenseinsatz und spartanischer Wehrschulung. Die große Familie des Ritterstandes mit seiner sieben- bis achthundertjährigen Wehrtradition wurde im Jahre 1872 durch den Tenno Meiji (den Gründer des modernen Japans) mit dem Gesetz der allgemeinen Wehrpflicht erweitert. Im Jahre 1882 verkündete Tenno Meiji für die gesamte Wehrmacht Japans fünf Grundsätze des Soldatenethos: Untertanentreue, Sittlichkeit, Tapferkeit, Pflichttreue und Einfachheit nebst Ehrlichkeit bei allem. Diese waren auch Wesenszüge des japanischen Ritterideals, die durchsieben bis acht Jahrhunderte hindurch gepflegt und immer wieder gestärkt wurden.

Die Reorganisation des japanischen Wehrwesens, die die Staatsreform von 1868 mit sich brachte, blickt trotz der Einführung der europäischen Kriegstechnik zu dem ursprünglich japanischen Vorbild der Wehrorganisation zurück.

Der Oberbefehl des Tenno über das Volksheer (das Prinzip der allgemeinen Wehrmacht). Im 11. Artikel der japanischen Staatsverfassung heißt es „Heer und Kriegsmarine stehen unter dem Befehl des Tenno (Kaiser Japans)“ und der 12. Artikel besagt: „Die Organisation von Heer und Marine und ihre Friedensstärke wurde vom Tenno festgesetzt.“

Auf diesen beiden Grundsätzen basiert das japanischer Militärgesetz. Tenno ist an sich nicht eine durch die Verfassung als Oberhaupt des Landes und der Wehrmacht bestimmte Persönlichkeit, sondern er ist der Repräsentant des japanischen Herrscherhauses, das in dem japanischen Glauben mythologischen Ursprungs ist. Tenno ist für das japanische Volk die leibhaft gewordene Gottheit in der Reihe des Göttergeschlechts der Sonnengöttin. Tenno tritt dem Volke gegenüber im Auftrag seiner Urahne als Verkörperung der drei Tugenden „Tapferkeit, seelische Reinheit und Barmherzigkeit.“ Im Vollzug dieser Herrscherprinzipien vertreten Generationen des Tenno (bis jetzt 124 Dynastien) durch Wort und Tat jene Haupttugenden des japanischen Volkes: „Opferwilligkeit und Opferfähigkeit.“

Das erhabene Vorbild des Tenno

Solches bedeutet für einen jeden Japaner, nach dem erhabenen Vorbild des Tenno, nicht nur sich selbst, sondern auch die Seinigen freudig zu opfern, wenn es in Zeiten großer Not, wo Körper und Seele zu leiden haben, um die Wohlfahrt und das Glück des Ganzen geht. Diese sittliche Auffassung vom Sinn der Opferbereitschaft des einzelnen für das Wohl des Ganzen ist in Japan eine traditionelle Selbstverständlichkeit und somit Nationalcharakter des japanischen Volkes bis auf den heutigen Tag.

Die Wehrhaftigkeit und kulturelle Leistungsfähigkeit scheinen sich gegenseitig zu widersprechen. Wohl können diese beiden Kampf- und Friedensleistungen nicht gleichzeitig auf derselben, Höhe bleiben, jedoch ergänzen sie sich, und keines von beiden war und ist ohne das andere möglich, wenn man die Geschichte eines Volkes als Ganzes Versteht. Denn in dem Kern der japanischen Kulturleistung floß – seit über 2000 Jahren ein einziger Strom – das gefühlsmäßige Erbgut des japanischen Volkes: die Einheit des Kaisertums, des Volkes und des Landes. Diese innerste Überzeugung eines jeden Japaners bedeutet zugleich die sittliche Forderung, die im Geiste des Samurai zur höchsten Entfaltung gelangte und im heutigen Soldatentum Japans unvermindert fortlebt.

Nach deutschem Muster

Zu dieser soldatisch-patriotischen Tradition der japanischen Wehrhaftigkeit trat bei der Modernisierung der Waffenführung ein großer Beitrag der deutschen Wehrfähigkeit hinzu. Zur Schaffung der modernen Einrichtungen in der japanischen Wehrmacht war es zahlreichen japanischen Offizieren vergönnt, in Deutschland sich mit der modernen Waffenführung vertraut zu machen. Außerdem hatten sich viele deutsche Offiziere als Lehrer für das japanische Heerwesen betätigt. Japans Heer hat in diesem Sinne den deutschen militärischen Kräften und Errungenschaften außerordentlich viel zu verdanken.

Die japanische Wehrmacht hat sich seit ihrer Gründung von 1872 bei jeder Auseinandersetzung glänzend bewährt und jedesmal den Sieg davongetragen, was die erfolgreiche Entwicklung Japans zu einer der stärksten Weltmächte wesentlich förderte.

Japan schreitet, nunmehr seiner historischen Aufgabe bewußt, mit entschlossenem Einsatz der gesamten Volkskräfte zur Schaffung einer ostasiatischen Völkergemeinschaft, in der der Zusammenschluß zwischen Japan, Mandschukuo und China die tragende Rolle spielt.

Der Zweck der japanischen Bestrebungen ist, mit den japanischen Kräften, die von Gerechtigkeitssinn erfüllt sind, alle ostasiatischen Völker, die den unmenschlichen Machenschaften raumfremdermächte ausgesetzt sind, aus ihrem Sklavenleben zu befreien und ihnen mit dem Prinzip des friedlichen Zusammenlebens und geteilten Wohles ein neues Leben zu schenken.

In diesem Sinne war die Lösung des mandschurischen Problems (1931) das erste Stadium zur Schaffung der Neuordnung Ostasiens. Das zweite Stadium dieser Entwicklung begann mit dem Chinakonflikt (1937) und endet mit der Lösung dieses Problems.

Der Entschluß zur Neuordnung

Mit dem Abschluß des Dreimächtepaktes, der am 27. September 1940 unterzeichnet wurde, trat Japan mit Ostasien in das dritte Stadium seiner Neuordnung.

Japan stärkte nunmehr seinen Entschluß, allen Schwierigkeiten zum Trotz, mit Deutschland und Italien zusammen, die für die Neuordnung Europas in erfolgreichem Kampf auf dem Wege der Zielerreichung stehen, Schulter an Schulter einer totalen Neuordnung der Welt entgegenzumarschieren.

Es besteht kein Zweifel darüber, daß die Durchsetzung unseres Zieles eine große geeinte Volkskraft erfordert, die eine mächtige Wehrmacht zum Kern hat. Gegenwärtig verfügt die japanische Wehrmacht über mehrere Millionen Mann Heer, eine mehrere hundert Einheiten zählende Flotte und mehrere tausend Flugzeuge. Diese Streitkräfte Japans befinden sich bereits seit 1931 entweder im Krieg oder in Kampfbereitschaft und sammelten ihre Erfahrungen. Die japanische Wehrmacht zu Lande, zur See und in der Luft (die Luftwaffe ist in Japan nicht selbständig, sondern ist verteilt auf Armee und Marine) wird immer mehr Vervollständigt, um mit den bereits siegreich bewährten Wehrmächten Deutschlands und Italiens gemeinsam dem wirklichen Frieden der Welt zu dienen.

Stärkster Widerhall auf die Führer-Rede –
Judas Kriegsagent ist nicht mehr weiß zu waschen

Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“

vb. Wien, 12. Dezember –
Die vernichtende Abrechnung des Führers mit dem Scharlatan Roosevelt, dem Treiber zum europäischen Krieg, dem Brandstifter auf dem ganzen Erdball, steht in allen Betrachtungen über die mitreißende Reichstagsrede im Vordergrund – auch beim Feind, denn gerade dort legt man den größten Wert darauf, den Kriegsagenten Judas weiß zu waschen. Im Übrigen zeigen diese Bemühungen ebenso wie die beispiellos verlogene Berichterstattung aus England und den USA über die Vorgänge im Pazifik und die Lage an den anderen Fronten an, daß auch die lautesten bisherigen Mauloffensiven noch beträchtlich überboten werden sollen.

Für Churchill sind die wohlüberlegte Erstickungsstrategie Roosevelts gegen Japan und die unverhüllte Kriegshetze seines Spießgesellen in Europa einfach nicht vorhanden. Er redete von „einem vorbedachten perfiden Angriff Japans,“ während sein Rundfunk es kurzweg ein „Märchen“ nannte daß Roosevelt den Krieg gesucht habe und es als „einzigartige Behauptung“ bezeichnete, daß der Führer den Kriegsplan Roosevelts für 1943 erwähnte, obwohl dieses Dokument in den USA überall veröffentlicht und besprochen worden ist.

Diese eifernde Verteidigung, die aus dem Infamsten Kriegstreiber aller Zeiten einen bewährten Friedensfreund zu machen sucht, beweist, daß man im feindlichen Lager vor allem die offenkundige Kriegsschuld Roosevelts als peinlich belastend empfindet und diese daher auf das rücksichtsloseste wegzulügen sucht.

Der entlarvte Heuchler

In den verbündeten und befreundeten Ländern vermitteln das Presseecho und die Äußerungen politischer Kreise der Öffentlichkeit mit größter Eindringlichkeit die Wahrheit über die Person Roosevelts, dem der Führer die heuchlerische Maske endgültig vorn Gesicht gerissen hat.

Die römische Morgenpresse legt in ihrer Bewertung der Reden des Duce und des Führers den größten Nachdruck auf die Eindeutigkeit, mit der von beiden Staatsmännern die Verantwortung des amerikanischen Präsidenten am Ausbruch des Krieges und an seiner Ausweitung über die ganze Erde hin betont wurde. Schreibt Messaggero:

In jeder Phase des allmählichen Zusammenbruches der Mächte einer veralteten Welt der Plutokratie, des Judentums und der Freimaurerei war die aufhetzende Tätigkeit Roosevelts unverkennbar.

Es handle sich jetzt nicht mehr darum, ein auf Gerechtigkeit beruhendes neues „europäisches Gleichgewicht“ zu schaffen, sondern darum, Europa selbst zu verteidigen. Der Sieg werde auf der Seite der Völker sein, die für die höchsten Ziele der Menschheit kämpften.

U.S. War Department (December 13, 1941)

Communiqué No. 6

Philippine Theater.
Japanese air activity continued throughout the day with raids on Manila and at Davao on the island of Mindanao. Attempted Japanese landings were repulsed south of Vigan and north of San Fernando as well as at Lingayen on the island of Luzon.

Operations of enemy parachutists were reported at Tuguegarao and Ilagan, in the extreme north and northeast in the island of Luzon. Some enemy troops landed in the vicinity of Legazpi in the extreme southern portion of the island of Luzon.

Previous reports of enemy naval concentrations west of Zambales Province on the western coast of Luzon were confirmed.

The Commanding General, Far Eastern Command, has notified the Commanding General, USAAF, of the brilliant performance of the U.S. Army and Navy fliers and the fliers of the Philippine Commonwealth in attacking enemy units with total disregard for their own safety.

One spectacular instance was the feat of Capt. Colin P. Kelly Jr. of Madison, Florida, who successfully attacked the battleship HARUNA, putting that warship out of commission. In this destruction of this important unit of the Japanese fleet, Capt. Kelly lost his life. Another brilliant victory was scored by Lt. Boyd D. Wagner of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who shot down two enemy planes and wrecked several others that were on the ground in the vicinity of Aparri in northern Luzon.

Hawaii.
There has been no renewal of Japanese attacks on Oahu since the initial operations on December 7, 1941.

West Coast, United States.
Rumors of landings of enemy parachute troops on the West Coast have been thoroughly investigated and completely discredited.

U.S. Navy Department (December 13, 1941)

Communiqué No. 5

The Navy Department announced that it is unable to communicate with Guam either by radio or cable. The capture of the island is probable. A small force of less than 400 naval personnel and 155 Marines were stationed in Guam. According to the last reports from Guam, the island had been bombed repeatedly and Japanese troops had landed at several points on the island.

Wake and Midway continue to resist.

The above is based on reports until 9:00 a.m. EST today.

Communiqué No. 6

U.S. airmen turned back the fishing vessel ALERT of U.S. registry in the Gulf of Nicoya, on the west coast of Costa Rica. The vessel was boarded on its return to port and was found to have seven Japanese in the crew. They were taken into custody. The ALERT was loaded with a cargo of 10,000 gallons of diesel oil.

No new developments have been reported from combat areas as of 3:00 p.m. EST today.

The Pittsburgh Press (December 13, 1941)

WAR BULLETINS!

Roosevelt summons aides

Washington –
President Roosevelt today called in Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and a group of Navy officials, presumably to discuss progress of the war and U.S. strategy.

Axis retreats in Libya

Cairo, Egypt –
Axis forces are falling back steadily along a broad front west of Tobruk and about 40 miles inland from the coast in an effort to avoid encirclement and destruction, dispatches reported today.

Navy base blacked out

Newport, Rhode Island –
The Newport Naval Base was blacked out for a half-hour early today on receipt of “certain advices,” but officials later said the precautionary measures were the result of “mistaken identity” of airplanes.

Chinese airmen bomb Canton

New York –
Radio Halifax, heard by the United Press, said today that Chinese planes had bombed Canton, and it was believed that the Chinese were preparing an offensive to retake the city, as part of their new drive to relieve pressure on Hong Kong.

Queen Wilhelmina pledges help

Washington –
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands has assured President Roosevelt of cooperation in this country’s war against Japan.

Poles declare war on Japan

Washington –
The Polish Embassy announced today that Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski has received notice from his foreign minister in London that the Republic of Poland has declared the existence of war with Japan as of Dec. 11.

Reds rout Nazi reserves

Moscow, USSR (UP) – (TASS agency broadcast recorded in London)
Dispatches from the Kalinin Front northeast of Moscow today said the Germans had thrown hastily-formed reserves into an attempt to halt the Red Army offensive, but been forced to yield additional ground. The Nazis abandoned wounded men.

Japs claim air mastery

Berlin, Germany (UP) – (official news agency broadcast recorded in London)
Tokyo Imperial Headquarters said that in a battle over Malaya, the British Air Force in the Far East was practically destroyed and Japan is master of the air. British losses were put at 129 planes and Japanese losses at 17.

Puerto Rico has air-raid alarm

San Juan. Puerto Rico –
Army reports that unidentified airplanes had been sighted off the Puerto Rico coast resulted in an air-raid alarm throughout the island at 2:45 a.m. AST today and there was a blackout until dawn. There were no reports that bombs had been dropped.

Philippine airfields bombed

Washington –
War Department Communiqué No. 7 today said that Japanese aircraft bombed Cebu and Clark Field in the Philippines, and that the enemy’s plan appears now “clearly revealed” as an attempt to gain improvised air bases outside of the area held by our ground defenses.

Thailand due to freeze credits

Los Angeles, California –
Thailand, which capitulated to Japan, has frozen all U.S. and British assets and will break off diplomatic relations with those two nations, Radio Tokyo announced today in a broadcast heard here by NBC.

Florida on alert for air raid

Jacksonville, Florida –
Reports indicating the possibility of an air raid put naval and military establishments on the alert today and all radio stations in the Jacksonville area went off the air for nearly three hours, naval authorities reported.

Manila airfield raided

New York –
CBS’s Manila correspondent broadcast today that, according to a U.S. headquarters communiqué issued there today, Japanese bombers attacked several Philippine airfields. Nichols Field, just south of Manila, was raided but damage was believed slight, the broadcast said. A Japanese bomber was believed shot down by a harbor defense anti-aircraft gun.

Plea for Red war on Japs unlikely

London, England –
Reliable quarters said today that Britain had decided for the present to refrain from asking Russia for a declaration of war against Japan. British official quarters were represented as believing that Russia’s war with Germany should be pressed to the utmost without any major diversion.

Newsmen will leave Germany

London, England –
The German official news agency said today in a Berlin broadcast heard by the United Press that U.S. newspapermen in Berlin would leave with U.S. diplomats.

Nazis flying for Japanese

Washington –
Nazi pilots flying warplanes made in Germany have been operating over China recently and may have participated in the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, Maj. Gen. P. Kiang, chief of the Chinese military mission to the United States, said today.

North Luzon reported ‘clear’

New York –
The NBC correspondent in Manila, recorded by NBC in New York, said today that:

The U.S. High Command announced this morning that in northern Luzon, the area had been entirely cleared of Japanese invaders.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 3:47am

Victory program –
Home front is organized; 10 million men may fight

Washington (UP) –
The fight for the survival of the United States took shape today on the home front and along the far-flung battle lines.

On the actual firing line, the Philippines have become the central theater of conflict in the Pacific.

The task at home has also become clearly defined.

More men will have to be called to the colors – perhaps 10 million in all.

More money will be thrown into the battle of production – about $5 billion a month – for more warships, more fighting planes, more guns.

More taxes are in store – a “several-billion-dollar” war tax bill is just around the corner.

And more sacrifices. People will have to get along with fewer of the things made of raw materials imported from the Far East.

Congress is getting ready to act on draft legislation that will require 40 million men from 18 to 65 to register. Only those between 18 and 44 (inclusive) will be subject to military service, permitting a draft army of 10 million strong. The rest will be subject to non-combatant duty under pending legislation which may be acted upon by the middle of next week.

Funds to equip the expanding forces with more weapons are provided in a $10,572,350,000 supplemental defense appropriations bill which was voted by the Senate yesterday and now goes to conference with the House.

On top of that, a new long-range naval expansion program to add 900,000 extra tons of fighting strength – 166 warships – to the fleet. This will cost in excess of $3 billion.

Heavy taxes to meet the staggering war bill will be discussed by Congressional experts starting Jan. 15.

Labor and industrial leaders will meet here next week to devise methods for uninterrupted armaments production. Mr. Roosevelt has given assurances that the 40-hour week will not be sacrificed in the contemplated seven-day week production schedule.

Spies mopped up

Coastal defenses are being bulwarked against the threat of enemy attacks. Potential spies and saboteurs are being mopped up by federal agents who have bagged 2,541 Axis aliens during the first week of the war. The War Department completed plans for radio blackouts when air raids impend.

The Senate appropriations measure – raising the government’s total stake in the war against the Axis to $69 billion – was passed by voice vote.

The Senate acknowledged the growing importance of planes in modern warfare by adding to the House version approximately $1 billion for Army and Navy air programs alone.

Allies to lead in planes

OPM Production Director W. H. Harrison said today American airplane output, coupled with Britain’s, will surpass that of Germany by next summer. The German monthly rate has already been surpassed, he said, and the future Allied program will outdistance Germany in actual numbers as well.

The Senate passed the bill after adding $360 million to the original $2-billion increase voted by its appropriations committee.

The floor additions included $68 million more for the Civil Aeronautics Authority for developing landing areas; a $290-million increase in funds for defense housing; and $1,500,000 to finance collection of the new $5 annual auto use tax and other levies in the last revenue bill.

NormanStewart · December 14, 2020, 4:10am

Tokyo admits attack failed on one island

AFL workers help to fight invaders in Pacific outposts

Washington (UP) –
The Stars and Stripes still fly over Wake and Midway Islands, tiny Pacific outposts, a Navy communiqué disclosed today.

A Tokyo communiqué admitted that U.S. Marines were still holding Wake Island against Japanese attacks.

Simultaneously, the AFL claimed that “on the basis of new information from authoritative sources,” a group of American construction workers in Guam:

…seized whatever weapons were available on the island and engaged the invaders in hand-to-hand fighting in which the American workers gave a very good account of themselves.

Advised of capture

The AFL previously said it had been advised by the Navy that about 1,100 workers in Guam and Midway were “captured and taken prisoner” by the Japanese.

The AFL said that on the basis of present information, “Guam remains in American hands.”

The Navy communiqué which announced continued American resistance at Wake and Midway said:

There is no confirmation of the alleged occupation of Guam by the Japanese.

Marines hold Wake

If confirmed, the AFL report of hand-to-hand fighting between American workmen and Japanese invaders in Guam would write another glittering page in the annals of American heroism. The report came 24 hours after a Navy communiqué revealed another brilliant “last stand” – the gallantry of the beleaguered band of Marines defending Wake Island.

The AFL announcement telling of the hand-to-hand fighting in Guam also said that:

In the Hawaiian Islands, the 10,000 AFL building trades workers, showing a contempt for Jap marksmanship, are staying on the job and have decided to work night and day to rush to completion American fortifications and other vital structures now being built there…

Free American workers will never be slaves. We are giving and will continue to give our sweat, our skill and our blood to blast the military masters of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Fascist Japan off the face of the globe.

The heroic stand of the handful of Marines at Wake Island drew high praise today from President Roosevelt who said the “devil-dogs” were doing a perfectly magnificent job. The Marines were revealed Thursday to have sunk a Japanese light cruiser and a destroyer, and to have repulsed four aerial attacks and one naval thrust.

Wake, a coral reef about four miles long, is 2,000 miles west of Hawaii. Guam is 1,300 miles farther. Midway is 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii.

grayknight1781 · December 14, 2020, 6:03am

Spoilers

products-Ax01672

I could be here forever debunking what Hitler has said, but I just want to point out that the only German involvment in the American War for Independence were mercenaries known as the “Hessians” who fought for the British.
the-battle-of-trenton-1776-photo-researchers

War	Started	Ended
Revolutionary War	April 19, 1775	Jan. 14, 1784
War of 1812	June 18, 1812	Feb. 17, 1815
War with Mexico	April 25, 1846	May 30, 1848
Civil War	April 15, 1861	Aug. 20, 1866
War with Spain	April 21, 1898	April 11, 1899
World War I	April 6, 1917	July 2, 1921
World War II	Dec. 11, 1941

America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

Mussolini announces war declaration

ARMY BOMBERS SINK JAP BATTLESHIP Planes blast Jap vessel in Luzon action

Where fighting rages in Philippines

Army beats off Luzon invaders

WAR BULLETINS!

U.S. ambassador and Petain meet

British commander missing

Autos on Turnpike searched

British hold in northern Malaya

18-64 draft ages suggested

Roosevelt praises ‘political truce’

Casualty list received

Foreign service approved

Honolulu evacuation plans ready

Attack on Jap base reported

Nazis execute 11 Frenchmen

Americans seek way home

Filipinos to ‘do part to the end’

U.S. correspondents restricted

Trading in Axis dollar bonds suspended

Writer hits Axis hard

Taft predicts unlimited support

Radio advised to be careful

Raid closings hamper coast defense work

Senator halts vote to allow troops abroad

Mexican troops rushed to defend Pacific Coast

May be fighting Japs in Philippines

197 U.S. airplanes lost in Philippine fighting, Japs say

Casualty list

Dead:

Two more soldiers added to district’s casualty list

Atlantic losses down – Victory over all of Axis predicted by Churchill

White House Statement on Wartime Labor Policy Conference December 11, 1941

Food supplies of nation high; prices to rise

Hawaii attack kills admiral

Pershing volunteers; Roosevelt accepts

Audience reaction brings cancellation of ‘Mikado’

Capital’s cherry trees become war casualties

Economists draw outline for long, hard-fought war

Stokes: Here’s how Roosevelt flashed Jap attack on Hawaii

Martial law is proclaimed in Honolulu

Roosevelt approves Honolulu evacuation

War zone air chief in States

War declaration on Berlin, Rome is voted quickly

Senator keeps Hawaii inquiry demands alive

2,303 nationals of Axis seized in Hawaii, U.S.

Princess Stephanie seized by FBI

File reveals names of Japs in U.S.

U.S. ship docks safely after 3 days on Pacific

Pledge against separate peace – Simms: Five-power pact expected among anti-Axis nations

Clapper: Build planes!

Editorial: So what!

Ferguson: Hollywood’s challenge

Allies steel output twice that of Axis

18 Jap planes rake island with gunfire

Das Reich und Italien an Japans Seite: Kriegszustand mit USA

Leitartikel: Zweiweltenkampf

81 USA-Flugzeuge über Manila vernichtet: Flugzeugträger ‚Lexington‘ versenkt

The Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the American Legation in Denmark

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France

The Ambassador in France to the Secretary of State

Press Release

Communiqué No. 4

U.S. Navy routs Jap fleet

WAR DEPARTMENT OFFERS 18-64 DRAFT BILL Women ‘deferred’ – Full survey of manpower in U.S. asked

WAR BULLETINS!

British, Reds to map strategy

Japs gain near Hong Kong

Chiang offers all-out aid

Planes strafe Jap barges

British sub hits cruiser

Marines still hold Wake Island

Japs seize 1,000 American workmen

Haiti joins U.S. against Axis

Slovakia declares war on U.S.

Indian leader arrested

Nazis claim four sinkings

ARMY BOMBERS SINK JAP BATTLESHIP
Planes blast Jap vessel in Luzon action

Atlantic losses down –
Victory over all of Axis predicted by Churchill

White House Statement on Wartime Labor Policy Conference
December 11, 1941

Pledge against separate peace –
Simms: Five-power pact expected among anti-Axis nations

Das Reich und Italien an Japans Seite:
Kriegszustand mit USA

81 USA-Flugzeuge über Manila vernichtet:
Flugzeugträger ‚Lexington‘ versenkt

WAR DEPARTMENT OFFERS 18-64 DRAFT BILL
Women ‘deferred’ – Full survey of manpower in U.S. asked

Uncle Sam hits back –
U.S. aircraft begin to even Pacific score

Uncle Sam hits back –
U.S. aircraft begin to even Pacific score

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Women needed for defense jobs, but not as wardens

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8972
Authorizing the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy To Establish and Maintain Military Guard and Patrols, and To Take Other Appropriate Measures to Protect Certain National-Defense Material, Premises, and Utilities From Injury or Destruction

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8973
Transfer of Employees Possessing Qualifications For National-Defense Work

Romanian declaration of war on the United States
December 12, 1941

Bulgarian declaration of war on the United States and Great Britain
December 12, 1941

Stärkster Widerhall auf die Führer-Rede –
Judas Kriegsagent ist nicht mehr weiß zu waschen