OPA program seeks to avert meat rationing
Tentative 3-point plan would control flow of livestock to packers
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Soviet comment on parley drops to subdued tone
Official press gives prominence to clamor for second front
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U.S. Navy Department (August 19, 1942)
Navy Communiqué No. 108
North Pacific Area.
A U.S. submarine has reported the sinking of a Japanese cruiser or destroyer in the western Aleutian area. Conditions made impossible an exact identification of the type of ship.
This sinking has not been announced in any previous Navy Department communiqué.
Brooklyn Eagle (August 19, 1942)
U.S., BRITISH AIR, LAND FORCES RAID FRANCE
Tanks back up Commando units
Hitler gets foretaste of 2nd front on Dieppe coast – big guns razed
London, England (UP) –
American, British and Canadian troops today gave Adolf Hitler a foretaste of a second front in Europe with a record-breaking Commando attack on the Dieppe coast of France.
Operating under a cloud of Allied warplanes – American Flying Fortresses and American fighter squadrons among them – the Commandos smashed into the Nazi coastal defenses of the Dieppe sector.
At mid-afternoon London Time, the Commando attack was still in progress but some of the troops were being withdrawn – having achieved their objective, which was destruction of a big battery of six-inch Nazi coast defense guns and a munitions dump.
The English Channel coast shook under the reverberation of the battle – the greatest land and air operation which Western Europe had seen since the days of Dunkirk.
There was no indication how long the Commandos were prepared to hold their positions around Dieppe, but presumably until they had fully carried out their objectives.
The American forces in the big attack were units of the newly-organized Ranger force – the American equivalent of the British Commandos. These picked volunteers have been training for several months in raid tactics.
American air forces were backing up the RAF in providing an air curtain for the land troops. Great Flying Fortress bombers were blasting at Nazi strongpoints and communications lines for German reinforcements.
A German news agency report tonight said that “since Wednesday afternoon,” all British, American and Canadian Commandos have been driven out of the Dieppe area.
The report said that more than 1,000 prisoners were taken by German forces and that Commando losses in men and material were very high but could not yet be estimated accurately.
Squadrons from all frontline RAF fighter stations along the coast were in action in continuous attacks not only in the Dieppe area but over a wide region of Northern France. American fighter squadrons were flying wing-to-wing with the British in the attacks.
Late today, it was learned in reliable quarters that wounded Commandos from the Dieppe area were already arriving at southeast coast points.
Wounded reach England
Residents of a southeast coast town reported that a number of ambulances were moving into the dock areas which were blocked off from the public.
It was also revealed that some Commandos have returned from the Dieppe area to a British base and were described as being in “high spirits.”
Backed up by tanks and operating under a cloud of Allied fighter planes, the Commandos debouched on the flat Dieppe coastline in such force that constant radio warnings were issued to the French populace that:
This is no invasion.
American, British and Canadian troops swarmed over the defenses which Adolf Hitler has erected as a protection against a second front and after hours of fighting were reported to have achieved many of their objectives, including the destruction of a big battery of six-inch coast defense guns and a Nazi ammunition dump.
Part of force returns
For the first time, Combined Operations Headquarters issued bulletins on the progress of the battle. By midday, at least part of the Commando forces were being reembarked for the home voyage back across the English Channel, having successfully carried out their mission.
However, at many points, heavy fighting was in progress, particularly in the center of the operations zone, apparently around the seashore town of Dieppe, where the Commandos had the support of tanks.
The American contribution to the attack was a battalion of Rangers – picked volunteers trained in Commando tactics. Canada provided the bulk of the raiding force but regular British Commandos and Free French detachments also participated.
British public cheers
News of the attack touched off a thrill of anticipation among the British public where the first reaction – despite repeated official cautions – was that the long-awaited second front had finally been achieved. Newspapers sold like hotcakes.
The assault was by far the biggest ever undertaken by the Commandos and provided not only a devastating test of the defenses which a second-front expedition will encounter but a large-scale test of second-front tactics.
All weapons were employed in the assault. British naval forces transported the troops and backed them up with bombardment of shore installations. Bombing planes attacked known Nazi strongpoints and reinforcement communications lines.
For the Americans, the attack represented the first time that U.S. troops have set foot in France since World War I. It climaxed months of intensive preparation and training of volunteer specialists with British Commandos.
Communiqué No. 2 said:
The troops participating in the raid on the Dieppe area landed at all points selected.
Troops on the right flank, having achieved their objectives, which included complete destruction of a six-inch gun battery and an ammunition dump, have now been reembarked.
In the center, tanks were landed and heavy fighting is proceeding.
Hint ‘chutists in action
It was believed that parachutists took part.
In its communiqué announcing the participation of the Rangers, U.S. Army Headquarters emphasized that its task had been to choose among the men who crowded to volunteer for the most dangerous work in the Army.
They were put in training some time ago with Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Commandos.
The communiqué said:
These special task troops, in training at certain Commando depots somewhere in the United Kingdom, make up what is known as United States Ranger battalions.
Fairbanks a Commando
It was announced that United States officers of all fighting force branches have for some time been serving on the staff of Mountbatten, fighting cousin of King George VI.
Among them is Navy Lt. Douglas Fairbanks, the motion picture star, the communiqué said.
Big U.S. bombers aid Commandos, rake Nazi base
London, England (UP) –
American Flying Fortresses today carried out a successful precision bombing attack on the key Nazi air base on Northern France at Abbeville in an air maneuver designed to support the Commandos fighting at Dieppe.
Two squadrons of the huge high-altitude American planes roared over the Abbeville airdrome which is known to American Eagle and RAF pilots as a “hornet’s nest” of crack Nazi planes and pilots.
In good visibility, the Americans employed their famed bombsights to lay numerous hits on runways, buildings and aircraft dispersal areas. Protecting the U.S. planes were British and Canadian fighter squadrons.
All the attacking bombers returned safely.
Abbeville is abut 35 miles from Dieppe and is known to be a key point in the entire Nazi defense system for France and the Low Countries.
RAF men regarded it as one of the most dangerous Luftwaffe bases which they have to deal with.
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Chinese retake port, 600 miles from Japan
Chungking, China (UP) –
Chinese forces have recaptured the walled city and port of Wenchow on China’s east coast, only 600 airline miles from Japan, a Chinese communiqué said today.
The communiqué said the city of about 100,000 people was taken by storm last Saturday.
Wenchow lies 250 miles south of Shanghai and about 600 miles southeast of Japan’s home islands.
FDR orders Army to seize defiant plant
Stimson to take over, run Boston company violating WLB edict
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Raider’s pincer attack sinks U.S. ship; 15 lost
Torpedo boats aid in the South Atlantic – wounded Boro men among survivors
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Brazil planes join in attack on U-boat pack
6 blasted, one sunk by Allies as formal war declaration nears
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Todd subsidiary wins service ‘E’ for production
U.S. workers making weapons to beat Axis, Navy captain tells men
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Wants Army, Navy to stop all recruiting drives
McNutt is seeking President’s order to halt service drives
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Reynolds to ask Senate act for freedom of India
Military group chairman demands end to British ‘yoke of imperialism’
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The Brazilian crisis
That the sinking of five Brazilian ships would provoke heated anti-Axis demonstrations in Brazil was natural. Brazil has been anti-Axis in sentiment right along and the recent torpedoings have merely added to the feeling. But the sinkings are likely to have a cooling effect in some other South American circles where there has been a tendency to squelch anti-Axis expressions.
The action against Brazil is an indication that the Axis will stop at nothing to gain its ends and it must give pause to those South American governments which have been lukewarm in their adherence to the ideals of the United Nations. It is a warning that the countries below the Equator have as much at stake as the open enemies of the Axis in the present conflict. As that realization grows upon them, we may find them less inclined to a “wait-and-see” policy.
Separating the sexes
In Seattle, out where you might say the West ends, the management of the Boeing plant announces it must segregate men from women workers. Men can’t keep their minds on their jobs for looking at the gals. Slows production to keep ‘em together.
The news stories about the matter are skimpy, leaving too many questions unanswered. Do the Seattle gals fluster the men because the gals are so pretty? Or is there such a shortage of women in Seattle that men stand around and gawk at a woman like so many miners in a Bret Harle story? If it is normal for men to drop their tools to look at women workers what’s the matter here in Brooklyn, where men and women have been working together quite a while without causing any noticeable increase in blood pressure? Something wrong with us?
One thing we’re going to watch: the New York feminine population figures. If there’s a sharp drop, we’ll have to assume our girls have lit out for Seattle, where men are men and women get attention.
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A disgraceful war plant tie-up
Nonsensical work stoppages such as the one in the Wright Aeronautical Corporation’s plant at Paterson are worse than maddening. They breed cynicism in the public mind.
If a number of workers, engaged in forging the materials so vitally needed to save civilization from ruin, are willing to stop work over an untidy little matter like flirtation, what right have we to expect any more honesty, or sincerity in the big disputes between the government, management and labor. The rather revolting details are that young women who distribute milk to the Wright workers complained of the attentions paid to them by their male customers. These became so extreme, their services were withdrawn. So, the men stopped working.
A Marine dying on the beaches of the Solomon Islands would doubtlessly be interested to learn that the dispute was settled and the men are once more getting their milk, having promised to behave like gentlemen to the milkmaids.
The Gazette (August 20, 1942)
U.S. Rangers in Commando unit long seasoned for Dieppe raid
London, England (AP) – (Aug. 19)
The United States Rangers who joined Canadian, British and Fighting French units today in the Commando raid on France, had been training secretly for weeks under the tutelage of their seasoned British partners.
Their mentors are men who toss hand grenades across the dinner table and casually jump 20-foot cliffs and their American pupils have been taught to kill with the cunning of the Indian and the ruthlessness of a gangster.
I was the first American newspaperman to visit one of their camps when they were putting the finishing touches on training for such ventures as today’s raid on Dieppe.
They have climbed 4,000-foot mountains. They have been on speed marches of 36 miles in half a day time and again. They have practised beach landings while rifle and machine-gun fire bored holes through the paddles of the men manning the boats.
They have taken both their tactics and their name from Rogers’ Rangers, one of America’s most romantic fighting outfits who, under Robert Rogers, stalked North America in the French and Indian War.
Under Rogers’ daring leadership in the campaigns around Lake George in Upper New York State, those early-day Rangers became known for their courage and endurance – the traits for which their namesakes are now chosen.
Rogers led his men in the Montreal campaign of 1760.
Later, Rogers was sent to take possession of the northwestern posts, including what is now Detroit, and participated in the Battle of Bloody Ridge.
Just to show them what a modern Ranger is expected to do, their British instructors stalked a deer in the forest and when the stag was surrounded a big Scot leaped upon him and killed him with a knife.
A sentry’s throat can be slit in the same, silent way.
On my visit, I rowed with them in a collapsible canvas boat to a landing on a beach where tracer bullets from a British Bren gun were spewing so close to the gunwales you almost were able to reach out your hand to them.
Land mines and grenades splattered us with mud and water. Rifle bullets singed by so close that one punctured a mess kit slung from a Ranger’s belt. Another nicked the guard off a bayonet atop one soldier’s pack.
Wrestling (dark alley style) and ju jitsu were after-dinner pastimes at the camp I visited. A man out of condition was a candidate for the hospital if he joined the fun.
Often the boys ignored the stairway in the castle where they had their headquarters. They’d just grab a rope on the third floor and “absail down.”
“Absailing” is the simple device of looping a rope around your leg and letting yourself drop as fast as your leg can withstand it.