America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

[NormanStewart]

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

SCOTIA, Cal. – Stan Murphy is one of San Francisco’s bigger business men.

He is president of the Pacific Lumber Co. here at Scotia, the largest redwood timber operator in the world. He is not the “office” type of big executive – his heart is in the woods, and his personality shows it. He is easy to be with.

His time is divided into three sections. He spends about a third of it here in the forested hills, another third at his office in San Francisco, and the last third traveling – on frequent business trips East, and on hunting trips.

When up here he lives in his magnificent mountain lodge 14 miles from Scotia. I have just been a guest there, and I’m probably spoiled for ordinary living forever.

Stan Murphy is what you would call a good fellow. His company is run in the benevolent manner; his employees get bonuses and many perquisites. He thinks hard and worries about his business, but his movements are slow and calm and he never seems harassed.

He has a deep voice and swears with easy naturalness and has been known to take a drink. He would rather tramp all day through the brush in a pouring rain behind a bird dog than anything else he can think of. He has friends by the hundred.

Both of his boys are in the service – one in the Navy, one in the Army. The soldier boy is now on some unknown ship headed for some unknown destination. Mr. Murphy is all alone.

“But I wouldn’t have them anywhere else in times like these,” he says. Murphy himself was a naval officer in World War I. He still has the running lights off his old ship.

Lodge is a good place to be

Murphy’s lodge is called “Larabee.” It is in a spot of beautiful isolation. Thirty years ago Murphy worked up here in the redwoods, and lived in an old cabin within yelling distance of where his lodge now stands.

All around are redwood-shrouded hills, and the lodge itself hangs on the bank of a twisting mountain river. To reach it, you have to drive across a long low bridge, just wide enough for one car, and with no guard rails. Gives you the willies. It is not unusual for Murphy to be marooned at his lodge for days at a time when the water gets over the bridge.

There was danger of rising water while I was there, and a servant was sent down at 3 in the morning to see how the water looked. Unfortunately it looked all right. I’d never be lucky enough to get marooned in a place like that.

The lodge itself is two-story, built in stockade fashion, of huge logs. The first floor is just one immense room, with huge windows and a giant stone fireplace.

No city comfort is missing. There are bathrooms galore and great deep chairs and fine rugs and soft lights and guest rooms complete to the last eiderdown puff.

The lodge is entirely of redwood, and so is most everything in it. The tables and chairs, even some of the lampshades, are of redwood. The lodge sits in a grove of redwood trees.

The lodge is the sleepingest place you ever saw. You can hear the river sighing past, and a little creek flows smack under the house. When the rain pounds on the roof it is like being rocked in a cradle. A case of insomnia wouldn’t have a chance up here.

Which one is better off?

Murphy is usually alone when he is here, but occasionally he brings up large parties from San Francisco and they all go hunting and wind it up with a big barbecue.

Two servants stay here constantly, and when Murphy comes up from San Francisco his chauffeur comes too, even when Murphy comes by train. Incidentally, he has an arrangement with the railroad whereby all trains stop on call at his ranch gate.

Murphy is a quail-hunting fiend. He has 15 dogs on the place. They are all hunting dogs except Missie, the little dachshund, and even she goes into the woods with them frequently, and waddles around in her brave curiosity until she gets lost.

Murphy raises his own quail to turn loose in the woods. He has an elaborate layout for this – an electric incubator and various warm rooms for the little quail and a battery of wire enclosures used as “holding pens.” Last year he liberated 500 quail in the woods.

Stan Murphy lives in luxury, but there is no “put on” about it. Even an humble person feels comfortable with him. As happens to most people of importance, he has gradually come to live in a world where he is waited upon. Servants wake him of a morning, answer his phone, feed his dogs, run his errands, lay the daily papers at his table.

My cousin, who drives one of Mr. Murphy’s bulldozers, has none of these things. He gets his own breakfast before daylight, and doesn’t have a telephone. His wife washes on the back porch, and hangs the clothes in the kitchen to dry.

Yet I would hesitate to say that one is better or worse off than the other. Mr. Murphy carries the responsibility of 1700 people and great factories and vast investments on his shoulders. My cousin is responsible for only three people, and his daily job.

My cousin works for Mr. Murphy, whom he has never met, but also Mr. Murphy works hard for my cousin, whom he wouldn’t know if he saw.

As for me, I envy them both. For, when I wake up of a morning, I usually don’t even know where I am.

---

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

WASHINGTON – Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most formidable topics in the United States at this writing, hardly less forbidding than that great journalistic taboo, religion, but, nevertheless, she has come out for condemnation and punishment without trial in the case of a picket line at a New York theater and that I believe, calls for a challenge and for this busy lady’s retirement from the public eye and ear, although it is not to be hoped that she would cease to exert herself politically and personally in the departments of the Government.

Of course, any ordinary individual may refuse to cross a picket line, “fair or unfair,” but Mrs. Roosevelt partakes of the highest office in the nation and, when one who personifies the Presidency as an office publicly repudiates fairness and the right of citizens to be heard in disputes affecting their livelihood and property, everyone has a stake in the case.

This is no mere interpretation of Mrs. Roosevelt’s attitude.

It is her expressed position.

Even in Moscow accused got chance

She wrote in her column, “I don’t cross picket lines,” and she said at the theater that she couldn’t cross a picket Iine, “fair or unfair,” which just means that the owner of the property, the producer with his investment of work and money, the playwright, and all the workers in the show from the box office to the doorman in the alley, deserved no hearing on the merits of the case, even if they had been victims of a racket, however vicious, if the pickets bore credentials or merely acted under orders from some professional unioneer who might have corrupt motives.

Even in Moscow. the defendants in the liquidation trials were given a chance to face their accusers and state their defense, except those who had fled the country, but Mrs. Roosevelt is not that generous.

If Mrs. Roosevelt is ignorant of the great moral fallibility of the professional unioneer, ignorant of the corruption and persecution which commonly mark the operations of unions, then she has a public duty to inform herself and even before that she has a further duty never to make blanket commitments, involving the Presidency, to condemn without trial persons who are victims of injustice.

She has no right to be ignorant now of the commonness of corruption, criminality and persecution in the union movement. There is a substantial heap of undisputed disclosures and court convictions proving this and the union involved in the instant case is known to everyone who knows anything at all about a subject on which Mrs. Roosevelt presumed to take sides, as a dictatorship whose constitution may be revoked at will and entirely by its President who then may rule by his own decree or whim.

That is written in the constitution of the musicians’ union and Judge Ferdinand Pecora, certainly no labor-baiter, was so astonished to discover this clause in a trial which came before him that he exclaimed incredulously: “Do you call that a constitution?”

It was bad enough in time of peace

I am coming to the belief that Mrs. Roosevelt knows almost nothing about unionism and that she has closed her mind to the truth. In the present case, her written discussion certainly suggested a vague and confused idea of the dispute, but that would make no difference to anyone who was firmly determined to pre-judge and pre-condemn the union’s opponents, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue.

For nine years Mrs. Roosevelt has been crossing, recrossing and cross-hatching the United States in endless, restless travels, covering hundreds of thousands of miles. She has written and spoken millions of words and collected a vast income and the net public result in accomplishment today is no reform or substantial achievement but an aggravation of certain extremely dangerous group relationships within the population and the salting of Government agencies with personal friends, not all of whom are free of the taint of a political philosophy and association which wars implacably and uncompromisingly against everything that Americanism is.

It was bad enough in time of peace and mere internal economic and social distress that Communists and fellow-travelers should infest the Government by invitation of honored and trusted personages, but to welcome them now in droves to departments having to do with public security is to invite the ghastliest treachery in certain conceivable circumstances in the future course of this war.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s complete retirement would not impair the efficiency of the war effort and would contribute appreciably to peace and unity at home.

---

Clapper: Censors’ code

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – The code issued by the Office of Censorship for newspapers and periodicals happens also to be a good code for the individual citizen. Not much good is done if the military information which is kept out of print circulates around the country by word of mouth. Spies have ears as well as eyes.

Censorship rules forbid information concerning ships, troops, defenses, war production, military damage, the movements of the President, of military or diplomatic missions and of high officials traveling under orders, and the moving of art treasures, except when such information is officially announced by the Government.

Every citizen would find it useful to read over the full text of the rules so as to place himself on guard against careless disclosure. Many citizens will come across military information in their work or observation. It will be helpful if they know exactly what the censorship rules are.

You can hire a hall and make a speech

Nowhere in the code will you find any suggestion that would limit freedom of discussions – as contrasted with disclosure of specific military information. If you think Mayor LaGuardia or Mrs. Roosevelt or both should retire from the Office of Civilian Defense, you can say it in your paper or hire a hall and make a speech. You can complain about defense production, and give free advice, useless or otherwise. The censor will be too busy with more important business to bother you.

The Office of Censorship says the code of secrecy will not mean an editorial or news blackout. “It is the hope and expectation of the Office of Censorship,” says an official statement, “that the columns of American publications will remain the freest in the world, and will tell the story of our national successes and shortcomings accurately and in much detail.”

That applies not only to newspapers but to private citizens as they talk in their homes or in gatherings.

Byron Price, director of censorship, has spent his life in newspaper work, as has his assistant director, John H. Sorrells. They understand the need of public information and discussion and may be counted upon to administer the censorship in harmony with the best interests of our free institutions.

They give this explanation: The outcome of the war is a matter of vital personal concern to the future of every American citizen. The security of our armed forces and even of our homes and our liberties will be weakened in greater or less degree by every disclosure of information which will help the enemy. If everyone will keep those two facts constantly in mind and will apply common sense, he can be his own censor. He needs only to ask himself: “Is this information I would like to have if I were the enemy?”

Knox warns against unrest reports

Does criticism of our Government help the enemy? Probably very little if any. In fact, Secretary of the Navy Knox has warned us to be skeptical of dispatches reporting unrest in Germany. He says most of these dispatches originate in territory under German domination. His inference is that this is information Germany would like us to believe, hoping it might lull us into thinking the war can be won without hard work on our part.

So perhaps criticism at home won’t help the enemy at all. At any rate, whatever comfort the enemy might derive from criticism here at home must be more than offset by the effect of it on our own effort. Undoubtedly strong criticism of war production helped persuade President Roosevelt to make the excellent move of giving Donald Nelson real authority over war production. Undoubtedly enough criticism will compel Mr. Roosevelt to overhaul the Office of Civilian Defense, which is the next weak spot that he ought to tackle.

In other words, the censorship leaves all of us back-seat drivers plenty of material for conversation.

---

Maj. Williams: Strategic Hawaii

By Maj. Al Williams

“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”

We’re in the war and we’ve got to win it. And the only way to win it is to start taking the ball and the plays (initiative) away from the Japs.

The day the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor marked the end of the Pollyanna era of big words. Now we’ve got to start licking this Axis gang with deeds daringly conceived and daringly executed.

We can’t really get started until we have a cleanly-cut definition of the situation in our minds. First off, we’ve got to get to the zones of combat. All hands should be pretty well convinced that we can’t lick Japan in the most efficient fashion by holding to the low road across the Pacific – across the belly of that wide ocean – about 7500 miles, with the use of warships and traditional strategy and tactics plus running the gauntlet of Jap-controlled and fortified islands. There’s a still lower road across that ocean, via Australasia, working from bases in that sector. But that means lines of communication (supply lines) between 7500 to 9000 miles long. And the length of communication lines is just as vital a factor in this war as it has been in every other war and always will be in any war of the future.

Our westernmost major and adequate base is Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. That outpost must be held at all costs. By all costs I don’t mean that our defense personnel must be exhorted to fight to the last man. They did that at Wake and Guam and are doing it in the Philippines. They’ll do it, too, at Hawaii and Pearl Harbor without any exhortation whatsoever.

“Hold Hawaii at all costs” actually means waiving every other consideration, every commitment to Europe, and shipping every last plane, engine, gun, and round of ammunition to Hawaii and Pearl Harbor – NOW.

Japs want Hawaii

The Japanese estimate of the strategic value of Hawaii and Pearl Harbor is best demonstrated by their desperate daring in striking this point first. They knew they were running a terrific military risk in this venture. But, likewise, they knew that if they could cripple this major American outpost in the Pacific, they would then be free to jump the Philippines and Manila.

The Japanese are also well aware of the fact that their future war fortunes in the Pacific are almost entirely dependent upon whether we or they hold Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.

Soundly accepting the enemy at his demonstrated vision level and willingness to risk his all, isn’t it the most logical presumption that he will strike again at Hawaii and Pearl Harbor before we repair and strengthen those key points to impregnability? In the defense of Pearl Harbor, we face the same task the Germans faced in preventing the British from landing in Norway. The British tried it first with the traditional means of warships escorting troopships and some air forces. The Germans relying upon their shore-based airpower, smashed that Norwegian invasion. In possession of Hawaii and Pearl Harbor we can rely upon shore-based airpower – if we send the airpower there.

Those are the premises which lead to the conclusion that every available American bomber and fighter we can produce or are producing must be sent to Pearl Harbor and Hawaii as fast as we can ship or fly them there. The Japs must crack Hawaii and Pearl Harbor or lose the Pacific war.

Many planes are now standing on American East Coast airdromes. Load them off for Hawaii and Pearl Harbor! If Hawaii and Pearl Harbor fall, our Pacific coastline is wide open, and we will be forced to base and sustain attacks on and against our West Coast cities. And, mind you, to get at Pearl Harbor or Hawaii the Japs will have to rely upon carrier-based aircraft and warships, both of which are perfect picking for shore-based airpower.

Mr. Knox’s explanation

Mr. Knox told his press conference, in an attempt to explain why 24-hour patrols were not maintained, that a complete air patrol of the Hawaiian and Pearl Harbor sea areas would require the unbelievable total of 300 long-range planes. What of it?

What if it takes a thousand planes? We have built far more than that and we undoubtedly are building more than that. Pearl Harbor and Hawail are our life keys In the Pacific. The Japs know this, and the Japs are going to jump these two American key posts at the very first opportunity.

This is war, and we’ve got to think in the ruthless terms of war. Why don’t we take a page out of England’s book? Why wait and haggle or bargain with Mr. Litvinoff for air bases in Kamchatka? The British smashed the French fleet at Oran because they were afraid to bargain or wait. Why not jump the Kamchatka bases with bombers and paratroops without a word to anyone and start bombing Japan’s key cities? The Reds could make a good play of being mad at us for such a move to keep clear of open warfare with Japan. But that would be mere child’s play in the diplomatic tearooms.

Why not jump Kamchatka first and argue about it after we have bombed the hell out of Japan? From the United States to Alaska via the Aleutians and Kamchatka to Japan. That’s the high road, the shortest and most effective road – the air road to Japan.

---

1,800 more put on blacklist by government

Rich Swedish industrialist among those name by State Department

WASHINGTON (UP) – The United States today increased to almost 5,000 the number of Axis and non-Axis firms blacklisted from trading or dealing financially with Americans.

The State Department’s latest blacklist includes 1,800 companies and individuals operating in Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.

Axel Wenner-Gren, wealthy Swedish industrialist who is a friend of the Duke of Windsor, was on the list. Wenner-Gren recently arrived in Mexico from Peru and transferred his yacht, Southern Cross, to Mexican registry.

The United States applied the first economic sanctions against Axis firms or firms doing business with the Axis on July 17, 1941. It applied only to firms in South America. That list has been added to, and some names originally on it have been removed.

The latest list follows closely one compiled by Great Britain and is considered a result of the conferences among British and American officials here.

It carries the names of 506 firms or individuals doing business in Portugal, 166 in Portuguese possessions, 569 in Spain, 52 in Spanish possessions, 82 in Sweden, 196 in Turkey and more than 400 in Switzerland.

The firms or individuals may be restored to the good grace of the State Department if they demonstrate satisfactorily that they have severed their trade or financial relations with enemy nations.

[NormanStewart]

U.S. War Department (January 16, 1942)

Communique No. 61

PHILIPPINE THEATER – The War Department has been advised of the safe arrival at Darwin, Australia, of the U.S. Army hospital ship MACTAN carrying a considerable number of soldiers and sailors who were wounded in the Philippines.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

Communique No. 62

PHILIPPINE THEATER – Ground fighting of varying intensity continues all along the front line. Enemy shock troops with special training are attempting aggressive infiltration. Attack planes and dive bombers are being used incessantly by the Japanese against our frontline troops and artillery positions.

Many reports reaching Gen. MacArthur’s headquarters from the occupied areas indicate that the enemy is systematically looting and devastating the entire countryside.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

---

U.S. Navy Department (January 16, 1942)

Communique No. 29

FAR EAST – Units of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet report the sinking of five enemy vessels in Far Eastern waters. They include two large cargo ships, two large transports and one medium-sized transport. These sinkings are in addition to enemy casualties at sea previously reported.

ATLANTIC AREA – The submarine situation along the northeast coast of the United States remains unchanged.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 16, 1942)

Pan-American motion urges Axis ousters

U.S. offers resolution to set up hemispheric ‘FBI’ system
By Everett R. Holles, United Press staff writer

RIO DE JANEIRO (UP) – Resolutions presented to the conference of foreign ministers of the American republics today called flatly for a joint severance of all relations with the Axis, and creation of a vast continental organization, to suppress Axis espionage and sabotage.

Resolutions introduced by the United States and other nations sought:

• A joint severance of relations with the Axis countries.

• Establishment of a hemispheric “FBI” system to round up suspected aliens. This was introduced by the United States.

• Restriction of travel of suspected aliens.

• Prohibition by suspected aliens of radio transmitters and arms.

• Denial of citizenship to alien suspects and revoking citizenship already granted.

• Limitation of the use of aircraft and air fields to friendly nations.

Committee planned

The resolutions aimed at suppression of Axis activities provide for formation of an advisory committee, representing all 21 American republics. This group would begin functioning at once, and would be called the “Committee of Political Defense.” It would operate in conjunction with the Pan-American Union.

Other United States resolutions urged establishment of the strictest control over radio, telephone and cable communications, as well as the elimination of clandestine communication devices. It implied that the United States would furnish radio locaters.

Another United States resolution asked that the Inter-American Neutrality Committee, sitting at Rio de Janeiro, be reorganized into an advisory committee on juridical matters, and that it be empowered to deal with post-war problems.

Present resolution

The resolution calling for a break in diplomatic relations between the American republics and the Axis was presented by Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

South American delegations presented other resolutions asking in effect for financial and military aid in return for their stand with the United States in a strong hemisphere front.

Efforts by Argentine Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guinazu to soften the severance of relations resolution apparently failed, it was revealed. A modification might have provided Argentina – and also Chile and Paraguay – with the means to maintain economic and commercial relations with the Axis.

Contains three parts

The resolution was in three parts. The first contained the same provision as the Havana resolution declaring an aggression against any American nation by a non-American nation to be an aggression against all American nations. The second part said that therefore, the commendatory course for the American nations would be to break off diplomatic, commercial and economic ties with the Axis…

WAR BULLETINS!

Caroline Islands raided

MELBOURNE, Australia – Australian planes raided the Japanese-mandated Caroline Islands last night, the Royal Australian Air Force announced today. One Australian plane failed to return from the attack, which was made in bad weather.

More Chinese troops reach Burma

CHUNGKING, China – Newspapers reported today that a second body of Chinese troops had reached Burma and had proceeded at once to designated garrison sectors. They reported also that a special Chinese military mission would be sent to Washington to take part in Allied war conferences.

Axis ships attacked off Africa

STOCKHOLM – The newspaper Aftonbladet reported from Berlin today that British naval units had attacked Axis shipping in the Spanish harbor of Santa Isabel on the Island of Fernando Po, Spanish West Africa.

Emden, Hamburg fired

LONDON – The Air Ministry said today that British bombers, striking again in strong force, had started large fires at Emden and Hamburg, Germany’s largest port. The RAF struck also at objectives in northwest Germany, and at enemy airdromes in the Low Countries, the announcement said. Six planes were missing from all operations.

Sarawak Rajah reveals big losses

SYDNEY, Australia – Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, rajah of Sarawak, said today Indian troops defending his principality lost half their force but that he had “heard” they “killed 3,000 of 6,000 Japanese who attacked them.” Sarawak was defended “magnificently,” he told the Sydney Telegraph, and “could have been held with 1,000 more men.”

[NormanStewart]

This is official –
U.S. restricts defense gifts

Will accept only those given without strings

Washington (UP) –
Voluntary contributions of money from individuals or organizations for the purchase of war equipment can be accepted by the government provided the offers are wholly unrestricted, the War Department declared today in announcing the plan of employees of the New York Central System, numbering more than 130,000, to collect funds for this purpose.

Several similar programs are being carried out elsewhere.

The War Department made it plain, however, that these gifts, whether of time or money, must be unconditional, otherwise special legislation would be required for their acceptance.

Contributions, moreover, must be to the general funds of the United States and cannot be allocated to the purchase of special pieces of equipment, as a medium tank or a heavy bomber.

The department pointed out that it would be proper for a donor to request that the money be devoted to a specific purpose, leaving its final disposition to the government.

Senator Brewster (R-ME) recently introduced a bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to accept gifts of money from individuals for provisions of materials of war.

[NormanStewart]

Reports verified –
Second vessel sunk off coast

Navy confirms new attack near Long Island

Washington, Jan. 16 (UP) –
The Navy revealed today that a second merchant ship – an Allied vessel of unrevealed nationality and tonnage – has been attacked and presumably sunk by an enemy submarine off the Long Island coast.

Reports of a second submarine attack off Long Island had been in persistent circulation for 24 hours but until noon today, the Navy had reported it was without information on the attack.

The brief statement today gave no details of the second attack beyond the fact that the submarine’s victim was an Allied vessel of foreign registry and that it was presumably sunk.

The announcement of the second attack was made orally by a Navy spokesman, who said:

The Navy Department is now able to confirm that a second merchant ship, a vessel of foreign registry, was attacked by an enemy submarine off Long Island. The vessel, an Allied ship, was presumed to have been sunk.

It seemed likely that the ship was a victim of the same submarine which sank the 9,577-ton Panamanian tanker Norness at 1 a.m. Wednesday about 60 miles southeast of Montauk Point, Long Island…

[NormanStewart]

Favorite programs may fade –
Radio ‘don’ts’ issued

Interviews, quiz broadcasts, ad lib comment on air curbed for duration by censors

Washington, Jan. 16 (UP) –
If one of your favorite radio programs is suddenly changed or taken off the air entirely, don’t be alarmed.

That’s another of those things that go with a nation at war.

The Office of Censorship today issued a set of instructions for the radio industry to follow during the war.

The Office of Censorship said:

Most of the precautions emphasized in the statement are being exercised already by broadcasts on a voluntary basis.

Attention was called to the fact that all newspapers, magazines and periodicals were censored at the national borders, but that no such post-publication censorship was possible in radio. For that reason, newspapers and magazines will sometimes contain information that radio broadcasters are prohibited from using.

The ad lib or informal types of programs will be hardest hit. Under this heading, the Office of Censorship listed four classifications: Request programs, quiz programs, ad lib forums and interviews, and ad lib commentaries and descriptions.

Under the request programs, the Office of Censorship asked that no telephoned or telegraphed requests for musical selections be accepted for the duration. Mail requests should be held for an unspecified length of time, and precautions should be taken against honoring a given request at a specified time.

If a telephone caller, for instance…

[NormanStewart]

U.S. SINKS 5 JAP SHIPS
Navy guns bag 3 transports, 2 cargo boats

Asiatic surface fleet cooperates with subs in telling attack
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer

Washington, Jan. 16 –
The Navy today ran its bag of Japanese warships, transports and supply ships up to 24 with the sinking of five more vessels in the Far East, as General Douglas MacArthur’s men fought off a fierce assault of Japanese shock troops, attack planes and dive bombers.

The new sinkings were achieved by “units of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet,” the Navy communiqué reported, indicating that surface warships as well as submarines may have participated in the attack on Japan’s tenuous sea lines which are vital to her operation of campaigns over thousands of miles of ocean.

The bulk of the previous Navy sinkings have been achieved by U.S. submarines, naval aircraft and the gallant Marine defenders of Wake Island.

Cargo ships included

The latest toll on Japanese sea power included two large cargo ships, presumably of 6,000 tons or better, two large transports, probably about the same size, and one medium-sized transport.

If the Navy is able to continue this rate of sinkings and Dutch and British forces maintain their equally heavy attacks on Japanese sea forces, the punch of the Japanese attacks on Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and General MacArthur’s men on Luzon will be weakened.

The latest Navy sinkings indicate that despite the concentration of Japanese naval power in the Southwest Pacific and the constant operation of fleets of Japanese bombers and observation craft there, Admiral Thomas C. Hart’s far smaller United Nations fleet is still able to challenge the Japanese control of the ocean.

50,000 tonnage

In the latest two days alone, U.S. naval forces have sunk six Japanese ships, including a crack 17,000-ton liner of the Yawata class – a total tonnage of probably close to 50,000 tons. The effect of these sinkings has not yet been noted in Japanese land operations.

The Army communiqué today reported that General MacArthur’s…

[NormanStewart]

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

SCOTIA, Cal. – Since I have become a dog man, I am easy prey to any and all dog stories. This one is about a dog named Blondie.

Blondie belongs to Stan Murphy, president of the Pacific Lumber Co., who has had the rare privilege of bedding and boarding me recently.

As I told you, Murphy is a hunting fiend. It was natural that sooner or later he should have an outstanding dog. Blondie was that dog. Blondie became famous.

He (yes, Blondie is a man-dog) has often been referred to by Tod Powell, who writes “The Woodsman” column in The San Francisco Chronicle, as the greatest hunting dog in California.

Blondie is a setter. Pure white, except for one black ring around his tail. He loved to “work,” as hunters say. He was the workingest setter ever known in this state. He never tired. He would go all day long, and never slacken.

He was the finest retriever any of Murphy’s hunting friends ever knew. He was as good in ice and water as on land. When other hunters’ dogs gave up on finding a downed quail, they would call for Blondie, and he would bring it in. He was always wild to go, and never ready to come home.

One day Stan Murphy and Blondie went for a little hunt by themselves, not far from Murphy’s mountain lodge here in the redwood-forested hills.

Murphy climbed a high hill and stopped to look around. Down below him Blondie was frozen in a set, if that’s the right hunter’s word. Murphy’s cue of course was to go back down and beat out the bird, to repay Blondie for his diligence.

Blondie finds a porcupine

“But I was just too damned lazy to lose the altitude I had gained,” Murphy says. So he gave the order for Blondie to go in after the bird himself. Murphy figured it was just one bird anyway, and he wouldn’t bother with it.

Finally, after many shouted orders, Blondie did go into the brush. Murphy waited. No bird came out. Strange, he thought, for Blondie never made a mistake. He waited longer.

At last he saw the dog come bounding out of the brush, headed uphill. He had something in his mouth. Murphy thought it was a bird, and since it looked all bloody, he was getting ready to give Blondie a scolding for “mouthing” it.

And then to his horror he saw that it wasn’t a bird at all – but that Blondie’s head was a solid mass of porcupine quills.

Murphy says it is the only time he ever heard of a porcupine in this part of the country. Blondie had simply rushed in and dived onto the porcupine, and the result was nearly fatal.

They rushed Blondie to the nearest animal hospital, at Eureka, 40 miles away. The vets put him under anaesthetic and kept him there longer than they had ever kept an animal before. They stacked up the quills in bunches of 25, and when they were through that night they had taken more than 600 quills out of Blondie’s mouth, face and ears.

For three weeks he was a terrifically sick dog, but he came through it. Murphy gave him a long rest, with no hunting at all, and in a few weeks he was in perfect shape.

Then Murphy went to Mexico on his annual hunting trip. It’s always a big party, with a bunch of San Francisco sportsmen making the trip. They take their own dogs, and for years Blondie has been the acknowledged peer of the pack, man or dog.

It’s quitting time, he decides

They drove several miles from the camp to the place where they were to start walking. Gear was unpacked and the hunters made ready. The dogs were turned loose, and the hunters started off. Stan Murphy walked up the hill a little piece.

Usually Blondie was so eager for the hunt that Murphy would have to keep ordering him to “heel” as they started out. But suddenly he realized that Blondie wasn’t ahead of him He stopped and looked back. And where was his great hunting dog?

Sitting in the front seat of the car, looking out the window!

Blondie has never gone hunting again. He simply made his decision and stuck to it. Still in his prime, still the greatest hunter in California, he just quit.

Murphy is not sure what lay back of it, in the dog’s mind. It seems logical to think that the experience with the porcupine caused it. But Murphy doesn’t think so. He feels that somewhere into the dog’s consciousness there just came a voice which said, “You’ve worked too hard and you’ve worked too long. You don’t have to do it any longer. To hell with it.”

He thinks Blondie simply retired one day, all of a sudden, just because he wanted to.

That happened four years ago. Blondie is 12 now, and age is in him. He sleeps about 22 hours a day. He lies in the great redwood lodge here in front of the fireplace, and he twitches and jerks in his dreams. When he gets up it is with a struggle, but he is still gentle and lovable and sweet. He has children and grandchildren, and some of them are great hunting dogs too, but none can approach Blondie before he quit.

Hunters tell me they never heard of such a thing happening before. Murphy starts his story with, “Did you ever hear of the day Blondie quit?” Instead of being disappointed, he seems to admire his great Blondie for the firmness of his decision. And so do I. What Blondie did is what I’ve wanted to do for 20 years. Maybe this will give me courage.

---

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

WASHINGTON – My friends at the Treasury, where they keep the deficit and the veritable IOUs from the other war, including some in denominations of 20 millions autographed in Mussolini’s bold Italian hand, have been asking me to ease the information to about seven million of my fellow-citizens who never have paid an income tax or filed a return that this is the year their woes begin.

On March 15, all these new members of the lodge of sorrow must drop their contributions on the drum, accompanied by their sworn statements that all representations and figures contained therein are, to their best knowledge and belief, true, correct and complete, so help them God, or God help them.

One false move and the hounds of Elmer Irey, of the intelligence unit, will be on them like a chicken on a June-bug and the grim, gray walls of Alcatraz will close them away from their dear ones, even as Al Capone.

Don’t mess with Woolworth trade

Well, perhaps that is putting a too somber face on the matter, because, ordinarily they don’t mess with the Woolworth trade to the extent of criminal prosecutions and, moreover, my friends at the Treasury are a joyous lot of idealists who believe the new class of income tax payers will delight to make out returns and conceive it a patriotic pleasure to shower down on the due-day. But this is nevertheless a no-fooling income tax and it goes for all single-handed earners with no dependents who collect as much as $750 a year, which is a weekly average of about $14.50, and all married persons with no dependents earning as much as $1500 a year.

Those who don’t report and/or pay will be checked up and annoyed and threatened and probably some few flagrant offenders will be prosecuted just as examples and held up to the public scorn as slackers in time of war. Wage-earners who are steadily employed will have no convenient escape, but some casuals who go hop-scotching from job to job and place to place and from one occupation to another may escape the catch-polls.

Up to now, the income-tax amendment has been a piece of class legislation, but those days are gone forever. The income tax is now one of our most democratic institutions and its importance as a producer of revenue will rise as wages rise in the fields of skilled or humble toil and the incomes dwindle of those who in the past were the fat cats and the favorite clients, or victims, of the Treasury.

This will call for systematic saving through the fiscal year in anticipation of March 15 and I cannot forbear to suggest that many citizens who have been paying as much as a tenth of their gross earnings to union racketeers for the privilege of living now will realize that old Sam, their loving uncle, is much less greedy.

A piccolo player, single and without dependents, earning $800 a year, will pay Sam only $3, toward a war to make the world safe for piccolo players, whereas he has been paying the racket three percent of his gross, or $24, toward a fake unemployment benefit alone and as much again for the right not to be conked on the skull with a sawed-off pool cue for less majesty wo some greasy thief.

Due-day is only two months off

The piccolo player is going to reckon that if old Sam will give him a Government and fight a war for him for bucks three, then Sam ought to shoulder in and take the parasite off his neck. He is going to realize that all along Sam has regarded him as po’-folks and is taxing him now only in desperate necessity to buy what it takes to fight a war and remember that during all these years when Sam was giving him a pass, the gorilla in the union office was carrying bloody red hunks out of his poor scrawny flesh and lushing it up in the noisy dumps at night and feeding hand-picked oats to his racing stock at the horse-yards here and von.

The carpenter, building the barracks for the troops, is going to realize that the boards he spoils and the nails that he flings around so wastefully are not just “the Gov’ment’s” but his lumber and nails and he isn’t going to feel so different either about commissions of $5000 or $50,000 paid to grafters posing as lawyers who act as lobbyists in Washington to get orders for contractors who add that loot to their bids.

That graft will come out of the carpenter’s hide and he will be just as alert to cases in which Communists or fellow-travelers are salted away in bureau jobs in Washington at $4000 or $6000 a year in the guise of “research secretaries” and “information specialists.”

If he pets as much as $80 a week and is single with no dependents, he will be paying about $350 to old Sam and, if married, without dependents other than his devoted, if sometimes captious War Department, he will have to sweeten the pot to the extent of $249. He is going to want that money spent for Jap-killing and never mind the deserving ideologists.

It is almost too late for the new hands to start saving for their first experience. Due-day is only two months off and you have to get it up on time, but after March 15 the saving can start from scratch, so much a week or month, for Sam and home and country.

---

Clapper: Changes needed

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – Much is yet to be done beyond the constructive action taken by President Roosevelt in the last few days. He can’t do it all himself, but several situations need the help of his prodding and driving.

For instance, civilian defense needs a shakeup hike the one Mr. Roosevelt gave to war production when he put Donald Nelson in charge.

At last the President seems to have overcome his chronic reluctance to delegate large authority. He seems finally to have become convinced that this show is big enough to need several ringmasters. He shows more disposition now to center a specific responsibility in one man and to back him to the limit.

That is what Mr. Roosevelt finally has done with war production. He is trying to do the same thing in price control by appealing to Congress to go along with him and to abandon the division of authority and the sabotage of price levels which the farm bloc has attempted. In setting up the new War Labor Board, Mr. Roosevelt gave it more power, including that of arbitration. All of this is moving toward more drive, more concentration of authority, and away from the buck-passing paradise of the last 18 months.

Could end Civilian Defense fiasco

While he is going good and while he has public enthusiasm behind these constructive measures, Mr. Roosevelt has a good opportunity to end the fantastic situation in the Office of Civilian Defense. There is no reason why it should be tortured any longer under the part-time theatricals of Mayor LaGuardia and Mrs. Roosevelt. It is sufficient to note the contrast between the confused and chaotic OCD and the quick, smooth organization of auto tire rationing.

When it became necessary to ration tires, Leon Henderson called in Frank Bane, executive director of the Council of State Governments. From there on it was easy. Mr. Bane, through his contact with state governments, and with the aid of expediters he knew from previous work, passed the word down the line and in less than a week tire rationing boards had been set up in almost every community to work under regulations issued at Washington.

The secret was in turning the job over to a skilled person who knew how to reach into the grassroots and get the local people who would do the work. You haven’t heard much about it, because it is the bungled jobs that attract attention. Fortunately, OCD didn’t get its hands on tire rationing, although it no doubt wanted to.

Criticism is bitter inside OCD

Those who try to do business with the Office of Civilian Defense report that they find utter and complete confusion – as one official caller put it, the worst in 8000 years of history.

Mayor LaGuardia had mayors set up local councils and then asked the governors to set up local councils, so that in some places two sets are functioning. Buying of equipment is reported to follow the most antiquated Army methods. Criticism is as bitter inside OCD as it is outside. In fact, one hears no good word about OCD except from Mayor LaGuardia and Mrs. Roosevelt.

Some advocate that it be grouped with the Federal Security Agency under a kind of home security division which would link health and employment services more closely with it, to deal not only with air-raid protection but with public health and employment dislocations. Aside from these interests, civilian defense work is largely an extension of ordinary municipal functions – preparations for quick repair of water mains, repaving of damaged streets, and restoration of all kinds of local services, which must be done by local authorities independently of Washington.

---

Maj. Williams: Pacific theater

By Maj. Al Williams

“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”

This war has certainly made the general staffs of the world air-minded, to say the least. Prior to the outbreak, the housing of aircraft in hangars was a commonly accepted practice. A few heavy bombs or a scattering of dive bombing soon demonstrated the old adage, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” A couple of bombs wiped out everything in the hangar involved.

Now the practice is to stake out the planes with plenty of distance in between. Furthermore, there’s a nice little trick in staking out planes so that they are not easily distinguishable by prying eyes aloft by placing them in portions of the field where the earth or faded grass color blends with the camouflage of the planes. A change in seasons dictates this selection of the stake-out areas. It’s always been an essential war job not only to possess war machinery, but to hide it. And in no other war has the biding been so difficult.

Daydreaming cost us the Pearl Harbor disaster and the tough end of the current Philippine mess. It’s time to quit sentimentality and nonsense and do some clean-cut, cold, Yankee thinking.

I’m still asking why our Russian allies haven’t leased or have refused to lease their air bases in Kamchatka from which our long-range bombers could get at Japan’s heart cities. Realists never delude themselves when studying war strategy, war motives, or purposes. History most clearly demonstrates the cold calculating basis from which each stage of every war has been planned. The big balancing factor in this entire war is the aircraft production facilities and the output of those facilities here in the U.S.

Australia’s warning

Evidence that other people besides the writer of this column are aware of the cold, deadly selfishness in war strategy is found in Australia’s warning to England that the war in the Pacific is not a side show, and that she, Australia, will not tolerate any such conception of the Pacific struggle. Said the Prime Minister of Australia on this point, “we refuse to accept the dictum that the Pacific struggle is a subordinate segment of the general conflict.”

The English and the Reds must have all the American aircraft and aircraft engines they can get to match and overmatch the Nazi air strength. On the other hand, our own struggle in the Pacific is a major fighting war business with us, as well as for the Australians. To the U.S. and Australia, Jap dominance or victory in the Pacific is a life-and-death matter. For instance, figure from the worst that could possibly happen (and that’s a typical Yankee method of plotting out possibilities). We have already lost our most advanced naval base at Cavite. That bases our fleet on Pearl Harbor, 4767 nautical miles (about 5400 statute miles) to the east of the Philippines, with the network of Jap-fortified islands squarely across the sea lines.

Now consider the troubles of the British in Malaya. It long has been my suspicion that the true lowdown on Japan’s strategy in China has been muffed and fumbled. I have talked with men who have studied the Sino-Japanese War on the spot. They all agree that the Japs seldom, if ever, had more than a hundred thousand men on the Chinese front at any one time. They likewise agreed that the hundred thousand was changed time and again. In short, the Japs used the Chinese War in much the same fashion as European nations used the Spanish Civil War as a proving and training ground for equipment and men. Meanwhile, all during this Sino-Japanese War, the Japs have been slowly acquiring additional sea coast bases down the coast of Asia – ever reaching nearer and nearer to Malaya, Singapore and the fabulously rich East Indies.

Communication is vital

Time and again we have insisted that the length of communications lines is still a vital factor in warfare. With bases closely tied together from Japan all the way down the coast of Asia, the Japs are in a position to keep a steady flow of men and planes and munitions flowing toward the Malaya combat zone. This is a vital factor when one stops to consider that, according to the British and Nazis (and they know what they are talking about by this time), about 80 percent replacements of aircraft must be supplied to a full-out air war operations per month. Against this, British plane replacements must come more than 7500 miles from the U.S. And airpower in the Pacific is just as vital a factor as it has been proven to be in the European struggle.

Therefore, it is a question as to which war – the European or the Pacific – the bulk of our American aircraft production shall be sent. The fact that Australia’s Prime Minister selected this time to demand full consideration for the Pacific war indicates he feared the bulk of our planes would not go to the Pacific.

[NormanStewart]

U.S. War Department (January 17, 1942)

Communique No. 63

PHILIPPINE THEATER – A heavy Japanese attack against the right flank of American and Philippine troops in the Bataan Peninsula is now in progress. This attack is well supported by aircraft and artillery.

The assailants greatly outnumber the defending troops. However, our soldiers are stubbornly contesting the attempted advance.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

---

U.S. Navy Department (January 17, 1942)

Communique No. 30

FAR EAST – A U.S. submarine has sunk three enemy merchant ships off Tokyo Bay.

Adm. Thomas C. Hart has assumed control of Allied naval forces in Far Eastern waters.

ATLANTIC AREA – Enemy submarine activities off the northeast coast of the United States continue.

There are no further developments to report from other areas.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 17, 1942)

Carole Lombard, 21 others die in crash of flaming transport

15 Army aviators aboard; film star’s mother and press agent victims

Career ends in mountain crash

Miss Carole Lombard, the movie star, was among the 21 persons aboard a Transcontinental & Western Airlines plane which exploded and crashed into a Nevada mountain last night.

Las Vegas, Nevada (UP) –
Film star Carole Lombard and 21 other persons were believed to have been killed last night when a Transcontinental & Western Airlines plane crashed into Table Rock Mountain.

15 of the passengers were pilot officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. Army Ferry Command returning to their West Coast bases.

Among the victims were Staff Sgt. Edgar A. Nygren and Sgt. Robert F. Nygren, whose home addresses were given as Route 1, Dunbar, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and Staff Sgt. Albert M. Belejacbak, 706 Main St., Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Miss Lombard’s husband, Clark Gable, flew here in private plane and joined searching squads at the foot of the Table Mountain on the eastern slope of Death Valley.

Los Angeles offices of TWA said pilot Art Cheney of Western Air Express, who flew over Table Rock Mountain shortly after the crash, had reported to them he saw flames on the slopes, and believed it was the TWA plane.

Accompanied by mother

The actress was accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Peters, and her press agent, Otto Winkler, a studio representative of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which held her contract. They boarded the plane yesterday at Indianapolis, where Miss Lombard had participated in a defense bond sales campaign.

The plane crashed about 20 miles west of here at 7:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. EST) a few minutes after it had left Las Vegas on the last leg of a transcontinental flight to Los Angeles, 300 miles west of here.

Miners in the vicinity said they heard the plane explode with a thunderous roar. Flames from the burning wreckage could be seen for miles.

Heard explosion

O. E. Saylor, purchasing agent at the Blue Diamond Lead Mine, said he heard the plane overhead a few minutes after it left Las Vegas. He said:

Then we heard an explosion and saw the plane afire against the mountain.

D. Houston, an employee at the mine, said he failed to hear the crash but joined other onlookers five minutes later and still could see the glow against the mountain.

Clark County police officers recruited Tweed Wilson, septuagenarian Indian, to aid in the search. Army officers ordered trucks and “jeeps” into the area.

Horsemen used

The scene of the crash was almost inaccessible. A dozen horsemen and a powerful tractor were pressed into service.

The snow-covered mountain is an 8,000-foot elevation at the lower end of the Charleston Range, which separates Nevada from Death Valley. It rises almost 5,000 feet from the valley on either side.

Willard George, Los Angeles furrier who owns the ranch where Tweed Wilson works, said he saw the plane passing in the twilight and that its tail appeared to be bobbing up and down in a peculiar manner.

He said:

It seemed to be out of control for a time as though someone was fighting in the cockpit.

Crashed near beacon

A few minutes after the plane passed from view, it crashed against the mountain not far from a beacon marking its course.

Major H. W. Anderson, executive officer of the Air Corps Gunnery School at McCarran Field, was in charge of the searching party. Because of the rugged terrain, it was believed it would be several hours before the party reached the scene.

The transport left Las Vegas just at dusk and was apparently behind schedule. The course from Las Vegas to Los Angeles is not lighted, although beacons mark the path.

The airline reported only one civilian passenger, Lois Hamilton of Detroit, in addition to the three Hollywood residents, aboard the plane.

Members of the crew included:

• Pilot W. C. Williams,
• Co-pilot Morgan A. Gillette,
• Miss Alice F. Getz, hostess.

[NormanStewart]

Sales record won by Miss Lombard

Washington (UP) –
A Treasury spokesman today credited Carole Lombard with being instrumental in bringing about the largest recorded sales of defense savings bonds.

He said Miss Lombard journeyed from Hollywood to Indianapolis early this week to star in the first of a series of rallies to promote sales of defense stamps and bonds, and that $2 million worth of bonds were sold as a result.

[NormanStewart]

Philippine peril grows –
Japs assailing flank in Luzon

MacArthur’s forces fight fierce enemy attack
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer

Washington, Jan. 17 –
General Douglas MacArthur’s forces today fought stubbornly against a fierce Japanese attack by infantry, artillery and aircraft directed by superior enemy forces against the right wing of their northern Bataan Province lines.

The American and Filipino troops, the War Department communiqué admitted, are greatly outnumbered by the Jap assault troops.

The War Department reported:

A heavy Japanese attack against the right flank of American and Philippine troops in the Bataan Peninsula is now in progress. This attack is well supported by aircraft and artillery.

The assailants greatly outnumber the defending troops. However, our soldiers are stubbornly contesting the attempted advance.

Mention by the communiqué of the “right flank” of General MacArthur’s lines indicated that the Jap assault is being launched in the Hermosa area in an effort to drive down the eastern Bataan coastal road toward Mariveles, communications port through which General…

[NormanStewart]

‘We’ll oust Axis if –’
Pan-Americans ask guarantee

Call for assurance U.S. can defend them
By Everett R. Holles, United Press staff writer

Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 17 –
A complete break of the American nations with the Axis was understood today to depend on the ability of the United States to guarantee a definite schedule of defense and economic aid to Argentina, Chile and Paraguay at the emergency conference of American foreign ministers.

Those nations and, to a lesser extent, Peru, were said to feel that concurrence in a resolution calling for a joint severance of diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan would amount to a declaration of war and the Axis might immediately undertake reprisals.

Ask about weapons

As one prominent South American military figure put it:

We first want to know how and when we are going to get weapons to defend ourselves before we embark on such a dangerous step.

Sumner Welles, United States Under Secretary of State and head of the United States delegation, was believed to be communicating with Washington about what military aid, including destroyers for convoy duty he could promise.

Argentine Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú said he would offer no resolution to the conference, but his terms for joining the United American front were known to be similar to Chile’s.

Chile wants ships

Chile, for “all facilities compatible with a state of active non-belligerency,” wants:

• Ships;
• Guns;
• A speeding of priorities for expansion of her dock facilities, electrification, railroads and enlargement of airdromes;
• A $120 million long-term loan for “direct” and “indirect” defense projects;
• Benefits from the seizure of 350,000 tons of Axis shipping in South American waters;
• Abandonment of United States war plants – such as those for producing nitrogen – that would hinder Latin-American exports after…

[NormanStewart]

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

SCOTIA, Cal. – People from the east who drive up the Redwood Highway for the first time almost invariably wax enthusiastic over the monstrous trees.

I’ve heard scores of people speak of their sensations at driving among the giant redwoods, and invariably they say the same thing – how insignificant they feel before the majesty of nature.

Well, I’ve driven through the redwoods many times. I don’t remember what I thought the first time, but my main feeling now is a desire to get out of them, because it’s like driving in a tunnel. You are surrounded, enveloped, closed down upon, and I get a form of claustrophobia from being among them.

So, like all people who eat too much cake, my day of sensitive appreciation of the redwood forests is gone. When I come into them now I don’t say, “Ernest, you are insignificant.” No, I just say, “Ernest, here are those damn big trees again.”

I do, however, enjoy looking at redwood lumber. I’m sort of crazy about wood anyway, I’ve always wanted to be a cabinetmaker. And wooden sculpture is about the only form of art I appreciate. I love to feel of wood, love to look at it. Even finished lumber gives me a warm sensation.

If I ever get rich, I think I’ll build a shed about the size of a barn, fill it full of lumber, and just go around each day admiring it, as other people might stroll through their private art galleries.

Redwood lumber is beautiful. It seems to come in all shades of red – some so pale you can hardly tell it is redwood; some so violently red that it resembles the “purple heart” wood of Guiana jungles in South America.

Largest trees preserved

For years I have been laboring under two delusions about redwood – (1) that it was a crime to be cutting down those big trees, and (2) that the lumber wasn’t much good anyhow.

As usual, I was wrong. There is no danger of the redwood becoming extinct. The most spectacular of the big trees have been safely preserved in parks and groves, the better for posterity to see.

Nor are the lumber forests on the verge of demolition. There is right now enough redwood standing to last for 80 or 100 years, and new growths are coming in all the time.

As for the lumber, it’s fine. We don’t see it used so much in houses, because it is expensive. But when you do build a house of redwood, it is there practically forever. That is its chief virtue – it just doesn’t wear out.

At the lumber mill here they showed me some eave-troughs made of redwood, to use instead of metal gutters. “How long would those last?” I asked. “Four or five years?”

The man looked at me as though I were a moron. “Fifty or 60 years,” he said.

Redwood will burn, but it’s about the most fire-resistant of woods. You don’t see many stark and ghostly fire-paths in the redwood forests. They protect themselves well.

And when a redwood tree goes down, it will lie there for ages without rotting. They recently hauled in and sawed up a log that had been on the ground 500 years – and it made good lumber. They could tell how long it had been down, because a new tree had grown on top of it, and that tree was 500 years old by ring count.

One specimen 2300 years old

We’re always hearing about the great age of these redwood trees. The Pacific Lumber Co. has cut one tree that was 2300 years old. But that is practically freakish. They say the ideal cutting age is about 75 years. So you see the forest can renew itself in one person’s lifetime.

Since this country at war will have to have lots of wood, I assumed that outfits like the Pacific Lumber Co. would be swamped for the duration with government orders, and would get high priorities for new milling machinery and what not, I mentioned this.

They said, “No, not at all. It’s true the government will have to have lots of lumber, but it doesn’t have to have redwood. It’s too expensive. We won’t be getting much priority.”

Redwood costs about twice as much as ordinary lumber. Not because there isn’t plenty of it, but because there’s so much waste in getting it into lumber.

For one thing, the trees are so big they go down with an awful smash, and there’s often considerable damage. For another, the older trees are “overripe,” and there is wastage in the center. For another the bark is so thick, and it’s expensive to get off.

As a result of this high cost, a good portion of the redwood produced goes into specialty uses, rather than for straight building construction. It is used for cigar boxes, and oil tanks in Texas, and for caskets, and grave vaults, and for foundations in termite country. I want a redwood oil tank for Christmas next year.

---

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

WASHINGTON – The seven million who will become income-tax payers on March 16, as well as the veterans who have enjoyed this delight of citizenship before, surely will be pleased and startled to learn that Sen. Joe Guffey of Pennsylvania, for many years a deadhead passenger on the ship of state and often a guest at the skipper’s own table, finally has picked up a tab for a little matter of $4000 that rested on the dead-hook at the Bureau of Internal Revenue since many fighters in the present war were just toddling little boys.

Yes, friends, that sterling statesman finally remembered to pay off at Pittsburgh, after many reminders from certain less admirable elements of newspaperdom including your correspondent, and from ordinary taxpayers and political opponents in his home town. He stood it off for nigh onto 20 years, and, by a quirk of the law or the regulations which the common citizen might not understand, this honest debt of $4000 had been outlawed.

Always lived rather sumptuously

But Sen. Guffey recently had an attack of patriotism, conscience or political judgment and threw his owings into the pot, but without interest. How this august Senator and great and altruistic New Dealer could get a pass in the matter of the interest on his old debt is something else that had better not be explained, lest other citizens who fall in arrears demand the same favor.

Interest runs up fast at the rate of 6 percent, compound, and the naked interest alone would have been about $4800 by the time the Senator remembered to take his name off the board.

Your correspondent’s actuary is a strict union man on a five-day week and isn’t on hand at this writing to compute the compound interest, but, of course, it would have been much more and, moreover, back in the early days of this long stand-off, interest ran at the rate of 1 percent a month compound.

So, the interest, if Sen. Guffey had not been excused the interest, would have been a very tasty contribution to the cost of the guns and other gear of war for which the common man is now assessed an income tax on earnings as little as $800 a year. But the Treasury never expected to get the $4000, so let us not be nasty.

During all this time, the Senator always said, when reminded, that he would pay off when he could. As Senator, of course, he has received $10,000 a year salary, plus the little pickings, such as mileage, which the members of the New York legislature call their Lulus, but, somehow, he never could lay up a cent until lately.

Ten thousand a year is around $200 a week and you would have thought that a good manager would have been able to put aside $4000 in three or four years, but you just don’t know. Sen. Guffey always has lived rather sumptuously, but during most of this time he was technically a very poor man with nothing in his own name, and signed all his checks as “Joseph F. Guffey, agent.”

Guffey threatened to make a speech

The Senator often got cross when reminded of his debt to the people, denouncing these reminders as destructive criticism, and once, in a greater anger over some mention in these dispatches, he called in Mr. Fred Perkins, the Washington correspondent of The Pittsburgh Press, and warned him that if this ever happened again he would make a speech on the Senate floor against your correspondent’s cherished employer. That put your correspondent on a spot, as he did not wish to bring down the Senator’s personal revenge on his cherished employer in the guise of official business of the United States Senate.

But one day your correspondent decided that his cherished employer would have to take it as a human sacrifice to journalistic integrity and gave Sen. Guffey a good poke with the needle and, sure enough, he spraddled all over our helpless employer who had nothing to do, with the needling.

The Senator couldn’t intimidate us. You didn’t imagine a Senator would do that to take the heat off a criticism of himself for dead-beating Uncle Sam, did you? Well, you live and learn. They get all kinds there.

In the last campaign in Pittsburgh, the opposition put out some little contribution boxes labeled “Guffey income tax collection: Drop donations here.” And in the collector’s office, say, “All right, here’s mine; now go and get Guffey’s.” These manifestations may have stimulated the Senator’s patriotism, because he may be running for governor this year and, with all the low-bracket people paying income tax now, that old matter of $4000 owed by a man who lives so high and gets upward of $10,000 a year, might have been a serious embarrassment.

It might, even so, although another check for, say, $8000 more, to take care of the compound interest, might take off some of the heat.

---

Clapper: Nelson’s power

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – No basis existed for fears that President Roosevelt would not go through with his promise to give Donald Nelson complete power over war production.

The executive order is out now in black and white. It goes all the way. Confidentially, the order was drafted by Mr. Nelson and one of his lawyers. They put into it everything they could think of. All of it stayed in. Steve Early said Mr. Nelson was told to write his own ticket. This is it.

The fact that the Nelson War Production Board is established within the Office for Emergency Management means nothing. Forget it. The fact that OPM is not abolished and that the two heads of it are on the War Production Board means nothing. The War Production Board has only the power to give “advice and assistance” to the chairman, who is Mr. Nelson.

The powers given Mr. Nelson are, so far as I can recall, the largest ever invested in one man aside from the President himself.

Can order procurement methods

Mr. Nelson is told to exercise general direction over the war procurement and production program. That is a generality. But note the next section. He is to determine the policies, plans, procedures and methods of all Federal departments and agencies in respect to war procurement and production. This is made specific by mention of purchasing, contracting, specifications, construction, conversion, requisitioning, plant expansion and financing thereof. Furthermore he is to issue such directives in those matters as he may deem necessary or appropriate.

Practically the whole war government is packed into that brief section. It means that Mr. Nelson can prescribe the methods to be used in Army and Navy procurement. Those services will remain where they are but the directing hand is Mr. Nelson’s. His power extends even over specifications. This goes to the heart of much of the trouble with war production – the slow, tangled, old-style procurement methods of the services.

Next Mr. Nelson is given authority to supervise OFM and to direct such changes in its organization as he may deem necessary. That language seems to make him the boss.

He is instructed to report directly to the President. There has been talk that Mr. Nelson ought to have Cabinet rank. This order gives him a special pass to operate anywhere in the Government. To make him a Cabinet officer would be stepping him down from a higher perch.

One other matter. Mr. Roosevelt in the executive order puts the rest of the Government at Mr. Nelson’s disposal. The order specifies that Federal departments and agencies shall comply with policies, plans, methods and procedures in respect to war production and procurement as determined by Mr. Nelson. Furthermore – and this is vital – they shall furnish to him such information relating to war procurement and production as he may deem necessary.

May expand joint munitions board

You wouldn’t know it unless you worked around here but one of the hardest jobs of a Government official is to find out what he needs to know from another branch. OPM has had trouble finding out what the Army and Navy were up to. If the Navy ordered a quantity of aluminum, it didn’t have to tell OPM why. OPM might find that steel would do just as well. It has been difficult to find out what was coming up so as to start laying out the materials that would be needed.

Incidentally the Army and Navy Munitions Board must now report through Mr. Nelson instead of direct to the President. Possibly Mr. Nelson intends to expand the joint munitions board and transfer much of the work now down by OPM into one basket. That might be a smart way – build up the existing procurement machinery instead of trying to rip it apart and set up a new civilian procurement and supply agency as some have suggested. The President’s decision to put William S. Knudsen in the War Department as a lieutenant general seems to fit into such a design.

Lastly, there is this line in the executive order about Mr. Nelson: “His decisions shall be final.”

There it is – at last, after a year and a half.

---

Maj. Williams: Reactionarism

By Maj. Al Williams

“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”

The saddest, most pitiful monument to reactionarism in this war is represented by giant guns mounted in concrete against warship attack. Cool and helpless, they point toward the horizon, and cool they remain as the air bombers streak and lay their deadly loads.

It is well to remember that all too often a monument erected in honor of some victory for one commander is also a monument commemorating the reactionarism of his defeated opponent. On a highway near Pittsburgh there is a monument to Gen. Braddock. Gallant he was, but Braddock died on the site of that monument, and to my way of thinking, that is a monument to reactionarism – to a soldier who insisted upon using status-quo methods for fighting in a new land.

Braddock had been told and warned that European methods of marching into battle in solid-line formations, with troops dressed in easily distinguishable uniforms, would not fit frontier warfare as developed in America. He had been told to crawl on his belly from rock to tree to bush. But Braddock was determined to fight the war this way. He did and lost – and paid with his life for his “status-quo-ism.” History teems with similar instances. We must always bear this in mind in this newest and most revolutionary of wars.

We were shortsighted

When I say newest of wars, isn’t it apparent that this age was caught flat-footed by airpower? Everybody knew that winged weapons existed. They knew that infant air forces had wreaked havoc in World War I. Historical records clearly explain the plight of German cities in and about the Ruhr section and the panic created by the steady air bombardment by the Allied air forces during the latter part of World War I. The inhabitants of those cities suffered so badly that they petitioned the Kaiser’s high command for protection against this dread menace from the sky.

Did it require more than half good sense and logic to realize that such damage created by inconsequential numbers of bombers – bombers of inferior performance at that – could be immeasurably and terribly increased as the performance and numbers of bombers were increased? The “experts” were caught far off first base, flat-footed and baffled, by the new use of known weapons. Possibly the only other comparable instance might have been when gunpowder was first used on battlefields.

Up to that time, the knight-boss of a county or a couple of counties, and the richest and most powerful man. was clothed in armor and mounted on an armored horse. Such equipment was far beyond the means of his henchmen, except perhaps the next richest subordinates – his retainers. The iron-clad knight was supreme. He galloped and hacked his way through the ranks of peasantry soldiers who were clad for the most part in leather jerkins and armed with bows and arrows and knives and clubs. Of course he was supreme and vulnerable only at the joints of his armor and the openings in the visor of his helmet.

Guns topple knights

Then came the day when a comparatively unarmored soldier stood behind a bell-mouthed tube that had been stuffed with black grams of gunpowder and stone. A lighted torch of fatwood was applied to the near end of the tube. An explosion – matched only by thunder – a blast of flame and smoke, and the heaviest armored knight was toppled off his horse. That day ushered in the new weapons which depended upon explosives and new methods of warfare.

And to complete this curious story, do you know that the reactionaries of that period were just as hard to sell on gunpowder warfare as the old guard has been to sell on airpower? It’s true. Every failure of the really crude gunpowder weapons, every time the attempt was made to fire them in or after heavy rain or when the wind was too high to keep a torch alight, the old armor-plated lads cried to high heaven against the folly of such nonsensical weapons.

Did you know that in the official records there is a report of an admiral who had been assigned one of the early steam-driven warships and his recorded complaint of these “silly steam kettle warships” was about as follows: “I had to uncouple the main engines from the screw to operate the ash hoist and heave the ashes overboard. To do this in battle, the loss of headway would undeniably result in defeat.” Such was the official report of a sailing ship expert.

Prior to World War I, Foch, later the brilliant Generalissimo of the Allied Forces, remarked of the airplanes he was watching at an air meet that these contrivances were “expensive military toys.” In or about 1921, however, the same Foch, clearly and forcefully predicted that airpower would play a tremendously important part in any modern war.

---

U.S. Fleet protects Pacific sea lanes

(1) Hawaiian Islands, main base for America’s Pacific Fleet.
(2) Jap naval forces reported massed near Marshall Islands.
(3) “Stepping-Stone” islands for U.S. defense of Hawaii.

U.S. fleet in action…
Many Jap subs sunk

Reporter with American warships in Pacific gives picture of men at battle stations
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

The first dispatch from correspondents with the United States warship forces operating in the Pacific follows. It is the first direct word from naval forces since the war started.

ABOARD A U.S. WARSHIP IN PACIFIC WAR ZONE – The United States Fleet is in action in the Pacific war zone and has sunk a number of Jap submarines.

It is impossible to disclose the number because such a disclosure would be of value to Japan.

But it was made known today that the operations of the Pacific Fleet had been sufficiently successful to provide ample proof of the Navy’s statement that it was not idle.

Protect ‘stepping stones’

It is impossible also, for naval reasons, to disclose the details of action taken by the force of which this vessel is a part, and by similar forces.

It can be said nevertheless that the American Navy is constantly on the alert in the Pacific war zone to intercept any Jap attempt to seize such American “stepping stones” as Midway, Johnston and Palmyra Islands, which lie northwestward (1,320 miles), southwestward (675 miles) and southward (900 miles) of the Hawaiian Islands, America’s mid-Pacific outpost.

United States naval forces are operating far from their bases, patrolling wide areas of the Pacific.

Fear mid-ocean trap

The fleet is refusing to risk the possibility of a mid-ocean trap in which the Japanese might, learning of the presence of an individual force of ships, concentrate a fleet in strength.

As Navy Secretary Frank Knox recently said, the Navy is waiting and will carry the fight to the enemy when it is ready to do so.

It is necessarily a secret business. American policy is based on the idea that it is best to keep the enemy guessing and waiting, for instance, for overdue submarines to return. That is one reason why it cannot be said how many Jap submarines have been sent to the bottom.

Expect surprise move

The Japanese will not be aided, however, by the news that the destroyer force, working closely with patrol planes of the fleet, has accounted for its share of Jap submarines since the sneak attack on Hawaii December 7.

Vigilance in the fleet could hardly be intensified, but it was made known today that Allied forces throughout the world, including the mid-Pacific area, were taking extra precautions against a possible surprise Axis move, timed to coincide with the current Pan-American conference at Rio de Janeiro.

In connection with these precautions, foreign broadcasts heard here reported Jap concentrations in the Marshall Islands, 2,400 miles south of Hawaii.

Could strike at Tahiti

Belief was that if the Axis made any move at the moment, it would be intended to lower American prestige in the Rio de Janeiro meeting, and that simultaneous Jap and German thrusts might be made.

From the Marshall Islands, the Japanese could strike at Midway, Johnston or Palmyra Islands or at Samoa, south of Palmyra and nearly 3,000 miles south of Hawaii. They might strike at Free French Tahiti in the Society Islands 1,430 miles east of Samoa, which is in the Panama Canal route to the Far Pacific.

Johnston and Palmyra have naval and air stations. Midway is the key to the defense of Hawaii.

Maintain constant watch

Japan has strong bases in the Marshalls and in the Carolines to the west. It is believed that planes based in the Marshalls attacked Wake Island. The Japanese have established themselves in the British-mandated Gilbert Islands, 500 miles south of the Marshalls, and are believed to have seized bases in the Ellice Islands, 250 miles south of the Gilberts.

Silent always, and by night, ghostly, the United States Fleet with its thousands of American men, pursues its steady zig-zagging course, maintaining a constant watch on the approaches far outside Hawaii and to the Pacific Coast of the homeland.

This ship in which I am writing is part of the force assigned to patrol a certain sector of the Pacific.

To port and starboard, ahead, astern, other vessels of the force steam quietly, all on their course in a formation set by the force commander, the rear admiral aboard the flagship.

No light shows anywhere on any of the ships we know are near as we watch from the sky control platform high on the mast.

Here’s action after alarm

Seconds after an alarm sounded, this ship and the accompanying force would be throwing steel and lead at an enemy on a rapid-fire order from both heavy and light batteries, while the “general quarters” call sounded and the entire ship’s company ran to battle stations in a matter of minutes.

As we steam along, the gunnery officer orders another drill to put the gun crews through the routine they would follow if an enemy force were sighted.

It would go like this:

“Enemy vessel three five oh!” the control officer shouts, relaying a shout from the lookout.

‘Enemy vessel 3-5-0’

“Enemy vessel three five oh!” the talker repeats into the mouthpiece of the telephone suspended from his neck, thus passing the word to the bridge and the gun crews that an enemy craft has been sighted 350 degrees from the ship, taking the ship as the center of the 360-degree circle.

“Range four six hundred!” the sky control officer announces, relaying from his observer. The enemy ship is not quite 3¼ miles away, or 4,600 yards.

While the sky control officer has been announcing and relaying information, and the news passed to the guns and the bridge, the big turrets of the main battery already have been swung to port and the secondary battery on that side of the ship has been trained forward off the port bow.

‘Commence firing!’

It is assumed to be night, and the big searchlights have been brought to bear on the point. Everything is ready.

“Strike arcs!” the bridge telephones the searchlight crew.

They turn on their power but no light appears.

“Open shutters! Commence firing!” the bridge orders.

As the searchlight beams hit the enemy, the guns open fire almost simultaneously and the main and secondary batteries start throwing their hail of shells.

“Cease fire!” comes the order and it is over.

Deadly earnest this time

Later, the other half of the crew relieve those who have been on duty.

A lookout shouts: “Lights zero six oh!”

This time, the guns swing out in deadly earnest. It is not drill. But a search of the horizon fails to reveal a light. It might have been a shooting star, but no chances are taken in these waters, prowled by enemy vessels, and all unusual lights and other objects are reported, and guns are trained until identification is made.

In daytime, it might be a whale on or near the surface, seen or picked up by the exceedingly delicate detector apparatus. Many whales have been victims of depth charges or airplane bombs.

---

Stricter tire curb in store

Henderson warns output for civilians may end

WASHINGTON – Price Administrator Leon Henderson warned last night that “we are almost done with manufacturing tires on a civilian basis,” and that the impact of tire and tube rationing “has scarcely been felt yet.”

Opposing a bill before the House district committee which would permit Washington taxi drivers to buy new equipment, he said the “mailbags are full” of requests that the rationing restrictions be relaxed for “special groups.”

Must last long time

“The answer is simply that there are not enough tires to go around,” he said. “We must allocate our stocks over a long period – and that period extends until our military arms are successful.”

Barring unforeseen developments, he said, a stockpile of nine million tires should be available “for the duration” to civilian consumers who normally buy 35 million annually. If restrictions were lifted, he added, the number on hand would “disappear in a bare three months.”

Urges approval of bill

Rep. William T. Schulte, D-Indiana, pleaded for approval of the bill, arguing that local transportation is vital to defense and that “the Burma Road is a pleasure in comparison to Washington’s most damnable, abominable transportation system.”

Mr. Henderson announced later that the tire rationing order has been amended to permit “eligible” light truck operators to buy six and eight-ply tires as well as those of four-ply.

Fleet to get rubber

The Navy, meanwhile, announced that synthetic rubber and plastic substitutes developed by research men during the past three years would meet almost all of the fleet’s requirements and that present production facilities would be adequate if the Navy were given their entire output.

Sen. Sheridan Downey, D-California, introduced a resolution to create a special five-man committee to investigate rubber supplies and the development of substitutes. He said that despite “reassuring” reports of Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones and others, there is only an 18-month supply on hand and that synthetic production should be increased to 400,000 pounds annually.

---

Editorial: Bands, songs and cheers

One trouble with this war so far is – no bands. Anyway, not enough bands.

During the period between the World War and the present one, such things as martial music and flag-waving fell into disfavor. It was felt that they tended to excite interest in war, and no one wanted to do that.

Now that we are at war, however, we can make good use of the emotional “shot in the arm” that is provided by band music, parades, cheers, songs and, yes, flag-waving. Singing nations have always fought better than dour ones.

It would seem that bands, parades and patriotic rallies might well be used to help raise money for the Red Cross, to promote the sale of defense bonds and stamps, to stimulate registrations for civilian defense activities or volunteers for the Armed Forces.

Why not have an occasional band concert in or near defense plants at lunch periods? If we know anything about the effect of patriotic airs upon the average American, the workers would go back to their all-important tasks with greater enthusiasm and determination.

Above all, draftees and volunteers should be sent away, whenever possible, with music and cheers. There has been all too little of that. Most of our soldiers-to-be have gone to their trains with nothing to distinguish them from commuters, traveling salesmen or young men going to visit relatives in Hoboken.

As for the rest of us, it is possible that we are being a little too grim about this war. It is serious, of course; extremely serious. But our morale would be better, and we would make greater contributions to the cause, if we went on an emotional spree every once in a while.

All this is not to say, of course, that we should go hysterical. Quite the contrary. But there are still a lot of people who haven’t taken the war to heart. A little pep might stiffen them up.

Strike up the bands.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 18, 1942)

U.S. SINKS 3 JAP SHIPS OFF TOKYO
Daring American sub scores coup in protected bay

Naval operation announced as MacArthur beats off new attacks
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer

Washington, Jan. 17 –
An American submarine has invaded the most closely-guarded waters of the Japanese Empire – those off Tokyo Bay – and has sunk three Japanese vessels, the Navy revealed tonight.

The Navy announcement came as General MacArthur and his American and Filipino troops fought valiantly against a storming Japanese attack upon their Bataan Peninsula positions.

The Navy communiqué revealed the most daring American naval operation of the war – a feat rivalling that of Army Capt. Colin Kelly in sinking the Japanese battleship Haruna.

Naval base invaded

The submarine, presumably one of those attached to Admiral Thomas C. Hart’s Asiatic Fleet, slipped into the closely-protected waters off Japan’s greatest naval base, Yokosuka, within a few miles of Yokohama, the heart of the vast Japanese sea empire.

The American undersea craft sank three Japanese merchant ships and managed to flash a report of its success to American naval headquarters. Whether it is still operating in the dangerous Japanese waters was not revealed.

It was the first time in nearly 100 years that an American naval craft had entered Japanese waters on a mission of war.

Memories of Perry

The successful attack was carried out in the same waters where Admiral Matthew Perry sailed nearly 100 years ago, his guns ready for action, in the historic voyage which opened up Japan to contact with the Western world.

The attack by the American submarine was comparable to the action of Japanese submarines in preying upon U.S. commerce close offshore along the Pacific Coast, or of German U-boats in attacking shipping off Long Island.

Although the Navy communiqué mentioned no date when the attacks occurred, it was recalled that more than two weeks ago, the Tokyo radio broadcast warnings of the danger of hostile submarines off the Japanese coast.

Could it have been this sub?

The warnings may have been directed against the submarine whose exploits were reported tonight.

Tokyo Bay, off which the U.S. attacks occurred, is a broad neck of the sea which extends into the indented Japanese coast for nearly 100 miles. It is protected to the south by Izu Peninsula, a pleasant rolling countryside where American Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew often golfed.

Here the great Japanese Yokosuka Naval Base is located – the most important of the whole empire – a naval station comparable in importance to Hampton Roads. It was assumed that Japan has concentrarted strong naval forces to protect shipping in this area.

Liner once halted

It was in these waters that a British cruiser in 1939 halted the Japanese liner Asama Maru and took off a group of Germans attempting to reach the Reich via Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian railroad.

The Japanese at that time were chagrined that a foreign warship had been able to approach their heavy naval and land concentrations so closely without detection.

These attacks are taking a sizable bite out of Japan’s sea resources, especially in view of the fact that an almost equal number of ships have been sunk by other forces of the United Nations.

Tokyo Bay is about 3,400 miles…

[NormanStewart]

Army bomber crash kills 8 in Oregon

Spokane, Washington (UP) – (Jan. 17)
Second Air Force headquarters tonight said eight men were killed in the crash of an Army bomber 2½ miles north of Pendleton, Oregon.

Details of the crash were meagre, but the Air Force said the plane cracked up about 11:30 a.m. PT (2:30 p.m. EST).

The dead were:

• 2nd Lt. A. J. Francisco (pilot)
• 2nd Lt. R. C. Shows (co-pilot)
• 2nd Lt. L. E. Grindle (navigator)
• SSgt. A. B. Spiers
• Pvt. G. T. Vrable
• Sgt. D. Clark
• Pvt. L. Fagan
• Cpl. V. A. Learman.

Home addresses of the officers and crew were not available.

[NormanStewart]

Von Reichenau dies of stroke

Other mysterious deaths of Nazis recalled

Berlin, Jan. 17 – (broadcast reported in U.S. by United Press)
Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, 56, one of the first German military commanders to throw in his lot with the Nazi movement, died of apoplexy today while being transferred to his home for medical treatment.

Von Reichenau was one of three prominent militarists giving early support to Hitler. The others were General Werner von Fritsch, who died mysteriously in Poland, and General Werner von Blomberg, who was ousted.

Until recently an army group commander on the southern front in Rusia, Reichenau won his marshal’s baton as a commander in Poland and for operations as chief of the 6th Army in action against Russia.

The Axis forces had recently suffered heavy defeats on the south Russian front.

The official announcement said:

Field Marshal von Reichenau, who had been taken seriously ill as result of apoplexy, died during transport home. The Führer ordered a state funeral for the field marshal, in view of the distinguished services rendered by the latter.

Adolf Hitler, as Führer of the German nation, charged Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring with representing him at the state funeral, and as commander-in-chief of the German Army, he charged Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt with representing him in this capacity at the state funeral.

Visited U.S. in 1913

During World War I, Reichenau served as a member of the German staff. He became a major general in 1934 and in 1935, he was promoted to lieutenant general commanding an army corps at Munich. A year later, he was made general of artillery.

Following his successes in the campaign against Poland and France, he became a field marshal on July 19, 1940.

…

[NormanStewart]

Ship sunk, one afire in Atlantic collision

Washington (UP) – (Jan. 17)
The Navy Department confirmed tonight that the Santa Elisa and the San Jose, both merchant ships, had collided off Atlantic City, New Jersey, and that the Santa Elisa had been set afire.

The Navy spokesman said the San Jose had sunk. The Santa Elisa, it was said, was burning in sight of the shore.

The Navy spokesman said that the merchant ship Wellhart had picked up 18 survivors and that the Charles L. O’Connor, also a merchant ship, had picked up 11.

[NormanStewart]

Henderson apologizes, lets clergy have tires

Washington (UP) – (Jan. 17)
Leon Henderson today apologized to the nation’s clergy and amended the new tire and tube rationing order to make them eligible purchasers.

The Price Administrator announced that clergymen of all denominations who use autos in carrying out their religious duties would be affected.

[NormanStewart]

U.S. fliers down three Jap planes

Chungking, China (UP) – (Jan. 17)
American volunteer pilots shot down three Japanese planes over the Burma Road in southern Yunnan Province today while war communiqués reported that small Chinese units inflicted heavy casualties on Japanese invaders during night raids on a half-dozen interior fronts.

A Central News Agency dispatch from Kunming said the Japanese planes were brought down by four American pilots near Mengtse without the loss of an American plane.

The Chinese war communiqué claimed each guerilla attack was knocking the Japanese back toward the east coast. The invaders were reported in running retreat following raids in north Hunan, north Kiangsi, western Hupeh, north Henan and north Anhwei.