America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

Two anti-sub vessels sunk

Navy Department reveals loss of 20 in crews

Washington (UP) –
The Navy today announced the sinking of two small anti-submarine patrol vessels in the Atlantic by Axis submarines, with a loss of 20 lives.

The ships were the Gannet, a seagoing tug, and the YP-389, a small fishing craft.

The Gannet was torpedoed and sunk with a loss of 16 persons out of a crew estimated at 55 officers and men.

The YP-389 was sunk by gunfire with a loss of four of its crew.

Both commanding officers – Lt. Francis Edward Nuessle of the Gannet and Lt. Roderick J. Philips of the YP-389 – were among the survivors.

These sinkings brought to 48 the total of naval vessels lost through various causes in this war.

Britain lags, Senator says

Roosevelt urged as supreme commander

Washington (UP) –
Demanding that President Roosevelt assume supreme leadership of the United Nations, Senator Allen J. Ellender (D-LA) asserted that large numbers of the American and British people are “nauseated and disgusted” with the inactivity of British troops at home.

In a fiery speech, Mr. Ellender lashed at the “apparent apathy of British leadership” which he charged caused the fall of Tobruk.

Mr. Ellender said:

We in America – and I believed a large part of the British people also – are alarmed at the apparent apathy of British leadership and its inability to cope with the Axis. Let me speak in plain English.

I believe that a large majority of the American and British people are nauseated and disgusted – or at least tired – of the continuous inactivity of millions of soldiers stationed in the British Isles waiting for an attack that may never come.

President Roosevelt has the “vision, the courage and the still to animate people” and should be given the post of supreme leader over all United Nations’ forces, Mr. Ellender said.

He exclaimed:

Something must be done now before it is too late. We must designate a real leader and pace in his hands absolute power of command.

I do not know whether Russia would agree to such a step now, but no matter. Such a leader must and should be acclaimed at once.

Aleutian Islands termed one of drizzliest regions

Weather records bear out Navy reports; rainfall occurs in area 200 days in year
By Science Service

Aleutian Island weather is fully as bad as Navy men say it is, examination of published records of the U.S. Weather Bureau shows. It’s the kind of thing we hear about Iceland – plus.

It must be one of the drizzliest places on earth. The observatory on Attu, one of the islands reported seized by the Japs, shows a mean annual rainfall of about 71 inches, which is not as terrific so far as total precipitation goes. Annual rainfall along the Atlantic Coast near Washington runs about 50 inches. But the total number of days on which measurable rainfall occurred was 200 out of 365. That means an endless procession of little rains. And it doesn’t count heavily cloudy days on which no rain occurred; neither does it count fogs that put no water in the rain gauge.

Never very cold

It never gets very cold in the Aleutians – and it never gets warm. Zero Fahrenheit has never been reported; the thermometer in winter hovers constantly near freezing point, but never dips below it. Summer temperatures average a trifle under 60 degrees, and rise to near 70 so seldom that such days don’t figure in tabulations of averages.

While frosts have been recorded during every month except July, they are uncommon in summer. Frost-free season extends from late May until early October. This gives a growing season actually longer than that of some of the northern states, the Weather Bureau comments, adding:

However, owing to the large amount of cloudiness and the comparatively low summer temperatures, vegetation, except native grasses, make slow growth, and gardens are not much of a success.

Orchards and forests would be even less of a success, apparently; the natural vegetation of the islands includes no tree species whatsoever.

Breed storms

The climate of the islands, however dull, is not without its exciting spells of weather. Cold water of the Bering Sea on one side, warm water brought up from subtropical Pacific areas by the Japan Current on the other, set up contrasts that breed all manner of storms. Many of the cyclonic disturbances that sweep down across North America originate there, or take on their characteristics after emerging as “young” storms from Siberia across the way. There are also the notorious local “willwaws,” violent windstorms in which the air currents seem to blow “every-which-way.”

The Japs chose the best of a bad lot of weather to make their onfall in the Western Aleutians. Weather Bureau records show that least rain, and most of what little sunshine there is, comes in June and July. After the days grow short and early fall sets in, the place gets really nasty.

The Weather Bureau’s station on Attu Island was cared for by employees of the Office of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior. Whether their men escaped or were captured by the Japs has not yet been learned here.

Roosevelt homes given to college

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt said today he had “been made very happy” by the fact that the two Roosevelt houses on East 65th St. in New York City will be converted into a community center for women of Hunter College.

The houses, at 47 and 49 East 65th St., have been purchased by a committee of 33 citizens and will be opened in the fall as the “Sara Delano Roosevelt Interfaith House” for Hunter students.

The President and his mother had occupied the houses for some 32 years. The President’s mother died at her Hyde Park home last fall.

Check again for rubber, War Councilman urges

Washington (UP) –
William R. Boyd Jr., chairman of the Petroleum Industry War Council, today called for a last-minute scrap rubber roundup from June 27 to June 30, the last four days of the President’s scrap collection campaign.

He urged:

…rubber-conscious Americans… to check and doublecheck their attics, garages, cellars and backyards for possible pieces of scrap that might have been overlooked in the first 10 days of the drive.

Wildcat strike hits war plant

Steel union members quit at Lorain, Ohio

Lorain, Ohio (UP) –
A wildcat strike involving 3,000 members of the United Steelworkers of America (CIO) today tied up operations in the vital pipe division of the National Tube Co.

More than 1,000 of the workers voted to continue the strike until Saturday after refusing to act on proposals to resume work immediately.

The strike, first in the U.S. Steel subsidiary since it was organized in 1936, began last night when a small group of butt mill workers stopped production after demanding immediate reclassification of job and wage rates.

Union members said the strike spread quickly among 1,000 night-shift workers and continued today when all except a handful of 2,000 day-shift men stayed out of the plant.

Union District Organizer William F. Donovan conferred with union officials in an effort to have work resumed and prevent the strike from spreading to all of the company’s 10,000 workers.

Mr. Donovan said the stoppage was “inexcusably illegal” and violated a contract signed by the company and the union last April. Neither company nor union officials would discuss grievances cited by individual workers.

Criticism welcome, Army officer says

Denver (UP) –
A War Department spokesman told the American Newspaper Guild’s annual convention today that newspapers are welcome to criticize the U.S. Army.

The spokesman was Col. A. Robert Ginsburgh, aide to Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson.

The colonel said:

We welcome intelligent, conservative criticism of the Army. We make mistakes. Any organization as huge and as suddenly expended as the War Department is bound to make them.

Col. Ginsburgh appealed to newspapers, however, to help protect Army secrets.

This government does not ask newspapermen to tell a lie or to alter the truth. Military necessity demands a time lag in the disclosure of important information, But when the official reports do appear, they are wholly truthful within the limitations upon completeness imposed by military necessity.

Tax checkoff may be halved to 5%

Deduction from pay then would be applied only to levy for 1943

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. said today the House Ways and Means Committee is considering a last-minute plane whereby deductions of income taxes at source next year would be limited to 5% instead of 10%.

Under the new plan now being studied, the 5% “pay-as-you-earn” tax would be applied entirely to taxes due on 1943 income. Under the plan already adopted by the committee at the Treasury’s suggestion, a 10% withholding levy would have been applied half to taxes on 1942 income and half to taxes on 1943 income.

Mr. Morgenthau disclosed that he had asked the committee to give taxpayers the option of paying their 1942 income tax in monthly installments next year instead of in quarterly installments.

10% in 1944

The new 5% withholding tax plan also calls for increasing the withholding tax to 10% in 1944.

Treasury officials would not comment on the plan.

Prior to Mr. Morgenthau’s disclosure of a possible revision in the withholding tax plan, the Ways and Means Committee was revealed to have turned the new war revenue bill over to its legislative drafters. It was not known whether reconsideration of the withholding tax would cause any material delay in completion of the bill, which is some $3 billion short of the Treasury’s $8,700,000,000 goal.

The measure was turned over to legislative drafters after the committee decided yesterday to continue the present policy of allowing husbands and wives to fil separate income tax returns.

Approved earlier

The policy had been approved a month ago, 13–10. It was eliminated yesterday, 16–9. The decision virtually killed the mandatory joint return for another year.

Chief opposition to the mandatory joint return comes from the eight community property stats where half the earnings of a family legally are the property of each spouse.

Taxes may be reduced, on family income of more than $4,000, by dividing the income and reporting it in two returns since the effective rate on individual income increases as the amount of income increases. For example, the tax on two returns of $5,000 each is less than that on one of $10,000.

Tax yield outlined

The bill finally drafted by the Ways and Means Committee would increase federal taxes by $5,929,000,0000, of which $876,700,000 will be credited to corporations for post-war refunds.

This leaves a net yield of $5,052,300,000 from the following sources:

  • Individual incomes – $2,730,000,000.
  • Corporations – $2,291,000,000, less the post-war refund.
  • Excises and miscellaneous taxes – $908,000,000.

Axis trails in production, Nelson informs Senators

Declares superior production by Allies will soon overcome enemy reserves in weapons

Washington (UP) –
Chairman Donald M. Nelson of the War Production Board told the Senate committee investigating the war program today that the United Nations’ production of war material now surpasses that of the Axis.

But he warned that the enemy has reserves, which must be overcome. Japan started its war program in 1930 and Germany in 1933, he said, whereas the United States began in 1940 and is only now getting mass production.

He said:

I hope that before many months have passed, we shall be able to build in such quantities that we will overcome that reserve.

He appeared before the committee to review WPB’s achievements.

Mr. Nelson revealed that the WPB has developed plans for progressively “taking” one million tons of civilian copper – beginning with brass name plates – if the metal is needed for the war program.

Rubber substitute

He also disclosed that thiokol – which has chlorine as a base – may fill the gap as a retread material for essential civilian tires until synthetic rubber gets into full production. He emphasized, however, that production of the material is only in the planning stage, with government authorization given to the Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich., to go ahead with its manufacture.

Mr. Nelson did not reveal whether the copper would be taken as part of a scrap drive or whether it would be confiscated.

The WPB chief said manufacturers have made voluntary refunds to the Army of $500 million and to the Navy of $250 million, as of June 20, and that further refunds on contracts could be anticipated.

Mr. Nelson praised the Maritime Commission, which has set a “cosmic record” by cutting production time for ships by more than half.

‘Sights are high’

He said the “sights are high” for this country’s $220-billion war production program but that he is confident American industry and labor are equal to the task set.

Mr. Nelson divided $220-billion war program as follows:

Period Goods delivered or produced
Prior to Jan. 1, 1942 $19,000,000,000
1942 and 1943 $165,000,000,000*
1944 and on $35,000,000,000

*$25 billion of that is for pay and subsistence.

He said:

To give you some notion of just how large our problem really is, let me point out that we propose to produce the two years 1942 and 1943 combined for war purposes alone, twice as much in dollar value as was produced for all purposes in 1929.

Outlines tasks

This country must spend $6 billion a month to meet its program compared with a present rate of $3,800,000,000, he said. The major job, he added, is to turn out $140 billion worth of war goods in 1942 and 1943.

Production capacity is outstripping deliveries of raw materials, he continued, and the scrap collection drive is assuming increasing importance. He hinted that the government may have to consider stripping cities of metal fences, Saturday and ornamental work.

He said:

I am not yet sure what is involved in our seeking to utilize these sources of badly-needed metals, but it is not too soon for all of us to begin thinking about these possibilities. Anyone of us can walk down any street in Washington and see substantial quantities of metals that might thus be used.

Aluminum boosted

The aluminum expansion program should bring the United States 2,500,000,000 pounds of primary aluminum and 600 million pounds of scrap in 1943, he said. He contrasted that with an anticipated 1,318,000,000 pounds of primary and 369 million pounds of scrap this year.

Steel expansion has been held back by a lack of scrap, he said. That factor has been met by stoppage of steel-consuming civilian industries but:

…the industry still needs and will continue to need all the scrap it can get.

He said:

90 days ago, the lack of scrap metal caused 20 furnaces to draw their fires. A month ago, six furnaces were down, while on June 1, no furnace was down for this cause.

The steel plate problem has more serious aspects, he explained, but is also being met. He said that on Jan. 1, 1942, producers had backing of unfilled orders mounting to 4,586,000 tons – more than three-fourths of the entire 1941 production.

The Maritime Commission, he said, will save approximately 160,000 gross tons of steel by substituting wood wherever possible in its shipbuilding program.

Check sinking, Congress says

Anger mounts as U-boat toll increases

Washington –
The Navy today announced the torpedoing of a medium-sized Norwegian merchant ship several hundred miles off the southeast U.S. Coast. Survivors have been landed at an East Coast port.

Washington (UP) –
Congressional anger over the rate of U-boat attacks on shipping in Western Hemisphere waters mounted today as the toll of Allied merchant vessels blasted to the bottom in the Atlantic, the Gulf and in the Caribbean reached 320.

While some members of Congress clamored for more effective countermeasures, Ralph O. Brewster (R-ME), member of the Senate Naval Affairs committee, took a sharp issue with the Navy on the merits of coastal convoys.

He said flatly that the system – in effect for about a month now – is not the answer to the U-boat menace.

His criticism followed demands by other members of Congress that something be done quickly to combat U-boat depredations.

So critical is the menace that President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in the course of their win-the-war talks, devoted an entire day to the Allied shipping situation.

Naval officials are keenly aware that the U-boat crisis must be solved – and soon, but they have been handicapped to some extent by lack of patrol equipment. Congress is currently moving to relieve the situation by rushing legislation for the construction of hundreds of auxiliary vessels.

Iron ore shortage forecast by expert

Minneapolis, Minn. (UP) –
E. W. Davis, director of the University of Minnesota Mines Experiment Station, warned recently that Northern Minnesota’s high-grade iron ore deposits may be exhausted before the end of the present decade.

Mr. Davis, reporting on information he has given the War Production Board, urged immediate steps by the federal and state government to forestall a serious ore shortage and conserve remaining open-pit high-grade deposits of the Mesabi Range.

Davis said:

At war production rates, the known ore reserves of the Lake Superior district will be exhausted in 1950, but without government financing, several years previous to complete exhaustion.

Aid oil companies, Ickes requests

Washington (UP) –
Petroleum Coordinator Harold L. Ickes today urged the House Banking Committee to approve legislation to create a $500-million War Petroleum Corp. that would seek to forestall “unnecessarily stringent rationing” and avert actual shortages of oil.

Mr. Ickes testified on a bill introduced by Chairman B. Henry Steagall (D-AL) to create a War Petroleum Corp. empowered to buy and sell petroleum, make loans to oil companies, pay transportation charges and provide for storage of petroleum products.

Mr. Ickes said:

Certainly, unless positive action is taken in this field, we must all steel ourselves go face a whole series of probably unnecessarily stringent rationing orders and perhaps actual shortages of petroleum or some of its products for direct military use.

Red Cross aid on Corregidor likely interned

Pittsburgh woman popular among stricken defenders

A Pittsburgh Red Cross worker met an unknown fate in the fall of Corregidor, and it was feared today she might have been captured and interned by the Japanese.

When last seen, Miss Catherine L. Nau, Pitt graduate of 1919, formerly of the staff of the Family Society, was working in an underground hospital at the fortress.

Miss Nau was a popular figure at Bataan during the defense of the peninsula. She edited a one-page Jungle Journal, and led in the distribution of toothbrushes, cigarettes and other comforts to the defenders.

Popular with patients

Since the fall of Corregidor, the only word about her came from 1st Lt. Mary Gladys Lohr, Army Nurse Corps, evacuated from Corregidor to Australia, who reported:

Miss Nau went from Bataan to Corregidor the night of April 8. When I saw her again, she was still working with patients, this time in a tunnel hospital.

Miss Nau was very popular in Bataan because she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of toothbrushes. But at Corregidor, the supply ran out. She still had cigarettes to distribute, however.

Presented ‘Tōjō’ skit

Checkerboards of bamboo with painted stones for playing pieces were made under Miss Nau’s direction.

Lt. Lohr said:

She always managed to dig up prizes for the winners. One night, it was a can of ham, the next a package of cigarettes. Cigarettes were scarce, but Miss Nau always managed to dig up a cigarette for a patient, when he was most desperate for one.

For more entertainment, Miss Nau gathered material from bed patients for a skit, “Mr. Tōjō of Tokyo,” she revealed in one of her reports.

She said in a later report:

Our office is on the verge of collapse, but we expect reinforcements and stronger bamboo soon.

Cosmetics bow to war

Washington –
Milady will have to get along with fewer shades and scents in her cosmetics for the duration. Under a forthcoming order, the War Production Board said, the range of colors and odors for everything from lipsticks to painted stockings will be curtailed.

Book explains Jap viewpoint

Kojiki reveals divine ancestry of emperor

Washington –
The strange complex which leads the Japanese to assume the belief of superiority over the rest of the world is explained partially by an ancient book in the Smithsonian Institution.

Completed about 712 AD, the book, known as the Kojiki, is the Nipponese counterpart of the Book of Genesis. It describes the creation of the world and the divine ancestry of the present Emperor of Japan.

According to the Kojiki, the creation of the earth resulted from the union of two deities, His Augustness Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Her Augustness Izanami-no-Mikoto, who stirred the ocean with a jewelled spear.

Purified by bath

The brine that dripped from the end of the spear became the island of Onogoro. These gods then gave birth to the other islands of Japan and to various gods who make up the complicated Shinto mythology.

After being pursued by the hosts of Hell, Izanagi-no-Mikoto purified himself by bathing in a stream. From each article of clothing he threw down and from each part of his body were born new gods and goddesses, including the Sun Goddess. One of her children – of whose legitimacy “she has some doubts,” according to the book – was a certain Jinmu-tennō whom she assigned the relatively unimportant job of Japanese Emperor.

Legends memorized

Jinmu-tennō is, in theory, the ancestor of the present Mikado.

Written in Chinese, the volume was the work of a scribe, Yasumaro, assigned to the task by the Empress Genmyō. Yasumaro wrote the book from the verbal account of a man who had memorized the legends of the principal families.

The Kojiki is not accepted literally by the educated classes in Japan but Smithsonian authorities say they fall back on it, subconsciously at least, to justify the Emperor’s divinity. As a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, the Emperor indirectly bestows racial superiority upon his people.

Presbyterians urge wartime prohibition

Milwaukee (RNS) –
A recommendation to petition the President of the United States, to close all distilleries and breweries and all establishments for the wholesale and retail distribution of alcoholic beverages for the duration of the war, was approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as:

…an act to safeguard the defenders of our nation.

Concerned with the problem of prostitution in cities and Army camp areas, the assembly urged that the government and local communities take greater care to protect the population against the evil.

On the question of Sunday work in wartime, the General Assembly voted to request the government:

…to reduce labor required on the Sabbath to the minimum of absolute necessity, and to maintain the time-honored principle of one day’s rest in seven.

McNutt writes plea for doctors to enlist

Chicago –
Paul V. McNutt, chairman of the War Manpower Commission, appealed today in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association for more doctors to volunteer for military service, and for civilians to reduce to a minimum:

…unreasonable demands on physicians.

Mr. McNutt said:

Unless voluntary recruitment progresses more rapidly, some more rigorous form of Selective Service must be resorted to.

Mr. McNutt said that the lag in volunteers for military medical service was most noticeable in eight more populous states – New York, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan and Ohio.

1917 doughboy returns home from Germany

Plans to offer services in fight against Axis

A former doughboy of 1917, who stayed in Germany and “made good” until the Gestapo threw him into jail, today planned to offer his services to Uncle Sam.

Anthony Calabrese, 48, who reached Pittsburgh last week with his German-born wife Flora, declared:

Anything I can do to help beat the Nazis, I want to do.

The couple, of 7900 Edgewood Ave., Swissvale, landed from the Drottningholm international exchange ship June 1.

It was from Pittsburgh that Mr. Calabrese marched away in 1917 to join the Third Division.

His first impression of the United States on his return was:

The people here had better wake up; they don’t take this war seriously enough.

Drink to RAF

He said:

I’ve seen Germans drink to the RAF when they came over to bomb. A man inspecting my factory told me I ought to install more rafters because there wouldn’t be enough to hang the Nazis on after the war.

Mr. Calabrese said he paid $50,000 to the Gestapo, only to be thrown into a concentration camp.

Calabrese carried two Nazi certificates showing he was imprisoned April 7, 1941, and sent to Laufen Internment Camp (Ilag) last January to be released May 16. He said the Nazis treated him “well enough.”

He said:

But they were brutal with European prisoners. I’ve seen Poles and Czechs beaten and shot to death.

Owned factory

Their comparative leniency toward him, he believes, arose from the fact that he owned a $200,000 motor parts plant, now busy producing for the Nazi military machine.

The ex-doughboy “got his start” when he was sent into the Rhineland in the American Zone of Occupation. Prior, he said he had been wounded in the leg at Château-Thierry.

He said:

I was a sergeant of motor transport. When I was demobilized, I bid in a lot of old Army motor equipment, some motors, and a few old planes. Then I sold them.

He cleared $25,000 on the deal. Later, he started a small factory at Andernach.

He married Flora Potes, of French descent, in 1929.

Born in Brushton, he attended Crescent School.

Returning officer tells inside story of Bataan battles

Corregidor gunners, calibrating range before war started, knew just how to fire to wipe out Jap emplacements; humorous yarns told

Highest praise for the skill and courage of the men of Bataan is voiced by Lt. Col. Warren J. Clear, of the Army General Staff, in his eyewitness report on the Battle of the Philippines, just released.

Col. Clear was among the last to leave Corregidor before the surrender. Ordered to take out the Army’s confidential documents, he escaped by submarine and is now in Washington. His story is a special feature in the July issues of The Reader’s Digest, issued today.

The secret of how American gunners on Corregidor caught a group of enemy batteries in an artillery trap and wiped out 600 Japs is one of the highlights of his narrative. The trap was sprung when the Japs mounted guns on the southern peninsula of Luzon, across the bay from Corregidor. Farsighted American Coast Artillery offices had plotted and calibrated this area long before war broke out with just such an emergency in mind. Col. Clear says:

We had those Japs just as surely as if they had been 10 feet from our guns.

Protest ‘brutal killings’

Gen. George F. Moore, commander of Corregidor, waited patiently day after day until the enemy batteries had been completely established and personnel moved in to man them. Then, at 3 o’clock one morning, eight big howitzers began hurling 762-pound demolition and shrapnel shells into the enemy emplacements. We learned later that 600 Japs were killed and hundreds of others wounded. The batteries were completely destroyed.

In the Jap-controlled newspapers in Manila, the Mikado’s High Command protested this brutal and treacherous killing of sleeping men. The haggard gunners on Corregidor, who had endured merciless bombings for scores of sleepless nights didn’t take the squawk too much to heart.

The Battle of Bataan, says the colonel, was not lost because of the onslaught of the Jap forces; the American troops succumbed in the end:

…to the throttling fingers of starvation and disease.

Praying in foxholes

He says:

Never in all military history had men fought more magnificently than our own soldiers, sailors and marines in that desperate struggle which every mother’s son of them knew was, in the end, hopeless.

Col. Clear related many anecdotes illustrating the stamina of the men and the humor with which they salted their grim experience.

In the Bataan fighting, many a soldier came to realize that self-confidence alone was not enough to sustain the human spirit. I remember jumping into a hole during a particularly heavy bombing attack. A sergeant crouched lower to make room for me. Then all hell broke loose and I wasn’t surprised to find myself praying out loud. I heard the sergeant praying, too. When the attack was over, I said:

Sergeant. I noticed you were praying.

He answered, without batting an eye:

Yes, sir, there are no atheists in foxholes.

Fleet’s ‘up Mississippi’

Walking by a battery pit, I overheard a gunner saying:

Where in hell do you suppose that fleet really is?

The answer came:

That’s easy. The last letter I got from a girlfriend of mine was postmarked St. Louis. She never lets the fleet get more’n 10 miles away from her, so it’s up in Mississippi!

And there was the time General Harold H. George, of our Air Corps. and I were driving along a Bataan road. Suddenly he flung open the car door and pushed me out face first into a ditch, leaping after me just in time to escape the leaden spray from a dive bomber’s gun that strafed the car into ribbons. He said afterward:

The General Staff has always kicked the Air Corps around. I was delighted to have a chance to reciprocate.

Mule ‘gets even’

The short rations brought typical soldier comments. An artillery sergeant held up a piece of dubious looking mule meat on a fork and philosophized:

Well, I beat hell out of these sons-of-guns for 20 years – but they’re sure getting back at me now!

The men liked the carabao better. They made sandwiches of it which they called “caraburgers” in a dim memory of home.

What was called “the Bataan Air Force” and more adequately named “The Bamboo Fleet” because it was so patched together with native wood, gets high praise from the colonel. He describes it in action:

When General Wainwright called for air support, a couple of quivering, battered P-40’s would rise to give battle to dozens of Jap Zeros.

Pilot carries shotgun

Until every last one of them was destroyed, these crates operated from two hastily built airfields constructed and kept in repair by workmen under constant bombardment. The fields, standing out like bullseye targets in the surrounding jungle, were really only widened portions of road, and were plastered so regularly by the Japs that our men called the enemy raiders the morning and afternoon mail planes.

Our pilots almost had to fight their way off the ground, for the Japs were so near they could hear the P-40’s warming up for the takeoff. Every flight was practically a suicide mission, yet the pilots took off several times a day, week after week.

Every day, Lt. Col. Reggie Vance used to fly between Bataan and Corregidor in an old crate tied together with wire which the Japs always tried to knock off. He carried a Winchester shotgun across his knees and a bolo by his side. The shotgun was his armament for aerial combat. The bolo was to cut himself our o his harness if he fell into the water, for the Japs had a nasty habit of machine-gunning the white parachutes and bright orange preservers whenever they spotted them.

One chance in five, good

Once Vance offered to fly me out in the crate. I asked him what the chances would be of our making it.

He said:

Good, good.

I asked suspiciously:

Just what do you mean by “good”?

He replied:

Oh, one chance in five of getting through.

To those men, anything short of certain death was an even break. As long as they could pull a trigger or fix a bayonet, they held their ground. I recall an infantry colonel, previously twice wounded, coming back into action with his third wound unhealed – a great gaping hole in his arm sprinkled with sulfanilamide powder and covered with a makeshift dressing.

Blasts break rails

The common conception of Corregidor as a huge impregnable rock labyrinthed with tunnels, says Col. Clear, is entirely erroneous. There was only one tunnel, and of the 10,000 people on the island, only 600 could be sheltered in it. Most of these were the sick and wounded.

He continues:

Gen. George and I were standing 50 yards away when a 500-pound bomb scored a direct hit on a 12-inch battery, killing a young Coast Artillery captain and 35 of his gun crew. They were crushed to death in an improvised dugout.

A few days later, with another officer and a Quartermaster Corps sergeant, I happened to be down on the docks when 54 heavy bombers flew in suddenly from the China Sea. For four hours, they dropped 300, 500 and 1000-pount eggs that shattered everything in the whole area. The blasting of the heaviest bombs was so terrific that railroad rails near me were broken neatly into six-inch lengths from the concussion.

My office companion, unfamiliar with the protective technique of bracing one’s stomach and chest a few inches off the ground by elbows and forearms, was knocked cold by each successive blast when the ground rose up against him.

Unalaska caught asleep by Japs despite warning, mayor relates

Practice alerts had made them indifferent to dangers
By John W. Fletcher, written for the United Press

This eyewitness account of the bombing of Dutch Harbor was written by the Mayor of Unalaska, a town near Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. He is 36 and he has been intimately acquainted with the Aleutian Islands for 14 years.

Dutch Harbor casualty

dutch harbor
Vowing vengeance on the Japs, Burt Browne, 20-year-old U.S. Navy aviation machinist third class, came back to Seattle from the fight at Dutch Harbor, Alaskan outpost, with his arm in a sling. The very bullet which smashed his hand killed his buddy right beside him as they attempted to take off in a Navy flying boat.

Seattle –
Days before the attack, I had been informed of the approach of a portion of the Jap fleet. This information was given in order that I could check up on the preparations necessary for Civilian Defense in Unalaska. The night of June 2, I had information that a Jap carrier was within 400 miles of Unalaska Island.

Three days before the attack, it was agreed that all liquor establishments would close. This was done at the request of military authorities.

It may sound odd that we should have been caught asleep in bed at the time the attack came. We learned the hard way, because we had known many alerts before – that is, practice alerts. We became indifferent to the danger ahead.

Saw seven bombers

In one sense, we depended on getting a “flash” message from the amateur Alaska aircraft warning system. However, our particular frequency was extremely noisy that night. We were standing watch in relays, 24 hours a day, in my “radio shack.” We awoke at 5:45 a.m. the morning of June 3 to the sound of unusually heavy anti-aircraft fire. Looking out toward the Bering Sea near the top of a mountain, I saw at least three Jap Zero fighters. From this quick glance, the impression was that they had run into heavy anti-aircraft fire unexpectedly.

I called Mrs. Fletcher to hurry and dress and we immediately proceeded on our prearranged plan of heading for our basement. Upon arriving there, we saw disappearing toward the northwest four large bombers. A moment later, from the southwest, approaching Dutch Harbor, came three more. This made at least seven bombers. Their particular objective – Dutch Harbor – is long and narrow. They approached and let go of two bombs each, which were later described as 2,000-pound bombs. Two warehouses were struck and one barracks.

Surprised at planes’ size

There were some casualties, most of which could have been avoided if the men had remembered to lie flat on the ground. In the confusion of running for shelter, they forgot the lessons taught them.

Fires immediately broke out where the bombs struck. All this time, a heavy barrage of anti-aircraft fire was going on. The sky was filled with bursting shells and puffs of smoke. Tracers shooting up toward the bombers were falling just short of their mark. However, the heavier shells were bursting above, below and all around the bombers. At this point, may I say that I was very much surprised at the enormous size of the planes the Japs were using in their attack.

The results definitely proved there is nothing wrong with Japanese eyesight. At the point they struck, the land was narrow. At the height they flew, their marksmanship had to be good to hit anything.

Soldier aid ‘swell’

About this time, a military patrol informed me that all women and children should proceed to the main highway in the middle of town, where they would be picked up by trucks and taken to a valley for better protection. My car was at hand, and getting our neighbor who was ill, her children and another woman, we hastened up the valley selected. On our way, we saw coming down this valley, flying about 300 feet above the road, what we took to be an American-built P-40. Just before it reached us, it veered to our left. It was another Jap plane, possibly of the Zero type.

Taking the women to a sheltered spot in a ravine, I returned and made several trips. In a short time, two more cars arrived and we quickly emptied the town of women, children and sick, from the government hospital in Unalaska.

The soldiers were positively swell in their assistance to all civilians. They were cheerful, and helped a great deal in holding up the morale of the people. They did everything to make the sick, women and children comfortable. They also brought hot coffee and other things.

No civilians hit

The attack lasted about 35 minutes. We had another alert at noon, but no planes were sighted from Unalaska. They were probably intercepted at some distance from Dutch Harbor.

The fighter plane that passed us proceeded toward town and strafed it from east to west. Many shells were dropped from the plane.

The bombing on Dutch Harbor was rather heavy. No civilians were hit in Unalaska.

The Japs showed either great courage in coming so close, or they have absolutely no regard for their lives whatsoever.

Most of the white population was evacuated immediately afterward, but most natives have remained. My present concern is to have the rest taken inland to some safer spot.