America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

[NormanStewart]

War cost could give $1,670 to all in U.S.

Washington (UP) –
How much is $220 billion?

That’s what WPB Chief Donald Nelson today said was the goal of the war production program – $220 million worth of goods produced and delivered.

Maybe these statistics will help you visualize what that huge sum represents in purchasing power:

It’s enough to give every man, woman and child in the United States $1,670 each.

It would buy every American 11,133 quarts of milk – a quart of milk a day for more than 30 years. Or if you prefer beer, enough to buy every American 16,700 glasses – a glass of beer a day for more than 45 years.

[NormanStewart]

Enemy broadcast –
Japs report capture of Pittsburgh man

Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations and frequently contain false information for propaganda purposes. Bear this in mind.

Tokyo (UP) – (Japanese broadcast recorded by United Press at San Francisco)
Japanese Imperial Headquarters said today that operations were continuing in the Aleutian Islands after landings at Kiska and Attu early this month.

It was also said that Kiska would now be called Narukami Island, “Month of June Island,” and that Attu would be called Atitu, after a Shinto shrine honored in June.

The newspapers carried pictures of two bearded men who, they said, were captured. One was represented to be John McCandless, 20, of Pittsburgh, cook of a party of 10 living in the islands; the other to be one Katzfield, of Portland, Oregon, a pharmacist.

[NormanStewart]

Navy mother gathers foreign stamp collection

Santa Cruz, Cal. (UP) –
Mrs. Dante Canepa, mother of five Navy sons, is piling up a nice hostage stamp collection. Her latest letters received showed Robbie and Dante in Scotland, Manuel and Augie in the Panama Canal Zone, and Aldo at Pearl Harbor.

[NormanStewart]

War inspiring better grooming in U.S., says princess on visit to Hollywood

Hollywood (UP) –
The war is affecting even the personal appearance of American men and women.

That’s the opinion of Princess Gourielli, the former Helena Rubinstein, noted beauty authority, who visited Hollywood en route to Mexico on a holiday with her husband.

She says:

American men are far behind Englishmen in regard to good grooming. Americans have always considered it rather “unmannish” to pay much attention to their appearance and have consistently disregarded the fundamentals of hair, skin and body care.

That’s why the paunch and bald head are more in evidence in this country than anywhere else in the world.

But the uniform is changing all that. A man steps into uniform and suddenly he becomes conspicuous. The uniform focuses attention on his face and physique, making it necessary for him to look trim, clean and polished.

A good appearance adds to a soldier’s morale and it also inspired respect and confidence in others.

American women are no longer content to roll bandages and attend defense meetings, the princess believes.

They are becoming artillery rangefinders, weather forecasters, truck and ambulance drivers, mechanics and factory workers. All this calls for new modes in beauty to allow them to do their jobs efficiently while keeping comfortable and maintaining their looks.

Hair will be shorter but still feminine. Faces will be gay, young, boldly colored, even while the women are occupied with war tasks. Fingernails will be shorter, more naturally colored, but still well-groomed.

Princess Gourielli thinks that Hollywood’s glamour queens have found the secret of maintaining their youth and beauty. During her visit, she renewed acquaintance with many actresses and found them “more youthful and lovely” than when she saw them four years ago.

[NormanStewart]

More Presbyterian work in armed forces urged

Milwaukee (RNS) –
An appeal to extend the Church’s ministration to the millions of young men serving in America’s armed forces was made by Dr. William Barrow Pugh, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), at the conference on evangelism in connection with the general assembly of the Church.

Dr. Pugh said:

Let us not forget these boys of ours as we did in the First World War. If we do not keep in constant spiritual touch with them, if we forget them when they are away, they will come home and shout:

To ---- with the church!

And who will blame them?

He stated that by the end of 1942, the number of Presbyterian chaplains with the armed forces would be increased from 135 to 350, 8.5% of the active pastors in the Church.

The new paganism and the issue of hate growing throughout the world as a result of war must be combated by a staunch church, according to the Rev. Charles T. Leber, DD, secretary of the board of missions of the Church.

After the war, he said, the Church must have a voice in making a Christian peace.

[NormanStewart]

On being useful

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Somebody says that man’s pride and his wife’s achievements has moved the American housewife to toil unselfishly at Red Cross duties. That’s good, but it doesn’t go far enough. Mama’s sense of usefulness and importance has been mostly responsible for the industrial and miracles we’ve seen accomplished by these volunteer workers.

Let us remember that no one in our country has been more consistently ignored as a citizen than the housewife. Her group, although it represents the most powerful force in the nation, was made to feel unimportant during the interval between wars.

Some women organized themselves into clubs and pestered legislators a bit, but mostly they stayed home doing the dishes. And that sort of thing does very little for pride in citizenship. The housewife was the laborer who didn’t belong to a union, and therefore couldn’t strike. She did not receive a stabilized wage, and the work she did appeared unimportant so far as any measurable civic or financial results were concerned. People told her she was useful, but they did nothing to make her feel it was true.

Now for the first time, many women see proof that the work of their hands is necessary and important. I think that is the chief reason why the wives and mothers of this country have performed industrial miracles in Red Cross rooms. If you counted their contribution to the war effort in terms of labor union wages, what a stupendous sum they have given!

I’ve seen those who were gradually settling down to old age bloom again, and aimless playgirls become capable, earnest women under the pressure of hard volunteer service. It makes you realize that there is nothing so fine for morale, and nothing so necessary for mental poise, as the feeling that one is useful.

[NormanStewart]

Censor chiefs revise rules on war news

Some regulations relaxed while others are clarified

Washington (UP) –
The Office of Censorship today established new limitations in certain news related to the war – particularly on diplomatic maneuvers, ship movements and cargoes – in the first revision of the code of wartime practices for the American press.

Original rules in war production and weather forecasts were relaxed to some extent, and other clauses were clarified.

For the first time, the Office of Censorship made public rules to be followed by newspapers in event of an enemy air attack.

Premature news barred

Concerning diplomatic affairs, the code specifies that there shall be:

…no premature disclosure of diplomatic negotiations of conversations.

Byron Price, director of censorship, said the restriction was intended to:

…preclude anything which will give aid to the enemy by flushing our hand.

Mr. Price requested newspapers to consult the Office of Censorship about any restrictions sought by local authorities that seem unreasonable. He said that in some cases, Army or Navy officers in the field had effected restrictions which were “entirely out of harmony” with War and Navy Department policies.

The section on ship movement was strengthened to prevent publication, except on the basis of announcements by appropriate authority, of the identity, location or movement of any vessel, whether a United Nations, neutral or enemy ship. Publication would be permissible, however, if the information is made public outside the continental United States.

Forecasts outlined

Newspapers may publish officials weather forecasts for their own and not more than four adjoining states, portions of which lie within a radius of 150 miles from point of publication.

Concerning unusual weather occurrences, the new code provides:

Any news stories about weather occurrences within the state of publication, and outside the state for an area not to exceed 150 miles from the point of publication, may be published; news stories about weather occurrence, especially extremes such as blizzards, snowstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods for areas other than the foregoing, will be appropriate for publication only when specifically cleared through the Office of Censorship.

Restrictions eased

Location of factory sites and information on contract awards can be published when announced by the War Production Board, other government agencies or Congressmen. This information may also be published when it becomes a matter of public record, as in court proceedings, City Council sessions, or when contract bid invitations are published as advertisements.

Data about the nature and rate of production in a given plant may now be used if it is presented in a generalized, not exact, form.

Designed to provide for “orderly reporting,” the code provides that in event of air attack on continental United States, no warning or report of an impending raid should be published except as given out by designated representatives of the Army Defense Command.

Descriptions limited

Estimates of the number of planes involved and the number of bombs dropped are prohibited in general stories at the beginning of raids and during them.

General descriptions are permitted after raids, provided they do not play up horror or sensationalism, deal with unconfirmed reports or versions, make no reference to damage to military objectives, do not mention exact routes of enemy planes, nor describe countermeasures of defense, except as given in official communiqués.

[NormanStewart]

MacArthur sends message to British

Melbourne (UP) –
Gen. Douglas MacArthur today cabled this message of encouragement to Gen. Claude Auchinleck, British Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East:

You can so it. You can still fight your way through. Remember Wellington.

The Duke of Wellington, one of Britain’s most celebrated military leaders, directed the final and crushing defeat of Napoleon’s army at Waterloo in June 1815.

[NormanStewart]

Japs threaten Allied airfield

Chinese attacks gain in another sector

Chungking (UP) –
Strong Chinese counterattacks have hurled the Japanese back to the gates of Nanchang and Foochow (Linchwan) in Kiangsi Province, but an enemy force of 20,000 men is closing in on Lishui where there is an important Allied airfield, in neighboring Chekiang Province, a military spokesman revealed today.

He said a Chinese offensive in Kiangsi had halted the western arm of a Jap pincer which had come within 50 miles of dominating the Nanchang-Hangchow Railway.

40-mile advance

After recapturing Kweiki, key rail city, Chinese forces moved 40 miles southwest and reoccupied Kinki, the spokesman said. The enemy column that was repulsed at Kweiki has now fallen back 12.5 miles.

American Volunteer Group Headquarters revealed that three Jap fighter planes were shot down Monday over Yeungkong, 100 miles south of Changsha. Three others were probably shot down, the announcement said.

The official Central News Agency revealed that Chinese bombers were supporting Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s ground defenders of the 50-mile stretch of railway for the first time during the campaign in Eastern China.

Last Chekiang airfield

The spokesman reported that enemy spearheads had reached the outskirts of Lishui and that the Japs were launching an all-out assault to capture the city’s airfield for fear Allied planes would use it to raid Japan.

The spokesman said:

This is the last airfield in Chekiang still in our hands.

A Berlin broadcast quoted a Jap dispatch saying that Lishui had been captured.

[NormanStewart]

Allies scout in East Indies

Allied attacks may be due off Australia

Melbourne (UP) –
Allied planes have extended their reconnaissance flights into the heart of the Netherlands East Indies, with a flight to the Kendari area of Celebes Island, Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced today.

Operating more than 850 miles from Darwin, the Australian north coast base, the Allied planes conducted their reconnaissance, which may result in Allied attacks in force, and fought off three enemy planes.

It was the first time Celebes had been mentioned in Gen. MacArthur’s communiqués. To reach it, the Allied planes flew over Portuguese-Dutch Timor and other islands heavily infested with Japs.

Kendari is on the southeast coast of Celebes, at the tip of the eastern arm of the island.

There have been longer Allied flights over the northeastern invasion zone, but this was a thrust far from home in the northwestern direction, and may give the Japs reason to speculate on Gen. MacArthur’s future operations with an air force growing to the extent where, as was revealed yesterday, at least 100 military airdromes have already been built in Australia, to accommodate it.

Reconnaissance flights have been the main activity on both sides for the last four days, and it was indicated that one side or the other would soon make big attacks on the basis of information brought in by the scouting planes.

[NormanStewart]

Rationing of civilian goods may return bootlegger to American scene

By Orlando Davidson, Scripps-Howard staff writer

The bootlegger may come back, dealing in war-rationed goods, unless the government acts quickly and drastically. Here is the first of a series of articles on the growing American “black market.”

“The respectable burgher… is not averse to slipping into a back alley to pay an outrageous price for a ‘hot’ fire.”

Washington –
A gigantic black market is looming on the American horizon, in the opinion of two government officials who have made independent studies of the subject.

Unless government action is drastic and quick, they fear development of a black bourse that will bring back the criminal millionaires, homicidal gang wars and jeering contempt for government authority that symbolized Prohibition in the crazy ‘20s.

It’s already underway. Its operations so far are sporadic and largely informal – the friendly gas dealer in rationed territory who gives you a couple more gallons then you’re entitled to; the freelance tire bootlegger.

The great fleets of illicit trucks and the gun-packing “salesmen” – these are yet to come. But the “organizations” are likely forming, these officials believe.

The ingredients needed for this economic devil’s brew are (1) that extra money in your jeans, (2) a lack of things to spend it on, (3) ineptitude in publicizing, formalizing and administering government rationing and price-fixing, and (4) an irritated or disgusted public.

Backbone of market

Just what are black market operations? What makes them go? Who’s mixing up in them?

First, the backbone of any illegal market is the ordinarily “good” citizen – the respectable burgher who pays his taxes, but also, priding himself on his Yankee shrewdness, is not averse to slipping into a back alley to pay an outrageous price for a “hot” tire. He’s the same sucker who, a dozen years ago, knew just where to get “imported” stuff cheap.

Certainly, he’s no criminal by current reckoning; and it’s just a step to the “honest” wholesaler whose European counterpart has for two years regularly set aside a bit of his stock for lucrative backstreet trading. Or the European manufacturer who supports all the right charities, but also lengthens his ladies’ jackets until they’re really coats. Of course, he still sells them as jackets, which require, say, only two ration tickets. Coats take 10 or 12.

Here at home, in Washington itself, there’s the enterprising gas dealer who promoted international comity by peddling tires, strictly illegally, to a half-dozen embassies (Someone talked, and the red-faced diplomats had to disgorge their plunder. In one case, it amounted to 50 tires).

Jalopies with tires

In another case, a tire dealer is accused of selling a local newspaper no less than 1,800 tires. And there’s the Indiana used-car dealer who put new tires on ancient crates, then sold them for their undeniably good rubber.

Let’s look at some “legitimate” hocus-pocus that’s going on here already. The practice of “upgrading” – arbitrarily moving a product into a higher price bracket – has cost the government heavily and in its scrap and steel dealings. A random OPA check of several New York haberdasheries recently showed about a third of the clothing either upgraded or down in quality. Until the universal price ceiling took effect, this was entirely within the law.

And notice the new slimness of your favorite candy bar. Or examine Junior’s paper pad – you’ll probably find it’s down from 100 to 80 pages.

The problem, now that Uncle Sam has supplanted supply and demand as the arbiter of prices and qualities, is to see that his rules aren’t nullified by such devices as this, nor by the less subtle practice of forges and other criminals.

[NormanStewart]

What will the Japs do now? –
Result of Battle of Midway: We now dominate Pacific

By Robert J. Casey

With the Pacific Fleet, off Midway Island – (June 9, delayed)
As we withdraw from this, the most important of all naval battles, we naturally look ahead of us into the future of the Pacific and ask ourselves, what now?

As a matter of fact, it should be the Japs who are puzzling over such matters – not only what are we going to do, but what are they going to do? Some place in Tokyo, Japan’s High Command is busy right now rewriting Admiral Yamamoto’s whole plan for war. For it was never mentioned by any of his advisers or soothsayers that a few minutes’ going over United States dive bombers would have changed his whole outlook on life.

For, whether or not the Japanese manage to reorganize what is left of the fleet that attacked Midway, whether or not they succeed in mustering enough carriers to make a showing – at least as good a showing as last time – in a second thrust toward Hawaii, the initiative in the Pacific War now rests with the United States.

Gesture of desperation

Japan’s power of offense went when the smashing of her carriers gave us air superiority at sea. If Yamamoto does salvage enough of his floating junkyard to make another attack, it will be a gesture of desperation. With the loss of another four carriers, Japan’s navy would definitely be out of the war, as indeed it seemed to be even at this moment.

At this moment, the only element remaining of Japan’s long series of offensives in the Pacific is the theoretical threat to the Aleutians. As we pull away from Midway, it seems possible that we may go up there and flit about through the fogs to make a further trial of our technique on one first-line carrier and one catapult ship which, 10 days ago, the Japs dispatched to raid Dutch Harbor.

No difficult job

It is pointed out that landing in the Aleutians, as a general proposition, is no difficult job. The chain of islands from the mainland to Russian waters is about 1,000 miles long and most of the points in the chain are rocky, desolate, cold and uninhabited. You can’t fly planes off them. You can’t base ships on them. If you land on them, you land and your arrival would have as much military significance to Alaska as if you had landed in the Azores.

Fog, such as you might expect to continue for another couple of months in the Dutch Harbor area, gave the Japs the advantage in their trick attack. It gave them plenty of cover when they drew back after their lone raid on the new air base.

Things have changed

So maybe this carrier, one of the four remaining first-line carriers on the Jap list, and catapult ship, which is of no particular importance, is staying up there, threatening the Aleutians.

But a week ago, one carrier represented at most 10% of the total carrier strength of the Imperial Navy. Now it represents 25%. And with the United States sea forces freed from the Midway mission, opposition in Arctic waters could reach impressive proportions on short notice. So, at the present writing, it seems more likely that the Jap ships that have been in Alaskan waters have been called away somewhere else – possibly to reinforce what Yamamoto saved at Midway, possibly just to go home and stay out of harm’s way.

Too early to guess

It is probably too early to guess what the broad strategy of the United States is going to be in the Pacific from now on. Operations up to the present have been canny, careful and quiet. Starting with the blasting of the Marshall Islands and ending with the destruction of half of the Jap Navy at Midway, they have worked as well as anybody could ask. Our ships seem better fitted to dodge bomb attacks than the cumbersome units such as the Japs lost at Midway.

With only four carriers left, Japan will be unable to take any more risks. Her grand fleet, such as is left of it, will probably stay close to home. And so will most of her carriers. That means that our fleet can wander around in the open spaces of the Pacific with lessening fear of murderers bombing attacks from Jap units in unsuspected spots. Air protection will no longer be as necessary as before for convoys save such as pass within range of land bases.

Now at disadvantage

It was relatively easy for Japan to restore the planes smashed up in our raids on Kwajalein, Enitwok, Moelelap, Wotje, Wake and Marcus. They only had to ferry a load over, and they had 11 carriers to use for ferrying. Now it will be after long thought and computation of possible losses that they will undertake any such delivery service to far islands.

Without naval air protection, their supply lines to China, Indochina and the East Indies are seriously menaced.

Without a continuously operating supply line, they cannot hope to keep up their resistance to the Allied Nations’ bombing attacks on Rabaul and Lae. It seems odd that planes should be grounded in Borneo because other planes were forced into the sea at Midway Island, but that, so far as we can see from where we are looking, is the way it adds up.

There is nothing new to prevent our sending out cruisers to destroy miscellaneous shipping. By cracking the supply lines and making it easier for our bombers to hammer the Jap invasion bases in front of Australia, we can hamper their land operations seriously. There is no reason now why we cannot take back our islands and the Marshalls and most of the Carolines if we want them. There is no longer a reason for delaying smaller offensive actions because we cannot spare carriers to protect surface ships.

[NormanStewart]

West Point ‘dean’ dies

Southampton, NY –
Brig. Gen. Samuel Escue Tillman, 94, superintendent of West Point during World War I and its oldest graduate, died at his home yesterday. He was appointed a cadet by President Lincoln in 1865.

[NormanStewart]

Fathers to be last –
4-category system used to call men for service

Washington (UP) –
National Selective Service headquarters today established a “four-category” system of inducting men into the armed services whereby all eligible single registrants of local draft boards are to be called to duty before men with dependents are taken.

After single men, the group called will be those with dependents other than wives and children. Men with wives only would be inducted in the third group, and men with both wives and children, or children alone, would be the last called to duty.

The headquarters sent this directive to state boards in accordance with a policy written into the dependents’ pay bill by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt yesterday.

The order gave official recognition to “pre-Pearl Harbor” marriages as causes for deferment, and carried out Congress’ intention to keep family units intact as far as possible.

Under the directive, registrants will be inducted in this order:

Category 1:

Registrants otherwise qualified for military service who have no bona fide financial dependents.

Category 2:

Registrants otherwise qualified for military service who have financial dependents other than wives or children mentioned in Categories 3 or 4.

Category 3:

Registrants otherwise qualified for military service who have wives with whom they are maintaining a bona fide family relationship in their homes and who were married prior to Dec. 8, 1941, and at a time when induction was not imminent.

Category 4:

Registrants otherwise qualified for military service who have wives and children, or children alone, with whom they maintain a bona fide family relationship in their homes who were married prior to Dec. 8, 1941, and at a time when induction was not imminent.

There was no indication how long married men or those with children would be deferred. Presumably it would vary in different draft areas – some of which are already low on unmarried registrants.

Local draft boards, moreover, will continue to review individual cases and judge:

…whether there are sufficient unusual circumstances to justify a departure from the general rule or priority of induction.

The dependents’ pay law provides for family allowances for dependents of enlisted men, with both the men and the government contributing. It was made retroactive to June 1, 1942, but the first payments will not be made until after Nov. 1, 1942, in order to allow proper machinery.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (June 26, 1942)

1,300 PLANES BATTER BREMEN; NAZI ARMIES RACE ON IN EGYPT
American airmen help; crucial battle for Egypt nearing

By Joe Alex Morris, United Press war editor

Bulletins

Pretoria, South Africa –
Unidentified airplanes, believed based on an enemy carrier, flew over Durban, South Africa, Wednesday night and efforts of British planes to intercept them were unsuccessful, it was announced today.

London –
The raid by British and American-built airplanes on Bremen last night was the most concentrated of the war and fires are still burning in the big German war center, the Air Ministry said tonight.

The main Axis army has driven over 100 miles into Egypt as the British strengthen their lines in an attempt to stop the speeding Germans and Italians at Marsa Matruh, 140 miles inside Egypt. Developments include:
1. Nazis now 30 miles from Marsa Matruh which was heavily air-raided.
2. Two Axis columns strike south; larger one heads for El Qattara.
3. Salt marshes (shaded area) form natural defense for lower end of Alexandria-Cairo road.

The Royal Air Force renewed a mighty aerial offensive with a raid by possibly 1,300 planes on the German war center of Bremen, but Axis offensives gained ground today in Egypt and Russia on the main roads to the Near East.

In Egypt, Nazi General Erwin Rommel drove three separate columns about 110 miles across the desert from Libya to within 30 miles of the main British base at Marsa Matruh on the Mediterranean coast, where advance units were in action in the main battle for Egypt may have already started.

United States Army four-motored Liberator bombers again joined with the RAF in striking at the enemy rear lines and main supply bases of Tobruk and Benghazi, but German planes were also reported hammering the railroad east of Marsa Matruh in an effort to halt Allied reinforcements.

There was little doubt in Cairo and London that General Rommel was now hitting with all the strength he could muster and as quickly as possible in an effort to destroy the British Eighth Army, which is regrouped in the Matruh area, and to drive on toward Alexandria Naval Base 160 miles away and to Suez.

Dispatches failed to indicate whether the British had been able to form strong new lines or had rescued sufficient equipment to stop the enemy columns, but there was no doubt that General Rommel was moving up big supply trains and that the outlook was grave.

The Axis armies are trying to hammer their way into the Near East oil fields and to cut Allied communications lines that are of the utmost importance, and heavy fighting on the Kharkov front in the Russian Ukraine indicated that the enemy was attempting to reach his goal by way of the Caucasus as well as through Egypt.

---

52 British planes reported lost in big raid on Reich

Moscow dispatches said that German reinforcements were striking behind powerful tank and airplane formations on several sectors of the Kharkov front, where the Russians were driven from the railroad junction of Kupyansk and another town and were forced to give ground elsewhere.

Operations were also intensified on other Russian fronts, with more than 100 Soviet assault and dive bomber planes blasting Axis ships and fuel dumps in a surprise raid on an unnamed Finnish port.

Heavy fighting continued at Sevastopol without important change.

As for the RAF attack on Germany, fires were started by British 4,480-pound bombs aimed at the submarine works, the Focke-Wulf airplane factories, the shipyards and the oil refineries of Bremen by RAF devastation raiders who lost 52 of their own aircraft in the night’s operations.

The British raiders were described officially as numbering more than 1,000, but their loss indicated a considerably greater force than the 1,030 planes that wrecked Cologne with the loss of 44 craft or the 1,036 that attacked Essen with the loss of 35 planes.

British, Polish, Canadian and American volunteer fliers with the RAF took part in all types of airplanes, ranging up to four-motored bombers carrying eight tons of explosives.

The new aerial blow is designed to wreck one of the most important war centers in Germany in line with the Allied master plan for sending a nightly average of 1,000 bombers against the enemy this summer. It was also important in the Battle of the Atlantic, since Bremen is a major base and production center for Nazi submarines.

The Melbourne radio said today an American motorized division of 11,000 men was reported to have arrived in Egypt. The broadcaster was recorded by the CBS listening station. The same report was heard yesterday from the Berlin radio. Officials in Washington declined to comment.

---

Outlook is obviously dismal; Rommel ‘shoots the works’

Today’s British communiqué said that the main battle in the Matruh area had not yet started last night, but that British mobile forces and airplanes, including American-built craft, were engaging the enemy and smashing at his spearheads and communications lines. Dispatches failed to give a definite idea of how strong Ritchie’s Eighth Army was at Marsa Matruh or how much he had been able to do toward forming a good offensive line, but the outlook was obviously not cheerful.

Rommel was obviously going to shoot the works in an all-out bid to win the Battle of Egypt and open the gateway to the Near East.

On the Russian front, there were still further indications that the Germans were now trying to get a major offensive underway in the Ukraine although Berlin propaganda has minimized the operation pending further developments. The Germans took the railroad junction of Kupyansk, 60 miles southeast of Kharkov and east of the Donets River, Moscow admitted. Berlin said that 21,827 prisoners, 100 tanks and 250 guns were captured.

This gave the first new positional information about the Russian front in many weeks and showed that the Axis operations had pushed back across the Donets as far and as probably somewhat farther than the point they reached before the Red Army counterattacks last winter.

On the Far Eastern front, Allied planes flying from secret bases in the Australian areas started big fires and wrecked enemy barracks, airdromes and supply dumps at Dili on Timor Island, at Rabaul and at Salamaua, north of Australia.

[NormanStewart]

Three German columns now near Matruh

British work feverishly to build defenses; main battle awaited
By Leon Kay, United Press staff writer

Cairo –
Allied and Axis air squadrons exchanged heavy blows in the North African desert today as a powerful enemy striking force pushed 110 miles into Egypt and to within 30 miles of the British defense base at Marsa Matruh.

Dispatches from Marsa Matruh said that indications were increasing the Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel would make his main assault in that sector. Advance forces have already been engaged there and the British Eighth Army is regrouped against three enemy columns. Today’s communiqué said the main battle had not started at dusk last night but it may have been joined later.

U.S. bombers active

United States Army Air Force planes (B-24 bombers known to the British as Liberators) joined with the RAF in heavy new raids Wednesday and Thursday nights against the main Axis supply bases at Benghazi and Tobruk and aerial attacks continued against Rommel’s advance units and big supply columns moving over the desert in a box formation protected by tanks.

Axis broadcasts said that German fighter-bombers and dive bombers attacked the Marsa Matruh sector, flying east of that British base and bombing the railroad line and airdromes in order to interrupt Allied reinforcements. Big fires were reported started by the raids.

London reported that Rommel had repaired British and American ranks captured in Libya and was using them in his drive into Egypt.

Three main columns

Rommel was using three main columns in his advance along the Mediterranean coastal road, the desert railroad and on a stab more than 50 miles to the south toward El Qattara “depression” or marshy region, possibly planning a flanking attack as well as a frontal drive on Marsa Matruh. The enemy was using all types of armed forces.

British forces were working at forced speed in an attempt to consolidate their Marsa Matruh line in an attempt to stop the Germans and Italians.

Try to consolidate lines

Strong British mobile forces of tanks and armored cars were roaming the entire battle area, seeking to break up enemy spearheads and harass the massed forces following it, to give the defenders time to consolidate their emergency line.

Rommel’s main army was using the railroad which the British had built west of Marsa Matruh and was pushing relentlessly along it, using the caravan trails on both sides.

Slow Rommel’s forces

Mention that the main British forces had not been engaged was taken to mean that the covering forces, fighting a difficult rear guard action, had succeeded in slowing Rommel’s men to some extent.

Every hour was vital now while Gen. Ritchie tried to reorganize and regroup the forces which had retreated from Libya and to dispose the reinforcements pouring in from the east.

[NormanStewart]

Pacific War Council

Members of the Pacific War Council as they met at the White House to review the world situation. Seated are Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. Standing (L-R) are Dr. Eelco van Kleffens, Netherlands Foreign Minister; Owen Dixon, Australian Minister; Leighton McCarthy, Canadian Minister to the United States; W. L. Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister; Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States; Dr. T. V. Soong, Chinese Foreign Minister; Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines, and Walter Nash, New Zealand Minister to the United States.

---

Roosevelt-Litvinov talks stir second front hopes

By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have conducted “extended and most important conferences” with Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov in their current formulation of grand strategy designed to win the war, the White House disclosed today.

The disclosure that Litvinov had met and talked with the two Anglo-American leaders seemed to indicate that an eventual second land front in Europe, long sought by the Soviet Union, was still uppermost in the current regulations.

The United States and Britain have formally committed themselves to Russia as recognizing the urgency of creating a new front in Europe that would relieve German pressure on Soviet lines.

White House Secretary Stephen T. Early also disclosed that while the President and Mr. Churchill were talking to Litvinov:

Conferences with military, naval and air officers – meaning those of Britain, the United States and Russia – are taking place simultaneously.

Mr. Early disclosed Russian participation in the important Roosevelt-Churchill war planning in response to questions concerning the importance attached by the White House to a conference among T. V. Soong, the Chinese Foreign Minister; the President and the Prime Minister. Mr. Soong yesterday asked the two leaders for more air support for China.

Asked whether Russian representatives had participated in the Roosevelt-Churchill discussions, Mr. Early said:

The Russians had figured in it from the beginning and still are.

Mr. Early disclosed that Secretary of State Cordell Hull had participated in the leaders’ conversations with Litvinov.

Pressure for a vigorously active Anglo-American fighting front against Germany in Europe appeared to be increasing enormously under impact of bad news from practically all war theaters.

Mr. Churchill, whose visit here has been marred by the fall of Tobruk and Axis penetration of Egypt, is believed to be as eager as any man for the drive to begin. He is under hot fire at home and must answer to Commons when he returns to London.

President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill may have agreed on a shock for the Axis and a pleasant surprise for the peoples of the United Nations in their conferences. There is no hint of what they have agreed upon, but yesterday’s Pacific War Council sent conferees away smiling.

Dr. Eelco van Kleffens, Foreign Minister of the Netherlands government-in-exile, arrived by Clipper only in time to attend the council. He was almost exultant after the White House meeting.

He explained:

While I cannot go into the details, I want to emphasize one point – when I say encouraging, it is not just a matter of routine, but I have very definite reasons for saying so.

There is no denying, however, that the war is going against the United Nations as of today. Bad news from North Africa, Sevastopol and Kharkov is no more disquieting to Americans than the extraordinary mystery in which the authorities have packaged the Aleutian Island situation. Jap units are digging in there on fog-shrouded bases. The tantalizing uncertainty of the Aleutians has become more disturbing daily as the administration has permitted almost a week to elapse since giving the public any fresh news.

Urges Martinique seizure

On June 21, the Navy Department issued the latest word the public has had, a disquieting revelation that the Japs had established themselves in tents and temporary shores establishments at Kiska and that there was a “small force” of Jap ships in the harbor. The Navy is believed to know with reasonable accuracy how many ships and how many Japs are at Kiska. The fact that the numbers are not revealed causes speculation regarding the reasons for suppressing the information.

Even more immediately and painfully effective against the war effort is the second front established against the United States in her own waters by German and Italian submarines.

Proposing the seizure of Martinique, Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) asserted in the Senate that “competent experts” believe enemy submarines are based within striking distance of American coasts and that:

Every indication is that these bases are in and around the Caribbean Sea.

And he said government officials were his authority for saying that:

The sinking of cargo ships has been in excess of their construction since Pearl Harbor.

Charge hurled at Navy

At least one other member of Congress, Senator Allen J. Ellender (D-LA), is charging that the Navy is suppressing the true story of what is going on in nearby Atlantic waters, a charge which suggests that more ships are being sunk than the Navy will concede.

And there is some agitation here for a new high command setup which would put President Roosevelt – with the consent of Britain, the Soviet Union and China – in charge of overall war policies.

Mr. Churchill not only met yesterday with an augmented Pacific War Council at which Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King was present, but with a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders and committee chairmen.

The Pacific Council conferees uniformly pronounced their meeting with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill as most heartening and encouraging. The Congressional reaction was less uniformly and positively favorable although the Prime Minister assured the Congressmen that he was confident that Britain could hold Egypt against Germany’s mechanized drive.

Recall Singapore statement

In that connection, some persons recalled one of Churchill’s conferees on his previous visit here asked him directly:

Can you hold Singapore?

The questioner subsequently reported that the Prime Minister had replied:

If we’re not holding Singapore five or six months from now, I’ll be enormously disappointed.

The great naval base fell one month later.

Mr. Churchill was reported by members of the Congressional delegation to have minimized the adverse significance of the British withdrawal to the Egyptian border.

[NormanStewart]

4,000 planes, 100,000 guns built in May

President warns people against becoming overconfident

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt, giving the Axis some bad news, announced today that the United States produced nearly 4,000 planes in May, together with 1,500 tanks and 2,000 artillery pieces and anti-tank guns.

His disclosure of the production figures was the first such announcement from the White House since the President in January set a 60,000-plane and a 45,000-tank goal for this year.

Mr. Roosevelt’s figures were contained in a brief formal statement in which he cautioned the American people not to become overconfident, despite the fact that the production rate would give the Axis the opposite of “aid and comfort.”

Jitters for Axis

The President disclosed that in May, American arsenals turned out 50,000 machine guns of all types, including infantry, aircraft and anti-aircraft. He said that the addition of submachine gun totals to the machine guns would raise the production figure for May to well over 100,000.

Declaring that:

We are well on our way toward achieving the rate of production which will bring us to our goals.

…the President cited figures which he said:

The Axis will not be very happy to hear.

He emphasized that:

All these figures are only for one single month.

While they give “some idea of our production accomplishments, this is no time for the American people to get overconfident,” he added.

Must average 5,000 a month

Production figures hitherto have been withheld on the ground that the information would aid the enemy.

The airplane production goal for this year is 60,000. This requires a monthly average of 5.000.

Included in the text of Mr. Roosevelt’s statement:

While these figures give you some idea of our production accomplishments, this is no time for the American people to get overconfident. We can’t rest on our oars. We need more and more, and we will make more and more. And we must also remember that there are plenty of serious production problems ahead – particularly some serious shortages in raw materials, which are receiving the closest consideration of the government and industry.

[NormanStewart]

I DARE SAY —
The Post Office comes through

By Florence Fisher Parry

The specter is drawing close now, the specter we mothers dread most. The specter of not knowing; the haunting of apparition of suspense.

We have no idea how many of our boys have left this country. How many more are to be sent, our imaginations have not the strength to conjure. Certainly, any last remaining illusions of security have vanished from mind, borne away by the hot, evil breath of the news.

The postman’s burden will be sadder now than ever, for hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of little printed postcards will be delivered along the little Main Streets and backstreets of our land. These will be postmarked Brooklyn or New York. Printed on each will be these words:

I have arrived at my destination.

…under which the “sender” will have affixed the signature.

We will know that these signatures were all procured before these boys set sail, and were held by the New York Postmaster until word of the convoy’s safe arrival had been received. That is all the one we may expect to hear.

So, mothers prepare to endure this peculiar form of torture. It requires a definite preparation and resolve. Exactly the same kind as we would exert if, for example, we were called upon to defend our own city or home.

Our nerves are padded by shock absorbers which, if not subjected to too great a strain, provide us the necessary resistance with which to meet at normal experiences.

There are, however concrete, obvious ways in which we can prepare ourselves for whatever is to come.

Our task

First, we must shake free from a purely personal attitude and regard this war, not as a personal visitation, our own particular son singled out for martyrdom, but as a universal calamity affecting all of mankind. We must seek detachment and the dispassionate view.

We must keep well, and omit not one thing that could possibly deprive us of that health. All excess can be cut down, if not cut out. Make room for rest and sleep, but barely enough of each.

We must control our feelings; assume the virtue of an external calm, never mind what tumult rages in our hearts.

We must present a healthy, and happy picture to our men who are fighting this war. Release them to do it. Do not deprive them of their concentration on their task by telling them any distressing news from home. The temptation to pour out to them our own misgivings and loneliness will be increasingly great; but we cannot fail our opportunity, the greatest, I might say, ever afforded parents or wives.

For in our letters, however flattering our first attempts may be, we can learn somehow to release the real feelings toward them which, in normal days, we may have been too self-conscious to express. Let them know of our pride, our hopes in them, our confidence. Let them be reminded constantly of the reality and preciousness of what is waiting for them here when they return.

If we can manage to keep clear the picture of what they are indeed fighting for the great worthwhileness of the future, they will win. Stress not our need of them now, but our need of them later.

U.S. Postal Service

The United States Post Office is doing a monumental work. We can help in countless ways.

First, reduce the weight and bulk of our mail by not sending large packages, by writing closely on thin paper, by letting the contents of each letter count.

Through the new Postal Service, which is known as the V-mail service, the transmission of letters (without enclosures) will benefit members of our armed forces abroad exclusively. For this, we are being provided a special standard, uniform V-mail letter sheet which is a combination letter and envelope of standard minimum weight, stationery so constructed and gummed as to fold into a uniform and distinctively marked envelope.

The War and the Navy Departments will furnish V-mail letter sheets without charge to all members of our armed forces stationed abroad. V-mail messages sent by them require no postage. Parents, relatives and friends of the members of our armed forces may obtain V-mail letter sheets, write their messages, and by affixing a regular 3¢ postage stamp, they will be delivered either in the form of a tiny photographic negative, to be enlarged when delivered, or in original form, to any part of the world. It will be some weeks before these V-mail sheets will be universally circulated, but in Pittsburgh, small stocks are already available.

Until now, the mailing problem has been an easy one. From now on, however, with our men rapidly moving away from our shores, the Navy and Post Office liaison is swiftly inaugurating new methods of handling mail which will maintain the highest secrecy of the movement and location of seagoing units and forces.

If your boy has been sent out of the United States, the greatest service you can render your country is to subscribe, to the letter, to the demands made upon you. Any effort on our part to obtain information as to the whereabouts of any man in the service only serves to congest and complicate what is fast becoming one of the major problems of the Post Office.

[NormanStewart]

Battle against bureaus fails to erase NYA

Congress allows soliciting of trainees and large expenses to go on
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
It looked as if Aubrey Williams would emerge today as the outstanding hero for the defensive in the battle against the bureaus, by salvaging his Depression-born National Youth Administration in wartime.

The Senate was scheduled to approve an appropriation of $58,049,000 for NYA. The money will be used to support so-called pre-industrial “war-training” for youths from 16 upwards and to continue the financing of high-school and college students.

After supporting elimination of the Civilian Conservation Corps as voted by the House, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed with the House on letting NYA survive. In fact, it added $3 million for NYA aid to high-school students, while approving four of the $5 million in the House bill for college boys and girls.

They will be solicited

Young people taking NYA shop training will not have to prove they need the money. They will be solicited. An example of such solicitation was received here by Washington High School seniors in the form of a circular letter and signed by George J. Kabat, area coordinator for war production training,

The letter follows:

Young men and women of America:
Now that you are graduating from high school, you are interested in serving your country In the best way possible as well as in earning a living. It is urgent that you begin rendering full service immediately. Industries producing war goods need your power.

To this end, the University of Maryland war production training program makes it possible for you to learn a skilled trade in three to six weeks while you are actually producing munitions for our fighting men on the land and sea and in the air. When you have finished the short training period in this shop, you may enter war industries. At excellent salaries.

Course costs nothing

Your immediate job is to prepare yourself now by taking this brief training course which costs you nothing. You may train under expert factory instructors in any of the following trades: Machine tool (lathe) operation; welding, both electric and gas; forging; or sheet metal work. In some instances, you may earn enough to pay transportation and incidental expenses.

The War Production School on the campus of the University of Maryland has openings for 300 young men and women. Apply in person today or not later than one week after you receive this letter, at the War Production Training Shop, University of Maryland, College Park, Md.

Overhead is ‘stout’

In the printed Senate hearings, the following occurs:

Senator McKellar (D-TN):

In other words, as I understand it, the boys are going to get $18,810,000 of this $49,729,000.

Aubrey Williams:

Those are the facts.

Senator McKellar:

Let us see what that is. The boys get $18,810,000 and the supervisory folks and expenses get $30,919,000.

Mr. Williams:

That is correct.

Senator McKellar:

That is the stoutest overhead I have ever read.

The Tennessean is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and an exponent of curtailment of non-defense expenditures. He was able by the use of five proxies to keep Senator McCarran (D-NV) from putting $80 million for CCC back in the bill in committee.

The proxies were not brought to bear against NYA.