Press agent errs – moon just won’t play ball
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‘Buzz’ out of action – it’s his appendix
Somewhere in Australia (INS) –
For the first time since the United States entered the war, Lt. Col. Boyd “Buzz” Wagner, of Johnstown, Pa., is out of action –and his appendix, not the Japs, is to blame.
The noted officer, now chief of the Allied Interceptor Command, had an emergency operation for appendicitis a few days ago.
He was said to be progressing satisfactorily.
1,900 phone men strike
Cleveland (UP) –
Approximately 1,900 installation, maintenance and repair workers of the Ohio Bell Telephone Company went on strike today after breaking off negotiations for wage increases.
Japan claims 68,000 tons of shipping sunk
Berlin (UP) –
Japanese submarines during the past week have sunk 68,000 tons of enemy shipping off the West Coast of the United States, in the Indian Ocean and off Australia to bring the total claimed by Japanese forces since Dec. 7 to 374 ships, aggregating 2,600,000 tons, the German Transocean News Agency reported from Tokyo.
The report was accompanied by an analysis from Japanese Naval Headquarters which said that the attacks on Midway and Aleutian Islands had dashed all hopes of United States supremacy in the Western Pacific and:
…furthermore seriously endangered enemy positions in the Eastern Pacific.
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Chinese raise $6,500 for gifts to U.S. fliers
Chungking (AP) –
Appreciative Chinese have raised $6,500 to buy gifts for airmen of the United States Air Force in China who, like their predecessors in the American Volunteer Group, have become popular heroes.
Several organizations announced today they would pay a “comfort” visit to the Americans at the front Aug. 14, China’s Air Force Day, as a tribute to:
…their brilliant success against the Japanese.
Red Cross prepares cards for soldiers
PHILADELPHIA (UP) – Special cards to notify relatives of the arrival of Americans soldiers on foreign soil were announced today by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross.
The chapter said the War Department would prepare the cards, which will be signed by soldiers assigned to foreign duty and mailed at the point of embarkation after the soldiers reach their destination.
War crimps birthday of U.S. Coast Guard
WASHINGTON (AP) – War has put a crimp in the celebration of the Coast Guard’s 152nd birthday, but individual Coast Guard bases fitted observance into their war duties.
For men at sea, the day meant little more than an extra fancy menu at the mess table.
The international lifeboat races, formerly held at New York on the anniversary, were cancelled but several Coast Guard stations, particularly at New York and Curtis Bay, Md., held small boat races.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 5, 1942)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN IRELAND (By Wireless) – In this column I will try to give you a general idea of the mental attitude of the American soldiers who are the vanguard of the new AEF.
Some of them have been here going on six months now, others only a short while, but their feelings are all about the same. I have now traveled enough and lived enough with the troops that I think I have a pretty good idea of their general outlook. Basically it is this:
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They are impatient to get into action – not because of any thirst for war but because they want to get it over with and get home. Getting home is the real point. But they know they may not see home again till the fighting is done, and they are tired of waiting.
I saw the other day that a poll showed 48 per cent of the American people in favor of opening a second front this summer. I am sure a similar poll among the American troops in northern Ireland would go 99 per cent for an immediate descent on the continent.
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The soldiers say they have reached the peak of their Army schooling. In America they learned about all there was to learn short of actual combat. And now that they are just busily marking time, it seems anti-climactic to them.
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They don’t dislike Ireland, but they miss America’s weather. No matter how well they may fall in with the local community, they miss above all things their home companionships.
They miss American things. They feel that things at home are not only different from things over here, but that they are better. Time after time I have heard a soldier say that he now appreciates his home town – which he had never thought much of before.
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In general there is no kick at all against the Army. Without exception the men praise the Army food. And it seems to me that they like their officers better than our soldiers did in the last war.
As for money, they are getting more now than they know what to do with.
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Oddly enough, they don’t mind the rather primitive way most of them are living. They have adjusted themselves to it quickly. It isn’t the physical inconvenience they dislike, it’s the waiting for action.
Time doesn’t hang heavy, for they are kept pretty busy. It’s just that they want to get the fight finished and get home.
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They miss the small news from home. Over here they get the headline news, but none of what we might call the second-stratum American news – such things as an explosion in Iowa, a train wreck in Pennsylvania, a heat wave in Kansas, Ralph Ingersoll joining the Army, or the latest effects of gas rationing.
They devour the Stars and Stripes, so when I get to London I’m going to suggest that it carry one page a week of just this type of news from home. And I’ll bet a shilling to tuppence that nothing comes of it.
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The soldiers’ time is too occupied for much philosophizing or introspection.
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When the boys left their home towns to go into the Army some of them may have done so in a spirit of adventure. But life right now is neither adventurous nor romantic to them. It is just everyday soldiering.
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Despite their wish to be home, practically all the boys are proud and glad to be over here instead of stymied in some camp back in America.
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Taken all in all, the American troops as individuals and units are pretty well satisfied, pretty cocky, and they think they’re the best fighters in the world.
I guess that’s what it takes to win a war.
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina’s address to Congress
August 6, 1942, 12:20 p.m. EWT
Radio Oranje broadcasts:
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker and members of the Congress of the United States:
It gives me great pleasure to appear in your midst.
Seeing this great democratic assembly, renewing itself at regular intervals and meeting under self-made rules of law, seems to me a sure guarantee that liberty is forever young and strong and invincible, whereas the autocrat, incapable of rejuvenating himself, is every day nearer his end, his regime doomed to die with him.
Moreover, where and what would the world be today were it not for the United States of America, whose legislators you are?
Such thoughts warm my heart in this hour, and I know that my people everywhere feel as I do.
I stand here as the spokesman of my country, not only of those nine million of my compatriots in Europe, but also of some seventy millions in Asia and in the Western Hemisphere whom I know to be at one with me in the spirit.
The Netherlands were, like the United States, like all the United Nations, a peace-loving country.
At present, both in Europe and in Asia, that country is under enemy occupation.
A cruel fate has overtaken its inhabitants.
Imagine what it means for a liberty-loving country to be in bondage, for a proud country to be subject to harsh alien rule.
What would be the American answer if an invader tried to cover his wholesale systematic pillage with the firing squad, the concentration camp and the abomination of the hostage practice?
Having come by first-hand knowledge to know your national character better than ever, I doubt not that your answer would be: Resistance, resistance until the end, resistance in every practicable shape or form.
This is exactly the answer my people have given, and are giving every day.
If, in the material sense, they have been ruined by the enemy, their spirit grows with their hardships and they keep their unflinching belief in their liberation.
They see their families go without what they most need in food and clothing, their workers enslaved by the oppressor.
Yet, “no surrender” remains their constant motto.
Inside occupied territory and outside, the fight goes on. We use our resources to the best of our abilities. In the Indies, where our forces won fresh laurels together with yours, stubborn resistance continues locally.
Surinam helps the United States with its bauxite, Curacao with its oil products; our soldiers, sailors and airmen are on duty in both these territories, and they guard them in alert and cordial cooperation with your own forces stationed there when the war in the Far East prevented us from sending reinforcements to the Caribbean area.
Our Navy is on duty every day.
Our mercantile marine, still one of the largest, has been completely integrated in the navigational effort of the United Nations, fighting off Axis submarines and raiders in close companionship with your own brave seafaring men.
Those of us who have the inestimable privilege of being free feel that it our holy duty towards our enslaved compatriots in East and West to do whatever we can to hasten the day of victory.
Democracy is our most precious heritage.
We cannot breathe in the sullen atmosphere of despotic rule.
The people of the Netherlands have developed their free institutions in their own progressive way, in accordance with their high regard for personal and national liberty.
They had long approached the complete realization of the four freedoms which the President of the United States has set as one of the aims of our common war effort.
There was of old in our whole kingdom freedom of religion and of speech; there also was freedom from fear, and constant forward steps, designed to insure freedom from want, were in ever-expanding evolution.
Throughout my reign, the development of democracy and progress in the Netherlands Indies has been our constant policy.
Under Netherlands stewardship, a great number of peoples and tribes are being systematically merged into one harmonious community, in which all these elements, the Indonesians in their rich variety of religions, languages, arts and customary laws, the Chinese, the Arabs and the Westerners, feel equally at home.
Careful consideration has constantly been given to the particular characteristics and needs of the peoples concerned.
Confronted as we found ourselves by highly developed forms of civilization to which the population is deeply attached, we strove not to uproot these, but to promote their adaptation to the exigencies of the modern world.
The voluntary cooperation in mutual respect and toleration between people of Oriental and Western stock towards full partnership in government on a basis of equality has been proved possible and successful.
Increasing self-government, keeping pace with the rapidly broadening enlightenment and education of the native population, has been enacted ever since the beginning of this century and especially since the revision of the Constitution in 1925.
This steady and progressive development received new emphasis and momentum by my announcement last year that after the war the place of the overseas territories in the framework of the kingdom and the Constitution of those territories will be the subject of a conference in which all parts of the kingdom are to be fully represented.
Consultations on this subject were already proceeding in the Netherlands Indies when the Japanese invasion temporarily interrupted their promising course.
The preparation of the conference is none the less being actively continued, but in accordance with sound democratic principle no final decision will be taken without the cooperation of the people, once they are free again.
What are our war aims, and what our peace aims?
We have adhered to the Atlantic charter, and our lend-lease agreement with the United States points the way to wise international economic planning.
We want nothing that does not belong to us.
We want to resume our place as an independent nation on the fringe of the Atlantic, on the dividing line of the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, and to remain your good neighbor in the Caribbean Sea, and we accept the responsibilities resulting from that situation.
And above all, we want to see suitable measures taken in order that henceforth no nation may think it can, with impunity, break its pledged word or attack others.
When speaking of war and peace aims, I do not forget, were it only for one brief moment, that first of all there is a war to be won.
In that war we are with you and the other United Nations to the last.
It is not the first time that the Netherlands are associated with the United States in common warfare.
In the days of Washington, we were at one time comrades in arms, and it gives me pleasure to recall that the first salute given the American flag on behalf of a foreign government was rendered by guns of my country.
That ancient partnership we see revived today.
One of your great men who stood at the cradle of American liberty, Benjamin Franklin, once wrote to John Adams, your first envoy at The Hague:
I believe neither Holland nor we could be prevailed on to abandon our friends.
That was in 1782, and I think it still holds good today. We cannot be prevailed on, either of us, to abandon our friends.
That is why we considered the first Japanese bomb on Pearl Harbor as a bomb on ourselves.
That is why we never wavered in our resolve to be with the United Nations until the end.
United we stand, and united we will achieve victory.
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