Dr. Gannon gives fine example in disavowing isolationism
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A fine rescue
The loss, at least pending repairs, of the transport Wakefield, formerly the liner Manhattan, is a blow to our maritime strength at a time when every ship is needed to transport men and munitions. There would be no use denying that loss. Yet there is great consolation.
The warships accompanying the Wakefield performed the work of rescue in a fashion worthy of the traditions of the United States Navy. Because of their prompt and efficient work, more than 1,600 passengers and members of the crew were taken off in mid-ocean without loss of life. That is a first-rate achievement and brings honor to the officers and men who managed it.
Italy reports capture of U.S. flier in Sicily
Rome, Italy – (Italian broadcast recorded by UP in New York)
A High Command communiqué said that an American pilot had been taken prisoner when his plane was forced down during an Allied raid on Sicily.
The British Middle Eastern Command said in a communiqué that fighter planes based on Malta had shot down two Italian planes over Sicily. It was assumed that if one of the British planes was forced down, its American pilot was a member of the Royal Air Force Eagle Squadron made up of American volunteers.
The communiqué said Italian planes had shot down seven Allied planes which attacked a Mediterranean convoy and that an Italian destroyer had sunk a submarine.
Japs have 75 divisions ready to attack Siberia
Chungking, China (UP) –
Japanese military leaders have 75 divisions available for action against Russia in Siberia, well-informed Chinese military sources told the United Press today.
These sources reported there were 34 Japanese and 10 mercenary divisions in Manchuria, 6 Japanese and 15 mercenary Chinese Mongol divisions in Inner Mongolia, and 10 Japanese divisions held in reserve in the Hopei and Shantung area for reinforcement wherever required in a possible northern theater.
The Chinese press reported today that the Japanese authorities had introduced conscription in Manchuria and were forcibly enlisting all men between 18 and 40.
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Chief Palestine rabbi marks New Year in message to U.S.
Jerusalem (UP) –
Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Palestine, sent the following message to the United States for the Jewish New Year Saturday:
Men and women of the United States and all who strive and toil to rescue true civilization in this unprecedented world crisis, we send you blessings and greetings on the Jewish New Year.
Faith and trust shall be your motto in this gigantic struggle between light and darkness. America, the citadel of democracy and liberty, built upon the rock of prophetic teaching, become inspired with that immovable faith in the ultimate triumph of the great ideal of the future portrayed by Israel as the most afflicted victim of inhumanity on this darkest hour of its tragic but glorious history, and resolve now upon its restoration after the present gloom will have vanished with God’s help.
FDR may bar war pay raises over 15%
To use ‘Little Steel’ formula as yardstick, House committee told
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The Pittsburgh Press (September 10, 1942)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
LONDON – After an absence of a year and a half, I expected to find the food situation in Britain much tighter than when I left.
But actually, Britain seems to be eating as well as it was early in 1941. The only difference I can sense is an almost complete lack of eggs.
Choices are limited, but they give you huge portions of what you do select. Your average meal consists of soup, an entree of chicken, fish, roast beef or lamb, scads of potatoes and cabbage or spinach, and a dessert of berries or pudding.
It isn’t any lack of food, but the sameness of it, that sort of gets you. I’m eating more than I have in years, yet my stomach always has a sort of unsatisfied feeling.
Most of my friends over here have gained weight in the past year on their rationed diet. They attribute this to two things:
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They have to eat more starches and fattening substitutes, and have little fruit.
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Here in wartime you hate to send anything back uneaten and wasted, and consequently you stuff yourself fuller than you would ordinarily.
It’s even having its effect on me. The other night I stepped onto a penny weighing machine, and a little card popped out saying “eight stone and six.” Translated for you, that’s 118 pounds, which makes me practically obese.
Incidentally, on the back of the card it said, “You are naturally generous and affectionate.” Also brave and charming, it might have added.
England is full of jokes about its rationing restrictions and the sameness of its diet.
As you’ve no doubt heard, the English go in heavily for boiled potatoes. You finally get so the mere sight of a boiled potato enrages you. The English apparently feel the same way, and yet they just keep on boiling them. Recently the magazine Punch had the following quip:
“There are 101 ways of cooking potatoes, says a chef. The 102nd way is to fry them a golden brown and garnish with a large fillet steak!”
Oddly enough, the hated Brussels sprout has not reared its ugly head a single time since I arrived. Apparently they are saving them all to torture us with this winter.
There is a completely unexplainable difference – at least to me – in the quality and price of foods at various hotels. When I first came to London I went to my hotel. But I have moved to another one now, for the fantastic prices finally overcame me.
At the first hotel I got sugar for my oatmeal only twice in 16 days. And not once did I ever get even a powdered egg. Just sugarless oatmeal, sometimes prunes, two English sausages and tea. And the breakfast cost $1.30.
But where I am now, a modern but less flossy hotel, I get sugar every morning on my oatmeal, an extra lump for my coffee, and scrambled powdered eggs and sausages every day – and the cost is only 50 cents. The ways of innkeepers are too deep for me.
Some time ago the government set a 5-shilling limit on all meals, but put in a proviso allowing the restaurant or hotel to add a “house charge” up to 1 shilling sixpence.
The chain restaurants and the smaller hotels, many of them very good, do observe the rule. But lots of places get around it. For instance, I had a quite ordinary lunch the other day, and it cost 12 and 6 – or $2.50! On the bill it said “Luncheon – five shillings ($1). House charge – seven and six ($1.50).”
Being a meek man, I paid and slipped quietly out, instead of throwing off my coat and challenging the head waiter in person, as any legitimate hero should have done.
Yes, England still has plenty to eat, and the bombing lull has let a little relaxation into life, and yet living has steadily grown more complicated for Londoners.
My British friends say that one who lives in hotels as I do wouldn’t notice it so much, but that the average Englishman must ponder every little movement in his life.
They’ve grown to save every scrap of paper, every piece of string, to be on a constant alert against waste of the tiniest sort. Before buying a bite of food or a stitch of clothing you think and weigh and dole out your slim reservoir of coupons with the greatest reluctance. It’s hard to buy a comb, or cufflinks, or a hundred little things which don’t necessarily keep body and soul together but which seem important.
The same undoubtedly applies to all nations which have warred for three years, and will finally happen to us in America. Then maybe we lifelong string-savers will come into our own.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 11, 1942)
VAST RAF FLEET BOMBS REICH
Nearly 1000 planes raid Dusseldorf
Steel center hit for 50th time; 31 bombers are missing
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
LONDON (UP) – A fleet of British bombers described by the Air Ministry as a “powerful force” and believed near the 1000-plane level, struck last night for the 50th time at the important German industrial center of Dusseldorf.
Thirty-one bombers were missing from the attack on Dusseldorf and other Western Germany objectives, the Air Ministry said.
Dusseldorf, Germany’s 11th city with a population of 540,000, had not been raided since July 31. The Dusseldorf area is crowded with war industries specializing in engineering works and steel, and constitutes a target of considerably more importance than many larger cities such as Berlin, Vienna, Munich and Dresden.
Administrative headquarters
Its production includes parts for aircraft, warships and motor vehicles as well as torpedoes, mines, heavy guns, shells, bombs, grenades and armor plate. Dusseldorf is important also as an administrative headquarters for German heavy industry in general.
In Dusseldorf’s last serious raid July 31, more than 150 two-ton bombs and thousands of incendiaries were unloaded in 50 minutes of concentrated attack, and daylight reconnaissance subsequently revealed heavy destruction.
The lapse of more than a month between visits underlined an apparent RAF policy of leaving the big industrial targets alone until conditions permit sending an overwhelming force.
Loss of 31 planes was not unusually high. Losses have been running below five per cent of the planes involved.
The raid apparently was the heaviest of the seven RAF night raids made thus far in September.
The Nazi High Command reported fires and damage “particularly in residential quarters of Dusseldorf.”
The Berlin and Vienna radio transmitters left the air last night, indicating that Russian planes may have been making raids, perhaps on Berlin.
Heavy Bremen damage
Reconnaissance photographs taken after the RAF’s attack on Bremen September 4 showed great success in bombing of submarine and aircraft factories, warehouses, railways and harbor facilities, the Air Ministry announced. The raid was the 99th on Bremen.
In the center of the older portion of Bremen, the damage in one single area covered six and a half acres.
Radio Moscow, summarizing the results of raids on Budapest, Berlin, Koenigsberg and other towns in Eastern Germany Wednesday night, said 38 fires, 12 of them large, had been started in Budapest. Twelve fires, six of them large, were started in Berlin, and six fires and four heavy explosions were caused at Koenigsberg.
Rubber action by Roosevelt due Monday
All of Baruch suggestions except rationing get swift attention
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt said today he hoped to put into effect virtually all of the Baruch rubber committee’s recommendations by Monday, at which time a rubber administrator to serve under War Production Chief Donald M. Nelson will be appointed.
Mr. Roosevelt said that while he hoped to put most of the committee recommendations into effect by Monday, it would take time to set up the machinery for nationwide rationing of gasoline.
Mr. Roosevelt said he does not like the term “national gas rationing” because it is inaccurate. He said the recommendation of the Baruch committee was for mileage rationing and that the restrictions of gasoline sales would be only one of many methods for restrictions mileage.
Wants no speculation
The president opened his press conference by saying that he expected to announce the name of a rubber administrator on Monday and cautioned reporters against speculation over the name of the administrator.
“Does that mean you will appoint the administrator,” a reporter asked, referring to the committee recommendation that the administrator be appointed by Mr. Nelson.
The president explained amid a chorus of laughter from the reporters that Mr. Nelson would appoint the administrator, and that naturally he and the war production chief would agree on the selection of such an administrator.
Local boards in charge
The president said that the nationwide program of mileage rationing would be conducted essentially by local rationing boards. He said that one idea of controlling mileage – by periodic reading of speedometers – had been discarded because there were too many people in the country who knew how to turn back their mileage gauges.
In response to a question, Mr. Roosevelt said he did not think any legislation was necessary to put the committee’s recommendations into effect.
He said that enforcement of the nationwide 35-mile-an-hour speed limit recommended by the committee is essential and that the method of stricter enforcement would be decided by the rubber administrator.
Deplores speeding
Mr. Roosevelt added that too many motorists are not living up to the requests of their state governments and the chief executive himself in the observance of low speed limits.
The president was asked whether the new rubber administrator would deal with failure of certain government officials to take advantage of Soviet Russia’s experience in production of synthetic rubber. He said
the administrator would do so, but declined to elaborate.
Although America’s 27 million motorists faced the hardships of severe, nationwide gasoline rationing, they were assured officially by the Baruch committee that there probably would be enough rubber tires for minimum essential use of their autos despite Japanese control of 97 per cent of normal American rubber sources.
Report minces no words
The committee, composed of Bernard M. Baruch, President Karl T. Compton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and President James B. Conant of Harvard University, minced no words. Its report was expected to end the months of bickering on the subject in Congress, and among administration officials and the public, it criticized past “procrastinations, indecisions, conflict of authority, clashes of personalities, lack of understanding, delays.”
Here is a sample of the blunt warnings issued by the committee to American motorists:
“Unless corrective measures are taken immediately this country will face both a military and civilian collapse.
Asks control by ODT
“We have the choice! Discomfort or defeat. There is no middle course.
“When it comes to rubber, we are a ‘have not’ nation.”
The committee suggested that “general direction” of the rationing program be assigned to the Office of Defense Transportation, but a committee spokesman said that should not be interpreted to mean a major change in the position of the Office of Price Administration, which has been administering east coast rationing.
Joint program urged
The spokesman said the committee hoped OPA and ODT would be able to conduct the program jointly. OPA should concentrate on administration of the actual rationing, ODT on determining how rationing should be applied to cut to a minimum all non-essential driving, he said.
He added that officials of both organizations had agreed to the plan when they appeared before the committee. ODT already has inaugurated strict control over operation of five million commercial vehicles, limiting their mileage on the basis of “certificates of war necessity.”
Two oppose rationing
Announcement of the committee’s report brought varied reactions in Congress. Rep. Carl Hinshaw (R-Calif.) said “gasoline rationing in California would cause great confusion” since public transportation systems there are not adequate to replace automobiles.
Rep. Paul Kilday (D-Tex.) pointing out that Texas storage tanks are overflowing with gasoline, charged that “if they need rubber, they should take it and not resort to subterfuge.”
Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers (R-Mass.) described nationwide gasoline rationing as “only fair.” She said “the east now is being discriminated against, and promises don’t fill our gasoline and fuel oil tanks.”
AAA studies report
Although the Baruch Committee suggested 5000 miles as the average mileage to which motorists should be limited – the peacetime average is 9000 – it was made quite clear that little, if any, of this mileage would be allowed for non-essential driving, not at any rate until late in 1944 when the vast synthetic rubber program should be well underway. It also emphasized that it did not mean each person had a right to 5000 miles; it applies only to necessary driving.
Meantime, at Chicago, President Thomas P. Henry of the American Auto Association called a special meeting of the AAA executive committee to study the Baruch report. He said he was confident that motorists would co-operate with the program “as a part of their contribution toward winning the war.”
Failure to accept Soviet aid scored
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Baruch rubber committee criticized American officials for failure to accept the aid of the Soviet Union in setting up the synthetic rubber program.
“Failure of responsible officials to request the aid of Russia in setting up our synthetic system is a neglect for which we have not had a satisfactory explanation,” the Baruch report said.
“The Soviet republics have been first or second in the production of this commodity and we are asking that their ‘know how’ be obtained. The Soviet has expressed a willingness always to be cooperative.
“Russia has lost, through German advance, between 50,000 and 60,000 tons of its rubber-making capacity.”
Nelson told to let Kaiser build a few test planes
Coast builder getting ‘runaround’ in big way in capital
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Enemy halted in New Guinea
Fighting rages 40 miles from Moresby
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Alleged draft violator held at Steubenville
Steubenville, Ohio –
Robert Earl Lamborn, 22, of Toronto, Ohio, was held under $5,000 bond by a U.S. commissioner here today on a charge of evading the draft.
He was accused of not reporting for induction July 19. Lamborn, a member of the Jehovah Witnesses, reputedly told members of his draft board:
I am not willing to fight for my country.
Anti-inflation dispute taken to Roosevelt
Senate and House leaders deadlocked on form of new legislation
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Red Network author fights extradition
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
U.S. Commissioner Edwin K. Walker held today that Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling, pre-war isolationist and author of the Red Network, named in a sedition indictment with 27 men, should be removed to Washington, DC, to stand trial.
Mr. Walker withheld entry of the formal extradition order to give Mrs. Dilling’s attorney, William Scott Stewart, an opportunity to file a habeas corpus writ which would necessitate review of the extradition order in federal court.
Mrs. Dilling, fighting extradition, testified yesterday that she should be tried here, and separately, because she had no personal acquaintance with the other defendants and so could not have been guilty of conspiring with them to disrupt the morale of the Armed Forces.
Escort vessels named for 25 of war dead
Washington (UP) –
The Navy announced yesterday that it is honoring 25 war heroes – all but one of whom gave their lives in the present conflict – by naming escort vessels for them.
These ships, now under construction, are similar, though smaller, than destroyers and were especially designed for use in convoy work. Eighteen of those to be honored were victims of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japs save face by slapping it
Contradictory actions of foe puzzles whites
By Richard C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
New York –
The slapping of many British and American faces in the Far East by Jap soldiers can be ascribed largely to the inferiority complex of Japanese people, in the opinion of veteran American residents of Japan.
Face slapping were more common in Hong Kong than elsewhere. This was probably due to the fact Hong Kong was the first Occidental territory to be captured.
As a Jap prisoner in Hong Kong, I saw groups of British, Dutch and Americans herded about the streets in groups for the “edification” of Chinese and Portuguese. Faces of “enemy aliens” were slapped at the slightest provocation.
I asked my Jap guard, Cpl. Yasuichi Uehara, one day why it was necessary to slap faces of prisoners so often. He explained:
You our enemies. Must show people you prisoner.
How much for college?
Half an hour later, Uehara stormed into my room and bluntly asked in broken English, how much it would cost him to attend college for one year in the United States. Although my cheek still stung from the slapping of my guard an hour before, this seemingly innocent question left me bewildered. As it turned out, his question was in all sincerity.
Americans who have resided among Japs for as long as 20 years have admitted their inability to understand these abrupt changes of feeling.
In this war, Jap soldiers have been schooled to the belief that President Roosevelt is responsible for the United States and Japan being at war. Jap soldiers from the Hinterland have been inculcated with the belief all Occidentals are “foreign devils” and should be treated as such. The difference in treatment accorded by a Jap soldier who had encountered “foreign devils” before and one who had never had experience with Occidentals was striking.
Chinese are ‘thorns’
Because of their traditional superiority complex, the Chinese always have proved a thorn in the side of the Japs. It stings a Jap to know that his language came from China and that many of his customs originated in China or Korea.
Likewise, the modern fighting implements used by Japan originated in the Western world. Little he uses today originated in Japan. This heightens his desire to demonstrate his “superiority” at every opportunity.
Two days before I left Hong Kong to be repatriated to America, a Jap official obtained for me a sorely needed pair of shoes. I noted they had rubber soles, but had been made in China.
He explained, apparently having in mind the rubber plantations of Java and British Malaya:
We soon make much better in Japan. Maybe you can buy me a pair when I come New York after war.
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