America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

[NormanStewart]

The battlefronts in the Far East –

1. White arrows show Jap threats as British hold off foe west of Moulmein, Burma.
2. U.S. planes raid Jap bases in Malaya as Singapore awaits ground attack.
3. Japs heavily air raid Soerabaja, Java, biggest Dutch base, and other Java towns.
4. U.S. Army plans sink two more Jap transports, down 9 more planes in Makassar Strait.
5. MacArthur’s forces smash two more Jap landing attempts behind lines.
6. Port Moresby, 400 miles from Australia, raided in new attacks in New Guinea.
7. Australia suspends air mail service, holds test blackout in Sydney area.

[NormanStewart]

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

TIMBERLINE LODGE, Ore. – Let it be known that henceforth – anyhow for a week or 10 days – the author of this column shall be referred to as Ernst Otto Sven Pyle, familiarly called “Swish” by his intimates.

No, I am not turning Quisling or Nazi spy. It’s just that for an interlude my talents will be devoted to the slipping and sliding pastime of skiing, so of course I must have an Old-World name. The “Swish” refers to my here-he-comes-there-he-goes aspect (I hope).

I have been planning this winter sports spasm for three years – and managing to sneak out of it every year before this. You know me; I’m a tropical beachcomber at heart. I like to be hot, and to hell with the tang and exhilaration of frosty mornings and snowy slopes.

But this winter I got trapped. The Japs cut me off from my idyllic winter among the Balinese maidens. And here was I, left hanging high and dry in the Northwest, staring snow-covered Mt. Hood in the face. There seemed no way out but to ski out.

I’ve never had on a pair of skis in my life. Now that the time is nigh, putting on skis is the one thing in this world I do not wish to do. A man of my age! It is ridiculous. I might better take piano lessons or start college again, than try to learn to ski.

But the Timberline Lodge people saw that I was cornered, and threw their hooks into me. It was come up and ski, or else. My ski debut was all set for two weeks ago, on my way north. They almost got me then. But at the last minute I phoned and said I had to see about a bomber in Seattle right quick. It was a close shave.

I thought of going back south by way of Kansas City and El Paso, in what could be called a wide arc around Mt. Hood. But that would have taken too much rubber off my last set of tires. And I figured they’d catch me sooner or later, anyway, so maybe I might as well ski before my bones got even more brittle.

He tries to muster courage

So I drove back through Portland. I stopped there for a last deep breath. For two days I’ve been down in Portland (ah, sweet Portland, only 65 miles away!) trying to muster up the courage to come up here and face my Armageddon.

The thing actually became a horror to me. Last night I had nightmares of Japs by the thousands diving out of the skies at me – not in planes, but on skis. I saw the thing was getting out of control. I knew it was now, or the booby-hatch for me. So here I am.

I have not yet been on skis. I’m working into it gradually.

You really don’t know what it is for a man approaching his dotage to face the horror of getting out on skis for the first time before a mountain-full of agile young ski fiends.

Until yesterday noon, my fear was largely devoted to the prospect of people laughing at me. That in itself is one of the worst fears on earth. But now I have a tangible fear.

For yesterday noon George Henderson came in to my hotel in Portland to have lunch with me. Mr. Henderson is connected with Timberline Lodge in a promotion way. Mr. Henderson is a young and handsome man of the athletic type, and one of Oregon’s better skiers himself.

An expert breaks his leg

And Mr. Henderson arrived at my door – get this straight, mind you – Mr. Henderson arrived at my door with his left leg in a cast. Yes, he broke it skiing!

It was the second break in two years for Mr. Henderson’s leg. He seemed to think nothing of it at all. He says practically everybody who skis has broken a leg.

He seems to think it a constructive idea, for when you break your leg it’s stronger where you break it than it was before. You get the impression that Mr. Henderson would like both his legs broken every half inch from his toes to his hips.

Mr. Henderson’s arrival was my first contact in a long, full and pleasant life with anybody who had ever been on skis. It was my initiation to the true skier’s attitude toward the subject of life and limb. So sorry to have met you, Mr. Henderson. Drop in again after your next break. Or perhaps we’ll see each other in the morgue. Goodbye, Mr. Henderson.

As I say, I’ve not yet been on skis. I’m just talking and stalling, like a child who feigns interest in everything around the room to keep from going to bed. My mind jumps and darts at possible excuses to get out of the whole thing.

I escaped it today by saying I had to get “oriented.” A man should never ski off in all directions before he knows where he is. I’m engineer-minded, and I want to look the ground over, and see the condition of the snow, and test the wind, and…

It suddenly occurred to me that I have no skis. A perfect out. I rushed down to the instructor and said “Well, Olaf, this breaks my heart, but the whole thing’s off. I have no skis.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Olaf. “They’ve got lots of skis here to rent. And everything else – boots, pants, jackets, mittens. You don’t have to buy anything.”

That ruse didn’t work, so I hit on the scheme of carrying on a distracting non-stop conversation, not giving Olaf a chance to say a word, until it was too late to ski.

Maybe I could filibuster him. Maybe, by reading him the Bible or constantly reciting poems, I could hold his interest for several days. And then suddenly, a week from today, I’d look at my watch and say, “Goodness me, here it is Tuesday and I’m due in Portland in two hours. Thanks a lot and goodbye, old fellow. I’ll be skiing you.” (Somebody will hang me for that one.)

But I guess it’s no use. Tomorrow I face my doom. If there’s no column tomorrow, you’ll know what happened. Please omit flowers.

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Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

DETROIT – Suppose we table for today the question of why the motor industry didn’t convert sooner to war production and such recrimination, which is really but the bitter consolation of peoples beaten in war, and turn to something more vital and optimistic. This nation is not defeated and can be defeated only by such strictly internal enemies as politics, fat-headedness and a stupid belief that we are invincible merely because we say so.

Unfortunately for private interests and investments, the motor industry built so large and well and achieved such renowned success that, despite any fine old theories of private ownership, it became a national asset which could be taken over by the Government with practically unanimous political approval if the owners and operators should refuse to help.

The big shots of the industry are today no more able to refuse than Hitler’s industrialists were. Not that they have any thought of refusing, for they are all patriotic, too; they have to co-operate to retain even the nominal control of their property. Their industry, by and large, is as surely an arm of defense, or offense, as the Navy. Now it is, as the British say, all-out, or going all-out after considerable delay.

Thinks they hope for good report

As a means of nosing about the country the fact that they are all-out, or going all-out, they have been conducting some sightseeing tours for quite a collection of journalists but not, however, under subsidy, such as all-expenses-pad, which is the European way.

They just invited reporters out and have shown them around. I think they have in mind a hope of a good report w help them put down the suggestion that professional unioneers, skilled in harangue and conspiracy, are better fit to run these enormous plants, which were built from the naked fields in a few score years, than the financiers, promoters, organizers, managers and masters of big machinery who developed a croupy and highly speculative engine into the national asset that it is.

At this point, I refer to my notes on the production of certain gun parts and tear them up, for it is wisely forbidden to indicate how many of these hard-wrought mechanisms, pared down by great machines from huge, ugly square blocks to the fineness of jewelry, are coming out of the shop in question.

The block comes in from elsewhere and someone, certainly not Walter Reuther of the CIO, sees within it, as the sculptor sees the nymph within the block of marble, thus priceless machine of war and so it starts on its travel through the works, being planed by steel teeth of incredible sharpness and strength and bored and filed and gentled until, buttered with heavy grease and covered with canvas against the weather and unauthorized gaze, it leaves the plant to go to War.

The man who runs this show was a Hoosier kid who went into autos in the alley-shack machine-shop era of the motor industry and now makes nothing but war stuff, in much less quantity than the situation desperately wants, to be sure, but more and more these days, for war is his only business now.

The motor industry turns to war

The workers here, incidentally, appear to be, on an average, older than the run. Many of their jobs call for delicacy and skill, although there are some operations, thought to require great talent, in which the toller may lean against something gnawing a candy bar while the machine performs, and knowingly quits when its wizardry is done.

Production of these gun parts is rising and the present rate is a mild comfort, but lest anyone decide that the war is as good as won, it is still terribly short of the great demand and the figures are nothing to lard the spirit with the blubber of complacency.

A vast assembly plant which abandoned autos last week, with ceremonies not untinged with sadness, was well on toward dismantlement yesterday. Men were ripping out the assembly line, chewing great holes in the concrete floor and digging pits for the concrete foundations of new machines. Men were shoveling up filings and scrap and jerking great, dumb giants of mechanism by block and tackle across the floors for removal to some great central pool in which thousands of such machines, useless for war, will be stored against the peace. The work of years and some vast investment were coming up by the roots to make way for new equipment to make anti-aircraft guns and parts of bombers.

The great American auto business is destroyed, gone and the motor industry is turning, late, and with uncertain steps but with its vast power, to war.

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Clapper: Doing the job

By Raymond Clapper

DETROIT – What I get out of this trip here is that the country could not do the war production job without the auto industry.

We could not produce all that will be needed without using the vast number of executive and engineering men in the industry. We could not do it without using the vast army of skilled and semi-skilled labor which had been tied up in making autos. Also we shall save some time by using machines that can be adapted from auto-making to war work.

General Motors as agreed to produce 40 percent of the plane engines for the Army, 25 percent of the tanks, half of the trucks, a third of the machine guns and half of the Diesel engines for the Navy.

Studebaker has had a normal auto production of eight million dollars a month. By December it should be producing war goods valued at 25 millions a month. By June of next year, it is obligated to be producing at the rate of 40 million dollars in war goods a month.

Companies transfer idle machines

Chrysler employed 73,000 men before Pearl Harbor. By next December, this company will need 90,000 men to do the war work under contract. General Motors will jump its wage rolls from 248,000 to 450,000. Those figures give some idea of the expansion that is going on. Not even in its best years was the auto industry ever called upon to produce what the Government is now asking of it.

Chrysler has about 19,000 machines. Of these 11,000 have definitely been tagged for war work. Of the 8000 remaining, war work will be found for about half of them. While it is true that the assembly lines are now junk. much of the machinery is to be used for war work – probably three-quarters of it.

Studebaker can use 60 to 70 percent of its tools on war work.

An important fact to remember in this connection is that for the first time there is now set up an exchange whereby idle machines can be transferred from one company to another. The whole industry is in on this pool. It must list every idle machine. If any other company can use it, the machine goes there.

Here is a little incident showing the spirit at Detroit:

Machinery repairmen at the Chrysler-Dodge plant found an old cylinder grinder, not used for 20 years, and are repairing it for a grinding operation on aircraft engines. They found more than 50 ancient derelict machines in the graveyard, chipped the rust off with hammers and chisels, and are putting them into stopgap performance while waiting for more efficient machines to be made. These old machines had been marked for shipment to the steel mills as scrap.

Labor supply sure to cause trouble

Not only is the industry determined to use the most efficient time-saving methods. It also is going on the theory that any production now, however inefficient, is better than none pending the arrival of more modern machines.

Labor supply is certain to cause severe trouble. There are not enough skilled people in sight, even though all who were in the auto industry will be used. A million more will be needed by the former auto industry. The temporary unemployment now is certain to give way within a few months to the most acute shortage. Plants are doing a good deal of training themselves in anticipation. But obviously there is room here for more direct action by the Government and by labor organizations.

The assembling and training of this industrial army is a task as necessary as the assembling and training of the fighting Army.

The Government and the labor unions can carry the load in this. But the labor unions are quarreling about double-time pay for Sunday work, and the Government’s labor activities are scattered around among several agencies none of which has the power and concentration of authority necessary. This needs attention now. We need it headed up as Bevin has headed up the British labor supply. Mr. Roosevelt has done it on the production side. Now it must be done on the labor-supply side.

That isn’t Donald Nelson’s job. But he can’t get his production unless an adequately trained labor supply is provided.

That is the big hole in the picture now.

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Maj. Williams: The Jap strategy

By Maj. Al Williams

“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”

Jap strategy in the Far East is becoming more apparent daily. Consider the recently-reported attack by clouds of Jap airplanes, clearing the way and protecting cruisers and transports against the Solomon Islands. Ordinarily, and in the pre-air-war age, these islands were strategically rather unimportant. But they lie practically across the sea lanes from the United States to Australia, or the roundabout course from the U.S. to Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. You’d better get an excellent Pacific map.

It’s the only way to understand and intelligently appreciate the significance of this type of war where air bases count first and naval bases are incidental.

Up to this war it had been the other way around. Naval bases could be planted only on certain islands possessed of certain contour and terrain, plus deep harbors. Air bases sprout and become the new strongholds dominating sea lanes of commerce and strategically-vital sea lines of communication and supply.

Getting back to consideration of the Solomon Islands and their strategic value, it appears as if any supply lines attempted across the Pacific on a great circle course from Hawaii to the Philippines and the Eastern zones of combat would be impracticable because of the necessity for running the gauntlet of the network of Japanese-fortified and held islands that are squarely across any such shipping course.

These islands extend in a network down from the north (Japan). They are the Marianas (approximately 20 to 10 degrees north latitude), and continue southward under the name of the Caroline Islands, Yap, the Palau group, and the Marshalls (from about 10 degrees north latitude to zero degrees latitude – the Equator).

Island patrol bases

If the Japs can establish air bases on the Solomon Islands, their sea patrol planes will be able to interfere seriously with shipping degrees south of the Equator (10 degrees south latitude). The Japs already control and have fortified all the islands mentioned from the Equator to Japan proper, which is 30 degrees north latitude. By jumping the Solomon Islands, and if they are able to establish air bases there, they will have added 10 more degrees of latitude to the screen of air base islands which will interfere with our shipping lines to all points in the Far East.

If this is actually the Jap plan of strategy, and it seems most likely from the moves to date, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them next attempt to put air bases on the New Hebrides, which would bring another 10 degrees of south latitude under their sea patrols. If this grandiose strategy is ever consummated, it will mean that shipping from the United States will have to go clear to South Australia (to reinforce Australia itself) or clear around the southern coast of Australia to reach the Dutch East Indies or Malaya.

This is an ominous prospect which must be reckoned not only in additional miles and days of sea voyages, but in the true naval terms of so many more cargo ships.

As a factor in naval strategy, additional miles of sea lines of communication eventually mean additional cargo bottoms, rather than merely counting up the additional miles. It’s not a bright prospect.

Danger in Singapore

In studying the lines of sea communication in the Far Fast, it is well to swing for a moment to consideration of Singapore and the adjacent sector. The British farsightedly selected Singapore many years ago, because in terms of warship and sea fleet warfare this stronghold prevented the Japs from working their way into the Indian Ocean, since it commanded the Straits of Malacca (between Singapore and Sumatra). But in this war, where airpower is swinging a new balance in each combat zone, the Japs can and do actually contest with the British the passage through the Straits of Malacca. With their air bases on the western coastline of Malaya (Penang is one such air base), Singapore still prevents the Jap sea fleet from passing through the Straits of Malacca, and the Jap air bases from which their sea patrols operate prevent British shipping from using those self-same straits. This makes it possible also for planes operating from these air bases to interfere with shipping and the unloading of shipping on the southern coast of Sumatra and certainly at Singapore (which is under constant air bombardment).

The more I study this Far Eastern situation, the more convinced I become that the only way we can lick Japan is by taking advantage of the High Road to Japan, via Alaska. Just regard your map. The North American and Asiatic continents lean toward one another closer and closer with each ten degrees of additional north latitude and separate as one progresses farther southward. In the high north latitudes, the gap is only about 600 miles; in south latitudes the gap is about 9000 miles. Perhaps after all we will be forced to do first things first and use the stepping-stone jump to get to Asia.

[NormanStewart]

Barkley urges Senators to be tough-skinned

All must take responsibility for Pearl Harbor, he says in debate

Washington, Feb. 3 (UP) –
After a debate on where the responsibility for Pearl Harbor should rest and whether Guam, now in Japanese hands, should have been fortified, the Senate today heard Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky urge his colleagues to meet criticism with “tough skins.”

The discussion grew out of a speech by Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), who defended Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT) against charges which he said had been made over the radio that Senator Wheeler blocked wiretapping legislation.

Mr. Barkley said he had not previously heard or read of any such charges, and added.

Not cause of disaster

Certainly nobody is stupid enough to think the failure of Congress to pass wiretapping legislation was what caused Pearl Harbor.

Senator Barkley said he believed:

We have all got to take some measure of responsibility for the disaster at Pearl Harbor.

…but Chairman David I. Walsh (D-MA) of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee questioned the statement.

Mr. Barkley said:

I had in mind the smugness of the American people. For instance, I think Guam should have been fortified.

Senator Walsh said:

So do I.

…adding it should be pointed out that the Navy never asked for fortification, but merely for improvement of harbor facilities. The House defeated the plan, 205–106, three years ago.

Congress unfairly blamed

Mr. Walsh said he did not believe it was fair to lay on Congress the blame for lack of action to prevent “what happened.”

Mr. Walsh said:

Congress doesn’t manage or control the actions of the Navy. I think we ought to be careful in accepting any responsibility.

Senator Millard E. Tydings (D-MD) recalled he had suggested that the Naval Affairs Committee authorize improvements at Guam if Japan refused to permit the United States to inspect the Mariana and other Western Pacific islands, mandated to Japan under an agreement that they would not be fortified.

Senator Bennett C. Clark (D-MO) commented:

No amount of fortification at Guam would have substituted for the fundamental lack of alertness at Pearl Harbor.

Senate cooperation cited

Senator Tydings said that if the nation can learn any lesson from Guam, it should be that we ought to put our possessions:

…in a military position to defend themselves.

Mr. Barkley said that regardless of conflicting views before the Pearl Harbor attack Dec. 7, every member of the Senate had cooperated “completely, fully and promptly,” in war legislation.

Senator Barkley said:

I hope that those who speak over the radio and write columns and who enjoy the patronage of the public will keep in mind that it is important for Congress to march forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, without recriminations.

I hope Senators will not take too serious these little pinpricks. The American people are fundamentally sound.

[NormanStewart]

Male jury selected for espionage cases

New York, Feb. 3 (UP) –
An all-man jury was selected today to try seven persons, including one woman, on charges of conspiracy to violate the espionage laws.

It was the first spy trial since the United States entered the war, but because the defendants committed the alleged crimes before war was declared, they face a maximum of 20 years in prison, instead of the firing squad.

The alleged mastermind of the ring is Kurt Frederick Ludwig, arrest last August in Seattle, while he was fleeing. Ludwig, the government charges, turned over the information he gathered to another defendant, Paul T. Borchardt, 56, former major in the German Army.

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Ship strikers waver under U.S. pressure

End of independent union walkout on coast is believed near

Seattle, Wash., Feb. 3 (UP) –
Government-encouraged defections within the ranks of independent welders undermined the Puget Sound Shipyard strike today and forced union leaders to draft “new strategy” in their jurisdictional dispute with the American Federation of Labor.

The striking United Welders, Cutters and Helpers Union (independent) refused to indicate whether it would call off its four-day walkout in the face of new demands from the War Production Board, Maritime Commission, Army and Navy, who joined in denouncing the strike. Union leaders said they were forced to follow a new program but they refused to reveal its details.

Statements conflict

Strikers met to consider the government demands last night after Sheldon G. Knutson, secretary of the union, estimated that only about 30% of the union’s membership had remained on strike.

Charles Brinkerhoff, secretary of the local at Tacoma, however, asserted that only 40 workers reported yesterday at the Tacoma plant of the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Co. He said they included 31, imported from Portland, Ore., schools, who were:

…so incompetent they are doing more damage than good.

R. J. Lamont, president of the Seattle-Tacoma Co., said the AFL Boilermakers Union was providing men to fill the strikers’ jobs and that in “the Seattle picture as a whole” 95% of the men were working. Five other Puget Sound shipyards involved in the walkout.

Union shifts policy

Mr. Lamont said the strike was “definitely finished” at Seattle and that the situation was “rapidly improving” at Tacoma. The independent union claimed a membership of 1,100 at Tacoma and of 1,600 at Seattle.

A company spokesman said only 30 of a crew of 400 on the night shift at Seattle were missing.

After last night’s meeting, Mr. Knutson said the union was:

…forced in all future business to follow an entirely new program.

He said:

We are launching a new strategy to prove our point on the discriminations and intimidations on the part of the AFL.

The four government agencies at Washington issued a statement urging the welders to resume work and:

…repudiate the leadership which has encouraged a reckless disregard of the needs of the country.

Government statement

The statement said the welders had a right to belong to a union of their own choice but that there was no jurisdiction for trying to break the agreement of a:

…duly recognized bargaining agency by the means they have employed.

No employee was forced to join more than one union, it said.

AFL metal trades crafts have closed shop agreements with the shipyards. Welders complained they were forced to belong to more than one union and established the independent group when they were denied the right to organize an autonomous group within the AFL.

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Oil fields enlist women firefighters

Gladewater, Tex. (UP) –
A women’s firefighting brigade is being organized to prevent flames from destroying the East axes oil field in case of incendiary bombing.

Fire Chief O. B. Davis of Gladewater said protection of the world’s largest oil-producing area would be left largely to the housewives.

This system, said Davis, was used successfully in London during the fire raids and will be used in this rich oil production center.

He commented:

You’d think they’d have a high-powered formula for putting out fire bombs. But they don’t. The formula is sand.

If bombing raids become imminent, Davis said, each housewife will be asked to keep on hand a supply of dry sand.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: They remember Pearl Harbor

To the public, the Pacific Fleet’s attack on Japanese bases in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands is welcome evidence that our sea forces are able to take the offensive. To the strategists, it is a forerunner of more ambitious action in the future against the enemy’s outer defense screen.

This was not a major engagement. Its purpose was to feel out enemy strength, and to destroy as many bases and craft as possible in a hit-and-run process.

It was successful. The reconnaissance was completed. Jap losses were heavy, and American light. Fortunately for the enemy, no capital ships were found at or near the bases, or they probably would have been added to the toll of auxiliary ships and planes destroyed.

The importance of the Marshalls, which Japan heavily fortified as a mandate power, and the Gilberts, which she captured from the British in December, is obvious. They serve as a barrier between our Hawaiian-based fleet and the Southwest Pacific war zone, and as bases against the American-Australian supply line.

From these Marshall bases, Japan launched the surprise assault on Pearl Harbor, Midway and Wake with aircraft carriers, long-range bombers and submarines. They are 2,200 miles from Pearl Harbor, or almost halfway to the great Dutch Indies base of Amboina now threatened by the Japanese. They are less than 700 miles south of our lost Wake.

Therefore, the safety of Hawaii, the recapture of Wake, the protection of our lifeline to the Indies, to Singapore and eventually to the Philippines, all would be greatly facilitated by our seizure of these enemy lines.

If Adm. Nimitz’s destructive raids are merely the prelude to bigger action – as the Japanese fear and Americans hope – the enemy now faces the difficult choice of defending those crippled bases with inferior forces, or shifting some Japanese strength from the long Burma-Singapore-Philippine-Indies battle line. Either way, the Allies should profit.

That, of course, is the supreme advantage of offensive over defensive strategy. Virtually all of Japan’s extraordinary victories to date, extending over many thousands of miles, are due to her offensive advantage and our defensive disadvantage. Japan never can be stopped or turned back by defensive action, however heroic. Only counteroffensives against her dangerously lengthened lines can lick her.

So even more gratifying than the immediate result of the Pacific Fleet’s first major action is its promise of more offensives to come.

[NormanStewart]

Ferguson: Morale and mending

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

I never did think men would like women messing around in their wars. From several talks with those who direct state councils of defense and sundry other civilian organizations, I find the hunch was correct.

I sense signs of what may soon become open revolt. Subtle criticisms of women creep into masculine conversations and bode no good for females who hanker to put on pants and get into the fighting.

One says:

I’m having the damnedest time with the women volunteers.

…just like that and right out loud.

Most of them want to roll bandages, wade knee-deep in blood and drive ambulances. I hope the government lifts the priority on needles pretty soon, so some of these gals can do a little mending at home and also a little more mending for the reclamation work that is bound to come on uniforms, bedding and clothing for hospitals and soldiers.

While the papers report all kinds of new jobs for girls and the pictures show them toiling at strange tasks, there is a tendency to classify us as defenders of morale, and I’m for it.

We may be good pinch hitters and welders, truck drivers and machine operators, but I feel the nation can’t take much of that sort of stuff from its women and keep its values straight.

There are plenty of jobs for us. But, as in times of peace, they must be jobs for which we are naturally fitted. Occupational maladjustment is one of the fundamental sources of human misery, according to the psychologists. So a pretty good slogan for the girls, even now, would be:

Morale, morale and mending.

If we look after those, we’ll be doing a worthwhile job for Uncle Sam!

[NormanStewart]

U.S. War Department (February 4, 1942)

Communiqué No. 91

Philippine Theater.
During the night of February 3, elements of the 16th (Kimura) Division made a local attack on our left flank in Bataan. The attack was sharply repulsed.

Our troops continued to mop up tattered remnants of the Japanese who had previously landed on the west coast or who had infiltrated behind our lines. These enemy troops were from the Tatori group and Kimura Division and were found in isolated pockets. No reinforcements were able to reach them. The enemy had attempted to supply them intermittently with food and ammunition dropped by parachute. However, most of these supplies fell into our hands.

Japanese prisoners of war expressed great surprise at the humane treatment they re receiving at our hands. They said they had been told that we would execute all prisoners.

On our right, there was little activity during the past 24 hours.

Enemy activity over our lines was limited to a few sporadic bombing attacks which did no damage.

Dutch East Indies.
A delayed report advised that seven U.S. Army bombers of the Flying Fortress type attacked Japanese shipping at Balikpapan, Borneo, on February 2. Two enemy transports were sunk and a third, which was hit repeatedly, was probably sunk. All of our planes returned to their base undamaged. It is believed that this attack is the one mentioned in Gen. Wavell’s communiqué of yesterday.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 4, 1942)

Draft officials say –
If your wife can work, you may get call

Government would assist in partial support of dependents

Thousands of married men whose wives are capable of “working for a living” likely will be called into the Army after Congress enacts a government “relief bill” for draft dependents. Selective Service officials announced today.

Although emphasizing that men with families would in all likelihood remain in Class 3-A for some, authorities in Washington pointed out that a bill already pending before Congress would free for service:

1. Men with wives who are partly supporting themselves or who are physically able to get jobs and support themselves with government aid.

2. Men, both married and unmarried, whose dependents could support themselves with their own income, plus a maximum of $30 a month from the government and the soldier under a joint relief plan.

3. Men supporting parents or relatives who could get along on a reduced income.

4. Men who might hold deferments on the basis of court-ordered alimony payments.

Hits many in area

The plan, which Brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, national draft chief, outlined to a House investigating committee late yesterday, would hit hard at the estimated 100,000 men now holding 3-A deferments in Allegheny County.

In Washington, however, draft officials reiterated that the bulk of the 3-A men – whether the law is passed or not – will probably not be touched this year because estimates show the Army can reach its goal of 3,600,000 by next Jan. 1 by calling up, first of all, the 1-A men in the present lists and those who will become available following the next registration Feb. 16.

New list to be called

That many of those between 20 and 44, inclusive, will be called to service soon after they register was indicated by General Hershey, who told the committee that men from this group:

…will be inducted in the near future.

Older men, he said, will be given “less physically exacting jobs” by the Army.

Orders have gone out to local boards here, it was revealed, to clean up their present lists of all 1-A men by April to be ready, to handle classification of the new registrants as soon as possible thereafter.

In order to “clear the decks” for this mass induction, State Selective Service headquarters at Harrisburg today advised local boards they need…

[NormanStewart]

Day-night battle –
MacArthur’s men beat off new attack

Sailors, Marines bolster Luzon Army; Jap warship torpedoed in bay
By Everett R. Holles, United Press staff writer

Washington, Feb. 4 –
American and Filipino troops, who are being aided by a battalion of U.S. Marines and bluejackets, have “sharply repulsed” renewed Jap attacks along the west coast of Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, it was announced today.

Striking back against relentless Jap efforts to drive his forces from the island of Luzon and back upon Fort Corregidor in Manila Bay, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was said in a war communiqué to be mopping up “tattered remnants” of crack Jap troops in the jungle-like regions of lower Bataan.

The 200-500 men of the U.S. naval battalion were believed to be evacuated from Olongapo or Cavite bases. With announcement of their arrival on Bataan, the Navy also disclosed that a motor torpedo boat (mosquito boat) had torpedoed a Jap warship in Manila Bay and escaped and revealed that the Navy had lost its first tanker, the 5,400-ton Neches, by enemy submarine action. 56 men were believed lost on the tanker.

Main blows on left flank

The War Department communiqué, indicating a constant day-and-night battle on Bataan, reported that the main Jap blows were being directed against General MacArthur’s left flank – near the west coast where repeated enemy landing attempts have been shattered by shellfire and aerial bombings.

The communiqué, citing a “delayed report,” said that seven huge U.S. Army Flying Fortresses attacking Jap shipping Monday in the Dutch Borneo oil port of Balikpapan sank two and probably three enemy transports.

These sinkings, it was added, were believed to be those reported yesterday in a communiqué of General Sir Archibald Wavell, Supreme Commander of the United Nations forces in the Far East.

Mop up Jap troops

On General MacArthur’s left flank on the lower Bataan Peninsula units of the 16th Jap Kimura Division launched a night attack last night but were hurled back decisively, it was stated.

The communiqué reported:

Our troops continued to mop up tattered remnants of the Japanese who had previously landed on the west coast or who had infiltrated behind our lines. These enemy troops were from the Tatori group and Kimura Division and were found in isolated pockets. No reinforcements were able to reach them. The enemy had attempted to supply them intermittently with food and ammunition dropped by parachute. However, most of these supplies fell into our hands.

…

[NormanStewart]

Chrysler to build plane engine plant

Chicago, Feb. 4 (UP) –
Lt. Gen. William Knudsen announced today that a contract had been awarded the Chrysler Motor Corp. for construction of a $100-million bomber engine plant at Chicago.

General Knudsen said construction would start immediately and the plant “probably will be in operation” in nine months. The plant will turn out Wright 12-cylinder air-cooled engines, which General Knudsen described as “the biggest motors we have.” He estimated that 25,000 persons would be employed. The Chrysler plant would be the third large engine-producing factory in the Chicago area. Buick recently out into operation a $41-million plant, and Studebaker has had a smaller plant in operation several months.

[NormanStewart]

Wake up, Americans!

Wishful thinkers in United States still looking at war through rose-colored glasses, Britons charge
By William H. Stoneman

London, Feb. 4 –
Reports reaching London from the United States create the impression that the American people are looking at the war through rose-colored glasses and are in danger of falling victims to the same type of wishful thinking which was Britain’s curse during the early part of the war.

One observer reported on his recent return from the United States:

The American people are looking forward to a long, hard war but their idea of a long, hard war is one punctuated by a steady succession of smashing victories for the United States and its Allies. The people themselves prefer to buy newspapers and listen to radio programs which have the rosiest news.

The picture, as seen from London, is certainly far grimmer than the one which summaries of some American sources indicate.

This seems to apply to Singapore, which is believed here to be fighting a desperate and almost hopeless battle; to General Douglas MacArthur, whose position in the Philippines is regarded as more hopeless; to Libya, and even to the Battle of the Atlantic.

The American attitude toward the Battle of the Atlantic is regarded as significant of a very natural tendency to wish away hardboiled, unpleasant facts.

According to reports reaching London, this crucial and very real battle on America’s doorstep has not aroused anywhere near as much thought or emotion as the unreal prospect of smashing air attacks on American coastal cities. The impression here is that U-boat activity along American coasts has been very fierce and is bound to increase in ferocity during coming months.

[NormanStewart]

16th ship torpedoed by German U-boat

Lewes, Del., Feb. 4 (UP) –
The 3,598-ton United Fruit Co. freighter, San Gil, was torpedoed and sunk last night by an enemy submarine off the Maryland coast, killing two members of its crew, survivors disclosed on arriving here today. Four other members of the 41-man crew were injured.

The San Gil was the 16th vessel attacked by German U-boats since they began their recent raiding in coastal waters from Nova Scotia to Florida. 15 of the ships were sunk, and only the tanker, Malay, succeeded in reaching port.

The San Gil survivors, who spent seven hours in the open lifeboat, were picked up by a Coast Guard cutter.

The ship was of Panamanian registration.

[NormanStewart]

Henry McLemore’s viewpoint –
Lipstick invades the aviation industry, and slacks for women become a major problem of war

By Henry McLemore

Los Angeles, Calif. –
Aviation in California has a new problem.

It’s not tricycle landing gears, pitch propellers, firepower or rationed rubber. No, its new problem is an old one, and involves what Kipling once foolishly described as:

…a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.

You’re right, folks, it’s the gals. Blue-eyed gals and skinny gals. Red-headed gals and oversized gals. Serious gals and flighty gals. All sizes and all sorts of gals.

Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, California’s major airplane factories have employed thousands of women workers. There is scarcely a plant that doesn’t have a powder room, or where the rouge and lipstick don’t stand on equal terms with the cut-plug and the briar pipe.

The girls are doing a magnificent job. They have proved they are worth the 60¢ and 75¢ an hour that they receive for helping in the assembling of bombers and fighters and trainers.

Clothes are problem

On the more monotonous jobs – you know., the kind where, for hour after hour, you tuck a little bit of wire here, you twist a bolt here, you pat something down here – they have shown themselves more efficient than men.

But the girls have produced a few headaches, just as girls have always done since Eve was determined to keep the doctor away with a bite into that forbidden Winesap.

Clothes have been a great problem. When the plants were first opened to women workers, the gals arrived on the job wearing any and everything. They came in voile creations, dotted swiss jobs, crepe print numbers, tailored suits, Mother Hubbards, boudoir aprons, slacks, shorts and almost everything else that you can find in a girl’s wardrobe.

Now they wear slacks

Tough foremen threw up their hands in horror. Hard-bitten machinists quivered and shook at the sight. Overalled mechanics muttered oaths that all but started the motors of nearby planes.

The girls were told that they must report in slacks; that to allow them to frisk around in billowing skirts would endanger their lives.

No one really knew the variety of slacks that are worn until the girls started showing up for work in their slacks.

The cute girl workers, the pretty ones, and the well – well, the well-built ones – took to slacks that were more appropriate for the first line of a Broadway chorus than an airplane factory. Quite a rumpus was raised when the foreman of one factory rebelled against a worker wearing trousers and halter outfits. He demanded that she cover up some of the exposed sections of her anatomy.

It’s men who change

The girls said okay, she would, but not until the men in the shop abandoned the habit of working without shirts. This developed into quite a battle. The men said that they had been working without shirts for years and they would be blankety-blank if any gal could come in and dictate how they should dress.

You know who won, don’t you, or aren’t you married?

What the airplane factories want is a standardized girl worker. Ones that are too pretty upset the place. As a matter of fact, the ones that are too lonely and look too well in a sweater, say, are not employed. It has been found that this type upsets the production of a plant.

Standardization fails

It seems that no matter how patriotic a workman is, how interested he is in his work, he simply can’t help being more interested in a delicious little thing in a sunsuit than he is in a bomber.

The thousands and thousands of women workers are determined not to lose their femininity. A Los Angeles department store, in polling them to ascertain a market for their merchandise, found that the girls wanted only one kind of clothes – the frilliest, fluffiest stuff that could be stitched up by hand or machine.

I’m afraid that, war or no war, women are not going to be standardized.

[NormanStewart]

WAR BULLETINS!

Nazis want more help from Italy

Stockholm, Feb. 4 –
The Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm newspaper Social-Demokraten today characterized Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s Rome visit as an attempt to induce Italy to increase her war effort for the spring campaign.

U.S. envoy to Spain called home

Madrid, Feb. 4 –
American Ambassador Alexander W. Weddell has been summoned to Washington “for consultation,” it was made known today.

Malay evacuees reach Australia

Canberra, Feb. 4 –
Between 1,500 and 2,000 women and children evacuated from the Malay Peninsula have reached Australia. The Commonwealth has arranged with the various state governments to place them in homes and institutions. Many were Chinese.

Argentina keeps men in service

Buenos Aires, Feb. 4 –
Acting President Ramón S. Castillo announced after a cabinet meeting today that Argentina’s 1920 class of conscripts would be retained in service “indefinitely.”

[NormanStewart]

The battlefronts in the Far East –

1. U.S. and British planes blast Jap invaders near Moulmein, Burma.
2. Foe believed massing invasion boats as Singapore’s guns roar.
3. Dutch reveal heavy damage in Jap raid on Soerabaja, main Allied naval base.
4. U.S., Dutch warcraft hunt invasion craft in Makassar; stars indicate Jap bases believed used in Java raid.
5. Marines, sailors reinforce MacArthur; Mosquito boat torpedoes Jap warship in Manila Bay.
6. Dutch resist in “see-saw” battle at Amboina; Jap planes raid Dutch Timor.
7. Jap planes again raid Port Moresby; Aussie fliers attack ships at Rabaul.

[NormanStewart]

The Philippines front –

1. MacArthur’s forces beat off new attack.
2. U.S. Mosquito boat torpedoes Jap warship in Manila Bay.
3. U.S. Marine, sailor reinforcements come from either evacuated base.

[NormanStewart]

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

TIMBERLINE LODGE, Ore. – My first day of skiing is over and, just as soon as I get rested up a little, I’m going on the warpath after the man who invented this outlandish mode of transportation. Give me an oxcart, instead, any day.

I know, from this first day, that I’ll never be a skier. All my instincts, my sentiments, my muscles and my ligaments cry out tonight, “Nuts to skiing!” If I had my way, I’d never so much as look at a ski again.

But a man with a determination can’t have his own way. I came up here to ski for a week, and if I gave up after only one day of trying, I could never again hold up my head in public.

Consequently, tomorrow at 10, barring famine or flood, I’ll be out there falling down as usual. Maybe, in one week, I can at least learn to fall with grace and precision.

Olaf Rodegard was our instructor today. Olaf is from Norway, but he’s been in this country 12 years, and his English is perfect. His voice is very soft, and he is kind and calm.

You can get ski instruction either in classes or privately up here. The classes run from 10 to 12 in the morning, from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. It costs $2 for a full day. I took the class, and it was almost the same as private, for there were just two girls and myself. We were all beginners.

Olaf strapped on my skis just outside the Lodge, and we had to walk (with the skis on) across the snow and ice about 300 yards to where we were going to practice.

Walking hard work

Taking the first step gave me one of the most ghastly moments of my life. Those skis felt like they were 100 yards long. I had a wild, caged-like sensation, and thought, if I could only snatch them off, my, how I could leap and slide and cavort!

But somehow I wobbled safely to the skiing grounds. Walking on skis is hard work. Even the experts look clumsy, just walking. Every 50 feet or so the muscles in my legs would give out, and I’d have to stop and rest. The girls didn’t seem to have any muscle trouble, and that made me feel badly.

Finally we got to our place – a gentle little slope, hidden behind nice fir trees. At least not many people could see our shameful clumsiness.

The first thing Olaf did was show us how to stop. Skiing is just like driving an auto in that respect – you’d better find out how to stop before you start.

You stop by pushing your legs apart, thus bringing the front points of your skis together, making a “V.” At least that’s the theory. But my leg muscles were so weak I couldn’t hold the skis in a “V” long enough. So I usually did what most ski novices do in an emergency – just fall over sideways into the snow, on purpose. That stops you.

The next thing Olaf gave us was the “stem turn.” That’s the first simple maneuver of skiing, but everything else is based on it. So we spent all day at it. All day? Ha! Those girls and I will need a year and a day before we can “stem turn.”

Olaf did the turn several times to show us, then called for one of us to start. I was just dying to lead off, but being a perfect gentleman at all altitudes, I waited and let the girls go ahead. I thought maybe, while they were sliding around, I could sneak away behind the trees and somehow get back to the lodge. But Olaf kept his eye on me.

Olaf says he’ll learn

Finally Olaf said to me, “All right, go ahead.” I just seemed to faint all over inside. My eyesight disappeared. I was numb. I tried to shout, “No, dammit, I won’t go!” But no sound came out. I gave a shove with my ski-poles and, Heaven help me, I was off.

I don’t know what happened, but somehow I made a perfect turn, “Did you say you’d never been on skis before?” Olaf asked, as though doubting my honesty.

“Never in my life, I said, naturally a little proud at his inference.

“Well, you’re all right,” he said. “You’ll make a good skier.”

That’s the way I am about everything. Just backwards. Always best at the beginning, I knew it would be like that. For that first turn was the only passable one I made all day.

On the second attempt I fell clear down. Other times I’d get to turning in the wrong direction and have to go that way. Once I forgot either how to turn or to stop, and ran right astraddle of a little fir tree, and skinned my legs all up.

During the day, I suppose the two girls and I skied down that little hill 50 times. I fell down at least 15 or 20 times, and so did they. We just couldn’t seem to learn.

This evening I asked Olaf, “Don’t you get sick of teaching dumb awkward clucks like me the same thing day after day?”

And Olaf, in his soft voice, said, “No, not when people really try to learn, as you all did today. But we get some people who think it’s romantic or something just to dress up in ski clothes, and they won’t even try to learn. That burns me up.”

“Well anyway,” I said. “I’m disgusted. I’ll never be able to ski.”

Olaf laughed. He said beginners are always disgusted. He said he’s seen people break up their brand new skis at the end of the first day, just as golfers break up their clubs.

“It’ll come to you all of a sudden,” he said. “You’re doing fine. Why, you made it over there and back twice today. The average person can’t do that on his first day.”

And thus soothed, flattered, oiled and pomaded by Olaf’s gentle compliments, I went glowingly in to eat, knowing damn well I’d never be able to ski, but elated nevertheless, I suppose that’s what it is about skiing – it’s insidious.

---

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

DETROIT – Adolf, my boy, if you could see what I have been seeing around Detroit, you would get yourself a quarter’s worth of clothes-line and do it today.

You think you are a pretty good man at war production, don’t you? Well, and so you are, in your league, but your league is strictly leaky-roof.

You have heard of the great auto industry of Detroit, of course. Biggest in the world, you remember, and your attempt to imitate it with your trashy little people’s wagon was an expression of your envy and awe.

Great factories sprawled all over Detroit and countless little feeder factories spotted around. Passenger cars, trucks, highway freighters and busses streaming out of the doors and away in numbers beyond belief. But you don’t need a description of the Detroit motor industry. You know what it was and the point that will be of special interest to you Is that today it is absolutely kaput, finished.

It has been wound up for the duration and the plants are being dismantled to build planes, tanks, engines for both planes and tanks, guns and other fighting tools which will be turned against you and your Japanese allies, and some of them are already building these things.

Wait ‘till Ford gets on your tail

Not only that, Adolf, but the Americans are building. in Detroit alone, new plants in your honor which will at least double the fabulous Detroit motor center which you and the rest of the world have heard so much about.

This is altogether aside from the other plants which are turning out war tools in the great facilities of that silly, futile, bickering American republic which you challenged, with your colossal but relatively puny machine shop. This is apart from the West Coast plane production, too. This is just Detroit that you are hearing about. It is Detroit times two and entirely devoted to the manufacture of a licking for your chosen people of the master race and the Japanese.

Just wait until you get Henry Ford on your tail. Go on, laugh. Sure, he said he could produce a thousand planes a day, which was a meaningless remark and better unsaid, because he meant he could do it if he didn’t have to make frequent changes and only after long preparation. But, Adolf, when old Henry actually sets himself a task and starts doing it, he always delivers and he is now making planes, engines and tanks, and on the side is running a big school for a steady turnover of young Navy flathats who come in more or less green and go out so well trained in the habits and makeup of various machines that they quality for rates and extra pay almost automatically.

That plant is really something, Adolf. You are a pretty good man, with your petulant bang and your idiotic mustache, and when you clap hands, your faceless people give guns, submarines, planes, bombs and all such, but pretty good isn’t good enough. Our Henry is special. That plant of his, no kidding, Adolf, is the damndest colossus the industrial world has ever known.

Less than a year ago, it was just country, with trees on it, and today it is a huge factory and a flying field, all new and all special jobs, already at work on his program.

Japanese papers please copy

I wouldn’t kid you. Adolf, or the American people. He isn’t booting bombers off the assembly lines as he ticked off Fords in the old plants, but he is going to outspeed all the old specialized aviation companies When he gets going, and he will pick up speed month by month.

You will be hearing from Henry, Adolf, and bear in mind, when you are talking about inefficiency of republics next time, that he didn’t start clearing off the trees until late last March and did it with his own money, too, without waiting for formal contracts with the Government. Man, when Henry gets those dice he sure do make his point and, remember, too, that in his spare time he was still turning out cars and doing some tanks and building another stupendous structure which is now actually putting out. engines for another type of ship and not mere samples, either, but enough of them to be described as production.

And the strange thing is, Hitler, that he didn’t want to do this, at all, He doesn’t hold with war at all, and the poetic passage that he is fondest of is the one that says: “Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer and the battle-flags were furled, in the parliament of man, the federation of the world.”

But he decided that you were a warmonger and so he is going to burn you down and it is going to be just too bad [for the German people, whom he regards as brothers, that they happen to be working for you.

No question about it now, Adolf. This American industrial war effort, at last, is something really super and you might save the German people considerable grief if you should get that clothes-line and do the human race that favor, today.

Japanese papers please copy.

---

Clapper: A wrong slant

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – Pearl Harbor woke up many people but it doesn’t seem to have changed Jesse Jones. In the face of unpleasant facts, he remains an incorrigible optimist.

Secretary Jones blandly predicts to a congressional committee that we will get all the rubber we need from the Far East by the end of 1943. He doesn’t think the Japanese can keep us out.

That kind of optimism can only do harm. It is one thing to have confidence in ultimate victory. But it is dangerous to underestimate the task of winning that victory.

To strive to knock the Japanese out by the end of 1943 is one thing. But to base our supply arrangements on the assumption that it will happen is taking an unwarranted risk. We have only a dribble of synthetic rubber in sight now because for months before Pearl Harbor, Secretary Jones didn’t think the Japanese would start a war and he allowed the synthetic rubber program to slide with only the most indifferent attention.

Winning back the Far East is the hardest job we ever undertook.

Allies can’t let China’s morale sink

Right now, the Administration is making a frantic effort to get through Congress a 500-million-dollar loan for China. London is shelling out another 200 millions. For military supplies? No. To help the Chinese fight “inflation,” it is said. To help Chinese morale, is a more direct way to put it. We simply can’t afford to let China drop out of the war. Undoubtedly Japan would like to make peace in China. Undoubtedly Japan is conducting a shrewd propaganda campaign to that end in China.

The battle is going against the United Nations all around. We cannot view with any optimism whatever the position of General MacArthur in the Philippines. Singapore is in grave danger. The footholds of the Occidental nations in the Far East are being shaken and it is but natural that the Japanese will attempt to wring the full propaganda value out of that situation.

After the Japanese advance is checked, we must face a long, hard struggle to drive them back to their home base. Nobody who is informed about the military task views it as an easy one or a short one.

Maybe we shall come out better than that. But in planning supplies essential for war purposes, we cannot base our estimates on a mere hope that things will turn out better. We must assume the worst and be prepared for it. The trouble at Pearl Harbor was that no one assumed the worst would happen.

Rank as first-rate nation at stake

We cannot count on the Japanese handing over the rubber plantations intact by the end of next year. We must proceed now as if we never expected to get them again.

If everybody took the attitude which Jesse Jones is encouraging, we would overnight fall back into the slackness which existed before Pearl Harbor. It is not safe for anyone to assume that he can drive his car as much as he likes and count on getting new tires at the end of next year. If the country gets into that state of mind, our whole war effort will bog down. To produce the war goods required, we must press and drive and sacrifice ruthlessly. Nothing short of that will give us what the fighting forces must have.

This job cannot be done with labor insisting on double time for Sunday, welders striking in a row about union dues, industrialists insisting on abnormal profits, or cotton Senators trying to sabotage the effort to hold farm prices in balance. Those are all expressions of the Pearl Harbor state of mind that Jesse Jones seems to share.

That state of mind came near to being the death of Britain. It was the death of France. Our existence as a first-rate nation is at stake literally. We cannot lose this war and remain a first-rate nation. This thing is serious and it is about time be all took it so.

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Maj. Williams: Roberts Report

By Al Williams

“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”

Pearl Harbor is the most humiliating disaster – military and naval – ever suffered by American armed forces. And the Roberts Board of Inquiry report on that disaster – a whitewashing vindication of Brass Hatism does not meet the full needs.

That report told us little we didn’t know or sense as soon as the military and naval success of the Japs against Pearl Harbor was flashed to the American people. We knew that the local commanders – one general and one admiral – had been asleep on their jobs, like sentries asleep on posts.

It’s true that the Roberts Report told us a lot of harassing and almost unbelievable things about how frightfully delinquent and unprepared the Army and Navy were to meet the potentialities of modern war. The Roberts Report told us of anti-submarine and anti-tornado nets across the entrance to Pearl Harbor that had left open. It told us of the inexplicable delay of about one hour and 25 minutes between the destruction of a Jap submarine in the inshore coastal waters of Hawaii before a general “alert” was sounded.

Insufficient forces

In brush-odd paragraphs, it told us, “There was a deficiency in the provision of materiel (guns, planes, anti-air detection machinery) for the Hawaiian Area.” It relates how, “The Fleet was not charged with the defense of Pearl Harbor,” that “Insufficient forces were available to maintain all the defenses on a war footing for extended periods of time (five-day war?).” Unfortunately, the Japs planned a seven-day-a-week war.

It continues, “The national situation permitted only a partial filling of these requirements.”

The report states that the Secretaries of the Army and Navy and their staffs communicated with one another and supplied all the files of correspondence to the Roberts Board; that all kinds of general recommendations from Washington had been sent to local Army and Navy forces in the Hawaiian Area (without one check up to see if those recommendations had been received, much less acted upon). It states that Secretary Knox had written a warning that the Japs might attack Pearl Harbor – by air – recommending “the revision of joint defense plans with special emphasis on the coordination of Army and Navy operations against surprise aircraft raids.” (There is no evidence that the Secretary followed up this correspondence to see what had been done about revising the Army and Navy joint defense against surprise aircraft attacks).

The report tells how one warning after another out of Washington had supplied information pointing to the likelihood of Jap attacks against the Philippines, Trai, the Kra Isthmus or possible Borneo. This is complete evidence that the High Command in Washington was all set for the old type of warfare. The deep-seated, stubborn opposition of the Navy and Army high command to aviation – except as in an auxiliary capacity to land and sea forces – which is well known to the American public, all this led to the statement, “Without exception, they (the local commanders) believed that the chances of such a raid while the Pacific Fleet was based upon Pearl Harbor were practically nil.”

Brass hats make mistake

There’s the real key to the Jap surprise at Pearl Harbor. The local commanders, Army and Navy, reflecting what the brass hats had so long thought and planned, just didn’t believe the Japs, or anyone else, would dare to attack a base defended by a fleet. Yet British, Nazi and Italian airpower had attacked and destroyed sea power bases in Europe. That was all different – that couldn’t happen in Hawaii!

What the Roberts Report didn’t tell us is that plans for joint coordination of the Army and Navy are formulated by the General Board in Washington, composed of high-ranking Army and Navy officers.

Failure and lack of coordination of the Hawaiian Army and Navy forces was the real reason for the Pearl Harbor disaster. Oh, certainly, the local commanders “slept.” But didn’t the Army and Navy General Board in Washington sleep, too?

One general and one admiral are the goats. Of course they were guilty, but these two men are the products of a system. And it is the system which licked us at Pearl Harbor.

[NormanStewart]

[NormanStewart]

U.S. War Department (February 5, 1942)

Communiqué No. 92

Philippine Theater.
There was a lull in the Battle of Bataan during the past 24 hours. Combat was limited to relative minor patrol actions, which lacked the savage character of the fighting which has been almost continuous during the past two weeks. The Japanese troops confronting our right sector are under the command of Lt. Gen. Akira Nara, and those facing our left are under Lt. Gen. Naoki Kimura. There was no marked activity in either sector.

Dutch East Indies.
Over Java, a small formation of U.S. Army P-40 fighting planes encountered a greatly superior force of Japanese bombers, escorted by pursuit aircraft. In the ensuing combat, one enemy bomber and one enemy pursuit plane were shot down. One of our planes is missing.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 5, 1942)

First Lady’s protégé gets defense job

Dancer to receive $4,600 as child supervisor; fund probe asked

Washington, Feb. 5 –
A dancer-protégé of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense, has plucked a $4,600-a-year job in the OCD.

The dancer, Mayris Chaney, has been named head of children’s activities in the Physical Fitness Division. She will report to the First Lady.

OCD officials did not disclose the specific duties of Miss Chaney, who introduced the “Eleanor Glide” at a White House dance several years ago in honor of the First Lady.

Another friend of Mrs. Roosevelt, Joseph Lash, American Youth leader who has been under fire of the Dies Committee for past affiliation with communist-dominated organizations, is serving as an unpaid member of the OCD Youth Advisory Council.

On the Congressional front, an inquiry into OCD expenditures was demanded by Rep. Leland Ford (R-CA) after learning of Miss Chaney’s appointment.

Fund probe urged

Mr. Ford issued a statement asking the House Appropriations Committee to look into OCD sending. He did not criticize Miss Chaney specifically but said he had decided to ask for the inquiry after the disclosure that she had been appointed.

Mr. Ford first became annoyed with the OCD when Melvyn Douglas, movie star, was named to the post of director of the Arts Council of the agency information section at the rate of about $22 for each day that he works.

Mr. Ford said in his statement:

The whole thing behind these playboys goes back to the philosophy that this is a Roman holiday to be paid for by the government.

First Lady heads division

These people haven’t realized yet what war really means.

In the reorganization of the OCD being made by James M. Landis, on leave from his position as dean of the…