Mowrer: If Midway Islands hold, Pearl Harbor can be saved also
Lying in exact center of the North Pacific, most westerly of Hawaiian group constitute chief stumbling block to Japs’ hopes of conquest
By Edgar Ansel Mowrer
WASHINGTON – Guam has gone and Wake Island may go, but if the Midway Islands hold there will be no irreparable loss. For the Midway Islands lie in almost the exact center of the North Pacific, are the most westerly of the Hawaiian group and constitute an obstacle to the conquest of Oahu and Pearl Harbor.
It is 3,200 miles to San Francisco from the Midways, 3,800 miles to Australia, 2,000 miles to Alaska, the same distance to Russian Kamchatka, 1,300 miles to Honolulu and 1,200 miles to Wake. From the Midway Islands a powerful bomber can fly to almost anywhere in the Pacific without stopping.
The Clipper landed at Midway early in the afternoon of a steaming September day – and we passengers found ourselves immediately under Navy surveillance. Marines took us to the Pan-American Hotel where we were informed that we would be confined to the building and the grounds. By producing solid credentials and promising to be good, we finally induced a benevolent captain to allow the Marine to march us to the beach for a swim.
Work far advanced
Work on the Midways was pretty far advanced. According to the “schedules” of which so much has been said, by this December they were supposed to be turned into a first-class air and submarine base, with anchorage for vessels. Hundreds and hundreds of men were working.
In November, on my way back from the Far East, there seemed a very frenzy of activity while uniformed Marines stood guard around the hotel and with no excessive courtesy, shooed vagrant passengers back to the hotel lawns.
Midway Islands are one atoll. Around a heart-shaped space, the point to the north, stretches a coral reef tough enough to rip the bottom of any ship afloat. Most of it is submerged and shown by a line of foam even in the calmest weather. Within the vast lagoon is one natural harbor with an outlet, where boats used to enter in the old days, a tiny dot of land like a wrench in shape, and two fair-sized little islands, Sand Island and Eastern Island.
Some conjecture
Lacking knowledge of the equipment of the Marines, and of whether any warships are there, or of the amount of artillery, one can only conjecture about the present battle.
Have the Japanese arrived in transports, and are they trying to land? Is the attack limited to air raids and naval bombardments?
The Midway garrison is probably bigger than that of Wake, better ready to defend itself, with more food, more water and more workmen to help out. Since they were reported to have sunk a Japanese cruiser, they must possess artillery, planes or ships. Almost surely, great efforts will be made to relieve them, and, in the meantime, to keep them supplied with ammunition, food and water.
Paradise of birds
There are no rats on Midway Islands, as there are on Wake, but these islands too are a paradise of the most remarkable sea birds imaginable. There are the short-legged gannets, or booby birds, that can sight a fish from 50 feet in the air, power dive into the water, swim after it, and come shooting at an angle of 45 degrees with the fish in their crops.
There are frigate birds with the habits of Nazis; they wait on a high tree or ledge, then sail after returning bobbies and make them disgorge their fish catch for the frigate birds to swallow.
There are terns of four sorts, as on Wake; there are moaning birds that, deep in the twilight, howl and moan like ghouls but are so tame that when they seek their next holes in the sand they can be picked up like kittens.
And the goonies
And, finally, there are the goonies – to the learned, Laysan Albatrosses – to my mind the most amaing creatures in the world. These birds are as human as the penguins in Antole France’s first satire. None who have ever met goonies (they can be met on only three small isles in the world and none knows where they go during the few months each year when they are absent) can ever forget them.
The goonie is a black and white fellow, elegantly marked, almost as big as a goose, with webbed and clawed feet, and a strong curved beak that can cut off a finger clean with one snap. He lives from preference on live devilfish. He swims well, flies magnificently, but is so heavy often that he must run 50 or 100 yards to take off into the air. On land he is a clownish waddler. More remarkable than his body is his mind. First of all he is afraid of nothing and nobody.
The goonies reached the Midway Islands before men did and have no intention of being driven away. When they meet a man or a five-ton truck, or another goonie; they bow, for they are very polite birds, but make no move to get out of the way.
Afraid of nothing
Since nothing else has ever frightened them, I cannot imagine their being bothered by Japanese shells bursting among them or by the barking of American guns. Like the Marines, they just do not recognize aggression.
It is pleasant to think of the goonies and the Marines standing siege together.
2 Army airmen are decorated
Get Distinguished Service Cross for heroism
HONOLULU (UP) – The Army decorated Second Lts. George Welch and Kenneth Taylor with the Distinguished Service Cross today for their “outstanding acts of heroism” in shooting down six Japanese planes against overwhelming odds.
Lt. Welch of Wilmington, Delaware, downed four enemy aircraft on the morning of December 7. Lt. Taylor of Hominy, Oklahoma, got two.
This is the Army’s account of what they did:
Lt. Welch rushed 10 miles in an auto his squadron’s base. Taking off immediately, he flew over Barber’s Point and “observed a formation of approximately 12 planes 1,000 feet below and 10 miles away.”
Hit by incendiary
Accompanied by only one other pursuit ship, he attacked and shot down an enemy bomber with one burst of gunfire. At this point, he discovered one of his guns was jammed, and while he adjusted it an incendiary bullet ploughed through his plane just behind his seat. He climbed above the clouds to check his plane.
Returning to the attack, he dived on an enemy plane flying out to sea and shot it down.
Lt. Taylor also drove 10 miles under fire to reach his plane, and, taking off as soon as he arrived, with only one other pursuit ship, he saw a squadron of 12 planes over Ewa, 1,000 feet below him and 10 miles away. He attacked the formation and downed two enemy aircraft.
Gets more ammunition
He went back to Wheeler Field for more ammunition and fuel, but before the ammunition boxes could be taken away, a second wave of enemy planes attacked. Although Lt. Taylor had been advised not to go up, he quickly took off again. He escaped a superior force of eight or 10 enemy planes by climbing above the clouds.
“Taylor initiative, presence of mind and coolness in the face of overwhelming odds in his first air battle and his determined action contributed to a large extent to driving off this sudden, unexpected attack,” the Army said.
Manila, Borneo drives gaining, Axis reports
Japs make new landing in Philippines, German radio claims
By the United Press
Radio Berlin reported from Shanghai today that Japanese forces had made a successful landing on Cebu Island, in the heart of the Southern Philippines group, after a heavy bombardment by Japanese planes.
Radio Paris, German-controlled, asserted that Japanese troops had occupied several Philippines airdromes and now “seriously menaced” Manila.
The Paris radio, heard by the United Press in London, asserted that Japanese troops landed in Borneo had advanced as far as the Sea of Celebes.
This would mean that the Japanese, reported to have landed on the opposite coast, would have marched clear across the island to reach the Netherlands Indies side.
Report Jap tanks landed
Radio Berlin said Japanese tanks had been landed on the Malacca peninsula of Malaya, on the west coast only 200 miles above Singapore, and on the east coast, and that they were expected to go into action soon.
Rome Radio said that the Japanese had advanced 100 miles in their drive down the Malaya Peninsula after piercing five British positions one after the other.
‘We marched on Manila’
The official German news agency reported from Berlin that Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo, in a war review before the Diet, said today that “two Japanese columns have landed in northern and southern Luzon and now are on the march in the direction of Manila.”
Official German news agency dispatches from Tokyo said that Tojo said, “Japanese troops everywhere have penetrated the enemy defense lines on Luzon in order to occupy the island which the Americans previously in their bragging always declared was unassailable.”
Tojo was quoted as saying that the capture of Guam was among the most outstanding results of Japanese activity.
Claim more ships sunk
The Japanese-controlled Radio Saigon, in a broadcast heard by the United Press listening post in New York, asserted that Japanese planes had sunk a British 3,000-ton warship in a Philippine port and Radio Rome reported that the “Japanese forces” had sunk two “more enemy ships” in the Pacific.
Radio Rome reported from Tokyo that Japanese reconnaissance planes had “raided” Batavia, capital of the Netherlands East Indies and that “the panic-stricken population fled to the forests.”
The alleged Japanese “raid” has not been reported by the United Press Batavia correspondent or any other source. If the Rome radio told the truth about the flight of the Batavia population “to the forests,” it would mean a considerable exodus as Batavia is a city of about 535,000 population.
Hong Kong afire, Japs say
Tokyo reported fires were raging in Hong Kong and the city was in “utter confusion.”
The United Press Hong Kong correspondent reported yesterday afternoon that the city was quiet.
A Japanese dispatch from Bangkok, Thailand (Siam), said the Bangkok correspondents of the United Press and The Australian Sydney Herald were arrested Sunday 30 miles from the city while “attempting to flee to the Burma border,” and were sent back to Bangkok under guard “charged with spreading malicious anti-Japanese propaganda.”
Daniel Berrigan, United Press Bangkok correspondent, left Bangkok last week in an attempt to reach British territory.
Claim U.S. planes damaged
The German official news agency quoted Japanese Imperial Headquarters as saying that Japanese made a surprise attack on several Philippines airfields, destroying four ground bombing planes and heavily damaging “16 refueling planes.”
Another Japanese formation, it was asserted, bombed barracks at Thailand Airfield in Luzon,
In Malaya, Japanese planes were said to have bombed airdromes at Ayer, Tawar and Ipoh in the Penang Island area, shooting down one British plane and destroying seven grounded planes, explosive dumps and airdrome installations.
Simms: Similarities seen in France’s fall, defeat at Hawaii
Fifth column, overconfidence in defense machine, politics ahead of arms production responsible for disasters in Europe, at Pearl Harbor
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
WASHINGTON – If the American people want to know precisely what happened to France 18 months ago, they have only to read Navy Secretary Knox’s report on what happened to Hawaii 10 days ago.
Fundamentally, the causes were very much the same. The important difference is that the United States has a chance to remedy its mistakes.
Whether the United States follows France to final defeat depends upon whether the people and those in authority, can profit by the warning of Pearl Harbor.
Even after Hitler’s panzers had rolled across the Low Countries, I heard French people say:
Just wait until the Boche comes up against the Maginot Line. That will stop him. He can’t get past that. Even if he could, we’d lick him again just as we did in 1918. We have the best and the fastest planes, the best tanks, the best guns and the world’s finest soldiers. The Boche can’t lick us.”
Services not on alert
Secretary Knox has revealed that a similar state of affairs existed in Hawaii no less than in the continental United States, up to Sunday, December 7.
“The United States services,” he reported, “were not on the alert. … Most of the Army planes were destroyed on the ground.” There was a dawn patrol but it never spotted anything. An adequate patrol, he said, would have taken about 300 planes, “and we didn’t have anything like that number.” Yet Hawaii, the pivot of our Pacific defenses, was known to be in imminent danger of attack.
Congress now is madder than ever over the whole Pearl Harbor episode. It is thrilled by the courageous exploits of individual soldiers and sailors and officers. But, as in France, it was the higher-ups who fell down on the job, and Congress wants to make certain that it does not happen again.
Fifth column active
If the United States was spared France’s fate, many feel, it was largely because of geographical reasons rather than wise military and naval precautions. We were lucky and France was not.
As in Hawaii, fifth-column activity contributed to France’s disaster, but the basic trouble was national complacency; underestimation of the enemy; overconfidence in the national defense machine; politicians who put politics and “social gains” before arms production; military and naval top-notchers who, for one reason or another, failed to needle the politicians on the one hand and their subordinates on the other into making the national defense bombproof.
These were the things that laid France low. And today there is a rising feeling here that, if Pearl Harbor shocks America sufficiently that nothing like it can ever happen again, the lesson, after all, will be cheap at the price.
Jap menace strangling auto, tire industries
By John W. Love, Scripps-Howard staff writer
WASHINGTON – The specific menace which appears to be shutting down the auto industry, as well as the tire industry, is the Japanese threat to British rubber plantations on the Malay Peninsula, it is understood here.
Rubber cargoes still could be brought in from Singapore, Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies, by convoy if necessary, but the fighting in the peninsula threatens to get into the orchards themselves.
Until information on rubber imports and stocks suddenly became secret, this country was getting about 40 percent of its crude rubber from Singapore. Most of this came from the Malay Peninsula, but some was from nearby Dutch plantations.
The Dutch possessions were separately shipping about the same amount, but they are also threatened and are said to have announced they will employ the “scorched-earth” policy if the Japanese get a foothold.
In conferences which are working out the rationing system for tires and the limitations on auto production, the fear is that even if plenty of ships remain available for what is the world’s greatest commodity haul in ton-miles, many of the plantations could no longer deliver, and that the great industries dependent on them might have to wait for years.
In most discussions of rubber supply earlier this year, it was assumed that rubber could be brought by ships which approach the East Indies from the south, or came from around the Cape of Good Hope. It was even surmised that in the worst of circumstances, the rubber could be purchased from Japanese, but this was before they attacked the United States.
It is the rubber shortage alone which leads the motor industry to suspect no more cars will be turned out after January, except on government orders. Manufacture of tires already has been stopped.
Orders are in preparation in the Office of Production Management which will determine temporarily the fate of one of America’s greatest industries. Already limited to a quota for February, which resembles the production in most months of 1932, the manufacturers do not think they will be allowed to do much more than finish up the sets of parts they have.
From Detroit comes word that manufacturers wonder what will be the pattern of the industry when it revives after the war. Will it, they ask, continue to be government-controlled, or will competition be restored?
We ‘must’ buy bonds…
Treasury starts squeeze play for every last penny
300 defense bond sales directors told how U.S. may have employers use checkoff to finance tremendous costs of war
CHICAGO (UP) – The U.S. Treasury Department laid the groundwork today for the biggest sales campaign in history, a drive to attract “every penny available from now until victory” for investment in defense savings.
As explained to 300 defense bond sales directors from every state and territory, the campaign will enlist the cooperation of two million employers and of thousands of agents who will make a door-to-door canvass in every community. Objectives of the drive are:
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To persuade the public to spend out of income for defense bonds every cent that would otherwise be spent on articles or services not connected with the war effort, thus freezing manufacturing facilities, materials and manpower for war production.
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To finance the tremendous cost of the war.
Harold N. Graves, assistant to the secretary of the Treasury, said that every person gainfully employed or producing income “must” invest in defense bonds all funds available after the purchase of the bare necessities of food and shelter.
Three million buy bonds
He said three million persons already have bought defense bonds, but that this figure must be increased to 35 million. A survey of 35 banks, he said, showed they had doubled their defense bond sales since December 7.
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau called the meeting to initiate the bond sales campaign.
Secretary Morgenthau said at the meeting that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor had “blasted the old comfortable belief that the wide ocean could save us from harm.” He declared that there could be no “half way” method of fighting an attempt to dominate the world.
“The bombs of Pearl Harbor have destroyed much more than what the censors would call ‘military objectives’,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “They have ripped our complacency to shreds. … They have blown away the notion that brutality and deceit and murder in another part of the world could never touch us in ours.”
Fighting two wars
He reiterated that America is in reality fighting two wars – one the actual combat and the other the war against inflation.
“Inflation feeds on current income other than on the money that now rests in the vaults of saving banks,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “…The most effective course for us, as we have known from the very beginning, has been to enlist current income and to divert excess spending, to persuade our people to set aside a part of their pay every pay day in defense bonds and stamps.”
Mr. Graves said the campaign, for which no quota has been set because the goal is all the traffic will bear, will be conducted by two methods:
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Utilization of the Treasury’s payroll allotment plan whereby employers would deduct periodically from salaries an agreed upon sum for purchase of defense bonds.
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A universal canvass of the nation beginning January 10 to obtain a pledge from every income producer not reached by the payroll plan to spend a certain sum regularly for defense bonds.
Mr. Graves said the first job was to get universal adoption of the payroll plan by 18,000 larger firms.
“This effort must be directed not only at employers,” he said, “but also at employees to require them to buy bonds under the plan. We want no ‘token’ participation. Everyone must buy as much in bonds as he possibly can.”
War censorship of news, mail and cables planned
WASHINGTON (UP) – Congress plans to complete work today on legislation giving President Roosevelt censorship authority and even greater war powers than those exercised by Woodrow Wilson.
Anticipating its enactment, Mr. Roosevelt announced that he would invoke a partly compulsory censorship immediately after it becomes law and appointed Byron Price, executive news editor of the Associated Press, to head the program.
“All Americans abhor censorship just as they abhor war,” the president said in a formal statement. “But the experience of this and of all other nations has demonstrated that some degree of censorship is essential in wartime, and we are at war.”
‘Watch set on our borders’
He said it was necessary to national security that “military information which might be of aid to the enemy be scrupulously withheld at the source,” and that “a watch be set upon our borders, so that such information may not reach the enemy, inadvertently or otherwise,” by mail, radio, cable or any other means.
It also is necessary, Mr. Roosevelt said, to enforce rigidly existing
The government, he added, has “called upon a patriotic press and radio to abstain voluntarily” from publishing such items as ship and troop movements and has found these agencies anxious to cooperate.
Death is maximum penalty
The statement indicated that the compulsory feature of the censorship would deal with international communication and with domestic publication – or communication – of military information with intent to “injure the United States.” The Espionage Act provides death as the maximum penalty for violation of the latter prohibition in wartime.
The voluntary part of the censorship program would apply to domestic dissemination of other types of news.
Both Senate and House gave unanimous approval yesterday of the legislation containing the international censorship power.
Agreement expected
Chairman Frederick Van Nuys, D-Indiana, of the Senate Judiciary Committee forecast approval today.
In addition to providing for censorship the legislation would:
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Authorize the president to redistribute the functions of governmental agencies in the interest of efficient prosecution of the war.
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Speed up government procurement of war material by eliminating the requirement of competitive bidding on contracts where it still exists, waiving performance bonds, and authorizing “progress” payments on contracts.
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Re-enact World War law prohibiting trade with the enemy and expending it to enlarge the current “freezing” control over enemy alien property in this country.
West Coast battens down for possible raid
SAN FRANCISCO (UP) – Spurred by renewed attacks on the Hawaiian Islands, the Pacific Coast today perfected plans for the defense of the 1500-mile western edge of the United States.
Plans that have been on paper for many months were becoming actualities. Cities rushed to purchase vital emergency equipment that would be needed in the event of air raids.
California’s Gov. Culbert L. Olson called the State Legislature to meet Friday to vote funds up to $40 million annually to pay a state guard of 25,000 men, many of whom already have been called to full time duty.
Below the border, Mexico began recruiting a huge reserve army to guard the vulnerable Peninsula of Lower California, through which an invading army could march on San Diego.
Alaska, called “Seward’s Folly” when it was purchased from Russia in 1867, has settled down to a blackout pattern of existence, for it lies closer to Japan than any continental American possession. Home Guard units patrolled the streets of Seward, Nome and Anchorage. Seward prepared to evacuate the population in the event of air raids, and some families already had moved to inland mountain cabins.
San Diego, California, home of large Navy, Army and Marine establishments, began training 2,000 volunteer auxiliary firemen and each neighborhood mobilized garden hoses, ladders, shovels and sand for use against possible incendiary bombs and fires.
San Francisco, key shipping post of the coast, prepared blueprints of bomb shelters for distribution to the public through fire houses and police stations.
As a gesture of cooperation, the Northern California unit of the British War Relief Association voted to become a unit of the American Red Cross.
Eight sirens arrived in San Francisco from Chicago, to be placed atop advantageous hills and public buildings to augment the historic Ferry Building siren. They originally had been built for shipment to Bangkok, now in Japanese hands.
Portland organized a state guard unit. Four companies were planned but so many recruits appeared a fifth was added. The Art Museum prepared to move its irreplaceable pieces to interior points of safety. The rest will be protected by sand bags and left in the museum vault – including a prized collection of Japanese prints.
San Francisco began to regain some of its lost color. Neon lights on downtown establishments, doused since the initial blackout nine days ago, were rewired so they could be manually turned off when warning signals sound, and once more shed a cheerful glow.
Portland, however, permitted no neon lights and few street lights. Other Northwest cities were similarly affected.
A Seattle auto firm staged its own air-raid drill, moving 205 employees and customers from three buildings into bombproof basements in 1½ minutes. They hoped to point the way to other business firms to prepare for an emergency.
British raid defense seen as aid to U.S.
Oversea ally has evolved efficient system against bombing
By Homer Jenks, United Press staff writer
The following dispatch is the first in a series on civilian defense written by a United Press writer who was in London throughout the aerial bombardment of that city by German planes in the fall, winter and spring of 1940-41.
The United States, in preparing its civilian defense, will profit by the lessons learned by Great Britain during the most prolonged and intensive aerial bombardment in history.
An average of 299 planes raided London virtually every night throughout September and October, 1940. Then heavy aerial attacks continued spasmodically throughout the winter and spring until May 10, when 500 German bombers blasted London for eight hours in the heaviest raid of the war on the capital.
Fiorello H. La Guardia, national civilian defense director, probably already has received a comprehensive report on the British defense system from a special commission he sent to England last June. After inspecting all of Britain’s most heavily bombed cities and talking with officials ranging from Home Security Minister Herbert Morrison to an air raid warden in blitzed Plymouth, the commission returned to the United States last August.
Three alarm stages
Presumably one of the first problems studied by the commission was that of air raid warnings. In Britain, there are three stages to an air raid alarm.
When enemy planes first are known to be off the coast, a “yellow” warning is flashed by telephone to air raid precautions posts throughout a wide area toward which the planes might be heading. This merely places ARP authorities on the alert for a possible attack.
As soon as the area of possible attack is narrowed to an individual city, a “purple” alarm is flashed to the ARP posts in that community, indicating that the danger of attack is immediate. As far as the public is concerned, the only effect is that at night police order drivers of autos, buses and trucks to extinguish their masked headlights and drive only with the aid of subdued parking lights.
Sirens signal attack
Only when an attack appears certain is the “red” signal given and the air raid sirens sounded. These huge sirens are uniform throughout Britain and in large cities are mounted atop roofs or poles with at least one within every half-mile.
For the air raid alarm, the sirens shriek for one minute a warbling note that alternately rises to a piercing crescendo and then diminishes almost to silence. Normally within ten minutes of the sounding of the alarm, barking anti-aircraft guns, followed by the drone of bombers and occasionally the crump of a bomb, signalizes the start of a raid.
The “all clear” – high-pitched, steady note on the sirens that continues for two minutes – usually is not sounded for 15 minutes to a half hour after the drone of the last bomber’s engine is heard.
Raiders left behind
In the early raids on London in September, 1940, the “all clear” was sounded immediately bombers no longer could be heard overhead, but the German practice of leaving several raiders behind to glide in silently over the city with their engines cut off and drop bombs just as crowds were streaming from air raid shelters brought the change.
At first, the sounding of an air raid alarm halted all activity in the affected area. Buses pulled up before the nearest shelters, trains stopped at the nearest stations, office and factory workers filed to shelters, stores closed their doors and streets were cleared of pedestrians and motorists.
But the British government soon found that the almost continuous alarms were reducing important war production seriously as well as throwing transportation and business into chaos.
Spotter system devised
The “spotter” system then was evolved. Even after the air raid sirens had shrieked their warning, business and traffic continued uninterrupted, but tin-helmeted spotters climbed to the roofs of all large buildings to scan the skies.
If a roof spotter sighted bombers heading in his direction, he gave an “internal” warming, sending all in the building to shelters. As soon as the danger had passed, he sounded an “internal” all clear and work was resumed.
Buses, other motor traffic and trains continued to operate during daylight alarms only if “spotters” along the routes signal that danger is imminent. At night, they continue to run unless the city is undergoing a very heavy attack.
Trains continue
Trains now proceed at 15 miles an hour during an air raid alarm and do not come to a complete stop unless they are approaching an area undergoing an intensive bombardment. They also leave London on schedule unless the raid is unusually heavy.
Two other types of warning may be sounded during a raid. A blast on a police whistle means that incendiary bombs are being dropped and that all residents in the neighborhood should turn out to extinguish them.
The other signal has not been used yet. It is a rattle – a warning that gas is being dropped.
Navy buries its dead in Pearl Harbor raid
HONOLULU, Dec. 14 (UP, Delayed) – Row upon row of fresh graves, draped with the delicate flowers of the tropics, stretched across Nuuanu Cemetery today. In them were buried the Navy men killed when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Navy chaplains conducted brief services for them, beginning the day after the attack. Only the chaplains and a few sailors attended the funerals.
Each man was buried in a separate coffin, in seven trenches.
The graves were covered with green banyan leaves, ti leaves and ferns, and over that were woven decorations in multi-colored flowers. Some were decorated with bird of paradise, torch ginger, red ginger, gladiolus, cup-of-gold, orchids and hibiscus.
Each grave was identified and will be marked later by a headstone.
