Axis assaults seek to delay push by Allies
Rommel meets his match in 6 attacks on British 8th Army
By William H. Stoneman
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Must carry draft cards
Washington –
All men between the ages of 18 and 45 who are subject to Selective Service classification must now carry their classification and registration cards at all times. Failure to do so may bring legal penalties. If these cards were lost or never received by the registrant, he should notify his local draft board immediately.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
The Tunisian front – (March 8, by wireless)
After living with our troops at the Tunisian front for some weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the two dominant things in their minds are hatred of the cold and fear of attack from the air. I have already written a great deal about the cold. You can sympathize there, for you all know what it feels like to be cold. But you don’t know – can never know, without experiencing it – the awful feeling of being shot at by speeding enemy planes.
If our soldiers are meticulous about any one thing, it is about watching the sky. Nobody has to tell them to be cautious. After just one attack, caution becomes a sort of reflex action. You never let a plane pass without giving it a good looking over. The sound of a motor in the sky is a sign to stop whatever you are doing long enough to make sure.
Of course, aerial attack is at its worst in actual battle, when Stukas are diving on our troops; that is a nightmare. But it’s not only in battle that they get it. They get it also in bivouacs, and on the roads. They are subject to it all the time – not in great or blanket amounts, to be sure, but the danger is always there, like a snake hidden somewhere along your path.
As a result, camouflage becomes second nature to you. Near the front you never park a jeep without putting it under a tree. If there are no trees, you leave it on the shady side of a building or wall. If there is no cover at all you throw your camouflage net over it.
‘German pilots sneak up’
As you near the front you fold your windshield down over the hood and slip a canvas cover over it so it won’t glint and attract a pilot’s eye.
German pilots liked to sneak up from behind, and it’s incredible how difficult it was to spot a hostile plane. Once some Army friends of mine never knew there was a plane within miles until one swooped overhead and 20-millimeter shells splattered on all sides of them.
Every day somebody got strafed on the roads, yet it was really the tiniest fraction of one per cent of our men that ever saw a German plane when on a trip. I drove hundreds of miles over central Tunisian roads in convoy but saw relatively few strafings and they occurred far up the road.
Hate strafing planes
It’s the stealthiness of the thing, the knowledge that this sudden peril is always possible, that gets you. There are thousands of Americans over here who are calm under ground fire but hate strafing planes. Soldiers in camp lost no time in hitting their slit trenches and soldiers on the road flow out of their vehicles like water every time a plane is seen. Nine times out of ten it turns out to be one of our planes, but if you waited to make sure, you might be too late. More than once I’ve quickly slowed down and then realized the approaching plane was only a soaring bird.
As you drive along roads in the frontal area you meet hundreds of vehicles, from jeeps to great wrecker trucks, and every one of the hundreds of soldiers in them will be scanning the sky as though they were lookouts on a ship at sea.
The other day, a friend and I were coming back from the frontlines in our jeep and met a great convoy of supply trucks making a suffocating cloud of dust. Our first intimation of danger was the sound of ack-ack shells exploding in the sky behind us. We stopped in nothing flat, and piled out. I remember looking back and saying:
There’s two dozen of them coming right at us!
We ran out across the fields about 50 yards to a small ditch, and stopped there to look again. My two dozen enemy planes were actually just the black puffs of our ack-ack shells. We couldn’t see the planes at all. That shows how deceptive your senses are when you get excited.
Collapsible foxholes
You learn to hate absolutely flat country where there are no ditches to jump into or humps to hide behind. We even make jokes about carrying collapsible foxholes for such country.
In camp I’ve seen soldiers sitting in their slit trenches, completely oblivious of the presence of anyone around them, and cuss the German planes and root for our ack-ack to get one, just as though they were at a football game.
The commandant of one outfit which has been at the front for two months told me they had been strafed and dive-bombed so much they couldn’t hear a motor anymore without jumping. I know one American outfit that was attacked by Stukas 23 times in one day. A little of that stuff goes a long way.
If we have ack-ack to shoot back, it lessens the soldiers’ fear greatly; and if our own fighters are in the sky, then the men feel almost no uneasiness at all.
Yes, the cold and the Stukas are the bugaboos of the average guy over here. Before long now, the cold will disappear, and we all hope the Stukas would take the hint also.
So how does the registration card work? Do the police simply pick a guy on the street and say… “hey you … congratulations you are going to war!” “What you don’t have the draft card? You go to jail”
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Clapper: Reciprocity
By Raymond Clapper
Washington –
Some Republicans in Congress are in favor of a truce to permit the reciprocal trade act to stand until after the war.
The present act expires June 30. Naturally the administration wants it extended. Repudiation of the policy now, of all times, would work serious damage to our international relations, it would handicap our officials severely in all diplomatic negotiations that must be carried on in connection with the war.
Those considerations appeal to some Republicans although the party has been almost unanimously against the trade agreements act. When the measure was first passed, only two Republicans in the House voted for it, and only five Republican Senators. On renewals, Republicans cast a unanimous vote against it once in the House and once in the Senate.
McNary willing to ‘play ball’
Senator McNary, the Republican leader of the Senate, has his own objections to the reciprocal trade policy, as it has been carried out by the present administration. But he doubts if this is the proper time to make a fight for its repeal or serious modification. He is suggesting to his fellow Senators that the act be extended until after the war. Senator McNary would make it clear that the Republicans have not abandoned their objections to the act but are only withholding them until a more appropriate time.
Somewhat the same view is taken by Rep. Clifford Hope of Kansas, the ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee. This is, as Mr. Hope says, a matter properly for the House Ways and Means Committee.
Hope’s attitude significant
But Mr. Hope’s personal attitude is significant because he comes from the heart of the farm belt where the opposition to the reciprocal program is strongest. He also has had a good deal to do with shaping Republican Party expressions on agricultural policy.
House Republicans are more aggressive in their opposition to the trade agreements act than the Republicans in the Senate. Nevertheless as Rep. Hope says, it is a poor time to raise the issue and no harm can be done by continuing the act during the war. Also, there is some suggestion in the House of providing, as has been done with some of the war legislation, that Congress could terminate the act at any time by concurrent resolution – that is by majority action of both Houses without the signature of the President.
Farsighted leaders want act
Republicans might not be willing to admit it, but I have a strong suspicion that some of the more farsighted among them are thinking that if the Republicans come into power in the 1944 elections, they just might want to keep the Reciprocal Trade Act. As a matter of self-interest, it is a most useful weapon for the government in breaking down trade restrictions against us by other nations.
Republicans might keep it as the Democrats kept the Hawley-Smoot tariff. The Democrats denounce the Hawley-Smoot Act as a monstrosity but they have never seriously tried to get rid of it, in fact, the administration finds this high tariff a useful reservoir from which to trade concessions under the reciprocal power.
Republicans are steadily broadening their outlook. For instance, Governor Stassen of Minnesota represents a new broader-gauge statesmanship that is finding voice also among numerous other younger Republicans. They know, as Governor Stassen says, that while we might not want to put all of our eggs in the international basket, we should place some of them there on the chance that they might hatch something better than recurring wars.
Millett: Army wives need advice
Being alone creates perplexing trials
By Ruth Millett
One thing this country needs night now is some classes for service wives, conducted by people trained to handle personal problems.
These women, some of them wives for 10 or 15 years and some for only a few months, have to make a difficult adjustment. Loneliness and fear for their husbands’ safety are just two of the big problems. The smaller problems often cause them more worry, more anxiety, more unhappiness.
If their husbands have been out of the country for months or a year, most of them are distressed because as time goes on, they feel out of touch, and no longer a necessary part of their husband’s lives. They begin to winder if they will ever be necessary to their men again.
If they are children and are living with their own parents or in-laws, there is almost invariably a clash between the two generations on the proper way to bring up children. Though the mother feels she is right, she isn’t sure when she finds her ideas disputed.
Many of them, in a desire to keep from thinking, fill their days so full that they are nervous wrecks. They are afraid to be alone, afraid to face their loneliness.
And so it goes. Worries and anxieties pile up to confuse them. For the sake of their present happiness and for the future happiness of their marriages, they need expert advice and guidance. It would be a fine thing if there were classes for them where they could talk over their perplexing problems, see that they are general, not personal problems, and learn how they can be worked out.
U.S. Navy Department (March 10, 1943)
Communiqué No. 305
South Pacific.
During the night of March 7‑8, a Japanese plane dropped bombs on U.S. positions on Guadalcanal Island. No casualties resulted.
On March 9:
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During the morning, Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated) dropped bombs in the enemy areas at Kahili and Ballale in the Shortland Island area and at Munda and Vila in the central Solomons. Results were not observed. All U.S. planes returned.
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Later in the morning, a large force of Dauntless dive bombers (Douglas) and Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF), with Wildcat escort (Grumman F4F), attacked the airfield at Munda on New Georgia Island. Hits on supply dumps and antiaircraft positions started large fires. All U.S. planes returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 10, 1943)
HOUSE GROUP APPROVES 20% PAYROLL DEDUCTION
Collections would start July 1
Plan reduces victory tax; March 15 deadline unchanged
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Post-war Social Security plan urged by Roosevelt
Program includes system for demobilization of men from Armed Forces and factories and lifting of economic controls
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Row alarms U.S. –
Recall likely for Standley
Criticism of Reds won’t affect Lend-Lease
By H. O. Thompson, United Press staff writer
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J. P. Morgan improves, but still ‘very sick’
New York (UP) –
The office of J. P. Morgan in a statement issued at 10:45 a.m. today noted that the financier’s condition has shown “a slight but definite improvement” in the last 24 hours.
The morning bulletin on Mr. Morgan, who is gravely ill after a cerebral stroke at Boca Grande, Florida, said:
There has been a slight but definite improvement over the past 24 hours in Mr. Morgan’s conclusion.
U.S. fliers smash bridge in Burma
New Delhi, India (UP) –
The 10th U.S. Army Air Force resumed extensive attacks on Japanese positions in northern Burma yesterday, smashing a big bridge at Mogaung, 75 miles north of Bhamo, a communiqué revealed today.
At the same time, the Royal Air Force announced that its pilots, flying American-built Liberator bombers, last night blasted Prome, Japanese-held port on the Irrawaddy River, 160 miles north of Rangoon, “with good results.
U.S. fighters armed with light bombs and machine guns ranged widely over northern Burma., delivering their heaviest attack at Mogaung. Seven direct hits were scored on the bridge. Its center span was left sagging and the north approach span completely out.
Simms: Meeting of minds needed between Allies and Russia
Current misunderstandings merely aid Hitler and his gang, Washington diplomats point out
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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47 Jap planes blast air base in New Guinea
Slight damage caused at Wau; Fortress shoots down four Zeroes
By George Weller
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Mme. Chiang delays tour for one week
New York (UP) –
Mme. Chiang Kai-shek was determined today to carry out her nationwide tour as soon as possible despite her need for a complete rest.
Reportedly on the verge of collapse, the wife of China’s Generalissimo accepted the advice of physicians and postponed her trip for a week, but is determined to show her appreciation personally for the “spontaneous and warm feeling” shown her in the United States.
She is suffering from the aftereffects of a back injury suffered in an auto accident several years ago, plus the nervous exhaustion resulting from her work in China during its six-year war.
Madame Chiang will remain in her Waldorf Astoria Hotel suite, attended by two American nurses, until her doctors report her strength at normal.