Japs on Kiska hit in 6 raids
Big fires started in camp areas in Aleutians
By Russell Annabel, United Press staff writer
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Generals rationed also; get 2 bullets for a Jap
Guadalcanal commander chagrined by rebuke for wasting six others to get sniper
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Millett: Homes await new start at war’s close
Families will face remarriage conditions in peacetime
By Ruth Millett
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
On the North African desert –
When finally, late at night, we arrived near where the wrecked American planes were supposed to be, our Arab friend “Wah” directed us over a multitude of tracks, winding around through bare wraithlike hills, to a little group of sand-colored buildings standing lonesomely in the moonlight. We stopped about 500 yards away, yelled, and waited. At last, there was a shout from far off. We shouted back, “*Les Americains,” and then we could see two figures start toward us. Two of us went out to meet them. You proceed cautiously in the desert at night when you’re within half an hour’s drive of the enemy.
The place turned out to be a French garrison, as we had thought. And they acted just as they had at the other French post – anything they had was ours. The commandant was a tall, thin fellow with long hair, who looked like a poet. We didn’t know for a long time that he was the commandant, because he wore a civilian topcoat.
He and the one American officer with us went off to another part of the garrison to see about our sleeping quarters, and the rest of us hung around a big mud-walled corral which turned out to be the stables of the Camel Corps.
Hobbled camel fools Ernie
The Arab cavalrymen, or whatever you call camelback soldiers, gathered around in the moonlight and smiled at us and tried to talk. An old camel hobbled past, and I said:
Look, there’s a three-legged camel. It must have lost a front leg in an accident.
It wasn’t until next day that we realized the Arabs had merely hobbled the camel by bending its leg and lashing one foot up to its foreleg.
The Arabs had a tiny black burro that was a pet. It wasn’t any bigger than a dog, and just stood around among us looking sadly at the ground, waiting to be scratched. The soldiers were astounded at such a tiny animal, and all of us took turns picking it up in our arms to see how light it was. The truck driver jumped into his cab and came out with some cube sugar, and from then on, he was the burro’s man.
After a while the French said everything was arranged, and we all walked to another building. They turned over one big empty room with a tile floor for the soldiers to sleep on, and then insisted that the one officer and myself have supper with them. It was late at night, but apparently, they eat late on the desert.
The American officer was the kind all the mechanics called by his first name, and he would have preferred to eat and sleep with them, and so would I. But we talked it over with the enlisted men and decided it would be a breach of etiquette if we didn’t accept the invitation.
French are fine hosts
There were eight French officers and we two Americans at dinner. The French were dressed in all sorts of half-military getup. Apparently, they’ve had no new supply issues since the fall of France, and they wore whatever they could get their hands on. They apologized for not having any wine with the meal. Hadn’t had any for months.
We ate at a long bare wooden table. The room was lighted by a dim bulb hooked to a battery they’d taken off one of the wrecked American planes. Candles were used in the other rooms. One of the officers spoke a few words of English, and that was our only avenue of contact with our hosts.
We had a delicious omelet for an appetizer, and then a stew of vegetables and what was either goat or camel meat. The French can make anything taste good.
Just as we were finishing, one of the Frenchmen said, ‘"Shhhh,” and cocked his ear. We all ran outside, and sure enough we could hear German planes high in the sky, bound for a night of bombing of some of our friends.
Some of the French officers slept in beds, some on the concrete floor. They made room for our two bedrolls on the floor, and the next thing we knew it was daylight.
Frenchmen don’t eat a regular breakfast, so next morning they came out and watched while we cooked our breakfast over small cans of burning gasoline.
Marksmanship is excellent
One of the soldiers let the French commandant shoot his rifle, and then all the Frenchmen took turns. Their skill amazed the soldiers. Even with a strange rifle they could hit a small rock 150 yards away at every shot.
The commandant had a car – a sort of delivery wagon – and said he’d lead us to the wrecked planes if we could give him some gasoline. No wine, no gasoline. These soldiers at these far outposts fight a lonely and bleak kind of war.
We gave him five gallons and off we went, with several Arabs hanging onto the truck. We had at last reached our pinpoint in the vast desert, and were ready to start to work.
Nitti accorded ‘sneak burial;’ mobsters hide
Widow, son and only few relatives attend services
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
One of the shortest and most unpretentious funeral processions in the history of Chicago’s underworld followed Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti to his “sneak burial” yesterday, as former members of the Al Capone gang he led hid from the eyes of federal authorities.
Nitti committed suicide Friday less than six hours after he and seven other members of the syndicate had been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for violations of the anti-racketeering law.
Buried ‘ahead of time’
Nitti was buried 24 hours before the announced time for his funeral, and only his widow and son and a few relatives were present. The men who gave Nitti the title “Enforcer” because of his ruthless dealings with the gang’s enemies, refused to make his last rites a replica of the expensive and flamboyant funerals that attended the demise of other underworld lords.
A $5,000 bronze casket was the only sign reminiscent of the heydays when a top flight gang leader’s funeral included thousands of dollars’ worth of floral displays, long processions of limousines and marching mourners.
Flowers lack cards
Yesterday the floral pieces included a red and white heart from the widow; a cross and pillow, with no card; and several baskets of flowers, also without cards. One auto was sufficient to carry the party from the undertaker’s chapel to the grave.
Nitti, a Catholic, was buried without benefit of clergy, it is the practice of the church to deny a funeral to a person who takes his own life, and to deny him space in consecrated cemeteries. Nitti, however, owned the lot in which he was buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery. The undertaker said a few words, and then concluded with:
That concludes the ceremony, folks; please return to the car.
Hoodlums stay away
The hoodlums who backed Nitti’s domination of the old Capone syndicate stayed far away from the chapel and cemetery. They had no desire to flaunt their association with “The Enforcer” even in death.
Even the undertaker craved anonymity. He removed the company nameplate from the hearse before beginning the trip to the cemetery.
U.S. Navy Department (March 24, 1943)
Communiqué No. 322
South Pacific.
On March 23:
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A force of Army fighters (Lockheed P‑38) strafed the enemy seaplane base at Rekata Bay in the Central Solomons. Results were not reported. All U.S. planes returned.
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During the night of March 23‑24, a small number of Japanese planes attacked the airfield on Guadalcanal Island. There was some material damage but there were no casualties to personnel.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 24, 1943)
NAZIS REGAIN MARETH POSITIONS
Yanks beat off attacks, smash 35 tanks
Eighth Army thrown back by counterassault in fierce fighting
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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MINERS, OPERATORS EXTEND NEGOTIATIONS
Coal wages retroactive for 30 days
President’s plea to avert shutdown heeded in joint pact
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AFL and CIO chiefs agree to end ‘raid’ dispute
Murray and Green, before Truman Committee, seek causes of work stoppage
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I DARE SAY —
Hold that accent!
By Florence Fisher Parry
Who shall estimate the power of an accent! Our President’s has become a criterion for speakers all over the world! What radio announcer, actor, politician, lecturer or preacher, has not himself felt the influence of that famous delivery, and himself become, however unconsciously, its imitator?
It has come to be accepted, the world over, as the perfect example of pure speech in America. It has, indeed, a purer accent than that of the British and certainly purer than that of the Britisher’s closest imitator, the Bostonian. Certain it is that the speech of most public men has improved by virtue of the excellent example provided by their leader in the White House.
But there, pray, let it end! Outside of professional speakers and actors, I do wish that we would enjoy a return to “native” speech! It is admirable and helpful for our President, who must needs speak to all the world, to possess an accent that is as nearly cosmopolitan as any ever held by an American. But oh, the folly of attempting to destroy, by false concepts and practices on the part of certain purists, one of the most delightful possessions man is heir to; and that is, his NATIVE speech, whatever that may be!
There has been effort made to standardize our speech here in America. And the swift changes wrought by modern transportation, radio and – now especially – this great World War, make it extremely likely that this standardization will indeed come about if steps are not taken to prevent it! Before we know it, the rich heritage of our native idiom will be lost, and Kentuckian and New Englander, Texas and East Shoreman, will be talking the same talk in the same accent and idiom!
Perish the thought!
Heaven forbid!
Already, up home, it is hard to find a true and undefiled specimen of our old speech as it was spoken even in the days of my own childhood! O for a “Maizie and Annie” to bring us back the unpolluted provincial speech of yesterday.
Now there is even a more absurd movement afoot to establish a world language! A kind of expanded Esperanto to embrace all of mankind! How – “weary, flat, stale and unprofitable” would seem to us all the usages of speech if it would come to that!
But, mercifully, it won’t – it can’t. No, nor that other corruption, a uniform accent. So long as features differ, and normal tastes and temperament and blood – so long will Texans speak like Texans, Down-Easterners New England, the melodious accent of the South issue from the lips of her sons and daughters.
Myself, I rejoice that this is so! For differences in speech give more color to countries and people than any other distinguishing mark; and I can think of no bleaker prospect than that of hearing a West Coast prospector employ the accents of a Lancaster County farmer, or either the impeccable accents of a Bostonian!
Home sweet home
What indeed has endeared and cemented one people with another? Why, the quaintness and freshness of their separate speech! It was not the abominated “Reconstruction” program following the Civil War that bound up the nation’s wounds; no! it was that our Yankee interlopers in the South found the accents of her fair daughters irresistible!
What made our post-war relations with France close and warm? It was that our doughboys could not resist the accent of the mademoiselles, just as those same mademoiselles found the faltering French of the Yanks their most endearing trait!
Nature tends to infinite variety in her selection of mates; and how she would be foiled if such a disaster as a common accent and speech should circumvent her ancient method of snaring lovers!
Take accents, idioms and dearly-cherished provincialisms away from our speech, and we will become a dreary folk indeed, without tang or color, without charm or spunk! Heaven forfend us, we will have none of THIS! Shades of Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Bobbie Burns, be we men or mice? Have we tongues in our mouths? Then let them roll out the syllables we were born to, in accents that attest our love of home sweet home!
1,000-stitch belt to shield U.S. Japs
Cody, Wyoming (UP) –
Japanese who leave the Heart Mountain Relocation Center near here to join the new U.S. all-Japanese Army unit will take with them traditional “good luck” charms, officials have disclosed.
Women evacuees are making for their husbands and sons “belts of a thousand stitches,” regarded by the Japanese for centuries as certain protection against harm.
The belts are made of white cloth, with 1,000 red stitches sewn into then, each by a different woman.