America at war! (1941--) -- Part 2

2403

U.S. merchant vessel goes down second time

Miami, Florida (UP) –
A U.S. merchant ship which was refloated after it was sunk by a submarine almost a year ago is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean again, it was disclosed today.

The medium-sized ship was torpedoed a second time late in February several hundred miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Four crewmen were killed in the second attack. Sixty-one survivors in lifeboats were rescued.

17 more Allied ships sunk, Berlin claims

By the United Press

A special German communiqué announced today that 15 ships, totaling 73,000 tons out of an Allied convoy heading from America to Gibraltar, had been sunk by Nazi U-boats. The Berlin radio also quoted the communiqué as saying that two Allied ships had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean.

2404

Editorial: The steel scandal

The Truman Committee’s disclosure that the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation, through a careless system of inspection, or worse, produced defective steel plates for ships, is one of the worst scandals of this war.

Now that this fraud has been exposed, the committee seems to have confidence that the responsible top managers of the company will prevent repetition. Although the evidence does not implicate the higherup executives, and although they doubtless can be depended upon to clean their own house, we think this investigation should go further.

The committee placed the company inspectors on the stand and on the pan, but did not ask testimony of the Navy inspectors who were supposed to pass on these same plates. Evidence showed that at least one Navy inspector did his duty in getting one company employee fired.

The evidence concerning the civilians involved should be turned over to a grand jury. And further inquiry, in regard to the Navy inspectors, may be a fit subject for a court-martial.

2405

I wonder if the US is going to use them to influence the mafia in Italy before the invasion of italy.

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2406

Editorial: Japan’s advantage

The first friction in many months between Japan and Russia is only one factor in a rapidly developing Far Eastern situation. It is time for another enemy offensive. And the general setup is favorable to Japan – because most Allied strength is concentrated on the other side of the world.

Japan may or may not try to blitz Siberia, probably not. But either way, Russian policy will influence the direction of the next Tokyo drive. America has a big stake in the result.

The immediate Moscow-Tokyo friction is over the sinking of the Soviet freighter Kola last month in the East China Sea. Tokyo says the torpedo was from an American submarine, which Moscow does not believe.

Hitherto both governments have postponed a showdown in the ancient Russo-Jap conflict. Russia, with hands full fighting the Nazi invader, has avoided the Pacific War. Japan has been too busy conquering Southeast Asia and half the Pacific to grab maritime Siberia. But both governments have kept huge forces on the frontier, for a war that might start any minute.

The situation is better for a Jap attack now than any time since December 1941. Again, Russia is hard pressed in the west and exposed to a stab on the back. The Siberian winter is about over. Japan, by holding Rabaul in the South Pacific, Kiska in the North Pacific, and her mid-Pacific island screen, has kept U.S. forces far from her home shores. With Gen. Wavell’s failure to develop a Burma offensive and six months of rain soon due, Japan is fairly safe from that direction. And the beginning of her spring drive in China has been successful.

In contrast to Japan’s overall strategic advantage, the United States has only one hand free to hit Japan – and is getting no effective help there from Britain or Russia. That is dangerous. It allows Japan to consolidate her vast territorial gains, and to keep the initiative for new offensives.

This should be an urgent subject for the current American-British-Russian discussions in Washington.

2407

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Ferguson: Hitler comes in handy

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

The other day, I heard somebody say that Hitler was probably behind our labor strife and our bureau squabbles in Washington.

It would be comforting if he were. We could then be sure of getting rid of the frictions. J. Edgar Hoover could start work, and soon peace would reign over the domestic front.

Hitler does offer a wonderful alibi for our cussedness. It’s easy to accuse him of setting labor against management, Republicans against Democrats, whites against blacks. Making him the goat relieves us of the necessity of looking squarely at our own prejudices, superstitions and meanness. How much easier it is to blame our strife at home upon the Germans and the Japs.

Easy, but a bad method for mending matters. That can be done only when more people are willing to study the other fellow’s side of the argument as closely as they study their own. And until we are at least ready to admit that the other fellow has a side.

The person who doesn’t agree with my domestic policies isn’t necessary influenced by the Nazis, although it’s a comfortable doctrine for me to believe he is. By coddling the thought long enough, I can persuade myself that the idiot has no right to opinions, and by that time, as you can see, I shall have developed into a fine little Nazi myself.

Hitler keeps us from mediating upon our own sins. It’s more convenient to blame all worries on him than it is to correct errors in our own thinking and settle domestic quarrels by intelligent compromise.

2408

Background of news –
Symbols worry Nazis

By Oliver Cromwell, New York World-Telegram staff writer

Through all Nazi-occupied countries of Europe early this year unseen hands chalked “1918” on walls and fences. It was a most unpleasant reminder to the German conquerors and a symbol of hope for long-suffering peoples.

The significance of 1918 for the Germans is that it dates the collapse of the first German march to world conquest. For the Allies, it recalls victory so decisive that it was thought the dream of Teuton domination was destroyed forever.

Why that thought was illusive is another and longer story. But the spring of 1943 suggests a comparison with the spring of 1918 – only 25 years ago.

Nazi propagandists have stressed the lie that Germany was not militarily defeated in 1918; that it was the failure of the home front which brought disaster. Many of our own writers have fallen in with that falsehood. The fact is that the German Army was disastrously beaten in 1918, and when it asked for an armistice in November, it faced annihilation.

The power of America was the decisive factor then, as it is now. In the spring of 1918, the military situation was strongly favorable to the Germans. Of the original Quadruple Alliance, only England and France seemed to remain effective, and both were nearing exhaustion. Russia had been eliminated by defeat and revolution. Italy was apparently crushed by the disaster of Caporetto. American aid was slow.

On March 21, Ludendorff struck. In a few weeks, the British 5th Army had been overwhelmed and Haig stood with his “back to the wall” at Amiens. He held there.

In May, after desperate and exhaustive fighting in the direction of the Channel ports, Ludendorff suddenly attacked across the Chemin des Dames toward the Marne and Paris. The attack was successful, and by May 30, the Germans reached the Marne at Château-Thierry.

Then the miracle happened. A machine-gun unit of the U.S. 3rd Division got into action and checked the crossing at Château-Thierry bridge.

A few days later, the U.S. 2nd Division met the German advance at Belleau Wood and stopped it. The French Army rallied, and in the middle of July, with the aid of several U.S. divisions, crushed the German assault eastward of Château-Thierry.

On July 18, Foch launched an offensive with the U.S. 1st and 2nd Divisions and a Moroccan division on the west flank of the Marne salient.

American power had come in time. By November, Pershing had cleared the Saint-Mihiel salient, swept through the Argonne and reached the Meuse at Sedan. Beaten back in France and Belgium by the French and British, flanked by the Americans, the Germans cracked. The armistice was a surrender.

But there is a tremendous difference in 1943. In 1918, America could provide the manpower, but U.S. troops were equipped mainly by Great Britain and France.

In 1943, America is the “arsenal of democracy.” She is providing a large part of the huge equipment for the armies of her Allies as well as her own. In 1918, there was practically no American airpower. This spring, U.S. airplanes are operating on every front around the world. U.S. ships are carrying supplies to every sector, in a volume almost beyond belief.

2409

Hart: Mme. Chiang is charming

China’s First Lady brings lesson to Occidentals
By Alicia Hart

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Mme. Chiang rests en route to coast

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2410

U.S. Liberators raid Messina in daylight

Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
U.S. Liberators bombed the harbor of Messina, Sicily, in a daylight raid yesterday and started fires in the vicinity of the ferry terminal, a communiqué of the U.S. Army Air Force said today.

An Italian communiqué revealed that 10 persons were killed and 32 injured in the Messina raid. Messina is at the eastern end of Sicily near the mainland of Italy.

The communiqué reported that the U.S. planes probably shot down one Me 109 which tried to intercept the formation. All of the Liberators returned safely.

2411

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the North African front – (March 23)
When our Sahara salvage expedition finally found the wrecked airplanes far out on the endless desert, the mechanics went to work taking off usable parts, and four others of us appointed ourselves the official ditchdiggers of the day.

We were all afraid of being strafed if the Germans came over and saw men working around the planes, and we wanted a nice ditch handy for diving into. The way to have a nice ditch is to dig one. We wasted no time.

Would that all slit trenches could be dug in soil like that. The sand was soft and moist; just the kind children like to play in. The four of us dug a winding ditch 40 feet long and three feet deep in about an hour and a half.

They dig, dig, dig all day long

The day got hot, and we took off our shirts. One sweating soldier said:

Five years ago, you couldn’t have got me to dig a ditch for $5 an hour. Now look at me.

You can’t stop me digging ditches. I don’t even want pay for it; I just dig for love. And I sure do hope this digging today is all wasted effort; I never wanted to do useless work so bad in my life.

Any time I get 50 feet from my home ditch you’ll find me digging a new ditch and, brother I ain’t joking. I love to dig ditches.

Digging out here in the soft desert sand was paradise compared with the claylike digging back at our base. The ditch went forward like a prairie fire. We measured it with our eyes to see if it would hold everybody.

Indicating a low spot in the bank on either side, one of the boys said:

Throw up some more right here. Do you think we’ve got it deep enough?

Another said:

It don’t have to be so deep. A bullet won’t go through more than three inches of sand. Sand is the best thing there is for stopping bullets.

Bush aids the imagination

A growth of sagebrush hung over the ditch on one side. One of the boys said:

Let’s leave it right there. It’s good for the imagination. Makes you think you’re covered up even when you ain’t.

That’s the new outlook, the new type of conversation, among thousands of American boys today. It’s hard for you to realize, but there are certain moments when a plain old ditch can be dearer to you than any possession on earth. For all bombs, no matter where they may land eventually, do all their falling right straight at your head. Only those of you who know about that can ever know all about ditches.

While we were digging, one of the boys brought up for the thousandth time the question of that letter in Time Magazine. What letter, you ask? Why, it’s a letter you probably don’t remember, but it has become famous around these parts.

It was in the November 23 issue, which eventually found its way over here. Somebody read it, spoke to a few friends, and pretty soon thousands of men were commenting on this letter in terms which the fire department won’t permit me to set to paper.

Campfire story irritates

To get to the point, it was written by a soldier, and it said:

The greatest Christmas present that can be given to us this year is not smoking jackets, ties, pipes or games. If people will only take the money and buy war bonds… they will be helping themselves and helping us to be home next Christmas. Being home next Christmas is something which would be appreciated by all of us boys in service!

The letter was all right with the soldiers over here until they got down to the address of the writer and discovered he was still in camp in the States. For a soldier back home to open his trap about anything concerning the war is like waving a red flag at the troops over here. They say they can do whatever talking is necessary.

What a chance to gripe

One of the ditchdiggers said with fine soldier sarcasm:

Them poor dogfaces back home, they’ve really got it rugged. Nothing to eat but them old greasy pork chops and them three-inch steaks all the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have to eat eggs several times a week.

Another said:

And they’re so lonely. No entertainment except to rassle them old dames around the dance floor. The USO closes at ten o’clock and the night clubs at three. It’s mighty tough on them. No wonder they want to get home.

A third said:

And they probably don’t get no sleep, sleeping on them old cots with springs and everything, and scalding themselves in hot baths all the time.

A philosopher with a shovel chimed:

And nothing to drink but that nasty old 10¢ beer and that awful Canadian Club whisky.

And when they put a nickel in the box nothing comes out but Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw and such trash as that. My heart just bleeds for them poor guys.

Another asked:

And did you see where he was? At the Albuquerque Air Base. And he wants to be home by next Christmas. Hell, if I could just see the Albuquerque Air Base again, I’d think I was in Heaven.

That’s the way it goes. The boys feel a soldier isn’t qualified to comment unless he’s on the wrong side of the ocean. They’re gay and full of their own wit when they get started that way, but just the same they mean it. It’s a new form of the age-old soldier pastime of grousing. It helps take your mind off things.

2412

U.S. Navy Department (March 25, 1943)

Communiqué No. 323

South Pacific.
On March 24:

  1. During the evening, Army Flying Fortresses (Boeing B‑17) and Navy Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF) attacked Japanese positions at Kahili in the Shortland Island area. A fire was started.

  2. A small enemy ship in the Shortland Island area was bombed with unobserved results.

  3. All U.S. planes returned from the above attack missions.

2413

The Pittsburgh Press (March 25, 1943)

ROMMEL SPLITS ARMY
Battle raging within Mareth Line

German forces divided to meet 4 allied attacks; Americans advance
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

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2414

Ruml beat Treasury to it –
Democratic plan called tax relief for the wealthy

Knutson opens debate with charge that discounts really mean forgiveness; says Carlson plan helps all

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2415

‘Faked’ steel indictments to be sought

War frauds unit takes over where Truman inquiry left off

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2416

55 lost as U.S. ship is sunk in Atlantic

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2417

Chennault nominated for major generalship

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2418

Food production agency created by Roosevelt

Administrator of new unit within Agricultural Department is banker Chester C. Davis

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2419

Woman draft hits family, foe says

Washington (UP) –
Mrs. Mildred Scott Olmstead, of Philadelphia, director of the Committee to Oppose the Conscription of Women, told the Senate Military Affairs Committee today that the Austin-Wadsworth labor draft bill would “strike at the very root of American society – the family.”

She declared that juvenile delinquency had risen 82% in the Philadelphia area among girls under 16 during 1941-42. For girls from 16 to 18, the rise was 26%, she said.

Mrs. Olmstead declared:

You cannot stem this tide without strengthening home life. And women must be encouraged to maintain it, rather than discouraged.

2420

Army treatment cuts social disease rate

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Fortress attack Jap Solomons base

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2421

Informer law may be tossed ‘out window’

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2422

Experts claim eating’s good on 16 points

Four-week diet planned to get most out of allowances

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