No no, he’s referring to German air attacks on Murmansk.
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Oran, Algeria –
It’s strange, but for some reason or other things seem to get damaged in wartime. So, less than two weeks after we landed in Africa, an Army Claim Commission had set itself up in each of the big occupied cities and was doling out money to aggrieved citizens whose persons or property had been damaged by our forces. There are 12 officers and 13 enlisted men in the Oran claims section. They handled 165 cases in the first two weeks. They paid off the first complainant three days after arriving.
Most of the claims are minor ones. A good many are for damage to crops where soldiers marched across fields or camped for the night. The commission brought along an American farmer in order to be able to handle such cases intelligently. He is Maj. William Johnson, who lives on a 200-acre farm six miles outside of Duluth, Minnesota. Ironically, he has been so busy in the office handling claims that he hasn’t had time to get outside of Oran and see any farms.
There have been a number of traffic accidents. In the first three weeks five people were killed by trucks, and eight or 10 mules have been killed. The commission pays $200 for a good work mule. That’s more than they’d pay at home, but good mules are harder to get over here. The price for a horse is about the same.
Commission pays ‘right’
One tough problem the commission faces is how much to pay for destroyed articles that are irreplaceable. One woman, for instance, filed a claim for 375 francs for a radio the Army had commandeered. She said she paid 250 francs for it, but was asking 375 because she simply couldn’t get another one. The commission agreed with her reasoning and paid her 375 francs.
The head of the commission is Lt. Col. George T. Madison, a tall, gangling, slow-talking lawyer from Bastrop, Louisiana. I can never forget Col. Madison because he led our little detachment off the boat months ago, and I marched into Oran for the first time behind him. Another friend of mine on the commission is Capt. John M. Smith of West Memphis, Arkansas. He knows a lot of my friends in Memphis, and relays news of them that comes in his letters.
Don Coe, United Press correspondent, arrived in North Africa a while back from the gold Coast, way down below. He had been sitting for six months in Liberia, not permitted to write a line. He says he didn’t mind it a bit.
He and three other correspondents went to Liberia last June. They lived throughout the tropical rainy season in tents, and here in Oran, Don slept in a real bed and under blankets for the first time in six months.
Bed traded for smokes
Don doesn’t smoke himself, but he left his bedroll and gas mask behind in order to bring scads of cigarettes to give away up here, which is the most thoughtful thing I’ve heard of in years. He says they were well fixed down there – but then we are up here too.
Don says he and other correspondents, to kill time during the long half year of doing nothing, thought of writing a book entitled I Found No War. But it’s hot down there, and all they did was think about it.
An Army friend of mine, Cpl. Jimmy Edwards from Tyler, Texas, used to be a cavalryman before the war, so consequently he goes nuts about the Arabian horses he sees here. Being an old horse-hater from way back I refuse to look at the beasts, so Jimmy has described them to me in his own words. He says:
I can’t help but notice how beautiful they are. They’ve got little feet, slim bodies, well-shaped heads and small ears. You see them hitched to these two-wheeled hacks in the city streets. One owner said you could buy one for about $200. That isn’t cheap but I’d sure like to have some to put in my pasture back home.
Burro delights
There is one animal here that delights both Jimmy and me, and that’s the local burro, or donkey. They’re only about two-thirds as big as our Southwestern burro, and their hair is slicker, giving them a much neater appearance, but they’re still just as droll-looking. Jimmy went up and measure one the other day. It was only 35 inches high, and its funny head was half as long as the burro was high. I asked the burro if he knew the Americans were here, and he shook his head and said he didn’t care who was in charge as long as he got fed. He ain’t the only one, either.
U.S. Navy Department (March 30, 1943)
Communiqué No. 329
South Pacific.
On March 29:
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During the morning, a group of Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) and Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters attacked the Japanese seaplane base at Faisi in the Shortland Island area. Five to seven Japanese planes were set on fire.
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Following the attack on Faisi, this same group of fighters carried out a low level strafing attack on a Japanese destroyer off Alu Island (southeast of Shortland Island). The attack was carried out at such low altitude that three feet of the wing of one plane was sheared off by the destroyer’s mast. The destroyer was left burning.
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All U.S. planes returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 30, 1943)
Gabes captured; Yanks gain; British troops land at Sfax
Heavy air bombardment batters retreating Rommel forces
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Allies mass huge forces for invasion
Landings in Europe due to follow Axis rout from Tunisia
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer
We’re coming, Adolf, right into the heart of your European fortress. The impending Allied invasion of Europe probably will be in two main attacks, constituting a great pincer against Germany from Norway (1) and Greece (2), with diversionary thrusts from England into France and the Lowland (A), and from Africa into Italy (B).
London, England –
Britain, the United States and Canada are massing gigantic land, sea and air striking forces for invasions of Europe to follow quickly on the Axis rout from Tunisia, Allied observers said today.
The main Allied landings, they believed, may be made in Norway and Greece, with possible diversionary thrusts across the English Channel and North Sea into France, Belgium and Holland and across the Mediterranean into Italy.
Plan ‘invasions’
Prime Minister Winston Churchill has already disclosed that the Allies are preparing to launch “invasions” – and it was noteworthy that he used the word in the plural – this year. Men and war machines are pouring into Britain from North America in endless streams and a similar constant flow is probably being maintained to North Africa, the base for any invasion of Southern Europe.
The attacks, if they are made through Norway and Greece, would probably constitute a great pincer movement directed at Germany herself. Any landing in Norway would be a potential threat to the great German naval bases of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel and might force Axis warships to abandon the Baltic to avoid being bottled up there, thus giving Soviet warships free rein.
Should the Allies invade Greece, they would find guerilla forces waiting to joint them in the march through Yugoslavia and other occupied countries to Berlin.
Nazis show tension
The Germans have shown ample evidence of their concern over impending invasions and in particular their fear that forces will land in Norway and Greece.
Private advices reaching Norwegian sources in London said Adolf Hitler has asked for another 35,000 Norwegian workers to construct additional fortifications at Narvik and Tromsø, two of the principal Norwegian ports at which British and French troops landed in a futile attempt to throw out occupying German forces in April 1940.
The Germans are also reported to have heavily fortified the Greek coast as well as mountain passes inland.
Hitler’s engineers were likewise reported to be supervising the construction of defenses in Italy, Romania, Austria, Yugoslavia and Albania.
Lines hold firm as ballot nears on Ruml tax plan
Proposed amendments are turned aside in final hour
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Capt. Gough dies in action with Air Force in Africa
‘Happiest guy in world,’ newspapermen and veteran of World War I says in last letter home
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I DARE SAY —
The unsung
By Florence Fisher Parry
Heaven knows it is the young among us who are the heroes; it is the boys who swing off to battle and death as though they were going on a tour, expenses paid. It is their wives and sweethearts who wave and smile, then turn back to emptiness and the long young vigil.
It is for them, the partings and the meetings. It is for them, the sudden blank called death. It is for them, returned, the future – that strange exciting pattern, strictly new.
Give them their due. They are shaping the world. And for those who are to die in the shaping, give them sins to build what they left unbuilded. Give them daughters to comfort their slim young widows. Give them what they want. Give them their way.
If they will marry, let them marry. If they will forget their trysts and vows, it is not for us to pass upon their forgetfulness; war does odd things to the heart and mind, and faithfulness is a peacetime virtue.
Listen: let us face this, understand this: War is another life; those who are to be in it must be conditioned for it, else they perish. The training is hard and unremitting and geared high and taut: its tempo is not a home-front tempo. It is – pathological, abnormal; each nerve a sentinel on guard, no relaxation anywhere.
Let them alone!
Look at our boys returned. They are not the same men. They are here for a furlough, a leave. They think they will relax, forget. But they find they cannot. Long before their leave is up, they are straining at the traces.
And if this is so now, what will it be after years, years? Their way is not our way any longer. Give them theirs, then; do not impress our ways upon them any longer.
They will say: I want to marry. Let them, let them. They will say: I will not marry. Let them alone then.
They will say: Stay behind, wife. Camp is no place to be near. Or they will say: Come with me, that I may find respite in brief normalcy. They will say: Keep the children, stay home. They will say: Leave the children behind, it is YOU I want.
No family but to whom comes this willing servitude. What he wants, we want. What he wills, we do.
Now this is as it should be. But it seems to me that in singing these heroes, we can give out a song for those others who are bearing the brunt here at home. The mothers and fathers – yes, grandparents, too who were ready to spend the late afternoon of their lives in peace and know the quiet old-age rewards of their early labors – and who now must lay aside even their old age, and simulate a vigor and assume a responsibility they are beyond bearing, yet must bear.
The burden
The time to rear children is when you are young; it goes hard with a woman to start in anew. Yet all over the land, young mothers are flocking home with their babies, to spend the duration with Mother. Young brides speed back from the altar to remain, at home, until the war is over. And even the mothers of men in uniform are sighing resignedly over letters than run:
I know Mary would be happier with you, mother, than with her own folks, so I want you to take her in while I’m gone.
Pass any row of houses on any Main Street and look behind the curtains where hangs the service star; and you will find in one out of every five, a young wife, a bride, a baby, a couple of stirring children, spending the duration back home.
Oh yes, the doubling up process has begun – and it has JUST begun! The younger generation has indeed taken over! And this is as it must be, and who would deny welcome to them?
Only – I wish it didn’t need to be taken so FOR GRANTED. They’ve moved in upon us; they’ve taken possession.
Oh yes, we’ll make room! But – a little more recognition, please, of the gesture? A little more appreciation, please? A little more consideration and help, please? We’re getting old. We’re often at the end of OUR string, too.
Welcome, daughter! Welcome, children! Welcome, baby-that-is-to-be. But – let the light shine out of your eyes, let us KNOW you see.
Davis’ control of farm prices put in doubt
Chief executive avoids clarifying statement to farm leaders
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Senate near vote on maritime chief
Washington (UP) –
The Senate today votes on the renomination of RAdm. Emory S. Land to be chairman of the Maritime Commission.
His opponents accuse him of mishandling public funds in contracts with shipbuilders and operators.
Senator George D. Aiken (R-VT) leads the opposition and Senate Josiah Bailey (D-NC) heads defense of Adm. Land.
Mr. Bailey praised Land’s work to bring shipbuilding into full production for war and predicted confirmation without too much opposition.
GM president opposes union for foremen
‘Man cannot serve two masters,’ Wilson tells House committee
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U.S. fliers set fire to Jap destroyer
Washington (UP) –
Low-strafing U.S. fighter planes set a Jap destroyer afire after making a damaging attack on the enemy’s seaplane base on Faisi Island in the Solomons, the Navy announced today.
Five to seven Jap planes were set ablaze by a group of Lockheed Lightning and Vought Corsair fighters in the foray against Faisi.
Following that attack, the same fighter group came across a Japanese destroyer off Alu Island, near Faisi, and left the craft burning.
So low did the American airmen come in over their quarry, that three feet of the wing of one plane was sheared off by the destroyer’s mast.
Only one thing sure in Africa
Axis will be thrown out, but not without fight
By William H. Stoneman
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