Editorial: Time test in Tunisia
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With U.S. forces in Algeria –
Everybody who comes in North Africa with the Army is issued a special desert-kit. The main item in our kit is a dust mask. It is a frightful-looking contraption. It consists of a big black rubber schnozzle that covers your nose and half your face. To this are attached two circular devices, about saucer size, which look like wheels and which hang over each jaw. Apparently, the theory is to scare the dust away.
We are also given a pair of old-fashioned racetrack goggles, the kind that strap around your head and have fuzz around the edges of the eyepieces. They’re tinted slightly brown to act as sunglasses. Further than that, each of us is given a dozen isinglass eyeshields, to be used largely for gas attack, but which can also be used for dust.
On the day when we have to put on our gas masks, dust masks, gas eyeshields, dust goggles, and steel helmet all at once, they’ve promised to give a medal to the last man to choke to death.
Dust gives ‘em ‘sundown throat’
Actually, nobody uses or needs his dust equipment at this season. It is raining a good part of the time, and some kind of duckfoot attachment for your shoes would be much more appropriate than a dust mask.
This country along the coast is not truly desert. It is without trees or much natura; vegetation, but it is all farming country, covered with vineyards and olive groves and grain fields. The soil is a sort of red clay.
But soon it will blow, and from what the people say, it will blow until we almost go insane. Even now, after a few rainless days, you can notice a thin film of dust on your table. You really can’t sense dust in the air, but some is there.
The doctors say this invisible dust, plus the rapid drop in temperature at sundown, is responsible for what we call, or at least I call, ‘‘sundown throat." Almost everybody I know gets a sore throat just about sundown. It’s a strange, seemingly unaccountable thing. It comes on just after the sun gets behind the hills and the evening chill starts coming down. Your throat gets so sore you can hardly swallow. It is gone next morning. If your general health is good, nothing comes of this “sundown throat.” But if you are run down, one of those African flu bugs may come along, and then your sore throat turns into the African flu, as happened to me.
Pill No. 2 kills Pill No. 1
Also in the desert kit are two little bottles of pills for purifying drinking water when you’re in the country. You put one pill in your canteen, let it sit half an hour, put in the other pill and wait a few minutes, then drink the water. Pill No. 1 kills all the germs in the water, and Pill No. 2 kills the nasty taste left by Pill No, 1. In addition, we have a can of mosquito paste, and pills to take for malaria. In this area, and at this season, there isn’t much need for those. I’ve yet to see a mosquito, although once in a while a malaria case turns up at one of the Army hospitals.
The local people consider December, January, and February their winter. They say they stop taking quinine Dec. 1, and start again in March. Right now, this seems the last place on earth where you’d get malaria – it simply doesn’t look like malaria country. For although this is Africa, it’s still as far north as Norfolk, and it’s not the steaming jungle you’re thinking of, a thousand miles south.
Our malaria pills are not quinine, but a substitute known as atabrin. We are warned not to take them without doctor’s instructions. Personally, I’m never going to take mine. I talked to one doctor from the South, a malaria specialist, who took his and thought he was going to die. He says he’d rather have malaria and get it over with.
‘Puny Pyle’s Perpetual Pains’
Africa is not clean, and we can expect a good bit of disease before we finally get out of here. Our sore throats and flu are known to the doctors as “winter respiratory diseases.” The malaria, dysentery, and stuff we’ll have this spring will be known as “summer intestinal disturbances.”
The large and small diseases that infect the ragged carcass of this sad correspondent at all seasons and in all climes are known medically as “Puny Pyle’s Perpetual Pains.”
Women’s war jobs should be dramatized
New York State’s Director of Manpower Commission says employers will get more out of workers if that policy is adopted
By Mary Anderson
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U.S. Navy Department (April 1, 1943)
Communiqué No. 331
North Pacific.
On March 30:
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During the morning, Army Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters attacked Japanese positions at Kiska.
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During the early afternoon, Army Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated B‑24) and Lightning fighters attacked Japanese positions at Holtz Bay, Attu Island. All U.S. planes returned.
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Later in the afternoon, Army Liberator bombers and Lightning fighters attacked the main Japanese camp area at Kiska. One U.S. bomber was shot down by anti-aircraft fire in this attack.
South Pacific.
On March 30: During the afternoon, a force of Dauntless (Douglas) dive bombers, escorted by Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters, attacked Japanese Installations at Munda, on New Georgia Island. Hits were scored and fires started. All U.S. planes returned.
News Release
NAVY DEPARTMENT
For Immediate Release
April 1, 1943
German submarine damaged by Navy gun crew
Fire from the guns of a Navy Armed Guard Crew damaged a Nazi U‑boat which engaged the SS COLUMBIAN, 30‑year‑old United States merchant vessel, in a surface duel fought in the Atlantic.
The submarine’s deck was swept clean by the Navy crew’s machine guns shortly after the submarine engaged the merchantman. Then a direct hit made at point blank range just below the U‑boat’s conning tower caused a violent explosion. The submarine was dead in the water and in a seriously damaged condition when the merchantman steamed safely away.
The COLUMBIAN, built in 1913 at W. Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was undamaged.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 1, 1943)
FORTRESSES POUND SARDINIA
Air thrusts rock enemy lines in African Theater
Tunisian land fighting slows as Rommel prepares for stand north of Gabes; 44 Axis planes destroyed
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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GERMANS PREPARE FOR TUNISIAN ‘DUNKIRK’
Nazis seizing ships to save Afrika Korps
Planes massed in Sicily and Italy to cover evacuation
By Ralph Forte, United Press staff writer
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Heavy bomber downed by Japanese on Kiska
Washington (UP) –
Three more air attacks on Jap bases in the Aleutians and another on Munda in the Solomons were announced today by the Navy.
Two of the Aleutian attacks were made on Kiska and the third on Holtz Bay, Attu Island. These attacks, all on Tuesday, increased to 32 the number of raids made on Kiska during March.
The Aleutian operations cost us one heavy bomber, shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Kiska. Fires were started in the Munda assault and all our planes returned.
Muddle on tax beclouds coal act’s future
Law’s expiration nears as House committee delays action
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
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Dive bombers over dollars –
War profiteering checked by cost-plus-fixed-fee
Douglas Aircraft does about 277% more business for 40% less net income in 1942
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