Jittery enemy sees visions of things to come
Hardly day passes minus reports of Allied incursions
By Helen Kirkpatrick
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P-40 pilot saved after landing in enemy territory
Training plane comes to rescue while fighters drive off Japs closing in on crippled aircraft
By Walter Briggs, United Press staff writer
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Girl soda jerker inherits fortune of $1 million
Publicity shy, she hoped to keep wealth secret and return to her milkshakes
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U.S. spending less than war budget asked
$50 billion paid out in 9 months; tables compare Treasury schedules
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
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Soldiers fight; six hurt
Stockton, California –
Two hundred Negro soldiers battled in a series of gang fights in the west end of Stockton last night and early today. Six men were injured and eight arrested before the outbreak was quelled by city and military police. The trouble began with a fistfight between two soldiers in a bar.
Hoover’s plan would ground all aggressors
Former President proposes air police force to keep peace
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Capital fears rubber plant abandonment
Official intent to call off synthetic program after war charged
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Stalin parley with President termed vital
Meeting could blast ‘Allied dissension’ propaganda by Goebbels
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Buying gifts for our service girls? – Here’s a checklist of what they want
Preferences listed after camp survey
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
North Africa –
One day Mrs. Sara Harvey of 227 Natchez Place, Nashville, Tennessee, wrote a letter to me, and it finally found its way over here. Mrs. Harvey asked me to look up her husband in England, and tell him to hurry up and get the war won and get back home to her.
Lots of people write me letters like that. Unfortunately, the world is a big place and our troops are scattered. Only once in a blue moon do I happen to be in the vicinity of the husband or sweetheart asked for. But the Harvey case turned out just right. When Mrs. Harvey wrote, both her husband and I were in England. When the letter arrived, we were both in Africa, and Mrs. Harvey’s ever-loving was right under my nose. All I had to do was walk through a bunch of palm trees and across a little sand, and there he was.
He is Sgt. Benson Harvey, radioman with a fighter squadron. He was playing catch with a baseball right after supper when I found him. Harvey and another fellow lived in a pup tent just big enough to hold their blankets. Their private slit trench is just a jump away. A small tinted picture in a glass frame hangs on the tiny pole at the back of the tent. The picture is of Mrs. Harvey.
Four brothers in service
Sgt. Harvey is a young fellow. Back in Nashville he used to be janitor, phone operator and all-round worker at an apartment house. He is quiet, friendly, sincere, slow-speaking – you’d almost know he was from Tennessee. His captain thinks a lot of him. He is one of four brothers scattered all over the world. Maj. Robert Harvey is a doctor now on his way overseas, probably to Africa. James is a chief petty officer in the Navy. He was through Pearl Harbor and the Solomons battles, and is somewhere at sea. His wife was once notified that he was dead – but he wasn’t. The fourth brother is Frank, an aviation machinist’s mate, who was on the Wasp when she was sunk.
Sgt. Harvey says it’ll be tough when they get home, for they’ll all want to tell their lies at the same time. Harvey has been in the Army two and a half years already. He has things pretty nice, as things go over here. I’m glad Mrs. Harvey wrote me about him.
While we were roaming around. Sgt. Harvey took me into the squadron’s little dispensary and hospital. It’s a big hole in the ground, about four feet deep – all tented over. It’s about the nicest improvised operating room around here. We got to talking with Sgt. Burt Thompson of 3660 East 151st St., Cleveland, Ohio. He used to be a production clerk in a hydraulic-equipment factory in Cleveland, but now he’s in the medical section and has hung around doctors so long, he’s started inventing things.
The Air Forces make up a medical kit for pilots to take with them on their missions. It’s in a canvas case with a zipper, and is placed behind the pilot’s seat. It’s all right if you can get to it, but a wounded fighter pilot can’t always reach it.
Smaller kits will be issued
So, Sgt. Thompson has assembled a smaller kit, which a pilot can carry right in the map pocket on his trousers leg. It is packed in the little tin box our dust goggles came in – about the size of a Nabisco wafer box. It has everything in it from bandages to a half gram of morphine which you can inject yourself. It even has a tourniquet, wrapped around the outside. Sgt. Thompson gave me one of them.
I asked:
Are you going to issue these to pilots?
He said:
We’d like to, but some new regulation has to come from headquarters first.
I said:
That’ll take months. Why don’t you just issue them?
Sgt. Thompson with a little grin said:
That’s what we intend to do.
There is now starting to grow up among the soldiers over here, I’ve noticed, a little feeling of resentment at, and superiority over, the soldiers back in the States. I’m sorry to see this, for I think it’s unfair. Few soldiers have the slightest control over whether they’re to be in Africa or in Florida. Soldiers don’t choose; they’re sent. The ones back home aren’t cowards, and are no doubt itching to get over here.
There is one tiling concerning home life that soldiers are absolutely rabid on: that is strikes. You just mention a strike at home to either soldier or officer, living on monotonous rations in the mud under frequent bombing, and you’ve got a raving maniac on your hands.
U.S. bombers blast Burma railyards
New Delhi, India (UP) –
U.S. Billy Mitchell medium bombers have attacked the railroad yards at Pyinmana in south-central Burma, scoring direct hits on a warehouse and the tracks near the central station, an Allied communiqué said today.
Pyinmana is on the Mandalay-Rangoon railroad, 250 miles south of Mandalay, and is one of the main north-south transportation links of the Japs.
A gasoline storage dump was also reported hit in the raid yesterday.
Liberator heavy bombers of the U.S. 10th Air Force, attacking the same target, were intercepted by a large formation of enemy fighters and destroyed at least two of the Jap planes.
Planes of the Royal Air Force attacked Bhamo, Jap base on the Irawaddy River in Upper Burma, yesterday, hitting a main oil storage building and starting fires, a British communiqué said.
Japanese boosting airpower in Pacific
Washington (UP) –
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said today that the Japs are building up their frontline air strength but added that the U.S. Army and Navy are preparing detailed plans for forthcoming operations against the Asiatic member of the Axis.
At a recent meeting of Pacific military leaders here, these plans were discussed in detail. Mr. Stimson said at a press conference. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, are now preparing specific orders based on valuable first-hand reports made at the meeting.
Mr. Stimson said there was evidence that Japan is augmenting its airpower in Burma, China and Southwest Pacific.