Unsung Navy heroes fight war on Vestal
Built in 1906, wounded at Pearl Harbor, Vestal stays in first line keeping warships in trim for slapping Japs
By B. J. McQuaid
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Envoy will confer with Mme. Chiang
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Foreman-union ban supported
Labor control of industry is feared
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
North Africa –
The Americans’ love for pets never ceases to delight me. We are a people who are fundamentally kind to animals. You’d be surprised at how many nationalities aren’t. Our soldiers over here are shocked – I’ve heard them remark on it a hundred times – at the way the Arabs mistreat their dogs and burros.
You’d laugh if you could see the collection of pets at one camp I visited recently. There were countless dogs, several cats, one gazelle, one monkey, two or three rabbits, a burro, and, believe it or not, half a dozen chickens.
A gazelle, as somebody said, is a cross between a jackrabbit and a moose. Actually, it’s a tiny, doll-like deer, delicate and dainty, and stands no higher than a big dog. You’ve heard of the gazelle’s speed. They say they’ve been clocked at 60 miles an hour. They run wild in the mountains near here, and the French hunt them with shotguns. Many of our officers have gone on gazelle-hunting trips. Personally, I could no more shoot one of them than I could a friendly dog.
Bob says ‘no’ to glamor girl
About the cutest dog on the post is a fuzzy little mongrel called “Ziggie,” which belongs to Cpl. Robert Pond, of 2147 Marion St., Denver. He paid 500 francs for it. When the American actresses were in Africa, Carole Landis took Bob’s dog in her arms and asked if she could take it home with her. Seems she has two Great Danes and wanted a little dog to go with them. Bob, coolly superior to glamor, said “No.”
I happened to fall in with four young lieutenants of a bomber crew who had recently arrived from America. They had been on three missions in their first ten days, and had got shot up every time. Not shot down – just shot up.
The third time one engine was knocked out, and one rudder fell clear off just as they landed at the home airdrome. They really started getting their thrills in a hurry. I asked them whether this sudden taste of violent adventure pepped them up, or whether they were beginning to wonder. They laughed and said their only feeling was one of regret and annoyance that their plane would be out of commission for a few days.
Soldiers grow crop of beards
The four were Pilot Ralph Keele, a Salt Lake City Mormon, Co-pilot William Allbright, of Western Springs, Illinois, Navigator Robert Radcliff of Richland Center, Wisconsin, and Bombardier Eugene Platek, of Antigo, Wisconsin.
The soldiers have grown such a crop of beards that you think you’ve driven into one of our Western towns just the week before the annual Pioneer Days celebration. Over here Hollywood could find every type of beard that ever existed. Some are big and fierce, some blond and curly, some wispy and foppish, some of the sourdough kind, others as prim and sharp as a boulevardier’s. You’ll even find the old Irish type of jaw-whiskers. I let mine grow for two weeks but nobody noticed it, so I gave up.
In all this area near the front there is no such thing as a Post Exchange. The Army instead issues free such necessities as cigarettes, soap, razor blades, and so on.
‘Not in combat zone! Nuts!’
But at a forward post one day I tried to get some tooth powder, and was told disgustedly by the sergeant that there wasn’t any, because we weren’t in the combat zone.
I said with astonishment:
Not in the combat zone? Who says we’re not?
He said:
Some guy at some desk far, far away. I don’t know where he expects us to get in, in the first place, and in the second place, I wish he was here a few nights when the bombs start whistling. I’ll bet you couldn’t get him out of a slit trench all night. Not in the combat zone! Nuts!
Edson: How U.S. makes war movies and what they cost
By Peter Edson
Washington –
Republican Congressmen John Taber of Auburn, New York, and J. William Ditter of Ambler, Pennsylvania, having taken a poke at the government’s moviemaking activities, you might be interested in an inside look at what has been going on. If you have been to the movies in the past year, you have seen some of these flickers, but in a theater, they have a way of sneaking up on you, making it difficult to tell what is GI or Government Issue, and what is made-in-Hollywood stuff.
Army and Navy have their own movie setups. They have commissioned a number of big-shot directors and producers to do their job. John Ford, who directed Grapes of Wrath, is a commander and he made the Navy’s Technicolor, Battle of Midway.
Army had contributed more than 400 men for photographic work in the Signal Corps. Darryl Zanuck is a colonel and supervised production of the Army’s Technicolor of the African campaign, At the Front. Frank Capra is a lieutenant colonel. Hal Roach is a major, and so on.
OWI has charge
Practically all other government filmmaking activities are now centered in the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the Office of War Information. It is this operation which is being eyed by Congress now, on suspicion that it is putting out too much Democratic political propaganda, along with war propaganda. Elmer David, head of OWI, has taken the rap thus far, as the criticism of OWI has been general and not confined to movies.
Real bead of the OWI Bureau of Motion Pictures, however, is Lowell Mellett, who is also one of the administrative assistants to the President and film coordinator for the government, meaning that his office is the agency through which the film industry has its principal contacts with numerous government agencies.
Today, Mr. Mellett’s bureau operates on a budget of $1,300,000 and has about 140 employees.
For the year ending this June 30, the production end of the outfit will have turned out 93 pictures – 41 of the subjects theatrical, 52 non-theatrical – a distinction which will be explained later.
The average government-produced movie runs about eight minutes and costs around $5,000 to produce. The total production budget is approximately $500,000, minimum cost for one average Hollywood full-length feature. A Hollywood super-duper may, of course, cost up to $2.5 million, which gives some idea of the scale of this operation – decidedly small-time by Hollywood measurements.
Educational films
In addition to production cost, the government spends $10 a print for 677 copies of each of its theatrical subjects, this being the number required to get maximum distribution in the 17,000 movie houses of the country, 16,000 of which have made pledges to the industry to show government films.
Non-theatrical pictures which the government produces are largely 16 mm stuff in the nature of educational films made for showing before Rotary, Kiwanis or Lions, in schools, before labor organizations, parent-teacher groups and similar smaller audiences. Distribution is handled through some 185 non-profit service outlets.
The government hires no actors. “Stars” in government movies are usually responsible government officials, making responsible statements to the American people. The government production unit of about 50 people is headed by Sam Spewack, ex-New York World reporter, author of Boy Meets Girl and a successful Hollywood writer who gave up $3,000 a week in Hollywood to work for the government for less than $10,000 a year. The government’s Hollywood staff is about 20 people and they, with the Washington administrative headquarters, cost $241,000 a year, which would not keep a film magnate in tax money.
The blond and leggy type prize commodity in films
In fact, few movies can do without the light-complexioned darlings, studio asserts
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U.S. Navy Department (April 3, 1943)
Communiqué No. 333
North Pacific.
On April 1, a force of Army Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) and Mitchell (North American B‑25) bombers, escorted by Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters, made four attacks against Japanese installations at Kiska. Hits were scored on the enemy main camp area.
South Pacific.
On April 2, Lightning and Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters attacked and set on fire a small Japanese cargo vessel at anchor at Vella Lavella Island, New Georgia group.
Communiqué No. 334
Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported the following results of operations against the enemy in the waters of these areas:
- One destroyer sunk.
- One large transport sunk.
- Two medium‑sized freighters sunk.
- One medium‑sized freighter damaged and probably sunk.
- One destroyer damaged.
- One medium‑sized freighter damaged.
These actions have not been announced in any previous Navy Department Communiqué.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 3, 1943)
YANKS OPEN DRIVE TO COAST
British push forward in Bizerte area
U.S. tanks and infantry attack; climax near, Eisenhower says
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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RAF RAINS BOMBS ON BIG SUB BASES
Planes blast at St. Nazaire and Lorient
Four-night lull in air war ended by heavy British attacks
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Bombs strike 2 ships in raid on Jap fleet
MacArthur’s fliers blast at 13 enemy vessels
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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2,000 parents honor pilot who died to save children
American with RAF warns pupils at play, then crashes to avoid hitting school
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Hurley in Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine –
Brig. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, President Roosevelt’s special envoy in the Middle East, arrived here today.