The Pittsburgh Press (December 30, 1942)
Bulletin
London, England –
U.S. heavy bombers attacked the German submarine base at Lorient this afternoon, a joint communiqué of the U.S. Army and the British Air Ministry said. Formations of enemy fighters were fought off and a number were destroyed. Three U.S. bombers are missing.
Axis port, supply columns blasted ceaselessly
By Edward W. Beatie, United Press staff writer
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Ban on slicing, fancy twisting, other practices will be negated by flour, fats increases, they say
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By Florence Fisher Parry
I feel awkward in saying this, for no one needs and enjoys Christmas cards more than I. Indeed, they furnished me untold comfort this year during the grueling days before Christmas.
But it does seem to me that this year might have been a good time to desist from this peacetime indulgence. As I watched the burdened postmen stagger under their loads of mail, nine-tenths of which was made up of Christmas cards; and as I stood in line at the post office vainly trying to post a package which was one of millions that was to be delayed getting to our Armed Forces, and waited for people to get off their hundreds of local greeting cards, I found myself questioning the value and appropriateness of this pleasant convention in wartime.
It takes all kinds of packages to make a war Christmas… The one which gave me my most difficult moment was one containing all the books which I had been sending to a certain Army air base… and now returned.
A glance revealed that many had not been read through, a few not even opened… I remembered a line of a letter:
No time, anymore, to read. Living is becoming pretty basic…
Basic living… how far removed we are from that! How much to cast off before we pare down to elementary life! Gas, sugar, coffee. How soft and unreal we still are, how in a false dream we still live, and call ourselves patriots, and call ourselves the home front!..
These books, I leaf through them. Tokens of a life discarded, for millions of sensitive hungry-minded men, tokens of a dream-like life which must now seem to have been lived on some far ancient star. Yet a life which gave them an added equipment, an inner equipment, not to be discarded, no, not even on a raft…
And now the year totals are being drawn up. The great summation is being set down. 1942 is over at last. And the record is there before you.
And as I look at it, it seems to me that the thing that stands out is the great heap. There on the side, the great heap of things discarded, of things that have lost their value. One by one, they have dropped out of our lives. They do not matter any longer. They have become trash and clutter – Junk.
Speed and recklessness on the highways, and the ugly screech of tires. Waste and overflowing garbage cans, and aimless overburdened housekeeping, with its restless change of decorations and curtains and maids… Parties and prizes and footless teas, and trying on clothes and shoes…
And silly “meetings” and aimless discussions… New uses for leisure… Can we remain neutral?.. Shall we boycott silk from Japan?
Youth movements… WPA… Unemployment… Shorter hours. Higher wages. Strikes.
Out the window with them all.
War is hell. But even hell can heat a crucible.
Hard and horrible as it was, 1942 has given back to us an old almost-forgotten word which I hope we will use more and more to replace the overworked word Democracy.
The word is Republic.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands…
REPUBLIC. Learn the word, Washington. Learn it anew.
Count Kalergi, disciple of Briand, gives outline for post-war election
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Washington –
Some sort of Pan-American union or United States of Europe is certain to be considered when “the guiding principles of this worldwide new democracy,” of which Vice President Henry Wallace spoke, are blueprinted in 1943.
What the Vice President seemed to see ahead of us was a new world organization composed of regional groups with regional responsibilities, like Pan-America. This dovetails with the Pan-American idea advocated by Count R. N. Coudenhove-Kalergi, president of the Pan-Europe Union, now of New York University.
Count Kalergi for years was an associate of the late Aristide Briand, many times Premier of France and leader of the movement for a United States of Europe. It never proved practicable in the French statesman’s lifetime. Count Kalergi, however, is convinced that it is practicable now, and several high Washington officials express agreement with him.
Workable formula
Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill is on record in favor of such a union.
He said in 1930:
The conception of a United States of Europe is right. Every step taken to that end which appeases the obsolete hatred and vanished oppressions, which makes easier the traffic and reciprocal services of Europe, which encourages its nations to lay aside their precautionary panoply is good in itself, is good for them and good for all.
Count Kalergi’s formula, as he explained it to me here, seemed to be workable. While Europe is under the control of the occupational forces of the United Nations, he suggests that an election be held in each of the countries to decide whether or not it favors a United States of Europe. A Pan-European constitutional assembly would then meet to put the federal idea into concrete form.
Worth a try
If the assembly fails, it would dissolve and peace would be concluded in the ordinary way. But if the majority of the assembly approved of the idea, it might then proceed with the framing of the European constitution and the negotiation of peace, along with the other members of the United Nations on the basis of the Atlantic Charter.
Such a United States of Europe, said the Count, would deprive Germany and the other continental nations of the power to produce arms, maintain aggressive armies and generally follow selfish foreign policies. That is about the only way in which Europe can be insured against the revival of German imperialism. For it must not be forgotten that only European dismemberment made it possible for the Nazis to crush their smaller neighbors one by one. In a united Europe, such a thing could not happen.
Worked here, he says
A return to the old European system of sovereign states, he declared, would be disastrous. After a short period of chaos and misery, a third world war would be inevitable.
Count Kalergi compared Europe with India. Both, he said, are subcontinents of Asia. Through Sir Stafford Cripps, the British government has proposed that immediately after hostilities case, steps be taken to set up an elected body charged with the task of framing a new constitution for India. Why, he asks, should not the United Nations do the same thing for Europe?
He does not seem to believe that either the Soviet Union or Great Britain would join, at least for the present. But he is optimistic concerning most of the others.
By Walker Stone, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio –
Army Air Force officers in the laboratory center here demonstrated a Sikorsky helicopter which flies backwards or sideways, as well as forward, hovers motionless over a spot and comes to rest in little more space than required to park an automobile.
It is an experimental model which has met the Army’s requirements, the result of years of laboratory work. Sikorsky is seeking to prove its usefulness for “finding subs and sinking same,” artillery observation, liaison in combat, and rescue missions.
The Navy has not yet taken to the idea of sending helicopters on merchant convoys, to drop bombs or “ashcan” depth charges on enemy submarines.
6,400 rounds a minute
There are hundreds of other innovations and improvements in air fighting equipment, which have been exhibited for the first time to a group of newspapermen on a tour of inspection here. Some are improvements and gadgets “dreamed up” three and four years ago, now in production. Some are just off the drafting boards, and can’t be written about for the same reason that the enemy doesn’t disclose his secrets.
But officers here, who believe they are thinking and drafting faster than the enemy, proudly demonstrate a fighter plane firing at the rate of 6,400 rounds per minute from eight .50-caliber guns.
They exhibit the type of bomber in which Maj. Jimmy Doolittle led the raid on Tokyo; the type of 400-miles-per-hour pursuit ship in which Lt. Col. Elliott Roosevelt is flying at low altitudes to photograph enemy replacements; a rubber raft like the one on which Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker and his men floated for so many days on the Pacific.
Propellers as weapons
Showing how little things add to fighting efficiency, they point out a newly-perfected brush for a generator. The old brush wore out in two hours flying at 30,000 feet altitude, putting the guns, turrets, etc., out of commission. The new one is good for 100 hours.
They show a compact radio set with which, flying over Wright Field, they were able to talk with our air forces at besieged Bataan.
They talk of the merits of their hollow-steel propellers, so tough that Russians over Moscow or Stalingrad could fly into and chew up the tail of an enemy plane more surely than they could shoot it down.
In some matters, the High Command has not been as alert as his laboratory experts. Shortly after World War I, Wright Field technicians were experimenting with bulletproof and self-sealing gasoline tanks. It was well-known four or five years ago that the Germans had such in the fighting planes. But a placard on the wall in the laboratory here bears a photostat of an order from Washington dated Jan. 3, 1940, directing the Materiel Center Laboratory to perfect self-sealing tanks. In six months, the tanks were in production. By then, the Battle of Britain was well underway.
Dayton, Ohio (UP) –
Pressure of two years of warfare has brought about optical and photographic developments which otherwise might have required for 100 years, Col. George W. Goddard, director of the photographic research laboratory at Wright Field, said today. Col. Goddard told visiting newspapermen that night photographs, showing details as clearly as those made in daylight, and infrared photographs, which unmask the cleverest camouflage, were examples of advances made in military photography.
Some of the greatest progress, the colonel indicated, has been made in the field of reconnaissance photography from high altitudes, where observation planes are out of range of enemy ack-ack.
He described a spherical plate camera, for example, which is capable of recording all of Berlin in one exposure. The same camera, he said, could photograph a 400-square-mile area from an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Other photographic marvels included:
A 40-inch telephoto lens which will define railroad ties on a sensitive plate exposed at the 30,000-foot flying level.
The K-18 camera which takes a series of consecutive pictures and can, from a height of 30,000 feet, record 1,600 square miles at one loading.
The K-17 camera arranged to take three exposures simultaneously – one straight down, one to the right and one to the left, thus recording a strip of enemy territory from horizon to horizon.
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
High on most lists of New Year’s resolutions will be this: I resolve to do everything in my power to win the war.
For 1943, that’s our main job.
But even fighting and working will not release us from the necessity of thinking our way through to a victory which will have meaning because it will bring a peace that can endure. And so my list will include the vow to do my darndest to THINK, even though I’m no great shakes at it. And, because it’s fun to set down one’s good intentions, even if they can’t always be kept to the letter, here’s the rest of my list, and I hope you like it:
I resolve to do my best to speak the truth as I see it.
To stop my ears to rumors and stories which are not backed up by facts.
To fortify my soul and hold fast to my faith that there are men and women of good repute and goodwill in every nation on earth.
To cultivate my friends and forget my enemies.
To enjoy the simple comforts of every day, learning to appreciate more the accustomed things, such as fireglow, a soft bed, the laughter of those I love, a baby’s arms about my neck, the loyalty of the Negro friend who keeps my house for me and warms it with her kindness.
To pray for sincerity which is the most powerful force on earth, that I may cause all who hear or read me to feel that I express only honest convictions, whether I’m right or wrong. For surely the world will not be cured of its many ills until more men and women are brave enough to be true to themselves, and to stand firm for what they believe is right.
To hoard only intangibles.
To practice as well as preach democracy.
To attribute to those who disagree with me the same sincerity I claim.
To listen more and talk less.
Requirements for 1943 revised upward by McNutt to 65 million in uniform or jobs by December
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Ursula Parrott arrested; hiding of soldier alleged
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Enemy force threatened with isolation
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer
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That’s the warning given the top players by Joan Crawford, concerning fictional ‘puffs’
By Ernest Foster
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Film actor says woman gave it to him
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By Ernie Pyle
Oran, Algeria – (by wireless)
If you want a touch of native life in your North African stories, here’s a little example.
Lt. Nat Kenney, of Baltimore, had an old broken-down motorcycle that he rode about the country. One day he took off for Arzew, about twenty miles from his camp. He passed a monstrous-looking lizard lying on the pavement, so he stopped and went back.
The lizard was about a foot long, plus six inches of tail. The thing kept changing color. Its eyes could move separately, and in any direction. It was an evil-looking customer indeed. Nat poked it gingerly with his shoe, but it didn’t attack him. Then he poked it with his gloved hand, and still it didn’t try to bite. Then he stuck his hand in front of its nose, and the lizard crawled up on the glove, just as if it had been waiting for Nat all the time.
Lizard hat-band
So Nat held still and the lizard continued its crawl – up his arm, over his shoulder, up the back of his neck and clear to the top of his head. There it curled up, resting on the top of his cap and looking forward snakelike over his brow. Nat, crowned with this dragon, got back on his motorcycle and rode into Arzew.
He parked the motorcycle and walked down the street. He kept running into soldiers he knew. They would start to salute, and right in the middle of the salute their mouths would fly open and they would gurgle out:
Lieutenant, for God’s sake don’t!
Nat had dinner with the lizard still poised comfortably on top of his head, spent a pleasant hour walking around the town and startling his friends, then got back on the motorcycle and rode back almost to Oran. Finally, he stopped at a field hospital where he knew some of the doctors. He left his friend there for them to experiment with.
‘I’d like a stripe’
Altogether the lizard spent about three hours and rode about thirty miles on top of Nat’s head. The army began to think of transferring Lt. Kenney to Iceland for fear he would go riding to town next with a camel on his handlebars.
A local French newspaper had a small piece from America recently saying – if I read it correctly – that the maximum age for induction into the U.S. Army had been lowered from 45 to 37. That’s good news to us old duffers who fled America to escape the draft, but they might have decided it a little sooner.
The next time I have dinner with Gen. Eisenhower (what next time?) I’ll have to speak to him about this business and tell him to get busy. I’d kind of like to sport a few stripes myself. I’m due for a six-months foreign stripe already, and although I haven’t been wounded and don’t expect to be, they might give me a stripe for being awfully tired.