Editorial: Secrecy will not work
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Tunisia –
Down in central Tunisia, in the village of Fériana, there is a little country hotel where four or five of us correspondents used to drop in now and then for a day or two to sleep under a roof and eat some of Papa’s meals.
The hotel is run by a French family. Papa is big and mustached, and always wears a cap and a dirty apron and always has a burned-up cigarette in his mouth. He takes an instant like or dislike to newcomers, and the ones he doesn’t like get short shrift.
Mama is plain and gray and sweet, and although she can’t speak a word of English, paradoxically she can understand it. She never does a bit of the cooking; that is Papa’s job and privilege. She sits at the kitchen table and sews and knits.
There are three boys in the vicinity of 15, all handsome and superior boys. Roget is our favorite, because he studied English in his school and we can converse with him. The three boys serve the meals. They also act as chambermaids.
Once when I was trying to write in the hotel, Roget came in to clean up. Immediately he called his two brothers, and for half an hour they all stood in a circle looking over my shoulder admiringly – not at the magic of my wonderful words, but at how fast my fingers worked the keyboard.
The hotel had one very dirty toilet, and in the rooms were merely washbowls and kerosene lamps. French soldiers slept on straw in the little lobby. There were always at least 10 people in the kitchen, including a few neighbors, some stray French privates helping wash the dishes, and a French officer or two trying to learn English from Roget.
Jack could do no wrong
Jack Thompson of The Chicago Tribune found this place way back in November. As far as I know, it was the only operating hotel in all of central Tunisia. Jack kept two rooms there all winter, and they were like a headquarters. Jack himself might not be there one night a week, but if any other correspondents blew in, we’d just walk in and settle down as though the rooms belonged to us.
Jack could do no wrong in Papa’s eyes. Papa was so prejudiced in Jack’s favor that he would never serve breakfast to anybody else until Jack came down for his.
Frank Kluckhohn of The New York Times used to get up early, hoping to get breakfast and get started out; and after a while he’d come back upstairs alternately cussing and laughing at the incongruity of being refused breakfast until Monsieur Thompson also got ready to eat.
Papa just sort of tolerated me. He didn’t detest me as he did some of the others; it was just that I hardly existed in his eyes. But I was one of Mama’s favorites. She always got out her private homemade confiture (in this case, marvelous peach jam) for me when I ate alone with the family in the kitchen.
I remember one morning when four of us correspondents were eating breakfast in the kitchen, and Mama got out the jam and made it quite plain it was for me alone. But Frank Kluckhohn didn’t follow her reasoning, and helped himself to some of my jam. Fortunately, he didn’t see the daggers Mama was looking at him. Poor Frank, he had a tough time eating in that place.
Then the Germans came
The little hotel was a peaceful place for many weeks. Not much of the American Army knew about it. We correspondents and a few fliers from a near-by airdrome, who came in once a week for dinner, were the only Americans around.
And then all of a sudden, everything changed. The battle lines drew near. Within an hour one day the village was deluged with American troops. Trucks with Negro drivers filled the olive grove across the street. The grove on the other side was pitted deep with sudden slit trenches and great holes where tanks and half-tracks were nearly hidden in the ground.
Soldiers flowed in and out of the hotel like water. The Germans were coming nearer. A couple of us correspondents sped in from another front, packed a few things into our jeep, and Papa and Mama and the boys stood waving at us as we dashed off again.
The next thing we knew, Fériana was gone. The end came suddenly, and Papa and Mama and the boys had to get out in the middle of the night. Some of us saw them next day – nearly 30 miles away – trudging uphill behind a mule cart with a few of their things on it.
The German tide that washed over Fériana was brief, but the town was shelled by both sides. Maybe Papa and Mama and the boys will have things fixed up again by the time we get back there. No doubt the Germans cleaned out Papa’s meager wine cellar. I don’t care about that, but I hope they didn’t find Mama’s peach jam.
Record yield on investment capital shown by industry
SEC survey presents extremely optimistic outlook for corporations; profits spurt in 1941
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People of Kairouan cheer as Nazis are driven out
Allied troops given warm welcome by prejudice, Jews remove Star of David
By William B. Stoneman
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After-war radio feats will be unbelievable
Startling industrial progress is predicted
By Si Steinhauser
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Congress may stop use of ‘Red Cross’
Washington –
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson were disclosed today to have urged Congress to enact legislation prohibiting commercial advertisers from using the “Red Cross” name and emblem of the American Red Cross.
Chairman Frederick Van Nuys (D-IN) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who introduced the bill said the War and Navy officials have advised him the ill is necessary to protect the sick and the wounded of World War II.
He said Mr. Knox pointed out the nation:
…must be alert to see that our use of the identifying emblem gives enemy nations no cause, just or assumed, to disregard its inviolability… the Executive Department, the Armed Forces and the State Department believe the legislation is of paramount importance.
To launch 2 subs
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania –
The 4th Naval District announced today that the Cramp Shipbuilding Company will launch two submarines next Sunday. The USS Dragonet and USS Escolar will be the first submarines launched at the yards since 1912.
President Roosevelt’s address at the dedication of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
April 13, 1943
Broadcast audio:
Today, in the midst of a great war for freedom, we dedicate a shrine to freedom.
To Thomas Jefferson, Apostle of Freedom, we are paying a debt long overdue.
Yet, there are reasons for gratitude that this occasion falls within our time; for our generation of Americans can understand much in Jefferson’s life which intervening generations could not see as well as we.
He faced the fact that men who will not fight for liberty can lose it. We, too, have faced that fact.
He lived in a world in which freedom of conscience and freedom of mind were battles still to be fought through – not principles already accepted of all men. We, too, have lived in such a world.
He loved peace and loved liberty – yet on more than one occasion he was forced to choose between them. We, too, have been compelled to make that choice.
Generations which understand each other across the distances of history are the generations united by a common experience and a common cause. Jefferson, across a hundred and fifty years of time, is closer by much to living men than many of our leaders of the years between. His cause was a cause to which we also are committed, not by our words alone but by our sacrifice.
For faith and ideals imply renunciations. Spiritual advancement throughout all our history has called for temporal sacrifices.
The Declaration of Independence and the very purposes of the American Revolution itself, while seeking freedoms, called for the abandonment of privileges.
Jefferson was no dreamer – for half a century he led his state and his nation in fact and in deed. I like to think that this was so because he thought in terms of the morrow as well as the day – and this was why he was hated or feared by those who thought in terms of the day and the yesterday.
We judge him by the application of his philosophy to the circumstances of his life. But in such applying we come to understand that his life was given for those deeper values that persist throughout all time.
Leader in the philosophy of government, in education, in the arts, in efforts to lighten the toil of mankind – exponent of planning for the future, he led the steps of America into the path of the permanent integrity of the Republic.
Thomas Jefferson believed, as we believe, in Man. He believed, as we believe, that men are capable of their own government, and that no king, no tyrant, no dictator can govern for them as well as they can govern for themselves.
He believed, as we believe, in certain inalienable rights. He, as we, saw those principles and freedoms challenged. He fought for them, as we fight for them.
He proved that the seeming eclipse of liberty can well become the dawn of more liberty. Those who fight the tyranny of our own time will come to learn that old lesson. Among all the peoples of the earth, the cruelties and the oppressions of its would-be masters have taught this generation what its liberties can mean. This lesson, so bitterly learned, will never be forgotten while this generation is still alive.
The words which we have chosen for this Memorial speak Jefferson’s noblest and most urgent meaning; and we are proud indeed to understand it and share it:
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
U.S. Navy Department (April 13, 1943)
Communiqué No. 342
South Pacific.
On April 11:
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During the evening, Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) and Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters strafed Rekata Bay, Santa Isabel Island. A number of Japanese antiaircraft positions were silenced.
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During the night, Flying Fortress heavy bombers (Boeing B‑17) attacked Kahili in the Shortland Island area. Two Fortresses failed to return, apparently due to unfavorable weather. Results of the attack were unobserved.
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During the same night, a Catalina patrol bomber (Consolidated PBY) attacked Munda on New Georgia Island.
On April 12: A force of Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF) and Wildcat fighters (Grumman F4F) bombed and strafed Vila on Kolombangara Island. Fires were started in the camp area. In this same operation Avengers attacked Ringi Cove, three miles northwest of Vila, and started a fire. No U.S. planes were lost in these two attacks.
North Pacific.
On April 11, formations of U.S. Army planes, composed of Mitchells (North American B‑25), Warhawks (Curtiss P‑40) and Lightnings (Lockheed P‑38), carried out four bombing attacks on Kiska. Hits were scored and fires were started in the enemy camp area.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 13, 1943)
ALLIED ARMIES SQUEEZE NAZIS INTO TUNISIA’S ‘COFFIN CORNER’
Axis digs in as 2 British armies gain
Rommel prepares for last stand, 33,000 of men taken prisoners
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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JAPS MASS FOR NEW OFFENSIVE
Gen. Blamey: 200,000 set for assault on Australia
52 planes shot down by Allied aircraft and gunners in day
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Charges are untrue –
Industry not getting rich from the war
Rewriting of contracts and heavy taxes prevent large profits
By Dale McFeatters
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