Connecticut debates birth control bill
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Tunisia –
Maj. Gen. Terry Allen is one of my favorite people. Partly because he doesn’t give a damn for hell nor high water; partly because he’s more colorful than most; and partly because he’s the only general outside the Air Forces I can call by his first name.
If there’s one thing in the world Allen lives and breathes for, it’s to fight. He was all shot up in the last war, and he seems not the least averse to getting shot up again. This is no intellectual war with him. He hates Germans and Italians like vermin, and his pattern for victory is simple – just wade in and murder the hell out of the lowdown, good-for-nothing so-and-so’s. Allen’s speech is picturesque. No writer can fully capture him on paper, because his talk is so wonderfully profane it can’t be put down in black and white.
Allen was shot through the jaws in the last war. This wound causes him to make an odd hissing noise when he is intense. He breathes by sucking the air in between his teeth, and it sounds like a leak in a tire. This reverse hissing will doubtless confuse the Japs when he gets around to that part of the world.
It was Gen. Allen’s outfit that took Oran, in the original landings. Then it was necessary to hold his troops there, and for a couple of months Allen not-so-quietly went nuts sitting back in an Oran olive grove watching the war from a distance.
‘Can anybody get in this war?’
Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer, so he went to the High Command and said:
Is this a private war, or can anybody get in?
At least that’s the way the legend goes, and it sounds like him. At any rate, Allen got in, and now he’s as happy as a lark.
After they came to the front, I drove over to visit him. When I finally found Allen, he said:
Don’t bother to pitch your tent. You sleep in my tent tonight.
An invitation from a general was an order, so I carried my bedroll up to the general’s tent and looked in. There was one bedroll on the ground. That took up half the tent. The other half was occupied by a five-gallon tin of water sitting on some rocks over a gasoline flame on the ground, and by a rough, unpainted folding table.
I couldn’t figure out where he expected me to sleep. But it was all solved that evening by the general’s orderly, who simply carried out the water can, smothered the fire with sand, moved the table, and unrolled my bedroll on the ground beside the general’s.
As far as I know, Terry Allen is the only general in Tunisia who sleeps on the ground. All the others carry folding cots. Gen. Allen won’t allow any of his staff to sleep on a cot. He said if everybody in his headquarters had a cot it would take several extra trucks to carry them, and he can use the trucks to better purpose. He likes to fight rough anyway.
General wears cavalry boots
Allen is an old cavalryman. He still wears his high-laced cavalry boots when he dresses up. He married an El Paso girl, and calls El Paso home. He carries pictures of his wife and 15-year-old son in a leather pocket case, and is tremendously proud of them.
He has been known as one of the best polo players in the Army. He hasn’t any horse to ride now, but he keeps in shape by doing a three-mile after-breakfast jog on foot through the hills several times a week. He smokes incessantly.
I went out on a shooting expedition that night with some of Allen’s men, and it was midnight when I got back. He had left the light on for me, and the wind was making the tent heave and groan, but Allen was sleeping like a child.
Dirt blew in and filtered over us. My bedroll was right over where the fire had been, and I slept warmly for the first time in weeks. Toughly trained sentries with itchy fingers stood at the front and rear of our tent. Boy, did I feel well protected!
At 7 next morning one of the sentries came in and awakened Gen. Allen. He grunted and went back to sleep. Five minutes later, another sentry came in and knelt over him and kept saying, “General, sir, general, sir,” till Allen responded and started getting up.
I had slept in all my clothes; the general in his long underwear. We were both covered with sifted dirt from the windstorm. It took us about 30 seconds to dress, and then we just walked out of the tent and went to breakfast, without washing or anything.
That’s how life is for one general at the front.
Völkischer Beobachter (April 14, 1943)
Der schmerzhafteste Punkt des britischen Empire
Die USA-Invasion in Indien
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U.S. Navy Department (April 14, 1943)
Communiqué No. 343
South Pacific.
During the night of April 12‑13, Army Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated B‑24) bombed Munda, on New Georgia Island.
On April 13, during the morning, Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF), escorted by Corsair (Vought F4U) and Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters, bombed and strafed Munda. Bombs were dropped on the runway and dispersal areas, and fires were started from hits scored on an ammunition dump and in the camp area.
North Pacific.
On April 12, formations of Army Mitchell medium bombers (North American B‑25), with Corsair (Vought F4U) and Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters, carried out six attacks on Japanese installations at Kiska. Hits were scored on the runway, gun emplacements and the main camp area.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 14, 1943)
ALLIES SMASH 145 AXIS PLANES
Ring tightens on Rommel in Tunisian trap
Nazis put up desperate fight as fliers rip airfields, bases
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Only airpower can stop Japan, MacArthur says
Statement brings dispute on more aid in Pacific to point where Roosevelt may have to make decision
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Billions saved –
War industry returns huge sums to U.S.
Only 6% unwilling to give up chances of big profit
By Dale McFeatters
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