Editorial: The facts would help
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Editorial: Tokyo’s eclipse
Tokyo radio proclaims that an eclipse of the sun, to be visible there on Feb. 5, will be “a feature of the scientific war between Japan and America.” We don’t quite understand this boast, which seems to imply that the eclipse will be some sort of Nipponese monopoly, although it will also be visible from Eastern Alaska and the Aleutians – and, due to the vagaries of the International Date Line, on Feb. 4. But we won’t argue about it.
Let the Japs claim that one. What we’re interested in is the eclipse of a certain rising sun, painfully visible in Tokyo, we hope, not too long after Feb. 5, and destined to be total – and permanent.
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New Year arrives for some U.S. troops
Auckland, New Zealand (UP) – (Jan. 1, 1943)
The New Year flashed across the International Date Line today to U.S. forces in the far Pacific while people in the Eastern United States were going to work yesterday and those in the West were still asleep.
Jan. 1, 1943 came to the British Tonga or Friendly Islands at 7:40 a.m., Dec. 31 (ET).
Twenty minutes later, it was Jan. 1 in the Fiji, Gilbert and Ellice Islands and at 8:30 a.m. (ET), the New Year reached U.S. forces here.
At 9 a.m., 1943 reached the troops in the Solomons and French New Caledonia, and at 10 a.m., it was 1943 in Eastern Australia.
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U.S. war casualties now total 55,857
Washington (UP) –
Reported total war casualties of the U.S. Armed Forces reached 55,857 today with a Navy announcement of 1,590 dead, wounded or missing between Dec. 1 and Dec. 15.
The new list included 404 men killed, 631 wounded and 555 missing.
Official Army casualties, reported up to Dec. 7, are 35,460 – 2,009 dead, 3,332 wounded and 30,119 missing. In addition, 112 Army men are listed as “prisoners of war” and another 106 as interned.
Total Marine Corps losses stand at 4,797. Of these, 1,201 were listed as dead, 1,653 as wounded and 1,943 as missing.
Coast Guard figures are 51 dead, 19 wounded and 134 missing.
In addition, 482 members of the Merchant Marine have been listed as dead and 2,762 missing.
German and Jap figures for interned Americans are 3,138.
Jap sub success denied
Washington –
Elmer Davis, director of the Office of War Production, today denied a Tokyo report that a Jap submarine had sunk a U.S. submarine off San Francisco.
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Ernie Pyle in action
Ernie Pyle, the Roving Reporter of the Pittsburgh Press, is snapped by an Army Signal Corps photographer in front of an Army tent in Algeria. He is shown with (L-R) Pvt. Raymond Astrackon of New York, Sgt. Ralph Gower of Sacramento and Army Nurse Annette Heaton of Detroit. Sgt. Gower is the man Ernie wrote about in his column of Dec. 14 who learned lipreading from a deaf-mute neighbor when he was a child and made his knowledge vitally useful after the explosion of an enemy shell destroyed his hearing.
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With U.S. forces in Algeria – (by wireless)
The roads in North Africa were surprisingly good. They were macadamized, with banked curves just like ours. Driving around the country, we often remarked that it was hard to realize we were not somewhere in the United States.
The long coastal plain stretching across North Africa, between mountains and sea, was, as I’ve said before, very much like parts of our own Southwest. It was bare of trees, but it was not exactly desert. In fact, it was very fertile and almost wholly under cultivation.
The soil resembled red clay, and was a regular gumbo after rain. The Arabs raised some oats, and I saw some uncommonly long strawstacks, but most of the land was in vineyards and olive groves. Across the slightly rolling land, a person could see for long distances – fifty miles or more. The fields were quite large, and at that season most of them were freshly plowed.
Many American soldiers had their first experience of picking olives right from the trees and eating them – or, I should say, biting them, for they tried it only once. There followed the most violent spitting, spluttering and face-making you ever saw. It seems an olive has to be ripened in brine before it’s edible.
They’re black and beautiful on the trees, but they have a bitter, puckering taste that’s beyond description.
We were all impressed by the neatness and cleanliness of the farming country, even though I can’t say the same for the cities. The fields were immaculate. There was no refuse or squandered growth or stuff lying around, as on so many American farms.
Few Arab steeds
The Arabs did all their farming with horses, which appeared to be in good shape. But we seldom saw one of those beautiful Arab steeds that we read about in ''sheik” books. Out in the country there were many herds of goats and sheep, usually tended by small children. We saw cute little shepherdesses, not more than eight years old, in hoods and nightgown-like dresses, who smiled and made the V-for-Victory sign as we passed.
The Arabs seemed a strange people, hard to know. They were poor, and they looked as tight-lipped and unfriendly as the Indians in some of the South American countries, yet they were friendly and happy when we got close to them. As we drove through the country, Arab farmers by the hundreds waved at us along the road, and the children invariably shouted their few American words – "goodbye” or "okay” – as we passed, and either saluted like soldiers or gave the V sign with their fingers.
In half a day’s driving here I got more V signs than I saw the whole time I was in England.
I still haven’t got the religion question straight. Some Arab women wore white sheets and hoods that covered the face, except for one eye peering out. The soldiers called them "One-eyed Flossies.” But they were in the minority. Most of the women showed their faces. As far as I could figure out, the ones who covered their faces were the severely religious, just as at home only a few of the Jewish people are what they call orthodox. The rest were good people, but they didn’t observe the ancient customs and restrictions.
Arab prays
Just at sunset one day we passed a team and a wagon carrying a whole Arab family. The man was down on his knees and elbows at the edge of the pavement, facing east toward Mecca, but the women and children were sitting in the wagon. One of our party remarked:
I guess he’s making a deal for the whole family.
That was the only Arab I saw praying.
No American soldier in this part of Africa has seen a camel. Apparently, these beasts aren’t needed in this fertile region. The Sahara proper doesn’t begin until nearly 300 miles south, and I suppose you have to go there to see camels in action.
There are very few native-owned passenger cars on the roads, but quite a lot of heavy trucks. That’s because of gasoline shortage. But trucks burn alcohol, and even that is short, for the Germans turned most of the grape crop alcohol into their own motors.
As far as I know, there is no such thing as interior heating of homes here in winter. This region used to get coal from France, of course, but that was cut off when France fell. We brought our own coal with us – whole shiploads for running power plants and so on.
Once in a while there were clusters of cactus, and frequently fields were fenced with hedgelike rows of what is known in Mexico as maguey, the plant from which pulque and tequila are made. Apparently, the Arabs don’t keep themselves as well-oiled on their native drinks as do the people in some countries. I saw some drunken Arabs, but they were very rare. The good ones never drink anything alcoholic. It’s against their religion.
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Our ‘stepchild in the Caribbean’ –
Both ward and protector of U.S., Puerto Rico is in a sorry plight
Liability or asset? We wonder
By S. Burton Heath, special to the Pittsburgh Press
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The Evening Star (December 31, 1942)
Eleven are indicted in probe of Boston fire, killing 489
Charges kept secret, but grand jury hits officials’ ‘laxity’
Boston, Massachusetts (AP) –
A grand jury today returned 11 secret indictments in connection with the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire Nov. 28, in which 489 panic-stricken persons lost their lives in a horror of flame, smoke and gas.
Simultaneously, the 20-man Suffolk County grand jury issued a series of findings and recommendations, declaring there had been:
…laxity, incompetence, failure to fulfill prescribed duties effectively and also lack of complete knowledge of duties" among members of various departments charged with the protection of public safety.
In a lashing statement, the jury said it intended to record its conclusions:
…even though such evidence may fall short of establishing the willfulness or corruption required to make neglect of duty a criminal offense.
The jury said:
We have found shifting of responsibility and a tendency by various officials in different important departments who relied too much on their subordinates without exercising a sufficient and proper check on such subordinates.
We have found no complete coordination between the buildings department, fire department, police department, and licensing board, with respect to various types of inspection intended to be made to insure public safety in addition to protecting the public health, morals, et cetera.
Socialite RAF pilot, born in U.S., gets honor cross
Cairo, Egypt (AP) –
Air Cdre. Whitney Straight, a socially prominent American-born fighter pilot now with the RAF in the Middle East, was reported today to have been awarded Norway’s War Cross by King Haakon.
Cdre. Straight, who became a British subject, was credited with having saved many planes from a field which the Germans were trying to occupy during the invasion of Norway He was shot down over the English Channel later, but escaped.
Before the war, he was well-known as an auto racing driver.
He was born in 1912, the elder son of Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhurst of New York and London, and the late Maj. Willard D. Straight, banker. He is a grandson of the late William C. Whitney, who was Secretary of the Navy, and a nephew of the late Harry Payne Whitney.
He was married in 1935 to Lady Daphne Finch-Hatton, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Winchelsea.
Dr. Fishbein scoffs at fears for U.S. health
Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
Dr. Morris Fishbein asserted today in a signed editorial in Hygeia Magazine that:
Fears of a breakdown in American medical and public health services are unwarranted by any evidence now available.
The editor of Hygeia and of the Journal of the American Medical Association continued:
Far more serious is the attempt to create such fears as a basis for political intrigues or manipulations for political power. That is a dangerous threat to national morale and public health.
The editorial said the health of the people “is now the best that it has been in our history” and that:
Unless some epidemic, like that of 1918, should sweep the world, these excellent conditions should continue to prevail.
Louisiana to see Army maneuvers in February
Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, commanding general of the Army Ground Forces, announced today that 1943 Army maneuvers tentatively were scheduled to start Feb. 1 in Louisiana.
A corps of the 3rd Army is slated to stage its battle problems in Louisiana under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, 3rd Army commanding general. Tennessee maneuvers under Lt. Gen. Ben Lear, commanding general of the 2nd Army, are scheduled for late in April.
Subsequent maneuvers will be announced later. Aggressive action in a variety of combat circumstances will be stressed and supply in bulk will be emphasized “in so far as practicable,” Gen. McNair declared.
He said infantry, armored force and tank units of the two armies are being assigned to combat practice areas in the two states.
The New York Times (January 1, 1943)
400,000 REVELERS FILL TIMES SQUARE IN DIM NEW YEAR’S
Chill of war felt as vast crowd toots sluggishly on old and second-hand horns; theaters are sold out
Allied fighting men, 40% of crowd, greeted by friendly New Yorkers
By Meyer Berger
New Year’s Eve in Times Square had a weird quality last night. A crowd of some 400,000, swelled by enormous numbers of teenage boys and girls, moved zombie-like through the dimness, blowing in melancholy fashion on old and second-hand horns.
There was a note of sluggishness, an absence of real gayety. The restless thousands lacked zest. War somehow laid its hand on the celebration and tended to mute it.
At midnight, the crowd watched in vain for the glowing white ball to slide down the flagstaff atop the New York Times Tower. Last night was the first New Year’s Eve since 1908 that no ball glowed to signal the death of the old year and the birth of the new.
Instead, silent bands of lights, from plane-spotter stations around the edge of the city, laid their beams across the cold and starry sky. This happened at the stroke of midnight.
The crowd stared in silence. It was a full three minutes before the import of the beams broke on the crowd’s consciousness. Then the din arose. The horns blew louder and the cowbells sent up their clatter.
From the great silver WNYC sound truck at Duffy Square, a deep-voiced announcer made himself heard above the din. He asked for ten seconds of silence as a token of respect for Americans serving overseas.
In the upper Square, where this message was distinct, the response was immediate. Men removed their hats and left off their horn-tooting. Women’s laughter suddenly stopped and quiet fell in the area.
Farther south though, where the crowds had overrun the streets despite the best efforts of mounted men, foot patrol and civilian defense auxiliaries, the message was not heard. The horns kept up their incessant blowing, the bells their clangor.
Soldiers and their women locked in embrace at street corners and in store doorways and held the pose for minutes with the crowd applauding. Some of these couples were caught in the beams of handlamps but didn’t seem to mind.
They left off when Lucy Monroe’s clear voice broke over the Square. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner" and the crowd joined. The whole scene was a study in darkness with occasional flashlight bulbs piercing the gloom, though only briefly.
Veteran policemen remarked on the changed nature of the crowd. In previous years, celebrants were preponderantly persons in their late 20s and persons of middle age. Last night, there were many more youngsters, particularly groups of unescorted girls.
There was less drunkenness than in other years. The police handled the throngs without strain or extra effort.
Subway kiosks jammed
By 8 o’clock, the subway kiosks were literally locked with humanity from Brooklyn, Queens and the upper reaches of the city, struggling to get into the crowds on Broadway and on 7th Avenue.
They came equipped with horns and with cowbells that should have been on the scrap heap these many months. Those who expected to buy noise machines were disappointed. There were no bells or horns for sale; no rubber “blurpers.”
There were virtually no private motorcars, because of gasoline rationing, but taxicabs brought additional thousands from distant city points to the Square. Cabs from Brooklyn carried four and five passengers, picking up additional fares along the way because of the cab shortage.
Theaters reported extraordinary business. Fourteen of the 34 houses in and around Times Square were sold out before 6:30 p.m. and by 7 o’clock the larger motion picture theaters had long queues waiting.
The police kept a particularly sharp eye on jaywalkers and on alcoholics. With the steady stream of cab traffic north and south, attempts at broken-field running in the dimout were highly dangerous. The police acted as tackles.
‘Grand fun’ for Royal Navy
Three young Royal Navy men – the throng incidentally was at least 40% servicemen of all Allied nations – stood in front of the Astor goggle-eyed at the scene. They said they had never seen its like.
The youngest, with his cap wrong side front, kept saying:
Oh, it’s grand fun. It is grand fun.
New Yorkers, laughing and boisterous, shook the sailors’ hands and the sailors pumped the strangers’ arms. Up the avenues and across the side streets, sailors and soldiers, off to an early start, tacked and deployed in little groups, singing and shouting.
In the crisp air, horse cries and laughter carried far. It reached the ears like the sound of heavy surf, especially as you came toward it from 8th or 6th Avenue.
The police horses, ordinarily philosophical and calm, seemed restive. They pegged at the pavement with their forefeet and danced as their riders backed them into the surging crowd.
Around Father Duffy’s statue and by the police booth in the lower Square, police emergency trucks, ambulances, squad cars, fire apparatus and tow trucks huddled in the dark, prepared for any trouble.
Patrolmen in radio cars had been warned to proceed on their lights and not to use their sirens. The same order applied to ambulances and fire apparatus. City officials were afraid that indiscriminate use of sirens might start rumors of an air-raid and create panic.
This was the first year that there was no white-lighted globe on the flagpole of the New York Times Building in the Square to drop at midnight. Signal of the year’s passing was assigned to one of the city’s sound trucks.
Despite the dimout, the crowd was in extremely high spirits. There was more cause for cheering this year than there was on New Year’s Eve in 1941. The crowd that night came to the Square with news of fresh disasters in the Pacific ringing in its ears, with bulletins of fresh German advances in Europe.
Last night, the crowd’s mood reflected high hope, the result of good news from Russia, from Africa and from the Pacific. There were more young men of draft age, out for a fling and they want the decibel register high.
This year though, the Police Department placed a curfew on places of entertainment. Theaters, nightclubs and dance halls had orders to clear their floors at 4 a.m. Last year, the revelers stayed until dawn.
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Ten are indicted in nightclub fire
Four Boston officials named by jury with Cocoanut Grove operators and employees
Boston, Massachusetts – (Dec. 31, 1942)
Eleven indictments against 10 Boston men, including the City Building Commissioner James H. Mooney, and Captain Joseph A. Buccigross, a veteran police official, were returned by a Suffolk County Grand Jury late today after a 10-day investigation of the Cocoanut Grove fire on Nov. 28, which took the lives of 489 persons.
Charged with manslaughter in 32 counts of two indictments were Barney and James Welansky, operators of the nightclub, and Jacob Goldfine, its steward.
The charges against the others were:
- Commissioner Mooney – neglect of duty in enforcement of the building laws.
- Captain Buccigross – neglect of duty by a public officer and corruptly failing to enforce fire laws.
- Fire Lieutenant Frank J. Linney – willful neglect of duty and three charges of accessory after the fact of manslaughter.
- Barnett and James Welansky – besides manslaughter, accused of conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- David Gilbert, contractor’s helper – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- Samuel Rudnick, contractor – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
- Theodore Eldracher, city building inspector – neglect of duty in failing to report violations of the building laws.
- Reuben Bodenhorn, decorator and designer – conspiracy to violate the building laws.
Placing the blame for the tragedy on police, fire and building officials, besides the management of the nightclub and the contractors and his aide, the grand jury, in addition to the 121 indictments, handed a presentment to the court in which it said:
We have found among members of various departments charged with the protection of public safety, laxity, incompetence, failure to fulfill prescribed duties effectively, and also lack of complete knowledge of duties.
We have found shifting of responsibility and a tendency by various officials in different important departments to rely too much on their subordinates without exercising sufficient and proper check on such subordinates. Officials in each department seemed to attempt to shift responsibility to some other department and vice versa.
We have found no complete coordination between Building Department, Fire Department, Police Department and Licensing Board with respect to various types of inspection intended to be made to insure public safety in addition to protecting the public health, morals, etc.
The grand jury went on record with its conclusions:
…even though such evidence may fall short of establishing the willfulness or corruption required to make neglect of duty a criminal offense.
Chief Justice John P. Higgins of the Superior Court, thanking the jurors, accepted their report as:
…the honest expressions of 20-odd honest, decent sort of fellows trying to give their expressyion to the court as to their belief in this important matter.
With the exception of Eldracher, who made arrangements to surrender himself at 10 a.m. tomorrow, all defendants had been booked at State Police Headquarters and bailed tonight in sums ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
Godwin reports illicit liquor
Washington (Blue Network) – (Dec. 31, 1942)
In commenting over the radio tonight on the indictments handed down today on the Boston Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, Earl Godwin, Washington news commentator of the Blue Network, told of:
…reports to me that there was a lowdown political connection somewhere which permitted someone to have on hand large stores of liquor without federal revenue stamps.