Ferguson: A tyranny of females?
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
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U.S. Legation aides in Finland leave
Stockholm, Sweden (UP) –
All the U.S. Legation staff in Helsinki except Charge d’Affaires Robert McClintock and a few clerks have come to Stockholm by plane in the last few days by order of the State Department, it was revealed today.
A Stockholm legation spokesman confirmed reports that the Americans had left Helsinki. The only explanation he was able to give was that Washington had ordered the transfer.
Eight Americans, including Third Secretary George West, made the flight from Finland.
Waring: Teenage Army used by Axis in northern Tunisia
Head of Legion believes Nazis holding best men to fight invasion
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Northern Tunisia – (by wireless)
Thousands are the soldiers who want someday to bring their wives and children back to Tunisia, in times of peace, and take them over the battlefields we have come to know so well. But, except for the cities, they will not find much to remind them of the ferocity that existed here.
I have traveled recently over the Tunisian battle area – both the part we knew so intimately because it was on our side and the part we didn’t know at all because the Germans lived there at the time.
You don’t see the sort of desolated countryside we remember from pictures of France in the last war. That is because the fighting has been mobile, because neither side used permanent huge guns, and because the country is mostly treeless and empty. But there are some marks left, and I’ll try to give you examples in this and tomorrow’s column.
Tank skeletons, wooden crosses
East of El Guettar, down a broad valley through which runs a nice macadam road, you see dark objects sitting far off on the plain. These are burned-out tanks of both sides. A certain two sit close together like twins, about a mile off the road. The immense caterpillar track is off one and lies trailed out behind for 50 feet. The insides are a shambles. Seared and jumbled personal and mechanical debris is scattered around outside. Our soldiers have already retrieved almost everything worthwhile from the German debris, but you can still find big wrenches, oil-soaked gloves, and twisted shell cases.
And in the shade of one tank, not five feet from the great metal skeleton, is the fresh grave of a German tanker, marked by a rough wooden cross without a name.
There are many of these tanks scattered miles apart through the valley.
On the hillsides, you can still see white splotches – powder marks from our exploding artillery shells. Gnarled lengths of Signal Corps telephone wire, too mauled to retrieve, string for yards along the roadsides.
There are frequent filled-in holes in the macadam where artillery or dive bombers took their toll. Now and then a little graveyard with wooden crosses stands lonesomely at the roadside. Some of the telephone poles have been chopped down. There are clumps of empty ammunition boxes. But for all these things you must look closely. There was once a holocaust here, but it left only a slight permanent mark. It is sort of hard to disfigure acres of marigolds and billions of blades of fresh desert grass.
Sidi Bouzid in the middle
Sidi Bouzid is the little white village I saw destroyed by shellfire back in February. It was weeks later before I could get close enough to see the details, for the village remained German territory for some time. This was one of the little towns I know so well, and now it is pitiful to look at. The village almost doesn’t exist anymore. Its dozens of low stone adobe buildings, stuccoed a snowy white, are nothing but rockpiles. The village has died. The reason for the destruction of Sidi Bouzid was that German and American tank columns, advancing toward each other, met there. Artillery from both sides poured its long-distance fury into the town for hours. There will have to be a new Sidi Bouzid.
Faid Pass is the last pass in the Grand Dorsal before the drive eastward onto the long flat plain that leads to the Mediterranean at Sfax. For months, we looked with longing eyes at Faid. A number of times we tried to take it and failed. But when the Germans’ big retreat came, they left Faid Pass voluntarily. And they left it so thoroughly and maliciously mined that, even today, you don’t dare drive off onto the shoulder of the road, or you may get blown to kingdom come.
You lean away from danger signs
Our engineers go through these minefields with electrical instruments, locate the mines, and surround them with warning notices until they can be dug up or exploded later. These notices are of two types – either a white ribbon strung around the mine area on knee-high sticks or else stakes with oppositely pointing arrows on top. The white arrow pointing to the left meaning that side is safe, the red arrow pointing to the right meaning that side is mined.
And believe me, after seeing a few mine-wrecked trucks and jeeps, you fear mines so dreadfully that you find yourself actually leaning away from the side of the road where the signs are, as you drive past.
Director Clarence Brown rates Saroyan as unique
Says the writer has better understanding of humanity than any other author – points to Human Comedy as proof
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Network boss wants no female announcers
Haven’t got stuff for radio, he complains
By Si Steinhauser
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Japans Antwort auf Roosevelts scheinheilige Agitationsmache
Mordbrenner sind keine Kriegsgefangenen
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U.S. Navy Department (April 24, 1943)
Communiqué No. 354
South Pacific.
On April 22:
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During the afternoon, Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers attacked Japanese installations at Munda in the Central Solomons. Bombs were dropped on the runway and antiaircraft positions were silenced.
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Later the same afternoon, Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters carried out a strafing attack on Munda and set fire to three grounded enemy planes.
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Following the strafing of the Munda area, the Corsairs raided Vila, on Kolombangara Island in the New Georgia Group.
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During the night, Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers bombed Kahili in the Shortland Island area.
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All U.S. planes returned from the above attack missions.
On April 23: During the early morning, Dauntless (Douglas) dive bombers, escorted by Corsair fighters, bombed and strafed Japanese positions at Rekata Bay, on Santa Isabel Island. All U.S. planes returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 24, 1943)
YANKS DRIVE 6 MILES AFTER LIGHTNING SHIFT
Patton’s army joins push in North Tunisia
Battle rages on 110-mile front; ‘great attack’ begun, Nazis say
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Thousands of U.S. troops in a secret, lightning shift to the North Tunisian front have struck six miles into the Axis defense lines in a general Allied offensive that rolled the enemy back as much as seven miles toward the beaches of Tunis.
Aided by another record-breaking Allied aerial assault, the British 1st Army, the U.S. II Corps under command of Maj. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., and the Corps francs d’Afrique slugged their way with infantry and tanks into the Axis western flank while the 8th Army fought off desperate counterattacks on the coastal road to Bouficha.
Furious air pounding
The Germans, despite a furious pounding by 1,500 Allied aerial sorties that virtually drove the Luftwaffe from the Tunisian skies, fought desperately on every front against the massed Allied weight and casualties were reported heavy on both sides.
The Americans went into action on the road from Sedjenane to Mateur, 20 miles southwest of Bizerte, after tens of thousands of men and thousands of vehicles had been moved from the southern front near Meknassy with speed and secrecy, that drew warm praise from Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, who coordinated their operations with the British 1st Army attack.
Praised by Alexander
Gen. Alexander said:
The senior British officers have the fullest admiration for the excellent staff work and particularly for the speed and secrecy with which the move was carried out by the II Corps.
The American attack began at dawn Friday in the hills north of the Mateur Road with Jebel Marata and Jebel Aïnchouna, five miles to the south, as the first objectives. The Germans tried to trap the Americans. They apparently believed the Yanks were green troops. All Nazi traps failed. The Americans captured three hills in veteran fashion.
Front dispatches said the II Corps was becoming crafty, and battle-hardened. In this operation, they were given powerful support by U.S. bombers which raided enemy positions, the Mateur railroad junction and enemy truck columns.
U.S. troops scrambled through intense German mortar and artillery fire to capture the two main hill positions and then withstood several sharp enemy counterattacks before they could consolidate their new positions.
Nazi attack fails
South of the Mateur Road, another U.S. infantry outfit assaulted Jebel er Raml, a strongly-entrenched position northeast of Oued Zarga, and captured it quickly. A counterattack by the Germans, supported by artillery, failed to drive off the Americans but fighting continued.
The Allied forces were hitting the enemy today with everything they could bring into action but the great battle along a 110-mile front was still in a confused stage. At headquarters, it was felt that the result was inevitable because of the greatly superior weight of Allied tanks and manpower, but the cost of victory will undoubtedly be high.
A British broadcast today said that the Allied forces were using the Tunisian ports of Sousse and Sfax for supplies.
15 miles from Mateur
The Americans were about 15 miles west of Mateur and perhaps 30 miles southwest of Bizerte.
On other fronts, the British 1st Army captured most of important Longstop Hill, north of Medjez el Bab, and advanced about seven miles on the Bou Arada front south of Medjez, capturing the town of Goubellat and knocking out 16 German tanks in a powerful armored thrust that is still driving eastward north of Sebkhet el Kourzia.
The 1st Army was less than 30 miles west of Tunis, with its northern spearhead fighting to clear the road to the important highway junction of Tebourba.
On the southwestern front, the French were carrying out aggressive patrols between the 1st Army and the British 8th Army, which was hammering at desperate Axis resistance about halfway along the 15-mile road from Enfidaville to Bouficha, on the east coast of Tunisia.
Fortresses attack Sardinia
The Nazi Air Force was driven from the air Friday and Flying Fortresses extended the Allied attacks as far as enemy supply bases in Sardinia. In all, only six Allied planes were lost.
The Allied Air Forces Thursday night and Friday destroyed nine enemy airplanes and set fire to a large merchant vessel 25 miles west of Sicily.
The Americans were in action south of the Mateur Road as well as along the road. They captured a strategic hill known as Hill 575 in a desperate battle.
Farther south, the British 1st Army, after capturing Longstop Hill, six miles north of Medjez el Bab, also took Crich-El-Oued, four miles northeast of Medjez, and pressed east to clear the enemy from the road to Tebourba.
British tanks attack
British tanks were thrown into the battle southeast of Medjez after infantry captured the town of Goubellat. The tank spearhead struck southwest of Goubellat against extremely fierce opposition around Sebkhet el Kourzia, a little salt lake east of the Goubellat-Bou Arada Road. An advance of about seven miles had been made in this area and, at last reports, progress continued at a good rate north of the lake. Opposition was stronger south of the lake.
The British are fighting to enter the valley between Bou Arada and Pont du Fahs, which is flat wheatlands cut by occasional wadis but broad enough to give tanks a fair opportunity to maneuver. The valley is about two miles wide at Bou Arada and expands to 17 miles near Pont du Fahs. It is covered with wheat about two feet high at present.
The British hold the highest hill northwest of Bou Arada and are shoving tank spearheads out into the more open country, but the Germans are strongly entrenched on the hills on each side of the valley. One of the British objectives is “Two Tree Hill,” which once had two trees on it. They have since been cut down by the Germans because they were such a good landmark.
Positions held securely
The Germans lashed out in strong counterattacks east of Medjez el Bab, but they were thrown back with heavy losses and all newly-won Allied positions were held securely.
Some 45 miles south of Tunis, the British 8th Army sent patrols out to test Axis defenses in the next line of hills before the Tunis coastal plain and beat off a local enemy counterattack.
Radio Algiers said the 8th Army had now advanced 12 miles along the east coast and was halfway between Enfidaville and Bouficha.
Toll of air transports is raised to 31
Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
Revised figures today showed that Allied fighter planes Thursday shot down 31 giant Me 323 air transports over the Gulf of Tunis instead of 21, as previously reported. The transports, with a capacity of about 140 soldiers each, were carrying gasoline and troops to Tunisia.
President orders UMW to keep men at work
Celanese strikers are told to end picket lines, get to jobs
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LEWIS IGNORES WLB HEARING
Coal production must go on, board warns mine chief as strikes loom
Illinois miners to halt work at midnight Friday
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CAP plane locates West Virginia wreck
Dallas, Texas (UP) –
Missing for two and a half months, a 5th Ferrying Group plane from Love Field and the bodies of its three occupants have been found crashed in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Princeton, West Virginia, the ferry group’s Public Relations Office announced today.
A pilot of the Civil Air Patrol spotted the wreckage of the medium bomber yesterday. It disappeared Feb. 7 after taking off from Nashville, Tennessee, for an undisclosed destination.