Jap freighter hit squarely
Allies also bomb enemy on New Guinea coast
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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United Nations short of ships, Adm. Land says
Maritime chief denies Axis claims of sinking 30 million tons
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U.S. winning race in arms after 2 years
America builds as much as Japs did in three decades
Davenport, Iowa (SS) –
The United States has produced as much war equipment in a little more than two years as Japan in 30 years, Russia in 20 years and Germany in 10, Harold V. Coes, vice president of Ford, Bacon and Davis, Inc., told the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in his presidential address last night.
A 600% increase in shipbuilding since 1937 was cited by Mr. Coes. Whereas six years ago there were only 10 shipyards with 46 ways able to accommodate the larger ships, today there are 60 such yards with more than 300 ways.
The 1942 increase in production of all munitions over that of the previous year was 400%, Mr. Coes said. The rise in the production was as great as 6¼ times for ordnance and five times for merchant ships.
The machine tool industry’s production, of vital importance in maintaining and expanding war production, is seven times the peacetime peak.
The creation in a year and a half of an entire synthetic rubber industry to produce from 800,000 to one million tons a year was by Mr. Coes as one of the recent industrial accomplishments. He also stated that by the end of 1943 we will have seven times our 1939 aluminum production, the fruit of 50 years of intensive development.
‘How we bombed Tokyo’ –
Raid on Japan was only the start of grim adventure for U.S. fliers
By Capt. Harold F. Watson
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Ferguson: What women think
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“What are women thinking these days?” is the hard question put by a man who believes that women must think straight if the world is to be saved from financial, physical and mental bankruptcy.
It would be wonderful, if we knew the right answer. Some women, it must be admitted, are not thinking at all. Others are occupied only with “having more fun” or “making more money.” Yet there remain a great many who are trying to get their thoughts in order – trying to find sense in the vast nonsense of war; trying to discover how good can come out of evil.
And the more the women think, the more clearly they realize that man’s concepts of progress are wrong. Somehow, he must be made to see that feminine attitudes are as useful and as right as his own.
Literally, the world falls about our ears. We know a new one cannot be built upon the rotten foundations of the old. So, if we want a decent society in the future, we shall be forced to take a hand in its making. That is the plainest fact before us.
Certainly, no woman capable of thought believes that men are ever again to be trusted alone to manage that new world. They are too much like little boys still, always building blockhouses for the pleasure of kicking them down afterward. Over and over and over, this has been their way; the way of those who, while celebrating motherhood in song and story, created societies in which mothers are the least rewarded and the least honored of people; the way of those who talk of peace and prepare for war.
Today, women are thinking about all these things. So far, men have failed utterly to make a world fit for children to live in. It is now time for them to listen to the advice of wise women: Progress is not possible unless spiritual possessions are prized above material gains.
Clark Gable of old days in comeback
He’s Earle Foxe and he was quite the rage in silent films
By Ernest Foster
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Northern Tunisia – (by wireless)
Africa is a strange country, and this war is very little like the last war in France. Yet here too, many an American sleep beneath fields of poppies – poppies so red and vivid that their beauty is strangely saddening.
The desert battlefields and the northern battleground too are alive with flowers. They grow wild, in patches as thick as grass, blanketing solid acres. They grow together in vast stretches of red, yellow and orange, all of it framed by the lush green of new grass. Even the dullest spirits among us can’t help being touched by their ironical loveliness.
I have stopped now and then to see some of the battle graveyards. The Germans bury their dead in small cemeteries along the roadsides, but we concentrate in fewer and bigger graveyards, usually on the edge of some town. Arabs are hired to dig the graves.
At Gafsa, there is an American cemetery with more than 600 graves. It is in desert-like country, and the graves are aligned in precise rows in the naked gray earth. Each is marked with a waist-high wooden cross. In a nearby tent is a great pile of ready-made crosses, and a stack of newly carpentered wooden markers in the form of the Star of David, for the Jewish dead.
As all the American dead in the Gafsa area have been located and reburied in the permanent graveyard, this cemetery section will move on to other fronts.
Americans in German cemetery
The little German cemeteries are always bordered with rows of white rocks, and in some there will be a phrase neatly spelled out in white rocks with a border around it. One that I remember said, in rough translation:
These dead gave their spirits for the glory of Greater Germany.
In one German cemetery of about a hundred graves, we found 11 Americans. They lay among the Germans, not segregated in any way. Their graves are identical with those of the Germans except that beneath the names on the wooden crosses is printed “Amerikaner,” and below that the Army serial number. We presume their “dog tags” were buried with them.
On one of the graves, beneath the soldier’s serial number, is also printed: “T-40.” The Germans apparently thought that was part of his number. Actually, it only showed that the man had his first anti-tetanus shot in 1940.
My friend Sgt. Pat Donadeo, of 327 S. Atlantic Ave., Pittsburgh, was with me when we looked at this graveyard, and as we left, he said:
They respect our dead the same as we do theirs. It’s comforting to know that.
Booby trap grave markers
We also came upon a number of Italian graveyards set out in fields. Those graves too were well-marked, and each had a bouquet of wilted marigolds. At the side of one little Italian cemetery, which was beautifully bordered and decorated, were half a dozen additional graves, apparently dug at the last minute before the retreat. They were just rough mounds, unmarked except for an empty quart wine bottle stuck upside down at the head of each grave. Inside the bottles we could see scraps of paper, apparently with the dead Italians’ names and numbers on them. Naturally we wouldn’t violate the graves by pulling out the bottles, but even if our inclination had been rowdy, we would have been afraid to. There are rumors, which I have not been able to verify, that such grave-marking bottles are sometimes booby traps.
The Germans leave very clean country behind them. Their salvage organization must be one of the best in the world – probably because of desperate necessity. We’ve gone all over the Tunisian country from which they have fled, and evidences that they have been there are slight. You see burned-out tanks in the fields and some wrecked scout cars and Italian trucks lying in roadside ditches, and that is about all. Nothing is left behind that is repairable. Wrecked cars are stripped of their tires, instruments and lights. They leave no tin cans, boxes or other junk as we do.
We’ve seen little evidence of German earth-scorching, probably because the retreat northward was too fast. Some bridges were blown up. Mountain passes and the paths around wrecked bridges were heavily mined. But the most noticeable thing is the destruction of all telephone lines. They cut down about every other pole along the highways, and snipped most of the wires. The poles weren’t chopped down. They were sawed off about two feet above the ground, and very neatly sawed off too, the fastidious marauders.
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Dried blood plasma saves many lives at the battlefront
By Robert T. Letts, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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West resents backseat role in post-war study
By Mary Ellen Leary, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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‘Whitewashing’ laid to FCC officials
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This U-boat might have been U-164 on January 6, 1943 or U-507 on January 13, 1943.
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Lend-Lease supplies pour through Iran into Russia
Everything from tanks and locomotives to babies’ diapers rushed by U.S. forces
By Leon Kay, United Press staff writer
Somewhere in the Persian corridor (March 22, delayed) –
Everything from tanks to babies’ diapers is pouring into Russia through Iran by road, railroad and air, sometimes faster than the Russians can take it away.
The United States is hitting and often surpassing the monthly goals set for Russian aid both on the war and the home fronts.
I have just finished a two-week tour of the Persian corridor where, from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, the United States is going all-out to aid Russia with the U.S. Army doing the job.
With Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, I flew to Iran for an inspection tour which I thought would require a couple of days.
But the supply system set up here by the U.S. Army at the end of a 17,000-mile ocean route from the United States is so vast that I spent a fortnight traveling hazardous routes by track and railway.
Ports which 11 months ago were mere sandflats now accommodate many ships. Two-hundred-ton cranes unload locomotives and place them on tracks in five minutes.
Dozens of planes are assembled daily and I counted 140 planes of all types at one airport awaiting the arrival of Soviet pilots to fly them to Russia, since the Russians insist on doing that job themselves. Only four Soviet pilots were available that day.
The time required from the day supplies leave the United States until they are turned over to the Russians has been reduced to an average of 88 days. On at least on occasion, tanks have been in action in Russia against the Germans in less than 70 days after they left the United States.
Trucks, semitrailers, scout cars and jeeps are being assembled at the rate of about three hours apiece.
Aiding the U.S. Army are tens of thousands of Persians, Arabs and Armenians, who receive rations of tea, sugar and wheat in addition to a basic wage.
Völkischer Beobachter (April 29, 1943)
In tünt Tagen 75 Feindpanzer abgeschossen –
Der „Tiger“ wütet in Tunesien
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U.S. Navy Department (April 29, 1943)
Communiqué No. 359
South Pacific.
On April 23, a force of Army bombers attacked the Japanese air base at Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands. Extensive damage to enemy installations was indicated. Enemy fighter opposition and anti-aircraft fire was encountered, but all U.S. planes returned.
On April 28, Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers attacked Japanese installations at Kahili in the Shortland Island area and at Vila in the Central Solomons. Results were unobserved.
North Pacific.
On April 24, during the morning, U.S. surface units bombarded Japanese positions at Holtz Bay and at Chichagof Harbor, Attu Island. Several fires were started by the bombardment. No enemy gun fire was encountered. No further details have been reported.
On April 27, despite bad weather, Army Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters carried out one attack against Japanese installations at Kiska. Results were not observed.