Stocks of coffee up but rations stand
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Northern Tunisia – (by wireless)
Our Army in North Africa is still full of rumors. Most of them have to do with when we will go home.
Recently, there was a rumor that President Roosevelt had made a radio address saying that the mothers, wives and sweethearts of the men in North Africa were due for a big surprise as soon as the Tunisian campaign was over. I have never been able to verify whether he made such a speech or not, but anyway the rumored remark spread and was immediately interpreted by the men as meaning that everybody was going home the minute the last German was out of Africa. Some of our troops sincerely believe that’s what will happen.
The orange and tangerine seasons is over now. Those richly juicy North African tangerines were one of the pleasantest things of our war over here. For months we ate them by the daily dozens. Now that they are all gone, we are back to occasional canned fruit juice from America. And on British mess tables you’ll find a little can of pills called ascorbic tablets, which you take daily to make up for the lack of fruits in your diet.
Mama and Papa’s hotel intact
I stopped at Fériana one day to check up on what had happened to our little old hotel there and Papa and Mama and the boys, who ran it.
Well, the American Army had taken over the hotel, lock, stock and barrel. Papa and Mama were still living in Tébessa, to which they fled when the Germans came. Two of the boys were back at Fériana, living in two backrooms and just sort of waiting for the Army to leave.
The Germans had done very little damage to the place. Before long now all of us intruders will be gone and then Fériana can go back to its own peaceful ways,
A new type of American ration has just showed up over here in answer to the British “compo,” which small groups of traveling soldiers had found so superior to anything of ours. The new stuff is called “U ration.” It’s wonderful. It has everything that is needed by four or five men out on a trip who have to fix their own meals.
It comes in a pasteboard box inside a wooden box. Everything is done up in small cans or packets just big enough to be used up at one meal.
Meals are really somethin’
With it come two printed menus to help guide you. I’ve lost No. 1 but here is No. 2: Breakfast – tomato juice, whole-wheat cereal, sliced bacon, biscuits, coffee; dinner – bean soup, roast beef, quick-cooking rice, biscuits, lemonade, hard candy; supper – meat and vegetable stew, dried prunes, coffee, apricot spread.
The ration also includes root beer, gumdrops, canned butter, lemonade, tomato juice in powdered form, and two big envelopes of toilet paper. The tomato juice is fairly lousy, but the canned bacon is superb. God bless the U ration!
He understood all the time
Lots of odd little prisoner stories are popping up.
One American officer I know had to take charge of a German aviator who had been brought down. The German had a slight wound in the forehead, so the American officer took him in a jeep to a hospital and had the wound treated. Then he put him under guard for the night but saw to it that he was free to go to the toilet whenever he wished, and even sent him some extra blankets.
The German was surly throughout. Efforts at casual conversation with him got nowhere. Obviously, he was mean, and couldn’t understand what was said to him anyway.
The next morning, he was transferred to a prison camp. The American officer wasn’t present when his guest left, but just as the German stepped into a truck, he spoke to one of our orderlies, and in perfect English without an accent said:
Corporal, tell Maj. Smith I deeply appreciate everything he did for me.
Aleutians a two-way street –
Elaborate fortifications built on islands – foe will be hard to dislodge
By Sherman Montrose, ACME Newspictures photographer
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Ferguson: Bitter harvest
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Far too little was said in our newspapers about the recent YMCA conference on juvenile delinquency held in St. Louis. Yet the facts disclosed are of viral importance to that part of the public concerned with the effects of war upon children and adolescents.
Social welfare over the country have expressed alarm at the steady increase of delinquency, particularly sex offense among young girls.
It’s high time for adults, fighting, sacrificing and hoping for a better world, to share their fears. The situation in every community calls for action as well as thought. We must plan to save these children, and it can’t be done by talking about their behavior or writing pieces like this one for the papers. It has got to be an intelligent cooperative effort by all men and women who have the imagination to see war as a motivating force behind human behavior.
Certainly, the freedom our soldiers are dying for won’t be worth much to youngsters whose bodies are diseased and whose morals have gone down the drain.
We now reap the bitter harvest, sowed to the spendthrift ‘20s, in the lawless Prohibition days, and in the era of ego exploitation. Out of that era came irresponsible, selfish, drunken parents; adults without codes of honor or a sense of duty toward either parents, husbands, wives or children.
Even today millions of mature men and women regard and use the war effort as an opportunity to fling convention and virtue to the winds. While men suffer and die, they are out “for a good time.” Is it any wonder that adolescents looking on at adult antics have become tainted with the poison of defeatism, irresponsibility and self-indulgence?
U.S. Navy Department (May 1, 1943)
Communiqué No. 361
South Pacific.
On April 29:
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During the evening, a Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bomber bombed Japanese installations at Numa Numa on the northeast coast of Bougainville Island.
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During the night, a group of Liberator heavy bombers attacked Kieta on the northern coast of Bougainville Island. Two of the four fires which were started were visible for 50 miles.
On April 30:
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During the early morning, a group of Flying Fortress (Boeing B‑17) heavy bombers raided Japanese positions at Kahili in the Shortland Island area. A large fire was started.
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Later in the morning, a formation of Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers and, Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers, escorted by Airacobra (Bell P‑39) and Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters, bombed and strafed Japanese installations at Vila in the Central Solomons.
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During the evening, Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters strafed the Japanese‑held area at Rekata Bay on the northern coast of Santa Isabel Island.
All U.S. planes returned from the above operational missions.
News Release
For Immediate Release
May 1, 1943
Coast Guard cutter sinks German U‑boat
The 165‑foot Coast Guard cutter ICARUS (WPC-110), proceeding southward from New York on a routine run, some months ago, sank a German U‑boat and took 33 prisoners, including the submarine’s commanding officer.
The cutter was alone, sailing through calm seas just off the Carolina coast, with her skipper, Lt. (now LtCdr.) Maurice D. Jester, USCG, and his executive officer calmly reviewing recent patrol run experiences when the underseas craft was detected. The submarine was dead ahead and about 100 yards distant. General Quarters was sounded, and as the crew ran to battle stations, the ICARUS flashed into action.
Speeding forward, she reached the spot over the sub, and dropped a pattern of depth charges. As she turned to come back for another attack, a terrific explosion occurred in the open sea about 200 yards off the port side.
The ICARUS crossed the spot where the undersea raider was submerged, dropped another pattern of charges, and followed up with two single charges in quick succession.
Then, as the officers aboard the cutter watched, air bubbles began rising to the surface. Suddenly the crippled U‑boat shot up from below, her bow pointing skyward at a 45‑degree angle. The conning tower burst open, and submarine crew members scrambled onto the deck and made for the deck gun.
The guns of the ICARUS immediately opened a withering fire, sweeping the Germans back toward the conning tower. Then, as the sub started to sink, the Germans jumped into the sea. The vessel suddenly plunged beneath the surface, and the engagement was over.
The ICARUS then picked up the 33 survivors and brought them into port as prisoners of war.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 1, 1943)
MINES SEIZED BY U.S.
Roosevelt asks miners to end strike
Coal companies ordered to assume operation as federal agents
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Yanks closing in on road junction
Guns shell Mateur after doughboys take key hill; planes sink five Axis ships, subs destroy 10
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Naval bombers attack five bases in Solomons
Washington (UP) –
The Navy today reported aerial attacks on five Japanese bases in the Solomons.
Fires were started at two of them. At Kieta, Bougainville Island, flames were visible 50 miles away. At Kahili, Shortland Island area, a “large” fire was started.
Vital production lost in stoppages by Ford workers
River Rouge plant suffers 50,000 man-hour loss since Thursday; two other strikes end
By the United Press
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Japs open sub campaign against Australian lifeline
Increased undersea activity follows series of enemy setbacks in South Pacific
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
Gen. MacArthur’s HQ, Australia –
Japan, her air attacks frustrated, began a submarine campaign “in some force” against Allied shipping east of Australia today, evidently trying to cut supply lines to the United States.
A Jap communiqué broadcast by the Tokyo radio said that a Jap submarine sank two enemy transports (one of 12,000 tons and the other of 6,000 tons) in the Southwestern Pacific in the latter part of April.
A communiqué from Gen. Douglas MacArthur revealed that the Japs had fallen back on Adolf Hitler’s favorite weapon.
Recent Axis radio reports indicated Japanese experts may have studied the Nazi U-boat tactics in the Atlantic, raising the possibility they were imitating “wolfpack” methods in the Pacific.
The communiqué said:
The enemy launched a submarine attack in some force in waters east of Australia. Details will be given as soon as their release will not assist his operations.
Follows Jap setbacks
A spokesman added that the subs “are paying more attention to us than they have ever done in the past.”
The development followed a series of Jap setbacks at sea and in the air after Allied spokesmen warned of an impending all-out offensive against Australia from the 2,500-mile island arc to the north.
Nearly 90 of 220 Jap planes sent against Allied outposts in mid-April were shot down. Earlier Allied bombers had played havoc with Jap shipping.
The phrase used by the communiqué – “waters east of Australia” – might mean anywhere from New Guinea and the Solomons in the north, southward through the Coral Sea and to New Zealand in the south.
Planes blast Japs
Through this area may lie the Allied shipping lifeline toward Hawaii and the United States.
Allied planes continued their regular harassing operations against Jap positions and bases.
Again supporting ground troops operating along the northeast New Guinea coast, planes bombed and strafed the Mubo area. A heavy bomber hit Lae, New Guinea.
In raids over New Ireland and New Britain, single planes bombed a cargo vessel in Steffen Strait, the Gasmata Airdrome and the airdrome and grounded planes at Cape Gloucester.
Editorial: Those Japanese cherry trees
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Rep. Rankin (D-MS) wants to change the name of the beautiful cherry trees along Washington’s tidal basin – the trees whose springtime glory offers one of the few happy resting places for eyes made weary by the capital’s miles and miles of Greco-Roman mausoleums.
Instead of calling them Japanese cherry trees, which they are, Rankin wants them to be known as “Korean” cherries. After all, he argues, the Japs stole the cherries from the Koreans. We do not know what authorities he is ready to muster in support of this argument – stacks and stacks, we suppose – but we are sure that the gentleman from Tupelo, Mississippi, never would have tried to right this particular wrong if we were not at war with the Japanese.
This idea comes up just when we had come to believe that, this time, there would not be a rash of Liberty steaks and Liberty cabbages and a changing of street names until a man no longer knew the way home. After all, those cherry trees have been in Washington ever since President Taft’s day. We suppose they are 100% Americans by now. Furthermore, what connection do cherry trees have with the Japanese warlords?