Ford workers face inquiry
Company, union to probe wildcat strike
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Marine, wounded 14 times, bullets gone, bluffs Japs
Corporal stops flow of blood with one hand, trains empty gun on foe with other
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Ferguson: ‘Time to abdicate’
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
It was the male, I believe, who first announced himself made in the image of God. Upon that assumption and because of the pleasant belief, man has assumed dominion over every living thing – a rare privilege as well as a heavy responsibility. And from a general view of conditions, he’s been a disgraceful flop. It’s time for him to abdicate.
While we agree that men have made a noble stagger at intervals, they have succeeded only in getting the world into a hopeless mess. As managers, executives and leaders in human affairs, they are consistently chuckle-headed. On every side, the facts prove it.
Their politics is foul with graft. Their international business is conducted with intrigue. They seem incapable of comprehending the earth as a planet belonging to all, where the inhabitants can live together in amity. Instead, they build high walls about themselves, spending their substance to defend these imaginary and senseless boundaries.
While they have been at the work of managing such affairs since the dawn of time, they never learn by experience, and the year 1943 finds them engaged almost wholly with destruction. They are bending every energy to insult human dignity, demolish freedom and bring death and ruin.
They mastered the seas – and have lined them with dynamite bombs. They control the air, and from it threaten pestilence and havoc. They command the earth and it is scarred with trenches and big guns, its resources looted, its substances wasted upon war.
I say, let them abdicate their leadership in favor of women, who are impractical, inexperienced, ignorant and different, but who could certainly do better because it would be impossible to do worse.
Cowboys, Indians play grim game with Guinea Japs
It’s a citizen army that helped to wrest back Papua; forest-wise Americans adept at tree fighting
By George Weller
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Allies preparing to land in Sicily, Germans claim
Invasion of Sardinia may also come even before Tunisian cleanup, Berlin declares
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
At the frontlines in Tunisia – (by wireless)
When our infantry goes into a certain big push in northern Tunisia, each man is issued three bars of D-ration chocolate, enough to last one day. He takes no other food. He carries two canteens of water instead of the usual one. He carries no blankets. He leaves behind all extra clothes except his raincoat. In his pockets he may have a few toilet articles. Some men carry their money, others give it to friends to keep.
In the days that follow they live in a way that is inconceivable to us at home. They walk and fight all night without sleep. Next day they lie flat in foxholes, or hide in fields of freshly green, knee-high wheat. If they’re in the fields they dared not even move enough to dig foxholes, for that would have bring the German artillery. They can’t rise even for nature’s calls. The German feels for them continually with his artillery.
Daylight waiting is torture
The slow drag of these motionless daylight hours is nearly unendurable. Lt. Mickey Miller of Morgantown, Indiana, says this lifeless waiting in a wheatfield is almost the worst part of the whole battle.
The second evening after the attack began, C-rations and five-gallon cans of water are brought up across country in jeeps, after dark. You eat in the dark, and you can’t see the can you are eating from. You just eat by feel. You make cold coffee from cold water.
One night, a German shell landed close and fragments punctured 15 cans of water.
Each night enough canned rations for three meals are brought up, but when the men move on after supper most of them either lose or leave behind the next day’s rations, because they’re too heavy to carry. But, as they say, when you’re in battle and excited you sort of go on your nerve. You don’t think much about being hungry.
The men fight at night and lie low by day, when the artillery takes over its blasting job. Weariness gradually creeps over them. What sleeping they do is in daytime. But, as they say, at night it’s too cold and in daytime it’s too hot. Also the fury of the artillery makes daytime sleeping next to impossible. So does the heat of the sun. Some men have passed out from heat prostration. Many of them get upset stomachs from the heat.
But as the third and fourth days roll on, weariness overcomes all obstacles to sleep. Men who sit down for a moment’s rest fall asleep in the grass. There are even men who say they can march while asleep.
Men can sleep anywhere
Lt. Col. Charlie Stone, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, actually went to sleep standing up talking on a field telephone – not while listening, but in the middle of a spoken sentence.
When sometimes they do lie down at night the men have only their raincoats to lie on. It is cold, and the dew makes the grass as wet as rain. They don’t dare start a fire to heat their food, even in daytime, for the smoke would attract enemy fire. At night they can’t even light cigarettes in the open, so after digging their foxholes they get down and make hoods over their heads with their raincoats, and light up under the coats.
They have plenty of cigarettes. Those who run out during battle are supplied by others. Every night new supplies of water and C-rations are brought up in jeeps.
You can’t conceive how hard it is to move and fight at night. The country is rugged, the ground rough. Everything is new and strange. The nights are pitch-black. You grope with your feet. You step into holes, and fall sprawling in little gullies and creeks. You trudge over plowed ground and push through waist-high shrubs. You go as a man blindfolded, feeling unsure and off balance, but you keep on going.
Fear of mines ever-present
Through it all there is the fear of mines. The Germans have mined the country behind them beyond anything ever known before. We simply can’t take time to go over each inch of ground with mine detectors, so we have to discover the minefields by stumbling into them or driving over them. Naturally there are casualties, but they are smaller than you might think – just a few men each day. The greatest damage is psychological – the intense watchfulness our troops must maintain.
The Germans have been utterly profligate with their mines. We dug out 400 from one field. We’ve found so many fields and so many isolated mines that we have run out of white tape to mark them with. But still we go on.
Lear, Dewitt nominated as lieutenant generals
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt today nominated Ben Lear and John L. Dewitt, both currently lieutenant generals by virtue of commanding the 2nd and 4th Armies respectively, to be lieutenant generals in their own right.
Mr. Roosevelt also nominated Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of Army forces in Alaska, to be a lieutenant general, eight brigadier generals to be major generals, and 52 colonels to be brigadiers.
Gen. Lear is serving as acting chief of the Army’s ground forces while Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair recuperates from wounds.
U.S. Navy Department (May 5, 1943)
Communiqué No. 367
South Pacific.
On May 4:
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During the day, a force of Warhawk (Curtiss P‑40) and Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters bombed and strafed Japanese positions at Vangavanga and at Ringi Cove on Kolombangara Island in the Central Solomons. Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers and Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers, with Corsair (Vought F4U) fighter escort, followed the attack with additional bombing and strafing. A fire was started at Vangavanga and smoke was observed in the Ringi Cove area. All U.S. planes returned.
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Flying Fortress (Boeing B‑17) heavy bombers attacked Vila in the Central Solomons and Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel Island, starting a fire at the latter area.
North Pacific.
On May 3, formations of Army planes carried out nine attacks against Japanese installations at Kiska. Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers, Mitchell (North American B‑25) medium bombers and Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) and Warhawk fighters participated in these raids. Three fires were started in the enemy main camp area and hits were observed in other areas. Heavy smoke was seen at North Head.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 5, 1943)
YANKS 10 MILES FROM BIZERTE, TAKE TOWN IN CENTRAL TUNISIA
Axis attacks turned back on 2 fronts
American gains threaten to isolate garrison of naval base
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Gen. Andrews’ death hits Allied plans for invasion
Iceland plane crash also kills Bishop A. W. Leonard
By James Roper, United Press staff writer
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Lewis faces fresh crisis with the WLB
Thursday hearing to give clue to attitude of UMW chief
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
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