Tank general new chief of AEF in Europe
Devers named successor to Andrews, killed in air crash
…
Hold-the-line order broken with approval of Byrnes
OPA authorizes cent-a-loaf increase in bread prices in two areas
…
Selfridge Field commander held for shooting private
Colonel removed and placed under observation; details of incident withheld
Selfridge AAF, Michigan (UP) –
Officials at the U.S. Army Air Base here disclosed today that Col. William T. Colman, commanding officer of Selfridge Field, has been arrested for allegedly firing on a Negro soldier.
He has been replaced by Col. William B. Wright, 39, for the last eight months base commander at Barksdale Field, Louisiana.
A statement issued by Capt. Richard M. Ramey, Public Relations Officer, said Col. Colman was arrested for firing on Pvt. William McRae, 24-year-old motor vehicle driver from Morven, North Carolina.
Col. Colman, Capt. Ramey said, has been removed to the Army’s Percy Jones General Hospital at Battle Creek, Michigan, for observation.
Capt. Ramey said:
The revolver was said to have been fired near the front steps of the base headquarters.
No other details of the shooting were given.
Pvt. McRae was said to be in fair condition at the base hospital. A board of Army officers is investigating the case.
Col. Colman, a native of Dunkirk, New York, entered the Army soon after graduation from the University of Michigan in 1926. He served at Langley Field, Virginia, and in the Philippines before coming here to succeed Col. Morton H. McKinnon. He is 39 years old.
Davis hints invasion before end in Africa
Washington (UP) –
War Information Director Elmer Davis today said it was possible the Allied armies might launch their invasion of the European continent without waiting for the end of the Battle of Tunisia.
Mr. Davis said in an interview:
It would appear to be feasible to start the invasion of Europe even if there was one pocket in Tunisia that hadn’t been cleaned out.
He said it was entirely possible that the attack on the continent would be made as soon as the enemy is pocketed off at Bizerte, which from today’s news should be accomplished “pretty soon.”
The OWI chief emphasized, as always, that his opinions on operations were those of a civilian. However, he confers daily with the Army and Navy chiefs.
I DARE SAY —
Follow the leader?
By Florence Fisher Parry
Who can compute the loss in the death of Gen. Andrews?
The average value of one man’s life has been estimated. I do not recall the figure in dollars and cents, but a figure has been computed. It runs into many thousands of dollars. The value of Gen. Andrews’ life is beyond compute. An army of men could not replace him.
We have already lost eight generals in this war. You need only keep track of the casualties, singly reported in our newspapers, to realize that they are thickening and that the great toll is already being counted.
Prophecies and predictions are being made as to the length and cost in lives of this war. The coldest-blooded of them all was made by Gen. Homma of Japan, some time before Pearl Harbor. He said to one of our most gifted reporters, Clark Lee:
It seems that the prevailing idea among Americans is that one of your fighting men is worth two Japanese fighting men?
Mr. Clark admitted:
That’s about the size of it.
He inquired:
Accepting your own evaluation, then, we have proceeded with our preparations. We are prepared to lose 10 million men in our coming war with you. How many are you prepared to lose?
According to Gen. Homma’s estimate, based upon our own assumption of superiority, we must lose, then, five million men before we have exhausted Japan’s fighting manpower.
Five million men in the Pacific. How many in Europe and other parts of the globe?
Damage is done
What value a man’s life?
What price freedom?
It is worth any price, of course. If we think we can avoid paying it, we are already lost.
Yet the ghastly farce continues on the home front, and democracy is being discredited the world over. The damage has been done. The terrible propaganda has been set loose. Our men in far places have been let down and humiliated. Whatever the coal settlement, the weakness has been exposed. We stand indicted before the world. We are still playing at war.
Truce, not settlement. Armistice, not peace. The old, old story: the old, old fallacy which lost us the peace after the last war and can lose us this one. The fallacy of compromise.
I hope you have been reading Ernie Pyle’s reports from the battlefront. They stand alongside any classic that has been written about men at war. They compare with the pictures of Goya. The unutterable weariness of the living, the grotesque attitudes of the sudden dead, the horizonless perspective, the insensate cloudiness – it is all there in the simple record…
…in their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory – there is just the simple expression of being here, as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
I hope these words will stay with and trouble and give no rest to the miners who, under Lewis, are still waiting for his orders and have ignored all others.
Who makes a leader?
One more word before I join the silent vigil of waiting to see what word is to go to our boys who are fighting for this thing called democracy.
Mr. Editor, I know that it is at variance with the expressed attitude of The Pittsburgh Press as voiced in your most excellent editorials, which lay the blame – and the consequences – flatly upon the shoulders of one man: John L. Lewis. You exempt the miners themselves. They have been betrayed by false prophets, you say. They are not to be condemned.
Mr. Editor, if we were to employ this same line of reasoning to the war which we are now waging, and say: The German and the Japanese people are not to be condemned; only their leaders are guilty, we would never win the peace, however absolute our martial victory. We would be just where we were before.
So long as the followers are exonerated and only the leaders blamed, human conduct will continue to be unimproved. Leaders are made by their followers, for leaders can exercise only what power their followers permit them.
If our miners forsake their sons in battle, their President and Commander-in-Chief, and cleave only to their leader, they are guilty too, and cannot escape blame and punishment any more than can the followers of Hitler, who were also misled.
Treasury still opposes Ruml tax proposal
Bill would produce less revenue than others, official says
…
WPB proposes 6-point cushion
Everyone to suffer in civilian goods cut
…
Rabbi Wise says Americans are cold to plight of Jews
‘Sacrificial giving’ urged to help victims of Nazi oppression and brutality
…
Hospital built in one day saves Rickenbacker’s men
McKees Rocks doctor, Lt. W. J. Hall, credited with saving life of Sgt. Reynolds
By Charles P. Arnot, United Press staff writer
…
39-year-old general killed with Andrews
Iceland air crash takes lives of 14; sergeant is only survivor
…
War contracts inquiry –
‘I have very bad memory,’ mysterious man testifies
House committee considers contempt citation to jog recollection on New Dealers
…
Japs prepared to strike hard, Tōjō declares
But Berlin warns America hold strong bases in Alaska
By the United Press
…
Yanks learn jungle war in huge symphony of fire
Americans take over when Aussie tanks fail; sergeant dies to save his men
By George Weller
…