Nye demands victory before peace talks
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Flood damage in millions in Midwest
Six states battle against unprecedented crests; Army camps aid
By the United Press
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Solution near on mystery of Nazi Air Force
If they have any power left, they’ll need it in Mediterranean
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Davies’ flight to Moscow believed highly successful
Evidence in Soviet capital indicates approval; Stalin receives Roosevelt envoy quickly
By Henry Shapiro, United Press staff writer
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Yamamoto called best Jap military, naval strategist
By Robert Bellaire, United Press staff writer
The following closeup of the late Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto was written by the manager of the former United Press Bureau in Tokyo who was interned by the Japs at the start of the war. He returned to the United States in the exchange of diplomats and newspapermen.
New York –
Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto was probably the greatest military and naval strategist Japan ever had, and his death is a blow to Japan comparable to what the loss of Gen. Douglas MacArthur would be to the United States.
Outside of Premier Tōjō, Yamamoto was the best known and most popular of Japan’s war leaders. He was a poker player, a heavy drinker and a hard-hitting fighting man, a man who would go personally into air combat anytime.
There is no question but what he got close to Pearl Harbor during the sneak attack of Dec. 7. How close no one knows for sure, but the report he sent back is known. It was couched in poker lingo and it read:
America had a full house but we had a royal flush.
His death – and I suspect it may have been harikari – may well explain what happened to that long-expected all-out Jap offensive in the Pacific. He was the brains of any Jap offensive.
Yamamoto frequently said that he would take his own life by harikari rather than lose any Jap territory. He repeated that in a statement when Gen. MacArthur came out of the Philippines – a hero in defeat.
Regardless of how he died, Yamamoto’s death would force a new man to take over the projected offensive and that would cause delay. The offensive hasn’t started and meanwhile the United States has had a chance to get underway in the Aleutians.
Thus, Yamamoto’s death may have a very strange bearing on what happens next in the Pacific.
In June 1942, when the Japs moved toward Midway and the Aleutians. Yamamoto took the defeat of Midway very hard. He talked very little about the whole operations. When he did, he referred to the Aleutians as the main scene. There was the gain. But Midway he termed a diversion. There was the defeat.
At the end he said the Aleutians had to be covered “because they are the pathway to Washington.”
About two years ago, I had a long talk with Yamamoto about the comparative morale of the U.S. and Jap Navies. Our Navy, he told me, was a “social navy of bridge players and golf players – a peacetime navy.” The Japanese, he said were so high in morale they would take their own lives rather than live in disgrace after defeat.
After Pearl Harbor, the Jap newspapers carried dispatches about how Yamamoto, out with a fleet unit, would toss his empty liquor and beer bottles into the water after sinking an American ship. It was his peculiar way of paying tribute to the dead sailors.
His successor, Mineichi Koga, is a very different man, more in the old Samurai tradition, the frugal warrior class. But he is also an able strategist.
Plane repair bases built in South Pacific
One Navy plant as big as any in U.S.; trek back to States saved
By B. J. McQuaid
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Push in Pacific by fall hinted
Smaller Allies comforted by assurances
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Saturation bombing called key to strategy of Allies
Aviation editor sees indication in Churchill’s promise to plaster Germany, Japan
By William B. Ziff, written for the United Press
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Another $100,000 given to Truman Committee
Washington (UP) –
The Senate has approved a further grant of $100,000 to the Truman Committee investigating the war program.
Senator Scott Lucas (D-IL) said the committee on audit and control recommended the grant so that the committee can continue “the magnificent work it already has done throughout the country.”
Senator Carl Hatch (D-NM), member of the Truman Committee, told the Senate it has expanded approximately $200,000 to date.
Rosendahl approved
Washington –
The Senate today confirmed the nomination to the temporary rank of rear admiral of Charles E. Rosendahl, the Navy’s lighter-than-air expert who will head a new training command for airship personnel.
Mickey Rooney to junket overseas – to tour camps
Marjorie Main to take on glamor for first time in 7 years
By Erskine Johnson
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Southern Tunisia – (by wireless)
This column has three heroes, if you want to call them that. They are the three men who commanded, one after the other, the same infantry company – all within five hours of battle. For lack of a better name, we’ll simply call it Company K.
It was daytime. The whole company was pinned down on a green wheatfield that led up onto the slope of a hill. We were trying to take the Germans on the back slope of the hill, but from the ridge they could butcher our men below with their machine guns if they stirred.
Lt. Richard Cole, of Worcester, Massachusetts, was commander of Company K. In midafternoon, a German shell found him as he lay in hiding with his men in the wheat. One leg got only a slight wound, but the other was shattered.
His head saves his life
Lt. Cole saved his life by using his head. He made a tourniquet of his handkerchief, and using a fountain pen for a lever he twisted the tourniquet and held it, and at the same time began slowly crawling to the rear. For he knew the medics didn’t dare to venture onto the shell-raked field looking for possible wounded.
After about an hour he loosened the tourniquet, to prevent gangrene. Darkness came on and he continued to crawl slowly, attending to the tourniquet at intervals.
Sometime during the night, he felt a telephone wire under him. That was what he had been hunting for. He got out his knife and cut the wire. He knew that eventually linemen would come looking for the break. Then he lay down on the wire and waited. And finally they did come, just as he had anticipated. It was long after daylight, and Lt. Cole had by then been wounded 20 hours.
He is now in a hospital. Not only will he live, but he won’t even lose a leg. One opf these days he will probably be going homer to recuperate.
Antonelli has job four hours
As soon as Lt. Cole was wounded. Lt. Theodore Antonelli, of New Britain, Connecticut, automatically took command of Company K. They waited in the wheatfield till dusk, then began slowly working around the left end of the hill that was facing them. They took the Germans from the rear, completely by surprise. They rushed up the hill and attacked with bayonets.
Lt. Antonelli, instead of staying behind his company, pulled out his .45 and led the company up the hill. Usually, a company commander doesn’t do that, but this time it was the thing to do.
Lt. Antonelli paid for his bravery. A hand-thrown German grenade scattered fragments over his chest, and he fell. His wounds were not serious, but they put him out of action. He had had command of Company K just four hours.
Sergeant leads bayonet charge
Company K has three commissioned officers. One of them was already on a hospital from a previous wound. The two remaining ones, as you have seen, fell in succession. Next in line of command was Sgt. Arthur Godwin. He instantly assumed the command expected of him, and he carried it so well that today his praises are being sung throughout the whole division.
Sgt. Godwin led his men in one of the few bayonet charges Americans made in the Tunisian war. They didn’t kill or capture the enemy. He just fled in terror, yelling, “Madmen! Madmen!” The hill was taken.
Sgt. Godwin is from Enterprise, Alabama, the cotton town that is famous for its statue to the boll weevil. Back home he used to drive a truck, and in season he roved the Florida orchards as a fruit picker. He has been in the Army more than three years.
Godwin is a tall, nice-looking fellow of 26. He swears in good soldier fashion, but his manner is quiet and considerate. There is something calmly forceful about him. He is the kind of man you like to have faith in.
Story has a happy ending
Everybody in the regiment, including its commanding officer, wished Godwin could keep Company K, he had served it so well. But it was impossible. Other officers in the battalion deserved a company command, so Sgt. Godwin was replaced the next day.
But wait – the story doesn’t have a bitter end nor a sad one. Godwin has had a commission in the offing ever since he landed in Africa six months ago. It was one of those Army things. Months passed and nothing happened. Like a good soldier, he kept on plugging as a sergeant. But the division commander has put a stop to that nonsense. He exercised his right to promote a man on the battlefield, and within a few hours after the last German was marched off the hill, Sgt. Godwin was Lt. Godwin. A company command will not be far behind.
Everybody is glad. That’s the way good men rise to their rightful niche in battle, where true character shows and red tape is a hated phrase.