Funds sought for war wives
Death of Kilday bill spurs allowance demands
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Moscow views Davies’ trip as full triumph
Visit touches off display of Soviet goodwill for America
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
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Yanks crush hidden Japs in Massacre Bay landing
Americans wounded in first days of battle on Attu arrive at U.S. Northwest hospital
By Douglas Billmeyer, United Press staff writer
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Jap airdromes raided heavily
Grounded planes fired at Wewak, New Guinea
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Editorial: Memorial Day
Few of us need a reminder that thousands of American boys have already died for their country in this war, and that many more thousands will inevitably die before victory.
But this Memorial Day weekend ought to stop our busy lives long enough to give more than passing thought to the grim realities of war and the awful tragedies it imposes on so many loyal American families.
These families have committed no crime against society and earned no enmity from any segment of the world’s population, American or foreign. By the mere whim of chance, their sons, fathers, husbands and sweethearts are sacrificing their lives.
Memorial Day was originated in 1868 by John A. Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, who proclaimed the 30th of May a day:
…for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.
This is the 75th Memorial Day. It will be a day of honor the dead of Gettysburg and Bull Run, of Antietam and Vicksburg, the dead of San Juan Hill and Manila, the dead of Chateau Thierry and the Argonne, of Belleau Wood and St. Mihiel.
We cannot strew flowers on the graves of those who have died on Guadalcanal, or before Hill 609, or on Bataan or Attu, or over the ports of Italy or the industrial valleys of Germany, or on the high seas on in China.
To those families already suffering the sorrows of this grimmest and greatest of wars, no words will intone the solemnity of Memorial Day. But those who so far have been untouched by personal tragedy can at least honor this wear’s dead by performing extra work and making small sacrifices without complaint and with a will to do their part toward ending the war by the earliest possible date.
Bob Benchley bemoans his former sins
Actors he once panned now get back at him in Hollywood
By Ernest Foster
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Banker urges slash in war damage rates
Return of surplus funds to policyholders after war advocated
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Allied HQ, North Africa – (by wireless)
During the Tunisian campaign I had a chance to visit the 9th Division only once. I didn’t know a soul in this division, and I drove into their shrub-hidden command post with the same feeling of lonely uneasiness one gets in approaching a strange big city for the first time.
But as we piled out of our jeep, one of the MPs came over and pulled one of these columns out of his pocket – one written way back last winter about the about the Military Police. He laughed and said he’d been waiting a long time for me to show up. He said he knew the Military Police were good, but he didn’t think they were quite as good as I made them out.
This particular soldier was Pvt. Walter Wolfson, of 714 W 181st St., New York. He is a coffee merchant by profession, a radio actor by avocation, and a soldier by the trend of events. Wolfson’s family owns a coffee-importing business – the Empire Coffee Mills, at 323 W 42nd St. He had some newspaper pictures of crowds queueing up at their door to buy coffee after rationing started. His mother and brother run the business while he is away. Wolfson’s sergeant says of him:
If he can sell coffee like he can stop autos, he must have had a good business.
Before he went into the Army, Wolfson was on the “Rainbow House” program. He knows a lot of poetry and opera by heart and is always reciting and singing around camp.
Sergeant digs round foxholes
Wolfson’s sergeant is Charles Harrington, a former mill worker from Gary, Indiana. He is another one with pistol grips made from the windshield of a Messerschmitt, and he carries a picture of his wife in each side of his gun handle.
Sgt. Harrington is the only soldier I’ve ever seen who digs round foxholes instead of rectangular ones. He says that’s literally so it will be harder for strafing bullets to get at him, but figuratively so the Devil can’t get him cornered. He says he’s convinced the adage is true that “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
Running onto those two was a pretty good start in breaking into new territory. So, then we went up to the tent where correspondents always check in and find out what’s going on, and who should be there but Maj. Bob Robb, a old friend of mine from the San Francisco Exposition I met him when he was publicizing the big fair. Then on another trap he and I went out together to visit Jack London’s old home, the Valley of the Moon. And on a later visit to San Francisco, he went with me through the wine country while I was writing some columns about the vineyards. And the last time I had seen him was at the Golden Gate a year and a half ago. He was a lieutenant then, in Army Public Relations at the Presidio – and rapidly going nuts, I might add, from the chaos. To escape that treadmill, he asked for overseas duty, and, boy, did he get it! He was right in the thick of things in the latter phase of the Tunisian campaign, and having the time of his life.
Pvt. Wolfson, Sgt. Harrington, and Maj. Robb have one thing in common with every soldier in the Army – they think their division is the best one extant. Being myself a man without a division, I just agree with them all.
A man without an anecdote
Pfc. Joseph Lorenze is one of my infantry friends out of the 1st Division. His home is at 963 Holly St., Inglewood, California. He’s a nice, quiet, friendly fellow who worked in a furniture factory before the war.
We were together during that unforgettable period when our infantry was fighting day and night for the hills west of Mateur. I wanted to put Lorenze’s name in one of my dispatches, but I told him I didn’t like to use names without having some little anecdote to go with them that would be interesting to everybody. So, while the shells commuted incessantly back and forth overhead, Pvt. Lorenze and I sat in our foxholes and thought and thought, and damned if we could think of a thing to say about him, even though he had been through four big battles. So, finally I said:
Well, I’ll put it in anyhow. You live only half a mile from my friend Cavanaugh, so I’ll hook it up with him some way.
You may remember my friend Cavanaugh. He was in France in the last war when he was 16 years old. This time, he is serving his country by writing me funny letters about the home front, to keep up my morale. In the latest one, he says:
This is just getting around to being a fit country to live in. No gas, no tires, no salesmen, no gadgets, and plenty of whisky to last the duration. Money ain’t worth a damn and I’m glad I’ve lived to see the day. Everybody you talk to has a military secret. I have completed my plans for the postwar world, and I find no place in it for you. Good luck with your frail body, my friend, and try to bring it back to Inglewood sometime. And a can of salmon would be nice too.
So someday Pvt. Lorenze and I will take off our shoes and lie in the grass in Cavanaugh’s backyard and tell him all about our narrow escapes on Hill 428, and not even listen when he tries to get in a word about how it was around Verdun and Vimy Ridge.
U.S. Navy Department (May 30, 1943)
Communiqué No. 395
North Pacific (on Attu Island).
On May 28, U.S. Army troops cleared the Japanese from the easterly and northerly faces of Fish‑Hook Ridge.
On May 29:
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At dawn the enemy counterattacked the right flank of the U.S. Army forces on the Chichagof Valley floor. Except for snipers, this enemy force was annihilated. Preliminary reports indicate that the Japanese casualties were high.
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Unfavorable weather conditions prevented air operations.