Defeat at Attu may make Japs shift defenses
Yanks kill 1,500 of enemy on island, take only four prisoners
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U.S. South Pacific sailors find action despite ‘lull’
Letters from commanders tell of life on board warships during comparative inactivity
By B. J. McQuaid
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U.S. West Coast bombed twice by enemy planes
Eyewitness tells of attack near Oregon hamlet in early morning last September
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Allied HQ, North Africa – (by wireless)
Men and machines have both now passed their shakedown period in this war – at least here in North Africa. Men who weren’t up to their jobs have largely been culled out and given different work. There are still some inept ones in office jobs, but among the line troops the mill of experience has pretty well ground out the weaklings, the freaks, and the misfits.
And it’s the same with machinery and weapons. Some things have proved themselves almost useless. Others have turned out so perfectly that the engineers would have to scratch their heads to think of any change in design.
In the mechanical end of our African war, three American vehicles stand out above all the others. They are the jeep, the GMC two-and-a-half-ton truck, and the Douglas DC-3 cargo plane.
The DC-3, known in the Army as the C-47, is the workingest airplane in existence, I suppose. It lifts incredible loads, and takes terrific beatings from rough fields, hard handling, and overuse. Almost any pilot will tell you it is the best airplane ever built.
The GMC truck does the same thing in its field. It hauls big loads, it is easy to drive and easy-riding, and the truck driver can do practically anything with it up to an outside loop. It seldom gets stuck, and if it does it can winch itself out. The punishment it will take is staggering.
Jeep goes everywhere
And the jeep – good Lord, I don’t think we could continue the war without the jeep. It does everything, goes everywhere. It’s as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule, and as agile as a goat. It consistently carries twice what it was designed for, and still keeps on going. It doesn’t even ride so badly after you get used to it.
I have driven jeeps thousands of miles, and if I were called upon to suggest changes for a new model, I could think of only one or two little things.
One is the handbrake. It’s perfectly useless – won’t hold at all. They should either design one that works or else save metal by having none at all.
And in the field of acoustics, I wish they could somehow fix the jeep so that at certain speeds the singing of those heavy tires wouldn’t sound exactly like an approaching airplane. That little sound effect has caused me to jump out of my skin more than once. Except for those two trivial items the jeep is a divine instrument of wartime locomotion.
Only once in my long and distinguished jeep career have I ever had anything go wrong. That time the gears got all mixed up and the thing wouldn’t come out of low gear. It was while we were still fighting around Mateur.
There’s repair depot
Our road was under heavy German shellfire, so the only thing we could do was to take off cross-country and make a wide circle around the shell-infested area. We drove through shoulder-high barley fields, along foot-wide goat trails, up over hills, down steep banks, across creeks, and over huge rockbeds. Then just as we hit the main road and were out in the free again, this gear thing happened.
We still had 20 miles ahead of us, and there was nothing to do but keep on going in low gear. Luckily, we hadn’t gone more than a mile when we saw a little sign denoting an Armored Force repair depot. We drove in just on a chance, and sure enough they said they could fix the jeep. They not only fixed it but gave us supper while we waited, and were extremely pleasant about the whole thing. That’s better service than you get in the States.
The boss man of this outfit was Lt. George P. Carter, of Louisa, Kentucky. He had intended becoming a doctor, and had just finished his premedical course, but now he’s a doctor of heavy machinery. His gang retrieves tanks and repairs them, and keeps all the mighty rolling equipment of an armored division in order. To them, fixing a jeep is like a boilermaker fixing a watch, but they can do it.
The mechanic who fixed our gears was Sgt. Walter Harrold, of Wadena, Minnesota. Already that day his outfit had been forced to move twice. German artillery had got their range once, and they were dive-bombed another time.
Sgt. Harrold had been working and moving and dodging all day and would have to work some more that night, yet he worked on our jeep with as much interest as though it were his own. You can tell a mechanic at heart even on a battlefield. Or maybe I should say especially on a battlefield.
Davis orders rationing of canned milk
Red stamps in Book No. 2 to be used; babies, invalids benefit
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Pal of German saboteurs is draft dodger
Claims he’s a minister after one lesson on Bible
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Is it the maharaja of indore or bhopal?
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The former:
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U.S. Navy Department (June 3, 1943)
Communiqué No. 400
North Pacific.
On June 1, on Attu Island, U.S. Army troops combed scattered areas and by noon had eliminated minor groups of Japanese troops encountered.
It is further reported that the known Japanese dead on Attu Island total 1,791. This figure does not include the unknown number killed by artillery fire and bombs. Such casualties were either cremated or buried by the Japanese.
On June 1, formations of Army Mitchell (North American B‑25) and Ventura (Vega B‑34) medium bombers, Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) and Warhawk (Curtiss P‑40) fighters bombed and strafed Kiska. Hits were scored on the Japanese main camp area, runway and gun emplacements. A number of Canadians piloting Warhawks participated.
South Pacific.
During the evening of May 31, Liberator (Consolidated) heavy bombers attacked Japanese installations at Tinputs Harbor and Numa Numa Harbor on the northeast coast of Bougainville Island. Numerous large fires were started. In addition, two small Japanese vessels off Tinputs were bombed. One of these vessels was damaged and beached.
Press Release
For Immediate Release
June 3, 1943
Enemy submarine blown in two by Navy patrol plane
An enemy submarine was blown in two several months ago by depth bombs from a Navy Catalina patrol plane which surprised the undersea craft in South Atlantic waters as its crew members apparently were taking sun baths.
The submarine was blown out of the water. The plane’s crew reported that as it rose it broke, and several objects which looked like long cylindrical tanks floated up among the spouting debris and wreckage. The stern of the submarine then rose vertically out of the water, to a height of 8 or 10 feet, bobbed up and down, and then plunged straight down in the rough seas.
The Pittsburgh Press (June 3, 1943)
DOOR-TO-DOOR MILK DELIVERY TIE-UP EASED
Union to haul single loads half of time
OPA will permit motor trips to dairies for home purchases
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Back-to-mines order due; Roosevelt upholds WLB
Wagner denounces Lewis for ‘blasphemous’ plea under labor act
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Editorial: Do we have power to win this war?
Must this nation lose the war because our government lacks power to do the things necessary to win it?
Must American soldiers, sailors and fliers die in vain because they were betrayed at home?
It’s time to ask these questions; because the strikes that developed this week have passed the limit of ordinary labor disputes.
They are strikes against the government, aimed at destroying policies which the government holds to be essential to the war effort.
John L. Lewis called out a half-million coalminers because he wants to break up the War Labor Board and force wage increases which the government holds would start disastrous inflation. He has placed his will and his lust for power above national welfare.
The various truck strikes are also against the government. They are aimed at forcing the Office of Defense Transportation to abandon delivery instructions intended to conserve gasoline so there will be enough for the Armed Forces. Because of them American people are being denied milk and other necessities, in the hope that hunger and suffering will make the government modify its policies.
During May – when our forces were winning a glorious but bloody victory in Tunisia and were battling savage Japanese in the snows and fog of Attu – there were more strikes than in any month since Pearl Harbor. They involved the production of such military essentials as tanks and rubber.
We keep hearing about “labor’s no strike pledge.” But almost daily that pledge is broken with impunity. And a government which thinks it is strong enough to
‘Glorified WPA project’ –
Interned Japs use autos for fun, Congressman says
‘Soft’ treatment in relocation centers assailed; youth movement is investigated
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I DARE SAY —
They enjoy poor health
By Florence Fisher Parry
Not long ago, I went to see a woman who was celebrating her 100th birthday. The house was heavy with the hush you feel only when in some temple. Soft padded voices bade me ascend the cushioned stairs. When I was ushered into her presence, I was made to feel that I was approaching a shrine.
She lay in her bed like some exquisite doll. Her hands spread delicately over the fine lace spread. Her face was like the inside of a seashell, iridescent and lovely. Her eyes held the look of a little child’s, and when she spoke, her voice was a pure immature treble.
Her spinster daughter lovingly explained:
Mama has always been delicate. When Papa married her, she was not expected to live long. It was a miracle how she had all her children. We always took care of her from the time we were little. Papa called her his Dresden doll.
I looked at the picture of Papa. He had died many years ago, worn out from anxieties. Most of the children were dead too. Dear fragile Mama had outlived them all.
When I was a young woman, I knew two remarkable men who were pinned down by ailing wives. It is hard to estimate how far these men might have gone if they had been free to follow the direction of their genius. But they had to spend every available moment looking after their wives. They both died very young, at the height of their promise.
Their wives promptly regained their health, have basked in the security and independence their husbands had provided them, and have led busy, useless lives ever since.
Willful ‘invalid’
For years I had a friend who was possessed of extraordinary talent. Her native endowment amounted almost to genius. She could have been a brilliant writer, a peerless actress; her versatility was astounding. But just as she dramatized and heightened everything that touched her, she dramatized her “health” – or rather her lack of it. She was the most interesting self-made invalid I ever knew.
Somehow, she was able to make her ailments fascinating; even doctors fell under the spell of her extraordinary self-diagnoses.
As a matter of fact, her only disability was her inability to utilize her great gifts. She had a generous income and was cursed with the laziness that came from a long line of utterly UNcontributory aristocrats. Her “ailments” were her rationalization of that laziness. She had to find an excuse for making no use of her birthright and talents, and chronic invalidism was the perfect solution.
There was no way to jerk her out of her fond delusion that she was a sick woman.
She indulged, I remember, the daily luxury of an afternoon rest. Never mind how urgent the occasion that might threaten this siesta, she was adamantine, and had that rest, cost what it might to others. One afternoon, after a particularly lazy day, she announced that she was going to rest up.
“FROM WHAT?” I demanded; my patience gone. She burst into laughter and admitted:
I AM a fraud, aren’t I?
But blandly kept on being an invalid until Nature, finally coerced, fell in with her, and now she is indeed a hopeless psychopathic case.
No time for frauds
Now with all due respect to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (whose Sonnets from the Portuguese are lovely songs), I suspect that she has been the prototype of all too many ailing ladies whom the war is just now showing up. There’s simply no place for them in the present desperate day.
And I predict that one of the most salutary improvements that will come out of this war is the weeding out of thousands of Elizabeth Barrett Brownings. Nobody has time to pay any attention to them, and deprived of an audience upon whom to perpetuate their fancied symptoms, they will be forced out of their pretense and become – let us pray – passably normal creatures.
There’s simply no time anymore to be self-centered. There’s scarcely time even to be legitimately sick. We can’t nurse so much as a headache. And the doctors remaining on the home front are suddenly so busy trying to take care of really sick patients, that they haven’t time to spare for the frauds. And this will be a good thing for them, too; for to lose a lot of bedside palaver will be good for their souls. There was too much of this going on before the war anyway.
United Nations delegates end food sessions
Delegates going to Washington for Roosevelt’s congratulations
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