America at war! (1941--) -- Part 2

5108

Die Sowjets als ‚anständige Nation‘ –
Davies und die gleichgestimmten Seelen

dnb. Vigo, 23. Juni –
Roosevelts Sonderbeauftragter für Moskau, Joseph Davies, sprach auf einer Versammlung der kanadisch-sowjetischen Vereinigung über seine Reiseeindrücke in Moskau. Dabei betonte er, daß gegenseitiges Vertrauen und gegenseitige Achtung zwischen der Sowjetunion, Kanada und den USA von besonderer Bedeutung seien. Meinungsverschiedenheiten in ideologischer und religiöser Hinsicht dürften Übereinstimmung und Vertrauen in den lebenswichtigen Fragen in keiner Weise beeinträchtigen.

Mit besonderer Betonung verkündete Davies:

Die Ziele und die Politik der Sowjetunion stimmen sowohl im Kriege als auch im Frieden mit dem überein, was wir und alle anständigen Nationen von Herzen wünschen. Die Sowjetregierung hat den beneidenswerten Ruf, ihr gegebenes Wort gehalten zu haben.

Ein recht bemerkenswertes Urteil über den Bolschewismus, dem, da es aus dem Munde eines Roosevelt sehr nahestehenden Mannes stammt, immerhin einige Bedeutung zukommt. Der Diktator im Kreml mag gelächelt haben, als er von dieser Kriecherei einer Roosevelt-Kreatur erfuhr.

Streik in den USA beendet

dnb. Bern, 23. Juni –
Wie aus Washington gemeldet wird, wurde der Kohlenarbeiterstreik in den USA beendet. Die Bergarbeitergewerkschaft habe die Rückkehr der Kohlenarbeiter an ihre Arbeitsstätten angeordnet. Innenminister Ickes sei im Aufträge der Regierung zum Treuhänder der Bergwerke ernannt worden, unter dem nunmehr die Arbeitsleistung zu vollziehen sei.

5109

Die USA.-Juden gegen Shakespeare

(dnb.)

Im Namen von fünf Millionen Juden hat das American Jewish Committee gefordert und durchgesetzt, daß Shakespeares Kaufmann von Venedig in den nordamerikanischen Theatern nicht mehr aufgeführt wird. Als Begründung wurde angegeben, daß Shakespeares Darstellung des Juden Shylock „für die jüdische Rasse verletzend“ sei. Die Theater kamen der Forderung des in den USA. allmächtigen jüdischen Ausschusses natürlich sofort nach.

5110

U.S. Navy Department (June 24, 1943)

Communiqué No. 422

South Pacific.
On June 20, during the night, a U.S. light surface unit was unsuccess­fully attacked by a Japanese plane in the vicinity of Savo Island.

On June 22‑23, during the night, two U.S. patrol craft were unsuccess­fully strafed by a Japanese floatplane in the vicinity of the Russell Islands.

5111

The Free Lance-Star (June 24, 1943)

U.S. Armed Forces report 87,304 casualties in war

Washington (AP) –
The U.S. Armed Forces have suffered 87,304 announced casualties in all war theaters to date. Of that number, 15,132 were killed in action or died of wounds.

Army casualties total 63,958, Secretary of War Stimson said, and the Navy’s latest list, also issued today, placed Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard losses at 26,902, with 7,604 dead, 4,732 wounded, 11,010 missing and 3,556 prisoners of war in its three branches.

The lull in recent fighting has permitted the Army to complete a tabulation of its casualty reports, Stimson told his press conference, disclosing that the Army lost 7,528 men who were killed in action or died of wounds, 17,128 wounded, 22,687 missing and 16,615 officially reported prisoners of the Japanese, the Germans or the Italians.

The Secretary said:

While our casualties have been heavy, it is certain that in practically all theaters of war in which our troops have been engaged, the enemy’s losses have been much greater than our own.

Expect heavier losses

He added, however, that future military operations are likely to involve much greater numbers of our troops and that correspondingly heavier casualties should be expected.

Thus far, Stimson said, the defensive campaign in the Philippines remains the costliest in casualties. The total, including the Philippine Scouts but not the Philippine Constabulary or the Commonwealth Army, is 31,610. Most of these are presumed to be prisoners, he said, and many have been so reported officially.

Because of the failure to receive casualty reports during the last bitter days of fighting in both Bataan and on Corregidor, the Secretary cautioned that the Philippine casualty figures probably include some duplications, many listed as wounded presumably being also included among the missing and the prisoners, and probably many of those listed as missing being killed or wounded in the final days of combat.

Detailed figures

The Philippines figures, he said, show 1,273 killed, 1,746 wounded, 17,939 missing, and 10,652 prisoners.

For other theaters, he supplies these figures:

ASIA (291): 131 killed, 15 wounded, 85 missing, 60 prisoners.

CENTRAL PACIFIC, INCLUDING PEARL HARBOR (741): 272 killed, 412 wounded, 57 missing, no prisoners.

EUROPE (2,890): 436 killed, 664 wounded, 1,196 missing, 594 prisoners.

LATIN AMERICA (37): 8 killed, 3 wounded, 26 missing, no prisoners.

MIDDLE EAST, INCLUDING 9th AIR FORCE (462): 106 killed, 96 wounded, 214 missing, 46 prisoners.

NORTH AFRICA (18,738): 2,574 killed, 9,437 wounded, 1,620 missing and 5,107 prisoners.

NORTH AMERICA, INCLUDING ALASKA AND GREENLAND (2,324): 864 killed, 1,246 wounded, 214 missing, no prisoners.

SOUTH PACIFIC, INCLUDING GUADALCANAL (2,023): 622 killed, 1,165 wounded, 233 missing, no prisoners.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC, INCLUDING NEW GUINEA (4,842): 1,242 killed, 2,344 wounded, 1,100 missing (including 500 listed after the capture of Java by the Japanese), 156 prisoners.

5112

Army to get 115,000 new planes

…

5113

Nazis hear riots in U.S. ‘explained’

New York (AP) –
The Nazi-controlled Vichy radio asserted today that Detroit’s race riots were symptomatic of:

…the internal disorganization of a country torn by social injustice, race hatreds, regional disputes, the violence of an irritated proletariat and the gangsterism of a capitalistic police.

The broadcast was recorded by CBS.

The rioting was declared to be both a handicap to war production and an indication of the scope of what the radio said was “the moral and social crisis in the United States.”

5114

U.S. planes bomb Makassar

Raid grim warning to Japs of what is yet to come

…

5115

Marine machine-gunner stood off Jap regiment

…

5116

Brooklyn Eagle (June 24, 1943)

Weigh coal rationing

Ickes sees threat as thousands of miners stay out

…

5117

House group votes to make Davis food czar

Ignores President’s wishes by approving measure 18–8

…

5118

Roosevelt faces fight on plan to draft 65s

…

5119

Joan spurns soldier who claims paternity

…

5120

Detroit curbs eased as four probe rioting

Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
Governor Harry F. Kelly ordered further relaxation of his emergency proclamation today as “nearly normal” conditions prevailed and a fact-finding committee inquired into the causes of Detroit’s race riot in which 31 Negroes and whites were killed.

The Governor lifted all restrictions in outlying Oakland and Macomb Counties and extended the Wayne County (Detroit) curfew from 10 a.m. to midnight. He also granted permission for sale of liquor in Wayne County from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Since Monday’s rioting, there has been an absolute ban on sale of alcoholic beverages.

Kelly’s new order, indicative of generally calm conditions, came as authorities sped prosecution of more than 1,300 persons arrested during the bloody riots.

Today’s supplementary order left in effect bans on public assemblies and carrying of firearms. It moved the closing time for places of amusement from 9:15 to 11 p.m., but permitted their opening at 6 a.m.

Kelly urged:

…a generous display of the American flag… to raise the morale and restore the peace of mind of the good citizens of Detroit, who may take comfort in the knowledge that they are under the protection of the greatest free and democratic nation in the world.

5121

22 Brooklyn, Long Island fliers decorated for valor in action

Record set in number of awards

…

5122

Editorial: Establishment of aluminum plant here is logical move

…

5123

Editorial: Not unexpected

…

5124

Editorial: They deserve thanks

…

5125

The Pittsburgh Press (June 24, 1943)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Somewhere in Africa –
We came down one noontime upon a heat-baked desert airdrome in the center of Africa. It was just about as far away from anywhere as I can conceive.

At first, all their gasoline had to be brought a hundred miles by camel train. Even now it is brought across a long desert only by truck, and so sandy and wasted are the trails that it takes nearly as long as by camel.

There are only three dozen American soldiers there to run the airdrome. Were it not for the planes that stop daily for gas, their isolation would be unbearable.

We were on the ground just an hour, and during that hour I discovered that in this fantastically remote spot, two copies of this column arrive every day. One set is passed around among the enlisted men to read, and one among the officers. I suppose it’s the only place in the world where I can say the column is read by 100% of the population. We will table the motion just heard that when you’re that far away from home, you’ll read anything.

And of course, I found a Hoosier there also. Not one but two of them. One was right from the banks of the Wabash. This was Pfc. George Richardson, who gets his mail either through Covington or Gessie, Indiana, just up the road a few miles from my town of Dana. George was a pipefitter’s helper before the war. Now he’s a mechanic.

The other one wore a natty sun helmet and high leather boots, and had a pointed mustache. I thought at first he was an Englishman, but no, he was just Capt. Harold Lawler, of Indianapolis. He had been in this devastating spot six months already, and he didn’t think it was so bad.

We flew nearly all day down the Nile. In my mental pictures of the great river, it had always been dotted with those little Egyptian sailboats with their white sails puffed out, and sure enough, on our very first glimpse – where the White and Blue Nile run together near Khartoum – there were the little sailboats.

It is wretched, tortured and forbidding country on either side of the Nile, but the river creates for itself a sheathing of green loveliness, and for a thousand miles it makes a vivid tracing through its background of gray waste.

I had heard so much about the vast and fertile Nile Valley that I had supposed it was a hundred miles across. Actually, all the way south from Cairo, it is hardly more than 10 miles wide – just a narrow strip of green on each side of the river and then you are suddenly out in the desert again.

At last, I have been to Cairo. To see Cairo and to sit on the terrace of Shepheard’s Hotel at the crossroads of the world and see somebody I knew walk by had been among my minor ambitions for years. Now they have both been realized. The familiar face that passed on Shepheard’s terrace was that of Cliff Henderson, of National Air Races fame.

But there was something about Cairo that made me unhappy. Perhaps it was Cairo’s horn of plenty. I have lived so long now with austerity that austerity has come to seem more honorable than luxury.

Cairo was once frightened, but now all the war danger has receded and the city thrums and throbs as though it had never been afraid at all. The spirit of Cairo is trade, and trade is flourishing. Soldiers are better spenders than the tourists ever were. And you can still buy anything in the world in Cairo, I believe, provided you have enough money. You can get silk stockings ($4 a pair), Bourbon whisky, razor blades (90¢ for a tiny pack), or precious star rubies and emeralds. And you can get fine food.

I went to see the Pyramids in a jeep and found they were too steep for me to climb. The Sphinx did not speak to me, and I decided he was silent because he probably had nothing to say. At Shepheard’s, I shooed away the gully-gully boys, and in Khalili, I was set upon by droves of aspiring merchants who persisted like desert fliers. The spirit that flowed through Cairo irritated and frightened me. Maybe I was all wrong, but I was glad to get out of there.

5126

U.S. Navy Department (June 25, 1943)

Press Release

For Immediate Release
June 25, 1943

U.S. submarine R‑12 (SS-89) lost

The U.S. submarine R‑12 (SS-89), while engaged in training exercises, was lost recently off the East Coast of the United States.

A number of officers and men were unable to escape from the vessel before it sank. The depth of water makes it impossible to salvage the submarine, and hope has been abandoned for recovery of the bodies of the missing personnel. The next of kin have been informed.

Information obtained from survivors indicates that the loss was probably due to accident and not enemy action, and an investigation is now in progress to determine the available facts of the case.

Announcement of this incident was withheld until attempts to locate and raise the R‑12 were discontinued, in order that enemy submarines might not be given information that would enable them to attack the salvage vessels.

5127

Völkischer Beobachter (June 24, 1943)

Nach Davies auch Standley –
Neue Verbeugung vor Moskau

dnb. Stockholm, 24. Juni –
Der USA.-Botschafter in Moskau, Admiral Standley, sprach bei der Überreichung nordamerikanischer Auszeichnungen an Soldaten der Sowjetunion im Kreml die Hoffnung aus, daß die Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Sowjetunion und den USA. auch nach dem Kriege fortdauern werde.

Er prägte dabei einen Satz, der verzeichnet sein soll:

Außer unserem Haß gegen den Feind haben wir noch viel Gemeinsames.

Standley ist einer der Beauftragten Roosevelts, der wie der USA.-Botschafter Davies vom Präsidenten den Auftrag hatte, die Interessen der USA.-Juden mit denen der Kremljuden gleichzuschalten. Ob das USA.-Volk mit der Unterwerfung Washingtons unter die Kremldiktatur einverstanden ist, bleibt abzuwarten.