The Free Lance-Star (June 25, 1943)
Scant support in battle over NYA
House demands scrapping of New Deal-created agency
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No jury probe in riot is planned
Detroit, Michigan (AP) –
Governor Harry F. Kelly said today no grand jury investigation was planned into the race rioting Monday that brought federal troops to restore order on Detroit streets.
The Governor accepted a recommendation of his fact-finding committee of four law enforcement officials that such an inquiry was not needed.
One of the committeemen, Attorney General Herbert J. Rushton, said:
You cannot start a grand jury on hysteria.
Rushton added:
At present there is no evidence upon which a petition for a grand jury could be addressed to any court. When we get evidence that the riot was planned or was inspired by enemy influence, there will be time to think of calling one.
The Pittsburgh Press (June 25, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Africa –
From Cairo, we retraced the whole long trail over which Gen. Montgomery chased Rommel last fall and winter, all the way from Egypt to Tunisia. Lord, what a vast blank distance it is!
The desert in western Egypt and eastern Libya is absolutely flat, absolutely barren. It is like looking down on an endless skating rink.
From the air we could see where the war had been. We could see wrecked and blackened tanks by the score. We could see dumps of abandoned gasoline cans and used boxes, wrecked ships on the beach, crashed planes, and even gun pits that had once poured out steel and death. Everything stood out as though it had been painted, for there was nothing else at all on the desert except these remnants of war.
But the one thing that fascinated me most was the tracks of the tanks and the trucks. Yes, they were still there. The winter’s winds had not covered them up. There were absolutely billions of tracks in the sand, tracks swerving and turning and intertwining as far as you could see. Never was such a plain picture drawn of modern war’s mobility as that grandstand view of the infinite tracks in the sands of Rommel’s defeat.
We stopped over for a day at Tripoli, and I was disappointed in Il Duce’s paradise city. Oh, it was all right, but now take some comparable place like Santa Barbara and you’ve… oh well, let’s skip it.
I rode a truck into town with a bunch of pilots in the afternoon. Some of the boys were looking for bright lights, and they disappeared. Others went to get their haircut. Two more and myself went down to the harbor and stood there for a while looking over a wire fence at all the wreckage.
There were few Italians in the streets, but most of the street population seemed to be British and American soldiers. This was shortly after Tripoli fell, remember.
It didn’t seem to me that what few Italians we saw were having any trouble restraining their joy. We were surprised to see Italian officers in the streets.
The fronts of the downtown buildings were pretty well smacked up by flying bomb fragments, but on the whole, the city wasn’t devastated like Sfax, Gabes and Bizerte. It was mainly the harbor that got it.
Most of the shops were closed but a few were open. There were signs at the airport warning us against drinking any of the local liquor, as it is known to produce ailments ranging from blindness to insanity. But we didn’t see any evidence of any liquor to drink anyhow…
In boredom, we finally wound up in a little teashop, drinking lukewarm coffee and eating soggy little French pastries. The place was packed with 8th Army men. It seemed incongruous that an Italian shopkeeper in a town that had just been conquered should be running around his crowded shop taking in money hand over fist from his conquerors.
Our truck wasn’t due to start back to camp till 4 o’clock, and by 3:30, we had seen all of Tripoli we wanted, so we bought a nickel’s worth of peanuts apiece (for which we paid the equivalent of 20¢) and sat on the floor truck eating them till time to go.
The next morning, we left Tripoli on the last day of our long flight home.
Looking back over Africa, there are a few little brag-mag items I didn’t get around to and haven’t got room to do more than mention here – just a scattering of notes like passing thoughts… I was in one city where second-hand Packards sell today for $20,000 in American money, and where people pay a thousand dollars for tires… Pilots on our ferry routes over here are flying as high as 150 hours a month, the maximum on the airlines back home being 90… In one city, where gasoline is almost extinct, you see dozens of autos with horses hitched to them, being used as taxis… All through Central Africa, the first thing a man does when you are introduced is to whip out his Short-Snorter bill and have you sign it.
Many people are making collections of paper money from different countries, pasting the ends of the bills together with Scotch tape. I saw many rolls so big you couldn’t get them in your pocket, and I saw one more than 35 feet long. In these travels I saw the largest Negro city in the world outside of Harlem (I’m sure you never heard of it), and I saw anthills higher than a two-story house… In one country, the earth is a sort of pinkish red, and when the wind blows, this pink dust settles in a thin coat over everything. Pilots have been startled to look down and see herds of honest-to-goodness pink elephants… That’s enough for today.
U.S. Navy Department (June 26, 1943)
Communiqué No. 423
South Pacific.
On June 24, during the afternoon, a number of Navy Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters strafed a Japanese barge southeast of Vangunu Island, New Georgia Group.
On June 25, during the afternoon, four Japanese twin‑engine bombers unsuccessfully attacked a U.S. light surface unit in the Solomon Islands.
North Pacific.
On June 24, during the afternoon, Army Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers, Mitchell (North American B‑25) and Ventura (Vega B‑34) medium bombers carried out three attacks against Japanese installations at Kiska. Due to poor visibility, results of the attack could not be observed.
U.S. Army patrols have killed 15 more Japanese soldiers on Attu Island.
Memorandum to the Press:
The following information has been released in the South Pacific:
On June 25:
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During the early morning, an unknown number of enemy bombers bombed our positions on the Russell Islands. A few of the U.S. personnel suffered light wounds and some damage was caused to U.S. supply installations.
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During the early morning, a formation of Army Liberators bombed Kahili, Buin Area. A number of fires were started. At about the same time, other Army Liberators attacked Buka Island and started fires.
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Later in the morning, Navy Dauntless dive bombers and Avengers, escorted by Navy Wildcats, attacked Labeti Plantation, Munda Area, New Georgia. No U.S. losses were sustained.
Brooklyn Eagle (June 25, 1943)
RAF RIPS BATTERED RUHR AS U.S. POUNDS AT MESSINA
Sicilian city blasted by record force
100 ‘Forts’ destroy 19 of foe in battle over key rail center
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Flying Fortresses down 100 Nazi planes
Two delayed by bad weather bomb 150ship enemy convoy on way back from Ruhr battle
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More meat in sight but not for weekend
Mayor, back from Washington, promises action – packer to sell direct to consumer
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Pacific air hero with medals, citation
Sgt. Howard Cantor also brings battle stories both grim and funny
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Editorial: Racial hatreds of Hitlerism have counterparts here
The Detroit scene, now tranquillized by the presence of formidable Armed Forces in the city, presents a frightening spectacle upon which Americans should compel themselves to gaze, no matter how unpleasant the experience, for the good of their own souls. Through a thoughtful contemplation of what has happened in this great American city, they may be enabled more fully to realize how thin is the line that separates them from all of the national evils that are symbolized in Nazism.
All that happened in Detroit during those two tragic days of rioting and bloodshed has had its counterpart in virtually every city and town in Germany – the angry mobs on the loose, the looting and the destruction, the ferocious assaults upon innocent men, the murder – all animated by racial hatred, that quality of the Nazi mind which has been viewed by all Americans with the deepest abhorrence.
Events compel a recognition of the fact that the judgments we form on the ideals and the practices of our enemies are not always free from a pharisaical element. The Detroit spectacle proves, to our shame and disgrace, that we are not incapable of bitter and violent racial hatreds, that there are in Americans the same base instincts that have been given free rein in Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler and that have made a once-enlightened nation stand before the world as a symbol of barbarism.
Happily, these outrages at home are of infrequent occurrence and meet with the force of law and of hostile public opinion. Nevertheless, they are a source of national shame and should serve as a warning to all Americans whose concern for the preservation of the ideal of true democracy is deep and sincere, rather than a sham and a pretense – a warning that it can happen here.
The situation in Detroit has been brought under control by the police and the Army but 31 persons have been killed, scores wounded and property has been destroyed. The reign of terror has been ended by force, a solution of the problem which, while better than none, leaves untouched its basic cause – racial hatred.
Americans are fighting today for the achievement of many purposes, not the least of which is the elimination from the world of tomorrow of that spirit which has been dominant in the Germany of Adolf Hitler and has found such shocking expression within recent days in an American city. So long as this spirit flames forth, bringing death and misery to innocent people, Americans will not be free from native Nazism, which is hardly less hideous than the brand that traces its source to Hitler.
The Pittsburgh Press (June 26, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Africa –
Before ending this tropical series, I want to tell you a little about all the flying we did. The total distance was somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 miles – every bit of it in Douglas cargo planes, with the seats replaced by hard tin benches along the sides.
We hauled everything from generals to immense air compressors. Sometimes we would have so much freight that only a few passengers could crawl in on top of it. At other times, we’d have 25 passengers and no freight. We always flew with bigger loads than would be allowed back home.
The work of the Transport Command in running these delivery routes all over the world is one of the war’s most captivating stories, but for security reasons we are permitted to tell about it only in vague generalities. That’s the reason these columns have seemed so jumpy at times – so unspecific about various places down below.
This flying over wildest Africa isn’t haphazard at all, but so meticulously systematic that it is much like flying with Pan American in peacetime.
You stay overnight at Army camps, and around 3 a.m. you are awakened by a professional awakener who tells you where to eat breakfast and what time the bus leaves for the airport. Usually, you are in the air by dawn or a little before. Once in a while you eat a nice lunch on the ground at some airport, but usually your lunch is a big pasteboard box full of jelly sandwiches prepared the night before in some Army kitchen.
Sometimes you fly for several days with the same crew, and you all get well acquainted and become a sort of family, as on Pan Air. It’s much more intimate than flying the domestic airliner at home. The crews are almost invariably friendly and good-humored.
Life is very informal on these long trips. Colonel and privates sleep side by side, and anybody who wants to can walk up front and look over the pilot’s shoulder.
On one trip when we had been out over the ocean for several hours, and everything was going along smoothly and most of the passengers were asleep, I decided to go up front and chin with the pilots for a while. The sight that greeted me when I opened the cabin door would have brought heart failure to an airline traveler back home. For one pilot was rolled up in a blanket on the floor, sound asleep, and the other pilot was snoring away in his seat, and the sergeant flight mechanic was flying the plane.
But that’s nothing. Once in a great while, they’ll put the plane on the automatic pilot and the whole crew will come back and chat with the passengers, just to see how nervous they act.
These ferry crews are doing a superlative job. Those tin seats get might hard on a long trip. Also, despite the tropical heat below, it is often cold at high altitudes.
You can always tell a veteran ferry-line traveler by what he carries and how he acts on the plane. Being an old hand at it now myself, I always carry a loose blanket and take a musette bag into the cabin. As soon as we are in the air, I push a few people’s feet aside, spread the blanket on the floor and lie down, using the musette bag as a pillow. Some of the more fastidious travelers even bring air mattresses. The best bed of all is a stack of mailsacks, but sometimes there aren’t any mailsacks.
It’s going to cramp my style, when I get home and fly the regular airline again, not to be able to stretch out on the floor as soon as we get in the air.
When nature turns on the spring heat in the desert countries, it seems to boil its fury clear up into the skies, and the result is almost constantly rough air. It took us about six days to cover 8,000 miles from the Congo back to North Africa, and every one of those six days it was rough, I’ve never seen such continuous rough air in my life.
One of our pilots on the long haul was Capt. Wayne Akers, of Memphis. At one of the lunch stops, he got out of the plane and said:
God, that even made me sick.
For some strange reason, I never got sick once during the whole trip, but plenty of the others did, and how, I think one of the funniest sights of the war occurred during one of those violent all-day rides – a British general and an American private kneeling side by side on the floor, their heads close together over the same bucket, their ranks and their nationalities utterly forgotten in their common bond of wishing they were dead.
The Afro-American (June 26, 1943)
DETROIT RIOT TOLL 25
Roosevelt orders military to take city
200 wounded in hospitals, 600 receive minor injuries; 1,300 arrested; damage $250,000; 75% of police in colored area
By T. John Wood
Detroit, Michigan (ANP) –
Under military control by order of President Roosevelt, Detroit settled down to normal Tuesday after 36 hours of bloody rioting in which 25 persons were killed, 200 wounded to a hospital degree, 600 received minor injuries, over 1,300 were placed under arrest and property damage estimated at approximately $250,000.
The list of dead included 22 colored, most of them killed by police who concentrated in the colored area while white rioters took over the downtown section of the city, and three whites, alleged to have been killed in isolated fights with colored citizens.
Police were still checking rumors of the cause of the riot as conflicting stories of isolated incidents between colored and whites at Belle Isle, a bone of contention for the past four years, continued to pour in.
The only eyewitnesses to early skirmishes at Belle Isle late Sunday evening were Miss Gladys House and Thomas Bachelor who said they saw a crowd of approximately 50 white persons chasing a small colored boy.
Within a few seconds, they said, colored people became involved in the affair which spread like wildfire from the interior of the park to the exits and thence to the center of the city which has been virtually sitting on a powder keg for over a year.
Beginning in Detroit’s famed Paradise Valley, and continuing on to the north end up Hastings, Brush, St. Antoine and John R. Sts., colored persons stopped every passing automobile, scanning its occupants for possible white passengers who were promptly taken out and beaten.
Streetcar conductors and motormen were pulled to the street, beaten and chased from the neighborhoods. Streetcar traffic was rerouted around the danger area and military shore police, manning machine-guns and other artillery, entered the danger zone seeking out servicemen.
By 8 p.m., Monday, whites had formed a line approximately four miles long on Woodward Ave. and beat up a colored man who attempted to break through. Stopping all cars, they dragged colored motormen and conductors to the street where they beat them and chased them over to the colored lines.
Over a dozen automobiles were burned in both the colored and white lines as the rioters continued their efforts to break through police cordons for a showdown.
Vandalism and looting in the colored section continued until every white-owned store, pawnshop, tavern and market had been cleaned of merchandise; at one corner, a man virtually went into business selling goods from a looted store.
At another corner, shoes were sold for as low as 10¢ a pair. Approximately 75% of the city’s police force was concentrated in the colored neighborhoods where they beat up bystanders as well as rioters. Three of the colored persons killed were reported to have been shot in cold blood.
The streets were littered with glass and red dust from bricks that had been pulverized after being thrown at passing cars.
Women take part
Women as well as men and boys, both colored and whites, joined parties assaulting motorists who drove through the danger zones. Police used tear gas to scatter crowds that increased in number as the day wore on. A radio reported that the riot was getting out of hand.
Heaviest fighting occurred between Vernor Highway and Eliot Sts. late Monday evening.
Early Monday, police turned over a sound truck to colored leaders who attempted to urge colored people to stop rioting and vandalism. The response to these pleas had a negative effect as women asked:
What about the killing of our colored troops in the Army – how about the Texas riots?
Monday afternoon, Police Commissioner John Witherspoon deputized 250 colored men as special police to keep order in their neighborhoods; theirs, as well as the efforts of the city police only inflamed colored people who were boiling with resentment over the shooting of colored persons by policemen while officers stood by and watched whites beat colored persons into insensibility.
Every colored leader in the city attended a mass meeting Monday where Mayor Edward J. Jeffries was told to:
Tell the police to stop murdering colored people and stop this riot.
R. J. Thomas, president of the CIO, again told the mayor that the riot was organized by the Ku Klux Klan and other fifth-columnists and demanded immediate action by local, state and federal law enforcement bodies.
On Monday, defense production was cut down to 40% usual capacity. Tuesday morning’s reports said that approximately 80% of war workers had returned to their jobs.
Riots, strikes and lynching
DETROIT, MICHIGAN: 25 dead, 600 injured, 1,300 arrested after 36 hours of rioting.
BEAUMONT, TEXAS: Two killed, scores injured, hundreds of thousands of property damage.
EL PASO, TEXAS: One colored soldier killed, one white soldier injured at Fort Bliss.
MARIANNA, FLORIDA: Mob takes Cellos Harrison from jail and lynches him.
WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA: 3,600 tobacco workers strike for higher pay, better conditions.
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: Many colored miners and steelworkers affected by continuing coal strike.
War riots 1917-21
EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS (May 27-30 – July 1-3, 1917): 39 colored killed, 8 whites. Hundreds of colored wounded and maimed. Cause: Importation of colored laborers from the South. Objection of labor unions to this importation. Use of colored laborers as strike breakers. 312 buildings, 44 railroad cars burned.
HOUSTON, TEXAS (August 23, 1917): 2 colored, 18 whites killed. Cause: Friction between the city police and colored soldiers, especially the colored military soldiers.
CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA (July 26-28, 1918): 3 colored killed, 5 whites. Cause: Bad political conditions. Influx from South and inflamed sentiment against colored persons.
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA (July 26-29, 1918): 1 colored killed, 3 whites. Cause: Objection to colored persons moving on Ellsworth St.
WASHINGTON, DC (July 19-23, 1919): 3 colored, 4 whites killed. Cause: Alleged attacks on white women.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (July 21 – August 2, 1919): 21 colored, 17 whites killed. Injured: 283 colored. Hundreds of homes wrecked and burned. Cause: Whites stoned colored lad swimming at public beach. He drowned.
TULSA, OKLAHOMA (May 31 – June 1, 1921): 21 colored, 10 whites killed.
Nazis gloat over riots
A broadcast from the Nazi-controlled radio in Paris announced Monday night that the Governor of Michigan had proclaimed military law in Detroit.
Steps were taken after violent rioting between white and black workers broke out in factories where 9,000 floormen had gone on strike.
During Monday, eleven workers were killed and over 500 wounded during the riot.
The 6:30 broadcast from Germany, according to the Reuters report from New York, told that district, that citizens of Detroit, well-known U.S. armaments center, were striking against colored residents there. There were some fatal casualties. More than 700 persons were injured. A state of siege was declared in Detroit.
The above is the radio broadcast propaganda which usually follows within a day or so.
Nothing has been heard over the Japanese radio stations yet, but mention is expected shortly.
Nazi pogroms tame to Texas rioters
Sailor in uniform leads mob that burns, pillages stores, clubs citizens
By Ralph Matthews, editors of the Washington Afro-American
Beaumont, Texas –
A weekend of terror, worse than anything visited upon the Jews by Nazi fanatics at the height of their pogroms, was experienced by the colored population of this swollen war industry town last week.
Two men are dead, scores are injured and the homes and businesses of thrifty people for blocks on end have been burned and pillaged.
Property estimated at thousands of dollars on two whole streets which constituted the colored business sections in two sections of the city was destroyed.
Marauders, several hundred strong, prowled the streets with guns, clubs and torches, setting fire to buildings after looting them of all portable goods, beating and clubbing innocent people luckless enough to be caught on the streets.
Fifth column – hate
Although much credence is given in the white press to the charge that the riot was instigated by Axis agents, it is now known that the only fifth column at work in Beaumont was the fifth column of pure, unadulterated prejudice and jealousy over workers who have been putting their war earnings to good use, improving their businesses and their economic progress being made by the colored homes.
Many cases are advanced for the riot. The report that a white woman was raped, while the spark which set off the trouble, has been admitted even by the authorities to have been wholly false after two physicians who examined the alleged victim reported they could find no signs of an attack having been committed.
No rape committed
Army authorities who set up martial law over the city were so convinced no rape had been committed, that they advised enforcement officers in different sections of the state who were bringing every vagrant to Beaumont for investigation to cease their search and save the city expense.
In the meantime, court martial proceedings examined more than 300 hoodlums picked up during the night of rioting, carrying firearms and loaded with loot from colored homes. They were let off with a legal tap on the wrist.
Up to Sunday, only ten of the 300 were being held for court action and the remainder had either been dismissed or had been fined $25 for carrying weapons.
Cold-blooded murder
Authorities promised to make a thorough probe of the cold-blooded murder of 54-year-old John Johnson, who was shot to death on the platform of an ice company where he was performing his night chores with no knowledge that the mobsters were abroad.
On Saturday, while his wife, Mrs. Beaulah Johnson, of 580 Emmett St., the mother of a 3-year-old child, sought help to bury her husband, police visited the undertaking establishment where the body was already embalmed and extracted the bullets which had caused his death in the hope of comparing it with the revolvers taken from the rioters.
Committee named
A committee of substantial white citizens, manufacturers and businessmen called a meeting Monday morning at which they planned to take inventory of damage done and reestablish the victims in business. A colored committee (consisting of Dr. L. S. Melton, dentist; Prof. A. L. Price, public school principal, and Sol White, pharmacist) has been appointed to confer with the group.
Mr. White, a native of Beaumont and a large property holder, whose late father was credited with being one of the wealthiest men in the city, had two drugstores burned and looted and several homes which he rented destroyed.
Texas riot at a glance
Homes and businesses of innocent people for blocks on end have been burned and pillaged.
Whites were embittered because colored shipyard workers earned enough to permit their wives to remain at home rather than go out to service.
A mob stole ration goods from a leading restaurant and burned it down. The proprietor hid the colored workers.
The mob which attacked one home was armed with guns, clubs and torches and included women and was led by a sailor in uniform.
The day of the riot was set for June 19 on which day Texas colored people usually celebrate the emancipation celebration.