GOP still views Dewey as 1944 ‘ace in hole’
Counts him among foremost candidates despite aides’ denials
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The Free Lance-Star (June 28, 1943)
General asserts victory nearing
McNarney tells Senate final triumph is approaching; Japs withdrawing
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The Pittsburgh Press (June 28, 1943)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
North Africa – (by wireless)
Our last day was as interesting as any one of the whole trip. We took off early from Tripoli, and most of us were glad to get on our way. Fighting was then still going on in central Tunisia, and the Luftwaffe was active, so we made a wide circle around to the south.
We flew for many hours. The air was bitterly rough, and it seemed to us we would never get anywhere. We were over the Sahara, and I have never seen desert so utterly void of anything as the desert that was then beneath us. It was the billowing, spaceless kind of desert you see in the romantic movies – yellow and luscious enough to eat. It was truly beautiful in a ghastly, naked sort of way. Down among those rippled dunes no life could long exist.
Once I walked up into the cockpit, Lt. Richard Litsey Jr., of Sherman, Texas, was flying the plane, and he said:
How are you going to describe what this looks like?
I told him I didn’t think I could describe it, and he said he too felt completely incapable of picturing it, to anybody else. Then he said:
Let’s go down and take a good look.
And down we started. The other passengers were either sick or asleep, and I’m sure it didn’t help their repose when we unexpectedly started going down, down, down, over that remote, lifeless no-man’s-land of infinite sand. We went down until we were only a few feet above the ridges of the dunes, and down there we discovered to our amazement that these dunes were sometimes two and three hundred feet high. Their rippled sides were so beautiful they made you feel sad.
Four hours we flew over this lovely, tortured segment of the world. Finally, we came out into the suburbs of the desert – foothills and occasional oases. I began to recognize it as country I had traveled over by truck when we went to search for some crashed planes last winter.
And then at last, we flew over the very airdrome where I had spent so many weeks at the beginning of the year. It looked lonely and forsaken down there now – for we had abandoned it long ago, driven out by the continuously flying sand.
At last, we came over northern Algeria, and to the last hour of our homeward flight. By now it was late in the day, and everybody was in a tense, expectant, homecoming spirit. Even the sick ones couldn’t help feeling an animation. The pilots seemed to feel it more than anybody else. They kept the plane only a few feet off the ground, and it seemed we must be going 500 miles an hour. Flocks of sheep ran wildly before us. Arabs stopped their oxen in the fields and ducked as we flew over them. The plane banged and bounced and tore on into the mountain passes ahead of us as though it had its teeth bared.
As I have said before, northern Algeria is incredibly beautiful. Its great ridges and green forests and gentle valleys and white clouds are a divine progeny such as nature seldom conceives. We roared into and through this spectacular beauty – sometimes almost scraping the red roofs of Arab villages perched on nearly inaccessible peaks, sometimes twisting through narrow passes that we passengers swore were not wide enough for our wings, sometimes soaring out over ledges that dropped down thousands of feet and left us suddenly motionless, it seemed, above the patchwork valleys far below.
And finally, we came home, or to what we who are now so long out of America have come to call home.
The long peril and agony of travel was over. It was a gigantic relief to feel the ultimate ground underneath us again. We piled out with an inner feeling of accomplishment that practically made us individual heroes to ourselves. We emerged as though expecting some welcoming throng at the airdrome to break into uncontrolled cheers in our honor.
Fortunately, no such thing happened. For as I climbed down the ladder, I caught a heel on the narrow steps, lost my balance, and fell sprawling into the ground. I tore my pants, and skinned my knee nastily.
It was my only accident in nearly 15,000 miles of travel. But so high were our spirits at being home again that even the burning in my knee felt good.
U.S. Navy Department (June 29, 1943)
Communiqué No. 427
South Pacific.
On June 28:
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Early in the evening a formation of Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers and Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers, escorted by Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters, attacked Japanese positions at Rekata Bay, Santa Isabel Island. The bombing created so much smoke and dust that observation of the results of the attack was difficult.
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During the evening, a formation of Dauntless dive bombers and Avenger torpedo bombers, escorted by Wildcat fighters, attacked Munda, New Georgia Island. A number of fires were started in the defensive position area, in ammunition dumps and in the camp section.
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During the night, U.S. planes bombed a small Japanese naval disposition in the Central Solomons Area. Results were not observed.
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All U.S. planes returned from these attacks.
North Pacific.
On June 27, during the day, Navy Ventura (Vega PV) medium bombers, Army Mitchell (North American B‑25) medium bombers and Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers carried out six attacks against Japanese installations at Kiska. Hits were scored on the main camp and at the North Head area. All U.S. planes returned.
On June 28, Army Mitchell medium bombers and, Navy Ventura medium bombers attacked Japanese positions at Kiska and Little Kiska. Because of weather conditions, complete observation of the results of the attacks was not possible, but hits were reported on houses at Little Kiska. All U.S. planes returned.
Brooklyn Eagle (June 29, 1943)
WALLACE RAPS JESSE JONES AS A ‘WAR OBSTRUCTIONIST’
Charges RFC chief stalls key supplies
Asks Congress make BEW a financially independent body
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OPA blames Congress for meat shortage
Control of prices from farm to home proposed by Elkington to end crisis
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100 Forts raid Leghorn, hit Axis cruiser
4 Italian supply ships struck – oil refineries set ablaze
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Invasion begins eve of 4th, Axis observers say
Report mammoth fleet along 1,200-mile African coast poised to strike
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Federal agents believed to be probing strikes
Chrysler production returns to normal, 2,200 back to work
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