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Living standard changes a bit in Solomons jungles
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By B. J. McQuaid
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Allies rain blockbusters on Naples, supply port
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied bombers rocked Naples yesterday with its heaviest raid of the war and made a bold bid to cripple the Axis Sicilian campaign by smashing the enemy’s lines of supply and war production in Italy and Sicily, Allied announcements revealed today.
U.S. Flying Fortresses flew over Naples in waves, dropping hundreds of tons of high explosive and fragmentation bombs, principally on the dock, railroad and arsenal areas in continuation of the raids on the big port begun Wednesday night by British and Canadian Wellingtons. Smoke rose 21,000 feet from the city’s wreckage.
Seventy U.S. Liberator heavy bombers of the Middle East Command joined the assault on Italy by dropping almost 400,000 pounds of bombs on the vital airdrome at Foggia, 80 miles east-northeast of Naples, near the Italian east coast.
At the Sicilian end of the Axis lifeline, the northwestern port of Palermo was subjected to another heavy air assault. Billy Mitchell medium bombers spilled 100 tons of explosives on the city and port areas, starting many fires and causing at least one big explosion in four hours of steady bombardment.
These and other sharp air attacks put the Allied bombing on an around-the-clock basis and synchronized Allied air force operations with the growing fury of the land campaign for Sicily.
A headquarters announcement said the Allies had dropped two million pounds of bombs on the Sicilian eastern ferry terminus of Messina during the last week. Messina, opposite the Italian mainland, was believed to have been rendered useless as a funneling point for Axis reinforcements and supplies. Since the fall of Tunisia two months ago, 2,000 bombers have rained destruction on Messina, making it the most-bombed place in Sicily.
Blockbusters on Naples
The Canadian and British airmen dumped two-ton blockbusters on Naples during the night. Fires were still burning when the Fortresses arrived to wreak new destruction. Industrial areas and the nearby airfields at Pomigliano and Capodichino were among the targets.
Naples is the chief rail and shipping center on the mainland.
The Liberators made “a flaming shambles” of the main and two satellite airfields at Foggia, according to a Middle East communiqué. No Axis fighter opposition was encountered and all planes returned safely.
Observation was difficult during the latter stages of the Palermo raid because the enemy laid a manufactured smokescreen over the harbor to protect ships and port installations.
12 planes bagged
Allied night fighters based on Malta bagged 12 enemy planes during a 24-hour period.
Torpedo-carrying Wellingtons sank a large, heavily laden cargo ship 40 miles east of Olbia, northern Sardinia, and left its escort in flames. Fighter-bombers also attacked and damaged four merchantmen. During the last 12 hours, coastal torpedo planes have sunk or damaged heavily at least 20,000 tons of Axis shipping headed for Sicily.
Reconnaissance photographs of Messina showed a smoldering mass where 150 bombs fell within a few minutes Wednesday. Three large fires were still burning yesterday, including the remains of an ammunition train. Practically every building still standing was smudged with the smoke of countless fires.
An Italian communiqué reported allied raids on the provinces of Alessandria, Savona, Bologna, Parma and Reggio Emilia.
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Draft chiefs ‘undecided’ on induction of fathers
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But would you really want Italy as your ally, considering as how they had only few victories and have been less than a competent ally in the Axis. Them flipping over to the Allies will not make them suddenly good.
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FCC chief hurt when probers seek headlines
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U.S. ‘Baby Flat-Top’ hits 11 subs in record attack
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President told help is needed in vote drives
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By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Nurse Corps vies with WAC for recruits
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By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Aboard a U.S. Navy ship of the invasion fleet – (by wireless, delayed)
Before sailing on the invasion, our ship had been lying far out in the harbor tired to a buoy for several days. Several times a day, “General Quarters” would sound and the crew would dash to their battle stations but always it was a photo plane or perhaps one of our own.
Then we moved into a pier. That very night, the raiders came and our ship got its baptism of fire. I had got out of bed at 3 a.m. as usual to stumble sleepily up to the radio shack to go over the news reports which the wireless had picked up.
There were several radio operators on watch and we were sitting around drinking coffee while we worked. Then around 4 a.m., all of a sudden, “General Quarters” sounded. It was still pitch dark. The whole ship came to life with a scurry and rattling, sailors dashing to stations before you’d have thought they could get their shoes on.
Big guns let loose
Shooting had already started around the harbor so we knew this time it was real. I kept on working and the radio operators did too, or rather tried to work. So many people were going in and out of the radio shack that we were in darkness half the time since the lights automatically went off when the door opened.
Then the biggest guns of our ship let loose. They made such a horrifying noise we thought we’d been hit by a bomb every time they went off. Dust and debris came drifting down from the ceiling to smear up everything. Nearby bombs shook us up, too.
One by one the electric lightbulbs were shattered from the blasts. The thick steel walls of the cabin shook and rattled as though they were tin. The entire vessel shivered under each blast. The harbor was lousy with ships and they were all shooting. The raiders were dropping flares all over the sky and the searchlights on the warships were fanning the heavens.
Four enemy planes downed
Shrapnel rained down on the decks making a terrific clatter. All this went on for an hour and a half. When it was over and everything was added up, we found four planes had been shot down. Our casualties were negligible and no damage was done the ship except little holes from near-misses. Three men on our ship had been wounded.
Best of all, we were credited with shooting down one of the planes!
Now this raid of course was only one of scores of thousands that have been conducted in this war. Standing alone it wouldn’t even be worth mentioning. I’m mentioning it to show you what a little taste of the genuine thing can do for a bunch of young Americans.
As I wrote yesterday, our kids on this ship had never been in action. The majority of them were strictly peacetime sailors, still half-civilian in character. They’d never been shot at, never shit one of their own guns except in practice and because of this they had been very sober, a little unsure and more than a little worried about the invasion ordeal that lay so near ahead of them.
And then, all within an hour and a half, they became veterans. Their zeal went up like one of those shooting graph lines in the movies when business is good. Boys who had been all butterfingers were loading shells like machinery after 15 minutes when it became real. Boys who had previously gone through their routine lifelessly were now yelling with bitter seriousness:
Dammit, can’t you pass them shells faster?
Sailors compare notes
One of my friends aboard ship is Norman Somberg, aerographer third class, of Miami. We had been talking the day before and he told how he had gone two years to the University of Georgia studying journalism and wanted to get in it after the war. I noticed he always added:
If I live through it.
Just at dawn, as the raid ended, he came running up to me full of steam and yelled:
Did you see that plane go down smoking! Boy, if I could get off the train at Miami right now with the folks and my girl there to meet me, I couldn’t be any happier than I was when I saw we’d got that guy.
It was worth a day’s pay to be on this ship the day after the raid. All day long, the sailors went gabble, gabble, gabble, each telling the other how
This crew of sailors had just gone through what hundreds of thousands of other soldiers and sailors had already experienced – the conversion from peaceful people into fighters. There’s nothing especially remarkable about it but it is moving to be on hand and see it happen.