U.S. ‘Baby Flat-Top’ hits 11 subs in record attack
Escort carrier sinks two, ‘probably’ gets right others, besides protecting two convoys
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President told help is needed in vote drives
Reports are gloomy, old-line politicians say; Hopkins’ policy assailed
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Nurse Corps vies with WAC for recruits
Uniform, insignia, pay offered in drive for 65,000 members
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.
Völkischer Beobachter (July 17, 1943)
Weiter schwere Schiffsverluste des Gegners –
Fortgang der harten Kämpfe in Sizilien
dnb. Rom, 16. Juli –
Das Hauptquartier der italienischen Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Vom Gebiet von Agrigent bis zur Ebene von Catania boten italienische und deutsche Einheiten, zäh und tapfer kämpfend, dem beständigen An sturm starker feindlicher Einheiten Front. Dem Feinde wurden erhebliche Verluste an Panzern beigebracht.
Unsere Torpedoflugzeuge erneuerten ihre Angriffe auf Schiffe und Landungsfahrzeuge. Sie versenkten einen Handelsdampfer von 10.000 BRT. und beschädigten drei weitere Einheiten von insgesamt 29.000 BRT.
Italienische und deutsche Kampf- und Sturzkampfflugzeuge griffen mit gutem Erfolg englischen und amerikanischen Schiffsraum längs der sizilianischen Ostküste an.
Bei den Kampfhandlungen der Luftwaffe zeichneten sich in diesen Tagen folgende Einheiten besonders aus: der 43. Kampffliegersturm, die 113. Torpedofliegergruppe, die 121. Sturzkampffliegergruppe.
Neapel, Foggia und Genua waren das Ziel feindlicher Luftangriffe. In Neapel sind Schäden und Opfer zu beklagen. Vier viermotorige Flugzeuge wurden von unseren Jägern über Neapel vernichtet.
Auch auf Ortschaften der Provinzen Alessandria, Savonna, Bologna, Parma und Reggio Emilia wurden Spreng- und Brandbomben abgeworfen, die der Bevölkerung leichte Verluste zufügten. Zwei viermotorige Flugzeuge wurden von der Bodenabwehr getroffen und stürzten ab. Das eine Flugzeug stürzte bei Traversetolo (Parma), das andere bei Mirandola (Modena) ab. Einige Besatzungsangehörige wurden gefangengenommen.
Elf feindliche Torpedoflugzeuge wurden von Schiffseinheiten sowie von Flugzeugen abgeschossen, die als Bedeckung für unsere Geleitzüge eingesetzt waren.
Höchste Abschußziffer der Materialschlacht –
An einem Tag 530 Sowjetpanzer vernichtet
Die feindliche Landungsflotte verlor vor Sizilien 52 Schiffe mit 300.000 BRT.
dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 16. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Die schweren Kämpfe in der Mitte der Ostfront hielten auch gestern bei schlechtem Wetter an. Der Angriff unserer Truppen nördlich Bjelgorod gewann weiter Raum und führte zur Einkesselung einer starken feindlichen Kräftegruppe. Die Gegenangriffe des Feindes ließen in diesem Frontabschnitt infolge der in den bisherigen Kämpfen erlittenen schweren Verluste an Stärke nach.
Dagegen führten die Sowjets mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkrälten Entlastungsangriffe an der gesamten Front von Kursk bis Ssuchinitschi. Sie wurden überall blutig abgewiesen und dabei allein im Bereich einer Armee über 250 feindliche Panzer abgeschossen.
Insgesamt verloren die Sowjets gestern in der großen Schlacht 530 Panzer.
Die Luftwaffe unterstützte trotz des schlechten Wetters die Kämpfe der Erdtruppen und schoß 49 Flugzeuge ab.
In Südsizilien schlugen deutsche und italienische Truppen auch gestern zahlreiche gegen die Linie Agrigento südlich Catania vorgetragene britisch-nordamerikanische Angriffe ab und fügten dem Feind schwere Panzerverluste zu.
Deutsch-italienische Luftstreitkräfte griffen bei Tage und bei Nacht die Schiffsansammlungen vor der sizilianischen Küste mit gutem Erfolg an. Mehrere feindliche Transportschiffe wurden versenkt oder schwer beschädigt.
In der Zeit vom 10. bis 14. Juli einschließlich verlor die feindliche Landungsflotte mindestens 52 Schiffe mit zusammen rund 300.000 BRT. Zahlreiche weitere Schiffe und Landungsboote erhielten Treffer.
Bei einem Angriff auf ein deutsches Geleit im Mittelmeer schossen Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine und Marinebordflak sieben feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
In der vergangenen Nacht griffen feindliche Fliegerkräfte wie immer unter Verletzung des Schweizer Hoheitsgebietes einige Orte in Ostfrankreich an. Dabei erlitt die Bevölkerung erhebliche Verluste. Einzelne Störflugzeuge überflogen das nördliche und südwestliche Reichsgebiet. Luftverteidigungskräfte brachten am gestrigen Tage und in der vergangenen Nacht 14 britisch-nordamerikanische Flugzeuge zum Absturz.
Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge stießen in der Nacht zum 16. Juli in den Raum von London vor.
Unterseeboote versenkten im Angriff gegen Geleitzüge und Einzelfahrer, die durch Luft- und Seestreitkräfte stark gesichert waren, acht Schiffe mit 51.000 BRT. und einen Transportsegler.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 17, 1943)
FIFTH OF SICILY OCCUPIED
Axis planes driven from island
Enemy fights fiercely on plain near Catania; British reported six miles from port; Canadian soldiers capture key communications center
Four more towns fall to the advancing U.S. and British troops in Sicily as the invasion of the Italian island enters its second week. By capturing Lentini, 15 miles south of Catania, Scordia, Grammichele and Caltagirone, the Allied forces eliminated two Axis salient. The British 8th Army was within 15 miles of Catania. Meanwhile, Allied planes blasted Axis air bases in Italy and the San Giovanni ferry terminal from Sicily (lower left map) while British-based bombers smashed at communications in northern Italy.
Allies capture 4 more towns
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied armies, pushing ahead 10 miles to capture the communications center of Caltagirone, have seized one-fifth of 10,000-square-mile Sicily and smashed northward on the east coast against stiff resistance to the Catania plain sector.
Part of the estimated 60,000 Germans and 264,000 Italians on the island made strong stands on river banks that cross the Catania plain and provide natural defense lines.
The Algiers radio reported the British were less than six miles from Catania, key communications center.
Although the Catania plain, which was opened to the Allies after a hard battle in which Lentini was seized, was generally easier terrain, the Gornalunga, Dittaino and Simeto Rivers cut through the plain to points within 10 miles of Catania port. Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery sent British armor northward from the Augusta sector.
Threaten airfields
The Allied advances, however, cut deeply into the entire network of railroad and highway communications on which the Axis must depend in the eastern part of Sicily, guarding the route to Messina and the toe of the Italian boot.
An Exchange Telegraph report said that the Allies were threatening the Axis network of airfields around Gerbini, 15 miles west of Catania, indicating that the 8th Army and the Canadians in the Militello sector were pressing across the plain at a point deep inland as well as along the coast road.
With the capture of Lentini, which had been the main enemy bottleneck guarding the plain 15 miles from Catania port, and the seizure of Caltagirone, Grammichele and Scordia, the Allies straightened out their entire front from the east coast to the hills around Agrigento on the south-central coast.
London understood that Agrigento had been captured and that heavy fighting was in progress around or on the Catania plain, which is a key to the Axis defenses in East Sicily.
Advance continued
Today’s communiqué from headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said:
The advance continues.
French Goumiers, native troops from Morocco, are fighting in Sicily as part of the U.S. 7th Army.
The towns of Caltagirone and Grammichele were taken by the Canadians in a 10-mile advance, while Lentini and Scordia were occupied by the British. All are communications centers.
Caltagirone, some 25 miles west of Lentini, controls a network of five roads, one of which winds northwestward to the big enemy concentration point of Caltanissetta, already menaced from the southwest.
Radio Algiers reported that the Allies had cut the railway between Messina and Palermo in northern Sicily and between Messina and Catania in the northeast, presumably by aerial bombardment.
Sees quick cleanup
C. R. Cunningham, United Press correspondent with the U.S. 7th Army, said that the first week’s successes of the Allies had paved the way for a quick cleanup that may see the fall of Sicily within the next three weeks.
The 8th Army was aided by swarms of Allied fighters and bombers and the big guns of the British fleet in his successful advance through the Lentini coastal gap below Catania.
Principal opposition was provided by the new Hermann Göring 15th Panzer Division, but the weight of the Allied assault finally drove the Germans from Lentini, even as it had dislodged them from Augusta after they had reoccupied it only two days earlier.
Yanks capture many
The Americans have already captured more than 16,000 prisoners, 192,000 gallons of gasoline, more than 200,000 aerial bombs ranging from 250- to 1,000-pounders, heavy guns and a number of huge ammunition dumps, one of them at least a mile and a half long.
Ranging ahead of Gen. Montgomery’s thrust up the east coast, a flotilla of British motor gunboats on patrol in the Messina Strait, which separates Sicily from the Italian mainland, sank a Axis mosquito boat and damaged two others, Gen. Eisenhower’s communiqué said.
Adm. Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham sent a message of appreciation to the crews of landing ships and other craft and in shell repair base staff for the great part they played in the success of operations against Sicily.
Patton gives order
A dispatch from Sicily revealed that Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., the American commander, in an order of the day to his troops on the eve of the invasion, said it was to be their “honor and privilege to attack and destroy” the Axis forces.
Gen. Patton said:
Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood, but remember these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up their home countries to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestor’s people we shall kill lacked courage to make such a sacrifice and continued as slaves.
Italians complain
Captured Italians complained to the Allies that the Axis command had placed them in front of minefields which protected the Germans. Supposed gaps in the minefields were not marked, they said, and it was impossible to fall back due to the danger of their own mines.
Field dispatches reported Fascist civil authorities were fleeing from towns captured or about to be captured with parish priests taking over the administration.
Bombers hit 4 Italian bases
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied Mediterranean air fleets heavily attacked four air bases on the Italian mainland after driving the dwindling Axis air forces from virtually all of their Sicilian airdromes, it was announced today.
The Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria Airdromes on the southwest coast of Italy, Crotone on the south coast, and Bari on the southeastern coast were pounded in day-and-night raids by two- and four-engined bombers from both Northwest African and Middle East Commands.
An Italian communiqué broadcast by the Rome radio reported raids on Naples, Italian west coast port, and Messina in northeastern Sicily as well as on Bari and Reggio Calabria, but said damage everywhere was “unimportant” and casualties “limited.”
Hit ferry terminal
Other forces attacked the ferry terminal of San Giovanni, across Messina Strait from Sicily, by day and night, hammered enemy communications throughout Sicily and shot down 13 enemy planes, including six bagged by night fighters. Seven planes were lost in all operations.
The principal attacks were apparently those against Vibo Valentia and Crotone.
The operations were coordinated with blows delivered by the Middle East Command which reported the destruction of 15 more enemy aircraft in a daylight assault by U.S. Liberators on Bari. Four were burned on the ground.
Vibo Valentia was bombed heavily Thursday night and medium bombers with fighter escort followed up with an attack in which many fires were started. Similar day-and-night blows were made against San Giovanni, one of the Axis supply points for Sicily.
Hangars set afire
At Crotone, Liberators and Halifaxes, in a night raid, set fires in the hangars and touched off other blazes that covered the field building area. Planes from both the North African and Middle East forces participated.
Other planes attacked Axis communications throughout Sicily, destroying or damaging a number of vehicles. Medium bombers raided the communications center at Randazzo.
Intruder and fighter aircraft, patrolling without a stop over land and sea, ranged as far as southern Italy to keep down any Axis effort to harass the American invasion.
German Field Marshal Baron Wolfram von Richthofen is directing the German and Italian Air Forces in the defense of Sicily, Allied headquarters announced. Authorities said he was made “Ersatz Führer” of Sicily a month ago. He formerly commanded an air fleet in Russia.
‘AMGOT’ set up to rule Sicily
British, U.S. administrators govern populace
Allied HQ, North Africa (UP) –
An Allied military government, known as “AMGOT,” has already been established in occupied sections of Sicily, it was announced today.
AMGOT stands for Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories.
Gen. Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, commander of ground forces, has been appointed military governor of occupied Sicily by Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Will keep order
The immediate heads of “AMGOT” were announced as Maj. Gen. Lord Rennell of the British Army and Brig. Gen. Frank J. McSherry of the U.S. Army.
Officers attached to “AMGOT” will be charged with seeing that the Sicilian population obeys orders and proclamations of Gen. Alexander.
“AMGOT” is strictly a military government with no political implications of any kind. It consists of hundreds of American and British officers who have been training for months to govern enemy territory as they are taken over.
British and American flags will fly side-by-side over every AMGOT headquarters.
Rennell expert on Italy
Gen. Rennell has been named chief Civil Affairs officer, it was stated, and Gen. McSherry is deputy chief.
Gen. Rennell is one of Britain’s leading experts on Italian affairs. He has recently served in military administrations in the Middle East and Madagascar.
Key positions in the government alternate between British and American officers.
AMGOT has announced it will be benevolent in its jurisdiction so far as the Sicilian population is concerned, but that Fascist ringleaders will be removed from office.
Aims of government
Other tenets of the Allied military government are:
- The Fascist militia and so-called Fascist youth organizations will be abolished.
- There will be no negotiations with exiles or refugees.
- No local politicians will be given preferential treatment.
- The administration of affairs will be carried out as far as possible through Italian officials in Sicily who have not been active members of the Fascist Party.
Gen. Alexander issued a proclamation assuring the Italian people that so long as they comply with the government’s orders, they may go about their normal business without fear.
More than 100 planes blast foe at Munda
82 tons of bombs hit Jap base; Yank ground push forward
By Brydon C. Taves, United Press staff writer
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Amsterdam hit by Fortresses
50 fighters downed; only 2 U.S. bombers lost
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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New mine ‘break’ hinted as Lewis calls policy men
‘General situation’ will be studied at session Monday in New York, UMW spokesman says
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