I DARE SAY —
The dress
By Florence Fisher Parry
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Truman group asks delay in ration program
Urges more ‘scientific’ tests; Jeffers and Patterson blast probers
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Hillman urges unions to back New Deal in 1944
Anti-labor reactionaries in Congress denounced by CIO leader
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U.S. Ranger officer refuses promotion
By Harold V. Boyle, representing combined U.S. press
With the U.S. 7th Army, southern Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 15, delayed)
Lt. Col. William O. Darby, leader of the U.S. Rangers, accepted a Distinguished Service Cross from Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, but refused a full colonelcy and command of an infantry combat team.
For the third time, Col. Darby, from Fort Smith, Arkansas, turned down such an offer yesterday because it might take him from the Rangers who idolize him.
The DSC was awarded for his work at Gela. His men captured 600 prisoners. Col. Darby and 18 Rangers cornered 52 Italian officers in one hotel and went in after them with hand grenades and automatics. The surviving Italians came out with their hands up.
Gen. Hartle replaced
London, England –
U.S. headquarters for the European Theater announced today that Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow had been appointed to succeed Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle as commander of the U.S. Army field forces in the European Theater. The nature of Gen. Hartle’s new assignment was not disclosed.
Allied warning may hit Italian will to resist
Fascists tighten control to prevent popular uprising
Washington (UP) –
The Allied demand that the people of Italy surrender was being counted on in official quarters today to soften resistance to the present invasion even though it falls short of touching off an Italian revolution against Fascism.
Persons in a position to judge the probable reaction in Italy said they believed Fascist control had been tightened drastically in recent weeks to prevent a popular uprising against Mussolini.
They viewed the Roosevelt-Churchill appeal to the Italian people as more likely to undermine Italian will to fight and to encourage an attitude of non-resistance toward the invading Allies.
To spur underground
Also, the Italian underground movement, while not as powerful as that in France, may be expected now to increase its efforts toward sabotage and a general slowing down of the Italian war effort.
Much of the effect of the message calling upon the Italian people to choose their own destiny – “whether Italians shall die for Mussolini and Hitler – or live for Italy and for civilization” – will depend upon how widely the appeal is distributed in Italy.
Mussolini’s underlings have been trained to be alert for Allied messages from the skies and it is to be expected that general orders have been issued for the confiscation of all copies of the message dropped by Allied planes on Italian soil.
It is believed that the Fascists will be less successful, however, in shifting off the radio messages. A radio station in Tripoli, originally set up by the Italians in their empire-building days, can broadcast on the same medium wavelength used in Italy itself.
Officials believe stiff fighting is ahead for Allied troops in Sicily and also after the defenses of Italy itself have been breached. However, once the Italian Army sees that resistance is useless, it is expected to take a realistic viewpoint and surrender.
The message drafted in Washington and Lincoln is regarded as admirably suited to appeal to the Italian mind. References to Italy’s ancient traditions of freedom and culture, and the poor economy Italy is now keeping, are expected to fit in neatly with what the Italian people must now be thinking about the sorry situation into which Mussolini has led them.
Hate Nazi overlords
The offer of an honorable capitulation and restoration of national dignity, all but eclipsed under the arrogant treatment from the Germans in their midst, will undoubtedly drop on fertile soil. There will be considerable support for following the recommended course of surrender if for no other reason than the hatred and contempt Italians feel for their Nazi overlords.
There was considerable interest here in reports that Lt. Col. Charles Poletti, former Governor of New York, was in Sicily and might become Allied administrator of conquered Italy. Col. Poletti’s Italian ancestry, his administrative background and his training in the War Department since he entered the service last winter, would appear to fit him for the job.
Italian rejection reported by Nazis
By the United Press
Italy has flatly rejected the Roosevelt-Churchill ultimatum for surrender, Berlin radio said today, quoting Rome newspapers and the Italian news agency Stefani.
Berlin said:
Stefani emphatically declares that the Italians are not interested on messages coming from the enemy. The suffering which has been inflicted on the Sicilian people has caused the whole Italian nation to rally still more closely around the Duce and stiffen the resolution to defend itself against the invader at any cost.
The newspapers Messaggero and Popolo di Roma were quoted as warning that capitulation would bring no peace but that Italy, id she surrendered, would be used as an operations base for Allied attacks on the rest of Europe.
Berlin said:
At the same time, they point out a perceptible stiffening of material and moral resistance by the Italian people.
Navy scouts to pave way for landing on continent
Before zero hour, raiders will steal ashore to prepare beaches for main forces
By John M. Mecklin, United Press staff writer
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With the Allies in Sicily –
Trail of death and ruin left behind by 7th Army
War correspondents tell of fighting in Sicily, give sidelights on invasion
By C. R. Cunningham, representing the combined U.S. press
Reports from war correspondents with U.S. and British forces in Sicily are often delayed for many days before transmission facilities are available, but they give an interesting picture of the invasion and background for today’s news. The following dispatches arrived today.
With U.S. 7th Army, Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 13, delayed)
A trail of death and ruin – wrought in many cases by U.S. soldiers of Italian descent – lay behind the American 7th Army pushing northward through Sicily today.
And the Italo-American in this outfit are as anxious to get the job done, at whatever cost, as any other man.
Pvt. Jim Sangemino of Brooklyn, New York, whose parents came from Sicily, said:
I hope they put up the white flag. But if they’re really going to give us a scrap, we’ll give it right back to them.
Big tanks knocked out
Dead Germans and Italians, burned-out tanks, at least of 20 of which were German Mark VI Tigers smashed around Gela alone, gave testimony to the striking power of the Yankees. I saw the destruction they left behind on an 80-mile jeep ride from a beach command post east of Gela, through Gela, Vittoria and Comiso and on to Ragusa.
As we saw bodies hanging from burned-out armored vehicles, my driver, Pvt. Vincent Sokol, of Chicago, said:
It’s too bad we’ve gotta kill a lot of these palookas. But it was a question of their lives or ours and I’m damned sure it isn’t going to be mine if I can help it.
People nervous
On the road between Gela and Vittoria, there were at least two dozen knocked-out enemy tanks, some of them still smoking. Gela was a dirty-looking spot, not too badly battered by the fight that raged around it. Its inhabitants are mostly old men and women and children, plus a few Sicilians who escaped Mussolini’s conscription.
The people in Gela, underfed and nervous, nearly go crazy when planes approach.
The people in Vittoria were hostile at the start although the town was practically untouched. Now thousands of soldiers are pouring in, handing out cigarettes in exchange for wins.
Through this part of the country our vehicles ramble through at high speed because there are snipers still left in the hills. Our jeep was fired upon numerous times.
Barbers with razors don’t scare Yanks
With U.S. 7th Army, southern Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 14, delayed)
Two U.S. paratroopers – Pvt. Wilfred Thomas of Milton, Oregon, and Pvt. Cecil E. Prine of Bartow, Florida – related how they had killed or helped to kill six enemy troops since landing on Sicily as they waited their turn today in the chair of a Sicilian barbershop.
As Prine told about his foray, the Sicilian barber turned toward the two. The chair was empty. Thomas, who had told of killing three Italians, got into the chair, looked at the little barber waiting with a razor, then leaned back, bared his throat and said calmly, “Shave.”
Yanks take airfield, then raid from it
Advance airdrome, Sicily (UP) – (July 14, delayed)
The first U.S. fighter group landed in Sicily occupied this airdrome today and immediately began making 26 missions a day –virtually a non-stop job of flying – over main beachheads established by U.S. troops.
Veterans of air battles over England, France, Algeria and Tunisia, the men of this outfit were handpicked to lead the air battle over Sicily. This group, which shot down 27 enemy planes when the Allies took Pantelleria, has already shot down 12 enemy planes since beginning operations against Sicily.
Faith in Hitler gone, says Nazi youth
With U.S. 7th Army, Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 15, delayed)
There is evidence the youth of Germany – at least the youth fighting on Sicily – have lost faith in the Hitler regime.
One young German prisoner told American officers:
Life in Germany today is the most modern form of slavery.
Lack of opposition puzzles U.S. pilots
With U.S. forces, Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 15, delayed)
Failure of Axis planes to attack U.S. forces with any semblance of strength constitutes one of the major mysteries of the Sicilian campaign, U.S. officers said today.
The Americans had expected plenty of air battles over Sicily.
Italian prisoners said there were simply no pilots to take up their planes and that at the Comiso Airfield, German air personnel pulled out as the Americans pushed toward the field.
Harold Boyle, representing the combined U.S. press, said in a dispatch datelined July 14 that one reason for the “fading Axis air strength” was the Allied bombing attack that wrecked Comiso. The airfield, Boyle wrote, was strewn with bodies of German soldiers, pockmarked with huge craters and covered with wreckage of 75-100 enemy planes ranging from transports to fighters.
Yanks use pistols, stop Axis tanks
With U.S. troops, Niscemi, Sicily, Italy (UP) – (July 13, delayed)
The men of the 2nd Battalion, who went through the hell of Hill 41, marched into Niscemi today.
With a single anti-tank gun, they refused to yield before a mass attack by 20 German tanks and used pistols on the enemy armor when they had nothing else.
They even staged a counterattack.
Of the 48-hour flight, Capt. Robert Irvine of Framingham, Massachusetts, said:
You’re supposed to have anti-tank guns against tanks, not supposed to fight them with your hands. But that’s almost what we had to do.
I saw tanks knocked out by mortars. I saw men stand up in slit trenches and shoot pistols and grenades at them. One man even threw an anti-tank rifle grenade at a tank from close range and he set it afire.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Southern Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
At the end of the first day of our invasion of Sicily, we Americans looked about us with awe and unbelief and not a little alarm.
It had all been so easy it gave you a jumpy, insecure feeling of something dreadfully wrong somewhere. We had expected a terrific slaughter on the beaches and there was none.
Instead of thousands of casualties along the 14-mile front of our special sector, we added up a total that was astonishingly small.
By sunset of the first day the Army had taken everything we had hoped to get during the first five days.
Even by midafternoon the country for miles inland was so saturated with American troops and vehicles it looked like Tunisia after months of our habitation instead of a hostile land just attacked that morning.
And the Navy which had the job of bringing the vast invading force to Sicily was three days ahead of its schedule of unloading ships.
Convoys had started back to Africa for new loads before the first day was over.
The invading fleet had escaped without losses other than normal, mechanical breakdowns. Reports from the other two sectors of the American assault front indicated they had much the same surprising welcome we got.
Americans are wondering
It was wonderful and yet it all was so illogical. Even if the Italians did want to quit, why did the Germans let them? What had happened? What did the enemy have up its sleeve?
As this is written on the morning of the second day, we don’t yet know. Nobody is under any illusion that the battle of Sicily is over. Strong counterattacks are inevitable. Already German dive-bombings are coming at the scale of two per hour but whatever happens we’ve got a head start that is all in our favor.
For this invasion I was accredited to the Navy. I intended writing mainly about the seaborne aspect of the invasion and had not intended to go ashore at all for several days, but the way things went I couldn’t resist the chance to see what it was like over there on land, so I hopped an assault barge and spent all the first day ashore.
When we got our first look at Sicily, we were all disappointed. I for one had always romanticized it in my mind as a lush green, picturesque island. I guess I must have been thinking of the Isle of Capri.
Wind slows landing
Instead, at any rate, the south coast of Sicily is a drab, light-brown country. There aren’t many trees. The fields of grain had been harvested and they were dry and naked and dusty. The villages are pale gray and indistinguishable at a distance from the rest of the country. Water is extremely scarce.
Good-sized hills rise a half mile or so back of the beach and on the hillsides grass fires started by the shells of our gunboats burn smokily by day and flamingly by night.
It is cooler than North Africa; in fact, it would be delightful were it not for the violent wind that rises in the afternoon and blows so fiercely you can hardly talk in the open. This wind, whipping our barges about in the shallow water delayed us more than the Italian soldiers did.
The people of Sicily on that first day seemed relieved and friendly. They seemed like people who had just been liberated rather than conquered. Prisoners came in grinning, calling greetings to their captors. Civilians on the roads and in the towns smiled and waved. Kids saluted. Many gave their version of the V sign by holding up both arms. The people told us they didn’t want to fight.
It’s as bad as Africa
Our soldiers weren’t very responsive to the Sicilians’ greetings. They were too busy getting all possible equipment ashore, rounding up the real enemies and establishing a foothold, to indulge in the hand-waving monkey business.
After all, we are still at war and these people though absurd and pathetic are enemies and caused us misery coming all this way to whip them.
On the whole the people were a pretty third-rate-looking lot. They were poorly dressed and looked like they always had been. Most of them hadn’t much expression at all and they kept getting in the way of traffic just like the Arabs. Most of our invading soldiers, at the end of the first day in Sicily, summed up their impressions of their newly-acquired soil and its inhabitants by saying:
Hell, this is just as bad as Africa.
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Völkischer Beobachter (July 18, 1943)
Blutige Feindverluste im Osten und Süden –
Erfolgreiche Abwehr wütender Durchbruchsversuche
Wieder 251 Sowjetpanzer und 80 Flugzeuge vernichtet
dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 17. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Während die Kampftätigkeit nördlich von Bjelgorod gestern nachließ, hielten die schweren Abwehrkämpfe im Raum von Orel weiter an. Die Angriffe der Sowjets wurden in harten und wechselvollen Kämpfen abgeschlagen. Im Gesamtabschnitt wurden gestern wieder 251 Panzer abgeschossen.
Von der übrigen Ostfront wird die Abwehr mehrerer von Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützter Angriffe gegen die Ostfront des Kubanbrückenkopfes und mehrerer örtlicher Angriffe an der Mius front gemeldet.
Die Luftwaffe bekämpfte gestern mit besonderem Erfolg Bereitstellungen und Truppenbewegungen des Feindes. 80 Sowjetflugzeuge wurden in Luftkämpfen und durch Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe abgeschossen.
Auf Sizilien vermochte der Feind gestern trotz mehrfach wiederholter heftiger Angriffe besonders lm Gebiet von Catania keine nennenswerten Erfolge zu erzielen. Deutsche Jagdflugzeuge und Zerstörerverbände fügten dem Feinde durch Tiefangriffe schwere Verluste zu und schossen über Sizilien 16 feindliche Flugzeuge ab. Insgesamt verlor der Feind gestern im Mittelmeerraum 34 Flugzeuge.
In der Messina-Straße kam es zu mehreren Gelechten zwischen deutschen und britischen Schnellbooten, bei denen ein britisches Schnellboot versenkt, ein weiteres wahrscheinlich vernichtet und mehrere andere in Brand geschossen wurden.
Deutsche und italienische Flieger setzten die Angriffe gegen die Landungsflotte vor Sizilien auch gestern erfolgreich fort.
Im Seegebiet von Ymuiden wehrten deutsche Hafenschutzboote den Angriff eines britischen Schnellbootverbandes ab. Ein feindliches Torpedoschnellboot wurde so schwer beschädigt, daß mit seiner Vernichtung gerechnet werden kann.
Wenige feindliche Flugzeuge überflogen in der vergangenen Nacht das nordwestliche und südliche Reichsgebiet. Durch vereinzelte Angriffe entstanden unerhebliche Schäden.
Die Schwierigkeiten des demokratischen Diktators –
Strafaktionen als letztes Auskunftsmittel
Von unserer Stockholmer Schriftleitung
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Italienischer Wehrmachtbericht –
Hohe Feindverluste an Menschen und Material
dnb. Rom, 17. Juli –
Das Hauptquartier der italienischen Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Auch gestern wurde auf Sizilien und besonders im Gebiet von Agrigent und von Catania erbittert gekämpft. Trotz seiner starken Angriffe gelang es dem Gegner nicht, weitere Vorteile zu erringen. Der Gegner erlitt hohe Verluste.
Kampf- und Schlachtflugzeugverbände brachten den feindlichen Truppen bei wiederholten, Im Tiefflug durchgeführten Angriffen schwere Verluste an Menschen und Material bei.
Torpedoflugzeuge und Kampfflugzeuge der Achsenmächte führten starke Angriffe gegen feindliche Schiffe im Gebiet von Kap Passero und in der Nähe der Häfen Syrakus und Äugusta durch. Ein in Brand gesetzter feindlicher Dampfer von 7000 BRT. ging unter.
Deutsche Jäger schossen über Sizilien 16 Flugzeuge, darunter 12 viermotorige „Llberator“-Maschinen, ab.
Feindliche Luftangriffe auf Neapel, Bari, Reggio Calabria und Messina verursachten keine bedeutenden Schäden. Die Zahl der Opfer ist gering. Mit Spreng- und Brandbomben durchgeführte Luftangriffe von geringer Bedeutung wurden auch gegen La Spezia sowie Ortschaften in der Lombardei und der Landschaft Emilia durchgeführt. Insgesamt wurden von der Abwehrartillerie und von den Jägern 18 Flugzeuge vernichtet. Hievon wurden 5 zwischen Messina und Reggio Calabria, 3 in Bari, 7 in Neapel, 3 zwischen Varese und Pavia abgeschossen.
Rom wurde in der vergangenen Nacht von Flugzeugen überflogen, die Propagandaflugblätter abwarfen.
In den Gewässern Ostsiziliens versenkte einer unserer leichten Kreuzer, der von einigen Schnellbooten angegriffen wurde, zwei Schnellboote und führte sodann seine Aufgabe zu Ende, ohne irgend welchen Schaden davongetragen zu haben. Ein feindlicher Zerstörer wurde von einem unserer U-Boote torpediert.