Editorial: The fathers’ draft
…
Lumber stocks cut critically, yards closing
OPA authorizes price rise for northern hard, soft woods
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
Some more shipboard sketches:
Joe Talbot: He is an aviation ordnanceman first class, and since there is no aviation aboard his ship, he is a round peg in a square hole. Of course, that isn’t his fault.
What he actually does is a little bit of everything, when things were normal, and during battle, he is the head of a crew down in a magazine of big shells. He wears headphones, and upon orders he shoots more ammunition up to the gun batteries above.
Joe is a black-haired, straight-shouldered Southerner from Columbus, Georgia. In civil life, he was a photographer on the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer. The last big story he photographed was Eddie Rickenbacker’s crash near Atlanta. Joe has been married four years. His wife works at Woolworth’s store in Columbus.
This is his second time in the Navy. He was in it from 1931 to 1935, and he has been in two years this time. He has no intention of making it a career. He has one great postwar ambition – he says he’s going to do it in the first six months after he gets out. He’s going to buy a cabin cruiser big enough for four, get another couple, and cruise down the Chattahoochee River to the Gulf of Mexico, then up the Suwannee, making photos of the whole thing in color.
Tom Temple: His full name is Thomas Nicholas Temple. His father deliberately put in the middle name so the initials would make TNT. Tom is only 19. He is tall and thin, very grave and analytical. He talks so slowly you think sometimes he’s going to stop altogether. After the war he wants to go to Harvard and then get into the publishing business. Tom’s mother is a high-school teacher at Far Rockaway, Long Island, and writes on the side. She used to write for Story Magazine under the name Jean Temple.
Tom’s father was wounded in the last war. He is now in the big veterans’ hospital at Albuquerque, only a short way from my home.
Tom says when he first came into the Navy, the sailors’ profanity shocked him, but now it rolls off his back like water off a duck. Tom is a seaman second class. He is very sincere and thoughtful and one of my favorites aboard ship.
Joe Ederer: He is a lieutenant commander and chief engineer of the ship, and he was my part-time host while I was aboard, since I did all my writing in his cabin. Furthermore, I ate his candy, smoked his cigarettes, used his paper, and would have read his mail if I could have found it.
Cdr. Ederer has been at sea for more than a quarter of a century. He is out of the Merchant Service, and he indulges in constant pleasant feuds with his Regular Navy friends.
His home is at 2724 Northeast 35th Place, Portland, Oregon. His wife is used to waiting, so his absence is not as hard on her as it is on many wives. They have a 15-year-old boy upon whom the chief engineer dotes. He has two pictures of his family on his shelves.
Cdr. Ederer is one of the few officers who are genuine salts. He is not exactly a Colin Glencannon, but they have many things in common. The commander spent many years on the Orient run and has a personal hatred for the Japs. He has been with his present ship ever since she was commissioned two years ago, and he hopes this part of the war soon gets over so he can get to the Pacific.
Like all sailors he wants someday to get five acres, preferably in the Oregon woods, build a cabin and have a creek running past his door. If he ever did, he’d probably go nuts.
Völkischer Beobachter (August 6, 1943)
123 Sowjetpanzer und 194 Feindflugzeuge abgeschossen –
Harte Abwehrkämpfe auf Sizilien
dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 5. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Die Sowjets begannen gestern am Mius mit starken Infanteriekräften und zahlreichen Panzern gegen die neugewonnenen deutschen Stellungen nördlich Kuibyschewo heftige Gegenangriffe, die jedoch unter hohen feindlichen Verlusten restlos scheiterten. Auch am mittleren Donez blieben Angriffe der Sowjets erfolglos. Im Raum von Bjelgorod dauern die schweren und wechselvollen Abwehrkämpfe weiterhin an.
Im Orelbogen wurde im Zuge der Frontverkürzung die seit längerer Zeit vorgesehene Räumung der Stadt Orel in der Nacht vom 4. zum 5. August vom Feinde ungestört durchgeführt. Sämtliche Vorräte wurden planmäßig zurückgeführt, die kriegswichtigen Anlagen restlos zerstört.
Südlich des Ladogasees brachen starke Angriffe der Sowjets vor unseren Linien zusammen.
Am gestrigen Tage wurden an der Ostfront 123 Panzer abgeschossen. Kampf-, Sturzkampf- und Schlachtgeschwader der Luftwaffe führten an den Brennpunkten der Abwehrschlacht, vor allem im Raum Bjelgorod und Orel, schwere Schläge gegen den Feind. In Luftkämpfen wurden gestern 161 Sowjetflugzeuge abgeschossen, sieben eigene Flugzeuge kehrten nicht zurück.
Bei den in den letzten Wochen im rückwärtigen Gebiet der Ostfront durchgeführten Kämpfen gegen sowjetische Banden bewährten sich besonders ungarische Truppen, die in selbständigen Unternehmungen oder zusammen mit Verbänden des Heeres und der Waffen-SS eingesetzt worden sind.
In Sizilien versuchten nordamerikanische Truppen auch gestern, den mittleren Frontabschnitt zu durchbrechen. Nach harten, mit großer Erbitterung geführten Kämpfen brachen alle Angriffe unter empfindlichen Verlusten für den Feind zusammen.
Ein starker Verband schwerer deutscher Kampfflugzeuge griff den stark belegten Hafen Palermo an. Neben zahlreichen schweren Bombentreffern in den Hafenanlagen wurden zwei Handelsschiffe mit zusammen 13.000 BRT. und ein Zerstörer versenkt, ein leichter Kreuzer, drei Zerstörer und acht Frachtschiffe beschädigt. 23 feindliche Flugzeuge wurden über Sizilien und dem italienischen Küstengebiet abgeschossen.
In der vergangenen Nacht drangen einige feindliche Störflugzeuge in das westliche Reichsgebiet ein. Bei vereinzelten Bombenabwürfen entstand unbedeutender Schaden.
Sicherungsstreitkräfte der Kriegsmarine und Marineflak schossen über dem westeuropäischen Küstengebiet zehn feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Deutsche Schnellboote versenkten vor der englischen Ostküste in der vergangenen Nacht ein britisches Minensuchboot.
60 Yankeepolizisten verletzt –
Negerrevolten in Harlem
tc. Lissabon, 5. August –
Wie erst jetzt bekannt wird, ist es in der Sonntagnacht im Neuyorker Negerviertel Harlem zu großen Negerunruhen gekommen, bei denen 5 Neger getötet, 543 verletzt und 504 verhaftet wurden. Der bei den Zusammenstößen angerichtete Sachschaden wird auf fünf Millionen Dollar geschätzt.
Die Unruhen brachen aus, als ein weißer Polizist eine Negerin wegen eines Eigentumsvergehens verhaften wollte. Negersoldaten mischten sich ein und bemächtigten sich des Polizeiknüppels, worauf der Polizist schoß und einen Soldaten verwundete. Schnell sammelte sich eine Menge an und begann Läden zu stürmen und die Polizisten mit Steinen zu bewerfen. 60 Polizisten wurden verletzt. 6.000 Polizisten umstellten Harlem. Erst volle 24 Stunden später war die Ordnung unter Einsatz starker Polizeikräfte einigermaßen wiederhergestellt.
Verärgerter Wallace als Ankläger –
Hungerkapitalismus in ‚Gottes eigenem Lande‘
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“
…
Erfolge unserer Kampfflieger –
Hafen von Palermo bombardiert
dnb. Rom, 5. August –
Der italienische Wehrmachtbericht vom Donnerstag lautet:
Auf Sizilien haben die tapfer kämpfenden Verbündeten heftige Angriffe der feindlichen Streitkräfte abgewehrt.
Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge griffen den Hafen von Palermo an und versenkten einen Zerstörer und zwei Dampfer mit zusammen 13.000 BRT. Sie beschädigten einen Kreuzer, drei Zerstörer und acht Handelsschiffe von zusammen 30.000 BRT.
Das Stadtinnere in Neapel wurde von einem Verband mehrmotoriger Flugzeuge heftig bombardiert. Zahlreiche Gebäude erhielten Schäden. Unter der Zivilbevölkerung gab es zahlreiche Opfer. Vier feindliche Flugzeuge wurden von der Flak und drei von deutschen und italienischen Jägern abgeschossen.
In den letzten Tagen wurden von unseren zur Sicherung von Geleitzügen eingesetzten Streitkräften sechs feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 6, 1943)
Allies advance through bitter Sicily fighting
Americans, Canadians battling to sever enemy route of retreat from Catania sector
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
Allied armies smashed through stiffened Axis resistance to within five miles of the key communications town of Adrano on the Mt. Etna Line today while aerial squadrons battered rear-line roads in northeastern Sicily and fired massed enemy evacuation ships in day-and-night raids on Messina.
U.S. forces of the 7th Army, under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., were meeting strong opposition around the mountain town of Troina, but Canadians were reported threatening Adrano after pushing five or six miles eastward as the Allies advanced steadily from the Centuripe-Regalbuto sector.
The Germans still held Troina (which had previously been reported captured) and were fighting furiously to block the Americans at that point, some 50 miles from Messina.
Try to break road
The Americans near Troina and Canadians approaching Adrano were striving to break the road west of Mt. Etna by which the enemy might escape from the Catania front. The only other road, running up the coast east of the peak, had been shelled and bombed at points where it is only a narrow ledge in the mountains and was reported impassable for retreating enemy vehicles.
The Americans occupied the town of Gagliano, six miles southwest of Troina and behind the forward lines, and also advanced two or three miles on the north coast where naval and air bombardment of the enemy again aided their progress, today’s communiqué from headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said.
Axis position hopeless
The closely-coordinated and intensifying air, land and sea attacks on the northeastern Sicily “coffin corner” was said to make the position of the Axis forces hopeless and it was doubtful whether an evacuation would be possible except for a few specialists and key personnel.
The capture of Misterbianco which was doomed by the fall of Catania, and of the 13 Gerbini airfields (west of Catania), gave the Allies additional bases from which to press their all-out aerial assault as land forces fought to close the Mt. Etna trap on the enemy.
The Italian 434th Battalion, which was left behind as a rearguard outfit when the Germans moved northward from Catania, surrendered unconditionally to the British 8th Army because the capture of Centuripe by a famous Irish brigade which fought well in Tunisia had made the position of Catania untenable. But there was bloody fighting ahead on the roads to Adrano and Randazzo, which lie north of Mt. Etna.
The Germans were fighting desperately, especially against the Americans near Troina, in an effort to hold back the northern claw of the Allied pincers and prevent closing of the trap.
Resistance was described as the fiercest of the Sicilian campaign, with units of the Hermann Göring and the 15th Panzer Division outing up “suicidal opposition.”
Attack day and night
The enemy appeared to be attempting to prepare a new and much shorter line behind Mt. Etna, probably stretching from the Taormina area to somewhere around Naso on the south coast.
The Allied aerial onslaught against Messina and the Strait of Messina area was the greatest of the Sicilian campaign, with Flying Fortresses, Wellingtons and other types of craft participating in day-and-night raids.
The British 8th Army, pushing up the east coast through captured Catania, was believed already threatening Acireale, eight miles to the north and only a little more than 50 miles short of Messina. Front dispatches indicated that the British were probably within artillery range of Acireale.
40,000 still fighting
Other British and Canadian forces, along with the U.S. 7th Army, were hammering the Italo-German armies back toward Messina around an arc reaching the north coast near San Fratello, about 53 miles west of Messina.
Authoritative sources here estimated that only 5,000 Italians and 35,000 Germans were still fighting in Sicily, and a front correspondent for the service newspaper Stars and Stripes said the two forces could no longer be considered allies.
Armed conflicts have been reported between the Italians and the Germans, the correspondent said. The Germans were reported to be hoarding food and keeping it from the hungry Italians.
Attack railroads
Flying Fortresses opened the latest series of raids on Messina with a daylight attack on highway and railway communications in the port yesterday.
British Wellingtons took over the assault in darkness, blasting evacuation ships and other craft drawn up in the harbor and on the shore ready for a dash across the two-mile-wide Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. Troop concentrations were also hit.
Evacuation of key German service personnel was believed already underway, mostly by small boats at night. Any large-scale evacuation was believed impossible, however, because of Allied air and naval supremacy. Allied torpedo boats have already operated in the Strait of Messina.
Medium bombers attacked road communications at Francavilla northeast of Mt. Etna, while light bombers struck at Adrano, a key point on the road looping around the western slope of Mt. Etna.
Other light bombers and fighter bombers in relays hit troop concentrations and road junctions in the shrinking Axis bridgehead.
Daylight raiders also attacked electrical installations on Sardinia, while night intruder aircraft carried out offensive sweeps over southern Italy.
Eight Allied planes were lost in all operations.
New turn in war –
Allied leaders may meet soon
Roosevelt, Churchill may revise strategy
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
London, England –
Speculation that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill may meet shortly prompted suggestions today that a favorable turn in the war had necessitated revision of long-range offensive plans.
Observers believed that there was some basis for reports reaching neutral countries from Germany that the morale of the German people had been badly shaken by three recent events. They were:
-
The collapse of Fascism which is expected to put Italy out of the war.
-
The unparalleled air attacks on Hamburg which carry the connotation of fierce blows to come for Berlin and other major German cities.
-
Russian successes which indicate that the Nazi Army’s power is breaking.
These events caused some observers to suggest the possibility that the war in Europe may end this year.
In addition to military decisions to be made, there are many important political questions which might be discussed. One of the most interesting would be the question of what treatment should be given to German satellites such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, already reported to be seeking ways of getting out of the war.
In this connection, there is considerable speculation on whether Russia is to be included in any forthcoming discussions. Observers agreed that the time has come when it is most important for all Allies directly interested in the European situation – Great Britain, Russia and the United States – to reach basic decisions on policy toward the minor Axis nations likely to desert the sinking ship.
This applies especially to the Balkans, but in a lesser degree to Italy also.
Events have moved faster than their schedule since the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting in May and the time appears ripe to bring Allied plans up to date.
Stalin not expected
While both the President and Mr. Churchill would like Premier Joseph Stalin to sit in with them, it was believed unlikely that the Soviet chieftain would be able to leave Russia, where he is directing growing Soviet offensives on the Eastern Front.
The London Daily Mail reported in a New York dispatch that the swift succession of Allied victories in Sicily and Russia has created new opportunities, and that Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill may confer again to “put finishing touches to plans for new assaults on the European fortress.”
British military observers believed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Mediterranean forces will follow up their conquest of Sicily quickly with an invasion of the Italian mainland designed to hasten Italy’s elimination.
1,671 dead Japs found at Munda; resistance ends
Last defenders of field being destroyed after U.S. jungle troops clear airfield in Solomons
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer
…
Promise of second front unfulfilled, Reds complain
Moscow newspaper blames Allies for prolonging war; political motives implied
…
New tax form’s on way; its return is due Sept. 15
Latest one is part of government’s system to get you on current basis
…
Potato waste blamed on U.S.
Operator cites government’s policies
…
For Henry or Frank or both?
Wallace picks up campaign manners of 1936 Roosevelt
Farmers, labor and small business gathered under Vice President’s fatherly wing in prestige-building tour
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
…