I DARE SAY —
You’re right, Mr. Rickenbacker!
By Florence Fisher Parry
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President sends congratulations to Eisenhower
Québec, Canada (UP) –
President Roosevelt today sent to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower a warmly-worded message of congratulations on the successful Sicilian campaign which he said showed “what can be done by teamwork based on preparations, training, timing and, above all, gallantry on land, on sea, and in the air.”
The text said:
The Sicily campaign now successfully concluded in accordance with the timing and planning of the Allies had thrilled all of us. This is especially true when we realize that the enemy forces on Sicily amounted to 405,000 men.
Events of the past 38 days show what can be done by teamwork based on preparation, training, timing and above all gallantry on land, on sea and in the air.
From the ancient citadel of Québec, I send you my warm congratulations and to the officers and men of our command – British, Canadian, French and Americans – my thanks and enthusiastic approbation.
Tell them well done.
Social Security expansion would assist disabled
Exponents of new bill insist an injured worker is more in need of financial help than one who is merely employed
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Allied parley building up to something big
Heavy work of conference at Québec to near end by close of week
By Paul R. Leach
Québec, Canada –
Despite the well-publicized froth of this sixth inter-Allied war conference, there is evidence in plenty that it is building up to something much more smashing in character than mere verbal onslaughts against the Axis.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill and their joint chiefs of staff, as well as their relief and rehabilitation agencies, were caught politically unprepared by the sudden collapse of Rommel’s North African army. They were not much better set for what has been following the preschedule conquest of Sicily.
Explore next moves
Now top military, naval and air officers are backed up by the best technical minds in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada in careful exploration of the next moves. It is not enough that the Axis is on the defensive in Europe as well as the Far East. The military smash must be formulated now.
The “post-smash” political and economic programs for liberated peoples also have to be blueprinted so far as is possible to the end that those people can be helped to political independence through the expected chaos following German and Italian defeats.
Obviously, there must be more thinking along these lines now for the European countries than for Asia, because defeat of Germany is nearer accomplishment than is that of Japan and full-scale punishment of the Japs will follow a military cleanup of Germany, if all of the United Nations – including Russia – are truly united in implementing it.
Work to continue
Military tactics were under consideration in Washington, Ottawa and London long before the staffs began assembling here 10 days ago. Their work will continue long after the turreted Château Frontenac, which jealously and secretly houses them all, and the little Clarendon Hotel, which is home to 200 impatient correspondents, broadcasters and cameramen, return to less hectic catering to tourists and war contractors.
But it began to appear today that the heavy-duty work of the whole conference, military as well as political, will be nearing conclusion by the weekend.
The pre-conference publicity, which was just opposite to the intense secrecy surrounding previous Roosevelt-Churchill pow-wows, and the wearying “no comment” suspense that has obtained since the main conferees got together, is clearly enough leading to what might be even sensational public announcements later on.
May amplify on charter
Naturally the generals and admirals are not going to say where Hitler and Tōjō are going to be hit next, but a lot could be said of satisfying interest in the Italian people, to the French, and to countries still under German control.
Liberators batter Burma railyards
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Roosevelt: War targets hit in Rome
Axis attacks showed no such concern, letter tells archbishop
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Modern schooling blamed for Army’s mental cases
Surgeon General says men allowed too much self-expression as children are first to crack up
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Millett: Hold ‘jam sessions’ to please your Uncle Sam
Someone in Washington has an idea that Americans can’t take it so everything is sweetened to make it go down easy
By Ruth Millett
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
This is the first of a series of articles on the general who has been in the frontlines leading the American charge across Sicily.
Somewhere in Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
As all of you who have followed this column know, we have kept our pen pointed mainly at the common soldier – the well-known G.I. – for lo, these many months, and let the exalted high command shift for itself. But now for the next few days, we are going to reverse things and write about an American general.
This is because he is pretty important, but not very well known to the public, and because I thought you might feel a little better if you knew what kind of man was in direct charge of your boys who have been doing the fighting in Sicily.
The man I speak of is Lt. Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley, who is the head of a corps of the U.S. Army.
Gen. Bradley is what you might call third in the American command over here. Gen. Eisenhower is at the top of everything. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. is the head man for our forces in Sicily. And Lt. Gen. Bradley commands the corps which has been making the main effort.
Gen. Bradley has been written about very little, and would continue to be written about very little if he had his way. He is innately modesty and humble and, on top of that, he knows that too much publicity can sometimes wreck a man’s career. But he also realizes that when a soldier is in such a position as his, he more or less becomes public property. So, he has consented graciously to my doing this series about him.
I make no bones about the fact that I am a tremendous admirer of Gen. Bradley. I don’t believe I have ever known a person to be so unanimously loved and respected by the men around and under him. In writing of him, it would be easy to slip into embarrassing overpraise, so I will try deliberately to avoid that.
Gen. Bradley came to Africa in mid-February and joined the frontline troops at Gafsa in central Tunisia, during the bitter fighting at El Guettar. He was deputy corps commander then, under Gen. Patton.
After El Guettar, Gen. Patton was called back to work on the preparations for the Sicilian invasion, and Gen. Bradley was put in command of a corps for the final great phase of our fight in northern Tunisia.
He handled that campaign so well that after it was over, he was promoted to lieutenant general, given a Distinguished Service Medal, and decorated twice by the French. He has continued to command a corps through the Sicilian campaign, and again he has handled it with distinction. Nobody knows what lies ahead for him, but we who have seen him work cannot believe that his path leads anywhere but upward.
When Gen. Bradley first showed up at Gafsa, he hardly said a word for two weeks. He just worked around, absorbing everything and getting acquainted, telling everybody to keep on doing his job just as he had been doing. In fact, he hasn’t said very much right up to this moment. Yet, after a few weeks, his influence began to be felt, and gradually, before anyone was hardly aware of it, he had this corps in the palm of his hand, and every man in it would now go to hell and back for him.
One day a colonel stopped me under a tree and said this about the general:
He has the greatness of simplicity and the simplicity of greatness.
A second lieutenant friend of mine who has served with the Canadians and twice been decorated for bravery told me this:
He is the finest officer, without exception, that I have ever served under.
And now and then you’ll hear a correspondent remark something like this:
Say, that Bradley is my man. I think he’s an old fox.
They always say it as if they were startled and quite pleased by their own sagacity at suddenly having discovered it.
But Gen. Bradley isn’t an old fox at all. He is too direct to be a fox. If he has two outstanding traits, they are simplicity and honesty. There is no pretense about him, either in method or in personality. He is just what he is, and that happens to be a plain Midwesterner with common sense and common honesty, who has studied and practiced all his adult life for the job he is doing now. And he is doing it in just the same calm way he would play a game of bridge or drive a car to the station.
Wolfert: Time is sole item gained by Japan from Axis tie-up
Tokyo, failing to make good enough use of captured material, seems fated to fight second-class war
By Ira Wolfert
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Japan’s stock in Asia slumps as Allies gain
Victories start to mend prestige of white man in Orient
By A. T. Steele
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Rabaul faces air offensive, capital hears
Allies will strike at key Jap base from Munda, Vella Lavella
By Sandor S. Klein, United Press staff writer
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