Healing war’s wounds –
Soldiers served on field of battle by men of mercy
Wounded start on road to recovery even while conflict still rages; many rejoin the fight
…
Healing war’s wounds –
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
Gen. Bradley has around him at the front, in addition to his military staff of more than a hundred officers, a little official “family” and it really is like a little family.
It consists of his two young captain aides, his sergeant driver, his corporal orderly, and his brigadier general chief of staff, whom I’m not permitted to name.
The two aides are Capt. Chester Hansen of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Capt. Lewis Bridge of Lodi, California. Both are 25, both graduated from college in 1939, Hansen from Syracuse University and Bridge from California Aggies. Their nicknames are Chet and Lew and that’s what the general calls them.
Both captains went through Officers’ Training School at Fort Benning when Gen. Bradley was commanding there and both came right out of the officers’ school into his family. They’ve been with him for 16 months and consider themselves the two most fortunate young officers in the American Army. They sleep in cots under a tree about 50 yards from the general’s truck, which is also parked under a tree since the general has an aversion to occupying buildings and usually keeps a command post in tents out in the open.
He drives just right
Around headquarters the two aides are on call constantly, but for jeep traveling with the general they take alternate days. Both are bright, understanding, likable fellows who worship at the general’s feet and do a good job representing him, in the same thoughtful manner he uses.
The general’s driver is Sgt. Alex Stout, of Port Barre, Louisiana, below Baton Rouge. Although he is only 23, he has been in the Army six years. He doesn’t, however, intend to make it a career. Recently, his grandmothers died and left him a fertile 275-acre farm and when the war is over, he is going back to farm it himself.
Sgt. Stout was married last Christmas Day. His wife is waiting back in Louisiana. He has a brother Noah who is a captain in the Army in Australia. Sgt. Stout has been driving for Gen. Bradley for two and a half years. He is so good that when the general reached North Africa, he sent back to the States for him.
Sgt. Stout takes meticulous pride in the general’s jeep. He has it fixed up with sponge-rubber cushions, and a built-in ration box under the back seat, and keeps it neat as a pin.
Gen. Bradley says having a good driver is important, for he relaxes while he’s riding and he can’t have a driver who annoys him by going too slow or one who keeps him tense by reckless driving. One night last winter, the general had a blackout driver who was so cautious and creepy he had to take the wheel himself and drive half the night.
An orderly orderly
Sgt. Stout is another devoted fan of the general’s. The sergeant says:
He does everything for you. I go to him with my headaches, go to him for advice, go to him for money. He treats me just like my own father does.
The general’s orderly is Cpl. Frank Cekada of Calumet, Michigan. Frank is the newest one of the general’s family, having been with him only since last March.
Frank says a colonel in Oran picked him for the job because he always kept himself looking neat and clean. He was driving a truck before he got this assignment. He had never been an orderly before but soon caught on. Frank’s duties are, as he puts it, “to keep the general happy.” He cleans the quarters, looks after the luggage while moving, and whenever he can’t find Sicilian women to do the general’s washing, Frank does it himself.
Frank is 24, and before the war was, of all things, a bartender. He says the general treats him like a personal friend and he hopes nothing happens to this job.
Gen. Bradley lives in an Army truck which has been fixed up like a tourist trailer. In the front end is a nice wide bed running crosswise of the truck, with a blanket bearing the initials of the U.S. Military Academy. Along one side is a desk with drawers under it. On the other side were a closet and washbasin. A field telephone in a leather case hangs on the end of the desk. There is a big calendar on the wall and each day is marked off with an x. There is a bookrack with four or five columns of military textbooks, one called Our Enemy, Japan, and a French grammar which the general never finds time to study.
On the front wall over the bed are painted the dates of the campaigns in North Africa, with the beginning and ending dates, and the Sicily with the invasion date.
He studies his map
We conjectured on what date the Sicilian campaign would end, and oddly enough the general’s date was a little farther off than mine. There are no pictures in the truck, no gadgets on the tables. The general has not sent home any souvenirs, in fact he has acquired only two for himself. One was a German Luger from Tunisia and the other a lovely Sicilian dagger with the Fascist emblem on the handle. On the wall opposite the table is a big map of this area of Sicily. It probably is the most important piece of equipment in the place.
The general sat there alone at night studying the map for hours, thinking and planning moves for the morrow over the frightful country ahead. There alone before his map many of the most important decisions were made.
Alaska goes to war
A land of great wealth is finally opened up by international highway
By Morley Cassidy, North American Newspaper Alliance
…
U.S. State Department (August 24, 1943)
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to Marshal Stalin
Québec, August 24, 1943.
Secret
Operational priority
Secret and personal to Marshal Stalin from the United States Government and His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom.
In our conference at Québec, just concluded, we have arrived at the following decision as to military operations to be carried out during 1943 and 1944.
The bomber offensive against Germany will be continued on a rapidly-increased scale from bases in the United Kingdom and Italy. The objectives of this air attack will be to destroy the German air combat strength, to dislocate the German military, industrial, and economic system, and to prepare the way for a cross channel invasion.
A large-scale buildup of American forces in the United Kingdom is now under way. It will provide an initial assault force of British and American divisions for cross channel operations. A bridgehead in the continent once secured will be reenforced steadily by additional American troops at the rate of from three to five divisions per month. This operation will be the primary British and American ground and air effort against the Axis.
The war in the Mediterranean is to be pressed vigorously. Our objectives in that area will be the elimination of Italy from the Axis alliance, and the occupation of that country as well as Sardinia and Corsica as bases for operations against Germany.
Our operations in the Balkans will be limited to the supply of Balkan Guerrillas by air and sea transport, to minor raids by Commandos, and to the bombing of strategic objectives.
We shall accelerate our operations against Japan in the Pacific and in Southeast Asia. Our purposes are to exhaust Japanese air, naval, and shipping resources, to cut the Japanese communications and to secure bases from which to bomb Japan proper.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to Generalissimo Chiang
Québec, August 24, 1943.
Secret
Operational priority
Secret and personal to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek from President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.
In order to vitalize operations in Burma, a command, separate from India, has been set up under Vice Admiral the Lord Louis Mountbatten to operate directly under the Combined Chiefs of Staff. This, we think, will be an improvement in organization and further the concept of aggressive operations. Thus, we hope to obtain unity in our combined effort in the forthcoming Burma operations. Unity must be achieved if success is to be attained.
At the conclusion of the conference in Quebec, I hasten to bring to you certain proposals that have been advanced as to operations in your theaters and areas contiguous thereto.
-
First, to accelerate the buildup of the air freight route into China to provide greatly increased support for your air and ground forces.
-
Second, the heavy burden now imposed on the lines of communications from Calcutta to Assam requires immediate increase in their capacity. Instructions have been issued to provide additional river craft and rail transportation facilities which should result in an eventual lift of two hundred thousand tons a month into Assam.
-
Third, to carry out offensive operations in the coming dry season for the capture of upper Burma with a view to increasing the capacity of the air route, and to making possible the reopening of an overland route to China. The security of these land and air routes is considered of vital importance to the buildup of an air offensive based in China. The operations as now proposed take the form of an attack from Assam into Burma via Imphal and Ledo, coordinated with an advance at the same time from Yunnan. These converging attacks are to be facilitated by the employment of long-range penetration groups in front of each column similar to those employed by Brigadier Wingate last spring. These columns are to be organized by Wingate. They will include British, American, and Indian contingents, all to be supported and supplied by air.
-
Fourth, preparations are underway for amphibious operations designed to contribute to the success of the North Burma campaign. At the same time steps are being taken to provide adequate naval forces to assure our naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean Area and to interdict the enemy’s sea communications into Rangoon. The precise objective for the amphibian attacks is still under investigation. The decision will not be made until Lord Mountbatten has had an opportunity to consider the various factors on the ground.
Roosevelt-Churchill dinner meeting, evening, The Citadel
| Present | ||
|---|---|---|
| United States | United Kingdom | |
| President Roosevelt | Prime Minister Churchill | |
| Mr. Hopkins | Lieutenant General Ismay | |
| Mr. Harriman | Subaltern Mary Churchill | |
| Admiral Leahy | ||
| Rear Admiral Brown | ||
| Miss Tully |
From an informal memorandum by Harriman:
The President came into the room first after some of us already had arrived, saying “We are both mad.” He referred to the Prime Minister’s and his annoyance over the most recent cable from “Uncle Jo.” His anger took the form of making him gayer than usual both before and after dinner. The “PM,” however, arrived with a scowl and never really got out of his ill humor all evening – up to 3 a.m. when I left.
I asked the President if he recalled the sentence in a cable that went to Jo from the “PM” in which he said “I am entirely unmoved by your statement.” I said the Prime Minister had shown me this cable and asked for comments. My only comment had been asking him whether this sentence was entirely accurate. The President roared with laughter and much to my embarrassment proceeded to tell the story to the “PM” when he came in. Needless to say, it not only fell flat but bounced in my direction. With a scowl he said “impudence.”
Roosevelt-Churchill meeting, evening
| Present | ||
|---|---|---|
| United States | United Kingdom | |
| President Roosevelt | Prime Minister Churchill | |
| Mr. Harriman | Foreign Secretary Eden | |
| Sir Alexander Cadogan |
From an informal memorandum by Harriman:
Eden and Cadogan came in after dinner and got a chance to read the cable. As it was a bit garbled and badly translated and paraphrased I could not find that it was one about which to be irritated. In recent days one has been worried about the Russians playing a lone hand. This cable rather rudely suggested that he should have greater participation in certain directions. The Prime Minister and President were particularly annoyed because they had attempted to keep him fully informed. But one can’t be annoyed with Stalin for being aloof and then be annoyed with him because he rudely joins the party. Pug Ismay and Anthony shared this view. I didn’t have a chance to talk to Harry.
But the Prime Minister would not have any of it. After dinner when we were alone, he said he foresaw “bloody consequences in the future” (using “bloody” in the literal sense).
Stalin is an unnatural man. There will be grave troubles.
He ticked off Anthony when Anthony suggested it was not so bad, saying:
There is no need for you to attempt to smooth it over in the Foreign Office manner (addressing Cadogan as well).
Völkischer Beobachter (August 25, 1943)
Millionen Arbeitslose nach Roosevelts Krieg in USA. –
Wofür kämpft der amerikanische Arbeiter?
Von unserer Stockholmer Schriftleitung
…
Wieder ein Plutokratenbittgang nach Moskau –
Sumner Weites geht auf Reisen
Von unserer Stockholmer Schriftleitung
…
President Roosevelt’s address at Ottawa, Canada
August 25, 1943, 11:30 a.m. EWT
Broadcast audio (CBC):
Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister, Members of the Parliament, and all my good friends and neighbors of the Dominion of Canada:
It was exactly five years ago last Wednesday that I came to Canada to receive the high honor of a degree at Queen’s University. On that occasion – one year before the invasion of Poland, three years before Pearl Harbor – I said:
We in the Americas are no longer a far-away continent, to which the eddies of controversies beyond the seas could bring no interest or no harm. Instead, we in the Americas have become a consideration to every propaganda office and to every general staff beyond the seas. The vast amount of our resources, the vigor of our commerce and the strength of our men have made us vital factors in world peace whether we choose it or not.
We did not choose this war – and that “we” includes each and every one of the United Nations.
War was violently forced upon us by criminal aggressors who measure their standards of morality by the extent of the death and the destruction that they can inflict upon their neighbors.
In this war, Canadians and Americans have fought shoulder to shoulder – as our men and our women and our children have worked together and played together in happier times of peace.
Today, in devout gratitude, we are celebrating a brilliant victory won by British and Canadian and American fighting men in Sicily.
Today, we rejoice also in another event for which we need not apologize. A year ago, Japan occupied several of the Aleutian Islands on our side of the ocean, and made a great “to-do” about the invasion of the continent of North America. I regret to say that some Americans and some Canadians wished our governments to withdraw from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean campaigns and divert all our vast supplies and strength to the removal of the Japs from a few rocky specks in the North Pacific.
Today, our wiser councils have maintained our efforts in the Atlantic area, and the Mediterranean, and the China Seas, and the Southwest Pacific with ever-growing contributions; and in the Northwest Pacific a relatively small campaign has been assisted by the Japs themselves in the elimination of that last Jap from Attu and Kiska. We have been told that the Japs never surrender; their headlong retreat satisfies us just as well.
Great councils are being held here on the free and honored soil of Canada – councils which look to the future conduct of this war and to the years of building a new progress for mankind.
To these councils Canadians and Americans alike again welcome that wise and good and gallant gentleman, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Mr. King, my old friend, may I through you thank the people of Canada for their hospitality to all of us. Your course and mine have run so closely and affectionately during these many long years that this meeting adds another link to that chain. I have always felt at home in Canada and you, I think, have always felt at home in the United States.
During the past few days in Québec, the Combined Staffs have been sitting around a table – which is a good custom – talking things over, discussing ways and means, in the manner of friends, in the manner of partners, and may I even say in the manner of members of the same family.
We have talked constructively of our common purposes in this war – of our determination to achieve victory in the shortest possible time – of our essential cooperation with our great and brave fighting allies.
And we have arrived, harmoniously, at certain definite conclusions. Of course, I am not at liberty to disclose just what these conclusions are. But, in due time, we shall communicate the secret information of the Québec Conference to Germany, Italy, and Japan. We shall communicate this information to our enemies in the only language their twisted minds seem capable of understanding.
Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Québec Conference – I am thoroughly glad that he wasn’t there in person. If he and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.
The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi a Nazi is his utter inability to understand and therefore to respect the qualities or the rights of his fellow men. His only method of dealing with his neighbor is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then beat him down and step on him, and then either kill him or enslave him. And the same thing is true of the fanatical militarists of Japan.
Because their own instincts and impulses are essentially inhuman, our enemies simply cannot comprehend how it is that decent, sensible individual human beings manage to get along together and live together as good neighbors.
That is why our enemies are doing their desperate best to misrepresent the purposes and the results of this Québec Conference. They still seek to divide and conquer allies who refuse to be divided just as cheerfully as they refuse to be conquered.
We spend our energies and our resources and the very lives of our sons and daughters because a band of gangsters in the community of nations declines to recognize the fundamentals of decent, human conduct.
We have been forced to call out what we in the United States would call the sheriff’s posse to break up the gang in order that gangsterism may be eliminated in the community of nations.
We are making sure – absolutely, irrevocably sure – that this time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time.
Every one of the United Nations believes that only a real and lasting peace can justify the sacrifices we are making, and our unanimity gives us confidence in seeking that goal.
It is no secret that at Québec there was much talk of the postwar world. That discussion was doubtless duplicated simultaneously in dozens of nations and hundreds of cities and among millions of people.
There is a longing in the air. It is not a longing to go back to what they call “the good old days.” I have distinct reservations as to how good “the good old days” were. I would rather believe that we can achieve new and better days.
Absolute victory in this war will give greater opportunities to the world, because the winning of the war in itself is certainly proving to all of us up here that concerted action can accomplish things. Surely we can make strides toward a greater freedom from want than the world has yet enjoyed. Surely by unanimous action in driving out the outlaws and keeping them under heel forever, we can attain a freedom from fear of violence.
I am everlastingly angry only at those who assert vociferously that the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are nonsense because they are unattainable. If those people had lived a century and a half ago they would have sneered and said that the Declaration of Independence was utter piffle. If they had lived nearly a thousand years ago they would have laughed uproariously at the ideals of Magna Charta. And if they had lived several thousand years ago they would have derided Moses when he came from the Mountain with the Ten Commandments.
We concede that these great teachings are not perfectly lived up to today, but I would rather be a builder than a wrecker, hoping always that the structure of life is growing – not dying.
May the destroyers who still persist in our midst decrease. They, like some of our enemies, have a long road to travel before they accept the ethics of humanity.
Some day, in the distant future perhaps – but some day, it is certain – all of them will remember with the Master:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Monsieur le Premier: Ma visite a la ville historique de Québec rappelle vivement a mon esprit que le Canada est une nation fondee sur l’union de deux grandes races. L’harmonie de leur association dans l’egalite peut servir d’exemple a l’humanite toute entiere – un exemple partout dans le monde.
President Roosevelt’s toast to the King at Ottawa, Canada
August 25, 1943
I wish that I might go with you to the Yukon, and to Alaska. In these days of planes and cars, distances seem nothing. That, perhaps, is the reason why this is my first trip to Canada. One always goes to the nearest places last. But, of course, both in Quebec and here, when anybody has spoken of my visit to this Capital, I cannot help remembering that I started coming to Canada 59 years ago – and meant to every year since.
I won’t express any preference for the seaboard or the interior, but the seaboard is a very charming place. And its fish, while of a different character, are just as beautiful as the fish of Georgian Bay.
I have never been in the Northwest. I am one of those amphibious creatures who has visited Victoria, but never Vancouver; so I have a great deal still to see. Mr. King has talked with me for many years about going to see the Prairie States. I have never had that opportunity.
As a matter of fact, four years ago, when the King and Queen were here and came to Hyde Park, he was able to tell me far more about Canada as a whole than I knew from my own experience. And I hope very much that because I have had the privilege of knowing you for a great many years, that he will come over again one of these days – the sooner the better – to visit you, and visit us below the line.
And so I give a toast to the King.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 25, 1943)
RAF BOMBERS AGAIN RIP BURNING BERLIN
Yanks blast plane plant at Bordeaux
None of Mosquitoes lost in follow-up attack on Nazi capital
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
…
‘Surrender now would pay,’ Hitler warned by Roosevelt
Allies to wipe out world outlaws in this war, President says
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Ottawa, Canada –
President Roosevelt, promising that the United Nations will rid the world once and for all of international “gangsterism,” said today that if the Axis generals knew what had been planned at Québec, they would realize that “surrender would pay them better now than later.”
Mr. Roosevelt said:
Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Québec Conference. If he [Hitler] and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.
President Roosevelt also promised “absolute victory” by the Allies, which, he said, would bring the world well along the road of “freedom from want.”
Outlaws to be eliminated
On the plaza before the entrance of the Parliament building, the President, flanked by Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King and the Earl of Athlone, Governor General of Canada, promised the elimination of “outlaws” from the community of nations.
Mr. Roosevelt, making the first visit of an American President to the Canadian capital, said that the Québec Conference, in addition to plotting new methods of military destruction of the Axis, also went into post-war problems on a worldwide basis.
This was the major theme of his speech, aside from lavish praise for Canada and its part in the war effort.
Cites brutality of foes
Condemning the Nazis for their “evil inability” to understand the rights of their fellowmen and the “fanatical militarists of Japan” for similar brutal qualities, Mr. Roosevelt told an audience which included 200 members of the Canadian Parliament and some 25,000 citizens of Ottawa that:
We have been forced to call out what we in the United States would call the sheriff’s posse to break up the gang in order that gangsterism may be eliminated in the community of nations.
We are making sure – absolutely, irrevocably sure – that this time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time.
Citing unanimous belief among the United Nations that only “a real and lasting peace” could justify the sacrifices of the present war, the President said that the post-war world was discussed in Québec, but he offered no details of the discussions except to say they were probably duplicated in dozens of nations and hundreds of cities all over the world.
Mr. Roosevelt was optimistic about the movement of the war in the Pacific, turning his scorn on those Americans and Canadians who wanted to withdraw our forces from the Atlantic to Mediterranean when the Japanese first invaded “a few rocky specks in the Aleutians.”
He supported his scorn by recalling the recent elimination of Japanese forces from Kiska to Attu.
He added:
We have been told that Japs never surrender; their headlong retreat satisfies us just as well.
Mr. Roosevelt devoted much of his address of about 15 minutes to Canada and her participation in the war, praising the manner in which Canadians and Americans have fought “shoulder to shoulder” as they worked and played together in peace.
Called undaunted champion
Mr. Mackenzie King, in introducing the President, hailed him as:
…an undaunted champion of the rights of free men and a mighty leader of the forces of freedom in a world at war.
Mr. Mackenzie King forecast a substantial advance toward complete victory as a result of the Québec Conference where he was host.
Avoiding any detailed description of advance plans for the war, the President devoted himself largely to the broad moral principles of the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter.
He said that unanimous action in clearing the world of savage outlaws and keeping them “under heel forever” would achieve “freedom from fear of violence.”
Cites everlasting anger
Professing “everlasting” anger at those who attack the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms, Mr. Roosevelt said that these same critics – if they had lived a century and a half ago – would have attacked the Declaration of Independence, and before that, the Magna Charta.
And if they had lived several thousand years ago, they would have derided Moses when he came from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.
Mr. Roosevelt concluded his speech with a few words in French directed at Canada’s large French-Canadian population. Calling Canada “a nation founded on a union of two great races,” Mr. Roosevelt said:
The harmony of their equal partnership is an example to all mankind – an example everywhere in the world.
The President was accomplished on his trip to the Canadian capital by Harry L. Hopkins, his principal advisor, RAdm. Wilson Brown, naval aide, RAdm. Ross T. McIntire, Surgeon General of the Navy and his personal physician, and Adm. William D. Leahy, his chief of staff.
Prime Minister Churchill and the President said goodbye last night for the present – they plan new conferences in the not-too-distant future – at the Citadel where they worked together for eight days. Mr. Churchill will fish until Saturday when he will make a radio speech also to elaborate on the “Declaration of Québec.”
City deserted
Ottawa was turned out in carnival array. The city was a riot of American red, white and blue. Ancient statues had had their faces washed and large pictures of Mr. Roosevelt adorned thousands of windows. A half-holiday had been proclaimed to permit working people to see the President. The show was the biggest public display in which Mr. Roosevelt has participated since the war began.
The scene was in direct contrast to the somber confines of the Citadel at Québec where Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill, in a press conference yesterday, said their decisions would not be disclosed in their true meaning until activated with ammunition. They offered this high-spot outline of their meeting:
-
Plans for a speedup in the Pacific War and greater aid for China.
-
New Allied blows against the Axis in general. They indicated these might come at any time.
-
A tripartite meeting with Russia, possibly before the end of the year.
-
Another Anglo-American conference before the end of the year and conferences at more frequent intervals than in the past.
-
Approval of unanimous recommendations on sea, air and land operations on the part of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and their corps of between 300 and 400 expert aides. This was in addition to what Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill described as agreement on “the political issues underlying or arising out of the military operations.”
-
Impending recognition of the French Committee of National Liberation.
Yank bombers wreck cruiser
Axis warship set afire off southern Italy
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
…