U.S. imposes ban on candy Easter eggs
Substitutes still undecided, but the hens will give usual help
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Post-war plan facing Senate committee foe
Amendment would make agreements subject to two-thirds vote
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Too-speedy construction blamed for ship breakup
Kaiser personnel’s ‘laudable purpose’ resulted in welding faults, investigators assert
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Jap offensive pace upset by Allied planes
Convoy turned back by bombers – Dobo base given pounding
By William Wilson, United Press staff writer
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MacArthur builds up Army, checks Japs in first year
General still long way from goal, races to beat enemy to offensive
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Here’s reason for slow pace in African war
10 tons of equipment are needed to land one doughboy
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In North Africa –
The Arab kids that swarm the roads around the Army camps and nearby villages are a friendly bunch.
It takes them only a few hours to learn the worldwide habit of begging from Americans. I’ll bet our soldiers aren’t two days in a new place until every kid in town is able to say in English “chewing gum, chocolate, cigarette, goodbye, okay.” They pester you to death for these tidbits, and the soldiers keep giving them away as long as they have any.
The Arab kids seem to have more sense than the pestering child-natives of many countries. Instead of being dumb and surly, they have a nice spark of life about them. If you say you have no chewing gum and smile at them, they’ll smile back and then stand around good-naturedly just smiling at you. Their favorite word is “okay.” Even some of the grownups have adopted it. They yell it at every passing American. You can’t walk down the road nowadays without being walled in by a surging melody of hundreds of “okays” coming at you from all sides.
Once in a while you see a light-skinned, clean-gowned, almost sheik-like Arab. But mostly their clothes are unwashed, and their long gowns an unbelievable mass of patches.
At first the Arabs were allowed to roam the airdromes, and they helped the crews fill the planes’ big tanks from the countless five-gallon tins.
There are quite a few carriages for hire in the desert towns and soldiers take rides in lieu of anything better to do. If I were an Arab, I know how I’d make a small fortune.
Passing up easy money
I’d get about 10 camels, and rent them out to soldiers to take rides on. I’d also get a camera and take pictures of soldiers on camelback, and sell them for 100 francs apiece. Apparently, no Arab has thought of it, but somebody is passing up an opportunity of making about 10,000 bucks awfully easily.
The horse carriages are fancy. The driver sits on a high box up front and is often dressed in bright clothes. One of these carriages the other evening provided the funniest sight I’ve seen since leaving America. It was just before dusk and the air-raid signal swept across our airdrome by dinner bell and rifle shot. I was standing way out on the field, when suddenly there came dashing out from behind the palm trees one of these Arab carriages.
The driver had brought some soldiers to the field, had heard the alarm and being touchy about raids, as Arabs are, had decided to get the hell out of there in a hurry.
Currier & Ives touch
He was standing up in his box, coattails flying, whipping his horses for all he was worth. The team was in a dead run. The buggy was bouncing and swaying over the rough desert trail. The horses were going so hard their bodies were stretched out, their flying feet almost level with their noses, and one was a little ahead of the other, just as on the racetrack.
With the carriage’s red wheels and the driver’s red coat for color, the scene looked exactly like a Currier & Ives print. The poor, frightened man’s pathetic hurry was so comical that we all stopped and laughed till he was out of sight, still going like mad.
Queer little incidents happen in war. Mechanics on the Flying Fortresses kept discovering empty machine-gun shells in the engine nacelles. Where they came from was a mystery. Finally, it dawned on somebody. Planes were dumping the empties in midair after shooting them, and they were being carried back by the slipstream, right through the propellers of the following planes, and lodging in the nacelles. You’d think it would damage the propellers, but apparently it doesn’t.
Gunner ‘wounded’ in pants pocket
And speaking of freaks, a Fortress gunner came home the other day with the corner of his pants pocket torn, apparently by a piece of flak, although it must have been fairly spent, for he didn’t know when it hit. Later, he put his hand in his pocket and discovered the metal fragment nestling there right in his pocket.
Practically all of our soldiers in North Africa have slept on the ground ever since they got here. The other day, I overheard one boy tell about going to Algiers on leave, and sleeping all night in a hotel bed. He said:
I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning with a splitting headache, just because the damn bed was so soft and I never did get back to sleep.
U.S. Navy Department (March 18, 1943)
Communiqué No. 316
North Pacific.
On March 16, U.S. Army aircraft carried out the following attacks on Japanese installations and aircraft at Kiska:
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During the morning, Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated B‑24) and Mitchell medium bombers (North American B‑25) supported by Lightning fighters (Lockheed P‑38) bombed the main camp area and the submarine base. Hits were observed in both target areas.
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During the early afternoon, eight Lightnings engaged eight enemy planes in the vicinity of Kiska. Two of the enemy planes were shot down and an additional two were probably destroyed.
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Later in the afternoon, Liberators, Mitchells, and Lightnings again attacked the enemy submarine base and other installations. A large fire was started in the camp area.
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Still later in the afternoon, a group of Mitchells again attacked and scored bomb hits on the submarine base.
South Pacific.
During the night of March 16‑17, Liberator heavy bombers carried out minor attacks on Japanese positions at Munda and Vila in the central Solomons and at Kahili and Ballale in the Shortland Island area. Results were not observed.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 18, 1943)
Americans push 30 miles in drive to trap Rommel
Gafsa seized; Axis retreats toward Gabes
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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‘Six-shooter’ Patton leads African push
‘Old Blood and Guts’ now in his favorite job – fighting
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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