U.S.-Martinique pacts junked
Adm. Robert’s loyalty to Vichy condemned
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McNutt plans control over all job shifts
Program may depend on whether labor pressure forces change
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Washington keeps coal strike plan a close secret
President can do ‘plenty,’ Justice Department says, but declines to explain what; troop movements noted
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
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Currency bill is signed
Washington –
President Roosevelt yesterday signed the bill continuing the Treasury’s $2-billion currency stabilization fund for two years. Congress specified that the fund was not to be used in connection with possible U.S. participation in a world monetary system.
Japanese cut air activity in South Pacific
Enemy may be preparing new operation, experts in Washington say
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Bombs hit Jap seaplane base
Two fighters shot down in raid on Amboina
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Northern Tunisia – (by wireless)
Our Army in North Africa is still full of rumors. Most of them have to do with when we will go home.
Recently, there was a rumor that President Roosevelt had made a radio address saying that the mothers, wives and sweethearts of the men in North Africa were due for a big surprise as soon as the Tunisian campaign was over. I have never been able to verify whether he made such a speech or not, but anyway the rumored remark spread and was immediately interpreted by the men as meaning that everybody was going home the minute the last German was out of Africa. Some of our troops sincerely believe that’s what will happen.
The orange and tangerine seasons is over now. Those richly juicy North African tangerines were one of the pleasantest things of our war over here. For months we ate them by the daily dozens. Now that they are all gone, we are back to occasional canned fruit juice from America. And on British mess tables you’ll find a little can of pills called ascorbic tablets, which you take daily to make up for the lack of fruits in your diet.
Mama and Papa’s hotel intact
I stopped at Fériana one day to check up on what had happened to our little old hotel there and Papa and Mama and the boys, who ran it.
Well, the American Army had taken over the hotel, lock, stock and barrel. Papa and Mama were still living in Tébessa, to which they fled when the Germans came. Two of the boys were back at Fériana, living in two backrooms and just sort of waiting for the Army to leave.
The Germans had done very little damage to the place. Before long now all of us intruders will be gone and then Fériana can go back to its own peaceful ways,
A new type of American ration has just showed up over here in answer to the British “compo,” which small groups of traveling soldiers had found so superior to anything of ours. The new stuff is called “U ration.” It’s wonderful. It has everything that is needed by four or five men out on a trip who have to fix their own meals.
It comes in a pasteboard box inside a wooden box. Everything is done up in small cans or packets just big enough to be used up at one meal.
Meals are really somethin’
With it come two printed menus to help guide you. I’ve lost No. 1 but here is No. 2: Breakfast – tomato juice, whole-wheat cereal, sliced bacon, biscuits, coffee; dinner – bean soup, roast beef, quick-cooking rice, biscuits, lemonade, hard candy; supper – meat and vegetable stew, dried prunes, coffee, apricot spread.
The ration also includes root beer, gumdrops, canned butter, lemonade, tomato juice in powdered form, and two big envelopes of toilet paper. The tomato juice is fairly lousy, but the canned bacon is superb. God bless the U ration!
He understood all the time
Lots of odd little prisoner stories are popping up.
One American officer I know had to take charge of a German aviator who had been brought down. The German had a slight wound in the forehead, so the American officer took him in a jeep to a hospital and had the wound treated. Then he put him under guard for the night but saw to it that he was free to go to the toilet whenever he wished, and even sent him some extra blankets.
The German was surly throughout. Efforts at casual conversation with him got nowhere. Obviously, he was mean, and couldn’t understand what was said to him anyway.
The next morning, he was transferred to a prison camp. The American officer wasn’t present when his guest left, but just as the German stepped into a truck, he spoke to one of our orderlies, and in perfect English without an accent said:
Corporal, tell Maj. Smith I deeply appreciate everything he did for me.
Aleutians a two-way street –
Elaborate fortifications built on islands – foe will be hard to dislodge
By Sherman Montrose, ACME Newspictures photographer
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Ferguson: Bitter harvest
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Far too little was said in our newspapers about the recent YMCA conference on juvenile delinquency held in St. Louis. Yet the facts disclosed are of viral importance to that part of the public concerned with the effects of war upon children and adolescents.
Social welfare over the country have expressed alarm at the steady increase of delinquency, particularly sex offense among young girls.
It’s high time for adults, fighting, sacrificing and hoping for a better world, to share their fears. The situation in every community calls for action as well as thought. We must plan to save these children, and it can’t be done by talking about their behavior or writing pieces like this one for the papers. It has got to be an intelligent cooperative effort by all men and women who have the imagination to see war as a motivating force behind human behavior.
Certainly, the freedom our soldiers are dying for won’t be worth much to youngsters whose bodies are diseased and whose morals have gone down the drain.
We now reap the bitter harvest, sowed to the spendthrift ‘20s, in the lawless Prohibition days, and in the era of ego exploitation. Out of that era came irresponsible, selfish, drunken parents; adults without codes of honor or a sense of duty toward either parents, husbands, wives or children.
Even today millions of mature men and women regard and use the war effort as an opportunity to fling convention and virtue to the winds. While men suffer and die, they are out “for a good time.” Is it any wonder that adolescents looking on at adult antics have become tainted with the poison of defeatism, irresponsibility and self-indulgence?