Background of news –
Congressional veto powers
By editorial research reports
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U.S. Navy Department (May 1, 1943)
Communiqué No. 361
South Pacific.
On April 29:
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During the evening, a Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bomber bombed Japanese installations at Numa Numa on the northeast coast of Bougainville Island.
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During the night, a group of Liberator heavy bombers attacked Kieta on the northern coast of Bougainville Island. Two of the four fires which were started were visible for 50 miles.
On April 30:
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During the early morning, a group of Flying Fortress (Boeing B‑17) heavy bombers raided Japanese positions at Kahili in the Shortland Island area. A large fire was started.
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Later in the morning, a formation of Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers and, Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers, escorted by Airacobra (Bell P‑39) and Wildcat (Grumman F4F) fighters, bombed and strafed Japanese installations at Vila in the Central Solomons.
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During the evening, Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters strafed the Japanese‑held area at Rekata Bay on the northern coast of Santa Isabel Island.
All U.S. planes returned from the above operational missions.
News Release
For Immediate Release
May 1, 1943
Coast Guard cutter sinks German U‑boat
The 165‑foot Coast Guard cutter ICARUS (WPC-110), proceeding southward from New York on a routine run, some months ago, sank a German U‑boat and took 33 prisoners, including the submarine’s commanding officer.
The cutter was alone, sailing through calm seas just off the Carolina coast, with her skipper, Lt. (now LtCdr.) Maurice D. Jester, USCG, and his executive officer calmly reviewing recent patrol run experiences when the underseas craft was detected. The submarine was dead ahead and about 100 yards distant. General Quarters was sounded, and as the crew ran to battle stations, the ICARUS flashed into action.
Speeding forward, she reached the spot over the sub, and dropped a pattern of depth charges. As she turned to come back for another attack, a terrific explosion occurred in the open sea about 200 yards off the port side.
The ICARUS crossed the spot where the undersea raider was submerged, dropped another pattern of charges, and followed up with two single charges in quick succession.
Then, as the officers aboard the cutter watched, air bubbles began rising to the surface. Suddenly the crippled U‑boat shot up from below, her bow pointing skyward at a 45‑degree angle. The conning tower burst open, and submarine crew members scrambled onto the deck and made for the deck gun.
The guns of the ICARUS immediately opened a withering fire, sweeping the Germans back toward the conning tower. Then, as the sub started to sink, the Germans jumped into the sea. The vessel suddenly plunged beneath the surface, and the engagement was over.
The ICARUS then picked up the 33 survivors and brought them into port as prisoners of war.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 1, 1943)
MINES SEIZED BY U.S.
Roosevelt asks miners to end strike
Coal companies ordered to assume operation as federal agents
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Yanks closing in on road junction
Guns shell Mateur after doughboys take key hill; planes sink five Axis ships, subs destroy 10
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
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Naval bombers attack five bases in Solomons
Washington (UP) –
The Navy today reported aerial attacks on five Japanese bases in the Solomons.
Fires were started at two of them. At Kieta, Bougainville Island, flames were visible 50 miles away. At Kahili, Shortland Island area, a “large” fire was started.
Vital production lost in stoppages by Ford workers
River Rouge plant suffers 50,000 man-hour loss since Thursday; two other strikes end
By the United Press
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Japs open sub campaign against Australian lifeline
Increased undersea activity follows series of enemy setbacks in South Pacific
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
Gen. MacArthur’s HQ, Australia –
Japan, her air attacks frustrated, began a submarine campaign “in some force” against Allied shipping east of Australia today, evidently trying to cut supply lines to the United States.
A Jap communiqué broadcast by the Tokyo radio said that a Jap submarine sank two enemy transports (one of 12,000 tons and the other of 6,000 tons) in the Southwestern Pacific in the latter part of April.
A communiqué from Gen. Douglas MacArthur revealed that the Japs had fallen back on Adolf Hitler’s favorite weapon.
Recent Axis radio reports indicated Japanese experts may have studied the Nazi U-boat tactics in the Atlantic, raising the possibility they were imitating “wolfpack” methods in the Pacific.
The communiqué said:
The enemy launched a submarine attack in some force in waters east of Australia. Details will be given as soon as their release will not assist his operations.
Follows Jap setbacks
A spokesman added that the subs “are paying more attention to us than they have ever done in the past.”
The development followed a series of Jap setbacks at sea and in the air after Allied spokesmen warned of an impending all-out offensive against Australia from the 2,500-mile island arc to the north.
Nearly 90 of 220 Jap planes sent against Allied outposts in mid-April were shot down. Earlier Allied bombers had played havoc with Jap shipping.
The phrase used by the communiqué – “waters east of Australia” – might mean anywhere from New Guinea and the Solomons in the north, southward through the Coral Sea and to New Zealand in the south.
Planes blast Japs
Through this area may lie the Allied shipping lifeline toward Hawaii and the United States.
Allied planes continued their regular harassing operations against Jap positions and bases.
Again supporting ground troops operating along the northeast New Guinea coast, planes bombed and strafed the Mubo area. A heavy bomber hit Lae, New Guinea.
In raids over New Ireland and New Britain, single planes bombed a cargo vessel in Steffen Strait, the Gasmata Airdrome and the airdrome and grounded planes at Cape Gloucester.
Editorial: Those Japanese cherry trees
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Rep. Rankin (D-MS) wants to change the name of the beautiful cherry trees along Washington’s tidal basin – the trees whose springtime glory offers one of the few happy resting places for eyes made weary by the capital’s miles and miles of Greco-Roman mausoleums.
Instead of calling them Japanese cherry trees, which they are, Rankin wants them to be known as “Korean” cherries. After all, he argues, the Japs stole the cherries from the Koreans. We do not know what authorities he is ready to muster in support of this argument – stacks and stacks, we suppose – but we are sure that the gentleman from Tupelo, Mississippi, never would have tried to right this particular wrong if we were not at war with the Japanese.
This idea comes up just when we had come to believe that, this time, there would not be a rash of Liberty steaks and Liberty cabbages and a changing of street names until a man no longer knew the way home. After all, those cherry trees have been in Washington ever since President Taft’s day. We suppose they are 100% Americans by now. Furthermore, what connection do cherry trees have with the Japanese warlords?
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Northern Tunisia – (by cable)
As is bound to happen in wartime, your close friends sometimes disappear. And as soon as they are gone, you sit of an evening and recounted stories about them, just as we used to do in the old aviation days after a mail pilot didn’t come back from his run.
The closest friend I’ve got so far is Lt. Leonard Bessman, a lawyer from Milwaukee. We have almost definite proof that Bessman was captured, and not killed, so we all hope to see him again before too long if things turn out right. I’ve mentioned Lennie Bessman before in these columns. Of all the soldiers I have ever known, he is the most sensitive to the little beauties of war and to the big tragedy of life. Maybe that is because he is Jewish, or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know.
His bravery was a byword among us long before he was captured.
Laugh about Lennie’s words
We sit around on our cots at night and laugh about things we’d heard Lennie say, because they sounded so melodramatic, yet, knowing him as we do, we know they weren’t melodramatic at all and that Lennie meant what he said.
He was up forward of our advance troops, for that was his job, and suddenly he found himself cut off, with a German tank in front of him and a machine-gun nest on his side. Lennie jumped out of his jeep, pulled his .45 and yelled at the heavily-armed enemy:
Come on out and I won’t shoot.
How’s that for confidence? We sit around at night and laugh about it.
Most of us find our emotions becoming jaded as month after month of war piles up on us, but Lennie was never jaded. He had a facility for mirroring in his fertile mind every little human thing that crossed his path. I’ll tell you a couple of stories he told us.
We had a certain type of anti-aircraft gun, mounted on a half-track, which requires two men to fire. They sit in two metal bucket seats just back of the guns.
Eyes kept on Germans
Lennie was lying near this ack-ack outfit during a terrific dive-bombing and strafing. He kept his eyes on these two special gunners as the Stukas came down right upon them.
The two never wavered. They sat there firing until suddenly and in unison they toppled sideways out of their seats – dead. And all within the same instant two more Americans rose like twins from the bed of the half-track, took the seats just vacated by death, and went right on with the firing.
The incident that most tickled his admiration was a queer one. It seems we had a big concentration of artillery that was giving the Germans plenty of trouble. They couldn’t locate it, so at night they would send planes over hunting for it. Of course, it was then our cue to lay low and silent, so as not to give away our position by firing at them.
‘You silly fools’
They came night after night, and never did find us. But each night after they had circled and were finally leaving, one lone contemptuous gunner would fire one lone contemptuous shot at them, just as though to say:
Here we are, you silly fools!
Night after night that one gunner would fire his one slapstick shot just as they were leaving. His sauciness exalted Lennie’s soul. I’ve heard him say:
I’d rather shake hands with that man than anybody in the American Army. I’m going to try to find him, and even if he’s a private I’m going to salute him.
We have heard that the Germans took the few Americans captured at El Guettar and marched them up the main street of Tunis, then loaded them in trucks and paraded them back again, then unloaded them and marched them through town once more – to make it look as though there were lots of prisoners. One of Lennie’s friends back here says he can just see Lennie, on his third compulsory trip down the main street of Tunis, screwing up his nose in the special mask of comic disgust which is one of his little habits, and observing:
Seems as if I’ve seen this before somewhere.
Lewis ‘squeeze’ play against government gives Jap propagandists chance to grow
OWI chief wonders how good American citizens got into position to help enemy
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The home front –
WAACs may become officer candidates after four weeks of basic training
3rd officer rating is possible at end of tenth week
A woman enlisting in the WAAC may qualify for a commission in 10 weeks, whereas the shortest time in which a male soldier in the Army may obtain a commission is six months.
The basic training period for a WAAC is four weeks. After this, any WAAC may apply through her commanding officer for an officer-candidate school.
The women’s OCS lasts six weeks. Upon successful completion of this course, the WAAC is commissioned a third officer, which is the same as a second lieutenant in the Army.
Eligible for the WAAC are women 21-44, inclusive, who have completed at least two years of high school, or its equivalent, and who don’t have any dependent children.
Millett: Complicated
Canned goods are new divorce problems
By Ruth Millett
Divorce proceedings have now met with a new complication. It used to be that the only custody problems a judge faced involved children and pets.
Now there is the problem of who gets the canned goods.
In Colorado, a judge ordered a divorce-seeking pair to bring all their canned goods into court so that he could divide them equally among the husband and wife and their six children.
Canned goods may cause some real courtroom battles.
Can you imagine a wife, whose husband wouldn’t give her any assistance in very victory garden, and who worked long hour putting up preserves and pickles, letting a judge award part of those to her husband without voicing a word of protest?
And won’t kids squawk if the canned goods a judge apportions to them turns out to be everything that is good for them – and nothing they really like?
And do you think any woman is going to accept as fair share of canned goods any of the sardines hoarded by her snack-eating husband?
Yes, sir, the judges are going to have their hands full, now that they have taken on the job of deciding the fate of a family’s store of canned goods.
There will probably be some fights, involving canned goods, that will make the Gloria Vanderbilt custody case look like a good-natured discussion.
Because Americans now take their canned goods seriously.
U.S. Navy Department (May 2, 1943)
Communiqué No. 362
South Pacific.
On April 30: During the morning Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers and Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers, escorted by Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters, attacked Japanese positions at Munda in the Central Solomons.
North Pacific.
On April 30, Army Lightning (Lockheed P‑38) fighters carried out two attacks on Japanese installations at Kiska. Hits were scored but bad weather prevented complete observation of results.