America at war! (1941--) -- Part 2

10% price cut in meat, butter ordered June 1

Subsidy from RFC employed to roll back food costs to Sept. 15 levels; fresh vegetables next

Can’t hold line, WLB declares

Clarification plea unheeded by Byrnes

Infantry expert succeeds Patton in II Corps post

Gen. Bradley in charge of push on Bizerte

I DARE SAY —
Painful reading

By Florence Fisher Parry

Non-stop drive on foe pledged by Eisenhower

General praises perfect coordination among Allied forces
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

Bombs and shells saturate Nazi resistance in Bizerte

By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer


Vaunted Nazi troops yield Tunis without real battle

By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

‘We’re halfway to Tokyo,’ Yanks say at new base

Amchitka Island, near Jap stronghold on Kiska, being transformed into fortress
By Russell Anabel, United Press staff writer

House group for stronger seizure bill

Senate’s measure to be scrapped – Murray blasts move

Bombers blast Japs in Guinea

21 tons of explosives rain on base at Madang
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer

Editorial: Freedom for the unpopular

Edson: Post-war trade hinges on Hull trade treaties

By Peter Edson

Another Indian tragedy?

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Background of news –
Food rations on occupational basis

By editorial research reports

Women excel in church attendance

WAACs break record in religious worship

Russian actors in demand in all Hollywood studios

Life in Soviet republic now popular theme so Muscovites get many jobs
By Ernest Foster


She’s a farmer daughter harvesting crop of success

Six years ago, Donna Reed was doing a show before audience of ducks and chicken – now she’s starring in films
By Erskine Johnson

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Northern Tunisia – (by wireless)
A few weeks ago, I said in one of these columns that the part the Americans would play in the final phase of the Tunisian war would be comparatively small. That was true, if you look at it from the big angle. But when you look at it from the worm’s-eye view that has been mine in the frontlines during a big portion of the fight, it is hard to see anything from the big angle, and I feel constrained to eat my words.

Our part has seemed mighty large to me at times. For our American troops had a brutal fight in the mountain phase of the campaign.

It was war of such intensity as Americans on this side of the ocean had not known before. It was a battle without letup. It was a war of drenching artillery and hidden mines and walls of machine-gun fire and even of the barbaric bayonet.

Germans fight desperately

It was an exhausting, cruel, last-ditch kind of war, and those who went through it would seriously doubt that war could be any worse than those two weeks of mountain fighting.

The Germans battled savagely and desperately from hill to hill until the big break came. There were times when we had to throw battalion after battalion onto an already-pulverized hill before we could finally take it. Our casualties will surely run high.

Nobody will care to underrate the American contribution to the end of Rommel in North Africa.

My time at the front was spent with a certain unit of the 1st Infantry Division. This division has now been through four big battles in North Africa and has made a good name for itself in every one of them. But it has paid dearly for its victories.

Apparently, there have been some intimations in print back home that the 1st Division did not fight well in its earlier battles. The men of the division all are as sore as hornets about it. If such a thing was printed, it was somebody’s unfortunate mistake. For the 1st Division has always fought well.

1st Division has enviable record

It is natural to be loyal to your friends, and I feel a loyalty to the 1st Division, for I have lived with it off and on for six months. But it is a sad thing to become loyal to the men of a division in wartime. It is sad because the men go, and new ones come and they go, and other new ones come until at last only the famous number is left. Finally, it is only a numbered mechanism through which men pass. The 1st Division will exist forever, but my friends of today may not.

For you at home who think this African campaign has been small stuff, let me tell you just this one thing – the 1st Division has already done more fighting here than it did throughout the last war.

Pilot finishes Pyle yarn on parachuting navigator

‘Funny now, but we were plenty worried at time,’ Lt. John Dempsey of Texas relates

Big show’s about to start –
Allied attack on continent of Europe by summer seems virtually certain

Tunis, Bizerte fall 2 weeks ahead of timetable
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer

U.S. Navy Department (May 9, 1943)

Communiqué No. 372

South Pacific.
On the night of May 6‑7, Liberator (Consolidated) heavy bombers, attacked Japanese positions on Kahili, Fauro Island and Ballale Island in the Shortland Island area.

On May 8:

  1. During the morning a formation of Dauntless (Douglas SBD) dive bombers attacked several Japanese destroyers in the vicinity of Gizo Island in the New Georgia group. One hit with a 1,000‑pound bomb was scored on one destroyer, and several near hits were observed on two other destroyers.

  2. The same morning, Avenger (Grumman TBF) torpedo bombers and Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters bombed and strafed Japanese posi­tions at Munda.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 9, 1943)

NAZIS DRIVEN INTO DEATH TRAP
Enemy remnants in Africa herded onto bleak cape

British drive south of Tunis; Axis forces face ‘Bataan stand’ or attempt at ‘Dunkirk evacuation’
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer