WLB relaxes its tight hold on pay changes
Adjustments may be made on regional basis from now on
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Flier watches five of nine comrades swallowed by sea
Sergeant describes night of horror that followed bomber’s crash into Mediterranean
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Yanks lug sleeping bags to advance Attu positions
Americans take shelter in gulch as Jap mortar shells whine overhead, hit with dull thud
By William Gilman, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Allied armies termed ready by Eisenhower
Tunisian victory ‘jolted enemy’s morale,’ general says
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Tunisia’s ‘Molotov’ enters souvenir-hunting paradise
A hero on battlefield, Pvt. Warner was labeled 9th Division’s worst soldier
By Thomas R. Henry, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Navy cites twin brothers for bravery in Coral Sea
Ceremony provides happy reunion with third brother after Lexington’s sinking
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Millett: Mother’s wartime program must include entertainment
Servicemen need change of pace for good morale and so does overworked housewife
By Ruth Millett
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U.S. Navy Department (May 31, 1943)
Communiqué No. 396
North Pacific.
On May 30, U.S. Army forces on Attu Island continued in the mopping up of the remaining Japanese pockets of resistance.
U.S. Navy Department (June 1, 1943)
Communiqué No. 397
North Pacific.
On May 30, on Attu Island:
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Three separate columns of U.S. Army troops coming in from the South, Southwest and West respectively, effected a junction on the shores of Chichagof Harbor.
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In the forward movement of the U.S. Army troops small Japanese groups offered weak resistance. Over 400 of the enemy were killed in the operations during the night of May 29‑30.
On May 30, Army Liberator (Consolidated B‑24) heavy bombers, Mitchell (North American 8‑25) medium bombers, and Warhawk (Curtiss P‑40) fighters attacked Japanese installations at Kiska. Fires were started in Gertrude Cove, the camp area, on a beached ship and on the runway.
Communiqué No. 398
Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported the following results of operations against the enemy in the waters of these areas:
- One destroyer sunk.
- One large tanker sunk.
- One large cargo ship sunk.
- Two medium-sized cargo ships sunk.
- One small cargo ship sunk.
- One medium‑sized transport sunk.
- One large tanker damaged and probably sunk.
These actions have not been announced in any previous Navy Department Communiqué.
Is the bay called Massacre bay or were the Japanese Massacred on the bay?
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Yes, it’s a real place.
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The Pittsburgh Press (June 1, 1943)
MINES IDLE; LEWIS DEFIES U.S.
Troops may go to coal fields
Union, owners continue to negotiate
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B-C GAS COUPON VALUES CUT TO 2.5 GALLONS
New order in effect tomorrow
‘As’ remain unchanged; OPA tightens its regulations
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Allied fleet of 104 ships at Gibraltar
Germans predict invasion about June 22; Italians admit danger
By Robert Richards, United Press staff writer
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Huge armada of Fortresses hammers Italy
Foggia Airfield, railroad yards undergo third raid in 4 days
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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Capt. Al Gough is awarded medal
Washington (UP) –
The Distinguished Flying Cross has been awarded posthumously to five U.S. fliers killed March 22 while participating in a bombing mission by B-25 Mitchell medium bombers which successfully attacked Axis shipping at Palermo and Naples, the War Department disclosed today.
Recipients of the award were Capt. Virgil Ingram Jr. of Greenville, Indiana; Capt. Albert Gough of 1250 S Negley Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 1st Lt. Raymond G. Munson of Cheney, Washington; 2nd Lt. Edward H. Phelan Jr. of Whittler, California, and Staff Sgt. William E. Gustafson of Minneapolis.
First, Massacre baby and now Murder, Inc. What is up with these names?
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I DARE SAY —
Somewhere in France
By Florence Fisher Parry
It was in 1919. They were saying of Verdun:
The grass will never grow again, the earth has been blasted into a perpetual shell-hole, it is as dead as the moon.
But the grass grew, and Fort Douaumont, where rotted the skeletons of men and horses in the impersonal sun, is now a trimmed fine monument.
We journeyed over the devastated area in little halting trains, in broken-down cars, in carts and by foot, and always, at the sides of the roads, there would be crooked, hasty graves with crosses leaning crazily at jaunty angles; and in the fields, the German prisoners would be digging up the dead, the long, shallow tiers of the dead, and their French guards would speak to them in hushed and gentle voices, as though the grisly sight has resolved all emotion into a common whisper.
Among the thousands of graves, it seemed that we would never find our grave; but we did. it was up there near Bar-le-Duc, and we stayed the night at Châlons-sur-Marne, the shelled stairs that led up to our room propped up perilously with planks, and the wind mourning through the great holes in the wall.
When we found, at last, our grave, it was in midst of others, in a little white lime plot high on a hill. Pebbles covered the graves to keep them from corroding, and the crosses crouched almost to the ground. No blade of grass was anywhere, no bush, no tree; the war had picked the face of France clean, like a bleached bone.
American graves
But hung over the crosses like horseshoes over stakes, were wreaths, everlasting wreaths, dry and faded and tired with purple ribbons and rattling in the wind. And here and there were bent, black figures moving like shriveled nuns among the crosses and stopping before this painted name and that, and saying the name softly in their pretty French way, “Jean Smeet,” they would murmur over the cross of one John Smith. And then one of them would place a stiff, small wreath across the arms of the cross, and the little shrouded arm would make a sign of the cross, and they would move on to another undecorated grave.
They were all American graves. Unclaimed as yet. The great work of reclamation had not started. The vast green cemeteries, stretching out in beautiful geometrical designs as in Arlington, had not yet been assigned…
But while they were waiting, they were being taken care of, in that meager, punctilious way that the French have, making a ceremony of the most trifling token, and in so doing bequeathing to the token a priceless value.
They eyed us with open wonder and respect. That we should have crossed the great ocean to fetch our dead! Quel expense! Quel sentiment!
…Now our escort was one of whom I have thought much these last few years. He is dead now, for he was leaning toward the sunset then.
The tribute
I keep thinking of him today, for it is Memorial Day, and I remember how we got a letter from him one day in the June following our mission to France. It was written in the most exquisite French, so of course there is not any way whatever to translate it and preserve its delicacy…
But he told us, quite modestly, how he had learned of our lovely Memorial Day, and how he had made for himself the rare occasion of journeying to our little white graveyard up there beyond Châlons-sur-Marne, so that on our Decoration Day the grave would be garlanded with tokens of France’s undying gratitude.
He had had to remain up all night in a chair in the office of the concierge of the little leaning hotel at Chalons, and much of the journey thence had been made on foot.
There was no way for us ever to know how long the wreath swung there upon this lowly bit of Calvary… But should the wind have blown it down, the cross still would not have been bare, of that we were quite sure! For the little bent figures of the widows of France would have seen to it that the grave was not neglected!
“Voila!” they would exclaim, at sight of the bare cross. And hang, anew, a token of their everlasting love.
And as they look upwards to find the sound of airplanes, they are saying now, even now:
Ah, des Américains! They will come again! Wait! Hold the heart, keep it from storming yet a little while! Des Américains will arrive.