Army Engineers engaged in $10-billion program
Corps rounds out 168th anniversary with most ambitious record in its history – work secret
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Cheers and high spirits mark troops’ embarkation
Former luxury liner is used to transport U.S. soldiers to South Pacific war zone
By Hal O’Flaherty
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Allied airmen score hits on Jap cargo ship
4,000-ton vessel left in flames; 11 landing barges damaged
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Fortress delivers bombs on Kiel in spite of fire
Pilot on raid says: ‘Saturday night I played poker with 7 guys, today 2 are left’
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Stilwell back at China post
Says Allies ‘determined to get to Tokyo’
By George Wang, United Press staff writer
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Yank bombers blast Jap bridge in Burma
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Millett: Be a dad to soldier’s lad in honor of Father’s Day
Little fellows need a man to lean on
By Ruth Millett
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‘Victory without real Americanism isn’t enough,’ says DAR executive
Flag Day meeting is counseled about post-war needs
By Anne Weiss
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Supreme Court radio rules effective here
Stations freed to reject network programs
By Si Steinhauser
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‘Zoot-suit’ riots end, Navy ban off
Los Angeles, California (UP) –
The Navy today officially recognized the end of zoot-suit rioting here by lifting its out-of-bounds order.
Effective at noon, sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen can spend their leaves anywhere in the Los Angeles area.
RAdm. D. W. Bagley, commandant of the 11th Naval District, said the ban was lifted following a message from Mayor Fletcher Bowron “assuring the commandant that the police department was prepared to handle the situation to the satisfaction of all concerned.”
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Africa –
Here’s a good lesson in not believing everything you hear. Up in North Africa last winter, there was a report from people who should know that more than 50% of our troops in tropical Africa were down with malaria. We just accepted it as true.
But when I went to Central Africa, I found that malaria among our soldiers was less than 1%! And dysentery is even lower.
The false rumor was based on one single detachment of troops. They were the first to hit Africa last spring, they were in an infested jungle, they were without mosquito nets for the first four days, and practically the whole camp was down with malaria. The percentage was actually greater than the rumored 50, in that one case.
But that was soon over, and today that place is as healthy as any other. And nowhere else have we ever had a serious run of the fever.
Actually, the general health of our troops in the tropics is better than in the average camp at home, Army doctors say. It’s because we exercise such extraordinarily careful protection over our men’s health. You can’t travel around Central Africa without feeling a tremendous pride in the Army’s Medical and Sanitary Corps.
Let’s go to another part of Africa – a place so deep that it takes days of flying to get there. Right from our camp you can hear the throb of tom-toms all over the country at night. The soldiers only have to take a boat ride to shoot crocodiles. The place is practically the capital of malaria and dysentery.
Our campsite – picked by local officials – was in the worst swamp around. Yet the Americans thrive there. The answer lies in spraying and burning and oiling the swamps, using mosquito netting. Watching all dirt and filth, and taking 10 grains of quinine a day.
They had an astonishing example there of American sanitation. The troops were living out in this swamp-like camp. But the Army nurses were living temporarily in the nearby city. They were living in a hotel – a big, modern, lovely place. And every single one of the nurses came down with dysentery – one of them died – while only three of the soldiers out in the swamp got dysentery. Those three vases were traced to eating occasional meals in town, at the same place the nurses got theirs.
An Army doctor told me the other day that probably every one of our soldiers in that area does have malaria germs in him, but the daily quinine keeps them from becoming active. I asked him, then, how long it would take the germs to die after leaving malarial country.
He said:
If we were to be ordered home tomorrow, I’d have the boys continue their daily quinine for six weeks. By that time, all the germs would be out of them.
Throughout the tropics all Americans sleep under mosquito netting, and wear boots of an evening, and most of them take quinine. In some places, they take one tablet a day (five grains), and in more dangerous places two a day. Nobody uses face nets, so far as I know.
A few people can’t take quinine. It gives them a bad skin rash, and too much ringing in the ears. These people are put on atabrine. And then there are other people who are allergic to atabrine and get deathly sick after taking it. These people are kept on quinine.
A few of our men have cracked up under the tropical strain and had to be sent home. But they are very few. The average man gets along all right in the tropics if he is careful, keeps regular hours, and doesn’t drink too much.
It is true that the tropics sap your energy. You just don’t have the old git-up-and-git you had back home. You feel sleepy of a morning, you’re a little dopey most of the time, you welcome the siesta after lunch. You’re less efficient than back home.
In one of our camps where soldiers were doing hard manual labor such as mixing concrete, they tried both an hour and a half and two hours and a half for the lunch-and-rest period. Hospital figures showed the two-and-a-half-hour noon rest was necessary. So that’s what they’re on now.
But of course, they’re young. Now me, at my age, I have to rest all day.
U.S. Navy Department (June 16, 1943)
Communiqué No. 413
South Pacific.
During the evenings of June 13 and 14, Flying Fortress (Boeing B‑17) and. Liberator (Consolidated) heavy bombers attacked Japanese installations at Kahili and on Shortland Island in the Buin area.
On the evening of June 14, Army Mitchell (North American B‑25) medium bombers escorted by Navy Corsair (Vought F4U) fighters bombed the runway and antiaircraft positions of the airfield at Vila, Kolombangara Island.
On June 15, in the early morning, Japanese planes dropped bombs on Guadalcanal Island. No personnel or material damage has been reported.