Stokes: Congress puts its challenge in plain talk
Real test to come when bureaus of Roosevelt bring demands
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Farm bloc calls for quick halt of labor drain
Parity and priorities also to become major issues, caucus decides
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Fliers blast Guinea bases
MacArthur’s men closing in on coastal point
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Halsey sticks to prediction of 1943 victory
Could smash Japs sooner with more ‘weight,’ admiral says
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Jolson and Cantor stage colossal worrying spree
And when these fellows start fretting, they can’t be beat!
By Martin Kane
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With U.S. forces in Algeria – (by wireless)
A fine collection of freak stories about the mails is growing up over here. Recently we had a flood of mail both from England and America. Mailsacks were piled on the docks by the thousand, making mounds as big as strawstacks. The Army Post Office, working with remarkable speed, sorted and delivered all of it in three days.
Some people got as many as 75 letters all at once. One fellow I know got two letters – one a notification that a friend had subscribed to the Reader’s Digest for him, which he already knew, and the other a mimeographed letter which his wife had sent him, though he had received no personal letter from her in weeks. The recipient uses very unchurchly language when he talks about it.
Another man I know, a colonel from San Francisco, hasn’t heard from his wife in three months, or from his friends in longer than that. This recent deluge of mail brought him just one letter. It was from a vice president of the Goodrich Tire Company, warning him that it was his patriotic duty to conserve his tires.
Old movies shown again
But here I think was the best one: Capt. Raymond Ferguson o£ Los Angeles had a Christmas box from his aunt. It was the first one she had sent in many years, and he was quite touched when
he saw who it was from.
American movies, prohibited during the German occupation, are being shown again. There are some modem theaters in the bigger cities, but no new films have arrived yet.
They are dragging out some unbelievable antiques. One theater showed a film starring Sessue Hayakawa, who has been gone so long you have to be middle-aged to remember him at all. Another star was the dog Rin Tin Tin, dead lo these many years.
Gossip-column items: Capt. Stan Pickens, Charlotte Coca Cola king, came to town and bought an Algerian violin in a wooden case, to while away his spare hours at camp. He paid $22 for it and was lucky to find one at any price, as the music stores were nearly bare… Lt. Col. Gurney Taylor has just been in to use my bath again. That’s two baths for the colonel in less than a week. It makes him so damn clean he is conspicuous.
…Staff Sgt. Chuck Conick of Pittsburgh got a whole flock of Pittsburgh Presses the other day and came rushing over to show me my own column. Unfortunately, the papers were four months old and I was just arriving in England and far behind the times as usual. I’ve just had the novel experience of driving an Army truck 50 miles along African roads at nighttime, to help out a fellow who was getting a little tired. It was the first time I’d driven since leaving America six months before, and it felt wonderful.
Army newspaper printed
Traffic in Africa, incidentally, is righthanded, the same as at home. After all those months in lefthanded England, I felt, during the first few days, as if I was on the wrong side of the road… The latest rumor to hit town is that the ship we came from England on was sunk on the way back. I’d hate to think of that faithful ship being on the bottom of the ocean.
A large batch of officer promotions came through, catching many officers without the insignia of their new rank. They’ll have to continue wearing their old ones, as no American insignia are available here. I heard of one ambitious and farsighted second lieutenant who came loaded with all possible insignia up to three stars.
The Army newspaper Stars and Stripes is already printing an African edition. Lt. Col. Egbert White and Lt. Harry Harchar flew down to Algiers from London, and with Sgt. Bob Neville set up shop and were printing in less than a week. The paper is now a weekly but it may become a daily. It is doubly welcome down here, where you get only old newspapers printed in French.
Highway to Alaska
24-hour truck convoys beat subzero cold along Alaska highway
By Tom Wolf, special to the Pittsburgh Press
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U.S. Navy Department (January 8, 1943)
Communiqué No. 244
North Pacific.
On January 6, a force of “Liberator” heavy bombers (Consolidated B-24) dropped bombs on shore installations at Kiska. Clouds prevented observation of results.
South Pacific.
On January 7, a force of “Marauder” medium bombers (Martin B-26) attacked the airfield and installations at Munda on New Georgia Island. Results were not reported.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 8, 1943)
ROOSEVELT FAVORS PAY-AS-YOU-GO TAX
Forgiving tax one obstacle in plan’s path
Treasury will ultimately lose money, President warns
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Japs mass fleet for battle; Allies sink 2 big troopships
Third transport crippled off Guinea; foe loses thousands of men
A battle as great as that at Midway when the Japs struck with 80 ships is expected soon in the South Pacific as reports today revealed a huge Jap fleet is massing north of the Solomons.
What may have been a diversion attack was smashed when Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s fliers sank two huge troopships off New Guinea, damaged a third and downed 18 Zero fighters. Thousands of Japs were lost and the battle is continuing.
15,000 crushed in Buna drive
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Foe may strike at Guadalcanal
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
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Enforcement of driving ban begun in U.S.
Motorists who break laws will be questioned on use of gasoline
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Editorial: We want no Gestapo
We think the local Office of Price Administration could have made no greater error than to turn loose a force of government agents, accompanied by police, to stop and question motorists.
This isn’t the way policies are enforced in America. It smacks of the Gestapo. It is bound to create bitterness and resistance.
And, most important of all, it will undermine the rationing system, which is obviously imperative to success of the war program. This is the sort of thing that undermines confidence in an emergency measure such as rationing.
The American people are willing to make war sacrifices. But they are not willing to be questioned on the streets as if they were fugitives from justice.
Fortunately, the procedure followed here seemed to be at variance with the national policy. The sooner it is stopped, the better for all concerned.
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Rommel’s men nearer Tripoli
Allied fliers raid Sicily and Tunisian ports
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
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Communiqués due direct from Africa
Washington (UP) – (Jan. 7)
A War Department spokesman said today that henceforth communiqués on the North African fighting will probably not be issued here.
Publication of the communiqués here simultaneously with or shortly after their release by North African headquarters has been a temporary measure adopted because of communications difficulties in North Africa, the spokesman explained.
Communications from that area have been greatly expanded, however, and now are apparently adequate to carry the full flow of news to the home front.
The spokesman said that from now on, news of the North African fighting will come direct from the front and from Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters.