Gas ban ruling due in few days
OPA chief drops a hint, he’s against it
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Bouncing bureaucrat bounced –
Bovingdon won’t quit so Crowley fires him
Ballet dancing OEW official claims he’s a victim of anti-New Deal smearing
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Draft dodging school bared by FBI arrest
Noted hoax artist held for teaching evasion for fancy fees
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Over the teacups –
Mild Mr. Lewis tells WLB meaning of ‘on the make’
Organ tones are muted as UMW leader explains how easy it is to boost mine wages
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Georgia votes to give ballot to 18-year-olds
Amendment places states first on the list to lower age
Atlanta, Georgia (UP) –
Georgia today apparently became the first state in the nation to grant voting privileges to 18-year-olds.
Returns from yesterday’s balloting gave almost certain approval of a measure to lower the voting age and 27 other constitutional amendments sponsored by Governor Ellis Arnall to “complete my campaign promises to the people of Georgia.”
State officials estimated, on the basis of Selective Service figures, that more than 160,000 names would be added to registration lists.
The figures, however, included Negroes who do not vote in Georgia Democratic primaries, whose nominations are tantamount to election.
In Ploești raid –
Farmhouses spout ack-ack at U.S. fliers
Anti-aircraft batteries disguised as barns, chicken coops
Tel Aviv, Palestine (UP) – (Aug. 3, delayed)
Four miles from the Ploești oil fields in Romania, innocent-looking farmhouses, barns and chicken coops “opened up and spat out ack-ack fire” at the American raiders who hit the area Sunday, Col. John R. Kane of Shreveport, Louisiana, said today.
Col. Kane, in charge of a group of the Ploești fliers on furlough here, said the bombardment was an anniversary raid for his men because they first attacked the Germans at Marsa Matruh in North Africa Aug. 1, 1941. Since then, they have attacked Rome once and Naples 13 times.
Col. Kane, a former West Point football player, said many anti-aircraft guns were wiped out in the raid.
Brereton gives ‘pep talk’
Sgt. Harry Rifkin of the Bronx, New York, a waist gunner, said:
After we had practiced for two weeks, Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton gave us a pep talk the day before the raid. He told us if the mission was successful, it would shorten the war by six months. We think it was successful.
Huge flames were licking up in the oil fields when his plane came in for its low-level attack, Lt. R. Sternfels of Detroit, Michigan, said.
Lt. Sternfels said:
We tore through a balloon cable and skimmed over the target, flying low. The flames were so high they licked at us on all sides.
No time for fear
We had no time to be frightened. All we thought of after dropping our bombs was to get away from the place, but we kept flying 50 feet off the ground for 100 miles to prevent enemy fliers from diving at us.
Lt. Sternfels said about 50 Me 110s, 210s and 109s were in the air over the fields.
We saw one damaged Liberator land in a cornfield while the crew of another baled out not far from the target.
Air chief lauds ‘magnificent’ jobs
Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
Air Chf. Mshl. Sir Arthur Tedder, Allied air commander in the Mediterranean Theater, characterized the American bombing of the Ploești oil fields in Romanian today as “a big job magnificently done.”
He messaged Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, U.S. commander in the Middle East:
I wish to express my deep admiration of the magnificent manner in which the IX Bomber Command carried out their great task of striking to the very heart of the enemy’s war capacity.
I was immensely impressed by the thorough way in which the plans were prepared and the training completed.
Lone American captures city, ‘saves bullets’
Private walks through Yank artillery barrage to get to area
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
With a U.S. reconnaissance platoon, Cerami, Sicily, Italy – (Aug. 1, delayed)
One man walked through the American artillery barrage and captured this town Friday. He wanted to “save the division some ammunition.”
He is tall, blond Pvt. Edmund Wheeler, former New York City bank clerk, from Old Chatham, New York. He belongs to this super reconnaissance outfit which goes in ahead of regular reconnaissance units.
Pvt. Wheeler was on a reconnaissance mission about three miles from Cerami when “I went forward and got lost.”
He said:
Our mission was to locate a German self-propelled artillery piece on our right flank, but the damned thing must have been moved. We kept getting higher and higher in the mountain and when I got lost, I remembered the division’s objective was Cerami.
Sights patrol
Our artillery was working ahead of me and I wanted to save them some ammunition if possible. As I got closer to the town on the southeast flank, I saw a man folding a blanket. I knew he must have been a soldier because no civilian would fold a blanket. Then I saw a four-man patrol going into the town to the east.
By now, it was getting dark and I saw a house about the three-quarters of a mile outside the town and when I approached it, I heard a lot of kids talking. I went to the house and the Italian family gave me a royal reception, shouting “Americano, Americano.”
I shivered in my boots because I knew there were Heinies about and I thought the shouts would give me away.
There was one old guy there who was drunk. He spoke English and yelled “Hello, American soldier,” and I had trouble quieting him down.
This family kept talking to me and fed me eggs, cheese and goat’s milk and then asked me if I wanted to sleep there. I agreed if they promised to wake me at 4 a.m. But shortly after midnight, I was awakened by the roar of our artillery which had started again.
I grabbed my gun and made for the door, where a man and a woman had been on guard. They suddenly lighted a lamp which lighted me up like a Christmas tree. I dropped to the floor and scooted to a dark corner like a woodchuck, where I quit shaking and slept another couple hours.
Then again, the artillery started up and the old people told me it was American. The people just lay in bed whimpering but being a soldier, I started looking for a foxhole. They gave me a sort of hood – I must have looked like the shadow – and I found a hole and crawled in.
Captures town
Early in the morning, I heard a heavy explosion followed by the noise of trucks and figured the Heinies were pulling out, so I went back to the house. The old guy had sobered up and I sent them into town to look around.
He came back and said the Heinies had gone, but the Americans still were shelling. I started for town. I figured maybe I could send a message back saying I was in the town and that the shelling should be stopped and reinforcements sent in.
The only German in the town was a straggler. I made him a prisoner and as I started out of the town with him, I ran into the 9th Division. I stopped at the house and they were tickled to see my prisoner. Then I started hitchhiking back to my outfit.
I sure had a lot of fun.
At port of embarkation –
Everything and more done as troops leave for war
Triumph of American organization is hailed as making possible great accomplishments
By Richard G. Harris, United Press staff writer
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Sales tax levy gains impetus in the House
Leaders in both parties see need to meet $12-billion goal
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Only 3 planes lost in Yanks’ raid on Rome
Details of heaviest daylight bombing attack of war revealed
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Launching of Sicily drive from Malta base revealed
Tense moment for Eisenhower as ‘strongest wings’ endangered airborne forces is described
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
Allied HQ, North Africa –
On the night that Allied armies invaded Sicily, an American staff car marked with the four stars of a general stopped beside a road on the island of Malta.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped out in the moonlight and gazed up at the sky where engines of a great airborne assault fleet thundered defiance to the strongest winds of the Mediterranean summer.
It was the tensest moment of an unprecedented invasion. Unexpected winds threatened disaster to glider and parachute troops; kicked up big waves that dangerously rocked the naval invasion forces already at sea. There may have been a time that night when a postponement was considered by the high command, which officials announced today was based on the bomb-battered island of Malta.
Invaders soar away
But Gen. Eisenhower, looking up into the moonlit sky, saluted the paratroopers smartly and turned back to his car. The invasion army soared on under direction of the American commander-in-chief, Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, Adm. Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham and Air Mshl. Sir Arthur Tedder.
It was revealed that Gen. Eisenhower carefully checked the wind velocity during those first tense hours of the campaign, aware that too much speed would case the paratroopers and gliders to overshoot their marks, confronting them with many additional hazards.
American-made windmills, imported years ago, served as a gage for the American commander and those who stood with him that night told today how he smiled reassuringly when the velocity of the wind died down as the hours wore on.
Seasickness too
Members of the Allied staff told correspondents that the winds which endangered the glider and paratroop operations also caused havoc with the stomachs of both soldiers and sailors, whipping the Mediterranean into a heaving sea. As a result, many results went ashore in landing barges, seasick. But they carried on with their job.
In a message to Air Vice Mshl. Sir Keith Park, commanding officer of the RAF on Malta, Gen. Eisenhower paid high tribute to the aid given to the Allied campaign in Sicily by the Malta Air Force.
The morning after the invasion, the Allied commanders watched cheering throngs of war-toughened island citizens parade. To them, it meant the end of prolonged, persistent day-and-night bombings by planes based in Sicily and Italy.
Malta praised
Gen. Eisenhower was said to have been visibly impressed with Malta’s stand, first on the receiving end of Axis bombings which drove many of the island’s 270,000 inhabitants to live in rock-robbed caves which once held galley slaves, and finally as the taking-off place and headquarters for operations against Sicily.
In a statement on Malta’s role in the war, Gen. Eisenhower said:
Malta is symbolic of the experience of the United Nations in this war. Malta has passed through successive stages of woeful unpreparedness, tenacious endurance, intensive preparations, and the initiation of a fierce offensive. It is resolutely destined to maintain the rising crescendo of the attack until the whole task is complete.
Persian joins WAC
Fort Devens, Massachusetts –
Army officials today reported one of their latest additions to the WAC as Auxiliary Hamideh Khanom Nabil, daughter of a Persian diplomat and citizen by choice of the United States.
Japs at Munda in death trap
Flamethrowers and tanks used in advance
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer
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Ire of FCC dogged Italian, House investigators learn
Announcer fired by Chicago station because operator learned he was ‘repugnant’ to commission
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Glider crash blamed on structural defect
St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
The Army Board of Inquiry report on the glider crash which killed ten persons at Lambert-St. Louis Municipal Airport Sunday is expected to place blame for the disaster to structural defects.
Senator Bennett C. Clark, chairman of the Special Senate Committee for Investigation of Civilian Aviation crashes, said today he had been informed that a structural flaw in the glider’s fuselage had caused the death-dive of the glider. He received information in Kansas City, he said, from Lt. Carl Harper, USN (ret.), investigator for the committee who sat in with the official Army investigators.
No investigation by any group, including agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had indicated sabotage, it was said.