Editorial: Compromise on de Gaulle
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Bombs plaster Jap supply line in Guinea area
Hansa Bay coastal sector raided; ground gains also made
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer
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Algiers seems like days of yore as Nazis attack
But returning reporter finds residents surprised because it’s first raid since June 4
By William Stoneman
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Three ‘triple-kill days’ help Yank to lead aces
Former-private-now-officer credited with 16 Jap planes, probably four others
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer
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GOP women to meet
Washington –
Twenty-five members of the Advisory Board of the National Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs will meet in Cincinnati, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 to plan their part in the 1944 presidential campaign.
Steele: Jap puppet given control over Burmese
‘New order’ government typifies Tokyo idea of ‘independence’
By A. T. Steele
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Cleavage of Allies widens in attitude toward Reich
Hints of Russian ‘break’ from Anglo-American stand seen in Moscow propaganda
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer
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Talk of Russia ‘quitting war’ is held insult
British official describes Soviet as brave and capable ally
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Isolated Yank unit ready to ‘welcome’ Japs to India
By Albert V. Ravenholt, United Press staff writer
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Reservations in recognition ‘annoy’ French
But satisfaction is voiced that some action has been taken
By Donald Coe, United Press staff writer
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Radio cooker, plastic screen to follow war
Sample of things to come taken by National Association of Manufacturers
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Sicily, Italy – (by wireless)
Yesterday I wrote about going down to see some old friends decorated for bravery. After it was over, we went back to the tent where one of them lives and sat there talking about old times and how good it was to get together again.
One officer had a bottle of champagne he had been saving for some occasion and since this seemed to be at least a good imitation of an occasion he got it out and we passed it around, the half dozen of us drinking it warm and out of the bottle. My palate has never been educated up to champagne and I’d just as soon have had a good swig of Bevo, but after all an event is an event and you can’t let your old friends down.
We sat out under the trees and a chill wind came up and somebody brought me a jacket to slip on. It had lieutenant colonel’s leaves on the shoulders and I suppose I could have been arrested for impersonating an officer, but I was in a nice position, having the head military policeman of the area sitting next to me, so I just flaunted my colonel’s leaves and hoped some stranger would come by to salute me.
Our host was Lt. Col. Goslee, of Columbus, Ohio. He calls himself a professional reserve officer as he has been on active duty for 10 years now. He was with us back in the first days at Oran, then got shunted off to another job and missed the fighting in Tunisia. But this summer he got switched back onto the main track again and lately he’s been making hay fast while the bombs fall.
Daughter asks for Ernie
Back home he has a wife, and a daughter of 15 who keeps writing him, the precious child, asking if he’s seen me. He also has a Dalmatian dog named Colonel who volunteered – or was volunteered – four months ago in the Dogs for Defense Army and is now serving somewhere in Virginia. Col. Goslee’s home flew two service stars in the front window – one for the man and one for the dog.
Dusk came on and we moved inside the tent so we could light our cigarettes. Our conversation drifted back to other days – Oran of last November and bitter cold Tébessa in January and the sadness of our retreat from Sbeitla and the chill sweeping winds of Gafsa and later in the spring the beauties of Béja and the final wonderful feeling of victory at Ferryville.
And we talked of how tired we had all gradually become, and nobody seemed like a hero who’d just been decorated for bravery. We talked of the miles we’ve covered and the moves we’ve made in the last nine months, of countries we’ve seen and how the whole war machine, though it grows dirtier and tireder month after month, also grows mature and smooth and more capable.
Bond with old friends
In this long time all of us over here have met thousands of different soldiers and officers. Yet those of us who became friends right at the very beginning in Africa or even back in England seem to have a bond between us as though we were members of a fraternity or a little family, and when you get back with each other again it’s comfortable and old-shoelike. We talked of people no longer with us – such people as Lt. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall and Maj. Ed Adkins, both on duty back in Memphis now. Ed, in his job as headquarters commandant, used to be a focal point of this little sitting-around group in Tunisia, just as Col. Goslee is in the same job here in Sicily.
Ed Adkins was a favorite and his name came up frequently in our conversation. He was crazy to get back to the States and we knew he’s happy there, and yet we laughed and prophesied that he reads these lines in a Memphis paper – reads how we were still going on and on, still moving every few days, still listening now and then for the uneven groan of the German night bombers, still fighting dust, darkness, and weariness and once in a while sitting around talking after supper, on cots in a blacked-out tent – when he reads about it, and visualizes us, he’s going to be so homesick for the front that he’ll probably cry.
They tell me all the soldiers who have been through the mill and have returned to America are like that. They get an itch for the old miserable life – a disgusting, illogical yearning to be back again in the place they hated. I’m sure it’s true, but I know a lot of soldiers who would like a chance to put that theory to the test.
Alaska goes to war
Haines route joins highway with coast
By Morley Cassidy, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Dewey writes self off for 1944 race
Peru, Indiana (UP) –
Gration P. Wickerham, Peru attorney, said today Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York said in a letter he will definitely not be a candidate for the Republican president nomination 1944.
Wickerham offered Dewey the support of a group of Miami County citizens, but Dewey replied:
I have not the slightest reservation in my mind as to my own course and I am not and shall not become a candidate for the Republican nomination. I have important work to do here in New York and I want to do it.