Editorial: ‘Ambassador’ Flynn
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With U.S. forces in Algeria –
Back in England, I spent some time with the Army’s Medical Corps, intending to write about our preparations for tending wounded soldiers. But I never wrote the columns. The sight of surgeons being taught to operate at the front, of huge warehouses filled to the roofs with bandages, of scores of hospitals built for men then healthy who would soon be cripples – it was shocking and too morbid, and I couldn’t write about it.
But now all that preparation is being put to use. Our doctors and nurses and medical aides have had their first battle experience. The hospitals are going full blast, and it doesn’t seem morbid in actuality, as it did in contemplation.
In the Oran area, where our heaviest casualties occurred, the wounded are in five big hospitals. Three were French hospitals taken over by the Army, one is an abandoned French barracks turned into a hospital, and one is a huge tent hospital out in an oatfield. It is the most amazing thing I have seen., and I’ll write about it later.
So far, the doctors can be, and are, proud of their work. The nurses have already covered themselves with glory. The wounded have only praise for those who pulled them through.
Our only deaths in the original occupation were those killed outright and those so badly wounded that nothing could have saved them. In other words, we lost almost nobody from infection or from medical shortcomings in the hurly-burly of battle.
Sulfanilamide saves hundreds
You’ve already read of the miracles wrought by sulfanilamide in the first battles of Africa. Doctors and men both still talk about it constantly, almost with awe. Doctors knew it was practically a miracle drug, but they hadn’t realized quite how miraculous.
Every soldier was issued a sulfanilamide packet before he left England, some even before they left America. It consisted of 12 tablets for swallowing, and a small sack of the same stuff in powdered form for sprinkling on wounds. The soldiers used it as instructed, and the result was an almost complete lack of infection. Hundreds are alive today who would have been dead without it. Men lay out for 24 hours and more before they could be taken in, and the sulfanilamide saved them.
It’s amusing to hear the soldiers talk about it. Sulfanilamide is a pretty big word for many of them. They call it everything from snuffalide to sulphermillanoid.
There’s one interesting sidelight on it – some of the wounded soldiers didn’t have any sulfanilamide left, because they had surreptitiously taken it all to cure venereal diseases. They say you can knock a venereal case in four or five days with it, and thus don’t have to report in sick.
One doctor told me that most American wounds were in the legs, while most of the French wounds were in the head. The explanation seemed to be that we were advancing and thus out in the open, while the French were behind barracks with just their heads showing. Both sides treated the wounded of the other side all during the battle, and our soldiers are full of gratitude for the way they were treated in the French hospitals. They say the French nurses would even steal cigarettes for them.
Morale of wounded is high
The mixup of French emotions that showed itself during the fighting was fantastic. One French motor launch went about Oran Harbor firing with a machine gun at wounded Americans, while other Frenchmen in rowboats were facing the bullets trying to rescue them.
I know of one landing party sent ashore with the special mission of capturing four merchant ships. They took them all without firing a shot. The captain of one ship greeted the party with “What was the matter? We expected you last night,” and the skipper of another met the party at the gangway with a bottle of gin.
There was much fraternization. In one town where fighting was heavy, the bodies of five men were found in a burned truck. Three were Americans and two were French.
Morphine was a great lifesaver. Pure shock is the cause of many deaths; but if morphine can be given to deaden the pain, shock, cases often pull through. Many officers carried morphine and gave injections right on the field. My friend Lt. Col. Louis Plain of the Marine Corps, who had never given an injection in his life, gave six on the beach at Arzew.
Many of our wounded men already had returned to duty. Those permanently disabled would be sent home as soon as they were able. Those still recovering were anxious to return to their outfits. I inquired especially among the wounded soldiers about this, and it was a fact that they were busting to get back into the fray again. Morale was never higher.
U.S. Navy Department (January 13, 1943)
Communiqué No. 250
South Pacific.
On January 11, during the morning, an enemy plane dropped five bombs on U.S. positions in the area southwest of the airfield on Guadalcanal Island. Casualties were one killed and several wounded.
On January 13, a force of “Marauder” medium bombers (Martin B-26) with “Airacobra” (Bell P-39) and “Lightning” (Lockheed P-38) escort bombed the Japanese airfield at Munda on New Georgia Island. No air opposition was encountered but antiaircraft batteries were active. Results of the bombing were not reported. All U.S. planes returned.
Small-scale offensive operations against enemy outposts on Guadalcanal are progressing satisfactorily and several small enemy positions have been isolated.
Brooklyn Eagle (January 13, 1943)
Allies blast 51 aircraft over Africa
Big push imminent – Flying Fortresses pound Axis supply lines
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Bedaux, friend of the Windsors, jailed in Africa
Hull reveals arrest – report alleges he traded with enemy
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Seek ration loopholes as U.S. nabs Boro still
OPA officials probe bootleg ring’s acquisition of sugar and fuel oil – 2 prisoners grilled
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Swap of diplomats barred by Reich
Washington (UP) –
The State Department revealed today that the German government has refused to discuss an exchange of American diplomats and nationals in France for French diplomats and nationals in this country until it has been furnished with information about German officials now held in French North Africa.
The department also said that the German government has:
…now assumed complete jurisdiction over the American group [previously at Lourdes, France], and is taking them to Germany under guard of German SS troops.
The department’s statement revealed for the first time that several former attachés of the French Embassy who have been concentrated at Hershey, Pennsylvania, have been released and have offered their services “in the military effort of the United Nations against the Axis.”
Tresca case suspect grilled by prosecutor
Aides, seeking motive, examine the files in office of slain Italian-American editor
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Indict 5 men in lynching Mississippi Negro
Jackson, Mississippi (UP) –
Five Mississippians faced early trial in federal court today, charged with having been parties to the lynching of a Negro.
The indictments were returned by a federal grand jury made up of local white residents. They were the first of their kind returned in the South since 1904.
The lynching victim was Howard Wash, 47, who was convicted in state court Oct. 16 of murdering his white employer, Clint Welborn. They jury voted 10–2 against the death penalty. The next day, a mob took Wash from the jail and hanged him.
Among those indicted were Luther Holder, deputy sheriff, who was in charge of the jail when Wash was taken.
One wife too many jails plane worker
Los Angeles, California (UP) –
Aircraft worker Bernard J. Lewis, who lived under one roof with two wives and families, was alone today in the country jail.
Lewis, 25, was arrested on complaint of wife No. 2, Dorothea Kohr Lewis, 21, who said he married Wilma Wilson Lewis of Santa Clara in July 1938 and had a son by her.
In October 1940, he married Dorothea in Las Vegas and later moved to Bryn Mawr, Washington, where she joined him just before her daughter was born on May 18, 1941.
Beneš visit due
London, England (UP) –
Dr. Edvard Beneš, president of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile will visit Washington and Moscow in the near future, it was reliably reported today.
Tokyo says our losses greater than revealed
San Francisco, California (UP) –
The Tokyo radio asserted today the United States, in announcing the loss of the aircraft carrier Hornet and ten other warships on Monday, failed to report that two other carriers and a battleship were also sunk.
Quiz important figures in Darlan murder
Algiers, Algeria (UP) –
A French military board of inquiry questioned today a second batch of prisoners – some important figures – suspected of complicity in the assassination of Adm. Jean François Darlan.
A spokesman, who announced last night a “number of additional arrests,” said the suspects would be court-martialed, if the board decides they were involved.
Darlan’s assassin, a young Frenchman who has never been officially identified, was executed the day of Darlan’s funeral. The spokesman said “some Algiers personalities” were arrested:
…for questioning, because inquiry sowed that the killer had some accomplices.