Third-term foe who shot TR dies in insane hospital
Ex-bartender never had any visitor or received any mail during 31-year imprisonment
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WPB refuses to end ban on whisky and gin
Nelson’s spokesman cites war’s demands for industrial alcohol
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‘Licked Japs, now malaria is next,’ say the Marines
Allies join forces in battle to wipe out deadly mosquito in South Pacific
By Sgt. Murray Marder
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‘They threw book at us’ in Kurils, Yank declares
With eyes glazed from fatigue, shock, U.S. fliers report on latest raid on Paramushiru
By Russell Annabel, United Press staff writer
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Destroyers defeat fleet without suffering one hit
Commander of U.S. flotilla describes ‘decisive’ action against Japs in Vella Gulf
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
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Well… The attritional rate is that bad?
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Background of news –
Swift aid for veterans
By Miriam Ottenberg, North American Newspaper Alliance
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House will seek post-war policy vote on Monday
Move is designed to ‘smoke out’ Senate which so far has pigeonholed all proposals offered
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
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‘Kinks’ are gone, eh?
Beauty parlor equipment is auctioned off by U.S.
‘Unkinkers’ sold too, but income tax filers don’t get them
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Higher income taxes studied
Proposal would eliminate victory levy
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First Lady’s former aide enlists in Coast Guard
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Millett: Young folks deserve pat on the back
See happy ending for many of the war marriages
By Ruth Millett
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Washington –
John Steinbeck is a recent addition to our corps of war correspondents in the Mediterranean, as you know. He is now with the invasion forces somewhere along the Italian shores.
Some people are speaking of Steinbeck and me as competitors in the field of war columning. I’m flattered by the inference. But there is neither competition nor comparison. It would be belittling Steinbeck’s genius to compare him with any daily deadline-catcher.
I’ve always been a Steinbeck worshiper. For my money, he’s the greatest writer in the world. I think it one of literature’s losses that he never got to England during the Blitz, to record the moving spirit of that unrecapturable winter. But while he was missing that he was producing The Moon is Down, so maybe it was all right after all.
I’m glad that Steinbeck is at last with the wars. For he carries to them a delicate sympathy for mortal man’s transient nobilities and beastlinesses that I believe no other writer possesses.
Surely, we have no other writer so likely to catch on paper the inner things that most people don’t know about war – the pitiableness of bravery, the vulgarity, the grotesquely warped values, the childlike tenderness in all of us.
They meet in Africa
I met Steinbeck for the first time in Africa, just after returning from Sicily.
For some reason, I had always been afraid of Steinbeck, even while admiring him. Several times in California, I’d passed up the chance to meet him. And there in Africa, it was several days before I got up the courage to introduce myself.
And then, as so often happens in such cases, Steinbeck turned out to be human as hell, friendly, story-telly, laughy and gay. He even admits he’s awfully homesick, though he’s been gone only three months.
He is a big bruiser of a guy who belies the fine edge of sensitiveness within him. He goes around needing a haircut and with his sleeves rolled up, looking almost as unmilitary as I do.
Walk along the streets with him and you’ll find his mind constantly pierced and impressed by every little event or scene before him. Sometimes he’s serious and sometimes he’s funny and sometimes he’s sardonic. But it’s always himself; he isn’t one of those people who act.
He makes such remarks as:
There’s something about a jeep that brings out the worst in every driver.
And one day we were standing on the curb when a dirty, ragged Arab child ran up and asked for money.
Steinbeck looked down at him a long time with mock gravity, and then he said:
Do you mean to tell me that to your hopeless heritage of malnutrition, ignorance and internecine warfare, you now propose to add the degradation of charity?
The bewildered child turned and ran away.
Enjoys his own stories
If somebody tells a story Steinbeck will tell one too, and laugh at his own stories like the rest of us humans. Correspondent H. R. Knickerbocker has a good description of him. Knick says:
A lot of these celebrated writers, when you meet them, act as though they might let out some secret of their profession if they opened their mouths. But this guy Steinbeck, hell, he gives forth and keeps on giving.
I don’t know how long Steinbeck intends to stay abroad. I hope not too long. You don’t have to live with war forever to absorb its basic character. A few months will equip him with all the sight and understanding of war he needs for the production of a great book. The war is better for having him in it.