Stories by war reporter not designed to ‘please’
If recent bad news from Africa has depress home front, blame it on early optimism
By William H. Stoneman
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House deploys to attack Charlie McCarthy guards
Neither wooden guns or honest-to-goodness ones are needed on the roof, says May
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House naval probe clears merchantmen
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Wickard again requests farm incentive pay
Congress asked to act speedily; crop price boosts opposed
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Washington woman admits 1,219 cans of ‘excess’ food
OPA believes she may be ‘champion,’ but 2 others registrants declare selves in ‘1000 class’
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Let musicians make records, Petrillo urged
‘Dangerous’ fund plan is matter for Congress, companies say
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OWI puts USA on front page in word war
Turkey, India and China get free service and like it
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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‘New York captured!’ Japs tell the Japs
San Francisco, California (UP) –
Japanese prisoners were under the impression that New York and San Francisco had been captured by Japan, a veteran of Guadalcanal said today.
Capt. John C. Van Dyke, recuperating from wounds in a naval hospital, said the Japanese solemnly “informed” their captors that America’s two principal seaport cities had been occupied by Jap troops.
Capt. Van Dyke said the Japanese had also been promised they would never come face to face with U.S. forces because an invasion of the Solomons was “impossible.”
‘There were hundreds, all frozen’ –
Lifeboats bob at sea, dead men at the oars
Navy signalman tells of seeing sub victims of sunken U.S. transport
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General explains menace of nitrogen mustard gases
New war ‘sprays’ have delayed blistering action on body; prompt treatment recommended
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Editorial: ‘Too little… as usual’
Says a wireless from Ernie Pyle, who was with our troops in the defeat at Sbeitla in Tunisia:
We had too little to work with, as usual…
There is a challenge to all of us here at home. It doesn’t need any spelling out by editorial writers. Just “too little to work with,” and the damning phrase “as usual.”
Millions of Americans could do worse than to paste that comment – from a correspondent who has been in the field for months – above our workbenches and desks and kitchen stoves.
Sicily Harbor raided heavily by Liberators
Ferry slips, oil tanks at Messina blasted by U.S. bombers
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Millett: Men in industry trying to solve woman problem
Domestic scene would be improved if husbands would adopt same idea, writer suggests
By Ruth Millett
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
At the Tunisian front – (Feb. 23, by wireless)
You folks at home must be disappointed at what happened to our American troops in Tunisia. So are we over here.
Our predicament is damned humiliating, as Gen. Joe Stilwell said about our getting kicked out of Burma a year ago. We’ve lost a great deal of equipment, many American lives, and valuable time and territory – to say nothing of face. Yet no one over here has the slightest doubt that the Germans would be thrown out of Tunisia. It is simply in the cards.
It is even possible that our defeat may not even delay Rommel’s exodus, for actually our troops formed only a small part of the total Allied forces in Tunisia. Estimates among men at the front run anywhere from two to six months for finishing the Tunisian campaign.
One thing you folks at home must realize is that this Tunisian business is mainly a British show. Our part in it is small. Consequently, our defeat is not so disastrous to the whole picture as it would have been if we had been bearing the major portion of the task.
When the time comes
We Americans did the North African landings and got all the credit, although the British did help us. The British are doing the Tunisia job and will get the credit, though we are giving them a hand. That’s the way it has been planned all the time. That’s the way it will be carried out. When the time comes, the British 1st Army will squeeze on the north, the British 8th Army will squeeze on the south, and we will hole in the middle. And it will really be the British who will run Rommel out of Tunisia.
The fundamental cause of our trouble over here lies in two things: we had too little to work with, as usual, and we underestimated Rommel’s strength and especially his audacity.
Both military men and correspondents knew we were too thinly spread in our sector to hold if the Germans were really to launch a big-scale attack. Where everybody was wrong was in believing they didn’t have the stuff to do it with.
Can’t tell all – new
Correspondents are not now permitted to write anything critical concerning the Tunisian situation, or to tell what we think was wrong. The powers that be feel that this would be bad for “home morale.” So, you just have to trust that our forces are learning to do better next time.
Personally, I feel that some such setback as that – tragic though it is for many Americans, for whom it is now too late – is not entirely a bad thing for us. It is all right to have a good opinion of ourselves, but we Americans are so smug with our cockiness. We somehow feel that just because we’re Americans we can whip our weight in wildcats. And we have got it into our heads that production alone will win the war.
There are two things we must learn and we may be learning them right now – we must spread ourselves thicker, on the frontlines, and we must streamline our commands for quick and positive action in emergencies.
Another tank, please
As for our soldiers themselves, you need feel no shame nor concern about their ability. I have seen them in battle and afterwards, and there is nothing wrong with the common American soldier. His fighting spirit is good. His morale is okay. The deeper he gets into a fight, the more of a fighting man he becomes.
I’ve seen crews that have had two tanks shot out from under them but whose only thought was to get a third tank and “have another crack at those blankety-blanks.”
One can’t whip two
It is true they are not such seasoned battle veterans as the British and Germans. But they had had some battle experience before this last encounter, and I don’t believe their so-called greenness was the cause of our defeat. One good man simply can’t whip two good men. That’s about the only way I know to put it. Everywhere on every front we simply have got to have more stuff before we start going forward instead of backward.
I happened to be in on the battle of Sbeitla, where we fought the German breakthrough for four days before withdrawing. In the next few days, I shall try to describe to you what it was like.