Pegler: ‘Dr. New Deal’
By Westbrook Pegler
…
Leaders of the second front –
Hero of Dunkirk evacuation ready to take Allies back to continent
Eisenhower chooses man active in invasions
By Boyd Lewis, United Press staff writer
A handful of Allied leaders will lead millions of soldiers in the “second front” against the Nazis on the continent of Europe. Who are these men? What are they like? Are they capable of the big job before them?
In this, the third of a series of articles, Boyd Lewis of the United Press tells the story of Adm. Sir Bertram H. Ramsay, the hero of Dunkirk, who has been chosen by Gen. Eisenhower to command the fleet that will take the Allies back to France.
Adm. Ramsay
“Ramsay got ‘em off and Ramsay’ll get ‘em on again,” is a common reaction to Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s designation of the naval commander-in-chief in Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “second front” invasion staff.
Adm. Sir Bernard Home Ramsay is the miracle man of Dunkirk, whose patchwork flotilla of motor launches, cabin cruisers, fishing boats, private yachts, tugs, trawlers and destroyers snatched 330,000 British troops out of France under the noises of the advancing German armies.
Gen. Eisenhower must have known when he asked Mr., Churchill to name Adm. Ramsay to command the “return engagement” that no other name would strike the Prime Minister with such dramatic impact, it fell to Adm. Ramsay in Britain’s “darkest hour” to extemporize the brave little fleet which chugged in under shellfire and dive bombers to take the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force and a few regiments of French to England to fight another day.
That bitter June
Now this tough old sea dog has been chosen to organize and command the naval armada which will thrust the Americans and British onto the western shores of Europe for the kill – the start of the March on Berlin.
In capsule form, the appointment condenses the panorama of Allied progress since that bitter June in 1940 when Britain clutched at the negative success in u=snatching a beaten army from utter disaster. In less than three years – from evacuation in a tatterdemalion navy to assault in what will probably be the greatest armada of specially-constructed landing craft ever floated on any sea.
There is nothing in the appearance of Adm. Ramsay to suggest a man with the daring and imagination of a Drake and Hawkins. He is clean-shaven, austere, studious-looking. His thinning hair is combed across a bald spot.
Retired in 1938
In 1938, he had been retired at the age of 55 to his home at Coldstream, Berwickshire, home of the famed Coldstream Guards.
He returned to active service shortly after the outbreak of the war and was appointed flag officer commanding the Port of Dover. This was a not-too-demanding post for a “retired gaffer” and somewhat of a familiar hob for Adm. Ramsay, for in World War I, he had sailed from that port in HMS Brooke in the famed Dover Patrol.
The nature of Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg across France changed all that. Gen. Erwin Rommel’s panzers slashed through the French lines to Abbeville. The Germans commenced a steady squeeze that compressed the British and French into a pocket by the channel at Dunkirk.
He was ready
Little is known of Adm. Ramsay’s epochal decision to organize the “Little Navy.” The Admiralty communiqué recorded that several days before the evacuation order was given, the Dover commander sent out questionnaires to every boatowner on the coast. When the word came, he was ready.
His command sent the weirdest conglomeration of shipping the channel had ever seen scuttling across 35 miles of choppy waters to save as many as could be taken off Dunkirk Beach.
In his office at Dover, Adm. Ramsay and his assistants worked through four feverish days and nights to keep this ferry service working.
At first, they came in driblets – little clusters of exhausted, shell-shocked soldiers – then in larger groups. They accumulated on the Dover shore and were rushed inland as fast as trains could load them aboard.
Dazed nation thrilled
A dazed nation counted the arrivals and slowly it dawned upon them that the BEF was returning not in broken remnants but by hundreds of thousands – returning without its tanks and artillery, but proudly carrying its rifles and ready to contest an invasion if one should follow.
The King spoke for a grateful nation when he knighted Adm. Ramsay.
Recognition of a different sort came in 1942 when the Admiralty selected him to organize the huge fleet which was to sail in utter secrecy in April of that year to plant Americans and Britons on North Africa. Here he showed that retirement had not dulled him.
He was a natural choice of Gen. Eisenhower to organize the assault upon Sicily. Drawing upon the tremendous supply of special assault craft coming off production lines in the United States, Adm. Ramsay used more than 2,000 troopships and landing craft to bridge the water gap between Tunisia and Sicily. Gen. Eisenhower paid tribute afterwards to the “precise training” and “perfect technique.”
1 Like
Bradley will seek election to Senate
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Congressman Michael J. Bradley, Philadelphia Democrat, announced his candidacy last night for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.
He said he felt:
My record merits for me the support of the Philadelphia Democratic organization, the party leaders in the state and the Democratic State Committee.
A member of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Mr. Bradley is serving his fourth term in the House, to apply the decision to other cases pending in various federal courts, including cases in which “permit fees” charged by unions on federal construction jobs are in question.
Fees went to stewards
These cases include instances in which, the government charges, some of the money collected in permit fees went, not into the union treasury, but to business agents or stewards.
Assistant Attorney General Tom C. Clark said:
Where the union doesn’t extend union membership, but simply collects fees for the right to work, we are hopeful of putting that under the federal statute.
The Supreme Court opinion did not touch on application of the “kickback” law to labor unions but, significantly, stated that the court was not passing on “the outside limit of the statutes.”
Labor cases pending
In some of the pending federal cases, labor unions, providing workers on requisition of contractors, certified them for jobs on payment of “permit fees” which did not entitle them to union membership.
One of the pending cases which will come before the Supreme Court on argument later this month involves the right of a federal grand jury to subpoena books of a labor union to determine what “permit fees” were collected by the union on a federal project.
The case came up on appeal of Jasper White, official of the Stationary Engineers Union of Philadelphia, who refused to present the union records during a grand jury investigation of kickbacks in construction of the naval supply depot at Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Justice Black pointed out that the kickback law was part of a Congressional program, including the National Industrial Recovery Act and a law requiring minimum wages on federally-financed construction projects to assure that federal funds provided for workers would actually be received by them for their own use. The law provides a penalty of $5,000 fine or five years in prison or both.
Tribute paid memory of Negro scientist
In tribute to the memory of Dr. George Washington Carver, famed Negro scientist who died a year ago today, civic leaders participated in a mass meeting last night at Schenley High School.
The principal speaker at the commemoration was Dr. G. Lake Imes, who for 25 years was associated with Dr. Carver at the Tuskegee Institute.
Dr. Imes said:
George Washington Carver is evidence of the reality of democracy. Without democracy giving him equality of opportunity, his great achievements never would have been possible. His life is an example of democracy of the future.
Others who spoke included Dr. Henry H. Hill, superintendent of schools; George W. Culberson, principal of the A. Leo Weil School, and Mrs. John M. Phillips, member of the Board of Public Education.
1 Like
Völkischer Beobachter (January 6, 1944)
So belogen und betragen sie das italienische Volk
Die wortbrüchigen Gauner von 1918 sind sich gleichgeblieben
…
„Neutralität“ schützt nicht vor dem Sowjetimperialismus –
Schweden soll den Bolschewisten überlassen werden
Drahtbericht unseres skandinavischen Vertreters
…
Gerüchte um eine Regierungsumbildung –
Roosevelts politische Krise
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 5. Jänner –
Die schon seit einigen Tagen verbreiteten Gerüchte über eine Regierungskrise in den Vereinigten Staaten verdichten sich nach einer Meldung der Daily Mail aus Neuyork, die auch vom Reuters-Büro aufgegriffen wurden.
Führende Mitglieder der Demokratischen Partei haben an Roosevelt die Aufforderung gerichtet, sich von seinem vertrauten Mitarbeiter Harry Hopkins und von dem Landwirtschaftsminister Wickard zu trennen. Aber auch der Kriegsminister Stimson, der Marineminister Knox, der Justizminister Biddle und der Arbeitsminister Miß Frances Perkins werden genannt.
In der Meldung der Daily Mail wird es als ausgeschlossen angesehen, daß sich Roosevelt von Hopkins trennen wird. Es ist aber möglich, daß er den Landwirtschaftsminister Wickard fallen läßt, der sich unter den Farmern keiner Beliebtheit erfreut. Schon aus Wahlrücksichten könnte Roosevelt zu diesem Schritt gezwungen sein, wie ja eine Regierungsumbildung überhaupt nur im Hinblick auf die Präsidentenwahlen akut ist.
U.S. State Department (January 6, 1944)
740.0011 EW 1939/32572: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union to the Secretary of State
Moscow, January 6, 1944
Secret
43, January 6, 4 p.m. Personal and secret for the President and the Secretary from Harriman:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Molotov continued that Marshal Stalin at Tehran had outlined the terms which the Soviet Government were prepared to accord Finland and, as he recalled it, the President and Mr. Churchill had expressed no objection to these terms.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HARRIMAN
The Pittsburgh Press (January 6, 1944)
5th Army slashes into Nazis
Allies open gap in road to Rome defenses, drive into San Vittore
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
…
On New Britain –
Yanks launch new offensive
Marines drive to seize Borgen Bay
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
…
In first 11 months of 1943 –
No strike pledge flouted to tune of 3,425 walkouts
Mine disputes help swell total of man days lost to 400% over 1942 figure
…
In Washington –
Trade pledged early release after the war
Crowley says U.S. eager to relinquish hold on foreign commerce
…
Uniform soldier vote urged
Washington (UP) –
The War and Navy Departments today called for uniform legislation for the entire country to facilitate absentee voting by members of the Armed Forces in this year’s elections.
In a joint statement, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson warned that the services could not administer effectively “diverse procedures” of the 48 states “as to 11 million servicemen all over the world in primary, special and general elections.”
Meanwhile, Rep. George Bender (R-OH) praised the “good intentions” of governors who have sought to solve the soldier vote problem through special sessions of their legislatures, but said that:
Despite these good intentions, our soldiers are not going to be able to vote unless the Congress provides them with a simple, uniform federal ballot.
The Knox-Stimson statement was issued in reply to an inquiry from the Council of State Governments, and was made public by the Council.