May fly 600 miles an hour –
New superspeed plane uses jets, no propeller
U.S., Britain announce fighter already tested in several hundred flights
By Reuel S. Moore, United Press staff writer
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May fly 600 miles an hour –
Warships wait as 17,000 strike to aid painters
CIO union wants Navy to take Cramp plant; pickets active
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Rift develops within ranks of rail unions
Three unions denounce two other groups for ‘desertion’
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Spread of strikes cited in argument for Richberg plan
West Virginia Congressman is impressed by comments from Armed Forces; sees labor harming itself
By Rep. Jennings Randolph (D-WV)
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Ex-Akron mayor may snub jury on ‘Hopkins letter’
Washington (UP) –
C. Nelson Sparks, former Mayor of Akron, Ohio, said today he may stand on his constitutional rights and refuse to surrender to a federal grand jury the original copy of a letter purportedly written by Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s No. 1 adviser, predicting that Wendell L. Willkie will be chosen the 1944 Republican presidential nominee.
Mr. Sparks made his statement after the Department of Justice announced a grand jury will begin an inquiry next Wednesday into circumstances surrounding the letter, which Mr. Hopkins has branded a forgery.
Poll: Willkie faces sharp fight in Midwest
Indiana, home state of 1940 GOP candidate, favors Dewey
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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‘Aggressive defense’ against invasion believed planned by German generals
Allied armies may face rocket bombs and zones of mines
By Thomas M. Johnson, special to the Pittsburgh Press
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Markley: Jap shot down by Foss fired at major in boat
By Morris Markley, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Gen. Arnold: Three-fourths of Berlin razed
‘We’ll finish the job, too,’ air chief pledges
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Editorial: Wartime voting needs
Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox have laid down a number of minimum requirements which they believe essential to any soldier-voting plan.
The secretaries sent their recommendations to the Council of State Governments, obviously with the idea that the Council would distribute them among the states.
The requirements which Mr. Knox and Mr. Stimson say are necessary to enable the Army and Navy to carry out an election among the members of the Armed Forces are reasonable and to the point.
They say, in effect, they can’t stop the war while soldiers and sailors vote, but they also say the armed services will do everything in their power to carry out whatever laws are enacted.
But the necessary provisions which they have outlined should be sent to Congress because it is Congress which must enact the basic legislation if there is to be any uniformity in an election among the Armed Forces, or for that matter any election.
Congress resumes sessions Monday and a suitable arrangement for enabling the Armed Forces to vote should be the first order of business.
The purpose of the plan, however devised, is to give the 11 million men in the Army and Navy an opportunity to vote and any method which is so restrictive that it bars any of these men, save possibly those in actual combat at the time the vote is taken, will be satisfactory.
The only way to guarantee that all, or nearly all, of these men will be supplied with appropriate ballots is to set up a uniform system. As Mr. Knox and Mr. Stimson point out, they cannot adapt the military facilities to 48 different systems.
It would be impossible for the states to get together in the next few weeks, or even months, on a uniform voting plan. It is relatively simple for Congress to act. Congress should waste no time in being about it.
Congress changes mind –
Cold shoulder given foes of soldier vote
Passage of bill providing for absentee ballot appears assured
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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In Washington –
Aircraft output sets new record but misses goal
Industry falls only 200 short of 9,000-plane objective; failure laid to Army’s refusal to accept many units
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Martin boosts Pittsburgh for GOP convention
Governor says Hunt Armory would be ‘ideal’ for purpose
Pittsburgh was advocated by Governor Edward Martin today as a possible site for the 1944 Republican National Convention.
Noting that wartime transportation difficulties will be a chief factor in the selection of the convention city, Governor Martin said “Pittsburgh wouldn’t be so badly located.” He added that the Hunt Armory in East Liberty would be “ideal for the purpose,” especially with the addition of two galleries that would raise the seating company to 15,000.
It was Governor Martin’s first public pronouncement on the subject. Previously, he maintained the stand that any site advocated by the Office of Defense Transportation would be acceptable – and that agency has suggested that the GOP and Democratic conventions be held in Chicago.
The place and time of the Republican convention is to be chosen by the GOP National Committee in Chicago next week.
Governor Martin would not commit himself on possible Republican candidates for state offices in the 1944 elections, declaring “it’s still too early for such talk” and that:
The ball won’t start rolling until after the national convention site is picked.
He said “I have no idea” whether Attorney General James H. Duff will be the party’s candidate for the seat now held by U.S. Senator James J. Davis.
Bricker opens drive, assails New Deal
Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker launched his drive for the Republican presidential nomination today with an attack on the New Deal and an assertion that “win the war” became the motto of “every real American” when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
The three-term Ohio executive, addressing Wayne County (Detroit) Republicans, took cognizance of President Roosevelt’s recent statement favoring substitution of a “win the war” slogan for the term New Deal.
Mr. Bricker said:
Every American citizen today has the right to resent ay political leadership that assumes to take unto itself credit for winning the war.
In his first political speech since he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination, Mr. Bricker denounced New Deal “inefficiency” and declared a Republican victory this year “will assure us here at home that no one party or officeholder is indispensable.”
Davis proposes post-war U.S. fiscal policy
Senator would cut taxes, expenses and reduce big federal debt
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Packard: Yanks and Nazis fight hand-to-hand in San Vittore
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Stoneman: Old Vesuvius gives a show for Americans
By William H. Stoneman
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Aerial Burma Road fliers win citation by Roosevelt
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Halsey, back in America, plans Tokyo celebration
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
At the frontlines in Italy – (by wireless)
The human packers of supplies to our group high in the Italian mountains interested me much more than the mule trains, partly because their job was much harder and partly because thy talk instead of heehawing.
You can get an idea of the magnitude of this human freight service when you realize that in one 10-day period Americans soldiers packed up this one mountain nearly 100,000 pounds of supplies for their battalion. That was just one outfit. The same thing was being duplicated in a dozen or more places during the same time.
More than half the trail was out in the open, across bare rocks, all under German artillery fire. The top part of the trail was so steep th9ey anchored weights alongside the path for the men to pull themselves upward with.
We tried to hire Italians to do the packing, but after the first day they were never seen again. I heard a report that on one mountain Italian women had volunteered and were carrying up five-gallon cans balanced on their heads, but I was never able to verify this story. I think it’s a myth.
Some of the soldiers carry the water cans on their shoulders while others lash them onto pack boards. At first some of the packers would cheat a little and pour out some of the precious water when the can became too heavy. But the laws of physics soon stopped this, for with the can only partly filled the water would slosh around inside and throw the packers off balance and make it doubly hard to walk.
Miniature Paul Bunyan
From the bottom of the mountain to the top, a good walker carrying nothing whatever could make it in three hours. Carrying a heavy load, it took longer than that, and yet there were some fantastic exhibitions of human strength on that mountain.
The champion packer in our outfit was Pvt. Lester Scarborough, but he had left the area when I was there and I never did get to see him. He was from somewhere in West Virginia, and he was a miniature Paul Bunyan.
He had been sick and was supposed to be convalescing, yet he could take a full can of water to the top and be clear back down again in 2½ hours, where others took three hours and longer just to get up.
He didn’t do this just once, but day after day. He reached the climax of his carrying career when he made four roundtrips in one day – the fourth one being an emergency dash to the mountaintop to help beat off a German mortar attack.
Pvt. Scarborough is no giant. He is 18 years old, stands only 5 feet 7½, and weighs only 135 pounds. I have never heard of so much strength in such a small package.
Bewhiskered and begrimed
When I went up the trail my guard was Pvt. Fred Ford of East St. Louis. He is a tall, rugged fellow, and he had two weeks of whiskers and grime on his face. He looked sort of ferocious but turned out to be pleasant and friendly.
Like practically all the regular packers, Pvt. Ford was a line soldier who had fought for weeks on top and was supposed to be down for a rest. He was a Browning automatic rifleman in an infantry company. And there’s a funny thing about that.
Pvt. Ford said:
I threw dozens of hand grenades, and even rocks, and I guess I killed plenty of Germans. But I never had a single chance to shoot that automatic rifle.
On the back of his jacket Pvt. Ford has printed in purple ink his serial number, the name “Betty,” and underneath that “East St. Louis, Illinois.” Betty is his wife, and she is a chemist in a defense plant.
Pvt. Ford’s feet were all taped up because of blisters, and he walked on his toes to save his heels from rubbing. He said:
Sometimes going up the mountain you get to the point where you know you can’t make it, but somehow you always do.
Actually, some of them don’t. I saw packer after packer report back in at the bottom of the trail saying he “couldn’t make her.” He’d dumped his load and come back down.
A few of these may have been malingerers, but most of them were genuine. The men were exhausted, and their feet were broken out, and infirmities such as arthritis, hernia or heart weakness would leap to the fore on those man-killing climbs.
Mountain aeronautics
When we started back down, German shells began dropping quite a way behind us.
Pvt. Ford said:
If I get to going too fast for you, just yell. When they start shelling, we practically fly down the mountain. We don’t stop for nothing.
But I didn’t have any pressing business engagements along the way to detain us, so Pvt. Ford and I flew down the mountainside together, going so fast the rocks we kicked loose couldn’t even keep up with us.