Allied fliers blast Japs on Rabaul route
Waves of planes attack southern New Britain for third day
By Brydon C. Taves, United Press staff writer
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How long will enemy last?
Far East peoples remain Jap foes despite promises
Bullying tactics of conquerors and dire economic straits of territories keep Asiatics pro-Allied
By A. T. Steele
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U.S., British air leaders aim at victory by spring
Bomb tonnage this winter will ‘Hamburgize’ one Nazi production center after another
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Atolls of Gilbert Islands make sinister battlefields
Complicated land structure is like nothing our forces have tackled, war reporter says
By George Weller
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Editorial: The Patton incident
There are two things about the Patton incident which could create even more harm than the incident itself.
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, a picturesque military leader of obvious ability who had been built up to heroic proportions, struck a shell-shocked soldier twice.
When the story leaked, Allied headquarters in Africa first gave out what is now admitted to have been a “half-truth.” There is a tendency among Army, Navy and other government officials to follow this practice too often and it has frequently gotten them into trouble and undermined public confidence.
A second auxiliary angle is the threat in Congress to launch a Congressional investigation. Congress can do a lot of good by formal, well-directed inquiries. But this is a military matter. Gen. Eisenhower, who is in possession of the full facts, has taken the action he deemed wisest.
Gen. Patton’s conduct was inexcusable, but it is not a matter for civilian interference.
Editorial: A different Thanksgiving
Last year, as we prepared to observe Thanksgiving Day, we had little to feel cheerful about, little even to be thankful for–
Except that our skins were still whole, that we had great resources and great manpower on which to draw for a desperate war, and that we had started.
Things have come a long way in a year.
And while it cannot be said too often that the war is far from won, the tide has turned. Everywhere, the United Nations are on the offensive. Africa has been freed of Nazis, the Mediterranean is under our control, the submarine menace has been greatly diminished, the continent of Europe has been invaded, the Russians have gained their greatest victories and air raids on Germany are taking a tremendous toll of the enemy.
We can see daylight ahead.
So, we can be thankful, tomorrow, that, despite all our shortcomings and our home front fumblings, we have a people who have the stuff it takes.
We can be thankful for the production capacity, the resources, the ingenuity and the loyal workers to turn out the needs of war for ourselves and our allies.
We can be thankful for the great skill and courage of the Armed Forces and their leaders.
And we can be thankful that the good fortune of geography and the fortitude of our allies have saved us from Axis horrors which have been inflicted on other reports.
But tomorrow will not be a day of rejoicing and feasting in all American homes. To thousands have come those fateful, official messages, “We regret to inform you–.” In thousands of others there is grave apprehension of the day when those messages will yet be delivered.
So let those of us who are lucky enough to be at home, some perhaps in harassed civilian pursuits, some in tedious but good-paying war jobs, some feeling helpless because age or physical handicap keeps them here – let those of us give a thought to others.
Let us not forget those who died at Pearl Harbor, and on Guam and Wake, on Bataan and at Corregidor, those who died on Guadalcanal or in New Guinea, those who were mowed down at Kasserine Pass, or on the Salerno beaches, those who lost their lives over Berlin, or Ploești or Regensburg. And thousands of others.
Let us give thanks. But let us make the next year a greater year, a year of greater production and sacrifice. There are Americans in Jap and German prison camps to be rescued. There are Americans in uniform marked for dying whose lives we can save if we so our job at home.
May no American at home – war worker, civilian worker, government official – ever forget that.
Background of news –
Will Roosevelt tip his hand?
By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance
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In Washington –
Morgenthau asks reconstruction bank for world
Treasury Secretary urges $10-billion setup to promote prosperity in the post-war era
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Leather pool squeezes U.S., attorney says
Justice Department asks investigation of British-dominated monopoly
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FCC bans hold on 2 air bands
Dual radio ownership to end June 1
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Thanksgiving Day! (1943)
By Fred S. Wertenbach, Press staff writer
We thank Thee, Lord!
For little homes that nestle back
A short ways from the beaten track.
For windows where a warming light
Guides our step when comes the night.
For baby folk, whose soft arms make
Bonds of love we would not break.
For women who, with arms flung wide,
Wait to heal our hurts – and pride.
For this, our land, whose brave sons fight
On distant shores, for truth and right.
For peace to come, that fires may glow
On every hearthstone here below
For these Thy gifts; for work and play
Humbly on this Thanksgiving Day.
We thank Thee, Lord!
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Ernie Pyle is on his way overseas again. His column will be resumed shortly after he arrives at an unannounced point somewhere in the Mediterranean Theater.
Washington –
When I came east from New Mexico, I thought it might be nice to ride the train for a change, since I’d traveled only by auto, air and water for the past six years.
When I went to the depot, I found that getting on a train these days is about as hard as getting on a plane. They had orders not to make any reservations out of Albuquerque for two months. But the agent did have one lone space which he’d been hoarding – it was for a bedroom on the Santa Fe Chief. I decided to take it.
In the first place, I’d never had anything so flossy on a train as a bedroom. That’s really getting classy, and I enjoy a shot of class once in a while to break the monotony. Further, I thought a private bedroom would be just the thing for me to do some writing during the 27-hour journey to Chicago.
The train was fine and the bedroom was fine. Nothing was the railroad’s fault. But the next time I take a trip, I’m going to ride the rods. I’m apparently just not the train-bedroom type. For at night, I couldn’t sleep because of the air-conditioning, and in the daytime, I got so lonesome, all shut in there by myself, that I sat in the club car all the time. On my next splurge of railroad class, I guess I’d better hire a whole car and ask a few friends to come along.
Barber’s last haircut is silent
I had one experience on the train I hadn’t counted on. I got a haircut. Yep, right on the train, while crossing Illinois at 70 miles an hour. The Chief has practically everything.
The barber was a sleight, grayish man of upper middle age. He never said a word during the whole operation. And then just as he finished, he said:
You’ve had the distinction, slight as it is, of getting my last haircut in 55 years of barbering!
Now that is a distinction, so I asked for the details. It seems he was retiring from the railroad forever when we hit Chicago a few minutes later. He was going to give away all his barber tools, keeping only one razor, a hone and a strop for himself.
The barber’s name is William F. Obermeyer, and his home is in Los Angeles. He is 69 and therefore has been barbering since he was 14. He has spent 41 of those 55 years on the railroad, 30 of them with the Santa Fe.
He didn’t seem excited about the impending end of such a long career, but I guess he was, for several other passengers said he told them about it, too.
Oregon man shows appreciation
This next item falls under the “virtue is its own reward” department.
Do you remember last fall in Sicily when I was writing about the 3rd Division’s engineers repairing the Point Calava demolition, and how two soldiers especially worked on and one with more fervor and sincerity than anybody need expect of them?
Well, now comes a letter from a man in Hillsboro, Oregon, wanting to know how he could get in touch with them so he could send them $100 apiece, just out of gratitude.
His letter says:
Such men are not common, and I want to show them that I appreciate such actions and perseverance.
I’m not giving the man’s name, because I haven’t time to write and fine out whether he would object to being named. Then the two boys were Cpls. Gordon Uttach of Merrill, Wisconsin, and Alvin Tolliver of Alamosa, Colorado. I hope the Samaritan finds them, and that they enjoy their $100.
Ernie expresses his thanks
We’ve had some amusing instances of how sketchily people read these days.
While I was on vacation, some of the papers reprinted old columns starting back as far as eight years ago. In one month, those reprint columns roamed all the way from Alaska to Argentina. Each one carried an editor’s note above it, and told what year the column was written.
Yet we’ve had dozens of remarks indicating that readers hadn’t read the editor’s noted at all, and thought I was literally jumping from Dutch Harbor to Pearl Harbor to French Guiana overnight. There was even one advertising agency man in New York who, after reading the reprint of a 1938 Guatemala column, called up Washington and wanted to know how soon I’d be back from Central America.
That’s all for now. There will be a pause in the columns while I get to where I’m going. Take care of yourselves here in America, and thanks for being so nice to me during my two-month respite from war.
Pegler: On the Patton incident
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
If Gen. Eisenhower thinks Gen. Patton is indispensable, he should be allowed to keep him on the job, for certainly the public humiliation inflicted on Patton for berating and striking a sick soldier and kicking up a scene in a hospital cannot be regarded as a temptation.
But the incident can serve to revise a popular notion that a profane tongue and a brutal disposition are the characteristics of a good soldier. Patton happens to be a good soldier in spite of these faults and, while his absolute fearlessness and his drive and ability are recognized by others, he is not admired personally.
The majority of the officers of the Regular Army are remarkably well-mannered and clean of speech and gentlemen in the true meaning of the word. The reserves and the new officers who did not go through the Military Academy are about as they were in civilian life, subject, however, to any improvement that might have been wrought by the code of the regulars.
We had in our public life a few years ago a former officer who, all his life, both in the Army and in his civilian career, affected a hardboiled manner and who was encouraged to excesses by his publicity which presented him as merely rugged when he was, in fact, so profane and vulgar that sensitive people sometimes gave him up.
Rebuked by civilian
On one occasion, he was rebuked by a civilian at a social gathering for using disgusting language which he apparently thought was only picturesque.
Another officer, a general who had been his classmate at the Military Academy, once commented privately that he was sick and tired of hearing civilians remark that his old comrade was the salt of the earth, for he regarded him as just a dirty man and recalled that in their cadet days he was shunned by many of the corps for just that reason.
However, the man did have ability and great energy and imagination, and so enjoyed a fairly successful career, notwithstanding.
Those who have a chance to associate with officers at West Point cannot fail to be impressed by their gentlemanly manners and speech. I have sat through meals and spent hours at evening gatherings with groups of them and noted the absence of expressions which most civilians allow themselves for purposes of emphasis or to attract attention.
This certainly does not mean that they are prigs, for if an occasion requires force and emphasis, they usually have plenty at their command. And, although Patton’s bravery is as famous as his bullying ways, there are others just as brave who also have the respect and the deep personal loyalty of their subordinates.
Patton was with Gen. Pershing in Mexico and went to France with him as a captain and may have thought he was using Pershing as a model, because Pershing could swear resoundingly when he was in a temper and he wasn’t what anyone could have called a fatherly commander.
Pershing a dignified soldier
But Pershing did have dignity and would not have encouraged the war correspondents to call him Old Blood and Guts, a title in which Patton apparently gloried. For contrast, there was another captain who went to France and caught Pershing’s eye who has come far since then without ever resorting to the language of the gutter or the manners of a thug.
That would be Gen. George Marshall, who has outrun Patton all the way, and might be President of the United States sometime after the war.
The punishment imposed on Patton was absolutely unique and undoubtedly will curb him, for now he surely understands that he will be watched closely and that if he ever repeats the offense, he will be relieved and probably court-martialed. It might even teach him to clean up his language for he must realize that he has overplayed his role in which he imposed on men who couldn’t talk or strike back.
All this being so, Gen. Eisenhower would seem to have acted with wisdom as well as force and originality, for it probably means that he keeps a strong able officer and cures an evil condition which had to be challenged some time. If Patton had been allowed to get away with this outrageous conduct, then every other officer and noncom would have been justified in acting likewise.
Ban on profit in relief for Europe urged
Equal distribution without trade advantages sought by UNRRA
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Elbie Fletcher gets call from Navy
Pirates first sacker takes final physical exam in Boston next Tuesday
By Dick Fortune
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