America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

Maj. de Seversky: Rapid fuel consumption of jet plane rules out long flights at this stage

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

War’s blight causes Italy many cultural tragedies

Irreparable damages done to churches and monuments by Naples bombings
By Tom Wolf


Universal training advocated by Knox

Warner Bros. earnings drop to $2.12 a share


Construction awards dip sharply in 1943

The Free Lance-Star (January 15, 1944)

Liberty ship to have name of Carole Lombard

Hollywood, California (AP) –
A Liberty vessel will be launched at Los Angeles Harbor today bearing the name of Carole Lombard and dedicated to the same cause which the blonde actress was prosecuting to the limit of her ability when her life was smashed out in a Nevada airliner crash almost exactly two years ago.

Miss Lombard was the wife of actor Clark Gable, now an Army Air Forces captain presently in Hollywood editing films of bombing raids over Europe in which he participated. She was killed with 21 others when an airliner crashed into a rugged Nevada peak Jan. 16, 1942, as she was returning here from a nationwide bond-selling campaign.

Völkischer Beobachter (January 16, 1944)

Ein Engländer über Englands soziale Lage –
‚Die Hälfte der Bevölkerung leidet an Unterernährung‘

Neue Varianten zum Thema ‚Freiheit von Not‘

Ihr Leiter – ein Schüler der Gangster
Mörderschule für US-Heer

Eigener Bericht des „VB.“

rd. Lissabon, 15. Jänner –
Die nordamerikanische Presse hat in geradezu zynischer Offenheit in der letzten Zeit mehrfach Methoden der US-Kriegführung enthüllt, die nur mit tiefstem Abscheu zur Kenntnis genommen werden können. Nun bringt das erste Heft der für Ibero-Amerika bestimmten spanischen Ausgabe der US-Zeitschrift Reader’s Digest unter dem Titel „Mörder ist sein Beruf,“ einen aus der Neuyorker Tageszeitung Herald Tribune übernommenen Artikel Frederic Sonderns über einen ungenannten amerikanischen Major.

Dieser Major ist mit der Leitung einer besonderen USA-Truppenschule beauftragt, in der die Soldaten und vor allem jüngere Offiziere für spezielle Mordaufträge ausgebildet werden. Der amerikanische Major bezeichnet seine Schule, so hebt der USA-Journalist ausdrücklich hervor, selbst als eine „Mörderschule“ und den geplanten und organisierten Mord als „seine Spezialität.“ Die Teilnehmer dieser Schule werden für kaltblütige Mordanschläge gegen besonders gekennzeichnete Einzelpersonen vorbereitet. Der Major erklärte dem Journalisten:

Auf einen Deutschen zu schießen ist, als ob man eine Fliege totschlägt. Dieser Gedanke muß in die Männer hinein. Bringen Sie eine Reihe von Deutschen um, werden Sie nach dem blutigsten Gemetzel wie ein neugeborenes Kind schlafen.

Wenn die theoretische Ausbildung-vorüber ist, werden die Teilnehmer des Kurses, wie der Bericht schildert, in einem besonders für diesen Zweck eingerichteten Haus „geschult.“ Die „Killer“ müssen von Türen aus, unter den Tischen und Betten hervor auf Holzpuppen, die durch Drohte bewegbar sind, Zielübungen machen. Eine besondere Spezialität ist das Zielen auf Personen im Bett. Neben der Maschinenpistole spielt das Messer bei der Ausbildung eine große Rolle. Der US-Major erklärte auf Grund seiner Erfahrung bezeichnenderweise, die beste Eignung für diese Mörderausbildung zeigten die Amerikaner und Engländer, europäische Emigranten brächten für diese „Kampfesart“ nicht genug „Ruhe und Kaltblütigkeit“ auf. Sonderns so schreibt ausdrücklich:

Was man in dieser Mörderschule der Roosevelt-Armee braucht, sind Männer mit kalter Präzision wie die nordamerikanischen Gangster.

Hochinteressant ist das anscheinend sehr stolze Bekenntnis des US-Majors, er habe seine Methoden von den amerikanischen Bankräubern und Banditen gelernt und auf Grund des Studiums ihrer Verbrechen seine Taktik entwickelt. Besonders verherrlichter dabei die Maschinenpistole der Gangster, die im Unterricht der Mordschüler eine hervorragende Rolle spielt.

Wenn die Kriegsagitatoren des US-Präsidenten diese Enthüllungen auch noch als besondere Reklame für die Geisteshaltung und demokratische Einstellung der USA nach Ibero-Amerika verschicken, so zeigt das eine geradezu unvorstellbare moralische Entartung, die in Ibero-Amerika allerdings sehr viel anders wirken dürfte, als man es sich in Washington wünscht.

England und die USA müssen ihren Schützling selbst hinrichten –
Der letzte Akt der polnischen Komödie

Drahtmeldung unseres Berner Berichterstatters

U.S. State Department (January 16, 1944)

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt

London, 16 January, 1944

Secret
545

Prime Minister to President. Personal and most secret.

… My recollection is clear that nothing was said at Tehran about “one third” but that promise was made to meet the Russian claim put forward at Moscow to have transferred to them one battleship, one cruiser, eight destroyers, four submarines, and forty thousand tons of merchant shipping.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Pittsburgh Press (January 16, 1944)

NAZIS RETREAT BEFORE CASSINO
5th Army Yanks advance; French drive into flank

Tunisian veterans hurl back counterattacks and gain two miles, forcing German retreat in center of arc
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer

WLB MOVES TO AVERT POWER STRIKE
Sit-down clerks told to work as shutdown nears

Fear of general walkout by utility union lessens; garbage collectors are idle for third day

10,000-foot dive

Turned upside down by crash in air, Fortress goes on to bomb Axis. Returns to base
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer

Public opens its veins to help stricken boy, 4

The more blood given Texas youth, the more sparkle there is in his eyes, doctor says

Union penalties incite strikes at war plants

Robertshaw workers at Youngwood and Scottdale walk out in protest of CIO, company disciplinary action

americavotes1944

Democrats to point to military record

Syracuse, New York (UP) – (Jan. 15)
Democratic National Committee chairman Frank C. Walker said tonight that his party would campaign in this presidential election year on the administration’s military record.

Declaring in a Jackson Day address to Upstate New York Democratic leaders that the party leadership had brought into being “the best equipped, most admirable Army and Navy in American history,” Mr. Walker added:

We shall go before the country in the campaign year of 1944 and report to the country what we did and we shall not be afraid.

Mary Pickford in polio drive; is camera shy

All-service casualties

Latest total is 139,858, of which 32,078 are dead, 32,178 missing and 29,707 prisoners

Washington (UP) – (Jan. 15)
The Office of War Information today revealed that the latest announced casualties of the War and Navy Departments brings the total to 139,858 – 32,078 dead, 45,595 wounded, 32,478 missing and 29,707 prisoners of war.

Of the 29,707 prisoners of war, 1,619 have died in prison camps, mainly in Jap-occupied territory.

The report for the War Department is as of Dec. 23, 1943; that for the Navy as of Jan. 14, 1944. The following is a breakdown for the different services:

Dead Wounded Missing Prisoners TOTAL
Army 16,831 *38,916 24,067 25,415 105,229
Navy 11,935 3,125 7,676 2,343 25,079
Marines 2,996 3,476 688 1,948 9,108
Coast Guard 316 78 47 1 442
TOTAL 32,078 45,595 32,478 29,707 139,858

*Of these, 20,036 have returned to active duty or been released from the hospital.

Steel division seeks to free civilian goods

Army, however, demands delay until invasion tide is known
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

Roosevelt will be host to Southern governors

americavotes1944

Poll: Women’s vote major factor in 1944 election

Men may be outnumbered again at polls as in 1942 balloting
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

As the 1944 campaign progresses, more attention will be focused on the vote of women than at any time in recent history.

Surveys show that in the 1942 Congressional elections women actually cast more voted than men for the first time since woman’s suffrage. This year, if the total number of ballots cast by servicemen in the presidential election is small, the women again will outnumber the men at the polls.

All evidence to date shows that the political sentiments of women have closely paralleled those of the men in recent months, except that women voters are a little more inclined to lean toward President Roosevelt and the New Deal than the men are.

MacArthur favored

Women voters also take a somewhat different attitude toward various Republican candidates, being more in favor of Gen. Douglas MacArthur than the men are, and slightly less in favor of Wendell Willkie. Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York has about the same following among women as among the men.

Because of the growing importance of the women’s vote, the Institute has made a special analysis of their attitudes toward parties and candidates as revealed in nationwide surveys.

Women voters were asked, first, what party they want to see win the president election in 1944. Their vote compares with the men in the civilian population as follows:

Interviewing Date 1/6-11/44
Survey #309-K
Question #7

Which party would you like to see win the presidential election in November?

Republican Democratic
Men 49% 51%
Women 47% 53%

The above figures apply to the present civilian population and do not take into account men in the armed services. Plans for soldier voting are still being discussed in Washington. Present indications are that Democratic Party prospects would be aided by the extent to which servicemen participated in the election.

Prefer Democrats

Various tests in England and in the United States of soldier voting sentiment indicate that the majority of servicemen would prefer to see the Democratic Party win in November. This is in sharp contrast to claims published by Chairman Harrison Spangler of the Republican National Committee.

When it comes to candidates for 1944, there are some disagreements between the sexes, although few of a major character.

Candidate choices

In seeking voters’ opinions each person was given a list of leaders, both Republican and Democratic, who have been most often discussed throughout the country as possible nominees in 1944. The voters were asked to name their choice as of today.

Based on those who named a Republican, the results were as follows:

Interviewing Date 1/6-11/44
Survey #309-K
Question #8b

Whom would you like to see the Republican Party nominate for President?

Men Women
Dewey 38% 37%
Willkie 27% 23%
MacArthur 13% 19%
Bricker 11% 9%
Stassen 7% 7%
Eric Johnston 2% 1%
Warren 1% 2%
Saltonstall 1% 2%

Based on those who named a Democrat, the results are shown below:

Interviewing Date 1/6-11/44
Survey #309-K
Question #8a

Whom would you like to see the Democratic Party nominate for President?

Men Women
Roosevelt 82% 88%
Wallace 7% 4%
Farley 3% 2%
Byrd 2% 2%
Marshall 2% 1%
Byrnes 2% 1%
McNutt 2% 1%
Douglas <1% 1%

Evans would record every word on air