Allied planes rip Jap barges
Torpedo boats also attack enemy off New Guinea
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Hotel slaying clue sought in 2 safety deposit boxes
Family intimates important papers may be found there in missing purse
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Editorial: Still on guard
From the Philadelphia Bulletin
Republican National Committeeman G. Mason Owlett, in a letter to The Evening Bulletin, insists his warning against the “post-war return of American-made, government-owned war merchandise to this country at bargain prices and duty free” has nothing to do with the repayment of war debts, our gold supply or Lend-Lease. It is Mr. Owlett’s opinion that the influx of such distressed merchandise after the last war “helped create a depression which ran six years.”
But Mr. Owlett himself in his letter worries about:
…the amount of goods and material of foreign origin which is apt to find its way into this market following the close of the war.
In capital letter phrases, he warns against such economic cooperation with the rest of the world as may make “American enterprise a decadent, retrogressive victim of low-cost foreign competition.”
It is clear that Mr. Owlett looks upon the import of foreign goods into this country with an unfriendly eye, as though they were a menace to be guarded against and not an asset.
Such an attitude does concern the repayment of Lend-Lease and the future of our foreign trade markets. For we cannot be repaid or expand our sales abroad unless we are willing to accept the goods of other nations in greater volume than before the war. Foreign trade is not a one-way street.
OPA will clamp maximum lid on vegetables
Consumers to benefit next month when local units set prices
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
If you hang around a fighter or dive-bomber airdrome for a while, you will constantly hear about low-flying missions.
That means jobs on which you fly so low you are practically on the ground. Often you are so low you would hit a man standing on the ground.
On such a mission a pilot goes out “looking for things.” He will shoot at practically anything he sees. He’ll come whipping up over a slight rise, then zip down the other side, and in his gunsights, there may be a gun, a truck, a train, a whole line of German soldiers, a supply dump. Whatever he finds he shoots up.
The squadron of A-36 Invader dive bombers that I’m with has had some freakish happenings on these missions.
For example, Lt. Miles C. Wood of Dade City, Florida, almost shot himself down the other day. He was strafing, and he flew so low that his bullets kicked up rocks and he flew into the rocks. They dented his propeller and punched holes in his wings. He was lucky to get home at all. Even a hunk of mud will dent a wing at that speed.
Flies through eight-strand cable
Another pilot flew right through an eight-strand steel cable the Germans had stretched on poles above some treetops. This is one of their many tricks, and this one almost worked. The pilot landed at his home field with the cable still trailing from his wing.
My friend Maj. Ed Bland, the squadron leader, is so interested in his strafing one day that he didn’t notice a high-tension line just ahead. When he did see it, it was too late to pull over it. So, he flew under it – at about 300 miles an hour.
And since I’ve been on this field one of the pilots was diving on a truck and got so interested in what he was doing that he ran into a tree. The plane somehow stayed in the air, although the leading edge of the wing was pushed up about eight inches and was crumpled like an accordion.
He got the plane back over our lines, but finally it went into a spin and he had to bail out. He broke his leg getting out of the cockpit, hit his head on the tail as he went past, and then smashed his leg further when he hit the ground.
Apologizes for losing plane
He is the luckiest man the squadron has had yet. Everybody was concerned about him, and grateful that he lived. Yet when his squadron commander went to see him in the hospital, the first thing the injured pilot did was to start apologizing for losing the plane.
Dive-bomber pilots fly so low that they even have German tracer bullets coming down at them, from the hillsides, instead of coming up as they usually do. They fly so low that Italians behind the German lines come running to their doors and wave, while now and then some dirty guy who has different sentiments will run out and take a shot at them.
As I have said, the Germans are full of tricks. They send up all kinds of weird things from their ack-ack guns. They have one shell that looks, when it explodes, as if you’d emptied a wastebasket full of turpentine. They shoot all kinds of wire and link “daisy chains” into the air to snag our propellers.
Bullets ricochet off haystack
But the weirdest one I’ve heard of was described by a pilot who was on the tail of a Messerschmitt one day. Just as he was pulling the trigger, the fleeing German released out of the tail of his plane a parachute with a long steel cable attached to it. The American pilot by fast maneuvering got out of its way, but he did lose his German.
On a low-flying mission you’re justified in shooting at anything. One day, one of our pilots, after a boring mission in which he saw nothing worth destroying, decided to set a haystack afire. He came diving down on it, pouring in bullets, when suddenly he saw his tracers ricocheting off the haystack. Now you know bullets don’t ricochet off ordinary haystacks, so our pilot gave it the works – and thus destroyed a brand-new pillbox.
Maj. de Seversky: Heavy losses in raids over Germany suggest need for greater firepower
By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky
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Poll: Majority sees European War ending in 1944
Average is October; guesses on Pacific conflict, generally two years
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
As of today, a majority of the American people agrees with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s prediction, “We will win the European War in 1944.”
The average of all guesses in an Institute poll just completed would put the end of European hostilities in October of this year – only a few weeks before the presidential election.
Public thinking continues along more sober lines, so far as the Japanese conflict goes. Only six of every 100 U.S. voters think the war with the Japs will be over before we enter 1945. The average of all guesses would end the Pacific War in two years.
On Germany, on Japan
As in past polls on the question, field reporters for the Institute put the problem to a representative segment of the total voting population as follows:
How much longer do you think the war with Germany will last?
The same question was asked with reference to Japan, but with sharply contrasting results, as the tables below indicate:
LENGTH OF WAR WITH GERMANY
| Will end in first half of 1944 | 12% |
| Will end in second half of 1944 | 46% |
| Will end in 1945 | 31% |
| Will end in 1946 | 5% |
| Will end in 1947 or later | 1% |
| No opinion | 5% |
LENGTH OF WAR WITH JAPAN
| Will end in first half of 1944 | 1% |
| Will end in second half of 1944 | 5% |
| Will end in 1945 | 33% |
| Will end in 1946 | 33% |
| Will end in 1947 or later | 20% |
| No opinion | 8% |
Women pessimistic
Other interesting facts brought to light in the present poll:
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Women are more pessimistic about when the war in Europe will end. Sixty-two percent of the men think the war with Germany will end in 1944; only 52% of the women hold a like opinion.
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Approximately one year ago, the average guess was that the war with Germany would be over by now. In the summer of 1943, the guess was that the European phase would end in July of this year. Now the average guess is October, or nine months from now.
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Völkischer Beobachter (January 23, 1944)
Anglo-amerikanische Hoffnung im Abbau –
Tito klagt die Westmächte an
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U.S. Navy Department (January 23, 1944)
Communiqué No. 499
North Pacific.
On the early morning of January 23 (East Longitude Date) two groups of Navy bombers bombed enemy installations on the south and west coasts of Paramushiru Island. Anti-aircraft fire was encountered, but no enemy planes were met. All U.S. planes returned without damage.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 23, 1944)
Allies within 16 miles of Rome; trap threatens 15 Nazi divisions
Yanks, British in surprise attack seize beachhead near Eternal City
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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