America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

2340

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In Italy – (by wireless)
The A-36 dive bomber squadron that I’m with is living well now but that hasn’t always been so. In fact, this is the first time they’ve been in a building since they went into combat six months ago.

They have flown from 10 different fields in those six months. They have lived in tents, under trees, and in foxholes. They have lived in mud so deep the planes had to be towed to the runway, and in dust so thick they had to take off by instruments.

They have flown from fields so close to enemy lines that they could fly a bombing mission and be back in 10 minutes. So close in fact that ground crews could stand on the fields and watch their own planes going into their bombing dives.

Once, here in Italy, the air over their field was so full of wounded planes from other stations that the squadron commander had to get out and act as traffic manager, deciding himself which planes were in greatest danger and should be allowed to come in first.

Pilot turnover is high

The turnover of pilots is high in any combat outfit – partly due to casualties, but mainly due to the system of relieving pilots after a certain number of missions. It would be unusual for a combat airman to be overseas more than a year, at the present rate.

Take this squadron of Invader dive bombers, for instance.

They came into combat just six months ago, yet today only three of the original 50 pilots are left. Twelve have been casualties, and the rest have finished their missions and gone home. The three originals will be homeward bound in a few days.

These dive bomber boys have compiled some statistics about their operations. They find that a new pilot, starting in to build up the required missions for going home, has about a 75% chance of coming through safety, and if shot down he has almost a 50-50 chance of becoming a prisoner.

A dozen times, during my stay with this squadron, pilots have voluntarily brought up the subject of how wonderful the enlisted men are. The men take a terrific personal pride in their planes and they work like dogs keeping them in good shape.

The enlisted men of this squadron are an extremely high-class bunch. Being trained technicians, they were mostly at least 25 at the beginning. You could put officers’ uniforms on half of them and never know the difference.

Yearn for news from home

While I was on the field, they pumped me about conditions and politics at home, and about the end of the war and the peace, as though I were an information bureau.

These mechanics are fully conscious of three things about their jobs – that their life is immeasurably better than that of the infantrymen and that they should be grateful; that the pilot who flies out to battle is the one of their family who really take it; and that pilots’ lives often depend on their work. The result is that they work with a great conscientiousness.

When a favorite pilot fails to come back the enlisted men take it as hard as do the officers, and mechanic whose plane has been shot down is like boy who has lost his dad.

The ground crews have quite a spirit of rivalry. Recently two ships were running a neck-and-neck race for the most missions flown. Then one of the ships came back so badly damaged it had to be worked on for several days and it fell way behind in the race. It almost broke the crew chief’s heart.

Examples of zeal

Here are two little examples of the zeal with which the enlisted men work:

  • As the planes were taxiing out one day for their daily mission, it was discovered that the tire on the tail wheel of one was flat. Ordinarily it would just have been left behind. But the crew came running, other crews pitched in to help, and they had a new wheel on the plane by the time the next-to-last ship of the squadron was taking off.

  • Often, during hot times, the squadron will fly two and three missions a day. One day a plane came in full of holes, but not basically damaged. Usually, it would take a day or two to patch the holes, but in their excitement and pride of accomplishment the crews had that plane patched and ready to go on the next mission an hour and a half later.

2341

Lewis slated to win again in AFL reunion

Chemical field left open to UMW organizers, observers say
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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2342

U.S. recognition refused for new regime in Bolivia

Washington may back up policy with drastic measures; Ambassador Boal summoned home

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2343

Nazis repelled at canal line by U.S. tanks

Reynolds Packard sees bodies of Germans along banks
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

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2344

Editorial: How did the tax get this way?

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2345

americavotes1944

Editorial: A ‘simple, uniform’ ballot

Secretary Stimson gives every evidence of being sincerely concerned about the problem of providing members of the Armed Forces with a vote in the 1944 elections.

He also gives every evidence of being wholly non-political in his interest.

Mr. Stimson, along with Secretary of the Navy Knox, has presented to Congress a specific outline of the problems involved in the job of getting ballots to the Armed Forces and back to the proper election boards for counting.

The two secretaries have pledged the Army and Navy to exert every effort to do the job as speedily and efficiently as circumstances permit.

But Mr. Stimson says the so-called “states’ rights” compromise bill which is now before the House will “interfere with the prosecution of the war” and he requests Congress to provide a “simple, uniform” ballot.

And that is exactly what Congress ought to do.

And the states ought to cooperate with it, even to the extent of calling special sessions of their legislatures if necessary.

The sooner Congress acts, the sooner the states will know what changes in procedure, if any are necessary, and the sooner they will be able to make them.

Obviously, there are some complex problems, legal and mechanical, in providing the Armed Forces with a vote. But they are not problems which cannot be surmounted if Congress, the Army and the Navy and state administrations will put their brains to them.

Any failure in giving the Armed Forces the utmost opportunity to vote is a breach of the right to suffrage – the highest privilege of an American citizen. That is like saying to the Armed Forces:

You may fight and die, if need be, for the right to vote; but you may not participate in that right.

2346

Editorial: ‘Teamwork with a soul in it’

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2347

Edson: Labor disputes often aimed at the government

By Peter Edson

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2348

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Ferguson: The wounded

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

In a press conference, Mrs. Roosevelt proposed an educational campaign to prepare American families for war’s sharpest blow – mutilation of their boys in battle.

At last, the people of the United States are face to face with war. When the wounded come home, as they are coming, and the hospitals begin to fill, we shall touch grim reality.

The parting of wives from husbands, of children from fathers, of parents from sons and daughters, is a kind of death – so much so that when the little yellow telegrams come, bearing their sorrowful tidings – “Dead,” or “Missing” – the bereaved have already experienced that awful moment in imagination.

Many of our dead are buried overseas. Thus, relatives can reject the fact that they are gone forever. It takes a long time to adjust ourselves to believe that the one who went away in the full flush of health will not come back. And if his body does not come back, somehow it’s easy to think he is alive somewhere.

But when the men return with bodies maimed and minds affected, our courage must match theirs on the battlefield. For the blinded, the crippled and the mentally exhausted must be taken back into civilian life as quickly as possible. They must be made to feel useful.

In order to build up their self-esteem, the families and friends to these men will be required to use tact, understanding and love, and the communities in which they live should begin making plans for taking them into industry and the professions.

To them we owe an everlasting debt. May we pay it better than we paid a similar debt to wounded veterans of the last war. Thousands of them are shut away in hospitals, cared for according to the letter of the law but abandoned in spirit, forgotten by those who once sang their praises.

2349

americavotes1944

Background of news –
The South and the Democrats

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

Talk of a Southern anti-New Deal candidate – like Senator Byrd of Virginia – for the 1944 presidential nomination got exactly nowhere at Saturday’s Democratic National Committee gathering in Washington, at which President Roosevelt was endorsed for a fourth term.

The Civil War and secession may have died out as political issues, but the Negro question has not, and the Democratic Party will need to retain in 1944 as many Negro votes as it can. Also, the party will need to retain as much of the labor vote as possible, and most Southern Democrats have records which do not sit well with the trade unions.

Also, the party can count upon the South without nominating a Southerner. Only when it named Al Smith in 1928 did the party lose states in the “Solid South” – Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas. And only in out-and-out Republican landslides do the Democrats lose Southern states outside of the Solid South – Kentucky in 1924 and 1928, Oklahoma and Tennessee in 1920 and 1928.

No Southerners since Civil War

The Democrats have not nominated a Southerner for President since the Civil War, although Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia. In fact, even before the Civil War, the party had deemed it best, to minimize sectional feeling, to name a non-Southerner – in 1860 Douglas of Illinois (a rump convention named Breckinridge of Kentucky), in 1856 Buchanan of Pennsylvania, in 1852 Pierce of New Hampshire, in 1848 Cass of Michigan.

On the other hand, five of the seven Democratic nominees prior to 1848 had come from the South, and in 1824, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was a minority choice, with a majority of the Democratic electoral votes split among three Southerners, while Van Buren in 1836 and 1840 was the faithful lieutenant of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

Even the Democratic vice presidential nomination did not go to a Southerner until more than 60 years after the Civil War – Robinson in 1928, Garner in 1932 and 1936.

In 1936, the Democratic convention in Philadelphia abolished the two-thirds rule, which up to that time had governed all Democratic national conventions (the Republicans have never used it). The two-thirds rule had in effect given a veto power over the nominations to the 13 Southern states, which accounted, on the average, for about 25% of the delegates to the national conventions. In 1944, the 13 Southern states will have 27%.

Wouldn’t support Wallace

In 1940, most Southern delegates rebelled against the administration command to nominate Henry A. Wallace for Vice President, and got behind Speaker Bankhead. The Southern states gave 224 votes to Mr. Bankhead, 66 to Mr. Wallace, 8½ to other candidates. Mr. Wallace was nominated with 627 votes. If the two-thirds rule had been in effect, he would have needed 734.

In 1940, to compensate the South for the abrogation of the two-thirds rule, the Democratic convention voted to give two additional delegates to every state which went Democratic in the preceding elections. That will really decrease the proportionate Southern strength in the 1944 convention, because in 1940, Mr. Roosevelt carried 25 non-Southern states, 13 Southern ones. The new system will benefit the Southern states in conventions following Republican victories, when the Democratic ticket probably will do better in the South than elsewhere.

As a result of the midterm elections in 1942, the South held slightly less than half (25 out of 57) of the Democratic seats in the Senate, more than half (116 out of 219) of those in the House. The 13 Southern states have 28% of the votes in the Electoral College.

2350

Fortune found in deposit box of slain woman

But clues are still lacking in death of diplomat’s wife

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2351

Judge rejects gate pay plan

Portal clause not required by law, he rules

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2352

Millett: Entertainers at Army camps shouldn’t be heard at home

By Ruth Millett

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2353

Pegler: George Spelvin

By Westbrook Pegler

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2354

Clapper: PT blockade

By Raymond Clapper

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2355

Maj. de Seversky: Victory over Japan could be swift, losses light through air strategy

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

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2356

General pardoned in Hawaiian dispute

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2357

Simms: Nazis will try hard to split Russia, Allies

Big chanced to come when U.S., Britain invade Western Europe
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

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2358

Post-war sale of U.S. owned goods urged

Government told to plan now for disposal of surplus material

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Cash dividends increase in 1943

Payments gain $12 million over 1942

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2359

Inside story of ‘peace now’ –
Pacifists pick up many supporters of doubtful loyalty

Organization accepts former Bundists if they’re American citizens’ leaders identified
By Thomas M. Johnson

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