It’s U.S. 8th Air Force –
Cronkite: ‘Kid,’ two years old today, gives old man Hitler ‘ell
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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It’s U.S. 8th Air Force –
Hoyt: Japs murdered bulk of 50,000
Former OWI official hits censorship practices of government
New York (UP) –
Palmer Hoyt, former OWI Domestic Branch director, said in a signed magazine article criticizing the U.S. government’s censorship practices today that the Japs have “brutally murdered most of the 50,000 prisoners taken at Bataan.”
Asserting that the Japs still hold 25,000 American nationals in prison camps, Mr. Hoyt said he did not agree with “some of our leaders” who withheld publication of the fate of Bataan prisoners for fear of retaliation against the “unfortunate hostages” still remaining in Jap hands.
Cleared by censors
The article, to be published next week in The American Magazine, censures military authorities for holding up the release of much vital war news usually on the contention that secrecy is necessary for “reasons of security.” The account was cleared by the Office of Censorship, headed by Byron Price, which he said has taken a “common-sense” attitude.
Mr. Hoyt’s account was released only a few hours after the joint War and Navy Department announced that 7,700 Americans had been tortured and murdered in Jap atrocities.
Crushed by trucks
Mr. Hoyt wrote:
We haven’t known for two years that the Japanese brutally murdered most of the 50,000 prisoners taken at Bataan. They marched them through deadly heat without water, although they had thousands of available vehicles. And they crushed the thousands of men who did not die from exhaustion and thirst by running trucks though their columns.
Mr. Hoyt revealed that military authorities last December withheld for two weeks the story of the attack of German bombers on the Italian port of Bari, in which 17 allied ships were sunk and 1,000 men were killed or wounded.
Danger withheld
Mr. Hoyt continued:
When the Aleutians were seized by the Japanese, there was no hint of the awful danger of our position. Much of our military and naval activities in those regions had to remain military secrets but there could have been no justification for completely drawing the curtain.
That kind of censorship lulls us into indifference and may, if we put up with it, destroy our freedom.
Mr. Hoyt also criticized government officials who warned repatriates arriving recently on the exchange liner Gripsholm against talking of Jap atrocities foe fear of reprisals among prisoners still held by the Japs.
Sees reaction
He said:
I don’t agree with this. If we tell the story of Japanese bestiality, frankly and boldly, and as a part of each day’s news, I think the Japanese will treat their captives better. With the war going against them, they will fear to do otherwise.
Mr. Hoyt said he did not charge there was:
…malicious obstructionism or a sinister conspiracy to withhold the truth from the people of this nation.
It is simply that there are too many men in the Army and Navy, sustained by too many like men in civil life, who do not think it necessary to keep the people informed.
Rabaul sector hit by biggest bomb raid yet
Americans intensify move to sever supply lines to Jap base
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Editorial: Jap atrocities
Nothing that has happened in this war has so shocked the American people as the Army and Navy report on Jap atrocities. The eyewitness story of the starving, the torture, the deliberate murder of more than 5,000 American and Filipino soldiers captured on Bataan and Corregidor seems too terrible for belief. But it is true. Three American officers, after a year’s imprisonment, escaped to tell the awful truth.
In this country there is a mighty surge of indignation. Our sympathy goes out to all the families of the victims, who fought and suffered and died for us. We are choked by wrath against the bestial criminals.
But our anger will not help the dead, will not hurt the guilty Japs. Emotion is not enough. We must do something about it, more than swear or weep.
Here at home, we may feel there is nothing much we can do. But there is. Nothing very dramatic, and nothing heroic certainly. But we can help win the war. The fighting front does depend on the home front. And we are the home front – all of us little people, doing little jobs, which add up to such a vastly important total.
We make the home morale, which sustains or undermines the spirit of our fighting men at sea and in the skies and in the foxholes and in the prison camps. We can strengthen that morale. We can be ashamed to think, much less speak, of our own petty inconveniences and minor sacrifices compared with the real sacrifices. We can refrain from the partisan bickering that wears away national unity.
We can put an end to strikes and slowdowns that hold back production. We can stop the profiteering and selfish maneuvering for business advantage. We can speed up the flow of planes and munitions and ships, without which our Army and Navy cannot avenge the victims of prison camps in the Philippines.
And we can be on guard against the insidious whispers and the vile propaganda of a few politicians and newspapers, which play upon our hatred of the Jap criminals to divide us from our European allies.
When you are told that our government is fighting for British and Russian interests in Europe and sacrificing American interests in the Pacific, don’t believe it. That is not true.
When you are told that administration politics determines military strategy in the Southwest Pacific to the detriment of Gen. MacArthur, don’t believe it. That is not true.
When you are told that the best way to lick the Japs is to forget about Hitler, don’t believe it. That is not true. This is a global war and we must win a global victory with our allies – or lose the war and lose the peace.
What a blessed relief it would be if we could turn on those Jap fiends, who have starved and tortured and murdered our men in the prison camps, and wipe them out tomorrow, or next week, or next month! But swinging blind won’t help. It will only delay the knockout. There is no quick way, no easy way. The steady way is the sure way.
Background of the news –
Argentina and the United States
By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports
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CIO sets goal to cover gains in living cost
Executive board’s action follows certification of steel case
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Monahan: Garson and Pidgeon portray the Curies
And ‘the Minivers’ once again team up for an actors’ triumph
By Kaspar Monahan
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Stokes: 4th term issue linked by GOP to soldier vote
And Democrats are quick to capitalize on Republican anxiety that Roosevelt will run again
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
The fourth-term issue is befogging consideration of the soldier-vote bill.
Republicans dragged it up in their first burst of anger over President Roosevelt’s message to Congress. Democrats pick it up, whenever it is offered, to capitalize on the apparent Republican anxiety that Mr. Roosevelt is going to run.
A few Republicans, including Senators Taft (R-OH) and Bridges (R-NH), have attracted so much publicity with their charge that the simple federal ballot in the Green-Lucas-Worley Bill is merely a device to get a solid soldier vote for the President, that it might appear this is a “party line.”
The President came out flatly for the federal-ballot bill and denounced as a “fraud” the Eastland-Rankin Bill, which leaves voting under state law, and which is supported by a majority of Republicans in Congress and by most Southern Democrats.
Some surprised
But it is not the case that Republicans have adopted the “fourth-term-plot” line as a party policy.
Some Republican leaders, notably Senator Vandenberg (R-MI), have been chagrined over this tack because of its defeatist taint. Mr. Vandenberg paced the center aisle, rubbing his chin in perplexity, when another outburst was precipitated yesterday by Senator Holman (R-OR).
He conferred with Senator White (R-ME), Acting Minority Leader, but nothing came of it, at least immediately.
The truth is that Senate Republicans have been lacking in real leadership since Senator McNary (R-OR), the Minority Leader, was compelled by illness to relinquish his duties.
Unable to agree
Their failure to adopt a party policy, and the resultant floundering, have been the subject of much comment. They were unable to agree at a party conference.
Republicans on both sides of the Capitol opened themselves up to the President’s pointed attack – particularly the House Republican leadership, which chose to ally itself with Southern Democrats in a scheme to support the “states’-rights” bill and to prevent a record vote in the House on the Worley Bill similar to the Green-Lucas measure in the Senate.
They find themselves in a dilemma.
The President sought to put them in the position of trying to keep the soldiers from voting, and by virtue of his office he has a much larger public hearing and can more easily dramatize and oversimplify an issue.
Public reaction feared
House Minority Leader Martin (R-MA) is trying to hold his Republicans in line against the public reaction which is expected from the President’s message. A few Republicans had already taken a position for the Worley Bill with its federal ballot, but the majority were backing the Rankin “states’-rights” measure.
A few days ago, it seemed certain that the Rankin Bill would pass in the House, which will take it up next week, but the President’ message may change this. The issue is closely drawn in the Senate, which resumes consideration of the legislation next week.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
I’m sure the most interesting psychological thing around an American airdrome in Italy these days is the “rubbing out” process of the last few missions a combat airman goes on before he reaches that final one and returns to America.
It interests not only the man himself but everybody on the field from cook to crew chief. When a pilot gets within five missions of the finish, everybody knows and watches his total. If one plane is missing when the group gets back, the first thing on everybody’s mind is wonderment over whether or not it’s the guy who is about finished.
Most squadron leaders deliberately pick what are expected to be easy millions for the pilot nearing the finish. There have been so many ironic cases of pilots “getting it” on their last flight that the leaders are as nervous about it as the pilots.
In some outfits, pilots go home automatically after a certain number of missions. In others they go only if the flight surgeon thinks they are too battle-worn or nervous to continue for another 10 or so. I have yet to hear of a pilot who asked to fly beyond his allotted missions, although I am not saying there haven’t been such cases.
When a pilot comes back from his last trip, he turns out of formation as he nears the field and comes down wide open and screaming to “buzz” the field just above the ground. It is a gesture of elation similar to that of a fighter pilot doing a snap roll over the home field after shooting down a Nazi plane.
Even debt is cancelled
The pilots do all kinds of things after they finish. A friend of mine – Capt. Dean Schuyler of 144-55 87th Ave., Jamaica, Long Island, felt so good the night he got down that he cancelled a $300 debt another pilot owed him.
Another one who finished the same day – Lt. Swithin Shortlidge of West Grove, Pennsylvania – shaved off the beard he had been growing for months.
Last fall, Lt. Shortlidge fell down and knocked out his upper front teeth and cut his chin. He started the beard then because he couldn’t shave for a while, and he finally decided to keep it until he had finished his missions. The dentist made him a false plate to cover up the gaping hole in his mouth, but he refuses to wear it. With a long beard and a big grim and no teeth, he was a sight to behold.
Lt. Jimmy Griswold of Maywood, California, finished his missions while I was on the field. I asked if his last one was the hardest. He said:
No, it was all right once I got in the air, but thinking about it ahead of time almost had me in the asylum.
It’s just hard work
We were sitting around the mess-hall table, and Dan Schuyler said:
Yes, we thought it was going to be very romantic. And it was, for the first few missions when everything was new and strange and you were just learning. But since then, it’s been a job to do, just a job of muddy, hard work.
Most dive-bomber pilots go home without any enemy planes to their credit, for attacking enemy planes isn’t their job. Jimmy Griswold says the first thing his younger brother is going to ask him is how many planes he shot down, and when he says “None at all,” his brother is going to look at him awfully funny.
Some pilots finish and get home in as little as five months, while others are overseas more than a year before getting in their missions. Occasionally sickness or wounds will keep one out of the air for weeks, and he falls behind.
There is one hard-luck pilot – an excellent one too – who was laid up a long time with a bad flak wound in the leg. Then just after he started flying again, the jeep he was riding in was strafed by an enemy fighter and he went back to the hospital with another bad leg wound. As a result, he is far behind on his missions and is just now starting in again while all his pals have gone home.
The saddest thing about the strafing was that the pilot who was driving the jeep had just finished his last mission and had his orders home – and he was killed.
Völkischer Beobachter (January 29, 1944)
Die Dominien stehen auf dem Spiel –
Londoner Versucher, den Zerfall des Empire aufzuhalten
Washingtons weiteres Eindringen soll durch eine Konferenz verhindert Werden
…
U.S. State Department (January 29, 1944)
Marshal Stalin to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill
29 January 1944
[Translation]
Personal and secret from Premier J. V. Stalin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill
On January 23 I have received your two joint messages, signed by you, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, on the question of transference for the use of the Soviet Union of Italian vessels.
I have to say, that after your joint affirmative reply in Teheran to my question regarding the transference to the Soviet Union of Italian vessels before the end of January, 1944, I considered this question as settled and it did not occur to me that there was a possibility of revision of this accepted and agreed upon, among the three of us, decision. So much the more, as we came to an agreement, that in the course of December and January this question should have been settled with the Italians as well. Now I see that this is not so, and that the Italians have not been approached on that question at all.
In order not to delay, however, this matter, which is of vital importance for our common struggle against Germany, the Soviet Government is ready to accept your proposal…
In your reply, however, is no mention made of the transference to the Soviet Union of eight Italian squadron destroyers and four submarines, regarding the transference of which to the Soviet Union still at the end of January, you Mr. President, and you Mr. Prime Minister, gave your consent in Teheran. Undoubtedly for the Soviet Union primarily is this question, the question regarding destroyers and submarines, without which the transference of a battleship and a cruiser is of no value. You will understand yourself that cruisers and battleships are powerless without destroyers escorting them. Since you have at your disposal the whole Italian naval fleet, fulfillment of the decision agreed upon in Teheran pertaining to the transference for the use of the Soviet Union of eight destroyers and four submarines from this fleet should not be difficult. I agree, that instead of Italian destroyers and submarines the Soviet Union be given to use the same number of American or English destroyers and submarines. Besides, the question of transference of destroyers and submarines cannot be postponed, but must be solved simultaneously with the transference of the battleship and cruiser, as it was agreed upon, among the three of us, in Teheran.