America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

2551

U.S. Navy Department (January 31, 1944)

Communiqué No. 500

Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported the sinking of fourteen enemy vessels in operations against the enemy in these areas, as follows:

SUNK:

  • 2 large transports
  • 1 medium transport
  • 1 medium tanker
  • 1 medium naval auxiliary
  • 1 small freighter
  • 1 medium cargo transport
  • 7 medium freighters

These actions have not been announced in any previous Navy Departmen­t Communiqué.

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 26

Our carrier task forces today continued their attacks on Kwajalein, Roi, Maloelap and Wotje.

During the day surface forces bombarded the same objectives while carriers extended their operations to include bombing of Eniwetok.

CINCPAC Press Release No. 244

For Immediate Release
January 31, 1944

During the night of January 28 and 29 (West Longitude Date) Liber­ators and Mitchells of the 7th Army Air Force and search Liberators and Mariners of Fleet Air Wing Two carried out operations against Wotje, Kwajalein, Jaluit, and Maloelap Atolls.

Army heavy bombers dropped more than 27 tons on Wotje, a total of 17 tons on Roi and Kwajalein Islands and 3 tons on Jaluit.

No fighter or anti-aircraft opposition was encountered.

A Navy Mariner Patrol Plane bombed Taroa during the night without opposition. A flight of Navy search planes over Taroa in the afternoon of January 28 was attacked by nearly a dozen fighters of which at least two were shot down and three others damaged. We suffered no losses.

Army medium bombers attacking Taroa the same afternoon bombed airdrome and cantonment structures, damaged 11 planes on the ground and set fire to a small craft. Six fighters attacked our planes and one fighter was damaged. Our losses were light.

CINCPAC Press Release No. 245

For Immediate Release
January 31, 1944

Aircraft of the 7th Army Air Force and search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two made attacks on principal Marshall Island bases during the night of January 29‑30 (West Longitude Dates). These raids were coordinated with the attacks of carrier‑based squadrons of the past two days.

In the evening of January 29, Army Mitchell bombers struck shore installations and small craft at Maloelap and Wotje, while Army Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters struck Imieji Island in the Jaluit Atoll. No enemy fighters were encountered, and anti-aircraft was ineffectual.

During the night Army Liberators dropped 45 tons of bombs on Kwaja­lein Atoll, and nearly 10 tons on Wotje. Liberators and Navy Catalina and Ventura search planes struck Mille and Taroa with a total of 21 tons of bombs, and a single Liberator hit Jaluit with an additional three tons.

CINCPAC Press Release No. 246

For Immediate Release
January 31, 1944

Two squadrons of Coronado seaplanes of Fleet Air Wing Two made a strong attack on Wake Island during the night of January 30‑31 (West Longitude Date). All bombs hit in or near the target area and no planes were lost.

2552

The Pittsburgh Press (January 31, 1944)

2 NIGHT RAIDS BLAST BERLIN
U.S. fliers hit Europe third day

Nazi capital sea of fire; Yanks drop 3,900 tons in 48 hours
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

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2553

MARSHALLS INVADED, JAPS SAY
Fleet strikes chain of isles in mid-Pacific

Initial success in new U.S. landing indicated by Tokyo radio
By the United Press

marshallsmap.up
Marshalls invasion is indicated by Tokyo reports of heavy fighting in the mid-Pacific islands. The enemy broadcasts followed U.S. air and naval bombardments of key islands in the archipelago. In the Southwest Pacific, another U.S. raid on the Jap stronghold of Rabaul resulted in the destruction and probable destruction of 62 more Jap planes.

Japanese Imperial Headquarters reported today that powerful U.S. forces are attacking the Marshall Islands athwart the eastern invasion route to Japan and said “furious fighting is now in progress” between Jap garrisons and “enemy troops.”

The implication was plain that U.S. invasion forces had gone ashore in the Marshalls and had met with at least some initial success in establishing footholds.

Even before the Tokyo radio broadcast a communiqué reporting that “powerful enemy troops since Sunday morning have raided the Marshall Islands.” U.S. Fleet headquarters in the Pacific revealed that the air-sea assault on the islands had mounted to a pitch of intensity regarded as a possible forerunner to invasion.

Report heavy fighting

Soon after U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor announced that a big task force including aircraft carriers and possibly battleships shelled and bombed the Marshalls Saturday and Sunday, Radio Tokyo began a series of broadcasts reporting “fierce” and “heavy” fighting in the area.

Speculation that U.S. invasion troops may have landed on one or more of the atolls was touched off by Tokyo’s varied references to Jap Army units or army troops joining naval forces in engaging the enemy.

Fish for information

It was possible, however, that the Japs were fishing for information as to the task force’s ultimate objective. The Pearl Harbor announcement told only of shelling and bombing attacks on Kwajalein, Maloelap and Wotje Atolls over the weekend and did not disclose whether the naval armada was still in the Marshalls waters.

A London broadcast said that U.S. warships were pumping thousands of shells into Jap installations in the Marshalls from less than 10 miles offshore.

Communiqué broadcast

The first Tokyo broadcast referring to the fighting was a communiqué from Imperial Headquarters transmitted in English by Dōmei and reporting that:

Japanese Army and Navy units have intercepted powerful enemy units which have been attacking the Marshall group since Jan. 30 and fierce fighting is now going on.

Several hours later, a Tokyo broadcast in Italian to Italy said U.S. forces has begun an “offensive” against the Marshalls at dawn Sunday.

Both broadcasts were transcribed by U.S. government monitors.

Naval battle possible

It was regarded as possible that the U.S. fleet had finally succeeded in luring the Jap fleet out for battle.

A Tokyo broadcast in German quoted the communiqué as saying that “troops of the Japanese Army and Navy” stationed in the Marshalls had “engaged enemy forces in fighting.” This version was recorded by the United Press in London.

Includes carriers

Pearl Harbor dispatches indicated the size of the U.S. task force was apparently of invasion dimensions. It included aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and possibly battleships.

The Pearl Harbor communiqué said the task force shelled and bombed the Kwajalein, Maloelap and Wotje Atolls heavily. The force swept into the islands Saturday and naval planes delivered a heavy attack on Taroa Island in the Maloelap Atoll and on Wotje and Kwajalein that day, but no surface attack was mentioned.

Then, instead of retiring, the fleet maneuvered into position for yesterday’s attacks.

Mandated to Japan

If an invasion force was landed, the United States was bidding for the first time for territory which was controlled by Japan before Pearl Harbor. The Marshalls were mandated to Japan by the League of Nations,

The Marshalls are about 600 miles northwest of the nearest U.S. positions at Makin in the Gilberts and less than 750 miles south of Jap-held Wake Island. The group is about 1,200 miles east of Truk, the enemy’s most powerful naval base outside his home waters, and 2,700 miles southeast of Tokyo.

The invasion of the Marshalls group would be the Allies’ second major thrust into the Japs’ Central Pacific island possessions. The first came last November when U.S. Marines successfully invaded the Gilberts.

2554

In bloody fighting –
U.S. tanks cut line at Cassino

Nazi counterattacks hurled back below Rome
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer

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Germans wrecking Rome as they start evacuation

Refugees report all strategic parts of city mined; new type timebomb being used
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

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2555

U.S. subs bag 14 more Jap vessels

Latest sinkings lift score of U.S. undersea raiders to 572

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2556

americavotes1944

‘Removed’ or ‘resigned’ –
Court battle echo heard in Guffey’s case

Southern Democrats win as Senator leaves campaign job
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
An angry echo of the battle over President Roosevelt’s 1937 Supreme Court reorganization bill sounded in the Senate today as Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) charged that he had been removed as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

His statement was in contrast to an earlier announcement by Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) that the Pennsylvanian had “resigned” the committee chairmanship.

Talks fourth term

Mr. Guffey was a notable figure in the 1939-40 pre-convention campaign which assured a third term, nomination for Mr. Roosevelt. He was the earliest and has been the most insistent Senate advocate of a fourth term.

His “removal” from a position of only moderate prestige at most may be viewed by many persons as a conservative Democratic protest against an accomplished third term and a projected fourth.

But Congressional veterans explain there is little if any anti-fourth-term fuel in the Senate fire blazing around Mr. Guffey today.

Aim at associates

Southern Senators may not be noisily enthusiastic about Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination, but they will go along with it. They have proclaimed open season, however, on some of Mr. Roosevelt’s spokesmen and associates and they believe they have Mr. Guffey transfixed finally in their sights.

Mr. Guffey, a frequent White House spokesman, first offended some of his colleagues Aug. 20, 1937, in a radio address in which he said that Democrats who refused to support the court bill were “ingrates” who by implication, had no place in the Democratic Party.

In a session of stormy protest, Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY) and others who had opposed the court bill, denounced Mr. Guffey in the Senate and demanded that he be removed as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Named by Barkley

But Mr. Guffey had been named to that position by Mr. Barkley and the administration had sufficient

Mr. Bailey said looking straight at Mr. Guffey:

Pennsylvania has produced some lofty men. Ben Franklin, William Penn – and then it has produced some others – Thad Stevens, Boies Penrose, Mr. (William S.) Vare and the Junior Senator from Pennsylvania.

But Mr. Guffey held on and Mr. Barkley made no effort to remove him until last week when it was disclosed that in seeking a job in the District of Columbia government for a Russian-born friend, Dr. Eugene de Savitsch, Mr. Guffey had threatened the District commissioners with a Senate investigation unless his man was put on the payroll.

Mr. Byrd charged immediately that the Pennsylvanian was using the prestige of his office to make “reprehensible” patronage demands upon officials here. Saturday Mr. Byrd predicted that Mr. Guffey would be removed from his campaign chairmanship if he did not first resign.

Guffey’s status uncertain

The Senator’s status just now is somewhat uncertain. He told questioners that he would have no comment at present “on the action of Senator Barkley in removing me as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.” Mr. Barkley said merely that Mr. Guffey “had resigned.”

In any event, it appears that Mr. Guffey is or soon will be an ex-chairman. Most prominently mentioned to succeed him is Mr. O’Mahoney.

2557

Butter supply pound a month for individuals

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2558

parry2

I DARE SAY —
Peculiarly American

By Florence Fisher Parry

Don’t ask me what makes us what we are; what sets us apart from all other creeds of men; what makes you able to spot an American anywhere on earth.

It couldn’t have been the elements. It couldn’t have been the land. They say it’s because we’re a democracy; but there have been other democracies and they worked for a while and then were replaced by tyranny again.

It can’t be heredity. We’re just a few hundred years old, not time enough to shape our features into a recognizable anatomical mold. Most of us are only a couple of generations removed from other lands, and there have been mixtures and amalgamations of peoples since time began.

What makes us, US? What makes us We, the People? What makes us so very, very different from any of our Allies? What is there about us that confounds our enemy, makes it impossible for him ever to gauge our temper?

The other morning a terrible piece of news crashed through the press, over the ether: the hideous story of Bataan’s men and the horrible sadism of their torturers. And something moved in us that frightened us all: a terrible spasm of hate and revenge, an emotion we’d hardly known we possessed. And I dare say each one of us was astonished at our own capacity to hate with real ferocity, with terrible vengeance in our maddened souls.

Don’t Tread on Me!

That’s us. The American Republic.

Don’t Tread on Me!

This has been a horrible war, God knows. Would that there had been some other honest way. But it has served strange ends. It has brought strange revelations. And one of these revelations is, I think, our own true self-appraisal. We know our mettle now. We know who is our enemy. We shall never be naïve or credulous again. That curious trait – so unexpected, so unlooked for, so believed by our enemies – that trait has hissed its warning at last.

Don’t Tread on Me!

For as a bird or reptile puts on camouflage the better to deceive its natural enemy, so does our breed in America seem to delight in fooling those who’d crowd us.

We have strange camouflages. They serve as a fine decoy. For example, I went over to Syria Mosque to hear and see a young man, a composer, who lately has been assisting Artur Rodziński conduct the New York Philharmonic: Leonard Bernstein. He was to conduct, for the first time before an audience, his own symphony, Jeremiah.

You would have sworn, sitting there in that huge audience, that there was not a vestige in our chemistry of that strange deadliness – Don’t Tread on Me. We were innocents. We were children at a festival. Except for the few technically-wise musicians in the audience, who were busily appraising the talents of our young composer, we were not very different from the audiences that crowd to hear the hurt, loosely strung, haunting voice of Frank Sinatra.

The decoy

Indeed, this young and gifted composer seemed to evoke a strangely similar reaction from his lady listeners; for after the concert the stage and corridors were swarmed with autograph seekers, and flushed and foolish maidens waited for just the sight of the young, tense, tired face of this new idol, and snatched his autograph.

It was a curious demonstration; disturbing, inconsistent. It would have served our enemies, had they been present, a curious decoy. For looking on at this unbridled demonstration, these silly girls, these tallow-skinned young men, these flushed and florid matrons, a son of the Rising Sun and of the Swastika could think perhaps that he could afford to smile at these undisciplined and naïve people who swoon with equal readiness at a Sinatra or a Leonard Bernstein. These same enemies could go to one of our football games or into one of our jive haunts or stand sinisterly smiling at any one of our nightspot bars, and think that they were sizing up the temper of America.

Or rather, I might say, this could have happened two, three years ago. Not now. The squealing little Sinatra fan of yesterday is suddenly the equal, in sacrifice and stamina, of any pioneer woman of our covered wagon days. These tallow youths enveloped in those sport coats pouring a drink from their flasks in the stadium, are those same soldiers who made the landings at Tarawa and Salerno, and dropped the blockbuster upon its target in Berlin.

Don’t Tread on Me.

O dying Yankees on Bataan, raise up your heads and listen to the hiss, peculiarly American in its deadly warning. Peculiarly American, Tōjō and Adolf.

Peculiarly US.

2559

What’s tavern? It’s puzzling to First Lady

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Sect loses appeal over street sales

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2560

Invasion craft put 6 divisions ashore in Italy

Nazi air attacks fail to halt reinforcements to Rome beachhead
By Walter Logan, United Press staff writer

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2561

Roper: G.I.s fascinated as WACs wash undies in Italy

By James E. Roper, United Press staff writer

A 5th Army bivouac area, Italy –
Twenty-three WACs moved into this bivouac area just a few miles behind the firing lines today and by nightfall they had their laundry – G.I. panties and all – flying from a dozen improvised clotheslines.

It was the first time a WAC contingent has been stationed so close to the fighting lines, but the girls’ only complaint was over the lack of rope for clotheslines.

They went into action washing and rinsing undies almost as soon as they hit camp.

Hundreds of G.I.s lined up on the opposite side of the creek from the WAC camp – which is strictly off limits for the doughboys – and watched in fascinated silence while the girls went through their laundering.

Pvt. Joe Haas of Philadelphia mused:

I don’t get it, but isn’t it wonderful?

2562

Threat to expose Argentina figures in break with Axis

Hull reported set to reveal Buenos Aires link with Bolivian coup when Ramirez severed relations

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2563

americavotes1944

One-candidate plan offered by Browder

Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Earl Browder, general secretary of the Communist Party USA, called upon Democratic and Republican leaders last night to “explore the possibility” of a single 1944 presidential candidate.

Browder, in a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Daily Worker, the party’s official organ, urged the “unprecedented measure to meet an unprecedented emergency.”

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americavotes1944

Tammany chief mum on 4th term issue

New York (UP) –
Edward V. Loughlin, taking office today as the new leader of Tammany Hall, pledged “unswerving allegiance to our Commander-in-Chief,” but refused to say whether he would instruct the Tammany delegation to the Democratic National Convention to support a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

Mr. Loughlin said:

In times such as these, we are all Americans before we are partisans and accordingly owe unswerving allegiance to our Commander-in-Chief.

Ickes’ former aide pleads ‘not guilty’

Washington (UP) –
George N. Briggs, suspended aide to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, pleaded not guilty today to indictments charging him with being the forger of the “Harry Hopkins” letter.

Briggs was arraigned before Chief Justice Edward E. Eicher in District Court and denied all charges, which include alleged use of the mails to defraud.

The court granted three weeks for filing of motions to change the pleas at the discretion of Briggs’ counsel.

The letter, purportedly written to Dr. Umphrey Lee, president of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, concerned the presidential nomination chance of Wendell Willkie. It was first made public by C. Nelson Sparks, former Mayor of Akron, Ohio, who referred to it in a book, One Man – Wendell Willkie.

If convicted on all counts, Briggs would face a maximum penalty of 53 years’ imprisonment and $8,000 fines.

2565

U.S. fliers rip 62 Jap planes in Rabaul raid

Torpedo, dive-bombers make 26th attack on base in month
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer

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2566

Soldier reaction to news remains same as civilians’

But they can detect political buncombe expounded in their name much quicker
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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2567

WAVE does stuff; leap year, you know

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2568

Supreme Court holds fate of portal wages

Test cases in lower tribunals bring contrasting opinions

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2569

State Department crowds into labor agency field

New setup designed to keep government informed of developments in other countries
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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2570

300 fliers honor Bataan hero at fete he planned

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Lt. Col. William E. Dyess, who survived “the march of death” as a Jap captive in the Philippines only to die in the flaming crash of his plane here months later rather than endanger the life of a motorist, was acclaimed a hero at a party he planned three days before his death.

‘Exploits are legend’

The Hollywood Masquers Club staged the party, for 300 officers and men from March Field Air Base, as Lt. Col. Dyess had planned, but instead of a greeting from their host, the guests heard Lt. Col. Dyess’ widow read the following letter from Gen. H. H. Arnold, head of the Army Air Forces:

His exploits are legend. Courage like his helped this country face extreme adversity in the Philippines campaign. We will never forget his heroism, which with his splendid character and personality won him a high place in the Air Forces.

He was decorated many times, in comparison with which words seem of little consequence. We are proud of have had him in our organization.

Accompanied by Capt. Samuel C. Grashio, who only last night related the horrible tortures, he and Lt. Col. Dyess were subjected to before the Jap prison camp, Mrs. Dyess told how the party came to be.

Go on with party

She said:

Col. Dyess and I were guests of the Masquers one Saturday night last fall soon after he came back to this country. It was the most memorable event in his life in more than a year. He wanted some of the other boys in the Air Corps to share in his enjoyment and arranged this party. The following Tuesday, he was killed. We decided to go on with the party as he had wished.

Movie actor Edward Arnold, president of the Masquers, who with Charles Coburn delivered a eulogy at funeral services for Col. Dyess, presided at the memorial.