Edson: Sitting on news habit OWI keeps trying to break
By Peter Edson
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Ferguson: Time fighters
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“Keep that Middle-Aged Look at Bay,” says a headline on my favorite woman’s page today, and I admire the timeliness of the military phraseology. Just the same, it put me in the dumps. For sometimes, in morbid moments, it seems to me too much is expected of the American woman.
She is now engaged in a fight against fascism, yet there is no letup in her eternal fight against gray hair and wrinkles.
Middle age must also be kept at bay. Hitler is on one side, the Japs on the other; our security, the lives of our children, everything is threatened. But the big battle with Father Time continues as usual on every feminine front.
Youth as well as Australia is to be held. Let us not become discouraged over minor military setbacks, say the authorities, yet, according to the beauticians, any victory of age over youth is a major and final defeat.
Moreover, the housewife is now ordered to toil in machine shops and fields and government offices; to volunteer for nursing, Motor Corps, target practice, air-raid warden duty and what have you. She must stretch her budget to cover doubled expenditures. And as for national morale – well, she is its chief custodian.
Religion, the home, the welfare of the community, the character of the young are in her hands. Yet, with all that, if she knows what’s good for her, she will remain a perennial 35 in appearance.
Now and then it strikes me that women past 40 may have to decide which job is the more important – winning a war against the Axis or a war against time. The day may come when we can’t do both – when we shall be forced to choose between beauty and democracy.
Background of news –
German air strength fading
By E. C. Shepherd, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Monahan: Gung Ho! thrilling exploit of Marines
Attack on Makin Island by Carlson’s Raiders on Fulton screen
By Kaspar Monahan
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Wickard: Food shortage hits Nazis hard
Situation similar to 1918 but not as serious; many Russians starving
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
One evening, Sgt. James E. Knight, a flight chief from McAlester, Oklahoma, took me in tow and we spent the evening gabbing with about 50 mechanics at this dive-bomber airdrome.
The men at this base live in the same big apartment building as the officers. Their quarters were exactly the same, except that the men have their places fixed up more comfortably and keep them neater than the officers.
You’ll find that true in almost any Air Force group in the combat area, because the men, being craftsmen, can make things the average officer doesn’t know how to make. They fix up stoves and lights and shelves, and make little gadgets that give a homey touch to their quarters.
Sgt. Charlie Bennett, a youngster on the maintenance crew from York, South Carolina, has made a beautiful ashtray from the base of a German 88mm shell, with American machine-gun bullets sticking out of it. It’s too heavy to lug around for a year or more of war, so Charlie thinks he’ll sent it home.
One of Charlie’s roommates is Sgt. Mintford Blair of Spokane, a crew chief in the dive-bomber squadron. In the same group is Blair’s uncle, Sgt. Ted Chapman, an electrical specialist. Uncle and nephew are about the same age. They enlisted together two years ago, and have been lucky enough to stay together ever since.
Superstitious about 7 planes
Sgt. Knight, being a flight chief, has charge of about six planes. Another flight chief is Sgt. Orville Reeves of Fittstown, Oklahoma. Sgt. Reeves is one of the few people I’ve run unto in the Air Forces who have superstitions. Superstitiousness is rare even among the pilots. The last war’s phobia against three-on-a-match is almost unheard of now.
Sgt. Reeves normally has six planes in his charge, but sometimes he will have more. His idiosyncrasy is that he won’t accept seven. he doesn’t mind the work, and he’ll accept two extra planes, but not one.
The reason is that three different times since they’ve come overseas, he has had an extra plane shoved onto him – making a total of seven – and every time his flight has lost a plane the following day. So he’ll have none of it anymore, and you can’t blame him.
Sgt. Knight carries a whole walletful of pictures of his wife and year-old baby. He saw his son only once, when he was a week old. Knight says he’s now “sweating out” a picture of his youngster in the Italian colonel’s suit he sent him for Christmas. Most of the boys have sent home shawls or cameos or lace or something.
A word about the 4-Fs
Sgt. Knight is one of the many mechanics who feel they are not personally doing enough to help win the war. For instance, Knight says all the men under him are now so well trained that he has almost nothing to do, and that he could go back and take flight warning and would hardly be missed around here.
You would think that after seeing what the combat pilots go through, the mechanics would be content to stay on the ground. Yet when applications for flight training were reopened, 10% of the squadron applied.
Always in the combat area you’ll hear soldiers on ground jobs talking earnestly along this line: Why couldn’t well-trained 4-Fs do their jobs and release them for combat?
They know that a guy doesn’t have to be a Samson to stand ordinary Army life, and they point out cases such as that of the soldier who was discharged from the Army on physical grounds; yet was capable of playing swell football when he got back to civil life.
Constantly, also, the Air Force boys pay tribute to the infantry. In two weeks around the airfield. I think I heard the subject brought up 200 times. Pilots and mechanics both feel the same way – their hats are off to the infantry.
One pilot said to me:
What must you think of us, anyhow, knowing as you do what the infantry goes through and then finding that all we talk about is when we can get our missions in and go home?
I told him I thought they were acting like very normal human beings, and that, furthermore, bad as infantry life is, I believed the average infantryman looked on the combat pilot’s job as too dangerous to be envied.
Simms: Atrocities by Japanese raise problem of what to do with foe following war
Decent, self-respecting nations needed in Far East; but can she be trusted with power?
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Washington –
The atrocities have raised the problem of what to do with Japan after the war. A decent, self-respecting Japan is needed in the Far East, but it is seriously questioned whether she has progressed sufficiently in the ways of civilization to be trusted with power.
The truth is, Japan is a Jekyll-Hyde nation. Anthropologically, the Japs seem to be a highly explosive mixture – mainly of Manchu-Koreans, Mongols and Indonesians, with the second and third groups predominating. Thus, the relatively cultured and highborn Manchu and Korean strains hardly could do more than provide a thin veneer for the race as a whole, for the others were pretty savage.
On the surface, the average educated Jap is a suave and polished Dr. Jekyll. Given a strong whiff of war medicine, however, he turns into a monstrous Mr. Hyde. So the question now is:
Will Japan, after her defeat, remain savage, cunning and treacherous, or will the dope wear off and leave her an upright nation worthy of trust? If the former, the Allies will have no alternative but to keep her caged up, behind bars so strong she will be unable to break out. If the latter, a certain amount of latitude will be possible, and this would be better for all concerned.
There was a strong and growing liberal movement in Japan throughout the 1920s.
But all the time the military clique was champing at the bit, demand a “positive” policy – by which was meant a policy of force. During the Depression years, they saw their chance and grabbed it. They provoked “incidents” with China and invaded Manchuria. In 1932, they assassinated Premier Inukai and many other leaders who stood in their way, and seized complete control.
Jap liberalism now disappeared entirely. The warlords have set the clock back 600 years. The ways of the Samurai have returned, with a Shogun in the saddle, and the Emperor is a prisoner again to be used only when the masses need a fresh shot of fanaticism.
Today, many sincere friends of old Japan are wondering if she will ever be able to take her place among the great powers again. Everything, they believe, depends on whether or not Jap liberalism is dead or merely forced underground.
For the moment, at least, it looks as if Japan will have to begin her apprenticeship all over again. The last time was in 1853 when Cdre. Perry’s “black ships” breached her isolation and paved the way for her climb to greatness.
For seven centuries, Japan had been a hermit nation. Throughout that time her Mikados had been prisoners, the tools of the feudal warlords or Shoguns. Under the Shoguns were the Samurai and warrior class, and the Rōnin, or conscienceless stormtroopers who did their masters’ killing for hire.
The ways of Genghis Khan and his yellow hordes apparently came naturally to many within walled-in Japan. At the same time, however, there were some in silent revolt against what was going on. It was this minority that was given a chance by Cdre. Perry, and before the end of the century it had come out on top. The Emperor had been restored, a constitution written, a Diet set up and feudalism driven underground.
CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
About the WAC
By Maxine Garrison
There’s been a terrific to-do – and rightly so – over why the WAC failed to reach its recruiting goal of 150,000. Some civilians, especially two or three extremely voluble Senators, have been prone to blame the shortage of recruits on the WAC uniform, in particular the hat.
WACs themselves have been first to decry this charge. Any girl who was truly interested in being of service, they say, would not let the mere shape of a hat keep her from joining. If she would, she isn’t the kind of girl they want anyhow.
More than that, they say stoutly that they like the hat, and they’ll defend it against all comers.
I think the girls are quite right. Any recruit who is scared off by a uniform that doesn’t quite suit her ideas of what’s what for tea-dancing wouldn’t be much use to the organization.
To discuss the matter on that basis alone is to quibble over something that is surely not the deciding factor.
Important job
Personally, I keep wondering if there might not be something to the theory that potential recruits simply do not realize how important it is for the WAC to reach its recruiting goal, how important is the job that each WAC does.
A favorite pastime, especially among men, has been belittling WACs. I hope it is an innocent pastime, not deliberately intended to slur that fine body of women, but even innocence of wrongful intent is no excuse.
The obvious gag, of course, is to tip up the term, “WAC,” with the slang phrases “wack” and “wacky.” That makes the whole business very comic to certain masculine minds.
The picture has been drawn of girls drilling and “hup-hupping” at an Army post, and the inference made that time was certainly a-wastin’. Another popular picture presents them as party girls, Army butterflies.
Anyone who knows any WACs, or who knows anything at all about the organization, knows how false all this is. But the fact remains that the erroneous impression is all too often the one that’s believed.
Drill and train
Of course, WACs drill and train. Much as soldiers do. They are equally subject to Army discipline, after all. And of course, WACs have dates. They take no vow of solitude when they don the uniform. Neither is a discredit to them.
But the important thing is the job they do. Generals and other officers on the field and at home have attested to their efficiency and value.
And they are desperately needed. Anyone who knows how the draft boards are struggling to fill their quotas knows that the Army personnel problem is serious. WACs can be a great factor in solving that problem if fewer eligible girls and women shrug their shoulders because of these mistake ideas, and take the trouble to find out just how valuable the WAC’s job is.
Reading Eagle (January 31, 1944)
ON THE RECORD —
The great atrocity
By Dorothy Thompson
Like you, I read the official statement issued by the Army and Navy on the Japanese treatment of American prisoners who fell into their hands with the surrender of the Philippines. Like you, I felt the gorge rise in my throat, the steel enter into my heart, and horrified bafflement encompass my brain.
What drives human beings to behave in this manner? Men in battle, fighting for their lives. Feel no mercy. It is army and army and man against man.
But in the Philippines, the Japanese were victorious. The prisoners they had taken had fought long and heroically, but were utterly defeated. At that time, Japan was celebrating victory, and every Japanese was convinced Japan would win the war. In the days in which they were slowly torturing to death, by the most excruciating means, American and Filipino soldiers, the Japanese Empire was extending itself daily, with only the most ineffectual resistance from an unprepared America. So, these were not hysterical actions, born of fear. Not yet had a single Japanese official warned the troops it would be a dangerous war which they might lose.
Now could there be any normal feeling of revenge. We had not yet attacked even a Japanese outpost. We had been attacked, and the war had been fought exclusively on American territory.
Therefore, this hideous story gives us a picture of how the Japanese would behave in victory. Were they victorious, the war would not end. It would simply turn toward the systematic extermination of the white man, as far as Japanese power could reach.
What causes men to behave like this? All of us have known individual Japanese. They are not a race of savages. Japanese courtesy is proverbial, and to it every American official who has ever lived in Japan will testify. Uncreative in the great arts, they are masters of the aesthetic crafts, meticulous gardeners, exquisite arrangers of flowers, exceptionally skilled in all the decorative arts. These activities are civilizing to the mind and taste. Imagine an American who is beauty-loving, a fine gardener, a writer of lyric poetry and a painter of screens, torturing helpless prisoners!
Nor can anyone deny an immense sense of honor developed in Japan. infringement of its codes means self-imposed death. In fact, few civilizations have so highly developed a sense of code as Japan. What conceivable code permits men to torture to death those who cannot possibly render him harm?
This behavior is the result of the most terrible discovery of modern times – the science of mass indoctrination through the state, whereby a man, otherwise civilized, can be turned, as part of a mass, into a raving beast of prey. We have seen the same phenomenon in Germany. It is the phenomenon of the split personality. The very same German who would nurse a sick puppy and cherish his own children and those of his friends, could be found in gangs, first setting fire to synagogues, beating helpless Jews and otherwise torturing them, devising the most sadistic punishments for already-defeated Socialists and Communists, and later shooting innocent hostages from one end of Western Europe to the other, and in the east – in Poland and Russia – coldly exterminating whole populations, to clear “room” for German colonists.
What procedure makes this possible? The state, having made itself all-powerful over every phase of life, issues a total claim on the rights and souls of its subjects. It then reapportions to them a part of their rights and a part of their souls. Within the herd, it does not destroy conscience; it actually cultivates it. Thus, the Nazis have trained thousands of social workers; fostered and extended the spirit of comradeship, and disciplined aggressive instincts, as between the members of the herd. So have the Japanese. But outside the herd, the state takes the human conscience, organizes and mobilizes all the otherwise-suppressed aggressive instructs, and by conscious indoctrination directs them against the “enemy,” creating enemies where there are none. It, therefore, creates areas of “order” outside of which is jungle, and the very same men who live in the order, fight in the jungle – and are even indoctrinated to believe that by turning themselves onto beasts on the outside they will extend the area of order – whether they call it the “New Order” or the “Co-Prosperity Sphere of Influence.”
I hope we know that this is what we are fighting. Unless we can win back for men the sovereignty of the individual conscience, we shall lose this war. The power of the state must be limited. It must stop at the frontier of the human conscience and the human mind.
Let us direct the fury that we feel at the right objective. That objective is the superstate, the all-embracing Leviathan – eternal enemy of the human race on this earth.
“This behavior is the result of the most terrible discovery of modern times – the science of mass indoctrination through the state, whereby a man, otherwise civilized, can be turned, as part of a mass, into a raving beast of prey.”
“Let us direct the fury that we feel at the right objective. That objective is the superstate, the all-embracing Leviathan – eternal enemy of the human race on this earth.“
The above words need to be read again and again in the context of our current struggles. Beware of the “superstate” that imposes its will upon freedom loving people’s.
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Völkischer Beobachter (February 1, 1944)
Moskau verstärkt die Agitationszentren der Komintern –
‚Verfassungsänderung‘ der UdSSR, ab neuester Schwindel
Anglo-Amerikaner treiben auf Grund ihrer Zustimmung in Teheran den Verrat Europas weiter
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U.S. Navy Department (February 1, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 27
Powerful forces of all types, commanded by VAdm. R. A. Spruance, USN, have begun operations the objective of which is the capture of the Marshall Islands.
Following intensive preparatory bombardment of enemy installations by carrier‑based aircraft and by battleships and light surface units, Army and Marine assault forces have initially established beachheads on islands in the vicinity of Roi and Kwajalein Islands, in Kwajalein Atoll. Installations on Wotje and Maloelap Atolls were heavily bombarded by carrier aircraft and by surface forces.
All amphibious operations are commanded by RAdm. R. K. Turner, USN. The assault troops are directed by Maj. Gen. H. M. Smith, USMC. The landing attacks in the Roi Island area are being made by troops of the 4th Marine Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, USMC. The landings are being effected in the Kwajalein Island area by troops of the 7th Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Charles H. Corlett, USA.
Strong opposition is being encountered in both assault areas. Initial information indicates that our casualties are moderate.
Supporting air attacks are being made at Kwajalein, Maloelap, Wotje, Mille, Jaluit, Eniwetok and Wake by carrier task forces commanded by RAdm. M. H. Mitscher, USN, by units of the 7th Army Air Force, commanded by Maj. Gen. Willis H. Hale, USA, and by units of Fleet Air Wing Two commanded by RAdm. John D. Price, USN. All shore‑based aircraft in the Gilberts are operating under the direction of Commander Aircraft, Central Pacific Force, RAdm. John H. Hoover, USN.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 247
For Immediate Release
February 1, 1944
The following information supplementing that contained in Communiqués No. 25 and No. 26 is available concerning naval air strikes in the Marshall Islands and at Wake Island on January 29 and 30 (West Longitude Date):
In the attack on Taroa Island on January 29 our carrier‑based aircraft shot down four enemy planes and destroyed or damaged 39 others on the ground. In the attack on Wotje, one enemy plane was shot down and fuel and ammunition storage leas were set on fire. Large explosions were observed in the ammunition dump. Our reported losses in the Taroa and Wotje strikes were comparatively minor. Several pilots were rescued.
On January 30, our carrier planes attacking Roi Island, shot down 18 enemy planes and machine‑gunned and bombed 51 others on the ground airdrome facilities, gasoline storage tanks, magazines, and gun positions were heavily hit. Here also our losses were minor.
Our Coronados, which raided Wake on the night of January 30‑31, dropped more than 20 tons of bombs on runway and ground installations, starting large fires. Anti-aircraft was light and no fighter opposition was encountered.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 248
For Immediate Release
February 1, 1944
Twenty‑two planes of a squadron of 23 Marine Corsair fighters failed to reach their destination in a routine flight from Gilbert Islands to a base in the Ellice Islands on January 25 (West Longitude Date), when they ran into a severe local weather disturbance.
One plane reached base safely, one made a crash landing on another island in the Ellice group, and the remainder, as far as is known, landed at sea.
Search operations were started immediately, and all but six of the pilots are safe. One body has been recovered and five of the pilots are missing. their next of kin have been notified.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 1, 1944)
ALLIES 15 MILES FROM ROME
Clark’s army smashes into Nazi defenses
Germans rush reinforcements; hand-to-hand battle raging
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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MARSHALL INVASION ADMITTED; OPPOSITION STRONG, NAVY SAYS
Army and sea forces seize beachhead on Kwajalein Atoll in mid-Pacific
Bulletin
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (UP) –
U.S. Army and Navy assault forces have landed in the Marshall Islands, it was announced officially today.Strong opposition is being encountered.
A powerful naval force consisting of all types of vessels is supporting the invasion, the object of which is to seize the Marshall Islands.
The U.S. forces are commanded by VAdm. R. A. Spruance.
The Americans landed on Roi in the Kwajalein Atoll. An initial beachhead was established on an island in the vicinity of Roi.
Ships, planes pound enemy
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Powerful U.S. sea and air forces appeared today to have launched an all-out assault to neutralize and perhaps seize Japan’s Marshall Island strongholds, but Pacific Fleet headquarters remained silent on enemy hints that an invasion had already begun.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, was expected to issue a communiqué momentarily detailing the progress of the assault, which reached its climax with the arrival in the Marshalls of a huge task force including aircraft carriers and possibly battleships Saturday.
Blast Wake
Announcements yesterday disclosed that land-based Army and Navy bombers coordinated eight separate raids on the principal enemy bases in the Marshalls Saturday night with the naval armada’s weekend attacks, while other Navy planes reached 600 miles to the north for a heavy aerial bombardment of Jap-occupied Wake Island.
There was no further official word of the naval task force, one of the largest ever sent out of Pearl Harbor, despite Tokyo broadcasts claiming that it had been engaged in a fierce battle by Jap units.
Landing indicated
Tokyo also said Jap Army troops were participating in the fighting, raising the possibility that a landing had been attempted on one of the bomb and shell-battered atolls in the Marshalls.
Radio Vichy broadcast a second-hand report from Tokyo that U.S. shock troops had landed in the Marshalls, but gave no details.
A Tokyo domestic broadcast heard by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service last night said “a superior” enemy force had been raiding the Marshalls since Sunday morning, adding that details of the fighting were “not known to us at this time.” The broadcast reported that the Americans had undertaken a “new offensive operation.”
Hit small craft
Mitchell medium bombers from the U.S. 7th Air Force hit shore installations and small craft at Maloelap and Wotje Atolls in the first of the new land-based attacks on the Marshall group Saturday evening, while Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters blasted Imieji Island, Jaluit Atoll. No enemy fighters were encountered and anti-aircraft fire was ineffectual.
That night, Army Liberators dropped 45 tons of bombs on Kwajalein Atoll and nearly 10 tons on Wotje, while Navy Liberators, Catalinas, Venturas and search planes struck Mili and Taroa in Maloelap Atoll with nearly 21 tons of explosives. A single Navy Liberator dropped three tons of bombs on Jaluit.
Wake hit heavily
Two squadrons of four-engined Coronado flying boats – the seaplane version of the Liberator – made what Pacific Fleet headquarters called a “strong attack” on Wake Island, halfway between Pearl Harbor and Tokyo, Sunday night. All bombs landed in or near the target area.
Evidence that the enemy was caught by surprise while their attention was diverted to the Marshalls was seen in the fact that all planes returned safely to their bases.
Wake, 2,000 miles west of Pearl Harbor, was last raided Oct. 5-6, when carrier-based planes were credited with virtually neutralizing the tiny island base seized by Japan from the United States Dec. 22, 1941.
Vandegrift defends island-hopping plan
New York (UP) –
Lt. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, today scored critics of the Pacific area’s island-hopping strategy, asserting that “some people would like to believe there is some mysterious shortcut to Japan.”
Speaking at the North Atlantic Area Conference of the American Red Cross, Gen. Vandegrift said the need for Red Cross services will be “sharply accelerated” by the type of warfare necessary in the Pacific.
He said:
We may as well be frank and admit that we got off to a slow start, and that Japan has prepared her defenses well.
On most islands we have to fight the enemy, the jungle and disease. On atolls, such as Tarawa, we have to fight just the enemy. But that does not put the odds in our favor. On the contrary, the odds are normally against us.