In Washington –
Army, Navy chiefs plead for labor draft
Gen. Marshall, Adm. King, Patterson, Bard and Land tell Legion of need
…
In Washington –
Poll: Dewey pacing GOP field in Michigan
New York Governor is given 2–1 edge over Willkie in home state
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
Republican voters in Michigan, the birthplace of Thomas E. Dewey, pick him by an overwhelming vote as their favorite son for the Republican presidential nomination.
In fact, in a survey throughout the state, the New York Governor has a margin of better than 2–1 over his nearest rival, Wendell Willkie, in popularity as a GOP candidate.
Michigan will send 41 delegates to the Republican nominating convention in June. Only five states will have larger delegations.
The vote for Michigan is shown below in the most recent survey and in a similar study conducted last September:
| Today | September 1943 | |
|---|---|---|
| Dewey | 47% | 46% |
| Willkie | 19% | 21% |
| MacArthur | 16% | 16% |
| Bricker | 8% | 8% |
| Stassen | 7% | 3% |
In today’s survey, two other Republican leaders, California Governor Earl Warren and Eric Johnston, president of the Chamber of Commerce, received a total of 3% between them. In the September survey, Senator Robert Taft (R-OH) received 5%, while Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall received 1%.
Throughout the East Central section comprising Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, Governor Dewey is also the leading choice at present among Republican voters, although this margin of advantage is not as large for the whole area as it is in Michigan.
The standings of the five men with the highest vote in the section are shown below:
| Today | September 1943 | |
|---|---|---|
| Dewey | 35% | 32% |
| Bricker | 21% | 19% |
| MacArthur | 17% | 16% |
| Willkie | 15% | 20% |
| Stassen | 6% | 4% |
Clapper: Battle eve
By Raymond Clapper
The following dispatch from Mr. Clapper, written on the eve of the Marshall Islands battle in which he lost his life, was received a few hours after word of his death.
Aboard an aircraft carrier, somewhere in the Pacific – (by wireless)
On the night before a battle everybody gets a big holiday dinner. For breakfast on the morning of a battle beefsteak is served.
Everybody aboard knows when the time of battle is approaching. You begin to count the days as “D minus four,” “D minus three,” meaning four days or three days before the action is to begin. Sometimes, instead of calling it “D-Day,” they call it “Dog Day.” And for some time after a battle begins, the days are known as “D plus one day,” or “D plus two days,” instead of by the days of the week or month. The calendar is forgotten, and all time is counted as before or after the beginning of the battle.
A slow, almost imperceptible rise of tension takes place as D-Day approaches. But it is nothing very marked. Men begin to think more about their steel helmets, and to place them where they can be picked up quickly. At night you begin to have your red waterproof flashlight always within reach, and always in your pocket when you are moving about the ship. Some men keep heavy leather gloves in their pockets, because these are good to out on if you have to slide down a rope going overboard.
Always study landmarks
You are always studying the location of ladders, hatches and bulkheads, and making mental notes of little landmarks around the ship so that you can find your way in a hurry in the dark with only a dim red flash to guide you. It is surprising how different ship passageways seem when you try to find your way around them with the lights out, and when many of the openings are closed.
Some 3,000 men are aboard this ship, and when the call to battle stations is sounded, they must get to their places within seconds, or minutes at the most. Some of them must go the whole length of the ship, which is as far as a golf ball is ordinarily driven. Men are rushing both up and down narrow ladders. Hatches are being slammed. There is intense activity everywhere, with the general-quarters gong clanging its unmistakable warning of approaching danger.
Formerly ships would throw huge quantities of things overboard before going into action – all the mattresses, bedding, and other inflammable material. Now, with the vast improvement in fireproofing materials, and with greater fireproof construction and firefighting equipment, seldom is anything thrown overboard. there is very little around to burn.
Precautions at sea
Before I left Washington, one of the survivors of the carrier Wasp, LtCdr. William C. Chambliss, gave me a copy of his article, “Recipe for Survival,” which has been issued by the training division of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics. I find that many of his suggestions are being commonly adopted aboard this carrier, such as waterproof flashlights, heavy gloves, a large steel knife in a scabbard hitched to the belt – which is useful, as Cdr. Chambliss says, in cutting yourself clear of lines or other impediments with which you may become involved in the water, and also for discouraging sharks or for opening emergency ration cans.
Those are the kind of normal little preparations everyone makes, although the conversation seldom touches on the possibilities of action. The laughing and joking go on as usual at mess and around the ship, with boys scuffling on the flight deck and the hangar deck, or playing cards, or sleeping under the planes, during slack times.
You always snatch a nap if you can, because in a combat area you are up long before dawn and until late at night, and there is considerable tension, at least subconsciously.
During battle, when the men are held at their stations for long hours, mess attendants carry sandwiches and coffee to them frequently, also hot soup, lemonade, fruitcakes, and various small items they can put into their pockets and nibble at while beside their guns.
The briefing lectures
For several days before an action, the pilots spend hours listening to briefing lectures concerning the impending battle. They are told what they need to know in order to carry out their part of the battle. Especially they are given lectures about the territory they are to bomb or strafe. They are told about the history of the locality, the characteristics of the natives, the estimated strength of the enemy, and they make a careful study of aerial photographs and maps to mark the location of enemy airfields and other installations that may be targets.
But there is not the high tension that you might expect. Sometimes, when a report of exceptionally heavy enemy strength is given, there will be raucous shouts of “Wow!” Once when the briefing showed our own forces to be far in excess of what the enemy would have, somebody shouted from the rear of the room:
Let’s go on to Tokyo while we’re at it!
But mostly the pilots are slouched down in their chairs, their favorite position being with both feet up on top of the high back of the chair in front. They act much like a bored classroom taking in a lecture with as little effort as possible, instead of fighting men some of whom will not come back from the missions under discussion.
You have a sense of living in a world apart from what you knew at home, and there is almost no talk of life back in the States now. You live only minute by minute through the routine that carries you smoothly, as if drifting down a river, toward the day of battle.
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Maj. Williams: Losses
By Maj. Al Williams
Of course, there will continue to be losses of men and planes in the war against Germany!
Among all the other fantastic impressions concerning airpower, its purpose, true objective and employment, we must never ignore the fact that air war is warfare, and warfare means loss of life and equipment.
I can’t understand why it should be difficult for anyone to realize that air war is only another means of waging warfare. Despite the fact that air war involves the use of weapons which can operate only from above the horizon, the same rules and percentages of profit and loss apply to it strategically and tactically that apply to war on the surface, on the sea or under the sea. The type of weapon means nothing when computing the success or failure of any kind of warfare anywhere. When a loss is out of proportion to the gain, then the strategy or tactics, or both, betoken poor thinking.
We at home cannot always expect to be informed immediately as to our exact losses. Such information would present the enemy with a cash register record of the efficiency or inefficiency of the latest tactics employed by our attacking forces or the latest expedient adopted by the Nazi defense. But we are getting out authenticated plane losses too far behind the claims made the Heinies.
“Probables” should be eliminated from reports. That “probable” field gives a rise to wishful thinking and lacks the accurate report the American people expect. Then, too, we must remember that the quick statement of claims by the Nazis may be only a device to sound out our military command.
As far as air losses are concerned, we can rest forever upon the consolation that they are infinitesimal compared with the manner of waging war in the 1914-18 episode, where 20,000 men were wiped out attempting to capture a quarter-mile advance on land.
But something must be done quickly about restoring the confidence of our people in official communiqués.
The accuracy of our communiqués on air losses are questioned. I find this question everywhere, and something must be done immediately by the responsible government agencies.
Gas situation to face crisis in 3 months
Best East can hope for is retention for present allotments
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Millett: Mrs. Average Woman gets all the criticism
If she takes a job, it is her children who are talked about in delinquency reports, not children of socialites
By Ruth Millett
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EXECUTIVE ORDER 9419
Bronze Star Medal
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 4, 1944
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
There is hereby established the Bronze Star Medal, with accompanying ribbons and appurtenances, for award to any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard of the United States on or after December 7, 1941, distinguishes, or has distinguished, himself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service, not involving participation in aerial flight, in connection with military or naval operations against an enemy of the United States.
The Bronze Star Medal and appurtenances thereto shall be of appropriate design approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, and may be awarded by the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, or by such commanding officers of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard as the said Secretaries may respectively designate. Awards shall be made under such regulations as the said Secretaries shall severally prescribe, and such regulations shall, so far as practicable, be of uniform application.
No more than one Bronze Star Medal shall be awarded to any one person, but for each succeeding heroic or meritorious achievement or service justifying such an award a suitable device may be awarded to be worn with the medal as prescribed by appropriate regulations. The Bronze Star Medal or device may be awarded posthumously, and, when so awarded, may be presented to such representative of the deceased as may be designated in the award.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 4, 1944
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Völkischer Beobachter (February 5, 1944)
Maßlose Heize gegen das deutsche Volk –
Juden fördern den Vansittartismus auch in USA
‚Einen Deutschen erschießen Ist dasselbe, wie eine Fliege zerdrücken‘
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Die alliierte Greuelhetze –
Eine souveräne Antwort Japans
a. Stockholm, 4. Februar –
Wie der schwedischen Presse aus Neuyork berichtet wird, hat Japan sich bereit erklärt, einigen Delegierten der internationalen Kriegsgefangenenhilfe den Besuch der Gefangenenlager auf den Philippinen zu ermöglichen.
Japan tritt damit souverän der unerhörten Hetze entgegen, die vor kurzem in Amerika wegen angeblich unmenschlicher Behandlung der Kriegsgefangenen im Fernen Osten entfesselt worden ist. Wie Svenska Dagbladet dazu mitteilt, sind fünf ehemalige schwedische Missionäre aus dem Fernen Osten mit der Aufgabe betraut worden. Sie sind die ersten Außenstehenden, die die amerikanischen und englischen Kriegsgefangenen auf den Philippinen besuchen dürfen.
U.S. Navy Department (February 5, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 31
Kwajalein, Ebeye, and Loi Islands have been captured by our forces.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 253
For Immediate Release
February 5, 1944
Carrier‑based aircraft attacked Eniwetok Atoll on February 3 (West Longitude Date), dropping many tons of bombs on the airfield and nearby tanks. Two enemy planes were destroyed on the ground.
Warhawk fighters of the 7th Army Air Force machine‑gunned and bombed Mille Atoll on February 3. On the same day Army Ventura medium bombers sank a small freighter and dumped bombs on Imieji Island in the Jaluit Atoll. We suffered no casualties in either raid.
Wake Island was bombed on the night of February 4‑5 by two squadrons of Coronados of Fleet Air Wing Two. None of our planes was lost.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 5, 1944)
BRITISH SMASH NAZI TANKS
Panzers push on beachhead in Rome area
Germans rush more men to Cassino bastion for death stand
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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7 more Jap islands taken
Fleet hammers southern part of Kwajalein in Marshalls
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
U.S. Marines have seized seven more small islands at the northern end of Kwajalein Atoll against light opposition, it was revealed today as warships joined in a heavy new bombardment designed to crush desperate Jap resistance on four islands to the south.
Attacking under cover of the sea, air and land bombardment, Army veterans of Attu and Kiska extended their holds on Kwajalein and Ebeye Islands at the southeastern corner of the atoll and were expected momentarily – if they have not already done so – to swarm ashore on nearby Loi and Gugegwe.
Howard Handleman, representing the combined Allied press aboard the joint expeditionary force flagship, said Marines under Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt extended their control of the northeastern portion of the 66-mile-long atoll by occupying seven unidentified islets after capturing the main strongholds of Roi and Namur.
Aided by shells, bombs
U.S. battleships and cruisers, along with bombers, were called in to supplement land artillery in battering down enemy defenses on Kwajalein, Ebeye, Loi and Gugegwe when it appeared they were the only strongpoints of resistance remaining in the huge atoll in the center of Japan’s Marshall Islands.
Army troops under Maj. Gen. Charles H. Corbett have already burned and blasted the Japs from half of both Kwajalein and Ebeye Islands with the aid of flamethrowers, grenades, rifles, bayonets, machine guns and even dynamite.
Smash resistance
Two small islets between Kwajalein and Ebeye have also been occupied following the smashing of “moderate resistance,” Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, disclosed in a communiqué late yesterday.
A Jap communiqué broadcast in England by the Dōmei Agency said garrisons on Roi and Kwajalein Islands had “repulsed part of the enemy force which landed” and were now “firmly holding the defenses sector.” An earlier Tokyo broadcast of the communiqué in Spanish had asserted that the Jas were battling the “remaining” invasion forces on the two islands “with control of the situation having been assured.” Roi was actually captured on the second day of the invasion.
Both versions said that up to Feb. 1, the Japs had shot down 52 Allied planes, damaged 24 more, sunk two destroyers and set fire to a cruiser and another destroyer in the Marshalls. U.S. front dispatches said that up to Thursday neither Jap air nor naval units had attacked the invasion fleet and no vessels had been lost.
Hurl 16-inch shells
The U.S. warships, some of which were already inside the huge Kwajalein Lagoon, together with carrier and land-based aircraft and field guns, sought to duplicate in the south the devastation that paved the way for the Americans’ speedy capture of Roi and Namur Islands at the northeastern corner of the atoll.
Sixteen-inch shells and one-ton atoll-buster bombs were being used in an attempt to pulverize pillboxes and underground emplacements in which the Japs were entrenched for a last-man stand.
Despite the hurricane bombardment, the Jap garrisons on Loi and Gugegwe Islands, the latter flanking one of the main channels into the lagoon, were reported returning the American fire. Gugegwe is only 4,800 by 400 feet in area and Loi, 1,500 by 400 feet.
Land without opposition
The invasion forces landed without opposition on mile-long Ebeye Island, site of a seaplane base complete with ramps, hangars, shops, a pier and a radio station midway between Kwajalein and Loi, Resistance was encountered inland, however.
The Jap garrison on Kwajalein Island itself, at the southern tip of the atoll of the same name, was still holding out on a narrow stretch of land at the northeastern corner, but observers believed it probably only a question of hours before the defenders were annihilated.
U.S. casualties throughout the atoll continued “moderate,” Adm. Nimitz’s communiqué reported.
Adm. Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox messaged their congratulations to Adm. Nimitz on the success of the invasion.
Meanwhile, Adm. Nimitz proclaimed himself military governor of the Marshalls, the first pre-war Jap territory to be wrested even in part from the enemy. The proclamation, dated Jan. 3, and written in both Japanese and English, noted that the “exercise of the powers of the Emperor of Japan shall be suspended during the period of occupation.
The proclamation said:
It is the policy of the United States forces not to make war upon the civilian inhabitants of these islands, but to permit them to continue their normal lives and occupations in a peaceable manner so far as war necessities and their own behavior permit.