Editorial: A nation of salesmen
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
Here’s that man again, for better or for worse.
It’s a good thing the winning of the war doesn’t depend on me. If my business were shooting Germans, I’d never get the trigger pulled for sneezing. Each zero hour would have to be postponed until I found my liniment and hot-water bottle.
I am the chief depository overseas of the common American cold. One cold at a time is not good enough for me, nor even two. In the past five weeks I’ve piled three colds one on top of the other.
The main trouble is that I’m allergic to the remedies that benefit other people. Things work backwards on me.
Codeine and aspirin make me much worse. Sleeping tablets keep me awake. Stimulating doses put me to sleep. It’s been proved that I cannot take vitamins. Tonics destroy my appetite. Cough sirup throws me into convulsions of whooping. I would suggest that an efficient hanging from the nearest olive tree is my only panacea.
Please try to forgive me for this recent absenteeism, and I pray that it doesn’t happen too often. I don’t want you to find out how well the war can get along without me.
Tribute to Clapper
Late though it is I can’t pass back to the war without a last word for Ray Clapper, who went to his death in the Pacific. His passing hit us hard over here.
He had many friends in this war theater, as he had in the others. He traveled to all the wars because he felt it his duty to inform himself, and everywhere he went he was liked for himself and respected for his find mind.
We had known each other for 20 years. Time and again he went out of his way to do little things that would help me, and to say nice things about me in his column, and I cannot remember that I ever did one thing for him. Those accusing regrets come when it is too late.
War correspondents try not to think of how high their ratio of casualties has been in this war. At least they try not to think of it in terms of themselves, but Ray Clapper’s death sort of set us back on our heels, Somehow it always seemed impossible that anything could ever happen to him. It made us wonder who is next.
When The Stars and Stripes announced Ray Clapper’s death, I think the most frequent comment in this area was one that would have made Ray proud. People said:
The old story again. It’s always the best ones that get it.
Climax in Coca-Cola
Here is our final report on that bottle of Coca-Cola that was raffled off last month in a field-artillery brigade.
It all started in November when a former member of this brigade, now back in the States – Pvt. Frederick Williams of Daytona Beach, Florida – sent two bottes of coke to two of his buddies still over here – Cpl. Victor Glover of Daytona Beach and Sgt. Woodrow Daniels of Jacksonville, Florida.
Nobody in the outfit had seen a Coca-Cola in more than a year, so they drank one and then began having ideas about the other. At last, they decided to put it up in a raffle, and use the proceeds to care for children whose fathers had been killed in this brigade.
The lottery was announced in the brigade’s little mimeographed newspaper, and chances on the coke were put on sale at 25¢ apiece. Before the first week was up, the cash box had more than $1,000 in it.
The money came in quarters, dollars, shillings, pounds, francs and lire. They had to appoint a committee to administer the affair. At the end of the third week, the fund exceeded $3,000. Then Pvt. Lamyl Yancey of Harlan, Kentucky, got a miniature bottle of Coca-Cola and he put it up as second prize.
Just before the grand drawing, the fund reached $4,000. Then the slips were put in a German shell case, and the brigade commander drew out two numbers.
The winnah and new champion was Sgt. William de Schneider of Hackensack, New Jersey. The little bottle went to Sgt. Lawrence Presnell of Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Sgt. Schneider was appalled by what had happened to him. That one coke was the equivalent in value of 80,000 bottles back home. He said:
I don’t think I care to drink a $4,000 bottle. I think I’ll sent it home and keep it a few years.
Clapper: Plane down
By Raymond Clapper
This is one of a series of dispatches found among Mr. Clapper’s effects after his death in the battle of the Marshalls, and delivered to us by wireless from the Pacific.
Aboard an aircraft carrier in the Marshall Islands –
As was said to me by Cdr. R. E. Dixon, who was a pilot on the old Lexington and is now on Adm. Sherman’s staff aboard this carrier, every flier naturally thinks about his chances of coming back, and all of them would rather be shot down over German than over Japanese territory.
Cdr. Dixon, incidentally, is the pilot who, after sinking a Japanese carrier, sent the message back to the Lexington: “Scratch one flattop!”
He won the Navy Cross. He said that if he had known his remark would be printed in the newspapers, he would have tried to think up something better.
Anyway, he knows what the fliers in this part of the war think.
In their briefings before the invasion of the Marshalls, pilots were instructed about forced landings and warned of poisonous fruit and fish. They were told the natives were fond of dog and cat meat, and that if they were forced down and reached a native village they might expect to dine on cat.
Rescues at sea
Great care is taken to rescue downed pilots, a fact that has an enormous effect on morale, as the lieutenant who is executive officer of our torpedo-bombing squadron says. He is reading Eve Curie’s book, Journey Among Warriors, and he thinks she took chances as a war correspondent that would scare him.
From the flight deck of our carrier, I have seen two of our planes crash in the water within sight of the ship. In each case a plane circled overhead while one of the escorting destroyers rushed up to save the men. Each time the men were hauled aboard a destroyer within 15 minutes.
One of our destroyers unexpectedly fell into the star role of our task force because of a rescue mission during the attack on Kwajalein. The lieutenant commander commanding out torpedo-plane squadron was in the midst of a dive on Kwajalein when word came over his radio that one of his planes was making a forced landing. He came out of his dive and called his flight officer to circle over the three men, who were in a rubber boat, while he obtained a destroyer. He radioed the carrier, and under orders of Adm. Sherman a destroyer was taken out of the escort and sent 90 miles away to rescue the crew.
Two-in-one errand
Fighter cover was given the destroyer, and the pilot guided it to the rubber boat. The men were taken aboard after three or four hours in the water.
That is the kind of work destroyers must do – running errands. But this hard-working little destroyer had the break that night which every big ship in our task force was hoping to get.
On the way back to our task force, the destroyer overtook a small Jap convoy of four ships – a tanker, a medium-sized cargo ship and two smaller ones. He sank all four. Next morning, he messaged Adm. Sherman, aboard the carrier, that he had sunk four ships. And he added, “enjoyed picnic.”
Adm. Sherman sent back congratulations to the destroyer’s skipper, LtCdr. D. T. Eller, and added:
When I sent you on a rescue, I didn’t know I was also going to give you monkey meat for a picnic.
Adm. Sherman is bitter over some of the Japanese incidents of brutality to his pilots. He says one Jap fighter pilot, out of ammunition, deliberately ran his propeller into one of our parachuting fliers.
Völkischer Beobachter (February 15, 1944)
Schwere Kämpfe bei Cassino – Zusammengefaßter Luftangriff auf London –
Der Abwehrerfolg zwischen Pripjet und Beresina
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The Pittsburgh Press (February 15, 1944)
Yanks blast monastery, dive bombers raid Rome
Nazis driven from Cassino Abbey as Allies open big air offensive
By Robert V. Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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Nominee for Medal of Honor –
Throw me from Fort, blinded Yank pleads
But gunner refuses request of wounded radioman seeking to lighten crippled plane’s load
By Douglas Werner, United Press staff writer
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Rabaul raided again –
U.S. seizes isle controlling New Britain-Guinea Straits
Eniwetok Atoll in Marshalls, hammered into virtual uselessness, faces early Yank invasion
By the United Press
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Gay clothes, glum face –
Woman calls Chaplin ‘rat’ but he ignores description
Film associates say he’ll never make another picture regardless of outcome of charges
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Veronica Lake gets speeding summons
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