Navy’s chaplain pleads for mail – and more mail
Capt. Lash, in London, says letters really make morale
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Fifty chorus girls scram when bears go on rampage
And as many husky males seek cover when animals, highly educated, suffer a mishap
By Ernest Foster
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New Europe being mapped, but behind closed doors
Many problems face Allies in deciding political and economic rehabilitation plans
By Victor Gordon Lennox
Victor Gordon Lennox, a war correspondent in London, is now on a visit back home to the United States.
A new pattern for Europe is being fashioned in London and few people outside official circles will be allowed to know what shape it is taking until the war in Europe is very much nearer to being won.
On Jan. 17, The Pittsburgh Press and The Chicago Daily News carried a London dispatch from Helen Kirkpatrick reporting the concern voiced in newspaper circles over the fact that the British and American governments apparently prefer to deal with post-war questions behind closed doors.
She added that the Censorship Office, under Adm. Thompson, was not at that time obliged to accept Foreign Office advice on political stories.
Now it is clear that the Foreign Office is strengthening its hold over the censorship, in that it has appointed two British career diplomats as “advisers” permanently attached to Adm. Thompson’s office. Neither has any experience in censorship or press work. One, Sir Reginald Hoare, was minister to one of the Balkan states; the other, Sir Robert Hodgson, served in Ethiopia and Franco Spain.
‘A minor sensation’
Some American correspondents in London feel that this step was taken by the Foreign Office in compliance with representations from the Washington State Department.
The inference seems to be that American proposals for steps to be taken to impose the will of the United Nations on Germany after victory, presented to the European Advisory Commission last week, have created something of a sensation among correspondents who have gained some knowledge of their main outlines.
In Britain, as in the United States, there will undoubtedly be serious misgivings if it is thought that a plan is being cooked up in private which for one reason or another would not command popular endorsement. It should be remembered, however, that the European Advisory Commission was set up expressly to permit the three principal Allied powers in Europe, to privately thrash out their respective views and attitudes on European reconstruction and pacification.
Many questions
When British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden visited Washington last March, he was gratified to find how much constructive study had been given to this subject in the State Department – more indeed than had been given in the London Foreign Office up to that time.
It then appeared, moreover, that the American trend of thought was along lines closely similar to those being pursued by the British.
After the Moscow Conference of foreign secretaries, it was widely assumed that the Russians had fully exposed their own thoughts on the same subject. Now, in fact, there is reason to believe that Russian Foreign Commissar Molotov was careful to confine himself to generalities, and it may well be that Russian plans are only now being propounded in greater detail.
These plans must deal not only with the disarmament, and possible partition, of Germany but also with the industrial and economic future of the States now comprised in the Reich.
Apart from political problems, it may well be found that the desire of various big business interests to gain a preponderant position in European industry during the period of reconstruction is creating trouble.
Attitudes undefined
While there has been no public announcement of the British attitude on this subject, it is known to be the general line of British policy that the western powers should try to prevent a competitive race for markets in the immediate post-war period.
The Russian attitude has been still less publicly defined, but probably envisages large-scale transfers of German industrial equipment and labor to the Soviet Union, to assist in restoring Russia’s industrial productivity.
As to the German state, the last available information shows the Allies thinking in terms of partition into several separate entities operating within some form of federal system.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
The little handful of old-timers left in my company have been together so long they form a little family of their own. They sort of stand apart from the newer bulk of the company.
Out of their wisdom they seek the best place to settle down in a new bivouac. They are the first to find an abandoned German dugout, or a cozy pig shed, or a case of brandy in the cellar of a bombed building. And by right of seniority, they take it.
Most of them are sergeants and platoon leaders by now. Such men as Tat Allumbaugh and Knobby Knobbs and Jack Pierson, whom I’ve mentioned before, and Sgt. Ed Kattleman of Cincinnati, and Buck Eversole of Twin Falls, Idaho, and 1st Sgt. Bill Wood of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Sgt. Pete commers of Imogene, Iowa, and Pvt. Eddie Young of Pontiac, Michigan.
So much depends on this little group of noncoms, and war is such a familiarizing force that they are almost on the same basis as the officers. In this company the officers eat separately when they’re in bivouac, but that’s about the only class distinction.
Little military formality
There is little military formality. I had to laugh one afternoon when Lt. Tony Libertore of Charleston, South Carolina, was lying on the ground with several of these sergeants sitting around him, just gabbing about this and that.
Lt. Libertore made some remark. I forget what it was, and Jack Pierson rocked back and forth with his hands tucked around his knees, and said:
Why, you horse’s behind. It ain’t that way at all.
Even in fun, you don’t talk that way with an officer until you’ve been through that famous valley of death and out again together.
Then Lt. Libertore started telling me all that he had to put up with. He said:
Now take Tag and Knobby. They treat me like dirt. They browbeat me all the time. But word came around this afternoon that six men were to be picked for rest camp, and boy they’ve been “sirring” me to death ever since, and bringing me gifts and asking if I needed anything.
Listen with appreciative grins
Tag and Knobby sat there listening with appreciative grins on their facts.
These old-timers in the company sort of took me in and made me feel a part of them. One afternoon, Lt. Sheehy asked if I’d ever shot a carbine and I said no, but that I’d always wanted to. So, he said:
Well, let’s go out and shoot at something.
At the time, we were a couple of miles back of the fighting. Our company was to march that night and start its own attack next day. That afternoon, they had nothing to do, and were just like a man who takes a day off from the office to lie around home. There was distant artillery and the day was warm and sunny and lazy.
The lieutenant went to get his gun, and just by acclamation the little circle of veterans went after theirs, too. When they came back, they had carbines, Tommy guns, Garands .45s, and the German automatic known as the P-38, similar to the Lueger. We walked about a quarter mile from our olive orchard down into a broad, protected gully.
Slope is too rocky
Then with seasoned eyes they looked around for a place to do some target shooting. They’d look at one slope and say:
No, that’s too rocky. The bullets will ricochet, and they might hit some of our artillery batteries over the hill.
They looked at another slope and turned it down because we’d seen some Italian children running across it a little while before. Finally they picked a gravelly bank that seemed to have nothing behind it, and we started shooting. There weren’t any tin cans or anything, so we’d pick out tiny white rocks in the bank. The distance was about 75 yards.
I’d been jokingly bragging on the way down about what a crack rifle shot I was, so now I had to make good or else. And I did! nothing could make me any prouder than that I picked off little white rocks right along with these veterans.
Shoot for half an hour
We must have shot for half an hour. We traded guns all around so I could try them all. Buck Eversole showed me how they hold a Tommy gun and spray a slope full of krauts.
Finally, the lieutenant said:
We better stop or the colonel might raise hell about wasting ammunition.
Toward the end the boys made it comical, holding the guns out at arm’s length and shutting their eyes like girls, and holding down the trigger and just letting her jump.
It was really an incongruous interlude – war is full of them. Eight of the finest and most hardened soldiers in the American Army out in picnic fashion shooting at rocks and having fun two miles behind the line where tomorrow they would again be shooting to kill.
Clapper: How big
By Raymond Clapper
This is another of the dispatches written by Mr. Clapper before his death in the battle of the Marshalls, and forwarded to us by the Navy. His last article will appear tomorrow.
With the Pacific Fleet, in the Marshall Islands – (by wireless)
By now I hope the Navy will have told the world, especially the enemy peoples, how many big battleships we put into the battle of the Marshall Islands, because then you could multiply some of the things, I want to report about just one of these big battlewagons, and sense for yourself how we have recovered and grown since Pearl Harbor.
One big gun barrel weighs about 100 tons – and you know how big a pile of 100 tons of coal would be. Each of these battleships has nine such 16-inch guns, and in addition 20 guns of 5-inch caliber. It would take a good-sized truck to haul one shell for one of the bigger guns. Some 150 men are needed to operate one turret.
Battleships are rather crowded now, because in the last few years many anti-aircraft guns have been added. Not only do the guns themselves occupy much of the previously available space, but also the extra men necessary to man and maintain the guns are the equivalent of a village. Large as a battleship is, its personnel are packed into a kind of sardine community, lacking the great spaces of a big carrier where the men will rig a volleyball court on an airplane elevator, play baseball on the flight deck, and drive several jeeps around as on a city street.
Heroes hear it straight
The day I went aboard the battleship, the captain addressed all hands on what we are fighting for. The men of this famous ship were already heroes, as a result they were just a bit inclined to throw their weight around among new men coning aboard. So, the new skipper is welding his crew together with frequent talks about war aims.
He told his men they were about to go into a big battle. He said he hoped they would keep in mind why it was worthwhile. He said we must take these islands, and must hold them after the war. He said we were fighting with our Allies to free the world from aggression, and that it was also important that the Allies stand together after the war if there was to be a secure peace. Much of his brief talk was devoted to stressing the need of a unified team aboard ship and of a unified team of Allies during and after the war.
By stirring our stumps
He finished by saying that all this would be achieved not merely by wishing it or talking about it, but by “stirring our stumps” – which is what this and the many other ships in this vast striking fleet proceeded to do.
There was no sign of the tension of approaching battle aboard the big ship at that time. The men were excited at the moment over the arrival of belated Christmas gifts from the labor union that built the ship. The union sent 2,400 duffle bags, and each was filled with toilet articles, a sewing kit, a small cribbage board, playing cards, and a money belt – the latter being especially popular. At least that was what was in the bag of one man when he dumped it out for me to see.
One of the minor discomforts of the war out here is that the men have nothing to send their money on. They have underground crap games on payday, which are frequently raided by the ship’s master-at-arms. He takes the kitty for the ship’s welfare fund.
War sometimes sure is what Sherman said.
Chaplin’s attorneys want paternity charge dropped
Court to hear formal motion Feb. 23; Joan Barry’s lawyer withdraws from case
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CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Feminine? You bet!
WACs turn to knitting in spare time
By Maxine Garrison
Know what the WACs are doing in their spare time at their headquarters?
Fancywork, no less!
The girls have taken to knitting, crocheting, embroidering, tatting and weaving with all the enthusiasm once given those crafts by Victorian ladies in bustles.
It’s certainly an answer, if one is needed, to those who feared so loudly that Army service would completely defeminize women.
Of course, ever since women put aside the smelling salts and “vapors,” there have nee scaredy-cats to moan that each new venture was going to defeminize the whole sex. Women have so far confounded the critics by remaining women, and there seems to be little danger that they’ll change radically.
But the boys really got their hooks in when the idea of putting women in the Army came up.
They jeered:
Imagine a top sergeant in a skirt! Why, women could never in this world stand up under Army discipline, and if they did, they’d lose every shred of feminine charm.
Outmarch men
So, the girls, smiling sweetly, joined the then-WAAC, donned khaki from girdle to greatcoat, and soon learned to “About fact!” with ease and dexterity (As a matter of fact, I’ve seen them outmarch companies of men in a parade beyond all comparison).
They’ve learned to play nursemaid to bombers, to drive Army trucks, to do all the jobs through which they can release men for active service.
And they’re still as feminine as ever – if not more so. When you live in a barracks, you learn to cherish that pretty bedroom with the ruffled organdy curtains that you once took for granted. When you march briskly in uniform, you take care to speak softly and have your makeup on right, in order not to be swallowed up by the brusque anonymity of G.I.’s.
In the quieter hours, their hands seek the age-old feminine occupations of fine and delicate needlework. For the hand that wields the monkey-wrench can still be the hand that works out an intricate pattern in thread, a decoration for some future home.
All of which points up the great fallacy of all the arguments that new fields and new occupations will turn women away from themselves, and make of them masculine, unlovable creatures. The feminine nature runs considerably deeper than any preoccupation.
They’re big help
Women haven’t always devoted their whole lives to bestowing the feminine touch on their surroundings. They haven’t been able to. From the very beginning, they’ve had to help get the surroundings under control first.
Women have always done their share of what is called “men’s work.” They can do what has to be done, whether it’s driving a covered wagon across an untracked prairie, chopping firewood, harvesting wheat or repairing the motor of a jeep. And they’re not any less women for doing so.
Midwest cool to fourth term, Wallace admits
But Vice President adds that he believes Roosevelt will win in November; in doubt on own position
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace, back from a transcontinental renomination campaign trip, reports the Midwest the most dangerous hazard to a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
Mr. Wallace cited that situation to press conference questioners here, but reported that sentiment was improving. He is convinced that the improvement will be such that Mr. Roosevelt will win again next November.
His report on Midwest sentiment substantially conforms with some more independent estimates of the situation there, but the question whether sentiment is swinging back toward the administration is sharply disputed.
Slipping in Farm Belt
The 1942-43 voting record shows the administration slipping in the Farm Belt.
At the press conference, Mr. Wallace for the most part answered the same questions he had been asked as he traveled to the West Coast and back making speeches calculated to make him an indispensable 1944 running mate for Mr. Roosevelt.
He reported a swelling liberal sentiment in general, and especially on the West Coast. He said he thought Mr. Roosevelt would prefer to retire to private life if he consulted his personal desires for comfort.
Retard war effort?
But he explained that Mr. Roosevelt’s retirement would retard the war effort because a new man would require so long to obtain the President’s perspective on the problems of all groups – agriculture, labor and business.
Mr. Wallace said he had been discussing politics with soldiers aboard trains and found them in favor of a fourth term. He represented them as taking the attitude: “Let him run the show and win the war.”
He described himself as “sitting in the lap of the gods,” which was interpreted to mean that Mr. Roosevelt has not told his 1940 ticket mate whether he is to have another fling.
AFL leader praises Willkie, hits Bricker
Washington (UP) –
An AFL spokesman today joined other labor leaders offering campaign advice to the Republicans by coupling praise for Wendell Willkie with criticism of Ohio’s Governor John W. Bricker.
Writing in the AFL News Service, editor Philip Pearl contrasted recent statements by the two Republican presidential aspirants and recommended that the party follow Mr. Willkie’s advice instead of Mr. Bricker’s.
He said Mr. Bricker’s record was “undistinguished by exceptional ability, forceful leadership or brilliant statesmanship” and that Mr. Bricker hade decided to take “a sock at labor” in an attempt to capture headlines in his Washington speech last week recommending legislation to prohibit strikes.
The next day, Mr. Pearl said, Mr. Willkie asserted there was no irrepressible conflict between business and labor and that “no man should be elected President who hated either.” Mr. Pearl interpreted these remarks as a “severe reprimand” to Mr. Bricker.
Martin takes hat from GOP ring
Washington (UP) –
House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) today gingerly removed his hat from the presidential ring where it had been tossed by his friends in Congress.
A poll of Republican members favored Mr. Martin as “the most able dark horse” in event of a deadlock over a presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention.
Mr. Martin said:
I appreciate this gesture of good will… but I’m not looking for any more headaches…
Roosevelt dodges fourth-term query
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s batting average in knocking down inquiries about his fourth-term plans continued perfect today in the face of renewed news conference pitching.
A questioner told the President:
The Vice President says you will be elected in 1944 – do you think he is a very good prophet?
At it again, the President said with a laugh.
The questioner added that Vice President Wallace was “not so sure of himself” as the No. 2 Democratic candidate this year, Mr. Roosevelt chuckled.
Incidentally, Mr. Roosevelt scheduled a luncheon conference today with Mr. Wallace, who returned to Washington from a Western tour yesterday.
Dinosaurs trouble radio sound engineers
Told monsters had ‘no more voice’ than giraffe
By Si Steinhauser
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Völkischer Beobachter (February 19, 1944)
Erklärung über Castel Gandolfo –
Vatikan dementiert Feindlügen
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Aufschlußreiche Bestätigung Edens im Unterhaus –
Die berüchtigte Atlantik-Charta ein plumper Schwindel
Landraub ist auch für England letztes Kriegsziel
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U.S. Navy Department (February 19, 1944)
Communiqué No. 506
Pacific and Far East.
Two U.S. submarines recently returned from patrols deep in Japanese Empire waters report sinking 13 enemy merchant ships totaling 68,200 tons.
These sinkings have not been reported in any previous Navy Department communiqué.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 36
Our forces have captured the enemy air base at Engebi and several other islands in the northern portion of the Eniwetok Atoll. Preliminary reports Indicate our casualties have been light.
Assaults on other portions of the atoll are proceeding according to schedule.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 273
For Immediate Release
February 19, 1944
Supplementing the major attacks on Truk and Eniwetok, our forces have continued to neutralize other enemy bases in the Central Pacific Area.
On February 16 (West Longitude Date) Liberators, Dauntless dive bombers, and Warhawk fighters of the 7th Army Air Force attacked four atolls in the Eastern Marshall Islands. At one base Warhawks blew up a fuel dump, damaged a small cargo ship, and sank three small craft. On the same day search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed ground installations at two other atolls.
On February 17, Army Liberators bombed warehouses and docks at Ponape, and harbor installations at Kusaie. Army Liberators and Warhawks attacked an Eastern Marshalls base, and Navy search planes bombed and strafed installations at two other atolls.
Between February 14‑18, our warships repeatedly shelled important enemy positions in the Eastern Marshalls.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9425
Establishing the Surplus War Property Administration
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 19, 1944
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, particularly the First War Powers Act 1941, as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, it is hereby ordered as follows:
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There is hereby established in the Office of War Mobilization, the Surplus War Property Administration (hereinafter referred to as the “Administration”), the powers and functions of which, subject to the general supervision of the Director of War Mobilization, shall be exercised by a Surplus War Property Administrator (hereinafter referred to as the “Administrator”), to be appointed by the Director of War Mobilization.
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With the assistance of a Surplus War Property Policy Board, composed of a representative from each of the following: State Department, Treasury Department, War Department, Navy Department, Justice Department, Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Smaller War Plants Corporation, United States Maritime Commission, War Production Board, Bureau of the Budget, War Food Administration, Federal Works Agency, Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Foreign Economic Administration, it shall be the function of the Administration, to the full extent that such matters are provided for or permitted by law:
(a) To have general supervision and direction of the handling and disposition of surplus war property.
(b) To have general supervision and direction of the transfer of any surplus war property in the possession of any Government agency to any other Government agency whenever in the judgment of the Administration such transfer is appropriate.
(c) Unless otherwise directed by the Director of War Mobilization, to assign, so far as it is deemed feasible by the Administration, surplus war property for disposition, as follows: consumer goods to the Procurement Division of the Department of the Treasury; capital and producers’ goods, including plants, equipment, materials, scrap, and other industrial property, to a subsidiary of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, created pursuant to Section 5d (3) of the Reconstruction Finance Act, as amended; ships and maritime property to the United States Maritime Commission; and food to the War Food Administration; provided that surplus war property to be disposed of outside the United States, unless otherwise directed by the Director of War Mobilization, shall be assigned, so far as it is deemed feasible by the Administration, to the Foreign Economic Administration.
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All functions, powers, and duties relating to the transfer or disposition of surplus war property, heretofore conferred by law on any Government agency may, to the extent necessary to carry out the provisions of this Order, be exercised also by the Administration.
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The Administrator may prescribe regulations and issue directions necessary to effectuate the purposes of this Order; and no Government agency shall transfer or dispose of surplus war property in contravention thereof. Each Government agency shall submit such information and reports with respect to surplus war property and in such form and at such times as the Administrator shall direct. When requested by the Administration, a Government agency shall execute such documents for the transfer of title or for any other purpose or take such steps as the Administration shall determine to be necessary or proper to transfer or dispose of surplus war property or otherwise to carry out the provisions of this Order.
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The Administrator may perform the functions and exercise the powers, authority, and discretion conferred on the Administration by this Order by such officials and such agencies and in such manner as the Administrator, subject to the provisions of this Order, may determine. In carrying out the purposes of this Order, the Administration may utilize the services of any other Government agency. The Administration, within the limit of funds which may be made available, may employ necessary personnel and make provision for supplies, facilities, and services necessary to discharge the responsibilities of the Administration.
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As used in this Order:
(a) “Government agency” means any executive department, independent establishment, agency, commission, board, bureau, division, administration, office, service, independent regulatory commission or board, and any Government-owned or Government-controlled corporation.
(b) “Surplus War Property” means any property, real or personal, including but not limited to plants, facilities, equipment, machines, accessories, parts, assemblies, products, commodities, materials, and supplies in the possession of or controlled by any Government agency, whether new or used, in use or in storage, which are in excess of the needs of such agency or are not required for the performance of the duties and functions of such agency and which are determined, subject to the authority of the Office of War Mobilization, to be surplus by such agency.
- All prior Executive Orders, insofar as they are in conflict herewith, are amended accordingly.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 19, 1944
The Pittsburgh Press (February 19, 1944)
NEW MARSHALLS ATOLL INVADED
Yank forces pour ashore on Eniwetok
U.S. victory on island group 750 miles from Truk in sight
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Second strike in the Marshalls found U.S. forces ashore on Eniwetok Atoll (1), 750 miles northeast of Truk (2), which was pounded this week by U.S. bombers. To the south, Allied planes destroyed a Jap convoy of 15 ships near Mussau Island (3).
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Meager official reports indicated today that powerful U.S. Marine and Army invasion forces were rapidly extending their initial beachheads on Eniwetok Atoll, 750 miles northeast of bomb-battered Truk, with complete conquest perhaps already in sight.
While 16-inch-gun U.S. battleships joined cruisers, destroyers and planes in a pulverizing bombardment to cover the advances on Eniwetok, other elements of the Pacific Fleet were apparently retiring from the Carolines after subjecting the bastion of Truk to a smashing carrier-based air assault.
Radio Tokyo last night again told the Japanese people of “fierce fighting” at Truk and warned that the U.S. attack was part of an offensive pattern whose ultimate aim was an assault on Tokyo. The broadcast added no fresh details to yesterday’s Jap communiqué, which said Jap Army and Navy forces had intercepted U.S. units.
A Jap Dōmei dispatch from a Central Pacific base said U.S. warships had shelled and carrier-based planes bombed Taroa Island in Maloelap Atoll, east of Kwajalein, Wednesday and Thursday, causing “slight damage.” Fifteen planes attacked Wednesday and 16 Thursday, the dispatch said.
20,000 land
The 22nd Marine Division and elements of the Army 106th Infantry Division (probably a total of at least 20,000 men) pushed ashore on Eniwetok under a drumfire air-sea bombardment Thursday and successfully established beachheads, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, announced in a communiqué yesterday.
Though no further bulletins have been issued by Adm. Nimitz’s headquarters, the fact that the invasion forces were able to consolidate their beachheads – the toughest phase of any amphibious assault – tended to justify optimism that Eniwetok might be occupied as quickly as was Kwajalein, 355 miles to the southeast, which fell after an eight-day battle.
To use Kwajalein pattern
The communiqué gave no hint as to the extent of the opposition encountered, but it seemed probable that the terrific preliminary and accompanying bombardment had razed most of the enemy’s long-prepared pillboxes and artillery emplacements.
RAdm. Richmond Kelly Turner, invasion commander, was expected to follow the Kwajalein pattern of sweeping rapidly across the invaded islands to smash all organized resistance with the aid of tanks, artillery and flamethrowers, then mop up the scattered remnants.
Though Adm. Nimitz did not identify the site of the initial landings in the 21-by-17-mile circular atoll at the northwestern corner of the Marshalls, the main objectives were believed to be Engebi Island (2,000 yards long and 1,500 yards wide at the northern end) and Eniwetok (a narrow heavily-wooded island about 4,000 yards long at the southern end).
Contains good anchorage
Possession of Eniwetok Atoll would give the United States one of the finest fleet anchorages in the Pacific and an air base on Engebi Island with a runway nearly 5,000 feet long which could be used in conjunction with Bougainville, to the southwest, for shuttle raids on Truk.
The lightning assault on Eniwetok, coming only 10 days after the final conquest of Kwajalein, carried U.S. ground forces 2,500 miles west of Pearl Harbor on the invasion route to Tokyo and represented an advance of nearly 1,000 miles in the past three months dating from the capture of the Gilberts.
The invasion of Eniwetok also further increased the isolation of Wake Island, 600 miles to the northeast.
Turner’s staff
Under Adm. Turner’s overall command for the invasion were RAdm. H. W. Hill, commander of amphibious forces; Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Watson of Washington, commander of ground forces; Col. John T. Walker, 50-year-old Texan commander of the Marines, and Col. Russell G. Ayers, commander of Army troops.
Powerful naval task forces which sent carrier-based planes against Truk Wednesday were still maintaining radio silence and details of the destruction they wrought awaited their return to friendly waters.
Silent on Truk
Adm. Nimitz and his commanders remained silent on Tokyo’s implications that the forces, which included one of the largest concentration of aircraft carriers of the war, had tried to land invasion forces. However, it was generally assumed that Tokyo, for propaganda purposes, was attempting to twist an air assault into an unsuccessful landing attempt.
Though there had been no confirmation of Jap counterblows, it appeared certain the enemy would do all in his power to catch the task forces, which probably included battleships as well as carriers, cruisers and destroyers.