Saves 15 lives
Lt. (jg.) Nathan G. Gordon, USN, landed his plane time and time again in Kavieng Harbor, New Ireland, to rescue a total of 15 U.S. airmen who were shot down during a raid on the Jap base. The rescues were effected under heavy fire.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
Most infantry companies in the American frontlines are now composed largely of replacements, as they are in all armies after more than a year of fighting.
Some of these replacements have been here only a few weeks. Others came so long ago they are now as seasoned as the original men of the company.
The new boys are afraid, of course, and very eager to hear and to learn. They hang onto the words of the old-timers. I suppose the anticipation during the last few days before your first battle is one of the worst ordeals of a lifetime. Now and then, one will crack up before he has ever gone into action.
One day I was wandering through an olive grove talking with some of these newer kids when I saw a soldier, sitting on the edge of his foxhole, wearing a black silk opera hat. That’s what I said – an opera hat.
The owner was Pvt. Gordon T. Winter. He’s a Canadian. His father owns an immense sheep ranch near Lindbergh, Alberta, 200 miles northeast of Edmonton.
Pvt. Winter said he found the top hat in a demolished house in a nearby village and just thought he’d bring it along. He said:
I’m going to wear it in the next attack. The Germans will think I’m crazy, and they’re afraid of crazy people.
Private played dead
In the same foxhole was a thin, friendly boy who seemed hardly old enough to be in high school. There was fuzz instead of whiskers on his face and he had that eager-to-be-nice attitude that marked him as not long away from home.
This was Pvt. Robert Lee Whichard of Baltimore. It turned out that he was only 18. He has been overseas only since early winter. He has seen action already. He was laughing when telling me about the first time he was in battle.
Apparently, it was a pretty wild melee, and ground was changing hands back and forth. Pvt. Whichard said he was lying on the ground shooting, “or maybe not shooting, I don’t know,” because he admits he was pretty scared.
He happened to look up and here were German soldiers walking past him. Bob said he was so scared he just rolled over and lay still. Pretty soon mortar shells began dropping and the Germans decided to retire. So, they came back past him, and he still lay there playing dead until finally they were gone.
Bob says the other night he dreamed his feet were so cold that he ran to the battalion aid station and there were his mother and sister fixing some hot food over a wood fire for him and poking up the fire so he could warm his feet. But before either the food or his feet were warm, he woke up – and his feet were still cold.
Another soldier came past and said he’d dreamed the night before that he was home and his mother was cooking pork chops by the tubful for him to eat. This one was Cpl. Pamal Meena, whose father is a Syrian minister in Cleveland.
The post office system has broken down as far as Cpl. Meena is concerned. He has been overseas five months and has never got a letter. The corporal has not been in combat but is ready for it. He says he hasn’t decided whether he is going to be a minister, like his father, but he has taken to reading his Bible since he came to war.
Has Ernie in stitches
One day I was walking through another olive orchard which held the 34th Division headquarters, and I noticed a soldier under a tree cleaning a sewing machine.
This was Pvt. Leonard Vitale of Council Bluffs, Iowa. He’s an old-timer in the division. As I looked around, I saw a couple of other sewing machines sitting on boxes. I asked:
Good Lord, what are you doing? Starting a sewing-machine factory?
Pvt. Vitale said no, he was just getting set to do altering and mending for division headquarters. The first two sewing machines he had bought from Italians, and an AMG officer had given him the newest machine. It was a Singer, in an elaborate mahogany cabinet.
Pvt. Vitale said he wasn’t an expert tailor but had picked up some of the rudiments during the three and a half years he’d spent in the CCC and thought he would do all right and make a little money on the side. As I walked away, he called out:
I’ll have this war sewed up in a couple of months.
I grabbed a rifle from a nearby MP and shot the punster through and through before he had me in stitches.
Pegler: The Chaplin case
By Westbrook Pegler
Chicago, Illinois –
Charlie Chaplin’s current troubles with the Department of Justice are a messy comeuppance to a little ingrate who found opportunity, appreciation and wealth in a cordial country to which, nevertheless, he never gave allegiance. He is not nice; he is stingy and he has had the impudence to associate himself with the communist enemies of the country in which he took refuge from two wars while his native England sat right under the guns of the Germans.
Nevertheless, his indictment on charges of violation of the Mann Act and an obscure law to punish those who deprive others of rights guaranteed by the Constitution is bad business. For years, by common consent and confirmed practice, the Mann Act was held to apply only to cases in which females were taken across state lines for prostitution.
The first Mann Act case of importance, also a California case, concerned two young men and two girls who went off to play house without benefit of clergy. It raised a great fuss and several similar cases ensued in which ladies of mature years were induced to give testimony against woebegone gents with whom they had wittingly run away on mischievous business. Jack Johnson, the Negro fighter, was one of them.
Crime or indiscretion
In time, however, there came a change of sentiment. The law had been passed to put down the interstate commercial traffic in women, many of them poor, ignorant farm and mill town girls who were being recruited by professional hunters from Chicago for service in the dumps which then thrived under popular sanction and political license. The debates showed this to be the intent of Congress but, as often happens, the text made no distinction between one thing and another and some district attorneys had made serious crime of a proceeding which Mr. Dickens described as an amiable indiscretion.
The Chaplin case under the Mann Act, even if the allegations can be proved, obviously comes under the latter heading and the federal government, especially in these times, could better use its manpower and money than to flog a man, however mean, for taking a guest on a trip. California probably has state laws and New York certainly has, under which, if it were worth the bother, the offense of seduction, impairing the morals of a minor or unlawful cohabitation could be punished. This is strictly police court business and beneath the notice of the U.S. Department of Justice, which here again resorts to tricky practice and meddles in affairs of the states.
The charge of depriving the young woman of a constitutional right is equally pallid and insincere. If Chaplin and his agents and certain public officials of a smug and corrupt little California suburb railroaded a pregnant girl out of town, that should be a local affair. If the people of the town are so low that they will tolerate this doing by one of the neighbors and their local officials, they should be left to stew in their own evil juice. It is not the business of the national government and the whole proceeding is garish and disreputable.
Shysterism a la Capone
There are just further manifestations of a shysterism which has pervaded the Department of Justice in recent years. Al Capone was a monstrous criminal, but Chicago was rotten and he finally got 12 years for failure to declare his income and pay his tax. The sentence was excessive and the whole country well understood that he was punished under one law for violations of many others, mostly state laws.
Similarly, in Kansas City, the federal government used the old law against the denial of constitutional rights to clean up corrupt election methods of the Pendergast machine, a purely local responsibility, and, in Louisiana, when the state failed, the Department of Justice distorted a law against fraud by mail to punish men for the actual crimes of grand larceny and conspiracy.
In several union prosecutions, federal laws were invoked to punish violations of state laws, although, in most of them, the Supreme Court held that unions had a special right to commit federal crimes and reversed the convictions.
All this may tend to create fear of the law but it does not instill respect. On the contrary, it gives people to believe that their government is not above resort to those sly tricks which President Roosevelt, in another issue, described as clever little schemes having the color of legality.
Clapper: More
By Raymond Clapper
This is Raymond Clapper’s last column. It was written aboard the carrier from which he flew to his death in the battle of the Marshall Islands. The column was only about two-thirds completed; the second page of manuscript carried the slug “more.”
Frank Mason, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, delivered the copy from the carrier to Pearl Harbor, and it was wirelessed from there to the States.
Before leaving for the Pacific, Mr. Clapper wrote that “some people in Washington feel there is no sufficient awareness at home of how much our men are doing and in what a living hell they must sometimes do it.” He went to the Pacific to help increase that awareness. Some 14 columns written by Mr. Clapper in the days before his death have been printed posthumously, in the belief that he would have wished us to help him carry out that self-appointed mission.
With the Pacific Fleet, in the Marshall Islands – (by wireless)
Contrary to many predictions that I heard in Washington and in the Southwest Pacific, the invasion of the Marshalls did not prove to be another Tarawa. All concerned had one thought in mind in planning the Marshalls campaign – that there must be no repetition of Tarawa.
Nobody will admit officially that Tarawa fell short of what it should have been. But there were some faults in the plan of operations. For the Marshalls campaign, changes in planning were made to ensure that no matter how much delay the troops might encounter upon reaching shore, their cover would stay with them and hold the Japs in their holes.
Furthermore, the approach to the main objectives was planned on an entirely different basis for the Marshalls campaign. We not only made sure that the Japanese airpower was knocked out before our landings began, but the landings themselves were planned differently.
We slipped around to one of the rear atolls where we were not expected. On the first day we occupied small undefended islands near the larger ones of Roi and Kwajalein. The purpose in occupying those was to set up artillery for heavy bombardment of our main targets.
Enormous concentration
And above all there was an enormous concentration of the Pacific Fleet, with sufficient strength to have taken on any defense Japan wanted to attempt, including the use of her fleet.
The night before the battle began, the captain of the happy carrier which I was aboard during the air attack talked to his entire ship about the battle that was about to begin. He said the Marshalls battle was well-planned and carefully thought out, and that we started out with “a powerhouse of strength.” He said this was the biggest task group ever assembled in the Pacific.
The men aboard all had complete confidence. There were no jitters. There was almost a holiday air, because they knew that what the captain said was true. For days we had traveled in the midst of a large number of battleships, cruisers and other carriers. You could not look around the horizon without seeing the flattops of carriers and the peaked-pagoda effect of the low-water silhouettes of our newest battleships.
East Lynne at Eniwetok
After the first days of hammering at Kwajalein, as we swung out for our “strike” the next morning before dawn at Eniwetok, which is within bomber range of the great Jap base at Truk, one of our Navy fighter pilots, Lt. Robert A. Ogden, an Ohio State law graduate from Portsmouth, Ohio, reflected the spirit on board when he announced:
Tomorrow night, “East Lynne” at Eniwetok.
We are not bothering to clean out all the Japs from the Marshall Islands. It is more economical, and just as effective, to cut them off and let them “die on the vine,” as the method is referred to out here. That is what Gen. MacArthur is doing in New Guinea. It is a form of piecemeal blockade.
[MORE]
NOTE: Here the dispatch ended.
Raw materials becoming big German worry
Sources of supplies on outer fringes of Europe periled
By Victor Gordon Lennox
…
Poll: Public dislikes union policies of ‘make work’
Poll shows many members of labor organizations opposed to practice
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
…
Berlin views Allies razing of abbey as Nazi ‘victory’
‘Wicked stories’ started to woo Catholics, but little effect is indicated
By Paul Ghali
…
Wounded flier saves six men from wild sea
Pilot pulls crew members from water, lashes them to raft
…
Holland-America to renew service
New York (UP) –
The Holland-America Line plans to resume its North Pacific Coast service as soon as practicable after the war, Peter van der Toorn, managing director of the line, revealed in a recent interview.
Mr. Van den Toorn declared that his line plans to reinstate a greatly improved West Coast-to-Europe fruit schedule after the war and pointed out that Holland-America had been a pioneer in this trade.
He said:
The California fruit trade with Britain and the continent was pioneered by our company nearly a quarter of a century ago. This fact may not be generally appreciated on this coast, but the Pacific Coast growers certainly remember that the first experimental shipment of fruit in refrigerators was made on the Holland-America freighter Eemdyk, which sailed from San Pedro Harbor on March 3, 1921.
Mr. Van den Toorn believes that the citrus growers of the West Coast will welcome an accelerated service no less than the hungry populations of Europe, and he said he felt confident that all obstacles will be overcome so that steamship companies of all the Allied nations, which maintained regular services before the war, will recover their proper share of the traffic.
PROCLAMATION 2606
Red Cross Month, 1944
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 19, 1944
WHEREAS the war has entered a decisive stage requiring the fullest measure of individual sacrifice;
WHEREAS the American National Red Cross is an auxiliary to the United States armed forces and, as such, is providing indispensable service to our troops throughout the world as well as to their families at home;
WHEREAS these wartime activities, including the collection of life-saving blood for the wounded, recreation work in military hospitals, provision of aid to families of servicemen, shipment of food parcels to prisoners of war, production of surgical dressings, operation of overseas clubs and recreation centers, and recruitment of Army and Navy nurses, all combine to save countless lives, restore hope, and provide comfort for our fighting men;
WHEREAS, through its vast network of local chapters, this agency of our people simultaneously conducts an extensive program of training and community service, while continuing with traditional efficiency to lessen the distress of those overwhelmed by disaster; and
WHEREAS this agency is wholly dependent upon individual support and personal participation and is issuing its 1944 appeal to the entire citizenship for a minimum War Fund of $200,000,000;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America and President of the American National Red Cross, do hereby designate the month beginning March 1, 1944 as “Red Cross Month” and earnestly beseech my fellow Americans to observe it by opening their hearts to this humanitarian appeal in order that we may keep the Red Cross at the side of our fighting men and their dependents in their hour of greatest need.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the city of Washington this nineteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
CORDELL HULL
Secretary of State
Völkischer Beobachter (February 20, 1944)
Ein Domei-Kommentar zu dem neuen Vorstoß –
Feindliche Operationen gegen Truk
dnb. Tokio, 19. Februar –
Das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier gab am Freitagnachmittag bekannt, daß Verbände von feindlichen Flugzeugen, die von Flugzeugträgern aus starteten und zu einem feindlichen Einsatzgeschwader gehörten, seit Donnerstagvormittag die japanischen Stellungen auf der Insel Truk angriffen. In der Mitteilung heißt es weiter, daß erbitterte Kämpfe im Gange sind. Die Insel Truk, auch Hogolu, gehört zur mittleren Karolinengruppe.
Domeis militärischer Kommentator befaßt sich in einer Betrachtung mit den feindlichen Operationen bei den Trukinseln. Er schreibt, der Gegner habe mit einem Sprung über die Marshallinseln diesmal seine Operationen in gewagter Weise bis zur strategischen Schlüsselstellung in der von den Japanern beherrschten inneren Südsee ausgedehnt.
Der Feind sei sich durchaus bewußt, daß in den von den Japanern beherrschten Südgebieten unbegrenzte Naturschätze vorhanden sind und daß, sobald diese für die Kriegführung Japans erst einmal zur Verfügung stehen, die Durchführung der Gegenoffensive gegen ein Japan mit einer derartigen Kampfkraft unmöglich wäre.
Es gebe zwei Gründe für die jetzige Gegenangriffstrategie von Nimitz. Erstens glaube Nimitz, daß es möglich sei, die Inselstützpunkte mit Hilfe von Überwassereinheiten der Flotte anzugreifen, falls sie von einer überlegenen Luftflotte geschützt werden. Zweitens meine er, daß die USA sich den Verlust einiger Kriegsschiffe leisten können. Diese beiden Gründe dienten als Stütze für die Invasionsstrategie des Gegners gegen die Gilbert- und die Marshallinseln.
Es sei indessen bedeutsam, daß die gegenwärtige Operation des Feindes gegen die Trukinseln noch einen Schritt weitergehe und die bisherige Strategie der Umwege verlasse. Der direkte Vorstoß gegen die Trukinseln bezwecke augenscheinlich die Vertreibung eines Keiles in die strategische Schlüsselstellung im Zentral-Pazifik. Der Gegner sei ungeduldig bemüht, seine sogenannte „Rückkehr nach Manila“ zu erzwingen, aber dieser Versuch gebe den japanischen Flottenstreitkräften nur weitere Gelegenheit, ihn zurückzuwerfen.
Von einem japanischen Stützpunkt im Südpazifik meldet Domei: Die japanischen Küstenbatterien beschädigten in der Nacht zum 14. Februar in den Gewässern südwestlich von Madang drei feindliche Torpedoboote schwer.
Die feindlichen Boote wollten offenbar die japanischen Streitkräfte angreifen, sie wurden jedoch durch das heftige Feuer der japanischen Batterien daran gehindert. Eines der Boote ergriff die Flucht und zog eine weiße Rauchfahne hinter sich, während das zweite nach Volltreffern abdrehte. Ein weiteres feindliches Torpedoboot, das bald darauf gesichtet wurde, ist von den japanischen Batterien, die zwei Volltreffer am Bug erzielten, ebenfalls rasch abgewiesen worden. Vermutlich sind alle drei Torpedoboote gesunken.
Weiterhin wird von einer Frontstellung im Südpazifik gemeldet, daß Einheiten der japanischen Marineluftwaffe am gleichen Tage einen erfolgreichen Angriff auf einen feindlichen Geleitzug nordwestlich Bougainville unternahmen. Bei diesem Angriff wurde ein Transporter versenkt, zwei mittelgroße Transporter wurden schwer beschädigt. Außerdem erlitten ein großer Kreuzer, ein Kreuzer und ein Zerstörer schwere Beschädigungen. Fünf japanische Flugzeuge gingen verloren.
Auch die Times gibt zu –
‚Versorgungslage weiterhin verzweifelt‘
vb. Wien, 19. Februar –
Nach langem Zögern geben jetzt endlich auch die britischen Blätter langsam zu, daß der Vorstoß auf den Mayu die britischen Truppen an der burmesischen Grenze in eine schwierige Situation gebracht hat. Der Korrespondent der Times in Tschungking teilt mit, daß der Zustand der von den Japanern abgeschnittenen Truppen der 14. britischen Armee – es handelt sich dabei, wie berichtet, um Teilkräfte einer Division – „verzweifelt sei.“ Es sei den Japanern gelungen, die einzige rückwärtige Verbindung dieser Truppen zu unterbinden, die sich dadurch in größten Verpflegungsschwierigkeiten befänden.
Die offiziellen Kriegsberichte Mountbattens vermeiden es immer noch, auf diese Vorgänge einzugehen, sie ergehen sich dafür in Mitteilungen über belanglose Scharmützel. Interessant aus den Verlautbarungen der letzten Tage war lediglich das Geständnis, daß England auch an dieser Front Kanonenfutter aus Afrika in den Kampf wirft. Einheiten aus den westafrikanischen Kolonien sind gerade recht, hier für die Briten zu bluten.
Mexikaner wie Neger in USA
In einem vom Londoner Daily Herald abgedruckten Artikel wendet sich der frühere Vizepräsident Welles gegen die feindliche Haltung, die man im Südwesten der USA gegen die eingewanderten Mexikaner jeden Standes einnehme. Die mexikanischen Kinder würden in den Volksschulen der USA nicht zugelassen. Die Mexikaner würden wie Neger behandelt und dürfen in einigen Gebieten nicht die für die Weißen reservierten Eisenbahnwagen benutzen. In vielen verwehre man ihnen den Besuch von Kinos und Hotels.
Kürzlich verweigerte sogar ein Restaurant in einer großen Stadt des Südwestens einem hohen mexikanischen Beamten den Eintritt in den Speisesaal. Die Eigentümer von Volksvergnügungsstätten wiesen mexikanische Besucher ab. Die Folge seien übelste Slumzustände in den Wohnvierteln der mexikanischen Arbeiter und scharfe Proteste der mexikanischen Regierung.
Da bekanntlich die US-Regierung den einzelnen Staaten keine Vorschriften machen könne, habe die mexikanische Regierung bereits damit gedroht, keine weiteren Arbeiter nach den USA zu schicken.