Völkischer Beobachter (February 22, 1944)
Eine Erklärung des Abts von Monte Cassino –
Weder Soldaten noch Waffen im Kloster
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Eine Erklärung des Abts von Monte Cassino –
Der Angriff auf Truk
tc. Tokio, 21. Februar –
Das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier gibt folgendes Kommuniqué heraus: Der schnelle feindliche Verband, der einen Angriff gegen die Insel Truk ausführte, ist dank der Leistungen der japanischen Armee- und Marinekräfte zurückgeschlagen worden. In diesen Kämpfen wurden zwei amerikanische Kreuzer, ein weiteres Schiff (es kann ein Schlachtschiff gewesen sein) versenkt, ein Flugzeugträger und ein Kriegsschiff unbekannten Typs wurden beschädigt.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 22, 1944)
YANKS BLAST GERMANY IN PINCER RAID
Fliers strike from British, Italian bases
Bombers smash at plane factories and other key war plants
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Nazis end push on beachhead
Fighting peters out along entire Italian front
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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92 Jap ships sunk by U.S. in February
But Knox warns nation to except another enemy ‘sneak attack’
By Sandor S. Klein, United Press staff writer
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Yanks hit last Eniwetok isle
Attack on Marshalls Atoll enters final phase
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
The speedy American conquest of Eniwetok Atoll, Jap naval and air base 750 miles northeast of Truk, entered its final phase today with an assault on Parry, the last enemy-held island in the Northwestern Marshalls.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, announced in a communiqué last night that powerful naval forces and swarms of aircraft had begun a crushing bombardment of Parry and it was possible that Marine and Army invasion troops have already driven ashore.
The capture of Parry, and with it, complete occupation of Eniwetok Atoll, was expected within the next 24 hours, giving the United States another stepping stone along the invasion route to Tokyo, 2,200 miles to the northwest.
While U.S. ground forces battered down resistance in the Marshalls, twin-engined Navy Ventura search planes from the Aleutians dropped slightly more than five tons of bombs on Paramushiru, 1,200 miles above Tokyo at the northern end of Japan’s home islands, and adjacent Shumushu.
Anti-aircraft fire was encountered at all targets, but all the raiders returned safely to their bases. The mission was believed largely reconnaissance to photograph repair of damage inflicted during the Feb. 4 naval bombardment and survey enemy shipping in the area.
Elements of the Army 106th Infantry Regiment and 22nd Marine Regiment seized 5,000-yard-long Eniwetok Island at the southern end of the circular atoll of the same name in a little more than 24 hours, Adm. Nimitz reported, leaving Parry the only island in the atoll remaining in enemy hands.
The Japs on Eniwetok, as on conquered Engebi to the north, fought fanatically to the death despite overwhelming odds. Nearly entire garrisons of some 2,000 on the two islands were believed to have been slaughtered.
Few pockets remain
A few small pockets of Japs remained to be mopped up on Eniwetok, last night’s communiqué said, but it was presumed these now have been wiped out. U.S. casualties continued light, totaling only 150 dead and 350 wounded for the entire first five days of fighting on the atoll through Sunday night.
Army Warhawk fighter-bombers and Mitchell medium bombers, along with Navy Venturas, again attacked outflanked, isolated Jap-held islands in the Marshalls east and southeast of Eniwetok Saturday, dropping 24 tons of explosives on three atolls. Airfields were damaged and ground installations hit.
U.S. warships, presumably cruisers and destroyers, joined in the campaign to keep the remaining enemy islands neutralized with naval bombardments Saturday.
‘Relief for greedy’ –
Veto labels tax measure indefensible
Roosevelt demands higher security levies and simplification
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Municipal power fails –
79 aircraft plants tied up by strike
Presidential intervention is sought in West as vital plane parts are held up; Sharpsburg plant hampered
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Them’s hot words –
Winchell and Pearson draw heavy barrage
Rankin and George ‘blow their tops’ in denouncing two commentators
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Tanks capture 30 Nazis holed up in Italian house
Ex-Pittsburgh fireman charges his vehicle into side of farm building on beachhead
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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WPB allays fears –
Steel to stay near capacity
Increase aluminum production is noted
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Soldier vote may hold keys to 1944 election
Middle class also big factor in approaching campaign
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Campaign-year political polls strongly suggest that the 1944 presidential contest will be decided among the preferences of the great middle classes of town and farm and of the armed services.
The soldier vote could swing a close election this year. That is one reason statesmen of all parties are so urgently interested in the soldier-vote machinery.
The American Institute of Public Opinion in a weekend poll reported that a sampling indicated 51% of the voters want the Democrats to win this year, 49% favoring the Republicans.
Democrats slump
That figure is weighted with the preponderant Democratic preferences of the South. Eliminating those states, the score for 37 others is 52% Republican to 48% Democratic.
The figures reflect a Democratic slump from the 55% of the vote polled by President Roosevelt in 1940. The loss has apparently been among the middle classes because those in the higher income levels in general may be regarded as opposed to the administration, but there is no evidence of any general desertion by labor.
The New York newspaper PM has also dome some polling. It comes up with returns from 100 selected labor leaders representing all the big organizations and some of the independents.
Take big lead
Mr. Roosevelt and Vice President Henry A. Wallace were overwhelmingly favored to head the Democratic ticket again this year.
This PM poll appears to challenge the reports now rapidly gaining currency that labor is turning on the President, that the railway brotherhoods are angry because the railways were seized, that union labor is generally talking a bolt in protest against wage-freeze orders and increased living costs.
An American Institute of Public Opinion poll last month, however, reported that Mr. Roosevelt had lost some labor ground to the Republicans. A 1940 poll showed 72% of trade unionists favoring Mr. Roosevelt, whereas this year the tally had slumped to 64%.
CIO and AFL seek Army mail rights for union papers
Servicemen’s editions of weekly and monthly publications now barred until soldiers send back their requests
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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In Washington –
Plans laid to distribute war surpluses to civilians
Clayton ready to begin task of allotting manufactured goods and raw materials under Baruch reconversion setup
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New soldier-vote plan
Washington (UP) –
Senate-House conferees turned their attention today to a new compromise soldier-vote plan which pointed to a possible settlement of the complicated issue that has kept Congress in uproar for almost three months.
The plan, offered by Rep. Worley (D-TX), a House conferee, would abolish the anti-poll tax provisions of the 1942 soldier-vote law but would retain a federal war ballot.
Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), leader of the fight for the House-approved states’-rights plan, indicated that Mr. Worley’s proposal would prove the way out. He said modification of the 1942 law to eliminate restrictions against state poll tax and registration requirements would “remove the constitutional issue” from debate.
‘Shrewd Yankee horse trade?’
Destroyers-bases swap now questionable bargain
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Nimitz has personal score to settle with Japs in war
Panay was his first command, sunk in 1937
By Boyd Lewis, United Press staff writer
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Editorial: Primaries are for voters
Local leaders of the Republican and Democratic Party organizations, taking their cues from statewide leaders, are conferring, dickering and bargaining to eliminate all “opposition” in the April 25 primaries.
For the sake of “harmony” they are endeavoring to patch up a slate on which a majority of them can agree – and then run everybody else out of the race.
In this enterprise, they are warmly, and even forcefully, encouraged by the big leaders.
The purpose is to avoid party splits, to set up solidarity for the main contest in November.
Some of the motives behind this program may have merit. The “harmony” slate may be helpful to party discipline. It may prevent the kind of mudslinging contests which have characterized factional disputes in so many recent primaries. And probably it will enable the two parties to hoard their campaign funds for the big battles in the fall.
But this backroom slate-making defeats the purpose of primary elections.
Years ago, Pennsylvania, and a great many other states, abandoned the convention form of choosing party candidates for local, state and Congressional officers. The convention system was abolished because it became rotten and anything but democratic. The desires of the voters were ignored. Instead of candidates freely nominated by the people, the voters in November were confronted by candidates handpicked by whatever bosses could control or buy the party conventions. The election became a contest between two cliques of bosses, rather than two parties.
The open primary has not cured that condition entirely. Bosses still control nominations, often by force of fat purses or political patronage rather than by any qualities of leadership.
But the worst of the evils inherent in the convention system have been eliminated, or at least curtailed.
The primary offers any candidate the opportunity to present himself to the people. And political bosses frequently have been defeated in primaries.
In this campaign, the bosses, operating under the guise of party “harmony,” are attempting to restore the old convention system.
This system may be more subtle than the convention plan, but it smacks of the same dangers.
A few party leaders, many of them self-appointed, summon potential candidates behind closed doors and decide this candidate may run and that candidate may not.
In some cases, the leaders have called in the elected party committeemen from the precincts and allowed them a determining voice. This perhaps gives the slate-making an air of democratic processes, but the principle of the primary is still being violated.
Primaries were created to give the people a chance to pick their own candidates. The people don’t get that chance unless there is a free entry of candidates, unhampered by pressure from bosses, or office-holders or professional politicians.