America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

AFL unions given warning

Green tells them to have nothing to do with CIO


Mrs. Roosevelt back Pyle’s ‘fight pay’ plan

Jennifer Jones and Paul Lukas win Motion Picture Academy’s Oscars

Tulsa girl clicks in first starring role; Casablanca best film
By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Jennifer Jones of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who has appeared in only one movie in her life – except when she rode in wild Westerns under another name – placed on her mantel today the gilded plaster Oscar symbolic of her reign for a year as the greatest actress in Hollywood.

Miss Jones won the prize last night at the 16th annual awards of the Motion Picture Academy for her work in The Song of Bernadette. She hugged the statuette to her breast while the cameras clicked in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and whispered – in an aside – that she hoped it wouldn’t break.

The dignified Paul Lukas, looking more like a banker in a double-breasted suit than a movie star, was named best male actor for his performance in the memorable Watch on the Rhine.

The voters surprised, but did not disappoint, the movie colony by naming Casablanca, in which Humphrey Bogart took North Africa apart, as the best picture of 1943.

Casablanca was the movie which The Pittsburgh Press Old Newsboys showed for their Children’s Hospital Premiere in December 1942, one month before it was released nationally. This year, the Old Newsboys showed Destination Tokyo, which may also win high rank. Both pictures were made available to the Old Newsboys Drive by Warner Bros. and all proceeds went to Children’s Hospital.

The veteran Charles Coburn received the award as best supporting actor for his role in the comedy of life in Washington, The More the Merrier.

The strikingly-handsome Katina Paxinou, with her hair glistening in the blue-white lights and her deep purple dress making shadows across the stage, made the one poignant speech of the evening as she accepted her prize as best supporting actress in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

She began:

I accept the award on behalf of my colleagues in Athens – alive or dead.

When she had finished, many movie beauties in the audience were dabbling at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs.

While thousands outside the theater on Hollywood Boulevard tried in vain to find seats in bleachers on both sides of the street, and a battery of searchlights cast their beams in the skies, the great and the near-great of Hollywood sat inside, at $11 per seat, watching the three-hour program unreel.

There were dozens of technical awards, climaxed by the directorial prize going to one of Hollywood’s leading dialecticians, Michael Curtiz.

The theater was hushed when the black-clad Greer Garson strode to the microphone to announce the best actress of the year. She uttered no more than the word “Jennifer;” the cheers drowned out whatever else she had to say.

Miss Jones, mother of two children and separated from her husband, Robert Walker, strode through the glare of the spotlight, looking almost as thought she were a high school girl in her first party dress. Her frock was a modest one of dark blue.

She bit her lip, as if to hold back the tears, hugged the statuette to her breast, produced a big smile and said she was the world’s happiest girl.

She said:

I am thrilled. And I am grateful.


Plans new one

Hollywood, California –
With his new picture, I Love a Soldier, being edited, producer-director Mark Sandrich is now preparing the script for his next, a musical about the WAVES, starring Bing Crosby, Betty Hutton and Sonny Tufts.

Simms: Big-Three unity hit by wide gap

London, Moscow in disagreement with Washington regarding handling of small countries
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Yanks bolster Admiralty Isle invasion force

Control of South Pacific region is clinched by reinforcements
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer

Army to revise uniform sale plan

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In Italy – (by wireless)
The Mediterranean Allied Air Force, under the command of Lt. Gen. Ira Baker, covers everything in this whole Mediterranean theater from Casablanca on the Atlantic almost to the Cairo at the edge of Asia.

It is a gigantic force. Although there are many British planes and pilots in it, and even a few squadrons of Frenchmen, still it is predominantly an American air theater.

The main geographical objective of our push into Italy was to get heavy-bomber bases

Our heavy-bomber force is still being built up, and has not yet really begun on its program of blasting Germany proper, but planes have been flowing across the South Atlantic all winter.

Soon good weather will be here, and then woe upon Germany from south as well as west.

Right now, I’m living with a light-bomber group – the 47th – which flies the fast twin-engined Douglas-built plane known as the A-20 Boston.

Some on second tour of combat duty

The 47th is a veteran outfit. It fought through Tunisia. It helped beat the Germans back at Kasserine a year ago. it flew from Souk-el-Arba and Cape Bon and Malta and Sicily, and now it is on the front in Italy.

Like most air groups of long service, it has almost no flying personnel left who came overseas with it. Its casualty rate has been low, but the crewmen have all reached or passed their allotted number of missions and gone home.

In fact, some of its members went home so long ago that they are now back overseas on their second tour of combat duty, fighting out of England or in the South Pacific. The ground-crew men get letters from them sometimes.

I’ve been living with a certain squadron of the 47th. It has changed commanders while I’ve been with it. The previous commander was Maj. Cy Stafford, a brilliant young pilot-engineer from Oak Park, Illinois.

Maj. Stafford has been promoted to the group staff, and his place as squadron commander has been taken by Maj. Reginald Clizbe of Centralia, Washington.

Maj. Clizbe is a veteran in combat, but for several months has been on staff duty. He is pleased to get back to the small and intimate familiarity of a squadron. As he says:

Squadron commander is the best job in the Air Corps.

On his first day, Maj. Clizbe got a plane and went out and practiced while the rest went on their mission. I was staying in the same tent with him, and although at that time I didn’t know him very well I could tell he was worried and preoccupied.

He wasn’t afraid. Everybody knew that. But he was rusty, everybody’s eyes were on him, and he was scared to death he would foul up on his first mission.

He flew the morning mission on his second day in command. He flew a wing position, and he did all right. He was in good spirits when they came back before lunch.

There was another mission that afternoon. Instead of resting, Maj. Clizbe put himself on the board for that one too, this time leading a flight of three. It was at his revetment when the planes came back just before dusk. When they got out, Maj. Clizbe was a changed man. He was just like a football player after winning a game.

Forgets it’s his birthday

It had been a perfect mission. The bomb pattern had smothered the target. They’d started fires. Their breakout from the bomb run was just right, and the planes got only a little flak. The new man had his teeth into the game again, and he was over the hump. He was all elation and enthusiasm.

He said:

We’ll give ‘em hell from now on.

All evening he kept smiling to himself, and he was like somebody released from a great oppression. That night he went to bed around 9 o’clock, for he was tired, and he had assigned himself to lead the mission early next morning. Just before he went to sleep, he happened to think of something. He raised up and said:

Say, this is my birthday! I’d forgotten about it. Boy, I couldn’t have had a better birthday present than those two missions today.

And he really meant it.

The major was back in the war. He was doing a job again in person, with his own hands and brain, and he went to sleep with a fine satisfaction.

Maj. Williams: Explosives

By Maj. Al Williams

Annapolis at war!

Annapolis graduates have humor, courage to take with them
By Jess Stearn, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Inside the jack plant –
Bill’s workers happy though day is long

Owner cheered by ‘associates’ on return from Washington; workers show no signs of fatigue
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Individual audit advocated –
Baruch war contract cancellation plan hit

Comptroller General contends it would unjustly enrich arms makers by millions of dollars

Millett: Give him up for reasons

Wives ‘donate’ bad husbands to Uncle Sam
By Ruth Millett

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
‘Marry in haste…’

By Maxine Garrison

Beau battles Montgomery in title bout

By Jack Cuddy, United Press staff writer

Keen post-war competition in textiles seen

Fight between natural, synthetic fibers looms
By Edward J. Dever Jr., Scripps-Howard staff writer

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19% of steel in 1943 goes to shipyards

Drop in Lend-Lease demands cuts deliveries for war uses


Lend-Lease aid is called vital in final drive

Stimson tells committee part supplies play in war plan

Television long way off, Zenith head says

americavotes1944

Poll: Bricker choice of GOP in Ohio for nomination

Dewey gains in popularity among Republican voters in buckeye state
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

Republican voters in the state of Ohio think highly of their Governor, John W. Bricker. He is their first choice for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Wendell Willkie.

The present survey in Ohio covered all sections of the state and an accurate cross-section of all those who state a preference for the Republican Party. These voters were asked which men mentioned frequently as Republican presidential possibilities they would prefer as the nominee this year of their part.

Taft not included

Here is the way the vote in the present poll comes out, as compared to a similar poll published in November.

Today November 1943
Bricker 41% 40%
Dewey 25% 18%
MacArthur 18% 16%
Willkie 11% 16%
Stassen 3% 3%
Eric Johnston 2% 7%

The poll, it should be noted, does not fully reflect the impact of Governor Bricker’s public appearances since launching his campaign in Washington recently.

Willkie drops

As the above table shows, Governor Dewey has gained in popularity since November. In the earlier poll, he won 18% of the vote. Today, he has 25%.

Gen. MacArthur is now the third most popular Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie fourth.

Völkischer Beobachter (March 4, 1944)

Heuchlerische Phrasen und brutale Wirklichkeit

ln England und USA merkt man, daß sich der Wind dreht

Eine treffende Schilderung –
Der Invasionsgeneral

vb. Lissabon, 3. März –
Die englische Zeitschrift News Review beschreibt den Invasionsgeneral Eisenhower wie folgt:

In Afrika leuchtete er in flammenden Farben sogar in der Umgebung der farbenprächtigen Mittelmeerszenerie. Seine sorgfältig gebügelte Uniform schien immer eben erst vom Schneider gekommen zu sein. Die Falten seines Tropenhemdes saßen tadellos. Sein prächtiger, graubraun lackierter Wagen wurde von einem dunkelhaarigen, geschmeidigen und erstklassig gekleideten Mädchen geführt.

U.S. Navy Department (March 4, 1944)

CINCPAC Press Release No. 293

For Immediate Release
March 4, 1944

Army Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force on March 2 (West Longitude Date) dropped approximately 8 tons of bombs on runways and buildings at Ponape, and attacked shipping and dock areas at Kusaie.

Army Mitchell bombers and Navy search Venturas of Fleet Air Wing Two on the same date attacked two enemy‑held positions in the Eastern Marshall Islands with 17 tons of bombs, hitting airfields and starting fires.

Although some anti-aircraft fire was encountered, all of our planes returned safely.