Editorial: Mr. Daniels will talk
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Ferguson: Voting privileges
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Considering the many rights a nation takes away from its soldiers, the right to vote must seem trivial to fighting men. They’ve been asked to give up their rights to a normal life, business, education, careers, even their lives, yet a great many people talk as if justice will be theirs if only they can mark a ballot in 1944. I dare say this sounds fantastic to one who ventures daily over enemy territory or plods through mud in the face of shellfire.
We’re up against a tough problem. Millions of qualified voters will be away from home on election day. No matter what sort of scheme is worked out, a great many will be unable to vote. And there’s nothing we can do about it except go to the polls ourselves.
Here is a responsibility the civilian must be ready to carry. Instead of wasting so much talk about getting ballots to the boys it would be better, I think, to pledge ourselves to approach this election without party prejudice.
Women will have the preponderance of voting power this year. Yet thousands have never taken an interest in politics. While Johnny is off saving the USA in many an instance, his mother is complacent to let the Republican get along without her taking the trouble to vote intelligently.
This is no way for Americans to perform, especially in such crucial times. Love of country can be proved in no better way than by a study of pending political issues, and by voting for what one believes to be the right ones.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
At this airfield, from which A-20 light bombers fly, breakfast is finished at 7:30. But even before that the squadron commanders and operations officers have driven in jeeps around to the other side of the field to get briefs from the group staff on the morning’s mission.
Each squadron in the group lives in a separate area. They form three distinct families, which fuse into one big unit only when they are in the air.
The plane crews assemble around the operations tent immediately after breakfast. They pick up their parachutes and their new flak vests from a nearby tent. They stand around outside zipping on their heavy flying clothes while they await the call to briefing.
Pretty soon it comes and they crowd into the tent and sit on rows of frag-bomb boxes, as in a little school. The squadron intelligence officer gets up on a low platform and starts talking.
They say this officer’s briefings are the best in the group. I’ve attended scores of briefings in England and Africa, and usually they’re repetitious and dull. But this squadron’s briefings are interesting. The intelligence officer is intensely thorough. The crews get a detailed picture of what they’re to do. And above all he is honest.
Briefing includes war news resume
One of the gunners said to me:
Some briefing officers will tell you flatly you won’t get any flak, and then when you get there it just pours up. Now our intelligence officer, he’ll say:
I don’t think you’ll get much flak today, but you know the Germans have mobile ack-ack, and they can concentrate it overnight, so watch out.
One thing in his briefing is a resumé of the war news. This is being done more and more in the Army, and it is important, because any soldier likes to know what is going on around him.
He gives the whole Italian war situation, both ground and air, of the previous 24 hours. He tells them also any news that has come from England or Russia.
Then he goes into the briefing. Behind him are a big map and two big blackboards. The map is of central Italy. He points out the target on the map.
Then on the blackboard is drawn in chalk a detailed map of the target area. This sketch covers an area 40 or 50 miles square. It invariably includes the coastline, so that crews can orient the target with the coast.
‘Blown-up’ sketch of target area
The second blackboard has a “blown-up” sketch of the target area, covering territory only a couple of miles square. It contains full details for helping the crews identify the target when they get there, such as exact towns and roads, little lakes, groves of trees, and even an isolated white farmhouse.
When the intelligence officer is through, the flight leader gets up. Usually that is Capt. Gene Vance from Pueblo, Colorado, who used to be a newspaperman himself.
Capt. Vance tells them what type of bomb they’re carrying, and how many fighters and what kind will be escorting them. He also goes into great detail on just how each flight will “break away” out of the bomb run,” plus a few methods to avoid flak.
He advises what route to take home if anybody gets lost. Sometimes they have to throw out bundles of pamphlets as well as drop bombs, and he advises the exact formation to fly so that the bundle won’t hit the following plane.
At the end, he gives them a time set. Everybody looks at his watch and Capt. Vance says:
It is now 23 seconds till 10 minutes to 9. It is now 20 seconds–15 seconds–10 seconds–5–4–3–2–1. Check. Ten minutes to 9.
The crews, looking sober, file out and get into their trucks.
Stokes: Molding planks
By Thomas L. Stokes
Washington –
Republicans are trying something new in platform-making this year which reflects the stern and changing times and a sense of responsibility in looking forward to possible control of the government.
Already they are beginning to explore the issues, preparatory to outlining the party’s stand, instead of following the procedure customary in both parties of waiting until the convention assembles and then, under tense and wearying conditions, throwing together a jumble of words that few read and fewer pay any attention to afterward.
This new procedure grew out of the Mackinac Conference last September at which the Republican Post-war Advisory Council appointed eight committees to study current problems and draft reports and recommendations for the guidance of the resolutions committee at the convention. Since that time, a crew of researchers has been busy.
Over the weekend there came from National Chairman Harrison E. Spangler the announcement that the Committee on Agriculture, headed by Governor Hickenlooper of Iowa, will hold public hearings in Chicago April 3 and 4 in its search for facts.
Assembled there to present their viewpoints and be questioned about farm programs and policies will be representatives of the National Grange, American Farm Bureau Federation, Farmers’ Union, National Council of Co-Operatives and National Co-Operative Milk Producers Federation.
This is the first of such meetings by the eight committees. The others deal with foreign policy and international relations; social welfare and security; post-war enterprises, industry and employment; finance, taxation and money; reform of government administration; labor, and international economic problems.
Through this procedure the party has an opportunity to perform a real service, if it capitalizes upon the earnest work of the committees, and does not brush them aside as it did the work of the Glenn Frank Committee several years ago.
The late Glenn Frank, then president of the University of Wisconsin, headed a committee which drafted a comprehensible report – some 200 pages – on the issues of that time, with recommendations, but it was politely laid aside. It did have some effect through publicity of its findings.
If the other committees this year follow the example set by the one on agriculture and hold public hearings, so that publicity may be given their findings and recommendations, the convention may feel some effects through enlightenment and pressure that will make the platform an illuminating document that means something.
The public seems in a mood this year to demand frankness and explicitness, with little patience for meaningless and glittering phrases.
The Republican Party might very well throw away what looks like an excellent opportunity to return to power if it does not follow through with this opportunity to make its position clear.
Peggy Hull: A palm tree is able to grow a new frond, but a fighting man who has lost a hand…
A wounded G.I. thinks of his beautiful wife, then considers his own disfiguration
By Peggy Hull, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Pravda prints interview with Eric Johnston
Chamber head predicts expansion of trade with Russia
Moscow, USSR (UP) –
Pravda published today a lengthy interview with Eric Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce obtained by a TASS correspondent in Washington, in which Mr. Johnston predicted large increases in trade between the United States and Soviet Russia in the post-war era.
Mr. Johnston was quoted:
American business circles warmly greet the victories of the Red Army. They are proud of the fact that the production of United States industry helped Russian victories over the common enemy.
This is another proof of the fact that the industrial power and almost inexhaustible resources of the United States and the Soviet Union can effectively complement each other in war as well as in peace.
I know American industrialists. They want to sell their productions and buy various materials in the world market. They believe they must export goods and services, but not export goods and services, but not export our ideology or political vies. It would be unrealistic not to admit the basic difference between the American and Soviet systems.
After the war, one should expect wide possibilities for the profitable exchange of goods and services between the two countries. The Soviet Union has many materials which American industry will need, and on the other hand there are evident possibilities that United States machinery and technical skill can be used by the Soviet Union where it sets itself to the task of reconstruction.
In the past, the volume of trade between the two countries was considerable, but one can believe the post-war era will bring a widening, increasing volume. It is necessary for both parties to work out suitable trade policies quickly and agree on credits.
‘Give us voice’ in draft cases, UAW head asks
Some employers use power to oust union member, he charges
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Gripsholm sails with 796 aboard
Lisbon, Portugal (UP) –
The Swedish exchange ship Gripsholm, carrying 796 North and South American repatriates and 15 special passengers, sailed today for New York.
The repatriates included diplomats and civilians who had been in internment camps in France and Germany. They were exchanged for an equal number of Germans who came here aboard the Gripsholm from the United States.
Among the last to arrive was John Brown, 58, a native of Portland, Oregon, who estimated that there were still 280 men – most of them Brazilians, Cubans, Hawaiians, Filipinos – at Compiegne, France.
The youngest of the repatriates is four-month-old Edwige Derkes, who was born in Vittel, France. Her parents, Joseph and Jadwiga Derkes of New Britain, Connecticut, have two other children and for all of them they received about a pint of milk daily, although the baby seemed in good health despite the hardships.
Hendrik James Vantvelt, a native of the Panama Canal Zone, said the Germans were flooding North Holland in preparing defenses for an expected Allied invasion and have the Dutch furious because the seawater ruins the soil and will make it useless for at least 10 years.
Völkischer Beobachter (March 7, 1944)
Abgekartetes Spiel mit der italienischen Flotte –
Der Verräter fühlt sich betrogen
Von unserem Berichterstatter in der Schweiz
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Neuyorker Betrachtungen –
Die Gefahren der Invasion
Lissabon, 6. März –
In einem Aufsatz der Neuyorker Zeitschrift Foreign Affairs über die Aussichten einer „zweiten Front“ heißt es, über die Schwierigkeiten eines solchen Unternehmens sei man sich absolut im Klaren. So schreibt der Verfasser:
Die größte Aufgabe liegt noch vor uns. Die Bildung einer zweiten Front in Westeuropa wäre der Schlußstein unserer gesamten Strategie. Wenn sie fehlschlägt – und sie kann fehlschlagen – dann sind wir erledigt.
Als eine der größten Schwierigkeiten der Invasion sieht der Verfasser des Aufsatzes den Mangel an geeigneten Offizieren an. Er stellt fest, daß schon viele US-Offiziere auf dem Schlachtfeld wegen Unfähigkeit abgelöst werden mußten. So wird diese
Tatsache kommentiert:
In der Schule der blutigen Erfahrung haben wir bittere Lektionen gelernt und eine davon war die alte Lehre von der absoluten Notwendigkeit einer kompetenten Führung.
Britentruppen erstaunlich schwach
dnb. Stockholm, 6. März –
Der Neuyorker Korrespondent von Dagens Nyheter berichtet, daß die Amerikaner mit den bisherigen britischen Leistungen in Burma nicht zufrieden seien. Der führende US-Rundfunkkommentator Raymond Gram Swing erklärte dieser Tage, daß die in Burma eingesetzten britischen Truppen erstaunlich schwach seien. Die Amerikaner verspürten deshalb eine wachsende Enttäuschung, weil eine Voraussetzung für die Erreichung der strategischen Ziele der USA gegen Japan die Wiedereroberung Burmas sei. Das nordamerikanische Volk sei sehr verstimmt darüber, daß der britische Kriegseinsatz in Ostasien in keiner Weise mit dem der Amerikaner zu vergleichen sei.
Der bekannte Leitartikler Constantin Brown schrieb vor kurzem, daß Wavell einen großen Teil der zur Verfügung stehenden britischen Truppen in Anspruch nehme, um Ruhe und Ordnung in Indien aufrecht erhalten zu können. Infolgedessen könne Mountbatten die für seinen Feldzug in Burma nötigen Truppen einfach nicht bekommen. Viele Amerikaner meinten, daß die Engländer eine andere und bessere Politik in Indien versuchen sollten, dann könnten sie genügend Truppen für Burma frei machen.
U.S. Navy Department (March 7, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 297
For Immediate Release
March 7, 1944
Seven enemy‑held positions in the Central Pacific were attacked by aircraft of the 7th Army Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Two on March 5 (West Longitude Date).
Army Liberator bombers dropped approximately 30 tons of bombs on Ponape and Kusaie, damaging ground installations, aviation facilities and harbor areas. Heavy explosions were seen near the airfield at Ponape. Navy search Liberators also bombed Nauru.
Army Mitchell bombers, Dauntless dive‑bombers, Warhawk fighters, Navy Hellcats and search Venturas bombed and strafed four enemy‑held atolls in the Eastern Marshalls with approximately 35 tons of bombs.
Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered. Two Hellcats failed to return to their base.