America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

3953

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.

3954

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9430
Inspection by the Office of Price Administration of Corporation Statistical Transcript Cards Prepared from Income and Declared Value Excess-Profits Tax Returns 

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 7, 1944

By virtue of the authority vested in me by Sections 55 (a) and 603 of the Internal Revenue Code (53 Stat. 29, 111), it is hereby ordered that corporation statistical transcript cards prepared by the Bureau of Internal Revenue from corporation income and declared value excess- profits tax returns made under the Internal Revenue Code, as amended, for any taxable year ending after June 30, 1942, and before July 1, 1943, shall be open to inspection by the Office of Price Administration; such inspection to be in accordance and upon compliance with the rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury in Treasury Decision 5173, approved October 26, 1942, which relates to the inspection of similar cards for taxable years ending after June 1, 1941, and before July 1, 1942. This order shall be published in the FEDERAL REGISTER.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 7, 1944

3955

The Pittsburgh Press (March 7, 1944)

Yanks bag 176 planes, lose 78 over Berlin

Day attacks on continent continue; RAF hits yards near Paris
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

…

3956

In freezing rains –
Yanks attack inside Cassino

Street fighting breaks out; beachhead quiet
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer

…

3957

U.S. infantry entraps 2,000 Japs in Burma

Strong attempt by enemy to escape across river foiled

…

3958

Two girls, policemen slain –
Lieutenant’s orgy laid to jealousy

Married officer in love with young secretary

Riverside, California (UP) –
Army 2nd Lt. Beaufort G. Swancutt, 31, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, whose shooting orgy Sunday night resulted in the death of two girl companions and a Riverside policeman, will be tried for murder from his wounds, Camp Anza officials said today.

Lt. Swancutt’s unrequited love for a young secretary was blamed for the shooting which occurred at a party in the Camp Anza Officers’ Club.

Lt. Swancutt, who has a wife and two children at La Crosse, was seated with the two girls, Dorothy Evelyn Douglas, 19, and Lourdine Livermore, 18, both of Long Beach, and Lt. Harry J. Light of Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, when he suddenly opened fire with his .45-caliber service automatic killing the girls and wounded Lt. Light and another officer, Lt. Aldace M. Minard of Pomona, who was passing their table.

He then commandeered a car and forced the driver to take him to nearby Arlington, where he fatally wounded Patrolman A. B. Simpson before he fell critically wounded with three bullets in his abdomen.

Lt. Swancutt had been keeping company with Miss Douglas, a secretary at the Port of Embarkation where he previously had been stationed, for about three months, according to the official version of the shooting.

Miss Douglas and Miss Livermore had been invited to Camp Anza as guests of Lt. Light. The four had dinner together, the report said, and then Lt. Swancutt excused himself and went to his quarters, returning with his service automatic. He sat down again for a few moments and then jumped up, firing.

Crouching and backing toward the door, Lt. Swancutt held the rest of the crowd at bay in true movie fashion. He escaped to the officers’ quarters where he aroused his superior, Capt. Aubrey G. Serfling, 27, of Preston, Minnesota, and demanded another clip of cartridges for his gun.

Capt. Serfling denied him the bullets.

Leveling his gun, he screamed:

Why you ******! I’ve killed four others already tonight, and I won’t be alive by morning. I see no reason why you should be either.

Corporal wounded

He fired two shots into Capt. Serfling’s abdomen, grabbed another clip of cartridges and fled. He then encountered a group of soldiers attracted by the shots and held them at bay, firing once and wounding Cpl. Robert Simpson.

Waving his revolver, he forced Sgt. John E. Roberts to drive him to nearby Arlington, where he forced an approaching car to the curb in front of the police substation. In it were Ray Schlegel (Los Angeles aircraft worker), his wife and eight-month-old son and a sailor cousin.

Wife makes plea

Lt. Swancutt ordered the young aircraft worker out of the car despite pleas of his wife, who asked the officer to spare them because of their baby asleep on the rear seat.

Mrs. Schlegel said:

He pushed a gun into my husband’s side and told him to get back in the car and start driving where I tell you or I’ll shoot.”

Just then, Arlington police started to investigate and he opened fire on Schlegel, inflicting a flesh wound. He then whirled on the two policemen, killing Patrolman Simpson.

Asks for doctor

Simpson went down shooting, however, and the combined fire of the policeman and his companion, C. F. Cole, dropped Lt. Swancutt. Cole was also wounded in the brief battle.

Lt. Swancutt underwent a sudden change of heart as he fell to the street. He moaned:

I’ve been shot. Call a doctor.

Unofficial reports of the shooting said Lt. Swancutt apparently became morose over his failure to improve his relations with Miss Douglas because of his wife and children, and resented the attentions she paid to Lt. Light.

Aimed at girl

The jealously motive for the slaying was bolstered by the fact that his first shots were aimed at Miss Douglas.

Long Beach police said Lt. Swancutt had been booked there July 18 on battery and disorderly conduct charges, but they were dismissed when his unit was sent overseas. He had assaulted two patrolmen who had taken him into custody for molesting a woman at a bar, police said.

Released from jail to join Army

La Crosse, Wisconsin (UP) –
Lt. Beaufort Swancutt, who killed three persons in a shooting spree that started in an Army camp, was serving a 90-day jail term on a vagrant charge when he was released to join the Army in August 1942, Assistant Police Chief Aaron Sanford said today.

Sanford said police records in Swancutt’s hometown showed 15 entries against him, including six cases of “family trouble.” The entries included two attempts at suicide, larceny, and disorderly conduct, Sanford said.

Authorities said Swancutt’s wife once divorced him but remarried him. They have two sons, 10 and eight years old.

Lt. Swancutt was one of seven children of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Swancutt. His parents are separated.

One brother, Woodrow, formerly national collegiate boxing champion at the University of Wisconsin, is now in the Air Force and piloted Lord Louis Mountbatten, Allied military commander in India, during his visit to the United States.

3959

On New Guinea –
Allies effect new landing

Advances are also made in Admiralties
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer

…

3960

Adm. Nimitz: Jap heavy fleet units driven away from Truk

U.S. now has sufficient strength to meet enemy at sea at any time, chief says

…

3961

parry2

I DARE SAY —
Films for fighting men

By Florence Fisher Parry

I must get over a bad habit: sparing the movies whenever possible. They’re a pet of mine, as you all must know by this time; and whenever I have to pan them I notice that it comes hard. They’re doing such a grand job in wartime, and heaven knows there’s little that we can blame them for here on the home front.

No doubt they have problems beyond our power to imagine, in distribution of film to our combatants in far parts. But the fact is that they have NOT been getting new movie fare to our boys. They feed them good OLD feature pictures, 1940 to 1942 vintage, sometimes very much older, and a few new Class B discards.

But our boys far from home get practically no up-to-date Class A feature pictures, and they’re starving for them. Movies come next to letters from home. They’ll wait in line, they’ll sit in the rain, they’ll squat on the ground dry OR wet, they’ll ensure these hardships gladly for the chance to see a movie – and what do they get? Leftovers and stale outdated newsreels and double feature fill-ins.

This is not so at our Army camps here at home. The boys get the latest and best. But imagine a fellow in some Pacific island or bleak Aleutian outpost waiting for ours in line to see some politician back in 1941 addressing a meeting, or a peacetime feature picture fill of anachronisms that throw out the movie’s whole mood!

No war stuff!

And if and when we DO manage to get our boys up-to-date pictures, let us hope that they will be selected with some discrimination. Their tastes are not our tastes, their needs not out needs. Even their sense of humor has changed. They need healthy pictures full of action, fun and music. Obviously they don’t want war stuff unless it’s really fine. And even then, they don’t like it.

Up home a man who has been discharged some time now after having won the Purple Heart because of a bad wound sustained in one of the landings in North Africa was reproached:

You haven’t seen Casablanca! Why, what an omission! It got the Academy Award as the best picture of the year!

“Yeah,” he replied laconically.

Well then, why don’t you go to see it? It’s here now.

“Oh,” he yawned, “I was there.”

And when I told a young major in the Marines, just returned home after 18 months in the Southwest Pacific, about that wonderful Technicolor newsreel of the landing at Tarawa, now showing in Pittsburgh, he said:

Yes, I’ve heard about it. But the part I know about wasn’t in the picture. It was cut, for obvious reasons.

You could tell by his eyes what the “obvious” reasons were. We think we are tough on the home front, but we’re soft and still afraid to face what combat means.

Tune in!

In reply to a recent column in which I confused that I had had to tune out every sermon I’d tuned into on a certain Sunday, I got a number of really helpful letters recommending programs I’d evidently missed. Here are some of them:

  • The Pilgrim Hour, 2:00 p.m. Sunday, WCAE.
  • The Old-Fashioned Revival, 7:00 p.m. Sunday, WCAE.
  • The Catholic Hour, 6:00 p.m. Sunday, KDKA.
  • Bishop Pardue’s broadcast, 10:30 p.m. Monday, WCAE.
3962

U.S. indicts janitor in librarian’s death

…

3963

REA official’s ouster sought by Roosevelt

Electrification job offered to ex-Senator Norris, Senators told

…

3964

In mercy trial –
Witness tells of boy’s burns

Marks on Noxon child’s arm described

…

3965

‘Friendly ties’ to U.S. cited by Argentina

New government to keep Ramirez policies, leader says
By Armando Cosani, United Press staff writer

…

3966

Allied shipping ‘much better’

But Briton says Nazis are improving U-boats
By Joseph W. Grigg, United Press staff writer

…

3967

20 seized by U.S. in polygamy case

…

3968

In Washington –
House members draft veteran bonus measure

Would distribute $30 billion to honorably discharged men

…

3969

americavotes1944

Soldier vote bill agreement by conferees due

State ballot advocates expected to consent to amendment

Washington (UP) –
Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI) said today there was a good possibility that Senate and House conferees would reach final agreement on the soldier vote bill before nightfall.

State ballot advocates were expected to agree to an amendment under which the federal ballot, restricted now to overseas troops, could be used within the United States by servicemen whose states do not have absentee ballots – Kentucky and New Mexico.

Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM) approved the amendment as the only step outside of a special session by his state’s legislature that would enable New Mexico servicemen to vote.

While most conferees favored the amendment, Senator Green objected, saying it discriminated in favor of New Mexicans as against men from other states.

Under the bill, the federal ballot would be used by servicemen overseas who apply for a state absentee ballot by Sept. 1 but do not receive it by Oct. 1.

A minor change made yesterday fixed July 15 instead of Aug, 1 as the date by which state governors must certify that federal ballots will be accepted for counting under their state law.

Dewey calls for law to give soldiers vote

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey called upon the Republican-controlled legislature today to pass a soldier-vote law which will assure men and women in the Armed Forces the right to mark ballots “free from partisan exploitation or perversion.”

In a special message to the Senate and Assembly, Governor Dewey asked enactment of a plan which calls for:

  • Every member of the armed services desiring to vote would simply send to the Secretary of State of New York, his name, home address and service address.

  • The War Ballot Commission to forward the postcards to the local election boards.

  • The election boards would then mail directly to the soldier voter, a ballot and a self-addressed return envelope, all of a size and weight complying with the wishes of the Army and Navy.

  • The soldier or sailor upon receiving his ballot would mark it for any or every officer and mail it to the War Ballot Commission which would forward all the ballots to the proper election boards to be counted.

3970

Press subsidy sponsors lose one argument

E Bond buyers in their states exceed quota without paid ads
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

…

3971

Rudy Vallee’s bride of 3 months to sue

…

3972

Fan letters deluge Shirley, long absent from the films

…