Riddled by Nazi cannon –
Gunner on Flying Steve fights to live, fly again
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer
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Riddled by Nazi cannon –
U.S. casualties total 168,292
Washington (UP) –
Announced U.S. casualties since the start of the war today totaled 168,292 – 39,624 killed, 61,117 wounded, 35,783 missing and 31,768 prisoners of war.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said Army casualties as of March 7 were 126,193 – 21,737 killed, 50,363 wounded, 26,747 missing and 27,346 prisoners of war. On Feb. 29, the Army total was 123,054.
The total announced Navy casualties – Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps – today are 42,099. They comprise 17,887 dead, 10,754 wounded, 9,036 missing and 4,422 prisoners of war.
Of the Army wounded, Mr. Stimson said 26,459 have been returned to duty. The International Red Cross has reported that 1,674 of the prisoners died of diseases in prison camps – mostly in Japanese-held territory.
The latest reports from Italy, he said, place total Army casualties there at 39,058 – 5,749 killed, 23,035 wounded and 10,274 missing.
Chaplin admits affairs with Joan
But New York charges are firmly denied
By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer
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I DARE SAY —
The new usefulness
By Florence Fisher Parry
I am glad to see, at long last, in the news, admissions of our own losses. I think we are all beginning to realize that every time we read of 20,000 Nazis being killed here and 10,000 Japs being killed there, it means that the cost has been heavy in our own men, too.
It is disturbing to know that even after the fearful and costly bombing of Cassino, the Germans still were there, able to fight, able to put up grim and successful resistance.
Every day we read of more thousands of Nazis killed in Russia’s latest offensive. Every day we read that Berlin is a dead city, as well as most of her sister cities, but our losses are hidden in little, deceptive, obscure lines.
So it is more of a relief than a shock when we come upon a really unsparing analysis of our cost in bombers and fighters, and more important of all, in our men – the cost that we have sustained in the raiding of Berlin.
I do not know how realistically the British government deals with the RAF losses, but for months, we who have our own loved ones based in England and know they have been participating in this preliminary invasion – we have been angered by the deceptive “scores” that have been set down in the reports.
We read that we have lost “only” 193 planes to Germany’s 324 in the four daylight bombings of Berlin alone. But we know that the 324 German planes were single-seater fighters, and that the great majority of our own were heavy bombers carrying 10 or 11 men each.
The real loss
So, what the figures really mean is that in four Berlin raids, the Germans lost 324 small fighter planes and far fewer than that number of men, whereas we lost 1,494 airmen and $27.5 million worth of bombers and fighters! Seven million dollars a day and 376 airmen a day for four days over Berlin!
Yet this loss is as nothing compared with the truly horrible loss sustained in the early days of our air battle over Europe, when whole squadrons of our men were wiped out, and only a few of an entire group remained. That was at the beginning, when the terrible necessity of using our first fliers as guinea pigs for experimental flights had to be.
I never see a motion picture or a newsreel showing a flight formation five miles high that I do not find myself wondering what terra firma can ever offer to these birdmen, when the day comes for them to relinquish the fearsome challenge of the stratosphere! I am afraid we will have to give them a very splendid world; for it would be too much for them to have fought off their high weird kind of death successfully, only to descend into contemptable, dreary living again.
The other day I happened to be where a group of men my own age – and younger – were met together, a group composed of Veterans of Foreign Wars. Every man there had known both the flavor and the gall of combat, and has tasted of its dregs, when the cup was drunk and they were “returned to the peace” that they had fought to win.
Ordeal
And now, fathers themselves of young combatants deep in another and more fearsome war, they were facing an ordeal harder to bear than that which they, themselves, had endured 25 years ago! They were having to unlock that secret compartment of the past where they had packed away forever (or, so they had thought), the intolerable past. As fathers of these boys, as employers of these boys, as associates of these boys, come peace again, they would have to speak again that secret language of war and take these boys into that exclusive brotherhood which we, on the outside, call “war veterans,” but which could be another breed or men upon another planet!
And it seemed to me, looking at them, that the task ahead for them was very great, for they will be the only ones truly able to understand and ably help these boys who are even now being returned to us, casualties. They will be the only ones to whom our young veterans can speak the new and bitter language of war.
We would do well to look to these men, these veterans of other wars, for advice and guidance as we face post-war problems, for only they are in position to understand the haze and maze confronting our returned soldiers.
So, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Legionnaires, and every group of men who have known and who have spoken the language of the last war – your work is cut out for you! These kids will need your help and you can give it to them as can no other!
Volcanic ash covers towns
Eight streams of lava pour from Vesuvius
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
On the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, Italy –
Weary villagers in the Pompeii-Salerno aera today were digging out from a “lizard” of volcanic ash that swirled from Vesuvius in the last 12 hours.
Layers of ash three to 18 inches thick blocked highway traffic and threatened to cave in roofs.
Eight streams of lava were pouring down from the volcano. The main stream, 1,000 feet wide and 50 feet high, was on the southern slope and appeared headed halfway between the towns of Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata.
Sluggish during the early days of the eruption, the main stream has increased in volume and was expected to reach the sea within three days if it maintains its present rate of flow. The town of Boscotrecase was in its path.
Jeeps struck
The road circling Vesuvius was cut by ash so deep that Army jeeps could not get through and had to be hauled out by trucks. Army trucks were called out to open the road. Ash was also reported blocking traffic on the main Torre Annunziata-Salerno highway.
Prof. Giuseppe Imbò of the Royal Italian Observatory estimated Vesuvius has been emitting one million cubic yards of lava, smoke and ash hourly since Saturday.
King visits scene
King Victor Emmanuel spent the afternoon visiting the sites of what had once been San Sebastiano and Massa di Somma.
‘What are we fighting for?’
Soldier sit-down revealed as coal strike protest
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Paul denies ‘rift’ led to resignation
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7 states accept federal ballot
40 may spurn it; one unreported
Washington (UP) –
Formal replies from all except one state showed today that only seven governors have given President Roosevelt definite assurance they will permit overseas servicemen from their states to use the federal war ballot if the President signs the pending soldier vote bill.
Only South Carolina remained to be heard from after the White House announced that replies had been received yesterday from Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming, Michigan and Oregon. Of these, only Texas Governor Coke Stevenson gave flat assurance that his state would permit use of the federal ballot.
Two take stand
Meanwhile, North Dakota and Nevada, which previously were undecided, indicated they probably would not permit use of the federal ballot.
Mr. Roosevelt, still nursing a head cold and confined to his study, perused the 47 replies to determine whether he should sign or veto the bill. He must act by midnight of March 31 or the measure becomes law without his signature.
State lineup
Here is how the states stand on the federal ballot issue:
- Definitely will accept: Seven.
- Will not accept: 15.
- Probably will not accept: Eight.
- Will make efforts to permit use of federal ballot: 13.
- Will use only if necessary: Two.
- Undecided: Two.
- Unreported: One.
President Roosevelt has received telegrams from 856 individuals asking that he veto the bill and telegrams from four persons urging him to sign it, the White House said.
Willkie defies GOP elders, draws his largest crowd
Sheboygan, Wisconsin (UP) –
Wendell Willkie continued his pre-convention swing of Wisconsin last night as he addressed the largest audience of his delegate-getting campaign despite refusal of local Republican Party leaders, reportedly favorable to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, to sponsor his appearance.
More than 5,000 persons attended the meeting after young GOP organizations leaders assumed arrangements for the rally.
Mr. Willkie lashed out at isolationist elements in Wisconsin and the Midwest and against charged that Robert R. McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, was subversive to the nation’s welfare.
The 1940 Republican standard-bearer called for the election of a GOP slate of delegates from Wisconsin that would prove that “the Republican Party wants America to assume its true position in the world.”
Denies bid to Smith
The presidential aspirant asserted that unless such action is taken, the Republicans cannot win.
Mr. Willkie said:
I want to see the Republican Party not only win in 1944, but I want to see the Republican Party deserve to win.
In an earlier address at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the candidate branded as a falsehood the statement by Gerald L. K. Smith that Willkie agents had offered the America First Party leader “anything you want” to cooperate with the Willkie campaign.
Mr. Willkie said:
No authorized agent of mine ever approached Smith. In Detroit, last June, when his crowd picketed the hotel at which I stopped, I thanked him for his opposition and expressed the hope it would continue.
8-point program given
Mr. Willkie proposed an eight-point program for the employment of returning servicemen and displaced war workers.
The program embodies a post-war tax program to encourage individual initiative and incentive; prompt liquidation of war contracts; a political atmosphere not hostile to business; vigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, and maintenance of a high wage level.
Also included are plans for the protection of farmers against a downward price spiral; the joint cooperation of world nations for increased trade and commerce, and a competent national administration working for efficiency and economy in government and unity of the people.
Willkie loses ground in poll of delegates
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Wendell Willkie lost ground as a Republican presidential choice in the last three polls conducted among 1940 GOP National Convention delegates, and revealed today by James S. Kemper, president of the Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company.
The poll showed an improvement in the standings of Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Governor John Bricker and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Mr. Dewey maintained his first-place spot with 66.6% of the vote, while Mr. Willkie polled 15.7%, Mr. Bricker 14% and Gen. MacArthur 3.7%.
Governor Earl Warren of California was top choice among the last convention’s delegates as the vice-presidential candidate.
In Washington –
Attack on TVA called tragic by La Follette
McKellar’s plan termed disaster
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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U.S. Steel’s output cut 318,000 tons by strikes during 1943
Subsidiaries’ walkouts also cost 2.6 million tons of coal and 4,845,000 man-hours
By Dale McFeatters, Press business editor
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Battle to break pay formula likely to go to Roosevelt
WLB’s compromise on raise demands points to final decision by President
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Next inauguration slated for television broadcast
Hollywood, California (UP) –
The next presidential inauguration and possibly the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions will be broadcast by television, Niles Trammell, president of NBC, said today.
He said:
Television is now definitely in the cards. Families will be able to buy television sets for $100 to $200 after the war.
NBC has invested $10 million in television research and will spend another $10 million in post-war expansion, Mr. Trammell said.