Kyser a pre-Pearl Harbor camp show performer
By Jean Irving
…
Millett: If we could grow up!
Mature brain work would be helpful
By Ruth Millett
…
Bill McKechnie’s magic touch with pitchers to get workout this year
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead, Italy – (by wireless)
About 13 months ago I struggled one forenoon into a cactus patch about halfway between Sbeitla and Faid Pass, in Tunisia.
Hidden in that patch was all that was left of an armored combat team which had been overrun the day before, when the Germans made the famous surprise breakthrough which led finally to our retreat through Kasserine Pass.
A few of you more tenacious readers may remember my writing about this bunch at the time. I found them almost in a daze – and a very justifiable one, too, for they had been fleeing and groping their way across the desert for a day and a night, cut to pieces, and with the swarming Germans relentlessly upon them.
The few who escaped had never expected to survive at all, and on that weary morning they were hardly able to comprehend that they were still alive.
I had good friends in that gang, and I’ve just seen them again after 13 months. Talk about your family reunions! It was like Old Home Week for a while.
I stayed with them two days, and we fought the Tunisian wars over and over again. I can just visualize us on some far day when we cross each other’s paths back in America, boring our families and friends to distraction with our longwinded recounting and arguments about some afternoon in Tunisia.
Satch and the helmet
Maj. Rollin Elkins, sometimes known in fact as R. Lafayette Elkins, used to be a professor at Texas A&M College Station, Texas. He is one of this old gang. His nickname is “Satch,” and he goes around in the green two-piece coverall of the infantry. Everybody loves him.
That memorable night in Tunisia I excitedly went away and left my helmet and shovel lying under a halftrack in which Maj. Elkins was sleeping, and never saw them again. In our reminiscing I told the major how last fall, when I was home, several people told me that this steel helmet was now in somebody’s house out on Long Island. How it got there I haven’t the remotest idea.
But I’ve got another helmet now, and Satch Elkins has another halftrack, “Bird Dog the Second,” to replace the old one that was shot out from under him that awful Tunisian afternoon.
I saw Sgt. Pat Donadeo of Allison Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh, who is one of the best mess sergeants overseas. He has lived in the field for nearly two years, cooking in a truck on his portable kitchen, turning out excellent meals, and always having a snack for a correspondent, no matter what hour you show up.
District man forager
Sgt. Donadeo looks a little thinner, but he’s still all right. He speaks good Italian, and since hitting Italy, he has come into his own. He makes little foraging trips and comes back with such delicacies as fresh eggs, chicken, olive oil and cows.
In an earlier column, Ernie predicted that Sgt. Donadeo would be a valuable man when he got to Italy. The Pittsburgher was mentioned in two columns written in Tunisia in February and April of 1943.
And there’s Lt. Col. Daniel Talbot, who owns a big cattle ranch outside of Fort Worth, Texas. His nickname is “Pinky,” and he doesn’t look like a warrior at all, but he is.
Col. Talbot used to have a driver named Manuel Gomez from Laredo, Texas. One afternoon beyond Sidi Bouzid, a year ago, the three of us drove up to the foothills so we could look down over the valley where the Germans were. Shells were falling in the valley, and every time we’d hear one, we’d ditch the jeep and start for the gulleys, although they’d actually be landing a mile away from us.
Pvt. Gomez is still driving for the colonel, and the three of us laughed today at our inexperience and nervousness so long ago. None of us has got brave in the meantime, but all of us have enriched our knowledge of shell sounds. Today we think it’s far away when a shell missed by 200 yards.
Our tanks haven’t had much chance to do their stuff in the Italian war, because of the mountainous terrain and the incessant rains. But the tankers are ready, and they’re hoping. They know that sooner or later their big battle here on the beachhead will come. When I walked in, they laughed and said:
This must be it. Every time you’d show up in Tunisia, we’d have a battle. This must be the sign.
So you see I have my life work cut out for me. I just go around the country starting battles, like a nasty little boy, and then immediately run back and hide.
Raid explanation asked by Swiss
Washington (UP) –
Swiss Minister Charles Bruggmann yesterday made oral representations to Secretary of State Cordell Hull about the accidental bombing of the Swiss border village of Schaffhausen by U.S. Liberator bombers on April 1.
The representations were understood to be preliminary to a formal note for the record. The United States had already presented its regrets both to the Swiss Legation in London and to the Swiss Foreign Office in Berne, and Mr. Hull had issued a statement expressing regret and pledging indemnity.
Mr. Bruggmann, it was said, sought an explanation as to how the accident occurred. Mr. Hull had said previously that an unfortunate series of events caused the mistakes leading up to the tragedy.
The minister also asked that measures be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future and was said to have accepted Mr. Hull’s statement that reparations will be made as far as is “humanly possible.”
67 Japs found on four atolls
Marines find fifth in Marshalls unoccupied
By Malcolm R. Johnson, United Press staff writer
…
Merchant Marine recruiting reopens
Applicants will be shipped out at once
…
Raise approved for miners of hard coal
Ickes soon may lift his federal control
…
Völkischer Beobachter (April 9, 1944)
Unaufhaltsamer Vormarsch in Indien –
Kohima eingenommen
…
Er hat genug vom Pazifik
…
U.S. Navy Department (April 9, 1944)
Joint Statement
For Immediate Release
April 9, 1944
The following joint Anglo‑American statement on submarine and anti-submarine operations is issued under the authority of the President and the Prime Minister:
March was an active month in the war against the U‑boats which operated in widely dispersed areas from the Barents Sea to the Indian Ocean.
The enemy has persevered vainly in strenuous endeavors to disrupt our flow of supplies to Russia by the northern route.
Our merchant shipping losses were mainly incurred in far distant seas. Though a little higher than in February, they were still low and the rate of sinking U‑boats was fully maintained.
The Allied merchant fleet continues to improve both in quantity and quality, but the strength of the U‑boat force remains considerable and calls for powerful efforts by surface and air forces.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 344
For Immediate Release
April 9, 1944
Operations to soften up Truk continued. Moen and Dublon Islands in the Truk Atoll were bombed by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force at night on April 7 (West Longitude Date). At Moen, the airstrip was bombed and at Dublon, wharfs and fuel reservoirs were hit.
Single Liberators from the same force bombed alternate targets at Oroluk, Ponape and Ujelang.
Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force escorted by Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing also bombed and strafed Ponape on April 7 (West Longitude Date). Antiaircraft fire was moderate.
Four enemy‑held atolls in the Marshalls were bombed and strafed by Mitchells of the 7th Army Air Force, Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and Navy Hellcat fighters. At one objective, a large explosion was observed near hangars, and at another, explosions and fires were caused among barracks, warehouses, and gun emplacements. Anti-aircraft fire ranged from moderate to meager.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 9, 1944)
YANKS DOWNS 92 NAZI PLANES
Raiders lose 34 bombers; Brunswick hit
25 Allied fighters also missing
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
…
Battle with grenades –
Allies gain mile on beachhead
Artillery bombards Nazi left flank
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
…
British smash attacks in India
Large-scale battle near in Imphal area
By Darrell Berrigan, United Press staff writer
…