America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

5616

U.S. Navy Department (April 15, 1944)

CINCPAC Press Release No. 355

For Immediate Release
April 15, 1944

Maj. Gen. Willis H. Hale, USA, on May 1, will assume new duties as the Commander Shore-Based Air Force, Forward Area, Central Pacific. He will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. R. W. Douglas, USA, who will serve as Acting Commanding General, 7th Air Force.

RAdm. John H. Hoover, USN, former Commander Aircraft, Central Pacific, will assume duties as Commander Forward Area, Central Pacific. RAdm. Hoover will exercise command over all forces assigned to the Forward Area, including shore-based air forces.

In his new command Maj. Gen. Hale will coordinate the operations and logistic support of all shore‑based Army, Navy and Marine Corps combat aviation in the Forward Area, Central Pacific.

CINCPAC Press Release No. 357

For Immediate Release
April 15, 1944

Eniwetok Atoll was attacked by enemy bombers before dawn on April 14 (West Longitude Date). Night fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing intercepted the enemy force and shot down two planes and probably shot down another. All bombs landed in the water.

Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four bombed Shimushu and Paramushiru in the Kuriles during the night of April 13‑14 (West Longitude Date). Liberator bombers of the 11th Army Air Force bombed Onekotan and Paramushiru the same night. Anti-aircraft fire was meager.

5617

The Pittsburgh Press (April 15, 1944)

U.S. fliers blast Romania

Bucharest and Ploești hit by 500 Liberators and Fortresses from Italy
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

…

5618

Allies hammer 3 Italian ports

1,400 planes batter Nazi supply lines
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

…

5619

Japs 10 miles from Indian base

Enemy losing heavily in attack on Imphal

…

5620

Aussies closing on Guinea base

Yanks hit Paramushiru in North Pacific
By the United Press

…

Adm. King: Jap fleet refuses to join in sea battle

…

5621

U.S. to occupy Southwest –
Spheres of control in post-war Germany drafted by ‘Big Three’

Eisenhower gets unprecedented authority over Europe in allied armistice plan
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer

London, England –
Allied Advisory Commission plans for governing Germany under the post-war armistice were understood today to call for U.S. occupation of Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Saxony, comprising most of the Southwest Reich.

The framework of a strict Anglo-American-Russian military government for Germany after the defeat of the Nazis were understood to be almost complete after each of the Big Three had submitted proposals calculated to give Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower unprecedented authority over Europe.

Under the proposed plans, it was understood, Russia would occupy Germany up to the Oder, running through Silesia and to the North Sea at Stettin, while Britain would take over Northwest Germany.

All three Allied powers would participate in the occupation of Berlin, reliable reports of the planning by the Advisory Commission said.

The Rhineland would be under joint occupation by the United States and Britain.

The British proposals were understood to have suggested that the Americans occupy Austria, but Russia was said to have favored a three-way occupation.

The first suggestions to the Advisory Committee from Russia, Britain and the United States were submitted a month ago.

The first drafts of the British and Russian suggestions were understood to have been made, followed within a few days by those from the United States.

5622

Crowley: Misuse of Lend-Lease are fictions

…

UMW cheated on back pay, Lewis claims

‘Unrest’ reported in coal fields

…

5623

Sgt. Kelly upsets ‘welcome’ plans

He’s on way home, arrival indefinite

…

5624

Two plants taken over by Roosevelt

Companies refuse to heed WLB

…

5625

Serbs aid crews of 2 U.S. planes

By the United Press

Units of Gen. Draža Mihailović’s Royal Yugoslav troops have rescued the crews of two U.S. planes in Serbia, according to dispatches broadcast yesterday to the United Press in New York by Democratic Yugoslavia, agency of Gen. Mihailović.

A plane piloted by a Lt. John Lendstra was reported to have been forced down April 6 at the village of Venchani, 29 miles south of Belgrade. Under the pilot’s directions, the plane was dismantled and “hidden in a secure place,” a communiqué said.

The crew of eight of a U.S. bomber, reported to have been shot down by the Germans over Serbia on its return April 4 from a raid on the Ploești oil fields in Romania, was said to have been rescued and given first aid after landing by parachute.

5626

Judge cleared in Chaplin case

…

5627

In Washington –
Nelson spurns NAM slam to push reconversion plan

Objection is ignored by WPB chief; labor, industry, farm leaders to serve

…

5628

Field urges world security as peace basis

Publisher favors army of occupation

…

Post-war unity is urged by Hull

Solidarity now cited as example

…

5629

Davis wins fight over war news

…

5630

americavotes1944

Dewey praises teamwork in home state

Governor attacks Roosevelt ‘liberalism’

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, making his second report to the people, said last night that the “cobwebs” of past Democratic regimes in New York State had been wiped out, and that the present state government is “infused with new blood and new energy, filled with a spirit of teamwork between the legislative and executive branches.”

While devoting most of his address to a review of accomplishments by his administration during the last year, Governor Dewey indirectly attacked the Roosevelt administration.

Roosevelt ‘liberalism’ attacked

He criticized:

…that type of personal government which talks fine phrases of liberalism while seeking to impose its will and whims upon the people through centralized bureaucracies issuing from directives from a distance.

Governor Dewey, the leading possibility for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination, said his state administration was attempting to “establish and maintain a genuinely competent and progressive government.”

He continued:

Three immediate and fundamental purposes have guided our work to strength the state government. First, to win the war; second, to prepare for a rapid and smooth readjustment to peaceful pursuits, once complete victory is won; third, to preserve and develop that freedom at home for which your men are fighting abroad.

Workable soldier ballot

Anti-discrimination legislation, drastic revision of the Workmen’s Compensation Administration, new health bills, streamlining of various departments and bureaus, veterans’ legislation and greater aid to the New York farmer were other accomplishments cited by Governor Dewey.

He continued:

Your state administration also took the lead in proposing a simple, workable formula for soldier voting. This soldier ballot will… give every man and woman in the armed services by the simple act of signing his name once, a valid note for every candidate from President to the local officers in his hometown.

Formula for freedom

Governor Dewey said the day would come:

…when free men everywhere, regardless of race, color or creed, can live in freedom, can work at occupations of their own choosing, can raise their children in the traditions of their parents, can worship God in the manner of their own choosing.

He said:

We can, and we must, keep out own society clean of those within who would lead us into paths of narrow or bigoted selfishness.

5631

americavotes1944

Merger convention

Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
The Farmer-Labor Party, once spoken of as the “core of revolution in the Midwest,” met in state convention today to vote itself out of existence so its remnants can merge with Minnesota Democrats to reelect President Roosevelt.

Both the Farmer-Labor Party and the state Democratic Party opened simultaneous conventions in different hotels for the purpose of joining forces under a new hyphenated organization to be known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Permanent convention officers were named and the nearly 400 delegates began caucusing for district committeemen. The Democrats expect to complete merger arrangements today.

Elmer Benson of Appleton, former U.S. Senator and last Farmer-Labor governor, pleaded for fusion of the two groups and attacked former Governor Harold E. Stassen and Senator Joseph H. Ball as “plain American Fascists.”

He said:

The Stassen-Ball crowd was largely responsible for the defeat of Wendell Willkie in Wisconsin. That means they are tied up with the Hoover-McCormick crowd, that they are agents of the capitalistic group that wants to destroy our present national administration. These people are plain American Fascists.

5632

americavotes1944

Stassen support reiterated

New York (UP) –
Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) reiterated his support of LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination last night and asserted that President Roosevelt and Congress “are not longer working as a team to solve the serious problems facing our country.”

Before the New York Young Republican Club, Senator Ball criticized the asserted lack of teamwork and said:

There is controversy, and often deadlock, on almost every major issue outside the actual prosecution of the war, on which there is unity.

Mr. Ball also criticized the administration for “the present jungle of overlapping bureaus and agencies.”

He said:

I have been on the Truman Investigating Committee for three years and it is a continual miracle to mw how American industry and labor continue to produce the huge volume of war materiel they are producing in the face of bureaucratic red tape and confusing and contradictory regulations emanating from Washington.

Urging the nation to ace speedily in “working out a just peace and the machinery to maintain it,” Senator Ball said:

Let our Republican Party and our nominee for President stand unequivocally for an international organization with the authority and the power to shape the peace now and to maintain it in the future.

5633

Coffee is ‘home’ to U.S. troops

It substitutes for English tea

…

5634

Sweden to reject Allied demands

But Turkey pledges all possible aid

…

5635

americavotes1944

Editorial: The phony issue

With each passing week those fourth-termers who hope to make a campaign issue of an imaginary isolationism look sillier and sillier.

Last week, the Wisconsin primary exploded the myth that Midwest Republicans oppose world cooperation. For the international collaborationist Thomas E. Dewey won without running, and the superstater Harold E. Stassen placed second over Gen. MacArthur and Wendell L. Willkie. Now the Nebraska primary – with Mr. Stassen winning easily and an unexpectedly large write-in vote for Mfr. Dewey – underlines the obvious.

This week, the American Federation of Labor urged American participation in world organization for peace and security. The AFL post-war reconstruction committee reported:

The conflicts of today have proved that we can no longer rely on our favored geographical position to maintain our national safety.

It approved an international police force or any necessary means to prevent war, and modification of trade barriers to facilitate exchange of good and services between all nations. It opposed expansionism and imperialism, as well as isolationism, and rejected attempts by any nation to force unilateral solutions to territorial and other problems affecting peace. It stressed the need for international organization to handle health and welfare problems, and to control epidemics and drug traffic.

Of course, the fourth-termers have had no chance of fooling the people with a fake crusade against GOP isolationism since the Mackinac Declaration, and the Republican votes for the Fulbright and Connally resolutions.

All but an insignificant number of Democrats and Republicans support the bipartisan Congressional commitment to a democratic international; organization. The real issue is whether President Roosevelt can deliver on the American mandate and the Allied pledges, or whether European powers will put another league front on the old balance-of-power system.

About the only bright part of this picture is that there is no party division here on the need for effective and democratic world organization. This American unity in foreign policy is a source of great national strength and of world hope in this crisis. For fourth-termers, or any other group, to insist on seeing disunity where unity exists is exceedingly shortsighted partisanship.