Editorial: Freedom – across the seas
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Poll: Public prefers to spare lives over churches
Vast majority backs Eisenhower’s stand
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Roberts balks at rumors of candidacy
Pew may woo judge of Supreme Court
Washington –
Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court is not a candidate – dark horse, favorite son, or any other variety – for the Republican nomination for the Presidency.
Published statements that several groups in the Republican organization are eyeing Mr. Roberts as a possible candidate on the ground that he could make a stronger campaign, and appeal to more elements of the party than New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, left the Supreme Court jurist unimpressed.
Earlier talk scorned
There was similar mention of the Supreme Court member from Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1932, 1936 and 1940, but Justice Roberts each time ignored talk of his possible candidacy.
He is ignoring it this time, in the same way. He will make no statement, since he considers the whole thing “silly.”
Mr. Roberts, a member of the court since 1930 and now its second ranking member, is one of the two Republicans on the highest bench.
On world politics
This year, there is even more substance to the talk of Mr. Roberts, in view of his announced stand for strong participation by the U.S. in international affairs in the post-war period.
Joseph N. Pew Jr. Philadelphia oil man, has reportedly as many as 100 Southern delegates to add to Pennsylvania’s 70 delegates in the Republican convention. Four years ago, he and Joseph R. Grundy, Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association leader, rallied the state’s 64 delegated and a few others around the then Governor Arthur H. James until after Wendell L. Willkie was assured of nomination.
Pew’s strategy?
Should Mr. Pew decide to join the “Stop Dewey” movement, he could augment his strength by allying himself with other GOP factions who want to see a candidate with a stronger record as to foreign policy and as to governmental service, according to this line of reasoning.
Mr. Roberts is 69 and in vigorous health. A former University of Pennsylvania law professor, he was special prosecutor for the government in espionage cases in Eastern Pennsylvania during the last war and in the Teapot Dome oil scandal after the war. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Hoover.
Stokes: Anti-New Deal South may oust Pepper, Hill
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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New Gaynor-Farrell team excites moviemakers
June Haver and Dick Haymes all set for romantic film doings
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Capt. Gentile’s own story –
Ace had to win ‘Battle of Piqua’ so parents would let him fly
By Capt. Don Gentile (as told by Ira Wolfert)
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
The mechanics of supplying the 5th Army forces on the Anzio beachhead are undeniably beautiful in execution.
We have taken a port full of sunken ships and jumbled streets and wrecked buildings and cleared through paths through it for the movement of our ships and vehicles.
Once our supplies reach the vicinity of beachhead waters, they are under shellfire and bombing raids that may come any moment of the day or night. In addition, German E-boats and destroyers lurk on the edge of our concentration of ships, and naval forces must be always on the lookout for them.
Our supplies are unloaded in many ways. Some few ships can go right up to a dock. Others go to nearby beaches. The bigger freight ships have to lie off the harbor and be unloaded into smaller boats which in turn unload onto the docks or beaches.
All day long the waters in a great semicircle around Anzio, reaching to the horizon, are churned by big and little ships moving constantly back and forth. It resembles the hustle and bustle of New York Harbor.
On the far edges lie cruisers and other battle craft. In the vicinity there is always a white hospital ship to evacuate our wounded and sick from the beachhead.
Lay smokescreens at dusk
Along toward dusk small, fast craft shoot in and out of the great flock of ships, laying smokescreens, while smoke pots ashore put out their blinding cloud of fog.
At night when the raiders come over a mighty bedlam of ack-ack crushes all thought on shore and far out to sea as the ships themselves let go at the groan and grind of German motors in the sky.
Sometimes the raiders drop flares, and then the universe is lighted with a glare more cruel and penetrating than the brightest day, and every human on the beachhead feels that the Germans are looking down at him individually with their evil eyes.
When the moon is full, it throws its swath of gold across the lovely Mediterranean, and sometimes the nights are so calm and moon-tinged and gentle that you cannot remember or believe that the purpose of everything around you is death.
When there is no moon, it is so black you have to grope your way about, and even the ominous split-second flashes from our own big guns do not help you to see.
Sometimes the shelling and the raiding are furious and frenzied. At other times hour after quiet hour goes by without a single crack of an exploding shell. But always the possibility and the anticipation are there.
All these things you can see from the window of the house where we live. There are times when you can stand with your elbows on the windowsill and your chin in your hand, and see right before you a battlefield in action in the three dimensions of land, sea and air, all so spectacular that even Hollywood might well bow in deference to a drama beyond its own powers of creation.
The streets and roads around Anzio are under a steady thundering flow of heavy war traffic. The movement is endlessly fascinating. One day I stood by the road just to watch for a while, and of the first 12 vehicles that passed, each was something different.
There was a tank, and a great machine shop on heavy tractor treads that shook the earth as it passed, and a jeep of a one-star general, and a “duck,” and a high-wheeled British truck, and a famous American six-by-six, and a prime mover trundling the great “Long Tom” gun with its slim, graceful barrel pointing rearward.
Military police highball traffic
Then came a command car, and a stubby new gun covered with canvas, on four rubber-tired wheels, and an ambulance, and a crew of wire stringers, and a weapon carrier. Then a big self-propelled gun on tractor treads, and finally another “duck” to start the heterogeneous cycle over again.
Everywhere there is activity. Soldier-workmen saw down trees and cut down concrete lampposts so that trucks may use the sidewalks of the narrow streets. Huge shovels mounted on truck chassis stand amid the wreckage or buildings scooping up brick and stone to be hauled away in trucks for repairing damaged roads.
Allied military police stand on every corner and crossroad to highball traffic on through, and, believe me, it’s highballed.
Everything moves with a great urgency, a great vitality. The less hesitation the better in this land where shells whistle and groan. There is little hesitation anywhere around Anzio.
Völkischer Beobachter (April 20, 1944)
Gleichbedeutend mit Aufgabe ihrer Existenzfähigkeit –
Das völkerrechtswidrige Verlangen an die Neutralen
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U.S. Navy Department (April 20, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 364
For Immediate Release
April 20, 1944
Forty‑six tons of bombs were dropped on Moen and Dublon Islands in the Truk Atoll by 7th Army Air Force Liberators on the night of April 18‑19 (West Longitude Date). Three enemy planes were in the air but did not attempt interception. Large fires were started at Dublon Town and several explosions were observed. At Moen, the airstrip and barracks were hit. Antiaircraft fire was meager.
On the night of April 18, a search Liberator of Fleet Air Wing Two obtained a direct hit on a medium cargo vessel south of Fefan Island in the Truk Atoll.
Ponape Island was bombed by 7th Army Air Force Liberators on the night of April 18‑19. Several fires were started. Ponape was also bombed by Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force and by a single search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two on April 18.
A single Liberator bombed runways at Wake Island on April 18. Anti-aircraft fire was intense.
On the same day, 40 tons of bombs were dropped on enemy positions in the Marshall Islands by Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, and Navy Hellcat fighters. Small craft, gun positions, barracks, and runways were bombed and strafed.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 20, 1944)
Allied sea and air fleet rips Japs in East Indies
Surprise blow blasts 25 planes, five ships at Singapore outpost
By Harold Guard, United Press staff writer
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British blast rail junction in Bulgaria
U.S. bombers hit northern France
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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Yank ace lost after 23rd win
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Bombers harry Nazis in Italy
Fighting on ground continues dull
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Tommy Hitchcock killed in plane
Polo star dies on routine flight
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Jane Addams and guess who –
Only 2 women in history get the nod in OWI book
By Phelps Adams, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Many UNHAPPY returns of the day –
Hitler reaches 55 today, with his empire crumbling
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
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USO to celebrate Herring Hitler’s last birthday
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Army casualties up 10,450 in 2 weeks
Washington (UP) –
U.S. Army casualties as of April 7 totaled 145,082, an increase of 10,450 above the total two weeks earlier, and total announced U.S. Armed Forces casualties to dare are 189,309, it was revealed today.
Secretary of War Stimson said that the April 7 Army total included 25,013 killed, 59,222 wounded, 32,048 missing and 28,799 prisoners of war. He reported last Thursday that casualties as of March 23 totaled 134,632.
A Navy casualty list released today showed 44,227 casualties among Navy, Marine and Coast Guard forces, an increase of 378 above the number on the list released last Thursday. The new Navy total showed 18,795 dead, 11,726 wounded, 9,282 missing and 4,424 prisoners of war.
Secretary Stimson said that of the Army wounded, 32,360 have been returned to duty and that 1,677 prisoners of war are reported to have died in enemy prison camps.