Church relief group formed
Areas of need in Asia benefit
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Poll: Public ready to have U.S. boycott Éire
Action to oust Axis diplomats approved
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Capt. Gentile’s own story –
Yankee ace twists, turns to elude ‘wise old cookie’
With ammunition gone, he maneuvers plane so that Hun can’t get accurate shot
By Capt. Don Gentile (as told to Ira Wolfert)
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
The greatest apprehension I’ve found in the Anzio-Nettuno area is not among the men on shore who have been under it constantly for weeks, but among the crews of ships that sit out in the Mediterranean, unloading.
It takes several days to unload a big freighter, and during all that time they are subject to shelling from land and air raids from the sky. Their situation, I’ll admit, is not an enviable one.
It’s true that few of them get hit, considering the amount of shooting the Germans do out there. Yet there is always the possibility. And what gives them the creeps is when they’re sitting on a ship full of ammunition or high explosive.
The crews of these big freighters are members of the Merchant Marine. They merely operate the ship. They don’t do the stevedoring work of unloading. That’s done by soldiers.
They have a good system for this. At Naples, a whole company of port-battalion soldiers is put on each ship just before it sails. They make the trip up and back with the vessel, do the unloading at Anzio, and when they return to Naples, they go back to their regular dock jobs there. A different company goes aboard for the next trip.
New system promotes efficiency
The result is that each one-time unloading crew is so anxious to get unloading and get out of Anzio that everybody works with a vim and the material flies.
Up until a few weeks ago, all unloading was done by port-battalion groups based at Anzio. As soon as the crew finished one ship, it would have to go to work on another. There wasn’t any end to it. The boys just felt they couldn’t win. Since the new system went into effect, efficiency has shot up like a rocket.
The bigger ships are unloaded just as they would be at a dock, with winches hoisting out big netfuls of cargo from the deep holds and swinging them over the sides and letting them down – not onto a dock, however, but into flat-bottomed LCTs which carry the stuff to the beaches.
Each hold has a dozen or more men working down below, plus the winch crews and signalmen. They are all soldiers. They work in 12-hour shifts, but they get intervals of rest.
I was aboard one Liberty ship about 10:00 a.m. all five hatches were bringing up stuff. You could lean over and watch the men down below piling up ration boxes. And on the deck immediately below us you could see scores of other soldiers trying to sleep, the deafening noise of the winches making no difference to them. They were the night shift. They slept on folding cots between blankets, with their clothes on.
One crew boss was Sgt. Sam Lynch of Wilmington, Delaware. He is a veteran soldier, having served four months in the Arctic and 14 months on this side. Before the war, he was a fireman on the Pennsylvania Railroad and later a railway mail clerk. He is married and has one child.
Feel defenseless on ship
I asked him how he liked coming up to Anzio on a ship and he said he didn’t like it any too well. He said:
The trouble is that you feel so darned defenseless. If you could just man a gun and shoot back, it wouldn’t be so bad.
But the Navy operates the gun crews aboard all these freight ships and the soldiers can only sit there idle and sweat it out when bombs or shells start flying.
You should see them work when a ship is about finished and it looks as though they might not get through in time to catch the next convoy.
They laugh and tell a story about one ship which finished 45 minutes after the convoy started. The skipper pulled anchor and started chasing the convoy. The Navy radioed him orders to stop and wait. But this fellow kept right on going. He simply figured he’d rather face disciplinary action at Naples than German bombers for one more night at Anzio.
The Navy’s premise was that he was in greater danger from German subs and E-boats while running alone after the convoy than he would be from another night at Anzio. They have it all figured out by percentages, and they are right.
But this fellow was lucky and caught up with the convoy. I never heard what his supporters did when he got there, but I bet they didn’t invite him out for a round of golf.
Gold stocks rise on world money plan
Other issues work irregularly higher
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Ford steps up use of waste paper
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Völkischer Beobachter (April 23, 1944)
Weltwährungsplan Morgenthaus angenommen
Juda fordert Wirtschaftsdiktatur über alle Völker
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Eine Erklärung Tojos –
‚Auf dem Weg zum Sieg‘
Tokio, 22. April –
Premierminister Tojo erklärte bei dem Empfang zu Ehren einer philippinischen Mission, die gegenwärtig in Tokio weilt:
Es ist nicht nur für Japan und die Philippinen eine große Genugtuung, sondern auch für die 1 Milliarde Menschen Großostasiens, daß die philippinische Regierung unter Präsident Laurel für eine erfolgreiche Durchführung des gegenwärtigen Krieges mutig vorwärts marschiert.
Die eifrigen Bemühungen aller Filipinos zur Schaffung eines neuen philippinischen Staates fanden ihren Höhepunkt in der im Oktober des vergangenen Jahres stattgefundenen Unabhängigkeitserklärung der Philippinen, ein Ereignis, dem kurze Zeit später der Abschluß des japanisch-philippinischen Bündnisvertrages folgte.
Tojo bekundete sodann den festen Entschluß, den Krieg in Großostasien erst dann zu beenden, wenn die Feinde, England und die USA, besiegt sind. Zu diesem Zwecke, so führte Tojo aus, mobilisiere Japan seine gesamten nationalen Kräfte. Japan befinde sich auf dem Weg zum Siege.
U.S. Navy Department (April 23, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 369
For Immediate Release
April 23, 1944
Ponape Island was bombed by Mitchell medium bombers of the 7th Army Air Force on April 21 (West Longitude Date). Runways and adjacent installations were hit. Anti-aircraft fire was moderate.
On the same day, 60 tons of bombs were dropped on remaining enemy positions in the Marshall Islands by Liberator and Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two. Gun positions and coastal defense positions were bombed and strafed.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 43
For Immediate Release
April 23, 1944
Strong carrier task groups of the Pacific Fleet commenced attacks on the Japanese airdromes and troop concentrations in the Hollandia‑Humboldt Bay region on the north coast of New Guinea on April 20 (West Longitude Date) for the purpose of covering and supporting the forces of CINCSWPA. These attacks are continuing.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 23, 1944)
JAP BASE HIT 1,400 MILES FROM TOKYO
Two Marianas islands ripped by warplanes
Yanks occupy 2 more Marshalls atolls
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
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