Fliers in Italy blast plane plant
Rail bottlenecks also battered by Yanks
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Americans near Hollandia Field
Attack smashed, Japs lose heavily
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Simms: G.I. Joes have single thought – to win war
They’re not bothered by Allied policy
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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In Washington –
St. Lawrence power project being revived
Hull, Stimson back new seaway bill
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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WASPS vs. male pilots –
Army mission may decide air’s battle of the sexes
By Ruth Sarles, Scripps-Howard staff writer
…
WAC is accused of abusing child
…
In primaries –
Bay State favors Dewey and Roosevelt
Ely, New Deal critic, lags behind
Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
Complete unofficial returns from the Massachusetts presidential primary showed today that Democrats elected a slate of delegates largely unpledged but favoring a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
Only six of the 56 Democratic district delegates chosen were pledged to former Governor Joseph B. Ely, anti-New Dealer and fourth term foe, who is a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in Massachusetts.
In the two Congressional districts where the popularity of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was put to a minor test, the pro-Dewey delegates were elected by the Republicans over unpledged opponents.
Roosevelt men happy
Results of the balloting, probably the lightest in Massachusetts history, were hailed by Democratic State Chairman William H. Burke Jr. as a definite Roosevelt fourth term victory. He predicted that within 48 hours Mr. Ely would endorse the President for a fourth term.
However, Mr. Ely said the returns indicated:
Such a substantial cleavage in the party that I should think the vote would serve as a warning to fourth-termers.
Ely is a delegate
Mr. Ely himself was assured a seat at the National Convention since he was one of 12 Democratic delegates-at-large elected without opposition.
The seven-man Republican at-large slate, including Governor Leverett Saltonstall and House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. likewise was unopposed.
It was in the 13th Congressional district comprising part of Boston and a Southeastern Massachusetts area, that the Ely forces made their best showing. All four convention seats at stake in that district were won by Ely-pledged candidates: Michael P. Feeney of Boston, Francis J. Carroll of Canton, Clement A. Riley of Norwood and Alice M. Durst of Boston.
Some Ely men trail 4–1
Mr. Ely’s other two delegates were in the 10th district, a Boston-Brookline area. They were Boston City Councilor Michael J. Ward and David J. Brickley of Boston, who ran both as members of the pro-Roosevelt slate presented by the Democratic State Committee, and at the same time endorsed Mr. Ely’s candidacy.
Pro-Ely candidates were entered in a total of seven of the state’s 14 Congressional districts, but trailed in most cases, sometimes by as much as four-to-one.
Kentucky GOP solid for Dewey
Louisville, Kentucky (UP) –
The 22 Kentucky delegates selected to go to the Republican National Convention in Chicago will cast first a complimentary vote for Governor Simeon Willis as the “favorite-son” candidate for the presidential nomination and then switch to New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, it was disclosed today.
The selection of delegates was completed yesterday at the State Republican Convention here.
Friends of Ohio Governor John W. Bricker had hoped to captured at least four of the 22 delegates, but a solid front for Governor Dewey was presented.
Governor Willis, elected convention chairman, keynoted the meeting. He said:
After the November election, we will have no buttery-voiced fireside chats or My Day tripe in the newspapers. We must have a President who does not show contempt for the intelligence and character of the people. For 12 years, we have seen the United States mismanaged, manhandled and outraged, but deliverance is in sight.
Colorado sentiment favors Dewey
Denver, Colorado (UP) –
Colorado Republicans met here today to select the remainder of the delegates to the party’s presidential nominating convention in Chicago next June.
Each of the state’s four Congressional districts has already selected two delegates each, with seven to be named today. Colorado’s delegation is traditionally uninstructed, but party sources said sentiment was strong for Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for the presidential nomination.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
Taking over a wrecked port and making it work is, like everything in war, first of all a matter of thorough organization.
At Anzio, the British Navy and the American Army have the thing organized down to a “t.” Soldier executives and clerks, sitting at regular desks in regular offices, do paperwork and make telephone calls and keep charts and make decisions just as they would in a shipping office in New York.
Seldom do three hours pass without shells or bombs shaking the town around then, and everywhere there is wreckage. Yet they have fixed up their offices and quarters in a fairly business-as-usual way.
When I walked into the Port Commander’s Office, who should it be but the same man I rode into Licata with on the morning of D-Day of the invasion of Sicily last July. He was a major then, but is now Lt. Col. Charles Monnier of Dixon and Tremont, Illinois. As an engineer, he has been helping capture ports and then turning them from chaos into usefulness ever since he hit Africa a year and a half ago.
In their wisdom built up through actual practice, such men as Col. Monnier know exactly what to look for, what to do and how to do it when they come in to work on the wreckage of a place like Anzio.
There is no guesswork about their progress. On the walls of the shipping room are big blackboards and charts and graphs. Hour by hour the total of the day’s supplies brought ashore is chalked up on the blackboard.
The big graph is brought up to date every evening. You can look back over it, and translate the activities of the past three months day by day, and see what happened and why.
Fuel dump innovation
Up here the Quartermaster Corps, which handles supplies after they are put ashore, has had to improvise and innovate. One of their main problems is how to keep gasoline fires from spreading when shells hit the dumps, which they do constantly.
So, Lt. Col. Cornelius Holcomb of Seattle had a brain throb. He had the gasoline dumps broken up into small caches, each bunch about as big as a room and about two cans high.
Then he had bulldozers dig up a thick-walled ditch around every cache. This shuts off the air that seeps in from the bottom and makes gasoline fires so bad. Since then they’ve had dozens of hits, but seldom a fire.
I was riding through the wreckage of Anzio and saw a big bulldozer in a vacant lot. On it was the name “Ernie,” spelled out in big blue metal letters wired to the radiator. So, I stopped to look into this phenomenon. The displayer of this proud name was Pvt. Ernie Dygert of Red Lodge, Montana. His father owns a big ranch there.
Young Dygert has driven trucks, ducks and bulldozers in the Army. His main job here is filling up shell craters. He doesn’t seem to mind living in Anzio (the same can’t be said for his namesake).
It’s the spirit that counts
Maj. John C. Strickland of Oklahoma City is the area quartermaster. On his desk is a unique paperweight – a small can of Vienna sausage.
His wife sent it to him. He keeps it as an ironic souvenir. He wrote her that as an Army quartermaster he handles millions of cans of it, and eats it in various forms a dozen times a week, but thanks anyway.
You’ve never seen a shell hit the water? Well, a dud makes a little white splash only a few feet high. A medium-sized shell makes a waterspout about a hundred feet high.
And one of the big shells makes a white geyser a couple of hundred feet in the air. A tall, thin, beautiful thing, like a real geyser, and out from it a quarter of a mile go little corollary white splashes as shrapnel gouges the surface.
Sometimes you hear the shell whine, see the geyser, hear the explosion and feel the concussion, all at once. That’s when they’re landing only 50 yards or so from you. And you’d just as soon they wouldn’t.