Day marred by loss of dear friend
By Ira Wolfert, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Official says 1,000 planes will be bought
By Dale McFeatters, Press business editor
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By Joe Williams
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Bipartisan showdown may affect campaign
By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance
Washington –
A bipartisan showdown with regard to American foreign policy, which is bound to affect vitally the approaching presidential campaign and may determine this country’s international relationship for years to come, will get underway in a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee this week.
This is the committee asked by Secretary of State Cordell Hull “to secure as great unanimity among the American people and Congress as possible with respect to the basic post-war security program.”
Its membership consists of Democrats Chairman Tom Connally (D-TX), Walter F. George (D-GA), Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) and Guy M. Gillette (D-IA), Republicans Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI), Wallace White (R-ME) and Warren R. Austin (R-VT) and Progressive Robert M. La Follette (PR-WI).
La Follette opposed
A degree of friction entered into the formulation of the roster. The administration did not want Senator La Follette included in it, and when Senator Vandenberg, who had nominated Mr. La Follette as one of the three minority members, refused to proceed without him, one additional member was added each to the Democratic and Republican sides.
The obvious intention of this maneuver was to strengthen the administration hand, since Senator Austin has never varied even so much as a hair’s breadth from support of President Roosevelt’s foreign policies.
Senator Vandenberg’s position is understood to have been that Mr. La Follette was entitled to the place from the standpoints both of seniority and ability, and, in any event, there can be no real solidarity of American foreign policy unless it takes account of the Midwestern nationalism, for which Mr. La Follette speaks.
Full cooperation demanded
While nobody so far has been able to put their hands on it, there is rumored to have been a significant correspondence between the Republican and Democratic Senate wings.
The crux of the position of Senator Vandenberg, personally, is that he is willing to go the limit in bipartisan cooperation, even to the point of devoting all his time to the effort from now on and abstaining from any part in the approaching presidential campaign.
But, Mr. Vandenberg insists, this sort of cooperation is practicable only if it proceeds on the basis of a completely equal Democratic-Republican partnership in formulation of foreign policies and an equal Democratic abstinence from their use for electioneering purposes.
Electioneering fought
Particularly, Senator Vandenberg is said to have insisted that Mr. Roosevelt, no less than the State Department, must be completely tied into any interparty harmony arrangement that may be affected.
Reduced to its most blunt political implication, the Republicans intend to see to it that, if a bipartisan foreign policy entente is entered into, Mr. Roosevelt is foreclosed from going out in the weeks immediately before election and saying, “See how effectively I have brought the Republicans to heel.”
New York (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker last night advocated an early agreement between the United Nations on post-war military strength and objectives, followed by establishment of a cooperative world peace agency when governments have been restored, as the first steps toward averting another world war.
Mr. Bricker said other essential steps include a joint study of the problems of international trade, tariffs and monetary stabilization, and the adoption of a strong, decisive policy by the United States.
At the same time, he charged that the New Deal failed to exercise “ordinary prudence” for national security before the war.
World police opposed
The American people, he said in an address at the Ohio Society of New York dinner, want no international police force and no super-government or dictatorial world state, but feel that the United States must take her place in a cooperative order of sovereign states supported by the will of the people.
Joint responsibility for world order until economic and political stability has been regained by individual nations must be assumed by the United States, Great Britain, Russia and China, he recommended.
Mr. Bricker said:
This means that these four great powers should agree now to maintain adequate military, naval and airpower in the immediate post-war period.
‘Mutual understanding’
This does not mean an international police force, or a military alliance… it does contemplate a mutual understanding as to their respective military establishments and that they shall express that understanding in a temporary and transitional compact to be entered into as soon as possible.
Assailing U.S. foreign policy of the past decade as an unwise “course of day-to-day diplomacy,” Mr. Bricker said the State Department must again be permitted to exercise the responsibility vested in it. This country has the “know-how” in international relations, he said, “and a Republican administration will use it.”
He charged the Roosevelt administration with too often exhibiting indecision in dealings with other nations, and asserted that the nation’s ideals must not go by default in this war.
Must guard principles
He said:
America’s cooperation with other nations must not be at the expense of her principles, her honor, her ideals or her form of government. But I believe we can have international cooperation with justice and with honor, and that America must play her full part and do her full share.
Promises to do more than can be performed will breed ill will and hate, he said, adding:
There must be open and frank consideration of our responsibilities. There must be no secret international agreements affecting the post-war world. International goodwill can be developed by open and honest dealing with other nations and by keeping our commitments.
Lack of prudence shown
In his attack on Roosevelt’s pre-war policies, Mr. Bricker said that the New Deal failed to fulfill its obligation to protect the Philippines “in the face of Japan’s growing power” and sought to appease Japan despite the warnings of Ambassador Joseph C. Grew.
He added that after Hitler seized the power in Germany, the government did not exercise “ordinary prudence” for national security and took no heed of gathering clouds of war.
Völkischer Beobachter (April 27, 1944)
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U.S. Navy Department (April 27, 1944)
For Immediate Release
April 27, 1944
Gen. Douglas MacArthur (CINCSWPA) and Adm. C. W. Nimitz (CINCPACFLTPOA) recently conferred regarding the future operations in the Pacific of their two commands.
Plans were completely integrated so that a maximum of cooperative effort might be executed against the enemy.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 27, 1944)
Thousands of bombers step up offensive on its 11th straight day
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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Yanks take two in New Guinea drive
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Avery refuses to turn over books and is barred from plant by Biddle
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By Gilbert Love
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Washington –
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox has suffered a “gastrointestinal upset complicated with dizziness” and is confined to his home, the Navy announced today.
Santa Fe, New Mexico (UP) –
New Mexico’s gubernatorial election in November may be one of the fanciest political scraps in the state’s history.
Mrs. Edna Peterson of Albuquerque filed yesterday as a Democratic candidate for the nomination – the first woman in the state to seek the post.
Robert E. Peterson, her husband, has announced he, too, will seek nomination – on the Republican ticket.
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
When the time finally came for me to leave the Anzio beachhead, I had a choice of coming out by airplane, by LST ship or by hospital ship. I chose the hospital ship, because I’d never been on one.
At the beachhead, the hospital ships lie two or three miles out while loading. Ambulances bring patients from the tent hospitals to the waterfront. There they are loaded on the small, flat-decked LCTs, which have canvas over the tops to keep off rain.
Usually more than half the men in each load are walking cases. They sit or stand at one end of the deck, while the litter cases lie in rows on the other. I went out to the hospital ship with such a load of wounded.
Once out there, we had to lie off and wait for an hour or so while previous LCTs finished unloading their wounded. As we lay there, the officers in charge decided to transfer the walking wounded off another LCT onto ours. So, it drew alongside, threw over a line, and the two ships came against each other. The slightly wounded and sick men jumped across whenever the ships hit together.
A heavy swell was running and the ships would draw a few feet apart and then come together with a terrific bang. It was punishing to the wounded men. I stood among them, and every time we’d hit, they would shut their eyes and clench their teeth.
Pounding worse than shells
One mature man, all encased in a cast, looked at me pleadingly and said:
Don’t those blankety-blank so-and-sos know there are men here who are badly hurt?
Occasionally shells screamed across the town and exploded in the water in our vicinity. The wounded men didn’t cringe or pay any attention to this near danger, but the pounding of the ships together made them wild.
Once alongside the big white hospital ship, the wounded are hoisted by slings, just as you’d hoist cargo. A sling is a wooden, boxlike affair which holds two litters on the bottom and two on top. Up they go as the winches grind. Litter bearers wait on deck to carry them to their wards. The merchant seamen also pitch in and help carry.
Each badly wounded man carries his own X-ray negative with him in a big brown envelope. As one load was being hoisted, the breeze tore an envelope out of a wounded man’s hand and it went fluttering through the air. Immediately a cry went up, “Grab that X-ray, somebody.” Fortunately, it came down on the deck of the smaller ship below and was rescued.
It took about four hours to load the more than 500 wounded and sick men aboard our ship. As soon as it was finished, we pulled anchor and sailed. Hospital ships, like other ships, prefer to sit in the waters of Anzio just as short a time as possible.
Hospital ships have luxuries
Our hospital ships run up to Anzio frequently, because we want to keep our hospitals there free for any sudden flood of new patients. Also, being in a hospital on the beachhead isn’t any too safe.
The hospital ships are mostly former luxury liners. Right now, most of those here are British, but the one I came on was American.
Its officers and crew are all merchant seamen. Its medical staff is all Army – 10 doctors, 33 nurses and about 80 enlisted men. Maj. Theodore Pauli of Pontiac, Michigan, commands.
These ships ferry back and forth on trips like this for a few months, then make a trip back to America with wounded. My ship has been back to the States three times since it first came over less than a year ago.
In a sense, a hospital ship is the nearest thing to peacetime that I’ve seen in a war zone. The ship runs with lights on all over it, the staff has good beds and good cabins, there is hot water 24 hours a day, the food is wonderful.
I was given a top bunk in a cabin with one of the doctors. After nosing around into all the nice conveniences of the place, I discovered we also had a toilet and a shower.
I asked unbelievingly if the bath worked. They said sure it worked. So, I took a bath for half an hour and felt very weak and civilized and wonderful afterwards.