Background of news –
Nazi supply lines cut
By Col. Frederick Palmer
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Gwenn’s fine work only highlight in Maugham drama
Sheppey, produced in London 11 years ago, revamped for Broadway
By Jack Gaver, United Press drama editor
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Naples, Italy – (by wireless)
When I’m caught talking with anyone above the rank of major, the other correspondents kid me and say, “You’re losing the common touch, Ernie.”
I try to excuse myself by saying:
Well, democracy includes the big as well as the little, so I have to work in a general now and then just to keep the balance.
Naturally there’s nothing wrong with a general just because he’s a general, and I have several mighty good friends who wear stars.
All of which is just a way of starting to tell you that I had dinner with Gen. Mark Clark the other night. I had seen Gen. Clark at a distance, but had never met him.
The most remarkable thing about our meeting was a letter I had received a few hours before, as I was setting out for Gen. Clark’s main headquarters in the country. I started reading my mail just before going over to meet the general. And I almost fell over at the return address on one envelope.
It was from Mrs. Mark Clark. Within five minutes after opening the letter, I walked over and showed it to her husband.
The general said that if his wife was going to start writing me, he’d better have me court-martialed. I said, “Hell, if I were running this Army, I’d have her court-martialed.” We compromised by drinking a toast to her.
Dine in small collapsible building
Our dinner was in a small, one-room, collapsible building, with the wind howling and blowing until we thought the building would really collapse in fact. There were three other correspondents at dinner, and four officers of the general’s staff. We just ate and chatted and leaned back in our chairs as if we were at home. The general told us some things we didn’t know before and some things I can’t print, but he didn’t tell us when the war would end.
Running the Italian war has been a headache of tremendous proportions, and I for one do not think it Gen. Clark’s fault that the campaign has gone slowly. I thought that before meeting him, so no one can accuse him of charming me into saying that.
I found Gen. Clark very congenial, and straightforward too. He impressed me as a thoroughly honest man.
There is another lieutenant general in this area that I do know well. He is Ira Eaker, head of all the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. We’ve been friends for more than 15 years.
I go up and have dinner with him now and then. He usually has four or five guests every evening. He flatters me by saying to his guests, “I knew Ernie when he wasn’t anybody.” I flatter myself by saying, “I knew the general when he was a captain.”
I never leave the general’s headquarters without his giving me some kind of present, and now and then he gives me something to send to That Girl back in America. He is one of the most thoughtful men about doing little things for people that I’ve ever known.
Gen. Eaker is nearly bald, likes to smoke cigars, and sucks frequently at a pipe. He talks with the slow clarity of a Texan. His voice is so low and gentle you can hardly hear him sometimes.
Likes to play volleyball
He likes to play volleyball late in the afternoon. He drinks almost none. His driver is a sergeant who has been with him for two years. One of his greatest traits is love and loyalty to his old friends of early years.
The Air Force staff lives in trailers and tents in a lovely grove, and eat in one big mess hall where the general also eats with his guests.
The general lives in a wooden Dallas hut, fixed up with a big fireplace and deep lounges and pictures until it resembles a hunting lodge. It is lovely.
Every morning at 9:30, the general goes to his “war room,” and in a space of 20 minutes receives a complete history of the war throughout the world for the previous 24 hours. In order to provide this comprehensive briefing, many of his staff have to get up at 5 o’clock collecting the reports.
Gen. Eaker’s job here is a tremendous one. He ran the great 8th Air Force in England with distinction, but down here he has had to face problems he never had up there. In England, it was purely an air war. Down here it is air and ground both. Further, his command is stretched over thousands of miles and includes fliers of three nations.
Integrating the air war with the ground war is a formidable task that hasn’t yet been wholly accomplished. Doing that is Gen. Eaker’s biggest job right now, for he already knows about the other side of his job – which is to bomb the daylights out of Fortress Europe.
ILO in Afrikaans to Yugoslav –
$2 words in 26 tongues kicked around by OWI
Labor conference is thoroughly reported, but delegates’ rows aren’t heard overseas
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Shell program dims hope for civilian steel
Third quarter rail orders face cut
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Rail financing fees called ‘scandalous’
Competitive bidding on binds urged
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EXECUTIVE ORDER 9439
Establishing a Uniform Monthly Rate of Pay for Student Nurses Transferred to Federal Hospitals
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 4, 1944
By virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in me by Section 11 (b) of the Act of June 15, 1943 (Public Law 74, 78th Congress), as amended by the Act of March 4, 1944 (Public Law 248, 78th Congress), student nurses transferred to any Federal hospital in the continental United States, exclusive of Alaska, pursuant to subsections (e) and (f) of Section 2 of the said Act of June 15, 1943, shall be paid a stipend at the monthly rate of sixty dollars for that period of training requisite to graduation: Provided, that the period of training in no case shall extend beyond the period required for graduation by the institution from which the student nurse was transferred, but may be terminated at any time prior thereto as the interests of the service may require.
This order shall be published in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
May 4, 1944
Völkischer Beobachter (May 4, 1944)
Europäische Vision in Frankreich
Von Kriegsberichter Fritz Zierke
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Erfolge bei Hollandia und Truk
Tokio, 3. Mai –
Die Mitteilung des Kaiserlich japanischen Hauptquartiers über die neuen Erfolge der japanischen Luftwaffe bei Hollandia und den Trukinseln wird wie folgt ergänzt:
Nachdem in den Morgenstunden des 22. April die Westmächte nahezu eine Division bei Aitape und Hollandia (Neuguinea) unter dem Schutz machtvoller Seestreitkräfte gelandet hatten, um die japanischen Truppen von hinten anzugreifen, statt Frontalangriffe gegen Madang und Wewak zu führen, warteten die japanischen Luftstreitkräfte nur eine günstige Gelegenheit ab.
Erst in der Nacht zum 28. April ergab sich die Möglichkeit eines Angriffes, der mit der Versenkung eines Kreuzers und der Beschädigung eines weiteren großen Kriegsschiffes, vermutlich eines Flugzeugträgers, durch direkten Torpedotreffer endete.
Das Erscheinen feindlicher Kriegsschiffe in den Gewässern von Truk läßt darauf schließen, daß die Westmächte in ihrem Bestreben, in die japanischen strategischen Stellungen im Abschnitt der Karolinen einen Keil zu treiben, sich nicht mit den täglichen Luftangriffen gegen Truk und Meryon begnügten. Durch Zusammenziehung starker Seestreitkräfte, die aus mehr als zehn Flugzeugträgern und Schlachtschiffen bestanden, versuchten sie vielmehr einen unmittelbaren Vorstoß in den Abschnitt der Karolinen durchzuführen.
Am 30. April und 1. Mai griffen die auf den feindlichen Flugzeugträgern stationierten Flugzeuge die japanischen Stellungen auf den Trukinseln an, während die Insel Mortlock zugleich mit Schiffsgeschützen bombardiert wurde. Auf solche feindlichen Angriffe wohlvorbereitet, warfen sich die japanischen Armee- und Marineluftstreitkräfte auf die feindlichen Geschwader, wobei es ihnen gelang, mehr als 30 Feindflugzeuge abzuschießen und einen zweiten feindlichen Flugzeugträger zu beschädigen.
U.S. Navy Department (May 4, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 386
For Immediate Release
May 4, 1944
Seventh Army Air Force Liberators bombed the Truk Atoll on the night of May 1‑2 (West Longitude Date). Fifty tons of bombs were dropped on airstrips and adjacent installations, starting fires and causing large explosions. A searchlight battery was destroyed. Anti-aircraft fire was moderate. Two enemy planes were in the air over the target but did not attempt interception.
A single 7th Army Air Force Liberator bombed Ponape Island at night on May 1. A fire was set in Ponape Town.
Remaining enemy positions in the Marshalls were bombed on May 1 and on May 2 by Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two and Navy Hellcat fighters. Gun positions, shore installations, buildings and a power station were bombed and strafed.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 4, 1944)
NAZIS FEAR 3-FRONT ASSAULT
Allies troops mass in Italy, Germans say
Berlin also expects drive by Russia
By Robert Dowson, United Press staff writer
London, England –
A Paris broadcast said today that Allied armies in Italy have taken up “battle positions” for a new all-out offensive coincident with an Allied invasion of Western Europe and a Red Army thrust from the east.
A German DNB broadcast also told of Allied offensive preparations in Italy, with reinforcements and supplies being moved up all along the front from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the mountains north of Cassino.
Tending to confirm the Nazi claims, the Badoglio government newspaper Il Corriere of Naples acknowledged there was “feverish activity in preparation for vast-scale operations” in Italy. That country appeared “on the eve of great events,” Il Corriere said.
‘Preparations complete’
Simultaneously, the Canadian Army newspaper Maple Leaf said that action was imminent on the long-stalemated Italian front.
“General Hell is going to take over and bust things wide open,” the newspaper said.
Jean Paquis, Paris radio commentator, said it was understood in official Axis circles that the “general offensive in Europe is not far off.”
He said:
In the two adversary camps, preparations are now complete. The German High Command expects a general Russian offensive in the east and at the same time, aerial reconnaissance shows that on the Italian front, the 5th and 8th Armies have taken up battle positions and are ready to go into attack.
In the west, concentrations of shipping in British ports along the south coast and the stepping-up of the aerial offensive by the Anglo-Americans brings the menace of invasion nearer.
Says Germany ‘not ripe’
In Sweden, however, a naval commentator writing in the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet contended that Germany was “not yet ripe for invasion” and said that the Allied air offensive had not yet reached its peak.
The Stockholm correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph said information brought by observers from Germany, France and Holland indicated the Germans had mapped the following three-point plan to counter the invasion from behind their 20-mile-deep Atlantic Wall of coastal defenses:
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While the Allied invasion fleet is approaching, it will be attacked by radio-controlled bombs and U-boats, including a new 30-foot two-man midget submarine, and electrically-controlled minefields will be set off.
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German forces will make every effort to delay a breakthrough of the Atlantic Wall, which they realize is not impregnable, and inflict the maximum losses on the enemy.
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Reserve forces will be brought up from the rear to counterattack in an attempt to drive the enemy into the sea.
From Ankara came a report that the German government has ordered all German civilians in Turkey to assemble in Istanbul.
ANTI-INVASION BASES BLASTED
RAF pounds munitions dumps, Fortresses hammer Dutch airdrome
Berlin reports U.S. bombers over Germany on 18th day of non-stop offensive
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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Tempo of battle quickens in Italy
Bitter fights waged by enemy patrols
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Case of mistaken identity –
2 Yank planes, PT boats battle it out to death
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Truk bombed again
Washington –
Army Liberator heavy bombers followed last weekend’s naval task force assault on Truk with a 50-ton raid on that key Japanese base Monday night, the Navy announced today.