Maj. Williams: Future security
By Maj. Al Williams
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New measles preventive found in blood plasma
Globulin has been used successfully in Army camps and an Eastern college
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Pirates meet Dodgers in night game
Brooks bring ‘waner act’ to old stand
By Dick Fortune
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NL rule hits in Cards-Jays shortened tilt
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Gives all for radio –
Villainous actor is always ‘a dead pigeon’
Gives life twice in single night
By Si Steinhauser
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Westinghouse to build home television set
3 broadcast stations television set
By Dale McFeatters, Press business editor
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
A U.S. bomber station, England – (by wireless)
These are some of the boys who have been blasting out our invasion path on the continent of Europe. For nearly a year they have been hammering at the wall of defense the Germans have thrown up. How well they have blasted we will know before the summer is over.
They are a squadron of B-26 Marauder bombers. They are representative of the entire mighty weight of the tactical bombers of the 9th Air Force. I have come to spend a few days with them because I wanted to get a taste of the pre-invasion assault from the air standpoint before we get a mouthful of the invasion proper from the ground.
The way I happened to come to this certain squadron is one of those things. One night in London I was sitting at a table with some friends in a public house when two boys in uniform leaned over from the next table and asked if I weren’t so-and-so.
I said yes, whereupon we got to talking and then we got to be pals and eventually we adjourned from one place to another, as Damon Runyon would say, and kept on adjourning throughout the evening, and a good time was had by all.
These boys were B-26 bombardiers, and in the course of the evening’s events they asked if I wouldn’t come and live with their squadron awhile. Being nothing if not accommodating, I said sure, why not. And here we are.
The two boys were Lt. Lindsey Green of San Francisco and Lt. Jack Arnold of East St. Louis, Illinois. Being redheaded, Lt. Arnold goes by the name of “Red Dog.” They are both very nice people indeed.
A comfortable station
This airdrome is a lovely place. Everything around it is wonderfully green, as is all England now.
The station is huge, and its personnel is scattered in steel Nissen huts and low concrete barracks for a couple of miles.
The living quarters are spread through an old grove of giant shade trees. You walk from one barracks to another under elms and chestnuts, big-trunked and wide-branched, and it gives you a feeling of beautiful peace and contentment. The huts and barracks are painted green and everything blends together.
This is a permanent station, and very comfortable. Our B-26 group has been at this field ever since coming overseas nearly a year ago.
Within cycling or hitchhiking distance there are several English villages – the lovely kind you read about in books – and our fliers have come to know them intimately. They like the people, and I’m sure the people like them.
There is more of understanding and harmony between these fliers and the local people than in any outfit I’ve ever seen. If you don’t believe it listen to this – 15 of the boys from just one squadron have married English girls since coming over here.
The boys say this is the best squadron in England. Nine out of 10 squadrons, or infantry companies, or quartermaster battalions, will say the same thing about themselves. It is a good omen when they talk like that.
This station seems to me to have about the finest spirit I’ve run onto in our Army. It is due, I think, largely to the fact that the whole organization has been made into a real team.
The boys here don’t especially hate the Germans, and they certainly don’t like war, yet they understand that the only way out of the war is to fight our way out, and they do it willingly and with spirit and all together.
The commander of this group is Col. Wilson R. Wood of Chico, Texas. Five years ago, he was an enlisted man. Today, at 25, he is a full colonel. He is a steady, human person and he has got what it takes to blend thousands of men together into a driving unit.
The job of the B-26s is severalfold. For one thing, they had to rid upper France and the Low Countries of German fighters as far as possible, to clear the way for our heavy bombers on their long trips into Germany.
Enemy’s reserves blasted
They have done this not so much by bombing airdromes, which can be repaired immediately, as by blasting the enemy’s reserve supplies of planes, engines and propellers.
Their second job is to disrupt the enemy’s supply system. Much of their work of late has been on railroad marshaling yards, and along with A-20s and fighter-bombers, they have succeeded to a point where British papers say Germany cannot maintain a western front by raids.
And third, they work constantly on the enemy’s military installations along the Channel Coast. They feel that they have done a good job. If they haven’t, I’m going to be plenty sore at them one of these days, because I might be in the vicinity and if there’s anything that makes me sick at the stomach, it’s an enemy military installation in good working order.
Völkischer Beobachter (May 18, 1944)
‚Sozialpolitik‘ in USA und England –
Profite für Juden und Judengenossen
Die Arbeiter werden mit Zukunftsplänen abgespeist
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U.S. Navy Department (May 18, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 407
For Immediate Release
May 18, 1944
Wake Island was bombed during daylight on May 16 (West Longitude Date) by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force. Objectives at Peacock Point and Wilkes Island were hit. A large fire was started. Moderate anti-aircraft fire did minor damage to two of our aircraft.
Nauru Island was attacked by 7th Army Air Force Mitchell bombers on May 16. Hits were obtained on a phosphate plant and anti-aircraft positions. Explosions were caused and fires set. Anti-aircraft fire was intense.
A search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and probably sank a 10,000-ton Japanese tanker and a medium cargo ship in Truk Harbor on May 16. Anti-aircraft fire was light. The same plane later bombed and strafed the airstrip and barracks area at Puluwat Island. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered which wounded both pilot and co‑pilot but the aircraft returned safely to base.
Ponape Island was bombed by Liberator search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two and Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force on May 16. The seaplane base, airfields, dock installations and Ponape Town were hit. Meager anti-aircraft fire was encountered.
Enemy positions in the Marshall Islands were bombed on May 16 by Catalina and Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, Corsair fighters of the Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing and Navy Hellcat fighters. Runways and gun positions were hit.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 18, 1944)
Nazi division wiped out as British take Cassino
Hitler Line anchor of Formia reported captured by Yanks
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Nazis expect invasion drive ‘any moment’
German leaders meet to map defense
By Robert Dowson, United Press staff writer
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Yanks and Chinese storm Japs’ North Burma base
Fall of Myitkyina, keystone of enemy line, believed imminent; airdrome captured
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70 killed –
Planes strafe refugee ship
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Jap bases blasted
Washington –
U.S. airmen on Tuesday blasted widely separated Jap bases in the Central Pacific, including Wake and Nauru Islands, probably sinking a 10,000-ton enemy tanker and a cargo ship, the Navy announced today.
Indian co-ed’s body found in Hudson River
Officials believe death was accidental
Valsa Matthai
New York (UP) –
Valsa Anna Matthai, 22, wealthy, India-born Columbia University student, died within an hour after walking into a driving snowstorm two months ago never to be seen alive again, detectives decided today after the discovery of her body in the Hudson River at Yonkers, New York.
A wristwatch Miss Matthai wore was stopped at 5:15 and investigators pointed out she was last seen at about 4:45 a.m. ET March 20 as she left International House, a hotel for foreign students.
Seven miles away
The point at which her body was found last night is seven miles from the International House.
Acting Capt. John J. Cronin of the Missing Persons Bureau said he would request an autopsy on the chance that additional clues may be found. Dr. Edwin H. Huntington, acting medical examiner of Westchester County, however, listed the case as “possibly accidental” and intimated that Westchester authorities would not direct an autopsy.
He said he found no marks of violence and that the badly-decomposed state of the body indicated that it had been in the water about two months.
Had large allowance
Miss Matthai’s friends could advance no reason as to why she should have gone for a stroll in the storm.
Miss Matthai was the daughter of John Matthai, head of the Tata Chemical Company of Bombay. Investigators learned the dead girl was receiving an allowance of $1,000 a month for spending money, and a bankbook in her room showed deposits of $1,400.
120 Americans freed by Nazis
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Tumult hits new high in sedition trial
Motion for mistrial made by defense
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Fourth term strategy gets workout here
Democrats’ gunsights leveled at Tom Dewey
By Kermit McFarland
Paced by two new stars of the campaign circuit, the Democratic high command last night outlined its fourth term strategy at the fundraising Jefferson Day dinner of the local Democratic organization.
To a crowd of 1,200 which paid $10 a plate for a $3 meal, Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan and U.S. Senator Samuel D. Jackson (D-IN) blueprinted the 1944 battlefront on which President Roosevelt will attempt to stand off Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.
Although Mr. Dewey is not an announced candidate, let alone the Republican nominee, the Democratic leaders accepted him as Mr. Roosevelt’s opponent and uncorked the barrage which they hope will send him to join Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon and Wendell Willkie in the ranks of Republican nominees beaten by the President.
Counts against Dewey
Mr. Hannegan, who took over the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in January, lined up these counts against Mr. Dewey:
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Inexperience.
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His opposition to Lend-Lease in 1941.
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A statement Mr. Hannegan said the New York Governor made in 1940 in which he said it would be “impossible” to produce 50,000 warplanes in a year.
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A statement Mr. Hannegan said Mr. Dewey made in the same year in which he said it would be “impossible” to train 75,000 pilots.
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His alleged hookup with former President Hoover.
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His alleged tie-in with the big financial interests.
To which Senator Jackson added:
- The election of Mr. Dewey would be a throwback to Presidents Harding and Coolidge.
- An isolationist tag for Mr. Dewey.
- The abortive peace efforts of 1920, which he blamed on the Republicans.
On the more positive side, Mr. Hannegan urged the reelection of Mr. Roosevelt as a means of guaranteeing the Four Freedoms. And Senator Jackson warned that a “change of horses in mid-stream” might lead to a change in the grand military strategy, in the military command and in foreign policy generally.
Campaign chest swelled
The dinner must have netted the Democrats more than $20,000 for the campaign chest.
The 1,200 persons Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence said were present paid $10 a plate. Expenses were estimated not to exceed $5 per, leaving a net profit of $5 each, or a total of $6,000. This will be split 50% to national headquarters, 25% to state headquarters and the balance to local headquarters.
In addition, the dinner committee distributed a slick-paper “program” consisting of 162 pages of advertising, at $100 a page, and three pages of program. What with half-, quarter-, eighth-, and sixteenth-page ads are intermediate rates and $5 for merely a name, the book should have netted upwards of $16,000.
Notables are present
Democratic notables from over the state were present, including all the candidates in this year’s election – save State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner, nominee for Auditor General, reported ill in Harrisburg – local public officials and party officers.
Aside from the two visiting notables, the only speaker was Mr. Lawrence who warned the Democrats that since 1932 some of them have become “statesmen and fat cats,” that this is the most crucial election since 1864 and they had better get out and plug.
Mr. Hannegan, saying the “identities of the two probable candidates are by this time foreshadowed clearly enough,” waded into Mr. Dewey, whom he termed “the Great Republican Unmentionable.”
‘Defeatism’ charged
Mr. Hannegan said:
Read him three years ago, and two years ago, and up to the time when the dream of becoming President of our country began to put a new cast in his thinking and a new color in his public utterances.
Read those speeches – speeches of defeatism, of helplessness, of narrow jealousies and suspicions – and then ask yourself, had we followed the pattern traced out then, where would our country be today?
He said the Republicans were trying to make his references to Mr. Dewey’s earlier statements appear as a “smear” and asserted:
We are being asked by the minority party to trust to luck, to the chance that an inexperienced, unpracticed leader will guess right. We are being asked to make him President and then hope that among the wavering, varying and contradictory policies to which he has already subscribed at one time or another, he will pull out the long straw.
Hoover ‘issue’ enters in
He said Mr. Hoover is Mr. Dewey’s “political guardian.” He said:
As far as the people of America are concerned, the Great Engineer and the Great Republican Unmentionable are interchangeable.
Senator Jackson – serving in the Senate by appointment, but the current Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana – answered his self-propelled question as to how long the Democrats would stay in Washington:
Until the escutcheons of this government shall have been cleansed of the debauchery of the administration of Warren G. Harding. Until the economic and financial structure of this Republic shall have been healed of the rampant and unchecked pirating during the do-nothing administration of Calvin Coolidge. Until the last farmer, businessman and worker shall have been made whole of the devastation wrought by the unfortunate and unsung administration of Herbert Hoover. Until that permanent peace promised to the heroes of World War I shall have been kept in spirit and in truth.
He said there is not a “mustard seed” of hope in Mr. Dewey.