South France hit by bombers based in Italy
Yanks blast half-dozen rail targets from Lyon to Riviera
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Senators hit Biddle, WLB in Ward case
Subcommittee says the Attorney General misled Roosevelt
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Thinks Corrigan should face trial
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U.S. naval task forces seen hitting Jap mainland soon
Cite weak opposition at Marcus
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Yanks cut off retreat at New Guinea airfield
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CIO political group plans June meeting
Washington (UP) –
The CIO Political Action Committee, which has already endorsed President Roosevelt for a fourth term, plans to call a national conference in Washington in mid-June to chart his program for the 1944 political campaign, it was disclosed today.
A CIO spokesman said more than 300 delegates – the committee’s regional and state directors and field officers, as well as Political Action representatives of CIO affiliates – were expected to attend the conference on the eve of the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
The defeat or retirement of three of its foes on the Dies Committee has focused attention on the CIO committee, and its activities were blamed by Senator Rufus C. Holman (R-OR) yesterday for his recent defeat in the Oregon Republican primaries.
The CIO committee and New Dealers employed unlimited financial resources to wage an “effective smear campaign” to throttle his bid for renomination, Holman told the Senate.
The committee said the June meeting would “outline labor views on issues which will decide 1944’s crucial elections” and would prepare a platform calling for full production and full employment the post-war period.
The conference is also expected to give further attention to the organizational problem of getting workers to register and to vote – a problem which has been given heavy emphasis during the early stages of the committee’s work. CIO leaders have blamed the political lethargy of labor for what they interpreted as an anti-labor trend in the 1942 and 1943 elections. They have been cheerful over the result of recent primaries.
Spokesmen for the Political Action Committee have looked upon those results as evidence that their drive to mobilize the labor vote was being successful.
FDR calls parley on money in July
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GOP nominates Gwinn for Congress race
White Plains, New York –
Assemblyman Jane H. Todd of Tarrytown was out of the race today for Republican candidate for Congress from the newly-created 27th Congressional district, which is so heavily Republican that a party nomination is considered equivalent to election.
At a meeting of the Westchester County Republican Committee, held in the Eastview Junior High School last night, Ralph W. Gwinn of Bronxville was formally designated for candidate from the 27th while Ralph A. Gamble of Larchmont was named for the nomination from the 28th.
Miss Todd sat on the platform with Livingston Piatt, county leader, when the nominations were made, and Mrs. Virginia Morrison of Elmsford, who had supported Miss Todd, seconded the nomination of Gwinn.
Japs seen giving U.S. prisoners better treatment as Soviet acts
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Brooklyn soldier scores scoop, getting first interview with Tito
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The Pittsburgh Press (May 26, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
A B-26 base, England – (by wireless)
Sgt. Walter Hassinger is from Hutchinson, Kansas. He is 29, and in a way the most remarkable man at this station.
In the first place, he is a radio gunner who has more missions under his belt than any other crew member here. And in the second place he has contributed more to satisfied living and general morale than anybody else.
What Hassinger did was this – he spent $400 of his own money creating a little private radio station and hooking it by loudspeakers into barracks all over the place, until finally his station is heard by 1,700 men.
Over this station he rebroadcasts news bulletins, repeats orders and instructions that come from headquarters, plays phonograph records, and carries on a spasmodic monologue razzing the officers and just gabbing about everything from the abominable weather to the latest guy who has wrecked a jeep.
Still another Kansan. This one is Lt. Frank Willms of Coffeyville. That’s the hometown of Walter Johnson, the famous pitcher. Lt. Willms says he has never met Walter but knows the rest of the Johnson family.
Lt. Willms isn’t in the group I’ve been visiting, although he is a B-26 pilot. The reason I’m mentioning him is his hair. I met him one night at a party in London. His hand stands so startlingly straight up that you are struck suddenly rigid when you see it and you can’t help but remark on it. And Lt. Willms’ reply to my obvious puzzlement was this:
On my first mission I was so scared it stood up like that, and I’ve never been able to get it to lie back down.
Lt. Jim Gray is from Wichita Falls, Texas, and he looks like a Texan – windburned and unsmooth. He’s far over his allotted missions, and if it weren’t for the coming invasion, he would probably be on his way home by now.
Like every other Texan in the Air Forces – and it seems to be half Texans – he has to take a lot of razzing about his state. But he’s proud of it, and always in plain sight under the end of his cot you can see a beautifully scrolled pair of cowboy boots.
Lt. Gray is a firm believer in the flak vest. In case you don’t know, a flak vest is a sort of coat of mail, made up of little squares of steel platings. It hangs from your shoulders and covers your chest and back.
One day a hunk of hot metal about the size of a walnut struck him right in the chest. He says it felt as if some giant had him with his fist. It bent the steel plating but didn’t go through. Without it, he would have been a dead duck.
Sgt. Hanson, who flies with him, has taken the bent plate out and is keeping it as a souvenir. Lt. Gray keeps the hung of shrapnel itself, with a little tag on it.
The lieutenant is anxious to get home. Not so much because he is homesick but because, as he says, “I’d like to fly in a little Texas weather for a change?”
The weather over here is the fliers’ biggest complaint. As you’ve heard, it’s dark and cloudy and rainy most of the time. And the weather changes like lightning. They say that sometimes you can start to take off and the other end of the runway will close in before you get there. How these mighty air fleets ever operate at all is a modern miracle.
In this area, I ran into an old friend of mine. He’s Texas too – Maj. Robert Rousel, who used to be managing editor of the Houston Press. He is about my age, and like me he is starting to feel decrepit. He’s in the planning section of the bomber command, and he says it’s a worse than running a newspaper. The pressure of detail and the responsibility of mapping these complex missions for the whole command sometimes gets him mentally swamped. At such time he just gets up and walks out half a day. Sometimes he goes flying, sometimes he plays golf.
He said:
I played golf yesterday and I’m sure I’m the only man in England who ever succeeded in playing 18 holes without even once, not one time, going on the fairway.
Völkischer Beobachter (May 27, 1944)
Dr. Goebbels: Ein Wort zum feindlichen Luftterror
Von Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels
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Internierter Japaner erschossen –
Sowjetmethoden in den USA
Tokio, 26. Mai –
Nach hier vorliegenden Berichten wurde der japanische Zivilinternierte Okamoto in dem berüchtigten US-Lager Tule Lake von einem Posten erschossen. Der Sprecher der Regierung, Okazaki, stellte in diesem Zusammenhang fest, daß kein Grund zu einer derartigen Gewaltmaßnahme gegen den Internierten vorlag. Die japanische Regierung sehe diesen Vorfall als äußerst ernst an und stelle augenblicklich noch weitere Ermittlungen an. Nach Angabe des US-Wachtpostens habe Okamoto mit einem Lastwagen, dessen Fahrer er war, die Straße blockiert. Obwohl er keinerlei Waffen trug und nicht die geringste Miene machte, irgendwie tätlich zu werden, wurde er von dem Posten ohne ersichtlichen Grund getötet.
U.S. Navy Department (May 27, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 421
For Immediate Release
May 27, 1944
Shimushu in the Kuril Islands was bombed by a Ventura search plane of Fleet Air Wing Four before dawn on May 25 (West Longitude Date). No opposition was encountered.
Matsuwa Island was bombed by a Liberator of the 11th Army Air Force before dawn on May 25 without opposition.
Ponape Island was bombed by 7th Army Air Force Mitchells on May 25. Docks, warehouses, and gun positions were hit. Meager anti-aircraft fire was encountered.
Enemy objectives in the Marshall Islands were bombed on May 25 by Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and Navy Hellcat fighters. Anti-aircraft fire ranged from medium to moderate. Runways, anti-aircraft batteries, and barracks were hit. One Corsair fighter made a forced landing near Wotje Atoll and its pilot was rescued.