Crime attorney weeps at his murder trial
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Southern bloc hits at funds for FEPC
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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.
The Brooklyn Eagle (May 27, 1944)
5th outflanks Nazis, perils escape route
Nears Via Casilina in drive to entrap 17 enemy divisions
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3,000 Yank planes rip Reich, France
Railroad, aviation centers hit in raids by 8th, 15th Air Forces
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Nazi planes wipe out U.S. platoon in Italy
Catch column of infantry by surprise, strafe and bomb soldiers and jeeps
By Robert V. Vermillion
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X to mark the spot when flag flies again
By the United Press
Hinting that the Japanese plan a large-scale naval attack soon, the German DNB Agency broadcast a Shanghai report today saying a Japanese Navy spokesman had declared the Z flag, navy battle insignia, would be flown again in the near future.
The flag flew for the first lime from the mainmast of the Japanese flagship in the Battle of Tsushima and for the second time at Pearl Harbor, according to the broadcast recorded by the United Press shortwave listening post in New York.
Gripsholm at Belfast
Belfast, Northern Ireland (UP) –
The exchange ship Gripsholm, repatriating Allied prisoners from Germany, arrived at Belfast today to disembark British nationals. It will dock this afternoon.
From Northern Ireland, the Gripsholm will return to the United States with American nationals.
Padre hid his fear in Guadalcanal hell
LtCdr. Gehring, hero priest, sees no need for worry over boys at war
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Murrow heads award winners in journalism
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Wives must show they are entitled to absentee vote
Although their husbands are entitled to vote in the fall elections under laws in this and many other states which provide, in substance, that no person gains or loses residence through entrance into military service, large number of wives of servicemen have lost their voting privileges because of the closing of homes to take up temporary quarters near army camps and naval stations.
To obtain an absentee ballot under the New York election laws, a wife must certify in person mat she will be unavoidably absent from the state election day because of duty or obligation imposed by business or professional activities. While it is reported most election boards are interpreting this provision liberally and tend to accept applications for absentee ballots, in the case of wives who have given up apartments or homes to live near their husbands it is held they are no longer residents. Thus, they are ineligible to vote.
Residence requirements in this state are one year in the state, four months in the county, city or village and 30 days in the election district.