Nazi mobs lynch U.S. airmen
Five fliers killed after bailing out over Germany
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Nazi paratroops taken by surprise
Many are killed in hills guarding path to Rome
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Nazis see ‘everything at stake’ before Rome
Allied HQ, Naples, Italy (AP) –
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring in a captured order of the day made public today warned his German troops that “everything is at stake” in the present battle for Rome and said “it is possible” the Allied forces would make new landings in Italy.
Dewey hits past foreign policy
Says America must no longer sit on the sidelines
Hershey, Pennsylvania (AP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York says Americans “must not again sit on the sidelines as mere observers and commentators” while new warlords grow strong.
The leading figure in the Republican presidential nomination picture told the 36th Governors’ Conference that “our foreign affairs must be so conducted that disasters like the present one will not recur… the people are determined to join in preventing future wars.”
Holding that civilians are “worried about inefficiencies and bungling” on the home front, Dewey said:
While there has been a maze of regimentation, some necessary, some inexcusable, our strength at home has come wholly from the genius of our free men in industry and the devotion of our workers and farmers to their jobs. Our success or failure after the war will depend on whether we, as a nation, take to heart the lesson the war has taught us.
If we permit the continuance of the regimentation which some so earnestly desire, we shall fail. We cannot practice in peace the centralization which brought totalitarianism to our enemies and be either free or successful.
Dewey asserted that in the pre-war years:
We had a 10-year depression, ended only by the feverish and deadly stimulus of war… no material reason was adequate to explain what happened.
The task of political leaders, he said, is to unify – “to keep and build our newfound faith in God.”
Wide observance of Memorial Day
Americans around the world honoring war dead
By the Associated Press
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Beachhead force holds services
Gen. Clark: Rome will be taken before many days
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The Pittsburgh Press (May 30, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England –
The top commanders who have toiled and slaved for months planning the second front have been under a man-killing strain of work and responsibility.
Thousands of men of high rank have labored endlessly. They are up early, they work all day, and after supper they go back to work far into the night. Seldom can you get one of them to take a day off.
Among the greatly conscientious ones in this category is Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, who will lead all the American troops in the second front.
The other day I ran into Sgt. Alex Stout from Louisiana, who has been Gen. Bradley’s driver for several years. The general is very fond of Alex, and in turn Alex is not afraid to look at his king or to plot on his behalf.
Alex keeps saying:
General, you’re working too hard. If you won’t take a day off, why don’t you get in the car and we’ll just drive around the country for a couple of hours?
He was persistent. One day he put it to his boss again and the general said, well, as soon as he filled two more appointments, he would go out for a half-hour ride. So, Alex got him in the car and headed for the country.
Alex says:
We drove for two hours. I told him I was lost and couldn’t find my way back to town. But I knew where I was all the time, all right.
The Zippo Manufacturing Company of Bradford, Pennsylvania, makes Zippo cigarette lighters. In peacetime they are nickel-plated and shiny. In wartime they are black, with a rough finish.
Zippos are not available at all to civilians. In Army PXs all around the world, where a batch comes in occasionally, there are long waiting lists.
Well, some months ago, I had a letter from the president of the Zippo Company. It seems he is devoted to this column. It seems further that he’d had an idea. He had sent to our headquarters in Washington to get my signature, and then he was having the signature engraved on a special nickel-plated lighter and he is going to send it to me as a gift.
Pretty soon there was another letter. The president of the Zippo Company had had another brainstorm. In addition to my super-heterodyne lighter, he was going to send 50 of the regular ones for me to give to friends.
I was amused at the modesty of the president’s letter. He said, “You probably know nothing about the Zippo lighter.”
If he only knew how the soldiers covet them. They’ll burn in the wind, and pilots say they are the only kind that will light at extreme altitudes. Why, they’re so popular I’ve had three of them stolen from me in the past year.
Well, at last the fighters have come, forwarded all the way from Italy. My own lighter is a beauty, with my name on one side and a little American flag on the other. I’m smoking twice as much as usual just because I enjoy lighting the thing.
The 50 others are going like hot cakes. I find myself equipped with a wonderful weapon for winning friends and influencing people. Thanks from all of us, Mr. Zippo.
The Army occasionally gets the correspondents together for instructions on preparing for the second front. Sometimes we have fun at these meetings.
For example, the other day an officer got up and said the time had come for us to make our powers of attorney and prepare our wills, if we hadn’t done so already. Everybody in the room laughed – you know, one of those crackly, mirthless laughs of a man who is a little sick at his stomach.
And then the officer was explaining that we could take with us only what we could carry on our backs, and the rest of our stuff would be turned over to the Army and would probably catch up with us a couple of weeks after we reached the other side.
Whereupon one correspondent, newly arrived in these parts, asked:
Should we carry our steel helmets and gas masks or put them in the luggage to be forwarded later?
The poor fellow was almost laughed out of the room. Does one send for the fire department two weeks after the house was burned down?
You just can’t break down English traditions. For example, I registered at a hotel as Ernie Pyle and then on another line gave my full three names, as the law requires.
And do you know how my hotel bill comes? It comes weekly in a sealed envelope on which is typed, “E. Taylor-Pyle, Esq.”
In a couple of weeks, if I’m a good boy, I hope to have “The Honorable” put in front of my name.
Völkischer Beobachter (May 31, 1944)
Englische Bischöfe für den Terror
Frevelhafte Antwort auf den Appell der französischen Amtsbrüder
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Die US-Kriegsrüstung –
Mehr geplant als produziert
Stockholm, 30. Mai –
Der Vorsitzende des US-Kriegsproduktionsamtes Donald Nelson berichtete, daß die Erzeugung an Kriegsmaterial hinter der Planung zurückgeblieben sei. Das Absinken der Produktion habe seit September vergangenen Jahres angehalten. Die stärksten Rückschläge seien im Flugzeugprogramm eingetreten, obwohl gerade in diesem Programm eine Steigerung gefordert worden war.
U.S. Navy Department (May 31, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 427
For Immediate Release
May 31, 1944
A single Liberator of the 11th Army Air Force bombed Shimushiru Island in the Kuriles before dawn on May 29 (West Longitude Date). No opposition was encountered. Another 11th Army Air Force Liberator bombed Matsuwa Island before dawn on May 29.
Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four bombed Paramushiru and Shimushu Islands in the Kurils before dawn on May 29. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered. Large fires were started at Shimushu.