America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

8007

Östlich der Ornemündung feindlicher Landungsverband zersprengt –
Erbittertes Ringen vor Cherbourg

Abwehrschlacht im mittleren Frontabschnitt der Ostfront mit steigender Heftigkeit

dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 24. Juni –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Örtliche Vorstöße des Feindes im Brückenkopf der Normandie scheiterten. Gefangene wurden eingebracht. An der Landfront der Festung Cherbourg kam es gestern an verschiedenen Stellen zu erbitterten Nahkämpfen, die sich auch in der Nacht fortsetzten. In den Nachmittagsstunden gelang es dem Feind, einige Stützpunkte zu nehmen und weiter gegen die Festung vorzudringen. Im Rücken des Gegners kämpfen noch zahlreiche Widerstandsnester zäh und verbissen. In anderen Abschnitten wurden feindliche Angriffsspitzen im zusammengefassten Feuer zerschlagen.

Östlich der Ornemündung zersprengten unsere Küstenbatterien trotz starken Beschusses durch schwere Schiffsartillerie einen feindlichen Landungsverband und schossen mehrere Transporter und Frachter in Brand.

Seestreitkräfte versenkten vor der Invasionsfront ein vollbeladenes Landungsschiff von 3.000 BRT und einen Zerstörer.

Bei der Insel Jersey versenkten Sicherungsfahrzeuge eines Nachschubgeleits aus einem angreifenden Verband britischer Schnellboote zwei Boote und beschädigten ein drittes so schwer, daß mit seinem Untergang zu rechnen ist. Alle übrigen feindlichen Boote wurden beschädigt. Ein eigenes Minensuchboot und ein kleines Transportfahrzeug gingen verloren.

Die Luftwaffe erzielte in der Nacht Treffer auf mehreren Handelsschiffen.

Über dem Landekopf und den besetzten Westgebieten wurden 40 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.

Das Störungsfeuer auf London wurde bei Tag und Nacht mit wuchtigen Feuerschlägen fortgesetzt.

In Italien wurde im Raum nördlich Grosseto auch gestern schwer gekämpft. Unter starker Massierung seiner Kräfte konnte der Feind dort in unsere Stellungen einbrechen. Durch sofort einsetzende Gegenangriffe wurde die Front wieder geschlossen. An der übrigen Front wurden zahlreiche feindliche Aufklärungsvorstöße blutig abgewiesen.

Bei den schweren Abwehrkämpfen der letzten Tage haben sich die unter Führung des Generals der Panzertruppen Herr stehenden Divisionen des Heeres und der Luftwaffe, besonders das Grenadierregiment 145 unter Oberst Kühl, hervorragend bewährt.

Im Golf von Genua versenkten Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine ein angreifendes britisches Torpedoschnellboot und beschädigten drei weitere schwer.

An der südlichen Ostfront scheiterten alle Vorstöße der Bolschewisten. Erneute Bereitstellungen wurden zerschlagen.

Im mittleren Frontabschnitt nahm der sowjetische Großangriff an Wucht zu und dehnte sich auf weitere Abschnitte aus. Während zwischen dem Pripjet und Tschaussy alle Angriffe erfolglos blieben, gelang es starken feindlichen Infanterie- und Panzerkräften östlich Mogilew beiderseits der Smolensker Rollbahn und beiderseits Witebsk in unsere vordersten Stellungen einzubrechen. Die Abwehrschlacht geht hier mit steigender Heftigkeit weiter. Die Bolschewisten verloren gestern im Mittelabschnitt der Ostfront 73 Panzer und 53 Flugzeuge.

Südöstlich Ostrow, im Raum von Pleskau und nordwestlich Narwa scheiterten zahlreiche sowjetische Angriffe.

Die Marinebatterie Tytters versenkte im Finnischen Meerbusen drei sowjetische Räumfahrzeuge.

Bei Angriffen eines nordamerikanischen Bomberverbandes auf serbisches und rumänisches Gebiet wurden Wohnviertel der Städte Giurgiu und Ploesti getroffen. Deutsche, rumänische und bulgarische Luftverteidigungskräfte vernichteten 18 feindliche Flugzeuge.

Einzelne britische Flugzeuge warfen in der letzten Nacht Bomben auf Bremen.

Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge griffen Ziele in Südostengland an.

8008

Entschuldigungen auf peinlichem Gebiet –
Lyttelton gießt Öl ins Feuer

…

8009

Letzte Meldung –
Die ersten Schwerter an der Invasionsfront

dnb. Berlin, 24. Juni –
Der Führer verlieh am 22. Juni 1944 das Eichenlaub mit Schwertern zum Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes an SS-Obersturmführer Michael Wittmann, Kompanieführer einer schweren Panzerkompanie in der SS-Panzerdivision „Hitlerjugend“ als 71. Soldaten der Deutschen Wehrmacht.

8010

Strategische Entscheidung im Pazifik –
Die Bedeutung der Seeschlacht bei Saipan

Tokio, 24. Juni –
Der Kampf um die Insel Saipan hat sich nach dem übereinstimmenden Urteil militärischer Kreise in Tokio zu der größten Seeschlacht des Ostasienkrieges entwickelt. Dies trifft zu für den beiderseitigen Aufmarsch an Flottenstreitkräften, wie auch für die Größe der amerikanischen strategischen Konzeption, welche die Entfernung von Pearl Harbour nach Tokio mit einem Schlag von der Marshall-Gruppe aus um ein Drittel des Weges verkleinert.

Wie Kapitän zur See Kuribara im Kaiserlichen Hauptquartier betont, würde ein starker Stützpunkt auf Saipan die feindlichen Großbomber zu einer dauernden Gefahr für Tokio wie für die Philippinen werden lassen. Daher war das japanische Oberkommando bereit, der feindlichen Absicht die Spitze zu bieten und setzte stärkste Land-, Luft- und Seestreitkräfte in diesen Gewässern ein. Die Zusammensetzung der feindlichen Flotte, welche seit dem 11. Juni in den Gewässern von Saipan operiert, wird angegeben mit 20 Flugzeugträgern, über 10 Schlachtschiffen und über 100 Transportern, von welchen aus am 16. Juni mehr als zwei Divisionen Truppen auf der Insel gelandet wurden. In Zusammenstößen mit der japanischen Luftwaffe und vor allem mit Einheiten der japanischen Hochseeflotte am 19. und 20. Juni erlitt der Feind, wie gemeldet, den Verlust von 28 beschädigten und versenkten Kriegsschiffen, weiterhin wurden über 400 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.

In Anbetracht der Größe der noch intakten feindlichen Schlachtflotte und der Hartnäckigkeit der weiteren Angriffe wird in Tokio jedoch wiederholt betont, daß die bisherigen Ergebnisse durchaus nicht entscheidend sind. Vielmehr verweist Kuribara darauf, daß nur ein Teil der Feindkräfte gestellt wurde und daß weitere heftige Kämpfe bevorstehen. Obwohl die Gefahr für Saipan nicht zu unterschätzen ist, wie Admiral Suetsugu, der frühere Oberkommandierende der japanischen Hochseeflotte, herausstellt, ist gleichfalls zu beachten, daß die Landung starker Kräfte auf der Insel nunmehr die feindliche Flotte in diesen Gewässern bindet. Trotz weiterer möglicher Ausfälle kann diese Schlachtflotte nicht nach Pearl Harbour zurückkehren und die gelandeten Truppen ihrem Schicksal überlassen. Daher müsse der Feind nach Suetsugus Ansicht auf eine Entscheidung drängen.

Anderseits verzeichnet die Presse auch ausländische Stimmen, welche hervorheben, daß Japan jetzt die Möglichkeit, den Feind zu vernichten, ausnutzen müsse. So wird die Meinung zitiert, daß die beiderseitigen Stärken an Schlachtschiffen ungefähr gleich seien, während der Feind trotz des Verlustes seines modernsten Flugzeugträgers Bunker Hill in dieser Waffe überlegen ist.

Dagegen besitzt Japan, wie die Meldungen feststellen, zahlreiche Landflugzeuge in diesen Gebieten. Weiterhin gleiche die ungünstige Verlängerung der amerikanischen Zufahrtstraße das Kräfteverhältnis weitgehend aus. Bei dieser kleinen Insel hat somit eine Schlacht begonnen, welche für den Ausgang des Ostasienkrieges eine wichtige Rolle zu spielen berufen scheint.

8011

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (June 25, 1944)

Communiqué No. 39

Allied troops are in the outskirts of CHERBOURG and the final assault has begun. On a 10-mile front extending east and west of the city, our forces have advanced to within three miles of the sea. The enemy continues to fight desperately but relentless Allied pressure is steadily overcoming the defenses throughout the entire length of the narrow coastal strip.

In other sectors, local fighting has left the front almost unchanged.

Taking advantage of the improved weather, our Air Forces were out in great strength yesterday afternoon and evening, concentrating largely on the enemy communication system.

Fighters and fighter-bombers attacked railway yards, tracks, bridges, tunnels and rolling stock in a belt at the base of the CHERBOURG PENINSULA ranging from GRANVILLE and AVRANCHES in the west to SAINT-LÔ on the river VIRE. Similar attacks were made on targets more distant from the battle zone, including rolling stock in the yards at DREUX and at various points in the region of CHARTRES. Fighter-bombers also bombed the steel works at IJMUIDEN in HOLLAND.

Our fighters destroyed at least 30 enemy aircraft on airfields in the area of ANGERS.

Medium bombers attacked a railway bridge over the SEINE at MAISONS-LAFFITTE, and the railway centers at BEAUVAIS and HAZEBROUCK. They also bombed dumps in the FORÊT DE CONCHES and at BRUZ and BAGNOLES-DE-L’ORNE.

Heavy bombers attacked a number of electrical switching stations near BOULOGNE. Attacks were continued on flying bomb sites.

According to reports so far received, 20 enemy aircraft were shot down. Nineteen of our aircraft are missing.

Last night, light bombers attacked railway and road transport behind the battle area including the railway yards at MÉZIDON.

Our night fighters, one of which is missing, destroyed five enemy aircraft over northern FRANCE.

Communiqué No. 40

The Allies now hold high ground overlooking CHERBOURG and are gradually pressing forward into the suburbs. The enemy is resisting bitterly, but is unable to stem our steady advance.

Targets in the CHERBOURG area were subjected to a bombardment from seaward this afternoon by a force of Allied warships.

Local attacks have improved our positions in the eastern sector of the bridgehead after fierce fighting.

Air bombardment has given invaluable aid to ground units.

Continuing the obstruction of enemy movements towards the battle zone, our fighter-bombers today attacked a series of rail targets including bridges, fuel tanks and rolling stock in the CHARTRES-DREUX-MANTES area and the rail crossings at CONCHES and MÉZIDON.

On the railroad between CHARTRES and MANTES the tracks were severed at four points, and direct hits were registered on a tunnel.

The bridge at MAISONS-LAFFITTE and a radio installation at SAINT-SAUVEUR were damaged.

There was an increase in enemy air activity. On one occasion a formation of German fighters gave battle, and nine were destroyed; seven of ours are missing.

Four airfields in southern FRANCE at FRANCAZAL, BLAGNAC, AVORD and BOURGES were targets for our heavy bombers. Escorting fighters destroyed locomotives, freight cars and vehicles. Medium bombers operating closer to the battleline hit fuel dumps in the FORÊT D’ECOUVES.

Coastal aircraft attacked E-boats in the eastern Channel early this morning.

8012

U.S. Navy Department (June 25, 1944)

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 63

On the basis of latest reports received tabulating damage inflicted upon the enemy during operations in the Mariana Islands, the following revisions are necessary:

  • During the attack by enemy carrier aircraft on our ships on June 18 (West Longitude Date), 402 enemy aircraft were destroyed, of which 369 were shot down by our carrier‑based fighters, 18 by anti-aircraft fire; and 15 were destroyed on the ground. We lost 18 pilots and 6 aircrewmen from 27 aircraft shot down by the enemy.

  • In the attack by our carrier aircraft upon units of the Japanese Fleet in the late afternoon of June 19, one heavy cruiser and one light cruiser, neither of which was previously reported, were damaged. One light carrier, not previously reported, received seven 500‑pound bomb hits. One of the three tankers previously reported sunk has been. transferred to the severely damaged category. 26 enemy aircraft were shot down, instead of the previously re­ported 17 to 22. We lost 22 pilots and 27 aircrewmen from 95 aircraft either shot down by the enemy or forced to land in the water.

  • In the fighter sweep over Iwo Jima in the Volcano Island on June 23, 116 enemy aircraft were shot down, and 11 were probably shot down. We lost five fighters instead of four.

On June 24, U.S. Marines and Army troops on Saipan launched an attack, preceded by intense artillery and naval gunfire preparation, which resulted in advances on our western flank around Mount Tapochau, ranging from 500 to 800 yards. Strong enemy opposition continues. Enemy aircraft dropped bombs among our transports off Saipan on June 23, doing minor dam­age to several landing craft. During the evening of June 23, a small fight of enemy planes dropped several bombs in the area occupied by our forces on Saipan. Casualties were very light.

On June 23, 7th Army Air Force Liberators bombed Truk Atoll, and Army, Navy and Marine aircraft continued their reduction of enemy defenses in the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

8013

The Brooklyn Eagle (June 25, 1944)

NAVY TASK FORCE BAGS 82 JAP PLANES
Airmen rip 19 enemy cargo ships

Bonin Isle attacked 753 miles from Tokyo; U.S. gains on Saipan
By William F. Tyree

USPACFLT HQ, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (UP) – (June 24)
A powerful U.S. carrier task force, striking within 753 miles of Tokyo, destroyed at least 82 Japanese planes and sank or damaged 19 small cargo vessels and sampans in assaults Thursday and Friday, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced today.

The deadly carrier-based aerial fleets attacked Iwo Jima Island in the Bonins, 753 miles south of Tokyo, on Friday in the war’s second raid on that stronghold in Japan’s inner defense arc. They shot down 60 planes in air combat and destroyed 12 which tried to attack the carrier force. We lost four planes.

On Thursday, the Americans attacked Pagan Island, 712 miles below Iwo Jima, sinking four small cargo ships and a sampan and damaging two cargo ships and 12 sampans. Four Japanese planes were destroyed on the ground and six were shot down while trying to attack the surface ships.

Believed to be Mitscher’s force

The force was believed to have been VAdm. Marc A. Mitscher’s Task Force 58 which on Sunday and Monday shot down 375 Japanese planes and sank or damaged 15 ships in a one-sided battle against units of the Japanese Fleet between the Marianas and the Philippines.

The latest U.S. triumphs in the battle of the Central Pacific raised to 447 the number of Japanese planes destroyed in six days and to 34 the number of enemy ships sunk, probably sunk or damaged in the same period.

Nimitz also announced that veteran U.S. Marines and soldiers who invaded Saipan Island on the Marianas on June 14 had made new but unspecified gains along the northern shore of Magicienne Bay on the southwestern side of that island, 1,465 miles from Tokyo.

Patrols enter Garapan

A dispatch from Richard W. Johnston, United Press war correspondent aboard a flagship off Saipan, reported that U.S. patrols had entered the suburbs of Garapan, capital city of the Marianas on the west-central coast. He said the entry was made almost unopposed while other U.S. forces fought their way up the jungle-covered slope guarding Mount Tapochau in the center of the island.

On Friday, U.S. bombers hammered airfields in Tinian and American artillery on Saipan joined what Nimitz called “a heavy attack.”

The communiqué revealed that with hardly a pause after its triumph earlier in the week over the Japanese Navy, the U.S. naval battle line had returned to action on the broad western front and also attacked Rota Island in the southern Marianas, while land-based bombers, presumably based in the Aleutians, lashed Shumushu in the Kuril Islands north of Japan.

Still other warplanes – Army, Navy and Marine – continued neutralization raids Friday on enemy positions in the Marshall and Caroline Islands below the Marianas.

8014

Yanks seize last Cherbourg heights

Hundreds of foe are captured as city’s fall nears
By Edward W. Beattie

SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
U.S. infantrymen captured the last heights overlooking Cherbourg and stormed down the slopes to within 1,000 yards of the flaming port today, sweeping up hundreds of exhausted prisoners and huge quantities of arms and ammunition abandoned by the retreating Germans.

Battered and stunned by the hellfire of bombs and shells rained on them from land, sea and air, the Nazi defenders still fought back with fanatical fury, but front dispatches said Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s Yankee veterans were beating them back foot by foot into a narrowing deathtrap inside the city.

Two of the three forts on the southern approaches to the port fell to the attacking Americans yesterday and United Press war correspondent Henry T. Gorrell reported from the battlefield that the last hours of Cherbourg’s siege were at hand.

Massed batteries of German 88mm cannon were firing over open sights into the ranks of the attacking Americans, while hundreds of hidden enemy machine guns fired incessantly from the farmhouses and fields bordering the main highway into Cherbourg.

Bradley’s doughboys were slugging their way through the maze of enemy defenses, however, and there were indications that the four-day assault had knocked much of the fight out of the 30,000-odd Germans holding the port.

Two Nazi generals dead

Two of their divisional generals were dead and front dispatches said hundreds of exhausted captives were being marched back into U.S. lines through a gantlet of jeering French peasants.

Late Saturday, the doughboys launched a final attack from their newly-won heights under a ringing order to “Push the b******* over and walk into town.” With a bayonet charge, they captured a huge stronghold of 16 subterranean rooms which had somehow absorbed the shock of the tremendous three-dimensional bombardment.

Henry T. Gorrell of the United Press watched the charge from an observation point itself only two kilometers (just over a mile) from Cherbourg. Earlier he flew over the besieged city in a Piper Cub observation plane and reported seeing the Americans “advancing en masse toward their final objectives.” “The infantry’s advance is rapid,” Gorrell said.

Nazis may try sea dash

He also noted a number of German ships in the harbor, possibly meaning that the enemy would make other evacuation attempts like Saturday’s pre-dawn getaway aboard seven small merchant ships escorted by E-boats and armed landing craft.

The British blockade patrol promptly sank two of the vessels, seriously damaged three others and left them wallowing helplessly off Cherbourg, while the remaining two succeeded in running through to Alderney in the Channel Islands. The British forces suffered superficial damage and a small number of casualties.

Supreme Headquarters said that if the enemy garrison did not surrender within a few hours, the fighting might develop into slow and costly street battles.

Americans reach heights

Gorrell reported from the front, however, that the Americans reached heights overlooking the city at 3:20 a.m. with only slight resistance.

About 1,250 Germans had surrendered in the Cherbourg area in 24 hours, and this fact, plus the enemy’s failure to react to the breaching of the port’s perimeter defenses, “indicates a rapid deterioration of the enemy morale and ability to defend Cherbourg much longer,” a front dispatch said.

More than 300 Marauder medium bombers saturated Cherbourg’s defenses in a series of raids before noon, but a thick weather front precluded almost all aerial support in the afternoon.

Citadel spouts flame

Richard McMillan of the United Press said long-range cannon, field artillery, naval guns, tanks and infantry as well as planes were “all massing fire upon the citadel, which is belching smoke and flames as the Germans attempt to destroy it.”

Fires were burning in the center of the city and at several points east and south of it, according to a London Evening News dispatch, by a correspondent who flew over the front. The reporter said:

There was an air of fateful brooding over Cherbourg, but there were no signs of the battle which was raging in the suburbs. The enemy, one felt, was like a rat in a hole nervously awaiting the fate soon to overtake him.

German broadcasts admitted Saturday that the Americans had managed to capture several strongholds, breaking into Cherbourg’s outer defenses at three points through the use of heavy shellfire. The Allied command is using 10 divisions in the assault on the fortress, Berlin asserted.

The German DNB Agency said particularly heavy fighting was raging for Cherbourg’s airdrome west of the city, which had been under Allied shellfire for several days and hence no longer useable by the Luftwaffe.

The U.S. column, which slugged its way north of La Mare à Canards, had advanced more than a mile in 36 hours of grueling fighting from one German strongpoint to another.

At Allied headquarters, where reports are apt to be up to 24 hours old, it was stated that the Germans, including 40-year-old coastal defense crews who had been thrown into the line, were battling savagely with no sign of a surrender. The Germans in and around the town number 30,000 at a minimum, it was said, including marine units, Todt Organization workers and dockhands.

They include the remnants of four divisions – the 91st, the 77th, 70th and 243rd Divisions, the last named composed mostly of Bavarians and Austrians.

The commanders of the 91st, a Gen. Falley, and of the 243rd, Gen. Hellmich, have been killed in the battle for Cherbourg, headquarters announced.

The 77th Division suffered heavily when it tried to break through as the Americans cut across the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula. A few units got through but the bulk fell back to Cherbourg with bloody losses.

There were few changes elsewhere on the French invasion front except that northeast of Caen, the British captured the wrecked village of Sainte-Honorine-la-Chardronette after heavy fighting in which 12 German tanks were knocked out.

The bulk of four German tank divisions is concentrated around Caen, the primary counterattack area for the Germans if Field Marshal Erwin Rommel should try to compensate for the loss of Cherbourg by wiping out the east part of our bridgehead.

8015

Gorrell: Norman countryside set afire by big guns

Massed batteries fire into onrushing Yanks; peasants hand out cognac to doughboys
By Henry T. Gorrell

Outside Cherbourg, France (UP) – (June 24, 7:10 p.m. CET)
U.S. troops battering the Germans back along the flaming road to Cherbourg were within 1,000 yards of the port tonight, and the order has gone out to our infantry: “Push the b******* over and walk into the town.”

From a vantage point on the road overlooking Cherbourg, I see massed batteries of German 88s firing over open sights into the onrushing Americans.

The whole countryside seems to be on fire from a frightful storm of bombs and shells. Flames are licking up the slopes of the hills dominating the city.

Sound resembles surf’s roar

The roar of small-arms fire rolling back from hand-to-hand fighting just down the road resembles the roar of surf on a rocky shore during a tropical storm.

The Germans have dug into the outlying houses around Cherbourg and are covering the roads with machine-gun fire while their heavy artillery is trying to halt the main American forces closing in from the south and southwest.

As I joined the forward companies moving up for the assault, I saw dozens of subterranean concrete and steel pillboxes that had been bypassed in the initial sweep and mopped up later.

Dead as yet unburied

Black smoke mushroomed up from the ruined pillboxes and the Germans, Poles and Russians who manned them are piled up in grotesque heaps of dead or crammed into nearby prison-cages, trembling in terror at the crash of their own shells.

In the heat of the battle, there has been no time to pick up even American dead, let alone enemy dead, and the bodies of fallen Germans lie in roadside ditches covered with blood-soaked coats and blankets.

The advance is progressing under the personal direction of an American general who many times today escaped death by the narrowest of margins.

French peasants who remained in their partially ruined farmhouses as the battle of Cherbourg swirled around them are dashing back and forth, handing out cognac to tired frontline doughboys.

Fighting is going on all around this post, but the peasants line the road to watch hundreds of captured Germans streaming back to the rear.

French hoot Nazi prisoners

Many of the peasants hoot derisively at the Nazis and draw their hands across their throats, yelling “Dirty Boches!”

All indications tonight are that the siege of Cherbourg is entering its final hours. The Germans must now surrender or die fighting in the streets. Militarily, Cherbourg is untenable.

Word has just come back that the doughboys have fought their way across the pillbox-studded heights overlooking the port, where the Germans had their last major defense line.

Poked dynamite down periscope

The captain of an infantry company told me how Cpl. John D. Kelly knocked out a pillbox with concrete and steel walls six feet thick.

The captain said:

We were pinned down by machine guns with dead and wounded all around us when I saw this guy carrying a long pole. It was Kelly with his pole charges – long sticks with a charge of dynamite on the end.

He dropped three or four of them down the hole where the periscope sticks out of the pillbox and smoked the Heinies out. He did all this under heavy fire.

8016

Robot threat stymied Allied bombs credited

…

8017

americavotes1944

Dewey managers seek first ballot nomination as opposition wavers

Assurance of Governor’s backers seen checkmating Bricker-Stassen challenge
By Lyle C. Wilson

Chicago, Illinois (UP) – (June 24)
Governor Dewey’s “draft” managers are driving tonight for his ballot nomination on the Republican ticket against opposition that seems unable to organize effectively.

The first big test for the Dewey managers was scheduled for 10:30 p.m. CT when Illinois leaders were to caucus the state’s 59-vote delegation.

Plans for the Republican National Convention meeting here June 26 have been streamlined for adoption of a platform and nomination of the ticket by June 28. The successful candidate is scheduled to accept the 1944 leadership of the Republican Party against the New Deal-Democratic Party Wednesday or Thursday.

Platform building is slowed by pulling and hauling over the foreign relations plank, but it is obvious that the convention will adopt some kind of pledge for post-war international cooperation.

Three names before delegates

At least three names will be before the delegates for the presidential nomination. The managers of Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio claim they have 200 to 225 first ballot votes. LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen’s supporters expect the former Minnesota Governor to poll about 65 votes on the first ballot.

Dewey backers are making no public claims and their smug assurance pinpricks the opposition. Bricker spokesmen estimate that Dewey will have 385 votes on the first ballot. Any candidate would need a bare majority of 529 to be nominated.

The Bricker-Stassen challenge to the Dewey “draft” probably will justify itself or collapse 12 to 24 hours before the convention meets when some of the big state delegations begin to caucus to decide with whom to ride on early ballots.

Hopes to hold Dewey

Bricker has a chance among all of them and there is the possibility that state leaders may decide to cast favorite-son votes on early ballots from a safe position on the fence. Bricker is counting on that, hoping to hold Dewey for a couple of ballots and then chip away his lead, as was done four years ago in Philadelphia.

Those tactics might easily lead to deadlock in which event a lot of smart money would be put down quickly on Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), whose stature in the party has risen steadily and is still going up.

California, Illinois and Pennsylvania apparently control the situation and they are expected to hold hotel room caucuses over the weekend to decide, in effect, whether the East or Midwest shall provide the man with whom the GOP will attempt for the third time to defeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The party regulars are talking a Dewey-Warren ticket, insisting that Governor Earl Warren of California can be persuaded to accept the vice-presidential nomination despite his known disinclination for the assignment.

If Warren balks, there are a dozen other Republican governors who are willing and able to grace the ticket and Rep. Everett Dirksen (R-IL), who campaigned for the presidential nomination, is recognized now as a contender for second place.

Rep. Harold Knutson (R-MN) arrived today from ballyhooing a coalition ticket on which Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA), a notable anti-Roosevelt Southerner, would be nominated for Vice President. The party regulars are not impressed and some of the more sarcastic remark that they tried to win an election in 1940 with a Democrat on the Republican ticket and that it will not work. They refer to Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 GOP presidential nominee, who was a Democrat before Mr. Roosevelt began making some changes in that party.

8018

americavotes1944

Dewey-pledged Boro delegates Chicago-bound

Confident governor will be chosen on the first ballot
By Joseph H. Schmalacker

The main body of New York State’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, staking its full strength and voting power on the imminent draft of Governor Dewey for the GOP presidential nomination, last night sped toward Chicago for tomorrow’s convention debut.

All indications were that the solid pro-Dewey delegation would seek to clinch the nomination quickly for New York’s Republican Governor.

Republican Leader John R. Crews, as he headed the Brooklyn unit of the delegation at its departure, said:

I am fully convinced the convention will draft Governor Dewey on the first ballot. The task now is to choose the best nominee for Vice President.

With Governor Dewey as the nominee for President, the ticket will poll millions of independent votes and will sweep the country in November.

Expect near landslide

While Crews and others were making their final pre-convention predictions, political enthusiasm soared among the delegation’s rank-and-file and the unspoken consensus among many of the delegates seemed to indicate they were expecting Mr. Dewey’s nomination to be voted actually by near landslide proportions. Their belief, they said, was based on glowing private reports reaching the delegation from Chicago.

The main body of the delegation left for Chicago in two groups. The Brooklyn delegates (representing Kings County) left with the delegates from Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan and Richmond aboard a New York Central train from Grand Central. Nassau and Suffolk delegates departed hours later aboard a Pennsylvania train from the Pennsylvania Station.

Accommodations on both trains were made available for more than 300 delegates, alternates, leaders and convention personnel under Office of Defense Transportation restrictions. All were required to produce ODT certificates authorizing the convention journey.

W. Kingsland Macy, Suffolk County leader and Republican State chairman, was with the Long Island delegation.

Macy remarked:

When New York elected Joe R. Hanley as Lieutenant Governor last November, I said it was another indication of the trend in favor of Governor Dewey. It has become more obvious every day the sentiment of the country is for his nomination.

Delegation caucus tonight

The entire 93-member New York delegation will meet in caucus tonight at the Hotel Stevens, the New York State headquarters in Chicago, to pledge its formal support for Dewey. Except for the Kings County unit, which adopted a pro-Dewey pledge several weeks ago, the New York delegation has maintained a technically unpledged attitude.

The Brooklyn delegates include Attorney General Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Public Service Commissioner George A. Arkwright, Benjamin F. Westervelt, William E. Rowen, Harold L. Turk, Walter J. Vernie, James Leo Morrison; William S. Webb, head of the State Tax Bureau; Deputy Industrial Commissioner A. H. Goodman, Assistant Secretary Michael Chiusano of the State Labor Department, George Eilperin, Ernest C. Wagner and Walter L. Johnston.

The alternate delegates are Chairman William T. Simpson of the State War Ballot Commission; A. David Benjamin, chairman of the Kings County Republican Law Committee; Assemblyman Robert J. Crews, John Morris, Mrs. Faith Moore Andrews, Samuel Sweet, Joseph F. Keating, Miss Amy Wren, Almert W. Hoff. Harry G. Anderson, George J. Beldock, Henry Sugarman, William A. Root, Jacob Bartscherer and Richard Wright. John Bartels, president of the Brooklyn Republican Club, is an alternate delegate-at-large.

Another prominent Republican in the Brooklyn delegation was Frank Pals, leader of the new 1st AD. Former U.S. Attorney George Z. Medalie, John Foster Dulles, Election Commissioner David B. Costuma, Senator Frederic R. Coudert Jr. and Roger W. Straus were included in the Manhattan delegation. The entire group traveled under the direction of Charles W. Ferry, passenger representative of the Republican State Committee and assistant appraiser of the State Tax Department for the metropolitan district.

8019

americavotes1944

Clare comes up with ‘bumbledom,’ thanks to Dickens

Washington (UP) – (June 24)
Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT), who coined the word “globaloney” to describe the New Deal’s foreign policy, has invented another for its domestic policy. “Bumbledom” is the word.

And the thousands at the GOP convention in Chicago and millions who will be tuned in on their radios to listen to the proceedings Tuesday night will hear it again and again: “Bumbledom! Bumbledom! Bumbledom!”

Mrs. Luce, a delegate to the convention from Connecticut who believes Governor Dewey will be drafted and have a 50–50 chance of getting elected, doesn’t claim full credit for her new word for deriding the Roosevelt administration. This time, she admits, she dipped into Charles Dickens’ novel, Oliver Twist, for the idea.

8020

Germans threaten 10–1 ‘reprisal’ on U.S. captives

By the United Press

A German DNB Agency broadcast, reported to the United Press Saturday by the FCC, quoted a German High Command announcement that it had received reports that the Allies were shooting Nazi prisoners taken around Cherbourg and threatened a 10–1 reprisal on U.S. prisoners “if these reports should prove true.”

The German broadcast followed by a day the disclosure in Commons by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that the British government had full evidence showing the Germans murdered in cold blood 50 Allied war prisoners after they tried to escape from a prison camp near Breslau last March and that “exemplary justice” would be meted out to the guilty after the war.

8021

4 U.S. bomber fleets blast France, Germany and Balkans

Yanks rake robot ramps, rail targets
By Walter Cronkite

SHAEF, London, England (UP) – (June 24)
Four flights of U.S. heavy bombers blasted France, Germany and the Balkans today, maintaining constant aerial assault on European on rail targets, airfields and the Calais rocket coast and Cherbourg Peninsula in France.

Three heavy bomber task forces sallied from Britain. The first pounded airfields and rail bridges: the second struck in Northwest Germany. and third hit nine robot bomb installations near Calais and switching stations near Boulogne.

The assault on the robot bomb ramps was the tenth by the heavyweights of the 8th Air Force this week, following an earlier raid by Havocs and Thunderbolt dive bombers. The Thunderbolts, providing top cover for the bombers, followed the Havocs’ bombs down in steep dives, loosening loads of heavy demolition bombs.

A third assault on the flying bomb installations was made by a daylight flight of British Lancasters and Halifaxes, escorted by fighters. One bomber was lost.

The day’s bomber operations opened with an attack on Cherbourg’s crumbling defenses by Marauders, which roared out at daylight to pitch 250 tons of bombs on four groups of heavy German guns, delaying the final lunge of ground troops into the prize port.

The once heavily-defended city greeted the Marauders with only slight ground fire and there was no enemy interception.

Although the sky was nearly clear of German aircraft, one squadron of Spitfires flown by Norwegian pilots engaged 12 Me 109s over Caen and shot down four without loss. Six of 15 Me 109s found aground on an airdrome in France were destroyed.

Meanwhile, numerous formations of 9th Air Force dive bombers and rocket-firing fighters of the RAF 2nd Tactical Air Force roared out over France to attack a series of rail targets ranging in a wide 200-mile arc from the Paris area to Granville on the south coast of Cherbourg Peninsula.

8022

Gorrell: Twisted steel and battle debris mark Nazi boast at Cherbourg

By Henry T. Gorrell

In a Piper Club over the Cherbourg battlefront, France (UP) – (June 24)
This Grasshopper spotter plane is tickling along only a few hundred feet above the battlefield on which the Americans are contesting with the German defenders of Cherbourg.

Below, I can see American infantrymen advancing en masse along winding roads and across fields pockmarked by huge bomb craters toward their final objectives.

From the heights dominating Cherbourg southward, I saw only one German strongpoint still firing. What had once been a formidable line of fortifications in depth is now just a part of the steadily piling debris of battle.

As this tiny ship hovers like a seagull over the battlefront, I can look down into the remains of scores of German strongpoints with what had been fine guns of all calibers, now just a mass of twisted steel.

Gun crews are corpses

No one is manning these guns. Their crews are corpses amid the wreckage, like ants after you’ve walked down their hill.

The front line shortly after noon appears to be along the heights to the north of La Mare à Canards, from which the last German gun emplacements are firing at the advancing doughboys. There are other guns firing from the Cherbourg valley and from concrete platforms on the east side of the Cherbourg Harbor. I can see the flash of the guns and the bursts of their big shells in the smoke of the charred hilltops where our advanced infantry is pushing.

The pilot of this Cub is Lt. Peter A. Daly, 8148 Woodhaven Blvd., Glendale, Long Island. He is giving firing orders to our batteries of Long Toms a few thousand yards to the rear of the ground across which we fly.

Watches for shells to hit

He pinpoints the enemy targets and then watches for the burst of our shell.

“On the way.” comes the message from below. “Firing for effect… How’s that?” “Perfect,” Daly replies. “Pump it to them.”

Entire hillsides are aflame, sending up columns of gray-brown smoke. Medium and P-47 bombers have just been over this area, showing tremendous brown scars of craters against the green cow pastures. I can smell the smoke and feel the concussion.

Dives to avoid flak

Suddenly the German ack-ack opens up on us. Daly shouts, “Flak,” and then points to a shell burst a few yards off our left wing.

He throws the Cub into a power dive. I’m wishing right now that I could retract my head into my shoulders as the Germans send flak and tracers after us.

We seem to float downward, but eventually we are hedgehopping along the treetops out of range. That gives me an excellent view of shattered pillboxes, farmhouses and knocked-out enemy guns and vehicles.

Daly starts up again and we are floating over Cherbourg. Our artillery is pouring shells into the outskirts and there are fires in the center of the city.

Ships, railyards smashed

In the harbor are a number of ships, apparently German. The railyards are a jumble of broken locomotives and cars.

Swinging back over the battle line, we see a double line of dough boys walking slowly up the sides of a road lined with broken pillboxes and wrecked German transport. The troops are under heavy shellfire, but they keep slogging forward.

Beyond is a green hillside with the wreckage of an American Thunderbolt strewn over several hundred yards.

It seems that every crossroad south of Cherbourg has taken a direct bomb hit and is piled high with wrecked German vehicles, motor and horse.

Heading back, the radiophone warns us, “There’s a plane just behind you.” I feel again as if I’d like to haul in my head, expecting the crash of .50-caliber machine-gun slugs in the fuselage. But it’s only another spotter plane coming in for a landing in the French pasture, which is our airport.

8023

British close Burma trap on Jap garrison

…

8024

Fiercely-fighting Nazis fail to stem advance

…

8025

americavotes1944

Willkie invited to GOP parley but only as guest

Chicago, Illinois (UP) – (June 24)
The pre-convention gathering of Republicans to pick their 1944 presidential nominee did not include Wendell Willkie, the 1940 choice.

Willkie, who withdrew from the race this year after a crushing defeat in the Wisconsin primary, has an invitation from National Chairman Harrison E. Spangler to attend next week’s sessions as a guest.

He has no place on the program, however, such as has been accorded former President Herbert Hoover and lacks the delegate status held by Alf M. Landon, the 1936 nominee. Willkie has not said whether he will accept Spangler’s invitation. He has offered his platform views through a series of new paper articles.

8026

Late bills piled on Roosevelt’s desk

…