America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

U.S. Navy Department (July 9, 1944)

Joint Statement

For Immediate Release
July 9, 1944

The following statement on submarine warfare has been approved by the President and the Prime Minister:

Hitler’s submarine fleet failed on all counts in June 1944. Not only were the U‑boats unable to halt the United Nations’ invasion of the continent, but their efforts to prevent the necessary supplying of our constantly growing Allied Army in Europe were made completely ineffective by our countermeasures.

The U‑boats apparently concentrated to the west of the invasion during the month, relatively few of them being disposed over the Atlantic. Their sinking of United Nations’ merchant vessels reached almost the lowest figure of the entire war. For every United Nations’ merchant vessel sunk by German submarines, several times as many U‑boats were sent to the bottom.

The President has also approved the recommendation of the Prime Minister that the following additional special communiqué be released with the U‑boat statement:

Thousands of Allied ships have been moved across the Channel to Normandy and coastwise to build up the Military Forces engaged in the liberation of Europe. No merchant vessel of this vast concourse has been sunk by U‑boat with the possible exception of one ship. In this case doubt exists as to her destruction by U‑boat or mine.

This is despite attempts by a substantial force of U‑boats to pass up‑channel from their bases In Norway and France. Such attempts were of course expected and U. S. and British Air Squadrons of coastal command, working in cooperation with the surface forces of the Allied Navies, were ready.

From the moment that the U‑boats sailed from their bases they were attacked by aircraft of coastal command. Both aircraft and surface forces followed up sighting reports, hunting and attacking the U‑boats with relentless determination.

The enemy were thus frustrated by the brilliant and unceasing work of coastal command and the tireless patrols of the surface forces and have suffered heavy casualties.

Operations continue.


CINCPAC Communiqué No. 76

Our forces have completed the conquest of Saipan. Organized resistance ended on the afternoon of July 8 (West Longitude Date) and the elimination of scattered, disorganized remnants of the enemy force is proceeding rapidly.

Aircraft of our fast carrier task force attacked Guam and Rota on July 7‑8 (West Longitude Date). Runways, anti-aircraft batteries, coastal defense guns and barracks were subjected to rocket fire and bombing. On July 7, nine enemy fighters apparently attempting to fly from Guam to Yap Island were shot down by our combat air patrol. Six twin‑engine enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground and two were probably destroyed near Agana Town at Guam. We lost one fighter and one torpedo bomber in these raids.

Twenty‑two tons of bombs were dropped on Truk Atoll on the night of July 7‑8 by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force. There was no interception, and all of our planes returned safely.

During July 7, Mille, Jaluit, Taroa, and Wotje were harassed by Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and a search Catalina of Group One, Fleet Air Wing Two, attacked Taroa before dawn on July 7. We lost no planes.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 9, 1944)

NAZIS BEGIN CAEN WITHDRAWAL
Berlin hints at retreat as British forces drive near heart of port

Americans pierce German front in center, push into La Haye for fourth time
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

map.070944.up
As the British drove forward into Caen and a decisive battle raged, the Nazi began withdrawing some forces from Caen indicating they were ready to evacuate that port (1). U.S. forces cut a hole in the center of the Nazi front (2) with the capture of Saint-Jean-de-Daye and drove near Pont-Hébert. U.S. forces again drove into La Haye-du-Puits and made new advances along both sides of that road junction (3).

SHAEF, London, England –
British troops smashed into Caen Saturday, sweeping through 12 suburban forts in a juggernaut offensive to within half a mile of the center of the city, and Berlin hinted that the Germans were abandoning the burned and battered bastion on the road to Paris.

Official Allied advices said that German big guns and tanks were on the move along the last two available roads out of Caen under fire of British and Canadian forces that had severed 12 highways serving the road center, indicating that evacuation of the city had begun.

Patrols may already have penetrated the inner city, and it appeared that Gen. Sir B. L. Montgomery’s British 2nd Army had met and mastered the main German force facing the French beachhead in a battle that may go down as one of the decisive actions of the war.

Yanks back in La Haye

U.S. troops at their end of the 120-mile offensive front swept into La Haye-du-Puits for the fourth time and on their east flank captured Saint-Jean-de-Daye, drilling a deep hole near the center of the German front.

Hundreds of German prisoners were taken as the British hacked through stone villages in Caen’s western, northern and northeastern outskirts where German resistance, fierce when the attack started before dawn, wilted late in the day under the overpowering assaults.

German heavy guns and tanks, it was indicated, were withdrawing to a new line below Caen and the Berlin radio, pessimistic throughout the day on the battle for the city, said last night that “it is not improbable we may shorten our lines by withdrawing them beyond Caen.”

Caen big as Cherbourg

Caen, with a population of 50,000, is as big as Cherbourg and ranks as France’s seventh port. It lies nine miles from the sea but has a large floating basin and huge docking space with outlets to the coast through the Orne River and Canal.

The 11:30 p.m. Allied communiqué reported steady gains were made Saturday on all active portions of the front, with the Americans back in La Haye and holding all high ground in the area.

After capturing Saint-Jean seven miles southeast of Carentan, the Yanks linked two spearheads in the central sector and plunged on south toward important Pont-Hébert through a hail of fire from 88mm and rocket shells, leaving the enemy’s main forts behind.

May change war’s course

But the flaming focal point of the entire battle area was Caen, where the British were slashing away at the buckle of the German front in fighting which an official commentator said might change the course of the war.

If Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s main armored forces can be smashed in the present battle, the 120 miles to Paris may be covered far more swiftly than has been anticipated, it was said.

Late dispatches from the front said Canadian anti-tank gunners knocked out 17 German tanks yesterday. They reported the battle was largely an infantry and artillery operation and that the first thrust had cracked most of the strong ring of German defenses around Caen.

Attack on 7-mile front

The Tommies attacked on a seven-mile front running from southwest to north of Caen at Gen. Sir B. L. Montgomery’s favorite hour – about 4:30 a.m. under a waning room. More than 450 RAF heavy bombers and additional U.S. mediums had softened up the German defenses with almost 3,000 tons of bombs in high-precision attacks beginning at dusk Friday.

Just before the troops moved forward, hundreds of massed guns flashed through the blackness in a famous “Monty barrage.”

The British leaped to the attack from points little more than two miles from the heart of Caen in positions they had held since D-Day, but those last few thousand yards, bristling with fortifications, were as tough as any encountered by Gen. Montgomery’s veteran desert warriors.

The Germans fought back stubbornly, but late in the day the British had pushed froward their front from 2,500 yards to two miles, reaching within half a mile of the heart of the city at some points, front dispatches said.

Huge casualties reported

Captured in the advance were 12 fortified villages, including Galamanche (three miles north-northwest of Caen), La Bijude and Lébisey (both two miles north-northeast), Couvre-Chef (one-and-a-half miles north), Hérouville (two miles northeast), Épron (three miles north) and Buron and Gruchy (both three miles northwest). The closest approach to the center of Caen was believed from the Couvre-Chef direction, where a British spearhead reported well south of that station on the railroad to the coast.

Huge casualties were reported being inflicted on the Germans as the 2nd Army smashed forward with every type of arms including flamethrowers and flail tanks which acted as land-going minesweepers. Spokesmen cautioned that their own losses may prove severe.

Yanks back on offensive

Front dispatches said that the Yanks went back to the offensive along almost the full 40 miles of the western sector after a night-long barrage, scoring most heavily in the Saint-Jean-de-Daye sector.

Saint-Jean was occupied almost without resistance after the Yanks crashed in heavy force across the Vire River and the Vire-Taute Canal leading into it and joined forces in a surge toward Pont-Hébert, four and a half miles farther south.

Under the power and consistency of the American attacks, German resistance seemed to be wavering, a front dispatch from Henry T. Gorrell said, but was still well organized.

Gradually advancing

The Germans were still matching the Yanks almost blow for blow farther west, but Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s troops were gradually if not spectacularly forcing their way to the open country inland from the Cherbourg Peninsula.

On the coastal side of La Haye, they swept through Biémont, two and a half miles southwest, and drove on toward the estuary of the Ay River, where the sheltered harbor of Saint-Germain possessed landing facilities of some importance.

The Yanks cleaned out the entire western side of the Mont-Castre forest east of La Haye.

Five miles from Périers

Farther inland, the doughboys were only five miles from the junction of Périers at two points: near Le Plessis on the main road in from the north and in the Sainteny sector on the Carentan road from the northeast.

The Germans, although hard put to do it, were still reinforcing the American sector.

An Allied commentator, asked to describe the situation in La Haye, said:

It can’t be said that the city is fully liberated although the mayor holds in his hands a speech of welcome which he hopes to deliver shortly to American troops.

Yanks and French close on Livorno

Three Nazi outposts of Gothic Line seized
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

Suicide attack on Saipan costs Japs 1,500 killed

Enemy pierces U.S. lines in charge before dawn, but is halted after half day
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – (July 8)
Desperate Jap troops cornered on the northern tip of Saipan Island opened a string counterattack against U.S. forces before dawn Thursday and scored a net ground gain of about three-fourths of a mile at a cost of approximately 1,500 dead, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced today. U.S. casualties were also numerous.

A Pacific Fleet communiqué also disclosed a total of 66 Jap planes were destroyed and 96 damaged in the previous-announced carrier attacks on Chichi and Haha Islands in the Bonin group.

Marines and soldiers who have been closing in for the kill on Saipan halted the Jap counteroffensive after a half-day of severe fighting.

The enemy drove 2,000 yards into our lines before the U.S. troops smashed back and stopped the fanatic Japs trying to sell Saipan as dearly as possible.

The right flank of the U.S. forces continued to advance and reached a point slightly more than a mile from the uncompleted airfield at Marpi Point at the extreme northern end of the 15-mile-long island.

“Several thousand” Japs participated in the counterattack. They lunged against the American left flank before sunrise and reached the outskirts of Tanapag Town, captured by U.S. troops several days ago.

The enemy assault was pinned down before noon. Then the Americans began pushing the Japs back and recovered approximately 800 yards of the ground they had lost.

The counterattack appeared to be a hopeless gesture by the remnants of a garrison which now faces either death or capture on the narrow northern tip of Saipan.

While the ground fighting reached a new peak of intensity on the northwestern shore, the Jap garrison on Tinian Island, two and a half miles south of Saipan, opened an artillery barrage against U.S.-held Isely Airfield across the Tinian Channel.

U.S. destroyers and artillery on Saipan quickly silenced the Jap batteries.

Dr. Goebbels: Germans warned of ‘grave danger’

‘May not fight again for 10 to 50 years’

London, England – (July 8)
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told the German people today that the Reich is in “grave danger” and that if it is destroyed, Germany “will not have a chance to repeat this struggle for another 10, 20 or 50 years,” the DNB News Agency reported.

Goebbels’ warning, coming almost immediately after Adolf Hitler’s admission to German industrialists that the Reich’s industries were being far outstripped by the Allies, was directed to a mass meeting of 200,000 Germans at an unidentified town “in the east” and broadcast for German consumption.

Warns of nation’s fate

In an apparent attempt to frighten the German people into working and fighting with the energy of desperation, Goebbels said:

Our enemies have made it cynically clear what fate awaits the nation in the event of the defeat they hope and strain for.

Our enemies will not be satisfied with destroying our industries, paralyzing our economic life, transporting our soldiers and workers to Siberia and slashing our country to pieces.

No, they wish on their own testimony to destroy the German nation in its national substance.

‘Still chance for victory’

“Every single German must now act as though his life is in danger,” he said.

Despite the deepening crisis, Goebbels told the Germans they “still hold all chances of victory in our hands,” asserting that the Allies face growing difficulties, too.

Goebbels said the real decisive fighting was still to come. He said:

At Cherbourg, German troops not only fought to the last cartridge but to the last drop of blood, showing that the word capitulation did not exist in their vocabulary.

He would have died, but –
19 quarts of blood, plasma poured into wounded Yank

Liver ruptured, spleen shattered and stomach perforated, now he’s recovering
By Thomas R. Henry, North American Newspaper Alliance

With U.S. forces in France – (July 5, delayed)
The body of an American soldier was completely refilled with blood – five quarts – to save his life in the course of a two-hour operation.

His liver had been ruptured, his spleen shattered and his stomach perforated from a shell explosion, all of them probably fatal wounds. He is now recovering.

This operation was part of a 60-hour ordeal for Maj. Stewart Welsh, a surgeon from Albany Medical College, who operated on wounded soldiers for this entire period with only a three-hour fitful nap, on the Cherbourg front.

Gets 14 quarts of plasma

The soldiers arrived in a state of shock. Two quarts of fresh blood were given at once to revive him to stand the surgery. This blood is donated by English civilians, flown to France daily, and delivered to every U.S. hospital base here in a big refrigerator van, touring the front continuously. The same van delivers penicillin supplies so there is no shortage possible.

During the operation, the man was given a third quart and immediately afterward two more quarts. The normal human body – no matter what the weight – contains five quarts. In addition, during and after the operation, the soldier got 14 quarts of blood plasma to counteract the shock. When he reached the operating table, Maj. Welsh had little hope that he would survive. Great quantities of blood had been lost from the liver wound. But the soldier rallied rapidly at the evacuation hospital commanded by Col. Paul Hayes of Washington.

Handles 3,000 cases

In the last two days, 185 cases of major surgery have been performed by the 32 surgeons under Maj. Welsh. Minor surgery, such as setting scores of arms and legs, is not mentioned. The surgeons work in two-men teams in 12-hour shifts, never stopping. Then they spend four hours preparing for the next shift. Brain and jaw injuries are the most frequent because the lower part of the body is protected in the small-arms fighting which is taking place behind shoulder-high garden walls along the roads.

This single hospital has handled nearly 3,000 cases since the campaign started. It is now aided by American surgical teams of specialists, moving from hospital to hospital as the burden mounts.

Although the total replacement of blood in two hours is unique, the same surgeons have had other cases which have been refilled five times – five quarts each time – in a week. This blood is burned up by gas gangrene, but the men now being evacuated are recovering.

Important experiments are underway here with a combination of penicillin and sulfadiazine on gangrene, formerly one of war’s worst scourges, but now often successfully combatted by sulfa drugs. Every victim is given a full dose of both drugs. Preliminary indications show synergic action, that is, one increasing the effect of the other.


District still behind –
U.S. over the top in War Loan Drive

Fort Pitt area falls $27.5 million short

Oil City ace wanted to become a doctor but now he’s bad medicine for Germans

Col. Gabreski always worshipped planes; cadet program gave him chance to fly
By George Swetnam

Power chairman gets approval

Senators split along party lines


Mass is planned for fire victims

Community memorial service also set

De Gaulle ends conferences with President

Officials amazed at prevailing harmony

Closer to Philippines –
Doughboys mop up on Noemfoor

One of the airfields already in use
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer


Japan to face sea and air blitz

Superfortresses, Saipan to aid new attacks

Wants 100,000 ships –
Navy boosts amphibious craft goal

Losses, new needs bring action


Quick medical attention saves many Yank lives

Ample supplies and early evacuation of wounded keep casualty lists down

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
Ample medical supplies and attention and quick evacuation saved the lives of many wounded American soldiers on the Normandy beachhead, the War Department disclosed tonight.

A report by Maj. Gen. Paul R. Hawley, chief surgeon of the European Theater of Operations, to Army Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk, told the story of rapid aid to the wounded.

Gen. Hawley said the 9th Air Force “got in there fast after D-Day” and was carrying out air evacuation of wounded to England three days after the invasion. Many wounded were flown back within an hour after reaching evacuation points behind the lines. Few waited at these points more than 12 hours.

Few arrive in shock

The flight to the United Kingdom was about an hour. Ambulances quickly transferred the patients to hospitals nearby. Air has now supplanted almost all other types of evacuation.

Field hospital platoons were used as holding hospitals at airstrips and beaches for those sent to the United Kingdom.

Gen. Hawley wrote:

The condition of the casualties on arrival in the United Kingdom has been surprisingly fine. Fractures have been well splinted. Shock has been treated on the LSTs (Landing Ship, Tanks) and hospital carriers, and it is a rare patient who arrives in shock.

Both whole blood and plasma have been plentiful in every medical installation from the clearing station to the hospital. There has been enough penicillin to treat all the cases that required it and the freedom of wounds from infection has been a source of surprise to all of our surgeons.

Supply called superb

Gen. Hawley described the medical supply as “superb.” He said he found no hospital or station in France without ample quantities.

Many American soldiers owe their lives to surgeons aboard LST boats on D-Day, Gen. Hawley wrote. The Army placed an experienced surgeon on each craft. In addition, there were two young naval medical officers and about 20 hospital corpsmen.

Reception of wounded in Britain went smoothly. Specially trained Negro litter bearers handled casualties gently.

Pacific storm sinks former luxury liner

President Grant crew loses 100-day fight

Imagine! No steaks for weeks!
War fates dealt ‘cruelly’ with Rome’s idle rich

St. Louis gal who felt sorry for ‘nice Nazis’ said Fascists were ‘just having fun’
By Carleton Kent, North American Newspaper Alliance

4,000 planes batter Nazis around Caen

1,000 hit oil plants in Austria, Hungary
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

SHAEF, London, England –
More than 4,000 Allied planes roared over the flaming Norman battlefields yesterday and laid a shattering barrage across the German frontlines around Caen, while a mighty sky fleet of well over 1,000 Italian-based raiders bombed Nazi oil refineries and airfields in Austria and Hungary.

Headquarters announced that the overall number of sorties would total more than 4,000, including 1,200 flown from Normandy airfields in close support of U.S. and British ground attacks.

Wireless station set afire

Headquarters announced that Normandy-based fighters shot down two German planes against a loss of one. Meanwhile, Spitfires of the air defenses of Great Britain set fire to a wireless station at Combourg, 20 miles southeast of Saint-Malo, and strafed various targets from Brittany to Laon.

Wave upon wave of U.S. Marauders thundered over the heads of the charging British troops throughout the morning, splattering their bombloads upon enemy gun batteries and strongpoints in the Caen sector, many of which were still smoldering from a savage, 2,500-ton night bombardment by the RAF’s heavyweights.

Thunderbolt fighters covered the Marauders and raked the enemy lines with machine-gun and cannon fire. Nearly 100 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, attacking from treetop height walked their bombs across German defenses. Not a single German plane attempted to interfere with the raid, and the Nazis threw up only a feeble anti-aircraft barrage that caught one Marauder.

Smash rail bridge

Simultaneously, other Marauder formations reached inland to smash a railway bridge across the Eure River at Nogent-le-Roi, 70 miles southwest of Paris, and another across the Loire at Saumur.

At midafternoon, another force of thunderbolts and Lightnings bombed the network of railway lines feeding into the battle area, hitting 40 points between La Chapelle and Combourg, between Craon and Laval, and in the neighborhood of Rennes and Alençon.

The Nazi robot bomb bases along the Pas-de-Calais area were attacked by medium-sized forces of U.S. 8th Air Force Liberators and Flying Fortresses.

Swarms of U.S. fighters covered the four-engined giants and, meeting no enemy opposition in the air, they fanned out over northern France to bomb and strafe targets of opportunity on the ground.

Wreck 20 planes

One Mustang formation commanded by Col. William J. “Wild Bill” Cummings Jr. of Lawrence, Kansas, and led today by Maj. Henry B. Kucheman Jr. of Richmond, Virginia, flushed a secret German airdrome in a forest southeast of Paris. Twenty enemy planes were destroyed on the ground at Dreux Airfield, south of Paris. Another Lightning fighter group shot up 11 locomotives, 50 freight cars and a flak tower, all without meeting a single enemy fighter. German anti-aircraft gunners, however, shot down 10 heavy bombers and one fighter.

Between 500 and 750 Flying Fortresses and Liberators, accompanied by probably as many fighters, swarmed up from their Italian bases to join in the assault on Axis Europe, blasting three oil refineries and three airfields in the Vienna area and another airdrome at Veszprém, 65 miles southwest of Budapest.

Returning crewmen said only weak enemy fighter opposition was encountered over Vienna, where the bombers touched off huge fires and explosions in the Floridsdorf Creditul Minier and Fanto Vösendorf refineries. The Floridsdorf refinery, in the northern suburbs of Vienna, is Austria’s largest crude oil distillation plant.

Blast airfields

Widespread damage was also inflicted on the nearby Zwölfaxing Markersdorf and Münchendorf airfields, all fighter bases covering Vienna, and on the Hungarian field.

The RAF was out in force last night, hurling 450 four-engined Lancasters and Halifaxes into a 2,500-ton raid on the German battlelines at Caen, while other raiding formations hit enemy communications lines in northern France and a force of Mosquito borders stabbed at Berlin. Other warplanes ranged over in France, Belgium and Holland on intruder patrols, shooting down at least nine enemy planes.

Thirty-three British planes were lost in the night operations.

Yank trapped four days by robot bomb explosion

Army cook loses all sense of time until rescued from building basement

americavotes1944

Barkley hinted as leading call for 4th term

May make speech nominating Roosevelt

Wallace to talk from Seattle tomorrow

Great Falls, Montana (UP) – (July 8)
Vice President Henry A. Wallace was here today en route from China to Washington, DC, where he will make a confidential report to President Roosevelt, Public Relations Officer Edward F. Carr of the Great Falls Army Air Base announced.

Mr. Wallace is en route to Seattle, where he plans to make a radio address, tomorrow afternoon at 6:30 p.m. ET, telling of his tour.

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
Democratic circles, in the throes of fresh speculation over vice-presidential prospects at the party’s national convention, circulated a report tonight that Senator Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) would make the speech nominating President Roosevelt for a fourth term.

There were some who believed that the President would insist on the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace. But there were others who felt that Mr. Roosevelt would not remain adamant if opposition threatened to destroy convention unity. All, however, eagerly awaited Wallace’s radio address from Seattle tomorrow in the hope that he might drop some hint as to his own future plans.

Meanwhile, new names were listed as added starters in the vice-presidential speculative sweepstakes – a game that was being played by Democrats and Republicans alike. These were War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Others previously mentioned include House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX), Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) and Barkley.

Mr. Barkley was at his home in Paducah, Kentucky, and was not available for comment on the report that he would take the convention lead in calling for a fourth term. DNC officials here professed to have no knowledge of Barkley’s plan, but at least one of them said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the report were true that the Kentuckian would place Mr. Roosevelt in nomination.

Such an act by Senator Barkley would be final proof of his full reconciliation with the President following the Majority Leader’s angry reaction to the tax bill veto.

Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, who conferred for an hour with the President last night, leaves for Chicago with his staff tomorrow to open headquarters and complete final plans for the convention July 19.

At Democratic headquarters here, it was indicated that this committee plans to draft a short platform in which emphasis will be placed on a clear, forthright foreign policy plank and on the past record of the administration.


Byrd: Radicals threaten party

Roanoke, Virginia (UP) – (July 8)
Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) today called upon the Democratic Party to return to “the greatest Democratic declaration in existence” – the party’s 1932 platform – and to reinstate the two-thirds vote in national conventions.

In a surprise address before the Virginia State Democratic Convention, Mr. Byrd said that disunity is threatening the Democratic Party as never before, and that a “return to sound principles of government” would do much to reassure the American people.

The delegates, later in the day, adopted a unanimous resolution to oppose a renomination of Henry A. Wallace as Vice President. The resolution asserted that Mr. Wallace “has become a convert to doctrines and ideologies foreign to the faith and traditions of Virginia.”

Mentioned by some Southern Democrats as a possible anti-Roosevelt presidential candidate, Mr. Byrd said the present cleavage in Democratic ranks was one “of basic principles.”

He said the Party could never be destroyed by a defeat from the Republican Party, but only by “the infiltration of alien philosophies” into its ranks. He said that repeal of the two-thirds rule had “stripped the South of its real power and voice in Democratic councils.”

Mr. Byrd said:

Communist-dominated radicals, who seek to infiltrate our party, were working for the abandonment of the American Constitution and the propagation of class and racial discrimination.

americavotes1944

New Deal’s policy on food assailed

GOP group charges ‘chaos, confusion’

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
The Republican Congressional Food Study Committee charged tonight that the administration’s handling of the nation’s food problems has resulted in “chaos and confusion” and demanded that the now-widely dispersed control over food production be placed in the hands of a single administrator.

The committee carried out studies of various phases of the food situation and held public meetings to hear the views of producers, processors, distributors and consumers.

The committee’s report said:

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the New Deal is that it seeks to regiment under federal and bureaucratic control all of the industrial and human activities of the nation.

At least 10 separate government agencies assumed jurisdiction over some phases of the producing, processing and distribution of food. These various agencies, functioning under widely different and sometimes contradictory directives and executive orders, duplicated their efforts and thereby harassed the public in many ways. The result was confusion and chaos everywhere.

Other phases of the report charged:

  • That the hearings developed a sordid story of the black market in poultry, beef and pork, onions, fish and other commodities: “The insidious illegal black markets are the unmistakable result of inefficiency in administration.”

  • That through poor administration, the government is wasting huge qualities of food and feed.

  • That rationing and price-fixing policies as exercised by the administration have placed a penalty on quality and incentive to produce the best, and placed a premium upon the lowering of quality.

Poll: Presidential drive to hinge on four issues

Experience, bungling will be stressed
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

Joint Chiefs of Staff oppose Nelson’s plan for reconversion now

Warning sounded that such action might serve to prolong the war
By Fred W. Parker, United Press staff writer

Tribune head protests slur on Chicago

Col. McCormick cables Lord Beaverbrook


Tule Lake rioters are transferred