Jokes are immortal, even the bad ones, says radio comedian
Head man of It Pays to Be Ignorant explains nine lives of a gag
By Si Steinhauser
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Yanks prefer grand opera
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Battle between television, movie companies looms
Wise planning urged now to speed emergence of great new industry
New York (UP) – (July 8)
The post-war struggle between television and motion picture companies may assure gigantic proportions, Arthur Levey, president of the Scophony Corporation of America, said yesterday, but he expressed confidence that a common ground for understanding between all major film interests would be reached.
Admitting that at this time there is no television industry in the modern sense, Mr. Levey asserted that:
Wise planning now within the orbit of cooperation with the Federal Communications Commission can remedy that situation and speed the emergence of a great new industry.
Speaking before the Radio Executives Club here, the Scophony executive predicted the use of two-way television-telephone communication in the not-too-distant future and said his company plans the production of home television receiving sets with a 24 by 20-inch screen to cost about $200 when mass output can be attained.
The reasons Scophony sets have not appeared on the American market before thus, he added, was because the company viewed the early period of television as experimental, and that “until the FCC standards were set and considerable demand for home television sets developed” the company would not be justified in expending money on small-scale manufacture.
Scophony Corporation of America is an outgrowth of Scophony, Ltd., of England, which succeeded prior to the war in projecting televised pictures on an 18-foot-wide screen in several London theaters. The American company is partially owned by Paramount Pictures, Inc., and General Precision Instrument Corporation.
The major film corporations are now in a more favorable financial position than ever in their history. Mr. Levey told his audience and can easily undertake, if so inclined, to put television on the map rapidly, as it represents a new industry allied to show business. However, some officials, he asserted, actually believe that their particular companies can afford to “sit this one out,” but nevertheless benefit by the financial courage of other companies pioneering in television.
Mr. Levey said:
It is a matter of complete indifference to our company whether the coaxial cable method or radio booster links are used to pipe programs into theaters, except insofar as they relate to our own corporate welfare and the public interest. We do, however, have the liveliest interest in making sure that the motion picture exhibitor shall have available a television projector of proven reliability, which utilizes motion picture technique, and with which his film projectionist may familiarize himself within a few hours.
Change in value of gold favored
Plan submitted to money parley
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Night game question to be discussed here
Major League confab at Schenley to precede All-Star game Tuesday
By Carl Lundquist, United Press staff writer
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Logical choice –
Sweden may have Olympics in 1948
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On Normandy front –
Hard-pressed Nazis use salvaged guns
On the U.S. 1st Army front, Normandy, France – (July 8)
The war on this complicated front started inching its way southward again this morning after a night of reorganization and another artillery earthquake. Movement was slowest in the west, more where new gun mobilizations have failed to compensate Heinie for having been caught out at the Aire crossing.
Troops that went in on the extreme left yesterday morning had reached a point 500 yards south of Saint-Jean-de-Daye during the night and were still advancing. The second spearhead in this attack, which cut across the Vire et Taute Canal during the afternoon, had cleared the marshes and was beating back the Germans successfully on dry ground beyond.
Queer artillery
Thanks to the murderous terrain, Heinie has been able to put up a good defensive fight, but in the eastern sector his luck at the moment seems to have run out. His artillery continued to plaster roads and battery positions with plenty of force, but to the disinterested observer, it looked like queer artillery.
It doesn’t make much difference to you, as you try to make yourself flatten in a mud puddle, whether the incoming shells are of orthodox caliber or not, but you begin to take notice when whizbangs and slow-moving crumps arrive in the same spot almost simultaneously. That just isn’t the way to fire artillery if you can help yourself.
It has been known for some time that the Germans all along the front, have been throwing in guns only recently salvaged from the junkpiles of 1939 and 1940 – Polish and Czech field pieces, Russian howitzers and French 75s and railway guns, not to mention exotic varieties of off-size British cannon abandoned before Dunkerque – and here’s proof of it, as a U.S. artillery major sharing my frontline mud puddle pointed out.
“If he [the enemy] gets away with this, he’s a Chinese magician,” the major said. He pulled his head down while two more Heinie shells came blasting into a hedge, one with a boom, the other with a flat crack.
Real supply problem
He said:
That’s it. This is a fine place to find out what every kind of shell in the world sounds like. He’s using them all. Think what is going on up there in his artillery positions. He has everybody’s guns up there but you can see for yourself that he hadn’t got very many of any one kind in any one place.
Tentatively, I guess it will be some 75s and a couple of 25-pounders and about half a dozen 12-inchers. And that’s no kidding. He must be getting down pretty close to the bottom of the barrel.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 9, 1944)
Communiqué No. 68
The town of CAEN has been liberated. Many pockets of enemy resistance remain but these are being systematically dealt with.
Local gains have been made in the ODON bridgehead and in the CAUMONT-TILLY sector.
In the base of the CHERBOURG Peninsula, German resistance in LA HAYE-DU-PUITS was crushed after the town had been bypassed on both sides.
Some ground has also been gained towards SAINTENY although enemy resistance is intense in both this area and beyond SAINT-JEAN-DE-DAYE.
Heavy bombers attacked the airfield at CHÂTEAUDUN and bridges in the TOURS area this morning. Escorting fighters shot down one enemy aircraft, and bombed and strafed ground targets including locomotives, rolling stock and motor transport.
Medium bombers, one of which is missing, attacked a fuel dump at RENNES and a road bridge south of ORLÉANS. They were escorted by fighters which also bombed gun positions south of RENNES and near SAINT-MALO.
Naval patrols made contact with groups of enemy E-boats off the mouth of the SEINE early on Saturday morning. During the actions which followed, two enemy E-boats were severely damaged and one was set on fire before the enemy escaped into LE HAVRE.
Early this morning, destroyers on patrol sighted and chased a force of five armed trawlers off CAP FRÉHEL. The enemy force escaped inshore under shelter of shore batteries, but not before they had received serious punishment.
Report on Trip to Siberia and China by Vice President Wallace
July 9, 1944, 6:30 p.m. EWT
Since I left the skies above America seven weeks ago, I have visited two great countries – Soviet Asia and China; I have not stood upon the threshold of these countries like a stranger. I have been honored with the confidence of those who are working to shape their countries’ destinies. I have been privileged to look behind the scenes.
Today I want to tell you something of my experiences of the past weeks.
In the first place, I am today more than ever an American. The more I examine other countries, the more convinced I am that the American way of life is the best way for us. In the second place, we can and should fit our own way of life to cooperation with other nations and other peoples whose way of life is different from ours but who need our cooperation Quite as much as we need theirs, and who are not only willing but eager to cooperate with us. to In the third place, I am convinced that main area of new development after this war – new enterprise, new investment, new trade, new accomplishments – will be in the new world of the North Pacific and Eastern Asia.
This will give to our Pacific Coast an importance greater than it has ever had before, and I am glad, returning from Soviet Asia and China, that Seattle is my port of entry. No city is more American in spirit and action than Seattle. But no city has shown itself more alive to the importance of our relations with the other areas of the North Pacific.
The spirit is well exemplified, not only in your active peacetime trade with Asia, but also in the University of Washington, where for several years you have worked on integrating the study of the languages, cultures, history, politics and economics of the Pacific.
We shall need all our resources of knowledge and all our American readiness to think out new ways of tackling new problems when we have won the war in the Pacific.
The day will come when the Pacific will be cleared of Japs and our boys, coming home from Tokyo, will land at Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then we shall think more and more of our West as a link with the East of Asia.
Those who say that East is East and West is West and that the two shall never meet are wrong. The East of Asia, both Chinese and Russian, is on the move in a way which is easy for any American to understand who sees these great areas at firsthand for himself. The rapid agricultural and industrial development of this great area means so much to the peace and prosperity of the post-war world that I am glad on my return to America to give my impressions of the manifest destiny of the west of America and the east of Asia.
Here in Northwest United States, we were long held back by unfair freight rates and by failure to develop the power inherent in the great rivers. But more and more we are perceiving the importance of strengthening our West and especially our Northwest.
Thanks to men like Norris, McNary, Bone and Roosevelt, the Northwest during the past ten years has rapidly expanded. This expansion must continue to the limit of its agricultural, industrial and commercial potentialities. This includes Alaska, which has not yet begun to measure up to its possibilities. Our growth must be not merely in terms of ourselves, but also in terms of Asia. Vigorous two-way trade with Soviet Asia and China will greatly increase the population and prosperity of our Northwest.
All of this I knew in a theoretical way before going to Asia. After having seen as much of the industry and agriculture of East Asia as any American has seen in such a short time, I am more than ever convinced that we are entering upon what might be called “the Era of the Pacific.”
One characteristic of the Pacific era will be the building of great airports in parts of the world now very thinly inhabited. The extent to which the Russians have already developed runways and servicing for airplanes in East Asia amazed me. We landed at perhaps a dozen airports in Soviet Asia, the names of which not one in a thousand Americans ever heard.
It is quite possible that for 15 or 20 years after this war the air route to Asia via Fairbanks, Alaska, will not be a moneymaking one. But it is also certain that our national future requires that we, in cooperation with Russia and the Chinese, maintain such a route. Soviet Asia during the past 15 years has more than doubled its population. It is quite possible that the next 50 years will see a further increase of more than 30 million people.
I am convinced from what I saw of the Amur River region that in the southern part of that area there will be a great increase in population. Russia, as a result of her experience with this war will certainly shift much of her industry east of the Urals. Most of the people who moved to Siberia with their factories will stay there.
Everywhere, from Magadan on the Pacific Ocean to Tashkent in central Asia, I found the Russian people producing to the limit in the factory and on the farm. About two-thirds of the work on farms and one-third of the work in the factories is being done by women.
In the factories everywhere I found American machinery, some purchased before the war but most of it obtained under Lend-Lease. The way in which American industry through Lend-Lease has helped Russia to expand production in Soviet Asia has given me an increased admiration both for the United States and for Russia.
I found American flour in the Soviet Far East, American aluminum in Soviet airplane factories, American steel in truck and railway repair shops, American machine tools in shipbuilding yards, American compressors and electrical equipment on Soviet naval vessels, American electric shovels in open-cut coal mines, American core drills in copper mines of central Asia, and American trucks and planes performing strategic transportation functions in supplying remote bases.
I found the people, both in positions of management and at the work benches, appreciative of the aid rendered by the United States and the other Allies. While it is misleading to make any comparison between the huge Soviet industrial effort and the amount of Lend-Lease aid we have been able to give the USSR, I am convinced from what I saw in Siberia and central Asia that Lend-Lease has helped the Russians in many difficult and even critical situations on the industrial front, as well as on the military front.
On the rich irrigated land of central Asia, a strong cotton industry is being rapidly developed. At Tashkent, a city of a million people, I found experimental work in cotton which for its originality and practical effectiveness compares most favorably with the best in the United States. Modern industry was also flourishing at this ancient seat of Eastern culture.
From Tashkent, my farthest point west, we turned east to Alma Ata, my last stop before entering China. There I found not only excellent scientific work with apples but also the beginnings of a moving-picture industry which may make Alma Ata the Hollywood of central Asia. Located at the foot of the Tien Shan – Heavenly Mountains – the city is blessed with a superb climate, almost as good as that of southern California.
China is totally different from Soviet Asia. While she is eager and anxious to enter the machine age, she has not yet been able to turn out, in either modern war materials or heavy goods, more than a small fraction of her needs. This situation should not long continue.
China, with her 450 million people and her great resources, should sooner or later produce a large portion oi her requirements in the way of heavy and light industrial goods and also consumer goods. But to modernize her industry and train her people, China needs help. We have thousands of technical and businessmen in the United States who are able to furnish that help. But the businessmen in particular want to be sure of one thing. They want to be Certain, before they lay the foundations and make the necessary outlay, that there is no foreseeable likelihood of conflict within China or between China and Russia.
I am glad to say that I found among those with whom I talked an outspoken desire for good understanding, and personally I am convinced that China and the USSR will take the necessary steps to ensure continuing peace and to promote cultural and commercial exchanges among the nations of the Pacific to the benefit of all.
Asia is the center of the greatest land and population masses of the world. It is our business to be friends with both Russia and China and exchange with both Russia and China the goods and information which will raise the standard of living of all our peoples. I found the leaders in both Soviet Asia and China anxious for the most friendly relationship with the United States and expressing the utmost confidence in the leadership of President Roosevelt. Living standards can be raised. Causes of war can be removed.
Failure to concern ourselves with problems of this sort after World War I is costing us today hundreds of billions of dollars and a terrible toll of human life. To avoid a recurrence of the scourge of war, it is essential insofar as the Pacific basin is concerned, that relations among the four principal powers in the Pacific – China, the Soviet Union, the British Commonwealth and the United States – be cordial and collaborative.
Post-war stability in China is dependent upon economic reconstruction – agricultural as well as industrial – and reconstruction in China is dependent upon trade. It became clear to me during my visit to China that reconstruction is going to depend in large measure on imports from abroad. It will require technical and material assistance from us given on a businesslike basis.
We hear much about industrial reconstruction in China. I found the Chinese anxious for industrialization. China should be industrialized. But any industrialization of China must be based upon agricultural reconstruction, agrarian reform, because China is predominately a nation of farmers. They are good farmers, as I observed during my stay there, but they need a break – a New Deal.
China should make the necessary reform but we can help by furnishing technicians and scientific information and, on the trade level, by selling the Chinese agricultural implements, fertilizers and insecticides. Ultimately of course, China should make these things for herself.
China should be self-sufficient in foods but I can foresee that for many years the Chinese will continue to import food products from our West – wheat, flour and fruits for instance. In fact, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that, with an increase in the standard of living of China’s consumers, a healthy exchange of food products peculiar to China and our West will develop and endure. Northwest lumber should play an important part in the China of the future as it has in the China of the past.
The industrialization of China will require machines, and the materials of which machines are made. During recent years our West has been developing facilities for the production of steel and machinery. These will be in demand in China to produce the consumer goods which will be needed by the masses of East Asia.
Machines for land, sea, and air transportation will also be needed. Our West is in a particularly strategic position to produce for the east of Asia airships and sea ships, and the timber, steel and aluminum of which they are made.
Trade is not a one-way affair – it is a swap, sometimes direct and sometimes complicated. It seems evident that credits will have to be employed to finance economic development in East Asia. But those credits must be repaid, and the most satisfactory way to repay is with goods. So, speaking particularly of China, we should plan to buy as well as to sell.
Such typical commodities as wood oil, silks, tea, hides ana metals, which formed the bulk of China’s exports to us before the war, should form the basis of an expanding Chinese export to the United States after the war.
There is a great future for trade between East Asia and ourselves. To bring this to pass will take not only a sympathetic understanding of each other’s conditions and a farsighted determination to make trade what it should be – a mutually beneficial transaction.
Day after tomorrow, I hope to report to President Roosevelt certain definite facts which I am not at liberty to discuss here. But I can say that everywhere I went in Eastern Asia I found rapid changes. Even in Mongolia, one of the most remote regions of the world, I found that the changes of the past twenty years had been very great. The United States, together with Russia and Great Britain, has a profound interest in the rapid, peaceful change of Eastern Asia to the more fruitful use of her vast natural and human resources.
Here is a great new frontier to which Seattle can furnish much in the way of leadership. Our scientists must cooperate with the Russian and Canadian scientists in learning how to lick the problems of the permanently frozen ground of Alaska, Canada and the north of Siberia. We must exchange agricultural and weather information.
I have found a splendid disposition on the part of Russian scientists to cooperate in agricultural matters and a frank readiness on the part of Chinese administrators to consider America’s position as well as China’s in discussing future economic cooperation. This gives me great hope for the long future.
The American businessman of tomorrow should have a broad world outlook. I have faith that American economic leadership will confer on the Pacific region a great material benefit and on the world a great blessing. The new frontier extends from Minneapolis via the Coast States and Alaska through Siberia and China all the way to Central Asia.
Here are vast resources of minerals and manpower to be developed by democratic, peaceful methods – the methods not of exploitation, but, on the contrary, the more profitable method of creating higher living standards for hundreds of millions of people.
It was a wonderful trip. I am grateful to President Roosevelt for giving me an opportunity to talk with people in every walk of life in Asia who are aiding us in winning this war. With victory we can continue to work together in peace.
We want a higher standard of living in America. We want full production, jobs for our boys who come home, and peacetime jobs for those who are now employed. Trade with Russia and China will help keep the factories of America busy in the days which lie ahead. We are on our way.
Völkischer Beobachter (July 10, 1944)
Zwischenergebnis der Schlacht in Italien –
Die Front südlich von Florenz
Rund 500 Kilometer an Küstenverteidigung eingespart
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Geistige Freiheit des Papstes bedroht –
Druck auf den Vatikan
Von unserem Berichterstatter in der Schweiz
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US-Verluste im Fernen Osten und Pazifik –
Der lange Weg bis Tokio
Madrid, 9. Juli –
An die pessimistischen Erklärungen Roosevelts über den Verlauf des Krieges in China knüpft der Neuyorker Korrespondent der Agentur Efe an, die Worte Roosevelts haben in der nordamerikanischen Öffentlichkeit Unruhe hervorgerufen, schreibt Lucientes. Die Neuyorker Zeitung Journal American halte es für ausgeschlossen, daß sich die Situation in China in den nächsten Monaten bessern könnte. Die Transportschwierigkeiten Tschiangkaischeksseien zu groß. Die Wiedergewinnung der Burmastraße würde an dieser verzweifelten Lage ebenfalls nichts ändern, sagt die genannte Zeitung.
Auch die übrigen Blätter Neuyorks brächten zum Ausdruck, daß der Weg bis Tokio noch sehr lang, hart und kostspielig sein werde. Die Eroberung nur eines Teiles der Insel Saipan habe den Nordamerikanern fast 10.000 Mann Verluste gekostet. Dies sei nach dem eigenen Urteil der amerikanischen Journalisten aber erst der Anfang. Man habe bisher überhaupt noch keine Bekanntschaft mit den großen Armeen Japans oder auch nur eines Teiles derjenige, die in China, Mandschukuo, auf Java, den Philippinen und den Malaien stünden, gemacht.
Zerstörte Träume
Über die Wege in der Normandie ziehen die Flüchtlinge. Was sie mit Mühe und Not haben retten können aus den Trümmern ihrer Häuser, bergen sie in ihrem wenigen Gepäck. Ganz außer Fassung, viele die maßlose Angst vor den niedersausenden Bomben noch in den Augen, gehen sie gejagt ihren Weg.
Ihre Dörfer und Städte lagen weit hinter der Front. Aber plötzlich, an einem sonnenklaren Sommernachmittag, dröhnten die Verbände mit den Kreisen auf den Flügeln dunkel und drohend über die engen Straßen und pittoresken Plätze. Innerhalb einer Viertelstunde war das Städtchen eine Hölle von Rauch und Feuer. Wer noch den Keller hatte erreichen können, erstickte unter den niederstürzenden Trümmern. Nur die konnten sich retten, die ins freie Feld geflohen waren.
Jetzt ziehen sie auf den normannischen Wegen. Aber noch nimmt ihr Elend kein Ende. Bei einer Kurve, als das Gebüsch aufhört und man über die wogenden Roggenfelder eine freie Sicht hat, kommen britische Jäger in geringer Höhe über die traurige Kolonne. Wütend funken die Bordwaffen. Kinden beginnen zu weinen, Frauen schreien und rennen nach dem schützenden Gebüsch zurück.
Zitternd vor Angst und Entsetzen suchen sie, nachdem die Flieger verschwunden sind, nochmals die Reste des Hausgeräts. Sie haben nicht die Kraft, weiterzugehen, ein paar hundert Meter weiter kann ihnen dasselbe passieren. Vollkommen zerschlagen bleiben sie am Rande des Weges sitzen. Ihr Blick sucht nervös den Himmel ab. Kommen sie da schon wieder?
Es ist eine Welle von unsagbarem Leid über die Normandie gekommen. Sie hat alle schönen Träume von einer „schnellen, schmerzlosen Befreiung“ auf grausamste Weise zerstört.
NSK.
Innsbrucker Nachrichten (July 10, 1944)
Erbitterte Straßen- und Häuserkämpfe in Caen
Missglückte feindliche Durchbruchsversuche in Italien – Wilna gegen zahlreiche Angriffe behauptet – Zwei britische Schnellboote versenkt
dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 10. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Die große Abwehrschlacht im Raum von Caen griff im Laufe des gestrigen Tages auf die Stadt selbst über. Nach erbitterten Straßen- und Häuserkämpfen, in denen unsere Truppen dem Feind schwerste Verluste zufügten, drückte der Gegner unsere Linien auf den Südrand von Caen zurück. Bei Crainville scheiterten feindliche Panzerangriffe. In einer Einbruchstelle beiderseits der Straße von Caumont–Caen sind die Kämpfe noch nicht abgeschlossen. Zwischen Airei und Sainteny konnte der Feind nur geringen Geländegewinn erzielen. Südlich La Haye-du-Puits wurden mehrere feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, westlich des Ortes feindliche Bereitstellungen durch zusammengefasstes Artilleriefeuer zerschlagen.
Bei den Kämpfen der vergangenen Woche im Südwestteil der Halbinsel Cherbourg haben sich die Kampfgruppe der 77. Infanteriedivision unter Oberst der Reserve Bacherer und die Kampfgruppe der 243. Infanteriedivision unter Oberst Klosterkemper besonders ausgezeichnet.
Im französischen Raum wurden wiederum 239 Terroristen und Saboteure im Kampf niedergemacht.
Vor der niederländischen und nordfranzösischen Küste versenkten Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine in der Nacht zum 9. Juli zwei britische Schnellboote, beschädigten vier weitere schwer und erzielten zahlreiche Treffer auf mehreren anderen Booten. Ein eigenes Fahrzeug ging verloren.
Im Golf von Saint-Malo zwangen Vorposten feindliche Zerstörer zum Abdrehen und beschädigten einen von ihnen.
Das „V1“- Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert mit nur geringen Unterbrechungen an.
In Italien zeichneten sich unsere an der westlichen Küstenstraße bei Volterra, Poggibonsi, Arezzo und an der adriatischen Küste eingesetzten Truppen gestern erneut durch besondere Standhaftigkeit aus. Trotz Einsatzes überlegener Infanterie- und Panzerkräfte, die durch starke Artillerie- und laufende Luftangriffe unterstützt wurden, gelang dem Feind nirgends der erhoffte Durchbruch durch unsere Front, In einigen örtlichen Einbruchsstellen hielten die Kämpfe am gestrigen Abend noch an.
Im Osten ließen die Angriffe der Sowjets bei Kowel nach dem hervorragenden Abwehrerfolg unserer Truppen an Heftigkeit nach. Erneute Durchbruchsversuche wurden zerschlagen.
Westlich Baranowicze fingen unsere Divisionen die mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkräften vordringenden Bolschewisten in erbitterten Kämpfen an der Szczara, beiderseits Slonin, auf. Die Verteidiger von Wilna behaupteten die Stadt gegen zahlreiche, von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe des Feindes und fügten ihm hohe blutige Verluste zu. Nordwestlich Wilna wurden die Sowjets im Gegenangriff zurückgeworfen. An der Straße Kauen–Dünaburg sind bei Otena heftige Kämpfe im Gange. Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen hatten Erfolg. Nordwestlich Polozk scheiterten die Durchbruchsversuche mehrerer sowjetischer Schützendivisionen am zähen Widerstand unserer Truppen.
Bei den schweren Abwehrkämpfen im Raum von Orscha hat sich Major Lampfrecht, Kommandeur einer hamburgischen leichten Flakabteilung, durch beispielhafte Tapferkeit ausgezeichnet.
Starke Schlachtfliegergeschwader griffen in rollenden Einsätzen in die Erdkämpfe ein, setzten zahlreiche sowjetische Panzer und Geschütze außer Gefecht und vernichteten mehrere hundert Fahrzeuge.
In der Nacht führten Kampf- und Nachtschiachtflugzeuge wirksame Angriffe gegen den sowjetischen Nachschubverkehr. Besonders in den stark belegten Bahnhöfen Korosten, Olewsk und Rowno entstanden große Brände in Betriebsstofflagern und heftige Explosionen.
Ein nordamerikanischer Bomberverband warf gestern verstreut Bomben im Raum von Ploesti.
Einzelne, feindliche Flugzeuge warfen in der letzten Nacht Bomben im rheinisch-westfälischen Raum.
Seestreitkräfte, Bordflak von Handelsschiffen und Marineflakartillerie schossen in der Zeit vom 1. bis 10. Juli 86 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 10, 1944)
Communiqué No. 69
Following the devastating bombing yesterday morning, armor and infantry thrusting down all roads leading into CAEN from the north and west have forced the enemy out of the town back to the line of the river ORNE. This advance was supported by naval gunfire and rocket-firing aircraft based in NORMANDY. Fighters from Britain ranged to the south and east of the town, effectively checking enemy attempts to bring up reinforcements. Reports received indicate that the enemy has suffered heavy casualties in this operation.
Patrols have crossed the river ODON a short distance above its junction with the ORNE.
In the west, an advance on both sides of the CARENTAN–PERIERS road brought Allied troops close to the village of SAINTENY.
The bridgehead over the river VIRE was further widened and strengthened in spite of stiff enemy resistance.
Small formations of fighters and fighter-bombers on patrol in the area PARIS to SAINT-LÔ and to the south attacked bridges and transport at MANTES, GASSICOURT, MONTFORT-SUR-RISLE and LESSAY. Rail embankments at BOURTH and bridges behind the enemy line were also attacked during the period from noon to midnight. Five enemy aircraft were destroyed for the loss of five of ours.
During the late evening, light bombers attacked a bridge and a rail junction north of POITIERS, ferries between QUILLEBEUF and DUCLAIR and bridges, trains and road transport east of the battle area.
In yesterday morning’s operation by escorted heavy bombers, six enemy aircraft were destroyed by our fighters. Three of our bombers and three fighters are missing.
Communiqué No. 70
In the CAEN sector, the fighting has extended to the area south of the ODON river. From the ODON bridgehead our troops have advanced through the villages of ÉTERVILLE and MALTOT. Enemy strongpoints, which were bypassed in our advance yesterday, are being systematically eliminated.
Southwest of CARENTAN, our troops advancing along the road toward PÉRIERS have liberated the village of SAINTENY. South of TILLY and south of LA HAYE-DU-PUITS, strong German armored counterattacks have been repulsed and a number of their tanks destroyed.
Widespread attacks on the enemy transportation system were carried out last night by our light bombers. Seventeen trains and associated targets on rail lines leading to the battlefront were damaged or set on fire.
Our fighter-bombers operated in the LESSAY and SAINT-LÔ sectors this morning, attacking gun positions and strongpoints.
U.S. Navy Department (July 10, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 77
Guam Island was shelled by light surface units of the Pacific Fleet on July 8 (West Longitude Date). Defense positions and buildings were damaged, and several small craft along the beaches were hit.
Carrier aircraft of a fast carrier task group attacked Guam and Rota island on July 9. At Guam, military objectives at Piti Town were hit, and anti-aircraft batteries and coastal guns bombed. Anti-aircraft fire ranged from moderate to intense. One of our aircraft made a water landing and a destroyer rescued the crew. At Rota Island, rockets and bombs were used against objectives in Rota Town and the airstrip, and gun emplacements were strafed.
Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force bombed Truk Atoll on July 8. Several enemy aircraft were in the air but did not press home an attack. One Liberator received minor damage from moderate anti-aircraft fire. Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing attacked Jaluit, Maloelap and Wotje in the Marshalls on July 9.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 10, 1944)
British capture three towns, key height south of Caen
Yanks advance mile, extend bridgehead in central Normandy
Two initial objectives captured, Caen and La Haye-du-Puits, British and U.S. forces today continued to advance along the road to Paris. The Yanks pushed 2,000 yards south of La Haye (1), captured the towns of Le Désert and Cavigny and drove to within five miles of Périers (2). The British and Canadians extended their beachheads across the Odon River, captured three villages and a key height, and pressed toward the Nazis’ Orne River line (3).
SHAEF, London, England –
British and Canadian forces slashed into the exposed German flank below captured Caen today and drove forward through three fortified villages to within less than half a mile of the Orne River defense line due south of Caen.
Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s 2nd Army, striking again while the mop-up of the Caen area was underway, stormed through Éterville, Maltot (near Esquay) and Bretteville-sur-Odon in advances up to about a mile and overran the hotly-contested height called Hill 112 commanding the Orne–Odon salient below Caen.
U.S. forces advancing down the mid-Normandy highway toward Périers captured Sainteny, five miles southwest of Carentan, and other U.S. units expanded the bridgehead across the Vire for an average gain of a mile, reaching a point only 7,000 yards from Saint-Lô.
The expansion of the Vire bridgehead almost brought the front in line with the general battle zone through the Caumont–Saint-Lô area, and a headquarters spokesman said Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s drive there “shows considerable long-term promise.”
Threaten encirclement
The British-Canadian armored force cutting in below Caen like a giant scythe began developing a possible encirclement maneuver against the German troops holding out in the Faubourg-de-Vaucelles, southern suburb of Caen.
The high ground captured by the Imperials between the Odon and Orne Rivers was the key to the entire Caen sector, and the victory put the final seal of the conquest of the great inland port.
A spokesman, however, emphasized that the Germans were still fighting fiercely all along the Normandy front, but had been obliged to throw in reserves they had been trying to build up for a showdown.
Orderly withdrawals
It was emphasized that wherever the Nazis were giving ground, they were doing so by orderly withdrawals, and nowhere was there a sign of disorganization in the enemy ranks or large-scale disengagement.
With the seizure of Hill 112 between the Orne and Odon, the British were able to command the highway running south and slightly west from Caen, leaving only the Caen–Falaise highway in German hands and relatively free of interference.
In the immediate area of Caen, which fell yesterday, German strongpoints which had been bypassed in the final assault on the city were being cleaned out.
Counterattacks held
West of Caen, the Germans counterattacked, but were held everywhere by the British.
The Americans who captured Sainteny pressed on down the road from Carentan toward Périers, the road hub controlling the territory between Saint-Lô and the west coast.
To the northwest, the Germans counterattacked strongly in the area of La Haye-du-Puits, captured yesterday, but the Americans beat off the blows and destroyed a number of enemy tanks.
Front dispatches disclosed that Gen. Montgomery’s tanks and infantry, supported by warships and rocket-firing planes, had cleared a six-mile stretch of the north bank of the Orne in Caen and on either side of the city.
Couldn’t wreck bridges
A headquarters spokesman said the final stages of the British advance into Caen were so rapid that the Germans were not believed to have had time to destroy all the bridges across the Orne.
The British first pushed across the Odon River some five miles southwest of Caen nearly two weeks ago and so developed their threat to the Orne River that the Germans committed a major portion of their armor there.
The line swayed back and forth during five German counterattacks, but the British held firmly to their bridgehead.
Americans also advance
One column of the U.S. 1st Army at the western end of the 111-mile front pushed 2,000 yards south of La Haye-du-Puits, another seized Le Désert and Cavigny, three miles southwest and three southeast respectively of Saint-Jean-de-Daye, and a third drove down the Carentan-Périers road.
Headquarters acknowledged that the Germans had made a minor gain in violent counterattacks on the Mount Castre plateau southeast of La Haye, though the Americans still held high ground there.
The liberation of Caen cleared away one of the strongest obstacles on the highway and railway from Cherbourg to Paris 120 miles to the east, and gave the Allies a first-class port which had a peacetime capacity of two million tons of cargo a year. Caen, the largest city yet captured by the Allies in France, had a peacetime population of 50,000, some 20,000 more than Cherbourg.
Once well across the Orne, however, Allied armor can fan out across rolling country without a natural defense obstacle for 20 miles. Any German attempt to make a stand short of a ridge running northwest from Falaise, 20 miles southeast of Caen, to the Caumont area was expected to touch off an armored battle that may determine the length of enemy resistance in western France.
Caen was little more than a crumbling mass of ruins when it fell into British hands yesterday, but its port installation and the Orne Canal leading seven miles northward to the sea were believed largely intact.
Yanks finish conquest of Saipan Island
Win base in range of Japan, Philippines
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Completion of the conquest of Saipan in the bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War established U.S. forces today within bombing range of Japan and the Philippines.
Saipan, with two large airfields and deepwater harbors, opened a new springboard for further amphibious operations westward to the China coast and eventually to Japan itself.
The complete conquest of the 75-mile-square island, administrative center of the Marianas, was announced late yesterday by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz who said U.S. Marines and Army troops broke the last organized resistance by the Japs in the northern tip of Saipan Saturday.
11,300 Japs buried
The 25-day campaign for Saipan resulted in heavy losses to both the United States and Japan.
Of the enemy’s estimated 20,000-30,000 men originally on the island, more than 11,300 of them were buried by U.S. forces and hundreds taken prisoner.
Although U.S. losses for the campaign were not disclosed, Adm. Nimitz had previously announced that in the first 14 days of fighting, the United States suffered 9,754 casualties, of which 1,474 were killed, 7,400 wounded and others missing. It was believed, however, that the casualties were on a smaller scale since then.
Operations to continue
Adm. Nimitz’s communiqué gave no indication of the size of scattered enemy remnants still on Saipan, but operations to dig the stragglers out of the hills and caves will probably continue for some time.
Additionally, thousands of other Japs scattered through the remaining Mariana Islands from Guam in the south to Pagan in the north were virtually isolated by the conquest and faced continual aerial bombardment with little hope of assistance from home.
The final breakthrough of the Jap lines at the northern edge of Saipan was accomplished Saturday afternoon by battle-hardened veterans of the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the 27th Infantry Division, most of the latter from New York State.
Follows suicide charge
The end of the campaign came two days after the trapped Japs made a desperate break from their hopeless positions and drove more than a mile down the western coast to near the town of Tanapag before they were stopped. More than 1,500 enemy troops were killed in the assault.
While Saipan was won at the expense of the greatest personnel losses the United States has suffered in any Pacific campaign, the conquest was considered one of the most important because of its strategic location at the apex of a triangle with the Philippines and Japan proper.
On Saipan, the largest island yet taken in the Central Pacific, the Americans gained control of two airfields – Isely and Marpi – within 1,499 miles south of Tokyo and 1,470 miles east of the Philippines.
Can harass Japs
Possession of the island enables Adm. Nimitz to protect his air and naval power deep into the last big sea area farther westward under Jap control and open bases for submarines closer to the fields where they have been harassing enemy supply lines since the war started.
With these lines narrowed by Adm. Nimitz’s strides through the Central Pacific and Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s advances in the southwest, the Japs faced a threat of a further pinch of supplies to their home industries.
The campaign on Saipan was perhaps the costliest yet suffered by the Japs. Since it opened on June 14, the Japs lost their key base in the Western Pacific, together with the entire garrison, and more than 1,000 planes and 100 ships destroyed or damaged.
Raid Guam, Rota
Adm. Nimitz disclosed that carrier-based planes again attacked Guam and Rota, south of Saipan, Friday and Saturday, while a U.S. combat patrol shot down nine Jap fighter planes apparently attempting to fly from Guam to Yap, in the Carolina Islands.
Six twin-engined Jap planes were destroyed on the ground and probably two others near Agana on Guam. The Americans lost one fighter and one torpedo bomber in the two-day raid.
A Jap Dōmei News Agency broadcast said U.S. planes raided Guam, Rota and Tinian yesterday and that “several” cruisers and destroyers shelled Guam.
Bombers sweep northern France
Robot plane bases hammered by RAF
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
London, England –
Hundreds of British Lancaster bombers, with a fighter escort, swept over northern France early today in what was believed new attacks on the German robot bomb launching installations, while tactical forces again hit enemy communications behind the Normandy battlefront.
An Air Ministry communiqué identified the RAF targets only as “military objectives,” but coastal observers reported the great fleets of planes took only an hour and a half to shuttle over the straits, indicating the targets were somewhere nearby.
The communiqué said RAF Mosquito bombers attacked a synthetic oil plant at Buer, in Prussia, last night. Both operations were carried out without loss.
Other Mosquito forces, together with Bostons, carried out pre-dawn raids on at least 18 trains, railways and bridges over the Seine, directly behind the enemy lines, and harassed road convoys, at one point surprising a 10-mile-long convoy of trucks near Chartres.
Fighter-bombers strafed and bombed German reinforcements moving across pontoon bridges several miles from the mouth of the Seine.
Despite bad weather, which sometimes forced fighters down to less than 300 feet, Allied planes yesterday made 3,500 sorties, including attacked by rocket-firing RAF Typhoons on German strongpoints just ahead of the troops in Caen.
Down three fighters
Only one formation of German planes was encountered over Normandy yesterday. Australian Spitfires engaged 40 enemy fighters between Lisieux and Cabourg and shot down three of them without loss.
Adverse weather hampered aerial operations from Italy, although Flying Fortresses and Liberators, with escorting fighters, hit the Ploești oil fields in Romania.
Romania’s second largest refinery at Concordia Vega, on the north side of the fields, was covered by a smokescreen, but Liberators sighted several explosions and reported columns of oil smoke 18,000 feet high. The other target was the Xenia refinery, to the northwest, which was set afire by Flying Fortresses.
Mustangs made a separate offensive sweep over the area and downed most of the 14 German planes knocked out in the raid.
Americans seize Livorno outpost
Threaten to turn Nazi line in Italy
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Roosevelt on spot on Wallace fate
Ultimate control of party at stake
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace returned today from his 23,000-mile roundtrip to Asia, and the White House announced that he would confer this afternoon with President Roosevelt, who must decide whether Mr. Wallace will be on the Democratic ticket again this year.
The necessity of so deciding confronts Mr. Roosevelt with one of the momentous problems of his career – whether it compel the Democratic National Convention to renominate the Vice President. The convention starts July 19 in Chicago.
On his return here, as on his arrival in Seattle yesterday, Mr. Wallace had nothing to say about his own political destiny. He issued a statement that he was glad to be back and said that “this is the first time I have liked Washington weather.”
In a 20-minute radio address in Seattle, he had urged a “New Deal” for China and close collaboration between this country and “the new world of the Northern Pacific and Eastern Asia.”
It was reported in Seattle that Mr. Wallace has made no plans to attend the Democratic convention.
Mr. Roosevelt’s ability to control the convention and to have Mr. Wallace on the ticket is unquestioned.
What the President must decide is whether it would be wiser to avoid the bitterness that Mr. Wallace’s renomination would create or to accept some other running mate who might surrender to the Conservative Democratic organization if Mr. Roosevelt died in office and were succeeded by the Vice President.
That is about all there is to the uproar about Mr. Wallace, although in the public dispute now raging over the vice-presidential nomination there is little if any acknowledgment that all hands are thinking about ultimate control of the party organization.
1940 bitterness recalled
Mr. Roosevelt is 62 and if reelected, he would be 66 on leaving office. The possibility of his death in office, therefore, is something both he and his Democratic opponents consider in approaching the vice-presidential problem.
Mr. Roosevelt rammed the former Iowa Republican down the throat of the 1940 Democratic Convention with the explanation that he wanted a man of “that turn of mind” on the ticket with him. The compelling factor, however, was the President’s intimation that he would not accept the nomination himself unless Mr. Wallace was on the ticket.
It was a bitter show in 1940, with Mr. Wallace sitting grimly on the platform, blistering under the boos and clutching the speech of acceptance which he was never permitted to deliver.
Identical conditions today
Almost identical conditions now prevail except that the anti-fourth-term, anti-Wallace forces are more angry this time. They have been frustrated in their effort to get rid of Mr. Roosevelt and have settled upon Mr. Wallace as a compromise sacrifice.
The final pre-convention gesture of opposition to Mr. Wallace came over the weekend from the Virginia State Democratic Convention which instructed delegates to Chicago to vote against his renomination. The delegates have no presidential instructions.
No one here doubts that Mr. Roosevelt will control the convention in every respect. But it is equally certain that there will be bitter minority opposition not only to Mr. Wallace, but to the President’s renomination.
Some may take a walk
The Credentials Committee will seethe in contests, notable whether pro- or anti-Roosevelt delegates from Texas shall be seated. The South wants to restore the rule requiring nominations be made by a minimum two-thirds majority. There is angry fear in the South that the Northern Democrats, allied with labor and controlling great city organizations, will try to write into the platform a commitment on racial equality.
It is possible that some delegates may take a walk – as Senator Ellison D “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC) did in 1936 when a Negro preacher offered a convention prayer. But the majority of the delegates will vote for Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination, unless he forbids it, and for anything else he wants, including Mr. Wallace – if he wants him.
Oregon to vote for Wallace
Washington (UP) –
Willis Mahoney, former mayor of Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Democratic candidate for Senator from Oregon, predicted today that a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention from his state will vote for the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace.
Mr. Mahoney also predicted that President Roosevelt will “overwhelmingly carry the Pacific Northwest” if he seeks a fourth term.
Although Mr. Wallace’s name did not appear on the ballot in the May Democratic primary in Oregon, some 11,800 Democrats wrote his name in for the vice-presidential nomination, Mr. Mahoney said.