America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

8654

Allies blast refineries, railyards

Budapest area bombed by planes from Italy
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

Bulletin

London, England (UP) –
British Lancaster heavy bombers attacked German flying bomb bases in northern France without loss today.

London, England –
Five hundred U.S. bombers from Italy smashed at four oil refineries in Hungary and railway yards in Budapest today while another big bomber formation crossed the English Channel in clearing weather to strike at targets on the continent that were not immediately identified.

Three of the oil refineries were in the Budapest area, and the attacking force, which included Liberators and Flying Fortresses, reported good results. The fleet was accompanied by a strong force of fighter planes.

The three oil refineries have a combined capacity of 358,000 tons of crude oil annually. The fourth refinery was located five miles southwest of Budapest. The raiders encountered a considerable number of enemy fighters and shot down several, it was announced.

Railyards raided

Another formation of Liberator bombers attacked the Mantua railway yards in northern Italy today encountering neither flak nor fighters, it was announced.

Thunderbolt fighter-bombers carried out damaging attacks on railway yards crowded with freight trains, at Beauvais and Montdidier in central France, the U.S. Tactical Air Force announced. En route home they strafed 10 freight cars on tracks between Chantilly and Creil, damaging all of them.

Ninth Air Force units in Normandy, it was disclosed today, made a series of attacks yesterday against enemy bridges, an airfield, motorized columns, gun positions, troops, barracks and entrenchments, mostly in the battle area west of Lessay.

Seven planes missing

During the afternoon and evening, Thunderbolts knocked out more than 50 freight cars and left others buried in debris. From these and other operations, seven aircraft were missing.

Eighth Fighter Command Mustangs and Thunderbolts made offensive sweeps over France today, knocking down five German planes and strafing trucks and flak towers, all without loss of a single plane.

Weather improved

The daylight raids followed a new strike into Germany last night by RAF Mosquito bombers which scattered two-ton blockbusters over industrial objectives in the Ruhr and mined enemy waters without loss.

With the weather somewhat improved both over the Channel and Normandy, British and U.S. Air Forces were expected to provide stronger support to the ground forces battling in France. Tactical operations were reduced to 500 sorties yesterday because of a low ceiling and occasional rain.

Hit many targets

The force which crossed the straits in early daylight included considerable bombers, but not in the strength of the previous three days during which the Americans hurled about 3,300 planes in obliteration raids on Munich, the Nazi shrine of Germany.

Although the operations over France yesterday were carried out by comparatively small forces, the U.S. 9th Air Force and the British 2nd Tactical fighter-bombers and rocket-fighters hit numerous targets by Army request with good results.

Down 16 Nazi planes

The Germans sent about 50 planes into the air behind the battle area, and 16 of them were shot down. Seven Allied planes were lost.

One Canadian Spitfire squadron based in Normandy claimed the biggest victory for French-based units. It sighted 12 Fw 190s south of Caen and in a brief dogfight destroyed 10 without loss.

The U.S. 9th Air Force lost six of the seven Allied aerial casualties and claimed four of the 16 victories.

‘Pathfinder’ planes guide U.S. bombers

London, England (UP) –
Eighth Air Force heavy bombers have located their targets through clouds by following directions of highly-trained crews in “Pathfinder planes” using special instruments, the U.S. Tactical Air force revealed to the first time today.

Bombardiers in Flying Fortresses and Liberators release their loads at the time indicated by the “Pathfinders.” The effectiveness of U.S. daylight bombing has been increased tremendously by introduction of this overcast technique, it was revealed.

The Tactical Air Force officially credits much of the increased pressure on the Luftwaffe and German war industry by U.S. day bombing to the new technique.

8655

Fifth Army takes key to Florence

Road junction falls to French troops
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

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8656

Japs slaughtered pushing new drive

45,000 are hurled at U.S. troops

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8657

George Raft is called to bookmakers’ trial

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8658

I DARE SAY —
The magical melting pot

By Florence Fisher Parry

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8659

Penicillin tested as syphilis cure

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Roosevelt asked to forgive Lindy

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8660

Reconversion plans pushed amid warnings

Protection demanded for ‘little man’

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124 scarce items to be produced

Vacuum cleaners, mowers on list

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8661

Navy depot strike spreads

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8662

Middle commercials banned in newscasts

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8663

Hull deplores Nazi murder of Jews, Greeks

Promises that America ‘will not forget’

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8664

Roberts: A day with Ike Eisenhower starts early and ends late

Supreme Commander reads reports, dictates orders and holds many conferences
By Edward V. Roberts, representing combined U.S. press

Allied advanced command post, France (UP) –
There’s no such thing as a “typical” day in the life of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces. He is apt to be in any one of a dozen different places – talking to G.I. Joe one day, Prime Minister Winston Churchill the next.

He probably spends as much time as this post as anywhere. Let’s follow Gen. Eisenhower through a day spent here recently – July 10, to be exact.

The previous night, the general remained in his office until just before midnight, reading a steady stream of reports concerning the Allied progress toward Caen. Finally, when word of the capture of the city came, he nodded his satisfaction and went to bed.

Regular American breakfast

At 8:00 a.m. July 10, he was back at his desk reading an important message from Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. Then he went to his personal caravan for a regular American breakfast of orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

Dictating for an hour and a half following breakfast, he sent a reply to Gen. Montgomery and various memoranda to Allied officers. Then he sent for his personal aide to obtain information on the Normandy action.

Four reporters stationed here as representatives of the combined British and American press were received by Gen. Eisenhower at 11:00 a.m. He saw us approaching, came out hatless to meet us and led us into the tent that serves as his office here. He told us to grab chairs and the session was on.

Sweats fluently, frequently

The general talked with us for an hour and a half, leisurely and quietly discussing the war situation, the outlook for the future and flying bombs. He talks easily in a conversational vein, smoking most of the time and hitching himself about comfortably in his chair. His language is a mixture of Kansas and the Army. He says “ennaway” for anyway and his “B’Gods” and “damns” are frequent, fluent and casual.

He asked us how we were getting along and if we had enough to do. he listened with apparent interest to a long recitation of our problems and offered some suggestions, volunteering to help out with the tough ones. As is his custom, he emphasized the importance of our “covering” his commanders, both British and American.

Gen. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. W. B. Smith, arrived at 1:00 p.m., with the Earl of Halifax, British Ambassador in Washington, who was a luncheon guest. It was the first time Lord Halifax and Gen. Eisenhower had met since before the invasion of North Africa and they had much to talk about.

Reads courts-martial

After luncheon, the Supreme Commander held a telephone conference with Air Chf. Mshl. Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Allied air commander.

Next the general read the briefs on several courts-martial cases, referred to him for final action, and made an appointment for his weekly conference with the Judge Advocate General. On these cases, Gen. Eisenhower functions as a court of last resort, his powers being similar to those of executive clemency vested in a state governor or the President.

During the afternoon, more dispatches and some personal mail arrived for his attention. There was a letter from his brother, Milton Eisenhower (president of Kansas State College), and a note from the Earl of Halifax – mailed days ago but missent – thanking him for the aid American soldiers have rendered London victims of the flying bombs.

Stewed chicken for supper

Another long dictation session began at 5:00 p.m. That finished, the general jumped into his long tan Cadillac and drove to naval headquarters for a talk with Adm. Sir Bertram Ramsay, Allied naval commander.

Returning, he went into a huddle with Lt. Gen. Smith and other high general whose name cannot yet be released. Sometime after 8:00 p.m., he went to his mess for a supper of stewed chicken, fried corn and French-fried potatoes. Sgt. Leroy Ross of Morgan City, Louisiana, who served him, said Gen. Eisenhower is pretty good-natured and “joshed” him a little.

A few late dispatches occupied the general after supper. Then he went to bed with the observation that he was tired.

Chinese troops trap 2,000 Japs

Chennault’s fliers support new drive

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8665

As Nazi bullets fly –
Wolfert: Hedge across field seems lifetime away – and is for some

‘They ain’t gonna shoot at you,’ 2nd Looie tells his men, but he was wrong
By Ira Wolfert, North American Newspaper Alliance

With U.S. infantry outside Saint-Lô, France – (July 12, delayed)
American troops find the Normandy farmer frugal around here. His fields are mostly less than an acre and boxed in by high hedges as if they were treasures he wanted to lock up.

He’s got them locked up tight for the hedges are thick and green and all brambly. You can’t see through them if you stick your face into them to look through. It’s like trying to look through a mask.

Under every hedge is a German slit trench – one, three or five of them, dug right into the roots of the hedges. Men who know a great deal about war built them.

A battalion today was driving due south on Saint-Lô and there were German ahead of them and on two sides of them, waiting behind hedges in every field with mortars, machine guns, rifles and machine pistols. A lieutenant would say a four-letter word. He chose the same one every time not because he liked it but because his mind was too numbed to think up a new one.

‘Ain’t gonna shoot’

“There ain’t nobody gonna shoot at you,” he said. He lifted himself out of the slit earth where he had been hiding and hauled himself through a hedge, putting his arms in front of his face to keep the thorns out. His platoon would lift and haul with him and they’d be out in an open field.

It felt terrible there. Everybody would feel all naked with the timothy and American style clover and grass reaching no higher than the leggings. The fellows would think. “Shavetail, you’ve gonna be a dead little boy if you ain’t right about nobody shooting at us.”

Platoons in the fields to the right and left would be coming through hedges and advancing at the same time, no doubt thinking the same thing about their second looies. It felt good in the thick hedges at the edge of the open field. When you are in a battle, it is hard to think that anything exists anywhere except the battle.

Best place in world

About two hours ago there as I wrote, it seemed to me there was no better place in the world to be than in those hedges. Cannon and mortar shells would pass over your head. The trajectory was in your favor. You knew that they couldn’t hit you unless you had bad luck and one fell right on your head.

That was why there were still Germans in the hedges. Our artillery couldn’t drive them the conventional six feet under, unless it hit each one separately on the head.

A couple of pigs were grunting and gobbling as they grubbed in the fields and the fellow next to me, finding his brains breathing again, said, “Look, pork chops.” Funny looking French birds were fluttering away from every shell whistle, giving off soft, wet warbles as if they were clearing their throats. Only it sounded beautiful.

Afraid fall silent

There wasn’t much talking in the hedges. Most of the fellows when afraid fall silent. Only one in about every ten becomes talkative. Words come out of him in a steady, high, irritating babble. He tries to talk out the fears silently inside and edge away from the talkative one.

Mostly what you heard in the hedges was the flat and wiry-seeming sound of shallow breathing. Lungs don’t work very well when a man is afraid and breath becomes very short. Then the lieutenant said his four-letter word and fellow lifted up and scraped and tore their awkward way through hedges.

After that they stood on the soft grass and there was nothing between them and the enemy’s bullets except the warm, summer air. So thin that air was. It seemed that the fellows looked across maybe a hundred feet of grass to another hedge just like the one they had left. Only there were Germans in that hedge.

Like a sore thumb

Everybody felt naked standing there. You felt you were sticking up like a sore thumb, waiting to be banged again by a hammer. The hedge across the field seemed a lifetime away for some of the fellows. That’s just what it was – their lives ended before they made the once-mighty German Reichswehr a broken thing.

It’s not putting up what you might call, if you weren’t in it, a really serious fight. It’s more than a rearguard action in this sector. Some of the Huns seem to want to surrender, but in every hedge, there is some tough, wise, old cookie. A horny-hearted veteran of long years of war, who fires his weapon until you come right up to him and tap him on the shoulder. He is likely to have his toilet kit all neatly wrapped up in a handkerchief, sitting beside him in a slit trench, waiting for a trip to prison camp. Then when you come right up to his hedge, he steps away from the Huns and says: “Kamerad”. If the marksmanship has been bad across that field, he’s got a chance of being taken prisoner.

Always some leftovers

All the same, there continues to be, day after day, one or five or eight of those guys, leftovers of our artillery and mortar fire, still in there trying. They sit directly in front of us or they sit in hedges to the right and left and when the guys in our faces are shooting good at us, the guys to the right and left hold still and wait until we have passed and then try to get us in the back.

The race across the open field goes fast for a platoon that’s not being shot at. In other places, platoons drop and belly their way forward trying to grenade the Nazis out. Everybody shoots everything he has and there is a fearful racket.

The first platoon to gain the German hedge runs enfilading fire on the hedges in the fields on both sides of it and other platoons come up under their protection, crouching and running fast and throwing themselves into their hedges with the thud and thump of a football team smashing a line.

That way the battalion advances and that way the whole of civilization advances on Saint-Lô, a French town that nobody I know of ever heard of until a few weeks ago.

8666

Liberated French celebrate holiday

Ceremonies solemn in Normandy area

Cherbourg, France (UP) –
With American guns firing a salute and the U.S. flag draped over the city’s war memorial, Cherbourg led the liberated portion of France today in the first free celebration of Bastille Day in five years.

A battery of twelve 105mm guns, similar to those which helped drive the Germans from the peninsula, roared out over the city at 8:00 a.m. (2:00 a.m. ET) to open the day’s ceremonies.

On Cherbourg’s memorial to the men she lost in World War I, a flag, sent by John L. Donovan of Brooklyn to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower with the request it be flown in Cherbourg to mark the U.S. Fourth of July, was hung.

High mass held

At midday, solemn high mass was held at Notre-Dame du Vœu, attended by ranking Allied officers and local leaders.

The day’s ceremonies were marked by a parade of Allied forces, including 72 French sailors from ships which aided in the beachhead landings. The parade wound along the waterfront to the public gardens where the memorial stands under a peak, atop which rests Fort de Roule, one of the bastions taken by U.S. troops less than three weeks ago.

Underground parades

Proudly marching in the parade and no longer fearful of showing themselves, was a group of French Resistance workers who fought the Nazis through the long years of occupation.

Lt. Col. Frank Howley of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, civil affairs officer, and the mayor of Cherbourg made brief speeches before the memorial.

In front of the municipal theater, official ceremonies were held to change the name of Place Marechal Pétain to Place General de Gaulle.

In the rest of liberated Normandy, smaller celebrations were held.

8667

In one month of action –
767 Jap planes, 70 ships score of U.S. Task Force 58

Battle unit raids Saipan, Bonin and Volcano Islands, whips powerful Jap fleet
By Courtenay Moore, United Press staff writer

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Shackford: U.S. tried after World War I to acquire islands in Pacific

Peace parley thwarted plan for return of area to Germany for transfer to America
By R. H. Shackford, United Press staff writer

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8668

Battle fatigue caused death of Gen. Teddy Roosevelt

Ill four days with heart attack
By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer

U.S. 1st Army HQ, France –
A full military funeral was being arranged today for Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, 56, whose death Wednesday night was attributed to a heart attack aggravated by battle fatigue which resulted from almost continuous combat activity since D-Day when he led a first wave of assault troops onto the Normandy beaches.

It was expected that he would be buried in a cemetery not far from that landing spot and in the country where his brother Quentin was killed in World War I.

Carrying on the fighting traditions of his father, the former President and Rough Rider, he had been in the thick of the battle of France for weeks.

Ill four days

He had been ill four days but declined medical attention to remain in the frontlines with soldiers of the 4th Division of which he was deputy commander. Friends said he had never fully recovered from pneumonia which he contracted shortly after his arrival in Britain.

He died peacefully in his tent, attended in his last hours by Army doctor Maj. Kenneth McPherson of Beckley, West Virginia, and surrounded by doughboys who knew him as “the fightingest little guy in this man’s army.”

Overage for combat duty, he obtained special permission to lead an invasion assault force.

Lands early

He hit the Cotentin beaches 16 minutes after H-Hour, wearing coveralls, his only weapon an Army .45 pistol. Hobbling on his cane, he waved on his doughboys whom he led into the interior under fire from German 88mm cannon, rockets and concrete-emplaced machine guns.

He personally supervised the demolition by engineers with TNT of the seawall at the beach. I landed in one of the waves behind the first in which the general was the leader. I found Gen. Roosevelt in the thick of it, cheering on his men and loving the hot smell of battle.

I noticed something wrong with his thumb and asked his young aide, Lt. Stevie Stevenson of Texas, what was the matter. Lt. Stevenson replied:

The general’s luck is still holding out. It’s just a scratch from a piece of shrapnel.

In the last hours of the Battle of Cherbourg, he led a reconnaissance in force almost to the sea in which has come to be regarded as one of the bravest acts of this war.

He walked a long way through country infested by German strongpoints at the head of a battalion, past machine-gun nests and snipers, and almost reached the sea northwest of the city.

Covers star with gum

One of his pastimes was to cover the general’s star on his steel helmet with chewing gum and walk along the front areas, mingling with the assault troops. Once when he was walking along, I saw an infantryman stick his head out of a slit trench and ask: “Who’s that guy?”

“Not so loud,” one of his mates hushed him. “That’s the toughest little fighting man in this Army. That’s rough ridin’ Teddy Roosevelt.”

Wounded in last war

Gen. Roosevelt was born in Oyster Bay, New York, Sept. 13, 1887. He graduated from Harvard in 1909.

In World War I, he commanded the 1st Battalion of the 26th Division in the offensives at Cantigny, Soissons, Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne and was wounded twice.

After the war, he entered politics and served under President Warren G. Harding as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1921. He ran for Governor of New York in 1924 but lost to Alfred E. Smith. Under President Herbert Hoover, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines.

He returned to military duty before the outbreak of the present war and in December 1941 was made a brigadier general. He went to Britain as assistant commander of a division and later saw action in the North African and Sicilian campaigns.

He commanded the first combat team to attack Oran in the North African landings in November 1942.

He and his son Quentin II, a captain, fought together in North Africa and were cited together for gallantry in action. The general received an Oak Leaf Cluster representing a second Silver Star for going to a forward observation post and remaining there until threat of a counterattack had been repulsed.

His decorations from World War I included the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, the Purple Heart, Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre.

One of four sons

He was one of four sons of the former President, all of whom distinguished themselves in the service just as their father did before them. One brother, Lt. Quentin, attached to the 95th Aero Squadron, was killed in action near Chamery, July 14, 1918.

Another, Maj. Kermit, who served with the British and U.S. armies in World War I, died June 4, 1943, of illness while serving with the U.S. Army.

The third, Archibald B., served as an infantry captain in World War I and was wounded while leading a trench raid March 11, 1918. Archibald, now a lieutenant colonel, was wounded June 20 in fighting on Biak Island off the New Guinea coast in the Southwest Pacific. Gen. Roosevelt was married in 1910 to Eleanor Butler Alexander of New York. Besides Capt. Roosevelt, their children are Mrs. Grace McMillan, Theodore III and Cornelius of the U.S. Navy.

8669

Gen. Lear named Army ground chief

Replaces Gen. McNair, assigned overseas

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8670

Free education denied prisoners

Only 20 Italians get instruction
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

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8671

Johnston urges U.S. assist Russia rebuild

Post-war trade, loans advocated

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Excess reserves rise $100 million

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8672

Editorial: Bastille Day

This is the last Bastille Day that France will be imprisoned by Germany. today – even though only the tiny tip of Normandy has been liberated by Allied arms – the hearts of Frenchmen everywhere are lifted in hope after four years of night.

Americans share France’s prayers. By long tradition the two republics are friends and comrades in democracy, bound together by mutual sacrifices one for the other. But more than sentiment is involved. There is self-interest too – our own. For, without a strong and healthy French democracy, there is little chance of a free Europe or a peaceful Europe rising from this war.

Before victory France still must suffer a great deal. And afterward her burdens will be heavy and her problems hard. The sheer physical problem of rebuilding a country shattered by war and tyrants will be tremendous. But even more difficult will be the task of security, of preventing World War III which a weakened France could not survive.

Of this all Frenchmen are thinking today. Some of their leaders are thinking only in terms of physical force, of better strategic frontiers and buffer states, of keeping the old enemy disarmed and of making France the biggest military power outside of Russia, of European alliances to put teeth in any international organization.

How much force is necessary, and in what form, we do not know. But we doubt that any Maginot Line, even a modern model which blocks the skies, will be sufficient. Indeed, the same old Maginot psychology in newer and subtler form may be her undoing again.

For France’s worst weakness in 1939 was not external, but internal. She was divided. She was sick. She was easy prey for the germs Hitler spread. She fell quickly because she had lost the unity which had once made her strong. The most dangerous enemy was within.

To the old divisions are now added new ones. The most terrible legacy left by the retreating Nazi army and fleeing Gestapo will not be the physical destruction but the spiritual poison which sets Frenchman against Frenchman. The damning of personal enemies or competitors as Vichyites, the feuds between Giraudists and de Gaullists, the suspicions and rivalries within the de Gaulle regime itself, and all the other strains multiplied for victims of military occupation and émigré intrigue, will make unity more difficult. Many will think the cure should be a blood purge instead of patient reconciliation.

The test of Gen. de Gaulle, or of any other Frenchman who aspires to leadership, will be his ability to heal old wounds instead of making new ones, and his reliance on democratic processes instead of the semi-dictator methods of the Algiers regime. France must replenish her strength from within.

8673

Editorial: Teddy Junior

Brig. Gen. Roosevelt, Teddy Jr., the fighting son of fighting Teddy the First, is gone. He died in bed, of battle fatigue. But he was as certainly a war casualty as if a bomb or a bullet had got him, as he led his men, half his age, onto the Normandy beachhead.

For all the days since D-Day he had been building up the exhaustion which finally took him away. That he wasn’t killed in action as, at the head of his doughboys, he directed reconnaissance in force on Cherbourg through enemy territory infested by machine-gun nests and snipers – that is one of the many miracles of a charmed life which finally ended in repose.

But the same miracle had hovered over his many times before – in two world wars. At Cantigny, Soissons, in the Argonne and at Saint-Mihiel in World War I, he was young. Thirty years later, he was 56. But despite his age, in the Mediterranean and in Normandy, he was what one of his men described him – “the toughest little fighting man in this Army.”

Those years, however, finally took their toll; did what bombs and bullets couldn’t. Though wounded twice in the first war and twice again in this, the enemy could never get him. That remained for time and the exhaustion that years and strain bring on – such strain as only a brave heart can hear, to the end.

Few who have been in battles had been honored by more decorations than this soldier son of a solder, and none deserved them more.

“Rough Rider” was painted on the jeep he rode in Normandy and Teddy Jr. carried a .45. They didn’t have jeeps on San Juan Hill but they did have .45s. And who said there’s nothing in heredity?