America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

[NormanStewart]

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In Normandy, France – (by wireless)
When the now-famous Gen. Karl Wilhelm von Schlieben was captured, I happened to be at the 9th Division command post to which he was first brought.

Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, division commander, had a long interview with him in his trailer. When he was about finished and ready to send the captured general on to higher headquarters, Gen. Eddy sent word that the photographers could come and take pictures.

So, they stood in a group in an orchard while the photographer snapped away. Von Schlieben was obviously sourpuss about being captured, and even more sourpuss at having his picture taken. He made no effort to look other than sullenly displeased.

Gen. Eddy was trying to be decent about it. He had an interpreter tell the prisoner that this was the price of being a general. Von Schlieben just snorted. And then Gen. Eddy said to the interpreter:

Tell the general that our country is a democracy and therefore I don’t have authority to forbid these photographers to take pictures.

Von Schlieben snorted again. And we chuckled behind our beards at one of the slickest examples of working democracy we had ever seen. And Gen. Eddy had the appearance of the traditional cat that swallowed something wonderful.

Normandy land of rabbits

Normandy is a land of rabbits. You see them in the fields and around the farmyards. Most of them are semi-tame. Apparently, the people eat a great deal of rabbit.

When we first moved in and began capturing permanent German bivouac areas, we found that nearly every little group of German soldiers had its own rabbit warren. They raised them for food.

One day my friend Pvt. William Bates Wescott of Culver City, California, found a mother rabbit that had been killed in the shelling, and nearby, in a nest near the hedge, he found six baby rabbits, only a few days old.

Wescott took them to his pup tent, got a ration box to put them in and spent the afternoon feeding them condensed cream through an eyedropper. They went for it like little babies. Next morning, five of them were dead.

The soldier said the concussion of bombs falling nearby during the night had killed them. I said undiluted condensed milk had killed them. At any rate, the sixth one thrived and became cute and gay.

He followed Westcott around everywhere, and if the distance got too far, he would go hopping back to the pup tent and snuggle up in Westcott’s blankets. He was quite a little rabbit. Everybody was crazy about him. Then, after about a week, we found him dead out on the grass one morning.

Which is a lousy way to end the story, but that’s all there was to it.

The town of Montebourg on the Cherbourg Peninsula is one of the worst wrecked of the towns that were fought over and shelled by both sides.

We stopped at Montebourg one day after it was all over. On one side of the city square, there was a large collection of rusted farm implements – all kinds of plows, planters, mowers and things.

On one wrecked mowing machine was the familiar name “McCormick.” And near the machine was stretched out in pathetic death a big white rabbit.

Sergeant cooks on electric iron

One night I crawled down into an ack-ack battery command post, in a dugout. It was about 2:00 a.m.

Only two people were there – a lieutenant, giving orders to the guns by telephone, and a sergeant, getting ready to fix some hot chocolate. He asked if I would have some, and following the old Army custom of never refusing anything, I said sure.

He was Sgt. Leopold Lamparty, the first sergeant of this battery, from 916 Franklin Street, Youngstown, Ohio. He used to be a bartender, and already in France he has picked up several little antique whisky glasses of old and beautiful design.

But the reason I’m writing about Lamparty is his electric iron. He made the hot chocolate on an electric iron turned upside down. Each ack-ack battery has a portable generator, so Lamparty just plugs it in.

His sister sent him the iron two years ago when he was in camp near Chicago, and he has carried it ever since. There was a long time ago when he pressed his pants with it, but a guy with pressed pants over here probably would be shot as a spy, so now Lamparty cooks with his iron.

[NormanStewart]

Pegler: Democratic Convention Day 2

By Westbrook Pegler

Chicago, Illinois –
Up on the flying bridge which juts out from the platform where the giants sit to watch the antics of the little people, Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, according to ancient formula, was viewing with pride and pointing with alarm.

The little people stirred restlessly like things on the quiet surface of a harbor. Down in the alley, beneath the stands, amid the picnic little of that ribald and yet solemn American political rite, the national nominating convention, the members of the band were disappearing around the bend to fall in for the great spontaneous ovation to the man-than-whom. The statesman on the bridge had been going on for a long time and the surprise was due any minute.

Senator Barkley is a man roughhewn like a preliminary study of one of Gutzon Borglum’s monumental great stone faces. He was standing to the microphones, gleaming with the sweat of his devotion and reading in enormous roars the script of a fateful act of American history, already confirmed by Frank Roosevelt’s demure acceptance of his fourth nomination. He was now getting around to the painful part in which he had to humiliate himself by eating the most awful words of his entire career, blurted last winter in honest anger at an insult to Congress delivered by the man whom he now had the privilege to nominate for an honor without precedent in the life of the American nation.

On that occasion, Mr. Roosevelt, rejecting the tax bill, for once went so far that even the docile Barkley, dull but hitherto always reliable, snarled back with an angry speech and, for a few hours, quit his position as Majority Leader of the Senate. In this sharp and sudden test of courage and conviction, both quit miserably.

The President, having fetched a calculated insult, crawled back, denying his obvious intention. And Barkley, reconsidering, accepted a sorry excuse instead of an apology.

Dispute well back in oration

Barkley was coming to that now. He had postponed the issue well back into his oration so that, in the published accounts, it would occur far down the text where few would read it.

Senator Barley might hesitate with his great leader on minor matters, he was explaining, in general terms, and he might disagree on procedure or method, for, thank God, in this great democracy, a man had a right to hold and express an opinion. As Voltaire had said, he might disagree with what you said but he would defend to the death your right to say it. A few words more and the insult to the legislative branch had been swallowed with a muscular gulp in public, diluted to be sure, with prideless phrases, in a scene so abject that a stranger could pity the man and fear for a country in such hands.

He whopped on now and, at the close, his nomination of “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” left the little people momentarily unprepared. They were not allowed to cheer a nomination. They could only cheer a fact accomplished long ago and acknowledged by the President in a letter last week to Robert E. Hannegan, the puppet chairman of the party, an affable handshaker in an empty job.

The music came on with a crash and they began to stretch in the aisles, carrying their blue and white legends on the winning of the war and the winning of the peace with Mr. Roosevelt, and bouncing their state standards on high in a trudging procession whose duration the reporters began to clock from force of habit. Barkley swabbed his face, stepped back and then stepped again to the fore to pose for the photographers standing on the press benches and clamoring, “Senator, this way, Senator. Just one more, Senator.”

Jackson gets into pictures

Barkley was good at this. He would throw out his right hand in an oratorial sweep and part his rugged features in a reasonably convincing grin. Now to the left of the bridge, for the photographers over there. Now back to the fight, with a different placard in his left hand. “Hold it higher, Senator, it hides your face. A little this way, Senator.”

Sam Jackson, another obscurity like Hannegan, hailing from Indiana, crowded the old hack for a place in the pictures. He is new and this convention gave him a miraculous chance to get into the papers. He smiled importantly, imitating Barkley’s wave and, once when Barkley paused for a drink of water, pulled our a low-comedy brown derby which he cocked on his head to solemnize a historical even while the little people shuffled by below.

The little people do not know how very little they were. Many of them never had seen a convention before and they came determined to enact their spontaneous demonstration. They seemed to believe literally that they were deciding nominations and policies not knowing that Sidney Hillman and Philip Murray long ago determined that they should nominate Henry Wallace for Vice President and were insisting on this choice against any other preference of the little people.

[NormanStewart]

Allen: Texas afraid Roosevelt will steal Lone Star title

Good thing GOP held convention first, may not be Stadium when Democrats finish
By Gracie Allen

Chicago, Illinois –
Wow… It’s a good thing the Republicans held a convention first… There might not have been any stadium left for them to meet in. Those Democrats really lifted the roof and made the walls bulge when Senator Barkley nominated President Roosevelt for a fourth term. But for some reason, the Texas delegation didn’t exactly approve. In fact, they got up and walked out, led by Mr. Moody. As they filed past, I got to look at Mr. Moody – and he certainly was.

I don’t know enough about politics to be able to tell you just why the Texas delegation doesn’t approve of Roosevelt, but maybe they’re afraid he’ll steal their title. After all, if he’s President for 16 years, he’ll have been the “Lone Star” almost as long as Texas.

Democrats livelier

It’s a shame that President Roosevelt couldn’t have been here in person to make his acceptance speech. But then I guess he could make a fine acceptance speech from almost any place – he’s had so much experience.

As a reporter, I’m completely nonpartisan and nonpolitical. But I must say the Democratic Convention is much livelier than the Republican Convention was. The donkey is giving a more exciting show than the elephant did. In fact, one Democrat told me he had a new answer to the old question – “Where do elephants go to die?” The answer – “Chicago.”

Very disquieting rumor

There are some wonderful personalities here for the convention. I was particularly interested in talking with Helen Gahagan Douglas. She’s the wife of movie star Melvyn Douglas. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have a career and also be married to a handsome, talented star… Mrs. Douglas told me. By the way, I just heard a very disquieting rumor. Someone said that if Dewey wins the election, the Roosevelts will have to move to Hyde Park. My goodness, I didn’t dream they were so bad off they’d have to live in a park.

That’s all for now – more political news tomorrow.

[NormanStewart]

In driver’s seat at convention –
Hillman must give the nod before wheels turn at Chicago

Political Action chief holds court and Democratic bigwigs seek favor
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Sidney Hillman is granting no interviews here. “No publicity about Mr. Hillman,” is the word passed along by Clark Foreman, secretary of the Political Action Committee.

The man who vetoed President Roosevelt’s blessing of James F. Byrnes for Vice President, who allowed Senator Harry S. Truman to enter the race by agreeing not to oppose the Missourian if Henry A. Wallace could not make the grade, and who must give the nod before any wheels really move inside the Democratic National Convention, is operating in privacy at the Ambassador Hotel.

Mr. Hillman enjoyed similar privacy in the 1920s when he was in Russia learning about Russian peasants by living in a villa on the bank of the Moskva River opposite the Kremlin.

Associate of Browder

Earl Browder was Mr. Hillman’s associate then and Earl Browder is closely related to Mr. Hillman’s work today. So was Paul Robeson, then a Communist speaker between performances at Moscow’s Metropole Theater and now a leader in Mr. Hillman’s committee and chairman of the Communist-surrounded African Affairs Council in the Institute of International Democracy in New York.

That was a return trip to Russia for Mr. Hillman. He was born in 1887 at Žagarė, Lithuania, then part of Russia. He first came to the United States in 1907 at the age of 20. After organizing immigrants and refugee garment workers from Middle Europe into the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which now has 325,000 members, the man who is saying “yes” and “no” to the convention here really got rolling in American politics.

Collects $2 million

President Roosevelt appointed him to work closely with Mrs. Anna Rosenberg in a series of New Deal executive posts. Mrs. Rosenberg and Mr. Hillman quarreled, she reportedly feeling that Hillman double-crossed her, and ousted her from the White House inner circle. But Mr. Hillman went on.

A year ago, he founded the Political Action Committee at the CIO’s Philadelphia convention. The fruit of that work gave him the Democratic leadership he is exercising here today. In Philadelphia, he outlined his plan to raise $5 million to defeat certain members of Congress. Mr. Hillman had his own clothing workers pledge $102,000 the first day. Before the convention adjourned, he had $2 million in hand collected by union officials, and he had made no statement of how much money he has collected since.

Group changes name

On June 14, appearing before the Senate Campaign Investigating Committee, Mr. Hillman conceded the illegality of union contributions to the election or defeat of federal officers. Out went the words CIO. Mr. Hillman changed his committee into the National Citizens’ Political Action Committee, as it is called today.

Mr. Hillman hands over no contributions. He spends where and when he wants to spend. Mr. Hillman uses $50,000 in one Congressional district, $70,000 in another, for newspaper advertising, organizing in the wards, operating political clubs on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt’s fourth term as the No. 1 declared objective, and supporting a corps of heavily-handed troubleshooters who filter through local areas visiting local voters and candidates alike. Mr. Hillman never delivers anything. He keeps control of the support he lends. And as both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wallace know, you can’t call on Mr. Hillman once for help and have it over with. You have to keep calling back.

Leaders come to call

The coming-back process is in full swing here, with Mr. Hillman holding court at the Ambassador Hotel. On a telephone message from Hillman, Mr. Wallace paid a two-hour call. Attorney General Francis Biddle, of Montgomery Ward fame, followed suit. Secretary Harold L. Ickes followed Mr. Biddle.

Calls went out and the others came: National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, Senator Harry S. Truman and Sam Rosenman of Hillman’s own inner circle at the White House, and numerous others of the favored few. Mr. Hillman likes to stay cozy at the Ambassador.

Guffey in attendance

Senator Guffey of Pennsylvania and Senator Claude Pepper of Florida are acting as Mr. Hillman’s right and left bowers in the apartment. You’ll find it a spacious place with a beige-carpeted sitting room, deep red draperies and paneled walls, which are a soft white under the indirect lights. Visitors sit in heavy red leather chairs or on an empire sofa covered with striped silk, waiting for Mr. Hillman to get off the telephone. This is no smoke-filled room. It is air conditioned.

Spreading from top down, Mr. Hillman roots his influence in weird assortment of political action groups similar to the Institute of International Democracy. And the men on his Political Action Committee know their business, which is how to organize to deliver the vote. Here are the few leading members of the CIO Political Action Committee who supply the steam behind the decisions Mr. Hillman makes in the Ambassador Hotel today.

• Zlatko Balokovic functions as president of “the United Committee of South Slavic Americans,” New York City. His division operates mostly around the coal mines and steel mills.

• Zarko M. Bunzick operates the “Serbian Vidivdas Congress” from headquarters in Akron.

• John D. Butkovich works mostly in Pennsylvania as president of the Croatian Fraternal Union.

• Leo Krzycki, headquarters in New York is president of “the American Slav Congress” for that state. Dr. W. T. Osowski has the same job in Michigan, while V. X. Platek is president of “the National Slovak Society” with headquarters in Pennsylvania.

• James Loeb, as press secretary of the “Union for Democratic Action”, ties in at New York with Clifford T. McAvoy (president of the “Council of Pan-American Democracy”), who was forced to resign as New York City Deputy Welfare Commissioner after his Communist-front activities were exposed.

The assembly point here for such of the group as are in Chicago, is Room 1889 and adjoining rooms at the Hotel Sherman. Mr. Hillman is not mingling there. He calls them, when convenient, to the Ambassador.

[NormanStewart]

Maj. Williams: Weight elimination

By Maj. Al Williams

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[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Wallace gives rare demonstration of honesty

He disregards foes to speak his mind
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Somebody throws a bomb at Hitler. The Japanese Cabinet falls. The deadly circle closes in on the dictators.

Beating in on them too, are the shouts from assemblies of free people, such as that in Chicago’s great stadium. There a great political party goes through those contortions typical of a democracy in its trial-and-error method – a method which seems crude and cumbersome, but which leaves men free.

A man stands before them. He is the antithesis of Hitler and Tōjō. He grins shyly. He raises his hand as the crowd roars, in an awkward sort of wave. There is nothing mechanical about it. It is grateful.

He looks like Iowa

His hair is lopping, and he presents that ruffled appearance, which causes a wife always to say afterward, “Why didn’t you comb your hair? I wanted you to look nice before all those people.”

His tie straggles.

Henry Wallace is from Iowa, and he looks every inch of it.

He stands there and he talks, talks in simple, direct sentences, and suddenly you feel that you are hearing the voice of the plain people – the plain people of this country and of the world.

Here is honesty

And as you watch and listen, something tightens in you. You brush at your eye, and something cold chases up your spine.

Here, you think, is honesty. Here is decency. And as he goes on, here is a demonstration of “guts.”

This man is doing no ordinary thing. He is Vice President. He wants to be renominated, for in that way he can best carry on the fight for human justice, but not at the sacrifice of any convictions.

There are some sitting before him who hate him for the things he believes. But Wallace is no politician. He nits clean from the shoulder, and he smiles as he strikes – a friendly smile, not a taunting or belligerent smile. The iron is not on the surface. That’s underneath.

If telling the truth as he sees it means the end of political hopes, well and good.

“This is the way I see it,” he says in effect. “Do with me what you please.”

There are Southerners sitting before him, many of them. They don’t like him. There are others before him who represent economic interests that would be disturbed by the things Mr. Wallace would do. He knows that, he knows his political fate is in their hands, but he strikes:

In a political, educational and economic sense, there must be no inferior races. The poll tax must go. Equal educational opportunities must come. The future must bring equal wages for equal work, regardless of sex or race.

Then he says – what many realize who sit there before him – many who saw the party go down to defeat because it took the easy way and stood for nothing.

The Democratic Party cannot long survive as a conservative party.

I go away knowing that this is the greatest speech I have heard in 20 years of covering national political conventions.

[NormanStewart]

South’s revolt given new life by convention

All-out drive mapped to avert fourth term
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
This one-man Democratic convention has given enthusiastic new life to the Southern revolt which can now conceivably result in the defeat of President Roosevelt in November.

It has refused the demands of Texas’ Regular Democrats.

As a result, the Democratic presidential electors of Texas are instructed to vote against the President in the Electoral College.

If the election is close enough, Texas’ 23 electoral votes – to say nothing of the possibility of nearly as many more from other Southern states – may hold the balance of power and throw the election to the House of Representatives.

Looking toward that end, Southern Democrats who detest the fourth term were to begin laying their plans here today.

Their nucleus is the Texas group, which was so incensed in the convention’s decision to seat their pro-Roosevelt opponents that they walked out of the stadium in disgust.

All-Southern convention

Around this group, now prepared to go home and fight throughout the state against the reelection of the New Deal, an all-Southern convention will be called within a few weeks, perhaps at Shreveport, Louisiana.

That convention will nominate its own presidential ticket, headed perhaps by Senator Harry Byrd (D-VA).

The large majority of the Texas “free” electors, if elected in November, will cast their votes for the Byrd ticket.

This, at least, is the plan which anti-fourth-term Democrats – among them E. B. Germany of Dallas and former Mississippi Governor Mike Connor – were scheduled to discuss today.

They’re determined people

These anti-Roosevelt Democrats of Texas and the South are determined people. In the face of the convention’s action, they have dispelled the feeling, current before this meeting began, that the Southern revolt might peter out.

One reason it didn’t was the inept handling of the convention’s Credentials Committee by Senator Abe Murdoch (D-UT).

It was his job to lead his colleagues toward a decision on whether to seat the Texas Regulars or the Texas rump delegates. Obviously, national party leaders here wanted the Regulars seated, for they knew the danger of adding to the discontent in Texas.

Senator Murdock chose to compromise by voting to seat both delegations, dividing Texas’ 48 votes between them.

Tempted to march out

The Regulars came here backed by their convention’s pledge that if any rump delegates were seated, their (the Regulars’) presidential electors would not support the nominee of this convention.

At the convention hall, the Texas Regulars, learning of the decision, were tempted to march out of the hall at once, but at the insistence of state chairman George Butler of Houston, they decided to act in an orderly way.

Texans cry ‘insult’

How the national party leaders felt about the situation was shown when Chairman Bob Hannegan sent word through Ed Pauley of California that “he hoped no matter how your deliberations end, that your conduct on the floor will be orderly.”

“Insult!”, several Texans cried. Mr. Pauley said he meant no insult.

Finally, the decision was reached: If the convention upheld the Murdock Credentials Committee report, each Regular Texan could decide individually whether to stay in the convention – or leave.

Boos and applause

The issue was taken to the platform. Hart Willis of Texas appealed to the delegation to seed the Regulars from their own legal convention in Texas. He told what seating of the rump delegates would mean in freeing Texas electors from voting for FDR. There were boos and applause.

The convention voted to approve the seating of both delegations – and the Texas Regulars, with very few exceptions, walked out.

Later, the joint Regular and rump delegation cast 36 votes for Roosevelt and 12 for Byrd.

[NormanStewart]

Citizenship claim of half-Jap upheld

Philadelphia judge upsets two rulings

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[NormanStewart]

DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOMINATES ROOSEVELT-TRUMAN TICKET

Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President!

Missouri Senator Truman for Vice President!

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (July 22, 1944)

Zwei Männer vom Tenno beauftragt –
Koiso und Yonay bilden das japanische Kabinett

…

[NormanStewart]

Moskau treibt Eisenhower an

Stockholm, 21. Juli –
Im Daily Herald wird der schleppende, Verlauf der britisch-amerikanischen Operationen an der Invasionsfront scharf kritisiert. In unterrichteten Kreisen wird dieser Artikel auf sowjetische Einflüsse zurückgeführt. Moskau sei mehr als unzufrieden mit Eisenhower und Montgomery, und die neuen verzweifelten Anstrengungen der Briten und Amerikaner an der Invasionsfront seien auf diesen Druck Moskaus zurückzuführen. Eisenhower und Montgomery hätten Anweisung erhalten, ohne Rücksicht auf alle Verluste eine Entscheidung herbeizuführen.

[NormanStewart]

Präsidentschaftskandidat Roosevelt

Stockholm, 21. Juli –
Am Mittwoch wurde Roosevelt auf der Tagung der Demokratischen Partei auch formell zum Präsidentschaftskandidaten aufgestellt.

Wallace ausgeschaltet

Wie United Press meldet, sandte Roosevelt, der eine Wiederernennung von Wallace zum Vizepräsidenten offensichtlich für unmöglich halte, dem demokratischen Konvent in Chicago einen Brief, in dem er sich mit dem 60 Jahre alten Senator aus Missouri, Harry Truman, dem die Überwachung der Kriegsproduktion obliegt, als Amtskollegen einverstanden erklärt.

Roosevelt setzt also seinen langjährigen „Amtskollegen“ Wallace kurzerhand den Stuhl vor die Tür. Wahrscheinlich in Vorbereitung dieses Schrittes hatte er Wallace kürz vorher die mehr als undankbare Tschungking-Reise übertragen, mit der der Vizepräsident bekanntlich kläglich Schiffbruch erlitt.

[NormanStewart]

Vor 300 Jahren und heute –
Die Juden in Neuyork

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[NormanStewart]

Führer HQ (July 22, 1944)

Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

In der Normandie führte der Feind gestern östlich und südlich Caen stärkere von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe, in deren Verlauf er an einigen Stellen in unsere Hauptkampflinie einbrechen konnte. Schon am Abend war jedoch das verlorengegangene Gelände durch Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen wieder in unserem Besitz und ein feindliches Bataillon vernichtet. Starke Panzerbereitstellungen des Feindes südöstlich Caen wurden durch Artillerie wirksam bekämpft. Nordwestlich Saint-Lô scheiterten heftige örtliche Angriffe des Gegners.

Kampfflugzeuge beschädigten im Seegebiet westlich Brest einen feindlichen Zerstörer schwer und schossen dabei ein britisches Sicherungsflugzeug ab.

Im französischen Raum wurden 73 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.

Bei der Abwehr feindlicher Luft- und Schnellbootangriffe auf ein Geleit in der Deutschen Bucht schossen Minensuchboote, Sicherungsfahrzeuge und Bordflak der Handelsschiffe fünf feindliche Jagdbomber ab. Vor der niederländischen Küste beschädigten sie zwei britische Schnellboote schwer. Drei eigene Fahrzeuge gingen verloren.

Das Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert an.

In Italien führte der Feind fast auf der gesamten Front zahlreiche Einzelangriffe, die im Wesentlichen abgewiesen wurden. Nur am äußersten linken Flügel gelang es ihm, unter hohen blutigen Verlusten geringfügig Boden zu gewinnen. Erneute Angriffe gegen die neuen Stellungen scheiterten.

Im italienischen Raum wurden in der letzten Zeit 70 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.

Im Osten wurden durch Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen östlich Lemberg einige Frontlücken geschlossen. Nordwestlich der Stadt erzielten die Sowjets weiteren Geländegewinn. Am oberen Bug wurden die auf das Westufer| vorgedrungenen Bolschewisten in harten Kämpfen aufgegangen. Zwischen Brest-Litowsk und Grodno griff der Feind mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkräften an, konnte an einigen Stellen weiter Vordringen, wurde aber in den meisten Abschnitten unter hohen blutigen Verlusten und unter Abschuß zahlreicher Panzer abgewiesen.

Nordöstlich Kauen dauern die erbitterten Kämpfe an. Zwischen dem Seengebiet südwestlich Dünaburg und dem Peipussee wurden zahlreiche feindliche Angriffe unter hohen Verlusten für die Bolschewisten zerschlagen. In einigen Einbruchsstellen sind die Kämpfe noch im Gange.

In Luftkämpfen verlor der Feind 83 Flugzeuge.

In der Nacht waren die Bahnhöfe Borissow und Orscha das Angriffsziel schwerer deutscher Kampfflugzeuge. In den brennenden Bahnanlagen flogen mehrere Munitionszüge in die Luft.

Nordamerikanische Bomber drangen vom Westen und Süden in das Reichsgebiet ein und griffen mehrere Orte in Süd- und Südwestdeutschland an. Besonders in den Wohngebieten von München, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen und Schweinfurt entstanden Schäden und Personenverluste. Luftverteidigungskräfte vernichteten 68 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 55 viermotorige Bomber.

In der Nacht überflogen feindliche Flugzeuge Nordwest- und Südostdeutschland und warfen unter anderem auf das Gebiet der Reichshauptstadt eine Anzahl von Bomben. 6 britische Flugzeuge wurden zum Absturz gebracht.

Unterseeboote versenkten in harten Kämpfen 9 Schiffe mit 44.000 BRT und 2 Zerstörer. 1 weiterer Zerstörer und 4 Dampfer wurden torpediert. 1 Unterseeboot schoss außerdem einen viermotorigen Bomber ab.

[NormanStewart]

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 22, 1944)

Communiqué No. 94

A number of enemy counterattacks on both western and eastern sectors of the front have been repulsed with a total of at least 14 enemy tanks knocked out.

A limited number of aerial patrols were operated during the period from midnight to noon today.

[NormanStewart]

U.S. Navy Department (July 22, 1944)

Communiqué No. 532

The submarines USS TROUT (SS-202) and USS TULLIBEE (SS-284) are overdue from patrol and must be presumed to be lost.

The next of kin of casualties of the TROUT and TULLIBEE have been so notified.

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CINCPAC Communiqué No. 84

Our troops are making satisfactory progress in both sectors on Guam. We have captured Mount Alifan in the southern area. In the north the roads from Agana to Piti Town are in our hands.

Our northern beach extending from Asan Point to Adelup Point, was under mortar fire during the night of July 20‑21 (West Longitude Date). Before daylight on July 21 the enemy launched a counter attack on the eastern side of our lines in the northern sector which was thrown back after daylight by our troops supported by air, naval, and artillery bombardment. Cabras Island is under our control and about half of it has been occupied.

At the southern beachhead, extending from Agat Town south to Bangi Point, the enemy attempted a counter attack in the early morning of July 21, which was thrown back. In retreating the enemy left behind five tanks and approximately 270 dead.

Initial beachheads on Guam Island were established immediately above and immediately below Orote Peninsula. Troops of the 3rd Marine Division landed on the northern beach. The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade landed in the south. Following the initial assault landings, elements of the 77th Infantry Division, USA, were landed in support of the Marines.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 22, 1944)

Doughboys, Marines fan out inland from west coast of Guam

Yanks drive to cut off peninsula and airfield; Jap resistance increases
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

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[NormanStewart]

Cabinet formed by Jap general

By the United Press

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Two U.S. subs lost in Pacific

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[NormanStewart]

Two Nazi counterattacks smashed on French front

Allies wreck 14 German tanks as mud, rain bogs down British offensive near Caen
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Gestapo kills general in France

London, England –
A report reached certain Allied intelligence quarters today that a serious conflict between Nazi SS troops and the German Army over the recent Oradour-sur-Glane massacre resulted in the assassination of a German general. The unidentified general was reported assassinated by the Gestapo. He had gone to investigate the massacre when intercepted by Gestapo agents, the report said.

SHAEF, London, England –
Allied armies knocked out 14 German tanks yesterday in repulsing two futile counterthrusts mounted despite heavy rain which stalled the British push across the Caen plains toward Paris, it was officially announced today.

The limited counterattacks were repulsed south of Saint-André-sur-Orne below Caen and along the Périers–Saint-Lô highway south of Remilly-sur-Lozon.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s shortest communiqué of the French campaign said today that “there is nothing to report,” and late in the day the word at Supreme Headquarters was the same.

A spokesman revealed that Gen. Paul Hausser, old-line Prussian officer, was commanding the German 7th Army facing the Americans in Normandy.

The German Transocean News Agency reported that the British had massed more than 10 divisions east of the Orne River, were moving up still more troops, and a “new major assault seems imminent.” The enemy report, lacking any immediate support in responsible quarters, said artillery fire was already increasing east of Caen but “the expected new attack has not yet started.”

British and Canadian forces waited in foxholes, trenches and ditches half-filled with water on an arc extending nearly five miles beyond Caen for clearing skies to resume their march toward Paris, 112 miles to the east.

Ground fog and low-flying clouds further immobilized operations and front reports told only of occasional artillery and mortar fire and routine limited patrols. Virtually all planes were grounded.

Desultory clashes were reported at Troarn, seven miles east of Caen, with the British vanguards in the outskirts and about 1,000 yards north of the town. South of Caen, the British were established firmly in Saint-André-sur-Orne, four miles down the Orne River, but headquarters retracted a previous announcement that they had taken Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, a few hundred yards farther south.

A London broadcast said that “half of Troarn” was still in German hands, but the “fighting is going well for us.”

On the western half of the front, the U.S. 1st Army inched to within 4,000 yards north of Périers, made slight gains at several points south of the Périers–Saint-Lô highway and won positions 1,500 yards west of the Vire River four miles northwest of Saint-Lô.

[NormanStewart]

After Truman wins –
Move toward unity made by Democrats

CIO, South, bosses rally behind ticket
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was off today on his fourth-term campaign with running mate No. 3 after a bruising final session of the Democratic National Convention which rejected Vice President Henry A. Wallace and nominated Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) for his job.

Mr. Roosevelt’s first running mate was John Nance Garner of Texas, who was elected Vice President in 1932 and 1936 and then broke with the President.

The Democratic nominees plan a late campaign, conforming to Mr. Roosevelt’s standard and effective practice. Neither is expected to begin major speeches until late September or October.

Senator Truman appears to have been the handpicked choice of the President, whose wishes were carried out here by a strategy board consisting of half a dozen men. Top honors for beating down the effort of left-wingers and others to keep Mr. Wallace on the ticket goes to National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, a 40-year-old from St. Louis who was chosen by Mr. Roosevelt to administer party affairs.

Senator Truman, nominated yesterday for Vice President about 24 hours after Mr. Roosevelt was named for a fourth term, is a second term member of the Senate who is chairman of the committee investigating munitions production and contracts. He is reckoned to have saved for the taxpayers a great many millions of dollars which might have been spent to no purpose.

Mr. Wallace was ahead on the first ballot, 429½ to 319½.

Stampede gets started

The remainder of the votes were scattered among other candidates, most of whom had been nominated to provide various state delegations with safe places to cast their votes pending some indication who might be the winner.

The Wallace drive began collapsing on the second ballot when little Delaware switched to give its full eight votes to Senator Truman. When Maryland was reached on the roll call, the delegation abandoned favorite-son Governor Herbert R. O’Conor to give Senator Truman 18 more votes.

Oklahoma Governor Robert S. Kerr then withdrew from the race and the state’s 22 votes went to Senator Truman. Virginia switched her 24 from Senator John R. Bankhead (D-AL) to the Missourian. By that time, the stampede was on and states were clamoring for a chance to change their votes.

A close contest

But even with the changes effected during the roll call, Senator Truman and Mr. Wallace were only three and a half votes apart when the last delegate was polled and before changes began being made for the record. Senator Truman had 477½ votes at the end of the roll call and Mr. Wallace had 473. Eleven other candidates were still in the contest at that time, but not for long.

By the time all the changes had been announced, the score, subject to minor correction, was:

Truman	1074
Wallace	66
Cooper	26
Douglas	4
Absent	6

Only 589 votes were required for a bare nominating majority.

Behind those figures is a story of angry disputes which foretells trouble for the New Deal-Democratic coalition. The strain of conflicting interests was evidenced in bitter language and boos in the convention yesterday.

Goes back four years

The story goes back to four years ago in the same stadium when Mr. Roosevelt compelled the sullenly reluctant 1940 Democratic Convention to accept Mr. Wallace as its vice-presidential nominee. That compulsion angered the south but was made effective with the support of the big northern Democratic organizations controlled by Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly, Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, Pennsylvania’s David Lawrence, and others.

This year, the big organization leaders balked. On the advice of his associates or under their pressure, Mr. Roosevelt failed this time to insist on Mr. Wallace.

He said he would vote for him if he were a delegate. But he also advised National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan that he would welcome either Mr. Truman or Mr. Douglas on the ticket, explaining that he thought either would add strength.

A bitter session

It was a bitter session beginning at noon and ending at 8:21 p.m. CT. The moment the results were announced most of the principals began to move again toward unity, especially Sidney Hillman of the CIO. Mr. Wallace and Mr. Hillman both sent congratulatory messages to Senator Truman.

The rebellious South will go along with Senator Truman – a factor which makes persuasive the argument that the Missouri Senator was the man Mr. Roosevelt wanted from the first, despite his letter saying he would vote for Mr. Wallace. Much of the South was bitterly opposed to Mr. Wallace. Party members from that region expressed fears here that organized labor, notably the CIO, might take over the party if Mr. Wallace were renominated. They wanted a Southerner for Vice President but compromised on Senator Truman because he could lick the Vice President here with Mr. Roosevelt’s support.

So, it will be President Roosevelt and Senator Truman against Tom Dewey and John Bricker this November. Mr. Roosevelt is 62 and Mr. Truman is 60. Governor Dewey is 42 and Governor Bricker is 50.