America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

[NormanStewart]

McGlincy: Saint-Lô captured by 29th Division

Tired troops win tough battle
By James McGlincy, United Press staff writer

U.S. 1st Army HQ, Normandy, France –
The U.S. 29th Division, one of the first combat units to go overseas, was in the forefront of the Allied invasion of Normandy, and it was that former National Guard outfit which captured Saint-Lô after days of almost continuous fighting, it may now be revealed.

All the accolades that can be given troops should be given the 29th Division which fought until its men were exhausted, until it seemed impossible that men could stand on their feet any longer, until it seemed they finally must give in and withdraw from the lines.

But they didn’t give in, and they didn’t withdraw in spite of the losses they took. They fought until there was nothing except their stout hearts to keep them driving. Their bodies were tired, but still they had that spark left which makes men fight when they no longer know why they are fighting.

The 29th Division arrived in England in October 1942. A National Guard outfit, the division was composed originally of men from Maryland and Virginia, with a sprinkling of boys from Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, but eventually they got all kinds of replacements until now the outfit includes men from all parts of the nation.

After rigorous training in Britain for 20 months, they finally got the assignment for which they were prepared.

And in carrying out that assignment, they wrote a battle epic which, when the full story can be told, will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time.

[NormanStewart]

Browns spoil Yanks’ first stop in West

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[NormanStewart]

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Somewhere in France – (by wireless)
I’m sending this column for some rainy day when the regular piece doesn’t get through on time.

This one contains a few odds and ends which I didn’t get down before about our invasion voyage across the Channel to France.

I came on a Navy LST which was a veteran of Sicily and Italy. She went up to England during the winter and had just been lying around since then.

She has a very fine crew, from the captain on down. Most of the crew have been through other amphibious campaigns, but there is a new batch of gunners who have been in the Navy only since December and who had never been shot at before our crossing.

The skipper is Lt. John D. Walker Jr. of Houlton, Maine. He is a gentle, courteous bachelor of 35, fine-looking, fine-minded, and beloved by his whole crew. Morale is high on this ship. A sailor will get you aside and tell you what a fine ship it has been since Walker took command.

Walker ran a Chevrolet and Cadillac agency in his hometown, but he is not the high-powered-salesman type at all. Aboard ship his discipline is the kindly rather than the Simon Legree variety.

Not grouchy, just worried

For example, there was a little exchange that I witnessed between him and the table waiter in the wardroom.

We had so many Army officers aboard that they practically crowded the Navy staff out of its own ship. At mealtime, the few Navy colored boys were hard put to keep the tables waited on.

One of these was a little sailor nicknamed Peewee, who hasn’t been out in the big world very much. At first, you think he is sullen, but later you learn it is just a facial expression and he means all right. One day he went to Capt. Walker and said: “Captain, I guess you think I’m grouchy, but it ain’t that. It’s just that I’m worrying all the time.”

Capt. Walker had been trying to teach Peewee some nice dining room manners. Trying to teach him to put things before his guests delicately, and not to jostle the guests or throw things at them.

One day I was eating next to the captain, and an Army colonel was at the same table. Peewee wanted the colonel to get up and make room for somebody else, so he just reached over the colonel’s shoulder ad started mopping the table with a wet cloth, sort of pushing the colonel out of the way as he did so.

The colonel took the hint and got up and left. The captain saw it, and was a little embarrassed. So, he said to Peewee, in a very kindly voice: “Peewee, you kind of bruised the colonel, didn’t you?”

And Peewee, not getting the subtle hint, and taking the captain literally, replied: “No, sir, I didn’t push him hard enough to hurt him.”

The captain, just shook his head in despair and went on eating.

Gets bulldozer, plus 100 men

Among the Army personnel aboard our ship was Capt. Warren Pershing, son of Gen. Pershing. The captain who is not a professional soldier at all, started out as a private in this war. He is in the engineers.

He is a tall, blond, regular fellow and everybody likes him. He leans over backward not to trade on his father’s name. He doesn’t speak of the general unless you ask him.

I asked if the general was still at Walter Reed Hospital. He said yes and that his father was very excited because they had just built him a penthouse on the hospital roof.

I have been told that despite his age and poor health, Gen. Pershing is very close to this war, and that some of our general staff call on him almost daily for advice and counsel.

On the way across the Channel, Capt. Pershing’s commanding officer gave him a mission to perform the moment we hit the beach. His mission was to steal a bulldozer at a certain spot, right away.

I checked up a couple of days later to see if he had succeeded. He not only showed up with the bulldozer but with a hundred men as well. He even got the bulldozer without stealing it. Just talked somebody out of it.

[NormanStewart]

Pegler: Democratic Convention

By Westbrook Pegler

Chicago, Illinois –
The party of unity, tolerance and justice went primitive in the last sessions of the convention called to ratify Mr. Roosevelt’s prior acceptance of his fourth nomination.

The legions of those who would enforce brotherly love with the heavy end of a sawed-off pool cue found themselves mere plaything of passion in an ecstasy of the old party spirit. They wound it up in a magnificent exhibition of double-crossing and trimming merrily reminiscent of the long parliament of 1924 in which Tammany Hall packed the old Madison Square Garden and wooed the proud and sensitive Southern brethren with the strains of “Marching Through Georgia.” Hatred and suspicion were unconfined and half-a-dozen sulky aspirants for the vice-presidential nomination were walking around today asking old friends to be good enough to remove that dagger from between their shoulder blades and only half-confident that a trusted hand wouldn’t shove it in deeper.

The Democrats of the Southern tier and the urban bosses of the North were responsible for the first great political beating ever given the CIO and the American equivalent of the French Popular Front at the hands of the party which gave it being. This group, represented by Sidney Hillman as leader of a collection of Communist organizations and individuals, set up convention headquarters and boldly undertook to dictate the selection of Henry Wallace to succeed himself.

The South is afraid of the CIO because of its memorable violent insurrections in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania which President Roosevelt condoned and Frank Murphy, now of the Supreme Court, tolerated as Governor of Michigan. The Southern politicians had noted Wallace’s expressed impatience with “Bill of Rights democracy” and his open fellowship with manipulators of the Communist conspiracy in the United States, all in the name of military unity with Russia although Russia had professed to disown them.

Reminder of gory riots of other years

And, in the actual convention, the picket-line methods of the direct actionists of the CIO were reproduced in subdued but disturbing version by the Wallace clique, obviously organized according to the radical or Communist system of intimidation.

Ed Kelly, the Mayor of Chicago and the one Democratic local machine boss who had slugged it out with the CIO Communists in a bloody riot and beaten them, was in technical command of the actual convention. He had the tickets, the ushers were his, and his police around Chicago should have been able to anticipate Hillman’s plans.

Nevertheless, the stooges who packed the hall on two occasions were not Kelly’s people but Wallace’s and Hillman’s. The sight of their big placards, mounted on sticks, was a reminder of gory riots of other years, when the CIO, under many of the same organizers, also carried placards which were quickly removed from the sticks which then became handy clubs.

Victory for old-time machines

Had Wallace been selected, the Communists truly could have claimed that they had named the man who would succeed to the Presidency in the event of President Roosevelt’s demise or retirement during a fourth term. True, the Political Action Committee supported the President, too. But there were in his adherence, so many other factors that it could not claim sole responsibility for his success. The Democrats of all groups had to accept Mr. Roosevelt. But Wallace lacked even the unqualified approval of the boss, and the Hillman group’s support was so arrogant and contemptuous of all other sections of the party that it became at once Wallace’s greatest strength and his fatal weakness.

By contrast with the Democrats’ pleas to the nation and the whole world to live in peace and trusting friendship, their own convention was a spectacular revival of its own old, quarrelsome trait.

Truman’s selection was a victory for the machines of Ed Kelly, Frank Hague of Jersey City and other old-style urban bosses of the type for whom the pretentious idealists of the New Deal expressed such pietistical abhorrence a few years ago, only to rely on them at election time, and for those conservative Democrats of the South who were able to submit to a fourth term. The party may be united in action for this campaign but in spirit it is seething with suspicion and many personal resentments.

[NormanStewart]

Maj. de Seversky: Air Department

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

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[NormanStewart]

Allen: It’s too bad the country can’t be run like a bank

Then all those 12 nice men the Democrats wanted to nominate could be Vice Presidents
By Gracie Allen

Chicago, Illinois –
Well, I didn’t think it was possible, but the third day of the Democratic Convention was even more exciting than the second. In fact, I got so interested that I completely forgot I was supposed to write about it.

I was sitting there in the Stadium with my ears – and probably my mouth – wide open, when a newspaperman tapped me on the shoulder and said he would like my column. Well, I thanked him and said I was sure I would like his column too if I know where to read it. Then he told me that he was there to pick up my column and get it to the newspapers and that I had just five minutes to get it written.

Well, that got me to nervous I just sat there and chewed the point off my pencil. I couldn’t write a single word.

Thank goodness for George

But thank goodness for my brilliant husband, George. Quick as a flash he grabbed that pencil out of my hand and went to work. Well, in two minutes he had that pencil sharpened for me and I was writing the column.

Of course, it wasn’t all my fault that I didn’t have the column written. The Democrats just couldn’t make up their minds whom they wanted to nominate for Vice President. There were 12 candidates to choose from. All wonderful men. Too bad the country can’t be run like a bank. Then they could all be Vice Presidents.

Anyway, as long as they had to choose one, I thought it would have been much quicker to just line the 12 men up on the stage and have the chairman walk behind them and hold a handkerchief over each man’s head… Then the one who received the most applause would be winner. On second thought – that’s what they do at amateur shows and I guess you can’t exactly call the Democrats amateurs, not after all those repeat performances.

That man again

Well, I certainly would like to be able to tell you who won the nomination for Vice President but that man keeps tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Gimme the stuff, gimme the stuff.”

George told him to stop it or somebody would get a black eye. George is out now looking for a piece of steak.

This is my last column from the convention. Thanks for reading them and I hope you’re learned something about politics…

Goodbye now.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Truman selection marks swing of pendulum from left wing New Dealism to conservatism

City bosses aligned with South does it
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
The swing of the Democratic Party pendulum away from blue-ribbon New Dealism was certified publicly today with the dropping Henry A. Wallace and the substitution of Senator Harry S. Truman as the candidate for Vice President.

How far this will go – whether eventually it will mean the capture of the party by the conservatives – depends on events.

The conservatives won a substantial victory in the convention, and both sides know it. This does not inhere in the person of Senator Truman, who cannot be catalogued with the conservatives, but in the fact that the conservatives rallied about him successfully to beat Vice President Wallace.

In 1932, Garner

What has happened to the party can best be illustrated by the history of President Roosevelt’s running mates.

In 1932, he accepted John N. Garner of Texas, then Speaker of the House, in order to get the block of Texas and California votes that sealed his own nomination. Mr. Garner and the Southern conservatives who looked to him as leader went along with the early New Deal program of correcting financial abuses and of helping small farmers and businessmen by not-too-harsh reforms.

Everything being fairly serene, in 1936, President Roosevelt took along Mr. Garner for another ride.

Garner and backers balk

In the second administration, the southerners began to get restive when the reforms went deeper and threatened the preserves of the industrial and financial overlords in the South through government regulation of private power companies, through the Wage-and-Hour Act, and through the encouragement of labor unions in a section hitherto almost free of them.

Mr. Garner balked. He and the Southern conservatives formed a coalition with Republicans that began to be successful occasionally in Congress against the President. Mr. Garner got ideas of his own. He decided to run for President. Mr. Roosevelt dumped him.

In 1940, Wallace

The President had no intention or going back. Instead, he went forward and made the party completely New Deal by literally ramming Henry Wallace down the throats of the 1940 convention. Conservatives became really alarmed with the rising power of labor and its political organization into the CIO Political Action Committee, and the Southerners also by New Deal agitation for greater economic and civil freedom for Negroes, with all of which Mr. Wallace became identified.

This grew into a veritable storm, before which Mr. Roosevelt finally yielded in a series of compromises that came to their climax last night with the official abandoning of Henry Wallace. However, the decision to drop the Vice President – if possible. without too much injury to his left-wing support – was made months ago.

City and South alliance

It is significant that the defeat of Mr. Wallace was achieved by the combination that was the nucleus of the old Democratic Party before the New Deal came along, that strange alliance of the South and the big-city bosses. Ed Kelly of Chicago, Frank Hague of Jersey City and Ed Flynn of the Bronx were in on this game here from the start. And when the proper time came, the Southerners put the knife to Mr. Wallace and twisted it, as was manifest in that hectic convention hall drama last night when the Southern delegations began to switch from favorite sons to Senator Truman.

The rebirth of this alliance is an important event. The big-city machines, which have been following along with the New Deal – for their good health, to be true – seem to be returning to their conservative base.

CIO has Roosevelt

For the immediate campaign, the Roosevelt-Truman ticket will meet the necessities of a straddle to include the wild horses on the right and left. The CIO has Mr. Roosevelt at the top of the ticket, and nowhere else to go.

The Wallace ouster has mollified the south and conservatives elsewhere. Likewise satisfying to conservatives is the inclusion of a representative of Congress who gets along well with both wings of the part at the Capitol, and which will help to meet the Republican criticism of one-man government by presenting the picture of a balance between the President and Congress.

[NormanStewart]

City bosses show upstart Hillman

Veteran scrappers defend reputations
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Mayor Frank Hague, pearl stickpin in figured cravat and dressed like a banker, was unperturbed. Ed Flynn of the Bronx was bland and confident. Mayor Ed Kelly, in soft, double-breasted brown and bowtie, and keeping his own counsel.

America’s three biggest political-machine bosses, veterans of a thousand rough-and-tumble scraps from precinct clubhouse to the White House, were fighting for their reputation against Sidney Hillman and the CIO political newcomers with him who were leading the drive to renominate Henry Wallace for the Vice Presidency.

The bosses sit tight

All day long, the convention had heard reports Mr. Wallace was gaining. But Flynn and Hague and Kelly sat tight. All week they had worked quietly in the red-carpeted suites of the Blackstone Hotel, and they hoped they had done their work well. There was a hint of revolt in the big Illinois delegation, and of some dissension elsewhere, but the word went out that the lines must be held.

Behind the bosses worked Robert Hannegan (Democratic National Chairman), his predecessor in that job (Postmaster General Frank Walker), Foreign Economic Administrator Leo Crowley, and others. Mr. Walker was supposed to have been on the telephone for hours, putting out the word to delegation chieftains that Senator Truman (D-MO) was OK with President Roosevelt and that he would strengthen the ticket.

Propaganda attacks

All kinds of stories flew about as to who had the final word with Mr. Roosevelt. Mr. Hannegan had talked to him. So had Mayor Kelly. So also, it was claimed, had Senator Guffey, generalissimo of the Wallace forces.

Both sides peppered each other with propaganda they hoped would make a dent on delegates. Harry Truman, said Wallace men, was a fine fellow – but it was a shame the way he had been tied up with the foul Pendergast machine in Missouri. Mr. Truman had even praised this boss to whom he was beholden, in a speech in the Senate – and what Tom Dewey could do with that!

The other side attacked the Wallace movement for Mr. Hillman’s alliance with the Communists in New York, and said it would cost the Democrats that state, perhaps others, if Mr. Wallace were nominated. Mr. Wallace, it was argued, didn’t have the confidence of the country, and the people wouldn’t vote for him because of fear that he would be no fit man to step into the Presidency.

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Perkins: Hillman joins – after he’s licked

Biggest CIO venture results in failure
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee, adopted the customary political tactic just after the defeat of Henry A. Wallace, whom he had backed without reservation for the Vice Presidency.

Mr. Hillman declared in favor of the Roosevelt-Truman ticket – thus carrying out the adage: “If you can’t lick ‘em, jine ‘em.”

Mr. Hillman had nothing else to do, for he and his associat4es had pledged themselves so thoroughly in favor of a fourth term for Mr. Roosevelt that they would have had no other place to go even if the Democrats had named Tom Girdler for Throttlebottom.

Biggest adventure fails

Politicians analyzed the Wallace defeat as being partly due to his identification with Mr. Hillman and his political committee.

This was the biggest adventure into American politics of a labor group – bigger even than that unsatisfactory 1936 endeavor of John L. Lewis, then head of the CIO, which included the lending or giving to Democratic campaign funds of about $500,000. It results in failure in its first phase – the attempt to force the renomination of the Vice President.

GOP win embarrassing

If Mr. Roosevelt should be defeated in November, the CIO politicians would be expected to revamp their political methods.

The older and more conservative American Federation of Labor will not be embarrassed, no matter which party wins in November, but the CIO will be in a delicate position if the decision goes to the Republicans.

[NormanStewart]

Running mate congratulated by Roosevelt

Happy to have you run with me, he wires
By John L. Cutter, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) today received “heartiest congratulations” from President Roosevelt on his nomination for the Vice Presidency and a promise that they would get together soon on campaign plans.

The President wired to Senator Truman, his fourth-term running mate:

I send you my heartiest congratulations on your victory. I am of course very happy to have you run with me. Let me know your plans. I shall see you soon.

Committee aim to be his

Senator Truman’s only immediate plan was to resign the chairmanship of the Senate War Investigating Committee which for three years has been his substitute for inability at the age of 60 to assume his World War I role as commander of an artillery battery.

He will retain as his personal platform, however, the basic aim of the Committee – to win the war as speedily as possible with the minimum cost in lives and money.

It was on such a program that he launched the Committee, commonly known was the Truman Committee. It was his personal creed as he went into the campaign as the running mate of President Roosevelt in the latter’s “win the war and preserve the peace” program.

To resign Aug. 1

Senator Truman set Aug. 1 as a tentative date for resigning the committee chairmanship after other committee members asked hi to wait until Congress reconvenes. He said the other members apparently wanted him to retain the post until his successor was decided. He said he felt the work of the committee is far from done and that it should be continued under another chairman.

In response to the President’s telegram, Senator Truman telegraphed to the White House:

Thank you, Mr. President. I am happy to be your running mate. I will be in Missouri until Aug. 1, our primary day. I am at your command and I want to see you soon.

Wire from Wallace

From Vice President Henry Wallace, whom he beat for renomination, Senator Truman received the following telegram:

Congratulations upon your enlarged opportunity to help the President and the people. Both of us will do our maximum for Roosevelt and what Roosevelt stands for.

Senator Truman said he will wire his thanks to Mr. Wallace, whom he tried to reach by telephone this morning.

Senator Truman said at a press conference:

He is my friend and I like him. He is still Vice President and if he were here, I would call upon him personally. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I had to beat Henry for the nomination.

War costs lowered

The Truman Committee has been credited with keeping high the quality of war material, speeding production and lowering costs by at least a billion dollars. Senator Truman hopes he can do even more along that line as the second high elective officer of the nation.

That was the theme of his acceptance speech last night to the convention.

Senator Truman said:

It’s been my privilege to be a U.S. Senator for 9½ years. I expect to continue the efforts I have been making in that capacity to help shorten the war and win the peace under the leadership of our great President – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Senator Truman, who said he had not sought the nomination, told reporters he had been far more interested lately in the German upheaval than in the vice-presidential contest.

He planned a visit with the Democratic National Committee today before leaving by auto with his family for Kansas City, to stay there until after the Missouri primary Aug. 1.

[NormanStewart]

Pisa, anchor of Gothic Line, built on river

Visitors know city for its architecture

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Mowrer: Devastated Livorno is city of bewildering contrasts

Donut man sets up stand amid ruins and G.I. roller-skates while Nazis shell city
By Richard Mowrer

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[NormanStewart]

Reds impatient with Allied delay in France

Claim terrain in west favors advance
By James Aldridge, North American Newspaper Alliance

Moscow, USSR – (by wireless)
Each day Soviet observers get more worried about lack of development of the war in the west. The general attitude is: “You’ve established your position; now go ahead and develop it.”

For the past three days, articles by three leading Soviet commentators – Gen. Galaktionov, “The Observer” and K. Demidov – have taken the entire British press to task. The Russian writers do not like the tendency of the British press to apologize for the static situation on the Western Front.

These Soviet commentators disagree with American and British newspapers which say it is difficult to advance and maneuver from such a small area as the Allies hold in Normandy. They point to El Alamein in North Africa and to Italy as examples of how the Allies did and can maneuver and attack from small areas if they want to do so.

Says Reds’ job harder

Gen. Galaktionov also points out that as far as maneuvering is concerned, the Allies are better off in France than the Red Army is in White Russia. He says it is easier to maneuver along the good roads of France than it is in the marshland stretching from Vitebsk to Vilna and beyond.

Another criticism by these three writers is against the idea of the British and American press to go along with German Propaganda Minister Goebbels to divide the East and West into more important and less important fronts. Although the Allied newspaper comment has insisted that the Russian front is the more serious one for Germany, this flattery is not welcomed here. To these Soviet commentators, it seems to be an encouragement to Germany to put most of her weight on Russia.

Cite Tehran agreement

On Wednesday Mr. Demidov pointed out in Pravda, the Communist Party organ, that only one-tenth of the German Army is facing the Allies in France. Yesterday, “The Observer” repeated it in the same publication and stated that on July 8, the 2nd Airborne Division of the Reichswehr was taken from Normandy to Vilna where it was destroyed. To the Soviet commentators, the efforts of the Allies are still unbalanced.

For the most part these critics ask for no more than increased vigor and volume in the Allied attacks. They remind us of the Tehran agreement, which states that the Allies would attack in volume from the west and south as the Red Army attacked in volume in the east. The Red Army is attacking in volume, they say, but they are still waiting for the main Allied forces to be thrown into the battle in the west.

When this is done, the writers aver, Germany will be defeated quickly and completely.

[NormanStewart]

Foster: Conklin talks of old days

By Ernest Foster, United Press staff correspondent

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[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (July 23, 1944)

US-Truppen gelandet –
Auf Guam wird gekämpft

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[NormanStewart]

US-Pulk fast vollkommen vernichtet –
Nur fünf Bomber entkamen

pk. Bei einem Einflug nordamerikanischer Bomber in das Reichsgebiet gelang es einer unter der Führung von Hauptmann M. stehenden Jagdgruppe, die erst wenige Tage zuvor 13 Terrormaschinen abgeschossen hatte, einen großen Pulk feindlicher Kampfflugzeuge fast vollständig aufzureiben und zu vernichten.

Silbern glitzern die stämmigen „Focke-Wulfs“ im Sonnenlicht des frühen Morgens, als sie dem Feind entgegenjagen. Die feindlichen Verbände fliegen Kehren und Haken. Anscheinend wollen die Nordamerikaner ihr Ziel bis zuletzt verschleiern, um die deutsche Abwehr zu zersplittern und unschädlich zu machen. Aber es soll ihnen nicht gelingen! Hervorragend geführt kommt die Gruppe, wie vorgesehen, an den Feind. Der Verbandsführer selbst entdeckt die Bomber zuerst. Deutlich erkennt man das Muster: „Liberators.“ Sie sollen ihre tödliche Last nicht auf deutsche Frauen und Kinder werfen können! Neben alten, in vielen Luftschlachten erfahrenen Flugzeugführern sind in der Abwehrgruppe viele junge Besatzungen. Gerade sie aber fiebern förmlich danach, es den kampferprobten gleichzutun. Etwa 25 „Liberators“ umfasst der US-Pulk. In wohlgeführter Schlachtordnung fliegen die mächtigen Maschinen ihren Kurs. Im Schutze ihrer starken Panzerung und ihrer vielen Kampfstände wähnen sie sich unangreifbar.

Von allen Seiten

Leutnant B., der körperlich kleine, aber kräftige Berliner, fliegt seinen Gegner von links heran. Obwohl er schon sechsmal Sieger im Luftkampf blieb, gehört er noch zu den Jungen unter den Flugzeugführern. Erst als er schon verteufelt nahe an dem riesengroß im Visier hängenden Bomber ist und die feindlichen Heckschützen ihn mit einem fürchterlichen Feuerhagel überschütten, drückt er auf die Auslöseköpfe seiner Waffen. Fast wie mit einem Rasiermesser geschnitten bricht am „Liberator“ die linke Fläche weg und flattert zur Erde, als sei es ein welkes Blatt. Als Leutnant B. sich umschaut und mit den Kameraden seiner Gruppe zu erneutem Ansturm sammelt, sieht er die ersten Feindflugzeuge in die Tiefe stürzen.

Fünf Bomber sind gleich beim ersten Angriff fortgewischt worden, die übrigen fliegen aufgeregt und nervös durcheinander. Einige der „Liberators“ werfen ihre Bomben im Notwurf. Unschädlich fallen sie in freies Gelände. Dann greift die Gruppe wieder an. Von allen Seiten stürmen die „Focke-Wulfs" auf die Bomber los, packen sich ihre Opfer und zerfleddern sie, bis die großen Bomber hilflos in die Tiefe taumeln. Was nützt es da schon, daß die feindlichen Bordschützen schießen, was die Rohre nur hergeben wollen. Zu stürmisch, zu wild und verwegen fliegen die Jäger an. Manch eine „Focke-Wulf“ zuckt unter schweren Treffern zusammen. Aber sie verfolgen ihren Gegner bis zur letzten Sekunde.

Dicht am Feind

Feldwebel Z., der große, blonde Westfale, hat seinen Bomber so erledigt, daß er ganz nahe heranfliegen kann, um die Werknummer des Amerikaners zu lesen, die am Heck auf das Leitwerk gemalt ist. Er will genau wissen, welchen Gegner er nun abgeschossen hat. Leutnant B. setzt sich hinter den seiner Meinung nach am Weitesten hinten fliegenden Gegner. Später jedoch merkt er, daß er sich geirrt und ausgerechnet den vordersten erwischt hat. Da aber sitzen schon die ersten Treffer in seiner eigenen Maschine. Die Kabinenverkleidung ist zerschossen und eiskalte Luft strömt ihm ungehemmt ins Gesicht. Während er mit letzter Kraft seine „Focke-Wulf“ verreißt, bis auf 20 Meter an den Bomber geht und dann einen langen Feuerstoß abgibt, spürt er plötzlich, daß sein Motor endgültig aussetzt. Eben kann er noch sehen, wie die „Liberator“ in tausend Fetzen zerplatzt. Dann muß er hinunter. Mit Mühe und Not schafft der junge Offizier eine Bauchlandung auf einem Stoppelacker. Mit sehnsüchtigen Blicken muß er nun untätig zuschauen, wie seine Kameraden mit den Nordamerikanern aufräumen.

Bomber auf Bomber wird niedergekämpft. Da ist es kein Wunder, daß der Himmel bald voller Fallschirm hängt. Dicht neben Leutnant B. kommen mehrere abgesprungene Nordamerikaner herunter. Mit vorgehaltener Pistole nimmt der Leutnant sie gefangen. Auf dem nahegelegenen Flugplatz erfährt er noch, daß der Bergungsoffizier achtzehn einwandfrei festgestellte Brüche feindlicher Bomber gezählt hat, die alle in dem Gebiet liegen, über dem die Gruppe angegriffen hat. Stolze Abschusszahlen können die Staffelführer nachher ihrem Kommandeur melden. Viele der jungen Unteroffiziere, die ihren ersten Feindflug machten, kamen gleich mit einem Erfolg nach Hause. Ein sprechender Beweis für ihren vorbildlichen Angriffsgeist und ihr sicheres fliegerisches Können, das in erster Linie auch der Anleitung und Führung durch ältere Kameraden zu danken ist. Nur fünf oder sechs Maschinen des feindlichen Pulks entkamen. Ob sie aber wirklich heimgekehrt sind, muß bezweifelt werden, da andere Jagdverbände die Verfolgung aufnahmen.

Kriegsberichter JOCHEN SCHEURMANN

[NormanStewart]

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 23, 1944)

Communiqué No. 95

In the CAEN sector, east of the ORNE, Allied troops have cleared the enemy from the village of ETAVAUX. Our forces advanced southeast of ÉTERVILLE and MALTOT is in our hands.

North of PÉRIERS, we have crossed the SÈVES River in the vicinity of the village of SÈVES.

Fuel dumps at FORÊT DE CONCHES, MESSEI and CHÂTEAU DE TERTU were attacked by medium bombers early yesterday evening. Escorted night bombers attacked rail lines at BOURTH and military buildings near VANNES.

Bridges near BREST and CHOLET were hit by fighters and fighter-bombers. Locomotives were attacked, tracks severed and trucks destroyed in the areas of LORIENT, CHARTRES and ANGERS.

Two of our aircraft are missing.

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Communiqué No. 96

Allied troops east of CAEN have cleared the enemy from the village of ÉMIÉVILLE. Enemy counterattacks were repulsed in the regions of yesterday’s advance near MALTOT and near SÈVES in the western sector.

Medium and light bombers, this morning, attacked six rail targets leading to the battle zone. Results were unobserved.

Other bombers, before dawn, harassed enemy communications at ROUEN, VIERZON and a number of SEINE crossings.

[NormanStewart]

U.S. Navy Department (July 23, 1944)

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 85

Substantial gains were made by our forces on Guam during the night of July 21 and during the day of July 22 (West Longitude Dates). In the northern area all of Cabras Island and Piti Town were captured. Attempts made by the enemy during the night of July 21‑22 to infiltrate our lines were repulsed. In the southern area Orote Peninsula has been nearly cut off by our forces. Aircraft and naval gunfire are closely supporting our troops. Our estimated casualties through July 22 are as follows: Killed in action 348; wounded in action 1500; missing in action 110.

Intense artillery and naval gunfire was directed against Tinian Island on July 21. Enemy gun positions and troop concentrations were principal targets. On the same day Thunderbolt fighters of the 7th Army Air Force attacked Tinian and Pagan Islands. At Tinian, gun emplacements and pillboxes were bombed. At Pagan, the airstrip was bombed and strafed. Intense anti-aircraft fire over Pagan damaged two of our aircraft.

Seventy‑five tons of bombs were dropped on airfields and dock areas at Truk Atoll on July 21 by 7th Army Air Force Liberators. Fires and explosions were observed. Two airborne enemy fighters did not attempt to intercept our force. Anti-aircraft fire was meager.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 23, 1944)

Allies battling in morasses of French mud

British take half of Troarn stronghold
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

Fighting through morasses of mud, British forces have seized commanding heights in Troarn (1) as torrential rains slowed fighting in Normandy. Two Nazi counterattacks were repulsed, by the British south of André-sur-Orne (2) and by the Americans on the Saint-Lô–Périers highway (3). The Yanks were two miles from Périers.

SHAEF, London, England – (July 22)
British troops, fighting through morasses of mud like those in the last war, have won commanding heights inside Troarn, German stronghold seven miles east of Caen, and 14 enemy tanks have been knocked out in scattered actions across the wind- and rain-swept front, it was disclosed today.

British troops ironed out the Nazi salient south of Caen by capturing Maltot and Etavaux. Maltot is three miles west of Saint-André-sur-Orne on the Caen–Aunay highway. Etavaux is one mile northwest of Saint-André. A number of Nazi counterattacks were turned back, Saturday night’s communiqué said, with the promising British offensive of last week bogged down in the worst weather of invasion.

Lone air attack

Bumping their way through storm clouds, a force of about 200 U.S. Marauder and Havoc bombers and RAF Billy Mitchells bombed three fuel dumps and one railway target south of the battle zone in the lone major air operation of the day.

The Germans launched two limited counterattacks Friday despite the soggy weather, one south of Saint-André-sur-Orne on the Caen front and the other on the Saint-Lô–Périers highway in the American sector. Both were thrown back with severe enemy losses.

Third time in Troarn

The British entered Troarn for the third time Saturday and won the western half of the town before a torrential downpour caused a half-hour suspension of fighting. Smashing across the wooded rise just outside Troarn against fierce machine-gun and light arms opposition, they won high ground dominating the remaining German positions in the eastern half of the town.

Otherwise, the battle had bogged down, but German broadcasts said that Allied guns in the Caen area were drumming out a preparatory barrage for “a large-scale attack in the near future.”

For nearly eight hours, the weather had clamped a stalemate on the battlefields and there was no prospect of its lifting.

British rush stopped

The first great rush of British armor through the Caen gap had ended, because the Germans were once more in wooded terrain after being driven across the rolling farms just east of Caen. The infantry now faced the job of digging them out of one strongpoint after another.

Behind every grove, the Germans had concealed 88mm guns which pinned down the infantry until Allied infantry could get a bearing on the enemy batteries. Rocket-firing Typhoon fighters gave invaluable support Friday until the weather forced them down.

Two miles from Périers

On the American sector, doughboys huddled in foxholes where water was up to their armpits and their supply traffic was interrupted by the impassibility of all except the hardest surfaced roads.

Before the mud made further advances impossible, the Yanks had driven within two miles of Périers, strongpoint of the broken Saint-Lô–Lessay line, and taken positions 1,500 yards west of the Vire southwest of Saint-Lô.

Allied headquarters reversed itself on three towns reported captured Friday – raids on the Carentan–Périers highway, Berigny on the Saint-Lô–Bayeux highway, and Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, just below Saint-André-sur-Orne. All three are still in German hands, the report of their capture being due to “mistaken map-reading.”

Hill 112, key height just northeast of Esquay in the Caen sector, is still in British hands, although the Germans are once more in possession of Esquay itself as well as Maltot to the north.

German broadcasts again asserted that strong reserves of an Allied army group commanded by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. had been observed in the Caen area and that a new Allied offensive will not long be delayed. More than 10 British divisions are concentrated in the area, the Germans said.

A Berlin broadcast of a German communiqué said that the British launched “major attacks” Friday and broke into the main German line at several points, but were thrown back by counterattacks. An entire Allied battalion was wiped out, the communiqué asserted.

[NormanStewart]

Yanks on Guam repel attacks, expand inland

Strategic heights, roads captured
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

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[NormanStewart]

Jap Cabinet vows fight to finish

Ex-Premier Tōjō is political obscurity
By the United Press

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[NormanStewart]

Ploești pounded by 1,500 planes

750 heavy bombers in raid on oil center
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

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