America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

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Eyewitness story –
Gorrell: Yanks to try bold maneuver to trap Nazis

Germans rushing up men to stop us
By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer

Five miles from Coutances, France (UP) –
Guns are booming a prelude to the next big battle of the Normandy campaign – a bold attempt by Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s armored army to trap the German 84th Army Corps north of Coutances.

The Germans already know what we are up to and our spotters report they have rushed up reinforcements of artillery, anti-tank guns and mortars during the last few hours in an attempt to protect the bottleneck at Coutances until the 84th Corps can slip out.

Resistance is stiff

On arrival at this armored command post, I was informed that our tank spearheads had probed to within 2½ miles of the vital road junction and that other tank units, supported by motorized infantry, were dashing north and northwest of the Marigny–Coutances highway in an attempt to cut roads north of the town.

They were meeting stiff German resistance centered on Hill 176, located on one of the highways running into Coutances just south of Mont Houchon, off to our right.

Great convoy moves

A great convoy of multi-wheeled vehicles and halftracks is bringing the infantry down from Marigny to join the battle. Giant bulldozers are clearing a path for them through roads littered with burned and blasted Nazi Panther and Tiger tanks. I saw many of these scorched monsters lying overturned in shell holes at the roadside where the bulldozers had shoved them.

The countryside west of Marigny is infested with German troops bypassed in our rapid advance. That they did not fire on my jeep as I motored toward the front, I attribute to the fleet of Piper Cub spotter planes which patrols the roads at treetop height looking for signs of the enemy.

Prisoners brought in

When these Cubs spot an enemy concentration, they radio a report to batteries which at once open up. Hundreds of German prisoners are coming in from such bypassed points, including paratroops wearing camouflaged helmets and fatigue uniforms.

I watched a long line of them being herded toward prisoner pens. They were young and cocky and they walked with a spry step. There was nothing beaten about them. They merely had been outmaneuvered and had quit when they saw resistance was futile. Some of them complained that if our tanks hadn’t broken through behind them, they never would have been beaten.

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americavotes1944

Technicality delays Nye’s certification

Bismarck, North Dakota (UP) –
Official publication of last month’s state primary election results in which Senator Gerald P. Nye won the Republican nomination by 972 votes has been prevented by a technicality.

The State Canvassing Board last night refused to make an official announcement of the totals because one county auditor failed to affix his official seal to the country’s abstract of votes.

Unofficial totals gave Mr. Nye 38,191 and his leading opponent, Lynn U. Stambaugh, former National Commander of the American Legion, 37,219.

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Bilbo writes will, leaves for clinic

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9277

Editorial: Gen. McNair

When the Army Chief of Staff last month inspected the Normandy beachhead, he was asked what impressed him most. Gen. Marshall replied that American troops never before under fire had fought like veterans. This was the highest tribute to the bravery and skill of America’s citizen-soldiers. It was also praise – as every soldier and officer knew – for the man who had organized and trained them.

Lt. Gen. McNair was not as well known to the public as such famous front commanders as Gens. Eisenhower, MacArthur, Stilwell and Bradley. But without his work and achievement theirs would have been impossible, as they have always said. He expanded an American Army of 1,500,000 into a team of 7,700,000. They came to him amateurs; they left him professionals. He even followed them to the fighting fronts to check on their training and perfect it, as he did last year in Tunisia where he was wounded.

It was not accident that made Gen. McNair chief of the Army Ground Forces. He had long been known as “the GHQ sparkplug.” Gen. Marshall had called him “the brains of the Army.”

So, Gen. McNair trained the G.I.s, believing that “the infantryman is our foremost soldier.” He was forever reminding his associates that other arms of the service could prepare the way, but the ground soldier must take and hold positions. When the tank loomed large, he, an old artilleryman, helped to bring up the anti-tank weapons and tactics.

He even matched the morale of more glamorous services. When the humble mud-slogging G.I. seemed neglected for the more publicized airmen, paratroopers, tankmen and others, he set up a unit to educate press and public in the Army truism that “the infantry is the Queen of Battles.”

Two weeks ago, the big training job almost done, the War Department announced that the chief of the Army Ground Forces had been given another important assignment overseas. Yesterday the Department announced that he had been “killed by enemy fire while observing the action of our frontline units in the recent offensive” in Normandy.

Americans everywhere, indebted to this great and gallant officer, join in Gen. Marshall’s tribute to him: “Had he the choice, he probably would have elected to die as he did, in the forefront of the attack.”

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americavotes1944

Heath: Truman ‘appeals’ to Governor Dewey’s masterminds

By S. Burton Heath

While Peter Edson is absent from Washington, S. Burton Heath is writing a series of articles on the campaign plans of the Republican presidential candidate.

Albany, New York –
Dewey strategists would have been delighted if the Democrats had renominated Henry Wallace for Vice President. They profess to feel that Mr. Wallace could have attracted no votes that President Roosevelt will not get anyway, and would have alienated enough to have helped Governor Dewey’s cause materially.

But don’t get the idea from this that the choice of Senator Truman discouraged the Dewey entourage. Quite the contrary. When the President’s he-is-my-beloved-friend letter sent Mr. Wallace’s prospects tumbling to about two degrees above freezing, almost everybody around the State Capitol held his breath least by inadvertence he should chill the ensuing boomlet for Senator Truman.

Before the campaign is very old, the public is going to be reminded of Senator Truman’s political debts to the notorious Pendergast machine in Kansas City. The text of the Missouri Senator’s tribute to his benefactor, after Boss Pendergast had been sent to the penitentiary for his proved crimes, will be given wide distribution.

This, however, is not the Achilles’ heel that pleases the Deweyites most. Paradoxically enough, the real reason GOP lads think a Roosevelt-Truman ticket was made to order for Governor Dewey’s big guns is the splendid job the Truman Committee has done checking war contracts and their fulfillment – the very job that made Truman a national figure and won him the vice-presidential nomination.

Damaging witness

Dewey researchers, even before they begin checking the committee’s reports word by word, are certain that its findings can be used to make Senator Truman their most damaging witness against his running mate.

The Truman Committee hearings and reports unquestionably would have been combed anyway for ammunition in support of the GOP contention that President Roosevelt has badly mismanaged war production. But the blessing that the Democratic Convention placed upon the Missouri Senator’s work is counted upon to make this material the more devastating.

It will no longer have to be presented as the findings of a statesman who, though a Democrat, might be considered hostile to Mr. Roosevelt. It now becomes a reluctant indictment drawn by the Democratic Party’s alternate choice for President by one of the three men with whom President Roosevelt said he would be glad to run for reelection.

The line of attack opened up by Senator Truman’s selection is broader than that which would have been available if Vice President Wallace had won out.

In the latter case the major argument would have been that Mr. Wallace himself is unfitted in capacity and temperament to succeed to the President, if anything, should happen to Mr. Roosevelt.

Triple-threat attack

With Senator Truman, the approach has three spearheads:

  • Senator Truman’s indebtedness to one of the worst big city machines in recent political history.

  • The findings of Mr. Truman can be used against Mr. Roosevelt’s conduct of the home front.

  • The contention that when the Democrats discarded Henry Wallace and his four years of experience, they knocked the props out from under their own don’t-change-horses argument for a fourth term.

Even Senator Barkley, with the record of his recent short-lived break with the President and their harsh interchange of invective, did not seem to the Deweyites to offer them so much ammunition as does Senator Truman.

It cannot be said that the Republicans around here were fully satisfied with the doings of the Democrats in Chicago. They would have preferred another Madison Square Garden fiasco, like that which gave President Coolidge a walkover in 1924.

But they aren’t complaining. The Southern delegations came through better than the GOP dared to hope. And the nomination of Senator Truman was pleasing, and – foolishly or not can be determined in November – the Deweyites seem very cheerful.

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americavotes1944

Editorial: The CIO issue

In this year’s political campaign, the big news – and the issue – very probably will be the CIO and its Political Action Committee, alias National Citizens’ Political Action Committee.

The idea and the technique of this pressure bloc is not altogether new, but the scope and vigor of its program is unique, to say the least.

It poses one of the toughest problems Republican campaign leaders face. It also poses a problem for the Democrats who cling to the fancy that their party is still the party of their fathers – which it isn’t.

The Democratic Party has become the vehicle of a smart, zealous and capable coalition which has chosen to take over the country, or a large part if it, not by mere boring from within, but by direct seizure of the controls – a sort of putsch.

Like any other high-powered pressure organization, it is the purpose of this group to grasp the controls, and to hold them exclusively, so it may get what it wants for itself – and for nobody else.

The top leader is Sidney Hillman, whose record shows him to be a man whose favorite means of achieving his goals is to force his way by a demonstration of strength. At the recent Democratic National Convention, he didn’t ask, or recommend. He demanded. He assumed the attitude of an all highest from whom all biddings must flow.

“Politics,” says the PAC’s primer, “is the science of how who gets what, when and why.”

The PAC’s announced aim is to bring about the reelection of President Roosevelt.

But that is only the means to the ultimate aim – complete domination of the government at Washington. That means complete domination of law of taxes, of the courts, of the economy.

It may or may not mean a positive dictatorship. That word has been abused and its implications oversimplified.

But the Hillmans and the others who are bossing this movement are not the type who willingly and gracefully give and take. They make concessions, or drop their demands, only when they are compelled to. If they achieve the power they seek, who will compel them?

They are already well on the road to their goal. It is no small beginning – the organization of this PAC.

It is a powerful movement, backed by expert organization work an overflowing treasury, and plenty more where that came from; by brains and willing workers – a pressure group such as this country never before has seen in a presidential campaign.

9280

Editorial: The Argentine challenge

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9281

Ferguson: Post-war polygamy?

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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9282

Background of news –
Jap peace moves?

By Jay G. Hayden

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9283

Poll: Public found pessimistic about jobs

Expect six million unemployed after war
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

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americavotes1944

Perkins: Casey, battling for UMW, sure hits that ball

Lewis editor raps Hillman, Democrats
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
Casey’s at the bat, and really swinging.

Casey is K. C. Adams, one of John L. Lewis’ favorite authors. He is editor of the United Mine Workers Journal, the official Lewis program, and in today’s issue, Casey really hits hard.

It is not difficult to detect that Casey and his Journal and the eyebrowed boss of the Miners’ Union are against:

  • “Sidney Hillman, self-appointed head of the CIO Political Action Committee, with Roosevelt approval, which… changed its name to cover up its ‘Commie’ domination… Phil Murray…. Reduced to a stooge… at Hillman’s side.”

  • “Marshall Field III, richest man in America, who imagines he can become a newspaperman by spending money on newspapers which hardly anybody reads.”

  • “The Democratic Party running on its record… The Little Steel formula and all other devices intended to freeze the American workingman as a political servant of the New Deal Party.”

** The Democratic platform, which “doesn’t exactly claim the war is the private property of the Democratic Party, but does claim the Roosevelt administration saw the war coming and got ready for it. Naturally enough, the sinking of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor by the Japs in a surprise attack, and the destruction of most of our oil tankers on the Atlantic Ocean, are not included in the platform boast of foreseeing the war.”

GOP answer is yes

Casey also tells his constituents, the half-million miners and their families, that the Republican platform answer is “Yes” and the Democratic answer is “no,” on the issues of:

  • Unfreeze wages.

  • Unshackle labor from being frozen to the job.

  • Restore the Department of Labor to union labor.

  • Reorganize, consolidate and simplify government boards and bureaus handling labor relations, and administer the laws on a basis of equality.

From now until the November election, the same arguments will be hammered at the coal miners and their voting relatives in an endeavor to accomplish what Mr. Lewis failed to accomplish four years ago – their diversion from voting the Roosevelt ticket. In 1940, Mr. Lewis had only a few weeks in which to work actively and in the open; this year he has several months.

Not as vicious as AFL

The Mine Worker attacks on Sidney Hillman and the CIO-PAC are not quite as vicious as those directed at the Hillman organization by publicists for the American Federation of Labor, who go farther in alleging a Communist background.

While Mr. Lewis and his union have not been taken back into the AFL, there is an apparent political sympathy between them – with the difference that Mr. Lewis is openly anti-Roosevelt, the AFL uncommitted on him, but definitely anti-Hillman.

1 Like
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americavotes1944

Wooing conservatives?
Stokes: Bricker veers away from GOP platform

Foreign policy stand at odds with Dewey’s
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
The Republican Party is about to get itself in the positions of playing both sides of the street, which is nothing new in politics, and sometimes it pays dividends.

This was indicated in the press conference Governor Bricker, the vice-presidential candidate, held at Albany during his visit with Governor Dewey.

The Ohio Governor said he still stood by the speeches he made in his pre-convention campaign for the presidential nomination. That is consistency, but it would seem to put him in conflict with the party platform on some points of both domestic and foreign policy, according to many interpretations, though the Governor himself does not see it that way.

Opposes foreign alliances

Without going into details, it seems fairly clear that Governor Bricker was more conservative on domestic policy in his speeches than is the platform. And as for foreign policy, he has reiterated his adamant opposition to any sort of international police force which would seem to be suggested by the party platform in the vague phrase “peace forces.”

Also, he has been hazy about post-war international collaboration, and he opposes any sort of alliance or arrangement with the other powers, such as Governor Dewey has advocated as a first step in peace plans.

Whether intentionally or not, governor Bricker became the focus of such “nationalist” or “isolationist” forces as were present at the Chicago convention.

Takes definite stand

His leaning certainly seemed that way to anyone who has sat before him at press conferences in recent weeks, as I have, and heard his replies to questions treating all phases of post-war international policy. That was the general impression. Nor did he try to evade or dodge. He was forthright.

The inference is that he is willing to remain the section of the Republican ticket to which the isolationists can rally, while the presidential candidate and the platform point in another direction. Governor Dewey declined to be drawn into the discussion.

Significant of Governor Bricker’s general attitude was his reply to a question as to whether he would welcome the support of John L. Lewis for the Republican ticket.

All support ‘welcome’

He said:

We welcome all support of the Republican ticket. At least I do. That’s the way you win elections by getting votes. If they agree with you and vote for you, well and good.

He was then asked about Gerald L. K. Smith. “His vote will be counted, if he votes for the Republican ticket,” he replied.

The confusion created by this sort of attitude was illustrated by a dispatch from Detroit in which Mr. Smith was quoted as saying that Governor Bricker had said the Republicans would welcome America First support, which was not what the Ohio Governor had said. But it indicates what follows such statements.

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americavotes1944

Some payrollers sick of Roosevelt

Don’t like New Deal’s raw deal to Wallace
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
“For Roosevelt before Chicago,” a phrase which Jim Farley used in 1932 to test a Democrat’s loyalty to the incoming New Deal administration, has taken on new meaning here.

Many “idealistic” government employees, banned from politics by he Hatch Act and therefore not subject to quotation, were “for Roosevelt before Chicago” this year. But they find themselves wavering now.

“Before Chicago,” 1944, they never could have been convinced, they say, that President Roosevelt would scuttle Vice President Henry A. Wallace.

Wallace always loyal

One explained:

Why, he is the only loyal Vice President FDR ever had.

Jack Garner not only opposed the New Deal program, but actually was running against the President in 1940. Henry Wallace never has done anything but try to be a New Dealer and espouse the things which made this administration progressive.

His great personal loyalty was expressed in that Chicago convention speech in which he said: “Roosevelt is a greater liberal today than he ever has been. His soul is pure.”

Yet 24 hours later, Wallace was having his political throat cut. And the evidence indicates that President Roosevelt was in on the kill. Hus lukewarm letter endorsing Wallace, followed by the one to National Democratic Chairman Robert E. Hannegan saying that Senator Harry S. Truman would strengthen the ticket, are proof.

Wallace men made ill

Since the President chose the type of politics played by the Hannegans, Hagues, Kellys and Flynns, maybe they can put him over for a fourth term. Men of the Wallace type cannot be expected to help much.

They are sick at the stomach over the Chicago performance, and wonder whether their one-time hero would rather be President than be right.

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americavotes1944

Paper demands Dewey repudiate America-Firsters

Madison, Wisconsin (UP) –
The anti-New Deal Wisconsin State Journal said today it will be forced to withdraw its support for the Republican ticket unless Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the GOP presidential nominee, repudiates offers of assistance from America Firster Gerald L. Smith.

The State Journal published a copy of a telegram it sent to Mr. Dewey in which the newspaper said it was profoundly shocked by vice-presidential nominee John W. Bricker’s welcome of support from British.

The newspaper said it would be forced, reluctantly but certainly, to withhold from the GOP ticket any support in the November election unless Mr. Dewey immediately and publicly repudiates “such un-American assistance.”

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In Washington –
Possibility of early Nazi collapse to spur post-war legislation

Reconversion problems will head calendar when Congress reconvenes next Tuesday

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OPA wins edge in rationing fight

WFA plan to change meat points delayed

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9289

Millett: Prepare for his return

Your boy will be greatly changed
By Ruth Millett

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RFC prepared to finance sale of war plants

Prospective buyers assured of fair prices

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Major battle impending on Guinea coast

Trapped Japs make numerous forays
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer

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Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Somewhere in Normandy, France – (by wireless)
Then I moved over to an ordnance evacuation company.

These men handle the gigantic trucks, the long low trailers and the heavy wreckers that go out to haul back crippled tanks and wrecked anti-tank guns from the battlefield.

The ordnance branch’s policy on these wrecking companies is that if they don’t have a casualty now and then, or collect a few shrapnel marks on their vehicles, then they’re not doing their job efficiently.

The job of an ordnance evacuation company is often frightening, although this company’s casualties have been amazingly low. In fact, they’ve had only four and it’s still a mystery what happened to them.

The four left one day in a jeep, just on a normal trip. They didn’t come back. No trace could be found. Three weeks later, two of them came in – just discharged from a hospital. On the same day a letter came from the third – from a hospital in England. Nothing yet has been heard from the fourth.

Can’t remember what happened

And the strange part is that neither the two who returned nor the one who write from England can remember a thing about it. They were just riding along in their jeep and the next thing they woke up in a hospital. All three were wounded, but how they didn’t know. Friends suppose it was a shell hit.

At any rate, a sergeant in charge of one section of the mammoth movers, known as M19s, took me around to see some of his crewmen. They all go by the name of “the Diesel Boys.”

Their vehicle is simply a gigantic truck with a long, skeletonized trailer behind.

Like all our Army over here they were strung out around the hedgerows of the field under camouflage nets, with the middle grassy fields completely empty.

My friend was Sgt. Milton Radcliff of Newark, Ohio. He used to be a furnace operator for the Owen Corning Fiberglass Company there. He and all the other former employees still get a letter every two weeks from the company, assuring them their jobs will still be there when they return. And Radcliff, for one, is going to take his when he gets back.

Sgt. Vann Jones of Birmingham, Alabama, crawled out of his tent and sat Indian fashion on the ground with us. On the other side of our pasture lay the silver remains of a transport plane that had come to a mangled despair on the morning of D-Day.

A funny country, France

It was a peaceful and sunny evening, quite in contrast to most of our days, and we sat on the grass and watched the sun go down in the east, which we all agreed was a hell of a place for the sun to be going down. Either we were turned around or France is a funny country.

The other boys told me later that Sgt. Jones used to be the company cook, but he wanted to see more action so he transferred to the big wreckers and is now in command of one.

There are long lulls when the retriever boys don’t have anything to do besides work on their vehicles. They hate these periods and get restless. Some of them spend their time fixing up their tents homelike, even though they may have to move the next day.

One driver even had a feather bed he had picked up from a French family. The average soldier can’t carry a feather bed around with him, but the driver of an M19 could carry 10,000 feather beds and never know the difference.

Proud of their company

The boys are all pretty proud of their company. They said they did such good work in the early days of the invasion that they were about to be put up for a presidential citation. But one day they got in a bomb crater and started shooting captured German guns at the opposite bank just for fun, which is against the rules, so the proposal was torn up. They just laugh about it – which is about all a fellow can do.

Cpl. Grover Anderson of Anniston, Alabama, is one of the drivers. He swears by his colossal machine but cusses it, too. You see the French roads are narrow for heavy two-way military traffic and an M19 is big and awkward and slow.

Anderson says:

You get so damn mad at it because convoys piled up behind you and can’t get around and you know everybody’s hating you and that makes you madder. They’re aggravating, but if you let me leave the trailer off, I can pull anything out of anywhere with it.

Cpl. Anderson has grown a red goatee which he is not going to shave off till the war is won. He used to be a taxi driver; that’s another reason he finds an M19 so “aggravating.”

“Because it hasn’t got a meter on it?” I asked.

“Or maybe because you don’t have any female passengers,” another driver said.

To which Brother Anderson had a wholly satisfactory G.I. reply. He said, … [REMAINDER OF COLUMN VOLUNTARILY CENSORED]

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Pegler: The Esquire case

By Westbrook Pegler

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