America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

9642

‘Tank-dozer’ aids Normandy Yanks

Washington (UP) –
The Allied battle through the hedgerows of Normandy was aided by a new U.S. Army “tank-dozer” equipped with a powerful blade that can snap or push over trees up to 18 inches in thickness, the War Department revealed today.

The tank-dozer had a huge 3½-ton bulldozer blade mounted on an M4 Sherman tank, combining the terrific work power of one and the striking power and protection of the other. In Normandy, it was used to slash passages through earth walls and hedgerows where Nazi soldiers had taken cover to oppose Allied attackers with machine guns, mortar and tank fire.

9643

Senate group lays shortage to distillers

Says hoarding practice hurts public’s purse

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Police spread net for three gunmen

Service deserters terrorize whole area

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9644

americavotes1944

CIO-PAC causes split in ranks of organized labor

Rebuffs come from all sides and labor movement is worried over outcome of stand

Few political ventures in recent years have aroused the intense interest caused by the CIO Political Action Committee, and its effort in the 1944 elections – and few have so completely split the ranks of organized labor.

Both the American Federation of Labor and the United Mine Workers Union, in their national publications, have rebuffed the PAC.

Railway papers caustic

Most biting of all labor comment, however, has come from the weekly publication of the railway brotherhoods, Labor. In an editorial entitled “Mr. Hillman’s Fantastic Proposal,” that paper declares flatly the PAC will “strengthen the hands of organized labor’s foes, and increase the demand for more rigid regulation of labor unions.”

Because of the great interest in the PAC, and because the Labor editorial has been discussed but briefly in articles published here, the text of the editorial is reprinted today:

Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, is chief director of the CIO’s political activities. In order to comply with the provisions of the Smith-Connally Bill, he proposes to operate through two committees, one made up of members of the CIO and the other of citizens who sympathize with the CIO’s objectives.

Mr. Hillman says that each of these committees will have a campaign fund of $3 million. That’s a total of $6 million. In addition, he proposes to “freeze” what is left of a fund of $700,000 raised influence this year’s primaries.

Never before attempted

Never has any group in the labor movement attempted to raise such huge sums for political purposes. for example, the Standard Railroad Labor Organizations, which during the last 25 years have been more active in the political field than any other labor group, have never spent in any campaign as much as one half of one percent of the amount Mr. Hillman says he and his associates will throw into the 1944 campaign in order to reelect Mr. Roosevelt and members of Congress approved by the CIO.

Parenthetically, it might be pointed out that the CIO “tests” for candidates are not trade union “yardsticks,” and frequently emphasize issues of no direct concern to the working man.

As a consequence, candidates with good labor records are being viciously and even viciously opposed by the CIO, while candidates with comparatively poor labor records are ardently approved by the CIO.

Labor movement worried

However, that is a comparatively minor issue. What concerns us at the moment is Mr. Hillman’s proposal to raise great slush funds to carry the coming election.

Coupled with Mr. Hillmans open alliance with the Communists in New York States and elsewhere, we have a situation which is full of ominous possibilities for the entire labor movement.

No fair-minded American can question the right of workers to organize for political purposes and to ardently support their friends and oppose their enemies.

However, if Mr. Hillman, or anyone else, imagines that a proposal to raise $6 million to control a presidential campaign will not cause the most serious repercussions from one end of this country to the other, he simply does not know the American people.

Inevitably Mr. Hillman’s program will strengthen the hands of organized labor’s foes and increase the demand for more rigid regulation of labor unions.

If only the CIO were affected by such hostile popular reaction, we might shrug our shoulders and say, “It’s none of our business.” Unfortunately, while the great majority of trade unionists have no interests in or sympathy for Mr. Hillman’s grandiose plan, the entire labor movement is likely to feel the sting of popular disapproval.

Reds dominate organization

Mr. Hillman’s alliance with the “Reds” is also a matter of moment to all trade unionists. For years, AFL unions were plagued by Communist efforts to penetrate their ranks. There were successfully resisted, but only after long and bitter and costly struggles.

Now, with the approval of the CIO, Mr. Hillman has thrown the doors wide open to the “Reds.” They dominate his political organization. They write the propaganda the CIO circulates in political campaigns. They will direct the expenditure of the millions Mr. Hillman proposes to raise for this campaign.

Labor seriously questions if Hillman’s tactics will aid the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. It is much more likely to injure it. But whatever the effect may be on the presidential campaign, Labor fears the consequences may be most disturbing to the regular labor movement. Therefore, it seems advisable to repudiate Mr. Hillman’s unprecedented program at the very beginning.

9645

americavotes1944

New Dealers win in Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee (UP) –
The administration’s handpicked candidates for Tennessee’s top political job were returned to office by apathetic voters in Thursday’s dual primary election, latest returns from the predominantly Democratic state showed today.

The balloting was the lightest in more than a decade.

Jim Nance McCord, Democratic candidate for governor, led the parade with more than 50,000 votes over the combined totals of two rivals, while, in the highlight race of the ticket, Rep. Albert Gore of Carthage easily won the Democratic nomination for 4th district representative in Congress.

Reports from 1,308 of the state’s 2,000 precincts gave Mr. McCord, a former Lewisburg publisher, a 68,757-vote count, compared to 4,398 for Dr. John R. Neal of Knoxville and 3,150 for W. Rex Manning of Nashville.

John W. Kilgo of Greenville, seeking the Republican nomination for governor, led his party with 10,107 votes, followed by W. O. Lowe of Knoxville, with 3,501, and H. C. Lowry of Knoxville, 1,010.

John Hammer of McMinnville was unopposed in the race for Tennessee Railroad and Public Utilities Commissioner following the withdrawal of Nashville attorney Bradley Walker and E. W. Cazmack of Murfreesboro.

County Judge Harold H. Earthman polled 9,923 votes in the 5th Congressional Democratic contest, to lead Dr. T. R. Ray of Shelbyville, who received 6,004.

9646

americavotes1944

Stokes: Dewey pleases in meeting with governors

Generous promises made by party heads
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

St. Louis, Missouri –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey did quite a nice bit of work for his presidential candidacy in his conference here with the 25 other Republican governors. The conference should pay dividends, politically speaking, both from the standpoint of organization and campaign contributions.

The governors were highly appreciative, and indicated as much, for Governor Dewey’s gesture in calling them in and giving them an opportunity to let down their hair about their particular political problems and grievances. They left here with a new injection of enthusiasm to gear up their state machines, fairly optimistic, but knowing that they face no easy job in beating President Roosevelt in November.

Cooperation promised

They got generous promises from both their candidate and Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. of cooperation from the national organization, and, it was reported, of the benefits that can be bestowed by the White House in the way of patronage and preferment if the Dewey-Bricker ticket is elected.

They learned that they may expect to see more of their presidential candidate on their own home grounds, for the campaign plan includes a personal stumping tour by Governor Dewey that will carry him from one end of the country to the other.

Governor Dewey did not spare himself. He was up early and worked late, one night until 3:00 a.m. CT with the various subcommittees of governors drafting a program of federal-state relationships, all of which gave the governors an opportunity to visit with him informally and get a shirtsleeves view of the candidate. He was, once again., the young District Attorney burning the midnight oil preparing a case.

Free-for-all discussion

Between times Mr. Brownell talked with the governors, consulting them about their state situations, getting their advice. The political phase of the business here was concluded with a three-hour, free-for-all discussion with the candidate and the national chairman.

There was no talk whatsoever about old-fashioned “states’ rights,” except in one instance.

Insurance aid assured

This was the opposition of the Republican governors, including the presidential candidate, to regulation of insurance companies by the federal government, but for regulation exclusively by the states, even though the Supreme Court held recently that regulation of insurance companies lies within the province of the federal government.

The governors gave their backing ton a bill, already passed by the House, and pending in the Senate, which would lodge insurance company regulation exclusively in the states by act of Congress, which the administration is fighting. The Justice Department has brought cases charging violation of anti-trust laws by insurance companies, on the theory that insurance companies are operating in interstate commerce and are subject to anti-trust laws like any other business.

The Republicans, by giving their backing to the insurance interests, which are powerful politically as well as financially, thus insure their support in the campaign, which should be good for handsome campaign contributions.

9647

americavotes1944

Nebraskan heads GOP campaign in Midwest

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Samuel R. McKelvie, 63-year-old cattle man from Lincoln, Nebraska, has been chosen Midwestern Republican National Chairman Brownell Jr., GOP leaders said today.

Mr. Brownell arrived today to hold organization conferences with party representatives of 10 Midwestern states.

Mr. McKelvie, former Governor of Nebraska, was a member from 1929 to 1931 of former President Hoover’s Federal Farm Board and for many years has been editor of the Nebraska Farmer.

9648

Völkischer Beobachter (August 5, 1944)

Londons Alpdruck vor neuen Waffen –
‚V1‘ beeinflusst die Normandiekämpfe

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9649

Eine weinerliche US-Feststellung –
Sowjets dominieren in Italien

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9650

Die Flak im Luftkrieg

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9651

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 5, 1944)

Communiqué No. 119

Allied troops have made rapid progress in BRITTANY, fanning out to the neighborhood of LOUDEAC, MAURON, DERVAL and CHÂTEAUBRIANT. RENNES is in our hands, and DOL has been cleared of enemy. Our forward troops are already beyond FOURGERES.

Other forces are advancing southeast of LANDIVY and while fighting continues for MORTAIN, advanced troops have reached the area of BARENTON. A large part of the FORÊT DE SAINT-SEVER is in our hands.

ESQUAY and ÉVRECY have been cleared of enemy and leading troops are reported in the area of VACOGNES and AMAYE-SUR-ORNE. Further south, our position has been improved by the capture of ONDEFONDAINE. Determined enemy counterattacks in the area east and northeast of VIRE have been frustrated.

Yesterday, escorted heavy bombers attacked targets in widely separated districts of FRANCE, including airfields at LILLE and ACHIET, a railway bridge at ÉTAPLES, a coastal battery in the PAS-DE-CALAIS and oil storage depots at PAUILLAC and BEC D’AMBRES, near BORDEAUX.

Medium bombers attacked railway yards at MONTFORT, and BEAUVAIS, a railway embankment at EPERNON and a concentration of enemy troops south of AUNAY. Light bombers went for rail targets in western FRANCE, blowing up an ammunition train near BORDEAUX.

Fighter-bombers flew reconnaissance beyond the battle area and in northeastern FRANCE in addition to attacking an oil dump at ANGERS, barges on the SEINE and an airfield near AMIENS. In these operations, locomotives, rolling stock and motor transport were destroyed.

A coastal vessel was blown up during an attack by rocket-firing fighters on a convoy off the DUTCH coast.

During last night, road and rail transport and enemy concentrations were attacked by medium and light bombers. Five enemy aircraft were shot down over NORMANDY.

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U.S. Navy Department (August 5, 1944)

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 105

Troops of the Army’s 77th Division advanced approximately three miles northward along the eastern shore of Guam to Lumuna Point on August 4 (West Longitude Date). On the western coast, Marines pushed more than one and a half miles northward to Amantes Point.

During the night of August 3‑4, a small enemy force identified as Navy troops were repulsed in an attempt to counterattack. Eleven of the enemy were killed, bringing the total counted Japanese dead to 8,129.

As of August 4, approximately 22,000 civilians on Guam had found refuge within our lines.

More than 25 tons of bombs were dropped on Wotje in the Marshall Islands on August 3 by Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing.

More than 60 tons of bombs were dropped on Truk Atoll by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force at dusk on August 3. One ship near Dublon Island was left burning. Other hits were observed at the Dublon Naval Base, and on gun emplacements and barracks. There was no interception and only moderate anti-aircraft fire. All of our planes returned.

Press Release

For Immediate Release
August 5, 1944

Coast Guard‑manned Destroyer Escort sinks German submarine

A Coast Guard‑manned Destroyer Escort won a stirring battle with a German U‑boat in the Atlantic recently when it blasted the undersea raider to the bottom. Location of the action was undisclosed.

The duel between the Coast Guard ship and its elusive quarry brought pitted Coast Guard Cdr. Ralph R. Curry, against a 26‑year‑old Nazi skipper in a game of wits.

The Destroyer Escort made contact with the German submarine when coming to the assistance of another American ship. It immediately laid depth charges around the sub.

A Navy DE and a French DE joined the Coast Guard vessel in the final stages of the battle.

Finally, the submarine surfaced and the Coast Guardsmen got in their lethal, finishing blow. As the submersible, badly blasted, was about to make its final plunge, its crew took to the sea and were picked up by the Coast Guard ship as prisoners of war.

Several were wounded and given medical care. The Nazis were taken to an Allied port and removed from the DE for transfer to an internment camp.

Cdr. Curry, holder of the Legion of Merit award, lives at 1648 Preston Road, Alexandria, Virginia. He is married and has two small daughters.

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The Pittsburgh Press (August 5, 1944)

Yanks race for Brest

Saint-Nazaire, Nantes about to fall into hands of Americans
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

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9654

Nazis report abandonment of Florence

News follows entry into city by Allies

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9655

Big U.S. air fleet batters Germany

War plants, plane bases, rail hubs hit

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9656

Philadelphia strikers still defy government Army troops moved in

Transportation crisis grows more critical

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9657

Worst since D-Day –
Strikes in U.S. threaten to surpass record peak

New walkouts now occurring at dangerous pace of seven to 10 a day

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9658

Wounded heroes uninjured –
47 die, 32 hurt in train wreck

Cars jump track in South Georgia

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9659

Actor Jon Hall slashed in neck

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Virile screen hero Jon Hall was treated at Emergency Hospital early today for five slashes in the neck he said he received at the hands of two unknown men who jumped him after he had had an argument with band leader Tommy Dorsey.

9660

I DARE SAY —
Young man with a future

By Florence Fisher Parry

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americavotes1944

Hopes of GOP soar high after parley

Dewey heads home, visits Indiana
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

En route with Governor Dewey –
Republican hopes for a long-delayed political victory next November soared high today as Governor Thomas E. Dewey, GOP presidential candidate, sped homeward from a three-state campaign swing that apparently put some solid foundations under the party’s 1944 effort.

Win, lose or draw, the Dewey campaign promises to be better organized than those with which the Republicans have three times challenged President Roosevelt – in 1932, 1936 and 1940. He does not suffer from the blight of unpopularity which fell upon Herbert C. Hoover’s lost-cause candidacy for reelection in 1932.

Governor Dewey is better known and has tremendous geographical advantages over Alf M. Landon of Kansas, another governor chosen to joust with the New Deal champion in 1936. And Governor Dewey is not regarded as an interloper who crashed the party gate, as many Republicans looked upon Wendell L. Willkie, a one-time Democrat, who led the GOP in 1940 and polled more votes than any man – other than Mr. Roosevelt – ever got for the Presidency.

Governors confer

Governor Dewey tied his campaign kite to the fortunes and aspirations of the other Republican governors of this country in a three-day stopover in St. Louis.

Two days he devoted to a Governors’ Conference in which he and Governor John W. Bricker, his running mate, sat down with 24 other Republican governors, and drew up a 14-point bill of indictment against the Roosevelt administration for its conduct of domestic affairs.

Dewey managers are determined that local Republican leaders shall feel that they have an active part in the campaign.

Dewey confident

The New York Governor was satisfied completely with results of the St. Louis conference and said he believed the state governors rendered a service to the people that will not be forgotten in November.

He told newspaperman:

I am convinced that the Republican Party will win in November regardless of the war news.

The net result of tremendously hard work is that one of the most vexatious problems that has faced the country has been settled as a matter of national policy by our party and to the complete satisfaction of the governors representing three-quarters of the people.

He added another state to his 2,350-mile campaign swing when late last night he stopped at Indianapolis, Indiana, to confer with Ralph Gates, candidate for governor, and Homer Capehart, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Some sour notes

There were some sour notes in the seven-day journey – no political junket escapes them. Among the big crows watching the Dewey parade in Pittsburgh, there were a few persons who shouted “We want Roosevelt.”

In St. Louis, the Dewey train arrived before officials had reached the downtown section and the streets were almost deserted as he rode through the city. But a midmorning arrival in Springfield, Illinois, brought out crowds that almost overcame police efforts to maintain order.

In Pittsburgh, Springfield and St. Louis, Dewey conferred with political leaders and spokesmen of racial groups, industry, labor, agriculture and other segments of the national life. It was notable that his meetings with labor were largely American Federation of Labor affairs. The Congress of Industrial Organizations evidently prefers to talk politics with the Democrats.

CIO’s strength shown

Arriving in St. Louis the day after the state primaries, Governor Dewey could read in the papers of the power of the CIO-PAC whose opposition was judged to be a major factor in the defeat of Democratic Senator Bennett Champ Clark.

Mr. Clark has been an anti-Roosevelt Democrat and was on the President’s so-called purge list in 1938. But White House scouts looked the situation over then and decided Mr. Clark was too strong to be licked. This time he was bowled over, shouting that the “Communist-controlled CIO” had done him in.

Although the CIO was a factor, political observers said Mr. Clarks’ opposition to the Roosevelt administration and war policies had worked heavily against him. In any event, the CIO-PAC is something with which the Republicans will have to cope and Governor Dewey could see concrete evidence of that in Missouri.

Pulse feeling

RNC Chairman Robert Brownell Jr. found the Governors’ Conference an opportunity to do some pulse feeling.

He was too practical a politician to claim that he had been promised that every one of the 26 states represented in St. Louis would go Republican next November, but he insisted that the governors agreed that the Dewey-Bricker ticket was in.

If all 26 states were won by the GOP, Governor Dewey would have a margin of 75 or so votes in the electoral college, in which 266 is a bare majority.

Campaign plans are still “secret.” It was plain enough, however, that Mr. Brownell wants the people to see and hear his man and is planning at least one coast-to-coast campaign swing, probably in October.