Simms: Italian groups breed discord in Allied zones
Definite action needed soon to prevent spread of civil war
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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In Washington –
Mustering-out pay issue postponed until next year
Experts can’t agree on terms for bonus; Legion denies it helped delay consideration of bill
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How President and other ‘VIP’ travel by air
Great secrecy surrounds trips – VIP means very important people
By S. Burton Heath
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
At the frontlines in Italy – (by wireless)
Artillery batteries are “laid in,” as artillerymen say, in all kinds of positions, but my “Battery E” is probably typical.
Our four guns are set in a grape arbor. On one side a ridge rises steeply 400 or 500 feet. A broad valley spreads out below us. It is very pretty.
The four guns form a rough square about the size of a city block, and they are so close under the brow of a hill that it’s almost impossible for the German artillery to reach us. Each gun is planted in a pit about three feet deep, and the front of the pit is lined, shoulder high, with sandbags.
Over the entire pit is stretched a camouflage net on poles. The net, just head high, gives you the sense of having a roof over you. When the guns are quiet, you can yell from one gun pit to another.
A few feet on one side of the gun pit is a stack of black cases about three feet long, clipped together in triple clusters. These are the powder charges.
On the other side of the pit lies a double row of rust-colored shells. The ammunition carriers keep a supply of 10 or 12 shells inside the pit, but the powder charges are brought in one at a time, just before the shooting, because of the danger of fire.
Sergeant said ‘hush’
The floor of the gun pit is muddy and you have to move carefully to stay on your feet. One day, one of the ammunition carriers, a slight fellow, slipped with his heavy shell and let out an irritated oath. Whereupon the sergeant said sarcastically:
Hush. The devil will get you for talking like that.
Several times a day, an ammunition truck comes plowing through the muddy field, backs up to the gun pit and unloads another truckload of shells. it’s a game with a gun crew to try to get the truckers to carry the shells inside the pit instead of stacking them outside, and sometimes, when in good humor, they’ll do it.
All four guns are connected to the battery’s executive post by telephone, and the chief of each crew wears a headphone all the time he’s in the pit. An executive post may be anything from a telephone lying on the ground under a tree, clear up to the luxury of an abandoned cowshed. But it is always within a few yards of the battery.
An officer in the executive post gives the firing directions to the four guns of his battery. He gets his instructions from the regimental command post half a mile or so to the rear, which in turn receives its firing orders from the division command posts and from its own observers far ahead in the mountains.
The men of a gun crew live in pup tents a few feet from the gun pit. Since an artillery unit usually stays in one place for several days, the men have time to pitch their tents securely and dig little irrigation ditches around them.
Pyramidal poker parlor
They cover the floors of the tents with straw and make themselves dry inside the tents, at least. For each two gun crews, there is also a larger pyramidal tent, empty except for the straw on the ground. Nobody lives in here, but the ground crews use it for a loafing place in the daytime when they aren’t firing, and for playing poker at night by candlelight. They just sit or lie on the ground while they play, since there is no furniture.
There is a kitchen truck for each battery. Our truck is full of battle scars. There are holes in the walls and roof from bomb fragments, and the stove itself has a huge gash in it, yet nobody in the kitchen has ever been hurt.
The battery’s three officers eat standing up at a bench inside the truck while the men eat outside, either sitting on their steel helmets in the mud or standing up with their mess kits resting on a farmer’s stone wall. Three go at a time from each crew, since the guns are never left, day or night, without enough men to fire them.
Our crew claims it can fire faster with three men than the others can with 10, but of course all crews say that. The crews don’t actually stay at the alert inside the gun pit all the time. But they are always close enough to get there in a few seconds when the whistle blows.
Most of the cannoneers have got so they can sleep through anything. Steady firing, even fairly close, doesn’t keep you awake after you’ve used to it. It’s the lone battery that suddenly whams away after hours of complete silence that brings you awake practically jumping out of your skin.
Psychiatrist adds to woe of ‘nonessential’ Santa
Child’s confidence in parent’s honesty thought undermined by Christmas myth
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Somewhere in Italy –
Street urchins and profiteers pain to Yanks
They’re worse than Arabs and Sicilians, writer says
By Thomas R. Henry, North American Newspaper Alliance
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New York has too many saloons, La Guardia warns
Mayor hints to ministers that he will submit question to state authorities
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White House statement on signing the bill to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Laws
December 17, 1943
It is with particular pride and pleasure that I have today signed the bill repealing the Chinese Exclusion Laws. The Chinese people, I am sure, will take pleasure in knowing that this represents a manifestation on the part of the American people of their affection and regard.
An unfortunate barrier between allies has been removed. The war effort in the Far East can now be carried on with a greater vigor and a larger understanding of our common purpose.
Völkischer Beobachter (December 18, 1943)
Schlaglichter aus ‚Gottes eigenem Land‘ –
Judengangster plündern Hollywood
Filmdirektoren und Politiker mit Verbrechern unter einer Decke
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Wie es in der ‚demokratischen Weltfamilie‘ zugehen soll –
Sowjetparadies für Europa gedacht
Von unserem Berner Berichterstatter
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U.S. Navy Department (December 18, 1943)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 200
For Immediate Release
December 18, 1943
The Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, has received the following message from Sir Philip Mitchell, Governor of Fiji and British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific:
May I express to you the warmest congratulations and most sincere gratitude of myself and people of Fiji and High Commission territories and especially of the Gilbert Islands for brilliantly planned and heroically executed operation for capture of Gilbert Islands. After personal visit to Betio I can understand the grimness of the task, the masterly way your bold blow was struck and the incomparable courage of the men who struck it. We join you in mourning for the brave men who died. We salute a great feat of arms.
U.S. State Department (December 18, 1943)
President Roosevelt to Marshal Stalin
Cairo, December 3 [18], 1943
Dear Marshal Stalin, The weather conditions were ideal for crossing the mountains the day of our departure from Teheran so that we had an easy and comfortable flight to Cairo. I hasten to send you my personal thanks for your thoughtfulness and hospitality in providing living quarters for me in your Embassy at Teheran. I was not only extremely comfortable there but I am very conscious of how much more we were able to accomplish in a brief period of time because we were such close neighbors throughout our stay.
I view those momentous days of our meeting with the greatest satisfaction as being an important milestone in the progress of human affairs. I thank you and the members of your staff and household for the many kindnesses to me and to the members of my staff.
I am just starting home and will visit my troops in Italy on the way.
Cordially yours,
FDR
President Roosevelt to the British Minister of Information
Washington, December 18, 1943
Dear Brendan: Since my return to Washington, I have received a more complete report of the confusions over publicity which arose at Cairo and Teheran.
Whatever the causes, I am greatly disturbed at the results. Not only did the newspapers, news services, and broadcasters of the United States suffer a heavy penalty because they kept confidence and observed the designated release dates, but non-observance elsewhere has engendered bitter reproaches and many charges of bad faith. Such a condition is distinctly damaging to that unity of purpose and action which the conferences at Cairo and Teheran were designed to promote.
I am resolved that we will not risk a repetition. Consequently, I have decided that hereafter no news having a security value will be issued by the Government for future release, but that all such news will be given out instead at the earliest moment consistent with safety, for immediate publication and broadcast. I have issued instructions to that effect to the various departments and agencies.
Very sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT