Care is urged in news about invasion plan
Office of Censorship asks ban on stories on time, place for assault
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Simms: Power politics may hit Allied post-war unity
Threat seen unless U.S., Britain can urge Reds to stick to pacts
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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President appears in bandying mood
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt, despite the loss of 10 pounds during his recent illness, appears to be in good physical condition again.
Reporters saw him yesterday for the first time since the “flu” attack which kept him confined to his residential quarters for most of two weeks.
The President was in usually good spirits at his news conference. The loss of weight was slightly visible around his face and he seemed somewhat paler. But he was up to par in bandying remarks with the newsmen, saying that he could assure them that he was no longer contagious and that his physician, RAdm. Ross T. McIntire, hoped in turn that none of the reporters were contagious.
Background of news –
Planes, not blueprints, needed
By Col. Frederick Palmer, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Five-time ace, Yank with RAF, killed in crash
Cdr. Lance Wade goes down in Italy, but not in flames
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Jack & Heintz to sell stock to employees
Capital increase proposed to permit earning of higher profit
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Funeral of a Yank
Don’t be misled, folks, because ‘corpse’ sat up and hollered ‘Yip-p-pee!’
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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McHarg forms group to draft MacArthur
New York (UP) –
Ormsby McHarg, former general counsel of the Republican National Committee, announcing formation of a “Draft-MacArthur organization,” said today that he was “perfectly satisfied” that Gen. Douglas MacArthur would accept the Republican nomination for President if it is offered to him.
Mr. McHarg said his information came to him through sources “I wouldn’t dream of exposing.”
In announcing formation of the MacArthur National Associates, Mr. McHarg said the organization was “dedicated to the proposition that Douglas MacArthur should be nominated by the Republican Party for the office of President” at the Chicago convention in June.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
The dive bomber has never been fully accepted by the Allied armies. The British have always been against it – they call the German Stuka a vastly overrated instrument of war – and America has more or less followed suit.
Our Navy has used the dive bomber to good effect in the Pacific. But in the Mediterranean this weapon didn’t show up until the beginning of the Sicilian campaign, and it has never been built up in great numbers.
In the dive-bomber groups over here, we have several hundred pilots and mechanics who believe with a fanatical enthusiasm that the dive bomber is the most wonderful machine produced in this war. I don’t want to enter into the argument, when I’m in no position to know, but regardless I’m going to write a little about these dive-bomber boys. For they are probably the most spectacular part of our Air Forces.
The function of the dive bomber is to work in extremely close support of our own infantry. For instance, suppose there is a German gun position just over a hill which our troops cannot get at with our guns and which is holding us up.
They call on the dive bombers and give them the location. Within an hour, and sometimes much quicker, they come screaming out of the sky right on top of that gun and blow it up.
They can do the same to bunched enemy troops, bridges, tank columns, convoys, or ammunition dumps. Because of their great accuracy they can bomb much closer to our own troops than other planes would dare. Most of the time they work less than a thousand yards ahead of our frontlines, and they have had missions much closer than that.
Invaders earned name
The group I am with has been in combat six months. During that time, they have flown 10,000 sorties, fired more than a million rounds of .50-caliber ammunition, and dropped three million pounds of bombs. That’s more than the entire 8th Air Force in England dropped in its first year of operation.
Our dive bombers are known as A-36 Invaders. Actually, they are nothing more than the famous P-51 Mustang equipped with diving brakes. For a long time, they didn’t have any name at all, and then one day in Sicily one of the pilots of the squadron said:
Why don’t we call them Invaders, since we’re invading?
The name was carried home in newspaper dispatches, and today even the company that makes them calls them Invaders.
The pilot who originated the name was Lt. Robert B. Walsh of Felt, Idaho. He has since completed his allotted missions and gone back to the States. His younger brother is now in the same squadron as a replacement pilot.
The P-51 Mustang is a wonderful fighter. But when you transform it into an A-36 by the addition of diving brakes, it becomes a grand dive bomber as well.
The brakes are necessary because of the long straight-down dive on the target. A regular fighter would get to going too fast. The controls would become rigid, and the pilot would have to start pulling out of his dive so early that he’d have to drop his bombs from too great a height.
These boys dive about 8,000 feet before dropping their bombs. Without brakes, they would ordinarily build up to around 700 miles an hour in such a dive, but the brakes hold them to about 390.
The brakes are nothing but metal flaps in the form of griddles about two feet long and eight or 10 inches high. They lie flat on the wings during ordinary flights.
Wiggle wings and drive
The dive bombers approach their target in formation. When the leader has made sure he has spotted the target he wiggles his wings, raises his diving brakes, rolls on his back, then noses over and down he goes. The next man behind follows almost instantly.
They follow one right after the other, not more than 150 feet apart. There’s no danger of their running over the next one ahead, for the brakes hold them all at the same speed.
They’re so close together that as many as 20 dive bombers have been seen in a dive all at once, making a straight line up into the sky like a gigantic stream of water.
At about 4,000 feet the pilot releases his bombs. Then he starts his pullout. The strain is terrific, and all the pilots “black out” a little bit. It lasts only four or five seconds, and is not a complete blackout. It is more a heaviness in the head and a darkness before the eyes, the pilots say.
Once straightened out of the dive, they go right on down to “the deck,” which means flying close to the ground. For by this time everything in the vicinity that can shoot has opened up, and the safest place to be is right down close, streaking for home as fast as they can go.