America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

In Italy – (by wireless)
Maj. Ed Bland, commander of the dive-bomber squadron I’ve been with, is the most envied man in the squadron. That’s because he acquired four cases of Coca-Cola.

Maj. Bland accomplished this remarkable feat by getting acquainted with a naval officer. The Navy often has such rarities as this, and is usually good about sharing them with Army friends.

The major is a very popular man ordinarily but now he has become doubly popular. The Coca-Cola is down to two cases already and going fast.

Speaking of Coca-Cola, do you remember the item in this column a month or so ago, about the soldier who got a bottle of it from home and decided to give it as first prize in a lottery? The proceeds were to be used for adopting the child of a soldier killed in this outfit.

When I left them, more than $1,000 had already been taken in. I haven’t had a chance to get back there and find out who won the bottle, but here’s the reason I bring the subject up again:

Rome radio’s version

It seems the Rome radio picked up the item, completely distorted it, and used it for home-front propaganda. The way it came out on the Rome radio was that our soldiers were so short of supplies they were paying as high as $10,000 for just one bottle of Coca-Cola. They not only gave the story a completely false meaning but they deftly added $9,000 to the kitty. Well, that’s one way to fight a war.

Back to Maj. Bland – he never knows what to say when people ask where he’s from. Sometimes he answers Oklahoma and sometimes Colorado.

He was raised in Waurika, Oklahoma, where his parents still live. But he married a girl from Fort Morgan, Colorado, and home to most soldiers is wherever their wife is. Ed’s plane is named Annie Jane for his wife.

He has seen their baby only once – he got home for a few hours when the baby was four days old, and then came right overseas.

His father is agent for the Rock Island Railway. Ed often thinks how ironic it is that his father has spent a lifetime making trains run and here his son is overseas shooting up trains as fast as he can so they won’t run.

Best friend down there

Ed has had one of the “small world” experiences, only it hasn’t finally culminated yet. His best friend back in Waurika was a doctor named Ralph S. Phelan. They haven’t seen each other for three years and had lost track of each other.

But just the other day Ed found out that his friend is Capt. Phelan of the Medical Corps and that for months he has been up in the frontlines here in Italy working right below the skies where Ed does his dive bombing every day. They haven’t yet got around to seeing each other.

The youngest pilot in the squadron is Lt. Robert L. Drew, who is 19. He comes from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, but as young as he is he outranks his own father, for young Drew is a first lieutenant while his dad is only a shavetail.

The father, Robert W. Drew, was in the Navy in the last war, ran a flying-boat service on the Ohio River in recent years, and is now a ferry-command pilot back home.

One of my friends in this squadron is Cpl. Adolph Seeger, who owns a farm two miles outside of Evansville, Indiana. Cpl. Seeger is a driver. Although most of the other enlisted men live in the same apartment building the pilots live in, Cpl. Seeger voluntarily sleeps in a tent at the motor pool in order to be near at hand in emergencies.

Cpl. Seeger thinks it is odd that he should be over here driving a car which doesn’t seem to him very important, while at home his 64-acre farm lies idle because there’s no one left to farm it. His mother lives there all alone.

Missing gems may give clue to hotel death

Mrs. Williams envisioned as victim of jewel robbers

20 million tons set as ship goal

Land cites loss to subs in fund appeal


Congressmen defied by FBI chief Hoover

National security reason for barring answer, he declares

U.S. Steel has deficit in last quarter of 1943

Year’s profit tops dividend needs by 41¢ a share

Mine dispute complicated by ruling on portal pay

Federal judge rules diggers have no claim to wages for underground travel time

Pegler: Tax mess

By Westbrook Pegler

Clapper: PT prayers

By Raymond Clapper

Production up 80% over 1942 and levels off

Nelson reports industry ready for long pull after peak is hit

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
A bad meeting

By Maxine Garrison

Williams: What’s the reason for tirade against baseball farming?

Support asked by new Ohio state circuit counters reformists
By Joe Williams

Allies keep up air attacks on invasion coast

Day attacks follow night assault on Germany by Mosquitoes
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

Youthful symphony writer has had a very busy year

Leonard Bernstein will conduct his work here Friday
By Maxine Garrison

Davis refers Sherwood row to Roosevelt

Overseas OWI chief takes case to President in person

americavotes1944

Poll: GOP voters in Wisconsin favor Dewey

New York Governor given comfortable lead over Willkie
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

Political observers from now on will be focusing more and more attention on the open presidential primary in Wisconsin in April, which will instruct the state’s 24 Republican delegates on whom to support at the National Convention.

Wisconsin and New York are the first of the large states to hold primaries. The Wisconsin primary will also be the first held in the Midwestern farm area – an area that gives every indication of being the critical battleground of the 1944 campaign.

Although Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York has given no indication of entering any of the scheduled open primaries to date, a poll just completed by the Institute in Wisconsin shows him the leading choice among the rank-and-file Republicans there.

Willkie second

In fact, Governor Dewey received twice as many votes as the next highest choice, Wendell Willkie.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur runs third and Lt. Cdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, fourth.

These were the findings when field reports for the Institute in Wisconsin asked a representative segment of Republican voters which if six men mentioned frequently as Republican presidential possibilities they would prefer as their nominee.

Results listed

The poll showed:

Asked of Wisconsin Republicans: Whom would you like to see the Republican Party nominate for President?

Dewey 40%
Willkie 20%
MacArthur 15%
Stassen 11%
Bricker 8%
Eric Johnston 6%

Governor Dewey, in his 1940 pre-convention campaign, won the Wisconsin primary. His chief opponent was Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan.

americavotes1944

Bricker speaks here tomorrow

He will address veterans at William Penn

Bricker
Ohio Governor Bricker

Governor John W. Bricker, the only announced candidate for the Republican nomination for President, will arrive in Pittsburgh tomorrow morning.

Governor Bricker, the first Republican in the history of Ohio to be elected governor for three consecutive terms, will be the main speaker at the annual McKinley Day banquet to be held at 7:00 p.m. ET in the William Penn Hotel. The banquet is under the sponsorship of the United Spanish War Veterans.

In appearing here, Governor Bricker will be making his initial appearance in Pennsylvania since he announced his candidacy. He recently returned to Ohio from a tour of Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

Accompanying Governor Bricker will be John W. Galbreath (campaign director and treasurer), Robert L. Barton (the Governor’s secretary) and Jack Flanagan (press secretary).

Others who will speak at the banquet include Guy V. Boyle of Indianapolis (the veterans’ commander-in-chief), Mrs. Hettie B. Trazenfeld of Philadelphia (national president of the Women’s Auxiliary), Department Commander Dr. Charles I. Shaeffer, and Mrs. Helen R. Hawk (auxiliary department president).

Mrs. Louise Phelps listed as suicide

americavotes1944

Editorial: Soldiers are voters first

The public is getting dizzy watching Congress weave in and out with measures for soldier voting. The issue has many technical complications, constitutional and otherwise. But the politicians have compounded the complications with every known brand of joker and parliamentary trickery, until the situation almost defies comprehension.

In this, the politicians are outsmarting themselves. If they maneuver this so that many soldier ballots will not be counted – as some of them seem to desire – the public kickback will be so hard they won’t know what hit them.

For one thing is so clear that not even Congressional gyrations can obscure it: The country is determined that servicemen and women overseas shall vote. That determination is all the greater because the soldiers abroad are not here to speak for themselves.

Congress is aware that the public is supersensitive on this subject; hence the effort to cover up tracks. Thus the House has a special rule which if it prevails will bar a roll call on the controversial amendment proposing a federal ballot.

The legal and practical trouble in soldier suffrage arises because normal voting is on state ballots, and many states have no adequate machinery for absentee soldier voting. Added to this is the difficulty of distributing the bulky state documents abroad – which the Secretaries of War and Navy say cannot be done effectively unless the states simplify certain requirements.

On the political side is the fear of certain Southerners that sectional voting restrictions, such as the poll tax, will be undermined. Also, some Northern Republicans think the servicemen may return a Democratic majority because of the Commander-in-Chief, and using the states’ rights issue for obstruction.

A compromise is necessary. Since not all 48 states can guarantee the absent serviceman a ballot, there should be a substitute federal short ballot allowing a choice of presidential, vice presidential and Congressional candidates – leaving it to state election officials to count the votes returned.

To disfranchise eligible voters among the five and a half million fighting overseas for the preservation of American democracy would be a crime – and a costly crime.

Editorial: He was a good Senator

Edson: Motive of fake Hopkins letter still unsolved

By Peter Edson

Ferguson: War marriages

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson