CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
It isn’t cute!
By Maxine Garrison
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Radio tenor jungle star –
Lanny Ross builds New Guinea Army shows
Beats off malaria in Jap island zone
By Si Steinhauser
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Army discontinues commissioning dentists
But Navy issues them to men 21-44
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Murray asks WPB to aid small plants
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U.S. Navy Department (March 8, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 299
For Immediate Release
March 8, 1944
Navy search Venturas of Fleet Air Wing Four on the evening of March 5‑6 (West Longitude Date) bombed Paramushiru. Heavy anti-aircraft fire was encountered in some areas. All of our planes returned.
Army Liberator and Mitchell bombers, Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters of the 7th Army Air Force, and Navy search Venturas and Hellcat fighters of Fleet Air Wing Two on March 6, (West Longitude Date) dropped 31 tons of bombs on four enemy‑held positions in the eastern Marshall Islands. Airfields were hit and fires were started. Several of our planes were damaged by anti-aircraft fire, but all returned to their bases.
Remarks by President Roosevelt to the Advertising War Council Conference
March 8, 1944
I want to say “how do” to you, and tell you how glad I am that you are here. I wish I had been able to make these tours with you; I probably would have learned a great deal. I am rather envious for that reason. I also want to tell you how really appreciative I am of what you have done for the war in the past couple of years. It has been a tremendous help to us in all these war campaigns that you, probably more than anybody else, have put across throughout the country. They will be coming along, probably for a good long time to come – more of them.
And we are counting on you for continued work with us in educating the country. It isn’t propaganda and it isn’t a drive, but it is part of our system of modern education, getting into all the communities, large and small. A good many new ones that will come right along. They are not propaganda, or political in the larger sense.
I hesitate a little bit to ask you to help me on one thing. I think one of the real dangers in the country, on the non-military side, is inflation. I am scared to death of inflation, quite frankly; and I don’t think it is a party matter. There have been quite a number of ads that have been carried in the recent past about the dangers of inflation. And yet, as I see people that come in here from all over the country, the number of people that don’t understand it yet! It is perfectly appalling. So the more education we give them the better it is.
I think probably everybody in this room is afraid of inflation, just as I am. You have seen it happen in other countries. We know the dangers that would occur if we went into an inflationary period. I still think we have got to do an awful lot of educating to prevent it from happening in some manner or form. It isn’t just the same things that have happened to other countries that have got a debased currency, but it is what would happen to the investments of every man, woman, and child in this country.
One thing that I don’t dare say – talk about out loud – is the effect it would have on Government bonds. A good many of us have bought Government bonds, and we want to get paid back in the same kind of dollars, so far as we can, that we put into those bonds. Of course, I can’t talk about it in that way, because it might discourage the future sales of Government bonds. So that kind of advertising and information- education- has got to be written by experts like you people.
Things of that kind I don’t think have anything to do with politics. And yet it’s amazing the number of people who are playing up the inflationary program, who think of it very largely in terms of politics, one way or the other – both parties.
I am just using that as an example of some of the things we still have to do to keep the feet of the country on the ground. And there is always the tendency, in matters like that, for people to lift one foot up, a little like one of my farm-leader friends who admitted to one of the committees in Congress, when he talked about the benefits of this, that, and the other thing. And he was asked whether he was in favor of inflation.
“Oh – Oh no. Oh my, no. Of course not.”
Then he hesitated a minute, and said, “Just a little bit of inflation.”
Well, if you once start a little bit, as you all know, it is pretty hard to stop it. You want to keep the dam from breaking.
So I hope that you have had a good time, also a successful time, in hearing some of the military and naval problems. I think things are going along fairly well. Of course, I am never satisfied. Probably it’s a good attitude of mind to be in- never to be satisfied.
You probably heard some of the senior officers about the background of things, and some of the junior officers who have been out on the firing line, who are much more interesting than the senior officers. Human interest stuff; and they are long on human interest, rightly. And they are grand people.
Then, of course, we have to remember that they wouldn’t have had their human interest if it hadn’t been for the planning by the different staffs. And it is rather an interesting fact, no reason you shouldn’t know, that on all this planning neither Churchill nor I has ever overruled the staffs. Lots of people think so. It isn’t true. We have gone along with the staffs remarkably well, if I do hand myself a bouquet. Then it so happens that the joint staffs and I over here have viewed this picture of the war all over the world in exactly the same way. We haven’t had any basic disagreement, and even haven’t had any minor disagreements. We happen to have been thinking exactly along the same lines.
On international cooperation, we are now working, since the last meeting in Teheran, in really good cooperation with the Russians. And I think the Russians are perfectly friendly; they aren’t trying to gobble up all the rest of Europe or the world. They didn’t know us, that’s the really fundamental difference. They are friendly people. They haven’t got any crazy ideas of conquest, and so forth; and now that they have got to know us, they are much more willing to accept us. And we are working in with them on actual operations and plans much better than we did before, just because we didn’t know each other.
So that was one of the great gains of last fall in Teheran. Things of that kind take quite a while to work out with people who are five or six thousand miles away, who don’t talk our language, English – and we certainly don’t know Russian. And yet we are getting somewhere with them.
And all these fears that have been expressed by a lot of people here – with some reason – that the Russians are going to try to dominate Europe, I personally don’t think there’s anything in it. They have got a large enough “hunk of bread” right in Russia to keep them busy for a great many years to come without taking on any more headaches.
The military operations, therefore, are in a good cooperative position. We have got a long, long road to go. Of course, the more you do to tell the people that “peace is just around the corner,” the better it is, but nobody agrees that peace is around the corner. It just plain isn’t. It’s a long road, and a difficult road. We are going to have big losses. And I am personally confident of victory in the long run. But I am inclined to think that we ought – if we do any complaining at all – to be against the people who are, honorably and honestly, working in just the wrong direction, such as the group that wants to make peace now.
Well, just for example, I got a letter yesterday from a very prominent man who has been retired for some years, a five-page letter, making a plea to me to appoint a “secretary of peace” and send him over to Germany – it’s a beautiful letter, and he meant it; it’s an honest thing, from his heart – to see if we couldn’t work out some means with Germany of ending this terrible slaughter, and the busting up of civilization. Not a word about some of the things we are hoping to get, such as the end of German aggression, and a change in the philosophy of the German government. Oh no, not a word about that! But, appoint a peace secretary to go over there – sort of a roving commission – to bring peace to the world.
Now there are a lot of people in this country that are doing things of that kind honestly. I don’t believe in this “ulterior motive” stuff, but they just don’t know. And therefore they require what I was talking about before, some education from you people.
So go ahead and give it to them, all you possibly can.
We are going to win the war – it is going to take an awfully long time – and we don’t like to be interfered with in the winning of the war.
So on that note I am putting it up to you.
Völkischer Beobachter (March 9, 1944)
Hopkins entlarvt Roosevelt –
Wall-Street-Juden verkünden ihr Weltgeschäftsmonopol
‚Die klarste und wichtigste Formulierung der amerikanischen Kriegsziele‘
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U.S. Navy Department (March 9, 1944)
Communiqué No. 508
Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported sinking sixteen vessels in operations against the enemy in these waters, as follows:
- 1 small cargo vessel
- 9 medium cargo vessels
- 2 medium transports
- 2 medium cargo transports
- 1 large tanker
- 1 large cargo transport
These actions have not been announced by any previous Navy Department Communiqué.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 301
For Immediate Release
March 9, 1944
On March 8, 1944 (West Longitude Date), enemy planes raided our positions in Eniwetok Atoll, causing small damage.
Army Liberator and Mitchell bombers, Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters of the Seventh Army Air Force and Navy search Venturas and Hellcat fighters of Fleet Air Wing Two on March 7, 1944 (West Longitude Date) dropped 37 tons of bombs on five enemy‑held positions in the Marshall Islands. Barracks and runways were hit and fires started. A coastal vessel was bombed and five wooden barges strafed. Several of our planes were damaged by anti-aircraft fire but all returned to their bases.
A Navy search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two shot down a Japanese naval medium bomber between Eniwetok and Truk.
Joint Statement
For Immediate Release
March 9, 1944
Allied ship losses at a record low
The joint Anglo‑American statement, issued under the authority of the President and Prime Minister, follows:
Despite the increasing traffic of United Nations shipping in the Atlantic, February, 1944, was the lowest month as to tonnage of Allied merchant ship losses to enemy U‑boat action since the United States entered the war, and February was the second lowest month of the entire war.
Again there were more U‑boats destroyed than merchant vessels sunk, so the exchange rate remains favorable to the United Nations. In actual numbers a few more U‑boats were sunk in February than in January.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 9, 1944)
Flaming Berlin blasted for second straight day
Thick clouds ground Nazi fighters; Yanks meet heavy ack-ack
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Highest U.S. award for heroism won by Pittsburgh Yank in Italy
Charlie Kelly to get Medal of Honor; North Side man one of 7 brothers in war
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Marine landing speeds drive toward Rabaul
New Britain sector cut in two
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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162,282 war casualties suffered by Americans
Totals are 20,592 dead, 47,318 wounded, 26,326 missing, 27,222 prisoners
Washington (UP) –
Casualties of the United States armed service now total 162,282, it was revealed today.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced that the Army’s casualties number 121,458 – 20,592 killed, 47,318 wounded, 26,326 missing and 27,222 prisoners of war.
On Feb. 24 – two weeks ago today – the casualty total was 156,865, of which 118,128 were Army and 39,737 were in the naval forces. The increase in the two weeks totaled 5,417 announced casualties.
Navy list
A Navy list released today showed a total of 40,824 casualties – 17,261 dead, 9,910 wounded, 9,239 missing and 4,414 prisoners.
Secretary Stimson pointed out that the chance of survival for American soldiers wounded in this war is nearly twice as great as it was for men wounded in World War I.
Figures given
He made public a recent report by the Surgeon General showing that only 3.7% of American wounded have died as compared with 6.1% during the last war.
Although extensive operations in the tropics have led to an increase in the proportion of men overseas requiring hospitalization for diseases, the annual average death rate for this reason has been only 0.5 per 1,000 men as compared with a rate of 12.8 per 1,000 during the last war. In continental United States, the death rate from disease is 0.6 per 1,000 men yearly, as compared to the World War I rate of 15.6 per 1,000.
Social diseases
Since the last quarter of 1942, more than 100,000 men suffering from social diseases have been inducted and cured, the report said.
Secretary Stimson said 25,291 of the Army wounded have already been returned to duty or released from Army hospitals. Of the prisoners of war, 1,627 are reported to have died of disease, mostly in Jap camps.
Breaking down the figures by theaters, he reported:
ASIATIC THEATER: 231 killed, 156 wounded, 395 missing and 144 taken prisoner.
CENTRAL PACIFIC: 447 killed, 589 wounded, 83 missing, and one taken prisoner.
EUROPE: 2,419 killed, 2,214 wounded, 4,622 missing and 4,542 taken prisoner.
LATIN AMERICA: 44 killed, four wounded, and eight missing.
MIDDLE EAST: 379 killed, 232 wounded, 671 missing and 294 taken prisoner.
NORTH AFRICAN THEATER (including Italy): 9,271 killed, 29,278 wounded, 3,141 missing and 7,369 taken prisoner.
NORTH AMERICAN THEATER: 1,243 killed, 1,018 wounded and 39 missing.
PHILIPPINES: 1,096 killed, 1,720 wounded, 15,198 missing and 13,590 taken prisoner, including 12,506 Philippine Scouts.
SOUTH PACIFIC: 1,918 killed, 5,627 wounded, 467 missing, and six taken prisoner.
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC: 1,959 killed, 3,577 wounded, 1,353 missing and 458 taken prisoner.