Radio hospital guest –
Army sets time for network sports hour
Athlete stars to call on soldiers
By Si Steinhauser
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Radio hospital guest –
U.S. State Department (April 6, 1944)
740.0011 European War 1939/33870a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland
Washington, April 6, 1944 — 9 p.m.
1176
I. To the end of implementing our 1147, April 5, please place at the disposal of the Swiss Government at once one million dollars and say under instructions that these funds are for the use of the Swiss Government to begin immediately compensation to the victims of the accident in such manner and amounts as in the opinion of the Swiss Government will be most equitable and efficient in relieving the victims’ distress. Please also say that such additional funds as may be required in the opinion of the Swiss Government will be made available immediately upon receipt from it of information as to the amounts required.
You may say orally that for our part, we plan no publicity whatsoever regarding this action.
II. For your guidance: It is the desire of the War Department that we meet without question such bills in this matter as the Swiss Government may present to us hence please do not give the Swiss the impression that we expect any accounting as such of the funds we make available. You may in fact state that all we desire from them is a statement of the amounts required for the full monetary reparation of the damages by our bombers in this instance.
III. Daymont is authorized to draw draft in this exceptional case on Secretary of State and against this instruction for one million dollars to effect payment. Render separate account.
HULL
Völkischer Beobachter (April 7, 1944)
‚Weltbeglückung‘ und Wirklichkeit –
Elend und Not für die ‚befreiten‘ Völker
Hunger in Süditalien, Klagen englischer Soldatenfrauen – Kapital- und Dividendensorgen der Plutokraten
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5-Uhr-Tee in Washington
„So werden einsehen, Mister Halifax, mehr brauchen Palästina für die armen Juden. Was sollen mehr hier in USA mit die vielen Schnorrer!“
U.S. Navy Department (April 7, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 42
Supplementing Pacific Ocean Areas Communiqué No. 41, the following information is now available concerning operations of USPACFLT forces under the tactical command of Adm. R. A. Spruance, USN, against enemy installations and forces in the Western Carolines. The Palau Islands were attacked on March 29‑30 (West Longitude Date); Yap and Ulithi Islands on March 30 and Woleai Island on March 31 by planes from carrier task forces commanded by VAdm. Marc A. Mitscher, USN. Damage to enemy surface ships at Palau included:
SUNK: Two destroyers, one unidentified combat ship, two large cargo vessels, six medium cargo vessels, eight small cargo vessels, three large oilers, one medium oiler, one small oiler, one patrol vessel.
DAMAGED: One destroyer.
BEACHED AND BURNING: One large repair ship, one medium oiler, two small oilers, one small cargo vessel.
BURNING: Two small cargo vessels.
BEACHED AND DAMAGED: One large cargo vessel, two medium cargo vessels, five small cargo vessels.
BEACHED: One small cargo vessel.
GROUND INSTALLATIONS DESTROYED AT PALAU: Forty buildings at Arakabesan; at seaplane base four hangars and small buildings; at Malakal, more than twenty warehouses destroyed and extensive damage to docks and numerous large fires; at Koror, warehouses, dumps and hangars destroyed; at Angaur, phosphate plant damaged including docks and storage buildings; at Babelthuap, ore dock damaged.
ENEMY AIRCRAFT CASUALTIES AT PALAU: Destroyed airborne, 93; destroyed ground or water, 39. Probably destroyed or damaged airborne, 29; probably destroyed or damaged on ground or water, 20.
At Ulithi, several small vessels were sunk, the dock, radio station and other buildings damaged.
At Yap, airdrome facilities and buildings in the settlement were damaged.
At Woleai, seven planes were destroyed and five probably destroyed and extensive ground installations were damaged on Mariaon and Woleai Islands, including stores, dumps, buildings, and small craft.
During the night preceding and following our attacks on Palau, our carrier aircraft shot down 17 attacking enemy planes and four were shot down by ships’ anti-aircraft batteries. Three small enemy ships were also sunk at sea by ships’ gunfire.
During the night of March 28 (West Longitude Date), one of our submarines torpedoed an enemy battleship of unidentified class departing Palau under escort. Although she suffered considerable damage, she was able to escape at moderate speed under protection of her destroyer escort.
Our combat losses in these operations were 25 planes and 18 aircraft personnel. There was no damage to our surface ships.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 342
For Immediate Release
April 7, 1944
Forty‑four tons of bombs were dropped on Wake Island by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force on the night of April 5‑6 (West Longitude Date). Large explosions were observed in storage areas and in an area devoted to repair and maintenance of aircraft.
On the same day, Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force bombed Ponape Island starting a large fire on one of the airfields.
Four enemy positions in the Marshall Islands were bombed and strafed by Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, and Navy Hellcat fighters. Runways were hit and gun positions strafed. All of our planes returned from all of these operations.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 7, 1944)
Beachhead fighting spurts
Allied artillery pounds Nazi lines at Anzio; major test is near
By Donald Coe, United Press staff writer
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Japanese reach Imphal region
Battle defenders of stronghold in India
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Army Liberators rock Wake Island
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GOP rivals scramble for Willkie vote
Governor Bricker first to woo supporters
Washington (UP) –
The scramble for the Republican presidential support cast loose by Wendell L. Willkie was underway today with Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio the first in the field.
Governor Bricker, the only remaining announced candidate among the top contenders, told the Indianapolis Press Club last night that Mr. Willkie’s withdrawal would intensify his own campaign for delegates to the GOP National Convention at Chicago late in June.
Whether Governor Bricker can assemble enough strength before the convention to outstrip Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, generally accepted as frontrunner at the moment, remained problematical.
Johnston mentioned
Meanwhile, the name of Eric A. Johnston, president of the Chamber of Commerce, was projected into the picture as a possible dark horse contender.
Mr. Johnston’s name was suggested by a New England Senator, a supporter of Mr. Willkie’s policies on international affairs. He said he had been sounded out recently by influential persons on his attitude toward the Chamber of Commerce president.
Some believed that Mr. Willkie, instead of accepting Governor Dewey, might get behind the candidacy of someone with a foreign policy more nearly like his own, such as LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, who was his 1940 convention floor manager, or a dark horse such as Mr. Johnston.
Appeal of winner
There was some argument that a large segment would fall to Governor Dewey because of his leading opposition and the “human desire to ride a winner.” But this was countered by the contention that some of the Willkie supporters would never side with what they consider the isolationist elements that have joined in backing the New York Governor.
Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI), the Senate’s principal advocate of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the nomination, insisted that the convention will be dominated by uninstructed delegates and “the result, therefore, still is in the laps of the gods.”
Senator Vandenberg, now in Florida, said the Wisconsin primary showed “a spectacular testimonial to his [Dewey’s] 1944 popularity,” but he believed Gen. MacArthur’s showing likewise was “remarkable, with the candidate not only silent but 10,000 miles away.”
Pace-setter Dewey has ‘no comment’
Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey sidestepped questions regarding his presidential aspirations at his first press conference since Wendell L. Willkie’s withdrawal from the GOP nomination race.
He added:
I have discussed that subject so many times that my position in it is entirely clear. There won’t be any comment on any political question. I’m wholly engaged in attempting to dispose of some 900 bills left by the Legislature.
Governor Dewey likewise declined comment on a statement by Mayor Theodore R. Keldin of Baltimore that Governor Dewey was a “100% candidate.” Mr. Keldin’s statement was made following a visit with the Governor in New York City.
Bricker prepares to press campaign
Indianapolis, Indiana (UP) –
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio today prepared to redouble “my efforts to fully inform the nation of my position on all the important questions confronting the people of the country today.”
Governor Bricker said later in Chicago he does not believe Wendell Willkie will bolt the Republican Party. At a press conference, he said he was “fairly certain” Mr. Willkie would not form a third party or return to the Democratic Party.
Governor Bricker, making his initial bid for support of the Hoosier delegation at the Republican National Convention, spoke at the Press Club last night shortly after Indiana GOP leaders indicated they would support Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for the presidential nomination.
He said:
I am convinced that the Republican convention will be a deliberative one and that it will select as the Republican nominee the man that it determines represents the thinking of the Republicans of the entire country, and the man who can defeat in November the New Deal philosophy of government.
I have in the past few months spoken before hundreds of interested groups of Republicans and real Democrats alike in the East, South and Midwest, and in the next two weeks will carry my campaign to the Far West.
Roosevelt gets report –
Living costs ‘hold the line’ in year’s test
Prices actually down, economic heads say
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I DARE SAY —
Travesty
By Florence Fisher Parry
Wendell Willkie is through. That’s what people are saying, the stunned ones and the gloating ones alike.
The Republican Party does not want him. Four years ago, it did. Four years ago, 22,304,755 people voted for him – the greatest number of people who ever cast their votes for any one man, except Franklin D. Roosevelt, for President. No Republican total for any elected President had ever been so high.
But that was four years ago. How could an honest man, a forthright and outspoken man, not afraid to speak the unpopular truth, think for a moment that he could last four years?
Now he is through at 52 years. He finds himself repudiated, denied, unwanted by American people who four years ago whipped themselves into a frenzy of determination that he was to be their President.
It is an American trait. It can happen only here. It is one of the oldest traits in human nature, but elsewhere it has not the opportunity to function so unimpededly. Only here, only in this free, unbridled land, can fickleness function with such utter ruthlessness.
Suicide
There are those, of course, who even now are saying he brought it on himself. He would not listen. And they are speaking truly. That is so. Wendell Willkie is an unmanageable man. His party could not manage him. Even the small and dedicated coterie of disciples who were so willing to work and die for him could not manage him.
Always there were those who were saying to him, “But Wendell, you can’t afford to do this and you cannot afford to say that.”
Looking back upon it now, one might have known he was bound to fail, for, realist though he was, he possessed one fatal trait. He believed with an almighty passion in the American people’s basic common sense; and that belief led him into making the fatal mistake of putting that common sense to too severe a test. He overestimated our intelligence. He lost out because he believed us faithful.
I knew. I knew on the last day of March what would happen in that Wisconsin primary. I knew it by a simple token. This is how and why I knew it:
I was standing by my window looking down at the shoppers. The streets were as crowded as they had been on Christmas Eve. Swarms of people were jamming into the stores and emerging from them heavy with bundles. The streetcars sagged with their human loads. The restaurants were packed. No merchant, no restauranteur, no salesgirl, no policeman had ever known such an Easter shopping frenzy. It was the day before the new tax on luxuries went into effect.
The nightclubs and hotels could not understand such Lenten business! For this, dear reader, was Lent in wartime, on the zero hour of our Allied invasion in Europe. Lent. Invasion. And a frenzied spending spree. And the Red Cross couldn’t meet its quota.
And there was Wendell Willkie up in Wisconsin, pumping his heart out hoarsening his voice again, trying to be heard, trying to make them listen, telling them what they were going to be in for in sacrifice and taxes and post-war burdens. Warning them. Telling them the truth. Exhorting them to face and prepare for what was to follow the war and its crushing, unavoidable, unending cost. Trying to sell them the fantastic idea that I-am-my-brother’s-keeper. Trying to sell them a map of One World.
Campaigning like that! Can you beat it? Pumping his heart out, ruining his chances, killing himself, this American, this man Willkie!
The great loss
Well, they say he had it coming to him. Didn’t he know when to shut up? Would he never know what was good for him?
Look at that man Dewey now, for example. Close-mouthed, noncommittal, Tom Dewey. Now there’s a candidate for you… a man who knew how to avoid taking risks, a man so slick that he couldn’t make a damaging statement or offend a voter! Tom Dewey, our Republican No. 1 prospect for the office of the President of the United States. A wonder boy. The Manhattan go-getter. The GOP’s pet, now.
But I and millions of others are unreconciled. We have not so many great men in this world that we can afford to render one impotent for the work that is ahead.
His prophetic warning should burn into our hearts, pound at our ears, and give our minds no peace, the fearless and honest speech of a man who knows no fear who will not be intimidated, who counts his country’s welfare greater than his own. And who in a moment of his acknowledged defeat, stands still among the great Americans we have today.