After years of setbacks, Phil Silvers finally scores hit – in Cover Girl
By Erskine Johnson
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India Yanks eat Hollywood feast
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Hollywood’s Half Century
Movies, 50 years old, had an inauspicious if immodest beginning
By Douglas Gilbert
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Air writers see Vultee’s 400-passenger dummy plane
By Henry Ward, Pittsburgh Press aviation writer
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In husband’s footsteps –
Mrs. Clapper to become radio commentator
Will make debut at conventions
By Si Steinhauser
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Some ex-sailors may exchange discharges
Mustering-out aid extended by Navy
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Italy – (by wireless)
One of our diversions while at the Anzio beachhead was listening to “Axis Sally” on the radio.
Doubtless you’ve heard of her back home. Hers is one of several German propaganda programs in English directed at the morale of our troops. The thing is wonderful but, as far as I can see, a complete failure, because:
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Only a tiny few of our troops ever hear the radio.
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For those who do, Sally’s music is so good and her jokes so pathetically corny that we listen just to be entertained. We feel like cads for enjoying Sally’s music while being unconvinced by her words.
Sally comes on the air five or six times a day, starting around 6:00 a.m. and lasting until 2:00 a.m. A guy named George serves as Sally’s end man. Some of the programs are directed at the British troops, some at ours.
Actually, it isn’t the same girl on all the programs, although they all call themselves Sally. The program is entitled Jerry’s Front.
German song adopted
Early in each program they sing the great German war song, “Lilli Marlene,” which we all love and which we’ve practically taken away from the Germans as our national overseas song.
Then Sally reads a list of prisoners’ names, and just as she finishes, a female quartet swings off into a snappy version of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The idea being, you see, that it’s all over now for these prisoners and they’re safe and happy, so why don’t we all come and surrender and be happy too.
The rest of the program is divided up between the byplay of Sally and George and the playing of German and American music, including such things as “Star Dust” and all of Bing Crosby’s records.
The news is actually funny. For example, they would tell us of ships sunk at Anzio that day. From where we sat, we could spit into the waters of Anzio, and we knew that what Sally said was not true.
Both Sally and George speak good English and claim to be Americans. But they do make odd mistakes. They pronounce Houston, Texas, as though it were “House-ton,” and they speak of Columbus Square in New York when they mean Columbus Circle. It’s tiny little mistakes like that which nullify a propaganda program.
‘Hello, Mom,’ by request
I get lots of letters from soldiers mentioning their little grievances and desires. Here are just a few:
An ack-ack gunner writes that he has just listened to a BBC program in which parents in England send messages to their men overseas. He continues:
As far as I know, our boys have no program like that, and while I was listening, I thought how wonderful it would be if I could turn a dial and listen to my mom say hello.
The 5th Army has created a “Fifth Army Plaque,” which is an award to non-combatant units that have done meritorious service. Now the boys of one outfit are hurt because they are included in this plaque. They are a chemical mortar outfit (combatant), but they come under the Chemical Warfare Service (usually non-combatant). Being included in this plaque makes these boys look like non-combatant troops when they are actually frontline troops, and, as they say themselves, “have been in there punching.”
An Air Corps captain writes:
Along with thousands of others, I’ve learned the inexpressible value of letters from home. Don’t you think a good slogan to pass on to your readers would be, “A letter is like a five-minute furlough”?
Another boy wants me to use some influence in the matter of servicemen getting first chance at the gear and clothing the Army will dispose of after the war.
And, he concludes:
What is most likely to happen, we will be left holding the bag while some moneymaking fool will get control.
PROCLAMATION 2614
Flag Day, 1944
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 3, 1944
For many years June 14 has been set aside as Flag Day, observed throughout the Nation as a day of earnest rededication to those high principles of humanity and civilization which constitute the foundations of the Republic.
It is not necessary to recite that the stars and stripes of our flag symbolize the patriotic and loyal unity of one hundred and thirty-five million people in a widely diversified land. Nor is it necessary to dwell on the struggles through which we have marched, under that flag, to our present great part in the world’s affairs. What we are, and what we do, speak of these things far more eloquently than any words.
Ours is a flag of battles. On the ships of our Navy, in the vanguard of our soldiers and marines, it is carrying liberation and succor into stricken lands. It is carrying our message of promise and freedom into all corners of the world.
Ours is also a flag of peace. Under its protection, men have found refuge from oppression. Under its promise, men have found release from hatreds and prejudice, from exploitation and persecution. It is the flag under which men and women of varied heritage, creed, and race may work and live or, if need be, fight and die together as only free men and women can.
Let us then display our flag proudly, knowing that it symbolizes the strong and constructive ideals – the democratic ideals – which we oppose to the evil of our enemies. Let us display our flag, and the flags of all the United Nations which fight beside us, to symbolize our joint brotherhood, our joint dedication, under God, to the cause of unity and the freedom of men.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, do hereby ask that on Flag Day, June 14, 1944, the people of our Nation honor especially the members of the Armed Forces – men and women equally – whose unfaltering devotion to our national ideals has given the Nation’s flag a new and hopeful meaning for those struggling against oppression in lands still held by our enemies.
I direct the officials of the Federal Government and I request the officials of the State and local governments to have our colors displayed on all public buildings on Flag Day, and I urge the people of the United States on that day to fly the American flag from their homes, and to arrange, where feasible, for joint displays of the emblems of the freedom-loving United Nations without whose staunch collaboration we could not have hoped for victory.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the city of Washington this third day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
CORDELL HULL
Secretary of State