CD to launch drive against loose talk
Will stress value of information to enemy
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Americans kill 871 Japanese at Hollandia
183 of enemy captured in attack
By William b. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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New Pacific assaults hinted as 3 top Navy chiefs meet
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Legion backs G.I. Bill
Washington –
National Commander Warren H. Atherton of the American Legion today presented to Speaker Sam Rayburn petitions bearing one million signatures urging passage of the “G.I. Bill of Rights,” a veterans benefit measure.
Lardner: Beachhead offensive not howling success
Hitler and his high command crossed Allied leaders, but we won consolation prizes
By John Lardner, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Cows and horses miss straw hat boys and gals
Summer theaters dwindle due to wartime conditions
By Jack Gaver
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Latest whodunit: Who slugged Pat?
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Cromwell scores against heiress
Court rules her Reno divorce null and void
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‘Easier’ draft ruling expected
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Sedition trial lawyer fined
Ordered to pay $300 on contempt charge
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Pan-American group addressed by Hull
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Chaplain says Sgt. Kelly told him he was prisoner
Related story while at Western Penitentiary
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Discoverers reveal limits for life-saving vivicillin
By Dudley Ann Harmon, United Press staff writer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England – (by wireless)
I can’t seem to make up my mind about London this trip.
Some say that they can see in people’s conduct the strain of waiting on the invasion – that tempers are short and nerves taut. Yet the English seem to me just as imperturbable as ever.
Some say the English have been at war so long they’ve forgotten about peacetime life and are resigned like sheep to the war dragging on and on. But I don’t sense any such resignation.
It is certainly true that Britain has adjusted herself to wartime life, but that doesn’t mean blind, perpetual acceptance. People have learned to get along. American aid, and years of learning how to do, have eased the meager war life of the early days. There is more food now, and it is better than it used to be. There are more people on the streets, more shopping, more Sunday strollers in the parks.
I had supposed the people would look shabbier than a year and a half ago, but to me they look neater. And the physical city itself seems less dreary than in the fall of 1942.
English as polite as ever
As for short tempers, I haven’t seen any. Maybe it’s just because I have been accustomed to the screaming outbursts at each other of the emotional Italians. But from what I’ve seen so far, the English are as kind and polite to each other as they always were.
All in all, my first impression is that England is better, all around, than it was a year and a half ago, of course spring may have something to do with it. The days are warm and the buds are out and flowers are blooming, and everything always seems kind of wonderful to me in springtime.
Every day the London papers quote all the German rumors on invasion. They print the predictions of the German radio, and pieces from neutral countries saying the invasion will have to occur between 4:39 a.m. today and 4:41 a.m. tomorrow, or else be put off for a month. They print pictures of German fortifications, and tell of the sudden regrouping and rushing around of German troops. They conjecture on the thunderous explosions heard daily on the French side of the Channel.
Since the only invasion news we have is what the Germans predict, this echo from Germany has the effect, upon me at least, of a war of nerves.
London is crawling with Americans, both Army and civilian. All headquarters cities are alike in their overcrowding, their exaggerated discipline, and what appears to be military overstaffing.
Some say London is as bad as Washington. Some say it is worse. I do know that the section where American offices are most highly concentrated is a funny sight at lunchtime or in late afternoon. American uniforms pour out of the buildings in floods. On some streets an Englishman stands out as incongruously as he would in North Platte, Nebraska. Desk officers and fliers and WACs and nurses abound.
Two things that amuse the British are the “pink” trousers our officers wear and our perpetual saluting.
The American Army is very strict about saluting here. Everybody has to salute. Second lieutenants salute other second lieutenants. Arms flail up and down by the thousands as though everybody was crazy. People jab each other in the eyes saluting.
Sidewalk traffic one way
On one short street much traveled by Americans they have had to make sidewalk traffic one-way, presumably to prevent saluting casualties.
A friend of mine, a captain recently arrived from Africa, was stopped the other day by another captain just over from America who bawled the living daylights out of him for not returning his salute. My captain friend said he couldn’t because his right arm had become muscle-bound from waving it too much.
They’re strict about dress here too. You have to wear your dress blouse and either pinks or dark-green dress trousers. Everybody looks just so-so and exactly like everybody else.
I thought I looked very pretty when I got here, for all my clothes were clean for the first time in months. But I hadn’t reckoned with the headquarters atmosphere. I have never been stared at so much in my life as during my first three days here.
For I had on a British battle jacket, OD pants, and infantry boots. They never had seen anybody dressed like that before. Nobody knew what his strange apparition was, but they all played safe and saluted it anyhow – and then turned and stared belligerently at it. I think sheer awe is all that kept the MPs from picking me up.
Finally, after three days, I dug up a trunk I had left here a year and a half ago and got out my old brown civilian suit and gray hat, and now I’m all right. People just think I’m a bedraggled bank clerk, and it’s much better.
What’s going on behind the German defenses?
Rommel bases his anti-invasion plans on stand behind the Atlantic Wall
No new, ‘secret’ weapons are expected to be used
By Nat A. Barrows
How tough an opposition will our invading forces encounter when they land in Western Europe? What is really going on behind Hitler’s Atlantic Wall? From his observation post in neighboring Sweden, Nat Barrows has been collecting closely guarded information about Germany’s ability and willingness to cope with the titanic forces assembled in England for Allied victory. In a most important series of articles, of which the following is the third, Mr. Barrows reveals many hitherto unknown facts about the men directing the German war effort, Germany’s heavy industry, and other hitherto undisclosed information about the German war machine.
Stockholm, Sweden –
Inside the Atlantic Wall, hourly rechecking anti-invasion preparations for his one million fighting men, strung from North Norway to the Bay of Biscay, in more than 45,000 fortifications, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is ready for battle.
First of all, when the excited warning “Achtung!.. Achtung!” (Attention! Attention!) summons the Atlantic Wall defenders into action, Germany’s anti-invasion supreme commander is prepared to face an Allied breakthrough as a matter of course.
Rommel knows that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s infantrymen can – and will – infiltrate behind the wall, blasting their path with heavy demolition charges and massed air cover while large sections of his 200,000 “write-off” troops in France fight delaying actions.
Rommel bases his plans behind the line. That is where the real battle will be fought. That is where the Allied must build up and consolidate local superiority as soon as possible.
Rommel’s plans
Briefly, Rommel and his anti-invasion staff base their hopes for success on four main points:
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On the decisive smashing of our main bridgeheads.
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On counterattack within a definitely limited period: that is, before we have had time to establish local superiority.
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On the Nazis’ ability to keep their supply lines open.
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On the general toughness and equipment of the shock troops deployed behind the wall.
It is mere foolishness to think of German troops as demoralized. Many of Rommel’s first-line soldiers – 50 divisions, in fact – recently have been under fire on the Eastern Front; all are tough, fanatical, ruthless and utterly determined to give their lives to prevent the Allies from reaching Germany.
Their nerves, naturally enough, are at high pitch under the strain of waiting week after week, but, judging from the thoroughly reliable information leaking into Sweden from pro-Allied sympathizers, they will fight as Germans never fought before.
What of weapons?
What weapons will Rommel’s troops use against us? Not on authentic fact from inside the Atlantic Wall has reached me to show that the Germans actually have any secret weapons other than what we have already seen and publicized: the “Goliath” robot tank, the robot plane, and rocket gun.
The Germans, instead, appear to be putting their faith on improved versions of types already existing such as motorized infantry… 88mm anti-tank guns… the 62-ton Tiger “battleship tank” with its four-inch armored turret and 1¾-inch armored hull… six-barreled artificial fog-throwers… 8cm mortars, or Panzerwerfer mounted on armored chassis.
The Germans will go into battle against us with at least three new types of motorized artillery. These are the Bumblebee, Hornet and Wasp, rapid-firing field guns mounted on Tiger or Mark IV tank chassis and varying in caliber from four to six inches.
The German air picture is something else again. The Luftwaffe today is like a bright red apple rotten at the core. Any sound air force should have a working minimum of 100% reserve backing up its first-line fighting strength. But Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring has been forced to use his reserves until today he has only a little more than 1,000 combat aircraft in reserve.
Nazis lack planes
German first-line aircraft, excluding trainers and transports, today number in round figures 5,000 planes, divided as follows: 3,000 fighters, 1,500 bombers and 500 reconnaissance machines. Göring has concentrated three0quarters of his fighter strength in the west – about 2,250 planes. Most of his medium bombers are there also.
At no time since the war began have the Germans had fewer aircraft on the Russian front.
Anglo-American bombing raids in the past three months have taken a toll of 20%, 30% and in some instances as high as 50% more fighter aircraft, either in factories or in combat, than the Germans are able to replace. Nazi production figures show hardly more than 1,650 planes of all types a month.
Another hopeful sign for the Allies is the lack of trained crew reserves. Training at present is completely inadequate, a matter of only 11 or 12 months. This is fully 25% less time than the Allied training period.
German aerial engineers apparently will not put any secret airplanes into the invasion battle against us. In the past six months, they have developed several new designs such as the Focke-Wulf “Midget,” a night fighter of great firepower and maneuverability, and a two-engined Messerschmitt.
It can be doubted if any of these planes are yet being produced in large numbers.
Luftwaffe weakened
From all facts available, it would seem that the Luftwaffe has nothing beyond improved types of planes already familiar to the Royal Air Force and U.S. Army Air Force combatmen, such as the Fw 190, A and B… the Me 110 and 210… the Hs 129 ground strafer… the Ju 87, the so-called panzer Brecher with its two 3.7 anti-tank guns… and the Me 410 light bomber-fighter.
The Luftwaffe definitely has a strong first-line fighter force but decreasing production and utterly inadequate reserves make it impossible to undertake anything like a long operation involving heavy losses.
Probably the first German force to crack after D-Day will be the Luftwaffe.
Finally, what about oil stocks inside the Atlantic Wall?
Even with an estimated 20% drop in production at Ploești following the USAF raids, the Third Reich still has eight million tons in reserve, I learn from a confidential source. For a short-term policy this is enough.
More oil needed
But the Reichswehr’s oil consumption for 1943 – 15 million tons – will jump astronomically once the Allied invasion begins – to take only one Nazi fighting unit.
In 1943, the Germans got five million tons from Ploești and one and a half million tons from other European wells. The remainder, eight and a half million tons, came from synthetic oil plants of IG Farben.
And so, Rommel waits and listens and polishes his plan of counterattack. He knows that his Atlantic Wall forts can be breached: the Red Army troops taught the Germans that before Leningrad, when they smashed through concrete and steel forts of exactly the same thickness as those of the Atlantic Wall.
He knows that the ventilation system inside the wall forts can cause serious trouble; that lucky hits by Allied naval guns and aerial bombers might disable the forced draft system and suffocate many of his men.
So, he centers his plans around and behind the line of major engagements – and waits… and waits.
TOMORROW: The story “inside Germany” is recounted by Mr. Barrows.
Roosevelt greets reporters with word on how to read
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Washington (UP) –
“How did he look to you?” was the question on many lips after President Roosevelt’s first news conference since his return from a month’s vacation in the South.
Three press association reporters had accompanied the President on his holiday at Bernard M. Baruch’s plantation on the South Carolina coast. They came back to Washington with the word of Mr. Roosevelt’s doctor, VAdm. Ross T. McIntire, that his health was back up to par after a winter of nagging illnesses.
Washington correspondents in general had their first chance to see the President late yesterday. One hundred and seventy-three of them, plus 16 out-of-town visitors, packed his office for a news conference – during which he criticized press and radio for not having given what he considered complete accounts of the Montgomery Ward case.
Ready for a fight
Afterward the United Press polled a representative group of correspondents for their answers to the “How did he look to you?” questions. The replies:
- Bert Andrews of The New York Herald-Tribune:
I thought he looked good, much better than on April 7, when I thought he looked ghastly. I thought his face was perceptibly thinner, but clearly a lot of lines of care in his face were gone.
- John H. Crider of The New York Times:
I thought he looked very much better than I have seen him for many months. His voice seemed natural, he looked rested and he had a good coat of tan.
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William H. Mylander of The Des Moines Register and Tribune: “The champ is back spoiling for a fight.”
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Elisabeth May Craig of the Garnett papers in Maine: “He looked swell.”
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Fred Pasley of The New York Daily News:
I think he didn’t possess the high physical buoyancy and abounding vitality that hitherto have marked him at the conclusion of a long respite from the cares of office. He seemed a rather tired man, going through the paces of a… magnificent attempt at verve.
- Walter Trohan of The Chicago Tribune:
I though he looked tanned and had some of the heavy lines out of his face. He was much more spirited than he was in the press conferences before he went away.
- Thomas F. Reynolds of The Chicago Sun:
His health is apparently pretty good, but his temper definitely very bad. His return this time is quite reminiscent of his return after the first war plant inspection tour in late 1942.
The President was ready for a question about the Montgomery Ward case yesterday. He ruffled a two-page memorandum in front of him and pitched in to recite its history. He made it clear that he did not feel the press and radio had presented the full account to the public.
A reading lesson
When he was through, Mrs. Craig brought the Chief Executive up sharply by telling him that she had seen and heard most of what he had said many days before in newspapers and over the air.
Mr. Roosevelt stuck to his criticism of press and radio.
He told Mrs. Craig that he had specialized in reading newspapers; that she ought to read papers like he does.
President expected to emulate sphinx
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
President Roosevelt’s latest refusal to discuss his 1944 political plans was accepted today as meaning he would not disclose whether he will accept a fourth term nomination until the Democratic National Convention meets in July.
An identical course of action led in 1940 to his third nomination. It is regarded as virtually certain to lead to a fourth this year.
The President was asked at his news conference yesterday about the New York speech in which DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan predicted that Mr. Roosevelt would be renominated and reelected.
The President replied that he was not going to talk about it, adding that he had not read Mr. Hannegan’s speech but that when he did read it, he would still not talk about it. That is the third time in as many months that he has parried news conference fourth term questions.
Reminded that the Democratic National Convention is only 10 weeks away, the President replied only that he had not been counting the days.