Editorial: Stimson’s confidence in troops should buck up U.S. spirit
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The Pittsburgh Press (June 2, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England –
There was a knock at my door and two young lieutenants with silver wings and bright medals on their chests walked in. They were in town on leave and had decided to pay a social call.
They are the pilot and navigator of a Flying Fortress. They came to see me because I had known the pilot’s mother in San Francisco. She is Mrs. Mary White, she used to manage the coffee shop at the Hotel Californian, which was my home whenever I was in San Francisco.
Her son, Lt. Bill White, is a likeable young fellow whose blond hair sticks up high from his forehead and whose eyes crinkle when he smiles.
His navigator is Lt. John D. Bowser of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They’ve been over here whacking at the Germans since February.
The boys were in the midst of an eight-day leave, given them as a sort of reward for having survived a ducking in the cold North Sea. They had had to “ditch,” as the expression goes, and after a crew ditches it always gets a leave of absence.
They had a close call when they ditched. They had been to Berlin – their second mission over the big city. The flak was pretty bad. On the way back Bill White looked out and saw a big hole in the right wing. It didn’t seem to be causing any trouble. Pretty soon he glanced in the other direction and here was a big hole in his left wing.
At first, he thought he was crazy and had forgotten which wing he’d seen the hole in. His head went back and forth as though at a tennis match. Actually, there were identical holes in the two wings.
But that wasn’t what put them in the drink. Apparently, the ignition system had been hit, for every now and then all four motors would stop for about five seconds at a time and then pick up again.
Finally, the engines started going clear out, one by one. They saw for sure that they couldn’t make the coast of England. Lt. White had everybody get in “ditching position.” The radioman sent his distress signal. They hit the water. The plane broke in two. And yet not a man was scratched or bruised.
When they hit, salt water rushed up over the windshield in gigantic waves. The plane stopped moving and Bill looked up. All he could see was water. He thought they had dived straight into the sea and were going on down head first.
He said:
I thought this was it. I was so convinced I weas going to drown that I almost just sat there and didn’t even try to get out.
But actually, they came piling out of that plane like rockets. They said that in training they had been taught you would be all right if you could get out in 30 seconds. They were all out in 10 seconds.
The plane sank 40 seconds after hitting the water. They were 25 miles from shore. The men clung to their rubber dinghies, and in less than an hour a rescue boat came alongside and took them aboard.
Since returning they’ve had a wonderful time talking about their experience. They call themselves sailors now. Before this happened, the crew used to do a lot of joking about “White’s little air force goes to war.” Now they’ve changed it to “White’s little air force goes to sea.”
Whenever a ditched flier is fished out of the North Sea or the Channel, the RAF gives him a little felt insignia about an inch high in the form of a half wing, showing a fish skipping over the water. This is his membership badge in the “Goldfish Club.” He is to sew it under his lapel, and throw back the lapel to show it when occasion demands. It isn’t worn outwardly, I presume, because we don’t want German agents to know how many guys have been fished out of the water.
The boys have another memento of their saltwater bath. They all have Short Snorter bills, of course. But they’ve started a new series of signatures on bills which they call “Dinghy Snorters.” Only fliers who’ve had to ditch are allowed to bills. They flattered me by asking me to sign, and said mine would be the only non-Goldfish signature permitted on their bills.
All ten of the ditched crew had wristwatches. Two watches, apparently waterproof, are still running. The eight others were corroded by salt water and have stopped.
Lt. White still wears his, even though it doesn’t run. But while he ruined his watch, he did save $40. He had ordered a $40 pair of fancy boots made, which he had expected to be ready the day before this mission. They weren’t. He was pretty sore about it then, but now he’s glad, for he would have had them on.
These two boys really enjoy their job, I believe. They get an exhilaration out of it. They see the funny side of life, and they’re able to take things as they come. But still, of course, they would like to be home.
Lt. White’s mother now works at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, and we sat around here in London wishing we were sitting at dusk at the “Top of the Mark,” looking out over the steepled sea of San Francisco, so serene in its soft envelopment of peaceful mist.
Völkischer Beobachter (June 3, 1944)
‚Amerikanisches Jahrhundert‘ – ungeschminkt
Demokratie auf Bajonetten
Revolutionsangst der Plutokraten Korruption der Gewerkschaftsbonzen
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U.S. Navy Department (June 3, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 431
For Immediate Release
June 3, 1944
A single search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and strafed shipping and shore installations at Truk Atoll at night on June 1 (West Longitude Date). Four 1,000 pound bombs were dropped over a medium cargo vessel, two of them scoring direct hits and two straddling the vessel, which was believed sunk. The search plane then strafed a number of small cargo vessels, the seaplane base at Dublon and the airstrips at Eten Island. Two of the small vessels were set on fire, fires were started at Dublon Island and Eten Island, and an ammunition dump exploded. In retiring the search plane was pursued by a single enemy plane which did not make an attack. Over the target, anti-aircraft fire was moderate.
Two Liberators of the 11th Army Air Force bombed Shimushiru Island in the Kurils before dawn on June 1. No opposition was encountered.
Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four bombed Paramushiru and Shumushu Island before dawn on June 1. Fires were started. Anti-aircraft fire was light and inaccurate.
The Brooklyn Eagle (June 3, 1944)
5TH ARMY SMASHES LAST DEFENSES 10 MILES SOUTH OF ROME
Allies agree to spare city if undefended
Lanuvio and Labico taken; Nazis concede fall of Lake Nemi
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Tired G.I.s near Rome dream of soft beds
Express wish to see the Pope, Vatican; think city a milestone toward end of war
By Reynolds Packard
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Yanks twice blast French shoreline
Hit Calais, Boulogne areas after RAF hits Paris hub, Nazi city
London, England (UP) –
The U.S. 8th Air Force stepped up the tempo of its attacks on the French invasion coast today when Flying Fortresses and Liberators smashed twice within a few hours at German fortifications in the Pas de Calais and Boulogne areas.
Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle’s heavy bombers led hundreds of Allied planes across the Channel by daylight in the wake of a strong British night force which divided 3,000 tons of explosives among the Trappes rail junction outside Paris, the French coast and the German chemical center of Leverkusen.
The two attacks on the stretch of French shoreline across the narrowest neck of the Channel increased to four the heavy blows struck at that area in some 24 hours. The first was a record, or near-record, assault by 1,000 Fortresses and Liberators yesterday.
Strike in two waves
Nearly 500 U.S. heavy bombers escorted by a like number of fighters struck in two waves at the so-called rocket coast, laying a carpet of explosives on the mysterious “military installations” studding the area.
Thunderbolt, Lightning and Mustang fighters accompanied the Fortresses and Liberators in their second straight day of assault on the Nazi targets 20-odd miles from Southeast England. The striking forces flew over a solid cloud blanket and aimed their bombs by special devices.
The Americans met no German fighters over the clouds, but some squadrons ran into intense anti-aircraft fire, including concentrations of ground rockets which seldom have been encountered over the coast.
Tells of rocket attack
Second Lt. Martin Atkin of 115 Beach 74th Street, Far Rockaway, a Fortress co-pilot, said about 20 or 25 rockets were fired from the ground at his formation.
He said:
They left a beautiful white trail of smoke like a trailing bridal veil. They came at a slant and burst into a big ball of white flame.
While the home-based Royal Air Force was carrying out its three-way attack last night, British bombers flew from Italy against Giurgiu, the Romanian oil port on the Danube.
RAF crewmen reported seeing three big explosions at Trappes which blotted out the sprawling railyards with a blaze of multicolored light.
Other RAF planes maintained the campaign of harassment against Leverkusen, the Nazi chemical and poison gas manufacturing town in the suburbs of Cologne.
Mail from Britain is delayed by invasion controls
Washington (UP) –
British and State Department sources said tonight that they believed the recent delay in receipt of letters in this country from Great Britain was the result of transportation problems and pre-invasion censorship of mail.
Americans accustomed to receiving letters have regularly reported in some cases not receiving any for as long as two weeks.
Office of Censorship officials said Americans would have to be patient and added that they thought the public would understand the present difficulties.
The severe restrictions on communications out of the British Isles, which were imposed more than a month ago to prevent pre-invasion leaks, did not apply to ordinary mail, but only to communications in code. But officials pointed out that at the same time stricter censorship of ordinary mail was set up.
That, they said, might have resulted in the holding up of some mail until the flow through the more severe censorship began again. Transportation, always a problem, is believed to be even more difficult at this time.
U.S. bases in Soviet Union open Nazi ‘blind spots’ to raids
Flying Fortresses serviced for return missions after ripping Romania
Eastern Command USSTAF, USSR (UP) –
The first U.S. shuttle raid involving the use of bases in Russia opened up all Axis Europe – including previous “blind spots” – to aerial bombardment today on a virtually unlimited scale.
The initial such attack was completed yesterday when scores of Flying Fortresses, with an escort of U.S. Mustang and Soviet Yak fighters, landed at newly-completed bases “somewhere in Russia” after raiding Romanian targets selected by the Russian command.
The Moscow radio reported from “an airdrome in the Soviet Ukraine” that Flying Fortresses attacked targets in Romania on the shuttle raid, “leaving bases situated in Italy, England or North Africa or all of these places.” It said the mission was “quite successful,” that the U.S. airmen were welcomed warmly by the population and that a concert arranged for them was a “great success.”
Reds run interference
Red Air Force planes ran interference for the Fortresses and their American escort on the inward journey, attacking German airdromes along the route to keep enemy planes on the ground. Enemy opposition was slight. One bomber was lost and one fighter unaccounted for.
As soon as the big four-engined bombers rolled to a halt on Soviet soil, U.S. and Soviet ground crews began serving and rearming them for their return missions en route to bases in Britain, Italy and Africa.
Other sources suggested the potentialities opened up by the use of Soviet bases were staggering. British-based bombers have previously attacked east of Berlin only on rare occasions, while those from Italy have not penetrated north of Budapest and Vienna.
Among other effects, the new shuttle technique was expected to force the Germans to redistribute their already severely-strained fighter forces at a time when all possible strength was needed in the West.
FBI seizes 15 in wholesale draft dodge
Three servicemen held in Baltimore plot; fees ranged to $5,000
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Sedition attorney hints FBI ‘scandal’
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Editorial: Fate of Rome up to Nazis as Allied armies close in
While the fall of Rome is inevitable, the conditions under which the first Axis capital will pass the possession of Allied armies cannot now be foreseen. Berlin has announced to the German people that “the war is on the threshold of Rome” and that “fresh decisions” are being contemplated by the German High Command. Upon these decisions, which will govern the course of action to be followed by the Allies, will depend the fate of the Eternal City, which the civilized world hopes to see spared the ravages which would be inescapable if it were transformed into a battleground.
A decision to hold and defend Rome, to fight in the ruins of its ancient temples, its venerable shrines and of its great cathedrals and churches, would reflect the spirit of vandalism which has been expressed so eloquently by the Germans in this and other wars. Such a decision would be inspired by vengeance and vindictiveness, by a yearning to punish the Italians for their failures of support and allegiance, also by the hope that the onus of the crime of Rome’s ruin would fall upon the Allies.
The Germans cannot hope to hold Rome. Their divisions are depleted by a mounting toll of dead and 15,000 prisoners in the hands of the Allies, and they have been served with the grim notice that the demands of the impending invasion preclude the possibility of reinforcements.
All of the advantages of strong positions in mountainous territory and of interior lines, which are being pounded mercilessly by Allied air forces, have been lost. The alternatives of destruction or “further systematic withdrawals,” as they are described by German commentators, face the German High Command for its decision.
In its explanation to the German people that reverses in Italy are attributable to inability to feed reserves to the front, there is implicit a recognition of the fact that Rome cannot be held. This being the case, the Germans may do the sensible thing and make a wholesale withdrawal of their armies to the mountains of the north rather than invite the destruction of the city by holding and defending it.
Regardless of what the German decision may be, there is basis for the confidence, expressed by the Catholic archbishops and bishops of the United States in their message to Pope Pius XII, that “Allied ingenuity in strategy” will prove itself and “enrich our victory by saving Rome from destruction or further damage.”
This purpose is in the mind of President Roosevelt and is influencing the decisions of Allied military leaders in the field. If humanly possible, the center of Christian faith and of world culture will be spared the ravages that have become, through Nazi genius for the tactics of barbarism, so symbolical of modern warfare.
The Free Lance-Star (June 3, 1944)
Cochran returns from China area
Commanding officer of first commandos in Washington
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The Pittsburgh Press (June 3, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England –
England is certainly the crossroads of this warring world right now. Never a day passes but that I run onto half a dozen people I have known in Albuquerque, Washington, Tunisia, Ireland, the Belgian Congo or Cairo.
One reason I mention this is that nine times out of ten, these people have picked up weight since I last saw them. Time and time again I’ve run onto officers and men who in the thick of the war in Tunisia were lean and thin and hard, and now their faces are filled out and they have gained anywhere from 10 to 40 pounds.
This is due mainly, I suppose, to the fact that their lives haven’t been physically active, as in the field. For months they have been planning the invasion, working hard at desks, eating regularly and well, and getting little exercise. They all hate the physical inactivity of this long planning stage, and they will be glad in a way when they can get outdoors again to hard living.
When our trails cross again, their paunches will be down, and their faces thin and brown and dirty, and they will look hard and alive and like the friends I used to know. They’ll look better. It’s a silly world.
In roaming around the country the other day, I ran into Lt. Col. William Profitt Sr., whom I used to see occasionally in Africa and Sicily.
His old outfit was the first hospital unit ashore in the African invasion, landing at dawn on D-Day. They are so proud of that record that they’ll tear your eyes out at the slightest intimation that you’re confusing them with the second unit to land.
This is the hospital my friend Lt. Mary Ann Sullivan of Boston served with. She finally wound up as chief nurse of the unit. But when I dropped in to say hello, I discovered that Lt. Sullivan had gone back to America a couple of months ago.
She well deserved to go, too. She had been overseas nearly three years, having come originally with the Harvard unit. She had a ship sunk under her at sea, and was shot at innumerable times. She lived like a beast of the field for nearly a year, and she bore the great burden of directing a staff of nurses and supplying both medical care and cheerful understanding to thousands of wounded men.
My friend Col. Profitt and I sat in easy chairs in front of his cozy fireplace and chatted away in dire contrast to our other evenings on the windy plains of Tunisia.
He was telling me about a storm they had just after I left them in Sicily last summer. They were bivouacked on the edge of a cliff by the sea, and the wind blew so hard it blew all their tents over the cliff just at daylight one morning.
Everybody turned to with such a mighty effort that in two hours and a quarter they had every one of their 450 patients dry and under cover again.
This unit is very sentimental about the number 13. They have been mixed up with 13 so many times they wouldn’t trade it for a dozen black cats or four-leaf clovers. They’ve even always sailed in convoys of 13 ships. Col. Profitt said he believed they would refuse to go if they were ever assigned to a convoy of 14 ships.
Most of the original gang of nurses, I hear, are still with the hospital after a solid year of war and nearly two years overseas.
Everywhere you go around our camps and marshaling areas everything is being waterproofed for the invasion. That’s perfectly natural, of course, since land vehicles won’t run through water onto the beaches unless all the vital mechanisms are covered up.
But the thing that surprises me is that so much of the equipment has been prepared in wooden boxes. I’m staying up nights with a hammer and saw preparing a large box for myself, with horseshoes tacked all over it.