America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

7945

Roosevelt approves G.I. Bill of Rights

Washington (AP) –
President Roosevelt today signed the “G.I. Bill of Rights” setting up a vast government aid program for veterans of this war.

With Congressional leaders and heads of veterans’ organizations looking on, the Chief Executive put his signature to the measure authorizing federal loans, hospitalization, job insurance, schooling and other ex-service benefits estimated to cost between $3,000,000,000 and $6,500,000,000.

The President said the bill carries out most of the recommendations he has made for veterans’ aid and notifies the members of the Armed Forces that the people at home will not let them down.

7946

Army and Marines score decisive gains on Saipan

Aboard joint expeditionary force flagship off Saipan, Mariana Islands (AP) –
Japan’s fleet after a week of complex maneuvering is still avoiding surface battle with the powerful U.S. Fleet guarding the Saipan invasion.

The Aslito Airdrome on Saipan, the most valuable in the Marianas and only 1,500 miles from Japan and the Philippines, was ready for operation today after Seabees repaired and extended its 3,600-foot main runway.

Shielded by a great U.S. battle fleet standing off the Marianas, Marines and Army troops launched a major attack this morning to wipe out Japanese defending the island. The situation forced upon Japan’s elusive grand fleet the grimmest challenge yet presented it – to come in and fight.

The enemy fleet, still avoiding battle, had the bitter choice oi fighting or abandoning Saipan’s weakening garrison to destruction.

On Saipan, the U.S. attack began shortly after dawn with veteran forces pushing ahead along a four-mile front extending entirely, across the island from the outskirts of Garapan, main town on the western shore, ands eastward along the slopes of Mount Tapochau to Magicienne Bay on the east coast.

At one point, the Marines advanced one mile in the first three hours. In exactly one week of fighting, the Americans had effected a landing across reefs in the face of extremely heavy fire and had captured the southern third of the island, including two airfields.

One of these fields was Aslito, now ready for operation.

The Japanese, who numbered at least 20,000, fought with ferocity and the advantage of entrenched positions along steep ridges, and made the American advance slow during the first several days. They used batteries of mortars and considerable artillery and employed landmines and booby traps.

One hard-fought battle between Marines and Japanese occurred on a hill overlooking Magicienne Bay, where Japanese artillerymen ran their field pieces in and out of caves firing from outside and ducking back into the mountainside.

The Americans finally captured this and similar positions, killing 75 Japanese in one cave. Flamethrowers were used in destroying enemy mountain strongholds.

7947

What war bonds mean –
The price of victory and bomb-free nights

By Robert Bunnelle

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7948

Battle casualties listed at 178,677

Washington (AP) –
U.S. battle casualties are nearing the quarter-million mark.

Secretary Stimson reported today that Army casualties through June 6 (which would include D-Day) totaled 178,677, an increase of 7,319 since his report on June 8, which covered the period through May 21. The Army dead now total 31,289, an increase of 2,337. The new announcement reports 71,432 wounded, 39,976 missing and 35,980 prisoners.

A Navy casualty list announced today reports an overall figure of 46,705, an increase of 932 since a list published two weeks ago. Those killed total 20,044, an increase of 242. The wounded amount to 12,905, missing 9,295 and prisoners 4,461.

7949

Nazi flying bomb reported ‘fizzle’

Military leaders say secret weapon once worried them

Washington (AP) –
From a strictly military viewpoint, the Nazi’s greatest secret anti-invasion weapon, the highly-touted flying bomb, is a fizzle.

This is the opinion of responsible military leaders here – men who were seriously worried a few weeks ago over the tricks the Germans might spring in the critical hours of the invasion.

Now the time for effective use of tricks has passed. Only by the proved weapons of war, tanks, guns, bombs, planes, artillery, gas, it is held, can the enemy do serious harm.

It is a question whether the Germans will ever release gas now, partly because they would have to employ it in the first few days when beachheads were narrow if they had intended it to stop the invasion and partly because of the threat of devastating Allied reprisal.

Concern over Hitler’s boasted arsenal of secret weapons was high in the weeks before invasion because no Allied leader could be sure exactly what German science had perfected. If Hitler possessed a powerful new weapon and unleashed it at the critical moment of attack, then the second front might be thwarted. Such was the line of worry.

London uncertain

London was as uncertain as Washington and in both capitals, there was speculation over super-explosives, mysterious rays, paralyzing gas attacks, counter-invasion by disease germs, terrifying rocket bombs controlled by airplane radio with deadly accuracy.

Now it turns out, according to estimates made here, that what the Germans actually produced to make good their threats is an explosive-laden rocket plane of limited range (150 miles) and great inaccuracy – this is the weapons they relied on to break the invasion at the critical moment.

Apparently, they conceived two main tactical uses for this weapon – to smash at London and to work havoc among ships of the invasion armada in the English Channel.

Distributing their limited number of rockets according to their fears of attack along the Channel, they concentrated in the Calais area.

There they waited for the Allied ships to come across and there they were outflanked when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower chose instead to strike into Normandy.

RAF pilots bring down Nazi robots

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7950

Hitler no longer at battle lines

London, England (AP) –
Reports from the underground in Germany said today that Adolf Hitler established headquarters at or near Le Mans the day after the Allies landed in Normandy 100 miles to the north, but soon withdrew to Troyes beyond Paris and finally returned to Berchtesgaden.

The argument used by the German generals to get the Führer to return to his mountain retreat, if was said, was that he could not afford to have his name associated closely with another German defeat.

It was reported from the same quarter that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had suffered a recurrence of his Africa-contracted intestinal fever and was in such poor health that his colleagues were trying to prevail on him to give up his operational duties.

7951

Aged Italian composer left hopeless by the war

By George Tucker and Edward Kennedy

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Fascist ties denied by singer

Opera star declares himself a victim ‘of mean people’

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7952

Editorial: News of war

Stories are still being written of the magnificent news coverage of the invasion by American correspondents. Millions of words were dispatched in a matter of hours.

The first story of the invasion to come out of France was written by a correspondent who went in by parachute hours before the first seaborne troops landed. Although he fell on his typewriter and damaged it, and was forced to write while snipers’ bullets were singing over and around him, the story was completed and dispatched on schedule.

Few who read the interesting and eagerly-awaited accounts of invasion progress realize what hardships and dangers are faced by men who make the gathering and writing of news their calling, although it takes them to far places, often at risk of their lives.

There are hundreds of these men. They are at the front in every battle zone, with the exception of the Russian front. Behind them are other hundreds serving in news and press centers, often going without sleep for hours or days that the dispatches may come through. In the newspaper offices of the United States, activity is never ended. Weary men sit at desks throughout the day and night, watching, waiting for the latest bulletins.

The American public has been so accustomed to being served news while it is still news that many persons take it as a matter of course. But covering a global war entails for every newspaper expenditure of time and money little of which the public has an inadequate conception.

The job starts with those who go out with the first fighters so that no details will be missed. It is the American way.

7953

Editorial: Japs reeling back

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7954

Editorial: Unsecret weapon

By The Washington Post

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7955

Nazi casualties in Italy 100,000

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German general killed in France

London, England (AP) –
The German communiqué today announced the death of Lt. Gen. Hellmich in the fighting on the Cherbourg Peninsula.

7956

Overseas fighting force of 5,000,000 men foreseen

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7957

The Pittsburgh Press (June 22, 1944)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Somewhere in France – (by wireless)
Folks newly arrived from America say that you people at home are grave and eager about this, our greatest operation of the war so far.

But they say also that you are giving the landings themselves an important out of proportion to what must follow before the war can end. They say you feel that now that we are on the soil of France, we will just seep rapidly ahead and the Germans will soon crumble.

It is natural for you to feel that, and nobody is blaming you. But I thought maybe in this column I could help your understanding of things if we sort of charted this European campaign. This is no attempt to predict – it is just an effort to clarify.

On the German side in Western Europe, we face an opponent who has been building his defenses and his forces for four years. A great army of men was here waiting to us, well prepared and well equipped.

On the English side of the Channel, we and the British spent more than two years building up to equality in men and arms with this opponent. Finally we reached that equality, and I am sure considerably more than equality.

Then – on June 6 – came the invasion we had waited for so long. The big show has begun. So, let’s divide the remainder of this campaign into phases.

Phase No 1 was the highly vital task of getting ashore at all. That phase could not last long. We either had to break a hole in the beach defenses and have our men flowing through that hole within a few hours, or the jig was up. Phase No. 1 came out all in our favor.

We planned Phase No. 2 so that we could throw in our first follow-up waves without casualties or delay. That was also a phase we didn’t care to dillydally about. The beaches were fairly clear of shellfire within two days.

Phase No. 2 is what we are in right now. And that is to build a wall of troops around the outer rim of our beachhead that will hold off any German counterattacks.

The whole split-second question of the first few days was whether we could get troops and supplies through our little needle’s-eye of a beachhead faster than the Germans could bring theirs from all over Europe.

As this is written, no important counterattack has developed. The Germans are having plenty of trouble moving their stuff up, because of our savage air activity. Every day that passes adds to our forces and gives us greater security.

If we can hold that outer line against all attack for a short while yet, then we will have won Phase No. 3. And right now, it certainly seems that we are winning it.

Phases 1, 2, and 3 were all preliminary ones. It took three of them merely to get us a place in Europe from which to begin. The three of them merely give us the corner lot on which we are going to build our house.

Phase No. 4 is the housebuilding phase. This is the phase you folks at home have been working so hard to make possible.

In England and America, we’ve got the men and machines and supplies and munitions to overbalance the great stockpile Germany has built up in Western Europe, But we’ve got to get it over here into France before we go on.

You may have imagined that we would hit the beach and go right on, advancing 30 miles a day till we reached the German border. We could no more do that than a baby, after taking its first step, could run a hundred-yard dash. You have to wait until your strength is built up before you can run.

That is Phase No. 4. It will go on for some time yet. Don’t be impatient. The wall in front of us will hold while we gradually pile this beachhead to the saturation point with extra men, guns, trucks, food, ammunition, gasoline, telephone wire, repair shops, hospitals, airfields, and thousands of other items – pack it until we have more than the Germans have, and with lots of reserves in addition.

Then and not until then will Phase No. 5 start. Phase No. 5 is the real war – big-scale war. How long we will have to wait between now and the beginning of Phase No. 5, I don’t know. But my guess is that it will take months rather than weeks.

Naturally there will be fighting during that time. The Germans will try to crush us back onto the beaches. We at the same time will try to extend our holdings enough to protect our accumulating men and supplies.

But Phase No. 5 will be the final one. How long it will last, I also don’t know – and in that ignorance, I have a great deal of company. I doubt if anyone in the world knows. All we do know is that things look good and that it will definitely end in our favor.

So don’t be impatient if we seem to go slowly for a while. You can’t lay the foundation of a house in the forenoon and move into the house that evening. We are just now laying the foundation of our house of war in Europe. It will take a while to build the wall and get the roof on. And then…

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7958

Völkischer Beobachter (June 23, 1944)

Lyttelton bestätigt Roosevelts Kriegsschuld

Große Erregung in Washington – Der britische Produktionsminister dreht und windet sich

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7959

‚Perfekte Amerikaner‘

Mit dem Beginn des englisch-amerikanischen Angriffs auf die Normandie wussten die englischen Zeitungen zu berichten, daß die Straßen der englischen Städte, die Kinos, die Bars und all die anderen Stätten, an denen die Amerikaner mit der Unerschöpflichkeit ihrer prallen Geldbörsen den englischen Soldaten an die Wand gedrückt hatten, mit einem Male von der aufdringlichen US-Invasion wie reingefegt sind. Und schon regte sich bei den Engländern die Hoffnung, daß die „Yankee-gefahr“ nun bald beseitigt sein werde.

Man könnte diese Illusion mit den Argumenten, die die imperialistische Politik der Amerikaner lieferte, leicht zerstören, aber es genügt auch schon, Miß Louise Morley zu zitieren, Tochter eines amerikanischen Schriftstellers und Leiterin der Jugendsektion in der Londoner Abteilung des amerikanischen Kriegsinformationsamtes. Miß Morley hat nämlich die Entdeckung gemacht, daß die Amerikanisierung der englischen Jugend höchst bemerkenswerte Fortschritte macht und daß die jungen Engländer dem Amerikanismus mehr und mehr zum Opfer fallen. Sie hat in den letzten sieben Monaten auf ihren Reisen durch England in Jugendherbergen, Fabriken, Schulen viele tausend junge Engländer und Engländerinnen kennengelernt und war zunächst erstaunt darüber, daß sie nicht mehr Mühe damit hatte, ihren Auftrag, „für Amerika Reklame zu machen,“ auszuführen. „Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika stehen der jüngeren Generation in Großbritannien heute unglaublich viel näher als Frankreich, das doch nur 21 Meilen von Dover entfernt ist,“ erklärte sie. Das Interesse für Amerika und alles Amerikanische sei in England stark entwickelt.

Die junge Generation Englands scheint sich also, wie man sieht, geradezu freiwillig dem Amerikanismus in die Arme zu werfen. Es ist dabei kaum erstaunlich und ergänzt nur den Eindruck von dem gesunkenen englischen Selbstbewusstsein, daß die jungen Engländer nach dem befriedigten Urteil von Miß Louise Morley schon jetzt „perfekt amerikanisch sprechen.“ Das gehe sogar so weit, daß sie gezwungen sei, „eine andere Sprache zu sprechen,“ wenn sie vor jungen oder vor alten Engländern rede. Die jungen Hörer seien geradezu stolz darüber, wenn man ihnen mit waschechten amerikanischen Ausdrücken komme, die sie selbstverständlich verstünden und es sei bedeutend schwieriger, sich vor den „alten Leuten Englands“ auszudrücken.

Um diese „alten Leute“ aber kümmert sich das tüchtige Mädchen vom amerikanischen Kriegsinformationsamt gar nicht erst. Auf den Gedanken, einmal „Englisches“ englisch zu sprechen, ist sie im Laufe ihrer erfolgreichen Tätigkeit noch nicht gekommen, denn das hatte sie ja auch gar nicht nötig. Die „Invasion der britischen Inseln durch amerikanische Truppen“ und der Einfluß des Filmes sind ihrer Ansicht nach die Gründe für die Fortschritte des Amerikanismus auf den englischen Inseln.

Glauben die Engländer der alten Generation wirklich, daß sie dieser Entwicklung, auf die, wie ein Schweizer Blatt schreibt, „die Amerikaner zweifellos sehr stolz sind,“ je Einhalt gebieten können? Die junge Generation hat jedenfalls gezeigt, daß sie von dem, was man in früheren Zeiten unter dem „englischen Stolz“ verstand, herzlich Wenig mehr besitzt.

s.u.

7960

Pessimistische Äußerungen des Ersten Lords der Admiralität –
‚Unsere Prüfungszeit steht jetzt bevor‘

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7961

Am Vorabend des Jahrestages von Lukautschau –
Tschungking am Höhepunkt der Krise

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7962

Artilleriekämpfe an der Landfront Cherbourg

Berlin, 22. Juni –
Am Außenrand des mehrere Kilometer tiefen Vorfeldes des Festung Cherbourg hat am 21. Juni der Artilleriekampf begonnen. Wie festgestellt, beschossen unsere Feldhaubitzen und Festungsbatterien bereitgestellte Panzerkräfte, Truppenansammlungen und Anmarschwege des Feindes.

Der Gegner suchte seinerseits, unsere Artillerie durch Luftangriffe und Feuerüberfälle niederzuhalten. Auf dem Ostflügel konzentrierten sich die Artilleriekämpfe vor allem auf die zahlreichen Wälder beiderseits des La Saure-Tales, die der Feind zur Tarnung seiner Angriffsdivisionen braucht. Die dort im Schutz schwerer Waffen vorstoßenden Aufklärungskräfte mußten jedoch im Abwehrfeuer zu Boden.

Im mittleren Teil des Cherbourg Abschnittes versuchte der Gegner unsere Sperrfeuerzonen auf den von Süden und Südwesten zur Stadt führenden Straßen mit Panzern und motorisierter Infanterie zu unterlaufen. Er setzte stärkere Kräfte an, die im Quellgebiet der Divette und Ouve erneut einen Überraschungsvorstoß in das Herz des Festungsbereiches führen sollten. Der zweimal wiederholte Angriff scheiterte unter erheblichen Verlusten für den Feind.

Im Ganzen genommen, geht es dem Gegner im Augenblick darum, sich in günstige Ausgangsstellungen für den Angriff auf Cherbourg vorzuschieben.

Im Abschnitt zwischen Vire und Caumont nimmt der Feind weiter eine abwartende Haltung ein, nach seinen schweren Verlusten bei den gescheiterten Angriffen in Richtung Saint-Lô beschränkte er sich in diesem Abschnitt auf Artilleriefeuer und Stoßtruppkämpfe. Auch die Briten scheinen von ihren vergeblichen Angriffen im Raum beiderseits Tilly schwer mitgenommen zu sein. Sie legten eine Kampfpause ein, um die klaffenden Lücken ihrer dort ein­gesetzten Infanterie- und Panzerverbände durch angeforderte Verstärkungen aufzufüllen.

Auch dieser Vorgang zeigt wieder, wie notwendig der Feind einen bei jedem Wetter benutzbaren Hafen mit tiefem Wasser braucht.

7963

Zwischen Philippinen und Marianen –
Schlacht der Hochseeflotten

vb. Berlin, 22. Juni –
Wie aus Tokio und Washington übereinstimmend berichtet wird, ist im Gebiet zwischen den Philippinen und den Marianen eine große Seeschlacht zwischen Teilen der japanischen Hochseeflotte und der US-Pazifikflotte im Gang, über deren vorläufige Ergebnisse beide Seiten noch Stillschweigen bewahren, was bei dem frühen Stadium, in dem sich diese Auseinandersetzung befindet, verständlich ist. Der US-Marineminister Forrestal teilte mit, daß der Oberbefehlshaber der US-Pazifikflotte, Admiral Nimitz, „absolutes Funkschweigen“ bewahre. Es könne daher für einen gewissen Zeitraum nicht mit Einzelheiten gerechnet werden.

Soviel scheint festzustehen, daß diese Seeschlacht in engem Zusammenhang mit den Kämpfen auf der Marianeninsel Saipan steht. In die zurzeit dort zwischen den japanischen Garnisonstruppen und den amerikanischen Landungsstreitkräften heftig tobenden Kämpfe greift, nach einer japanischen Meldung, auch die auf der Tinianinsel stationierte Artillerie ein. Den amerikanischen Truppen gelang es, schwere Artillerie zu landen und aufzufahren. Unter dem Feuerschutz der Artillerie konnten die Alliierten dann am 17. Juni bis in die Nähe des Asreetflugplatzes vordringen, welcher an der südlichen Seite der Insel gelegen ist. Die japanischen Truppen halten auf der anderen Seite wichtige strategische Punkte in ihrem Besitz, von denen aus sie wiederholt heftige Nachtangriffe gegen die Amerikaner durchführen und ihnen im Nahkampf große Verluste zufügen konnten. Die alliierten Verluste scheinen dem Bericht nach zu urteilen, in Zukunft noch höher zu werden, nachdem es den Japanern gelang, weitere schwere Panzereinheiten gegen die feindlichen Landungspunkte einzusetzen.

7964

London will ins Geschäft zurück

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