WAC suffers 5,000 lapse in enlistment
Secretary of War reveals corps is still far from goal
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Japs being hit where it hurts – in shipping
High U.S. officers also say enemy plots ‘grow worse’
By Richard Mowrer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Allied HQ, Algiers, Algeria – (by wireless)
We flew again over the Sahara. The desert air for a thousand feet above the ground was thick with blowing sand and you could not see the earth from your plane window.
At one place, we came down through a veil of sand to land on the outpost of a field that was isolated, bare and remote from anything in the world.
The passengers said as we got out for a few minutes’ stretch:
What an awful place to have to serve.
On the field, I got to talking to one of the soldiers, Pvt. Bob Goldy of St. Albans, Long Island, and asked how long he’d been there. He said, “Five months.”
I said in astonishment:
Five months! Why, I thought they sent you to these places for just a few weeks and then relieved you.
He said:
They do. We are supposed to come for only six weeks, but everybody who comes asks for an extension. I’m on my third extension now. We all like it here. It’s healthy and we have good quarters, good food and movies, but the main thing is that it’s small and everybody is close together.
It’s informal here and we’ve got swell officers. There are only about three dozen of us and it’s sort of the same spirit as a submarine crew has. Everybody is for everybody else. No more big camps for me if I can help it.
Goldy was very proud of their recent Thanksgiving dinner. He said their menu that day had 29 items on it, including turkey. The turkey, incidentally, won him $10. He’d made several bets with other soldiers who didn’t think any turkey would ever arrive.
Goldy said:
But I had faith in the government, so that’s just $10 more to send home to buy bonds with.
Pilots killed in sandstorm
The boys may like the desert, but still, it is an insidious place. At one of these remote Sahara fields a few months ago, a flight of fighter planes came in during a 90-mile-an-hour sandstorm. Their leader found the field but, even at an altitude of just a few feet, he couldn’t see the runway so they went their own ways and landed all over the desert.
Two of the pilots were killed. Other straggled in days later. One was saved by an Arab who ran for help across the desert, 20 miles in four hours. There are many ways to die in wartime and they are all bad.
Couple of helpful hints, free
Among the odd items a professional traveler is likely to pick up on a trip like this are these two gems:
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At one stop in the tropics, I met an American civilian who said he always gave his chickens a spoonful of gin shortly before killing them. He said it relaxed their muscles and made them much more tender and succulent. It’s probably true, except that most of the chickens I’ve met over here would need half a pint, and gin is scarce in these parts.
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In hot tropics, postage stamps always glue themselves together. They even glue themselves to oiled paper. The way to prevent this is to rub stamps on your hair. The oil from the hair coats the stamps and they won’t melt into anything until licked. The trick actually works, except that I always have to hire somebody with hair to go along to the post office with me.
One morning in Northwest Africa, I was routed out of bed at 6:30 by a caller who turned out to be an old Army friend – Capt. Wayne Akers of Memphis, a pilot on the ferry line with whom I flew from the Gold coast to Cairo last spring.
Capt. Akers says that after he was mentioned in this column, he got more than 50 letters from people in the States. He has just been flying transports back and forth, back and forth, all the way from India to Italy. In one year overseas, he has put in 1,200 flying hours. He’s due to go home now. He says they’re given a choice between two weeks at home and then returning to Africa, or a 30-day furlough and then reassignment for at least six months in the States.
He says everybody is taking the latter. As who wouldn’t?
Maj. de Seversky: Vivid story of Yanks’ skill, daring told in book, Target Over Germany
By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky
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Iran ‘tricked’ by Roosevelt
People expected gala show, blaring trumpets
By Gault MacGowan, North American Newspaper Alliance
Cairo, Egypt –
President Roosevelt’s visit to Iran disappointed the Persian people on the whole. The average man on the streets, getting his news from conversation instead of from a steady flow of newspaper editions containing many pictures, expected to see the President of the fabulous rich country across the seas in a gorgeous uniform as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces.
The display-loving everyday people naturally looked forward to a triumphal arrival with all the ceremonials of an oriental welcome they got, instead of the unostentatious plunking down of a plane at a dusty airport, with the security police discouraging even spontaneous and informal demonstrations.
Two Persians overheard discoursing on the subject expressed with a fine flourish of words the fairly general impressions of their countrymen.
One of them exclaimed:
What? He wears no uniform! What trick is this they play upon us?
His friend said:
Perhaps they bring someone in the likeness of the President to deceive malefactors. Possibly we should look for his coming by a later sky carriage.
The first Persian said:
No, it is indeed he. See how they salaam him. But he has not even a trumpeter.
The other commented, with an evident attempt to look on the bright side of a somewhat disheartening situation:
The expansion of his smile is exceeded only by the width of his shoulders.
The man who had opened the chat wanted to know:
What is this lie of the fine coffee of America? There is no serving of coffee here.
A Kurd would give a better welcome, it cannot be denied.
And no spreading of carpets.
As to that, America has no carpets like Persia, and probably has not learned the custom of carpet spreading.
What is the gain of being Shah of 48 states, which they say America has, when your caravan is poorer than that of the Sheikhs of Mohammerah?
The allusion was an effective one, for Mohammerah is the oil country of Persia and a symbol of wealth in Persian household talk.
The more cheerful of the two was forced to grant:
Magnificence has truly gone from the world.
Soldier-vote bill aftermath –
Byrd probes distribution to troops of Guffey charge
Virginia Senator asks OWI report on statement or Pennsylvanian on ‘unholy alliance’
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Völkischer Beobachter (December 10, 1943)
Enttäuschender erster Einsatz der Verräter –
Badoglio-Italiener laufen über
Sie wollen nicht Kanonenfutter für die Anglo-Amerikaner sein
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Der Neuaufbau der Welt…
…wie ihn sich die Feinde Europas und Ostasiens erträumen (Zeichnung: Kurt G. Truetsch)
U.S. Navy Department (December 10, 1943)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 190
For Immediate Release
December 10, 1943
Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force made late afternoon raids on enemy installations at Jaluit and Mille on December 8 (West Longitude Date). More than 40 tons of bombs were dropped in the target area at Jaluit. There was no enemy interception and none of our aircraft was damaged by antiaircraft fire. At Mille our planes were intercepted by 10 Zeros, two of which were probably shot down. Several of our planes received minor damage. One man was wounded.
U.S. State Department (December 10, 1943)
The Ambassador in Turkey to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union
Ankara, December 10, 1943
Personal and strictly confidential for the Ambassador:
The recent meeting at Cairo was most helpful in drawing Turkey much closer to the Allies; although nothing definite was agreed upon for the time being. I hope the foregoing gives you the present picture.
STEINHARDT
The Pittsburgh Press (December 10, 1943)
NAZI LINE IN ITALY WEAKENS
‘Bazookas’ help smash pillboxes
U.S. artillery clears way for infantry advancing toward Rome
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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McNutt loses draft power; Gen. Hershey becomes boss
Ban on calling pre-Pearl Harbor fathers already being followed by local boards
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