America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

Völkischer Beobachter (August 5, 1944)

Londons Alpdruck vor neuen Waffen –
‚V1‘ beeinflusst die Normandiekämpfe

Eine weinerliche US-Feststellung –
Sowjets dominieren in Italien

Die Flak im Luftkrieg

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 5, 1944)

Communiqué No. 119

Allied troops have made rapid progress in BRITTANY, fanning out to the neighborhood of LOUDEAC, MAURON, DERVAL and CHÂTEAUBRIANT. RENNES is in our hands, and DOL has been cleared of enemy. Our forward troops are already beyond FOURGERES.

Other forces are advancing southeast of LANDIVY and while fighting continues for MORTAIN, advanced troops have reached the area of BARENTON. A large part of the FORÊT DE SAINT-SEVER is in our hands.

ESQUAY and ÉVRECY have been cleared of enemy and leading troops are reported in the area of VACOGNES and AMAYE-SUR-ORNE. Further south, our position has been improved by the capture of ONDEFONDAINE. Determined enemy counterattacks in the area east and northeast of VIRE have been frustrated.

Yesterday, escorted heavy bombers attacked targets in widely separated districts of FRANCE, including airfields at LILLE and ACHIET, a railway bridge at ÉTAPLES, a coastal battery in the PAS-DE-CALAIS and oil storage depots at PAUILLAC and BEC D’AMBRES, near BORDEAUX.

Medium bombers attacked railway yards at MONTFORT, and BEAUVAIS, a railway embankment at EPERNON and a concentration of enemy troops south of AUNAY. Light bombers went for rail targets in western FRANCE, blowing up an ammunition train near BORDEAUX.

Fighter-bombers flew reconnaissance beyond the battle area and in northeastern FRANCE in addition to attacking an oil dump at ANGERS, barges on the SEINE and an airfield near AMIENS. In these operations, locomotives, rolling stock and motor transport were destroyed.

A coastal vessel was blown up during an attack by rocket-firing fighters on a convoy off the DUTCH coast.

During last night, road and rail transport and enemy concentrations were attacked by medium and light bombers. Five enemy aircraft were shot down over NORMANDY.

U.S. Navy Department (August 5, 1944)

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 105

Troops of the Army’s 77th Division advanced approximately three miles northward along the eastern shore of Guam to Lumuna Point on August 4 (West Longitude Date). On the western coast, Marines pushed more than one and a half miles northward to Amantes Point.

During the night of August 3‑4, a small enemy force identified as Navy troops were repulsed in an attempt to counterattack. Eleven of the enemy were killed, bringing the total counted Japanese dead to 8,129.

As of August 4, approximately 22,000 civilians on Guam had found refuge within our lines.

More than 25 tons of bombs were dropped on Wotje in the Marshall Islands on August 3 by Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing.

More than 60 tons of bombs were dropped on Truk Atoll by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force at dusk on August 3. One ship near Dublon Island was left burning. Other hits were observed at the Dublon Naval Base, and on gun emplacements and barracks. There was no interception and only moderate anti-aircraft fire. All of our planes returned.


Press Release

For Immediate Release
August 5, 1944

Coast Guard‑manned Destroyer Escort sinks German submarine

A Coast Guard‑manned Destroyer Escort won a stirring battle with a German U‑boat in the Atlantic recently when it blasted the undersea raider to the bottom. Location of the action was undisclosed.

The duel between the Coast Guard ship and its elusive quarry brought pitted Coast Guard Cdr. Ralph R. Curry, against a 26‑year‑old Nazi skipper in a game of wits.

The Destroyer Escort made contact with the German submarine when coming to the assistance of another American ship. It immediately laid depth charges around the sub.

A Navy DE and a French DE joined the Coast Guard vessel in the final stages of the battle.

Finally, the submarine surfaced and the Coast Guardsmen got in their lethal, finishing blow. As the submersible, badly blasted, was about to make its final plunge, its crew took to the sea and were picked up by the Coast Guard ship as prisoners of war.

Several were wounded and given medical care. The Nazis were taken to an Allied port and removed from the DE for transfer to an internment camp.

Cdr. Curry, holder of the Legion of Merit award, lives at 1648 Preston Road, Alexandria, Virginia. He is married and has two small daughters.

The Pittsburgh Press (August 5, 1944)

Yanks race for Brest

Saint-Nazaire, Nantes about to fall into hands of Americans
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Nazis report abandonment of Florence

News follows entry into city by Allies

Big U.S. air fleet batters Germany

War plants, plane bases, rail hubs hit

Philadelphia strikers still defy government Army troops moved in

Transportation crisis grows more critical

Worst since D-Day –
Strikes in U.S. threaten to surpass record peak

New walkouts now occurring at dangerous pace of seven to 10 a day

Wounded heroes uninjured –
47 die, 32 hurt in train wreck

Cars jump track in South Georgia

Actor Jon Hall slashed in neck

Hollywood, California (UP) –
Virile screen hero Jon Hall was treated at Emergency Hospital early today for five slashes in the neck he said he received at the hands of two unknown men who jumped him after he had had an argument with band leader Tommy Dorsey.

I DARE SAY —
Young man with a future

By Florence Fisher Parry

americavotes1944

Hopes of GOP soar high after parley

Dewey heads home, visits Indiana
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

En route with Governor Dewey –
Republican hopes for a long-delayed political victory next November soared high today as Governor Thomas E. Dewey, GOP presidential candidate, sped homeward from a three-state campaign swing that apparently put some solid foundations under the party’s 1944 effort.

Win, lose or draw, the Dewey campaign promises to be better organized than those with which the Republicans have three times challenged President Roosevelt – in 1932, 1936 and 1940. He does not suffer from the blight of unpopularity which fell upon Herbert C. Hoover’s lost-cause candidacy for reelection in 1932.

Governor Dewey is better known and has tremendous geographical advantages over Alf M. Landon of Kansas, another governor chosen to joust with the New Deal champion in 1936. And Governor Dewey is not regarded as an interloper who crashed the party gate, as many Republicans looked upon Wendell L. Willkie, a one-time Democrat, who led the GOP in 1940 and polled more votes than any man – other than Mr. Roosevelt – ever got for the Presidency.

Governors confer

Governor Dewey tied his campaign kite to the fortunes and aspirations of the other Republican governors of this country in a three-day stopover in St. Louis.

Two days he devoted to a Governors’ Conference in which he and Governor John W. Bricker, his running mate, sat down with 24 other Republican governors, and drew up a 14-point bill of indictment against the Roosevelt administration for its conduct of domestic affairs.

Dewey managers are determined that local Republican leaders shall feel that they have an active part in the campaign.

Dewey confident

The New York Governor was satisfied completely with results of the St. Louis conference and said he believed the state governors rendered a service to the people that will not be forgotten in November.

He told newspaperman:

I am convinced that the Republican Party will win in November regardless of the war news.

The net result of tremendously hard work is that one of the most vexatious problems that has faced the country has been settled as a matter of national policy by our party and to the complete satisfaction of the governors representing three-quarters of the people.

He added another state to his 2,350-mile campaign swing when late last night he stopped at Indianapolis, Indiana, to confer with Ralph Gates, candidate for governor, and Homer Capehart, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Some sour notes

There were some sour notes in the seven-day journey – no political junket escapes them. Among the big crows watching the Dewey parade in Pittsburgh, there were a few persons who shouted “We want Roosevelt.”

In St. Louis, the Dewey train arrived before officials had reached the downtown section and the streets were almost deserted as he rode through the city. But a midmorning arrival in Springfield, Illinois, brought out crowds that almost overcame police efforts to maintain order.

In Pittsburgh, Springfield and St. Louis, Dewey conferred with political leaders and spokesmen of racial groups, industry, labor, agriculture and other segments of the national life. It was notable that his meetings with labor were largely American Federation of Labor affairs. The Congress of Industrial Organizations evidently prefers to talk politics with the Democrats.

CIO’s strength shown

Arriving in St. Louis the day after the state primaries, Governor Dewey could read in the papers of the power of the CIO-PAC whose opposition was judged to be a major factor in the defeat of Democratic Senator Bennett Champ Clark.

Mr. Clark has been an anti-Roosevelt Democrat and was on the President’s so-called purge list in 1938. But White House scouts looked the situation over then and decided Mr. Clark was too strong to be licked. This time he was bowled over, shouting that the “Communist-controlled CIO” had done him in.

Although the CIO was a factor, political observers said Mr. Clarks’ opposition to the Roosevelt administration and war policies had worked heavily against him. In any event, the CIO-PAC is something with which the Republicans will have to cope and Governor Dewey could see concrete evidence of that in Missouri.

Pulse feeling

RNC Chairman Robert Brownell Jr. found the Governors’ Conference an opportunity to do some pulse feeling.

He was too practical a politician to claim that he had been promised that every one of the 26 states represented in St. Louis would go Republican next November, but he insisted that the governors agreed that the Dewey-Bricker ticket was in.

If all 26 states were won by the GOP, Governor Dewey would have a margin of 75 or so votes in the electoral college, in which 266 is a bare majority.

Campaign plans are still “secret.” It was plain enough, however, that Mr. Brownell wants the people to see and hear his man and is planning at least one coast-to-coast campaign swing, probably in October.

In Washington –
WMC is made final arbiter in reconversion

Byrnes’ order limits authority of WPB

Jackie’s finance retains faith

Delinquency charge termed ‘frameup’

Japs on Guam facing final drive by Yanks

Enemy trapped on third of island
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

Safe at last from Nazis, 1,000 reach haven in U.S.

Refugees from war-plagued Europe dance and sing while on way to freedom

Editorial: Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’

Editorial: ‘Semper Paratus’