The Afro-American (August 5, 1944)
TRANSIT MEN STRIKE
Whites quit when colored trolley operations are hired; war work crippled
Philly hate strike ties up all traffic
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TRANSIT MEN STRIKE
EISENHOWER COMMENDS BALLOON UNIT
QM truck company also praised
Majority of heroes are Easterners
By Ollie Stewart, AFRO war correspondent
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FLIERS GET 8 OVER HUNGARY
Lts. Gleed and Dorham bring down four Fw 190s
60 in two weeks; first victories for 3; Lt. Jackson’s third
By Art Carter, AFRO war correspondent
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GIs sore about Wall Street rumors of war’s end
By Ollie Stewart, AFRO war correspondent
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U.S. Army bans Jim Crow in PXs, buses and theaters
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Editorial: Republicans and Army segregation
The Republican Party enters the campaign with a decided advantage because of its pledge to investigate and take whatever legislative action is necessary to correct race discrimination in the Armed Forces.
Strong executive action, as well as legislation, is needed and is overdue since the widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war is the mistreatment of colored troops.
This mistreatment includes:
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Compulsory training in the Jim Crow South where the Army has been unable to protect its men in uniform from civilian abuse and humiliating segregation;
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Exclusion of colored men and women from voluntary enlistment from service on the Navy’s fighting ships and with WAVES, SPARS, nurses and special services (only token enlistments have been accepted as Navy chaplains and surgeons);
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Promotions so restricted that with nearly a million colored men in the service, commissioned officers number only a few thousand;
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Separation of white and colored troops without legal sanction, in fact in violation of the Constitution. Even those who wish to fraternize are forbidden to do so under pain of punishment.
In the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, colored and white served together in regiments and on fighting ships. Rigid segregation appeared first in the Civil War, but even then, there was no Navy funny business and colored men fought as Marines, gunners and seamen on Union ships.
Colored servicemen today have no objection to fighting in colored units, but they do object to the prohibition which bars them from other units and bans whites from their outfits.
Some white soldiers do not wish to serve with colored. Some colored prefer not to serve with white. But why should any government prevent them from doing so if they want to and why should promotions be denied competent officers merely because they are colored?
The situation is so bad at present that white enlisted men are welcomed in mess halls and clubs from which colored commissioned officers are excluded.
Governor Dewey, the GOP candidate for President, we hope, will have a word to say about this during the campaign. Long suffering G.I.’s and their folks back home will be all ears.
Matthews: Straws in the wind
By Ralph Matthews
Although the defeat of Vice President Wallace, a known liberal, is regretted by many, there are other rays of hope which prove that the reactionaries are not having things all their own way.
That even the Deep South is trying hard to lift itself from the depths is seen in the long-overdue defeat of Senator Ellison “Cotton Ed” Smith in South Carolina.
We are not certain whether his successor, Governor Olin D. Johnston, is a rip-roaring liberal, but we are certain that anybody would be an improvement on Cotton Ed. The mere fact that South Carolina has had sufficient change of heart to keep him home is a healthy sign.
Ex-Senator Smith has little to his credit in the Senate beyond his championship of white supremacy, his protection of the big cotton planters, who wax fat off of the South’s miserable sharecrop slave trade, and his dramatic gesture in walking out of the Democratic National Convention because a colored minister, the Rev. Marshall Shepard of Philadelphia, was invited to pray.
We cannot help but speculate that Cotton Ed would have welcomed even the prayers of Parson Shepard as the votes were counted Tuesday night returning him to private life.
One bright spot on the Democratic Party front was the fact that Governor Ellis Arnall of Georgia stood before the Democratic Convention in Chicago and praised Henry Wallace after he had made his speech predicting the destruction of all the things the South holds dear.
Another was the speech of Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, who declared he would be ashamed if the Democrats told the world by their actions that Wallace “was too democratic for a Democratic convention.”
Another healthy sign is the rumpus raised in Texas and other Southern states over the seating of delegations at the Democratic Convention. This is not a “revolt” in the sense that some try to pretend, but a sign that the South is stewing in its own juice of the one-party system which is too cramped for the incompatible elements to operate.
If the Roosevelt administration stays in long enough, and the anti-Roosevelt Southerners stay out long enough, they might eventually awake to the realization that two strong parties are as necessary to the South as to the rest of the country. Minorities always stand to profit when they can play one party against another. The South may yet give stillbirth to democracy.
Harlemites sparkle ETO bands
Groovy outfits captured England
By Trezzvant W. Anderson
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Troops boycott Jim Crow theater, officers slip in
White officials: Discrimination at Walterboro Air Base follows state policy
By Ernest E. Johnson
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Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 6, 1944)
Communiqué No. 120
In BRITTANY, an Allied armored force has driven to REDON. Another force has continued its attack northwest of DOL. VITRE and PONTIVY have been cleared of the enemy.
RENNES, PONTORSON and AVRANCHES were bombed by the enemy early yesterday. Damage was slight.
SS Panzer troops were captured at DINAN, RENNES and VITRE. An Allied task force has engaged the enemy near SAINT-MALO.
In NORMANDY, we have moved through the FORET DE SAINT-SEVER. The forest is not entirely clear of the enemy, and in approaching LA CHAMP DU BOULT, our troops are encountering pockets of machine guns and small arms resistance. Enemy Panzer units and paratroops are opposing our advance in the town LE MESNIL–GILBERT.
Near VIRE, our forces are encountering enemy artillery fire. We are 1,500 yards from the center of the town.
Further north, enemy pockets of resistance left behind by our advance have now been eliminated. Leading troops have entered AUNAY-SUR-ODON.
On the west bank of the ORNE, our advance southwards has continued. All the high ground as far south as the village of LE HOMS, a mile north of THURY-HARCOURT, is in our hands.
At midday yesterday, heavy bombers attacked a railway bridge at ÉTAPLES and submarine pens at BREST. Hits were scored on the pens with 12,000-pound bombs. In the evening oil storage depots at BASSENS and BLAYE near BORDEAUX, and at PAUILLAC, were attacked by other heavy bombers. Two heavy bombers are missing.
Eight railway bridges and embankments on an arc extending from ELBEUF on the SEINE to BRIOLLAY near ANGERS, were attacked by medium and light bombers. Other medium bombers attacked railway yards at COMPIEGNS, SERQUEX and VERNEUIL, and flak barges in the harbor at SAINT-MALO.
Locomotives and rolling stock in the CHARTRES–ORLÉANS area and motor transport were targets for fighter-bombers. Direct support was given our ground forces by fighter-bombers. Fighters provided bomber escort.
Two enemy aircraft were destroyed over northern FRANCE during the night.
U.S. Navy Department (August 6, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 107
Further gains were made during August 5 (West Longitude Date) by U.S. troops driving northward on Guam Island. On the left flank our troops moved ahead more than two miles almost to Haputo Point. There was no substantial change in our line on the right flank and our positions there remain near Lumuna Point. In the day’s gains the towns of Ukudu and Liguan were occupied. Strong defensive positions along roads paralleling the western shore were wiped out by our advancing ground forces, and nine field guns and two tanks were destroyed. Artillery destroyed several trucks laden with enemy troops.
Fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing are now operating from the airfield on Orote Peninsula.
Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing and Catalina search planes of Group One, Fleet Air Wing Two, bombed remaining enemy positions in the Marshall Islands on August 4. Mitchells of the 7th Army Air Force hit Ponape and a Navy Liberator attacked Wake Island on the same day. In these attacks, moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered but all of our aircraft returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 6, 1944)
Yanks smash into Brest
Drive to Loire cuts off Brittany; fall of Nantes, Saint-Nazaire due
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
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Yanks continue advance on Guam
Jap troops fail in counterattacks
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
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Leaders taken into custody –
Philadelphia strikers get Army ultimatum to go back tonight
Troops will operate transit lines if workers don’t resume jobs, general says
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McDonald left high and dry –
Hillman pipes down a bit on big PAC election fund
State leader not authorized to speak, CIO political boss says in New York
By Fred Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
New York – (Aug. 5)
Expressing concern at reports that the CIO and its political associates aim to spend a huge slush fund in efforts to elect President Roosevelt for a fourth term, Sidney Hillman announced tonight that the CIO-sponsored National Citizens Political Action Committee had set a ceiling of a million and a half dollars on the funds it will attempt to collect.
Mr. Hillman, however, said that a decision on the amount to be raised by the CIO-PAC – he is the active chairman of both bodies – had not yet been made.
He declared that David J. McDonald, secretary-treasurer of the CIO United Steel Workers, was not authorized to speak for CIO-PAC when he said last Saturday in Harrisburg that the intention was to raise $5 million in Pennsylvania, and that he hoped $25 million could be raised.
Mr. McDonald said:
The more we get the more we can spend. The more we spend the better Congress we can have. The more we spend in Pennsylvania, the better State Legislature we can have. It’s as simple as that.