The Pittsburgh Press (December 23, 1943)
Roosevelt: Rail fight must end at once
‘We can’t wait, and I can’t wait,’ President tells pay negotiators
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Yanks seize more heights above Cassino
Nazi line crumbling near Adriatic; Canadians seizing Ortona
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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‘Heavy casualties ahead’ –
U.S. officials alarmed by war optimism
Erroneous, foolish ideas blamed for weave of strike threats
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
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Restaurants lose ration allowance on drink sales
Eating places will be required to differentiate between food, refreshment sales
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Thousands of farmers get mystery checks from U.S.
Treasury says they’re from AAA; ‘benefactors’ complain they’ll have to be paid back in taxes
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Roosevelt to speak at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow
Washington (UP) –
The White House said today that President Roosevelt’s radio address to the nation and the Armed Forces tomorrow will have the widest broadcast circulation of any speech he has ever made.
Mr. Roosevelt’s speech is timed for 3:00 p.m. ET from his home at Hyde Park, New York. It will be carried by all American networks, the entire system of the BBC, the networks of Australia and New Zealand and radio stations in Algiers, Palermo, Bari, Naples and India.
This system has been worked out so that members of the U.S. Armed Forces throughout the world will be able to hear the address.
Heroism even in death –
Air hero of Bataan killed in crash that saves a life
Lt. Col. William Dyess swerves plane to avoid auto
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Mute messages of death found on road to Ortona
Human and animal dead lie side by side in fields where Allies and Nazis fought it out
By Richard D. McMillan
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Navy shakeup may give King’s job to Nimitz
Report of impending shift in top naval command still unconfirmed
By Blair Moody, North American Newspaper Alliance
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The home front –
To get old jobs, veterans must apply within 40 days after their discharge
But 3 qualifications govern job-back guarantee
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Talks with folks at home may soften Capitol ‘rebels’
Roosevelt has chance to begin whip hand over congress; Walker admits discussing politics with President
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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In Washington –
16 million to get refund on 1943 taxes
Many will get small amounts; pay-go works well, officials say
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
At the frontlines in Italy – (by wireless)
Our artillerymen in the frontlines don’t try to keep themselves looking very pretty. As they say:
There ain’t nobody going to see you that amounts to a damn unless the colonel should happen to come around.
Their clothes are muddy and greasy and often torn. Some of them wear coveralls, but most of them wear regular o.d. pants, jackets and leggings.
It’s funny to see them when they’re routed out just before dawn on a firing mission. They jerk on their shoes and wade through the mud to their guns. Naturally they don’t take time to put on their leggings. Then when it gets light and the firing mission is over, they sit around scraping the mud off their shoes and putting on their leggings.
It is a very strict military regulation in the combat zones that everybody must wear leggings, but the average soldier, just like myself, is careless about it. Along this line, one of the boys said the worst trouble they had was with new officers.
He said:
One morning we were firing and one of them asked over the telephone if we had our leggings on. It made me so mad that I just called the gun out of commission while we all sat down and put on our leggings.
Baths are few
The artillerymen are also indifferent about wearing their corporal’s and sergeant’s stripes. Everybody knows everybody else in the battery so it seems a waste of time to put stripes on your ordinary work clothes.
One day while I was with them, an order came around that everybody had to get his stripes on, so all that day during the lulls, the men would be sitting around on piles of shells or water cans sewing at their shirts and jackets like a bunch of old women.
The men don’t get a chance to take a bath very often. Once in a while, the Army gets some portable showers set up in the woods a few miles away and the gunners can go a few at a time in a truck and get a bath. But most of them haven’t had a bath in more than two months now.
The other night, the battery commander, Capt. Robert Perrin of Union, South Carolina, got to arguing with one of his officers, Lt. Heath Stewart of Columbia, South Carolina, about how the home front should be conducted.
What of civilization?
Lt. Stewart said he thought labor should be drafted for the defense plants and Capt. Perrin said:
Why, that’s just what we’re fighting for, the freedom not to be drafted for labor. That’s slavery the way Germany does it. If you feel that way about it, there’s no use fighting at all.
He saw he had Lt. Stewart whipped, so then they changed to the subject of civilization.
Capt. Perrin said:
I don’t know whether we’ve advanced so much or not. Take baths, for instance. We think we’re civilized because we take so many baths at home. Well, I’ve just had my first bath today in two months and I can’t see a bit of difference in the way I feel.
Next day all the argument was relayed, as such things usually are, down to the gun pit, and the soldiers themselves got into the same discussion.
Soldiers divided 50-50
They were divided about 50-50 on whether we should draft labor or not. On the bathing question, I think they must agree with the captain, because I noticed that when the call came for the men to go on the truck to take showers nobody went.
Then I told them about my bath experience back in America. For months I had dreamed about how wonderful it would be to take a hot bath every day in a real bathtub in a warm bathroom. Yet when I got there, I found myself almost allergic to baths. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I don’t think I averaged more than one bath a week all the time I was home.
Pvt. Frank Helms said:
Taking baths is just a habit. If our mothers hadn’t started giving us baths when we were babies, we would never have known the difference.
So maybe what we’re fighting for is the right to be as dirty as we please. It suits me.