Kärntner Volkszeitung und Heimatblatt (September 18, 1944)
Der Wille zum Äußersten
…
Japanische Truppen stehen nach einem Tschungking-Bericht 15 Kilometer vor der Hauptstadt Kiangsis, Kweilin, die als Stützpunkt für die US-Luftwaffe und als Verkehrsknotenpunkt für Tschungking-china gleich wichtig ist.
Führer HQ (September 18, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
Im holländischen Raum setzte der Feind gestern mittags nach vorausgegangenen starken Luftangriffen Fallschirmjäger und Luftlandetruppen hinter unserer Front mit Schwerpunkt im Raum von Arnheim, Nimwegen und Eindhoven ab. Am Nachmittag trat er dann zwischen Antwerpen und Maastricht zum Angriff an, um die Verbindung mit seinen abgesprungenen Verbänden herzustellen. Besonders im Raum von Neerpelt entwickelten sich dabei heftige Kämpfe, in deren Verlauf der Feind geringen Geländegewinn nach Norden erzielen konnte. Gegen die feindlichen Luftlandekräfte sind konzentrische Gegenangriffe angesetzt.
Zwischen Maastricht und Aachen sowie im Raum von Nancy stehen unsere Truppen weiterhin in schwerem Abwehrkampf mit starken feindlichen Kräften. In den übrigen Abschnitten der Westfront wurden zahlreiche schwächere Angriffe des Feindes zerschlagen.
In Lunéville eingedrungener Feind wurde geworfen. Südlich der Stadt ist unser Gegenangriff im guten Fortschreiten.
In den Trümmern von Brest behauptet sich die heldenhafte Besatzung, auf engem Raum zusammengedrängt, immer noch gegen schwerste feindliche Angriffe. Auch um die Festung Boulogne toben schwere Kämpfe. Hier konnte der Feind nach stundenlangen Luftangriffen von Westen her einen Einbruch erzielen, der abgeriegelt wurde. Gegen Dünkirchen geführte feindliche Angriffe scheiterten.
Das „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer auf London wurde fortgesetzt.
An der italienischen Front blieben feindliche Angriffe im Abschnitt Lucca-Pistora erfolglos.
Unter starker Artillerie- und Luftwaffenunterstützung griff der Gegner den ganzen Tag über nördlich Florenz und an der adriatischen Küste in immer neuen Wellen an. In verlustreichen Kämpfen wurden alle seine Durchbruchsversuche vereitelt.
An der serbisch-bulgarischen Grenze kam es zu mehreren örtlichen Gefechten, in deren Verlauf zehn bulgarische Panzer abgeschossen wurden.
Im Südteil Siebenbürgens scheiterten auch gestern feindliche von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe. Ebenso wurden bei Sanok und Krosno erneute heftige Angriffe der Bolschewisten abgewiesen, Einbruchsstellen im Gegenangriff abgeriegelt.
In Lettland und Estland wird mit äußerster Härte gekämpft. Der Großangriff der Bolschewisten, der sich auch auf den Raum von Dorpat ausdehnte, wurde in schweren Kämpfen aufgefangen. Schlachtfliegerverbände unterstützten erfolgreich unsere Abwehrkämpfe im baltischen Raum. In der Nacht griffen Kampf- und Nachtschlachtflugzeuge sowjetische Truppenansammlungen mit guter Wirkung an. In Luftkämpfen und durch Flakartillerie wurden am gestrigen Tage 75 sowjetische Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
Auf dem Peipus-See versenkten Marineartillerieleichter ein sowjetisches Kanonenboot und beschädigten ein weiteres.
Nordamerikanische Bomber führten am gestrigen Tage einen Terrorangriff gegen Budapest.
In der Nacht warfen feindliche Flugzeuge Bomben auf Bremen, im Raum von Dortmund und auf Debrecen in Ungarn.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 18, 1944)
Communiqué No. 163
Allied airborne troops were landed in HOLLAND yesterday after powerful air preparation in which the Allied air forces operated in great strength. First reports show that the operation is going well.
Our ground forces near the BELGIAN-DUTCH frontier are continuing to make progress.
Further south, we have mopped up pockets of resistance on the outskirts of AACHEN. Heavy fighting continues in the city. Elements pushing on east of the town are encountering determined resistance. Advances have also been made across the LUXEMOURG-GERMAN frontier.
In the MOSELLE Valley, our troops are clearing the area west of the river of isolated enemy troops. North of NANCY, progress has been made and enemy counterattacks near PONT-À-MOUSSON were repulsed.
The Germans are fighting hard in the BELFORT GAP. Our troops have occupied the town of SAINT-LOUP-SUR-SEMOUSE and cleared LURE of the enemy. North of LURE, the enemy used tanks in resisting the advance. Local engagements took place in the area of PONT-DE-ROIDE.
Striking in advance of our airborne forces yesterday, heavy, light and fighter-bombers in very great strength attacked anti-aircraft batteries, gun positions, communications, troops and transport through a wide area of HOLLAND while fighters swept a path for the aerial transports and gliders, and provided umbrella cover for the landing. As the enemy’s guns opened fire, our fighters and fighter-bombers dived to silence them in low-level strafing and bombing attacks.
Many motor vehicles, locomotives, railway cars and barges were destroyed or damaged, and bridges and supply dumps were hit. According to reports so far received, nine enemy aircraft were shot down in combat by our fighters.
Later in the day, gun positions and troops on the island of WALCHEREN were attacked by a strong force of heavy bombers. Coastal aircraft struck at shipping off the FRISIAN Islands.
Fortified positions and garrison troops at BOULOGNE were bombarded for four hours by other heavy bombers which dropped more than 3,500 tons of high explosives. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered at time, but there was no opposition in the air.
Strongpoints at BREST were attacked during the day by small forces of fighter-bombers. Other fighter-bombers hit locomotives and railway cars in western GERMANY.
NOTE: NO CONTRIBUTIONS TO COMMUNIQUE RECEIVED FROM 21 AND 12 ARMY GROUPS.
White House Statement on the Entrance of Allied Troops into Holland
September 18, 1944
For four long years the Netherlands has suffered under the heel of German oppression. For four long years its liberties have been crushed, its homes destroyed, its people enslaved. But the spark of freedom could never be extinguished. It has always glowed in the hearts of the Netherlands people. It now emerges as an avenging flame.
The armies of liberation are flowing across the borders of Holland. A gallant Queen is returning to her gallant people. The Netherlands again stands on the threshold of her ancient liberties.
But the fight will not end with the restoration of freedom to Holland. It will not end with the inevitable defeat of Germany. The people of the Netherlands know, as the people of the United States know, that final victory cannot be achieved until Japan has likewise been vanquished.
Only then can peace and freedom return to the world.
U.S. Navy Department (September 18, 1944)
Press Release
For Immediate Release
September 18, 1944
Coast Guard lightship believed lost in hurricane
The 123‑foot Coast Guard lightship VINEYARD SOUND is missing from her position off the tip of Cuttyhunk Island in Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts, and is presumed to have been lost with 11 officers and men in Thursday’s hurricane. All next of kin have been notified.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 122
During the night of September 16‑17 (West Longitude Date), the enemy counterattacked the western flank of our forward lines on Peleliu Island, but was thrown back. An attack launched by the 1st Marine Division in the early morning of September 17 resulted in further gains to the north, and the occupation of Asias Town. Meantime mopping-up operations in the southern sector progressed and Ngarmoked Island off the southern tip of Peleliu was captured. Two enemy aircraft bombed our positions on September 17, but caused no casualties. Seabees are at work rebuilding the Peleliu Airfield. Heavy fighting continues.
On Angaur Island, several enemy counterattacks have been repulsed and good progress has been made by the 81st Infantry Division. The northern half of the island excepting some strongpoints along the western shore is under our control. Through September 17, our forces had wiped out 5,495 enemy troops on Peleliu and 48 on Angaur.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 559
For Immediate Release
September 18, 1944
Major General Francis P. Mulcahy, USMC, has been designated Commanding General of Aircraft, Fleet Marine Force, succeeding Major General Ross E. Rowell, USMC, it was announced today by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPACPOA.
The change in designation for Marine aviation in the Pacific from Marine Aircraft Wings Pacific to Aircraft, Fleet Marine Force, was announced simultaneously.
U.S. State Department (September 18, 1944)
PR 10 Foreign Relations of U.S./8-20-71: Telegram
Prime Minister Churchill to the British Foreign Secretary
Hyde Park, September 18, 1944
Personal and top secret
Following for Foreign Secretary from Prime Minister.
My immediately preceding telegram.
Following is text of message for Marshal Stalin.
We are sending a full account of the conclusions which we have reached in our Conference here. We both much regretted that circumstances which we well understood made it impossible for you to be present with us and thus to repeat the historic precedent of Tehran.
In sending you our account of this essentially military conference we feel that we should be less than frank if we did not also express to you certain anxieties which are much in our minds about political developments in Europe. With the defeat of the enemy’s armies, political problems will arise in all parts of Europe. It is essential that we should work together to solve these. We mention in particular the situation in Yugoslavia and Greece, in both of which countries there has been, and in the former of which there still is, the danger of civil war. There is also the position in Poland, which causes us much anxiety. We were all much encouraged by the success of the visit of Monsieur Mikołajczyk, the Polish Prime Minister, to Moscow, and we hope that the conversations which were there opened can be carried to a successful conclusion with your help. It would be gravely embarrassing to the smooth working of our affairs if events should so fall out that we were left recognizing Monsieur Mikołajczyk and his Government while you supported some other authority in Poland.
These and all other matters which affect our relations towards other powers we are at all times ready to discuss with you, in order to seek agreement through the diplomatic channel or by any other means. As you know we think it extremely important that we should meet on this and other important topics as soon as the war situation allows.
W S C
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom to the President
London, 18 September 1944
Secret
To the President from Winant.
Immediately following your directive that a mission to drop supplies on Warsaw was authorized clearance was obtained from Moscow and the project organized. Bad weather has delayed the mission. I thought you would like to know that I just received a message which was flashed back stating that one hundred and seven ships today in clear weather had dropped supplies over Warsaw.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1944)
SKY TRAINS RAIN MORE MEN BEHIND ENEMY IN HOLLAND
Nazis evacuate 13 Dutch villages
Germans hurl troops against Yank wedge beyond Siegfried Line
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Airborne invasion of the Netherlands by U.S. and British troops reached the rear of German forces defending the northern route into the Reich. The British 2nd and the 1st Canadian Armies drove north from Belgium. On the U.S. 1st Army front, troops absorbed several German counterattacks east of Aachen and drove toward Cologne. The U.S. 3rd Army neared the German border in Luxembourg and joined the 7th Army in an assault on the Belfort Gap.
Bulletin
London, England –
A dispatch from U.S. 1st Army headquarters said that counterattacks along the entire front inside Germany had virtually halted the American advance today, but said that all German attempts to push back the Yanks were repulsed.
SHAEF, London, England –
Allied sky trains totaling 285 miles in length today poured reinforcements and supplies down to Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s airborne army, which achieved, in heavy fighting, its initial objectives in a bold attempt to turn the Siegfried Line and open the way to Berlin.
A front dispatch apparently written last night said the Germans were fleeing from the Allied invasion by air, and had evacuated at least 13 Dutch towns and villages.
The security blackout still concealed from the German High Command and the world the details of the descent on Holland – details of which the Nazis obviously had not been able to patch into a pattern for use in the defense of northwestern Germany.
Crack German troops shifted westward from the Russian front counterattacked the tip of the U.S. 1st Army wedge which Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges had driven through the Siegfried Line east of Aachen, but the Yanks absorbed the impact handily without the loss of a single pillbox.
United Press writer Jack Frankish, in a 1st Army front dispatch reporting the German counterattack, said it was launched on a small scale than one yesterday.
Counterattacks pushed the Americans back two miles yesterday in the Luxembourg frontier area, but the ground was retaken during the night.
Resistance was stiffening along the entire front within Germany. Artillery and air activity had increased greatly.
U.S. patrols penetrated Germany as far as two miles east of Stolberg, which is five miles east of Aachen, but it was not clear at headquarters exactly how far east of Stolberg the main forces were operating.
Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s British 2nd Army smashed forward across the Dutch frontier in a full-scale advance after nearly two weeks of comparative lull. Armor moved from the De Groote bridgehead across the Escaut Canal in the direction of Eindhoven.
Radio Berlin said the 2nd Army and the airborne troops were within five miles of a juncture in the Eindhoven area of southern Holland.
While the geography of the airborne onslaught remained obscure, it was evident that the British were pressing northward for a junction with Gen. Brereton’s forces. A dispatch from the airborne front said the thunder of battle was audible to the south, obviously heralding the approach of the British.
Again at 1:00 p.m. CET today, the hour of action yesterday, the mighty array of planes rained men and material down to the forces in Holland which by Nazi account were in position to push past the north end of the Siegfried Line above the Rhine and into Germany.
All of central England was covered by the sky trains carrying out the reinforcement mission today, while bombers of the U.S. 8th Air Force dropped food, ammunition and fuel in small parachutes called “canopies.”
The airmen expected less danger from anti-aircraft fire today because of the Airborne Army’s gains against enemy positions.
More than 3,000 planes of all types were revealed to have taken part in the airborne attack yesterday. Their losses were described officially as “slight.”
That all was going well was indicated by revelation that one divisional commander radioed from the field today that the parachute missions were “absolutely superb.”
Canadian forces cleaning up the Channel coast were reported in a front dispatch to have fought their way into the main part of Boulogne and the port area. Both infantry and armor were in the southwestern part of the town and were also established on Mont Lambert, the key to the defenses of Boulogne.
Near neck of Channel
Other Canadian forces advanced closer to Cap Gris Nez, at the narrowest neck of the Channel, and only two German defense points, including the Lighthouse, still held out in that area.
Senior officers of the 1st Allied Airborne Army said the D-Day landings in Normandy were small in comparison with the attack on Holland. Originally scheduled for yesterday morning, the air attack was delayed a few hours.
The first reports were so encouraging that senior officers said the Allies can drop behind the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, or anywhere else they like.
The U.S. 1st Army cut into the German border city of Aachen and drove beyond the breached Siegfried Line to within 20 miles of Cologne, while U.S. 3rd Army troops swung up north of Metz in a sudden strike across Luxembourg that carried up to the Nazi frontier.
Join 7th Army
Other 3rd Army forces thrust down to join with the 7th Army in a frontal assault on the Belfort Gap leading into southwestern Germany, and unconfirmed reports said the Americans reached Belfort itself.
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, in a message to the British, Canadian and Allied troops under his command, said almost 400,000 Germans have been captured in Western Europe.
“It is becoming problematical how much longer the enemy can continue the struggle,” he said.
In a single giant stride, the airborne army had crossed the flood barrier the Nazis relied upon to protect Germany from invasion through the Netherlands.
Seek knockout
Allied spokesmen, jubilant at the initial success of the hazardous aerial invasion, made it clear that they were playing for the highest stakes – a quick knockout of the German Army.
Gen. Brereton declared flatly that upon the success of the airborne landing “rests the difference between a quick decision in the west and a long, drawn-out battle.”
Berlin admitted the gravity of the Allied threat and warned the people of Holland that the German Army intended to turn their homeland into a battleground and hold it at all costs.
The Nazis said the main Allied concentrations had landed around Eindhoven, Tilburg and Nijmegen, the latter north of the Rhine and only five miles from the German frontier.
At the same time, they hinted that further paratroop and glider landings are expected, as well as a possible seaborne attack on the Dutch coast.
Coast landing reported
One unconfirmed report broadcast by the Vichy radio said Allied sky troops made a new landing today on the seacoast nine miles north of The Hague.
United Press correspondents who flew over Holland with the invading Army reported that Gen. Brereton’s men, mostly American veterans of the Normandy landing but including strong British, Dutch and Polish contingents, were meeting relatively weak opposition from the disorganized Nazis.
Aided by a massive aerial bombardment that temporarily swept the Nazi Air Force from the skies and knocked out virtually every German battery in the landing areas, the sky attack yesterday liberated a number of Dutch villages within an hour and seized scores of vital bridges, canal crossings and rail and highway junctions.
Units of the 1st Canadian Army also moving in on the Netherlands from their positions on the Leopold Canal, on the British left flank.
4000 planes attack
The sudden air strike behind the Nazi lines came on the heels of a 15-hour aerial bombardment during which more than 4,000 U.S. and British warplanes ripped almost continuously at the invasion-marked sector with bombs and gunfire.
The RAF’s heavyweights set the attack In motion before midnight Saturday, and at daybreak Sunday the U.S. 8th Air Force sent its Flying Fortresses and fighter-bombers into action, Even as the first paratroops were tumbling down, U.S. fighter-bombers were swooping in beneath them, uncovering the Nazi gun positions and splattering them with fragmentation bombs.
In all, more than 7,500 tons of bombs were dropped across the Netherlands and nearby enemy airfields in Germany where the Nazi Air Force was known to have concentrated planes to meet Gen. Brereton’s 1,000-plane glider and transport fleet.
Nazis counterattack
The attack promised immediate and serious repercussions on the fighting front south of the Netherlands, where Gen. Hodges’ 1st Army troops were across the German frontier in force along an almost continuous line from Aachen to the Trier sector.
Gen. Hodges’ men were through the Siegfried Line beyond Aachen and striking across open country toward Cologne where the Nazis were reported digging anti-tank trenches and burying tanks in preparation for a full-scale stand on the Rhine. Headquarters had no comment on German reports of fighting at Duran, 20 miles west of Cologne.
Capture 1,000 a day
The Americans met strong opposition farther south in the Monschau area, and around Bollendorf and Echternach, where the Germans counterattacked savagely after falling back from their main Siegfried fortifications.
Despite the sudden stiffening of enemy opposition, German prisoners were still being taken by the 1st Army at the rate of 1,000 a day, including many who discarded their uniforms in a vain attempt to ship through the American lines.
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army forces south of the 1st Army pushed up across Luxembourg at an undisclosed point, north of Metz and United Press writer Robert Richards said they were approaching the German frontier.
Drives on Metz
Gen. Patton’s troops also cut slowly through the ring of forts protecting Metz, where the Germans were reported digging in for last-ditch fight, and cleared both banks of the Moselle River virtually all the way south from Pont-a-Mousson to Charmes.
On Gen. Patton’s right flank, the U.S. 7th Army wheeled an against the Belfort Gap, capturing Montbéliard (10 miles southwest of Belfort), Lure (18 miles west of Belfort) and four other towns on the approaches to the gap.
Other 7th Army troops along the Italo-French border farther south fought their way 11 miles northwest of Modane through the Maurienne Valley to Lanslebourg, where they ran into stiff opposition from German mountain troops.
Radio France in Algiers said the German garrison at Brest had surrendered, but there was no confirmation of the report at headquarters.
20,000 Nazis surrender to 24 Americans
Germans ask for ‘token battle’ first
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer
Beaugency, France – (Sept. 16, delayed)
Twenty thousand Germans who surrendered to 24 brash Americans arrived at the Loire River and turned in their arms to the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division.
Though technically prisoners, they had been permitted to march in a group, fully armed, for 200 miles. Twenty-four Americans had been insufficient to protect them from the vengeance of the French Maquis. Only at the Loire River were there enough Americans to protect them.
It was one of the strangest military capitulations on record. The French didn’t like it. They thought the Americans were a little crazy to let 20,000 armed men march 200 miles without guard or direction. But it turned out as it had been planned. The Germans were more afraid of the French than the French distrusted the Germans. They wanted to keep their arms only for their own protection.
Led by general
They were led by Maj. Gen. Botho Elster, their commander. He and his staff formally handed their swords to Maj. Gen. Robert C. Mason, commander of the 83rd Infantry Division. Two and a half miles behind them were their men, three columns of weary and disheartened Germans who stacked arms on the river bank and marched across pontoon bridges to prison camps.
For weeks there have been reports of large numbers of Germans in southern France wanting to surrender if only they could find some Americans to accept their surrender – Germans who didn’t want to surrender to the French Forces of the Interior. Now, for the first time, is told the authentic story of a remarkable footnote to the history of the war.
Elster, formerly commander at Biarritz, was ordered on Aug. 26 to regroup all German troops along the Spanish border and the Bay of Biscay and taken them 600 miles back to the Reich. They included 6,000 regular soldiers, 6,000 Luftwaffe personnel and 7,000 marines. They had 400 stolen civilian autos, 500 trucks and 1,000 horse-drawn vehicles.
Never fought real battle
This force never fought a real battle but for weeks it was harassed by the Maquis and the planes of the U.S. 9th Air Force. It met a patrol of 24 Americans led by Lt. Samuel W. Magill, 24, of Ashtabula, Ohio, and promptly surrendered.
The platoon had been sent out on an intelligence and reconnaissance mission into enemy territory. On Sept. 8, two Maquis told Lt. Magill there was a German general farther south who wanted to talk terms.
Asks token fight
Lt. Magill told me:
The Maquis said the German escape route almost was closed and that instead of going back to defend the French ports, the Germans might be willing to surrender.
I sent word to the Germans, hinting I might be agreeable. The commander answered that he was willing if we would send two battalions to the village of Decize for a token battle to make it look good.
Hell, I didn’t know of two battalions within a million miles, so I used another angle. I arranged a meeting and asked our air force for planes. I told the air force I would have a smoke signal at a certain crossroads and if I laid a red panel on the ground they should bomb and strafe the German troops as a convincer but if I put down a white panel just to fly around looking menacing.
Before the planes arrived, I felt pretty optimistic so I placed the white panel and sent two French officers to talk to the Germans. The Germans got a look at all those planes and agreed right away to an armistice. Gen. Elster agreed to come to the village of Issoudun with one of his staff officers for a conference with Gen. Mason.
After that I didn’t do much but the Germans agreed to surrender at the Loire if they could march there with their arms for protection against the Maquis who had been scaring them.
Vermillion: While you talk of V-Day, burial squads go overtime
Slain Yanks dot road in South France; civilians inter them as their own sons
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
…
Yanks invade second island in Palaus area
Advance on Morotai, in Halmaheras
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
U.S. invasion forces extended their foothold in the Southern Palau Islands today, capturing one-third of tiny Angaur and the southern end of Peleliu, together with its airfield, 560 miles east of the Philippines.
Army troops of the 81st Infantry Division, which landed on Angaur Saturday, rolled through the three-square-mile island against little opposition and penetrated as much as 1,500 yards at one point.
Marines on Peleliu, six miles north of Angaur, met stiff resistance but with the support of a steady naval and air bombardment, fanned out for one-third of a mile on the southwest coast and were driving northward.
Tighten grip on Morotai
At the same time, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s veteran Army forces tightened their grip on Morotai, in the Halmaheras. at the southern end of the American line extending around the southeastern corner of Mindanao from the Palaus.
Southwest Pacific Headquarters said the troops reached all the perimeter objectives against negligible opposition and continued to consolidate their beachhead.
While construction battalions rushed completion of the Pitu Airfield, 250 miles south of the Philippines, Allied bombers dropped more than 210 tons of explosives in neutralization raids on other Halmahera airdromes.
Drive 1,000 yards inland
On Angaur, Army troops under Maj. Gen. Paul J. Mueller pushed more than 1000 yards inland within a day after they landed, joined their beachheads on the north and northeast end of the island, captured a radio station and started a drive southward.
The American line extended from the phosphate diggings on the west coast to a point 200 yards south of Rocky Point on the east coast.
“The northeast third of Angaur now is in our hands,” Adm. Chester W. Nimitz said, and observers believed the Jap garrison of less than 2,000 men may be overwhelmed by the end of the week.
Seize high ground
The invasion of Angaur eliminated the threat of Jap artillery from the rear of the 1st Division Marines hacking their way northward through Peleliu.
Despite the heavy opposition in which the Japs were using artillery and mortars, the Marines drove one-third of a mile from their beachhead on the southwest corner, seized a large part of the town of Asias-Omaok and occupied high ground in the Ngarekeukl area.
William Ewing, in a pooled broadcast from a U.S. flagship off Palau, said the Marines captured the highest point on Peleliu – a 200-foot hill overlooking the entire island – and reported that the battle was progressing favorably “beyond our greatest expectations.”
Losses heavy
The hill, Mr. Ewing said, was an important objective. From it the Japs had hurled mortar and artillery shells on U.S. forces.
Losses were heavy in taking the hill by frontal attack, he said. He added that total U.S. casualties have been relatively light.
The Marines and fire of warships and planes were taking a heavy toll of the Jap force, numbering 10,000 men at the start. In four days of fighting, the Americans have counted 1,400 Jap dead.
The Marines captured the second radio station on the island, a power plant and the Peleliu Airfield, which has two strips, each 4,200 feet long, and is large enough to accommodate medium bombers and fighters.
Headquarters disclosed that the Marines on Peleliu consisted of elements of the 1st Regiment under Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller of Saluda, Virginia, the 7th Regiment under Col. Herman H. Hannekan of Kingston, North Carolina, and the 50th Regiment under Col. Harold D. Harris of Alexandria, Georgia.
A Tokyo broadcast gave an indication of the nature of the American assault on Peleliu. It said U.S. battleships “are cruising back and forth, raining salvo after salvo into the Japanese positions” and by Sunday had fired over 10,000 shells. At the same time, Tokyo added, formations of Allied planes “which darkened the skies continuously rained bombs on our positions.”
Allied bombers from Adm. Nimitz and Gen. MacArthur’s commands, meanwhile, continued widespread attacks on bases through the Central and Southwest Pacific.
Seventh Army Air Force Liberators hit Iwo Jima, in the Volcanos; Marcus Island; Pagan and Rota, in the Marianas: Ponape in the Carolines, and Nauru, west of the Gilberts.
Allied pilots of the Far Eastern Air Force swept through the Dutch East Indies, mostly concentrating on shipping lanes where they sank or damaged 13 merchant vessels, barges and small craft. The largest was a 3,000-ton freighter-transport which was sunk off Celebes Island.
Romans storm trial of Fascists, drown ex-prison official
Man mob sought escapes, but witness is beaten, held in Tiber and body hung from window
…
I DARE SAY —
Man to remember
By Florence Fisher Parry
I went to see the Pittsburgh premiere of Wilson. I had seen it in New York. It had impressed me very deeply – one of the few motion pictures I had ever really felt the need of seeing again.
I sat among “young people;” the First World War had not happened to them; the era of Wilson was but a history lesson to them. They were interested, they were greatly impressed, but they were not reliving any portion of their lives. I felt immensely superior to them, somehow; glad I was old enough to have lived these two wars and see them in relation to each other.
I had time, this seeing of the picture, to notice its embroidery, its consummate setting, its wealth of historical detail. There is not an anachronism; there are few departures from the strict chronicle of fact, and these serve but to illumine, never distort, history. The action moves with a kind of even and ordained majesty… like the course of the constellations wheeling across the sky…
THUS WAS IT TO BE, we sense. This is history. This is the grist that is ground in the mills of the gods…
There was a man with a dream. It enlarged him, inspired him, consumed him, killed him.
But dreams, unlike mortals, do not die. Conceived of man, they yet take on a separate immortality.
The dream did not die. But to survive, it had to undergo great travail.
Blood-soaked, it is rising now to its full stature. The ghosts of 20 million new dead who would not have needed to die, will not let it languish again.
‘Republic’
Never was a motion picture so fortuitously timed. A way must be made for all who live in this Republic to see it. It is a propaganda picture, yes; but it is not a political propaganda picture. At least to the informed it is not; to the intelligent and mature it is not.
It can be used, I dare say, by the base machinery of politics to point the way to the November polls; and frankly I fear that this may happen. That would be a pity; but we must take that chance. The important thing is for all to see it.
It does, however, point one fault which is, I think, deplorable. I wonder that the Republican Party has not been more successful in handling this American tendency; and that is, the assumption that the democratic form of government is espoused by the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party.
I think that the picture Wilson could easily have avoided the accusation that it “plays” party politics, by introducing, in its text, the word REPUBLIC occasionally as a synonym for the word democracy.
To me the most brilliant passages in the picture were those devoted to our national presidential conventions! Never has the public been afforded such a magnificent, colorful, LIVING duplication of this strange American institution IN ACTION. We are shown the American system of free government in full play. All its weaknesses, all its dangers, all its terrifying risks, are conspicuously acknowledged in a series of stunning convention sequences which, for sheer abundant circus impact, have never been equaled on the screen!
Yet through it all THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM of FREE GOVERNMENT manages to survive, thrive, and turn the august tide of history! It DOES work.
Once to every man
If only for this, the picture Wilson must be seen; for never have we had greater need of this assurance.
There are other, many other, distinguishing features which left the picture up and out of all molds that have gone before. Perhaps the manner in which it avoids making Wilson a great man, but is content to present him as he was – an honest, fearless, impractical and stubborn human being whom crisis reared to prominence and who rose to the circumstance and did it honor – perhaps this is the picture’s greatest achievement.
Perhaps Wilson will make motion picture history, establish some new record – I do not know, perhaps it will be found to be another magnificent box-office failure. I hope not this; for that would frighten me.
If Wilson’s dream, neglected in his day, does not interest us now, God pity us, and those who will pay later for our folly.
Secret weapon Dinah Shore opens on Nazis with song
She beams tunes at retreating Germans telling them she’ll get by Siegfried Line
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Kathleen Kennedy loses her husband in action
Death of British nobleman follows that of bride’s brother by month
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