Navy ships carry beer – to be drunk ashore
…
Wolfert: War-weary people break with Nazis
Half deny orders to resist Allies
By Ira Wolfert
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Shapiro: Belgium, France require little help to recover
Farming in two countries already normal; industry awaits only government action
By L. S. B. Shapiro, North American Newspaper Alliance
…
Address by New York Governor Thomas Dewey
September 25, 1944, 10:00 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Mr. Chairman and fellow Americans:
For two and a half weeks, I have been laying before our people the program I believe must be adopted if we are to win at home the things for which our American men are fighting abroad. In six major speeches, I have set forth a part of that program. There is much more to come.
In doing this, I have been deeply conscious that this campaign is being waged under the most difficult circumstances and at the most trying time in our history as a nation. Our national unity for the war and for the cause of lasting peace must be strengthened as a result of this campaign. I believe the conduct of the campaign on our side has greatly strengthened that unity.
I had assumed that every American joined me in hoping that would be the spirit of this campaign. Last July, Franklin Roosevelt, in accepting his party’s nomination for a fourth term, said: “I shall not campaign, in the usual sense… In these days of tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting…”
Last Saturday night, the men who wants to be President for 16 years made his first speech of this campaign. Gone was his high-sounding pledge. Forgotten were these days of tragic sorrow. It was a speech of mudslinging, ridicule and wisecracks. It plumbed the depths of demagogy by dragging into this campaign the names of Hitler and Goebbels: it descended to quoting from Mein Kampf and to reckless charges of “fraud” and “falsehood.”
Let me make one thing entirely clear. I shall not join my opponent in his descent to mudslinging. If he continues in his desire to do so, he will be all alone.
I shall not use the tactics of our enemies by quoting from Mein Kampf. I will never divide America. Those tactics I will also leave to my opponent.
I shall never make a speech to one group of American people inciting them to hatred and distrust of any other group. In other nations, the product of such discord has been Communism or Fascism. We must never reap that harvest in America.
The winning of this war and the achievement of a people’s peace are too sacred to be cast off with frivolous language.
I believe that Americans whose loved ones are dying on the battlefronts of the world – men and women who are praying daily for the return of their boys – want the issues which vitally affect our future discussed with the utmost earnestness. This I shall continue to do with full consciousness of the solemn obligation placed upon me by my nomination for President of the United States.
My opponent, however has chosen to wage his campaign on the record of the past and has indulged in charges od fraud and falsehood. I am compelled, therefore, to divert this evening, long enough to keep the record straight. He has made the charges. He has asked for it. Here it is.
My opponent describes as a “fantastic charge” the statement that his administration planes to keep men in the Army when the war is over because it fears there will be no jobs for them in civil life. Well, who first brought that up?
Here is the statement by a high official of the administration as reported in the publication of the United States Army, The Stars and Stripes. He said: “We can keep people in the Army about as cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out.”
Now who said that? It was the National Director of Selective Service appointed by Mr. Roosevelt and still in office.
But, says Mr. Roosevelt, the War Department thereafter issued a plan for “speedy discharges.” You can read that plan from now until doomsday and you cannot find one word about “speedy discharges.” It is, in fact, a statement of the priority in which men will be discharged after the war. It does not say whether they are to be retained in service a month or years after victory. That will be up to the next administration. The present administration, with its record of peacetime failure, is afraid to bring men home after victory. That’s why it’s time for a change.
Now why does my opponent first describe what is a matter of record as a “fantastic charge” and then try to laugh off the problem of jobs after the war? He jokes about depressions – about the seven straight years of unemployment of his administration. But he cannot laugh away the record.
In March 1940, Mr. Roosevelt had been in office seven years. Yet the depression was still with us. We still had 10 million Americans unemployed. These are not my figures – these are the figures of the American Federation of Labor.
Is that fraud or falsehood? If so, let Mr. Roosevelt tell it to the American Federation of Labor.
By waging relentless warfare against our job-making machinery, my opponent succeeded in keeping a depression going 11 years – twice as long as any depression in a century. And the somber, tragic thing is that today he still has no better or different program to offer. That is why the New Deal is afraid of peace and resorts to wisecracks and vilification – when our people want victory followed by lasting peace in the world – and jobs and opportunity at home. That’s why it’s time for a change.
Now I had not intended in this campaign to rake over my opponent’s sad record of failing to prepare the defenses of this country for war. It’s all in the past – a very tragic past. It has cost countless American lives; it has caused untold misery.
But Mr. Roosevelt has now brought the subject up. He seized violently upon the statement that we were not prepared for war when it came. He calls that a “falsification” which not “even Goebbels would” have attempted.
Now, were we prepared for war, or were we not? It is a simple question of fact.
In 1940, the year after the war began in Europe, the United States was in such a tragic condition that it could put into the field as a mobile force no more than 75,000 men. The Army was only “15 percent ready.” Now, Mr. Roosevelt, did those statements come from Goebbels? Was that fraud or falsification? Those are the words of Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
I quote again: “December 7, 1941, I found the Army Air Forces equipped with plans but not with planes.” Did that come from Goebbels? That statement was made in an official report January 4 of this year by Gen. H. H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces.
Does my opponent still desire to use the words “falsification” and “Goebbels?” Does he still claim we were prepared? If so, let’s go further.
Four months before Pearl Harbor, there was a debate in the U.S. Senate. The chairman of a Senate committee described on the floor of the Senate the shocking state of our defense program. Senator Vandenberg asked the chairman where the blame should be laid, and the chairman replied, “There is only one place where the responsibility can be put.” Then Senator Vandenberg said, “Where is that – the White House?” And the chairman of the committee replied, “Yes, sir.” Who was the chairman of that committee? It was Harry S. Truman, the New Deal candidate for Vice President of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt handpicked running mate.
Again, in a magazine article in November 1942, this statement appeared: “The reasons for the waste and confusion, the committee found were everywhere the same: The lack of courageous, unified leadership and centralized direction at the top.” Again, on the floor of the Senate in May 1943, these words were uttered: “After Pearl Harbor, we found ourselves woefully unprepared for war.” Was that Dr. Goebbels on the floor of the Senate? Both those statements were made by Harry S. Truman.
Listen to these words: “When the treachery of Pearl Harbor came, we were not ready.” Mr. Roosevelt, were those words from Dr. Goebbels? The man who said that was Alben Barkley, your Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. And where do you suppose he said it? Right in his speech nominating you for a fourth term.
Now why is it we were not ready when we were attacked? Let’s look at Mr. Roosevelt’s own words. In a message to Congress in 1935, he said: “There is no ground for apprehension that our relations with any nation will be otherwise than peaceful.”
In 1937, he said:
How happy we are that the circumstances of the moment permit us to put our money into bridges and boulevards… rather than into huge standing armies and vast implements of war.
But war came just two years later. It was in January of 1940 that I publicly called for a two-ocean navy for the defense of America. It was that statement of mine which Mr. Roosevelt called, and I quote his words, “Just plain dumb.” Then, as now, we got ridicule instead of action.
The war rose in fury. When Hitler’s armies were at the gate of Paris, Mr. Roosevelt again soothed the American people with the jolly comment: “There is no need for the country to be ‘discomboomerated.’”
The simple truth is, of course, that Mr. Roosevelt’s record is desperately bad. It is not one on which any man should seek the confidence of the American people. That’s why it’s time for a change.
My opponent now announces his desire to be President for 16 years. Yet in his speech of Saturday night, he called it a “malicious falsehood” that he had even represented himself to be “indispensable.”
Let us look at the closely-supervised words of the handpicked candidate for Vice President. He said of my opponent: “The very future of the peace and prosperity of the world depends upon his reelection in November.” I have not heard Mr. Truman repudiated by Mr. Roosevelt as yet. He waits to shed his Vice Presidents until they have served at least one term.
Here are the words of Boss Kelly of the Chicago machine, the manager of that fake third-term draft of 1940: “The salvation of this nation rests in one man.” Was that statement ever repudiated by Mr. Roosevelt? No, it was rewarded by increased White House favors. So, it was repeated again by the same man at the same time in the same place and for the same purpose this year: “The salvation of this nation rests in one man.”
And was it a falsehood that one of the first acts of Mr. Roosevelt’s newly-selected national chairman was to announce last May that he was for a fourth term and – that he was looking forward to a fifth term?
Let’s get this straight. The man who wants to be President for 16 years is indeed indispensable. He is indispensable for Harry Hopkins, to Madam Perkins, to Harold Ickes, to a host of other political jobholders. He is indispensable to America’s leading enemy of civil liberties – the Mayor of Jersey City. He is indispensable to those infamous machines in Chicago – in the Bronx – and all the others. He is indispensable to Sidney Hillman and the Political Action Committee, to Earl Browder, the ex-convict and pardoned Communist leader.
Shall we, the American people, perpetuate one man in office for 16 years in order to accommodate this motley crew? Shall we expose our country to a return of the seven years of New Deal depression because my opponent is indispensable to the ill-assorted, power-hungry conglomeration of city bosses, Communists and career bureaucrats which today compose the New Deal? Shall we submit to the counsel of despair that in all the great expanse of our nation there is only one man capable of occupying the White House?
The American people will answer that question in November. They will see that we restore integrity to the White House so that its spoken word can be trusted once again.
On battlefronts and at home, Americans have won the admiration of the world. Under the stress of war, we have thrown off the stupor of despair that seemed in the decade of the 1930s to have settled permanently upon the land.
Today, we know our strength and we know our ability. Shall we return to the philosophy that Mr. Roosevelt proclaimed when he said our industrial plant is built? Shall we go back to his seven straight years of unemployment? Shall we go back to the corroding misery of leaf-raking and the doles? Shall we continue an administration which invokes the language of our enemies and recklessly hurls charges of falsehood concerning things it knows to be the truth?
I say the time has come to put a stop to everything that is summed up in that phrase, “the indispensable man.”
If any man is indispensable, then none of us is free. But America has not lost its passionate belief in freedom. America has not lost its passionate belief in opportunity. It need never lose those beliefs. For here in this country of ours there is plenty of room for freedom and opportunity and we need not sacrifice security to have both freedom and opportunity.
To achieve these objectives, we must have integrity in our government. We need a new high standard of honesty in the government of the United States. We need a singleness of purpose, a devotion to the people of this country and to the gigantic problems we face at home after this war. We need a whole-souled devotion to the building of a people’s peace that will last beyond the lives and friendship of any individuals. We need humility and courage. With the help of Almighty God, we shall achieve the spiritual and physical strength to preserve our freedom in the pursuit of happiness for all.
1 Like
Völkischer Beobachter (September 26, 1944)
Die große Fehlrechnung unserer Feinde –
Morgenthau übertrifft Clemenceau: ‚Vierzig Millionen Deutsche Zuviel‘
Roosevelt und Churchill machten sich in Québec Judas Mordplan zu eigen
vb. Wien, 25. September –
Nach den übereinstimmenden Meldungen vieler amerikanischer Blätter hat sich Roosevelt vor der Konferenz in Québec einen verschärften Vernichtungsplan gegen Deutschland ausarbeiten lassen, bei dessen Herstellung der jüdische Finanzminister Morgenthau federführend war.
Dieser Plan habe in Québec auch die Zustimmung Churchills und Edens gefunden. Er sehe die Zerstörung der gesamten deutschen Industrie vor.
Roosevelt, so meldet der Washingtoner Korrespondent der New York Times, habe seinen Kabinettsmitgliedern erklärt, man müsse dem ganzen deutschen Volk die schwerste Heimsuchung zuteilwerden lassen und Deutschland für lange Zeit im Zustand des Krieges erhalten. Es sei sehr aufschlussreich gewesen, daß nicht der Außenminister Hüll Roosevelt nach Québec begleitet habe, sondern Morgenthau.
Im Grunde genommen handelt es sich bei dem Vernichtungsprogramm des Juden Morgenthau um das gleiche Projekt, das jetzt bereits Italien gegenüber durchgeführt wird, denn auch dort wird schon der Abbau der gesamten italienischen Schwerindustrie betrieben und die Rückbildung eines dichtbevölkerten europäischen Landes zu einem verarmten Agrarstaat in die Wege geleitet mit der Absicht, die gegenwärtige Not des italienischen Volkes zu verewigen, es physisch zu zerrütten, ihm politisch das Rückgrat zu brechen und es somit zu einer Kolonie der Anglo-Amerikaner zu machen.
Genau das gleiche möchte nun Morgenthau mit Deutschland tun, wenn sich die Alliierten in der Lage sähen, den deutschen Widerstand niederzukämpfen. Nicht umsonst wurden in England und Amerika die Pläne der Bolschewisten, 10 Millionen Deutsche als Arbeitssklaven nach der Sowjetunion zu verschleppen, äußerst lebhaft begrüßt, nicht umsonst weiden sich Tag für Tag englische und amerikanische Blätter an der sadistischen Vorstellung, wie man nach einer Besetzung Deutschlands dort mit Massenmorden, Verschleppungen und mit der Hungerpeitsche arbeiten würde, um die deutsche Volkskraft zu zerbrechen.
„In Deutschland muß die Uhr um fünfzig Jahre zurückgestellt werden. Deutschland muß planmäßig aller Maschinen bis herunter zu den Stahlträgern seiner Fabrikhallen beraubt werden. Alle brauchbaren Maschinen müssen an die Nachbarländer Deutschlands abgeliefert werden,“ so schrieb im Oktober 1943 die vielgelesene amerikanische Zeitschrift „Populär Science" und zur gleichen Zeit erklärte W. B. Howell im Londoner Spectator:
Ich halte es für richtig, Deutschland, sobald wir es besiegt haben, für alle Zeit zu verkrüppeln. Ich würde die deutsche Bevölkerung um ein Drittel oder vielleicht auf die Hälfte reduzieren. Die Waffe, die ich dabei in Anwendung bringen würde, ist die Aushungerung. Wenn mich ein gutmütiger Engländer fragt: „Würden Sie dabei nicht auch die deutschen Frauen und Kinder aushungern?“, so antworte ich ihm: „Jawohl, ich würde es tun!“
Und völlig im Geist Morgenthaus schrieb William Brackley am 16. Mai 1944 im Londoner Daily Express:
Wenn eine stark reduzierte deutsche Bevölkerung sich ihre Nahrung aus dem Boden kratzen wird, und zwar ohne jede technische Hilfe, ohne Maschinen, ohne eine Lokomotive, dann könnte sie vielleicht in idyllischer Weise glücklich sein.
Wie man diese „Reduzierungen“ erreichen möchte, das hat der ehemalige Handelsattaché an der amerikanischen Botschaft in Berlin, Douglas Miller, schon 1941 festgelegt, also schon ein Vierteljahr vor dem Eintritt seines Landes in den Krieg. Wir führen dessen Äußerungen wörtlich an, weil sie am besten veranschaulichen, was hinter den Racheplänen der Roosevelt, Morgenthau und Genossen steckt. Miller sagte damals in seiner Erklärung vor der Presse:
Deutschland muß von einer produktiven Mitarbeit in der Nachkriegswelt ausgeschlossen werden. Alle Transportmittel sind fortzuschaffen, Metall und Maschinenlager mit Beschlag zu belegen, strategisch wichtige Eisenbahnlinien sind in der Hand der Siegermächte zu halten. Die künftigen Grenzlinien sind so zu ziehen, daß die Kohlen- und Erzgebiete im Osten und Westen außerhalb der Reichsgrenze liegen. Die Häfen und die Grenzen sind so zu bewachen, daß Maschinen und Metalle nicht in das Reich hereinkommen. Deutschland muß gezwungen werden, sich lediglich auf Landbestellung und eigene Ernährung zu beschränken. Die deutschen Städte müssen entvölkert werden. Die Bevölkerungszahl muß gewaltsam niedergedrückt werden. Die deutsche Jugend muß zur Auswanderung in fremde Länder gezwungen werden.
Das deutsche Volk kennt die niederträchtige Gesinnung, die ihm von seinen Feinden entgegengebracht wird. Wir haben immer wieder betont, daß es sich bei diesen Äußerungen eines fanatischen Vernichtungswillens nicht etwa um Privatmeinungen von Außenseitern handelt, und die Tatsache, daß diese Pläne jetzt zum allseitigen anerkannten Kampfprogramm der amerikanischen und der englischen Regierung gemacht worden sind, beweisen die Richtigkeit dieser Auffassung.
Aber weil wir uns nicht den geringsten Illusionen darüber hingeben, welches Schicksal dem deutschen Volk beschieden wäre, wenn es auf diese Herausforderungen nicht unablässig die harte Antwort gäbe, die allein möglich ist, handeln wir wie jedes große Volk, dem man an Leben und Ehre greift.
Nach den Wechselfällen der letzten Monate bekommt der Feind an allen Fronten bereits zu spüren, daß er sich völlig verrechnet hat, als er glaubte, bereits am Ziel zu sein. Was in Québec ausgeheckt wurde, wird erst recht dazu dienen, die Härte unseres Widerstandes und das Gewicht unserer Schläge zu verdoppeln.
Wir legen ihre Entwürfe zu den übrigen, aber es wird bestimmt die Zeit kommen, in der man sie in London und Washington als höchst unerwünschte Erinnerungen an eine der größten Fehlrechnungen der Geschichte ansehen wird.
Der Antisemitismus in den USA
Genf, 25. September –
Der Antisemitismus zeigt den untrüglichen Stand der öffentlichen Meinung an, heißt es in einem Sonderbericht der linksradikalen Tribune über die Judenfeindlichkeit in den USA. In fast allen alliierten Ländern habe seit Kriegsausbruch die Ablehnung der Juden zugenommen, aber nirgendwo so alarmierend wie in den Vereinigten Staaten.
„Ich kann es Ihnen nicht so erklären,“ sagte ein amerikanischer Journalist aus dem Mittelwesten dem Korrespondenten, „warum das so ist, noch vor zehn Jahren machten wir keinen Unterschied zwischen uns und den Juden. Wir gehörten den gleichen Klubs an, besuchten gemeinsam Versammlungen usw. Heute wäre das unmöglich. Die Trennung zwischen uns und den Juden ist vollkommen. Nach der Zeitung Protestant habe Ende vergangenen Jahres eine geheime Umfrage über den Antisemitismus stattgefunden mit dem Ergebnis, daß über 80 Prozent der Befragten judenfeindlich eingestellt und fast 25 Prozent bereit gewesen seien, einer antijüdischen Bewegung beizutreten. Während einer Unterhaltung mit dem Herausgeber einer bekannten jüdischen US-Zeitung sei dem Korrespondenten gesagt worden, eine organisierte antisemitische Propaganda von fünf Jahren würde genügen, um den Juden in Amerika zum Verhängnis zu werden.
In mehreren Großstädten sei es bereits zu judenfeindlichen Zwischenfällen gekommen. Das Herlands-Komitee zur Untersuchung der Neuyorker Vorfälle beschuldige die Polizei, sich dabei gleichgültig, wenn nicht gar parteiisch verhalten zu haben. Die zahlreichen Ausschreitungen zeigten eindeutig, daß die Judenfeindlichkeit immer größere Kreise ziehe.
Der halbjüdische Bürgermeister von Neuyork, LaGuardia, wird unter Ernennung zum General die gesamte alliierte Verwaltung im befreiten Italien übernehmen. Dies wurde auf der Konferenz von Québec beschlossen.
Führer HQ (September 26, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
An unserem Brückenkopf in Westholland und im Abschnitt von Antwerpen wurden mehrere feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, ein Einbruch im Gegenangriff beseitigt. In Mittelholland, vor allem im Raum von Eindhoven, dauern die heftigen Kämpfe an. Während feindliche Angriffe südwestlich Veghel scheiterten, konnte der Gegner östlich und südöstlich Helmond einige Kilometer nach Osten vordringen. Ein zum Entsatz der westlich Arnheim eingeschlossenen Reste der 1. englischen Luftlandedivision angesetzter Angriff des Feindes wurde im Gegenangriff zerschlagen. Der Gegner erlitt hohe Verluste. Nördlich Nimwegen führten die Engländer ihre starken, von Panzern unterstützten Angriffe fort, konnten aber nur geringen Geländegewinn erzielen.
Wirksame Angriffe unserer Jagdfliegerverbände richteten sich trotz schwieriger Wetterlage im Raum südöstlich Arnheim gegen feindliche Truppenbewegungen, Infanteriestellungen und Übersetzverkehr. Der Feind hatte schwere Verluste und verlor in Luftkämpfen 23 Flugzeuge.
Südöstlich Aachen örtliche Kampfhandlungen, in denen mehrere Angriffe des Feindes abgewiesen und eine amerikanische Kampfgruppe eingeschlossen wurde.
Der mit starken Panzerkräften beiderseits Lunéville angreifende Gegner wurde abgewiesen.
Starke Verbände der 7. amerikanischen Armee setzten ihren Großangriff zwischen Épinal und Remiremont fort. Gegen den zähen Widerstand unserer Truppen konnte der Gegner seinen Brückenkopf an der Mosel etwas erweitern. Die erbitterten Kämpfe dauern an.
Nach starker Feuervorbereitung ist der Feind gestern zum Angriff auf Calais angetreten. In harten Kämpfen wurde er bis auf einige Einbrüche im Westabschnitt abgeschlagen. Von den anderen Kanal- und Atlantikstützpunkten wird nur lebhafter Artilleriekampf und erfolgreiche eigene Stoßtrupptätigkeit gemeldet.
Das Störungsfeuer auf London hielt in der vergangenen Nacht an.
In Mittelitalien hat der Feind auch gestern seine schweren Angriffe fortgesetzt. Im Raum von Firenzuola brachten sie dem Gegner keinen Geländegewinn. Allein in einem Abschnitt wurden innerhalb 36 Stunden 27 Angriffe des Feindes abgewiesen, in einem Korpsabschnitt 35 feindliche Panzer vernichtet. An der Adria hielt die neue Abwehrfront dem starken Druck des Feindes stand.
Im südwestlichen Siebenbürgen verstärkte sich die feindliche Angriffstätigkeit an der ungarisch-rumänischen Grenze. Nördlich Arad warfen deutsche und ungarische Truppen feindliche Angriffsspitzen zurück. Zwischen Torenburg und dem Kamm der Ostkarpaten herrschte lebhafte örtliche Kampftätigkeit.
An den Beskidenpässen setzte der Feind unter Einsatz weiterer Kräfte den ganzen Tag über seine Angriffe fort. Sie wurden in harten Kämpfen abgewehrt oder aufgefangen.
Zwischen Düna und Rigaer Bucht wurden im Verlauf unserer Absetzbewegungen zahlreiche Angriffe des nachdrängenden Gegners abgewiesen und 40 Panzer abgeschossen. Damit hat sich die Gesamtzahl der Panzerabschüsse in der Zeit vom 14. bis 24. September auf 933 erhöht.
Unter Ausnutzung einer geschlossenen Wolkendecke führten nordamerikanische Bomberverbände Terrorangriffe gegen Städte in Südwestdeutschland, vor allem auf Koblenz, Frankfurt a. M. und Straßburg. Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe schoss 11 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
In der Nacht warfen britische Flugzeuge Bomben auf Mannheim.
In der Abwehrschlacht zwischen Düna und Rigaer Bucht fand, in vorderster Linie kämpfend, der Kommandierende General eines Armeekorps, der mit den Schwertern zum Eichenlaub des Ritterkreuzes ausgezeichnete General der Infanterie Wilhelm Wegener, den Heldentod.
Bei den Abwehrkämpfen in Belgien hat sich die 712. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Neumann besonders ausgezeichnet. Die Division vernichtete beziehungsweise erbeutete in der Zeit vom 3. bis 10. September 161 „Sherman“-Panzer und Panzerspähwagen, größtenteils durch Panzernahbekämpfungsmittel.
Die 16. Flakdivision der Luftwaffe hat im Westen in der Zeit vom 1. bis 22. September 313 Flugzeuge, darunter 35 Lastensegler, abgeschossen sowie 115 Panzer und 92 gepanzerte Fahrzeuge vernichtet.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 26, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
261100A Sept.
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 171
Allied troops have made good gains on the east of the Eindhoven–Nijmegen salient. Helmond and Deurne have been captured and we have advanced several miles to the north.
In the Schijndel area, enemy attacks against the supply corridor have been repulsed.
West of Turnhout, our troops have gained a bridgehead over the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal.
From the area north of Aachen to the Meurthe Valley, there has been little change. Sporadic artillery fire and patrolling by the enemy continue in the northern half of this sector. East of Aachen, our patrol activity has met strong enemy reaction.
In the Moselle Valley, slight advances have been made by our troops northeast of Nancy. Southeast of Lunéville, our forces have made gains in the Bénaménil area.
In the Épinal area, our troops have advanced several miles east of the Moselle. The village of Jeuxey has been taken and the occupation of Épinal completed.
West of Belfort, gains of several miles were made by our armor and infantry against stiff opposition.
Gun positions and strongpoints in the Arnhem area were attacked by medium, light and fighter-bombers yesterday. Four enemy aircraft which attempted to intercept the bombers were shot down by escorting fighters.
Road and rail transport in the Ruhr was strafed by fighters.
Fortified positions at Calais were bombarded for over an hour by heavy bombers which dropped more than 1,000 tons of high explosives.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/U.S. Navy Department (September 26, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 132
Elements of the 1st Marine Division drove almost to Akarakoro Point at the northern extremity of Peleliu Island during September 25 (West Longitude Date) while other elements of the 1st Division maneuvered to encircle bitterly resisting remnants of the enemy entrenched on Umurbrogol Hill. Units of the 81st Infantry Division took additional high ground in the center of the western arm of the island. Communication between the northern and southern pockets of Japanese resistance has thus been severed. Our advance to the north included the capture of Amiangal Hill and the hills adjacent to it, and was made in the fate of heavy resistance from automatic weapon and artillery fire.
Our casualties in the fighting to seize the Palau Islands through September 25 are as follows:
| KIA | WIA | MIA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Marine Division | 580 | 3,639 | 401 |
| 81st Infantry Division | 106 | 769 | 5 |
No figures are now available as to the number of wounded who have been returned to duty.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 26, 1944)
NAZIS TAKE ARNHEM BRIDGE
Trap drawn tighter on air army
Security censorship clamped on details of Holland battle
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Critical situation was reported among Allied airborne troops on the north branch of the upper Rhine near Arnhem as British 2nd Army troops strove to effect a juncture despite German attacks on the flanks of the corridor through Holland. Elsewhere on the Western Front, 1st Canadian Army troops advanced north of the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal; U.S. 1st Army troops were hampered by heavy rains across the German border; U.S. 3rd Army forces beat off counterattacks in the area above Nancy, and the U.S. 7th Army of the Sixth Army Group captured Épinal and closed to within eight miles northwest of Belfort.
SHAEF, London, England –
Supreme Allied Headquarters today clamped a security censorship over the wild battle in Holland and the fate of the force of airborne British Red Devils trapped at Arnhem, which Berlin claimed had been “completely liquidated.”
The Allies were known to have lost their hold on the north end of the Arnhem Bridge across the upper branch of the Rhine and the fight now centered around a railroad span running into Oosterbeek, two miles west of Arnhem.
Latest reports from the field said only that the Arnhem force again had drawn in its perimeter and was huddled in a pocket of strangulation under heavy pressure.
The security news blackout obscured the situation elsewhere in Holland, but cryptic field dispatches said the British 2nd Army was wheeling eastward against Germany on a 30-mile front below Nijmegen, at the north end of which the border had been crossed in a direct threat to the Siegfried Line anchor post of Kleve.
More than 1,100 U.S. heavy bombers swept over Germany ahead of the land armies again today and hammered three big centers vital to the Nazi frontline troops – Osnabrück, Hamm and Bremen.
Meager reports couple with Nazi propaganda broadcasts gave the following picture of the battlefronts:
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The Arnhem skytroopers had lost the north end of the Arnhem Bridge across the upper branch of the Rhine and the bitter fight was continuing some two miles to the west, according to late accounts.
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Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s troops swinging eastward into the Dutch borderland fronting Germany captured the big bases of Helmond, Deurne and Mook, and fanned on behind them as much as eight miles to the areas of Oploo and Liesel against spotty opposition.
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Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges’ U.S. 1st Army was reported by Berlin to be massing formidable concentrations in the Aachen area for what the Nazis called a prospective attempt to break through to the Cologne area of the Rhineland.
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Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army battered forward from the Metz–Nancy sector of the Moselle Valley, beating off sporadic counterthrusts. Berlin reported a big-scale attack in the Épinal–Remiremont area and called it an apparent prelude to an offensive against Belfort, commanding the approaches to Southwest Germany.
Gen. Eisenhower forbade all news and speculation on the battle in Holland.
Headquarters said the secrecy had been imposed because the situation had become “extremely fluid,” making it imperative to screen Allied moves from the enemy.
Radio Berlin boasted that the Allied drive into Germany would be “measured in inches and will cost streams of blood,” and that “war of destruction will be opposed by defense of destruction.”
Run gantlet
Official spokesmen said supply columns were still running the gantlet of Nazi shellfire northward from Nijmegen to the south bank of the Rhine, where the British 2nd Army was building up a powerful relief column within full view of the trapped paratroopers om the far side of the river.
It was admitted, however, that the convoys were forced to travel on secondary roads above Nijmegen, since Elst, almost midway between that town and Arnhem, was still in German hands.
Allied patrols fanned out through the five-mile-wide corridor between the two Rhine channels 15 miles northwest of Nijmegen and about the same distance west of Arnhem, and found strong Nazi forces dug in on the north bank of the upper Rhine to prevent a flanking attack on Arnhem from that direction.
Cut down foothold
United Press writer Ronald Clark reported that heavy German mortar and shellfire and almost continuous infiltration thrusts by Nazi infantrymen had cut down the foothold of the remaining paratroopers west of Arnhem.
German troops and guns lined the north bank of the Rhine in considerable strength, presumably barring the railway bridge, too, and Mr. Clark said a 1,000-yard no-man’s-land lay between the airborne forces and the river.
Headquarters said a limited amount of supplies was dropped to the advanced battle forces by air Monday, but it was not disclosed whether they were parachuted to the sky soldiers at Oosterbeek, just west of Arnhem, or to forward elements of the relief column.
British 2nd Army troops drove into the Rensel area, 15 miles southwest of Eindhoven, coming within nine miles of a junction with 1st Canadian Army units that entered Turnhout and crossed the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal west of that town.
U.S. airborne units operating with British tanks broke up a strong German roadblock that halted all traffic on the Eindhoven–Nijmegen highway for several hours yesterday.
The Germans threw about 3,000 infantrymen, 10 to 15 tanks and self-propelled guns across the road between Veghel and St. Oeedenrode and ranged up and down the highway shooting up British trucks, but were finally driven off.
Capture of Kleve reported
Mr. Clark reported that Allied successes east and west of the Eindhoven–Nijmegen highway in the past 24 hours nearly doubled the width of the corridor around Eindhoven and that a second unidentified supply road had been opened to Nijmegen.
There was no official word on the progress of the Allied columns stabbing into German soil southeast of Nijmegen, although a dubious report broadcast by the French Radio Montpelier said the Allies had captured Kleve, 12 miles southeast of Nijmegen and the northern anchor of the Siegfried Line.
Down 24 Nazi planes
The Nazi Air Force appeared in considerable strength over Holland yesterday, coming up in formations running to 100 fighters to challenge RAF Typhoons and U.S. medium bombers attacking the German ring at Arnhem. Twenty-four enemy planes were shot down.
Heavy rains slowed operations on the U.S. 1st Army front east of Aachen, where U.S. guns yesterday poured one of the heaviest barrages of the war into the Rhineland. Scattered patrol operations were reported, and headquarters said at one point the Germans forced several thousand civilian refugees of undisclosed nationality back through the American lines to place the burden of feeding and housing them on the Americans.
Beat off attacks
Farther south, U.S. 3rd Army forces beat off a half-dozen German counterattacks in the Dieuze sector northeast of Nancy, knocking out another eight enemy tanks. The Germans were reported digging in feverishly in that area in expectation of heavy U.S. aerial attacks as soon as the weather lifts.
Southeast of Nancy, the 7th Army cleared the last German resistance from Épinal and captured Jeuxey, two miles to the east. The 7th Army also scored general advances around the shoulder of the Vosges Mountains between Épinal and Belfort, capturing a number of strongpoints on the Lure–Belfort highway.
One U.S. spearhead bypassed Ronchamp and pushed on to less than eight miles northwest of Belfort.
Little band of paratroopers overwhelmed at key bridge
By Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff writer
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Superfortresses pound Japanese industrial targets in Manchuria
Steel centers and port damaged, Tokyo admits, but claims 13 planes shot down
By the United Press
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‘Mudslinging’ hit –
Dewey pleads for return of ‘integrity’
President indispensable to bosses, he says
Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey called upon the American people today to elect him president in November to “restore integrity to the White House.”
The Republican presidential nominee wound up a seven-speech coast-to-coast campaign tour in Oklahoma City last night with a charge that integrity had been lacking in the 12 years of President Roosevelt’s administration and in his opening bid for an unprecedented fourth term.
Fightingest speech yet
It was Governor Dewey’s fightingest speech to date and his audience, estimated at 15,000, was the most boisterously responsive.
Governor Dewey appeared confident that his plea would be answered, he predicted that the American people will “restore integrity to the White House so that its spoken word can be trusted again.”
He said the President’s speech Saturday night completely ignored his pledge on acceptance of the 1944 nomination that he would not campaign in the usual sense and was one of “mudslinging, ridicule and wisecracks.”
Demagogy charged
He charged:
It plumbed the depths of demagogy by dragging into this campaign the names of Hitler and Goebbels; it descended to quoting from Mein Kampf and to reckless charges of “fraud” and “falsehood.”
Governor Dewey promised that he personally would not resort to such tactics.
He said:
The winning of this war and the achievement of a people’s peace are too sacred to be cast off with frivolous language.
Then, with an explanation that his opponent has “made the charges, asked for it, and here it is,” Governor Dewey took up, point by point, the subjects of President Roosevelt’s opening campaign speech.
‘Countless lives lost’
Governor Dewey accused Mr. Roosevelt of failure to prepare for war and said it had “cost countless American lives; it has caused untold misery.”
He recalled that in 1937, Mr. Roosevelt remarked:
How happy we are that the circumstances of the moment permit us to put our money into bridges and boulevards… rather than into huge standing armies and vast implements of war.
Governor Dewey continued:
But the war came just two years later. It was in January of 1940 that I publicly called for a two-ocean navy for the defense of America. It was that statement of mine which Mr. Roosevelt called, and I quote his words, “Just plain dumb.”
‘Indispensable man’
Then, Governor Dewey took up the issue of the “indispensable man.” He pointed out that neither Senator Harry S. Truman nor Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago has been repudiated for his statement that Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection is vital to future peace and prosperity and salvation of the nation.
Governor Dewey conceded:
The man who wants to be President for 16 years is indeed indispensable. He is indispensable to Harry Hopkins, to Madam Perkins, Harold Ickes, to a host of other political jobholders. He is indispensable to Sidney Hillman and the Political Action Committee. to Earl Browder, the ex-convict and pardoned Communist leader.
Wife’s hometown welcomes Dewey
Sapulpa, Oklahoma (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey carried his campaign into his wife’s childhood hometown today. asking Republicans and “good Democrats” to join him in a complete housecleaning of the federal government.
After a short talk at Bristow, Oklahoma, in his first stop before reaching Sapulpa, Mr. Dewey turned the spotlight on his wife, the former Francis Eileen Hutt.
A huge reception was held at the local high school, from which Mrs. Dewey was graduated as class valedictorian 20 years ago.
A crowd estimated at 25,000 persons – twice the town’s normal population – greeted the Deweys.
“You are here to do honor to the lady who is my wife,” Governor Dewey said. He thanked citizens of Sapulpa for the friendliness, the education and the love shown to his wife but said the best thing they did was “let her go to New York where I found her and have kept her ever since.”