America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

Steelies host to Brooklyn Dodgers today

Even count with Clover Farms team

Rail suit seen vital

DOJ: Action may play part in reconversion

The Pittsburgh Press (August 24, 1944)

Kirkpatrick: Allied airpower wrecks Nazi morale

Retreating Germans busy diving to cover
By Helen Kirkpatrick

With Germany tottering –
Get set for KO, Stimson urges

Secretary calls this an historic week

Death from a friendly source –
Storm-tossed Liberator crashes on English school

U.S. bomber kills at least 54, perhaps 84; children and snack bar patrons are victims

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

On the Western Front, France – (by wireless)
We had sent one soldier to the nearest aid station as soon as we discovered the wounded British pilot, trapped for eight days in his plane. He had to drive about six miles.

Just a few minutes after the other soldiers finished tearing two holes in the sides of the plane, a medical captain and three aid men popped through the hedge and came running.

The doctor knelt down and sized up everything in a few seconds. He asked an aid man for morphine. The pilot willingly held out his right arm. and the doctor stuck a needle into the bend of the elbow. The pilot never flinched, but looked on almost approvingly.

The doctor said to him:

You’re in good condition. This is just to make it easier for you when we start to pull you out. We’ll wait a few minutes for it to take hold.

While we were sitting there on the ground beside the plane, waiting for the morphine to take effect, the pilot said: “I am delaying you from your work. I’m frightfully sorry about it.”

One of the soldiers, touched by the remark, blurted:

Good God, lieutenant, you aren’t delaying us. This is what we’re here for. We’re just sorry we’ve been so long getting you out.

The pilot momentarily closed his eyes and put his hand on his forehead. And then, as if in resignation at his own rudeness in bothering us, he said: “Well, I don’t know what I should do without you.”

Morphine never put him out

So incredibly strong was that pilot’s constitution that the morphine never put him out.

They waited about 10 minutes. Then two soldiers took off their web belts and looped them around the pilot’s armpits. The medics on the other side said they had hold of his trapped foot and could gradually free it.

The pilot said:

It’s my back that’s weak. All the strength seems to be gone from the small of my back. You’ll have to help me there.

They pulled. The pilot, although without food for eight days, was tremendously strong, and he reached above his head to the plane’s framework and helped lift himself.

The belts slipped, and the soldiers took them off. They knelt and lifted his shoulders with their hands. They had padded the jagged edges of the torn aluminum, over which they would have to slide him, with the heavy rubber of his collapsible lifeboat.

The doctor said, “We’ll be as easy as we can. Tell us when to quit.”

And the brave man said, “Go ahead. I’ll stand it as long as I can.”

They pulled again. The pilot made a face and exerted himself to help them. They slid him slowly a few inches through the hole, until he suddenly called: “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! My back! It’s stuck to the ground. We’ll have to break it loose slowly.”

Pilot offers suggestion

They surveyed the possibilities a while, trying to figure a less painful way of getting him out. There wasn’t any. He said: “I can’t raise my behind at all. If you could slide something under me to carry the weight.”

A soldier went running to the next field, looking for a board. We waited. In a few minutes he came back with a short, thick board.

The pilot reached up with his strong arms, made a1 face, and lifted himself a little from the ground, and the doctor slid the board underneath him. Then the doctor, still kneeling, lifted one end of the board.

Gradually the pilot came out. Twice he had to stop them while they rearranged his injured leg. He said it was twisted. But apparently it was largely the agony of suddenly straightening out a cramped knee that had lain bent for eight days.

At last, in a sort of final surge, he came clear of the plane. They crawled backwards with him, on hands and knees, struggling to hold his back off the ground. You could see that he was steeling himself fiercely.

“Quick! Slide that litter under him,” the doctor called. The pilot said, “My God, that air! That fresh air!” Three times in the next five minutes he mentioned the fresh air.

When they finally laid him tenderly onto the canvas litter and straightened his left leg, you could see the tendons relax and his facial muscles subside, and he gave a long half-groan, half-sigh of relief.

And that was the one single sound of normal human weakness uttered by that man of great courage in the hour of his liberation.

americavotes1944

Hillman, Browder attacked by GOP

Party chairmen address 400 women

Charges that Earl Browder, Communist chief, is the secret leader of the CIO Political Action Committee were made yesterday at a meeting of 400 Republican women by Republican County Chairman James F. Malone.

Mr. Malone and Mrs. Edna R. Carroll, vice chairman of the Republican State Committee, also attacked CIO-PAC Chairman Sidney Hillman.

‘Americans resent coercion’

Mr. Malone charged that the CIO is compelling “many honest, decent American workingmen” to contribute to the organization’s campaign for the reelection of President Roosevelt.

He said:

If the President of the United States would do the right thing by the people, he would tell Mr. Hillman and Mr. Browder that he does not want their cooperation. Thousands of CIO members in Allegheny County are going to vote the Republican ticket because they are Americans and resent coercion.

Country at crossroads

Mrs. Carroll said 30 million Americans did not vote in the 1940 election and urged the Republican Party workers to enlist the support of these people.

She said:

This is America at the crossroads. There are two pathways, one going over definitely to the left. It leads to national socialism. The leader of an old, tired and worn-out New Deal that has reached out for new blood has reached not to America but to a Hillman.

Patriotism survives tortures –
Harmon: Maquis, proud even in rags, stage a victory parade

Men 16 to 64, including industrial leader and elderly professor, again march freely
By Dudley Ann Harmon, United Press staff writer


Two-way raids rip Germany and Balkans

U.S. heavies strike over 2,000 strong

‘By parachute into southern France’ –
Airborne troops assemble and attack the Nazis

Supplies and guns brought in by fearless pilots of gliders aid Yanks mightily
By Richard Mowrer

Writers’ ouster order explained

Ground force news prompted revocation


Army plans new uses for hotels

Experience proves –
Air bombing can’t replace artillery fire

Nelson puts stress on gun production

In Washington –
Amendments may hold up surplus bill

Senate is swamped with ideas for changes

U.S. seizes hard coal mines

Action taken to end wildcat strikes

Stokes: Little people

By Thomas L. Stokes

Maj. de Seversky: War quality

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

Foster: Comics are script-shy

Adlibbing is team’s forte
By Ernest Foster

Physical therapy course open to WACs

White House Statement on the Liberation of Paris
August 24, 1944

The joy that entered the hearts of all civilized men and women at the news of the liberation of Paris can only be measured by the gloom which settled there one June day four years ago when German troops occupied the French capital. Through the rising tide of Allied successes that patch of gloom remained and has only today been dispelled. For Paris is a precious symbol of that civilization which it was the aim of Hitler and his armed hordes to destroy. We rejoice with the gallant French people at the liberation of their capital and join in the chorus of congratulation to the commanders and fighting men, French and Allied, who have made possible this brilliant presage of total victory.

Völkischer Beobachter (August 25, 1944)

US-Elitetruppe –
‚Rangers‘ – Gangster – Zuchthäusler

Entlarvte Nervenprahlerei –
‚V1‘-Psychologie