Stokes: The Ohio picture
By Thomas L. Stokes
…
12 airmen killed
Reno, Nevada –
Two C-46 transport planes, returning from a routine training flight, crashed over Reno Army Air Field yesterday, killing 12 men in the first fatal crash in 85,000 flying hours at the base.
B. Meredith to play role
Prize role set for noted actor
The question uppermost in the minds of Ernie Pyle’s army of devoted admirers – “Who’ll play him on the screen?” – was settled definitely today by film producer Lester Cowan in a long distance telephone call to The Pittsburgh Press.
“The Pyle role goes to Capt. Burgess Meredith, assigned to inactive duty by the Army,” announced Mr. Cowan, who is producing G.I. Joe, based on Ernie’s book, Here Is Your War.
Mr. Cowan continued:
Buzz [Meredith] is the same height as Ernie, has his general build and is within 10 pounds of Ernie’s weight. After many months of consideration – for we have to please about 20 million people, including the thousands of doughboys who know Ernie – we have finally decided on Meredith.
Meredith is a fine actor and sensitive enough to create a life-like portrayal of Ernie on the screen.
Will study Ernie
Mr. Cowan said that the choice has Ernie’s approval and that Meredith will go to New Mexico immediately to stay with the famous war correspondent in order to study Ernie at close range.
The actor became famous on Broadway before going to Hollywood, appearing in such notable plays as Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, High Tor and Star Wagon. He appeared at the local Nixon in two of these plays.
Four other big-name stars were under consideration – James Gleason, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan and Fred Astaire. In addition, at least 500 unknowns were candidates. Of the latter Pittsburgh’s Rosey Roswell was the outstanding.
Rosey nearly ‘in’
Rosey, about two months ago, sped by plane to Hollywood on Mr. Cowan’s request. There the radio announcer took a screen test and the results were encouraging – so much so that for a while it seemed Rosey would win the coveted assignment. However, a switch in directors caused Cowan to reconsider and it was decided to cast a famous actor.
William A. Wellman, an Academy Award winner, is directing the production. Mr. Wellman’s first choice was Fred Astaire – but he was “voted down” by popular opinion which held “Ernie’s no dancer, and a famous dancer in the role would ruin the illusion.”
In 1942, Meredith became a private in the Army. A series of promotions elevated him to a captain’s rank. He was assigned to Allied headquarters in Europe, where he wrote, produced and acted in two training films.
Stork winging way to Hedy Lamarr
…
Know your lady driver and how to care for her
If you don’t, then see the brochure on the subject by the ODT
…
Fashions become universal
Post-war girl ‘fits in’ everywhere
By a special correspondent
…
Dodge heir finally weds mathematician’s daughter
Father ‘grounded’ en route to Denver to serve as son’s best man
…
Johnston stresses economic freedom
…
Chance to be White House guest is inducement to join ‘1000 Club’
‘Every member will know our President,’ those willing to give $1,000 are promised
By Peter Edson
Washington –
Examination of the charter of the newly-found Democratic “1000 Club,” each of whose 1,000 members are to pay $1,000 apiece to build up a million-dollar fund to aid in the reelection of President Roosevelt, reveals that this organization has the makings of one of the most powerful pressure groups ever created to influence White House opinion.
Every member who kicks in his $1,000 gets a copper-engraved, red enamel inlay lifetime membership card and a copy of the constitution, a noble and inspiring document of lofty aims. He also gets other things for his money.
‘Will know President’
The prospectus for membership makes this bald statement:
Every member should and will know our President, to more intimately realize the zeal with which he so successfully guided our country’s ship of state through the most troubled waters of our history.
In other words, join up and you get to know the President personally.
Some of the franker approaches to prospective members have been along the line of, “You want to get in that White House, don’t you?”
When the prospect indicates that he does, that greases the skids for the $1,000 touch.
The constitution of the 1000 Club states that this “voluntary contribution of $1,000 shall be one of the qualifying requisites to membership.”
There are no other dues to this exclusive club, but it is provided that “any member may contribute additional sums.”
Payment of the $1,000 initiation fee is not, however, the only way a prospect may become a member. If a party wheelhorse gives the equivalent of $1,000 in services, that would make him eligible, or if he had given $1,000 to other party organizations – the Democratic National Committee, or Democratic State or County or Township or City Committees, he could still get in by proving his good deeds of the past.
The constitution says:
The Board of Trustees may elect to membership any eligible person who has in its opinion contributed outstanding services to the objectives of this club.
Quite a few members are expected to be admitted under this provision, getting their copper membership cards without direct payment of the $1,000 poll tax.
Some of the prospects approached for membership are reported to have been able to bargain their way into membership by citing their own good party deeds and offering to get a few more members for the club if they themselves are admitted without payment of another $1,000.
‘To support Constitution’
Borrowing a line original with Gerald L. K. Smith, Dr. Edward A. Rumely, Pappy O’Daniel and others, the first objective of the 1,000 Club is stated as “To support and defend the Constitution.”
In politics, you can apparently do anything you want to just so long as you say it’s to support and defend the Constitution.
The second and third objectives of the 1000 Club are: “To promote the general welfare o, the United States” and “To support the war–”
The club’s constitution provides members should prepare… “To participate actively in political campaigns in supporting the men best qualified to hold public office.”
‘To accept contributions’
But the payoff comes in the final precept: “To accept contributions and make expenditures for the purpose of influencing the election of candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency.”
Well, it costs money to elect a President, and the Democratic National Committee is limited by law to $3 million. Radio time costs $90,000 an hour if you go in for a nationwide broadcast, and half a dozen such chain hookups would cost over half a million.
The 1000 Club expects to do considerable sponsoring and advertising and in other ways relieve the National Committee as a purely independent service.
In office for life
Work of the 1000 Club will not end, however, when this campaign is over, for the constitution provides that members of the Board of Trustees shall hold office until their death or removal or inability to act.
The chief duties of the trustees, besides taking in the million dollars in initiation fees, seems to be in passing on the membership, but that’s wide open, as any democratic club should be.
The constitution says: “Any American citizen may become a member by applying for membership and by being elected by the board of trustees.”
If the 1000 Club doesn’t accept your application for membership, it promises to refund your money.
Reading Eagle (October 27, 1944)
ON THE RECORD —
The President and the German issue
By Dorothy Thompson
Until last Saturday night, the President had never committed himself on the future of defeated Germany. For months a controversy has been going on, in the press, on lecture platforms, and between various organized groups, over the German question. These controversies have ranged from the advocates of a Carthaginian peace, to include equally all Germans, to insistence that distinctions be made between the bulk of the German people and the men around and behind the Nazi regime.
The line taken by our shortwave OWI broadcasts has always followed the second policy.
Then came the publication of the Morgenthau Plan which made it seem as though this policy might have been sheer hypocrisy.
This columnist was the first to attack the Morgenthau Plan – on the air, the day after it became known.
Actually, it was soon scuttled. And it is now clear that it was a feeler put out to test the wind of opinion at home and abroad.
All such gestures must be seen in the proper framework. The renewal of the robot attacks, after a short period of relative calm, had inflamed and embittered British opinion. Articles in the Moscow press revealed apprehension in Russia lest the Americans should try perhaps to woo some elements in Germany for their own interests, at Russian expense.
The Morgenthau suggestions represented the ultimate in a Carthaginian peace, and it was interesting to watch the reactions in both London and Moscow. Almost immediately, a TASS dispatch denied Soviet intentions to dismember Germany. It was also significant that Anthony Eden in the House of Commons rejected both the formulas of a “hard” or an “soft” peace as meaningless, while the London Times and London Economist called for reason.
One can now see, with hindsight, that the Morgenthau Plan was in the nature of a trial balloon, and served its purpose. And with hindsight, one can see that it was wise of the President not to associate either himself or the Secretary of State with it, or with any other definite proposals, at that time.
For it was urgently necessary to find – and on that rests the whole security of our future peace – a common ground between all three great Allies, for all our dealings with Germany.
It is therefore significant that the President committed himself for the first time on the very day that Mr. Harriman arrived from Moscow with a report on the conversations that had taken place there between Churchill and Stalin. What he said could therefore not have been in contradiction with either Russia or Britain. It must always be remembered that the President is in a unique position. He is not only a candidate for reelection but the head of a state in a critical and evermoving situation, in which affairs develop regardless of the campaign.
It was also significant that what the President said about Germany, he set quite apart from the body of his speech. He introduced it as a “digression.” It was clear that he was looking for an opportunity to make a carefully-phrased statement.
I am surprised that so little attention has been paid to it in the American press. In the British press, it was the one part of the speech which was immediately seized upon – and with wholly favorable reactions.
With that speech, the unconditional surrender formula was, for the first time, interpreted and defined. Henceforth the German people know, at least in general terms, what they can expect.
The “hard” parts of the statement included three things: Complete liquidation of the Nazi regime and apparatus; total disarmament; and punishment of those “directly responsible for this agony of mankind.”
But the statement also contained solemn pledges to the German people. In making them, the President called upon “the very basis of my religious faith and political convictions.” He said, “I cannot believe that God has eternally condemned any race of mankind.” He denied the intention to enslave “because the United Nations do not traffic in human slavery.” He expressed the conviction that “in all peoples, without exception, lives some instinct for truth, some attraction to justice, some passion for peace.” And without any sentimental credulity, he left the door open for Germany to “earn her way back into the fellowship of peace-loving and law-abiding nations.”
The spirit was far above hatred and revenge. It was a declaration of democratic faith and a promise of statesmanlike behavior. It supplied our propaganda service, for the first time, with a solemn statement that can effectively be broadcast to the enemy.
Only three days later, dispatches from the front reported that in the face of our armies the blackout was strangely enough lifted in Düsseldorf and Cologne, and correspondents deduce that something odd is going on in the German population immediately behind the front.
So, regardless of the election campaign, hats off to the statesmanlike move and an enormous clarification!
Address by President Roosevelt
October 27, 1944, 9:00 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Shibe Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Broadcast audio:
My friends:
I am glad to come back to Philadelphia. Today is the anniversary of the birth of a great fighting American, Theodore Roosevelt.
This day – his birthday – is celebrated every year as Navy Day – and I think that Theodore Roosevelt would be happy and proud to know that our American fleet today is greater than all the navies of the world put together.
And when I say all the navies, I am including what was until three days ago, the Japanese fleet.
Since Navy Day a year ago, our Armed Forces – Army, Navy, and Air Forces – have participated in no fewer than 27 different D-Days – 27 different landings in force on enemy-held soil.
Every one of those landings has been an incredibly complicated, and hazardous undertaking, as you realize, requiring months of most careful planning, flawless coordination, and literally split-second timing in execution. The larger operations have required hundreds of warships, thousands of smaller craft, thousands of airplanes, and hundreds of thousands of men.
And every one of these 27 D-Days has been a triumphant success.
I think it is a remarkable achievement that within less than five months we have been able to carry out major offensive operations in both Europe and the Philippines – 13,000 miles apart from each other.
And speaking of the glorious operations in the Philippines, I wonder – whatever became of the suggestion made a few weeks ago, that I had failed for political reasons to send enough forces or supplies to Gen. MacArthur?
Now of course, I realize that in this political campaign it is considered by some to be very impolite to mention the fact that there is a war on.
But the war is still on and 11 million American fighting men know it, and so do their families. And in that war, I bear a responsibility that I can never shirk and never, for one instant, forget.
For the Constitution of the United States says – and I hope you will pardon me if I quote it correctly – “The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”
And I am not supposed to mention that, either.
But somehow or other, it seems to me that this is a matter of considerable importance to the people of the United States.
You know, it was due to no accident and no oversight that the framers of our Constitution – in this city – put the command of our armed forces under civilian authority.
And as a result, it is the duty of the Commander-in-Chief to appoint the Secretaries of War and Navy and the Chiefs of Staff – and I feel called upon to offer no apologies for my selection of Henry Stimson, the late Frank Knox, and Jim Forrestal, or of Adm. Leahy, Gen. Marshall, Adm. King, and Gen. Arnold.
Furthermore, the Commander-in-Chief has final responsibility for determining how our resources shall be distributed as between our land forces, our sea forces, and our air forces, and as among the different theaters of operation, and also what portion of’ these great resources of ours shall be turned over to our allies.
Our teamwork with our allies in this war has involved innumerable intricate problems that could be settled only around the conference table by those who had final authority.
The other day, I am told, a prominent Republican orator stated that: “There are not five civilians in the entire national government who have the confidence and respect of the American people.”
In fact, he went on to describe your present administration as “the most spectacular collection of incompetent people who ever held public office.”
Well, you know, that is pretty serious, because the only conclusion to be drawn from that is that we are losing this war. If so, that will be news to most of us – and it will certainly be news to the Nazis and the Japs.
Now, I like a thing called the record, and the record will show that from almost the first minute of this administration – 12 years ago, nearly – I started to rebuild the United States Navy which had been whittled down during previous administrations. What the Navy suffered from conspicuously during three Republican administrations was a drastic false economy, which not only scrapped ships but even prevented adequate target practice, adequate maneuvers, enough oil, or adequate supplies. Indeed, it reached the point that on some vessels the crews – who at least were patriotic – chipped in out of their own pockets to buy their own brass polish to keep the bright work shining.
The record will show that when we were attacked in December 1941, we had already made tremendous progress toward building the greatest war machine the world has ever known.
Take, for example, just the other day, the ships of Adm. Halsey’s powerful Third Fleet that helped to give the Japanese Navy the worst licking in its history.
Every battleship in his Fleet was authorized between 1933 and 1938. Construction had begun on all of those battleships by September 1940 – well over a year before Pearl Harbor.
All but two of the great force of cruisers in Adm. Halsey’s Fleet were authorized between 1933 and 1940; and construction on all but one of them had begun before Pearl Harbor.
All of the aircraft carriers in that Fleet had been authorized by the present administration before Pearl Harbor, and half of them were actually under construction before Pearl Harbor.
There is the answer – just a little part of it – once and for all, to a Republican candidate who said that this administration had made, “absolutely no military preparation for the events that it now claims it foresaw.”
Why, less than three months before Hitler launched his murderous assault against Poland, the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted 144–8 in favor of cutting the appropriations for the Army Air Corps.
I often think how Hitler and Hirohito must have laughed in those days.
But they are not laughing now.
And in the spring of 1940, before we were attacked, I called for the production of 50,000 airplanes – and that same Republican candidate spoke scornfully of such a proposition, calling it a “publicity stunt,” and saying it would take four years to reach such a goal.
But we have since then produced more than 240,000 airplanes. Fifty thousand, and laughed at! But today we have attained a production rate of more than 9,000 per month – more than 100,000 a year.
And we have trained 850,000 American boys to be the pilots, the navigators, the bombardiers, aerial gunners, and other members of their crews.
I admit that the figures seem fantastic, but the results were not impossible to those who had real faith in America.
I won’t go on very long with these figures, but they ought to be known. In 1940, we had a regular Army of approximately 250,000, and a reserve, including the National Guard, of 350,000.
Today, there’s a bit of a difference. We have eight million in our Army, including 126,000 women. And here’s a piece of news: More than half of our Army is overseas.
Now the Navy. In 1940, we had 369 combat ships. We had 189,000 men.
Today, we have more than 1,500 combat vessels, supported by an armada of 50,000 other ships, including landing craft. As you know, a lot of those landing craft have been built not very far away from here, on the Delaware River. And we have more than three and a half million men in our Navy, and over 100,000 women.
Never before in history – at least, in our history – have the soldiers and sailors of any nation gone into battle so thoroughly trained, so thoroughly equipped, so well fed, so thoroughly supported as the American soldiers and sailors fighting today in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific.
In his report to the Secretary of War, in 1943, Gen. Marshall wrote:
In matters of personnel, military intelligence, training, supply and preparation of war plans, sound principles and policies had been established in the preparation for just such an emergency as arose.
After we were attacked by the Japanese, and Hitler and Mussolini had declared war on us, some people in this country urged that we go on the defensive- that we pull in our fleet to guard this continent – that we send no forces overseas.
That policy was rejected. In my first war message to the Congress, less than a month after Pearl Harbor, I said this:
We cannot wage this war in a defensive spirit. As our power and our resources are fully mobilized, we shall carry the attack against the enemy – we shall hit him and hit him again wherever and whenever we can reach him. We must keep him far from our shores, for we intend to bring this battle to him on his own home grounds.
And that, my friends, is the policy that we have successfully followed.
In our overall strategy, we planned our war effort in three phases:
The first phase could be called “plugging the line” – that meant stopping the Germans, and stopping the Japs from expanding their conquests to such key points as Australia and the British Isles, for England then was still very vulnerable to invasion.
Within a month after Pearl Harbor, American expeditionary forces were moving across the Pacific many thousands of miles to Australia, and across the Atlantic more thousands of miles to northern Ireland and England. Our air forces went to the Southwest Pacific, to India, to China, the Middle East, and Great Britain.
In this first phase we furnished arms to the British that helped them to stop the Germans in Egypt – and arms to the Russians that helped them to stop the Germans at Stalingrad.
And our own growing forces stopped the Japanese in the Coral Sea and at Midway.
The second phase was the shattering of the enemy’s outer defenses, establishing bases from which to launch our major attacks.
That phase began with the operations in New Guinea, in the Solomons, and in North Africa. It continued through all the operations – the Marshalls, the Gilberts, the Marianas, the Carolines, the Aleutians, and now the Philippines. And it went on in Europe with the landings in Sicily and Italy and finally in France itself.
The war in Europe has now reached the final, decisive phase, the attack on Germany itself.
It is true, we will have much longer and much farther to go in the war against Japan. But every day that goes by speeds it up.
All of these operations had to be planned far in advance. You can’t imagine how tired I sometimes get when I am told that something that looks simple is going to take three months – six months to do. Well, that is part of the job of a Commander-in-Chief. Sometimes I have to be disappointed, sometimes I have to go along with the estimates of the professionals. That does not mean merely drawing arrows on maps-planning. It has meant planning in terms of precisely how many men will be needed, and how many ships – warships, cargo ships, landing craft – how many bombers, how many fighter planes – how much equipment – food – what types of equipment down to the last cartridge. And, it has meant getting all of them to the right place at the right time.
It has meant establishing for our Army and Navy supply lines extending over 56,000 miles – more than twice the circumference of this earth. It has meant establishing the lines of the Air Transport Command – 150,000 miles of air-supply systems running on the clock.
It has meant moving supplies along these lines at the rate of almost three million long tons a month – requiring 576 cargo ships to leave our ports with supplies every month. It has meant moving more than 14 million barrels of gasoline and oil a month, requiring 156 tanker sailings a month. And all those ships and all those tankers were built in American shipyards.
So, to sum it up, I think we can say that the production necessary to equip and maintain our vast force of fighting men on global battlefronts is without parallel.
I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves. They speak with the thunder of tens of thousands of guns on battlefields all over the world. They speak with the roar of more than a million tons of bombs dropped by our air forces.
The whole story of our vast effort in this war has been the story of incredible achievement – the story of the job that has been done by an administration which, I am told, is “old, and tired and quarrelsome.”
And while we have been doing that job, we have constantly investigated and publicized our whole management of the war effort. I call particular attention to the thorough and painstaking and completely nonpartisan work of that committee of the Senate that was organized and presided over by Harry Truman.
I am very certain that the Truman Committee has done a job that will live in history as an example of honest, efficient government at work.
But there is one thing I want to say, and it cannot be told in figures.
I want to express the conviction that the greatest of our past American heroes – the heroes of Bunker Hill and Gettysburg, and San Juan Hill and Manila Bay and the Argonne – would consider themselves honored to be associated with our fighting men of today.
Those boys hated, and these boys hate, war.
The average American citizen is not a soldier by choice.
But our boys have proved that they can take on the best of our militaristic enemies, the best that they can put forward – they can take them on and beat them. And we must never forget that our allies, by resisting the aggressors to the last ditch, gave us time to train our men and prepare their equipment before they went into battle.
The quality of our American fighting men is not all a matter of training or equipment, or organization. It is essentially a matter of spirit. That spirit is expressive of their faith in America.
The most important fact in our national life today is the essential fact of 11 million young Americans in our Armed Forces – more than half of them overseas.
When you multiply that 11 million by their families and their friends, you have the whole American people personally involved in this war – a war that was forced upon us, a war which we did our utmost to avoid, a war that came upon us as inevitably as an earthquake.
I think particularly of the mothers and wives and sisters and sweethearts of the men in service. There are great numbers of these gallant women who do not have the satisfaction or the distraction of jobs in war plants. But they have the quiet, essential job of keeping the homes going, caring for the children or the old folks.
Mrs. Roosevelt and I hear very often from a great many of these women who live in loneliness and anxiety while their men are far away.
I can speak as one who knows something of the feelings of a parent with sons who are in the battle line overseas. I know that, regardless of the outcome of this election, our sons must and will go on fighting for whatever length of time is necessary for victory.
And when this great job in winning the war is done, the men of our Armed Forces will be demobilized, they will be returned to their homes just as rapidly as possible. The War Department and the Navy Department are pledged to that. I am pledged to that. The very law of the land, enacted by the Congress, is pledged to that. And there are no strings attached to the pledge.
While this agony of the war lasts, the families of our fighting men can be certain that their boys are being given and always will be given the best equipment, the best arms, the best food, the best medical care that the resources of the nation and the genius of the nation can provide. And I am not engaging in undue boasting when I say that that is the best in the world.
Take health, as an example. The health of our Army and Navy and Marines and Coast Guard is now better than it was in peacetime. Although our forces have been fighting in all kinds of climates, exposed to all the diseases, the death rate from disease has shrunk to one twentieth of one percent – in other words, less than one seventh of the death rate from disease for men in the same age group in civilian life. That is something to think over and repeat to your neighbor. And the mortality rate among the people who have been wounded is less than three percent, as compared with over eight percent in the last world war.
I have chosen Navy Day, today, to talk about the 11 million Americans in uniform, who with all their strength are engaged in giving us a chance to achieve peace through victory in war.
These men could not have been armed, and they could not be equipped as they are, had it not been for the miracle of our production here back home.
The production that has flowed from this country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, and American labor, and American farmers – working together as a patriotic team.
And the businessmen of America have had a vital part in this war. They have displayed the highest type of patriotism by their devotion, their industry, their ingenuity, and their cooperation with their government.
I am proud of the fact that in this administration today there are a great many Republican businessmen who have placed patriotism above party.
But unfortunately, there are some Republican politicians – in and out of the Congress – who are introducing a very ugly implication into this campaign – an implication of profound concern to all Americans, regardless of party, who believe that this war must be followed by a just and lasting peace.
These politicians are stating that the Republicans in the Congress would cooperate with a Republican President in establishing a world organization for peace while at the same time they are clearly intimating that they would not cooperate toward the same end in the event of a Democratic victory.
That, coming in the closing days of the campaign, it seems to me, is a deliberate and indefensible effort to place political advantage not only above devotion to country but also above our very deep desire to avoid the death and destruction that would be caused by future wars.
I do not think that the American people will take kindly to this policy of “Vote my way or I won’t play.”
May this country never forget that its power in this war has come from the efforts of its citizens, living in freedom and equality.
May this country hold in piety and steadfast faith those who have battled and died to give it new opportunities for service and growth.
May it reserve its contempt for those who see in it only an instrument for their own selfish interests.
May it marshal its righteous wrath against those who would divide it by racial struggles. May it lavish its scorn upon the fainthearted.
Finally, may this country always give its support to those who have engaged with us in the war against oppression and who will continue with us in the struggle for a vital, creative peace.
God Bless the United States of America.
Völkischer Beobachter (October 28, 1944)
Die Seeschlacht bei den Philippinen
Erfolgsübersicht über die Kämpfe vom 24. bis 26. Oktober
…
Führer HQ (October 28, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Holland greifen die heftigen Kämpfe nunmehr auf den gesamten Frontabschnitt zwischen der Scheldemündung und dem Raum von Herzogenbusch über. Besonders erbittert wurde im Raum von Bergen-op-Zoom gekämpft, wo zahlreiche, unter starker Panzerunterstützung vorgetragene feindliche Angriffe zerschlagen wurden. Weiter östlich ging Tilburg nach schwerem Ringen verloren. Bei vergeblichen Angriffen im Raum von Herzogenbusch erlitt der Feind besonders hohe Verluste.
Westlich Saint-Dié vereitelten unsere Truppen den beabsichtigten amerikanischen Durchbruch durch den Wald von Mortagne in das Meurthetal. Südlich davon wurde durch unsere Gegenangriffe eine Frontlücke im Kampfraum von Bruyères geschlossen. Starke feindliche Angriffe gegen diese neugewonnenen Stellungen blieben unter schweren Verlusten in unserem Feuer liegen.
Die Besatzungen der Festungen und Stützpunkte an der-französischen Küste haben in den letzten Wochen eine Reihe von schwächeren feindlichen Angriffen abgewiesen. Durch zahlreiche Unternehmungen außerhalb der Festungen sind sie Herren des Vorfeldes geblieben.
Bei strömendem Regen herrschte in Mittelitalien nur geringe Gefechtstätigkeit. Durch überraschenden Angriff eroberten Grenadiere und Soldaten der Waffen-SS wichtige Höhenstellungen westlich Imola zurück. Der Feind erlitt schwere Ausfälle.
Deutsche und ungarische Truppen warfen in Südungarn und an der mittleren Theiß die Sowjets und vernichteten dabei stärkere feindliche Verbände.
Nördlich Debrecen dauern die schweren Kämpfe an. Durch einen überraschenden Angriff unserer Schlachtflieger und Jäger auf den Flugplatz Debrecen wurden 25 Flugzeuge der Sowjets auf dem Boden zerstört, 10 weitere beschädigt.
Nach einer Absetzbewegung aus den Waldkarpaten brachten unsere Truppen die sowjetischen Divisionen an der slowakischen Ostgrenze zum Stehen. In den Ostbeskiden führten die Bolschewisten nach Verstärkung ihrer Kräfte zahlreiche Angriffe auf breiter Front, die trotz starker Artillerieunterstützung unter hohen Verlusten für sie scheiterten. In einer Einbruchsstelle im Gebirge wird noch erbittert gekämpft.
Zwischen Warschau und dem Bug brachen örtliche Angriffe der Bolschewisten zusammen.
Die große Schlacht in den ostpreußischen Grenzgebieten tobt weiter. Ihre Brennpunkte lagen auch gestern im Raum östlich und, südöstlich Gumbinnen und am Westrand der Romintener Heide, wo in Gegenangriffen nordöstlich Goldap gegen erbitterten feindlichen Widerstand Fortschritte erzielt wurden. Starke Angriffe der Bolschewisten südwestlich Ebenrode brachen zusammen. Eigene Schlachtfliegerverbände fügten sowjetischen Kolonnen hohe Verluste an Menschen und Material zu.
Nach schwerster Artillerie- und Schlachtfliegervorbereitung ist der Feind südöstlich Libau und im Raum von Autz zu dem erwarteten Großangriff angetreten. Durch entschlossene Gegenstöße wurden seine Durchbruchsversuche verhindert. Fesselungsangriffe an der übrigen Front scheiterten. Am ersten Tage der Doppelschlacht wurden in den schweren Kämpfen 74 feindliche Panzer abgeschossen. Damit haben unsere in Kurland fechtenden Truppen in der Zeit vom 1. bis 27. Oktober 823 sowjetische Panzer und damit die Masse des Materials von sieben bolschewistischen Panzerkorps vernichtet.
Auf der Halbinsel Sworbe blieben Angriffe des Feindes ohne Erfolg.
Schnelle britische Flugzeuge warfen in der vergangenen Nacht Bomben auf die Reichshauptstadt und auf rheinisches Gebiet.
Die 116. Panzerdivision unter Führung von Oberst von Waldenburg hat in harten Kämpfen im Raum nördlich Aachen alle feindlichen Durchbruchsversuche zerschlagen und dem Feind in tapferen und geschickten Gegenangriffen hohe Verluste zugefügt.
Im Raum der unteren Theiß hat das IV. Panzerkorps unter Führung des Generals der Panzertruppe Kleemann in zwölftägigen harten Angriffs- und Abwehrkämpfen weit überlegene feindliche Kräfte gefesselt und teilweise völlig aufgerieben, dabei 18 Panzer, 297 Geschütze aller Art sowie 690 motorisierte und bespannte Fahrzeuge des Feindes vernichtet oder erbeutet und über 4.500 Gefangene eingebracht.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (October 28, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
281100A October
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. 203
In Zuid Beveland, Allied forces now hold the south side of the Isthmus as far as the canal west of Kruiningen. Our bridgeheads on the southern coast of the peninsula has been reinforced and expanded. Groede, in the Scheldt pocket, is in our hands and we are on the coast to the northwest of the village. Northeast of the Zuid Beveland, we have taken Bergen-op-Zoom. North of Essen, our units are within two miles of Roosendaal. On the Antwerp–Breda road, we have progressed to the area of Zundert. We are in the eastern outskirts of Tilburg and north of the town, our troops have reached the vicinity of Loon op Zand.
To the south, we have made good gains, and on the west, forward elements have cut the Tilburg–Breda road. The enemy has been cleared from ‘s-Hertogenbosch and we have made some progress farther west. On the east side of the Dutch salient we checked a counterattack in the vicinity of Meijel, where fighting is still in progress. Light artillery fire was directed against our units in the Aachen area and along the Belgian-German frontier in the sector east of St. Vith. Near Rambervillers, we made local gains at several points. The village of Housseras has been taken. Farther south, limited progress was made between Bruyères and Le Tholy. In the Vosges Mountains, attempts to infiltrate our positions were frustrated and losses were inflicted on the enemy. Adverse weather restricted air operations yesterday.
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/
Address by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey
October 28, 1944, 12:30 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Syracuse, New York
These war years nave produced trying days on the farms all over our country. Millions of sons from our farms are fighting on battlefronts all over the world. Fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers have taken over the extra work, without regard to age or physical handicaps. Shortage of help and shortage of equipment have increased the burdens. And to cap it all, have been the inexcusable attempts at increased regimentation by New Deal theorists in Washington.
As one who has worked with our own farm leaders day and night to achieve the success of our Farm-Manpower Service, our Emergency Food Commission and the Farm Machinery Repair Program, I have come to feel that of all the heroes of this war, our farmers have received the least credit for the tremendous job they have done.
Now the war is drawing ever closer to its conclusion. With mighty triumphs in Europe and the Pacific, our fighting men are bringing victory nearer every day. As you know, a change of administration next January 20 will not involve any change in our military command. But it will bring an end to the bickering, chaos and the confusion in Washington. It will bring a stronger, more united nation backing up our fighting men without division and warring at home.
It will be a signal to all the world that free government is strong and able to strengthen itself in total war. It will mean quicker victory. And it will mean an administration which does not fear the peace – one which will bring our fighting men home promptly when victory is achieved.
What will peace mean to our farmers? Will it mean just continued efforts to control their lives from Washington? Will it mean the same collapse of prices which occurred under a Democratic administration after the last war? Will it mean a return to the substandard prices our farmers were still receiving after eight peacetime years of the New Deal in 1940? It must not mean these things. We can and must do better if we are to have a free and progressive America.
Few people seem to realize that the American farmer is the largest purchaser of the products of our mills and factories. Every American, regardless of his business or employment, has a direct interest in the prosperity and stability of agriculture.
Unlike other producers, the farmer deals with elements wholly beyond his control. He may plant wisely and well and then the weather can destroy his crops. He may produce to the maximum and find that a national surplus has broken his prices to the point where he has a loss for an entire year’s work.
We cannot control the weather. But for the sake of the nation, we can and we must avoid these extreme price fluctuations. As a nation, we are committed to the proposition that the prices of major farm products must be supported against the substandard levels we saw for so many years before the war.
We have learned that depression on the farm leads inevitably to depression in the nation just as unemployment and misery in the city lead to misery on the farm. If we are to have a strong, vigorous and happy country, we must have full employment in the factories and fair prices on the farms.
Is there any hope of achieving this result under the New Deal? Well, the simple answer is that after it had been in office nearly eight years in 1940, the New Deal had still failed to achieve anything like fair prices for farm products. And one of the main reasons for that was that there were still 10 million Americans unemployed.
Now, my opponent seeks a vote of confidence on that record. He asks for 16 straight years in the White House. And what does he offer for the future? Nothing different from or better than the program which failed. It took a war to get a decent farm price just as it took a war to get jobs.
From the very beginning of the New Deal, farm programs put forward by the farmers have been set up, only to be exploited for political profit and to gain control over the operation of our farms.
For example, one of our most important needs is to preserve, restore and build up our soil resources. The Soil Conservation Service has done a good job in some parts of the country. But this program will fail if it is used as an excuse for regimentation and wasteful bureaucracy.
Let’s be specific. Take, for example, a farmer not far from here who signed up with the Soil Conservation Program, Within a period of four months, 14 different government agents traveled to this one little farm of 45 acres to tell how his job should be done. Several came many times. When he got all through, the farmer paid for the actual work. and he also paid in taxes for the 13 unnecessary government agents.
That sort of thing would not have happened if local people had anything to say about it, if state and county, with federal aid, were permitted to share in the job of seeing that federal programs were adapted to local needs. This has been so well demonstrated by the successful work of the land grant colleges and the extension service, that even the new deal should have found it out by now.
Government assistance in farm credit is also of the utmost importance but if the farmer needs to borrow some money, he may go to a National Farm Loan Association, the Production Credit Association, the Farm Security Administration, the Office of the Emergency Crop and Seed Loan, or to the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation. If he wants a seal-up loan on his wheat or corn, he has to go to the AAA in still another office.
He goes to the ODT for a truck permit, to the OPA for a rubber boot permit, to the AAA for his lime and phosphate, to the Post Office for his auto use stamp, to the Selective Service board about his hired men, and until this election was drawing near, he went to the County War Board to get permission to buy machinery. He may have other assorted errands in town at the OCD, the USES, the WPA, the DSC or the SCS.
The other night in St. Louis, I told about an executive order in which my opponent, on April 19, 1943, dealt with the powers of his new War Food Administrator, whom he had appointed to take over the job of the Secretary of Agriculture in handling our critical food situation. Referring to both of them, he declared, they “shall each have authority to exercise any and all of the powers vested in the other by statute or otherwise.”
There it is in his own words – two men in one job.
Now, my opponent has complained that I did not tell the whole story about that executive order. I am happy to accept the invitation. Here’s the rest of it.
That executive order created the usual conflicts. Within two months that War Food Administrator, Chester Davis, resigned, he was drafted to do a big job and then prevented from doing it. Here is what he said:
I find that I have assumed a public responsibility while the authority, not only over broad food policy, but day-to-day actions, is being exercised elsewhere.
So, we lost a first-class man… another man was put in the job and the chaos rolled on. But there is still more to this story of two or more men in one job. The White House cabal had been trying to get rid of Harry Slattery, Rural Electrification Administrator, finally they offered to create a new job for him, at the same salary and at the taxpayers’ expense. He was asked to undertake a special study of rural electrification not in China, this time, put in war-torn Europe in 1943.
But Mr. Slattery stuck to his job. So, the Secretary of Agriculture appointed a deputy administrator and Rave orders to the entire REA staff that henceforth they should all report to the administrator through his deputy. The deputy moved in and took charge, firing people right and left. And just at the time when the REA should be getting ready to do a big post-war job providing electricity to farmers, it has been torn apart by conflict and confusion between the usual two men in one job.
The White House spreads confusion from the cabinet level up. And the Secretary of Agriculture spreads confusion from the cabinet level down. That’s why we need a responsible cabinet in this country. That’s why it’s time for a change.
I am resisting the temptation to talk at length about these things. Time does not permit discussion of what happened to support prices in the hog market and the egg market during the past year. But one thing is very clear: when the government makes a pledge to support hog prices, for example, the farmer ought to know who is responsible – whether it is the OPA or the War Food Administration or the Director of Economic Stabilization or the Secretary of Agriculture or who.
The hog market scandal is but another example of the fact that for twelve years in this country we have had an unmanageable surplus of promises – promises lightly made, sketchily kept, or openly violated.
That is why it is so important to restore efficiency as well as integrity to our government, so that its spoken word may be trusted once again.
To that end my party in its national convention adopted a platform to which I am pledged. The unqualified pledges of that platform read, in part, as follows:
A Department of Agriculture under practical and experienced administration free from regimentation and confusion government manipulation and control of farm programs.
An American market price to the American farmer and the protection of such price by means of support prices, commodity loans, or a combination thereof, together with such other economic means as will assure an income to agriculture that is fair and equitable in comparison with labor, business and industry…
Disposition of surplus war commodities… without destroying markets or continued production and without benefit to speculative profiteers.
The control and disposition of further surpluses by means of new uses developed through constant research, vigorous development of foreign markets… adjustments in production of any given basic crop only if domestic surpluses should become abnormal and exceed manageable proportions.
Intensified research to discover new crops, and new and profitable uses for existing crops.
Support of the principle of bona fide farmer-owned and farmer-operated cooperatives.
Consolidation of all government farm credit under a nonpartisan board.
To make life more attractive on the family-type farm through development of rural road, sound extension of rural electrification service to the farm and elimination of basic evils of tenancy…
Serious study of and search for a sound program of crop insurance with emphasis upon establishing a self-supporting program.
A comprehensive program of soil, forest, water and wild life conservation and development, and sound irrigation projects, administered as far as possible at state and regional levels.
To these pledges we stand committed and while this program is comprehensive, we may be sure that the farmers of our country can be relied upon to propose sound measures to meet any new kind of emergency which may arise, As the farmers of my own state, here today, know so well, your next administration may be counted on to welcome such programs.
Here we have a broad, forward-looking policy for the specific welfare of agriculture. But unless we have a market which can pay a fair price the farmer will continue to have an inadequate income. He must not again find it necessary to live on his depreciation, on the paint he cannot afford to put on the barn.
The farm and food problems of the United States are inseparable. Neither will be solved until all our people are well fed, and our agriculture is stabilized on a par with industry and labor.
We can have fully employed agriculture with fair prices and a real market if we have three square meals a day for all our people. That can be obtained through a fully employed, expanding industry with real money for real jobs.
By heroic efforts and against every obstacle, our farmers have increased food production by one-third. It will not be easy to maintain balance during the changeover from war to peace. It is going to take ingenuity, teamwork and the unhesitating will of government to maintain prices and wages and income without undue inflation or shrinkage from the present scale.
We in America have had the American standard of living – we have had to consume more than any other nation, because we produced more. We must again have the courage to push forward as our forefathers pushed beyond the frontiers of their day.
Despite our war prosperity, millions of families in America still do not get enough of the right things to eat. We have still further to go. We must never go back to the scarcity theories and shrinking economy of the New Deal years. We must go forward and develop the great American market for our farm products through improved diet for the American people. If we can keep set on this objective, we shall need, not a reduction, but an increase in food production. We must not go back to those dismal days in the middle age of the New Deal when two families out of five in America were living at the undernourished level of less than $20 a week.
Let us have an end of generalities about the abundant life from a government which for eight long years promoted a chattering fear of production.
For this we need a government in Washington whose primary interest is not in fighting within itself, not in teaching people to feed a family of five on a relief income of $700 a year.
Before us lies the immediate practical prospect and reality of jobs – the business of making things and doing things – real jobs for real money, real prices in a real market.
This must be the fundamental which provides three square meals a day for our people, as well as cars, washing machines, radios, tractors, high-line power, running water, education and all the undeveloped realities which lies within our reach.
To these fundamental – a productive and a prosperous agriculture is essential to the future of America. That future we can and will achieve by the constructive program I have outlined since the beginning of this campaign. And in doing so, we must again restore the freedom of the individual farmer from dictation and control by his own government. that farmers of our country have brow new frontiers in their productive power. It is our solemn duty to equal their contribution by going forward with a productive, growing and secure America.