America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

4675

Tokyo Rose paves the way for big Superfortress raid

Plane cruises over Jap capital 35 minutes to make pictures to guide attackers
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer

Saipan, Mariana Islands –
A giant, silvery Superfortress names Tokyo Rose, piloted by Capt. Ralph D. Steakley of Jefferson, Ohio, cruised over Tokyo for 35 minutes making crystal-clear photographs of strategic targets to pave the way for the second raid of the war on the Japanese capital.

Droning in over the city after a grueling fight from new bases on Saipan, the daring crew, the first American airmen to fly over Tokyo since Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle’s fliers raided the city in April 1942 peered down on vital war industries and strategic targets which Japan has guarded jealously for the last 10 years.

Japs fail to attack

Jap radio announcers screamed frantically that U.S. planes were over the city, then added as a face-saving afterthought that “an American plane fled before our attack.”

Not content with the first valuable photo-fight, the same crew flew over the famed target twice more, noting that ack-ack became more accurate with each trip.

Capt. Steakley and his 10-man crew saw from 19 to 21 enemy intercepting planes on their first trip but Jap pilots were apparently leery to attack the Superfortress with its bristling guns and made no attempts to get within shooting range.

Pictures are taken

Despite the breathless altitude, the crew and cameras clearly saw and recorded Jap airfields studded with fighter planes and saw Hirohito’s palace and factories.

Capt. Steakley said:

We did not know what to expect and we were excited. We settled down soon because we had work to do.

The crew said that Capt. Steakley coolly piloted the giant plane over target after target. He was as elated as the crew after the flight. Their emotions hardly compared to those of intelligence officers, who termed the photos the best pictures of enemy targets ever taken.

Second Lt. Charles G. Hart of Kansas City, Missouri, the photo navigator, said the Jap ack-ack on the first strip was sporadic, but two subsequent trips found the barrage intensifying.

Important facts learned

Although the daring flight of Tokyo Rose undoubtedly robbed today’s mass attack of a surprise element, the knowledge gained by the picture-taking spree overshadowed all else.

The entire crew was decorated at the Saipan base, Capt. Steakley receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross. The navigator, Lt. Claude K. Stambaugh of San Antonio, Texas, received the Oak Leaf Cluster to the Air Medal and the rest of the crew got Air Medals.

The rest of the crew included:

  • Co-pilot Lt. John R. Burke of Newark, New Jersey
  • Flight Engineer Lt. Harold L. McCommon of Athens, Georgia
  • Photographer Sgt. Walter C. Marvin of St. Louis
  • Gunner Sgt. William O. Starks of Dunbar, West Virginia
  • Sgt. Fred H. Hutchins of Italy, Texas
  • Bombardier Observer Maj. Hugh V. Gilmour of Paris, Texas.
4676

Yanks smash to Rhine in south

Americans and French seize nine-tenths of city of Strasbourg
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer

…

4677

Americans seize Leyte stronghold

Crack enemy division virtually wiped out

…

4678

Union suddenly ends phone strike

Long-distance lines restored to service

…

4679

Prison guard slain; 4 convicts shot

…

4680

parry3

I DARE SAY —
I remember, too

By Florence Fisher Parry

There’s a play which you and I must see when we go to New York. It’s called I Remember Mama, and from what I gather from those who have seen it, it has in it something of the nostalgic tenderness of Our Town.

A young woman sits offstage near the wings and tells us about her Mama, and the different things she remembers about her. And as she reminisces, the past comes into life there on the stage, and we see Mama and Papa and the children reliving the life that once was theirs and is now gone forevermore.

Sometimes I think the greatest gift which God provided us is the gift of memory. Who of us, who had a happy childhood, does not retreat into the past as Thanksgiving approaches, and in our minds relive that beautiful day when we all gathered around the long dining room table, Papa at one end and Mama at the other, and Savor again the viands and goodies piled high on the roomy table! It is on this day more than any other that the past comes back most clearly; the image of us, all, young and brisk, and, oh, so busy blessed with a security we shall never know!

How innocent and unknowing, Papa and Mama then! How mercifully spared the awful portent of our times. And thinking of them thus, so young, so confident, we feel ourselves immeasurably older; older than they, older even than they ever became. For who can be said to be wholly happy and confident today, compared with those who lived in that safer yesterday?

Safe day

It was a meager day compared with ours, hard work and ceaseless vigil was the portion of parents. It was a struggle then “to get along,” one had to earn one’s own security by long, uncounted hours of hard work. What we have now, ours for the asking, they would have counted princely possessions!

Yet, when I think how infinitely richer were their lives than ours today, I am filled with such loving envy that my heart could break, just in remembering! For favored indeed, blessed indeed, is he today who would have his dead Papa or Mama know what has befallen him!

Indeed, I have no image of the hereafter, or what the incorporeal world of heaven offers. But this, I hope: That those now dead, now waiting there for us, need never know what has befallen this unhappy world below.

This Thanksgiving there were many pilgrimages to the graveyards where lie these dead; and is it not a terrible commentary upon the botch we have made, that none of us, standing there, would dare wish to have them back?

What’s wrong, I say, what’s wrong, that we have come to such a point of desperation, shame and bewilderment, that we must needs stand at the graves of our dead and acknowledge ourselves glad they have been spared all this?

Bright certainty

Tormented, the world – so all the greatest need of Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving not only for what we still have, but abundant thanks for what we have had, and the great boon of being able to remember it! Thanksgiving for our memories! Thanksgiving for our own dear past! Thanksgiving, over all, for our parents!

I remember Mama; I remember Papa. This day brings back the image of them when they were young, so young – younger than I, far younger – ardent, busy, full of plans, working and planning together as one, raising their little family. Each year adding an extra leaf to the Thanksgiving table, each year being able to add another item to the menu, an item worked for, saved for, planned for ahead, with that certainty that was their right then, the certainty that if they worked hard enough and saved enough, they would be able to raise their family right, give them the things they had not had.

What a day! Able to dream long, long, safe dreams, make long, safe plans ahead.

Yes, that was Papa and Mama; yours, mine.

These things we had, and even though now lost, they are forever ours!

For the past, the present and tomorrow are one, if we but think them so. Is yesterday less actual than today, just because it is gone? Today more real than tomorrow just because we cannot see around its corner?

Why, they are one! There is no time, and life itself is an unending dream.

4681

Roosevelt: Lend-Lease ‘should end with the war’

President also urges ‘better United Nations’

…

4682

U.S. casualties mount to 578,795

Washington (UP) –
Announced U.S. war casualties were listed by the War and Navy Departments today at 528,795, including 117,453 killed, 285,857 wounded, 65,789 missing and 59,696 prisoners of war.

Secretary of War Stimson announced Army casualties through Nov. 7 and the Navy Department gave its total through Nov. 22 as follows:

Army Navy
Killed 88,245 29,208
Wounded 254,283 31,574
Missing 56,442 9,347
Prisoners 55,210 4,486
TOTAL 454,180 74,615

The Navy casualties include those of the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps.

Mr. Stimson also told his news conference that:

  • The advance of U.S. troops on the Western Front depends upon the flow of supplies from this country.

  • The apparent Jap intention to hold the Philippines with everything in their power is “just as well for us [because] our Army and Navy forces can knock them off as well in the Philippines as anywhere else.” He evidenced concern over Jap gains in China.

  • The shortage of cigarettes overseas “will be corrected as soon as possible.” It was caused “mainly by the enormous supply problem” posed by the mounting U.S. offensives which required that critically needed materials be given the highest priorities. Frontline troops are less affected than those in rear areas because troops subsisting on C or K rations get cigarettes as part of their rations.

4683

Father finds G.I. who saved son

…

4684

Battle-maimed patients eat turkey with gusto

By Kermit McFarland, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

…

4685

Eighth Army gains in Italy near Faenza

Fighting described as ‘very bitter’

…

4686

In Thanksgiving message –
U.S. ‘mightiest nation,’ Churchill tells Yanks

Prime Minister makes surprise appearance at celebration of U.S. troops

…

4687

Air raids pound Japs in China

Threat to Chungking temporarily removed

…

4688

Simms: Rhine Valley nearing grasp of Gen. Patton

Rich Saar basin provides the ‘key’
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

…

4689

G.I. votes back Democrats in 15 counties

Myers leads Davis by 290 military ballots

…

4690

Yanks pledge to hit Tokyo in new raids

‘Must bore right in,’ one airman says

Saipan, Mariana Islands (UP) –
The XXI Bomber Command sent its new B-29 Superfortresses off from Saipan for the attack on Tokyo today with the promise that this initial blow will be followed up with ever-increasing force until the Jap Empire has been battered into submission.

Brig. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., commander of the XXI Bomber Command, and Brig. Gen. Emmett O’Donnell Jr. of Jamaica, New York, the 28-year-old former West Point football coach who led today’s raid, made it clear that the long-promised aerial offensive on the Jap home islands has begun.

In the weeks and months ahead, they declared, air-raid sirens will be echoing again and again and again in Emperor Hirohito’s imperial shelter in the heart of the congested enemy capital.

To bore right in

“We’ll probably get a lot of opposition over Tokyo, but we’ve got to bore right in and we will,” Gen. O’Donnell said just before the takeoff.

Gen. O’Donnell said good weather is expected over the Saipan-Tokyo bombing run in the next three months, particularly over the eastern side of Honshu Island, where the enemy capital is located.

Both officers emphasized that today’s raid, while marking the beginning of the final phase of the war against Japan, does not necessarily foreshadow an early end of the conflict.

Daylight attacks pledged

Gen. Hansell said:

We are not afraid to attack in daylight. We are confident our Superfortresses with their central fire control systems can defend themselves in air combat.

Gen. O’Donnell revealed that the planes that took part in today’s strike had been improved as a result of battle experience obtained by the Superfortresses operating from China and India, particularly the engines.

Even at Gen. O’Donnell’s bombers were roaring into the air from their new fields on Saipan, U.S. Marines and Army troops were combing the jungled cliffs and cave-studded mountains for survivors of the formidable Jap garrison that held the island only five months ago.

Arnold sends word to Roosevelt

Washington (UP) –
Gen. H. H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, sent President Roosevelt the following special report on today’s B-29 raid on Tokyo:

Our air forces returned to Tokyo today. A task force of B-29 Superfortresses attacked the Japanese capital from bases in the Marianas.

This operation is in no sense a hit-and-run raid. It is a calculated extension of our airpower. Combined operations of the Navy and the Army in the Pacific have won these island bases from which our B-29s now may strike at will into the enemy homeland. No part of the Jap Empire is now out of our range, no war factory too remote to feel our homes. The Battle for Japan has been joined.

The systematic demolition of Japan’s war production, begun six months ago from China bases, henceforth will be carried out with decisive vigor, softening up the Japanese heart for the ultimate invasion of combined United Nations land, sea and air forces. This will not be accomplished in a short time. The battle is just beginning. But today we opened against Tokyo an attack which will be carried on relentlessly from the air until the day of land-sea invasion.

Tokyo is world’s third largest city, seat of empire

Washington (UP) –
Tokyo, bombed today by B-29 Superfortresses, is the heart of Japan’s vast conquered empire and the seat of her imperial government.

It is the world’s third largest city, having a population in 1940 of 6,580,000.

It is also the center of Japan’s most heavily-producing industrial area, and its 40,000 factories of all sizes include huge shipbuilding works, airplane and engine factories, oil refineries, chemical works and plants producing radio and electrical equipment, explosives and precision instruments.

There are no skyscrapers in Tokyo, but many modern steel and concrete buildings were built after the disastrous earthquake in 1923.

This modern business area borders on vast “matchbox” sections of unpainted wooden and bamboo dwellings. More than half the homes are one-story and most are highly inflammable.

Transportation consists of subways, buses, trolleys and bicycles. A network of canal and rivers is crossed by some 5,000 bridges.

Other raids by big B-29s

Washington (UP) –
The B-29 raid on Tokyo was the 18th wartime mission for the big four-engined U.S. bombers.

Here is a list of their raids:

Early June: Struck at Bangkok, Thailand, in a shakedown operation.
June 15: Smashed the steel works at Yawata, Japan’s “Pittsburgh.”
July 7: Again hit Yawata as well as Sasebo and Omura in Japan and Laoyao and Hankow in occupied China.
July 29: Raided Anshan, Manchuria, and Chenghsein and Tangku in occupied China.
August 10: Struck at Palembang, Sumatra, and Nagasaki, Japan.
August 20: Two raids – day and night – on Yawata, Japan.
September 8: Hit Anshan, Manchuria.
September 26: Smashed Anshan, Manchuria, and Dairen and Loyang, occupied China.
October 14: Raided Okayama, Formosa.
October 16: Raided Okayama and Heito, Formosa.
October 17: Hit Einansho, Formosa.
October 25: Struck at Omura aircraft plant, Japan.
November 3: Hit Rangoon, Burma.
November 5: Raided naval base at Singapore, oil refineries on Sumatra.
November 11: Attacked Omura, Japan, and Nanking and Shanghai in occupied China.
November 20: Hit Omura on Japan and Nanking and Shanghai, China.
November 24: Raided Tokyo.

4691

Poll: Public now expects longer war in Europe

Majority give Nazis six month or more
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

…

National Guard may patrol world

…

4692

Boy kills 2 women; mob shoots him

…

4693

Labor unity on peace aims urged by CIO

World alliance of workers proposed

…

At AFL convention –
OPA heads urges post-war ceilings

Bowles warns of danger of inflation

…

4694

Perkins: CIO faces delicate task of criticizing Roosevelt

But it will get around situation by blaming WLB for wartime wage controls
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

…