America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

523

Innsbrucker Nachrichten (August 30, 1944)

Feindkräfte zwischen Paris und Reims aufgefangen

Schwere Kämpfe um Châlons-sur-Marne – Briançon zurückerobert – Sowjetangriffe in harten Panzerkämpfen abgewehrt

dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 30. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Nachdem unsere Divisionen starke, bis zu siebenmal wiederholten Angriffen des Feindes aus seinen Seine-Brückenköpfen nordwestlich Paris in harten Kämpfen aufgefangen hatten, setzten sie sich befehlsgemäß auf neue Stellungen nach Nordosten ab. Die Stadt Rouen wurde nach Zerstörung der Hafenanlagen und sonstiger militärisch wichtiger Objekte aufgegeben.

Zwischen Paris und Reims wurden die nach Norden angreifenden starken nordamerikanischen Kräfte in erbitterten Kämpfen zum Stehen gebracht. Im Südteil von Soissons sind heftige Straßenkämpfe entbrannt. Südlich der Marne erreichten motorisierte feindliche Verbände im Vorstoß nach Osten die Gegend von Châlons-sur-Marne, um das schwer gekämpft wird.

Im Rhonetal wiesen unsere Flankensicherungen zahlreiche feindliche Angriffe von Osten her ab. Eine größere Anzahl feindlicher Panzer wurde vernichtet. Im Alpengebiet westlich der französisch-italienischen Grenze wurde die Stadt Briançon nach hartem Kampf mit französischen Terroristen und amerikanischen Aufklärungskräften wieder in Besitz genommen.

Schnellboote versenkten in der Nacht zum 30. August westlich Dieppe einen feindlichen Zerstörer. Im gleichen Seegebiet vernichteten Kampffähren und Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine einen britischen Zerstörer der Hunt-Klasse, der nach schwerer Detonation auseinanderbrach.

Das „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert an.

In Italien fanden größere Kampfhandlungen nur im adriatischen Küstenabschnitt statt. In den Vormittagsstunden wurden hier heftige Angriffe des Gegners verlustreich für ihn abgewiesen.

In Rumänien scheiterten Angriffe der Sowjets bei Buzau und im Bistrizatal. Die dazwischen über die Pässe des ungarischen Grenzgebietes vorgedrungenen feindlichen Kräfte wurden an mehreren Stellen im Gegenangriff zurückgeworfen. Schlachtfliegerverbände griffen sowjetische Kolonnen auf den Karpatenpässen mit Bomben und Bordwaffen erfolgreich an.

Im Weichselbrückenkopf westlich Baranow blieben wiederholte Angriffe der Bolschewisten erfolglos.

Nordöstlich Warschau sowie zwischen Bug und Narew fingen unsere Truppen erneute von Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützte Angriffe der Sowjets in harten Panzerkämpfen auf.

Im Nordabschnitt brachen mehrere Angriffe des Feindes westlich Modohn und nordwestlich Dorpat verlustreich zusammen. In der Nacht waren Truppenansammlungen und Bereitstellungen der Sowjets in den Räumen von Modohn und Dorpat Angriffsziele unserer Kampf- und Nachtschlachtflieger.

Nordamerikanische Bomber griffen die Städte Mährisch-Ostrau und Oderberg sowie ungarisches Gebiet an. In der Nacht führte die britische Luftwaffe erneut unter Verletzung schwedischen Hoheitsgebietes Terrorangriffe gegen Stettin und Königsberg. Einzelne feindliche Flugzeuge warfen außerdem Bomben auf Berlin und Hamburg. Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen bei diesen Angriffen 82 viermotorige Terrorbomber ab.

Ergänzend zum heutigen OKW-Bericht wird gemeldet:

Zwischen Bug und Narew haben sich eine Kampfgruppe der 7. Infanteriedivision unter der Führung von Oberst Weber und die Schwere Panzerabteilung 507 unter Führung des Ritterkreuzträgers Major Schmidt durch unerschütterliche Standfestigkeit und schneidig geführte Gegenstöße besonders ausgezeichnet.

Eine Jagdgruppe unter Führung von Hauptmann Lang schoss in Westfrankreich seit Invasionsbeginn 100 feindliche Flugzeuge ab und zeichnete sich auch bei Tiefangriffen gegen den Feind besonders aus.

In der Bretagne hat eine vom Feind eingeschlossene Stützpunktbesatzung der Luftnachrichtentruppe unter Führung von Oberleutnant Sasse wochenlang schwersten Angriffen weit überlegener Kräfte in heldenhaftem Kampf standgehalten und die viermalige Aufforderung zur Übergabe abgelehnt.

524

U.S. State Department (August 30, 1944)

740.00116 EW/8–3044

Press Statement by the Secretary of State

August 30, 1944

The Polish Government has communicated to this Government details of the unprecedented brutality with which the Germans are acting against the unarmed and helpless civilian population of Warsaw. This communication states that without regard for age or sex, tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children are being herded into concentration camps where, under appalling conditions of want, they are being tortured and left to die.

We have repeatedly warned the Germans of the certain consequences of inhuman acts of this character. Those guilty of the present outrages against the civilian population of Warsaw will not escape the justice they deserve.

Lot 60–D 224, Box 55: DO/PR/7

Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State to the Secretary of State

Washington, August 30, 1944

Subject: PROGRESS REPORT ON DUMBARTON OAKS CONVERSATIONS – EIGHTH DAY

Meeting of the Special Military Subcommittee
a) Provision of forces
The Subcommittee, meeting for the first time this week, resumed its discussion of the nature of forces to be provided for enforcement action. Admiral Willson submitted for the American group a formula which would obligate each state to maintain, in accordance with a general agreement, a stipulated quota of air, sea and land forces in readiness for immediate movement upon receipt of an order from the Council. A warning order would indicate at what time these forces would come directly under the command of the Council. Our formula was agreeable to the British but the Russians asked whether it would exclude an international air force corps under direct control of the Council. Our view was that the American formula was more comprehensive than the Soviet proposal because sea and land forces, as well as air forces, as provided for under the agreement, would be subject to control of the Council when and as required. The Soviet group asked for a few days in which to consider the American proposal.

b) Composition of the Military Committee of the Council
The British set forth their view that the four principal powers should be continuously represented on this Committee, presumably by representatives of their respective Chiefs of Staff, Representatives of other states would be associated with the Committee as occasion arose on a basis to be determined later by the Committee and the Council. The American and Soviet groups were in general accord with this proposal, subject to later agreement upon exact language.

Meeting of the Subcommittee on General Organization
The Subcommittee on General Organization, meeting for the first time this week, discussed but did not undertake to reach agreement on the questions which follow. Ambassador Gromyko explained that the Soviet group would be able to contribute little to the discussion because they had not given much previous consideration to these questions.

  1. Should amendments to the basic instrument be binding on dissenting states?

  2. Enforcement of obligations over non-member states.

  3. Has a non-member of the Council a right to vote on special questions affecting its interests or should it merely have a right to be heard?

  4. Nomenclature.

  5. Should the Council be “in continuous session”?

  6. Director-General’s right to call the attention of the Council to threatening situations.

  7. Character of the Secretariat.

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 30, 1944)

Communiqué No. 144

Allied forces, continuing their sweep beyond PARIS, have crossed the AISNE and the MARNE rivers. In the upper MARNE valley, mopping-up is in progress in VITRY-LE-FRANÇOIS, and our troops have reached MARSON and LÉPINE, southeast and east of CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE. Other units are less than one mile south of CHÂLONS on the west side of the river.

CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, on the MARNE, has been occupied, and our armored units have moved north to take SOISSONS and established a bridgehead across the AISNE at PONT-ARCY, 14 miles to the east. Other troops are advancing through the area between the MARNE and the AISNE, north of MEAUX and CHÂTEAU-THIERRY.

In the PARIS area, advances have been made through the northeastern outskirts of the city beyond LE BOURGET and MONTMORENCY, and further west, elements have cleared the FORÊT DE SAINT-GERMAIN and moved northward to a point less than two miles south of PONTOISE.

The bridgehead across the SEINE in the vicinity of MANTES-GASSICOURT has been further enlarged to the north and to the east beyond MEULAN. Contact was made with troops from the bridgehead to the north.

Advancing from the VERNON bridgehead, our troops pushed across the PARIS–ROUEN road to the town of ETREPAGNY and from there to the village of LONGCHAMPS. The PARIS–ROUEN road was also cut near the village of ECOUIS by troops from the LOUVIERS bridgehead. In the evening, contact was established between these two bridgeheads.

Southeast of ROUEN, our forces advanced in the face of persistent opposition and captured the village of BOOS, some five miles from the center of ROUEN. In the CAUDEBEC area, fighting was heavy, but the FORÊT DE BROTONNE was cleared and the whole of this loop of the river is now in our hands.

In BRITTANY, hard fighting continues at BREST as Allied forces close in slowly on the port.

Air operations yesterday were restricted by weather.

Fighter and fighter-bombers attacked enemy rail and road movement over a wide area in the LOW COUNTRIES, western GERMANY and in FRANCE as far south as LYONS. Large numbers of locomotives, railway cars and motor transport were attacked successfully, and 20 enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground near BRUSSELS. Six of our aircraft are missing.

525

U.S. Navy Department (August 30, 1944)

Communiqué No. 539

Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported the sinking of 17 vessels, including two combatant ships, as a result of operations against the enemy in these waters, as follows:

  • 2 destroyers
  • 3 small cargo transports
  • 3 medium cargo transports
  • 1 medium tanker
  • 6 medium cargo vessels
  • 1 small cargo vessel
  • 1 small tanker

These actions have not been announced in any previous Navy Department communiqué.

CINCPAC Press Release 537

For Immediate Release
August 30, 1944

Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four attacked Paramushiru Island in the Kurils and several enemy vessels discovered near the island on August 27 (West Longitude Date). One of the Venturas obtained a direct hit on a medium tanker, setting it afire. Another Ventura bombed a large cargo ship at Suribachi, causing a heavy explosion, while a third attacked an enemy patrol vessel. One Ventura was damaged in an engagement with three enemy fighters. On the same day, two 11th AAF Liberators sank an enemy patrol vessel and badly damaged another near Paramushiru. Neither Liberator was damaged.

During the night of August 27‑28, Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands was attacked by 7th AAF Liberators which bombed the airfield. Two enemy fighters were airborne but did not attempt interception. In a second strike on August 27, 7th AAF Liberators attacked Pagan Island, causing fires. Fighter planes bombed and strafed Pagan on August 28.

Nauru Island was attacked on August 27 by Ventura search planes of Group 1, Fleet Air Wing Two.

The airfields at Moen Island in Truk Atoll were bombed by 7th AAF Liberators on August 28. Seven enemy fighters intercepted our force and damaged one Liberator, but all of our planes returned.

Mitchells of the 7th AAF attacked Ponape Island on August 28, while Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers conducted further neutralization raids against Mille and Maloelap in the Marshalls on the same day.

526

The Pittsburgh Press (August 30, 1944)

Yanks beyond Reims in race for Belgium

Only scattered Nazis oppose U.S. push on German Rhineland
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

map.083044.up
Across the Aisne River, U.S. troops today drove toward the Belgian border, as Allied forces northwest of Paris linked their bridgeheads (1) for a drive toward the robot bomb coast and the Germans reported the evacuation of Rouen. In the drive across the Aisne, U.S. forces reached Laon (2), while to the east U.S. columns pushed beyond Reims and were within 90 miles of Germany (3).

SHAEF, London, England –
Two U.S. tank armies, racing unchallenged over the last miles of the invasion roads to Germany and Belgium, stormed into Laon and the cathedral city of Reims today, while Berlin admitted that its troops had abandoned the medieval town of Rouen, guarding the robot bomb coast of northern France.

Powerful armored spearheads of the U.S. 1st and 3rd Armies punctured the Aisne River line on at least two points and were reported fanning out over the rolling farmlands beyond Reims, Laon and Châlons-sur-Marne.

Only scattered and disorganized Nazi rearguards barred the path of the American armor in their sweep for the Rhineland, and official reports indicated the Yanks were moving at a speech that could carry them to the Belgian border within a day or two.

Beyond Reims and Laon, U.S. spearheads were 30 to 35 miles from the borders of Belgium, while other U.S. columns pounding eastward from Châlons were 95 miles or less from Germany.

Planes plaster foe

“We are now witnessing the preliminary phase of the Allied advance on Germany in which the enemy forces are being methodically dissected and forced into isolated corridors, even as we press onward,” United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell said in reporting the sensational sweep of the U.S. armies through the Aisne and Marne Valleys.

U.S. riflemen poured swiftly through the breaches crated by their plunging tank spearheads, while swarms of Allied warplanes ranged before them to bomb and strafe the retreating enemy.

Simultaneously, British, U.S. and Canadian forces linked their bridgeheads across the Seine above Paris into a solid 50-mile front and swung forward 25 miles beyond the Seine to drive an armored wedge between Rouen and Beauvais.

Capture Neuf-Marché

The Allies, smashing directly at Amiens and the heart of the bases from which German robot bombs have been showering down on London, captured Neuf-Marché, 25 miles east of Rouen and 15 miles west of Beauvais.

There was no confirmation of the Berlin report that Rouen had been evacuated, and Allied headquarters said latest advices from the front told of bitter fighting on the approaches to that fortress town.

On the U.S. 1st and 3rd Army fronts east of Paris, however, official and enemy reports agreed that the twin American offensive was making spectacular strides over battlegrounds where hundreds of thousands of men fought and died in 1918 to take and hold a few yards along the Marne and Aisne Rivers.

Drive across Seine

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army tanks and riflemen drove across the Marne at Épernay, pushed 13 miles northward to Reims and then swept on more than 10 miles beyond that historic town to cross the Aisne at Neufchâtel.

Simultaneously, Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges’ 1st Army veterans stormed up from captured Soissons, across the Chemin des Dames, one of the bloodiest battlefields of World War I, and on into Laon, 12 miles above the Aisne. Unofficial but apparently correct reports said Laon was captured and that the Yanks had driven on beyond the city.

The region between the Marne and the Aisne had been reported one of the stronger outer bastions guarding the invasion roads to Germany, but today’s sweeping progress indicated the enemy had abandoned it almost without a fight.

Sedan and the Ardennes Forest, through which the German armies poured in 1940 to collapse France, were wipe open to the American thrust northeast of Soissons, and the Argonne Forest, on the road to Alsace-Lorraine, was 25 miles or less from Gen. Patton’s spearheads beyond Châlons.

A German Transocean News Agency broadcast said the Americans had reached Saint-Dizier, 85 miles from the German border, but claimed they had been driven back by Nazi counterattacks.

Stiffer resistance was encountered in the Seine bridgehead area above Paris, however, and official reports said the Germans were fighting a stubborn rearguard action there.

Claim evacuation

A German communiqué announced that Nazi forces had evacuated Rouen, on the Seine 65 miles northwest of Paris, after destroying all harbor installations and “other objectives of military importance.”

The Germans apparently pulled out of Rouen, where Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake in the public market square May 30, 1431, to escape encirclement by Allied armies closing in from the south and east in a drive toward the robot coast.

The fall of Rouen was expected to speed the Allied march on Le Havre, 45 miles to the west, and Dieppe, 37 miles to the northwest.

Capture Longchamps

Another Allied column captured Longchamps, 20 miles north of the Seine and 47 miles from Amiens, so-called capital of the robot coast. British forces were believed spearheading the drive toward the robot platforms, spurred by the knowledge that the sooner they capture them, the sooner the rain of death on their families in southern England will cease.

London newspapers bannered reports that massed Allied tanks were converging on the robot bases, including some from which the Germans were reported preparing to hurl rockets each containing 10 to 20 tons of explosive against Britain.

Front dispatches disclosed that Gen. Hodges’ U.S. 1st Army had taken over the drive northward toward Belgium from Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army.

After capturing Château-Thierry, Soissons, Belleau Wood and other hallowed ground over which their fathers fought and died in World War I, Gen. Hodges’ forces poured across the Aisne River in great strength and stabbed northward to Laon, four-way railway junction 19 miles above Soissons, and 28 miles northwest of Reims.

Both Laon and Reims lie on the main trunk line running west from Amiens over which the Germans have been moving a major proportion of their robot bomb components from factories in the Rhineland.

Gen. Patton’s forces smashed across the Marne at Châlons and captured Lépine, 4½ miles to the east and a little more than 50 miles southwest of Verdun. Marson, eight miles southeast of Châlons, also fell, bringing Gen. Patton’s men approximately 90 miles from the borders of Germany itself.

Broadens wedge

Broadening his wedge aimed at Germany, Gen. Patton likewise seized Vitry-le-François, 18½ miles southeast of Châlons, and Piney, 15 miles east of Troyes.

U.S. infantry also cleared virtually all areas in and around northwest, north and northeast of Paris and advanced to within a mile of Pontoise, 18 miles northwest of the capital.

U.S. forces drove 13 miles north from their Mantes crossing 25 miles northwest of Paris and reached Magny-en-Vexin.

Capture Éragny

Other Allied troops captured Éragny, 25 miles northwest of Mantes.

Only two small loops south of the Seine now remained to be mopped up.

Allied headquarters announced that 92,000 Germans had been captured in northern France by the Allies from Aug. 10 to 25, while a field dispatch estimated German losses in killed, wounded and prisoners since D-Day at upwards of 250,000 men.

527

Big battle raging in South France

Nazis pinched in trap 100 miles up Rhône
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer

map.southfrance.083044.up
Up the Rhône Valley went U.S. forces, meeting stiffening Nazi resistance in a triangle based on the Drôme River (1). To the east, a German attack from Italy caused the loss by U.S. troops of Briançon, five miles from the border.

Rome, Italy –
A fierce battle raged at the confluence of the Rhône and Drôme Rivers today as U.S. troops slashed at straggling remnants of the German 19th Army and swung a salient across the Drôme in an attempt to cut off enemy forces trying to flee north across the river on pontoons.

The Germans were pinched into a triangle formed by the two rivers, 100 miles up the Rhône Valley, and the Americans driving northward from newly-captured Montélimar.

Cross Drôme

Headquarters described the fighting in the vicinity of Loriol, near the apex of the triangle, as “particularly severe” and both sides were reported suffering considerable casualties.

As one U.S. force hammered the Germans frontally at Loriol, four miles east of the Rhône and a mile and a half below the Drôme, another force drove eastward to Grâne, four miles from Loriol, crossed the Drôme and captured Allex on the north bank.

The flanking movement threatened to cut off the desperate enemy troops, which had staggered to the Drôme after breaking out of a trap below Montélimar, 14 miles south of Loriol.

Capture 45,000

The Germans were losing heavily in the desperate fighting as they attempted to flee northward along the Rhône. In two days, the Americans captured 800 motortrucks and two batteries of 88mm guns on the front around Montélimar.

While there was no disclosure of German troop losses in the battles on the Rhône, an Allied communiqué reported that the number of prisoners taken in southern France had reached 45,000, of which 10,000 were seized at Marseille.

In occupying Montélimar, the Americans captured Maj. Gen. Otto Richter, commander of the 198th Infantry Division, which prisoners said was recently transferred to southern France after being mauled in Russia. He was the sixth German general captured on this front in addition to VAdm. Ruhfus, naval commander at Toulon, who surrendered to the French.

As the Americans continued their steady drive up the east side of the Rhône to within 13 miles of Valence, French troops of the 7th Army forged northward on the west bank of Bagnols, 18 miles northwest of Avignon and 28 miles southwest of Montélimar.

French and U.S. troops of the 7th Army have liberated more than 20,000 square miles of territory since they landed Aug. 15.

Although the German 19th Army has been written off as a virtually complete loss, the Germans moved reinforcements from Italy into France and recaptured the town of Briançon, where an Allied spearhead had thrust to within five miles of the Franco-Italian border. The Americans withdrew only to the southern outskirts of Briançon, but this left an important road junction under German control.

Eliminate pocket

Headquarters did not indicate the strength of the German forces from Italy, but only several days ago Allied patrols sighted what were believed to be German panzer divisions moving westward north of Turin, which is about 50 miles northeast of Briançon.

The loss of the town was the first acknowledgment by ground officers that the Germans were moving troops from Italy.

The communiqué also disclosed that U.S. troops in consolidating their positions in the lower Argonne Valley occupied the village of Valréas, 16 miles southeast of Montélimar. The move eliminated an enemy pocket bypassed in the drive northward.

528

Roosevelt urges quick peace body

Wants council that will choke off wars

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Punishment pledged for ‘outrages’

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of State Hull today denounced German ill-treatment of civilians in Warsaw and promised that the Nazis responsible for “the present outrages” will be punished.

Last night, the U.S. and British governments declared that Germans who fail to treat soldiers of the Polish Home Army according to the rules of war would face trial and punishment by the Allies as war criminals.

529

U.S. warns –
‘Mine strikes peril lives of soldiers’

Steel output also hit; seizure indicated
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

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530

Ammunition sale ban lifted by WPB

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531

americavotes1944

parry3

I DARE SAY —
Say, Mr. Willkie!

By Florence Fisher Parry

I am worried and I am uneasy and I am embarrassed a little about Mr. Willkie. Four years is too short a time in which to have to reconstruct one’s human fealties.

I’ve been trying to figure out just when it was that I began to feel – well – a little less valiant about him. It couldn’t have been so very long ago, come to think of it. When he was out there in Wisconsin beginning to get hoarse all over again for the things he kept on believing – I was for him.

When he dropped out after Wisconsin, I felt pretty bad, but I said, “Well, here’s a realist for once who is big enough to step down. And NOW what a performance he’ll give.”

I could hardly wait to get the papers, to read when he was going to begin the fight to restore to us the two-party system and the traditions of this Republic. I took for granted his big-mindedness, his farsightedness, so that such a thing as his not pitching in right away with his horse voice and fighting the same things he fought four years ago never occurred to me! How could it? Wasn’t he four years older and bigger and wiser and fighting-er now?

False whisper?

So, I waited for the papers to tell me. And I waited and I waited and I’m still waiting.

When they started to whisper that he was going over to the administration, I didn’t believe it, of course.

Then the other day news came out he was going to confer with Tom Dewey’s top advisor, John Foster Dulles. I had the funniest feeling that he was – oh, I don’t know – open to persuasion. Not exactly bargaining. No, he wouldn’t do that. But (shall we way?) “open-minded” like those men you see on the racetrack who haven’t placed their bets yet.

And it just began to dawn on me that I’ve never known or read of any great man in history about whom there was any general speculation as to just where he stood when it came to a great issue. There has never been a great American about whom there was any doubt as to how he was going to cast his ballot when it came election time, or whom he was going to support or oppose. Not one of them was THAT open-minded!

And when it came to a time of national crisis, and history itself came plumb up to a fork in the road and had to take a course either right or left. I never heard of a really great man who stopped for a minute to wait to see what other folks were going to do.

Two months to go

Here it is practically September, two months before a presidential election, two months only for this country to decide the biggest question it ever had put before it in its whole perilous history.

What are you waiting for, Mr. Willkie? Don’t you know that negation carries its own weight, and delay its own oblique influence?

This is a time to hew to the line. The issues are crystal clear. You support the Republican ticket or you support the Democratic ticket. You want Tom Dewey or you want Franklin Roosevelt, and the Party each represents.

This is no time for split tickets or split politics or split fealties. This is a time when you have to be either for the New Deal and everything that goes with it, or against it with all the passion and fervor and sweat it takes a throw it out. This is no time to nurse grievances or bruises. This is a time to fight.

I keep remembering, Mr. Willkie, those words you said in the Commodore Hotel on the moment of your defeat nearly four years ago. You said in effect that you’d never stop fighting; that those who thought you would didn’t know you.

That the day should ever come when you would stall!

532

americavotes1944

Pinchot plans to take stump for Roosevelt

May make several speeches in state
By Kermit McFarland

Gifford Pinchot, twice Governor of Pennsylvania under Republican colors, will support President Roosevelt for a fourth term.

Mr. Pinchot announced his decision after a conference with the President at the White House yesterday.

In a formal statement, the former Governor said:

In this great crisis, the choice between Roosevelt and Dewey is like choosing between a veteran leader of many battles and a raw recruit who never has shouldered a rifle or fired a gun. I am for the man who knows how.

For Roosevelt in 1940

Mr. Pinchot, who was 79 Aug. 11, will take the stump for the President. One or more speeches will probably be made in Pennsylvania.

In 1940, the former Governor supported Mr. Roosevelt and delivered a major speech in Pittsburgh. Four years before, he supported Governor Alf M. Landon, the Republican nominee.

In 1932, when Mr. Roosevelt was elected the first time, Mr. Pinchot, then Governor, kept silent until the morning after election when he issued a statement which said in effect the Republicans deserved the defeat they suffered.

At Governor’s Conference

Three months ago, the ex-Governor attended the Conference of Governors at Hershey. As an “ex,” he did not go to the formal business sessions of the meeting, but he and Mrs. Pinchot spent three days at the Hershey Hotel hobnobbing with the governors from other states and with Pennsylvania acquaintances.

It was evident his primary purpose was to “get a line” on Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. Mr. Pinchot said then he was undecided about which candidate to support for President.

Veteran of 30 years in the political wars of Pennsylvania and the nation, Mr. Pinchot has never fully retired, although his last public appearance in politics was his activity in the 1940 campaign.

Packs oratorical punch

While he lacks the fire of his earlier days, Mr. Pinchot, despite an attack of pneumonia last winter, still packs an oratorical punch.

Although he has no longer even the skeleton of a political organization in Pennsylvania, his participation in the campaign will add color and interest.

Mrs. Pinchot may also take an active hand in the campaign.

Danger of depression

In his statement, the former Governor also said:

Once again, the danger is that depression will follow war. With his experience, Roosevelt can make sure the people will have job and prosperity when this war is done…

No other living man is so well fitted as Roosevelt, by contact and knowledge, to lead us to permanent peace and freedom, welfare and happiness of our fighting men and our workers, ourselves and our children when war is done.

533

Employers get ‘simplified’ new tax form

Deductions ‘figured’ for employees

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Six Congressional medals awarded

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534

Snipers cleared from Paris roofs

De Gaulle reiterates election promise
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

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535

Navy gets 65,000 ships in five years

Phenomenal growth told by Forrestal

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536

Boys of French resistance don’t pamper prisoners

They know horror of German occupation, many have lost homes to Nazis
By Judy Barden, North American Newspaper Alliance

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537

U.S. planes blast Kiel and Bremen

Robot bomb sites near Calais also hit

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Japs’ East Indies base hammered

By the United Press

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538

British troops two miles from Gothic Line

Eighth Army ready to begin assault

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539

Much ado about nothing –
Stokes: Reporters get their day with diplomats – and how!

Dumbarton Oaks press conference is anything but enlightening to writers
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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540

Poll: Parties split on health of Roosevelt

Excellent – Democrats; not do good – foes
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

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Kuhn, ex-Bundist, joins hunger strike

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541

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Paris, France – (by wireless)
As we drove toward Paris from the south, hundreds of Parisians – refugees and returning vacationists – rode homeward on bicycles amidst the tanks and big guns.

Some Frenchmen have the facility for making all of us Nervous Nellies look ridiculous. There should be a nonchalant Frenchman in every war movie. He would be a sort of French Charlie Chaplin. You would have tense soldiers crouching in ditches and firing from behind low walls. And in the middle of it you would have this Frenchman, in faded blue overalls and beret and with a nearly burned-up cigarette in his mouth, come striding down the middle of the road past the soldiers.

I’ve seen that very thing happen about four times since D-Day, and you never can see it without laughing.

Well, the crowds were out in Paris like that while the shooting was still going on. People on bicycles would stop with one foot on the pavement to watch the firing that was going on right in that block.

As the French 2nd Armored Division rolled into the city at dangerous speed, I noticed one tank commander, with goggles, smoking a cigar, and another soldier in a truck playing a flute for his own amusement. There were also a good many pet dogs riding into the battle on top of tanks and trucks.

Amidst this fantastic Paris-ward battle traffic were people pushing baby carriages full of belongings, walking with suitcases, and riding bicycles so heavily loaded with gear that if they were to lay them down, they had to have help to lift them upright.

And in the midst of it was a tandem bicycle ridden by a man and a beautiful woman, both in bright blue shorts, just as though they were holidaying – which undoubtedly they were.

Each tank sort of social center

You never saw so many bicycles in your life as in Paris. And they rig up the funniest contraptions on them, such as little two-wheeled carts which they tow behind. And we saw a wagon rigged up so it could be pulled by two bicyclists riding side by side, like a team of horses.

For 24 hours tanks were parked on the sidewalks all over downtown Paris. They were all manned by French soldiers, and each tank immediately became a sort of social center.

Kids were all over the tanks like flies. Women in white dresses climbed up to kiss men with grimy faces. And early the second morning we saw a girl climbing sleepily out of a tank turret.

French soldiers of the Armored Division were all in American uniforms and they had American equipment. Consequently, most people at first thought we few Americans were French. Then, puzzled, they would say, “English?” and we would say, “No, American.” And then we would get a little scream and a couple more kisses.

Every place you stopped, somebody in the crowd could speak English. They apologized for not inviting us to their homes for a drink, saying they didn’t have any. Time and again they would say, “We’ve waited so long for you!” It almost got to be a refrain.

One elderly gentleman said that although we were long in reaching France we had come swiftly since then. He said the people hadn’t expected us to be in Paris for six months after invasion day.

There are not many American soldiers in Paris. And it’s unlikely there will be, at least for some time, because they are out over France going on with the war.

Paris was not a military objective; its liberation so soon was more of a symbol. That’s the reason the French Armored Division was assigned to the job.

Hotel life strange to Ernie

The armies still fighting in the field were practically deserted for a few days by the correspondents, as we all wanted to get in on the liberation of Paris. There were so many correspondents it got to be a joke, even among us. I think at least 200 must have entered the city that first day. both before and after the surrender.

The Army had picked out a hotel for us ahead of time, and it was taken over as soon as the city surrendered. But though it was a big hotel it was full before dark the first day, so they have taken over another huge one across the street.

Hotel life seems strange after so long in the field. My own room is a big corner one, with easy chairs, a soft bed, a bathroom and maid and hall-porter service. There is no electricity in the daytime, no hot water anytime and no restaurant or bar, but outside of that the hotel is just about like peacetime.

Sitting here writing within safe walls, and looking out the window occasionally at the street thronged with happy people, it is already hard to believe there was a war; even harder to realize there still is a war.

542

americavotes1944

President to open campaign at Teamsters Union dinner

Rules out nationwide tour, but leaves door open for visits to key states

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has chosen a dinner here Sept. 23 given by labor leaders for the first outright political speech in his fourth-term campaign, but he ruled out a nationwide tour because he has too much to do.

The dinner is being given by Daniel Tobin, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (AFL), for officers of state, district and local affiliates of the union.

David D. Beck, vice president of the union, said no other distinguished officials would be invited. He pointed out that Mr. Roosevelt addressed the union’s convention here in September 1940 and that the invitation was renewed this year as a matter of courtesy.

May visit some states

“Nothing about politics was said in the invitation to the President,” Mr. Beck said. When advised that the President had stated that the speech could be labeled political, Mr. Beck replied: “That’s up to him.”

Asked whether the speech might be intended to cement the labor vote behind Mr. Roosevelt in November, Mr. Beck answered: “He’s already got it.”

He said he had not yet decided whether he would make other political speeches. Observers pointed out that the decision against a nationwide tour would not preclude Mr. Roosevelt from campaigning personally in Pennsylvania and New York, or in other states where the presidential decision may be close in November.

Attempt to woo AFL?

The fact that radio time for the President’s speech to the Teamsters will be paid for by the Democratic National Committee interested observers here in light of the confusion resulting from the address he delivered at Bremerton, Washington.

Some political experts sought to interpret the President’s acceptance of the Teamsters’ invitation as an attempt to swing AFL unions into the fourth-term camp. Unlike the CIO which is openly and vigorously supporting a fourth term, the AFL is not officially backing either party candidate.