America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

Strikers restore Cleveland power

Union ends walkout as U.S. seizes plant


Phone workers win $4 weekly raise

Perkins: Labor leaders see chance of wage revision

Roosevelt waiting for Vinson’s report
By Fred W. Perkins, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Miss Perkins warns unions to assume responsibilities

Secretary, in what may be swansong, takes slap at WLB stand on pay, living costs


War needs slow spot reconversion

But WPB promises to fill civilian needs

Frances Farmer found again

Reno, Nevada (UP) –
Frances Farmer, former movie actress, was back home today, with her aunt, Mrs. Edith Castlings, who had reported her missing from her Yerington, Nevada, home Thursday.

The blond, ex-movie star was returned home by Reno police yesterday after she was discovered in a movie theater. Police said Miss Farmer, who recovered from a mental illness last July, had spent Thursday night at a Reno hotel and had been in the “Reno area” for about 24 hours.

It was the second time she had disappeared from home within a year.

Baruch advises Senate on surplus

U.S. handling of prisoners angers Yanks

French also score soft treatment
By Helen Kirkpatrick

Paris, France – (Jan. 13)
American treatment of German prisoners of war continues to embitter the people throughout France and has even aroused the anger of G.I.’s.

American information services have issued lengthy and careful explanations to the French showing that German prisoners are treated according to the Geneva Convention. They eat the same food as the American soldiers, it is pointed out, because the convention so prescribes, and to feed them otherwise would create an additional supply problem.

Frenchmen understand and accept that. Only the most unreasonable continue to argue that neither the American, nor (particularly) the Frenchmen, who are prisoners in Germany, get even adequate food.

Nazis get cigarettes

But instance after instance is reported from all parts of France of German prisoners receiving cigarettes and chocolate at a time when the American troops were short of smokes, and when French children were not getting chocolate. During my recent trip through Alsace and Lorraine, French feeling was almost at fever heat on this subject.

That aspect has not bothered the average combat soldier much. Recently, however, the Germans’ cold-blooded shooting of American prisoners has created a new feeling among the G.I.’s. It was about the time that this feeling was growing that the November issue of an American weekly appeared with pictures and a description of German prisoners’ life in a camp in the United States. The reaction was instantaneous and violent.

The pictures showed well-dressed Germans in reading and recreation rooms, and described their daily movies – in German – and their hobby and workshop quarters. Shown also were Army issue towels and clothing on their comfortable beds.

Offers phone numbers

Even the most unimpassioned G.I. has learned by now that nothing like this awaits him if he is captured. He knows that he will live, in what he has on his back, in unheated camps, and will have to rely on Red Cross packages for clothes and for food to eke out a sufficient diet.

“I think I’d better write some of those Jerries and give them some telephone numbers. Maybe they don’t know any girls and aren’t having a good time,” one G.I. said bitterly.

Many of them commented on the lectures and educational courses being given the Germans by their Nazi leaders in these camps.

“We are supposed to be ready to die so they can keep their Nazi ideas alive while living on the fat of our land,” another said.

SOS to airborne troops brings aid to First Army

Soldiers on leave assemble quickly to rush into line during German breakthrough
By Jack Bell

100 U-boats in Atlantic, London says

British doubt robots will hit U.S.

Canadians gain on Italian front

Fifth Army probes German positions


American bombs kill U.S. soldiers

New landing made on Burma coast

Allies act to block escape of Japs

Chinese close on Burma Road base


Covell promises quick aid to China

Reds’ foe due to head new ‘Dies’ group

Democrats select Hague follower


Moley tells GOP 12 ways to win

Poll: Public ready to support labor draft

War jobs for 4-Fs also favored
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

Answer to ‘A’ drivers’ prayers?
Gasless auto blueprints to be put on market soon

Inventor says you can buy parts from any junkyard for $400 – 10,000 ahead of you

‘Learn by experience,’ woman urges in plea for training of youth

She cites China as victim of pacifism – says preparedness will be less costly
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer


G.I. Joes in House promise no gripes

Red paper assails U.S. Army journal

Russians slandered, Izvestia asserts

Crowns and going places

They’re headed higher and higher and expanding in width
By Lenore Brundige, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Manager’s fib prevents panic as fire hits theater

Patrons are told blaze is ‘up the block’ and march out orderly to watch it

Col. Palmer: Violent Jap Army, Navy feud brewing

Showdown with U.S. fleet may result
By Col. Frederick Palmer, North American Newspaper Alliance

New York – (Jan. 13)
The sensational success which Adm. Chester W. Nimitz reports of the naval-air battle between Adm. William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet and Japanese warships off the French Indochina coast emphasizes the hope that all elements of the Jap fleet will come out to do battle, including battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and whatever else the enemy has. This would be extending Japan’s naval neck to meet the same inevitable fate that is overtaking her overextended army neck.

Contrary as it is to sound naval strategy, the hope that this may happen is not without basis. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s landing on the shores of Lingayen Bay was bound to precipitate a Tokyo crisis which would inflame the old enmities between the Choshu (army) and the Satsuma (navy) clans.

In the war councils in Tokyo, the feud between the army and navy cliques will rise to a violent pitch of mutual upbraiding. Army chiefs will charge navy chiefs with cowardice and the shaming of Samurai honor in refusing to leave home harbors with their precious ships.

May compromise

Navy chiefs will reply that the army is getting what it asked for when it overextended itself against naval advice, and that to risk battle with superior American and British naval forces is to risk sacrificing naval home defense and to leave the homeland open to invasion by the island-skipping U.S. Army.

Much of the future of the Pacific war depends upon whether the influence of the army clique will prevail over the naval. The upshot may be a compromise in splitting the fleet to provide naval escorts to protect the movement of reinforcements and supplies to Luzon. In that case, we can whittle down Jap naval power by knocking out one escort after another. Already it appears that the Jap fleet is divided between Singapore and home bases.

Neck stuck out

It is our invasion of Luzon and the power behind it which must have brought starkly and unanswerably home to Tokyo how fatally the Jap Army had stuck out its neck. For our invasion we have control of sea and air approaches. Japan has to face the fact that not only can she never recover control, but our control will become stronger and continue to spread. We can supply and reinforce our troops ashore at will.

Where Gen. Homma had the initiative in the Jap invasion of Luzon, Gen. MacArthur now has it in his liberation of Luzon, Homma made more than one landing in his concentric strategy. Now Gen. Yamashita, if he is in command of Jap defense, has to consider when and where Gen. MacArthur will make further landings on the extensive coastline of that long island.

Must draw together

Yamashita has not only to resist the advance of the American columns by delaying actions, but he must try to make sure none of his own columns is cut off in drawing them together to meet converging Americans in what will be a “Bataan” for Japan. Looking south and southwest, Yamashita can see how the Jap Army has stuck out its neck – 1,000 to 2,500 miles from home bases.

While in Europe the Allies are on the German borders on the way to Berlin, on Luzon we are still very far from Tokyo. To occupy Tokyo, we shall be in for a D-Day in landing an army on the main home island. Japan is weak in sea power, but she has soldiers enough – five million trained, if not all under arms, with 500,000 coming of service age every year. The Jap fleet cannot rescue the Jap garrisons in the Philippines, but working out from its home bases it can be an arresting force in our approach to the Jap home islands.

Sheean: Mystery hides Nazi tortures at death camp

Execution chamber baffles experts
By Vincent Sheean