Wounded and blinded soldier on Leyte regains strength to run to aid station
By Lee G. Miller, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Hillman calls plans great achievement
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Tire output cut 5,000 daily as result of walkout in North Carolina factory
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Iwo invasion poses command question
WASHINGTON (UP) – The invasion of Iwo Island, 675 miles from Japan, put U.S. forces well within the enemy’s inner defense zone today and revived Washington’s No. 1 military mystery:
Will Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz or someone else command the coming grand assault against the Japs and lead the Americans in the victory march through the streets of Tokyo?
Military observers have asked that question repeatedly in the past, but never before has an answer seemed so imperative. The island-hopping phase of the Pacific war is rapidly nearing an end, and there is sharp speculation here as to whether all U.S. forces in the Pacific are to be combined for the next step.
May be settled
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill may have settled that point during their recent conferences. If so, they gave no indication of it in their public announcements.
But the fact that the final battle against Japan will be land action, most likely on the Asiatic mainland, has led many observers here to pick an Army man as the most probable choice if the post of supreme commander in the Pacific is created.
Gen. MacArthur has met and defeated the Japs in both jungle and open country. Though his resources have often been limited, he has inflicted many times more casualties on the enemy than his own forces have suffered.
Nimitz also brilliant
Adm. Nimitz also has established a brilliant record. Over long and bloody paths, Adm. Nimitz and Gen. MacArthur have carried the American flag so close to the heart of the Jap resistance that a unification of command appears inevitable.
Adm. William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was in Washington for consultation. He said at a press conference that the Army and Navy would go to Tokyo together.
Of Gen. MacArthur, Adm. Halsey said: “We’ve worked together for more than two years and I have the greatest respect and admiration for him.”
Started at Port Moresby
Gen. MacArthur began his return to the Philippines when his men halted the Jap advance before Port Moresby, New Guinea. In a campaign that is regarded as brilliant for both planning and execution, he swept on through British and Dutch New Guinea, past the Admiralties, Halmaheras and finally into Luzon. The capture of Manila and strategic portions of Luzon sealed the fate of the Philippines although much mopping-up work remains.
When Manila fell, Gen. MacArthur said that one stage of the Pacific war had ended and that “on to Tokyo” was the next motto.
MacArthur made bid
“We are ready in the veteran and proven command when called upon.” he said in a frank bid for the Tokyo assignment.
While Gen. MacArthur was driving upward from the Southwest Pacific, Adm. Nimitz was pushing across the central area. After the conquest of Guadalcanal, Adm. Nimitz’s forces – Marines and Army troops as well as the mighty Pacific Fleet – took the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Marianas, the Palaus. His fleet units covered Gen. MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines. Between the various invasions, Adm. Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet met and defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy in a series of decisive actions.
Fleet’s job comes first
It will be the job of the fleet to land American troops on Jap soil and the Chinese coast. Indeed, until that stage in the war is reached, it may be that a Navy man will be in command. But once the landings are made, the Army probably would take over.
Some conservative observers here believe the assaults against the Jap islands and the Chinese mainland may have to await the end of the European war. If this should prove so, the question of a combined command may not arise.
After Germany falls, millions of additional troops will be available for service im the Pacific, and the MacArthur and Nimitz commands each could be built into an independent force of considerable strength, each with a specific job.
Blasted bridge spoils hope of witnessing bombardment of Corregidor from Mariveles
By Franz Weissblatt, United Press staff writer
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Priest feigns death to survive in Manila
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer
MANILA, Philippines – A thrice-bayonetted priest, who feigned death to escape, told from a hospital cot today how Jap soldiers slaughtered civilians at La Salle University February 12.
The story of Father Francis Cosgrave, superior of the Redemptorist Order in Manila, was one of many reported instances of mass slayings of civilians caught in Manila no-man’s-land in the last 10 days.
Father Cosgrave, several members of his order and a number of prominent Spanish residents of Manila had sought refuge at the university when they suddenly were visited by a Jap officer and 20 soldiers.
Survives three wounds
He said the soldiers wantonly began bayonetting the group. He survived despite three wounds, including one in which a bayonet was plunged into the left side of his chest and came out his back.
More than 170 persons in the room, including several Christian Fathers, met a worse fate, he said.
Father Cosgrave said:
The Japanese soldiers returned later in the afternoon. They laughed at the sight of bodies in a heap and kicked them. They tried to violate the wounded women – even young girls.
Father Cosgrave pretended death until the Japs finally went away.
Goes to chapel
Shortly before midnight, the priest decided that if he was going to die, he would die on his feet. He crawled and dragged himself upstairs to a chapel and there, one by one, about 10 other survivors joined him.
They watched fearfully as the Japs attempted to set fire to the building. Eventually American machine-guns and tanks forced the Japs to withdraw.
The next morning, the survivors heard the welcome voices of Americans and within a few hours they all were under treatment and recovering from their ordeal.
Accounting of time and effort would give ego quite a ‘shot in the arm’
By Ruth Millett
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By Ernie Pyle
IN THE MARIANA ISLANDS (delayed) – After you take off from one of the island stops crossing the Pacific, your plane climbs noisily and laboriously for about half an hour, then it levels off into steady and less labored flight.
Gradually the intense tropical heat of the ground fades away, and a chill comes over a cabin. Then the flight orderly turns on the heater, and adjusts it until you are comfortable in your light clothes, even without a jacket.
It was after midnight when we took off from the little island of Kwajalein, in the Marshalls, and we were not to stop again until we reached the Marianas.
Passengers are not allowed to smoke until the plane has stopped climbing and leveled off. Then the flight orderly stands at the head of the cabin and shouts in good Navy language “the smoking lamps lit,” and then brings around paper cups for you to use as ashtrays.
About every three hours the flight orderly would wake us up to feed us. Gond food too, and served on trays Just as on the regular airlines.
Frequent feedings
It got to be a joke among the passengers the way they poured food into us. They fed us at every stop, and about every three hours in the air. They nearly fed us to death.
The flight orderly is a sailor who does the same job as a steward on the airlines. We had two crews and two flight orderlies during our long trip, since the same crew stops off halfway for a day’s rest, and a new crew comes on.
Both our flight orderlies were swell boys. There were 16 passengers of us – 12 Navy and Army officers (one a Marine Corps general) three enlisted men, and myself, the only civilian aboard. The orderlies took good care of us, were friendly and willing, treated us all alike, and they weren’t a bit scared of the high rank aboard.
They wore plain blue Navy dungarees and blue shirts, and worked with their sleeves rolled up. Our first one was Seaman Howard Liner of Lubbock, Texas. He used to sell “Dr. Pepper” before he joined the Navy.
36 Pacific trips
Howard has made 36 of these trips across the Pacific, and enjoys it. He gets back to San Francisco frequently, and on his next trip his wife is coming up from Lubbock to see him. Howard always has a little brown pencil stuck behind his ear.
The other flight orderly was Seaman Don Jacobi of San Gabriel, California. He wore a plaited leather belt, and hung from it was a big bunch of keys and a hunting knife in a scabbard. This was his seventh trip.
He seemed quite mature, yet I found he is only 18, and had quit nigh school to join the Navy. His one ambition is to finish school after the war, and go on to college.
It’s mighty tiresome sitting in the same seat on an airplane for nearly 24 hours, even when the seats are reclining ones, as ours were.
The worst part is trying to sleep. You doze for a while and then you start squirming, because you can’t stretch your legs out and your knees start to hurt. Consequently, those who have traveled a lot by air try to find someplace to he down. The floor is good, but a stack of mail sacks is better.
Small size helpful
They had mail piled in the rear four seats, so I got my blanket and started fixing myself up on the mail bags. An Army colonel ahead of me said, “I just tried that, but had to give it up. There are too many square boxes inside the sacks and they stick into you.”
But I went ahead, and being smaller than the colonel, discovered I could sort of snake myself in between the hard places in the sacks. And that way I slept most of the journey to the Marianas.
But one funny thing did happen that I’d never experienced before in flying. The plane had quite a bit of vibration, and when my head touched the plane anywhere, the vibration would carry all through my head.
That didn’t bother me, but for some odd physiological reason, this vibration made the tip of my nose itch so badly I had to scratch it all the time. And thus I dozed the night away, really only half asleep because of the constant necessity for scratching my nose.