Editorial: Remember Bataan!
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Millett: Keep tab on your value as a good housewife
Accounting of time and effort would give ego quite a ‘shot in the arm’
By Ruth Millett
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Roving Reporter
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.
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, girls, I’ve just seen a showing of the new spring hats, and I’m happy to report they’re not silly this year. They all carry a serious message. For example, there’s a little number called “OPA… How Could You?” decorated in cancelled red and blue points.
Another, called “Breakfast at Berchtesgaden,” has little strips of Persian rug on Russian rye toast. The one everybody was scrambling for was a little off-the-face number built like an ash tray. It had a real cigarette butt in it.
My husband, George, says that women’s hats are ridiculous. Just to make me mad he took his derby hat – painted it purple, stuck an egg-beater through the crown, and hung link sausages from the brim.
It made me mad all right. He wouldn’t let me wear it.
Radio, tube company plan to consolidate
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OPA reveals new prices on clothing
Men will get 49-cent shorts
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Erskine picks 1944 ‘bests’
His top film is Going My Way
By Erskine Johnson
HOLLYWOOD – Maybe we‘ll hate ourselves the morning after the Academy Award shindig March 15, but here are Johnson’s predictions in the 1944 Oscar race.
Best picture of the year: Going My Way.
Best performance by an actress: Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight.
Best performance by an actor: Bing Crosby in Going My Way.
Best supporting actor: Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way.
Best supporting actress: Ethel Barrymore in None But the Lonely Heart.
Best direction of the year: Leo McCarey for Going My Way.
Best written screenplay: Frank Butler and Frank Cavett for Going My Way.
Best original screenplay: Lamar Trotti for Wilson.
Best original song: “Swinging on a Star,” by Johnny Burke and James Van Heusen, from Going My Way.
Best original story: Going My Way, by Leo McCarey.
Going my way?
OWI’s message for 167th week
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Führer HQ (February 20, 1945)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
Unser Angriff gegen den Gran-Brückenkopf machte auch gestern gute Fortschritte. Hartnäckige Durchbruchsversuche der Bolschewisten an der Straße östlich Altsohl scheiterten.
In den Kampfgebieten Schwarzwasser, nördlich Ratibor und südlich Breslau griffen die Sowjets nach unseren Abwehrerfolgen der letzten Tage nur mit schwächeren Kräften an. Sie wurden überall abgewiesen. Die Besatzung von Breslau schlug feindliche Angriffe an der Südwest- und Ostfront zurück. Im Verlauf des harten Ringens im Raum zwischen Lauban, Sorau, Guben konnte der Gegner in einzelnen Abschnitten Raum gewinnen.
Zwischen Pyritz und Kallies in Südpommern wurden die angreifenden Bolschewisten in wechselvollen Kämpfen geworfen und 26 feindliche Panzer vernichtet. Unsere Truppen leisten dem in der Tucheler Heide und westlich der Weichsel nach Norden drängenden Feind erbitterten Widerstand. Die Besatzung von Graudenz schlug heftige Angriffe ab.
In der Abwehrschlacht um Ostpreußen errangen unsere tapferen Divisionen gegen den mit starken Kräften anstürmenden Feind einen erneuten Abwehrerfolg und vernichteten 64 feindliche Panzer. Im Samland sind westlich Königsberg heftige Angriffs- und Abwehrkämpfe entbrannt, in die auch deutsche Seestreitkräfte mit nachhaltiger Wirkung eingriffen.
In Kurland zerbrachen die Durchbruchsversuche der Bolschewisten nordwestlich Doblen trotz Ausdehnung auf weitere Abschnitte auch gestern an der Widerstandskraft unserer Truppen.
Durch den Einsatz starker Jagd- und Schlachtfliegerverbände gegen feindliche Truppen, Panzerkolonnen und Nachschubstützpunkte verloren die Sowjets neben hohen blutigen Verlusten zahlreiche Panzer, Geschütze und Fahrzeuge. In Luftkämpfen und durch Flakartillerie wurden 46 feindliche Flugzeuge zum Absturz gebracht.
Nach fünfstündigem heftigem Artilleriefeuer setzte die 1. kanadische Armee gestern Nachmittag ihre Großangriffe südlich des Niederrheins fort. Sie scheiterten in unserem zusammengefassten Abwehrfeuer. Im Abschnitt von Goch wurden sie in der Tiefe des Hauptkampffeldes um Stehen gebracht.
Der starke Druck der 3. amerikanischen Armee gegen die Flanken unseres Stellungsbogens an der nordluxemburgischen Grenze dauert an. In harter Abwehr hielten unsere Truppen dem feindlichen Ansturm stand und verhinderten nach geringem Geländeverlust in der Tiefe des Kampffeldes die Durchbruchsabsichten des Gegners.
Die seit Wochen im Abschnitt von Remich anhaltenden amerikanischen Angriffe haben gestern an Heftigkeit und Ausdehnung zugenommen.
In Saarlautern zerschlugen unsere Truppen feindliche Vorstöße und brachten Gefangene ein. Im Abschnitt Forsbach wurden Bereitstellungen des Gegners durch unsere Artillerie wirksam bekämpft. Östlich davon stehen die Spicherer Höhen und einzelne Ortschaften nördlich von Saargemünd im Brennpunkt erneuter feindlicher Angriffe.
Die gegen die Nord- und Ostfront von St. Nazaire angreifenden Amerikaner wurden von unserer Besatzung im Nahkampf oder im Gegenstoß abgewiesen. Bei ganz geringen eigenen Ausfällen erlitt der Feind beträchtliche Verluste.
Östlich des Monte Cimons im mittleren etruskischen Apennin führte der Feind den ganzen Tag über zahlreiche örtliche Vorstöße ohne nennenswerten Erfolg.
Anglo-amerikanische Bomberverbände griffen neben mehreren Orten in Westfalen die Stadt Wesel am Niederrhein an. Im südostdeutschen Raum waren vor allem Wien und Graz erneut das Ziel feindlicher Terrorflieger. In der Nacht richteten sich Angriffe britischer Verbände gegen Erfurt und einige Orte im sächsischen Raum.
Das Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert mit nur geringen Unterbrechungen an.
Bei den schweren Kämpfen um Elbing hat sich der mit den Schwertern zum Eichenlaub des Ritterkreuzes ausgezeichnete Kommandeur der 7. Panzerdivision, Generalleutnant Mauß, durch hohe persönliche Tapferkeit und Entschlusskraft besonders hervorgetan. Bei einem Vorstoß aus Elbing nach Westen feuerte er, an der Spitze seiner Division selbst mit dem Maschinengewehr kämpfend, seine Soldaten durch sein Vorbild zu hervorragenden Taten an.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (February 20, 1945)
FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
201100A February
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR
(2) NAVY DEPARTMENT
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(3) TAC HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) MAIN 12 ARMY GP
(5) AIR STAFF
(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) UNITED KINGDOM BASE
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM ZONE
(18) SHAEF REAR
(19) AFHQ for PRO, ROME
(20) HQ SIXTH ARMY GP
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 318
UNCLASSIFIED: Between the Rhine and the Meuse Rivers, heavy fighting continues in the Moyland area where allied forces made slight advances toward Kalkar. Goch has been entered and most of the town has been cleared despite strong enemy opposition.
The communications center of Wesel again was attacked by heavy bombers.
Southwest of Prüm, our forces pushed more than a mile and captured the towns of Üttfeld and Masthorn. Farther west, other elements captured Leidenborn.
Northwest of Echternach, we have cleared Nusbaum and Niedersgegen and have entered Stöckigt. North of Echternach, we have pushed to a point one and a fourth miles north of Schankweiler, and to the Prüm River overlooking Holsthum.
Northwest of Bollendorf, we have repulsed counterattacks.
East of Echternach, our elements pushed to within a miles of Minden.
Gains of up to one mile have been made by our units southeast of Remich in the vicinity of Munzingen. In this operation we took 207 prisoners and 14 pillboxes.
Objectives from Prüm south to Saarburg, in the battle zone southeast of Saarbrücken, and in the Karlsruhe area, were attacked by fighter-bombers.
In the vicinity of Forbach, our forces have occupied Oetingen and Etzlingen. Heavy losses were inflicted on the enemy. We are now on high ground overlooking Forbach.
North of Sarreguemines, the enemy was driven from the German town of Auersmacher, where our units crossed the Sauer River.
Farther east, we have occupied Frauenberg and Foplersviller.
Barracks and supply dumps at Lahr, southeast of Strasbourg, were hit by waves of escorted medium bombers.
Twelve rail centers, including Rheine, Münster, Osnabrück, and Siegen, and industrial targets mainly in the Ruhr, were attacked by heavy bombers in very great strength. Rail and road traffic over an area of central Germany was heavily hit by many of the escorting fighters.
A motor depot at Mechernich, southwest of Bonn, an ordnance depot at Wiesbaden, and rail bridges at Neuwied-Irlich and other areas east of the Rhine River, were attacked by medium and light bombers. Fighter-bomber targets were railyards east of Koblenz, north of Saarbrücken and in the region of the upper Rhine.
During the day eight enemy aircraft were shot down. One of our heavy bombers, one medium bomber, and nine fighters are missing according to reports so far received.
Last night, light bombers attacked targets at Erfurt in Saxony.
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 FA2409
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/