Gen. Arnold discloses facts about Shooting Star, rated best ever
By Henry Ward, Press aviation editor
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WASHINGTON – The Senate yesterday confirmed the nomination of George R. Merrell of Missouri as Minister to India.
Men stronger in opposition
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Japs’ Kobayashi Line breached in drive
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Jap forces fell back along a 10-mile front in the Marakina watershed east of Manila today under the impact of two divisions of U.S. troops and swarms of bombers and fighters.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s mounting offensive also brought the complete destruction of Jap remnants on Verde Island, off the southern tip of Luzon; elimination of all but several hundred enemy stragglers on Corregidor, and heavy aerial blows on the Japs from Formosa to French Indochina.
A Jap Domei Agency dispatch said U.S. bombers had been taken to Clark Ficid on Luzon from Leyte, and apparently were operating from the big airdrome.
Capture peak
Units of the 6th Infantry Division paced the drive toward Luzon’s east coast and captured Mt. Mataba, 13 miles northeast of Manila, to knock a hole in the enemy’s Kobayashi Line.
The southern and western slopes of Mt. Pawagan were also secured by the 6th Division troops who drove to within two miles of the east-west Montalban-Wawa highway.
First Cavalry Division forces, however, encountered fierce enemy resistance at Antipolo, eight miles south of Mt. Mataba and 11 miles east of Manila.
Swarms of U.S. planes from fighters to heavy Liberator bombers supported the ground drive through the Marakina watershed.
Raid airfield
On the Northern Luzon front, 25th Division troops continue their drive northward toward the Cagayan Valley and captured Carranglan, 13 miles northeast of San Jose. Marine dive-bombers raided Echague Airfield in the valley.
Additional explosions rocked the Malinta tunnel on Corregidor and heavy smoke poured from the western entrance indicating the Japs were continuing their policy of self-extermination.
Liberator bombers dropped 60 tons of bombs on a chemical plant and fuel dumps at Takao, Formosa. Fighter-bombers raked the south coast of the island. Three coastal vessels were damaged in the nearby Pescadores Islands.
Raid Borneo
Four other coastal craft were destroyed or damaged between Haman and Amoy, on the China coast. Four seaplanes were destroyed and two enemy fighters shot down at Cam Ranh, French Indochina.
The big Liberators also raided Borneo, in the Dutch East Indies, dropping 100 tons of bombs on airfield installations near the oil center of Balikpapan.
Airfield technically ours, but foe on cliff makes life hell on ‘Hollywood battlefield’
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer
ON THE EDGE OF MOTOYAMA AIRFIELD NO. 2, Iwo (Feb. 27, delayed) – The Jap mortars and artillery guns are looking right down our throats.
They are up on a cliff beyond the field, with perfect observation and firing positions. And they are making life a hell on this field.
There is no cover for the Marines – just shell holes and American-dug foxholes – from the steady blast of mortar and flat trajectory shells which scream onto this edge.
Technically ours
Technically, the airfield is ours. We have troops on the far side to the north, but it lies directly under the Jap high ground.
The 3rd Division Marines raced through a hail of mortar and artillery to reach the north side several days ago. But they have been unable to get any farther since because of the Jap guns on the cliff.
The field was one from which the Japs staged their medium bomber raids on B-29 bases in the Marianas. Now it was a desolate no-man’s-land, almost beyond imagination. It looks like a Hollywood battlefield.
We climbed up the slope to the southern edge this morning, but a young captain asked us not to go any farther.
Warning unnecessary
“It’s too hot now,” he said.
Mortar and big artillery shells crashed into the field and the warning wasn’t necessary.
Marines were carrying back their dead buddies, tiptoeing through minefields and winding through the shambles of wrecked equipment – ours and the enemy’s.
The 3rd Marines are veteran fighters, but all agree they never saw anything like this fierce and bloody struggle.
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PARIS, France (UP) – Soviet Ambassador Alexander Bogomolov today dedicated Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Lt. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow and Maj. Gen. Joseph Collins for the assault on Normandy.
Gen. Bradley received the Order of Kutuzov, Gens. Gerow and Collins, who commanded the V and VII Corps respectively of Gen. Bradley’s U.S. First Army, received the Order of Suvorov, Second Class.
Delegation calls at San Francisco paper
SAN FRANCISCO – The 12th Naval District reported today that the shore patrol was called last night to the San Francisco Examiner, a Hearst newspaper, to disperse 75 to 100 Marines who had gathered in protest against a front-page editorial yesterday.
The editorial, which was printed in the various Hearst papers, claimed that the high casualties on Iwo Jima were due to poor leadership and that Gen. Douglas MacArthur should have commanded the assault.
The shore patrol found the Marines were “peaceable,” the naval district reported. They had appointed two representatives to discuss the editorial with the editor. The Marines dispersed and left “quietly,” the district reported.
The editorial was headed “MacArthur Is Our Best Strategist.” It said in part that “American casualties (on Iwo) apparently run more than 10 percent of the original invading force… There is awesome evidence… that American forces are paying heavily for the island, perhaps too heavily.”
“Fortunately,” the editorial said, “it is not the sort of thing that occurs everywhere in the Pacific.” In MacArthur’s operations, it added, “there has been neither decimation nor exhaustion of American forces.”
The San Francisco Chronicle attacked the editorial Wednesday without mentioning the Examiner.
ST. LOUIS (UP) – Missouri had a new constitution today. The new code, adopted by a majority of more than two-to-one in yesterday’s special balloting, replaces the original one approved in 1875 and provides for separate maintenance of schools for white and Negro children.
A number of far-reaching governmental reforms were written into the new code. One of the most important would create a State Department of Revenue to collect taxes now collected by more than a dozen different departments and agencies.
That provision struck a body blow at extensive patronage systems built up by elective state officials whose departments handle the bulk of tax collections.
But ‘basic idea’ for joint action in case of aggression will be endorsed
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