Editorial: Anti-discrimination law
…
Durability, beauty in LeLong creations
Exquisite workmanship and classic design rank him as favorite
By Judy Barden, North American Newspaper Alliance
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
IN THE MARIANAS ISLANDS (delayed) – The funniest man in our hut of B-29 pilots is Capt. Bill Gifford, of Buford, South Carolina.
He’s a drawly-talking Southerner, lean, profane and witty. He has a long neck and blond pompadour hair and a wide mouth and he is the salt of the earth.
Before I arrived, Capt. Gifford held the record for being the skinniest man in the B-29 base. The other boys call him “The 97-pound Wonder.” But now they can laugh at me instead of him when we go to take an outdoor shower.
Bill Gifford is an old-timer in aviation much older than his fellow pilots here. He is 36, and has been flying about 17 years. As he says, he’s “too damned old to be in this bombing business.”
He says he gets so seared over Japan he can hardly think, and I imagine that’s true But I noticed he volunteered to go on a certain especially tough mission when it came up.
It turned out that Giff and I had lots of mutual friends in the early airmail days, such as Dick Merrill and Gene Brown and Johnny Kytle, so we become practically bosom pals. The Ghandi Twins, you could call us.
Bill has been around
Bill has been around in this world of aviation. He flew the early night airmail. He flew for Pan American in South America. He was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and made seven trips across the Atlantic, ferrying bombers to England.
It’s worth a theater ticket to hear Giff tell about a mission after he gets back. He uses his hands and his feet and half the room and a great portion of his vocabulary. He gets tickled and then he gets mad.
It seems that everything always goes wrong when Giff is on a mission. He had an experience to prove it while I was here. I’d gone to visit in a neighboring hut for a few minutes and he couldn’t find me, or I would have been with him on it. Thank goodness I always seem to step out at the right moment.
Very annoying
Anyway, it was just a half hour before supper, when Giff got an emergency order to beat it to the airstrip right quick and take a ship up on a half hour’s test hop.
He made the flight all right, but when he got ready to land the wheels wouldn’t come down. That’s very annoying, you know.
Well, Giff radioed the field, and then began working on those wheels. Of course, these big B-29s are so complicatedly automatic that you do everything by little electrical switches and levers, and not by hand.
“Some guys must have spent all day crossing up wires on that airplane,” Giff said in his comical exaggeration when he got back.
Instead of the wheels coming down, the bomb bay doors opened. When I tried to shut them, the upper turret gun started shooting. I hit the light switch by mistake, and the tail skid came down. Just for the hell of it I tried to lower the flaps, and instead the bomb bay doors went shut.
Getting madder ‘n’ madder
By that time, I’d turned it over to the co-pilot and was back in the bomb bay trying to make some sense out of the switchbox and get things working again.
Finally, I just got so disgusted I hauled off and gave the switchbox a good smack with the screwdriver, and started to walk out. And just like that the wheels came down and everything was all right.
Giff looks more like a Texas cowboy than a bomber pilot. He’s a conscientious objector to all forms of exercise. All the pilots sleep all night and half the day, but Giff sleeps more than any of them.
He is probably the most unmilitary man in the outfit. He’s just an old-shoe Southerner, and generous as can be. On his wall are a map of the Pacific and a picture of his wife. He goes around most of the time in nothing but white underdrawers.
The first two fingers of Giff’s right hand are off, clear up to the hand. No, he didn’t lose them from flak or Jap fighters. He shot them off with a shotgun when he was hunting quail many years ago. He writes a beautiful hand by holding the pen between thumb and last two fingers. He holds a beer can the same way.
Giff calls his plane Honshu Hank. He wants to form a new fraternity called “Fujiyama, ‘44.” Its membership would be limited to those who had flown over Japan on bombing missions in 1944. He says if he never goes on another mission in his life, it would suit him fine.
The story of radar –
Electronics will guide world traffic
War work helps to perfect setup
By Peter Edson
…
Mrs. Roosevelt has crown but she doesn’t wear it
Jeweled headgear presented to President – First Lady’s not sure who gave it
…
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
I noticed in the papers that when a reporter asked President Roosevelt why San Francisco had been chosen for the big United Nations meeting, he answered: “Well, everyone seemed to like it, except those from Southern California.”
Goodness, Mr. President, speaking in behalf of Southern California in general and Los Angeles in particular, I want to say were not one bit jealous of San Francisco. Most of us like San Francisco very much, because of its beautiful view. On a clear day there, people say you can see Los Angeles.
Anyway, at the rate Los Angeles is growing, by the time April is here, our city limits will probably overflow and engulf San Francisco anyway.
So don’t worry, Mr. President, we’re with you and hope you will enjoy the beautiful weather there. But if I were you, I’d remind Haile Selassie to bring his umbrella.
Plan prepared for cutbacks in war output
WPB clears way for limited reconversion
…
Bretton Woods program goes to Congress
Long fight expected over agreements
…
Führer HQ (March 8, 1945)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In der mittleren Slowakei stehen Grenadiere und Jäger seit zehn Tagen in erbitterten Wald- und Gebirgskämpfen gegen den von Süden und Osten auf das Grantal bei Altsohl angreifenden Feind. In verlustreichen Gefechten beiderseits Schemnitz erzielten die Sowjets geringe Bodengewinne.
Beiderseits Lauban haben Truppen des Heeres, der Waffen-SS und Volkssturmeinheiten, hervorragend durch die Luftwaffe unterstützt, starke Teile der sowjetischen 3. Garde-Panzerarmee verlustreich geschlagen. Die Stadt ist befreit. 162 feindliche Panzer, 159 Geschütze, 74 Granatwerfer und 106 Kraftfahrzeuge wurden vernichtet oder erbeutet.
Bei Küstrin zerschlugen unsere Truppen auch gestern zahlreiche von Schlachtfliegern und starker Artillerie unterstützte Angriffe der Bolschewisten.
Im Brennpunkt der Abwehrschlacht um Pommern wurden die Durchbruchsangriffe starker sowjetischer Kräfte auf Stettin innerhalb unseres Sperrgürtels zwischen Greifenhagen und Gollnow aufgefangen. Südlich Cammin und vor Kolberg stehen eigene Kampfgruppen in erfolgreicher Abwehr gegenüber starkem Feind. Marineeinheiten vernichteten hier, größtenteils mit Nahkampfwaffen, in zwei Tagen 40 Sowjetpanzer.
In Westpreußen wurden die mit Schwerpunkt auf Stolp und beiderseits Preußisch-Stargard vorgedrungenen starken bolschewistischen Panzerverbände nach erbitterten Kämpfen in einer Sehnenstellung aufgefangen.
Die Besatzung der Festung Graudenz unter ihrem Kommandanten Generalmajor Fricke ist nach fast dreiwöchiger Sperrung des wichtigen Weichselüberganges in heldenhaftem Kampf dem übermächtigen feindlichen Ansturm erlegen.
Im Kampfraum von Ostpreußen wurden westlich Zinten zusammenhanglose Vorstöße der Sowjets abgewehrt.
Die Abwehrschlacht in Kurland blieb auf den Raum östlich Frauenburg beschränkt, wo unsere kampferprobten Truppen auch gestern den mit verstärkten Kräften und hohem Materialaufwand erstrebten Durchbruch des Feindes vereitelten.
Am Niederrhein hielten unsere Truppen den Brückenkopf Wesel gegen erneute feindliche Angriffe, warfen vorübergehend vorgedrungenen Gegner unter schweren Verlusten für ihn zurück und vernichteten zahlreiche Panzer.
Im Abschnitt Düsseldorf–Köln wurde unsere Front in schweren Kämpfen auf das Ostufer des Rheins zurückgedrückt. Auf dem Westufer wird noch in den Trümmern von Köln gekämpft. Gegen den Brückenkopf Bonn führt der Feind heftige Angriffe.
An der Ahr entwickelten sich lebhafte Gefechte mit feindlichen Panzerkräften, deren Spitzen bis Remagen vorstießen. Auch durch die Eifel konnten amerikanische Panzerspitzen in das Rhein-Mosel-Dreieck Vordringen. Durch unsere Angriffe gegen seine tiefen Flanken erlitt der Feind schwere Verluste.
An der unteren Kyll örtlich angreifender Gegner blieb in unserem Hauptkampffeld liegen. Am Osburger Hochwald südlich Trier scheiterten die Versuche der Amerikaner, eine durch unsere Truppen abgeschnittene Kampfgruppe zu entsetzen. In den Unteren Vogesen brachen zahlreiche feindliche Vorstöße in unserem Feuer zusammen.
Die Kampfpause in Mittelitalien dauert an. Aufklärungsvorstöße der Amerikaner in den Bergen östlich Montese blieben ohne Erfolg.
Bei Angriffen nordamerikanischer Terrorbomber auf westdeutsches Reichsgebiet wurden Wohnviertel mehrerer Städte zum Teil schwer getroffen. Die Briten führten in der vergangenen Nacht einen Terrorangriff gegen Dessau und warfen Bomben auf weitere Städte in West-, Nordwest- und Mitteldeutschland. Besonders in Groß-Hamburg und Leipzig entstanden Schäden. Luftverteidigungskräfte brachten 59 anglo-amerikanische Flugzeuge, fast ausschließlich viermotorige Bomber, zum Absturz.