America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

8199

‘Angels of Bataan, Corregidor’ freed

Army nurses found at Manila camp
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer

SANTO TOMAS PRISON CAMP, Manila (Feb. 4, delayed) – The long ordeal of the “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” the U.S. Army nurses who cared for American and Filipino wounded in the black days of Jap invasion, is ended at last and all are accounted for.

U.S. troops who liberated this civilian internment camp found them. For all their reasons to celebrate, they would not pause in their newly-found work of mercy. Instead, they kept on the job, caring for the wounded in the fight to free Manila.

Penicillin new to them

By way of rejoicing, they reveled in again having clean bandages and an abundance of drugs, brought to them by cavalry units, to work with.

Imprisoned in these islands since early 1942, they knew nothing of penicillin. They thought soldiers were joking when they promised that a large American hospital unit would arrive within a few hours, and their work would be ended.

Two of those happily working tonight survived Jap bombings on Bataan. They were Rose Marie Hogan, of Chattanooga, Oklahoma, and Rita Palmer of Hampton, New Hampshire.

Tried to escape

Some of the nurses freed at Santo Tomas were taken there after unsuccessful attempts to escape.

About 100 Army nurses were caught in the Philippines when the war began, and every effort was made to evacuate them when it became clear that all was lost. Only two groups reached freedom, one by submarine, another by Navy flying boat.

A third group got as far as Mindanao Island before their flying boat was disabled. Many months later, they were brought to the Santo Tomas camp, where they joined other nurses in caring for the sick.

8200

U.S. submarine and tanker lost

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8201

MacArthur seeks big role in final defeat of Japan

General considers job in Southwest Pacific done and he’s ready for another assignment
By William b. Dickinson, United Press staff writer

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8202

Bomb-day device protects bomber

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8203

14 more convicted by court martial

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8204

Kobe raided again by lone Superfortresses

Japs report B-29 follow-up to big raid

WASHINGTON (UP) – Lone Superfortresses bombed the big Jap port of Kobe twice early today, Radio Tokyo said, in a follow-up to Sunday’s heavy raid.

Two other B-29s flew over Kobe at 11:30 p.m. JST, the broadcast said, but it did not indicate whether they, too, dropped bombs.

A dispatch from XXI Bomber Command headquarters at Guam said reconnaissance photographs showed one important industrial plant had been “substantially destroyed” by fire in Sunday’s raid.

Moderate success

The raid at a whole was considered only “moderately successful,” however, the Bomber Command said. Though 34 fires were left burning in Kobe, all had been put out by the time reconnaissance photographs were taken 24 hours later.

Twelve fires were kindled around the Mitsubishi heavy industries plant alone, but damage was not substantial, the pictures revealed.

“This again emphasizes the fact that the popular conception of Japanese cities as huge fire traps is not correct,” a Guam dispatch said.

Balikpapan raided

Radio Tokyo also said that more than 20 U.S. planes carried out two raids on Balikpapan, oil center on Borneo, yesterday.

Another Tokyo broadcast said Munitions Minister Shigeru Yoshida had acknowledge in the Jap House of Peers that U.S. Superfortress raids had caused “some damage” to Jap aircraft factories.

8205

Bradley regains First Army control

Nazi losses in drive put at 220,000

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8206

Fifth Army takes four more towns

Patrol activity in Italy increased

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8207

Plea to disarm Axis renewed

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8208

Editorial: Clear the way

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8209

Editorial: The enemy we face

Manila has fallen and the fall of Berlin seems imminent.

But these signal victories do not mean the end of the war. They do not even mean we are near the war’s end.

While we are feeling jubilant about the way the wars in the Pacific and Germany are going, let us pull up and go back a few days to another Page One story.

We mean the story about the rescue of 510 Allied prisoners who were cooped up by the Japanese in Luzon Island horror camps.

Not the story of the rescue, which was dramatic and heroic, but the subsequent truth which resulted from that rescue – the grim tales told by the rescued. The eyewitness stories of how the Japs executed American and Filipino prisoners for trivial or imaginary offenses. How hundreds, and perhaps thousands, died of neglect in these so-called prison camps. How the prisoners were beaten and subjected to dozens of sadistic, barbaric cruelties by their Jap custodians. Of the rotten food they were given. How they were starved. How the Japs laughed at their misery.

We are up against a fiendish enemy in the Pacific. No reasonable American mind possibly can understand the degraded and excessively savage mind of the Jap. But we must try to understand it. If we are to win that war, we must not wince in the slightest. It will be a desperate, barbaric war until the last Jap is killed or driven into cringing surrender.

And while we are wising up to the insanely savage Jap, let’s not forget the Nazi. While the Nazi may possess more finesse and may pretend more respect for the international rules of warfare, he also is a hopeless barbarian. We cannot relent with him, either in the vigor with which we prosecute the war or in the terms of his surrender, any more than we can soften up for the Jap.

Our enemies are vicious, last-ditch fighters. They will stop at nothing. Neither dare we.

8210

Editorial: Time to tell the Germans

German morale is the growing question mark as the Red armies sweep on toward Berlin, as Anglo-American planes bomb the panicky capital and Gen. Eisenhower moves through the Siegfried Line. That morale must be much less affected by propaganda and counter-propaganda than by the actual chaos and carnage which the German people see and feel. And yet propaganda does continue to play a part. At least Herr Goebbels, who has been more consistently successful than Hitler or the generals, is shouting louder than ever.

He is harping on two strings. One is German pride. He says: Remember how the Russians held out at Leningrad and Moscow (Stalingrad is passed over as too painful for reminders), how the Poles took it at Warsaw, how Londoners refused to crack under the blitz and planned to fight on elsewhere if their capital fell. Then he asks: Will Germans, the superior race, weaken when inferior Russians, Poles and Britons stood firm? That’s a good line. It may stiffen some sagging German spines.

Goebbels’ second line is the appeal to German fear of Allied retaliation. He says: If Germany surrenders, she will be destroyed. This is alsopotent. The Germans know the bestial record of their armies in conquered lands, they see the foreign slave labor which has been brought into Germany, they know they have earned the hatred and revenge of the world.

Because there is much truth in the situation which Goebbels is now exploiting with an evil twist, it is not easy for the Allies to counter his propaganda. They cannot deny that there is hatred of Germans among those who have survived the barbarism of German occupation. Nor do the Allies wish to sugarcoat the truth that the settlement terms will be hard, that everything necessary will be done by the victors to prevent another revival of German power of conquest.

But we think the Allies, within the realm of honesty and reason, could be more effective in counter-propaganda. They can emphasize, more than they have done, the official statements of President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin that unconditional surrender means destruction of Nazism and German aggressive power, but not of the German people. The sooner there is a joint Big Three declaration of that kind the better.

Moreover, the Big Three ultimatum should stress that the danger of destruction of the German people would not be created but removed by an armistice. They should be told that Hitler’s plan to continue the war means national suicide, that German cities will be wiped out at a rate hitherto undreamed, that millions upon millions of Germans will die needlessly. In sober truth Germany today is facing destruction – not because the Allies will it; but because the German people, who started the war under Nazi orders, go on making war under Nazi orders.

8211

Edson: Price rollback on clothing helps stabilization

By Peter Edson

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8212

Ferguson: Dogs and children

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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8213

Background of news –
Since Tehran

By Bertram Benedict

It is now 14 months since the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the Premier of the Soviet Union signed their joint declaration at Tehran, in Iran.

In those 14 months, there has been no other meeting of the Big Three, although Mr. Roosevelt conferred with Mr. Churchill at Quebec in September and Mr. Churchill with Stalin at Moscow in the following month. There have been three great international conferences in the United States on post-war problems: at Chicago, on aviation; at Bretton Woods, on financial relations; at Dumbarton Oaks, on world organization.

The main Tehran Declaration (there was another on Iran) was largely political, but probably the most vital decisions reached were military. Now, with the Red armies near Berlin, the most vital decisions of the Big Three may well be political, on what to do after victory over Germany.

Since Tehran, British and American relations with Chiang Kai-shek have deteriorated, although a little improvement seems to have been achieved of late. Fourteen months ago, the Generalissimo conferred with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill (Russia is not at war with Japan) at Cairo prior to the Tehran meeting, and the three issued a joint declaration on the territorial future of Japan.

Reds were still in Russia

When the Tehran conference met, the Red armies were still on Russian soil. British and American armies were on the continent of Europe only in Italy, and there they were still south of Rome. But in January 1944, the Red Armies reached the old border of Poland and lifted the siege of Leningrad; in March, they were in the Ukraine; in April, in the Balkans; in August, in East Prussia.

On June 6, two days after Rome fell, the Allies landed in Normandy; on August 15, they invaded southern France; on August 25, they took Paris; on September 12, they were on German soil in the west. And on July 20, a German army group tried to assassinate Hitler.

In the Pacific, the Marshalls were invaded in February 1944 and Saipan in June; by August 15, the Japanese were all out of India; late in October, U.S. troops landed on Leyte in the Philippines and the U.S. Navy inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese Navy in a naval battle; on December 16, the Americans landed on Luzon and began their march on Manila; and Tokyo has come under systematic bombing from the air.

Roosevelt policy strengthened

Since Tehran, Germany has lost every ally in Europe, and Turkey has broken diplomatic and economic relations with Berlin. At the time of Tehran, the Axis held 20 European capitals. Only five are left.

President Roosevelt goes to a new conference with Mr. Stalin and Mr. Churchill strengthened politically by his reelection, by the election defeat of some outstanding opponents of his foreign policy, by a larger majority for his party in the House, by retention of his party majority in the Senate.

8214

Extravagance laid to Army on purchases

Freezing of surplus property urged

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House refuses to alter George bill

Committee rejects GOP amendments

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8215

Monahan: Winged Victory stunning spectacle at Nixon Theater

Cast of 300 in Uncle Sam’s Army air show thrills first-nighters
By Kaspar Monahan

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8216

Stokes: Helping Henry

By Thomas L. Stokes

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8217

Othman: Contact-man

By Frederick C. Othman

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8218

Love: Let’s stop it

By Gilbert Love

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