America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

9240

Marines clearing Iwo’s 2nd airfield

Savage fighting continues on island

GUAM (UP) – Shock troops of three Marine divisions were clearing the last few yards of Iwo’s central airfield today.

The battle-weary Marines seized all of the east-west runway and all but one third of the north-south runway of Motoyama Airfield No. 2 atop the central plateau yesterday.

Tanks and flamethrowers were again spearheading the attack, backed up by swarms of carrier planes and big Army Liberators. Fighting was savage, with many hand-to-hand combats reported.

Far from over

With the capture of Motoyama Airfield No. 2, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division will have all Iwo’s airstrips – within fighter-plane range of Tokyo – in their hands. Motoyama Airfield No. 1, farther south, fell to the Marines last week.

But the battle of Iwo was far from over. The Japs still hold Mt. Moto, a volcano dominating Northern Iwo, and a cluster of other peaks, all honeycombed with gun emplacements and defense tunnels from which they were raining shells and rockets on the American-held portion of the island.

May take weeks

U.S. Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal, who visited the beachhead four days after D-Day, told newsmen aboard Vice Adm. Richmond K. Turner’s flagship off the island that the cleanup would take many weeks.

Tokyo radio claimed today that Jap defenders on Mt. Suribachi counterattacked the Marines there and recaptured the summit.

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz reported in a communiqué yesterday that the number of Jap bodies counted had reached 2,827 by Sunday noon. Since the Japs usually recover most of their dead, the number of Japs killed actually may be nearer 6,000.

Japs killed 4 to 1

Mr. Forrestal said the Marines were killing four Japs for every American killed.

A Tokyo broadcast said U.S. casualties on Iwo had reached 22,000 – “three Marines a minute.” Tokyo also claimed that Jap planes had sunk an American submarine off Iwo.

A few Jap planes attacked U.S. forces on and around Iwo just before midnight Saturday, but caused no damage. Some of the raiders dropped their bombs on the Jap-held portion of Iwo.

Beach conditions on Iwo showed a “marked improvement,” Adm. Nimitz said, with supplies and reinforcements flowing ashore in a steady flood.

Army Liberators winged north of Iwo to bomb Chichi in the Bonin group Friday and Saturday.

9241

UMW paves way for strike vote

Notice of ‘dispute’ given U.S. agencies

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9242

18-year-olds sent to front – Taft demands explanation

Young Cincinnati soldier killed in action about seven months after induction

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9243

I DARE SAY —
Bluebird at the window

By Florence Fisher Parry

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9244

Trolley strike hits Reading war workers

90,000 forced to seek other transportation

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9245

Perkins: British hope curfew’ll make U.S. realize there’s war on

Midnight closing order for America regarded as ‘mild’ by Englishmen
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

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9246

18-29 deferments studied by WPB

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9247

Mrs. Roosevelt denies advocating birth control

First Lady says financial condition should be factor in size of family

WASHINGTON (UP) – Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt today encountered a barrage of press conference questions about whether she had advocated birth control, as charged by various Catholic spokesmen.

She insisted, however, that when she discussed family sizes at her press conference a week ago, “I did not mention birth control.” Instead, she added, she said then that if there were 12 children in a family, it was important for the family to have enough to feed the children properly and to give them decent living conditions.

The First Lady also pointed out today that her church – she is an Episcopalian – had “never taken a stand against people using common sense in determining the size of their families.”

Regarding the size of her own family, she said:

I happen to have had six children, but if I had had 12 or even 25 it would still have been all right because they would still have had enough to eat.

Five living

Five Roosevelt children are now living. One died very young.

Mrs. Roosevelt also said it is “important that the mother of the family be healthy.”

“I think that the Catholic Church agrees on that,” she added.

Asked about a tendency of rich families to have few children, she said:

Rich people have a tendency because of their material comforts to become selfish and selfish people don’t want to have children. There is a little difficulty involved in having children – after all, they just don’t drop from heaven.

Families closer together

Noting the prevalence of large families among people of poorer circumstances, Mrs. Roosevelt said difficulties often weld a family closer together and create less selfishness. And where there is less selfishness, she added, there is apt to be the desire for larger families.

“Outrageous” was her word for the practice of apartment houses and hotels to refuse to take children.

9248

Trapped Japs inside Manila spurn surrender ultimatum

Yanks launch annihilation drive against enemy remnants in 3 government buildings

MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Trapped Jap bodies in Manila ignored a surrender ultimatum today.

U.S. troops immediately began an annihilation drive against the enemy remnants holding out in three government buildings.

The final assault on the last enemy pocket in the capital came as other U.S. forces pushed into the foothills of the Sierra Madres Mountains east of Manila in an attack on the 25-mile-long Kobayashi Line.

An estimated 1,000 fanatical Japs, believed commanded by Rear Adm. Iwabuchi, were lodged in the three buildings and faced certain doom.

Yanks guns open up

They had been given three choices in the ultimatum – suicide, a fight to death, or honorable surrender. Their only reply was sniper fire while the edict was being read over a loudspeaker.

When the deadline passed at daybreak, American guns opened fire and the troops prepared for an assault on the buildings to clean out the last resistance in Manila.

With the city virtually clear, other U.S. troops resumed their drive toward Luzon’s eastern coast with an offensive against the Kobayashi Line.

Near Los Banos

Units of the 1st Cavalry and 6th Infantry Divisions were attacking the Jap line from Taytay, two miles north of Laguna de Bay lakes to Norzagaray, 19 miles northeast of Manila.

At the same time, the 11th Airborne Division continued its rapid drive southward along the west coast of Laguna de Bay lakes and crossed the Juan River,15 miles below Muntinlupa. The thrust brought the airborne units within five miles of Los Banos, where another sensational liberation of Allied internees was carried out Friday.

A communiqué disclosed that the 33rd Infantry Division had joined the Luzon forces and was fighting in the hills north of Rosario, nine miles above San Fabian on the Lingayen Gulf.

Scattered Jap remnants continued to fight back on Corregidor as the Americans pushed down the tail of the salamander-shaped island.

9249

War news costs lives on Iwo Island

Envelope of dispatch bloodstained

GUAM (UP) – The battle to get the war news back from bloody Iwo Island is a tough one too.

The hardships of civilian war correspondents, Marine combat correspondents, Navy, Marine and Army public relations personnel on Iwo were disclosed in a letter from United Press writer Mac Johnson, aboard an expeditionary flagship off Iwo.

The letter, dated February 23, said that the first story from Lisle Shoemaker, United Press writer on Iwo, arrived aboard ship “in a blood-saturated envelope.”

Holes in message

Mr. Johnson said:

It must have been the messenger that got it because there were holes in Lisle’s copy.

Press boats [to deliver copy from the beach to the flagship for transmission] have been wrecked, shot up and disabled. Sometimes when the press boat was available to go to the beach, the beachmaster wouldn’t let it in because of priority on ammunition, food and equipment in boats waiting to unload.

‘A rough campaign’

Many public relations officers, public relations helpers, and combat correspondents were wounded or killed.

Due to circumstances, there were no central gathering points for copy and the boats couldn’t make pickup schedules and many times they were able to meet schedules.

This has been a rough campaign.

9250

Allies relax secret terms for Italians

Rome gets right to use code messages
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

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More high ground captured in Italy

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9251

Soldier’s heart ‘peeled’ in 4½-hour operation

Surgeon holds organ in hand and removes layer of calcium

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9252

Arms to save lives requested

Forrestal describes fighting on Iwo

GUAM (UP) – Secretary of the Navy James E. Forrestal appealed to the American people at home today for more and more munitions to save the lives of their men fighting on the far-flung battlefronts of the world.

Just back from a tour of the American beachhead on bloody Iwo, where he saw the Stars and Stripes raised triumphantly, Mr. Forrestal made his appeal in a radio broadcast from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz’s Advanced Pacific Fleet Headquarters.

The Marines are fighting valiantly on Iwo and have exacted a four-to-one toll in death from the Japs, he said, but they need an increasing flow of munitions to maintain their fighting edge.

Bombed for 70 days

Mr. Forrestal explained how the tiny island, only 750 miles from Tokyo, was bombed for 70 successive days, shelled for three straight days by battleships, cruisers and destroyers, and hit intermittently by carrier planes.

The Secretary said:

Let me stress here that the tremendous storm of metal thrown on Iwo Jima sharpens again the necessity for the continued output of munitions in our plants at home.

Only because of that rain of metal could the island be reduced at all. Because of it, our ratio of losses is far less than it otherwise would have been.

As Fleet Adm. Nimitz has said, it is our policy in the Pacific to have an unstoppable edge of power in these attacks. A steamroller, as he puts it. That steamroller saves us many lives.

It will take the output, however, of many factories and hard work by all hands in these factories for months to come, if we are to keep that edge of power.

Describes scene

Mr. Forrestal said he was halfway to shore with Lt. Gen. Holland Smith when the Marines reached the top of Mt. Suribachi – a volcano with sides so precipitous they seemed almost vertical.

9253

G.I. train looters may get clemency

Gen. Lear talks to convicted men

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Warship saves fliers 25 miles from Tokyo Bay

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9254

Magic word ‘Americansky’ saves life of U.S. airman

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9255

3-square-meal food plan studied by government

$750 million proposal would be available to low-income families

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Foreign policy accounting asked

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9256

Democrats plan fund campaign

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9257

Editorial: Coal flow must continue

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9258

Editorial: How smart are we?

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9259

Editorial: Hitler is frantic

Hitler’s latest anniversary whine is that of a man who is cornered and knows it. His customary predictions of victory are faint, almost drowned out by his frank admissions of Germany’s desperate position.

It is not surprising that he admits so much. The Russian advance across eastern Germany and Gen. Eisenhower’s drive from the west cannot be covered up. There are too many millions of Germans within sound of the guns, and too many other millions of refugees. Not a single large city of the Reich, or major transportation center or industrial area, escapes bombing.

The most significant part of this strange outburst by Hitler – or whoever wrote it – is the hint that German morale is breaking. Fear is a contagious thing, and nobody knows this better than the Nazi masters of propaganda. When the leader is afraid, how can the people – even the goose steppers – stave off panic? What must be the effect on the faithful of this left-handed confession that so-called cowardice and sabotage are so widespread that German morale is now an “if” question:

If the front and the homeland are jointly determined to destroy those who renounce the law of self-preservation, those who act like cowards or those who sabotage the fight, then they will save the nation… The only thing that I should not be able to bear would be the weakness of my nation.

On the basis of these unwilling revelations, and the known chaotic conditions in the Reich, it is reasonable to hope the enemy is cracking up, but reasonable conclusions are not always accurate regarding Germany, as the Allies have discovered so often. The only safe assumption is that the German people will hang on until their armies are completely defeated in the field.