America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

1553

20,000 Nazis surrender to 24 Americans

Germans ask for ‘token battle’ first
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer

Beaugency, France – (Sept. 16, delayed)
Twenty thousand Germans who surrendered to 24 brash Americans arrived at the Loire River and turned in their arms to the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division.

Though technically prisoners, they had been permitted to march in a group, fully armed, for 200 miles. Twenty-four Americans had been insufficient to protect them from the vengeance of the French Maquis. Only at the Loire River were there enough Americans to protect them.

It was one of the strangest military capitulations on record. The French didn’t like it. They thought the Americans were a little crazy to let 20,000 armed men march 200 miles without guard or direction. But it turned out as it had been planned. The Germans were more afraid of the French than the French distrusted the Germans. They wanted to keep their arms only for their own protection.

Led by general

They were led by Maj. Gen. Botho Elster, their commander. He and his staff formally handed their swords to Maj. Gen. Robert C. Mason, commander of the 83rd Infantry Division. Two and a half miles behind them were their men, three columns of weary and disheartened Germans who stacked arms on the river bank and marched across pontoon bridges to prison camps.

For weeks there have been reports of large numbers of Germans in southern France wanting to surrender if only they could find some Americans to accept their surrender – Germans who didn’t want to surrender to the French Forces of the Interior. Now, for the first time, is told the authentic story of a remarkable footnote to the history of the war.

Elster, formerly commander at Biarritz, was ordered on Aug. 26 to regroup all German troops along the Spanish border and the Bay of Biscay and taken them 600 miles back to the Reich. They included 6,000 regular soldiers, 6,000 Luftwaffe personnel and 7,000 marines. They had 400 stolen civilian autos, 500 trucks and 1,000 horse-drawn vehicles.

Never fought real battle

This force never fought a real battle but for weeks it was harassed by the Maquis and the planes of the U.S. 9th Air Force. It met a patrol of 24 Americans led by Lt. Samuel W. Magill, 24, of Ashtabula, Ohio, and promptly surrendered.

The platoon had been sent out on an intelligence and reconnaissance mission into enemy territory. On Sept. 8, two Maquis told Lt. Magill there was a German general farther south who wanted to talk terms.

Asks token fight

Lt. Magill told me:

The Maquis said the German escape route almost was closed and that instead of going back to defend the French ports, the Germans might be willing to surrender.

I sent word to the Germans, hinting I might be agreeable. The commander answered that he was willing if we would send two battalions to the village of Decize for a token battle to make it look good.

Hell, I didn’t know of two battalions within a million miles, so I used another angle. I arranged a meeting and asked our air force for planes. I told the air force I would have a smoke signal at a certain crossroads and if I laid a red panel on the ground they should bomb and strafe the German troops as a convincer but if I put down a white panel just to fly around looking menacing.

Before the planes arrived, I felt pretty optimistic so I placed the white panel and sent two French officers to talk to the Germans. The Germans got a look at all those planes and agreed right away to an armistice. Gen. Elster agreed to come to the village of Issoudun with one of his staff officers for a conference with Gen. Mason.

After that I didn’t do much but the Germans agreed to surrender at the Loire if they could march there with their arms for protection against the Maquis who had been scaring them.

1554

Vermillion: While you talk of V-Day, burial squads go overtime

Slain Yanks dot road in South France; civilians inter them as their own sons
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer

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1555

Nazis crack back at Yanks with men from Eastern Front

By William H. Stoneman

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1556

Yanks invade second island in Palaus area

Advance on Morotai, in Halmaheras
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
U.S. invasion forces extended their foothold in the Southern Palau Islands today, capturing one-third of tiny Angaur and the southern end of Peleliu, together with its airfield, 560 miles east of the Philippines.

Army troops of the 81st Infantry Division, which landed on Angaur Saturday, rolled through the three-square-mile island against little opposition and penetrated as much as 1,500 yards at one point.

Marines on Peleliu, six miles north of Angaur, met stiff resistance but with the support of a steady naval and air bombardment, fanned out for one-third of a mile on the southwest coast and were driving northward.

Tighten grip on Morotai

At the same time, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s veteran Army forces tightened their grip on Morotai, in the Halmaheras. at the southern end of the American line extending around the southeastern corner of Mindanao from the Palaus.

Southwest Pacific Headquarters said the troops reached all the perimeter objectives against negligible opposition and continued to consolidate their beachhead.

While construction battalions rushed completion of the Pitu Airfield, 250 miles south of the Philippines, Allied bombers dropped more than 210 tons of explosives in neutralization raids on other Halmahera airdromes.

Drive 1,000 yards inland

On Angaur, Army troops under Maj. Gen. Paul J. Mueller pushed more than 1000 yards inland within a day after they landed, joined their beachheads on the north and northeast end of the island, captured a radio station and started a drive southward.

The American line extended from the phosphate diggings on the west coast to a point 200 yards south of Rocky Point on the east coast.

“The northeast third of Angaur now is in our hands,” Adm. Chester W. Nimitz said, and observers believed the Jap garrison of less than 2,000 men may be overwhelmed by the end of the week.

Seize high ground

The invasion of Angaur eliminated the threat of Jap artillery from the rear of the 1st Division Marines hacking their way northward through Peleliu.

Despite the heavy opposition in which the Japs were using artillery and mortars, the Marines drove one-third of a mile from their beachhead on the southwest corner, seized a large part of the town of Asias-Omaok and occupied high ground in the Ngarekeukl area.

William Ewing, in a pooled broadcast from a U.S. flagship off Palau, said the Marines captured the highest point on Peleliu – a 200-foot hill overlooking the entire island – and reported that the battle was progressing favorably “beyond our greatest expectations.”

Losses heavy

The hill, Mr. Ewing said, was an important objective. From it the Japs had hurled mortar and artillery shells on U.S. forces.

Losses were heavy in taking the hill by frontal attack, he said. He added that total U.S. casualties have been relatively light.

The Marines and fire of warships and planes were taking a heavy toll of the Jap force, numbering 10,000 men at the start. In four days of fighting, the Americans have counted 1,400 Jap dead.

The Marines captured the second radio station on the island, a power plant and the Peleliu Airfield, which has two strips, each 4,200 feet long, and is large enough to accommodate medium bombers and fighters.

Headquarters disclosed that the Marines on Peleliu consisted of elements of the 1st Regiment under Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller of Saluda, Virginia, the 7th Regiment under Col. Herman H. Hannekan of Kingston, North Carolina, and the 50th Regiment under Col. Harold D. Harris of Alexandria, Georgia.

A Tokyo broadcast gave an indication of the nature of the American assault on Peleliu. It said U.S. battleships “are cruising back and forth, raining salvo after salvo into the Japanese positions” and by Sunday had fired over 10,000 shells. At the same time, Tokyo added, formations of Allied planes “which darkened the skies continuously rained bombs on our positions.”

Allied bombers from Adm. Nimitz and Gen. MacArthur’s commands, meanwhile, continued widespread attacks on bases through the Central and Southwest Pacific.

Seventh Army Air Force Liberators hit Iwo Jima, in the Volcanos; Marcus Island; Pagan and Rota, in the Marianas: Ponape in the Carolines, and Nauru, west of the Gilberts.

Allied pilots of the Far Eastern Air Force swept through the Dutch East Indies, mostly concentrating on shipping lanes where they sank or damaged 13 merchant vessels, barges and small craft. The largest was a 3,000-ton freighter-transport which was sunk off Celebes Island.

1557

Romans storm trial of Fascists, drown ex-prison official

Man mob sought escapes, but witness is beaten, held in Tiber and body hung from window

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1558

Stilwell’s troops cross into China

Open way for new supply route

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1559

americavotes1944

parry3

I DARE SAY —
Man to remember

By Florence Fisher Parry

I went to see the Pittsburgh premiere of Wilson. I had seen it in New York. It had impressed me very deeply – one of the few motion pictures I had ever really felt the need of seeing again.

I sat among “young people;” the First World War had not happened to them; the era of Wilson was but a history lesson to them. They were interested, they were greatly impressed, but they were not reliving any portion of their lives. I felt immensely superior to them, somehow; glad I was old enough to have lived these two wars and see them in relation to each other.

I had time, this seeing of the picture, to notice its embroidery, its consummate setting, its wealth of historical detail. There is not an anachronism; there are few departures from the strict chronicle of fact, and these serve but to illumine, never distort, history. The action moves with a kind of even and ordained majesty… like the course of the constellations wheeling across the sky…

THUS WAS IT TO BE, we sense. This is history. This is the grist that is ground in the mills of the gods…

There was a man with a dream. It enlarged him, inspired him, consumed him, killed him.

But dreams, unlike mortals, do not die. Conceived of man, they yet take on a separate immortality.

The dream did not die. But to survive, it had to undergo great travail.

Blood-soaked, it is rising now to its full stature. The ghosts of 20 million new dead who would not have needed to die, will not let it languish again.

‘Republic’

Never was a motion picture so fortuitously timed. A way must be made for all who live in this Republic to see it. It is a propaganda picture, yes; but it is not a political propaganda picture. At least to the informed it is not; to the intelligent and mature it is not.

It can be used, I dare say, by the base machinery of politics to point the way to the November polls; and frankly I fear that this may happen. That would be a pity; but we must take that chance. The important thing is for all to see it.

It does, however, point one fault which is, I think, deplorable. I wonder that the Republican Party has not been more successful in handling this American tendency; and that is, the assumption that the democratic form of government is espoused by the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party.

I think that the picture Wilson could easily have avoided the accusation that it “plays” party politics, by introducing, in its text, the word REPUBLIC occasionally as a synonym for the word democracy.

To me the most brilliant passages in the picture were those devoted to our national presidential conventions! Never has the public been afforded such a magnificent, colorful, LIVING duplication of this strange American institution IN ACTION. We are shown the American system of free government in full play. All its weaknesses, all its dangers, all its terrifying risks, are conspicuously acknowledged in a series of stunning convention sequences which, for sheer abundant circus impact, have never been equaled on the screen!

Yet through it all THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM of FREE GOVERNMENT manages to survive, thrive, and turn the august tide of history! It DOES work.

Once to every man

If only for this, the picture Wilson must be seen; for never have we had greater need of this assurance.

There are other, many other, distinguishing features which left the picture up and out of all molds that have gone before. Perhaps the manner in which it avoids making Wilson a great man, but is content to present him as he was – an honest, fearless, impractical and stubborn human being whom crisis reared to prominence and who rose to the circumstance and did it honor – perhaps this is the picture’s greatest achievement.

Perhaps Wilson will make motion picture history, establish some new record – I do not know, perhaps it will be found to be another magnificent box-office failure. I hope not this; for that would frighten me.

If Wilson’s dream, neglected in his day, does not interest us now, God pity us, and those who will pay later for our folly.

1560

Destroyer lost in hurricane

Two patrol boats are also sunk

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1561

Secret weapon Dinah Shore opens on Nazis with song

She beams tunes at retreating Germans telling them she’ll get by Siegfried Line

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Kathleen Kennedy loses her husband in action

Death of British nobleman follows that of bride’s brother by month

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1562

Britain opposes U.S. plan to develop strong Italy

England wants defeated nation to remain weak and subservient to her

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1563

Post-war progress –
Business development and new tax program called keys to future

Success in both fields would cut levies and boost income, Beardsley Ruml says
By Beardsley Ruml

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1564

Bus strike in East hits war output

Massachusetts tie-up threatens to spread

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Lana Turner’s boyfriend gives Crane black eye

Ex-hubby objects to Turk as squire

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1565

americavotes1944

On nationwide hookup –
Dewey to speak in Seattle tonight

Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey headed for Seattle today to make his bid for labor support in the November election with a program designed to “restore free collective bargaining and to correct the existing situation in which labor’s rights are made subject to political favoritism.”

The Republican presidential nominee is to address the nation tonight from Seattle’s Civic Auditorium.

Mr. Dewey’s speech will be broadcast by WJAS at 10:30 p.m. ET.

Paul E. Lockwood, Governor Dewey’s secretary, said the Seattle speech would “discuss the problems that confront the working men and women of America.”

Bureaucracy hit

Mr. Lockwood said:

Governor Dewey will analyze the position in which American labor finds itself today under the system of overlapping agencies and confliction of regulations which have been built up by Washington bureaucracy.

Before the speech, Governor Dewey scheduled day-long conferences with business, agriculture, labor and political leaders similar to those he has held at nine other stops across the country during the last 11 days.

Governor Dewey told a crowd greeting him at the Union Station at Seattle today that equality among all sections of the nation is important to American prosperity. He said that economic development of the West has barely begun and promised that:

If we can achieve equality among the East, the Middle West, and the Far West in reconversion, we can go ahead to fuller employment in a free economy.

Governor Dewey will swing south after the Seattle address tonight, speaking ay Portland tomorrow night, San Francisco on Thursday night and Los Angeles on Friday night.

‘Ickes to go’

The candidate said yesterday that he was “entirely convinced” by his trip, through Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington that the Roosevelt administration had “deserted” the western section of the country.

He promised that, if elected, he would be sure to appoint a Westerner to his Cabinet – probably as Secretary of the Interior. The pledge that a Cabinet post will go to a Westerner is the second commitment made thus far. He previously promised that the Labor Secretary would come from the ranks of organized labor.

1566

americavotes1944

Ickes to open fourth term drive in city

Address scheduled Sunday afternoon
By Kermit McFarland

Harold L. Ickes, the New Deal’s favorite exponent of the well-turned phrase, will open the Democratic campaign in these parts with a speech Sunday in Schenley Park, the American Slav Congress announced today.

Mr. Ickes, the highest-ranking spokesman for the Democrats – aside from National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan – who has yet taken on Governor Thomas E. Dewey in debate, will speak to the closing session of the Congress, meeting here in convention Saturday and Sunday.

Flagstaff Hill to be scene

The meeting has been moved to Flagstaff Hill in the park to accommodate the expected large attendance. Other sessions of the convention, chief purpose of which is to endorse a fourth term, will be held in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland.

Mr. Ickes, who is also Secretary of the Interior and Solid Fuels administrator, petroleum administrator for war, mine operator and other things, will speak at 4:00 p.m. ET. The address, according to Slav Congress officials, will be broadcast over a nationwide network.

The Slav Congress’ convention is one of two major Democratic rallies being held here soon under auspices other than those of the regular Democratic organization.

Wallace to speak, too

Vice President Henry A. Wallace will speak in Carnegie Music Hall on Sept. 30 at a rally to be sponsored by a committee of independent Roosevelt backers. The names of committee members have not been announced, although the present chairman is J. S. Crutchfield, president of the United Fruit Auction Company.

John Sobczak, arrangements chairman for the convention, said the American Slav Congress is a “nonpartisan organization” but added that “Slavic Americans in vast majority are convinced that President Roosevelt is the only choice for President.”

Two prominent leaders of the organization, County Court Judge Blair F. Gunther (former chairman of the board) and Gregory Zatkovich (former member of the Board of Directors), recently resigned in protest against political activities of the group. Both are Republicans. Mr. Zatkovich is a candidate for the U.S. Congress.

PAC active

Leaders of the CIO Political Action Committee have been active in organizing the convention here.

The regular Democratic organization will open its campaign here next Monday with a mass meeting in North Side Carnegie Hall. No “big name” speakers have been listed.

Congressman Francis J. Myers, nominee for the U.S. Senate, will head he program and other statewide candidates will appear.

GOP rally tomorrow

Republicans hold their first public rally tomorrow night when Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, candidate for Vice President, comes here to deliver a major speech.

Mr. Bricker will arrive late in the day and speak at 9:30 p.m. The meeting will open at 8:30 with Judge Gunther, U.S. Senator James J. Davis (candidate for reelection), and the Rev. Cornell E. Talley of the Central Baptist Church, 5th Ward, as other speakers. Governor Edward Martin will introduce Mr. Bricker.

1567

americavotes1944

Perkins: Lewis expected to widen his fight on Roosevelt

Drive to filter down through UMW union to wives and families of his mine workers
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Cincinnati, Ohio –
The concluding days of the United Mine Workers Convention are expected to develop more of the reasons why John L. Lewis is so dead set against the reelection of President Roosevelt.

These arguments will be filtered down through the mine workers organization to the half a million members and their families in states that may decide the presidential election, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, and to a lesser extent, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Mr. Lewis epitomized some of his reasons in a speech before the Ohio United Construction Workers, a division of the UMW’s District 50, in which he declared that policies of the Roosevelt administration are directed toward making labor in general “a political company union.”

Sarcastic comment

He added the sarcastic comment:

What a record for one who likes to call himself the savior of mankind and the defender of the poor. He would strike down the unions that are not subservient to his wishes.

Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Lewis charged, “joined in intrigue with his man Friday, Hillman, the cringing officers of the American Federation of Labor and the present officials of the CIO” to hinder the organization of the United Construction Workers. He shot an oratorical blast at what he called “cowardly leadership” that would permit labor to become “indentured servants.”

He asserted that under such leadership, “the officers of unions would become a police patrol to hold labor in subjugation to the will of its economic and political masters.”

‘Sympathy’ for management

In a press conference, Mr. Lewis showed a sympathy with the problems of management in the coal industry – in direct opposition to the Communist school of thought.

He argued against proposed further government development of hydroelectric power as “a vicious and destructive victory” that would “create widespread unemployment and harass invested capital in the coal industry.”

Having disposed of the controversial political and autonomy issues in a manner satisfactory to the leadership, the convention will take up a subject about which there will be no argument – the United Mine Workers want a big pay raise and they want it badly.

The details probably will not be decided definitely until a few weeks before the mine workers meet the bituminous coal operators in the regular wage conferences next March. A demand for a pay raise is sure on the basis of the volume of more-pay resolutions from local unions that are now before the convention’s “Scale Committee,” and also from the fact that Mr. Lewis has not yet won the $2-a-day raise which he spent most of 1943 trying to get.

Little Steel formula

It has been emphasized here that the apparent victory won by the miners’ union in 1943 did not raise the basic pay scale. The miners were making considerably more money, but much of it comes from premium pay for overtime, which is likely to disappear after the war. The rest of it comes from portal-to-portal pay arrangements.

Forecasts, now backed by War Labor Board panel reports in the CIO steelworkers wage case and the general case of the American Federation of Labir, are that President Roosevelt will soon authorize an upping of the Little Steel pay formula.

The WLB timetable indicates this action may be expected no later than two or three weeks before the November election.

The mine workers, like all other unions whose basic pay scales have been held to this formula, undoubtedly will line up for their share.

Best information is that the March demands will include a boost in basic pay of at least a dollar a day, and more probably the still-unsatisfied two-dollar prescription. Also, the miners are expected to demand full pay for the time spent in traveling between mine entrances and actual working places underground (portal to portal). According to the hard-to-understand settlement finally worked our by the War Labor Board, the miners get pay for only about two-thirds of this travel time.

americavotes1944

Vigil keynotes Martin’s address

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin said yesterday that the freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution were not self-perpetuating, and required the constant vigil of liberty-loving Americans because they were under the continuous attack by “both foreign foes and by enemies within our gates.”

In an address commemorating the 157th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, Governor Martin said the framers of the Constitution set up a system of checks and balances designed to insure us against the encroachments of tyranny at home. The two-party system in our national political life was a further safeguard, Governor Martin said.

The governor said that under the Constitution, our country grew to greatness, and that our national government depends upon the indestructibility of the states for its existence. Failure of state and local governments to function properly would destroy the whole structure of national constitutional government, he said.

Governor Martin said that the first three words of the historic document – “We, the people” – proved the birth of a new concept of government, the people have chosen an orderly form of government – “the kind we want to keep and hand down to the generations that come after us,” he said. Any weakening of the Constitution would weaken the structure and spirit of America, Governor Martin said.

The ceremonies at Independence Hall were marked by an hour-long parade and a review of 800 of the state guardsmen.

1568

Nazis stiffen resistance on Gothic Line

Allies seize edge of Rimini Airfield

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1570

Allied raiders over Germany

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1571

Fleet ranges at will in Philippine area

Japs disorganized in southern sector
By George Jones, United Press staff writer

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1572

Frey: Flak whips against plane flying troops to Holland

Reporter on board sights burning craft on ground, large flooded areas
By Robert L. Frey, United Press staff writer

With 1st Allied Airborne Army over Holland – (Sept. 17, delayed)
This newest of Allied armies aimed a knockout blow at German armies in Holland today as the first of thousands of airborne troops landed behind enemy lines.

I am writing this aboard one of the Dakota transport planes carrying 13 paratroopers and equipment. Ten minutes ago, as we approached the drop zone, flak whipped against the ship, sounding like steel cords thrashed against the aluminum body.

We were going down for the drop. Paratroops stood ready to go with chute cords attached to the line overhead. Each man carried 150 pounds of equipment. They were relaxed and appeared almost casual.

Wished good luck

The two next to me, William Harvey of Rowlesburg, West Virginia, and Doyle Boothe of Winnsboro, South Carolina, medical-aid men, shook hands and wished us luck. The next moment all were gone, their red, yellow and green chutes floating down over the rectangular fields of green and brown.

We were the second group in and the going was not easy for the first, as evidenced by burning planes on the ground. Others, apparently brought down by flak, had crash-landed.

“This is the closest you’ll ever come to being shot down and still get by,” Maj. Robert Gates of Aberdeen, South Dakota, pilot and leader of the squadron, told me.

There was much kidding and good-natured griping among the paratroopers as they settled with their heavy packs aboard the plane. At the takeoff, one shouted: “Look out you foul Germans. Here we come.”

Circled by fighters

The course of the flight took us over enemy territory and great patches of sunlit water surrounded by green fields indicated large areas were flooded.

Allied fighters circled around our comparatively slow-moving caravan. At first sight of them, a Texas paratrooper let out a wild and wooly “yippee” which awoke most of the others who had been dozing.

The paratroops, virtually all of whom were D-Day veterans, included Nicholas Vignovich of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

Aliquippa paratrooper was wounded on D-Day

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania – (special)
Pvt. Nicholas Vignovich, 32, of 209 Baker St., Aliquippa, who was listed as one of the first parachutists to land in Holland yesterday, is a son of Mrs. Sarah Vignovich of the same address.

He enlisted April 15, 1942, and was wounded on D-Day in the assault on Normandy, spending three weeks in a hospital in England.

His brother, Sam, was killed Sept. 25, 1942, in the Solomon Islands.

1573

AMG established to govern Reich

Nazism to be wiped out, people told

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Kirkpatrick: Special courts to try traitors

High tribunal planned for Laval, Pétain
By Helen Kirkpatrick

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