‘Human bomb’ used by Japs against tanks
…
Slayer of 3 dies in electric chair
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Editorial: Tribute to Ernie
Greenwich, Connecticut, is not a metropolis, like New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Washington. It’s a city of the size that Ernie Pyle would have liked as his home.
It is interesting therefore that from Greenwich came the first editorial written about Ernie Pyle’s death. Within an hour and a half after the death was reported, the following was sent to Scripps-Howard offices in New York by Niver W. Beaman, editor of The Greenwich Times:
Ernie Pyle, war correspondent, is dead, killed by a Jap machine gunner, and the greatest tribute that can be paid him is the sense of personal loss felt by millions of Americans who never even saw this hard-working little man.
When President Roosevelt died suddenly last week, the comment most often heard was “It is just as though someone in my own family had died.” Although Ernie Pyle held no public office, his death has brought the same stunned exclamations.
Ernie Pyle was not the typical war correspondent. He wrote not of tactics and strategy. He went into the lines with the fighting men and wrote of them as individuals, naming them by name and city. He described his reporting as a “worm’s eye view of the war.” He could have lived with the generals. He preferred the enlisted men.
He wrote homely little pieces about his friends – and every man in uniform was his friend, because he shared their dangers, asked no special privileges, talked their language. And he wrote their language.
Often the reader of Pyle’s column in Scripps-Howard newspapers and other newspapers in which it was syndicated, knew personally the men of whom he wrote because Ernie met thousands of fighting men, and named them, described them, made them live in print.
If the reader didn’t actually know one of the men whom Ernie met, the reader knew somebody almost like him. If it wasn’t your brother, Joe, or your son, Junior, or the kid that lived next door to you, and often it was, it was a G.I. so much like your own that you had the feeling of being with your very flesh and blood. That was Ernie Pyle’s great talent – the ability to take you with him. He was a great reporter but more than that he was a grand, modest, scared, brave little guy.
Ferguson: Ernie Pyle
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
My last letter from Ernie Pyle came from Albuquerque:
I haven’t written you in a long time. Your piece which I was reading last night gave me the chance. One sentence struck me as so thoughtful, so true (men who have slept in foxholes and endured the hardships of actual war, develop a profound pity for the misfortunes of humanity) at least that’s the way I feel. I’m not sure all soldiers do.
My vacation hasn’t been much of a vacation. The public pressure has been unbelievable I’m taking of for the Pacific in a few days, I certainly Mrs. Ferguson don’t itch to go, but feel I must. I don’t suppose any of us will be the same by the time this whole thing is over.
He went to the Pacific and will not come back, dear, shy, lovable Ernie. To his personal friends and millions of devoted readers, the world will not be the same without him.
But Ernie wouldn’t have wanted eulogies. He gladly shared a soldier’s life; he did not try to avoid a soldier’s death. It seems a fitting climax to his great career as interpreter of American fighting men, that he should walk into the valley of shadows with those who went that way. They were his comrades in arms, his pals, and in death they are not divided.
His last dispatches are accounts of their valor, fellowship and mirth under stress of war. He leaves life with his genius at its full flower. He went at high tide – and all who do are blessed.
Let there be no lamentations for Ernie Pyle, although we who are bereft of him may sorrow for ourselves. He has found peace.
Millett: G.I. Joe’s girl understands smallest of attentions
French think Yanks make too little of love and that’s okay at home
By Ruth Millett
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‘Rip’ stops ‘Nick,’ Bucs lead series
Preacher Roe and Derringer to pitch today
By Chester L. Smith, sports editor
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White Sox win first three, talk pennant
By the United Press
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In addition to today’s column, we will print several others which we have received from Ernie on Okinawa. We believe he would have wanted it this way.
OKINAWA (by Navy radio) – Now I’ve seen my first Jap soldiers in their native state – that is, before capture. But not for long, because the boys of my company captured them quicker than a wink.
It was mid-forenoon and we had just reached our new bivouac area after a march of an hour and a half. The boys threw off their packs, sat down on the ground, and took off their helmets to mop their perspiring foreheads.
We were in a small grassy spot at the foot of a hill. Most of these hillsides have caves with household stuff hidden in them. They are a rich field for souvenir hunters. And all Marines are souvenir hunters.
So immediately two of our boys, instead of resting, started up through the brush, looking for caves and souvenirs. They had gone about fifty yards when one of them yelled: “There’s a Jap soldier under this bush.”
We didn’t get too excited for most of us figured he meant a dead Jap. But three or four of the boys got up and went up the hill. A few moments later somebody yelled again: “Hey, here’s another one. They’re alive and they’ve got rifles.”
So, the boys went at them in earnest. The Japs were lying under two bushes. They had their hands up over their ears and were pretending to be asleep.
Too scared to move
The Marines surrounded the bushes and, with guns pointing, they ordered the Japs out. But the Japs were too scared to move. They just lay there, blinking.
The average Jap soldier would have come out shooting. But, thank goodness, these were of a different stripe. They were so petrified the Marines had to go into the bushes, lift them by the shoulders, and throw them out in the open,
My contribution to the capture consisted of standing to one side and looking as mean as I could.
One Jap was small, and about 30 years old. The other was just a kid of 16 or 17, but good-sized and well-built. The kid had the rank of superior private and the other was a corporal. They were real Japanese from Japan, not the Okinawan home guard.
They were both trembling all over. The kid’s face turned a sickly white. Their hands shook. The muscles in the corporal’s jaw were twitching. The kid was so paralyzed he couldn’t even understand sign language.
We don’t know why those two Japs didn’t fight. They had good rifles and potatomasher hand grenades. They could have stood behind their bushes and heaved grenades into our tightly packed group and got themselves two dozen casualties, easily.
The Marines took their arms. One Marine tried to direct the corporal in handbook Japanese, but the fellow couldn’t understand.
The scared kid just stood there, sweating like an ox. I guess he thought he was dead. Finally, we sent them back to the regiment.
The two Marines who flushed these Japs were Cpl. Jack Ossege of Silver Grove, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati, and Pfc. Lawrence Bennett of Port Huron, Michigan.
His first blitz
Okinawa was the first blitz for Pvt. Bennett and this was the first Jap soldier he’d ever seen. He is 30 years old, married, and has a baby girl. Back home he was a freight dispatcher.
The Jap corporal had a metal photo holder like a cigarette case. In it were photos which we took to be of three Japanese movie stars. They were good-looking, and everybody had to have a look.
Cpl. Ossege had been through one Pacific blitz, but this was the first Jap he ever took alive. As an old hand at souvenir hunting, he made sure to get the Jap’s rifle.
That rifle was the envy of everybody. Later when we were sitting around, discussing the capture, the other boys tried to buy or trade him out of it. “Pop” Taylor, the black-whiskered corporal from Jackson, Michigan, offered Ossege $100 for the rifle.
The answer was no. Then Taylor offered four quarts of whiskey. The answer still was no. Then he offered eight quarts. Ossege weakened a little. He said, “Where would you get eight quarts of whiskey?” Pop said he had no idea. So, Ossege kept the rifle.
So, there you have my first two Japs. And I hope my future Japs will all be as tame as these two. But I doubt it.
The life of Harry Truman –
He marries, opens own store, loses shirt, gets political bee
Old Army pals shower couple with presents
By Frances Burns
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, now I’ve heard everything.
There’s an ad in a Hollywood paper by a movie writer who wants to pay people $1 an hour to come to his house and make domestic noises. Solitude distracts him and he wants to hear “homey sounds” while he works.
“Homey sounds,” I guess that’s what I’m listening to right now. There’s that rumbling noise which tells me our daughter is trying out the new finish on the front room floor with her roller skates… a piercing scream from the bathroom means once again George has forgotten to remove our boy’s pet snapping turtle before climbing into the tub… and a crash of glass announces the official opening of the vacant-lot baseball season.
Nice “homey noises.” I’ll be glad to send my little “homey noise” makers over to the movie writer. And he can keep the $1-a-hour. He will need it to repair the damage.
Führer HQ (April 22, 1945)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
Im Süden der Ostfront sind unsere Gegenangriffe südlich des Semmering in gutem Fortschreiten. Die Bolschewisten versuchten südöstlich St. Pölten vergeblich nach Süden Boden zu gewinnen. Nordwestlich Mährisch-Ostrau vereitelten unsere Verbände in harten Kämpfen wiederholte Durchbruchsversuche des Gegners. Einige Einbrüche wurden abgeriegelt.
In der Doppelschlacht zwischen den Sudeten und dem Stettiner Haff stehen unsere Truppen weiter in schwerem Kampf. Nordwestlich Görlitz wurde die Frontlücke durch erfolgreiche Gegenangriffe geschlossen. Die Besatzung von Bautzen verteidigte sich hartnäckig gegen den mit starken Kräften angreifenden Feind. Nach Westen vorstoßend drangen die Sowjets in Bischofswerda und Königsbrück ein.
Südlich Cottbus ziehen die Bolschewisten weitere Kräfte zur Nahrung ihrer Angriffe gegen den Raum südlich Berlin nach und erreichten mit ihren- Angriffsspitzen die Linie Treuenbrietzen-Zossen südlich Königswusterhausen. In Cottbus und Fürstenwalde sind Straßenkämpfe im Gange.
Östlich und nördlich Berlin schob sich der Feind in schweren Kämpfen bis an die äußere Verteidigungslinie der Reichshauptstadt heran. In der Linie Lichtenberg-Niederschönhausen-Frohnau wird erbittert gekämpft.
An der Oderfront konnte der Gegner seine Brückenköpfe zwischen Greifenhagen und Stettin zunächst ausweiten, wurde aber durch unsere Gegenangriffe wieder zurückgeworfen.
Auf der Landzunge nordwestlich Pillau hielten unsere Truppen die Sperrlinie gegen erneute feindliche Angriffe. 21 Panzer wurden vernichtet.
Zwischen Ems und unterer Elbe setzte der Feind seine Angriffe mit starken Kräften fort. Nach mehrmaligem Besitzwechsel fiel Papenburg in die Hand des Gegners. Versuche der Kanadier, ihren Brückenkopf nördlich Friesoythe auszuweiten, brachen unter hohen Verlusten für den Feind zusammen. Auch südwestlich Delmenhorst blieben wiederholte Angriffe der Briten erfolglos. Gegenangriffe unserer Panzergrenadiere fassten die bis Harburg vorgestoßenen feindlichen Kräfte in der Flanke und fügten Ihnen hohe Verluste zu. Übersetzversuche über die Elbe bei Wittenberge und Tangermünde wurden zerschlagen.
Im Abschnitt Dessau-Bitterfeld hielten die wechselvollen Kämpfe an. Die mit mehreren Divisionen angreifenden Amerikaner konnten nur schrittweise Boden gewinnen. In Dessau und weiter südlich war das erbitterte Ringen um die Mulde-Übergänge in den Abendstunden noch im Gange. Bitterfeld ging nach hartem Kampf verloren.
Im Kampfraum nördlich Chemnitz führten wiederholte Angriffe und Aufklärungsvorstöße der Amerikaner zu örtlichen Einbrüchen. Die in das Elster- und Fichtelgebirge eingedrungenen feindlichen Kräfte wurden von unseren Sperrgruppen in der Linie Asch-Marktredwitz aufgefangen.
Zwischen Neumarkt in dem fränkischen Alb und dem Raum von Crailsheim scheiterten erneute Durchbruchsversuche der Amerikaner nach einigen Kilometern Bodengewinn am tapferen Widerstand unserer Truppen. Der Zusammenhang der Front blieb gewahrt.
Im Großraum Stuttgart nahmen die heftigen Kämpfe mit den zur Umfassung der Stadt angesetzten feindlichen Divisionen ihren Fortgang. Die von Göppingen und aus dem Raum nördlich Tübingen angreifenden amerikanischen Stoßgruppen konnten weiter Boden gewinnen. Auch im Schwarzwald und in der Rheinebene südwestlich Lahr dauern schwere Kämpfe mit den auf Rottweil und gegen den Kaiserstuhl vordringenden gaullistischen Verbänden an.
In Italien tobt die Materialschlacht weiter mit großer Heftigkeit. Auch gestern blieben den mit massierten Kräften anrennenden Angloamerikanern wesentliche Erfolge versagt.
Nordamerikanische Bomberverbände führten bei Tage einen Terrorangriff auf München. Außerdem wurden zahlreiche Orte im süddeutschen Raum mit Bomben belegt. In der Nacht griffen britische Kampfflugzeuge Orte in Norddeutschland an.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (April 22, 1945)
FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
221100B April
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR
(2) NAVY DEPARTMENT
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(3) TAC HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) MAIN 12 ARMY GP
(5) AIR STAFF MAIN
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) UNITED KINGDOM BASE
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM ZONE
(18) SHAEF REAR
(19) SHAEF MAIN
(20) HQ SIXTH ARMY GP
(21) WCIA OR OWI WASHINGTON FOR RELEASE TO COMBINED U.S. AND CANADIAN PRESS AND RADIO AT 0900 HOURS GMT
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 379
UNCLASSIFIED: Allied forces reached the line of the Eem River northwest of Amersfoort.
East of the Ems River, Papenburg was entered. We enlarged our bridgehead over the Küsten Canal despite strenuous opposition.
Our forces closed in Nearer to Zeven and Rotenburg and repulsed a counterattack in the vicinity of Elsdorf. Mopping-up operations continue in the areas west of Lüneburg.
In the area west of Wittenberge our forces have gained up to seven miles in the Gartower Forest, capturing Prezelle.
Northeast of Braunschweig, we have pocketed the enemy force which counterattacked us 19 April. We have retaken Diesdorf and Abbendorf. In the Harz Mountains Pocket, we captured Blankenburg. All organized resistance in the pocket has ceased.
Enemy swimmers failed in an attempt to blow a bridge leading to our bridgehead across the Elbe River and some of the swimmers were captured.
Farther south our armored task forces entered Dessau. South of the city we cleared Bobbau-Steinfurth and Wolfen and entered Jessnitz and Greppin against stiff resistance. We are fighting in Bitterfeld.
Northeast of Leipzig our armor occupied Krostitz and our troops are mopping up along the Mulde River.
In Czechoslovakia, we cleared Asch, and advancing to the east reached a point five miles north of the town. In Germany, south of Asch, we entered Schirnding and cleared Arzberg.
Farther south we entered Fuchsmühl, Erbendorf and Pressath, and entered Riggau.
Mopping up in Nuremberg has been completed. More than 14,000 Allied prisoners were liberated when we cleared a concentration camp in the area.
In the Rothenburg area, our armor drove 18 miles southward to Bopfingen, Crailsheim, from which we withdrew two weeks ago, was captured and we made further gains southward.
A four-mile gap remained in the link around Stuttgart with approaching columns at Kirchheim and Unterensingen. A score of towns were taken in the area as we drove towards Stuttgart from all sides. Forward elements were at Esslingen.
South of Stuttgart, our units thrust 18 miles to Donaueschingen, on the headwaters of the Danube, ten miles north of the German-Swiss border. Tuttlingen and Mühlheim, farther east, were also taken.
In the Black Forest several more towns fell to our forces. In the Rhine Plain, Breisach was reached in a five-mile gain.
Between the Rhine and Nuremberg, more than 11,000 prisoners were taken in 24 hours.
Allied forces in the west captured 46,334 prisoners 20 April.
The rail center at Oldenberg was attacked by medium bombers.
Rail communications between Prague and Pilsen; motor transport between Nuremberg and Augsburg; enemy strongpoints east of Heilbronn, southeast of Stuttgart, and east of Strasbourg; and a number of airfields were attacked by fighter-bombers. Many enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground and a number were damaged. Fifty vehicles were destroyed in a depot in the Nuremberg-Augsburg area.
Railyards and facilities at München and Ingolstadt and an airfield at Landsberg, 30 miles west of München, were bombed by escorted heavy bombers. Light bombers hit a railyard at Attnang-Puchheim, 35 miles northeast of Salzburg.
Five enemy aircraft were shot down in the day’s operations. According to reports so far six of our heavy bombers and two fighters are missing.
Targets at Kiel were attacked last night by light bombers.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA4655
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/
U.S. Navy Department (April 22, 1945)
CINCPOA Communiqué No. 340
The XXIV Army Corps continued to attack the enemy’s fortified positions in the southern sector of Okinawa on April 22 (East Longitude Date) meeting bitter resistance in all areas of the fighting. Our troops were supported by heavy artillery, naval guns, and carrier and land‑based aircraft. No substantial changes had been made in the lines by 1700 on April 22. A total of 11,738 of the enemy have been killed and 27 taken prisoner in the Twenty Fourth Corps zone of action.
Elements of the Marine III Amphibious Corps occupied Taka Banare Island east of Okinawa on April 22 and landed on Sesoko Island west of Motobu Peninsula on the same date. Our troops on Sesoko were reported to be halfway across the island in the early afternoon.
During the night of April 21-22, a few enemy aircraft approached our forces around the Okinawa area and four were shot down by carrier planes and aircraft of the Tactical Air Force. On the afternoon of April 22, a substantial group of Japanese planes attacked our forces in and around Okinawa causing some damage and sinking one light unit of the fleet. Forty-nine enemy planes were shot down by our combat air patrols and anti-aircraft fire.
Carrier aircraft of the U.S. Pacific Fleet attacked airfields and other installations in the Sakishima Group on April 21 and 22.
Army Mustangs of the VII Fighter Command attacked Suzuka airfield 32 miles southwest of Nagoya on April 22 inflicting the following damage on the enemy:
- 9 aircraft shot out of the air
- One probably shot down
- 17 aircraft destroyed on the ground
- 20 aircraft damaged on the ground
- A 6,000-ton ship exploded in Ise Bay south of Nagoya
- Two small oilers sunk
- One small tanker sunk
- One coastal cargo ship damaged
Carrier-based aircraft of the U.S. Pacific Fleet attacked airfields and ground installations in the Amami Group of the Northern Ryukyus during April 18 to 20, inclusive, damaging or destroying numerous airfield structures. On April 21 and 22, carrier planes operating in the Northern Ryukyus shot down 16 enemy planes and burned 10 more on the ground.
A search plane of Fleet Air Wing One attacked a small cargo ship east of the Ryukyus on April 22 leaving it burning and dead in the water.
Runways and installations on Marcus Island were bombed by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force on April 21. Helldiver bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing attacked the airstrip on Yap in the Western Carolines on April 21.
During the twenty-four hours ending at 1800 on April 20, 60 Japanese were killed and 64 were captured on Iwo Island. A total of 23,049 of the enemy have been killed and 850 captured since February 19.
Communiqué No. 338, paragraph five, is corrected as follows: Delete “One LST 477” from the list of ships sunk.