Background of news –
Trusteeship in the Pacific
By F. M. Brewer
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Rankin plan for flat sum bonus scored
VFW wants service record considered
By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Housewife-author wins Pulitzer Prize
Harvey, Mauldin’s cartoons honored
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Cromwell’s daughter sues for divorce
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Maybe Japs used movie for training
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Philippine guerrilla forces, raiding behind Jap lines east of Manila, found five reels of motion picture film which they hoped would contain valuable information on enemy training or activity.
Instead, the projector flashed on the screen five chapters of a Junior G-Man series.
Col. Palmer: And now what?
By Col. Frederick Palmer
WASHINGTON – No broadcast from the Pacific is necessary to inform our, soldier in his hour of victory in Europe that we have yet another war – and a tough one – to win. As an expert in making war, he feels that tact down to the marrow of his homesick bones.
He wonders in which direction he will be reversed with the reversal of the mighty war machine in which he is one of the atomic human cogs. Will it be back to the homeland now for him, or to the Pacific, or to serve as a policeman in the portion of the enemy country which our forces are to occupy and patrol?
How big is the task of reversing that immense machine of war can be realized only by one who has seen it at work in pressing the war in Europe to a finish. That machine stretches from the French ports and Antwerp to the Elbe River and down into Austria and Czechoslovakia. It was two years in building in Great Britain and a year in its enlargement and extension across France and beyond the Rhine.
After the end of World War I, we left most of our enormous accumulation of war material in France. The one war we had to win was over. Wasn’t it the “war to end war”? We would have no further use for war material on a large scale. So, we left it to the French along with an immense amount of supplies of value for civilian use. The French were to pay us for some of this, but, with all their financial troubles, never got around to it.
This time we are going to transport to our other war front all war material that inspection finds useful. Food stores will be left as a nucleus for the immense amount needed to feed the hungry peoples of Europe.
Turning to personnel, Gen. Marshall, Army chief of staff, said in a statement May 4, that Gen. Eisenhower “anticipated no reduction of replacement requirements for June” and that “Norway, Denmark and sections of Holland” were still occupied by “strong and fanatical forces of the enemy.”
The next day a War Department announcement looked toward the reduction of the Army from its present size of 8,300,000 men to 6,980,000 in a year and with the drafted men filling the gaps, two million men would be discharged in a year.
Gen. Marshall’s statement is subject to the cheering news that now all the German armies have surrendered. Gen. Eisenhower’s replacement requirements may be for men to fill the gaps left by men in the army of occupation who are chosen to go to the Pacific.
Selection of the soldiers who are to go is not like that of the expert selection of materials of all classes which are to be sent, but, in the long run, is a human matter, though done on the “point” system, which includes giving thought to a man’s age, his physical fitness, length and character of combat service, and the number of children he has at home. Otherwise, under what conditions and how are the examiners to settle the immediate fate of hundreds of thousands of men? How long will those who pass through the United States on their way our war in the Pacific be allowed to stay at home?
Othman: Dis is DE Day
By Fred Othman
WASHINGTON – This is the day to whoop-and-holler, not yesterday.
If you’ve already torn up your phone book and thrown the pieces out the window it serves you right and don’t go blaming President Truman. He did his best. All day yesterday his assistants emerged at intervals from the executive offices and said, “Uhh-uh–not yet.”
The morning started out beautifully. German surrender was in the air and the odor of freshly cut grass. The White House gardeners were cutting the lawn. The sun was shining. The movers were hauling in the new President’s belongings and depositing them in living quarters painted varying shades of raspberry pink, green and blue. Everything looked wonderful.
It still looked that way at 10 a.m. when Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels called in the correspondents.
“All I have this morning,” he said, “is proclamation–.”
The scribes unsheathed their pencils and the press association men got set for the fastest foot race yet to the telephones.
“–a proclamation,” continued Daniels, “about National Rehabilitation Week.”
“Try and get that one on the wires,” cried a disappointed writing wretch.
“Then put it in your pocket,” said Daniels.
Daniels’ girl almost mobbed
An hour passed. Daniels’ girl stuck her head out his door and nearly got mobbed. Daniels had some more news, she gasped.
He did, too. It was a letter to the governors of the 48 states inviting them to drop in at the White House whenever they came to town. The reporters went back to their red leather seats in the reception room, where they smoked too many off-brand cigarettes and bit their fingernails. Lunchtime came. A messenger shagged in some tuna fish sandwiches.
At 1:55 p.m. that girl (the brave one in the tan dress) came out again. More news, she said. Then she leaped out of the way. Daniels read a four-line statement by President Truman saying he’d talked to London and Moscow and didn’t intend to do any talking about peace until they did, too.
Jimmy Byrnes drops in
Until then (and he didn’t say when) there wasn’t anything he could say. Word filtered out that he’d dropped over to the mansion for a bite.
A couple more hours passed and in came Jimmy Byrnes, who used to be the assistant president. He spent an hour with the President and then walked into an impromptu press conference. He said:
- The weather in South Carolina has been so cold and rainy lately that he hasn’t caught any fish.
- He will be in Washington all day today. (Why, Mr. Byrnes?) To visit his dentist and have his choppers polished, he said.
Soon thereafter came the news that President Truman had signed the franking bill for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now she doesn’t have to worry about running out of postage stamps, ever again.
The photographers ran outside to get pictures of President Truman’s piano being hoisted in the door. Another hour went by and at 6:10 p.m., Daniels himself came out (the girl must have lost her nerve) and said he had some news:
- Today is President Truman’s birthday.
- He will spend it for the first time in the refurnished White House.
- Today’s the day to whoop-and-holler. Nine a.m. is the hour.
With the Japs still to be licked –
Victory in Europe costs United States 800,000 casualties, $185 billion
Rehabilitation to raise expense
WASHINGTON (UP – The victory in Europe cost the United States about 800,000 casualties and more than $185 billion.
These are the best conservative estimate available now. It will be a long time before the final figures are worked out.
A survey showed today that this country’s share of the cost of crushing the Nazi bid for world domination will exceed by three or four times the cost of World War I and its aftermath – whether the measuring standard is casualties or dollars.
The cost in money will be increased in future years by many billions of dollars through interest on government borrowings and benefits to veterans. The cost in broken lives, too, will be paid over a long period.
Experts consulted
Most of the government experts consulted believed that at least two-thirds of the dollar outlay since defense preparations began in 1940 went directly or indirectly into the war against Germany and Italy.
This is based on the allocation of men to the two major spheres of combat. The best available information is that two U.S. fighting men were sent to Europe for each one sent to the Pacific.
The cost estimate includes not only guns, bullets, planes and tanks, plus the plants to make them, but also such items as Lend-Lease expenditures, training costs, merchant ships, transportation, subsistence and literally thousands of articles and services that never appeared on the field of battle but were vital to victory.
Results of survey
Here are the results of the survey:
COST IN MONEY: Defense and war expenditures total more than $277,600,000,000 since July 1, 1940. Assigning two-thirds of this to the European War gives a figure of $185,066,000.0U0. This compares with the $55,345,000,000 cost of the last war.
The figure for the last war includes continuing expenses for many years after the war and unpaid war debts. The figure for this war is just the cost up to now.
COST IN CASUALTIES: Approximately 800,000 men killed, wounded, missing and prisoners. This is a projected figure because the official casualty compilations are far behind.
Army casualties compiled here by theaters as of March 31 showed a total of 685,247 for the European, Mediterranean, Middle East and Caribbean theaters – all part of the European war. The figures included 133,284 killed, 431,965 wounded, 67,008 missing and 52,990 prisoners.
Reports lag
But these figures actually included only casualties suffered until early March. Much severe fighting was not covered by these reports, and it will be months before final casualty data of the war against Germany is available. Best estimates are that the European Theater alone will report a final casualty total exceeding 800,000.
The Navy has never broken down its casualties by war theaters so it is impossible to determine accurately now what part of Navy casualties were incurred against Germany.
But an informed source said that through last July, a period which included the toughest phase of the Battle of the Atlantic as well as the landing operations in North Africa, Italy and Normandy, slightly less than 25 percent of Navy casualties were suffered in the war against Germany.
At the end of last July, the Navy had suffered 52,000 war casualties throughout the world. It may be estimated that naval casualties in the war on Germany totaled between 13,000 and 14,000. No breakdown of this figure into killed, wounded and missing is available now.
World War I figures
In World War I, the final casualty total for all the armed services was 259,735. This included 53,878 killed, 201,377 wounded and 4,480 prisoners.
Relatively speaking, the Merchant Marine suffered the highest death ratio of any of the services engaged in the war against Germany. Although its casualties by theaters are not available, an estimated 5,000 out of more than 6,000 casualties to date occurred in the Atlantic and adjacent waters. A large portion of these are dead or missing, mostly as a result of the German U-boat campaign in the first 18 months of the war.
MEN INVOLVED: Probably between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 out of the Army’s 5,200,000 men overseas have been involved in the war on Germany and its satellites.
The Army has not announced allocation of its men by theaters, but some 70 divisions have been identified in the war against Germany. These divisions would total roughly 1,250,000 men, but to them must be added the tremendous U.S. Air Force and the great numbers of supply and maintenance men behind the lines.
Naval forces
It is estimated that not more than 235,000 men in the naval services were engaged in the war on Germany. All told, the Navy has a total of 2,352,275 sailors, marines and coast guardsmen now serving outside the continental limits. The Navy estimated that approximately 80 percent of this total are under Adm. Chester W. Nimitz’s command in the Pacific. The rest of them are scattered throughout the world with possibly less than 10 percent in the Atlantic. It was recalled that about 124,000 naval officers and men took part directly or indirectly in the invasion of Normandy.
These were in addition to the many thousands engaged in escorting convoys across the Atlantic and in protecting the supply lines.
COST IN WARSHIPS: A total of 96 naval vessels and naval craft were sunk in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and European theaters.
The figure includes landing craft destroyers, some PT-boats, and transports. The largest vessel lost was the escort carrier USS Block Island. Many merchant ships were also lost.
Medal of Honor won by Tennessean
WASHINGTON (UP) – Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge, Signal Mountain, Tennessee, has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for directing a four-day battle with a handful of reinforcements against a superior German force, the War Department announced today.
During that time the 24-year-old doughboy tried a bluff that failed, dueled two enemy tanks with his light carbine, advanced alone to blast a German attack with two cases of hand grenades and frustrated a determined Nazi attempt to turn the flank of his battalion.
The medal for the action, which took place near Belmont sur Buttet, Prance, last October, will be presented to Sgt. Coolidge in the European Theater.
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
My goodness! They’re already talking of making a movie about Mussolini. It would have a moral lesson, of course, but I don’t think the hungriest actor in Hollywood could be coaxed to play the part, not even with a two-inch steak. Imagine being “typed” in that role.
But it just shows you how far some people in Hollywood would go with the biography cycle. First they filmed the lives of celebrities of long ago, then living celebrities, and now they even have scouts on the trails of those for whom great futures are predicted.
Well, I supposed they’ll end up doing the same characters over and over. Don Ameche should be able to look forward to at least three remakes showing him inventing the telephone. And the next time I hope he invents enough phones to go around in wartimes.
Millett: Public sympathy lacking when women are brave
People too wiling to accuse widows of taking their loss ‘too well’
By Ruth Millett
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Chandler assailed for slap at racing
Baseball feeds bookies most, writers charge
By Jack Cuddy, United Press staff writer
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‘Big Poison’ leaves indelible records –
Hall of Fame nomination may top Paul Waner’s illustrious career
By Al Vermeer
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V-E Day puts okay on All-Star Game
Tuesday, May 8, 1945
Now that V-E Day has been officially proclaimed baseball’s World Series will be played.
It is also probable that the All-Star Game which was eliminated in the spring, will be reinstated. Commissioner A. B. “Happy” Chandler has indicated he will try to arrange a date for this affair.
The World Series was not cancelled but was left depending upon the status of the war at a winter meeting in Washington of Presidents Ford Frick and Will Harridge of the major leagues and ODT chiefs.
Horseracing enthusiasts also expect modification of the ban on that sport.
West’s rails ready for shift to Pacific war
Lines modernized, revamped for job
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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New radio program for Yanks overseas
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‘Program for people’s sake’ new radio idea
Network program chief ‘bolts’
By Si Steinhauser
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Miners take ‘holiday’ – war plants hum
Almost 100 pits unable to operate
Tuesday, May 8, 1945
War plant ‘patriots’ hear Truman, go home
President Truman had just finished his address proclaiming victory and urging all Americans to remain on their jobs.
At the Allenport plant of the Pittsburgh Steel Company, more than a thousand had listened in silence.
As he finished, one worker remarked: “Let’s go home.”
They all did.
Victory in Europe set back coal production in Western Pennsylvania.
Thirty-three thousand miners “celebrated” by taking the day off. But workers in virtually all district war plants remained at their posts.
The Solid Fuels Administration announced that almost 100 mines are closed, causing a production loss of 180,000 tons.
Mines open, close
Most pits failed to open when miners failed to show up. At two mines of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, the Midland and Somers, workers stayed in the pits only a few hours. Miners began emerging as President Truman proclaimed victory. When he finished reading his proclamation, they went home.
Today’s estimates raised the production loss in Western Pennsylvania coal fields to 2,140,000 tons since January 1, due to numerous strikes and “holidays” taken by the miners, and high absenteeism.
Absenteeism low
But in war plants workers were busy turning out weapons for continuance of the war against Japan.
At most plants, workers heard the President on plant PA systems.
Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company and Curtiss-Wright at Beaver all reported absenteeism lower than average. A 20-minute program was held for Curtiss-Wright workers.
Carnegie-Illinois, the National Tube Company and the American Bridge Company all reported conditions normal.