America at war! (1941–) – Part 5

Despres-Minc conversation

Present
United States Poland
Mr. Despres Mr. Minc
Mr. Rajchman
740.00119 (Potsdam)/7-2945

Memorandum by the Adviser on German Economic Affairs

[Babelsberg,] July 29, 1945

I conveyed to Mr. Minc Mr. Clayton’s regret that he was unable to accept the Minister’s invitation to visit the Silesian coal fields, explaining that Mr. Clayton was heavily engaged with other matters as the conference drew toward a close. I then told Mr. Minc that we thought it would be useful for him to talk to the American military authorities in Berlin, who were now transporting coal from the Ruhr to meet their share of Berlin’s requirements; in order to explore the possibility of drawing upon Silesian coal instead, and I said that, subject to his acceptance of the invitation, we had arranged an appointment for him with Maj. General Echols. Mr. Minc replied that he would consult the other members of his Government and let me know. (He subsequently accepted, and a meeting with General Echols took place the following morning.) I then outlined the scope of functions of EECE, ECO and the projected Inland Transport Organization and expressed the hope that the Polish Government would acquaint itself with these organizations with a view to active participation in their work. Mr. Minc asked a number of questions regarding the functions, activities to date and membership of these organizations and said that he would look into the matter further.

Mr. Minc then stated that he was most eager to acquaint the United States Government as fully as possible with the present economic position and needs of Poland, in order to enable us to consider against a background of knowledge their requests for imports and for credits. He asked how this might best be accomplished. I said that we proposed to attach a well-qualified economic man to Ambassador Lane’s staff, and that we hoped that the Polish Government would extend to such man the fullest opportunities for familiarizing himself with the situation. I suggested that it would also be useful for the Polish Government to send a small number of well-qualified people to Washington for financial and supply matters. Mr. Minc expressed the personal view that it would be most desirable if the United States Government could send a special survey mission to Poland which would spend a couple of months there and then return to Washington and report. I suggested that before extending any formal invitation along these lines, it would be well to discuss this matter informally with Ambassador Lane.

After my conversation with Minc had been completed, Dr. Rajchman furnished the following bits of information:

  1. It is a criminal offense for a Russian commander to allow any freight cars to move eastward empty. Large amounts of supplies are seen passing through Poland, including numbers of German livestock.

  2. Dr. Rajchman believes that the Russians have adopted a three-year program of removals from their zone of occupation. They have set a physiological minimum standard of living for the German population and plan to leave only enough resources to support this minimum.

  3. For a time the Russians carried out removals from the territory newly transferred to the Polish administration, but under an agreement with the Polish Government these removals were discontinued on a specified date.

  4. The Red Army is having considerable difficulty in effecting the redeployment of their forces from Germany. They are believed to have had 12 million men on the whole Eastern Front. There are a number of roving bands of Red Army troops (AWOL). They are shot when caught, but drastic punishment has not solved the problem.

  5. Except for Warsaw, which has been far more thoroughly demolished than Berlin, material damage in Poland has not been serious. Loss of life is estimated at 5,500,000, over half Jews.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 29, 1945)

6 DOOMED CITIES FIRED
B-29s strike less than day after warning

550 to 600 Superforts drop 3,500 tons

13 dead in B-25 crash into Empire State Building

Hundreds trapped in flaming structure 1,000 feet from street

NEW YORK (UP, July 28) – A B-25 Billy Mitchell bomber rammed into the 78th story of the Empire State Building at 9:52 a.m. today.

The plane exploded in a cone of flames that turned the world’s tallest skyscraper into a pillar of horror and brought death to at least 13 persons and injury to 25 more. All victims were believed from the New York area.

It was the most spectacular disaster to strike the New York area since the burning of the zeppelin Hindenburg.

A searing envelope of gasoline flames shrouded 10 stories of the spire-like tower of the 1,250-foot Empire State Building.

Hundreds trapped

It trapped hundreds of persons within flame and gas-filled rooms more than 1,000 feet above the street.

Three elevators plunged out of control from the 80th floor to the basement.

Broken glass and debris rained down over several square blocks. Half an hour after the explosion particles still sifted down.

So tremendous was the explosion, it ripped away the fog which had hidden the topmost stories of the skyscraper from the vision of the B-25 pilot.

Flames fill sky

For two minutes the pinnacle of the chromium-girt Empire State stood out sharp and clear in the drizzle while orange-red flames licked around.

Then the soft fog closed in again to hide the scene from the horrified sight of thousands of Midtown office workers who had rushed to windows at the sound of the explosion which echoed over Central Manhattan like a blockbuster.

Inside the 102-story building there was pandemonium.

The plane was en route to Newark, New Jersey, from New Bedford, on the final lap of a cross-country flight which started at Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

It was piloted by Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr., 27, of Watertown, Massachusetts. He and his crew member, Sgt. Christopher S. Domitrovich, 31, of Granite City, Illinois, were instantly killed. Col. Smith recently returned from overseas.

A Navy chief petty officer riding in the plane as a passenger was also killed. He was not identified immediately.

Heads for skyscraper

The plane had inquired of LaGuardia Field by radio a few minutes before for instructions on landing conditions at Newark.

Suddenly scattered observers near the Empire State Tower heard the deep-throated roar of its motors. It was fiving in the overcast at about 1,000 feet and headed straight for the fog-hidden skyscraper.

A moment later it struck the north side of the building, between the 78th and 79th floors, penetrating with such force that one motor drove straight through the building and landed on the roof of the 12-story Waldorf Building adjoining it on 33rd Street.

Only the fact that the disaster occurred on a Saturday morning when many Empire State offices are closed kept down the toll of dead and injured.

Casualties among pedestrians outside the building were small because Midtown streets are not crowded on Saturdays as they are during the week, and rain and drizzle held down the number out of doors.

The B-25 was believed to have carried its normal crew of five, all of whom were instantly killed.

The force of the impact and explosion was such that many of the bodies were blown to bits.

Relatives visit morgue

The charred and broken bodies of the victims lay in Bellevue Hospital morgue tonight. Sheets shrouded them from the eyes of relatives.

They were the victims of the crash of a B-25 bomber into the Empire State Building.

Identification through appearance was impossible and not permitted. Relatives going to the morgue were shown only a handful of jewelry, a dental plate and three keys.

From these, Vincent M. Sozzi of New York identified an inscribed bracelet belonging to his sister, Jean Sozzi, 40, of Brooklyn. She was a stenographer at the War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Council.

Ring identified

From an inscribed engagement ring, Raymond Cavanaugh of Union City, New Jersey, identified his sister.

Margaret Mullen, 33, of Hoboken, New Jersey, a bookkeeper in the Catholic office.

There was a link bracelet on a watch, numbered 930-79-620, not yet identified. There was a dental plate, its teeth burned away, which police hoped to trace.

There were the keys – one of which was inscribed “Penn 648,” which might hold a clue.

Eight of the victims were believed to be women.

One floor unoccupied

The 78th floor office where the plane struck was not occupied. But the 79th floor office, just above, was occupied by the National Catholic Welfare Council. Some 40 persons normally worked on this floor, about 25 of them in the Catholic Welfare offices. Many were absent due to Saturday holidays.

The most severe casualties were in the Catholic Welfare offices. Nine bodies were reported found on the 79th floor.

Three were found in two of the smashed elevators in the basement. The third elevator was empty.

Archbishop Francis J. Spellman described the disaster as a “new and terrifying sorrow” and said the Catholic workers who were killed had “dedicated, consecrated and sacrificed their lives to humanity.”

Special prayers

Special prayers will be offered in all churches of the archdiocese Sunday for the victims.

A service of Holy Sacrifice will be offered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral tomorrow and, on Wednesday, the Archbishop will preside at a solemn pontifical mass of requiem.

The worst damage was on the six floors from the 78th to the 84th story. Windows were blown from every frame and the plaster turned to dust. Much of the furnishings had vanished in the searing gasoline flames.

The marble tiling along the walls of one section of the 79th floor had been blown off. One of the plane’s engines caromed off and plunged into an elevator, killing an elevator girl and dropping down the shaft.

The plane’s cowling and part of its propeller were imbedded in the walls. Steel girders of the wrecked floors were twisted like jackstraws by the blast.

Rescue workers, knee deep in mortar, bricks and bomber fragments, saw a small card, its edges charred. It said: “Do not remove from Plane No. 577.”

There were 35 persons on the 86th floor observation platform when the plane hit. They had paid $1 to “see the sights of New York from the Empire State Tower.”

Louis Petley, 54, the guide, was apologizing for the fog which spoiled their view when disaster struck.

“I never heard anything like it in my life,” Petley said. “I jumped three feet in the air. I saw a flash of flame envelope the tower.”

Herded to safety

With difficulty, Petley managed to herd his horror-stricken sightseers down a stairway to the 65th floor where they took an elevator to the lobby.

“I wanted to keep them in the lobby for a minute,” he said, “but they all ran out, saying ‘We want to get out of here.’”

Survivors on the 78th and 79th floors were almost too dazed to tell what had happened. Most of them were burned or had been cut by splinters of glass.

Jumps to escape

Paul Deering, 40, publicity representative of the Catholic Welfare Council, jumped from an 86th floor window to escape the flames. His body landed on the 72nd floor parapet.

An elevator girl had just halted her cage on the 75th floor. The blast blew her out of the elevator and all the way across the hall.

The impact of the plane and its explosion tore a gaping 15-foot hole on the north side of the building. The plane hit just below the ceiling of the 78th floor, doing almost equal damage to the 78th and 79th stories.

On the south side of the building, there was a smaller hole, caused by the engine which plummeted through the building.

Management consultant James W. Irwin was sitting alone in his office on the 75th floor shortly before 10 a.m.

Outside the tower was shrouded in fog. Suddenly he heard the roar of an airplane which seemed to be coming directly his way.

Ran into hall

“I ran into the hall as the roar increased,” he said. “Just as I hit the hall the plane struck.

Mr. Irwin reported that the first firemen reached him on the 75th floor at 10:35. A four-alarm fire alarm had been turned in the moment the plane hit.

But rescue efforts were impeded by the damage which knocked out the elevators. It takes time to climb 75 to 80 flights of stairs.

Mayor F. H. LaGuardia inspected the scene about two hours after the crash. He walked over the rubbled 79th floor where rescue workers were piling together the bits and pieces of what had been busy office workers and stenographers.

‘Flying too low’

“It was just an oven,” he commented and pointed out that the plane “was flying too low.” There is a city regulation against flying below 5,000 feet over Manhattan.

However, the plane had left New Bedford, Massachusetts, to fly by “contact,” meaning that the pilot was flying by visual contact with the ground. It was bound for Newark, New Jersey.

When it approached Manhattan, it contacted LaGuardia Field which advised that the ceiling over Manhattan at that time was 1,100 feet which meant that the top 150 feet of the Empire State was shrouded by mist and fog.

‘Going to Newark’

The pilot of the bomber, contacting the LaGuardia Control Tower, was reported to have said: “I am going to Newark. Will you give me the weather there?”

The Tower told the pilot to maintain contact flying, meaning 1,000-foot visibility and three-mile visibility forward.

“At the present time,” the Tower told the pilot, “I cannot see the top of the Empire State Building.”

The Control Tower operators, it was said, ordinarily used the Empire State tower as a gauge for visibility. The pilot was instructed that if he could not maintain contact flying, he should return to LaGuardia Field.

Thousands gather

Thousands of persons congregated around the Empire State Building to watch the rescue work.

Four fire alarms brought the largest amount of firefighting apparatus ever assembled in New York City to the scene.

Scores of physicians, firemen, priests and nurses tramped the stairways of the upper floors where elevator service had been blasted out by the explosion.

The Empire State Building has a normal population of about 5,500 office workers and building employees. Today it was believed not more than 1,500 were in the building.

Tower to be closed

Gen. Hugh A. Drum, chairman of Empire State, Inc. declared 10 hours after the accident that engineers had inspected the building and found “no structural damage.”

He said that most of the damage, an estimate of which is in preparation, resulted from the burning airplane gas “and the passage of parts of the plane through the building.”

Gen. Drum said the tower of the building would be closed indefinitely to visitors, but service was uninterrupted on the first 67 floors, and would be reinstated upwards “in the near future.”

Members of the Public Relations Office of the building said the damage was believed to approximate $250,000. The building is valued at $30 million.

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Apprentice becomes doctor at scene of big tragedy

Still in training, boy, 17, treats many victims with the skill of a veteran
By Donald Moloney, as told to Mary Harrington, United Press staff writer

NEW YORK (UP, July 28) – I’m just a U.S. Coast Guard hospital apprentice, second class, and I’m still in training. I suppose I could get prosecuted for what I did.

I was on 34th Street and saw the B-25 crash into the Empire State Building. There was a drugstore across the street. They gave me apllta, gave syringes, two dozen needles, eight grains of morphine, bandages, 10 tubes of burn ointment and sterile water alcohol.

I ran first to the sub-basement. Somebody shouted that help was needed there. I’m little, so the firemen let me climb down into the elevator, where the elevator girl was trapped. I had heard the elevator shoot down about 70 floors.

She was still alive and screaming. She hung on to me so I could hardly help her. I gave her morphine to ease the pain, and marked the dosage on her arm, where it wasn’t burned, with her lipstick. I put oil on her burned face.

That was the only part of her I dared treat. The rest of her body was burned and charred. I put on sterile bandages, though. We carried her out. A priest and a rabbi heled me. The morphine didn’t help much. Her legs were crushed and I think her back was broken.

There was another elevator operator in the basement, in the same shape. I helped him, too.

Then I went up to the 79th floor. I picked up two heads and parts of four bodies and helped stack them on a table.

They called me down to the 70th floor, and I carried three women from there to the 67th floor. They had fixed the elevators. I guess I must have carried and treated about 20 people. All of them were burned, and suffering terribly from shock. I gave morphine to 14 people.

We’ve been told in school for eight months, at Manhattan Beach and Groton, Connecticut, how to treat people suffering from burns and shock.

On the 69th floor I treated five injured. A man had been pouring whisky down their throats. I put one woman’s arm in a triangular bandage, and sterile bandages on another’s burns. I was carrying one woman to the elevator when another crawled over and put her arms around my legs.

“God in Heaven, help me.” She screamed, and then fainted. I’ll have nightmares for a long time. Those dead people up there. Thank God they never knew what happened to them. They couldn’t. The blast blew them apart in an instant.

I always wanted to be a surgeon. I want to practice at home, in Detroit. A couple of shore patrolmen took me out to a bar at one o’clock when the head doctor said everything was under control. I started shaking as soon as he said that. I don’t know why. I was real calm before.

Maybe that’s what my commanding officer meant when he said I couldn’t ever be the only medical corpsman on one of those small ships, like I want. He said I was too young, that I couldn’t take the responsibility. I guess I am. I’m only 17.

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United Nations Charter ratified by Senate with vote of 89-2

U.S. becomes first of Big Five to approve new world plan to insure future peace

Military chiefs meet with Big Three

New Prime Minister joins other leaders
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

Third Fleet planes wreck 15 more ships

New disaster heaped on Japan’s Navy

MacArthur fliers wreck 3 convoys

9 ships sunk, 62 others damaged


New B-32s bomb Formosa, China

12 missions flown without loss

Wartime Enoch Arden?
Message from dead(?) wife blocks wedding in Berlin

Yank insists first bride was killed, but chaplain refuses to marry him to WAC
By Nat A. Barrows

Big forest fires rage in Oregon

Tax dodgers get religion, pay millions

Big federal drive brings results
By Earl Richert, Scripps-Howard staff writer

‘Europe after the war’ –
Bastille Day in Paris shows French tops at celebrating

Touring Press writer finds observance so impressive he joins in parade
By Henry Ward

New B-32 now in action against Japs

Press aviation writer describes details of latest death-dealer
By Henry Ward

Flier has grass from Japan to prove he’s been there

Action asked to stem Spain and Argentina

Two U.S. senators warn of danger

G.I. can’t bring Fraulein home as bride – legally

Easing of fraternization ban permits Yanks to talk to girls, not marry ‘em

European travel rules eased

Germany, Austria, Italy still closed

Tighter flying laws suggested by senator

WASHINGTON (UP, July 28) – Sen. James M. Mead (D-New York), “horrified” at the bomber crash against the Empire State Building, expressed belief today that it may lead to tighter laws on flights over congested areas.

Mr. Mead contemplates the possibility of thousands of airplanes in congested areas in the post-war era, most of them privately owned and operated.

He said it indicated a need of the utmost in safety controls.

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Petain called Nazis’ No. 1 man

Marshal sold out France, witness says

Attlee to push program of Labor Party

Flies to Berlin with Foreign Secretary