The Pittsburgh Press (March 15, 1945)
Five U.S. armies storm 200-mile front, Nazis say
New U.S. 15th Army reported over Rhine in bridgehead sector
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Tears fill Marine general’s eyes at official flag-raising on Iwo
Banner signifies victory on island
By William McGaffin
BULLETIN
GUAM – U.S. Marines have lost under 4,000 dead in the 25-day campaign on Iwo, Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner indicated today.
“Their [Marine] death casualties are less than one-fifth of those of the defenders,” Adm. Turner said.
Jap deaths on Iwo officially were announced as 20,000, indicating American fatalities were under 4,000.
V AMPHIBIOUS CORPS HQ, Iwo Jima (March 14, delayed) – High up on Mt. Suribachi where the Stars and Stripes were raised on February 23, after capture of the 500-foot volcano, the flag came down today.
Instead, another flag went up – the official Stars and Stripes, signifying that Iwo Jima was ours after 23 days of the hardest fighting in Marine Corps history.
There were tears in the eyes of Lt. Gen. Holland Smith, commander of the Marine group, as a bugler blew the Colors and Old Glory went up on an abandoned Jap pillbox.
‘Worst battle yet’
“This is the worst battle we’ve had yet,” Gen. Smith said. Obviously, he was thinking of his boys who had fallen on this foreign shore.
The doughty 63-year-old general himself came within a few inches of stopping a Jap bullet yesterday while watching an intense firefight on the north end of the island.
His voice echoed with emotion when he said today:
It is a victory that was not accomplished by any one service but by a brotherhood of all services, formed in the holocaust of battle… Let us bow our heads in commemoration of their gallantry… Well done.
Sounds Attention
The ceremony began when John E. Glenn of New Orleans, a 21-year-old sandy-mustached bugler, sounded Attention.
As the group stood at attention the corps personnel officer, Col. D. A. Stafford of Spokane, Washington, read the proclamation from Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz “to the people of the Volcano Islands.”
U.S. forces under my command have occupied this and others of the Volcano Islands. All the powers of the government of the Japanese Empire in the islands so occupied are hereby suspended. All the powers of government are vested in me as military governor and will be exercised by subordinate commanders under my direction.
All persons will obey promptly all orders given under my authority. Offenses against the forces of occupation will be severely punished.
After the proclamation, printed in both English and Japanese, was read, the bugler sounded the Colors and Pvt. Thomas J. Casale of Herkimer, New York, sent the flag up the pole.
After the colors were hoisted, the bugler sounded “Carry On” and the men broke up to walk back along the dusty road to their various tasks.
Although Iwo is ours, enemy resistance has not ended. In the extreme northern end, there are small Jap pockets, including a strongpoint on a 900-yard ridge running south from Kitano Point. It probably will take several days before the island finally is declared “secured.”
A United Press dispatch from Guam quoted Pacific Fleet headquarters as estimating the number of Jap dead on Iwo at 20,000 through Wednesday.
There has been no announcement of U.S. casualties since March 3, when 2,050 Americans were listed as dead. An NBC broadcast from Guam said unofficial information indicated U.S. losses would be “very high.” An NBC commentator in Washington predicted they would total 17,000, including 3,000 dead.
Western Front losses fewer in February
Total U.S. casualties rise to 839,589
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Churchill expects summer victory
Then Britain will aid in Pacific, he asserts
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Martin against New York type of race law
Equality can’t be legislated, he says
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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1,700 of 19,000 film strikers decide to go back to work
Technicians say ‘wildcat’ walkout has nothing to do with ‘any union case’
HOLLYWOOD (UP) – A 19,000-man movie strike went into its fourth day with the makers of celluloid drama hoping it wouldn’t spoil tonight’s star-studded Academy Award presentations.
Whether the Conference of Studio Unions would carry its AFL, jurisdictional feud to the annual blowout was almost as big a headache as was moviemaking without set crews. Nobody knew whether the Gaudy Chinese Theater would be picketed.
Most studios were struggling along with workers from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, rivals of the Painters’ Union in their bitter feud over representation of 78 set dressers.
The working force increased last night when 1,700 Alliance technicians, who had respected the picket lines for three days, decided to go back to work.
The technicians, who develop the film, called the Painters’ Union walkout a “wildcat strike” that had “nothing to do with wages, hours, or any logical union cause.”
Eight thousand stars and bit players will vote tomorrow on whether they will respect the picket lines. The results will be announced late next week.
Meanwhile, rival union leaders fumed and threatened.
IATSE President Richard Walsh dumped his battle with the Conference of Studio Unions, to which the painters belong, in the producers’ laps yesterday.
If, he threatened, the studios recognized the painters as bargaining agents for the set dressers, the IATSE would go on a bigger strike than the Conference of Studio Unions ever dreamed of.
“And what’s more,” he said, “we’ll take every movie theater in the country with us.”
Walsh said his men were stepping in to fill holes left by the strikers because they “wanted to see pictures produced.”
Producers warned
“But,” he warned, “if the producers recognize our rivals, we’ll go on strike all over. And when our projectionists go with us that means every movie house showing West Coast films will close down.”
President Herbert Sorrell of the Conference of Studio Unions dared him to try it.
“He’d smash his IATSE into kingdom come,” he declared. “It would be a typical Willie Bioff-George Browne tactic.”
Bioff and Browne, former IATSE leaders, served penitentiary sentences for extortion.
Walsh said if everybody else was going on strike, the IATSE also would have to do it for “self-protection.” He said he was getting tired of the “gangster” methods of the painters’ local.
May appeal for help
Meanwhile, the unhappy producers who were caught between the disputants considered calling for help from Washington as their studios got emptier and emptier. Only the IATSE workers, executives, actors, directors, writers, technicians and cameramen were left.
Out on strike with the set crews were secretaries, stenographers, guides, cooks, waitresses and dishwashers. Million-dollar executives were answering their own telephones and stars brought their lunches in paper bags.
Strike holds key to Oscar party
HOLLYWOOD (UP) – Three words – Going My Way – were the keynote today as the Motion Picture Academy prepared to hand out awards tonight, strike conditions permitting, for the top movie work of 1944.
Paramount’s famous movie, starring Bing Crosby, had four nominations and was certain to be on the receiving end of at least one of the Oscars.
Two of the Going My Wayers – Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald – have been nominated for Oscars for the year’s best performance by an actor. Fitzgerald was also in the running as the best supporting actor, while the picture’s director, Leo McCarey, was also in the lineup.
Bob Hope will be master of ceremonies. Previous winners will hand the guilded Oscars to the new selectees.
Also nominated for top picture honors were Paramount’s Double Indemnity, MGM’s Gaslight, Selznick International’s Since You Went Away and 20th Century-Fox’s Wilson.
Crosby and Fitzgerald were opposed by Charles Boyer of Gaslight, Cary Grant of None but the Lonely Heart and Alexander Knox of Wilson for the actor’s award.
Actresses nominated as best in their field were Ingrid Bergman of Gaslight, Claudette Colbert of Since You Went Away, Bette Davis of Mr. Skeffington, Greer Garson of Mrs. Parkington and Barbara Stanwyck of Double Indemnity.
Operators warned of U.S. control
Negotiate contract, UMW journal says
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7 killed, 16 injured in transport crash
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Most of it goes into black market –
Army frees citizens, BUT poor Pittsburgh gets none
1,200,000 pounds of fowl released in area where city usually buys, but it goes East
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Sen. McKellar, 76, suffers fainting spell
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In Washington –
Work-or-else compromise move begun
Conference committee gets legislation
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May 20 designated ‘I Am an American Day’
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Admiral testifies in treason trial
Assists defendant in Paris court
By Helen Kirkpatrick
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2 union leaders guilty of extortion
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Peace offer reported made by Hitler and rejected by Allies
Wave of optimism on early European victory prospects rises in Britain, on Western Front
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Tokyo directly accused of destruction of Manila
Gen. Romulo claims documents prove Japs were deliberate in massacre and wrecking
SAN FRANCISCO (UP) – The city of Manila was destroyed and her people slaughtered on direct orders from Tokyo, it was revealed here today by Brig. Gen. Carlos Romulo, Philippines resident commissioner.
He said he would indict the Japs on the floor of Congress.
Describing the Nanking atrocities as “a picnic compared to Manila.” Gen. Romulo said he would present Congress with captured documents, sworn affidavits and documentary films to substantiate his story of the “systematic, deliberate, wanton destruction” wrought by Jap Imperial Marines “on direct orders from Tokyo.”
Gen. Romulo was reunited March 2 in the Philippines with his wife and four young sons who had been with guerrillas since their separation over three years ago.
Manila only a shell
He said:
Manila is gone. It is only a shell. Thousands of her people were deliberately massacred by the Japanese.
Nanking was the primeval instinct of the Japanese asserting itself. Manila was studied; systematic!
In the walled city of Intramuros [in Manila] they herded 1,700 male civilians into Fort Santiagos. Then they doused the fort with kerosene and burned it.
Only three of 1,700 escaped. They were shot at.
A Spaniard who broke his back getting away but swam the Pasig River gave us the story.
Tried to make example
As women and children streamed through a breach made in the wall of Intramuros by U.S. artillery, the Japs mowed them down with machine guns. Thousands of them.
This was all on direct orders from Tokyo. We have captured documents to prove it. These documents said to kill as many Filipinos as possible!
The Japanese were irate because they didn’t get the support of the Filipino people and they wanted to make an example of them for the rest of East Asia.
It is hard for the American people to understand the kind of enemy we have. The American always wants to fight with gloves on.
Two more Philippine Isles seized by U.S. troops
Approaches to ship channel secured
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French battling Japs in Indochina
Force of 30,000 fights in mountain areas
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