Background of news –
New party setup
By Bertram Benedict
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Maureen – a level-headed beauty!
Fire on set fails to disturb her
By Maxine Garrison
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D. Dingbat wouldn’t like this!
‘Let it rain’ say the filmmakers
By Murray M. Moler
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Before he was killed on Ie Shima, Ernie Pyle, as was his habit, had written a number of columns ahead. He did this so there would be no interruptions in the column while he was getting material for more. Several more are expected.
OKINAWA (by Navy radio) – Back nearly two years ago when I was with Oklahoma’s 45th Division in Sicily and later in Italy, I learned they had a number of Navajo Indians in communications.
When secret orders had to be given over the phone these boys gave them to one another in Navajo. Practically nobody in the world understands Navajo except another Navajo.
Well, my regiment of First Division Marines has the same thing. There are about eight Indians who do this special work. They are good Marines and very proud of being so.
There are two brothers among them, both named Joe. Their last names are the ones that are different. I guess that’s a Navajo custom, though I never knew of it before.
One brother, Pfc. Joe Gatewood, went to the Indian school in Albuquerque. In fact, our house is on the very same street and Joe said it sure was good to see somebody from home.
Joe has been out here three years. He is 34 and has five children back home when he would like to see. He was wounded several months ago and got the Purple Heart.
Joe’s brother is Joe Kellwood who has also been out here three years. A couple of others are Pfc. Alex Williams of Winslow, Arizona, and Pvt. Oscar Carroll of Fort Defiance, Arizona, which is the capital of the Navajo reservation. Most of the boys are from around Fort Defiance and used to work for the Indian Bureau.
Knew invasion wouldn’t be tough
The Indian boys knew before we got to Okinawa that the invasion landing wasn’t going to be very tough. They were the only ones in the convoy who did know it. For one thing they saw signs and for another they used their own influence.
Before the convoy left, the far south tropical island where the Navajos had been training since the last campaign, the boys on a ceremonial dance.
The Red Cross furnished some colored cloth and paint to stain their faces. They made up the rest of their Indian costumes from chicken feathers, seashells, empty ration cans and rifle cartridges.
Then they did their own native ceremonial chants and dances out there under the tropical palm trees with several thousand Marines as a grave audience.
In their chant they asked the great gods in the sky to sap the Japanese of their strength for this blitz. They put the finger of weakness on the Japs. And then they ended their ceremonial chant by singing the Marine Corps song in Navajo.
I asked Joe Gatewood if they really felt their dance had something to do with the ease of our landing and he said the boys did believe so and were very serious about it, himself included.
“I knew nothing was going to happen to us,” Joe said, “for on the way up here there was a rainbow over the convoy and I knew then everything would be all right.”
They can’t hurt us
One day I was walking through the edge of a rubbled Okinawa village where Marine telephone linesmen were stringing wire to the tops of the native telephone poles.
As I passed, one of the two linesmen at the top called down rather nervously saying he was afraid the wobbly pole was going to break under their weight.
To which one of the men on the ground, apparently their sergeant, called back reassuringly:
“You’ve got nothing to worry about. That’s imperial Japanese stuff. It can’t break.”
There are very few cattle on Okinawa, but there are lots of goats and horses. The horses are small hike western ponies and mostly bay or sorrel. Most of them are skinny, but when you see well-fed ones, they are good-looking horses. They are all well broken and tame.
The Marines have acquired them by the hundreds. Our company alone has more than 20. The boys put their heavier packs on them but more than that they just seem to enjoy riding them up and down the country roads.
They have rigged up rope halters for them and one Marine made a bridle using a piece of bamboo for a bit. They dug up old pads, and even some goatskins to use as saddle blankets. But it’s surprising how many men in a company of Marines don’t really know how to ride a horse.
Are we coddling prisoners of war?
Yanks in Reich suffer – Nazis live in comfort
By S. Burton Heath
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The life of Harry Truman –
New President, as Senator, was first to get to work
An early riser since his Army days, he’d beat his aides to the office
By Frances Burns
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Butter, beef and jelly lifted from Nazi prisoners’ menu
Changes are laid to food shortage in U.S. – Geneva Convention rules still observed
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
SAN FRANCISCO – Well, sign language has really come into its own here. With representatives of 46 nations speaking almost as many languages, it was a case of necessity.
There’s one sign that means “Have you any steak?” another that means “Where Can I Find a Taxi?” and another to ask “Have You a Vacant Hotel Room?”
The San Franciscans have no trouble with the sign language. All they have to learn is to shake their heads “no.”
Not only do these foreign delegates have strange languages, but even stranger beards. Old settlers say there haven’t been so many beards here since the days of the “Forty-Niners.”
I didn’t know which hotel to try to get into when I first arrived, but when I saw the Egyptian delegation go into the Palace Hotel, I realized that was the place for me. From what the Egyptians were wearing I knew they must have sheets there.
Auto output seen hinging on textile pay
Wages to determine start of production
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War to peace conversion costly
U.S. bill may run to hundreds of millions
By Roger W. Stuart, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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