Liberated Yanks return to U.S.
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Monahan: Rousing Oklahoma arrives at Nixon
Touring cast dances, sings and cavorts with gusty enthusiasm
By Kaspar Monahan
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Doctor’s life as laborer revealed after his death
Physician, who once practice in Harrisburg, worked as bricklayer at Sharon, Pennsylvania
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Fewer mines closed, but losses higher
Small pits reopen, others again idle
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
OKINAWA (by Navy radio) – Since this island is the closest to Japan we’ve landed on and since we seem to feel this really is Japan, rather than just some far outpost, I’ll try to describe to you what it looks like.
Actually it doesn’t look a great deal different from most of America. In fact, it looks much more like America than anything the Marines have seen for the last three years.
The climate is temperate rather than tropical, and so is the vegetation. There are tropical-like trees on and near the beaches – I think they’re pandanus bushes. But there also are many trees of the fir family with horizontal limbs.
The country over which my regiment passed during the first two days was cultivated. It rose gradually from the sea and was all formed into small fields.
It didn’t look at all unlike Indiana in late summer when things have started to turn dry and brown, except that the fields were much smaller.
The wheat, which looks just like ours, is dead ripe in the fields now. The Marines are cutting it with little sickles. In other fields are cane and sweet potatoes.
Each field has a ditch around its edge, and dividing the fields are little ridges about two feet wide. On top of the ridges are paths where the people walk. All through the country are narrow dirt lanes and now and then a fairly decent gravel road.
As you get inland, the country becomes rougher. In the hills there is less cultivation and more trees. It is really a pretty count We had read about what a worthless place Okinawa was, but I think most of us have been surprised about how pretty it is.
Okinawa civilians pitiful
Okinawa civilians we bring in are pitiful. The only ones left seem to be real old or real young. And they all are very, very poor.
They’re not very clean. And their homes are utterly filthy. Over and over, you hear Marines say, “This could be a nice country if the people weren’t so dirty.”
Obviously, their living standard is low. Yet I’ve never understood why poverty and filth need to be synonymous. A person doesn’t have to be well off to get clean. But apparently he has to be well off to want to keep clean. We’ve found it that way clear around the world.
The people here dress as we see Japs dressed in pictures: women in kimonos and old men in skintight pants. Some wear a loose, knee-length garment that shows their skinny legs.
The kids are cute as kids are all over the world. I’ve noticed Marines reaching out and tousling their hair as they marched past them. We’re rounding up all the civilians and putting them in camps. They are puzzled by it all.
They’re scared to death
Most of the farm families must have got out when our heavy bombardments started. Lots of farmhouses have either been demolished or burned to the ground before we came. Often, in passing a wrecked farmhouse, you smell the sickening odor of death inside.
But there are always people you won’t leave, no matter what. We couldn’t help feeling sorry for the Okinawans we picked up in the first few days. We found two who spoke a little English. They had once lived in Hawaii. One was an old man who had a son (Hawaiian-Japanese) somewhere in the American Army.
They were all shocked from the bombardment and yet I think rather stupid too, so that when they talked they didn’t make much sense.
I don’t believe they had any idea of what it was all about. As one Marine officer said, “The poor devils. I’ll bet they think this is the end of the world.”
They were obviously scared to death. On Love Day, the Marines found many of them hiding from us in caves. They found two old women, 75 or more, in a cave, caring for a paralyzed girl. She wasn’t wounded, just paralyzed from natural causes. One of the old ladies had a small dirty sack with some money in it. When the Marines found her, she cried and tried to give them the money – hoping I suppose that she could buy herself off from being executed.
After all the propaganda they’ve been fed about our tortures, it’s going to be a befuddled bunch of Okinawans when they discover we brought right along with us, as part of the intricate invasion plan, enough supplies to feed them, too!
It isn’t a pleasant sight to see –
Angry, rabble army of foreign slaves burns bitterness of defeat into Germany
Allies too busy to stop them
By Iris Carpenter, North American Newspaper Alliance
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‘Freedom is India’s greatest problem,’ guest speaker declares at luncheon
Maternal Health Center hears talk on future hopes of distant nation
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