America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

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The Pittsburgh Press (February 4, 1942)

Draft officials say –
If your wife can work, you may get call

Government would assist in partial support of dependents

Thousands of married men whose wives are capable of “working for a living” likely will be called into the Army after Congress enacts a government “relief bill” for draft dependents. Selective Service officials announced today.

Although emphasizing that men with families would in all likelihood remain in Class 3-A for some, authorities in Washington pointed out that a bill already pending before Congress would free for service:

  1. Men with wives who are partly supporting themselves or who are physically able to get jobs and support themselves with government aid.

  2. Men, both married and unmarried, whose dependents could support themselves with their own income, plus a maximum of $30 a month from the government and the soldier under a joint relief plan.

  3. Men supporting parents or relatives who could get along on a reduced income.

  4. Men who might hold deferments on the basis of court-ordered alimony payments.

Hits many in area

The plan, which Brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, national draft chief, outlined to a House investigating committee late yesterday, would hit hard at the estimated 100,000 men now holding 3-A deferments in Allegheny County.

In Washington, however, draft officials reiterated that the bulk of the 3-A men – whether the law is passed or not – will probably not be touched this year because estimates show the Army can reach its goal of 3,600,000 by next Jan. 1 by calling up, first of all, the 1-A men in the present lists and those who will become available following the next registration Feb. 16.

New list to be called

That many of those between 20 and 44, inclusive, will be called to service soon after they register was indicated by General Hershey, who told the committee that men from this group:

…will be inducted in the near future.

Older men, he said, will be given “less physically exacting jobs” by the Army.

Orders have gone out to local boards here, it was revealed, to clean up their present lists of all 1-A men by April to be ready, to handle classification of the new registrants as soon as possible thereafter.

In order to “clear the decks” for this mass induction, State Selective Service headquarters at Harrisburg today advised local boards they need…

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Day-night battle –
MacArthur’s men beat off new attack

Sailors, Marines bolster Luzon Army; Jap warship torpedoed in bay
By Everett R. Holles, United Press staff writer

Washington, Feb. 4 –
American and Filipino troops, who are being aided by a battalion of U.S. Marines and bluejackets, have “sharply repulsed” renewed Jap attacks along the west coast of Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, it was announced today.

Striking back against relentless Jap efforts to drive his forces from the island of Luzon and back upon Fort Corregidor in Manila Bay, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was said in a war communiqué to be mopping up “tattered remnants” of crack Jap troops in the jungle-like regions of lower Bataan.

The 200-500 men of the U.S. naval battalion were believed to be evacuated from Olongapo or Cavite bases. With announcement of their arrival on Bataan, the Navy also disclosed that a motor torpedo boat (mosquito boat) had torpedoed a Jap warship in Manila Bay and escaped and revealed that the Navy had lost its first tanker, the 5,400-ton Neches, by enemy submarine action. 56 men were believed lost on the tanker.

Main blows on left flank

The War Department communiqué, indicating a constant day-and-night battle on Bataan, reported that the main Jap blows were being directed against General MacArthur’s left flank – near the west coast where repeated enemy landing attempts have been shattered by shellfire and aerial bombings.

The communiqué, citing a “delayed report,” said that seven huge U.S. Army Flying Fortresses attacking Jap shipping Monday in the Dutch Borneo oil port of Balikpapan sank two and probably three enemy transports.

These sinkings, it was added, were believed to be those reported yesterday in a communiqué of General Sir Archibald Wavell, Supreme Commander of the United Nations forces in the Far East.

Mop up Jap troops

On General MacArthur’s left flank on the lower Bataan Peninsula units of the 16th Jap Kimura Division launched a night attack last night but were hurled back decisively, it was stated.

The communiqué reported:

Our troops continued to mop up tattered remnants of the Japanese who had previously landed on the west coast or who had infiltrated behind our lines. These enemy troops were from the Tatori group and Kimura Division and were found in isolated pockets. No reinforcements were able to reach them. The enemy had attempted to supply them intermittently with food and ammunition dropped by parachute. However, most of these supplies fell into our hands.

…

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Chrysler to build plane engine plant

Chicago, Feb. 4 (UP) –
Lt. Gen. William Knudsen announced today that a contract had been awarded the Chrysler Motor Corp. for construction of a $100-million bomber engine plant at Chicago.

General Knudsen said construction would start immediately and the plant “probably will be in operation” in nine months. The plant will turn out Wright 12-cylinder air-cooled engines, which General Knudsen described as “the biggest motors we have.” He estimated that 25,000 persons would be employed. The Chrysler plant would be the third large engine-producing factory in the Chicago area. Buick recently out into operation a $41-million plant, and Studebaker has had a smaller plant in operation several months.

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Wake up, Americans!

Wishful thinkers in United States still looking at war through rose-colored glasses, Britons charge
By William H. Stoneman

London, Feb. 4 –
Reports reaching London from the United States create the impression that the American people are looking at the war through rose-colored glasses and are in danger of falling victims to the same type of wishful thinking which was Britain’s curse during the early part of the war.

One observer reported on his recent return from the United States:

The American people are looking forward to a long, hard war but their idea of a long, hard war is one punctuated by a steady succession of smashing victories for the United States and its Allies. The people themselves prefer to buy newspapers and listen to radio programs which have the rosiest news.

The picture, as seen from London, is certainly far grimmer than the one which summaries of some American sources indicate.

This seems to apply to Singapore, which is believed here to be fighting a desperate and almost hopeless battle; to General Douglas MacArthur, whose position in the Philippines is regarded as more hopeless; to Libya, and even to the Battle of the Atlantic.

The American attitude toward the Battle of the Atlantic is regarded as significant of a very natural tendency to wish away hardboiled, unpleasant facts.

According to reports reaching London, this crucial and very real battle on America’s doorstep has not aroused anywhere near as much thought or emotion as the unreal prospect of smashing air attacks on American coastal cities. The impression here is that U-boat activity along American coasts has been very fierce and is bound to increase in ferocity during coming months.

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16th ship torpedoed by German U-boat

Lewes, Del., Feb. 4 (UP) –
The 3,598-ton United Fruit Co. freighter, San Gil, was torpedoed and sunk last night by an enemy submarine off the Maryland coast, killing two members of its crew, survivors disclosed on arriving here today. Four other members of the 41-man crew were injured.

The San Gil was the 16th vessel attacked by German U-boats since they began their recent raiding in coastal waters from Nova Scotia to Florida. 15 of the ships were sunk, and only the tanker, Malay, succeeded in reaching port.

The San Gil survivors, who spent seven hours in the open lifeboat, were picked up by a Coast Guard cutter.

The ship was of Panamanian registration.

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Henry McLemore’s viewpoint –
Lipstick invades the aviation industry, and slacks for women become a major problem of war

By Henry McLemore

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Los Angeles, Calif. –
Aviation in California has a new problem.

It’s not tricycle landing gears, pitch propellers, firepower or rationed rubber. No, its new problem is an old one, and involves what Kipling once foolishly described as:

…a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.

You’re right, folks, it’s the gals. Blue-eyed gals and skinny gals. Red-headed gals and oversized gals. Serious gals and flighty gals. All sizes and all sorts of gals.

Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, California’s major airplane factories have employed thousands of women workers. There is scarcely a plant that doesn’t have a powder room, or where the rouge and lipstick don’t stand on equal terms with the cut-plug and the briar pipe.

The girls are doing a magnificent job. They have proved they are worth the 60¢ and 75¢ an hour that they receive for helping in the assembling of bombers and fighters and trainers.

Clothes are problem

On the more monotonous jobs – you know., the kind where, for hour after hour, you tuck a little bit of wire here, you twist a bolt here, you pat something down here – they have shown themselves more efficient than men.

But the girls have produced a few headaches, just as girls have always done since Eve was determined to keep the doctor away with a bite into that forbidden Winesap.

Clothes have been a great problem. When the plants were first opened to women workers, the gals arrived on the job wearing any and everything. They came in voile creations, dotted swiss jobs, crepe print numbers, tailored suits, Mother Hubbards, boudoir aprons, slacks, shorts and almost everything else that you can find in a girl’s wardrobe.

Now they wear slacks

Tough foremen threw up their hands in horror. Hard-bitten machinists quivered and shook at the sight. Overalled mechanics muttered oaths that all but started the motors of nearby planes.

The girls were told that they must report in slacks; that to allow them to frisk around in billowing skirts would endanger their lives.

No one really knew the variety of slacks that are worn until the girls started showing up for work in their slacks.

The cute girl workers, the pretty ones, and the well – well, the well-built ones – took to slacks that were more appropriate for the first line of a Broadway chorus than an airplane factory. Quite a rumpus was raised when the foreman of one factory rebelled against a worker wearing trousers and halter outfits. He demanded that she cover up some of the exposed sections of her anatomy.

It’s men who change

The girls said okay, she would, but not until the men in the shop abandoned the habit of working without shirts. This developed into quite a battle. The men said that they had been working without shirts for years and they would be blankety-blank if any gal could come in and dictate how they should dress.

You know who won, don’t you, or aren’t you married?

What the airplane factories want is a standardized girl worker. Ones that are too pretty upset the place. As a matter of fact, the ones that are too lonely and look too well in a sweater, say, are not employed. It has been found that this type upsets the production of a plant.

Standardization fails

It seems that no matter how patriotic a workman is, how interested he is in his work, he simply can’t help being more interested in a delicious little thing in a sunsuit than he is in a bomber.

The thousands and thousands of women workers are determined not to lose their femininity. A Los Angeles department store, in polling them to ascertain a market for their merchandise, found that the girls wanted only one kind of clothes – the frilliest, fluffiest stuff that could be stitched up by hand or machine.

I’m afraid that, war or no war, women are not going to be standardized.

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WAR BULLETINS!

Nazis want more help from Italy

Stockholm, Feb. 4 –
The Berlin correspondent of the Stockholm newspaper Social-Demokraten today characterized Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s Rome visit as an attempt to induce Italy to increase her war effort for the spring campaign.

U.S. envoy to Spain called home

Madrid, Feb. 4 –
American Ambassador Alexander W. Weddell has been summoned to Washington “for consultation,” it was made known today.

Malay evacuees reach Australia

Canberra, Feb. 4 –
Between 1,500 and 2,000 women and children evacuated from the Malay Peninsula have reached Australia. The Commonwealth has arranged with the various state governments to place them in homes and institutions. Many were Chinese.

Argentina keeps men in service

Buenos Aires, Feb. 4 –
Acting President Ramón S. Castillo announced after a cabinet meeting today that Argentina’s 1920 class of conscripts would be retained in service “indefinitely.”

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The battlefronts in the Far East –

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1. U.S. and British planes blast Jap invaders near Moulmein, Burma.
2. Foe believed massing invasion boats as Singapore’s guns roar.
3. Dutch reveal heavy damage in Jap raid on Soerabaja, main Allied naval base.
4. U.S., Dutch warcraft hunt invasion craft in Makassar; stars indicate Jap bases believed used in Java raid.
5. Marines, sailors reinforce MacArthur; Mosquito boat torpedoes Jap warship in Manila Bay.
6. Dutch resist in “see-saw” battle at Amboina; Jap planes raid Dutch Timor.
7. Jap planes again raid Port Moresby; Aussie fliers attack ships at Rabaul.

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The Philippines front –

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1. MacArthur’s forces beat off new attack.
2. U.S. Mosquito boat torpedoes Jap warship in Manila Bay.
3. U.S. Marine, sailor reinforcements come from either evacuated base.

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Maj. Williams: Roberts Report

By Al Williams

Japan must be bombed to defeat.

Pearl Harbor is the most humiliating disaster – military and naval – ever suffered by American Armed Forces. And the Roberts Board of Inquiry report on that disaster – a whitewashing vindication of brass hatism does not meet the full needs.

That report told us little we didn’t know or sense as soon as the military and naval success of the Japs against Pearl Harbor was flashed to the American people. We knew that the local commanders – one general and one admiral – had been asleep on their jobs, like sentries asleep on posts.

It’s true that the Roberts Report told us a lot of harassing and almost unbelievable things about how frightfully delinquent and unprepared the Army and Navy were to meet the potentialities of modern war. The Roberts Report told us of anti-submarine and anti-tornado nets across the entrance to Pearl Harbor that had left open. It told us of the inexplicable delay of about one hour and 25 minutes between the destruction of a Jap submarine in the inshore coastal waters of Hawaii before a general “alert” was sounded.

Insufficient forces

In brush-odd paragraphs, it told us:

…there was a deficiency in the provision of materiel [guns, planes, anti-air detection machinery] for the Hawaiian area.

It relates how:

The fleet… was not charged with the defense of Pearl Harbor…

…that…

…insufficient forces were available to maintain all the defenses on a war footing for extended periods of time [five-day war?].

Unfortunately, the Japs planned a seven-day-a-week war.

It continues:

The national situation permitted only a partial filling of these requirements.

The report states that the Secretaries of the Army and Navy and their staffs communicated with one another and supplied all the files of correspondence to the Roberts Board; that all kinds of general recommendations from Washington had been sent to local Army and Navy forces in the Hawaiian area (without one check up to see if those recommendations ha been received, much less acted upon). It states that Secretary Knox had written a warning that the Japs might attack Pearl Harbor – by air – recommending:

…the revision of joint defense plans with special emphasis on the coordination of Army and Navy operations against surprise aircraft raids.

(There is no evidence that the Secretary followed up this correspondence to see what had been done about revising the Army and Navy joint defense against surprise aircraft attacks).

The report tells how one warning after another out of Washington had supplied information pointing to the likelihood of Jap attacks against the Philippines, Trai, the Kra Isthmus or possible Borneo. This is complete evidence that the High Command in Washington was all set for the old type of warfare. The deep-seated, stubborn opposition of the Navy and Army High Command to aviation – except as in an auxiliary capacity to land and sea forces – which is well known to the American public, all this led to the statement:

Without exception, they [the local commanders] believed that the chance of such a raid while the Pacific Fleet was based upon Pearl Harbor were practically nil.

Brass hats make mistake

There’s the real key to the Jap surprise at Pearl Harbor. The local commanders, Army and Navy, reflecting what the brass hats had so long thought and planned, just didn’t believe the Japs, or anyone else, would date to attack a base defended by a fleet. Yet British, Nazi and Italian airpower had attacked and destroyed sea power bases in Europe. That was all different – that couldn’t happen in Hawaii!

What the Roberts Report didn’t tell us is that plans for joint coordination of the Army and Navy are formulated by the General Board in Washington, composed of high-ranking Army and Navy officers.

Failure and lack of coordination of the Hawaiian Army and Navy forces was the real reason for the Pearl Harbor disaster. Oh, certainly, the local commanders “slept.” But didn’t the Army and Navy General Board in Washington sleep, too?

One general and one admiral are the goats. Of course they were guilty, but these two men are the products of a system. And it is the system which licked us at Pearl Harbor.

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U.S. War Department (February 5, 1942)

Communiqué No. 92

Philippine Theater.
There was a lull in the Battle of Bataan during the past 24 hours. Combat was limited to relative minor patrol actions, which lacked the savage character of the fighting which has been almost continuous during the past two weeks. The Japanese troops confronting our right sector are under the command of Lt. Gen. Akira Nara, and those facing our left are under Lt. Gen. Naoki Kimura. There was no marked activity in either sector.

Dutch East Indies.
Over Java, a small formation of U.S. Army P-40 fighting planes encountered a greatly superior force of Japanese bombers, escorted by pursuit aircraft. In the ensuing combat, one enemy bomber and one enemy pursuit plane were shot down. One of our planes is missing.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

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The Pittsburgh Press (February 5, 1942)

First Lady’s protégé gets defense job

Dancer to receive $4,600 as child supervisor; fund probe asked

Washington, Feb. 5 –
A dancer-protégé of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense, has plucked a $4,600-a-year job in the OCD.

The dancer, Mayris Chaney, has been named head of children’s activities in the Physical Fitness Division. She will report to the First Lady.

OCD officials did not disclose the specific duties of Miss Chaney, who introduced the “Eleanor Glide” at a White House dance several years ago in honor of the First Lady.

Another friend of Mrs. Roosevelt, Joseph Lash, American Youth leader who has been under fire of the Dies Committee for past affiliation with communist-dominated organizations, is serving as an unpaid member of the OCD Youth Advisory Council.

On the Congressional front, an inquiry into OCD expenditures was demanded by Rep. Leland Ford (R-CA) after learning of Miss Chaney’s appointment.

Fund probe urged

Mr. Ford issued a statement asking the House Appropriations Committee to look into OCD sending. He did not criticize Miss Chaney specifically but said he had decided to ask for the inquiry after the disclosure that she had been appointed.

Mr. Ford first became annoyed with the OCD when Melvyn Douglas, movie star, was named to the post of director of the Arts Council of the agency information section at the rate of about $22 for each day that he works.

Mr. Ford said in his statement:

The whole thing behind these playboys goes back to the philosophy that this is a Roman holiday to be paid for by the government.

First Lady heads division

These people haven’t realized yet what war really means.

In the reorganization of the OCD being made by James M. Landis, on leave from his position as dean of the…

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Help-or-else hint of Reds worries U.S.

Gossip implies Russia may quit if Allied aid lags
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

Washington, Feb. 5 –
Hints from diplomatic sources that Russia may eventually drop out of the wear unless she gets more help from the United Nations are causing anxiety, not unmixed with irritation, here.

Similar reports that China’s efforts may lag, unless the United States and Great Britain extend prompt aid, have met with a somewhat different reaction.

Russia, diplomatic observers in London suggest, may halt her advance at the German frontier – in the event she pushes the invaders back that far – and ask the Allies to open a second European front before trying for the knockout.

Separate peace hint

The rather unpleasant implication is that Russia make a separate arrangement with Germany.

In the case of China, her spokesmen have asked for, and received the assurance of large loans from the United States and Britain. The House yesterday agreed to advance her half a billion dollars. Britain will let her have $200 million. The money is to help China carry on her war against Japan. In asking for the loans, however, the Chinese began by saying that, loan or nor loan, they would go right on fighting.

America’s own war blamed

Russia is reported dissatisfied with the aid she is getting from the United States. Both the quantity and the type of material received so far have proved disappointing.

That U.S. aid to Russia had lagged is not denied here. But, it is pointed out, there are numerous reasons. An obvious one is that two months ago war descended on the United States itself, necessitating certain shifts of material from one part of the world to another. But insofar as some of this went to the Pacific, Russia profited from it quite as much as the United States. For if Japan wins in the Far East, Russia stands to lose eastern Siberia.

If comparisons are in order, it is observed, Russia would seem to be much better supplied with war material than the United States. In 1939, only two countries in Europe were armed to the teeth – Germany and Russia. At that time, Russia said she was perfectly prepared to wage a successful war against any power or group of powers. She said her army was not only the largest but the most highly mechanized on earth.

American muddling admitted

The case of the United States – of which so much is now expected by so many – is the reverse. Even as late as the fall of France in 1940, …

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It’s President day off

Washington, Feb. 5 –
President Roosevelt has no engagements today.

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Pittsburghers escape death at Singapore

Missionaries leave auto just before bomb hits

Two Pittsburghers – a missionary and his wife – brushed close to death as they and 75 other Americans were evacuated from Singapore in the midst of a heavy Japanese air bombardment.

A bomb struck their auto in a street near the Singapore dock just a moment after they had left it to take shelter.

Their chauffeur, who stayed in the auto, was killed.

Safe in Batavia

The Pittsburgh couple, Dr. and Mrs. Raymond L. Archer, later got safely aboard the United States freighter that took them and the other evacuees to Batavia, Java, where they told their story today.

Dr. Archer, an official of the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions, and his wife have spent more than 20 years doing missionary work among the natives of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya.

For the last few years, they had been living in Singapore.

Bomb hits one ship

As the Japanese approached Johor Strait and opened their siege of Singapore Island, the Archers…

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Naval funds approved

Washington. Feb. 5 –
The Senate today completed Congressional action on the $26,495,265,474 Naval Supply Bill, providing funds for fleet expansion and acquisition of 25,063 planes for the fleet air arm within 18 months.

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Planes frighten off U-boats from liner

New York, Feb. 5 (UP) –
The captain of an American passenger liner reported today on his arrival here that the swift response of three patrol bombers to his radio appeal for help frightened away three submarines which had broken the surface close to his ship shortly after leaving a Caribbean port.

The skipper, Captain Nels Helgesen, said he ordered the radio operator to flash the danger signal “SOS” without waiting for the submarines to take any action.

Soon the roar of the engines of the three planes was heard.

As the planes came nearer the submarines submerged.

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Reinforcements arrive –
Jap warplanes downed in Java

American fliers win East Indies ‘dogfight’
By Everett R. Holles, United Press staff writer

Washington, Feb. 5 –
American Army fighter planes, going to the aid of bomb-wracked Java in the Dutch East Indies, have shot down two Japanese warplanes, one of them a bomber, in an air battle against heavy odds.

The War Department said today one of the small formation of U.S. P-40 fighters was lost in the encounter over Java where the Japanese Air Force has been assaulting the United Nations base at Soerabaja, starting big fires.

Military experts attached importance to the disclosure that American Army fighter planes are in action over the Dutch East Indies. This followed yesterday’s declaration of General Sir Archibald Wavell, supreme commander of the united forces in the Southwest Pacific, that U.S. and British reinforcements were en route to the battle zone.

Size of force unknown

Today’s War Department communiqué – which also reported that General Douglas MacArthur’s forces have broken at least temporarily the fury of the Japanese offensive on Bataan Peninsula – showed that the vanguard of fighter plane reinforcements had reached the Southwest Pacific at last.

Details as to the extent of this force were lacking and the communiqué spoke only of a “small formation” in action over Java.

The P-40 fighters, the same type which has achieved thrilling victories in support of General MacArthur’s troops in the Philippines, were said to have “encountered a greatly superior force of Japanese bombers escorted by pursuit craft” over Java.

Bombers unprotected

In the ensuing combat one enemy bomber and one enemy pursuit plane were shot down. One of our…

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If we can’t give guns, let’s give 'em medals

Washington, Feb. 5 (UP) –
Rep. J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ) today introduced legislation to confer on General Douglas MacArthur the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for outstanding service to the United States.

Mr. Thomas commented:

If we can’t give them guns, let’s give them medals.