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PACIFIC: War Theater Of Magnificent Distances
The U. s. is a big country, 3,200
miies from coast to coast. The
Ocean is larger than the
i.nd mass of the entire world.
Lree outline maps of the U. S.
n be superimposed over the
pacific War Theater and still leave
plenty of chinks.
It is double the U. S. coast-to-coast
rfis'snce between San Francisco and
Manila It is more than five times the
foast-to-coast distance between Ma
'jia and the Belgian and French re
deployment ports.
England, base for the cracking of
Vo-tress Europe, was only 20 miles
[way across the Straits of Dover. The
Philippines, apparently destined to
be the chief staging area for invasion
cf Japan, are 1,750 miles from Tokyo,
] 300 from Kyushu, southernmost of
the home islands.
Britain Ideal Base
England was highly industrialized,
ideal for mounting and protecting the
intricate tools of amphibious war. The
Philippines, with the exception of the
port of Manila, are undeveloped. On
Guam and Okinawa, two recently
acquired advance bases,' Americans
parted from coral bedrock.
England’s climate wa„ cold, damp,
but generally predictable. Twice with
in the last six months typhoons bat
tered the U. S. Third Fleet. On June 5,
a typhoon with 138 mile an hour
END OF THE LINE for this Jap
anese train in Korea came under
guns of U.S. Navy pilot.
winds tore off the bow of a heavy
cruiser and damaged 20 other war
ships, including fast battleships and
big Essex carriers. Last December,
raging seas capsized three destroyers,
drowning most of their crews.
These are reasons why some mili
tary tacticians tear their hair when
armchair generals talk glibly of Ja
pan’s fall this year. The coordinated*
sea-air strikes and the shelling of Ja
pan by the Fleet against only token
resistance set off domestic tidal waves
of such heartening rumors.
Military men admit the possibility
of surrender but expect V-J Day to
come the hard way—by invasion. It
will be much more difficult than Nor
mandy. It will mean troop convoys
traveling over 1,000 miles across open
seas, under attack by naval and aerial
suicide units. It will mean fighting
fanatic defenders, including women
and children, and waging a campaign
without mechanized equipment which
blitzed the Wehrmacht but is poorly
adapted to Japan’s rugged mountains.
Sea-Air Strikes Mount
The mounting fury of naval and air
attacks may suggest preparatory op
erations for invasion, but D-Day in
Japan probably is pages away on the
war calendar.
R. Adm. Oscar C. Badger's super
battleships of the Third Fleet which
attacked Hokkaido with point-blank
fire were not necessarily blasting an
invasion path. In demolishing iron
and steel production at Muroran on
Hokkaido, the fleet was pounding the
same type of objective the B-29s have
been working over for a year.
Hokkaido, however, is beyond the
practical operating limit of Superforts
based on Guam, Saipan and Tinian.
It presumably will remain so until
big B-29 bases are created on Okina
wa or possibly on the Asiatic main
land. The Navy took the ball on a
lateral pass from the B-29s and
blasted a target, out of bounds for the
big bombers.
Navy carrier pilots and Army fight
ers are intensifying the pounding of
Japan’s planes, airfields and transpor
tation lines in addition to aircraft
plants, armament and munitions
works, shipyards.
Vulnerable Railroads
More and more there appears refer
ence to attacks on Japanese rail lines.
The foe’s railroads are peculiarly vul
nerable; they average four bridges a
mile—and blasted bridges make good
bottlenecks. Japanese rail lines are
electrified extensively because of the
abundance of hydroelectric power and
shortage of coal or diesel oil. Power
plants and transmission facilities pro
vide added vital targets.
There are reasons which might ex
plain the recent tactics of Japanese
airmen refusing to rise in defense of
' V
Aerial
3.000- Plane Raids A Day
U. S. land-based air power in the
Pacific can hurl 3,000 planes a day at
Japan by coordinating the tactical
and strategic air forces, now being
realigned.
The first Eighth Air Force B-29s
under Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle will
arrive by August 15, according to
Gen. Barney M. Giles, new Strategic
Air Forces deputy commander under
Gen. Carl A. Spaatz. Giles said that in
Japan itself “there is nothing left as
an individual target” worth even a
1.000- plane raid.
Pilots of the Okinawa Tactical Air
Force shot down 625 Japanese
plaues during conquest of the island
and flew 38,192 combat sorties. All
Army planes in the Ryukyus have
been placed under command of Gen.
George C. Kenney’s Far East Air
Forces while the joint Army, Navy,
Marine Air Force which supported
the 10th Army’s campaign has been
disbanded.
In Short...
Ordered: By California Superior
Court, Charles Chaplin, worth $3,000,
000 by his own admission, to continue
paying $75 a week for support of
child born to Joan Berry, once his
protege.
Decided: By King Leopold, neither
to abdicate nor return to Belgium at
present.
Left: War Manpower Commissioner
Paul V. McNutt, to survey, for the
President, health and economic needs
in the Philippines where he was
U. S. commissioner before the war.
Permitted: By U. S. Military Gov
ernment, German workers to form
trade unions.
Thawed: 6,000 remainder of 520,000
1942 automobiles by OPA to clear
dealers’ stocks before new models
start coming in.
Ordered: Fingerprinting of 3,000,000
Germans in U. S. occupied zone by
Military Government as crime pre
caution.
Apologized: U. S. government tc
Japan, for sinking of a Japanese hos
pital ship off Formosa by American
sub.
Declared: By Italy, war on her for
mer Axis partner, Japan.
Annulled: By British Court of Ap
peals, marriage of a British couple or
wife’s plea that husband practiced
birth control and refused to allow
her to have a family.
Improvised: By 13th Air Forc<
.fighter pilots covering Borneo inva
sion, “belly tank” fire bombs of jellied
gasoline to burn up the Japanese
the homeland against me steppea-up
air attacks. Between July 1 and 15
B-29 pilots reported seeing less than
100 enemy planes, most of which
veered away without attack.
Gen. George C. Kenney, command
er of the Army’s Far Eastern Air
Force, says the foe may be hoarding
his planes for the fat American troop
transport targets on D-Day. More
likely, the general thinks, is the pos
sibility that vital shortages have
grounded the Imperial air force.
Long Blockade
The long blockade which cut Ja
pan off from her southern empire
must have depleted aviation gasoline
stockpiles. It may have taken Japan
a year, Kenney says, to rebuild the
Borneo refineries and American sub
marines began to blow her tankers
out of the water soon after that.
“Lack of trained pilots conceivably
can be traced to the Kamikaze theory
which has in it the seeds of its own
destruction,” the general says. “When
you send experienced pilots out in
suicide planes, your trained person
nel is gone. When you send out stu
dents or half-trained men, you throw
away your future aces.”
Gen. Kenney reports some captured
pilots were sent into combat in planes
they knew very little about—some
with only a few hours flying time.
•? ; ' V-; f.' i • ’
Pacific midway!
Ocean
.WAKE
MAIBMAU.
POT POURRI: Round The World
• in nonaon, xne iNanonai council
for Unmarried Mother and Child re
ported 52,000 illegitimate children
were born to British girls last year.
Most of the mothers are unfortunate
girls, said the council, whose hus
bands-to-be were killed in the war.
• Near Moscow, Idaho, Forester Clif
ford Kleer climbed a tall pine tree to
fix a telephone line, stayed there 13
hours until a huge grizzly bear got
tired of clawing at the trunk and
lower limbs.
• At imcateno, taano, anosnone In
dians postponed the start of their an
nual three-day sun dance until braves
could come off warplant night shifts.
Then 12 hours late, the ceremonial
rites started with eight tribal uancers,
far below the usual quota.
<i
• At San Jose, Calif., a civilian
pilot ran out of gas and made an
emergency landing on a city.street.
Police helped him get fuel, then
cleared the road of traffic so he could
take off.
olMHNHflRMflHHMBMRHRI VVHmMHBBpHw
iO TALK OR NOT TO TALK is no longer the question as U.S.
troops now are permitted to fraternize with Germans in public.
This Yank lost no time in exercising his new privilege.
p btamford, Conn., an ice cream
Manufacturer was frozen to death
" non trapped by a defective lock in
' ' a freezing compartment. There
)Vas evidence he struggled frantically
o get out, tried to set fire to a 10-inch
|nick door by igniting cardboard car
tons, used his fountain pen in futile
* deavors to manipulate the lock,
nattei ed the door with five-gallon ice
^ream cans. The temperature was 40
Be iow.
© More than 25 Lehigh Valley, Pa,
''■lei and restaurant owners voted tc
*■ >se their establishments seven days
f i month. One proprietor said he
,i.j been unable to serve anything
n111 'Moon and eggs for dinner bu!
oi. he couldn’t even get bacon.
? ,^n f^cw Haven, Conn, a store win
u k°re this sign: “Going out o:
ousmess until we MEAT again.”
• Speculators have staked out more
than 1,000 land claims in the Province
of Almeria, Spain, where radium or
some other rare mineral is reported
to attract fire from the sky. The fires
come without warning and have ig
nited clothing of more than 30 peas
ants. The phenomenon, first observed
last month, was confirmed by scien
tists; one group reporting a “rain of
fire” ignited its instruments.
• At Emmett, Idaho, Mrs. Walter
Dalton angrily chased a “dog” out of
her chickenyard, almost fainted when
it turned out to be a five-months-old
bear,
• In Madrid, Generalissimo Francis
co Franco promised Spaniards he
would restore the monarchy sometime
. in the future.
(All Rights Reserved, AP Newsfeatures)
Upcoming
Monday July 23
Petain trial opens in Paris
Tuesday, July 24
Pioneer Day, Utah
Wednesday, July 25
Occupation Day, Puerto Rico
Thursday, July 26
British election returns
„ Saturday, July 28
Austria began World War I in
1914
Nation
Greasing The Ways
The government moved to ease the
housewife’s burden by cutting the ra
tion value of butter from 24 to 16
points. OPA said the reason was re
duced military shipments and the
peak summer season in butter pro
duction, coupled with a shortage of
storage facilities.
At the same time, Agriculture’s
Secretary Anderson handed out good
news on meat and bad news on sugar.
Shipment of meat to shortage areas
was begun and non-federally inspect
ed slaughterers were permitted to
move meat across state lines provided
they met sanitary conditions.
The sugar situation will be sour
during the last three months of this
year, Anderson said, with less than
1,000,000 tons available compared
with 1,833,000 tons used for civilian
use in the same period in 1944.
Congress got itself embroiled in a
battle of the sexes when the House
Judiciary Committee urged adoption
of legislation proposing a constitu
tional amendment granting equal
rights to women in pay scales and
right to jobs.
Protesting vigorously, minority
members charged it would take away
many privileges of women, be “mis
chief breeding” and that it posed the
question whether a wife might not be
held equally liable with the husband
for family support or alimony.
Big Three Confer
On Japanese War
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i r-■
I_
M05Cot?J
WITH a minimum of formality,
the son of a (Georgian cob
bler, a British aristocrat and an
ex-haberdasher from Missouri
conferred this week on Europe’s
fate for years to come. The heads
of the three biggest world powers dis
cussed over a big circular table in the
palace of Kaiser Wilhelm the prob
lems of victory achieved in Europe
and victory to come in Asia.
Premier Stalin arrived a day late
and Prime Minister Churchill and
President Truman utilized the time
by touring Hitler’s bomb-razed capi
tal and conferring on last minute de
tails with their technical aides and
chiefs of staff.
President Truman presided at the
first session Tuesday, by invitation.
Preliminary exchanges of view took
place on a coordinated occupation
policy for Germany, the economic and
political destiny of Germans, treat
ment of displaced persons and liber
ated countries.
President Truman’s main objective
is to expedite' winning the war with
Japan and he has potent arguments in
Lease-Bend and postwar economic
commitments for reconstruction.
Bronzed and refreshed after an
eight-day Atlantic crossing on the
cruiser Augusta, the President flew to
Potsdam from Antwerp. Prime Min
ister Churchill flew in from Hendaye,
France, where he had been vacation
ing after a strenuous election cam
paign. Stalin arrived by train from
Moscow over wide gauge Russian
tracks laid tt> Berlin.
U. S. DESIGNS A NEW LIGHT WEIGHT WEAPON FOR THE PACIFIC
.•___....
_I
RECOILLESS 57 MM RIFLE has the power of a field artillery piece. It weighs 1UU pounds, throws
a three-pound shell two miles. A two-man weapon, it can be operated by one in a pinch. At right,
seven combat soldiers strain to move a 57 mm gun during Cen. Patton's campaign in the Saar basin.
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i_uttua_i
The little yellow men of Nippon
who like to act tough against defense
less populations have a brutal crime
to answer for in the little east Luzon
coastal town of Infanta. The village
is 30 miles east of Manila, across the
Sierra Madre Mountains and is reach
able only by plane or water.
Two months ago Japanese discov
WiVi I' ff'l -r ■■
Zee, London Mirror
ered American canned goods in one
of the native huts, tracked down some
guerrilla activity. Retribution was
swift.
That night more than 300 Japanese
troops- slipped into Filipino homes
and massacred 2,000 men, women and
children in their beds. A few natives
escape into the jungle.
Quotes
Robert P. Patterson, Undersec
retary of War: “We must be pre
pared to win the war the hard
way by killing Japanese soldiers
right through the ruins of Tokyo
and throughout the home is
lands.”
Owen J. Robert*, retiring U. S.
Supreme Court justice: “The only
law between nations is the law
of tooth and claw.”
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt: World
peace is the job of the people.
“They have to care enough about
peace to make whatever sacri
fices peace entails.”
Statistics
Staff Of Life
During 1944 and the first five
months of 1945, the Army shipped
2,045,829 long tons of food to civilians
in liberated Europe.
Wheat and flour made up more than
70 per cent of the total; canned
meats, sugar and fats accounted for
only 11 per cent.
The War Department announced all
Army shipments of food to civilians
in liberated countries would cease
September 1. '
Charter
A Pocketbook Test
A Senate drive to have the United
Nations charter signed, sealed and
ready for delivery to President Tru
man when he returns from the Big
Three conference appeared almost
certain with the virtual collapse ot
isolationist opposition.
Meanwhile the pocketbook tPst of
America’s widened role in world af
fairs—approval of U. S. participation
in the Bretton Woods monetary
agreements drew fire in the Senate.
Under Bretton Woods, the U. S.
with 53 other nations would try to
stabilize world currencies and provide
credits for reconstruction and devel
opment as* an international responsi
bility. The U. S. would contribute
$3,17.5,000,000 to the World Bank and
$2,175,000,000 to a credit fund.
Sen. Taft (R-Ohio) charged tha1
the U. S. had the only good currency
in the world and that to attempt to
stabilize foreign currencies at this
time of world chaos would mean
“pouring $6,000,000,000 down a rat
hole.”
Other Republicans attacked Taft’s
implication that the Allies would nol
live up to their obligations. One
quoted an Australian as saying thal
while the U. S. would entrust the
fund and bank with its . dollars “we
entrust them with our very existence."
...; --
|MR9HflHg i
WAR’S TWO-EDGED SWORD CUTS BOTH WAYS. An unidentified
British carrier is stung by a Japanese suicide pilot off the Sakishima
Islands. Off the Ryukyus on June 5, a typhoon damaged more U.b. s ips
(21) than the Japanese ever were able to put out of action in one
engagement since Pearl Harbor. Right, the heavy cruiser Pittsburgh
lost its bow and the carrier Bennington’s flight deck was badly battered.
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