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VOL. LII, No. 37-S
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN,
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 18, 1943
P.aiCE FIVE...<.CE.NTS
apture of Messina Ends Battle for Si
oily;
Alliees
Wewak Base
Is Blasted;
1,500 Killed
Yanks Drop 10,000
Bombs in Shattering
Attack near Salamaua
By The Associated Press
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IS
THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC, Aug
18, Wednesday-The Allies won thei
most smashing victory of the Pacific
war in the, battle for air supremac
over New Guinea Tuesday by sur-
prising more than 225 Japanese
planes, many wing tip to wing tip
on the ground in the Wewak area
destroying or damaging 170 and kill-
ing 1,500 enemy air personnel.
10,000 Bombs Spread Havoc
Ten thousand fragmentation and
incendiary bombs spread havoc
among reinforcements which Japan
obviously was intending to bring intc
play in support of ground forces now
reeling back in the jungles before at-
tacks of Americans and Australians
bidding for the air base of Salamaua
Wewak is about 350 miles north-
West up the coast from Salamaua.
One hundred twenty of the Japa-
nese planes were destroyed for cer-
tain and 50 more severely damaged.
Maj.-Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead,
commander of the advance echelon
Allied airforces in the Southwest
Pacific area, who directed the aer-
ial sledgehammer blows rained on
four Wewak area airdromes, de-
scribed this devastating achieve-
ment of American and Australian
fliers as "the opening battle for
air supremacy over central New
Guinea."
The Papuan peninsula, southeast-
ern New Guinea, has long since been
in Allied hands and present ground
fighting is fordcontrolofenortheast-
ern New Guinea, adding significance
to General Whitehead's reference to
"central New Guinea."
1General MacArthur in a special
statement acclaimed the air triumph.
A flight of Liberators led the maul-
ing attack which commenced shortly
after midnight Tuesday and con-
tinued well into daylight yesterday
morning.
225 Planes On Ground
More than 225 planes made up the
sight which greeted the first raiders.
The last raiders to leave looked back
on a scene of havoc. Everywhere
there was smoke and fire from burn-
ing planes, fuel and ammunition
dumps.
Liberators, Flying Fortresses, Mit-
chells and Bostons struck in wave
on wave with clocklike precision. So
complete was the surprise element
that the air triumph cost the Allies
only three planes.
Departing from custom, General
MacArthur issued a special state-
ment:
"It was a crippling blow at an
opportune moment.
"Numerically, the opposing forces
were about equal in strength but
one was in the air and the other
was not. Nothing is so helpless
as a plane on the ground.
"In war, surprise is decisive."
In the Central Solomons, today's
communique said succinctly, the
ground advance against the Japanese
still holding out at Bairoko harbor
on New Georgia's north coast con-
tinues.
The Japanese airforce made weak
offensive efforts. Spitfires shot down
four enemy bombers in the Darwin
area and a single enemy plane harm-
lessly bombed Port Hedland in north-
western Australia.
Occupational forces, meanwhile,
continued to consolidate their hold
on Vella Lavella island in the Solo-
mons which the Americans invaded
Sunday.
Coal Prices To Rise
With 48-Hour Week
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17.-- (M)-
Coal prices will have to go up when
the mines go on a 48-hour week.
This was conceded tonight by Sec-
retary of Interior Ickes as he pre-
pared an order to put in the longer
work week wherever local conditions
will permit. Many mines now work
A' 1,ni rc Timnra a n . h 1l nav i s
in
Smashing
Victory
in
Pacific
l.>
After the 'Enemy' Stronghold Fell to Company A
-Daily Photo by Corp. Robert L. Lewin, Co. A, 3651st S.U.
Relaxing on the 'captured' hill, the men of Comp any A listen to Lt. Kenneth Rewick, Lt. George
Spence and Lt. Glen Grosjean (left to right, facing camera) point out the good and bad points of their
attack. The critique was held immediately after the men had seized the 'enemy' stronghold behind the
hospital Saturday morning.
GLOBAL STRATEGY:
FDR Arrives in Quebec
To Confer with Churchill
By The Associated Press
QUEBEC, Que., Aug. 17.- President Roosevelt came to historic, cheer-
ing Quebec tonight to re-examine Allied strategy for global war with Prime
Minister Churchill of Britain and translate it into a master war plan to blast
the Axis out of existence.
Thus began the final phase of the Quebec war conference, the sixth
formal meeting of two statesmen who hold the fate of the Allies, and per-
haps of a staggering enemy, in their hands.
With them was Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada, whose
troops have played a vital role in the conquest of Sicily and appear destined
4 to take on an even bigger assignment
Russians Blast
Through Stiffer
Nazi Defenses
LONDON, Aug. 18, Wednesday.-
(A)-The Red Army smashed through
stiffening German resistance Tues-
day to make gains up to four miles
toward Bryansk and improved their
positions in the drives upon Smo-
lensk and Kharkov in fighting that
killed 8,300 Germans, Moscow an-
nounced today.
The Germans were falling back
from position after position in the
Bryansk area, where the Red troops
were last reported 15 miles east of
the great German defense center.
Over 60 towns and villages were tak-
en and the Moscow radio reported
that "fierce fighting does not slacken
for a moment."
Germans in Full Retreat
The Germans, dislodged from their
main line, were said to be in full re-
treat, covering their rear with tank
and plane counter offensives.
Soviet planes found military trains
and concentrations of troops in Bry-
ansk and pounded them heavily
Monday night and Tuesday morn-
ing, a Moscow broadcast recorded by
the Soviet monitor said.
Bryansk was also menaced by Rus-
sian troops driving down from within
24 miles northeast of the city where
perhaps the greatest threat to the
Germans in this area lay.
The Soviet midnight communique,
recorded by the Soviet monitor, re-
ported heavy fighting southwest of
Dmitrovsk-Orlovsky, 60 miles south-
east of Bryansk.
Reds Forge Ahead
Other Soviet troops forged ahead
in the Pas Demensk area to capture
several hamlets, considerably im-
proving their positions. Over 2,000
Germans were killed here and much
enemy equipment destroyed. In this
.drive the Soviets were about 75 miles
southeast of Smolensk.
Tha C Prman rnntrnlla m ialv n s_
in tremendous smashes at the Nazi
fortress on the European continent.
Tonight they were at their ease.
They were honor guests at a dinner
party given by the Earl of Athlone,
Canada's Governor-General, in Que-
bec's citadel, a grim fortress which
towers over the city, the St. Law-
rence and the spots where British
arms defeatedAmerican invaders in
the Revolutionary War.
Will Survey Combat Tactics
Tomorrow Mr. Roosevelt and Chur-
chill will plunge full tilt into a sur-
vey of the combat tactics and opera-
tional schemes on which their "pick
and shovel men" have been toiling
for a week.
Their decisions will be backed by
the advice of what was officially de-
scribed as "one of the greatest gath-
erings of military experts ever held."
Among those experts were the
chiefs of staff of Britain and the
United States and experts on every
theatre of war and every type of
battle enterprise.
Winter War To Be Destructive
The result of the war talks in this
provincial capital is expected to be
known only when they produce those
"major developments" which the
President has predicted, develop-
ments which are expected to send
powerful amphibious forces into Eur-
ope and, through the expanding pow-
er of air fleets, to make the winter
the most destructive ever known to
Germany.
Nor is there any reason to believe
that Japan may be overlooked when
the Allies finish their blueprint for
victory.
0 0*0
Hull Will Join
FDR Churchill
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17.- (A)-
Secretary of State Hull made clear
today that the Roosevelt-Churchill
conversations at Quebec, will deal
with political as well as military mat-
ters, and said he expected to join in
Board Elections
Will Be Tomorrow
Election for representatives to
the Board in Control of Student
Publications and the Board in Con-
trol of Athletics will be held from 9
a.m. to noon, and from 1 p.m. to 4
p.m. tomorrow at the Engine Arch
and in University Hall.
Candidates for the Board in Con-
trol of Student Puplications are
Bud Burgess, and J. Fredrick Hoff-
man. Those running for the Board
in Control of Athletics are Art Up-
ton and Clifford Myll,
Rickenbacker
Says Bombs Will
Defeat Germans
'No People on Earth
Can Stand Terrific
Blasting by Allies'
NEW YORK, Aug. 17.-(/)-Cap-
tain Edward V. Rickenbacker said to-
day that Italy was being bombed out
of the war so fast that a "complete
blowup" might come any day and
that Germany then would be knocked
out the same way because "no peo-
ple on earth can stand" the terrific
blasting being unleased by Allied Air
power.
But in the next breath, he warned
that, even so, he doubted that Ger-
many would crack "before the fall of
1944" at the present rate of the war's
progress.
And after that, he said-barring a
miracle-it would take another year
of war to dispose of "savage and
treacherous Japan, whose soldiers
"unlike the Germans and Italians,
will never give up."
Lean and smiling, but admittedly
tired from his 50,000-mile tour of
world battlefronts. "Rickenbacker
admitted he believed in the possibili-
ty of such a miracle, and said "some-
thing is coming this winter that will
shock the world-maybe sooner."
Describing, as a "private citizen,"
the third trip he made as War Sec-
retary Stimson's representative,
Rickenbacker, who was in civilian
clothes, said he was no air-power
fanatic, but the Germany must be
broken "from the inside" by bombing
because any other way would be "too
expensive."
After speaking of the 25 days he
spent in Russia during his three-
month jaunt, Rickenbacker veered
from his recount of the warfront
scene to say that if Premier Stalin
was unable to join President Roose-
velt and Prime Minister Churchill in
their strategy huddles, it was because
"hp hnc nniii- ninwxan hic. h ns ,"
U.S. Planes
Make Dee pest
Nazi Invasion
Bombing Raid Caps
Day of Great Allied
Aerial Onslaughts
By The Associated Press
LONDON, Aug. 18, Wednesday.-
American Flying Fortresses, making
the first daylight shuttle-bombing
run from England to North Africa,
capped a day of one of the greatest
aerial onslaughts of the war yester-
day by making their deepest invasion
of the continent to blast tie south-
eastern corner of Germany.
The big planes bombed an airplane
plant at Regensburg, northeast of
Munich near the Austrian-Czecho-
slovakian border, and kept on going
over the Alps for a flight of around
1,500 miles, it was announced.
Allies Blast Plane Factory
Other bombers, tearing through
the stiffest fighter opposition the
Nazis have mustered for weeks, blast-
ed the Germans' second largest Mes-
serschmitt fighter plane factory at
Schweifurt near Frankfurt.
Seventy-two closely-packed acres
of ball bearing factory buildings-
one of Germany's most vital links in
the chain of war productions-were
attacked in the Schweinfurt raid.
Returning crewmen jubilantly re-
ported that smoke billowed up to
20,000 feet over the Schweinfurt tar-
get and drifted for 10 miles.
Yanks Imitate RAF
The shuttle heavy bombing raid
was the first daylight emulation by
the Americans of the technique in-
augurated by the RAF less than two
months ago when it hit Friedrichs-
haven June 20 by night and flew on
to North Africa, bombing the Italian
naval base of Spezia on the way back,
June 23. The RAF repeated the feat
a month later.
Regensburg is more than 400 miles
inland and requires a 500-mile flight
from English bases.
The Fortress attack fitted into the
pattern of the vastly stepped-up Al-
lied aerial assault. Accompanying
it, American medium bombers team-
ed with the RAF for a third day to
bang up Axis airfields in a semi-
circle on the fringe of Hitler's "Eur-
opean Fortress."
These assualts extended from the
Lowlands around the channel coast
of France to near Marseille in the
Mediterranean. Attacks on the air-
dromes of Istres le Tube and Salon
northwest of Marseille were the first
from new Mediterranean bases.
The German radio went off the
air tonight, a usual indication that
night bombers of the RAF are pay-
ing Germany a visit. An alert was
sounded tonight in northern Italy
which apparently was being raided
for the fifth time in six nights.
Quiiet Wallace,
Senator Says
Vandenberg Agrees
With Byrnes' Speech
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1. -(P)-
Senator Vandengurg (Rep.-Mich.)
said today that soft-pedaling of po-
litical debate until the fall of 1944 as
suggested by James F. Byrnes, War
Mobilization Director, is all right
with him if the'Democrats will get
Vice-President Wallace to "pipe down
in his program of disunity speeches."
Byrnes in a radio address last night
struck at those in all parties who he
said are diverting the minds of the
people from the war effort by politi-
cal statements. He said until the fall
presidential campaign of 1944 the
less said about politics the better.
Commenting on this part of the
address, Vandenburg said he agreed
with the home front chief, but edded
it was "a poor rue that doesnt' work
both ways."
"Instead of lecturing the rest of
us," he asserted, "I suggest that he
(Byrnes) start his crusade by getting
Henry Wallace on the 'phone and
tllmnj . him toniner lanm in hic nrn_
Yanks Storm City;
Invas ion StageSet
lA _
I
By The Assocated Press
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN
NORTH AFRICA, Aug. 17.-The 38-
day battle for Sicily ended today
with the fall of Messina to American
doughboys who stormed through the
hillside streets of the ancient city
and then established contact with
the British Eighth Army coming up
from the south, Allied Headquarters
announced tonight.
Stage Set for Invasion
The stirring finish, however, only
appeared to have set the stage for
the next operations against Europe.
Almost simultaneously with the
announcement of the end of the Sic-
ilian campaign, a large formation
of Flying Fortresses reached across
the Mediterranean from recently es-
tablished bases and gave southern
France its first bombing.
Istres le Tube and Salon, the lat-
ter northwest of' Marseille, were
blasted in a round trip which in-
volved at least 1,000 miles.
Nazis Fire at Messina
The Germans, nervously blowing
up installations on the exposed toe
of Italy in apparent fear of an ex-
tension of Allied amphibious opera-
tions, began pouring fire into Mes-
sina from 15-inch and other batteries
stationed on the mainland across the
two-mile wide straits not long after
Messina fell to the Americans this
morning..
The Americans rushed up their
heaviest artillery in their field bat-
teries and dueled with the Germans.
Among doughboys and tommies
and Allied airmen and seamen who
were smashing deep into Italy's de-
fenses, the question was "where do
we go from here?"
Have Choice of Objectives
From the Sicilian springboard Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had a choice
of numerous objectives, ranging from
Germans Take
Severe Steps
Against Norway
Red Army Makes Gains
Toward Bryansk; Kill
8,300 Germans in Day
STOCKHOLM, Aug. 17.-()-The
worst political crisis of the war
gripped all Scandinavia tonight as
the German controlled government
of Premier Vikun Quisling took stern,
repressive measures against Norwe-
gians, apparently through fear of
Allied landings.
Bitter reaction to German moves
in neighboring Norway swept
through Sweden and reached a head
in Stockholm where the windows of
the German tourist agency in the
Kungsgatan were smashed.
(A Stockholm radio broadcast, re-
corded by CBS, said Swedish news-
papers editorialized that the German
terror wave against the Norwegians
was a result of the Nazi feelings of
"insecurity," and that the Germans
were trying to collect hostages
against the day of a popular revolu-
tion.)
In Norway itself meanwhile, Nor-
wegian policemen, who yesterday
were forced to sign a pledge of loy-
alty under pain of death, were being
inducted into the armed forces in
line with a decree' signed by Premier
Vidkun Quisling. The decree also
put Norway under virtual material
law which private reports from Oslo
called "a desperate attempt" to keep
an iron grip on the underground
movements in the fact of a possible
Allied invasion.
These reports added that the Ger-
mans had tightened their border
guards to prevent the escape of Nor-
wegian army officers whom Hitler
had ordered deported to German
prison camps.
Dean Stason Talks
At Chicago Meeting
CHICAGO, Aug. 17.- (P)- E.
the shores of southern France to
the shores of Greece, with vulnerable
Italy squarely in the middle.
The entire Sicilian campaign had
hardly cost more Allied lives than
the final three weeks of the opera-
tions in North Africa, and each of
the outfits engaged had emerged
ready for new and harder tests.
There was no announcement of the
number of prisoners taken in the
final breath-taking finale in Sicily,
The Germans conceded that the
battle for Sicily was over and de-
clared in their broadcast communi-
que that all their forces had been
evacuated even while Allied Head-
quarters waited for word that the
last disorganized and dejected enemy
bands had been mopped up.
Troops Evacuated
The latest reports said doughboys
of Maj.-Gen. Lucian K. Truscott,
Jr., American Third Division were
crushing the last flickering resistance
in hand-td-hand battle with trapped
enemy nests in the city of 192,000
while the Germans in the fading
hours of dawn were desperately striv-
ing to evacuate remaining troops.
London Guesses
About Future
Allied Strategy
LONDON. Aug. 17.-(P)-The at-
mosphere in this oldest and great of
Allied forward bases in the European
theater was heavy tonight with spec-.
ulation that another and more fate-
ful lunge against the Axis was com-
ing now that the conquest of Sicily
had made the first breach in the
enemy's continental walls.
Only the Allied high command had
knowledge of where the next blow or
blows would be struck, but a feeling
persisted that denouement in the war
was approaching.
This was emphasized by Britain's
emptying beaches as the govern-
ment began clearing all non-residents
from barricaded coastal areas and
fury of the Allied round-the-clock air
assaults.
There was a renewal, too, of cries
for a second front in both Britain
and Soviet Russia.
It was quite possible, however, that
future operation, regardless of
whether they fall on southern Italy,
the Balkans, northern France, the
Low Countries, northern Germany,
Denmark or Norway, would be de-
layed for a few weeks.
This might be done, not only to
permit the fullest preparations, but
also to give the fullest opportunity
for heavy bombings and psychologi-
cal attacks to crystalize the Italian
will for peace without further fight-
ing.
* * *
Open City Proposal
Made Through Pope
LONDON, Aug. 17.-OP)-The Ger-
man radio in a broadcast heard by
the Associated Press said tonight
that through the Vatican, Premier-
Marshal Pietro Badoglio had made
a "second proposal" concerning mak-
ing Rome an open city.
Badoglio and the cabinet held a
long meeting last night, the broad-
cast said.
Nne Injured
In Milk Strike
800 CIO Workers
Rout AFL Picket Line
DETROIT, Aug. 17.- (.?)- Four
plain-clothes detectives and five oth-
er persons were injured in a short-
lived fight outside a Johnson Milk
Company plant in suburban Ham-
tramck today when some 800 CIO
dairy workers routed a picket line
of 50 AFL teamsters union members.
The four policemen were clubbed
when they attempted to break up the