October 16, 1944; Battle For Formosa:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, OCTOBER 16, 1944:
See report below for a G I observation of the Home Front

Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces

VOL. 4 No. 297—Id.

in the European Theater of Operations

MONDAY, Oct. 16, 1944

Guns Blast

Nazis' Drive

For Gap

First Army troops, aided by antitank guns and heavy artillery, threw back a powerful new German tank and 1 infantry attack northeast of Aachen yesterday afternoon after the Nazi drive had swept over advanced American positions.

The enemy attack opened up south of Weiden, in the area of the gap in the American lines around Aachen. The German reserves had been massed in the area for several days, having moved up under the  protection of what Allied fliers described as the largest concentration of antiaircraft guns they had' met in this

sector.

Despite rain in the battle zone divebmbers hammered the enemy forces ring to relieve Aachen. "The enemy is expected to try to take vantage of breaks in the weather and make a large-scale effort under cover rain and fog to break our hold' on Aachen," said an officer at the front,

admitting .that for a time it was "touch and go." in yesterday's clash.

Move to Close Gap

Earlier dispatches reported progress a I renewed American move to close the gap by a thrust southward from Wuerselen, at the northern edge of the

opening.

While a stream of civilian refugees melded out of Aachen to seek safety behind the lines, American troops inside the burning frontier city continued their

house-to-house fight against the SS garrison. Grenades were used to blast the enemy out of his basement hideouts.

Largest B29 Raid on Formosa

Japs Report

Big Sea-Air

Battle On

The biggest force of Superfortresses ever mustered attacked Formosa Saturday—the third day sea and air power has smashed at the island, key to Japanese

defenses some 650 miles south of the home islands.

Meanwhile the Japanese reported a I fresh raid on Manila, capital of the Philippines, by 60 carrier-based planes, including fighters. The carriers which Launched the planes presumably were part Adm. William F. Halsey's U.S. Third Fleet which had raided Formosa with impunity on two days earlier in the week, Security silence cloaked the fleet's further activities, the Japanese a welter of reports, one of which declared that their own timorous fleet at length had decided to accept the gauge of battle and strike back. One Tokyo report described an action off Formosa as "the greatest sea-air battle of the entire Pacific war."

Prelude to Invasion

Allied as well as enemy observers rimed the latest American action as the process preluding the invasion of Japan itself. "The great battle for Formosa is the first attack against Japan's real inner defense line," Tokyo stated.

Home is Lights, Legs, Steaks;

Strikes, Black Markets, Too

After three years overseas, Bud Button Stars and Stripes staff writer, pulled out  of the line in France on D-50 and went back to the States for 60 days of leave

and duty, travelling through New England,, the East and the South, some of  the Mid-West, and talking to combat veterans from every corner of the nation

Now he is back in the ETO. Herewith a report on life back home.

By Bud Button

Stars and Stripes Staff Writer

How is it back there, back home! You get off the plane, less than hours from home, and it's the first thing folks in the ETO ask you. How is it back there? They pause a little before they say "back there" and their eyes go kind of bright and they lean forward. You've known this was coming; for 6 days you've known it and for the last 30 days you've wondered how the. Hell you were going to answer it. So you wait for the questions:

Lot of  food! Steaks, huh!

There is a lot of food back home, all anyone wants. Meat is rationed, but there are steaks, and the rationing isn't pinching anyone's gut. And if your butcher doesn't heap on the measure, as most do, you can—if you are like a very, very large number of the folks back home—get any kind of meat you want on the

black market. Some canned foods are scarce, but not very as far as I could make out.

They don't have any blackout, do there Are the lights bright! Theaters' Night clubs'?

There was a so-called dimout in part(Continued on page 2)  of the country for a while. It's gone now Maybe there aren't as many lights as there used to be, but it was awfully bright to eyes which have squinted through England's nights for a year 'with the Canadians and another two with the

Americans.

Night clubs are roaring and from the few I was in—in New York and Washington— about one-quarter of the patrons are servicemen, mostly men stationed in

the States. Liquor has gone up in cost but you can get bourbon, rye and gin for less than $4 a 'bottle, and Scotch—good Scotch—for something more. Most bars charge half a dollar a drink for straight whiskies, 'beer is still ten cents but the glasses are smaller. Good corn is S4 a gallon in Missouri.

How are the women?

Mac, it's hard to realize how beautiful American women are "until you get back to them and -see those lovely long legs swinging down Fifth Avenue, or coming out of the Statler door, or going into the Beverly-Wiltshire. The shops don't have silk or nylon hose for them anymore, but you can get nylons on the black market for six or seven bucks a pair.

Everybody staying home, though, eh?Petrol—/ mean- gasoline—-rationed and not much driving?

Gasoline is rationed. In the East il costs 19.9 cents a gallon and twice that on the black market, where anyone can buy all he wants. Some people are staying home and some aren't. In the country lots of folk got out old buggies and horses.

What about those strikes? How come?

The government says there have been less than one per cent of the nation's workers on strike. I guess they know. Every day I was home there was strike news of some kind in the papers. Mostly it's because the workers want more money and the employers don't give it to them. 1 don't know who's to blame.

Guess with all those chocolate malted and ice cream and all that stuff you hated to come back, eh Hard to leave, eh!.

There's all the chocolate malted milk you can drink. A lot of soda fountains will sell only one pint of ice cream to a customer. I was glad to come back.

Only one pint of . . . Did you say you were glad to come back! You're nuts. Why!

This is the way it is . . .

Tomorrow:

Why the returned combat veterans Button met back home wanted to get overseas again.

Unsafe For Young Girls

•WASHINGTON,-Oct. 15 (ANS)—

The Social Hygiene. Society today –proposed that all ''teen-age government girls should be sent home as a safeguard and "because most of the girls under 20 are too immature to be running loose in Washington."