Daily Newspaper of
U.S. Armed Forces in the: European
Theater of Operations
VOL. 4 No.
298—Id
TUESDAY, Oct. 17, 1944
Tokyo Says
Its Fleet
Joins Action
America's mighty Superfortresses plastered
hard-hit 'Formosa for a third time yesterday, while in nearby waters of Japan's
inner defenses, where Adm. William F. Halsey audaciously sailed his U.S. Third
Fleet, developments of the greatest significance to the whole course of the
Pacific war appeared
to be moving to a climax.
The Japanese announced with great
fanfare that their "Imperial Fleet has finally made its appearance off
Formosa," and this much, at least, of a sensational
announcement from Tokyo appeared
to find corroboration in the • latest communique from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, which
said tersely that "this fight (off
Formosa) is continuing. Further
details will be released as they become available."
Sensational
Claims
Alter announcing that its fleet
had finally come out of hiding and been committed to action, the Japanese
claimed a great "victory" on a par with the damage they inflicted at
Pearl Harbor.
But" their claims were so
sensational as to appear fantastic—ten U.S. aircraftcarriers sunk and three
damaged, two battleships sunk and one damaged, three cruisers sunk and four
damaged," one other warship sunk and 11 damaged, and 832 planes destroyed.
We no immediate confirmation or
All of these enemy claims came
from Pearl Harbor or Washington, as was to be expected, at least one
factor cast serious doubt on them, aside from their
general
implausibility—the fact that Halsely apparently was able to divert a part of
his carrier forces_ from the Formosa commitment to strike south of
there at Manila,
the Philippines capital.
North-South
Forces Join
In Wuerselen
The First Army pincers around Aachen
snapped shut yesterday as the forces making up the northern and southern prongs
sealed the gap northeast
of the frontier city after
beating off three German counter-attacks within 24 hours. The Nazis' desperate
efforts to keep open the gap in the American ring cost them between 50 and 60
tanks in the five assaults they carried out in the three-day period ended,
yesterday.
The American forces joined at
Wuerselen, driving the last Germans out of that town, which was the scene of
some of the stiffest fighting in the battle for Aachen.
Nazis Parachute
Supplies The
Germans apparently regarded Aacheft as the most critical spot along the
Western Front, parachuting supplies into the besieged city and rushing.
Up men and armor to delay the First Army's push. Nazi tanks are
still massed between Wuerselen and Haaren and a tank battle in
that area appears inevitable.
In France, one of the strangest
battles of the war ended at 2 AM Friday when U.S. Third Army troops withdrew,
on order, from the bitterly contested underground passages in the southwestern
corner of Fort Driant, five miles southwest of Metz, dispatches said yesterday.
"Casualties were
light," an Army spokesman said of the conflict, which lasted for almost
three weeks. "Much valuable information on the construction of the forts
in the Metz area was gained."
'How'd
You Like It Over There,'
Folks
Ask—They Don't
Know
This
is the second article in which Bud Hutton, Stars and Stripes staff writer who
spent 60
days in the U.S. after three years
overseas, reports on~how things are
back there.
By Bud Button
Stars
and Stripes Staff Writer
You say you
asked to come back? You're glad to be here? Why? It's hard to put
in words. I:'s hard to be specific. It's hard not to –exaggerate some
bitterness. It's compounded of a lot of things. Maybe it's best to tell
how some of the others found it, fellows who had seen combat over
here and found, after they'd been home a while, that they wanted
to go'back to the war. Wait a minute, first. You can't blame the folks back
home because they haven't been bombed, you know. No, you can't blame them
because they don't know what war's like. But you can blame them
for not caring.
Tom Kelly was a technical
sergeant, a gunner who finished up his tour of missions back in the early days,
when there weren't any fighter escorts and losses
used to get up around five per
cent a haul. He went home a year ago. The second day he was home in Boston
a fellow said to him, "Boy! I'll bet you're gonna miss all that good.
Scotch you got over there now you're home." A couple of weeks ago, Tom, who
had been trying to get a waiver for his eyes so he could go back to the war,
was in a bar in Oakland. N.J. - He got talking to some people and finally one
of them said. "Well, you fellows have had a tough time all right,
but it hasn't been any picnic for
us back here, either. The cost of living has gone right out of sight." Tom
got his waiver last week and ought to be in the Pacific any day now.
Just an Isolated
Case
Yes, but those
are just isolated instances. There always have been jerks like that.
Okay, maybe Tom was just unlucky,
and maybe I was just unlucky one day on the Erie ferry from New York to Jersey City
when I heard one woman say to another, "You know, Ella, if this war'll
just last two years more my husband and" I aren't ever going to have to
worry again." And maybe I was just unlucky when I went to dinner in the home
of some folks who knew I'd spent a fair share of the first 50 days of 'he invasion
eating K rations; the husband, who was in the last war, said. "We're having
canned pineapple tonight because you're here. You'd never know how hard it's
been to get decent food back here."
In Atlantic City, on Labor Day
night, Sylvester Dudek, a staff sergeant gunner who flew with the Polish Air
Force and then the American, stood on the highway leading out of town and
watched a procession of cars, solid without a break, pass for three hours and
they were still coming when Dudek said' to hell with it and went back to the
rest home there with a strained, hard look on his face.
Okay, maybe those are just
isolated instances. I guess it was so with a Kid named Howard Hartney, from Tuscaloosa,
Ala., a Liberator gunner, who stood outside the railroad station in' Washington
and watched people going past and said with a face that was too young to be
hard, but was hard, nevertheless,
"I been back three days and
if the rest is like I've seen so far I'm going back to the goddam war just as
soon as I can."
And maybe it's an isolated
instance with a kid named Eddie Foulds; Eddie was on the New Haven, going home
to Stamford, Conn. He ran into a fellow he'd
known in England, and the fellow
asked him how did he like it at home. Eddie had been laughing, but then his
face, straightened and he said : "All right, I guess. Good. Boy! Those milk
shakes. But some of it I can't understand." He shook his head slowly and
frowned, staring down at his shoes, then looked up, and his words came fast:
It's Not So
Fresh
"When I got home everything
was good and I didn't stop to think what anyone was saying. They were saying
hello, I guess. But now it's not so fresh and I'm beginning to listen to them,
and I don't always know, what they're talking about. At least I hope I don't. "They
come up to you and they look at the ribbons and ask if you've been overseas, or
maybe they can tell, so what's, the first thing they ask you: " 'How do
you like it over there?' •
"Can you imagine that? How
do I like it over there. They ask you that? Sure, I know. And there's one kind
that's worse. That's the guy that comes up to
you—and mind you I don’t begrudge
him the dough he's making in some defense job with nobody shooting at him ; I
don't begrudge him that a bit. But anyway, he comes up to you and, the worst
thing that's happened to him in the last year is maybe his butcher speaks real
cross to him, and anyway he comes up and says, " 'Tough over there, eh,
bud?' and he leans forward and kinda taps you on the chest and nods his head.
"Jeest!" ; Well, all
right. Maybe some of It is that way. But what are you going to do about
it? How is it going to be any different? And do you think it's going
to do any good telling the guys who are in the war over here about it? Won't
it just worry them? Isn't it bad for morale,: granting that's the way it is?
That's not so hard to answer. . .
.
Tomorrow: The
last article of A Report on Home.
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