Saint Patrick
An'
begorra Oi'l. "be after havin' ye know 'tis St. Patrick's—Day ivery mother's
son is a-celebratin' by; the wearin' o'
the green—for on Mar. 17 Americans at home and abroad, regardless of race or
creed, join with the Irish and proudly wear their symbol—a shamrock. (see article below for the achievements of Saint Patrick)
American bombers smashed through
waves of desperate German fighters yesterday to attack Nazi targets deep in the
southern Reich and hammer home the daylight half of the greatest 12-hour aerial
offensive in history.
One thousand RAF night bombers blasted
Stuttgart, Munich. Amiens and other targets with more than 3,300 tons of high
explosives and incendiaries Wednesday night in the heaviest bombing attack of
the war.
Fortresses and Liberators, escorted by American
fighters which chalked up one of their best day's scores of the war, bombed
multiple targets in southern Germany yesterday to carry out the USSTAF's half
of the heaviest 12-hour air assault in history.
1,000-Bomber
Blow
BY RAF Followed / By Heavy U.S.
Raid
22 Heavies Lost,
but Fighters Destroy 76
Luftwaffe
Planes; British Rain 3,300
Tons on
Stuttgart, Other Targets
American bombers smashed through
waves of desperate German fighters yesterday to attack Nazi targets deep in the
southern Reich and hammer home the daylight half of the greatest 12-hour aerial
offensive in history.
A record force of more than 1.000
RAF bombers dropped more than 3,300' tons of bombs on Stuttgart and other German
targets late Wednesday night, and it was in their wake that the USSTAF Fortresses
and Liberators went out in daylight early yesterday for the 12th operation of
the month and their second deep thrust into the Reich in two days.
As targets once considered beyond
the reach of massed forces came under open Allied bomb bays, the German high command
was faced with the fact its own dream of aerial conquest had been realized by
its enemies: The RAF now can put up more than 1,000 four-engined bombers by
night and the USSTAF's-ability to do it by day was proven in the mass raid Feb.
20.
Night Assault
History's Greatest
One thousand RAF night bombers blasted
Stuttgart, Munich. Amiens and other targets with more than 3,300 tons of high
explosives and incendiaries Wednesday night in the heaviest bombing attack of
the war.
At a cost of 40 aircraft, the RAF
sent huge fleets of planes across the Continent in a spiderweb of destruction
which stretched Nazi defenses from occupied France to deep in the Reich itself
and
dovetailed into the Allied
pattern of smashing simultaneously German war factories and systems of transport.
For the RAF, it was the first big
night's saturation attack since Stuttgart was pounded on Mar. 2 by some 2,200
tons.
In the two-week interim task
forces have made attacks in varying strength on isolated targets such as the
French transport center of Le Mans.
Augsburg, Ulm
Struck, Reich
Says
Fortresses and Liberators, escorted by American
fighters which chalked up one of their best day's scores of the war, bombed
multiple targets in southern Germany yesterday to carry out the USSTAF's half
of the heaviest 12-hour air assault in history.
Thrusting some 550 miles into the Reich to what the
Nazis said was the war industry town .of Augsburg, the U.S. bombers forced the
Luftwaffe up to fight for the second time in two days.
Saint Patrick
An'
begorra Oi'l. "be after havin' ye know 'tis St. Patrick's—Day ivery mother's
son is a-celebratin' by; the wearin' o'
the green—for on Mar. 17 Americans at home and abroad, regardless of race or
creed, join with the Irish and proudly wear their symbol—a shamrock.
This year many a GI will have
opportunity to visit the tomb of St.
Patrick, where it is claimed that for 12 nights the sun did not set following
his interment.
However that may be, the fact
remains that for some two centuries after his
death his name and fame suffered
an eclipse, accounted for by the troubled state existing in the Isles as
civilization collapsed with the fall of the Roman Empire.
Then came the great period when
the Irish Church in its turn began, to send out missionaries whose names this
day are famous in Western Europe and Patrick came back into his own. Never formally
canonized, far the early churches chose their own saints, the place of Patrick
in Ireland has never since been in doubt.
But every date and place in his
busy life has been the subject of controversy and doubt—even the Irish
historians are far from clear, and so we must be content
to take the merest outline.
Born about 389 at Iverdea,
Patrick was educated a Christian and was imbued with reverence for the Roman
Empire. As a youth of sixteen he was carried off by Irish slave traders and lived for six years
as serf and swineherd to some Irish kinglet, perhaps at Antrim. Then he escaped
to Gaul and entered a monastery at Lerins. Ordained a priest he headed back to
Ireland and began preaching the Christian faith in that still heathen land. His
work soon attracted the attention, of the High-King Loigaire, and a number of
trials of skill between St. Patrick and the King's heathen priests ensued. The
final result seems to have been that the Irish monarch, though unwilling to
embrace the foreign creed, undertook to protect the Christian in his
work.
During the balance of his life,
St. Patrick spent his days spreading the Christian faith, establishing new
churches and converting Irish kings and people. In his work his struggles with
the Druids (heathen Irish priests) attracted wide attention, and it is believed
that the fable of his driving the "snakes" from Ireland was folklore reference
to his victory over heathen worship.. .
And while many things have been ascribed
to Patrick and to his disciples that would have surprised them, he accomplished
a great work in Ireland, and today we honor his name. The "snakes,"
however, still remain in other parts of the world. This year it will be our
duty to drive them out of Europe. And
while we cannot all be St. Patrick’s, we can look to this great leader as an
example, for he possessed the qualities which go to form a strong man of action
and he possessed an enthusiasm which enabled him to surmount all difficulties.
ejt
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