October 18, 1944; American First Army repels counter-attacks at Aachen:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, OCTOBER 18, 1844:

(See below for Bud Hutton;s final article on  "Home)  E. T. will post all three as an EXTRA post on October 20)

This is the third article of a report on America by Bud Hutton, Stars and Stripes staff writer who has just returned to the ETO from 60 days of leave and

duty in the U.S. which followed three years overseas with the Canadians and American

Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations

VOL. 4 No. 299—Id                                                            

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 18, 1944

Rhine City Reels

Under 10,000 Tons

Of Bombs in a Week

German tank and infantry counter-attacks tapered off yesterday in the Aachen area after a record enemy artillery attack Monday night, while 1,300 British-based Forts and Liberators, attempting to ease ground-force problems by shattering the Nazis' chief supply base for their forces near Aachen, struck again yesterday at Cologne, 40 miles to the east.

For Cologne, focal point of road, rail and river traffic used to defend the threatened Rhineland, it was the third big raid in four days. Yesterday's attack brought to more than 10,000 tons of bombs the total dropped on the city within a week.

Yanks Undergo

Record Barrage

After German artillery lashed at American lines encircling Aachen Monday night in one of the strongest barrages yet encountered by the First Army in

the Siegfried defenses, enemy tank and infantry counter-attacks tapered off yesterday.

An American staff officer estimated that the Germans had lost a fourth of the troops thrown against the Americans in the area of Crucifix Hill, northeast of

Aachen, in five futile thrusts to keep the First Army's twin drives from linking and sealing off the frontier city.

One dispatch said it had become apparent that the state of German supply lines was much better than had been assumed.

Supplied From Air

The Aachen garrison has been supplied by air and. before the gap was closed, by mad dashes by trucks through the gauntlet of U.S. fire.

Fliers Welcome

An 'Extras’ Role

By Bud Hutton

Stars ant Stripes Staff Writer

306 FORTRESS GROUP, Oct. 17—

Heavy-bomber airmen, who before June 6 were the prima donnas of the war in the ETO, resumed their spear-carrying extra's role today with their third major blow in four days at Cologne—attacks aimed at making American infantrymen's job easier.

The rail and supply center which feeds Nazi resistance along the Rhine was hit through cloud by more than 1,300 Fortresses and Liberators. The heavies were covered by a force of more than 300 Thunderbolts and Mustangs. The only enemy air opposition encountered was directed against a straggling bomber that had become separated from its formation. Some pilots reported seeing enemy jet-propelled planes—but only in the distance. Ack-ack fire over Cologne ranged from meager to intense.

Thirteen bombers and three fighters werc lost in the operation

Formosa,

Manila Hit;

Japs Flee

Superfortresses bombed Formosa yesterday for the third time in four days and carrier planes again raided the Manila area—both with virtual impunity as American sea-air forces apparently gained a scissors grip on Japan's innermost lifeline between her home islands and her raw-material conquests to the south and west.

And while the combined might of the 20th Bomber Command and the Third Bert stood athwart Japan's communications lines

in the China Sea, the U.S. 14th Air Force struck from China at

enemy snipping fleeing the area. Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault's bombers sank a Nateri class cruiser, scored a direct hit on a destroyer and sent more than 32,000 tons of shipping to the bottom definitely and another 16,000 tons probably.

No Jap Challenge

There was no serious challenge to the Supperforts and Navy planes. The Jap land planes had no airstrips left on Formosa. Jap carriers remained in hiding. The Japanese fleet did appear in Formosa waters, as Tokyo had announced, that on discovering .our fighting strength, unimpaired, have avoided action and

withdrawn to their bases," Adm. Chester W. Nimitz' communique said. This fantastic Tokyo claims of a "great victory" which were celebrated throughout Japan—11 U.S. carriers destroyed (three more since Monday's boast) and many other warships sunk—were completely false.

Report From Home

Fighters Resent U.S. Attitude;

Why? Here's One Mans Opinion

This is the third article of a report on America by Bud Hutton, Stars and Stripes staff writer who has just returned to the ETO from 60 days of leave and

duty in the U.S. which followed three years overseas with the Canadians and Americans.

By Bud Hutlon

Stars and Stripes Staff Writer

So okay, that's the way you found things back home. But do you think it’ll do any good to tell the guys here about it, and anyway, what do you coinage things back there?

Well, Time Magazine about a month ago reported on "the hard-faced young men" ^who stood on the boardwalk outside the Air Forces, rest home in Atlantic

City and waited bitterly to go back over seas. Time said they were fed up with the attitude of folks at home. Some guys overseas wrote in to demand by what right

Time had told them about those things about the lack of morale on the home front. Others wrote it made them mad.

Not the Only Worry

Well, this story is just -the way things are. And just as a precautionary note: Not everyone in America is worrying only about the paycheck. Not everyone

is uncaring about what happens.

Who? The people in the small towns, the country people?

No. Country folks are about the same as city people. They've been working very hard because of two factors: Prices are high and labor is scarce.

The folks who have relatives overseas naturally are not uncaring about the war. They have a personal stake in it. But most of them, as everyone else, seemed

to think that on the day Paris fell the whole thing was all wrapped up. They started planning celebrations for peace. They have forgotten that Nazi garrisons

still are holding out in Lorient, 500 miles behind the front, and that when the bombers go over and lose 40 or 45 planes, that's 400 or 450 American kids for whom the war is far from won.

Well, what can you do about it?

One opinion is no good. But while 1 was home I talked to a lot of folks back from overseas. What they 'thought and had to say boils down to about this,

which was published in the New York newspaper PM:

". . . we were impressed (overseas) by all the tanks and the guns and the planes and everything else that came rolling out of American production and got there so that our burial details wouldn't be so busy each time we pasted the Germans. "But just for my own dough, why the hell shouldn't the tanks and planes and guns come pouring out? The guys who have been making them weren't" doing anyone a favor by making them. They were doing their assigned jobs in the war to keep the country free. "And they were "getting paid for it and no one was shooting at them.

Weren't Shot At

"Nobody I ever knew who was getting shot at in this war was anything but glad and happy that no one at home was getting bombed or strafed. The guys who've been bombed and shot at know it's not good, and they don't want it happening to the folks back home. As a matter of fact, that's why the guys who are getting shot at are getting shot at.

"But what I've been trying ;o get at is making guns and planes and tanks isn't enough. Neither is buying War Bonds to make the world safe for democracy at

three per cent interest or whatever the rate is. My very humble personal opinion is that anyone has got to want to do those tilings; want to do them more than anything else in the world, and not think they're doing anyone a favor by it.

"My idea is that anyone has got to

want to do those things so hard that they'll never say to their kids home from the other side that they've been having a tough time with rationing, and that they've been buying War Bonds to beat hell: want to so hard they'll never have time "or a little harmless flirtation because what the hell he'll never know and it doesn't mean anything, anyway ; not really.

"Maybe it's like this: If you're in a war for conquest; if you go into it to make your lands bigger than the other guy's, then it doesn't matter how you feel.

"But if you announce that you're in a war because somebody is trying to take way the most valuable possession you have; if you declare you're in it because you want your people and all the other people of the world to be free and because you're against tyranny and prejudice and intolerance and brutality—then

you're in a war on moral grounds, and either you fight that war on moral grounds or you're a phony about it and for my dough it's no good."