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About Southern Oregon miner. (Ashland, Or.) 1935-1946 | View Entire Issue (May 10, 1945)
Southern Oregon Miner, Thursday, May 10, 1945 With Ernie Pyle in the Pacific: German Cities in the Path of Allies’ Advance Strange Sounds of War Fill Night on Okinawa Intermittent Gunfire Breuks Eerie Silence Below Star - Bedecked Sky WORLD LEADERS PICTURE By the thread of one man’s life hung personal relationships which affected nations. Prime ministers and potentates, once close to Frank lin Roosevelt, now must learn how By Ernie Pyle to get along with an unknown gentle man In the White House. Certain F.dilnr’t ViUt: F rnir P yle aws te te m l dityotcKe» «/><-«</ uhen he m el death from a Jap machine gun on /< island. This neu spaper u ill continue Io print army-navy officials, who alwsys there lor ■ fetr Kwl». knew how Roosevelt would react on this and that, now must do business OKINAWA (by navy radio).—Our first night on Okinawa with a man they once criticized. was uncanny and full of old familiar sounds—the exciting, To Illustrate how the pendulum sad, wearv little sounds of war. of fate has swung, here are some It had heen six months since I’d slept on the ground, or of those who will miss Franklin heard a rifle shot. With the marines it was about the same. Roosevelt most: . * ----- ------------------------------------------------- WINSTON CHURCHILL — was I was tagging along with a head seemed to me as I lay there that I ’d able to call the late President on quarters company of a regiment the telephone at any time night or We were on a pretty, grassy coun never known anything else in my day. Their relationship was more try The front Unes were about a life. And there are millions of us. intimate than with moat members thousand yards ahead Other troops Spend» Night in of their own cabinets. When Church- were bivouacked all around ua. G y pay Hideout ill couldn't get Roosevelt, he talked There were still a few snipers hid The company commander. Capt. to Harry Hopkins. Their friendship ing around. An officer was brought was equally close Hopkins and in just before dark, shot through the Julian Dusenbury. said I could have my choice of two places to spend Churchill used to stay up late at arm. So we were on our toes t Ity after city in Germany Is being leveled to the ground by the Allied air forces and the advancing artil the first night with his company. night sipping brandy long after Just at dusk three planes flew lery and infantry units. Among the cities to which war has been brought home by the advancing vic FDR had gone to bed. and it was One was with him in his command slowly overhead in the direction of torious Allies are: upper left, Aschaffenburg; lower left, Buren receives its quota, little remaining of city on those late-hour talks that sometimes the beach. We paid no attention, lor post. The command post was a big, Roer river after saturation bombing, ('enter: View of Wesel, focal point of American forces en Rhine. Upper worried U. S army-navy men. For we thought they were ours. But round Japanese \u n emplacement, right, Limburg railroad marshalling yards after bombing. Lower right, Kltburg. vital policy sometimes was moulded made of sandbags. The Japs had they weren’t. fter midnight. never occupied it, but they had In a moment all hell cut loose Churchill had planned to hold na stuck a log out of it. pointing toward from the beach. Our entire fleet tional elections, probably In June, the sea and making it look like a and the guns ashore started throw and Roosevelt's friendship would gun to aerial reconnaissance. ing stuff into the sky I ’ve never have been one of his great cam Captain Dusenbury and a couple seen a thicker batch of ack-ack. paign assets. That asset Is now out of his officers had spread ponchos As one of the marines said, there on the ground inside the emplace the window. Instead he must do were more bullets than there was ment and had hung their telephone business with a man he doesn't know sky Those Jap pilots must have i on a nearby tree and were ready and who chalrmanned a committee thought the world was coming to an for business. There was no roof on whose members were quite critical end to fly into a lead storm like of certain British lend-lease and In the emplacement. It was right on that only 10 hours after we had land ternational air policies ubroud top of a hill and cold and very ed on'Okinawa. All three were shot windy. Some political observers believe down. that makes Churchill's political fu My other choice was with a cou As deep darkness came on wd got ple of enlisted men who had room ture very uncertain. into our foxholes and settled down for me in a little Gypsy-like hideout A DM IRAL ERNEHT KING—The for the night. The countryside be they’d made. Commander of the Fleet and Chief came as Silent as a graveyard—si of Naval Operations really ran the It was a tiny, level place about lent, that is. between shots. The only navy under Roosevelt, and he ran halfway down the hillside, away sounds were war sounds There from the sea. They’d made a roof it with a high hand. He ignored the were no country sounds at all. -The over it by tying ponchos to trees late Secretary Frank Knox when sky was a riot of stars. and had dug up some Japanese ever he felt like it. knowing he would Capt. Tom Brown was in the fox straw mats out of a farmhouse to get a sympathetic ear at the White hole next to me. As we lay there lay on the ground. House. He even overruled Knox on on our backs, looking up into the such a trivial matter as a gray-blue I chose the second of these two starry sky. he said: summer uniform for the navy, places, partly because it was warm “There’s the Big Dipper. That’s er, and also because I wanted to though Knox had decided it would the first time I ’ve seen that since be with the men anyhow. cut too heavily into the consumption I ’ve been . In the Pacific,” For. of textiles. My two “roommates” were Cpl you see. marines of this division Martin Clayton Jr. of Dallas, Tex Knox's successor. Secretary of the have done all their fighting under as. and Pfc. William Gross of Lan Navy Forrestal, has played In with the Southern Cross, where our Big sing. Mich. King. He had to. * If King didn’t Dipper doesn’t show. agree with him, the admiral came Clayton is nicknamed "Bird Dog" out bluntly in press conference and As full darkness came, flares be and nobody ever calls him anything said so. gan lighting the country ahead of else. He is tall, thin and dark, al But now there is a new man in He sports a us over the front lines They were most Latin-looking. the White House who wrote a caus shot in shells from our battleships, puny little mustache he’s been try In 1853 the Leatherneck complement of Commoiore Perry’s squadron accompanied him on a visit to tic report bitterly critical of the way timed to burst above our lines, and ing to grow for weeks and he makes Okinawa. The Devil Dogs, in the current assault, found the long narrow island made up of plateaus and the admirals slowed up the war by float down on parachutes. That was fun of it. Gross is simply called Gross. He ridge^ Most of the population of 443.000 is engaged in a substandard of agriculture. Centuries of being kicked failure to build adequate landing to keep the country lighted up so we could see the Japs if they tried is very quiet, but thoughtful of little around, «» the game of power politics, has produced a mixed race with strains of Malayan. Korean boats. The new President also did to infiltrate, which is one of their things and they both sort of looked Chinese and Japanese—a people completely ignorant of the United SUtes. Photos above show the natives not hesitate to throw his hooks into the navy whenever the brass hats after me for several days. These after the American Invasion. favorite tricks. got Inefficient, especially on their In The flares were shot up several two boys have become very close excusable procrastination in build per minute from dusk until the friends, and after the war they in ing destroyer-escort vessels. So moon came out full. It was very tend to go to UCLA together and finish their education. fellow-admirals are watching to see bright after that and the flares were just where King now sits. The boys said we could all three not needed. GENERAL B. B. SO M ERVELL— sleep side by side in the same But all night long two or three No army officer clashed with the bed.” So I got out my contribu ships kept up a slow shelling of the Truman committee more frequently far hills where the Japs were sup tion to the night's beauty rest. And and more head-on than the tough- posed to be. It wasn’t a bom it was a very much appreciated con talking chief supply officer of the bardment; just two or three shells tribution, too. For I had carried a army Somervell differed with Tru over us and I found that passing blanket as well as a poncho. man on all sorts of things, and the These marines had been sleeping shells have the same ghostly “win Truman committee reports are stud dow shade rustle” on this side of the every night on the ground with no ded with criticism of the army's sup cover, except their cold, rubberized world as on the other. ply Job. My foxhole was only about 20 feet ponchos, and they had almost frozen Truman is not a man to nurse to death. Their packs were so from where two field telephones and personal grudges and won't demote two field radios were lying on the heavy they hadn’t been able to bring or transfer Somervell. General ground. All night, officers sat on the blankets ashore with them. Marshall always maintained that de Our next door neighbors were ground at these four pieces of com spite mistakes he was the best man munications and directed our troops. about three feet away in a similar they had. But Somervell will never level spot on the hillside, and they As I lay there listening in the become chief of staff, or rise any had roofed it similarly with ponchos dark, the conversation was startling higher in the army. These two men were Sgt. Neil An ly fam iliar—the words and the derson of Coronado, Calif., and Sgt HARRY HOPKINS—Of all those thoughts and the actions exactly as George Valido of Tampa, Fla. around Roosevelt. Harry Hopkins I ’d known them for so long in the So we chummed up and the five of will miss him most. Their's was infantry. us cooked supper under a tree just a very close personal relationship. All night I could hear these low in front of our “house.” The boys Although Harry has been criticized voices over the phones—voices in made a fire out of sticks and we put vitriolically, sometimes even by oth the darkness, voices of men running canteen cups and K rations right er presidential intimates, FDR nev the war at the front. on the Are. er wavered in his devotion. In a Not lopg after dark the rifle shots Other little groups of marines had way. Harry took the place of Roose started. There would be a little similar little fires going all over the velt's eldest son, Jimmie, whom he flurry far ahead, maybe a dozen hillside. As we were eating, an once hoped would be his secretary. shots. Then silence for many min other marine came past and gave So Harry will miss his old friend utes. Bird Dog a big piece of fresh roast The grand M eiji shrine, near the Im perial palace of Japan in Tokyo Sgt. Josiah E. Greene, Washing terribly. Then there would be another flur ed pig they had just cooked, and where the Emperor often officiated, was among the places hit in a ton. Conn., won first prise in Mac The critics will say that Hopkins ry, way to the left. Then silence. Bird Dog gave me some. It sure four-hour-long raid by a huge fleet of American superfortresses. The Jap M illan contest for his novel, “ Nol will miss him because of the glam Then the blurt of a machine gun was good after days of K rations. communique, which told of the raid in which Im perial palace buildings in Our Stars.” Back from Italy, h< our. the power and the prestige. But closer, and a few scattered single Several of the boys found their K were hit, said the sanctuary was burned to ashes. Is now a link trainer instructor. actually there was a love and devo shots sort of framing it. Then a rations moldy, and mine was too. tion between the two men which few long silence. Spooky. It was the old-fashioned kind and realized and even fewer understood. AU night it went like that. Flares we finally realized they were 1942 Note—Several years ago, Roose in the sky ahead, the crack of big rations and had been stored, prob velt gave Hopkins permission to take guns behind us. then of passing ably in Australia, all this time. notes on their discussions and write shells, a few dark figures coming Suddenly downhill a few yards, his memoirs. “ You have no money, and going in the night, muted voices we heard somebody yell and start H arry,” he said, "and you’re foolish at the telephones, the rifle shots, the cussing and then there was a lot if you don’t take notes on our con mosquitoes, the stars, the feel of the of laughter. What had happened versations. You have my full per damp night air under the wide sky was that one marine had heated a mission to use them later.” But —back again at the kind of life I had K ration can and, because it was Hopkins, always too busy, always known so long. ” pressure packed, it exploded when engrossed with winning the Chief’s The old fam iliar pattern, un he pried it open and there were hot next objective, never had time to changed by distance or time from egg yolks over him. Usually the take notes. He knows more about war on the other side of the world. boys open a can a little first, and Roosevelt than any other living man, A pattern so Imbedded in my soul release the pressure before heating, but most of the secrets will go with that, coming back into it again, it so the can won’t explode. Hopkins to the grave. BERNARD BARUCH—The man who talks with Presidents, no longer has the key to the White House. During the bitter battles between the War Production board civilian group One of the marines who drives me coming up to Okinawa. He and a and General Somervell’s military around, in a Jpep whenever I have friend would give an impromptu and clique, Baruch always backed up to go anywhere is Pfc. Buzz Vitere homegrown concert on deck every Somervell. In fact, he was one of of the Bronx, New York. afternoon. Somervell's most vigorous support Buzz has other accomplishments They would sit on a hatch In the ers. besides jeep driving. He is known warm tropical sun and pretty soon Truman, on the other hand, fought as the Bing Crosby of the marines. there would be scores of marines M aj. Gen. Willis H. Hale, former commanding general of the army Albert “ Happy” Chandler, former In 4he WPB civilian corner. Also It you shut your eyes and don’t and sailors packed around them, lis a ir forces In the Pacific ocean area, pats S/Sgt. H. E. Erwin of Bes U. 8. senator from Kentucky, who listen very hard you can hardly tell tening in appreciative silence. It semer, Ala., on the arm after presenting him with the congressional has been appointed to succeed the Bernie was for Byrnes, not Tru man, at the Chicago convention. So the difference. made the trip to war almost like medal of honor for picking up a burning bomb over Tokyo and tossing late Kenesaw Mountain Landis as he may not be such a close friend I first met Buzz on the transport a Caribbean luxury cruise. it out of a B-29. Members of the crew whose lives he saved stand by. baseball’s csar. to Presidents any more. War Returns to Okinawa, Japan’s Nerve Center Meiji Shrine Burned to Ashes Wins Novel Award B-29 Hero Honored by General New Baseball Czar