AFRICA n , The battle in iuniRia is still impeded by rain J and mu.i, ^ slov^down to a halt at most places today. In one sector, however, American armored forces scored a sharp success. At a place called Med j e z El Bab* the Nazi -Dancers launched a strong attack - a two-way assault. From different directions two tank columns < p hit our position. They made a little progress and then stopped by American counter~attr*t r.s led oy General Grant tanks and supported by strong artillery fire. The Uazis, after being repelled, retired. The Germans at the tip of Tunisia, after having pressed our battleline back somewhat, are netting reinforcements.'So we hear from Allied headquarters'l^They a-e'maintaining their temporary superiority in the air, which gives the Nazi troops what our headquarters describes as - "a strong psycholorical lifl* AFFICA_- ? , jgyl ^ ^The enemy psycholo y seems to h0 ftfVr-ai.BTT^ r\4jz lifted, at the other side of the North African ■' ^ 2 >one - over ihRxgx in the east, where Pommel1s Aurika Korps is facing the British Eighth Army in Libya. British General Montgomery is bringing uo increasing forces for a final attempt to smash Pommel, and is pursuing a policy of constant small scale activity, unending ouick thrusts by patrols. / gj^' < The Germans are showing, what tonightfs Cairo dispatch N calls, ^extreme nervousness. How does an array d iso lay nervousness? Vve are told that the Germans are laying down artillery fire at the slightest provocation. The moment there is any disturbance, iC they go banging away with their guns. A+ night they fill the sky with flares, lighting uo the desert constantly - as if they were afraid of the dark. Such a-e the signs of that - "extreme nervousness." AFRICA - n all quite understandable. With the British pettinr ready to smash Pommel from the East and the Americans in Tunisia preparing to drive XV against him from the west, you can hardly blame the Nazis for being nervous. eoos r/s LI-^12£ X. Over in i* ranee, the conquered and oppressed people are reading a story smuggled in from abroad. This bit of literature was issued by the United States Office of War Information, and has been circulated secretly in France as an expression of American friendship toward the French people. The story is called - The Flame." And it has a distinguished author - the President of the United States. President Roosevelt tells the French people about a candle burning in an old French church - a . erpetual candle, the kind that is renewed and burns for years. It was lighted in honor of the United States Navy, and presumably i: is still lighted unless the Nazis have put it out. The presidential story is as lollows: •Early in Aufust of Nineteen Eighteen, [, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was making an inspection of the r HOPS VITLT STORY - 2 United States Naval and Air Stations on the coast of Brittany. As I proceeded from one station to another,” the President continues, ’’our pilot-car unfortunately knocked down an elderly priest - injuring him slightly.” * President hoosevelt goes on to tell now he offered compensation to the old priest^ - replied that he wanted nothing from the American Navy, which was helping to save France. Whereupon he was as_L ed - Could the Navy do anything for his church? .xvuz-w-t 'The old pries"Oh, if I could^have a Cu little contribution toward a fund I have been fathering all my life to have the stained glass l^<Wt re leaded. ” Pres identRoosevelt remarks that the stained glass windows were medieval treasures and had not been releaded since about Seventeen Fifty. "I asked the old priest," writes the President, ROOSH/ELT—STOBY - 3 "how much it "ould cost, and he said: 'One thousand „ • / ■J! Francs, a sum far greater than we possibly could raise.1 A I thereupon wrote out a Navy requisition for two hundred dollars," relates the President, "and gave it to the old priest." He -oes on to tell how several months late1” he v/as told that the reloading of t ne stained glass windows was nearly complete and injgratitude the old priest had lighted a perpetual candle in honor J of the American Navy. President Roosevelt concludes his story as follows: "Six or eight years later the candle was still burning," says he, "and I have no doubt that now in Nineteen Forty-Two, it is' still burning - unless the Germans have put it out." So there is the tale, an incident of a quarter of a century aro, v.ritten by the President of x±x ... ...... ...... M roosfvelt story - 4 the United States and snuggled in to the oppresse 'people of France. SAN FPAIkISCQ Today the bravest ship in the United States Navy put into a home port to be repaired and receive a decoration. The heavy cruiser SAN FRANCISCO - which is to be the first American vessel of war to be decorated for heroism in the present conflict. That same SAN FRANCISCO which played the star part in the Battle of the Solomons, when twenty-eight enemy ships were sunk. The SAN FRANCISCO herself blew up a Jap cruiser, sank a destroyer, ’and so badly crippled a battleship that destroyers were able to linish off the monster. She 7 /as the flagship of Admiral Callahan, who was killed on his oridgein tne ilo sea bottle at night. The dramatic story has often been told how, bec&uise of the death of the Admiral and the Captain of the SAN FRANCISCO, a young Lieutenant-Commander took charge of the ship, and in fact directed the SAN FRANCISCO - 2 movenent s ol the American column through the rest of tie 02 +^ i. (? • He today was the special hero c s t,he cruiser SAN FRANCISCO out into xsxt the port after which it was named. At San Francisco, Lieutenant-Commander McCand less of Washington, D.C. told of- Admiral Callahan^ last A command. "We want to fet the bip ones; go after the battleships," said the Admiral. And thatfs what they did -- closing with a big Japanese battleship and firing at close range. fc±inrteft*ni-riceanrH-ftss si. od-*v-4A-^t=^rfie battleship was firing at the SAN FRANCISCO 'from the starboard bow,' a Jar) cruiser was blazing away on the starboard quarter, and a destroyer was shooting at the SAN Ihr.NCISCO on the port side. lEii'e^&AN-FB*JreiS€0: was heavily hit, and tried bcaci.to straighten out the formation of American shxx A werhis. "Admirs.1 Cs.llcih8.n orde^^ci us ^ire t the SAN_FBANCJSCO - 3 1 bif ones first,” seid McCandless today, ’’and v.re resumed firing." Then he explained about his taking command of the flagship. He stated that when the Admiral and the Caotain were killed, the next in line to command was not himself but Lieutenant-Commander H. E. Schonland! who senior to McCandless. Schonlan , now ever, had A to go belo,,r deck to supervise the control of the damage. He 1 e^t McCandless in cha rf e. * SOLO^O J.S Out in the Solomon Islands, our marines and regular army soldiers continue their daily battles against the Japs on Guadalcanal Island. Today we are told by our Commander, 'da j or-General Vandergrift, that I .1 the Jans on the island have lost at least seven thousanc I troops - ten to one for every American killed, ^nd I another dispatch states that a jjarty of marine raiders conducted hostilities apainst the enemy in the deepest A junple, and killed some four hundred Japs and captured three artillery oositions. SOLOMON AT VENTURE On Gua lalcanal Island, during some nirht fightinp, Corporal Pobert Pape of Brooklyn found himself isolated and cradled under a house to keep clear of Japanese machine gun fire. He was lying in the darkness, when sixteen other soldiers crawled un -er the house. The Corporal didn*t know whether they were Americans or Japs until he heard them talx. They were Jars - taking refuge from American machine gai gun fire. They didn!t see Corporal Pape* as he lay in th® back corner - hooing they would tney A d idn1f. Came the da 7 ,n, as they used to say in the old silent pictures. As the morning light grew brighter, the Corporal figured the game was up. U began inching his way from under the house - in o Cpt ting away. That was when the the faint hope oi gelimz j Ja-s spotted him - and opened fire. A bullet SOL(nON__A vVENTUPE^- 2 hit the Corporal in the leg, and he yelled. The shooting, plus the yells, attracted the attention of Americans nea rbturned a machine gun on tne Japs, and billed them all. And out limped Corporal Pape. Here is a twist of coincidence pertaining to the Solomon Islands and the marines. The forthcoming issue of the "March of Time", is all about the leathernecks. '*» One scene shows the aarines rehearsing an attack, at Solomons Island in Chesapeake Bay. So there is « ^incidence. £nx^«. At Solomons Island practiced for an attack on the Solomon Islands. In New Guinea, ^ustrslian and American forces, having captured the Jap strong point of Gon&« &re now closin in on the other Ice - Buna. The Jans at Buna launched a counter-attack, but this was beaten back by General MacArthur!s men - ho are now pushing on to eliminate the last of Jap control alonr an important stretch of the north tJF.W^GUINEA HOSPITAL From Nev/ Guinea we have stories of courage at military hospitals, fortitude displayed by doctors and p-atients in the jungle war. One of these accounts, flashing on the wire today, is a classic. At a battle front field hospital, a United States Army surgeon, Captain /illiam F. Edwards of Albany, Indiana, was taking a piece of shrapnel out of a soldier. No anesthetic - the soldier enduring the ordeal grimly. V/hile the operation was going on, a Jap warplane attacked the hospital - strafing it w_ machine guns. The doctor, quite unoerturbed, kept on operating. When the Jap planes were gone, and the doctor had done with the shrapnel wound, the soldier , t iiprs you'd better fix up this said: "Doctor, I guess you , to0 „ imttfceVnointed to a olace where a new one too. ^•LL /v (un foullet had pierced his shoulder while he machine gun duj - l . ^ ley /^n rf + h e Ooerat ilL£_i?hle •- --—“ = -- --- - PHILLIPS President Poosevelt hes aonointed an ambassador to India - and this is something of an innovation. The diolomet named is William C. Phillips, who was American Ambassador to Rome until the state of war between this country and the Fa-scist kingdom. We have had a mission at New Delhi for over a year now, and this VUw-Ambassador Phillips will heed. ,j President Eoosevelt sajs that he will not ca-ry to India any special plan or f.r.niaf formula for t* solution I„dio,'oroble«. »e merely goes to represent the A * + > iq + i and which is such a i>uzz-le United States m that vast ianu to the United Nations.! i? WtCo ' OVEPS^AS_ President Roosevelt today sent a message to Congress about Lend-Lease, de tells Congress that, during the past three months, we have sent Lend-Lease $ assistance to our Allies abroad to the tune of two million, thre hundred and sixty-seven million dollars* worth. This represents an increasejof more than one-third over the previous three months, and is more than four times the total for the four months that immediately preceded Pearl Harbor. The President*s report shows that we are sending to our Allies a total 0- war materials amounting to ten billion dollars* worth a year. about fifteen per cent of the total war money that thV-nation is spending. In other "•ords, hbout one-seventh of the United States war effort goes into Lend-Lease. In his message to Congress, the President OVERSEAS - o disclosed that, by the end of this month, American forces overs as will number more than a million. Take the fighting men we have in those many places Islands to northern Ireland, and they a million by the first of the year. ^ the Solomon will registration eighteenth birthday since July First. Six hundred thousand of them will go on record for the draft. During the week beginning todayjand on through next Tuesday, those who became eighteen between July First and Aurust Thirty-First, will appear before draft boards. The following week, December l ighteen to December Twenty-Fourth, will be registration time for those who attained eighteen years between September First and October Thirty-First. Christmps is is skinned 0s a registry ion day, when youths who have and then December Sixth will begin another period ve become Eighteen between November First and. December Thirty-First will go on record. there will be no further registration^ there will be no Thereafter, REGISTRATION^^ for the Eirhteen year olds. As each lad arrives at that a~e, he will register with his draft board on his birthday. s i: The re^4ritration^^rfInning to^ay is the under ^Selective Service and/^ne first und^r +he set-up, which 1rw has jurisdiction / le ctive ervice. B/.MAN AS Heis one that seems like a gross exaggeration, biu, it In reported factually from England. At the town of Bath, an auction was held today, the proceeds to buy sports ecuipment for British troops. The most valuable items put up for sale to the highest bidder were - two bananas. They were bid up to eight Pounds Sterling, the two bananas going for approximately thirty-two dollars. Thfl^tropical yellow fruit is scarce over here too, but in Britain a banana is at RADIO From v.uiCf^o comes the story of an exasperated policeman. At a station house.he was broadcasting A instructions to ra(io notice cars. One car failed to respond. The cop at the microphone called that car repeatedly, growing more angry all the time. Finally he bellowed: "Turn on your radio so that you can get messages! " Which inspires me to bellow to an awful lot of people right now tune in on this program so you can hear VWl' . A- LTP.1942.12.11i.pdf LTP.1942.12.11.pdf