LiIi_z_SU110C0j._^EDSESDAyj__JUNE_17j._124E- GOOD EVENING EVET^YBODY: About the most exciting thing in the news tonight is an American aif^man*s description of the part that Uncle Sam’s warplanes took in the Battle of the Mediterranean. The story comes in the words of Army Air Corps Major Alfred Ealberer, leader of the American flight. Before the war, Ealberer was ^ transport pilot^ VV'X^ fighting their first war action. Some of them, he added, had had only four hundred hours flying b^xt=::tfey ^ A performed like veterans. To hear Ealberer’s account, you would think it v;as a snorting contest. A.fter flying about five . T hundred end eighty mil.es, ha said^ "we sigrJed the smoke of the Italian craft about thirty miles away. LEAD - ? They were steaming alon£^ entirely unav/are of our presence, on a course that v/ould have eventually intercepted the British convoy. Each A^merican plane t had a specific target. Flight A which I was leading,' ^'was over a big battleship. Each of my three planes 1 dropped a load of British-made semi-armor#^ piercing bombs on the battleship. About twenty hits were scored on one battleship and fifteen on another, in addition to near misses"^^hey also hit an Italian cruiser. 4^ I ^Kalberer learned later that uSTk i ^ torpedo from a British plane. And he added the typical A.merican ohrase:- ”It was like shooting fish in a i ra in barrel.” Later he related that the Italians were much friendlier than the British fleet, xhe iuaj.ians did not shoot at us at all, tut the British did^ , a mistadcp, no harm. ^ /I ^ ' kut) LFAD - T* Every American plane returned to base without a scra.tch, after making more than two score hits on th*-* WtX/Z enemy ships. A The British acknowledged today that the uJ four-day battle was only a limited success.^there A considerable losses to the A.llied con voys^ be tween Malta and Tobruk. And several big ships were damaged. source In fact, a report from a Spanish^fart near Gibraltar brinrs word that two British aircraft carric-rs cnr the thirty-one thoucanc ton bstt-^eship MALAYA arrivei a ^ - A '' - toiav to're move deoc. and wounded. ev were all danafec accorcinf to the Lpanish reoort. serious and a1 the rut the daze e to the Ikl.k'ik was nut ships entered unier uheir ^wn purer I'stinF neavily, v*hea one au'-eareo at r Iv une British s e r- w 4 ^ * sL Ea>.rce, frienc:.y , —tv i ▼ ■ 4 V ^ r - i t ‘ s h u r •: i a a • s , t n r e e r Til LEAL - A i 1 s . 3 destroyers and four corvettes have not returned to their tkKiif base at Gibraltar. c-TnT?Bedoes mean A- ^ that they are necessarily sunk or even damaged. They might, fcEzarct- A in search of more Italian warships. battle recedes into the past, the part A played by those American ft-rnrhiia looms up as more and f\ more important. Psychologically', the effect has quite obviously been even bigger than the material damage done by the two score hits that Major Kalberer reported In London, the achievements of the American plane crews were hailed with particular cheers. The object of the Axis not merely to hit a corfple of convoys. Our A enemies hoped for something bigger, nothing less than • T • -p + Vio T^Tibish fleet. In "this Ihey tne crippling of the cric failed, for the action of the American planes forced fk/K ■ r- ’■+oi'ipn fleet to turn tail &Tid sss± the interceping italian .-eei. ^ LEAD - 5 back to Taranto. But almost as important is the interpretation that military observers in Britain are nov/ expressing. ^ They believe that the arrival of American air reinforcements in the Mediterranean and the Middle East will prove to have turned the tide against thejAxis. They point out that now Hitler has to fight on three aerial fronts. The Eastern front nov/ runs from A rhark.v an lha .a, da., to tobr.k. at that striking force from our Army Air Corps thus may change the whole aspect of the war in the Mediterranean. g. anto action at a critical time, after months | of care ful preparation in the Near East. Ajid-^ey made it possible to expand the fighting areas over a la-£6 only of the Mediterranean but also /V of thi^ kx Black Sea. It is also significant that right after this lead - 6 battle we have news that Marshal Rommel's victorious advance in the Libyan desert has been stopped. Cairo says Rommel got as far as he did because he had just received great help in the form of a new type of anti-tanK cannon. As surmised, the continuous bombardment of Malta was a mask for the trans-shipment of reinforcements to Rommel. And with the new three-and- a-half-inch guns, he came ka into possession of mobile artillery of greater range and power than anything the British have. I F.USSIA ihe Fussians also set the Nazis back on their heels. At Sevastopol, Hitler’s generals had thrown all they had into one storm attack after another. Seven altogether, hurled at the southern approaches to the great fortress. But the Reds mobilized every able bodied soul in the city, even women. Those who couldn't fight huddled in caves, dug-outs and cellars^all night lonp^under constant bombardment from the air an(^ heavy artillery. During the day, they scorned the bombs and stuck to their work making munitions for the fighters. At the end of twenty-two hours, they had the Germans exhausted. They were not driven off, but they had net gained lixKXi a foot. And the defenders of Sevastopol had a A resoite. Further north at Kharkov, Timoshenko threw, in s. counter-attack which caugnt tke .laz^s o ^ j . guard. cn met 0 ?us si an line. ’ ■’ rn-f r-r pT\ imr/Crtant vi-..-.are, destroyed a nasec them out ox + H p o-^ssure rn irizec coluan, sne rexieve^ t..e --------oa .ae tufkey Hitler* is try inp to make trouble betv/een Uncle Sam and the Republic of Turkey, His Foreign Office and propaganda men have seized upon that forced landing of four United States bombers on Turkish A years the Nazi Fuehrer has been doing his lit^niost to turn the Turks apainst the A1T i ps, ^4lthough Nazi agents have an enormous influence in the Turkish part of Asia Minor, Ankara has resisted all intrigues. The way we know about the latest fenagling of the Wilhelmstrasse is through Radio Berlin. F*!' has been broadcasting spurious grapevine reports from Turkey, reoorts that there w^s anxiety in Turkish official circles about the forcing down o* those four American bombers. The Nazi Radio nretends that the Turks re airai^ th^. forced landing will become a precedent A for violations o f Turkish neutrality. ^ '! TURKEY * 9 But the actual news from Ankara is that the tricK has not worked, As a matter of fact, when the four U.S. bombers landed, crowds of Turks came to see them, and to welcome them with interest and cheers. Also the Turks were enthusiastic when they learned that the American planes had been bombing the Rumanian oil fields. i N i' lii \ .! i !! K2 CHINA In China, the Japanese have another important town in their hands. cost them moT*© than eic^ht ......................................^ 0 thousand casualties X-l^ says the communique from Chungking, they have i'^*'After the most savage kind of fighting? the Chinese abandoned the cityx town. ) A important, because^the east'ern anchor of eighty mile railway line, a part of the road from Hangchow to Nanchang,ns still in Chinese hands. On the other hand, the Chinese have recaptured 8 couole of towns in the central portion of Kiangsi Province, -a-e—welri—ae ■■Chant^shan——tho bopdor Although the Chinese g&in advantages here and there and occasionally reccpture towns, the unoenianLc truth is that the Japanese are aovancing steadily* '’^he imDortc.nt aspect of this is, that they are shifting their militar;.|strength northTards CHINA - 2 if. The Chinese intelligence claims to have information that the Japs are sending a constant stream of 7 /arplanes north, taking them from Burma, from their captured islands of the Netherlands East Indies, and from the Philippines. The obvious answer is an attack from Manchuria on the maritime provinces of Siberia. The Japs already have thirty-three divisions in p t I I Manchuria. To add to them, large contingents are being transferred from Formosa and also from northern China. This move has an international aspect and foliov/s upon the agreement of the Allies to open up a second front in Europe. If Hitler has to fight on two fronts in Eurooe, they say, the Japs will force Russia also to fight on two fronts. JAVA mu lU Three months ?.fo v/e heard the news that the Japanese had conquered Java. Today v.'e learn that the conquest has not been complete. Moreover, we learn it m from the Japsnese-controlled radio at Batavia. The Japs broadcast a report that 'they hal^^just captured A Major General Pesman, co?.manding officer of Dutch utl guerrilla groups in Dubh Java. Thus for the first time we learn that resistance to the Japs has been 1 going on in the Javanese interior all these months. Dutch officials who escaped from Java point out that OMnJL the specific mention of Pesman’s nameutr-wey, means that other generals of the Netherlands army are still uncaptured. * Net so lonf a£o, Tokyo Radio announced the capture of s oce Americans in Java, Americans who were known to have been serving in the United States Hundred and Thirty-First Artillery; a regiment composed JAVA - 2 of former members of the Texas National Guard. The way these Japanese broadcasts have been couched^ now / leadSto the inference that a sizeable slice of the Hundred and Thirty-First, under the command of Colonel Albert bearle of Pawtucket, Bhode Island, is still resisting the Japs in the hills and forests of west Java. Searle, a bald, chunky man of fifty. is known in the army as a stout fellow, a two-fisted guy In the last war he received the Order of the Purple Heart and the Silver Star, and just before the collapse of Java he was awarded the L'istinguished ervice Cross. 1 k & ; / M Just two years ago today, we heard one of fthe iDost tragic broadcasts radio has ever /V the air. It was the voice of liiarshal Petain announcing that he had taken ^ government of France ana asked/Hitler for A the an V armistice. After that, we heard the strains of a band playing the "Marseillaise", which at that moment became the funeral dirge of the Third Republic. Today, the eighty-six year old Marshal*^— delivered another radio address to his people, and it was no oration of cheer. Rather, he admitted, that A his government had been in many respects powerless his program of appeasement and collaboration with U i itler a failure. He admitted that :.e nad been unable to win the French people over to playing vassal to the age-old enemy described that dav in Bordeaux two years PETAIN - 2 a^o S.S onG of the cruellest dates in French history. He made no attemot to deny the sufferings and the low estate of VU j * country, did try to excuse the A A A weakness of his own government. He used these words: know that the government of this country has made mistakes." And he added':- "Amid an absence of sufficient victuals to keep body and soul together, slack and sometimes incapable administration has 'IF allowed inequalities and abuses to be added." He said further:- "The workman is suffering, the farmer is impatient, mayors are overY/orked, and the punishment of speculators remains inadequate." he w^n-i—uu—Li)-__SjZ^ that the inertia, greed and egoism of many Frenchmen have rendered many of the government's exforts inef-f^ectiv e * ~ response to my appeals has been weak.' Nevertheless," the aged Marshal said "I have not lost confidence. Rfnli.-dBTrlaziEgx. petain - 3 ttypa find herself again." A Petain then used a sterner tone. After the lonr tale of woe, he announced that his government, finding appeals of no avail, would use force. It will try to stamp out discontent and public anger by punishments. corroborates with an official seal the A many tales of unrest that we have heard out of Europe. On top of that admission by Petain, we learn that the Jugoslav guerrilla army of General Mihailovitch is becoming more active than ever. The Jugoslavs claim th^t they have compelled the Axis to use no fewer than seventeen Italian divisions in Jugoslav territory .na Hung.ri.n IroofS. In Norway there is a new cause of discontent. e ro-m'nt; refugees from the bombed 'ffhole families of Germens, re.ufee rr\c*rif'V and Luebeck are blocking cities of Cologne, Fos.oc^. anc PETAIN - 4 into Norway. To give them living quarters, Norwegians are being turned out of their apartments and houses. 1 f I PAY Here is news that ought to raise some lusty cheers in Iceland, in Australia, in Ireland - wherever American soldiers and sailors are. Alaska, Africa, India, and so on. / President Roosevelt today signed his name to the bill that makes our boys far the highest paid fighting force in the world. They always were, even at thirty dollars a month. But the new figure, fifty dollars a month for the lowest grades and ratings, that nearly doubles it.* J In the days a soldier received mighty little compensation for risking his life. And if he came home with money in his pockets, it represented just one thing -- loot. With the Nazis and Japs, looting is still the order of the day. The bill which the President has just signed gives our men their increase as of June First. And it goes all the way up the line from the lowest grade private and seaman-apprentice to second lieutenants and ensigns. A first class private and seaman second class will be paid fifty-four dollars a month; a PAY - 2 sergeant and third class petty officer, seventy-eight dollars a month; master sergeant and chief petty officer, a hundred and thirty-eight dollars a month. Second lieutenants and ensigns will receive eighteen hundred a year, a hundred and fifty dollars a month. But the bill is good news also to officers of higher rank. For it removes the limits which the law applies at present to the allowances that an officer may ask for subsistence and rental. Which is an important item in the life of an officer. And now Hugh something important from you , -J