L.T. GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: According to a London newspaper, we have won a decisive victory against the Japanese in the Solomons, the greatest victory yet by land,sea and S air. Which is more than Washington claims. All official communiques are exceedingly cautious. The more colorful reports come from unofficial sources. It is rumored around General 4acArthurfs headquarters in Australia that Uncle Sam's Leathernecks have been steadily consolidating the positions they have won in the Solomons. It is believed, not officially announced, but believed, that our naval forces are fighting a series of sea battles as momentous as those of the Coral Sea / and Midway Island. .. The latest, just in from Washington is that SOLOMONS . 2 our men are not merely on the Solomons, they are there to stay. This, is no mere rumor. TTtW/s/n offical Navy communique^ ffhe shore positions that were seized'^ by our marines in the Solomons have been eonsolidated and are now firmly established. The Navy goes on to confirm rumors that _ both land $nd ship fighting of the most desperate kind have been going on in those waters. It appears that a squadron of Japanese warships arrived and tried to intercept United States transports. But the Japanese naval force was fought off and driven away before it could prevent the landing of our reinforcements. The navy goes on to say that at least thirty-six Japanese planes have been shot down. Eighteenof them being seaplanes, destroyed belore they could get into the air during the surprise attack of August Seventh. The other eighteen were land-based Japanese planes shot down when they attacked our forces. W g are told that our ov-.n side suaiered only minor damage. SOLOMONS - 3 The Navy adds further that several landings have been made on islands in the Guadalcanal -Tulagi area They were made bv transport borne amphibious units of the United States Marine Corps. The enemy put up stiff resistance, but the marines smashed them, and took a number of Japanese prisoners. How many the Navy does not say. The Navy bulletin uses these words: 2The attacks were a complete surprise to the enemy." And, it goes on to tell us that during the landing operations cruisers and destroyers were so disposed as to protect our transports and cargo ships while they unloaded troops and equipment. While thus engaged on August Seventh and Eighth, our forces were attacked by enemy aircraft based on land. These attacks were driven off and at least eighteen more enemy planes destroyed." The Navy then goes into some detail about the naval engagement that followed. During the night between August Eighth and Ninth, an enemy fo-rce of cruisers and SOLOMONS - 4 destroyers tried an attack on our transports, cargo ships and supporting forces. Our cruisers and destroyers rcent into action and intercepted the enemy ships. Says the Navy:- "The heavy fighting which before reaching the vessels engaged in the landing operations." And it adds: "The close range fighting during this night engagement resulted in damage both to the enemy and to our forces. " Also this: "This night action is the only engagement between surface forces which has been fought to date in the Solomon Islands." The Navy communique points out that it is impossible in night engagements to determine accurately the damage inflicted on the opposing lorce The Navy has given no further statement about our own losses because of the obvious value of such information to the enemy. Oliiciala oi the followed resulted in the enemy being forced to retreat Australian government today expressed anxiety concerning SOLOMONS - 5 Allied positions in New Gtiinea. They are afraid of a Japanese attack in iorce on Port Moresby, They are even afraid the enemy might try a land attack on Port Darwin by way of distracting aid and strength of the United Nations. ALEUTIANS That our Navy high Command will launch a aajor blow on the Japanese in the Aleutians, isthe prediction of observers in Washington. But all we are told is that when they bombarded Kiska last week they enemy is trying to convert that Aleutian Island into a submarine base Which would put Jap U-boats two thousand miles closer to our West cloast shipping lanes than found four Jap submarines there, indicating that the they have been up to now. Hitherto, the activity of Jap undersea craft off the Pacific coast has been unimportant. But if they operated out of our own Alaskan Islands they would be a much more serious threat in the Pacific and to shipping on our western coast. SCOTT A grim story about a desperate feat by a warplane pilot comes from China. It was told to a reporter by Colonel Robert L. Scott of Macon, Georgia, commander of United States Pursuit flyers at Hengyang And, it is interesting to observe that it’s a story about the exploit of a Japanese pijot. Our airmen it appears, don*! mind giving credit to the enemy M when credit is due. This Jap flew over the airdrome at Hengyang on August Fifth, looking for grounded aircraft. But there wasn’t a plane on the ground. So the man deliverately made a half roll and dived into the largest building on the field. Apparently he thogght the building was operational xh headquarters. Of course his plane crashed and caught ire. They pulled his charred body from the wreckage and found that before he had made that dive a bullet has severed the spinal cord of that Jap pilot. ..leaning that alter his legs had been paralyzed by the bullet, and he only had the use of his hands, he committed suicide with one last SCOTT - 2 spectacular blow at his adversary. Said Colonel Scott:- "This is a typical example 01 the courage ol the enemy we are up against. But," he audea, "under the brilliant leadership of Brigadier General Chenault, commander of all United States air forces in China, we will destroy the Japanese air force and help the Chinese troops to drive the Japs into the sea." The U.g. airmen at Hengyang are largely former Flying Tigers. Colonel Scott said that because of the training they have had from General Chenault, pursuit planes are of greater use and versatility in China than anywhere else in the world. When they were fighting as members of the Chinese Army, they would take off with hand grenades from the cockpit. "And," said Colonel Scott, "my main problem is keeping them in check. Eveiy day they pester me for permission to hang five hundred pounds of bombs on their lighters and raid the Jap bases. SCOTT - 3 They used those pursuit planes for everything interception to observation and dive bombing. Colonel Scott adds that they are turning out from " Then to b e a big factor in keeping up the morale of the Chinese. CllURCKILL The ofi’icial announcement that Prime Minister Winston Churchill has just returned from a conference with Stalin sets the whole world guessing. The British Ministry of Information gave out no information about the conference except cut and dried generalities. Byt this afternoon Washington and Moscow as well as London were agog with speculations abott the operning of a Second Front. J The visit was Kept secret until today. Three Liberator bombers -- American planes -- tooK Chufdhill and his party to Moscow last Wednesday. At the con'rols of the plane carrying Churchill himseli was an American Airways pilot William Verdecklout ol Sarasota, Florida. Somewhere over Russia a squadron of Russian fighter planes picked them up ana escorted them on to Moscow. Churchill left on the return trip Sunday morning. Severa.l high ranking military aides went with him, includeag General Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the British imperial Staff. I CBUBCKILL * 2 Our own Averill Harriman was at the wonferences as the personal representative af President Roosevelt. Five other Americans tool^ partr including Brigadier-General Russell Maxwell, Commander of the United States forces in the Middle East. Significantly, General Sir Archibald Wpvell the British commander-in chief in India, was also there. A good deal of importance is attached to that. If any British army should be sent Forth through Iran to help the Russians in the Caucasus, it would be Wavell's job to lead it. The only official information given out wavvs that the conference had been a great success, a number of decisions were reached, much cordiality and so iorth. Howevr, one high British official was quoted as remarking that the conference was an epoch making event marking the turning point of the war. T:is led to the speculation that Churchill and Stalin had agreed upon j the operning of a second irontl Whether the American , delegation agreed to fex that, we do not know. But the announcement indicated that Harriman and the other Americans were there in what is described as an informative role. There is just one fact of /hich we may be sure. One purpose of Churchillfs visit was to find out for himself just how critical the plight of the Russians is. The Second Front aspect to the story is pure speculation, guesswork. Later it became evident that the Second Front grapevine was based entirely upon the remark of that anonymous British official who called the conference an epoch-maiLing event. An afternoon dispatch out of Moscow finds no justification for any hope of a Second Front in Nineteen Forty-Two. Observers in the Soviet capital were more struck by the fact that the British and American officers there represented the Middle Last commands rather than those of Western Europe. Russians are now convinced that they will have to carry on the war singleh-qnded. for the time being at least, Nevertheless they hope the Allies will do something in Europe before it is loo late. _________ ____ CHURCHILL - 3 * On the Russian Front, the Soviet High Command announced that the Red Army is holding firm against an all-out attack by the Nazis to the southwest of Stalingrad,/ The Germans have suffered such heavy losses that they have been strenuously throwing reserves into the line./' S? The Maikop oil fields are gone, but the Russians say that the destruction of the oil wells there was complete. Spokesmen of the Soviet High Command are more hopeful about the situation afound KoteInikovski and the Volga River line than they have been for days. The Nazi effort is concentrated on cutting the volga River line wouthwest of Stalingrad. The Soviet High Command failed to say whether they were successiui. tuey admitted that the Germans had pushed through the outer defenses of the Kletskaya front northwest Ox Stalingrad. The oil fields at Grozny in the northern part oi the Caucasus, are now in danger. The Nazis are onl\ a hundred and forty miles away from there. RUSSIA 2 The German co munique is as usual, jubilant, claims that the entire basin of the Don River is now firmly in Nazi hands. All Soviet resistance has been crushed in the big bend of the river west of Stalingrad They also claim to be advancing further into the Caucasus mountains and along the Kuban River. However, the Nazis admit that further north, around Byazma and Rzhev, they are on the defensive and under heavy attack from the Russians. In Europe, our air i'leets are now working hand inhand with the British Royal Air Force. A dispatch iroin London reports that United States Army \ bomber and fighter plane crews raided German installations in occupied France today* The first time that American bombers and fighters, manned entirely by Americans, have been reported as working together. They have gone into action against the Germans before but only on a small scale and never in unison. The report adds that not a siggle bomber was lost today. WESTINGnoySL 7 I have been on a tour with the Navy this afternoon -- a land tour. In company with Rear Admiral 1ft i11iam Carleton Iftatts, Captain Wille, and other naval officers, I went through the huge V/est inghouse plant at Essington, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Phildelphia. V/e were having a look at the giant turbines that propel our aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, steam turbines so superbyly built that they make our destroyers.the fastest in the world. When a ship takes part in a battle at sea, and makes the headlines, by winning a victory over the enemy, or by herself going down, if the turbines were turned out at this V/est inghouse plant the employees refer to it as their ship. Afterward Admiral Watts and a numb er of us addressed about seven thousand of the Westing}.ouse employees, all massed in front of the main buildings of WLSTIUC^OU^E 2 thG plant / And Admiral uratts, in presenting the Army-Navy E to the plant — and. the E pin to each employee pointed out that the turbines in our warships are the most important tilings in them — because without those turbines, the guns and other armament could never get anywhere. I met one worker in the plant, Harry Smith whose son Ralph was killed at Pearl Harbor. And the crowd cheered him to the echo when I mentioned that he had eight sons in all, the eight have just arrived two weeks ago. And you should have heard the speech made by the President of the local C.I.O. Francis Bradley, operator of one of those giant cranes in that Westinghouse plant said what he thought of the Austrian paper hanger Schickel: ruber who started all this trouble, and wr.o he referred to as the world's nu mb e r one 1ah or rater. The Westinghouse Vice-President and General Manager of the Plant L. E. Osborne, pledged that his V’i^TIiibiiOySE . 3 nine thousand work men would keep up their pace, in fact. £-0 (\e.i faster, turning out more of those giant turbines lor the Navy, the turbines that we are sure will propel our men oi war in the giant naval battles that will help bring Hitler and Hirohito to their knees. Beiore long we in the United Spates aT*e going snare at least one wartime hardship with the folks in Europe. .ieatless days. The Administrator of the Agricultural Marketing Administration made this announcement at Chicago today. And he explained why. In the coming twelve months, we are going to be shipping billions of pounds of meat overseas. Some of it will go to our armies, some to the soldiers and civilians of our Allies. I ran into this meat shortage here in Philadelphia today. The V/est inghouse people had planned a dinner tonight in honor of Admiral Watts and others taking part in today's Army-Navy "E" Award. And they found that the Navy had ju&t bought up all the meat in town -- well almost all. And kk now, that's almost all except for you, t o Hugh.