l .T. - SUNOCO. WEDNESDAY, SEPT o 1942. GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: When sixteen hundred people are rescued from a h azing vessel on the high seas, that Is a storylJ J( a story that great writers oJoseph Conrad or W.S.McFee^or Captain Marryatt would have given at deal to report. Sixteen hundred people rescued a gre by three of Uncle Sam's warships 'somewhere in the Atlantic! The naval -transport WAKEFIELD,^twenty-four thousand tons, caught fire at sea on the evening of September Third. The authorities do,*** yet :now, or at any rSJXow^tell, how the fire started, ihe United States WAKEFIELD liner MANHATTAN. t - p - tto undre d~Trb ffCrd-frer, LEAD - 2 8QB€—thouonnd- pa3aenper^ a-fr4 -a cr-e-w o-f g i y hun1^■ The flames were first discovered pouring out of a passenger's cabin, ht six bells, five o'clock in the Q(L+-d uvv evening Eastern War Time, Tig for Q^long down the corridors of B deck.' The WAKEFIELD was part of a convoy at the time. When the flames broke out, the master of the WAKEFIELD, Commander Harold Bradbury of Uncle Sam's Coast Guard, broke convoy rules and used his radio. He sent out the message:- "I am on lire." Within ten minutes a cruiser and two destroyers of the convoy escort were alongside. In record time two hundred and twenty-eight passengers were taken aboard one of the destroyers. Most of the othop passenger list of a icrtn>~€/VL [ thousand^wer(T trans -shippea to the cruiser. All this was done at the gravest and most imminent risk. c, flames from the WAKEFIELD were visible on the LEAD.- 3 high seas fooncr of—more than ten b It An open invitation to.any enemy U-boats^^9- ^ A A ha^ititixxn-zsrt—dis-tAttn-fcs. But the Commander of the convoy escort disregarded the danger. ckSifi Evidently happenefl the convoy w A A A 7 as nearing home. saster A . .. C-^1ZZ^ mi-i rv 1 v £ii«.Wen, women and children when it came^jgtnig^ quic^iy. ****,Tlu^lA* W-nrrj- taken off^ifchxfciixxr^tii^ blazing liner w*=* ^ u/ ^ ^ l -i-Acxjr Vr^- un—tl^gi r-^b , n of* t h^ convoy wanted to take the The Commander oi rne ^uuvuJr crew of the WAKEFIELD off as well as the passengers, but LEAIL* 4 ~bL-g : , Commander Bradbury and the crew Rft££»-4-ecl4ge^: A- They thought they still had a chance of saving their cyv-V. ov\ — shir. 80 they kept battling 7;ith the spre/dingz: s /f flame. ' The WAKEFIELD presently invisible to the of the convoy » £-G3B l J& i & -w&s Completely shrouded by clouds of smoke and steam from the water th VjtC^CZ: . crew playing on the flames. Braying—an .the convoy and destroyers kept A circling around and loand .tlreirb-nrni^"liner-^i An hour and a half after the lire was discovered, Cocmander Bradbury still felt confident that he could save the ship. ui'tttwra’ uluaTwil- But ten minutes later ^rw^Mirye.'radioed at=ae«»*f» A /"l_'that the fire had broken out with new intensity. £y. M.4I1I 1 1 ll V thr firr -TTTM—1 1 ,nllt- of control. T.u n 1 j iMiMiryi liit rT the master and crew^abandontd-aJiip A 14^6 -f-‘& mes banned-o-et -the -s-ue^r-etructurg^ Btrt- -lntn^4 LEAD - 5 # „ ^ X itb^::=:t^l^ - la:t^rrn 1faTi-=:s-Tib^±dgti^iri.exim2gcT^CT-iiBTO^ ry=- led a party of volunteers back aboard the WAKEFIELD. They got the fire under control sufficiently to get A tow 1 ines , aba&Td -terz: Whereupon tugs and salvage craft drai ^er a Por^somev'^ere on Atlantic coast. (5 (2^<l^cr-0— (^WCutL tA-v VICHY The Vichy Government of-Franoe today cam® face A t ’ s C w— Marshal Petain became chief of state^ in June, Nineteen Forty. The general discontent with both the aged Marshal r (A ri i {{Tj and Pierre Laval flared out into open and \ ^C a ^ k . l £,J protest;^What makes it dkx S w P serious is that it comes from the leaders of the last Parliament of the Third Republic. It takes the form of a warning addressed to Petain and Laval and signed by former Premier Eduard Herriot and Jean Jeanneny as Presidents of the Senate and tha Chamber of Deputies. They took their courage into their hands and made this historic document public today. Fur4h«nftor,e^ announced that in so doing they spoke for all the members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, aad Hot a voice was lifted to contradict them. In other word the entire membership of the French Senate and Chamber state? °Pen C°nflict with th* chief and deputy chief of VICHY - 2 In Nineteen Forty, the Parliament of the Third Republic delegated its powers to Petain. Since then the old Marshal^n^vei^ permitted the French xlo anything-r.QTneven to assemble. Finally, A as we now learn for the first time, Petain ordered the suppression of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The publishing of this document tells the world that the French Parliament refuses to be suppressed, even though it may not meet. Among other warnings, the protest contains these words: - ’’It is impossible for liberty to die in the country of its birth from where it spread all over the world.” Herriot and his colleagues then sounA the caution that if Petain and Laval try to draw France into what they call "war against our allies", France will suffer convulsions with which Petain and Leval will not VICHY_r—3 be able to cope. The Presidents of the Senate and Chamber accuse Petain of having violated the solemn promises he made to the French Parliament in Nineteen Forty, promises to limit his powers and not to try to drag France into war on the side of the Axis. They use these words:- "You have been misled if you have been told that the country will follow you along the path you are trying to take." And they continue:- "The country has tolerated the measures and the successive governments you have inKBstsd imposed upon it because it could not do anything else. But do nofc make the foolish attempt of believing that you can win the spirit or the hearof France without which you can accomplish N nothing durable." Petain, they say, has usurped powers which were not delegated by Parliament. His acts in abolishing the French Republic were illegal. VICHY - 4 Herriot and his colleagues^also protest against the imprisonment of two former members of the Popular "Not content with having forbidden any legislative activity you have now suppressed all the prerogatives of the members of Parliament. You have deported both Chambers from Vichy to Chatel Guyon. You now want to terminate their existence." And they say later:- "You must r alize that we Republicans will not stay silent against this new attack on republican institutions. You have abolished the principle of elective representation. You have substituted unlimited dictatorship for guarantees which all civilized nations grant. Such acts,” they add, "are more than misuse of power." At the same moment learn that the Petain Government is in open conflict with the Catholic Church VICHY_- 5 tt—on account of the way Laval has been / treating the Jews. j he arrested ten thousand of them, chiefly emigres from Poland, Czechoslovakia and other countries. shipped them in crowded box cars 7\ to Poland^ for forced' labor. This aroused the vehement protest of the Churcfc at Rome and public declarations by several of the foremost Roman Catholic prelates. As a result of fchm all those protests, the mass arrests and deportations of Je*s for forced labor were stopped. ir. But now we learn that taval has also arrested Catholic priests in unoccupied France for having sheltered Jewish OL children. Cardinal GerZier, Archbishop of Lyons, refused tb authorize the surrender of those Jewish children w^o were in the custody of the Boman Catholic clergy.^Pastoral letters are being read from pulpits all over unoccupied France, asking French Catholics to give all help they can to persecuted Jews. The VICHY - 6 Military Governor of Lyons refused to furnish troops to help in these mass arrests of Jews, so i-aval dismissed him. All this news lends considerable meaning to conferences that Pierre Laval held at Vichy today. He had a conversation with the chief of the German delegation to Vichy. Then he conferred with the French Ministers of the Army and the Navy. With them was the Commander-in-^hief of the French forces in North Africa. These may have been routine affairs* 8ut the acute tension in France and the rumors that spread from Vichy and Paris lead to the speculation whether these conferencep Hry the intention of Petain and Laval to try to drag their country^into side by side with the Germans. CHURCHILL Priine uflinister Winston Churchill was under fire in the House of Commons today. A Laborite member Aneurin Sevan arose on the floor and lashed / out with the most savage charges that Churchill has had to hear since he took office in May, Nineteen 1 f ; Lor:... ^ went so far as to say that the continuation of the Prime Minister in office is a major disaster* and he used these words: no longer is able to A summon the spirit of the British people because he represents policies•they deeply distrust.” -n^e w. .T-, «&«va^then took up the speech that Churchill made in the Commons yesterday. He spoke scornfully of what Churchill had said about a Second Front and war production in America,* & —lt~ - w&fp w childish nonsense.* And he declared : *V*e know that American war production is even now less than our own, *nieaning the British, *and America is running into very considerable difficulty in reorganizing her production." CHUBCHILL - 2 He continued: "Germany^ economic potential is at least equal to that 01 Britain and thrrr Hpiiiad America going all out." He explained this by saying? "Germany is acquiring economic facilities which are more than equal the production capacity of Britain and America combined.^ Bevr^ibis yeai^ with imagination and A courage the Germans could have been beaten. “declared, t a —^ ( doesthe guts to do it." B ev an said—he—had -no -expec-t-at ion-th-at—< government ¥K>u ld- rep 1 y be-eaueehe- de el-aredGh-U FO-h il l—g i-v-ee— tni'-opa^at^i on - to -tbe -newepape rs -b-eteFe -g-i-v-irnrg -i-t -be- t be —Ge m o ns ^— "-T-he -&H ni-e-ter rn—he —ee-ld-j fellow-leg -the -example -ef—F-revident-Roeeeve-lt-.J STALIN FOLLOW CHURCHILL A stojry comes out of uioscovt that Churchill had a serious disagreement with Soviet Premier Stalin while he was in the Russian capital. This came to light when the controlled Moscow press failed to publish certain paragraphs of the speech Winston Churchill made in London yesterday. It seems the inner circles in Moscow have known for several days that there serious differences between the A c^. ' British and t/h* Russian points of view^«tou^"Lhe conduct of the war. But tills -iras—rratT^generai-iy --teuinti real bitterness in Moscow because the Allies o relieve the pressure on the n Russian front. Another thingincreased the bitterness ©f Russian feeling was Churchill's announcement that the British and American High Commands reached complete agreement on all phases of military operation. That was news to the Russians and they feel decidedly leit out of it because they were not invited to take part STALIN.FOLLOW^CHIJRCHILL - 2 in that conference. From the Russian point of view they are not being treated as full fledged Allies of the British and A.mericans. They feel that Britain and the United States are planning their war without ftirc. consideration for the needs of Russia. RUSSIA / In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet spokesmen admit that the Germans are throwing their reserves against the Red defenders^ T-irey-raa^a attacking in greater force and more speed than ever^ Apparently, the Russians have lost control of the air since it is reported that tfcs Nazi planes have been cruising at their leisure over the Russian positions. ^The Red army has been fighting wit hout rest oi let up, while the Germans are attacking with fresh troops. The Berlin high command claims to have captured the heights that dominate Stalingrad from the west. But Moscow says that in the southwest the Nazis have made no progress in five days although they have been redoubling the verocity of their attack. The ground west and southwest of Stalingrad is rolling hills and shallow ravines, most difficult to deiend. And at Novorossisk, the Black Sea naval base, RUSSIA - 2 the situation is critical. The Russians are in danger /v of being overwhelmed. The Nazis have driven a deep wedge into the Soviet positions and as they outnumber the defenders, they are able to attack from all directions. EGYPT Berlin tonight-admitted the deeth-in action Ma-^e^- Getreral -George-von- B iamarek, leader of a-craoi^ ^a-a-a-er cel^aa -in—the-Egy^tiara deaert- concerning Field Marshal Rommel, Commander-in-^hief of the Afrika Korps. Rommel is ill, say the British. They claim to have that information from German prisoners fciRFtr they captured. That story does not gix* 9 &v it is not official. However, the / /' come from Cairo rumor prevails all over the Middle East that Hitler finds it necessary to replace Rommel. NE^LGUINEA The Berlin radio tonight broadcast a report that in Mew Guinea the Japanese had broken through the Australian positions to Kokota and advanced further on the way to Port Moresby. But this is balanced by a dispatch from General MacArthurfs headquarters in Australia. The Australian troops have stabilized their line in the Owen Stanley Mountain Range. checked the A Japanese advance on Moresby. Meanwhile, Australian and American heavy bombers are bombarding the Jap base at Buna on the north coast of New Guinea, the jumping oif place for the Jap raid. '''It is admitted that the Japanese have advanced eight miles from Kokota and are nec.r the summit of the pass. At the same time they have made their supply problem more difficult. The Japanese have to haul everything up one side of the mountain to meet the NEff GUINEA - 2 the Australians. At the same time they have £Tone through jungj.es which white men consider impassible. Meanwhile, the Japs have be Co me more active \ \ \ around I jir Milne Bay at the southeastern extremity \ x \ of New Guinea. Although they had their ears bent back \ \ \ on their first attempt to land there, they evidently have not abandoned all hope, in that direction. inflation TfrirTTO -4-n ^ t o n—Wd-ay- to -tiwfc'f Congress w44^fc- dump the inflation baby back into A A C_*/YV\X^ the lap of Pres ident\Roosevelt. Thi from none other than Speaker Sam Rayburn of the House of Representatives. Rayburn told reporters that he himself is in favor of such a move. He and Congressman McCormdck of Massachusetts, the Majority Leader^-£n tfrg Hcnreg, were at the White House for more than two hours consulting with Mr. Roosevelt. Rayburn said:- "We are going to try to go along with this thing as fast as possible." Then he added:- "I favor a resolution, couched in general terms, a joint resolution, giving the President authority to stabilize all prices and wages notwithstanding any provision of existing law." Evidently Majority deader McCormick was in agreement, for he remarked that this resolution would include every factor. However, he added that the nature INFLATION^- 2 of the bill under discussion is general and nothing can be said rbout it now. Committee action might take some time, he said, and he added that anything can happen. LTP.1942.09.09i.pdf LTP.1942.09.09ii.pdf