L4.LL-”-SiJN0C0i_TCDNISDAIA»AUGUST_12x.1242. / GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: The Yanks in France again. I suppose you have heard some of the story. About that commando raid, the biggest yet, with our men in it? Well,, the story is still coming in, telling us more about how a superbly trained commando landed at Dieppe on the coast of Britanny, landed with not only men and guns, but with tanks. And with the British this time were not only Canadian commando troops, but also a force of America "rangers."\ Which apparently is to be our equivalent of the British term commando. In our French ahd Indians wars before the Revolution, one Captain Bob Rogers of Massachusetts was LEAD - 2 a doughty leader. He organized a force of sharpshooting, hardy, swift-moving fighters who played havoc in those wars, especially in the campaigns around Lake George, New York. As the college song says about Lord Jeffrey Amherst: "To the Frenchmen and the Indians he didn*t do a thing, in the wilds of this wild countree." That force became xfk known as Pogers’s Rangers. They were the * commandos of the French and Indian wars. From all accounts, our Rangers of Nineteen Forty-Two, are justcw rough, and tough as their forebears w&v-Q at Lake George. F.very Ranger iS a volunteer &i*cf For everyone who—'id' chosen, dozens are rejected. Ihey ion are picked not only for brawn and daring, but aiso^brains f . p ✓ L\J who and comm oil sense. Every man laclc -o-f-thom went into action A /\ A A on the coast of Normandie today, had been drilled and rehearsed for weeks. They know how to&S^not only with rifle, machine gun and bayonet but if necessary with their LEAD - 3 bare hands, how to throttle a Nazi; how to make sure of taking prisoners. How to wriggle through barb wire and thick undergrowth; climb up and down perpendicular cliffs, march a hundred miles in two days with little or no rest and scanty rations. Our owh men trained like that took part in today's commando descent upon the one-time pleasant harbor and seaside resort at Dieppe. The Canadian commandos in the show had been in training for almost two years and so played a great part in the proceedings. While the battle was going on, two squadrons of high altitude, flying fortresses, escorted by British and Canadian fighter squads, carried out carefully planned raid on Abbeville at the »ouU of the River Somme northeast of Dieppe- You may recall that name fro. the harro.inj days of June, Nineteen forty, when France was overrun. At that time, while the main LEAD - 4 battle still raged in Picardy, Abbeville r»an taken by one lone heavily armed Nazi motorcycle trooper. Today, the Nazis have one of their key air bases at Abbeville. It was known to the Royal Air Force as a regular hornets nest of the best German pilots and planes. The Yankee bomber squads had fine weather for their raid. They used the now celebrated Norden bombsight, laying down innumerable bullseye hits on the runways, buildings, and other parts of that air base. As one observer put it;- "We didn't waste a bomb." ihe strategy of course was to prevent the dazis at Abbeville . from joining in the defense of nearby Dieppe. As for the attack on Dieppe itself, it still was going on in the middle of the afternoon, that is ten or eleven A.M., this morning, Eastern War Time over here. But by then, the British, Canadians and Americans were beginning to withdraw. They had done what they LEAD - 5 set out to do.i They completely destroyed a huge Nazi battery of six inch coast defense guns, a radio station an anti-aircraft battery, and a vast munitions dump. They were speedily attacked by the Germans, who announ that they had started counter-attacks and inflicted several hundred casualties on the Allies. red The British, Canadians and Americans were on that low, flat coast for a total of nine hours. By the time the last man was withdrawn, the entire operation had been completely effective and in accord with the plans of the British and American high command. Berlin claims that the Nazis took more than a thousand Allied prisoners. 'Though the :^azi claims, as usual, are extravagant, the London official communique sfxthRX concerning the withdrawal warns us that we are likely to learn that the casualties on our side were LEAD - 6 The fighting during every minute of those nine hours was, in official language, "very fierce." No fewer than ninety-five Allied planes were reported missing. Those that attacked Abbeville all returned safely. Of those that accompanied the attack on Dieppe, twenty-one fighter pilots made safe landings, although their planes were lost. Ninety-five planes! That is heavy. And it shows how terrific must have been the battle for control of the skies over Dieppe. Not since the critical days of the Battle of Britain in Nineteen Forty, has the Royal Air Force suffered such losses. On the other hand, the Allies know positively that they destroyed eighty-two German planes, in addition to several shot down by British warships. It is estimated that probably a hundred more German planes were either destroyed or disabled. Which LEAD - 7 would make it a two to one air-victory for the Allies. Apparently it wa? the greatest air battle over western Europe in two years. The Nazi-controlled Paris radio boasts that all the tanks carried by the commandos were destroyed. And, the Allied high command -admits that some tanks were lost during the action. This was the first time the British and Americans had used their new tank landing ships. We are not told how strong the force was. But a Nazi communique says it was of the strength of a division. Meaning anywhere from twelve to fifteen thousand commando troops. The British declare that outside of the heavy losses inflicted on the enemy, one benefit of the raid was the vital experience the Allies gained in the handling of substantial numbers LEAD - 3 of troop? in ?n attack of this type, also in the transport anci use ol heavy equipment during combined operations. The Nazi official News Agency pretends to think this the beginning of a real attempt at invasion, the long looked for second front. But the British issued warnings to the French, saying it was in no sense an invasion. But, it was the largest land operation, by the British, on the continent of Furope, since Dunkirk. Landed by the Boyal Navy. It went off almost like clockwork. The commandos landed at every point selected. In some places they met heavy resistance; but, they landed anyway. One party was repelled at first, but reformed, rushed back into action, and carried the beach by assault British, Canadians and Americans swarming over the strong defenses that Hitler s men have built against a LEAD - 9 second front. The noise of the battle was heard all the way across the channel to Folkstone. Windows in hotels and houses along the English coast shook, and even the ground vibrated.' the news created a sensation throughout Britain, particularly because it came off so soon after Churchill^ conference with btalin. Yes, and there was a Free French contingent in on the expedition. The British radio had warned the French people along the coast not to take any part in the lighting, as they would surely be punished. All the time the British radio kept warning them it was not an invasion. Nevertheless, many of them did pitch in ana grasp the opportunity of killing a Nazi or two regardless of the danger of reprisals. LEAD - 10 Military men over here believe that a repetition of this kind of raid may offer an equivalent to a second front. With each succeeding attack having a different pattern; to keep the Nazis jittery. The experts of the German general staff had pronounced the Dieppe defenses complete and perfect. They were manned by two Nazi S.S. divisions, who had only recently been sent there from the Bussian front The Nazis are making their final drive for Stalingrad^ That is the way the official newspaper of the Soviet Army puts it. The Russians counter­ attacked at the two main approaches to the great city on the Volga, but the Germans pushed them back. Today the Nazis threw fresh masses of troops, tanks and planes into an all-out effort. We do not quite know what the Red Army newspaper means by saying it is the final drive. At any rate, both sides report the fighting is extraordinarily heavy. The Nazis admit that, the Russians have been attacking in great force all along that eighteen- hund red-mile line. NAVY A small bit oi goo a news jrom Aleutian waters! One of oui submarines has bagged ^ Japanese warship. It was done in foggy weather, so the submarine commander was unable to tell for certain whether the enemy vessel sunk was a cruiser or destroyer. At any rate, it was the ninth Jap raan-o-war hit by our submarines in that area since the Japs moved in. The affair happened in western Aleutian waters, which probably means near Kiska. HENBY_J^_TAYLOR War Correspondent and Author Henry Taylor, who wrote that best-seller "TIME RUNS OUT", and who took my place on the air one night last spring, has made a hurried trip half way across the world and back. He flew to South America, then jumped the Atlantic to Africa, and on to the Near East, as far as the Golden Horn. While in French Equatorial Africa a vicious anopheles, a particularly visious one, a species that carries the most malignant iorm of malaria, bit Harry, and he almost died. Hov*ever, on a beading roll, in the tail of a tr an s - At lant ic plane, half delirious, he was brought back across the Atlantic, But 1 e r.as come out of his delirium suiiiciently to tell us a little about his trip. Harry, I understand that you have both good » news and bad news. Well, tell us the bad news first. What's the situation in North Africa, over that front where you flew with your Free French pilot? news, Lowell, is this: "Rommel’s advance turned out to be a pushover. When he attacked the British he was all set to suffer heavy losses at Tobruk, ready to lose up to twenty thousand men. He hoped to take Tobruk, and that was to be the first piase of ihE his campaign. Then his idea was to reorganize the place, and make it his new supply base, and rush more munitions and men across from Greece But, Tobruk fell in his lapin twelve hours. And he lost virtually no men at all. Finding the British Eighth Army in retreat, Rommel pushed on and on, much farther than he had intended to go. Finally Auchinleck stopped him almost at the gates to Alexandria And, that’s not a good position for the British at all, because any break-through that the Nazis now maKe is likely to mean.the fall of Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal. It was to be hoped that Auchinleck would counter-attack. But 'e hasn't, and time is running out. . 3 Churchill, as you announced last night, has reshuffled niS coamand in Egypt, and that may help things. When I was there a lew days ago the situation looked pretty desperate in Egypt. And if Rommel should smash through in the Valley of the Nile, the United Nations would face an Egyptian Dunkirk, and possibly vast disaster in the .'iiddle East. --- 0 --- That doesn1! sound cheerful, Harry. But things change quickly in this war. Maybe they have changed for the better in the very brief time since you flew back from Africa. Here*s hoping Sir Henry Alexander will get the jump on Rommel and take the offensive away from him. But how aboyt your good news, Harry? We can do with a little of that. HJT;- It's this. Turkey is not going to join Hitler. The Turks will either stay out -- that's what they HJT - 4 want to uo or they will join us in fighting the Nazis. Their George Washington, &hd great national <*ero, hemal Ataturk, said to them over and over: B eware the St range and Treacherous GeriIians., w The Germans treated them badly in the last war. And since hemal died, the actions of the Germans have convinced them that he was right. By the way, your old friend, Lawrence of Arabia, called the Turks the greatest National fighters in the world. And, if they do get mixed up in this war, the Turkish Army will amaze the world. --- 0 --- That is indeed good news, Barry. And here’s hoping you don’t get too many more attacks of that malignant malaria you picked up in Eauat^oial Africa. SINKING A Nazi surface raider is now at large in the Atlantic. The report comes from a New England port. An American freighter was at sea on a calm night in the South Atlantic. Suddenly she was attacked from three sides at once. The attacking vessel was a nine thousand ton ship and with her were two torpedo boats. They came on in a pincers movement and sent the American ship to the bottom in half an hour. Fifteen or sixteen men were killed, and most of the crew wounded was captured. The story came from wounded survivors who were landed somewhere on West Africa and just brought home. POLITICS^ j *’hht ha ' ened on the Brooklyn political fmnt today? /ell, the Convention opened Voday Aith Governor Lehman as temporary chairman, making the keynote speech, attacking those who straddled defense before Pearl Harbor as well as those who obstructed national preparedness or were afraid to speak up. The implication was clear. Then the convention took a recess until tomorrow. Some observers believe the delay will afford Senator Meadfs managers time and opportunity to work on the Bennett delegates and try to wean them away. But Benfiett leaders declare^ itafc A. that so far they have stood like the rock of Gibraltar,