The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 11

JUNE June 24, 1944 MAY 144 1 2 3 4 5 6 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 IS 1 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 2S 29 30 31 The Pittsburg Press Roving Reporter By Ernie Pyle 1 2 6 4 11 8 15 16' 12 13114 (COPYRIGHT, 1944, by Pittsburgh Press Co. All Rights Reserved.) 18 19i20 21 22 23(24) JILY 1M4 1 2 3 4 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 IS 16 17 18 10 30 21 22 23 24 23 26 27 28 29 30 31 25 26 27128 29 30f BARNEVILLE. Normandy (By Wireless) From tms picturesque little town you can look down upon ine western sea. In the center ot Barneville is a paved court, a sort ol public square except mat it is rectangular instead of square. At one end ot the square an Armv truck was SECOND SECTION PITTSBURGH, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1941 PAGE11 Wind Topples Houses Like Row of Ten Pins Victims RetllM prfiKea.

scattered around the square were a half dozen American soldiers standing in doorways with their rifles readv. There are a few French people on the streets. We went to the far end of the square, where three local French policemen were standing in front of the mayors office. They couldn't speak any English, but they said there was one woman in town who did, and a little boy was sent running for her. Gradually a crowd of eager To Salvage Storm Ruins on a stretcher.

The farmer had captured these guys himseli, and he looked so pleased with himself that I expected him to take a bow at any moment. French people kept coming up and asking us for instructions. A man who looked as if he might be the town banker asked what he was supposed to do with prisoners. We told him to bring them to the truck, and asked how many he had. To our astonishment he said he had 70 in the woods a couple of miles away, 120 in a nearby town, and 40 in another town.

As far as I could figure it out he had captured them all himself. Another worried -looking Frenchman came up. He was a doctor. He said he had 26 badly wounded Germans down at the railroad station and desperately needed medical supplies. He wanted chloroform and sulfa drugs.

We told him we would have some sent. One character in the crowd looked as if he belonged in a novel of Bohemian life on the left bank of Paris. He couldn't possibly have been anything but a poet. He wore loose, floppy clothes that made him look like a woman. His glasses were thick, and hair about a foot long curled around his ears.

I wish you could have seen the expressions of our tough, dirty soldiers when they looked at him. Bau de Ve Is Savage When we finally started away from the crowd, a little old fellow in faded blue overalls ran up and asked us, in sign language, to come to his cafe for a drink. Since we didn't dare violate the spirit of hands-across-the-sea that was then wafting about the town, we had to sacrifice ourselves and accept. So we sat on wooden benches at a long bare table while the little Frenchman puttered and sputtered around. He let two policemen and his own family in, and then took the handle out of the front door so nobody else could get in.

The Germans had drunk up all his stock except for some wine and some eau de vie. In case you don't know, eau de vie is a savage liquid made by boiling barbed wire, soapsuds, watch springs and old tent pegs together. The better brands have a-touch of nitroglycerine for flavor. So the little Frenchman filled our tiny glasses. We raised them, touched glasses all around, and vivied la France all over the place, and good-will-towards-men rang out through the air and tears ran down our cheeks.

In this case, however, the tears were largely induced, by our violent efforts to refrain from clutching at our throats and crying out in anguish. This good-will business is a tough life, and I think every American who connects with a glass of eau de vie should get a Purple Heart. JC as A ft and curious people crushed in upon us, until there must have been 200 of them, from babies to old women. Finally the woman arrived a little dark woman with graying hair, and spectacles, and a big smile Her English was quite good, and we asked her if there were any Germans in the town. She turned and asked the policemen.

Instantly everybody in the crowd started talking at, once. The sound was like that of a machine that increases in speed until its noise drowns out all else. Finally the policemen had to shush the crowd so the woman could answer us. She said there were Germans all around, in the w-oods, but none whatever left in the town. Just then a German stuck, his head out of a nearby second-story window.

Somebody saw him, and an American soldier was dispatched to get him. Barneville is a fortunate place, because not a shell was fired into it by either side. The lieutenant with us told the woman we were glad nobody had been hurt. When she translated this for the crowd, there was much nodding in approval of our good wishes. Couldn't Hove Been Anything But a Poet We must have stood and talked for an hour and a half.

It was a kind of holiday for the local people. They were relieved but still not quite sure the Germans wouldn't be back. They were still under a restraint that wouldn't let them open up riotously. But you could sense from little things that they were glnd to have us. A little French shopkeeper came along with a spool of red.

white and blue ribbon from his sfore. -He cut off pieces about six inches long for all hands, both American and French. In a few minutes everybody was going around with a French tricolor in his buttonhole. Then a ruddy-laced man of middle age, who looked like a gentleman farmer, drove up in one of those one-horse, high-wheeled work carts that the French use. He had a German prisoner in uniform standing behind him, and another one, who was sick, lying Neighbors Gather tc Tell of Experiences By HARRY KLEIX While firemen and Civilian Defense workers still searched through hundreds of homes in the tornado swept area today, the occupants, many of them bandaged and Injured, returned to salvage belongings.

Neighbors gathered on street corners, and some where their homes had been, and told of their experiences during and after the twister had gone on its course. Mrs. Willis Kirkland. who bought a home, seven months ago on the Boston-Greenock Road, saw the tornado coming and herded her husband and daughter, Adora, 9, into the basement. Trees Snapped "I thought I saw awnings saiN ing by my house, but later I saw that they were roofs and shingles and debris from neighbors' houses," she said.

"The trees in front of my home huge poplar trees were shattered like match sticks but they probably protected our house to some extent, for we only had a huge hole torn in the roof and two chimneys knocked down." Across the street from the Kirkland home, eight new houses were demolished, with wreckage blown No Pegler Column No Pegler column was received today from the syndicate which distributes it. hundreds of feet away. Trees were stripped of all leaves and. in some cases, the bark was ripped off. Three Pinned In Wreckage Mrs.

Dorothy Wackerle, 404 French Policy By William Philip Simms Washington Dravosburg, was injured slightly, along with her daughter, Nancy Jean, 2, and her been devastated by flood waters. "First the water and then the wind," was the way one householder put it. LIKE A ROW OF TEN PINS, this group of houses in Washington Street, Dravosburg, toppled over as last night's tornado hit without warning. These houses in times past have father-in-law, James Hornor. For more than half an hour, the three LONDON The storming of Cherbourg, it is felt in American circles here, makes imperative two steps on the part of the United States government First, an understanding among America, Britain and Gen.

De Gaulle. were pinned in the wreckage of their home while firemen and vol unteers worked to free them. "We heard the wind and rain but thought nothing of it," Mrs. Wackerle said. "It wasn't until the plaster started to fall that we be came alarmed, and by that time 9 It it was too late.

The whole house caved in. But we were lucky, com Second, someone at the very lop) either President Roosevelt or Secretary Hull should use it as a peg upon which to hang a clarifying statement of American policy towards France. In a dispatch from Washing-ion, the London Times says. "There has not been and is not vet any clear knowledge in the public mind why the Administration so stubbornly withholds The Economist, on the other hand. although eminently pared to some of the neighbors." Next door to the Wackerle home.

neighbors said several children had been killed. an unpleasant readiness to make political capital out of a military situation. "He has earned by his behavior the stern hostility of many Allied military leaders whereas their support would have been invaluable in persuading Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill to hasten negotiations and modily their intransigeant point of view." The conviction ooth here and inside the liberated areas of France is that the time for equivocation either in Washington or in Algiers is past.

The need" now is for a workable understanding. The situation in France is in the balance. Thus far the reaction of the people has been favorable. But it could go sour very quickly if some of the anti-American vinegar, long reported current in Algiers, were added to the recipe now on trial in Normandy. Americans on this side of the Atlantic welcome the idea of complete co-operation with Gen.

De Gaulle and his committee. Military men from Gen. Eisenhower down most ardently desire that the French take over the burden of civil administration. Need Working Agreement at Top It is also a fact that Gen. De Gaulle's representatives here and those of the United States and Britain have gotten along famously.

What is lacking is a working agreement at the top. This does not entail recognition. It means only a common-sense understanding. Washington must. Frenchmen implore, let the 40 million people of France know its position.

Certainly they do not know it now. Most of them know only one side. The American side never has been fully, frankly and forcefully set forth. Official spokesmen have been afraid of hurting somebody's feelings. Critics of American policy have suffered no such inhibitions.

friendlv to De Gaulle, suggests a reason. "The most plausible it declares, "and the one which commands most respect in this rountrv is that the President fears the dictatorial tendencies of Gen. De Gaulle's regime and is determined to let nothing stand in the way of the French people's freedom to choose their own future government. Behavior Earns Hostility "The reason lor distrusting Gen. De Gaulle's policv needed not be reviewed again.

At a time when thousands of British and American soldiers were being killed on the beaches and fields of Normandy, Gen De Gaulle apparently has been preoccupied with one thing only the status of his administration. He is right to be concerned, but one cannot but admit that the manner of his concern suggests 29 Secrets By Maj. A. P. de Seversky The B-29 should be understood better.

Both its Ttrtues and limitations have significance. I shall therefore devote three dispatches to it. This supcrbombcr has been one of the best kept arrets of the war. This is remarkable because the Dog Sticks With Boy When Dravosburg firemen entered a home on Washington to search the wreckage for victims, they found a pet dog sitting beside its young master, who was injured critically. Patrolman Albert Binkney and Fireman Howard Thorpe carried the child and dog from the building.

Hours later, the dog still sat at his usual place at the rear steps ot the building, the only thing left intact, waiting for his master. All windows in the south side of Dravosburg public school were shattered, sections of the roof were blown off, and two huge brick chimneys were toppled to the street. Resident Escapes to Basement In the Christy Park section, the tornado caused large destruction. Raymond Hodge, w-hose home was badly damaged, said he saw the tornado coming. "I was looking out the window and saw what looked like a dark cloud coming across the hill.

Then I saw awnings and roofs going through the air. I thought I had better do something so I went to the basement," he declared. "By the time I got there, bricks were coming down all around me." East End Flier Killed Over France A Pittsburgh flier was reported today to have been killed over France, while a North Braddock airman, previously listed as missing, is now known to have been made a prisoner in Germany. Mr. and Mrs.

Harry A. Donnelly of 1617 Shady Ave. were notified that their son, Sgt. John Robert Donnelly, had been killed in France June 11. He is also survived by his wife, Mrs.

Matilda P. Donnelly. Sgt. John C. Pierce, son of Mr.

and Mrs. Samuel Pierce of 607 Brindley Way, North Braddock, is now listed as a prisoner. He had been missing since April 24. Channel Guns Fire LONDON, June 24 German long-range guns on the French coast opened fire across the strait late today, firing six shells rapidly and then, after a short interval, two 1, 's -flgKS B-29 and its prototypes have been under construction since 1942. Now that the enemy has felt th stinc of the new bomber with one possibly already in Jap hands the American people should have a closer view of lt- But nothing could be more harmful than to ballyhoo it beyond its merits.

Since complete figures have been made public on the B--4 n-A mnnlnnp? ran well over 300 miles an hour at high altitudes. It made a round trip from Chinese bases to Japan, about 3600 miles. We are told that the B-29 can carry a greater load of explosives than any other airplane in existence. It is fair to deduce that the B-29 can carry at least 10 tons. If the plane's top speed is well over 300 miles an hour, then we can assume it can cruise at 300 miles per hour.

Therefore, in its raid on Japan, the B-29 was in the air roughly 12 hours. Knowing the normal fuel requirements per hour at cruising speed, we can figure out that the trip cost roughly 12 tons in fuel, with perhaps a three-ton margin of safety, or an aggregate of 15 tons. This left five tons as the bomb load potential. The War Department announced in the past that the average operational flight of the Seventh Air Force's B-24 from Hawaii was 2400 miles. Despite the fact that the B-29 has apparently about the same power loading and wing loading as the I Liberator, it has made an operational flight of 3600 miles or half again as long.

It probably is capable of even longer flights with suffcient bomb load to make such operations worth while. The statement to the press, that the B-29 can carry 10 tons of bombs over a distance of 10,000 miles non-stop is greatly exaggerated. Even if we could stretch the flights of the B-29 to 10,000 miles, all that it could carry would be gasoline. Part of the explanation of the superior performance, as it was disclosed, is in the ability of the B-29 to fly at great altitudes. A plane that can carry horsepower into the more rarefied air can fly much faster, due to the reduced resistance of the air.

These refinements are the real secrets about our superbombers, and the means by which they were accomplished is what the enemy would like to know. gled mass of timber, furniture and household effects. Little, if any, can be salvaged. CRAZILY TILTED was this Washington Street house which failed to leave its foundations. The interior was one tan Boys Named Pages be compared.

It is said that the B-29 is roughly half a-ain as large as the Liberator, which weighs 30 tons If the B-29's geometrical proportions are narl" half again as large as those of the B-24, then "from aeronautical practice we can conclude that its weight must be at least double, or roughly 60 lf'nthe aerodynamic factors of the two machines were the same, the carrying capacity, gasoline and bombs, would have about the same relation to cross weicht in both cases that is. a ratio of 1 to 3 The disposable load of the B-29 in that case would be around 20 tons. Since the horsepower of The B-29 is roushlv double that of the Liberator, the B-29 consumes twice as much fuel as the Liberator, and therefore, theoretically its range should be the same. But it has been disclosed that the B-29 flies at Two PittsDurgn ttoys have been appointed pages at the Republican National Convention to convene Monday in Chicago. William Huff, 14, son of Mr.

and Mrs. George F. Huff of 6040 Bryant and Howard Eaton Flood. 17, son of Dr. and Mrs.

Henry C. Flood of 1238 Sheridan were to leave tonight for Chi 'more shells. cago. SIDE GLANCES By Galbraith 6 Eleanor Roosevelt My Day HYDE PPvK N. Y.

(Friday) Last evening In the Committee of Russian War Relief, l4c "held a meeting which seemed to me to be a great success. The patriotic societies and some nnrtinnaj.ed and I was glad to have "I know that there are a number of odd shoe exchanges scattered throughout the country. But they have been poorly publicized and are not known by those who really need them." Many things are going to be needed that were not needed in the past and each time I find something which is a surprise to me, I realize that It is because there are new needs in the world and therefore, I pass them on to you. I jj OFF THE RECORD By Ed Reed the opportunity io mgc yv to do all they can to help the Russian people. Judging bv Eric Johnston, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and his report of his talks in Moscow, the Russians are planning to buy as much from us and more than we will be able to sell them and Mr.

Johnston seems to think that we can mutually benefit each other. The importance of helping out now is that lor iiit- i uum. 0 friendly bonds wnn eacn ouier ana mis can uoi be done bv giving help when help is really needed. Eaiiv this morning, we "left by train and arrived in Poughkeepsie only in time to have a brief lunch and then go to Rhmebeck where I had promised to speak to the League of Women voters. This afternoon, some people are coming to spend the weekend, and so our very quiet country life seems to be rather busy.

I look forward, however, to three nights in the country and the peace and quiet of the countryside. There is a national odd-shoe exchange in St. Louis. Mo. I do not know if this will seem to you as novel an idea as it did to me at first, yet 1 now see how useful and necessary it is.

In writing to me about it, the director. Miss Ruth C. Rubin savs: "This organization is for persons, who, through disease or injury wear shoes of different sizes and persons who, because of amputation weai just one shoe. "Many individuals must buy two pairs of shoes in order to get one properly fitting pair. Not only does this involve a double expense, but presents another problem what to do with the other pair of mismates in order to keep them from going to waste.

A FREAK OF THE STORM was this pole that was projected with devilish accuracy through the windshield of an auto standing on a Boston, lot. No one was in the machine. The brick veneer was blown from the house in the background. 'A two-inch steak smothered in butter is that your order or your post-war plans?" more V-mail for you, Joanie! This looks like different writing you haven't gone back on Jim, have you?".