Soldier News continued, 1944

War Beat Him, Governor Dewey Feels

Bainbridge News & Republican, November 16, 1944

Albany, Nov. 6:  Giving evidence of feeling that he was beaten by the war and not the Democrats, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey went back to his desk in New York's historic old State Capitol today to begin a new role as a defeated candidate who remains the titular head of his party.  Although the vanquished Republican presidential  nominee declined public comment on the national election results, his supporters left no doubt that Mr. Dewey believes the single factor which gave Roosevelt a fourth term victory was that a majority of Americans did not want to change administrations while the world battlefronts still are flaming.  Looking relaxed and fresh despite an almost sleepless night of analyzing election returns and talking by telephone to party members all over the nation, the Governor told a news conference in New York City yesterday that he was "very happy over the high confidence" the people had expressed in the state government by returning a solid Republican majority in both houses of the Legislature.

 

Letter from Lt. Anne Meade

Bainbridge News & Republican, November 16, 1944

 

Excerpts from a letter received by Dr. and Mrs. Elliot Danforth from Lt. Anne L. Meade, Army Nurses Corps, serving with the armed forces in France, follows.  Lt. Meade was in charge of the First Aid Department at the Scintilla before entering the service. 

 

"At present we're on detached service with an Evacuation Hospital not foo far from the Siegfried line which is proving a very, very tough proposition for our boys who certainly can take it--they lie on the table, tell us all about it (those who can talk) and all want to know when they can get back to their outfits--the Yank is surely a wonderful soldier, and after seeing places like St. Lo and Cherbourg reduced practically to powder it just doesn't seem possible that any nation would be foolish enough to pick a fight with us again."

 

Letter from S/Sgt William Payne

Bainbridge News & Republican, November 16, 1944

 

Dear Claire,

Just a line to let you know that I am receiving the paper the same as ever, and enjoy it very much.  I have been fairly busy since I last wrote you, but I don't feel as though I am doing much in comparison to the boys on the continent.  I may get over there soon, but one guess is as good as another on that.

 

I have been flying around the country quite a bit and I had an experience a short time ago that might be of interest to all hitchhikers.  I flew from my home base to Ireland on Monday and after a smooth crossing of the Irish Sea, I landed in Ireland about 45 miles from Belfast.  We were above the clouds all of the way over except over the Isle of Man, when the clouds broke away and we had a very good view of the island.  I stayed in Belfast until Wednesday and decided to start back to England as I wanted to report to my home base before going to London on Friday, so due to the Irish weather I didn't dare wait until Thursday.

 

Sgt. Foley of my outfit had joined me in the meantime so I called one base close to Belfast but couldn't get a plane there, so I called the base where I had landed and learned that there was at least one plane to England that afternoon.  When we got there we found two groups of 20 men each on the field so we fell in with one of the groups but learned that the other group was leaving first, so we decided that we were in the wrong bunch and changed.

 

Finally the plane came in and Sgt. Foley and I made a dash for it along with the rest of the group.  No one spoke to us and we didn't say anything to them for fear some one might get wise to the fact that we didn't belong there.  Finally we landed at a base in England quite a distance from our own base but 20 minutes later we had caught another plane and were soon back to the home base where I stayed until Friday morning and left for London where it was necessary for me to stay for several days.  I have hitch-hiked a few times back home but never before by plane.

 

There is one strange thing about all my travels through the British Isles and that is I have never run across anyone that I know.

 

Sincerely, Bill (S/Sgt William Payne)

 

Letter from Winfred Michel in Philippines

Bainbridge News & Republican, November 16, 1944

 

Aboard Coast Guard Assault Transport in Philippines, Oct. 22 (Delayed):  "It was worth a year's pay to watch those tired, happy little people come down out of the hills at Leyte, most of them in tattered rags, with salutes and smiles for their American liberators," crewmen of this Coast Guard-manned assault transport agreed today.  A member of this crew was Coast Guardsman Winfred G. Michel, of 11 Pearl street, Bainbridge. 

 

"They kept saying 'Happy to see Americans!' in their school room English, the first they had spoken after nearly three years of Japanese oppression," the men said.  "We were treated like visiting royalty..  In the joy of these Filipinos, we began to see in a very personal sense what we were fighting for.   "They had suffered cruelly under Jap rule.  They received starvation wages and rations, lost most of their valuables and were subjected to unspeakable humiliations.  Most of them looked very thin and poorly clothed.  But the Army soon had them housed and fed.  All of us gave them food, tobacco and candy."

 

The Coast Guardsmen described how Filipino guerillas came down to the beaches with the civilians to exchange old rifles for modern carbines.  Then they disappeared up the mountain trails, some of them packing hand grenades.  The battle, for them, had just begun.  The Coast Guardsmen related some of the experiences told by the liberated nationals:

 

"A Filipino merchant related the Japanese paid such low wages and charged so much for even such staples as rice, that most of the people were able to afford only one meal a day.  A former Filipino officer, passenger in a small American naval vessel that had been sunk near Leyto at the start of the war, described how he managed to escape detection by staying in the water behind a raft.  Then he swam ashore and joined the guerillas."

 

The Filipinos told their liberators how the Japs used to taunt them by saying the Americans had "deserted" them.  But the happy throng that welcomed the American Troops and sailors said the "fatalistic" Nipponese defenders--some of them among the troops that seized Bataan--fled in terror at the approach of the invasion fleet Oct. 20.

 

They said the history of their own transport symbolized the speed and force with which the Americans returned to the Philippines.  A year ago this month she was finishing trial runs.  Extensive maneuvers followed and on Feb. 1 of this year she participated in her first invasion, in the Marshalls.  Operations in the Bismarck Sea, at Saipan and Palau, brought her to the Philippines at the same time that General MacArthur's forces moved up from the southwest.  She had crossed the Pacific in less than 10 months!  During each invasion, they said, dozens of new ships joined the fleet.  "By the time we got here," they commented, "we had so many ships one couldn't have fired a gun across San Padro Bay without hitting a half dozen of them.  Our battleships and planes made certain there weren't any Jap guns left in those hills to do that!"