Daily Post - 23.06.1943, Blaðsíða 2

DAILYPOST
‘l
DAILY POST
ia published bj
Blaðahringurinn.
Editors: S. Benediktsson.
A. L. Merson.
Otflce: 12, Austursiaræti. Tel.
3715. Reykjavík. Printed by
Alþýðuprentsmiðjan Ltd.
Wednesday, June 23, 1943
■......... —'i
The Press
Reports
Horse Shortage: With the
Army and police drawing on
the same market for horses,
the supply has diminished.
New York’s Police Commission
er Lewis J. Valentine announc-
ed last week that his depart-
ment was twenty-three short
of its normal quota of 359
horses.
Collector: Julius Klorfein, a
New York cigar manufacturer,
startled a bond auction recent-
ly and won Jack Benny’s vio-
lin as a prize by pledging him-
self to buy $1,000,000 in War
Bonds. Last week at a similar
auction Mr. Klorfein, by telep-
honing in his subscription for
an additional $100,000 in
bonds, was able to add to his
collection the autographed
proofs of Wendell Willkie’s
new book “One World.”
Pretzels and Shirts: Miss
Vernet Witham of Elizabeth,
N. J., left her work in an Eliza-
beth shirt factory several
weeks ago to bend pretzels in
a Jersey City plant. Last week,
urged by the War Manpower
Commission to return to the
essential industry, Miss With-
am forsook bretzel-bending
when her former boss promis-
ed a job in which she “could
stand up and move around.”
Total War: Johnny Pocek,
24-year-old Wisconsin farmer,
gets up at 5 A.M., milks
twenty-two cows, drives
twenty miles to a foun’dry six
days a week and works as a
molder, comes home at night
to milk the cows again, works
in the fields with a headlight-
equrpped tractor until 10 or 11
P. M. Last week Johnny ask-
ed his draft board to induct
him. The board ruled he was
more useful as a one-man home
front.
Prisoners Of War
America’s first large-scale experience with prisoners of war
came during the Revolution, when Lieut. Gen. John Burgoyne
and his army of 5,000 fighting men surrendered at Saratoga.
They were marched to Bo-*
ston and later to camps in the
South, where they were treat-
ed so well that many of them
remained as settlers. During
the Civil War about 500,000
men passed through the pri-
sons on both sides of the lines.
Recently Americans in many
areas were again becoming us-
ed to the sight of prisoners of
war. At prison camps through-
out the country the Army is
holding 36,688 prisoners of
war; 22,110 Germans, 14,516
Italians' and sixty-two Japan-
ese.
The enlisted prisoners are liv
ing in standard sixty-man bar-
racks in camps enclosed by
barbed wire and guarded by
by American soldiers. Discip-
line is enforced by their own
noncommissioned officers. The
fprisoners receive 80 cen'ts a
day for a five-day, forty-eight-
hour week, 10 cents of it for
expenditure in the camp can-
teen, the rest to be paid after
the war. These sums must be
repaid by the prisoner’s home
govemment after the war. At
work they wear American
World War I uniforms, dyed
green and with the letters PW
printer in red on the backs of
the coats and seats of the
pants. On Sundays they are al-
lowed to wear their own na-
tion’s military uniforms. The
officer-prisoners, who are not
required to work, live in se-
parate prison camps. In all ca-
ses prisoners receive regular
American Army rations, ehan-
ged, in some instances at the
prisoner’s request, to include
more potatoes and less green
vegetables.
Gites Conditions In
Occupied Lands
New York: Herbert H. Leh-
man, chief of the relief and
rehabilitation administration
of the United States govern-
ment, in a speech here last
week said that the picture in
all countries occupied by Ger-
man and Japan is identical.
Hunger, disease and death
are to be found in every area
in which the people are en-
slaved by the Axis. These oc-
cupied countries, he said, are
breeding place for all the dis-
eases which starvation, poor
sheter, insufficient heat and
clothing bring about. Never be
fore in the history of the world
have any countries been the
victims of such ruthless despoi-
lation as have the countries
now occupied by the Axis po-
wers, They have been systema-
tically drained of resources and
the people have been made to
pay with the very food from
their own mouths.
In consultation with the
Chinese, Soviet and British
governments, the United Stat-
es State Department just
drafted an agreement for Uni-
ted Nations relief and reha-
bilitation administration.
New “Toratny
Only 9
The prisoners in America are
part of a great army of men,
estimated at from 5,000,000 to
7,000,000, living in prison
camps all over the world. Ger-
many, which has estiblished
twenty-one special prison dist-
ricts, each under the command
of a retired World War I gen-
eral, holds the greater number
of these, including 1,500,000
Poles. In every country the pri
soners have been’ put to work,
thus helping solve the manpo-
wer shortages of nations enga-
ged in war.
Washington.—A machine gun
small enough to pack into a
woman’s handbag is the Ar-
my’s latest answer to the need
for a lightweight weapon.
The new gun, described by
Colonel Rene R. Studler as
*
principally a few pieces of tin,
break down into three princi-
pal pieces, none more than a
foot in length. It weighs less
than nine pounds as campared
with the twelve-pound “tom-
my gun.”
‘Conchies’ To
China
In the first World War 4,--
000 conscientious objectors.
denied exemption • from active
military service, Were summa-
rily inducted into the Army.
Not until March, 1918—more
than a year after the nation
had entered the conflict—was-
legislation passed to allow ob-
jectors to serve in noncom-
batant activities. To prevent a
repetition of the experiences
of 1917-18, the present Selec-
tive Service Act, passed in the
Summer of 1940, provided for
the employment of conscienti-
ous objectors in noncombatant
or government-controlled ac-
tivities.
Major Gen. Lewis B. Hershey
announced that seventy con-
scientious objectors would lea-
ve soon for Chungking. They
will aid the sick and assist in
the rehabilitation of China. His
announcement pointed up a
treatment of objectors far dif-
ferent from that of twenty-
five years ago, a treatment in
which they are of use to their -
country.
Hits In Moscow: From Mos-
cow comes word that the cur-
rent motion picture hit is “De-
sert Victory,” British docu-
mentary film of the Eighth
Army’s rout of Rommel in Eg-
ypt and Libya. Thirty-five
thousand civilians a day~ are
seeing it, and high-ranking.
Soviet officers attended a spe—
cial showing.
Gwi” Weighs
Ponnds
Known formally as the M-3-‘
submachine gun, it fires a .45-
caliber catridge and is capable
of firing at a rate of 450 rounds-
a minute.
The War Department re-
ported that the new gun costs-
less than $20, as compared
with about $40 for earlier typ-
es, can be produced more quick:
ly and can maintain its accur-
acy for many thousands o£"
rounds.