One Week

MEN AT WAR

Iron Mike. On a raid over Germany a B-24 Liberator was so badly hit by flak that the crew bailed out. Then the empty, staggering bomber perked up, flew a straight and level course for 150 miles, finally crashed off the English coast barely ten miles from her home base.

Four in Hand. A P47 Thunderbolt pilot in Italy fired a long burst at a Messerschmitt 109 over Verona. The enemy's right wing flew off, hit another German plane. Both ships exploded. No one was more surprised than the U.S. pilot when his ship's automatic motion-picture films were run off. Reason: some of his fire had hit two other German aircraft, destroyed them, too.

Featherless Errand. For 18 hours through a howling Italian blizzard a carrier pigeon labored to deliver this message from a snowbound British division to Army headquarters: "Nothing to report."

So Sorry. In the South Pacific a dive-bombing Japanese pilot threw his Zero into a vertical dive, released his time-fused bomb, caught up with it, was blown to bits.

Guard of Honor. London disclosed that some time ago in Italy the R.A.F. high command, on an inspection tour, paused at the end of a makeshift airstrip to watch pilots of the all-Negro U.S. 99th Fighter Squadron take off on a special mission with two 500-lb. bombs loaded under each of their P-40 Warhawks. Just as one plane was off the ground its engine conked out.

The ship crashed 20 yards from the inspection party and skidded into a ditch, scraping the bombs along the rough ground. Among the brass hats who hit the dirt and hugged it were Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham and Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst. Said the philosophical pilot, emerging from the wreckage:

"If those things had gone off, I would have gone to heaven with a lot of high-powered company."

Alone

The Flying Fortress was on instruments in dense cloud over Italy. Tail Gunner James A. Raley, on his thirteenth mission, heard the navigator call out the altitude --19,500 feet. Then the plane jolted, seemed to stop. The intercom went out. Sergeant Raley, hurled into one of the air war's strangest adventures, figured in his lonely section that his plane had collided with another Fortress.

Said he: "The plane shook all over with a terrific tearing sound. The ammunition case and a lot of broken parts were pinning me down. ... I thought it was all over because there was no chance to get out. . . . All I was able to do was blink my eyes but I realized we were going down at a terrific rate of speed and that in a few minutes I would be dead. ... I was praying, too. . . .

"The impact when we struck the ground was cushioned ... I knew we had hit a tree. ... I got the idea I was a dead man. . . . My eyes were closed for a few seconds. When I opened them I could see green vegetation."

He carefully collected candy bars and his shoes, scrambled out, stood openmouthed. Somewhere, beyond his sight, his plane had crashed. But Gunner Raley had been alone for a long time. He had come down by himself in the tail section.

THE ENEMY

Spring Tonic

Three-fourths of the bomb-battered city lay in ruins; 2,000,000 inhabitants were reported homeless; defeatism was rising, though still under control. If ever a city needed help, that city was Berlin. Last week Berlin got it -- after a fashion.

Adolf Hitler appointed Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels President of Berlin with instructions to make the disintegrating capital "the national source of war inspiration." Seventeen years ago, appointed Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels "took" the city for Hitler & Nazis by strong-arm methods.

Deity Preferred

What do hopelessly isolated Japs do when they are attacked?

Detachments of the 22nd Marines invading ten small Marshalls atolls found a total of 67 Jap defenders. On one atoll 37 soldiers fought for a while, wounded three marines before they were killed or blew themselves up.

On another atoll all twelve Japs were dead before the Marines could reach them. On a third there were six Jap civilians. All chose the quick way to Jap heaven by high-powered hara-kiri -- their own hand grenades. Five succeeded. The other only wounded himself, will recover.

But Attitudes Change. The few Japs who have been captured have generally dropped their Goetterdaemmerung attitude after a few days of good treatment. Some have even been willing to try to change their fighting comrades' determination to die when the jig is up. On Bougainville, U.S. soldiers witnessed one such transformation last week.

Said a 24-year-old Jap prisoner: "I want to tell them." A microphone and amplifier were set up. The perspiring Jap boomed earnestly across the jungle lines: "The Americans are kind. Give up the battle before all of you are annihilated." Then the firing resumed. The Japs, bred to believe that godhood comes automatically to those killed in battle, still preferred to die.

BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC

Carriers & Kenney

Chester Nimitz, normally a taciturn admiral, last week issued his longest communique of the war. In 409 subdued words he announced the results of the carrier strike against Palau and other Western Pacific islands on March's last three days:

P: At Palau (possibly a bigger Jap fleet base than Truk), the carriers' pilots hopefully looked for a sizable collection of Jap warships. They found only three destroyers and one other unidentified combat ship, of which they sank three, damaged the other. They also sank 22 cargo ships (including five vital tankers), damaged 16 others, some of which were beached.* In addition the Navy flyers set a record for destroying land installations: 40 buildings, four seaplane hangars, plus warehouses, docks, dumps, a phosphate plant.

P: During the three-day period, three other Western Pacific islands strung out 550 miles behind Palau were battered, their air strips neutralized.

P: The dive bombers and torpedo bombers found none of the steadily withdrawing Jap fleet, but a U.S.-submarine was waiting for a fleeing battleship which was torpedoed but got away. It was the first Jap capital ship encountered since the Battle of Savo Island, 17 months ago.

P: The carriers' Grumman Hellcat fighters knocked out most of the 160 Jap planes destroyed for certain (114 of them in the air) and 49 probables. The Navy lost 25 planes, but its rescue work was so efficient that only 18 airmen (about one out of three shot down) were lost.

Significance. In raiding Palau, Admiral Nimitz had demonstrated that it is possible for many of his 50 aircraft carriers to prowl almost unopposed through 4,500 of the 5,100 miles of blue water between Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. Just when he would strike at the Philippines (perhaps in conjunction with MacArthur's ground forces from the south) only the strategists knew. But this week, on the second anniversary of the fall of Bataan, the time seemed nearer than anybody thought possible a few months ago.

Right and Left. For his prowling carrier raids, Nimitz trusts a wizened little 57-year-old airman, Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher. As commander of the sunken Hornet, Marc Mitscher came out of the oily waters with an unblemished reputation. As supervisor of the Truk raid in February (TIME, March 6), he began to emerge as Nimitz' left arm, the thrower of the sharp jab.

Carrier strikes are, of course, only hit-run raids. Their effects can be remedied unless constant patrol can be maintained over the raided islands which is not yet possible over Palau.

When the time comes to take more territory on the westward march, Nimitz will call upon his right-hand man, brilliant, temperamental Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who throws the knockout punch. Little has been heard of Kelly Turner and his amphibious forces since the Marshall Islands landings ten weeks ago. But correspondents' cables from Pearl Harbor last week hinted that it would not be long before Nimitz' right arm would strike again.

Back to Hollandia. Throughout the Pacific, U.S. forces were still taking a heavy toll of Jap ships and Jap planes. The only place the Japs felt no pinch was the spot where their supply was abundant: in troops. The Japs could turn out fighting men faster than they could build ships and planes, despite Radio Tokyo's feverish pleas for more & more work in the factories and shipyards.

A prime example of Tojo's pinch came last week from the Southwest Pacific. The Japs apparently had given up trying to repair or reinforce battered Wewak on the north coast of New Guinea, which was raided repeatedly last week without even an antiaircraft gun being fired.

Instead, they retired 210 miles westward along the coast to build up Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. Lieut. General George Kenney's reinforced airmen last week struck savagely at Hollandia in the biggest raid of 27 months' Southwest Pacific war. Said Douglas MacArthur: "Of the 288 [Hollandia] planes, all have been demolished or irreparably damaged."

*U.S. Navymen have long had cause to admire the Jap sailors' ability to beach badly damaged ships. At Kiska, Guadalcanal, Tarawa and other bases, invading infantrymen found that the Japs had beached, salvaged cargo from ships before they settled in shallow water.

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