April 22, 2016

Oroville Mercury Register, December 17, 1943
Incessant Air Raids By Japanese At Beachhead Toe- Hold Of American Troops Consolidated On Arawe
By Byron C. Taves
United Press Staff Correspondent Allied Headquarters
New Guinea- U. S. Sixth army vanguards, opening an offensive to smash Japan’s “Little pearl harbor” at Rabaul, were reported officially tonight to be consolidating their Arawe beachhead on the south coast of New Britain despite vicious enemy air attacks. Through resistance by enemy ground forces appeared to be collapsing on the southwestern end of New Britain, the Japanese time and again sent waves of planes against American jungle troops, mostly Texans, fanning out from their new beachhead some 250 miles southwest of Rabaul. Allied fighters and anti-aircraft guns successfully repelled each air attack, the report said, but the raids were continuing. An earlier communique disclosed that the American invaders had seized the entire Arawe “coastal section.”

Oroville Mercury Register, December 17, 1943
Late News Bulletins
Washington -(UP0- Army long range bombing planes continued their effort to knock out Japanese air bases in the Marshall Islands with another raid on the enemy airdrome at Wotje, the navy announced today.

Oroville Mercury Register, December 17, 1943
1500 Tons Of Bombs Dropped On Berlin Bremen Attacked By Fortresses In Daylight
Heavy Destruction Admitted By Nazis
London-(UP)- Hundreds of the Raf’s biggest bombers resumed the knockout offensive against Berlin with a 1,500-ton blockbuster assault that spread fire and ruin through the Nazi capital last night, and the German radio revealed today that American Flying Fortresses damaged Bremen heavily in a raid on that port yesterday. The German radio announcement was the first disclosure that Bremen was the target of yesterday’s Fortress raid. The Nazis admitted “heavy destruction” in the big port city, which previously had been pounded six times by the American heavies and more than 100 times by the RAF (British Royal Air Force).

Target Had Been Marked
The great armada that struck at Berlin fought through thick cloud formations that blanketed northwestern Germany, but Pathfinder planes that preceded the raiders laid their target indicators squarely on the capital. Thirty miles from their objective black-winged raiders swung into a path of flares dropped by enemy night fighters and followed those flaming beacons right to the heart of Berlin. Tens of thousands of high explosive and fire bombs hurtled down on the battered city, putting a thunderous end to the 13-day respite Berlin had enjoyed since its last visitation from the RAF. The German Transocean news agency denounced the raid as “a terror attack on a considerable scale.”
(Stu- Whats that Old Tit for tat?)

Center of City Hard Hit
(Stockholm reports broadcast by the BBC said foreign journalist in Berlin had been forbidden to transmit any description of the raid, but private information reaching the Swedish capital indicated the raid had created widespread destruction in the center of the city and the industrial outskirts). Despite the huge flare path laid by the Nazi fighters, many bomber crews reported they failed to see a single enemy plane over Berlin- one of the most heavily defended areas in all Europe. “Weather prevented immediate observation of results,” the air ministry announced in a communique, “but after the attack was over, the pilot of a reconnaissance aircraft reported large fires and smoke rising above the clouds. German propaganda broadcasts referred only to damage to “residential quarters” and said additional details were “not yet available”.

Stu’s Notes:
Big plans are coming together for our new phase of the Veterans Memorial Park. The movers and shakers of this project have come together at various meeting for our net phase of building. We are so excited it is going to be out on our Overlook of our Feather River. You will see a beautiful Wall that hundreds of Tile buyers have long waited for, some 15 years, we’ve sold about 900 Tiles. The wall will be built, among other things. I’m looking forward to see. My hip is fixed by a very good doctor in Paradise of course it will be a long tim before I’m running a race. With the County doing all the plans, and money from Oroville Veterans Memorial Park, the people of Butte County and even further away, we will turn dirt soon. We hope by the end of May.