The Charlotte News

Friday, September 11, 1942

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page announces in a delayed report the largest air victory thus far of the war for U. S. Pilots in the Pacific, knocking out 96 Japanese planes on August 24 over Guadalcanal.

The Japanese were attempting now to reinforce their position in preparation for an air and ground attack on Henderson Field via Lunga Ridge, a vulnerable thousand-yard long area defended only by a battalion of 840 men led by Lt-Col. Merritt Edson. The ensuing three-day battle, won by the Allies, became henceforth known as the Battle of Edson’s Ridge. On Saturday night, Major-General Kawaguchi would lead a Japanese battalion against the ridge from the Lunga River below. Fierce fighting, some hand-to-hand, ensued for the next three days until Kawaguchi’s decimated forces retreated, having lost 850 men to 104 Marines killed by the Japanese.

The map explains the relationship of the ridge to the airfield, critical for protection of the supply route to Australia, the primary reason for the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi on August 7.

To secure fully Madagascar, the British once again assaulted the huge island off the east coast of Africa, having taken from the Vichy French the key port on the northern tip of the island, Diego Suarez, in early May, but not yet having secured three other important ports along the west coast of the northern third of Madagascar, Ambanja, Majunga, and Morondava.

The editorial column in "Encore" points out the confusion from those earlier reports of success in May, clearly indicating that all of Madagascar was securely in British hands. While remaining Vichy defenses were weak, obviously until this latest action, some potential resistance remained to Allied shipping which the Allies deemed necessary to remove to insure free access of materials and supplies to the British Eighth Army in Egypt and Libya, about to become two months later the right pincer to Patton’s left pincer to crush and expel from North Africa all of Rommel’s forces.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, as reported the day before, the Bernard Baruch led executive three-man commission on rationing had recommended to the President increased gas rationing and stringent regulations on automobile usage to conserve both gas and rubber, entailing a maximum speed limit of 35 mph nationwide and a maximum range of 5,000 miles per year for ordinary driving. The President was reported as leaning toward implementation of these recommendations.

The hot-rodders of the nation were going to be forced at last for the duration to cool their barreling jets or find satiation of their insatiate need for speed in the now-haunted air spaces over beset Germany and France, the vast expanses of the North African desert, or across the wide, lonely Pacific where no man could land save on the little dots in between here and there.

Charles A. Jonas, the subject of "Welcome Note", was a perennial Republican candidate in North Carolina for various offices. He served in the State Assembly and previously had run for Congress several times, beginning in 1918, winning only one term, in 1928, coincident with the Hoover sweep in North Carolina amid the prejudice generated against Catholic Al Smith. The 1942 race, which he lost, was his last run for public office. His son, Charles R. Jonas, in 1953 became the first Republican to serve in Congress from North Carolina since his father and one other Republican Congressman from the state were both defeated for re-election in 1930. He served for twenty consecutive years. Both were from Lincolnton, about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte.

This just in to our desk here at the Tower: Joe Wilson, Congressman of South Carolina, has declared that the President is the illegitimate son of Strom Thurmond, and, being such, has demanded his resignation for assuming the office of the presidency deluding the voters into believing he was of legitimate parentage.

Later in the day, however, his staff issued a hastily prepared statement apologizing for the erroneous report, stating that it was issued in error, that actually Justice Clarence Thomas is the illegitimate son of Senator Thurmond.

Still later, however, his office was forced to retract this latter statement when informed by reliable news sources that Justice Thomas was appointed by a Republican President in 1991. Congressman Wilson himself then came before the cameras and humbly apologized for the error.

His office then released a statement demanding that the President apologize to all Vietnam veterans for his not serving in the Vietnam War and called the President a "yellow-bellied draft-dodger" for not doing his duty bravely when all the other members of his generation had stood the test of manhood, all of them, with the single expressed exception of Senator Kerry, who was specifically stated by the Congressman to be undeserving of the President's sure to be forthcoming apology, having served their country bravely in its time of need.

But when informed that the President was only 11 years old when the Vietnam War ended, Congressman Wilson quickly retracted the statement and duly apologized, expressing his desire that Senator Kerry instead issue an apology.

He further apologized when credible sources pointed out that he, being of draft age at the inception of the mobilization of American troops to Vietnam in 1965, nevertheless found a way to complete both his college career at Washington & Lee and his law school tenure at the University of South Carolina, taking up a total of seven years uninterrupted by the draft call-up, upon completion of which, he entered the Army Reserve for three years, beginning in the last year of the Vietnam War in 1972.

He has also several times, and profusely so, issued apologies for the necessity of repetitive apologies for false and misleading statements made during his rather apologetic congressional career, but continues to apologize nevertheless. All of his numerous apologies have, we are informed, been accepted.

He has, however, indicated that the next time that the President speaks before the Congress, he intends to cane the President to within an inch of his life, and apologizes in advance for the outburst which he knows will be uncontrollable at the time.

When asked about the cane, he explained that he has to walk with a cane sometimes, though on public occasions he usually eschews its use, despite the pain he regularly otherwise suffers. It derives, his staff informed, from a serious injury received on the intramural kickball team while in law school at the University of South Carolina in 1969; he was distracted momentarily by thought of soldiers suffering at the time in Vietnam while he played kickball, when just then one of the girls on the other team there at the University of South Carolina, taking advantage of his momentary lapse of attention, kicked the ball squarely into his apology. Though doubled over in obvious agony at the time, he did not receive prompt medical attention, shrugging off the debilitating injury, only to discover several weeks later that he was limping, and so must now walk with a cane when not before his public. His staff apologized for the paucity of details on the matter but assured that more apologies and explanations would be forthcoming within the next 24 to 48 hours after the Congressman makes other false and misleading statements.

Ba~Ba~Ba~, eat cake you cony, y con benes suela.

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