Fireside Chats — April 28, 1942 Part Two

The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected by this program.

Some of you will be affected more directly by one or two of these restrictive measures, but all of you will be affected indirectly by all of them.

Are you a businessman, or do you own stock in a business corporation?

Well, your profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation.

Your income will be subject to higher taxes.

Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in excess of ,000 per year after payment of taxes.

Are you a retailer or a wholesaler or a manufacturer or a farmer or a landlord?

Ceilings are being placed on the prices at which you can sell your goods or rent your property.

Do you work for wages?

You will have to forego higher wages for your particular job for the duration of the war.

All of us are used to spending money for things that we want, things, however, which are not absolutely essential.

We will all have to forego that kind of spending.

Because we must put every dime and every dollar we can possibly spare out of our earnings into war bonds and stamps.

Because the demands of the war effort require the rationing of goods of which there is not enough to go around.

Because the stopping of purchases of non-essentials will release thousands of workers who are needed in the war effort.

As I told the Congress yesterday, "sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial.

When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no "sacrifice."

The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood.

The price is not too high.

If you doubt it, ask those millions who live today under the tyranny of Hitlerism.

Ask the workers of France and Norway and the Netherlands, whipped to labor by the lash, whether the stabilization of wages is too great a "sacrifice."

Ask the farmers of Poland and Denmark, of Czechoslovakia and France, looted of their livestock, starving while their own crops are stolen from their land, ask them whether "parity" prices are too great a "sacrifice."

Ask the businessmen of Europe, whose enterprises have been stolen from their owners, whether the limitation of profits and personal incomes is too great a "sacrifice."

Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether the rationing of tires and gasoline and sugar is too great a "sacrifice."

We do not have to ask them.

They have already given us their agonized answers.

This great war effort must be carried through to its victorious conclusion by the indomitable will and determination of the people as one great whole.

It must not be impeded by the faint of heart.

It must not be impeded by those who put their own selfish interests above the interests of the nation.

It must not be impeded by those who pervert honest criticism into falsification of fact.

It must not be impeded by self-styled experts either in economics or military problems who know neither true figures nor geography itself.

It must not be impeded by a few bogus patriots who use the sacred freedom of the press to echo the sentiments of the propagandists in Tokyo and Berlin.

And, above all, it shall not be imperiled by the handful of noisy traitors--betrayers of America, betrayers of Christianity itself-- would-be dictators who in their hearts and souls have yielded to Hitlerism and would have this Republic do likewise.

I shall use all of the executive power that I have to carry out the policy laid down.

If it becomes necessary to ask for any additional legislation in order to attain our objective of preventing a spiral in the cost of living, I shall do so.

I know the American farmer, the American workman, and the American businessman.

I know that they will gladly embrace this economy and equality of sacrifice, satisfied that it is necessary for the most vital and compelling motive in all their lives--winning through to victory.

Never in the memory of man has there been a war in which the courage, the endurance and the loyalty of civilians played so vital a part.

Many thousands of civilians all over the world have been and are being killed or maimed by enemy action.

Indeed, it was the fortitude of the common people of Britain under fire which enabled that island to stand and prevented Hitler from winning the war in 1940. The ruins of London and Coventry and other cities are today the proudest monuments to British heroism.

Our own American civilian population is now relatively safe from such disasters.

And, to an ever-increasing extent, our soldiers, sailors and marines are fighting with great bravery and great skill on far distant fronts to make sure that we shall remain safe.

I should like to tell you one or two stories about the men we have in our armed forces: There is, for example, Dr. Corydon M. Wassell.

He was a missionary, well known for his good works in China.

He is a simple, modest, retiring man, nearly sixty years old, but he entered the service of his country and was commissioned a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy.

Dr. Wassell was assigned to duty in Java caring for wounded officers and men of the cruisers HOUSTON and MARBLEHEAD which had been in heavy action in the Java seas.

When the Japanese advanced across the island, it was decided to evacuate as many as possible of the wounded to Australia.

But about twelve of the men were so badly wounded that they could not be moved.

Dr. Wassell remained with these men, knowing that he would be captured by the enemy.

But he decided to make a last desperate attempt to get the men out of Java.

He asked each of them if he wished to take the chance, and every one agreed.

He first had to get the twelve men to the sea coast--fifty miles away.

To do this, he had to improvise stretchers for the hazardous journey.

The men were suffering severely, but Dr. Wassell kept them alive by his skill, and inspired them by his own courage.

And as the official report said, Dr. Wassell was "almost like a Christ-like shepherd devoted to his flock."

On the sea coast, he embarked the men on a little Dutch ship.

They were bombed, they were machine-gunned by waves of Japanese planes.

Dr. Wassell took virtual command of the ship, and by great skill avoided destruction, hiding in little bays and little inlets.

A few days later, Dr. Wassell and his small flock of wounded men reached Australia safely.

And today Dr. Wassell wears the Navy Cross.

Another story concerns a ship, a ship rather than an individual man.

You may remember the tragic sinking of the submarine, the U. S.

S.

SQUALUS off the New England coast in the summer of 1939. Some of the crew were lost, but others were saved by the speed and the efficiency of the surface rescue crews.

The SQUALUS itself was tediously raised from the bottom of the sea.

She was repaired and put back into commission, and eventually she sailed again under a new name, the U. S.

S.

SAILFISH.

Today, she is a potent and effective unit of our submarine fleet in the Southwest Pacific.

The SAILFISH has covered many thousands of miles in operations in those waters.

She has sunk a Japanese destroyer.

She has torpedoed a Japanese cruiser.

She has made torpedo hits--two of them--on a Japanese aircraft carrier.

Three of the enlisted men of our Navy who went down with the SQUALUS in 1939 and were rescued, are today serving on the same ship, the U. S.

S.

SAILFISH, in this war.

It seems to me that it is heartening to know that the SQUALUS, once given up as lost, rose from the depths to fight for our country in time of peril.

One more story, that I heard only this morning: This is a story of one of our Army Flying Fortresses operating in the Western Pacific.

The pilot of this plane is a modest young man, proud of his crew for one of the toughest fights a bomber has yet experienced.

The bomber departed from its base, as part or a flight of five bombers, to attack Japanese transports that were landing troops against us in the Philippines.

When they had gone about halfway to their destination, one of the motors of this bomber went out of commission.

The young pilot lost contact with the other bombers.

The crew, however, got the motor working, got it going again and the plane proceeded on its mission alone.

By the time it arrived at its target the other four Flying Fortresses had already passed over, had dropped their bombs, and had stirred up the hornets' nest of Japanese "Zero" planes.

Eighteen of these "Zero" fighters attacked our one Flying Fortress.

Despite this mass attack, our plane proceeded on its mission, and dropped all of its bombs on six Japanese transports which were lined up along the docks.

As it turned back on its homeward journey a running fight between the bomber and the eighteen Japanese pursuit planes continued for 75 miles.

Four pursuit planes of the Japs attacked simultaneously at each side.

Four were shot down with the side guns.

During this fight, the bomber's radio operator was killed, the engineer's right hand was shot off, and one gunner was crippled, leaving only one man available to operate both side guns.

Although wounded in one hand, this gunner alternately manned both side guns, bringing down three more Japanese "Zero" planes.

While this was going on, one engine on the American bomber was shot out, one gas tank was hit, the radio was shot off, and the oxygen system was entirely destroyed.

Out of eleven control cables all but four were shot away.

The rear landing wheel was blown off entirely, and the two front wheels were both shot flat.

The fight continued until the remaining Japanese pursuit ships exhausted their ammunition and turned back.

With two engines gone and the plane practically out of control, the American bomber returned to its base after dark and made an emergency landing.

The mission had been accomplished.

The name of that pilot is Captain Hewitt T. Wheless, of the United States Army.

He comes from a place called Menard, Texas--with a population 2,375. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

And I hope that he is listening.

These stories I have told you are not exceptional.

They are typical examples of individual heroism and skill.

As we here at home contemplate our own duties, our own responsibilities, let us think and think hard of the example which is being set for us by our fighting men.

Our soldiers and sailors are members of well disciplined units.

But they are still and forever individuals--free individuals.

They are farmers, and workers, businessmen, professional men, artists, clerks.

They are the United States of America.

That is why they fight.

We too are the United States of America.

That is why we must work and sacrifice.

It is for them.

It is for us.

It is for victory.

September 7, 1942.