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Michael's Modern Blog
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A breezy review of current events, updated twice weekly
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Sunday, December 24, 1944
MERRY CHRISTMAS. I’m taking my usual break for the holiday season. Blogging will resume in two weeks or so. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and above all please keep our brave men on Leyte and in the Ardennes in your thoughts and prayers during the holidays.
. . .
THE GERMANS ARE STILL ADVANCING. The Associated Press says this morning that Nazi units have reached Libramont, only 23 miles northeast of the historic French city of Sedan. Of the many things we should be praying for on this Christmas Eve, one is the French in this region might be spared the humiliation and unspeakable horror of a second German occupation. May such a terrible thing not come to pass. But the German breakthrough is claiming town after town in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg -- Stavelot and St. Vith are the latest to fall. What the A.P. calls "masses of German armor" continue to push American troops back inside the ballooning salient. The Germans themselves are claiming the "annihilation or decimation" of seven U.S. divisions, but time will tell how much truth there is to that.
There are some heartening developments. The stormy skies have cleared throughout the battlefront, allowing the world’s mightiest air force to turn its full power against the enemy. We’ve flown more than 4,500 sorties against the German invasion columns in the last 24 hours, and our air superiority bodes well for the future of this battle. Even better, U.S. relief columns led by General Patton are hammering at the southern flank of the Nazi attack. The Germans themselves say Patton’s attack is "fierce" and that he’s "succeeded in slowing" the main advance. Yesterday’s and today’s reports seem to indicate that the biggest battles are now taking place on the flanks of the Nazi drive.
Some lousy Christmas present. Not too many weeks ago we could hope that the European war would be over by this Christmas. Now, it’s apparent from this new Nazi offensive and the bitter campaigning in the Philippines that there are many tough battles yet to go. Maybe, just maybe, by next Christmas the end will truly be in sight.
. . .
THE BATTLING IRISH. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Manhattan, the Smiling Irishman, a German-American used-car dealer, lost a legal battle over trade-name violation to the Laughing Irishman, an Italian-American used-car dealer, launched a fresh complaint against an Irish-American used-car dealer, the Happy Irishman."
. . .
Tuesday, December 19, 1944
IT’S A FULL-SCALE NAZI OFFENSIVE! The newspaper reports and the radio bulletins make it clear this morning -- the German drive against the First Army is no local counter-attack. Nazi units in the Ardennes have pushed 18 miles into Belgium and are hitting U.S. positions with infantry, tanks, planes, paratroops, artillery, robots, rockets, everything they’ve got. This morning’s Associated Press report calls it "the great German counteroffensive" and "an attempted breakthrough." A.P. correspondent William F. Boni calls it "the most serious setback to American arms on this side of the world since Kasserine Pass in Tunisia." One radio report said today that the fury of the Nazi assault is ongoing, and in the first three days since this new offensive began over the week-end, the Germans have pushed First Army troops back over 20 miles. It appears to be taking place on a 70-mile front in portions of Belgium and Luxembourg, roughly from Monschau in the north to Echternach in the south.
George Connery of the Washington Post says the Germans "found a spot where American strength was spread thin. Nothing could prevent them from overrunning advanced American positions and pocketing troops." Drew Middleton of the New York Times says the situation is "if not critical, at least potentially dangerous."
Despite all this, Mr. Connery cites War Department spokesmen as suggesting that it would be playing into the enemy’s hands to give any "undue attention" to the German offensive. They contend that one of the big reasons for the attack is symbolic, "to have some ‘good news’ of an offensive to cheer up the German public over the holidays." There’s "no cause for alarm," the War Department says, and if the press and public overreact to this offensive, it would be playing right into Nazi hands.
Point noted. But I am worried, not just about what’s being reported so far, but what’s not being reported. The A.P. dispatches on the offensive so far have been full of phrases like "savage fighting," "bloody fighting," "heavy casualties on both sides," etc., and obviously the Allied high command is censoring a lot of hard information out of these reports. As long as we’re hearing things from reporters like, "The situation remained fluid and obscure," and the brass hats maintain a blackout on specific developments, people and the press will be giving this grim news lots of "undue attention."
. . .
WHY? AND WHY NOW? The editors of the New York Times offer an explanation today, which if true indicates that the eruption in the Ardennes could turn out to be the most important battle the Allies will fight in Europe --
"According to the front dispatches, it is generally believed that Field Marshal von Rundstedt has thrown into this offensive all his strategic reserves. If that is true, the present German offensive would greatly resemble the final offensives of launched by Ludendorff in 1918 -- a last bid for a showdown and either victory or at least a definite stalemate opening the way for a compromise peace. And if that is the case, then the present battle could easily become the decisive battle of the war. From that point of view, assuming that the Allies have enough resources at hand to cope with the situation, it might be even welcomed. For it should prove easier to crush the German armies in outright battle in the open field than to eliminate them piecemeal within the intricate mazes of the Westwall. And if Rundstedt loses his last fling, both the penetration of the Westwall and final victory should be much nearer at hand. But this outcome still depends on a lot of 'ifs'. . . . Previous reports have suggested that the quiescence along most of the eastern front has prompted the Germans to transfer forces from the east to the west. And this raises the question as to whether they might not have succeeded in building up their strength in the west to a point where they can challenge the Allies with at least a chance of success. There is no reason, therefore, to take the German offensive lightly."
. . .
FIRE-FIGHTING MADE EASY. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Charlotte, N.C., a husky fireman, responding to a three-alarm blaze, found smoke pouring from a parked truck in midtown, raised the hood, saw flames around the carburetor, bent over, blew out the blaze."
. . .
Sunday, December 17, 1944
THE GERMANS COUNTER-ATTACK. This morning’s papers say Nazi troops and tanks are striking back against the First Army on a 70-mile front between Duren and Trier, with heavy fighting reported in the Ardennes Forest. Apparently, says the Associated Press, the Germans are trying to relieve Allied pressure on the Duren sector by hitting U.S. troops at a relatively quiet portion of the front. The A.P. dispatch notes that the mountain forests of the Ardennes are the spot where the Wehrmacht achieved its smashing breakthrough in the blitzkrieg against France four-and-a-half years ago. Of course, the balance of power between the Allies and the Germans has radically shifted since then and there’s nothing to indicate from this A.P. report that Hitler’s forces are trying to do anything resembling their 1940 offensive.
Today’s dispatch does note that the German armored units are striking elsewhere along the front -- against the Ninth Army north of Lindern, and against the Seventh Army, which has been driving into the Reich’s industrial Palatinate. Notably as well, the enemy launched a thunderous artillery barrage along a 200-mile stretch of the front which rained up to 250 shells an hour on General Patton’s Third Army troops in the Saar, and 100 shells an hour on some First Army sectors. No doubt Hitler is trying to show his once-marauding legions have some bite left in them, but it’s difficult to see what they can really achieve with this show of force other than to slow the lumbering, but persistent, Allied advance in the West for a day or two at most.
. . .
VICTORIES IN THE PHILIPPINES. Plainly the Japanese gamble -- to contest the U.S. invasion of the Philippines at just about any cost -- is turning into a huge failure. First, a new U.S. landing on Leyte at Ormoc beat a Japanese convoy of reinforcements and outflanked the stubborn enemy defenders on the island. And now, the Yanks have followed up their Leyte success with a new invasion, this time of Mindoro Island. Mindoro is on the western side of the Philippine archipelago, about 130 miles from Manila. According to General MacArthur, U.S. forces charged nine miles forward on their first day, in the face of "negligible opposition."
These latest moves hold promise that, however long Tokyo manages to slow the dissolution of its ill-gotten empire, that dissolution is a sure thing in the end. Our Marines and our Navy have more of everything than the Japanese can now manage to array against them in the island battles, and the U.S. command has the ability to wipe out static Japanese defenses with flexible campaigns against the enemy’s flanks and rear. According to Time magazine’s account, the brave attack on Ornoc thwarted a Japanese plan to break the U.S. on Leyte through aerial landings on U.S. airfields, using Ornoc as a supply base. Once again, our superiority in resources and bold leadership put Tokyo’s troops on their tails.
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BABY’S CHRISTMAS WISH. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Manhattan, Linda Lanham, 2, met her first department-store Santa Claus, thought hard about what he should bring her for Christmas, solemnly said, 'Cigarets.'"
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Tuesday, December 12, 1944
MORE HINTS OF A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE WEST. Or maybe that should read, "mere hints." After four weeks of General Eisenhower’s six-army offensive against the German Westwall, we’re once again getting hints all over the papers that the Nazi defense line is just about, nearly, almost, right on the verge of giving way. The Associated Press dispatch from Saturday tells us that "the ease with which the U.S. First Army captured two heights near the Roer River indicated the Germans may realize their days on the west bank are over and are withdrawing." Today, as well, the A.P. says German troops are "withdrawing from numerous sectors along the Western Front", after repeated pounding along a 60-mile stretch by the U.S. Third and Seventh armies. Look up and down today’s dispatch and you see things like "signs of German weakening" every other paragraph or so.
I hope this portends an Allied breakthrough. But then you see things like an A.P. map from last Friday, which shows all of the Western Front progress since the Allied offensive began a month ago. It still isn’t that much. The greatest gains have been in the south, where Third Army and Seventh Army troops have liberated much of Alsace and Lorraine and taken the battle to the German cities of Saarbrucken and Strasbourg. The greatest single Allied penetration is about 40 miles. And in the north, Ninth Army troops, along with British and Canadian forces, are about fifteen miles closer to Cologne and Dusseldorf than they were. That’s all.
And that’s the result of valiant fighting by our troops. But it isn’t anywhere close to matching the expectations created in the press when this offensive again. At that time, the Allied high command said they were still seeking to end the war in Europe this year. Plainly that hasn’t happened, and we are now locked in a long, nasty battle of attrition, as we were in Italy at Cassino and Anzio.
I think we can reasonably now expect a continued slow, steady Allied push into Germany until sometime this winter, followed by an abrupt disintegration of Nazi armies. Note what an A.P. dispatch from Saturday has to say in this regard.
"The supreme command, surveying the first three weeks of the offensive ended November 30, claimed destruction of the equivalent of 17 German divisions, a rate of attrition which in theory would destroy the enemy’s whole front line army well before the end of winter."
But the A.P. notes that "Allied losses, too, were declared to be heavy." Can we keep up this offensive long enough through the winter to finally break our bitter enemy before springtime?
. . .
TO THE RESCUE! From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Denver, Hyman Meyers, trying to release his two-year-old grandson from a locked bathroom, tore the knob off the door, ran outside, chucked a rock through a window, clambered into the wrong room, climbed out, tossed another brick, made it, tugged off the rest of the knob on the bathroom door, had to be rescued by the police."
. . .
Sunday, December 10, 1944
THE REASONS FOR THE CRISIS IN GREECE (AND ELSEWHERE). The crisis in liberated Europe seems grimmer by the day, with the latest shock being the bitter street battle in Athens between Greek government troops and their British backers on the one side, and the leftist partisan army ELAS on the other. This is, of course, only the most extreme example of unrest in the liberated lands. There’s a school of thought that wants to blame the British for all of this, and you can get a summary of that line of thought from Marquis Childs, who wrote in his column Friday --
"The story is the same almost everywhere you look. ‘Civil war in Greece,’ says the headline. ‘Riots in Belgium!’ ‘Cabinet crisis in Italy!’ Winston Churchill and the clique around him want to believe that you can put a little paint and a little varnish on the old order and prop it up in place again. It won’t prop. That’s the meaning of the news out of Brussels and Athens. It’s quite possible, it seems to me, that the British people themselves will rise up against this kind of folly. The shooting of unarmed women and children is not the kind of thing that sits well on the sober British conscience, particularly when ‘order was restored’ only thanks to British tanks and infantrymen. But the people, both British and Americans, have been told so little about the intentions and the objectives of Allied policy. Apparently, the British would like to put a discredited King back on the throne of Greece. . . . But the Greeks have suffered too much to tolerate anything like that. They are a proud, free people and they’ve looked death and destruction square in the face. That is the catch in restoring any exile government. The exiled Poles, Greeks, Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians have sat in comparative security in London. They can have no idea of what the trial by torture under Nazi occupation has meant. So when they return, with the best of intentions, they must bridge an almost impossible gap of understanding."
Yes, in many of the liberated nations you see a gulf between indigenous partisans and the governments-in-exile. But Mr. Childs wildly exaggerates the importance of this. Walter Lippmann pointed out in his New York Herald Tribune column yesterday a far more critical factor in the unrest --
"Before our landing in North Africa we assumed, more or less unconsciously, that when our armies liberated an occupied country they could bring with them at once the supplies to raise the people’s standard of life and to rehabilitate their national economy. If this had been possible, the task of governing a newly liberated country would have been fairly simple. Our armies, and the returning governments-in-exile, would have come bringing both freedom and plenty. Under these conditions there would have been little likelihood of acute conflict between the peoples at home and their governments from abroad, and the influence of the British and American liberators and benefactors would not have been seriously questioned. [But] we have been unable to bring plenty as well as freedom. This is because the demands of the German and the Japanese wars upon our shipping are greater than we anticipated, and because the German strategy of wrecking the ports, railways, and power plants has been devilishly ingenious and effective. So the problem of governing the liberated countries is fundamentally different from what we assumed it would be when we first formed our policy."
In other words, it is the war. And the war goes on. And it is also the efforts by leftist groups, such as EAM/ELAS in Greece, to exploit the dire economic situation in the liberated lands for political gain. I believe that ultimately the British want to allow Greeks to choose their own government, but must set up a governing apparatus with what they have at hand. The EAM’s answer is to demand power, and right now, and every other consideration be damned. And their armed wing, the ELAS, was willing to fight a battle in Athens, and kill 600 Greek police, for that goal. The British might not be opposing them with finesse, but oppose them they must.
As Mr. Churchill says, "Democracy is not a harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a tommy gun."
. . .
THE KEY TO WEALTH. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In St. Louis, Louis Druzinsky, St. Louis Symphony violinist, donned old clothes and dark glasses, fiddled Paganini and Tchaikovsky at a street corner, collected $5.98 in his tin cup in 25 minutes, philosophized: 'I ought to quit the Symphony. I can make more money this way.'"
. . .
Tuesday, December 5, 1944
SLOW PROGRESS ON THE WESTERN FRONT... You can see it in the wording of today’s A.P. dispatches. The First Army "rolled back the Roer defenses a mile or more." The Third Army "drove forward today more than two miles," and that’s as good as it gets. The linchpin German city of Saarlauern in the Saar Basin has been "deeply penetrated" by General Patton’s men, while farther north other U.S. troops "drove into the outlying part" of Julich, a strategic city on the Cologne Plain. The A.P.’s Edward Kennedy summarizes the Cologne Plain battle in terms that recall Cassino, Anzio and Arnhem -- "Gains of yards were bought at a high cost of American blood in the giant battle of attrition that was entering its 18th day."
The Germans could crumble at any time, and U.S. and British forces could stage the kind of breakout along the Reich’s western border that they did in Italy this past May, or in Normandy this past August. But there’s no sign that it’s happening yet. As each day passes without a breakthrough, it becomes more and more likely we will be fighting Germany for quite some time in 1945.
. . .
...WHILE THE NAZIS WORK ON AN "ATOMIC BOMB". If you saw last week’s issue of Time magazine, you know one big reason why Hitler’s Germany needs to be extinguished before 1945, if at all possible. An article tucked away in the Science section described Nazi work on an "atomic bomb" that could comprise a dreaded V-3 project --
"The terrible novelty of V-2 had by no means worn off yet, but London last week was already abuzz with speculation about V-3 -- supposedly an atomic bomb. Allied bombers renewed their attentions to Rjukan, Norway, the site of a heavy-water plant which the Nazis have recently rebuilt after its destruction by the R.A.F. and Norwegian patriots last year. Meanwhile, British censors passed a London dispatch giving the most circumstantial account to date of atomic bomb possibilities."
Time reports that the Nazis "may have discovered an entirely new approach to atomic explosives," and might able to field in atomic weapon whose "explosion, though not far-reaching in area, would develop unheard-of violence at the point of impact."
War censorship has pretty much halted reporting on atomic experiments, but I wonder whether this "London dispatch" has anything to do with the thinking behind the Allies’ current offensive. A month or so ago it looked like the Western Front was going to quiet down until 1945, and then, abruptly, came this latest six-army attack. I hope that this atomic-bomb talk is just a coincidence, but I’m worried that it’s not. In any case, it makes the outcome of our offensive more critical than ever.
Repeat after me: We have to destroy Hitler as quickly as possible. With whatever it takes.
. . .
THE SADDEST OF SACKS. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "At Fort Lewis, Wash., Pfc. Sol Katz, back from leave in The Bronx, reported that he had lost his watch when a jewelry repair store was robbed, his uniform when the cleaners burned down, one of his medals to a thief on the train, his garrison cap, which he left in the baggage rack; found that he had returned from furlough a day early."
. . .
Sunday, December 3, 1944
TURMOIL IN EUROPE’S LIBERATED LANDS. The news today of a general strike and a open gun battle in Athens, prompted by armed militia of the leftist group EAM, is bad enough to make a cynic wonder if liberation from the Nazis is really worth the effort. It is, of course, and as John MacCormac writes in today’s New York Times, what we’re seeing now in the newly-freed nations of the continent is an echo of what happened after 1918 --
"Strikes, riots, and continuing political unrest in Belgium this week, despite intervention by the Allied Supreme Command in the interests of order, indicate that the revolutionary phase of this war has begun even before the war itself has been ended. The symptoms have by no means been confined to Belgium. In France the de Gaulle government has been passing through similar teething troubles. Greece is still tossing restlessly in the cradle of its new freedom, and the prospects for a facile restoration of civil authority in the liberated Netherlands are not too hopeful. Italy is having great difficulty in achieving a new political synthesis. In Bulgaria and Rumania the political ferment is throwing new governments to the top in quick succession. Europe, in other words, is having trouble finding her feet again as the tides of war recede, leaving her people clinging to the rock of nationalism, but with many other holdfasts and landmarks swept away. That the joy of liberation should be intermixed with the pangs of reconstruction is not surprising. In this respect history is repeating itself, and the symptoms are at least milder than the last time. World War I produced a revolution and five years of civil war in Russia. In Hungary it brought the short-lived Communist regime of Bela Kun; in Italy the syndicalist manifestations that culminated in the Fascist counter revolution sprang up."
Mr. MacCormac points out that many of the reasons for the unrest in 1918 and now are "pretty much the same" --
"Now, as then, a gulf separates those who have physically experienced the agonies of the foe’s conquest and the high excitements of war from those who have not. The Ministers of the governments in exile remember their countries as their countries when they fled them. Their connections are with those who mattered most in industrial, financial and administrative affairs at that time. While they have been away, country and people have changed. Tried in the slow fire of conquest, many who had been revered as leaders revealed themselves as collaborators. To the men of the governments in exile the pre-war status quo is the romantic past, but to the men of resistance who have known the humiliation and hardship and torture, it is the social order that allowed such things to come about, and this it must be ended. Being young men who have thrilled to a life of adventure, they have a human reluctance to beat their swords into dinner pails and to begin a humdrum search for work, more especially as neither work nor dinner is easily to be had."
I think that’s a little too melodramatic -- wouldn’t most working men who’ve had the fight the Nazis for years against terrible odds be glad to live a "humdrum" life for a change? But that does touch upon one element of the current situation in Europe that’s different from the post-1918 era, and that’s the influence of far-leftist and Communist groups in these disputes. Mr. MacCormac doesn’t deal with it at length, but hints at some of the problems local Communists have caused --
"Some left-wing observers question whether the local Communist parties have played a helpful role, either in France or Belgium, in the conflict between governments and the resistance forces. The Belgian Communists’ courage and effectiveness as partisans is acknowledged. The complaint is that they have since engaged in an equally effective but unscrupulous scramble for power joined with a disinclination to accept the responsibility that should go with it."
It's worth pointing out (though Mr. MacCormac doesn’t do it) that Communist groups, with Stalin’s backing, are the most important political powers in Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. Will they be less cantankerous than Communists and pro-Communist groups have been thus far in Belgium, France, Italy, and Greece?
. . .
THE NOT-SO-MIGHTY HUNTER. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Gallup, N.M., Hotel Clerk Don Collins saw an elk’s antlers through the window, grabbed his pistol, fired twice, shouted, 'I got him!'; rushed outside to find that he had shot the hotel’s stuffed elk, de-mothing in the sunshine."
. . .
Tuesday, November 28, 1944
TOKYO BOMBED AGAIN! I guess General Arnold meant it when he said the other day that last Friday’s B-29 bombing of Tokyo was no "hit-and-run raid." The Superforts appeared over the Japanese capital’s skies again Monday, for the second time in three days. According to Tokyo communiques recorded by the F.C.C., 40 of the big planes sped through the skies over Honshu, Japan’s main island, for some ninety minutes. Meanwhile, another fleet of B-29s hit Japanese installations in Bangkok, Thailand. Best news of all: not a plane lost in either raid. Japan tried to send up interceptors, but they were unable to gain altitude due to bad weather.
The overcast also prevented our fliers from assessing the damage, but no doubt it was heavy. The Associated Press says that the waterfront targets in Tokyo are "instrument" targets which can be hit through clouds by simply aiming bombs somewhere in the general target area.
A spokesman for the Twentieth Air Force quickly tried to dampen the good news a bit, cautioning the public to not expect anything like daily raids on Japan. After the thirty-month wait since the Doolittle raid, I’d be thrilled if they were able to do this once every ten days or so. Twice in three days? Well, I’ll just take that as a very special treat.
. . .
THE ALLIES SLUG ONWARD IN THE WEST. Day by day, it seems we can see progress of a sort in General Eisenhower’s six-army offensive in the West. Facing "savage resistance" from Germans on the Cologne plain, the U.S. First Army has driven the enemy to the west band of the Roer River, which is the Nazis’ best natural barrier in front of the Rhine. The A.P. reports the news this way --
"While this thrust . . . represented a gain of only a half-mile to a mile east of Bourhelm, it will give the Americans their first foothold on the Roer and enable them to drive on Julich from the south once they clean out the rest of Kirchberg."
In other words, where previously we were charting progress on the Western Front in hundreds of yards, now we’re doing so by "a half-mile to a mile." It is progress, I guess, but it doesn’t sound anything yet like the kind of progress needed to finish the war in Europe. Then again, we still might see sometime soon an Allied breakout similar to what happened in Normandy in August. Max Werner’s weekly war roundup tells what the Allies are now trying to do in the West --
"The first phase of our present offensive has already shown that the Allied high command and the Allied troops in action have the mastery of the procedure by which a continuous defense front is disrupted. The six Allied armies have driven wedges in the German defense front. Many pincers are on the move and the very variety of the blows must confuse the German high command. The originally continuous German front is being broken in many sectors and every one of them is menaced by double envelopment on both flanks. The German forces covering the vital Ruhr area are threatened from the British bulge at the lower Rhine and by the American offensive in the direction of Cologne. Between Cologne and the Saar the Wehrmacht is endangered by pincers composed of the right wing of the American First and the left wing of the American Third Armies. At the same time General Patton’s Third Army is executing an envelopment of the Wehrmacht in northeastern Lorraine pressing it into the corner where the upper Rhine meets the Palatinate area."
The latest maps in the papers show that the most promising gains are even farther south, in Alsace, where the Nazi defenders are increasingly threatened with a Stalingrad-type entrapment before the Rhine. U.S. Seventh Army troops have made the most progress there, plunging into Strasbourg and moving into a position to attack southward, while the French First Army is attacking northward from Mulhouse. The A.P. says that this may already be happening. If it does, and at more than one location on the front, we can start really hoping for an accelerated German collapse.
. . .
SMALL WORLD. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In St. Petersburg, Fla., Charles Granderson lost his entire wardrobe to a burglar, moved to new quarters vacated by a tenant convicted of watch-snatching, found his own clothes hanging in the closet."
. . .
Sunday, November 26, 1944
TOKYO BOMBED! General MacArthur’s still having a tough time trying to break the Japanese on Leyte, but certainly the news that a fleet of B-29s from Saipan bombed Tokyo on Friday is the most heartening news from the Pacific since MacArthur first stepped ashore. Unlike the Doolittle raid of two-and-a-half years ago, this appears to be the start of a prolonged effort to bring the war home to Japan, and do lasting damage to Japan’s industrial might. As General Arnold’s official statement says --
"This operation is in no sense a hit-and-run raid. It is a calculated extension of our air power. Combined operations of the Navy and the Army in the Pacific have won these island bases from which our B-29s now may strike at will into the enemy homeland. No part of the Japanese empire is now out of our range, no war factory too remote to feel our bombs. The battle for Japan has been joined. The systematic demolition of Japan’s war production, begun six months ago from China bases, henceforth will be carried out with decisive vigor, softening up the Japanese heart for the ultimate invasion by combined United Nations land, sea, and air forces."
It’s the Superforts that make this all possible. The 1500-mile trip to Tokyo is within their range. To give you an idea of what an accomplishment this is, the round trip for such a mission is the equivalent of a non-stop flight from New York to London -- carrying a full bomb load.
Except for the Doolittle raid, and in contrast to the havoc wreaked on Berlin, Tokyo has gotten off scot-free in this war. Until now. Who knows how quickly the next raid will come, but it looks from this we have real hope that the Tokyo regime will very soon get further demonstrations of what they did at Pearl Harbor -- and right on their doorstep.
. . .
WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (XI) The battles still rage in General Eisenhower’s big push all over the Western Front, but if what Gallup says is true, Americans have pretty well given up on the hope of breaking the Hitler regime by the end of this year. This is quite a change in public opinion from a couple of months ago --
"In September, shortly after the liberation of Paris, two-thirds of all voters polled thought the German war would terminate by the end of the year. But the latest survey, completed shortly before General Eisenhower’s present offensive began, finds the majority expressing a belief that six months or more will be required to whip the Nazis."
Indeed, a paltry 4% now believe the Germans will give way in December, and a total of 54% believe it’ll take us six months or longer to win in Europe. Mr. Gallup notes that there’s sound reasons why the majority might be right this time, despite progress in the current Allied offensive in the West --
"It is believed in Washington that Germany may still be crushed by Christmas if the breakthrough achieves immediate success, but that if the six-army thrust from France and Belgium is halted, it may be a matter of months before the Allies can amass enough material for another decisive blow."
Is this is so, the coming week’s news from the Western Front might be the most decisive news of the entire year. We may find out within a few days whether we’ll be still fighting Hitler’s armies in mid-1945.
. . .
WELL, IT WAS, WASN’T IT? From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Detroit, Mrs. Minnie Jordan stopped her car in the middle of a jammed downtown street, changed her baby’s diapers, got a suspended traffic court sentence because ‘it was an emergency.’"
. . .
Tuesday, November 21, 2008
IS THE WESTERN FRONT GIVING WAY? The answer depends on which part of the front page you read. In yesterday’s Washington Post, Wes Gallagher seems to say that we shouldn’t expect any kind of Allied breakthrough soon --
"In simplest terms the war apparently will not end until the German nation has been bled so white by battle losses that it will be physically impossible to put enough men, boys, or old men into the field to carry on an effective fight. . . . Thanks to Adolph Hitler’s idea of strategy -- which seems to begin and end with a series of fight to the death orders to his troops and a willingness of those troops to carry them out no matter how stupid the situation may be -- the war has become simply one of survival. . . . The Germans are doing exactly what they did in Normandy. They are trying to hold every inch of ground and fighting to the last bullet. When the line gives way they commit their reserves and patch the breach immediately, instead of withdrawing to better strategic positions. Over nearly all the front they are holding tenaciously to strategically useless bits of ground expending lives in futile counterattacks designed to regain other strips. As long as they have the manpower to plug sagging sectors of this 400-mile line, Allied progress is going to be slow and costly."
Sounds persuasive. But in the very next column of the Post’s front page, the Associated Press celebrates "strong indications the bitter Nazi stand before the Rhine [is] cracking at last." The A.P. tells us that, as a great new Allied push gets underway, U.S. forces east of Aachen have suddenly made four miles of progress in a single day, while farther south Metz is finally falling and the Germans are in full retreat in the Saar. And today the A.P. triumphantly reports on "the greatest breakthrough since Normandy," as French troops have driven Nazi forces to the Rhine in three places near the Swiss border. The Post headlines the story, "Nazi Lines Breaking Under Six-Army Assault".
So, according to the Post, the answer to the above question is: No and Yes.
. . .
F.D.R. INDORSES COMPULSORY YOUTH SERVICE. He did so at his Friday press conference. But, as Arthur Krock tells us in the New York Times, there’s some confusion about what "compulsory service" is. The two bills pending in Congress envision a year or two of compulsory military service for young men in peacetime. But the President mentioned in the Civilian Conservation Camps in his indorsement, implying that young men could choose to serve in either a civilian or a military unit of some sort --
"Both bills have in contemplation military and naval service only, with no relation to the CCC camp plan, and restrict their application to males. Within the Executive arm of the Administration, however, the CCC camp formula is supported as one of the ingredients or alternatives of the compulsory training, and there is some backing for the inclusion of females, with a somewhat different set of training requirements. The President, previously and this week, has shown sympathy with phases of this viewpoint, and Mrs. Roosevelt is known to believe that young women should not be excluded . . . . Thus the legislative prospect is cloudy and the President did not clarify it by what he said at the press conference."
It sounds like, with victory getting closer, the administration is getting nostalgic for the New Deal. But there’s one thing the President’s men forget about those days -- the idea of a peacetime draft was very unpopular in the Thirties. I could see the public accepting compulsory military service after the war, in support of United Nations efforts to prevent aggression. But compulsory civilian service smacks too much of what we’re fighting against, doesn’t it?
. . .
LUCKY MAN. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Salt Lake City, Merrill Clement, 35, recalled high spots in his life since the age of four: stung twice by swarms of bees, kicked by a horse, struck by lightning, punctured in the stomach by falling on a stick while running away from a bull, treed by another bull, gouged in three fingers by a saw, hit under the eye by a cement mixer crank."
. . .
Sunday, November 19, 2008
THE SHOWDOWN? Hanson W. Baldwin explains in this morning’s New York Times how the U.S. and Britain are making one last shot for Allied victory of 1944 --
"Within the space of the next few weeks, possibly the next few days, the duration of the war in Europe may be determined. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, who as recently as September said he thought there was still a good chance to defeat Germany in 1944, is undoubtedly striving for the knockout blow. Whether the offensive, now started, will eventually achieve its undoubted purpose of knocking Germany out of the war, or whether we must be content with more limited victories, will depend upon numerous factors. . . . Though the Allied superiority in effectives in the West may be as much as two or three to one, the Germans have well used the time between September, when the war of movement gradually slowed to the war of position, and last week. Recent estimates put the Nazi strength along the entire Western Front -- so far only the 350-mile section of it from eastern Holland to Switzerland is fully engaged -- at elements of 100 understrength divisions, perhaps 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 men."
We will need every bit of our superiority on the ground and in the air, for the Germans are now fighting on their own territory. There won’t be any partisan force this time to carry out harassment and sabotage of Nazi supplies and communications.
This could be the toughest fight of the war, and its outcome will probably have repercussions outside of the European war. If we yet manage to finish off Germany by the end of 1944, that would give us all the more time to shift resources into an all-out fight against Japan in 1945. And that would surely hasten the real end of the war, which might linger into 1947 if the Japanese choose to put up the kind of last-ditch battle that Hitler is insisting upon.
. . .
LET’S HOPE HITLER’S STILL ALIVE. New hopes were raised this past week that Hitler is dead or incapacitated, after a "proclamation" from the Fuehrer was read on German radio the other week not by Hitler himself, but by Himmler. It’s an intriguing story, but the New Republic’s editors point out this week that we should actually hope that Hitler is still alive, and still in charge of Nazidom. They make a good case for it --
"We certainly hope the reports of Hitler’s death or incapacitation prove false. He is a far less competent military leader than the men who would take control if he were removed; his ‘intuition’ has given us some of our outstanding victories. Moreover, there is a primitive but powerful impulse toward justice and retribution that would be better satisfied if Hitler lives to see the ruin of his empire than if he make st he comparatively easy escape which death or complete insanity at this point would provide."
. . .
ZOOLOGY, BROOKLYN STYLE. "From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "Near Camp McCoy, Wis., a Brooklyn G.I. returned to his company carrying a full-grown set of rattlesnake rattles, explained that he 'got ‘em off a big woim.'"
. . .
Tuesday, November 14, 1944
CAN ROCKET BOMBS THREATEN AMERICA? Not now, of course. And not during this war, despite Nazi boasts that soon they’ll be able to do so. But after that...?
The Nazis’ new V-2 rockets, unleashed on Britain and part of Belgium and France in recent days, are something new in warfare. Make no mistake, this is an entirely different kettle of fish from the V-1 robot bomb. The V-1s are deadly enough, but they’re essentially pilotless planes. The V-2s are true rockets, "flying telegraph poles" of over 13 tons apiece, which fly some 70 miles into space and reach an amazing speed of 3500 miles per hour. Being faster than the speed of sound, they strike before they can be heard.
The experts have assured us that because of its imprecision, the V-2 will have only a negligible military effect -- the director of the trade publican Iron Age said last week-end that the rocket was "primarily a propaganda weapon [which] can have no appreciable effect on the war’s outcome." Drew Pearson agrees with that analysis in his latest column, but offers a grim warning on what the V-2 means for America’s security in the future --
"Fortunately the Germans got started on this fiendish weapon late in the war and haven’t got it perfected. After this war, of course, they will try to perfect it. And one reason why American isolation has vanished and why it is so all-important to develop an efficient machinery for world peace is the certainty that rocket bombs launched from Arctic bases near Norway, Sweden or the north Japanese islands could wipe out New York, Chicago, Seattle and almost any city in the United States."
More good reasons, as if any more were needed, why (1) Germany and Japan must be demilitarized after the war, and (2) the proposed United Nations has to succeed where the League of Nations failed. If we don’t succeed, we might not get another chance.
. . .
WHO MIGHT SUCCEED F.D.R.? The Roosevelt administration is happily basking right now in the President’s electoral-vote landslide, but Merlo Pusey’s column today points out some potential big trouble for the Democrats next time around. Namely, the Emperor has no understudy --
"The question of who will succeed President Roosevelt is as much a mystery as it was eight years ago. At the end of his second term he was under strong inducement to run again because there was no heir apparent. The same argument played a part in his fourth nomination, and now, as the beginning of his fourth term approaches, there is still no successor in sight. . . . Four years ago it was generally assumed that the President had chosen Henry Wallace as his successor. As Vice President, Mr. Wallace might have risen to that opportunity if he had been willing to submerge New Dealism to winning the war. His persistence on dividing the people on ideological grounds caused the political chieftains to reject him and the President acquiesced in that action. Because of the poor showing made in the campaign by Vice President-elect Truman, however, it would not be surprising if Mr. Wallace should not be given another build-up in a high federal office. Whether or not he has any prospect of holding together the discordant elements that won the fourth-term campaign is another matter. If not Mr. Wallace, where is a potential successor to the President to be found? . . . In the Cabinet first honors for work well done go to Secretary of War Stimson. But Stimson is a Republican and by 1948 will be 81. Secretary Hull is sick and worn out. Secretary Ickes might qualify . . . [but] he would scarcely be eligible in 1948 at age 74. . . . In short, the official sources from which a successor to President Roosevelt would normally be chosen are pretty barren. . . . Unless the President has visions of running for a fifth term, he cannot too quickly begin the process of infusing new blood into his official family."
The reason is actually pretty simple why no apparent successors to the President have shown up -- Roosevelt’s men busied themselves during the past two elections in busting up any other strong Democratic candidacies that might be considered alternatives to the administration’s rule. And now, no one is waiting the wings. It could well be, despite the Democrats’ victory this year, that they will fall on their faces at the polls when the President retires in 1948.
. . .
KNOW YOUR ENEMY. From Time magazine’s news section this week -- "Tiring of C and K rations, a private first class on Guam bagged a brace of chickens, was on his way to the mess when he was intercepted by the Chaplain. 'Where did you get those chickens?' asked the chaplain. 'Shot 'em, sir.' That was a slip. The chaplain was mentally thumbing the rule books as he repeated, dubiously, 'Shot them, eh?' The private first class quickly amended: 'Yes sir, shot 'em in self defense.'"
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Sunday, November 12, 1944
WILL GERMANY REVOLT? MAYBE. There’s a tantalizing hint of it in a story by Joseph Driscoll in today’s New York Herald Tribune --
"The cities of the Rhineland, the Ruhr and the rest of Adolf Hitler’s Reich are growing restive under the relentless bombing and the steady approach of Allied armies. . . . In Cologne, which has been in something of a ferment since the fall of Aachen, posters are said to spring up overnight with the simple, straightforward legend, 'Down with Hitler.' Jokes about Nazi Party leaders are taking on a note of sharp political criticism. Leaders who enjoyed some standing are said to be forfeiting it because of their corrupt dealings, particularly in food. Reich Marshal Hermann Goering’s round face and belly no longer go over well with a nation of diminishing boundaries and waist lines. . . . At the southern end Alsace is reported to have become strongly anti-German. Definite anti-Nazi trends are also reported in south Germany and in Austria."
But Mr. Driscoll adds that his fellow correspondents don’t believe Germans will rise up to end the Nazi regime. William L. Shirer, in a separate report filed from occupied Aachen, offers an explanation why --
"Why don’t they quit then, you ask? They can’t. Himmler’s grip on the population and on the army is too iron. To falter now means instant execution. Eleven years of Naziism and five years of war have knocked out of the German people all principles and morals, and above all, any urge to revolt. All they think of now is how to survive."
That’s understandable -- but what would ordinary Germans do if it turned out Hitler was dead, or no longer running the show? That’s the intriguing possibility raised in an Associated Press story this morning. The A.P. notes that Hitler hasn’t been heard by the public since he spoke right after the July 20 bombing attempt, and that he didn't make his usual speech on the November 9 anniversary of the 1923 Munich putsch. The A.P. adds --
"The mysterious silence of Adolph Hitler has deluged London with reports that he is dead, seriously ill or suffering nervous disorders. Strange doings on the German radio, dispatches from the Swiss and Swedish listening posts, and reports to London from the German underground all suggested that something may be wrong with the Fuehrer. . . . London’s Daily Express aid under a front page headline today that 'authoritative quarters in London' believed Hitler had been seriously injured in the bombing attempt against him on July 20. The London Daily Mail also front-paged a suggestion by a prominent British psychologist, William Brown, that 'the Fuehrer may now be approaching the final phrase of his mental sickness.'"
I think it’s wrong to discount the possibility, as Mr. Shirer does, that ordinary Germans might give up the fight soon and bring down the Reich on their own. Hitler is the glue that has always held this alliance of monsters together. If Hitler is gone, or incapacitated, then that will be evident soon enough, even to those who live on a daily diet of Nazi propaganda. And the most powerful psychological weapon allowing "Himmler’s men" to force the population into obedience will have evaporated.
. . .
YOU’RE UNDER ARREST, DUMMY. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Manhattan, Detective James Costello, patrolling Broadway in the small hours, noticed a shattered window displaying four dummies, three nude, one clothed. When the clothed dummy twitched, Detective Costello reached in and arrested one Albert Gibson for burglary."
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Wednesday, November 8, 1944
NO DOUBT -- IT’S ROOSEVELT AGAIN. Well, so much for that "close" election. Actually, it was close in the popular vote -- Dr. Gallup was quoted this morning as saying it was the closest popular-vote tally since the nail-biting Wilson-Hughes election of 1916. But the President’s 53% majority is enough to have him leading in 34 states with 394 electoral votes, while Governor Dewey only leads in 14 states with 135 electoral votes. So, in that sense, it was just another Roosevelt landslide.
From the start there was little cheer for Dewey. He had to win New York and its 47 electoral votes, but Roosevelt piled up a 200,000-vote lead. Pennsylvania, with 36 electoral votes, was supposed to be close and perhaps decisive, but the President took a 67,000-vote lead in the Keystone state by the wee hours. Governor Dewey conceded about 3:15 this morning.
There’s no solace for Republicans in the congressional races, either. There were eight upsets in House races, and they all cost the G.O.P. seats. The Democrats will start President’s Roosevelt’s fourth term with a heavy majority in Congress.
Anyway, congratulations to the President on his victory. May he have a successful fourth term.
After that, finally, can we have a new President?
. . .
Tuesday, November 7, 1944
DEWEY’S ELECTION EVE MESSAGE. Here’s a last shot from Governor Dewey as the campaign finishes up --
"Let me ask you one simple question. Do you believe the job at home is being handled as well as possible? I think everyone from the housewife who struggles with a new rationing problem every week to the industrial executive who struggles with priorities and allocutions -- everyone will agree we need improvement and need it badly. Will it help to shorten the war and assure quicker return of our fighting men if we have a change of administration? . . . I would have refused the nomination of my party for President if I did not believe so, with all my heart and soul. . . . No matter how you vote -- it is the duty of every American to vote tomorrow."
"Tomorrow" is now "today," and Governor Dewey is absolutely right. Go vote!
. . .
...AND HERE’S ROOSEVELT’S MESSAGE. In the interest of fair play, I suppose it’s only sporting to quote the election eve statement of President What’s-His-Name as well. It’s a pretty good statement, actually --
"Our boys are counting on us to show the rest of the world that our kind of government is the best in the world -- and the kind we propose to keep. And so, when our people turn out to the polls tomorrow -- and I sincerely hope that it will be fifty million strong -- the world will respect our democracy and the grand old Stars and Stripes will wave more proudly than ever before. . . . When the ballots are cast, your responsibilities do not cease. The public servants you elect cannot fulfill their trust unless you, the people, watch and advise them, raise your voices in protest when you believe your public servants to be wrong, back them up when you believe them to be right."
. . .
THE SOUTH’S ONE-PARTY SYSTEM. I don’t know why there isn’t more discussion at election time about the harm done by the Democratic Party’s total domination of the southern states. Merlo Pusey’s column takes it up today --
"Our great national drama means virtually nothing in the South. A mere handful of people go to the polls. And they could just as well stay away and permit the Southern States’ electoral votes to be counted automatically for the candidate who bears the Democratic label. For the South, like Russia, is one-party land. . . . Why, indeed, should people go to the polls when they know in advance what the outcome will be? South Carolina Democratic leaders estimate that 96 percent of the vote in that state today will go to President Roosevelt. The Nazis found it possible to obtain similar results in Germany by giving the people only one choice at the polls. . . . Perhaps the South finds some emotional satisfaction in thus maintaining a spite fence against the two-party system. But it should at least realize the cost of its indulgence. Because the South can be taken for granted, it gets little consideration from either party. No southerner has a chance for the presidential nomination. Even the vice presidential nomination has gone to a southerner only three times since the turn of the century. The South kills itself politically by permitting tradition constantly to erase self interest. Southerners will watch eagerly tonight and tomorrow to see how the East and the West have voted. They will be out on the fringe of the great contest that is to determine the course of the Nation during the next four years. . . . It is high time for the Old South to come back into the United States as an active political factor."
How bad is voter turnout in the South due to Democratic party domination? Worse than you can imagine --
"In Illinois 53.4 per cent of the total population voted in 1940; in Indiana, 52 per cent; Delaware, 51.2 per cent; Colorado, 48.9 per cent; . . . Contrast this with the pitiful showing of the South. In South Carolina 5.3 per cent of the population went to the polls in the 1940 election; in Mississippi, 8.1 per cent; in Georgia, 10; in Arkansas, 10.3; Alabama, 10.4; Virginia, 12.9; Louisiana, 15.7; Texas, 16.2; and Tennessee, 17.9."
In light of this, Mr. Pusey says, "it can scarcely be said that democracy prevails in the South." No kidding. Is it too much to hope that one day the Republicans might have an honest chance of attracting votes in the southern states?
. . .
OFF KEY. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Springfield, Ill., Sheriff Walter Hagler listened carefully, then broke up a prisoners’ quartet and took away the discordant saw with which one of the singers was cutting through the bars."
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Sunday, November 5, 1944
DOPESTERS PREDICT A CLOSE ELECTION. Harvey Cantril of Princeton University’s Office of Public Opinion Research has a most interesting analysis of the state of the election in today’s New York Times. You can disregard the optimistic projections of Democratic partisans, because the real experts assure us that Governor Dewey has a genuine shot at winning --
"The political dopesters seem genuinely agreed that the election will be close. Most say it is a toss-up. For example, the final estimate of the experts on the panel of Newsweek, a panel composed of 118 political writers in forty-eight States, gives Mr. Roosevelt an advantage of twenty-seven States with 249 electoral votes (266 are needed to win) and Mr. Dewey an advantage in twenty States with 247 electoral votes. They say the election is likely to depend on how Pennsylvania goes. And they don’t feel able to place Pennsylvania one way or the other."
Mr. Cantril notes the three major polls, all of which give the President a slight lead -- Gallup, 51% to 49%; Fortune magazine, 53.5% to 46.5%; and the Crossley service, 52% to 48%. But as he points out, such a small lead is a danger signal for the Democrats --
"Because of the Democratic vote wasted in the South, Mr. Roosevelt needs slightly more than 50 per cent to win. Just how much more he needs depends upon the way different States go. A popular vote of 50.5 per cent could elect him if there happened to be heavy Democratic voting in certain key States. On the other hand, under the reverse conditions, Mr. Roosevelt could actually lose the vote in the electoral college, even though his total popular vote were slightly above 51 per cent. . . . Because the figures of both Gallup and Crossley land in the danger zone between 50 and 53 per cent Democratic, neither of them can feel safe in predicting the winner. For all polling operations are subject to a sampling error of around 3 per cent. And if a scientific poll-taker does not allow for this possible error, then he too is guessing."
I agree with Mr. Cantril that this election might come down to the so-called "independent" voters, who are not large in number but are most open to the arguments of both President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey. The surveys show that if these voters expect the war to go on for quite a while longer, they are inclined to support the President. But if they expect the war to end soon and want a President to focus on domestic affairs, they are more inclined to vote Republican.
Thus, the outcome of this election could well be decided by a handful of voters, and how they see America’s future.
. . .
HUSBAND OF THE YEAR. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Detroit, Mrs. Helen Lukaszewicz, suing for separate maintenance, said that her husband borrowed $150 from her on the morning of their wedding, $450 that afternoon, $30,000 in the following six weeks, then left her, taking her engagement ring with him."
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Tuesday, October 31, 1944
DEWEY FOR PRESIDENT. Babe Ruth said earlier this month he would be voting for Governor Dewey because of his opposition to a fourth term for President Roosevelt -- "I don’t think anyone is good enough for 16 years." All too true. But thankfully, there are many other good, positive reasons to vote Republican in 1944.
In Thomas E. Dewey we find a young, energetic politician of impeccable character who has served the public bravely and with distinction. As New York’s district attorney, he fearlessly took on organized crime, putting his life on the line in pursuit of one notorious gangster, Dutch Schultz, and winning the greatest legal victory in the history of such prosecutions when he sent Lucky Luciano to prison. He was elected governor of New York two years ago by a landslide, and is making good on his platform of cutting taxes, aiding education, and cutting the state debt. His administration’s efficiency and no-nonsense approach to state government contrasts sharply with the creaking New Deal bureaucracy in Washington. And while once an isolationist, the Governor has learned the lessons of our times. He has wisely joined President Roosevelt in endorsing U.S. participation in a peacetime United Nations and is dedicated to continued Big Three cooperation on all postwar problems.
President Roosevelt certainly did some great things -- once upon a time. But as he’s grown old in office, his administration has gotten shockingly disorganized and reactive. Roosevelt’s men have dropped the ball these past four years on food rationing, gas rationing, French policy, postwar German policy, the future of Poland, and so much else. These past few years he has acted with an increasingly brazen duplicity. At this summer’s convention, he vowed to eschew campaign speeches, which he now seems to be making every other day. Four years ago, the President infamously said that if the public would bless his unprecedented appeal for a third term, then at the end of that term "there would be a new President of the U.S."
Come to think of it, that still might turn out to be correct. I certainly hope so. The voters have it within their power to make it so.
. . .
WHY THE JAPANESE ARE LOSING THE NAVAL WAR. The Japanese are stumbling from disaster to disaster in the Philippines -- first, in the success of General MacArthur’s landings on Leyte, and now in the great naval battle which has resulted in the smashing of three Japanese battle fleets, and a loss of at least 39 ships. U.S. naval losses have been light, and it’s a mystery why Japan sent her ships into battle with shockingly little air cover. Barnet Nover’s column in the Washington Post today offers a shocking, but entirely plausible, explanation --
"It is not difficult to understand why, in view of the strategic importance of the Philippines, the Japanese reacted as violently as they did to General MacArthur’s move into Leyte. What is bewildering is the strategy the Japanese employed. Of the three enemy fleets that converged on Leyte only one -- and that the most distant -- had any carrier strength. This was the fleet that moved down from Formosa and was intercepted and smashed up by Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet. The other two Japanese fleets -- the ones that moved in from the China Sea and into the Sibuyan Sea and the Mindanao Sea -- apparently depended for air cover on land-based craft alone. Did the Japanese high command assume that despite the fierce pounding which Japanese airfields in the Philippines had received and the tremendous destruction of Japanese planes in the air over the islands and on the ground that such land-based air cover was still available? Judging by the action taken by the Japanese navy it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they assumed exactly that. And that may have very well been because the Japanese ground commanders in the Philippines did not want to lose face by admitting that their air power had been decimated and so exaggerated their own strength while minimizing ours."
. . .
BETTER LATE THAN.... From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Chatham, Ont., administrators finally settled the estate of John McKerroll, dead since 1872, sent to 121 heirs scattered through the U.S. and Canada their shares, ranging from 25¢ to $1 each."
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Sunday, October 29, 1944
A SECOND-STRING ELECTION CAMPAIGN. If the election ballyhoo sometimes seems a little more silly than usual this year, Walter Lippmann has an interesting explanation for it in his latest New York Herald Tribune column. He seems to say that politics is very much like pro baseball right now -- all of the first-string players have gone off to the war. Here’s an excerpt --
"No one who has been through as many election campaigns as I have been expects the month of October to be a season of rational, or even fair-minded, debate on the great questions of public policy. It is perhaps not too cynical to say that that would be expecting too much of men who are seized with the frenzy of office-getting and office-holding. But it is a shock to find that the most enormous experience in American history has done nothing to assuage this conventional October madness. . . . There is an obvious, factual explanation for the brainless character of the electioneering. It is that virtually all the ablest men in the United States are debarred by their duties from talking in public, or are otherwise too busy with the war to take any part in the campaign. We have mobilized for the war -- in the armed forces, in public office, in industrial management, in scientific research, and in other fields -- the bulk of the best brains of the Nation. If we had not done that, we should have not risen from the defeat and deadly peril of 1940-41 to the majestic power of the victories of 1944. For what America has done cannot be got by ordering it from a department store. Our power has been dug out the people’s labor and skill, and our victories earned by their valor and their brains. The men who are doing these great things are not being heard from in the campaign . . . No wonder the electioneering is so irrelevant. . . . The subject matter of this campaign, more than any other, I think, is being chosen by a group of professional politicians and public relations experts, whose business is to get elected or stay elected, not the business of governing a great State. Let them remember, however, that the great energies and talents now dedicated to the war will not always be withdrawn from public life. For the professional politicians who are now having a field day are going to be judged by men who will have passed through experiences that try men’s souls and have been matured in achieving great things. I do not think that these men will think that politics as we now see it in this October is good enough for the United States of America in the crisis of the second World War of the Twentieth Century."
Though beautifully expressed, I think this is somewhat unfair. Part of the reason why these great issues aren’t being well debated in this campaign is because there’s so much more agreement on them. There’s no longer the split between isolationists and interventionists that prompted the sharp debates of the 1940 campaign. The consensus supporting U.S. postwar cooperation with our wartime allies is remarkable -- remember that a Gallup poll earlier this year said that two-thirds of Americans would support a world organization capable of attacking aggressors with armed force. I don’t see any real difference between President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey on how much power America’s U.N. peace council delegate should have. If there are few manor differences between the candidates on the biggest issues, doesn’t it make sense that the campaign would become more trivia-obsessed than usual?
. . .
WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (XII) More hard-nosed predictions of a winter war, from Clifton Daniel in today’s New York Times --
"There is every prospect of a winter war in western Europe. Unless the Germans sag and surrender unexpectedly there will be fighting well into December at least. Beyond that it is not feasible to forecast. That is not an official estimate. It is merely the consensus of a number of qualified civilian observers, but it is an opinion that is gaining wider currency every day. Such a conclusion does not preclude by any means another Allied offensive. It is merely an expression of doubt that in view of the Germans’ determination to fight every mile of the way back, the campaign can be driven to a finish before winter sets in."
Yet it could well be that the Red Army will do more in the weeks ahead to determine the success of the Allies on the Western Front than our own troops will do. As Sidney Shallett notes in another Times commentary today, Russia’s slow-going offensive in East Prussia could turn into a lightning-quick advance if the Soviets succeed in penetrating close to East Prussia’s southern border, which would flank the German armies defending Warsaw. This could give Stalin's troops a good shot at cracking the Nazi lines in the center, open the road to Berlin some 325 miles away, and force Hitler to reshuffle his forces in a hurry, lest the Russians pour into Germany proper. And that would give the U.S. and Britain a splendid new opportunity to race into Germany from the west.
So, it’s still possible we could be in for a pleasant surprise before Christmas gets here.
. . .
LIKE THE SIGN SAYS... From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Fort Worth, burglars lifted $2,186 in cash and a 600-lb. steel safe from the Helpy-Selfy Grocery and Market."
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Tuesday, October 24, 1944
A WEEK OF GAINS EVERYWHERE. There hasn’t been much "big news" outside of America’s landings in the Philippines, but everywhere the news is good for the Allies. U.S. Marines have liberated the Philippine islands of Dinagai, Suluan and Homonhon, and are pushing the Japanese on south Leyte toward encirclement. In the Baltics, the Red Army has done some encircling of its own, trapping a sizable Nazi garrison in Memel. In East Prussia, Soviet troops have now battered their way 21 miles into prewar Germany. Meanwhile, British troops have liberated Athens with little fuss, as German troops in Greece flee urgently to avoid being cut off by the Russian advance in Yugoslavia, where the Reds have just taken Belgrade. On the Western front, U.S. troops have claimed total control over the "ghost town" of Aachen, the German border city almost completely destroyed in this past month’s desperate Nazi stand.
Maybe it’s a forlorn hope by now, but might it not just be possible that at any moment ordinary Germans will be finally, definitively struck by the realization that they are doomed unless they quit? How can people facing complete destruction go on working for the regime now seemingly so determined to wreak it upon them?
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ANOTHER REASON TO CHOOSE DEWEY. The current issue of the Christian Century endorses Governor Dewey for President, and here’s why --
"The spirit of cynicism is undermining the moral foundations of our democracy. And we have suggested that any searching diagnosis of the numerous sources from which this poisonous infection has spread would have to include the success of a policy of dissimulation by which one man has kept himself at the head of our government for twelve years. From the very beginning Mr. Roosevelt has used deception as a major political strategem, until today he has lost the moral confidence of the nation. Even in the ranks of those blocs which represent his followers his support rests, not upon their confidence in their integrity. but upon the cynical assurance that he will serve their interest. . . . The nation at this juncture desperately needs a president whose yea is yea and whose nay is nay. . . . [Governor Dewey] has already given high promise that he matches this crying need of the hour."
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WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (XI) John E. Lee of the International News Services writes that war correspondents and other "observers" at Allied Supreme Headquarters in France are still hopeful that the Nazis can be downed before the first buds of spring. Mr. Lee goes on --
"While conceding that unavoidable weather conditions may present the Allied armies with a difficult task in beating the Nazis to their knees, some quarters believe an effort to deliver the final crushing blow to Germany will come during the winter months. If the attacking force has an overwhelming superiority in the way of materiel, there appears to be no reason why it cannot override the enemy, regardless of the weather. The Russians did just that last winter, and there is no reason why the Allies cannot do it this winter. During the coming winter months, there is reason to believe, Germany is going to be blasted from the air on an even greater scale and more terrific scale than before. The London 'blitz' was child’s play compared to that Germany is experiencing even now. Meanwhile, the caliber of German troops -- as indicated by those captured in the Siegfried Line breakthroughs -- makes it evident that Hitler is dangerously weak as far as manpower is concerned."
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EXCUSES, EXCUSES. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Seattle, Louis Coleman petitioned for a refund on a marriage license, explained that he and his girl were still in love but unfortunately were also in jail."
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Sunday, October 22, 1944
YANKS ADVANCING IN THE PHILIPPINES. General MacArthur’s triumphant return on Friday has been followed by some promising advances. Some of the 250,000 U.S. troops landed on Leyte have already seized the island’s capital of Tacloban, and are "advancing an average of 4 miles on all sectors through strong Japanese pill-box defenses with only light casualties," according to United Press. MacArthur himself says that so far the news from the front lines "couldn’t be better." and the U.P. has one other heartening detail in today’s account --
"Weakened and pinned down by continuing supporting attacks in the southern Philippines by land-based planes and in the north of Admiral William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet carrier aircraft, the Japs’ aerial reaction to the invasion still remained largely ineffective, it was indicated. Small groups of aircraft were attempting to strike at the American beachhead and offshore naval craft in daylight forays, with three enemy bombers destroyed by ship antiaircraft fire."
Again and again in this war, we have seen air superiority determine success or failure in battle. If we are able to inflict heavy damage on the Japanese from the air, and they are unable to adequately protect themselves or respond on kind, there’s no question of victory or defeat. Clearly, we will win and the Philippines will be free.
That said, we shouldn’t forget that, as columnist Barnet Nover wrote yesterday, the Philippines campaign will be "long and arduous and possibly costly." We are facing some 225,000 well-armed Japanese This is a nation built on thousands of islands, and once the Yanks have finished them off in Leyte, then tougher tests will come on Luzon and Mindanao. But first things first, and today we can exult in the fact that General MacArthur’s promise to the Filipino people, made in the darkest days of 1942, has been redeemed with three stirring words: 'I have returned.'"
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THE 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD’S END. The editors of the Washington Post commemorate this morning the centennial of Earth’s final day. At least, that’s what thousands of people thought at the time --
"One hundred years ago today thousands of people all over the United States were certain that the world was going to end before midnight. the prophet of this disaster lived in Groton, of all places . . . . He had spent 14 years in reckoning out to a T this fatal date, and his followers had all prepared beautiful white robes to be ready. Many of them had new sets of false teeth specially made for this exceptional occasion. Towards dusk they went out into the country, or climbed into trees, or on roofs of buildings. They had given away all they possessed, clothing, furniture; some even destroyed their things, as they would be useless in the future. In fact, there was to be no future. . . . On the fated day, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker were walking in t he roads of Concord. A Millerite, for so the fanatics were called after their leader, William Miller, rushed up to them shouting: 'Gentlemen! Do you realize the world is coming to an end today?' Mr. Parker replied: 'That does not concern me, for I live in Boston.' And Emerson added, 'The end of the world does not affect me; I can get along without it.' Great was the disappointment among the true believers when the dawn of October 23 broke and the world went on. There were many broken limbs, and little furniture."
The Post finds a moral in this for our own time, one which is probably well taken --
"Today, too, there are a great many people who think the world we know is going to end after the war. It is very probable that they are wrong. The world will no doubt be very much the same world that we have known. It will change. It is changing all the time, for that is its nature. But the nature of life will not change. The old will always complain that it has changed too much, but most of the change is in them. The young will find it very much the same world they have grown up in. We look forward to a whole series of October 23d’s without the slightest -- well, without any serious tremor."
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JUST PLAIN OUT, PERIOD. In Cincinnati, a sign on a locked cigar store read: 'Out of cigars. Out of cigarets. Out of gum. Out of films. Out of stamps. Out of patience. Out of town.'"
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Tuesday, October 17, 1944
THE "TREND" IS TOWARD DEWEY. But don’t take my word for it. Look up yesterday’s column by Ernest Lindley, who often supports the Roosevelt administration in his writings --
"The polls and the reports of political observers do not indicate a Roosevelt ‘trend.’ On the contrary, many of them indicate that Dewey’s chances of winning have improved. He has had the advantage of the backing of powerful and now seasoned political organizations, which were skillfully mobilized by him and his campaign managers. But, also, in the frank opinion of some of the most experienced politicians on the Roosevelt side, Dewey’s speeches and interviews have been clever and effective. Dewey has used liberally quotations twisted from their context and unauthoritative statements to support his charges and insinuations. In that respect he has been a more flagrant offender than any other major party nominee for the Presidency in many years. These tactics may hurt him among thoughtful and independent voters, as the facts catch up with him. But they have put the Democratic campaigners on the defensive and compelled them to spend time and effort in answering allegations and innuendoes which, in some instances, were so novel, not to say fantastic, that their interjection into the campaign could not have been anticipated."
Mr. Lindley doesn’t say what these scurrilous charges are, and I’m confused by his categorization of them as "novel" and "fantastic." It’s a fact that the Communist Party is supporting President Roosevelt, and it’s fair to ask what the Communists expect to gain from a Democratic victory. It’s a fact that the extreme-leftist labor leader Sidney Hillman has played a role in the effort to re-elect the President. As far as Governor Dewey’s allegation that the President plans to delay demobilization of men from the armed forces once victory is achieved, that’s based on a published report issued by the National Resources Planning Board last year. How "fantastic" is that?
But the upshot of all this is that the election seems to be swinging Governor Dewey’s way, and those in the press who support President Roosevelt are increasingly hard-pressed to deny it.
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THE RED TIDE ROLLS ON. There haven’t been any sudden, dramatic Russian offensives making headlines lately. Just as on the western front, the Reds are still pushing the Nazis back, a few miles here and a few miles there. And those miles add up, as the latest New York Times map shows --
(1) Russian troops and Titoist partisan fighters in Yugoslavia have laid siege to Belgrade, which is expected to be Nazi-free within a few days.
(2) The Russians have pushed battered German units completely out of Bulgaria and out of four-fifths of Rumania. The surrender of these two former Axis satellites, and assistance to the Allies from their national armies, has been a huge help in pushing the Nazis out.
(3) The bulk of Estonia and Latvia have been taken by Red troops, as well as almost all of Estonia, except for the critical Memel district.
(4) The Russians have now pushed the Germans out of three-fifths of Old Poland, where the main Nazi defenses now rest on the Vistula River. Soviet troops have made one sharp advance past the Vistula line, to Cracow, and correspondents say that this is the likeliest area for the next major Red drive. That drive will surely bring about the long-awaited fall of Warsaw.
(5) A new Soviet push is driving from Rumania into Hungary, pointed at Budapest. The panicked Hungarians still under the control of Admiral Horthy are now trying to switch sides, but the Nazi-installed puppet regime, with the backing of German troops, is fiercely trying to keep the Hungarians in line.
Not all the progress is due to the Russians. In Greece, a low-key offensive by some 2,000 British troops has cleared the Peloponnesus of Nazi units, and now British units and Greek partisans stand on the verge of liberating Athens and Corinth.
It’s interesting to note that for all the continued Soviet advances, U.S. and British troops are still closer to Berlin than the Russians are -- 317 miles to Berlin from the edge of the Western Front, compared to 325 miles to Berlin from the most forward part of the Russian lines. But barring a dramatic attempt by the U.S. and Britain to force the European war to a conclusion before winter, it’s likely the Reds will soon be the closest ally to Berlin. They’ve got more firepower facing the Germans on their front, and the Germans have no Westwall to provide a defense-in-depth in the East.
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COULD BE TROUBLE. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Tulsa, a 'Let’s Swap' column listed: 'Exchange. Unused engagement and wedding rings. Want automatic shotgun.'"
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Sunday, October 15, 1944
DEWEY CAN BEAT ROOSEVELT. Democrats have been talking like President Roosevelt’s got his fourth term in the bag, but today’s latest updating of Gallup’s comprehensive 48-state opinion survey says: Not so fast.
Since late September, Gallup says, Governor Dewey has improved his position in 18 states, while President Roosevelt has done so in 14 states. This means that if the election were held today it would be tantalizingly close -- Roosevelt would win 25 states, with 243 electoral votes, and Dewey would win 19 states with 228 electoral votes. (266 electoral votes are needed to win.) The winner would be decided by the states of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Oregon, with 60 electoral votes among them. Right now, these four states are split 50-50 between the two candidates.
And Gallup’s figures show the trend is going in favor of the Republicans. In both August and September F.D.R. held a definite lead in enough states to be assured of more than 280 electoral votes. But the Democratic vote has fallen in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Oregon, and it’s fallen so much in two other states -- New Jersey and New Mexico -- that Gallup has shifted them from Roosevelt to Dewey.
The President has a slight popular vote lead of 51% to 49% over Dewey, but Mr. Gallup has noted in the past that the Democrats need a larger lead than this to have a good chance at victory. The Democratic majority of the popular vote in the Southern states is typically so lopsided (as much as nine-to-one) that Roosevelt would likely need as much as 52% or 53% of the popular vote nationally to be assured of victory in the Electoral College.
You’d think that under these circumstances, and their consistency in our time, that we would have had a twentieth-century election where the Democrat won the popular vote and the Republican won the electoral vote. Maybe this will be the year it happens.
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HOW TO SELL THE "UNITED NATIONS" TO CONGRESS. Edwin James of the New York Times mentions one possible way to avoid a League of Nations-style fight in Congress over what degree of power American should cede to the "United Nations" world body when it begins operations --
"In this country there has been a good deal of debate over the powers of the United States representative on the new Council. Shall he represent the President or shall he represent Congress? Shall he have the power, in the last analysis, to put this country into war without a vote by Congress? They are difficult points but points which we should be able to resolve. It has been suggested -- and there is merit in the suggestion -- that some formula be worked out under which the American delegate, under powers from the President, be given full powers to act in connection with keeping Germany and Japan unarmed while some other provision be worked out to cover other eventualities. There are two things to be said for this suggestion: in the first place, it apparently would get support from most all members of Congress, and, in the second place, and more important, it would provide machinery for action in any case of serious proportions which might come before the Council of the United Nations in the next ten years. If its adoption would smooth the way for the United States getting into the proposed organization and remaining there ten years, the rest would probably be easy."
This sounds like a smart plan. It assumes, of course, that the main job of the Council for the next few years will be to keep Germany and Japan from being able to make war again. But at this point that’s probably a safe bet. Idealists will surely want the United Nations to be stronger, and to set up shop as a full-scale "Parliament of Man." But as Mr. James points out, we should stick to getting what practical progress we can manage in human affairs at this critical time --
"The greatest advance which can be had now, or while most of us are living, is an organization of national governments. That is what Dumbarton Oaks provides. Those who believe in international cooperation should get behind the principles it represents. One may quarrel about details, but the quarrels should be about details. The main idea should stand."
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A LEGEL EAGEL. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Durham, N.C., one A.E. Lloyd insisted that 'stoping' meant an excavation method in mining, refused to pay a fine for a parking beside a 'No Stoping' sign. The court docilely dropped charges, ordered the misspelling corrected."
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Tuesday, October 10, 1944
THE BIG KIDS WILL RUN THE "UNITED NATIONS." Monday’s announcement of the Dumbarton Oaks formula for a postwar world league, as negotiated among the Big Three these past weeks, has been greeted with almost universal favor. Both President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey praise the plan, which establishes a peace-time United Nations. This new world organization would be set up like a parliamentary democracy, with a lower chamber (the "General Assembly") and an upper chamber (the "Security Council"). But as Barnet Nover points out in his column today, the creation of the General Assembly looks like a sop to the smaller countries, whose destinies in the post-war world will be largely guided by the Big Four (or, counting France, the Big Five) --
"The proposed General Assembly in which all 'peace-loving states' will be represented, will be little more than a debating society, and not always that. The Assembly is to meet once a year . . . [its] functions will largely be advisory. It will not even have any control over its own membership. It will not be able to elect new members or expel old ones. . . . The functions of the small powers in the new League will thus be to deal with small matters, letting major problems be dealt with by the major powers."
By contrast, Mr. Nover writes, the Security Council will be in almost continuous session. The Big Four will dominate the 11-member body (and will become the Big Five upon France’s future entry), each with veto power and collectively charged with maintaining the peace. The Council would have the power to send air, sea, and land military forces into action to stop an aggressor nation, and all member countries, including the United States, would be obligated to make their forces "immediately available" for such a cause.
The troubling question this raises for us, of course, is this -- will the U.S. cede any of its sovereignty to the United Nations on questions of war and peace? As Edward T. Folliard writes in this morning’s Washington Post --
"Who will decide when and where American land, sea and air forces are to go into action? Will the United States delegate in the Security Council and the President have that authority? Or will Congress, jealous of its right to declare war, insist that the United States delegate come back to it for such authority? In the Capitol Hill debates thus far, Senators have indicated a willingness to give the United States delegate authority up to a point, but some have balked at giving him what they call a 'blank check.'"
What if the Security Council, with the U.S. delegate's approval, decides to fight a war, but Congress votes no? Could the United Nations then force America to fight a war? It’s going to take some time to get used to this new way of thinking.
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WENDELL WILLKIE, R.I.P. Wendell Willkie’s sudden death this past week-end from coronary thrombosis has inspired an outpouring of tributes, from Democrats and Republicans alike, and from big shots in all corners of the world. I think Walter Lippmann’s New York Herald Tribune column sums up best the importance of this great man and what his nomination as the Republican candidate for President in 1940 has meant to our history --
"His part has been to save his country from an irreconcilable partisan division in the face of the most formidable enemies who were ever arrayed against all that America is and means. Historians will say, I believe, that second only to the battle of Britain, the sudden rise and nomination of Willkie was the decisive event, perhaps providential, which made it possible to rally the free world when it was almost conquered. Under any other leadership but his the Republican Party would in 1940 have turned its back upon Great Britain, causing all who still resisted Hitler to feel that they were abandoned. For while his rivals for the nomination at Philadelphia would almost certainly have been defeated, the fact that they had made the Republicans the isolationist party would have made it almost impossible thereafter to reinforce our Allies by lend-lease and to gain the time we had to have to prepare for war. Although Willkie never succeeded in converting the Old Guard, and of restoring the party to its great federalist tradition, he was able to hold in check its tendency to sink into know-nothingism and reactionary obstruction. Thus because of him, and of him alone, the Republican Party has survived during these four historic years, has preserved its title and its eligibility to govern in the world as it now is. If the ideals of his rivals in 1940 had prevailed, we should be today not on the slopes of victory but isolated, divided, and desperately hard pressed."
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IF WILLKIE HAD WON... Here’s a strange thing. If Willkie had defeated Roosevelt in 1940, his Secretary of State would now be the nation’s President. That’s because Mr. Willkie’s vice-presidential running mate, Charles L. McNary, died this past February. So, if Willkie had won, both the President and Vice President would have died in office before their terms were up. And thus, the man President Willkie would have chosen for his Secretary of State would have succeeded to the Presidency, under the terms of the Constitution.
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COME AGAIN? From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Northampton, Mass., a Smith freshman scrawled as her denominational preference: 'I like to be called Betty.'"
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Sunday, October 8, 1944
WE NEED TO FINISH THE JOB NOW. This item’s from the A.P. today, and it’s one more reason why we can’t wait until 1945 to finish off Germany. The Nazis are now openly preparing for a "war without end" of guerilla attacks and sabotage once Hitler’s Reich has crumbled --
"SS Obengruppenfuehrer General von Den Bache has been appointed by Heinrich Himmler as supreme commander of Germany’s post-surrender underground resistance forces, according to usually reliable sources on the German frontier. Von Den Bache, while stationed in Poland, boasted that he personally enjoyed mass executions and had taken a direct hand in some of them with a submachine gun. Although little known outside Germany, he has been a high-ranking Nazi for years. Frontier sources reported von Den Bache had already taken over his new duties and was touring Nazi youth schools to select young leaders for the underground and guerilla forces."
This is especially disquieting to read in light of all the dispatches lately indicating that progress on both the Western Front and the Eastern Front has slowed to a crawl. The sooner we finish the destruction of the German war machine, at whatever cost, the easier it’ll be to stamp out these vermin in the year (or years) ahead.
We can’t wait through the winter to crush Hitler. The Big Three must act in concert, and now.
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MORE ON MOSCOW’S POLISH MYSTERY. Ernest Lindley’s column today is full of worries about Russia, in light of their queer hostility toward the Polish government-in-exile --
"The Kremlin’s handling of the Polish question is causing extreme disquiet, even among officials who think that the Polish government-in-exile has been far from blameless. . . . It is granted that the government of the new Poland should not pursue international policies inimical to the Soviet Union. It should not collaborate with Germany. It should not become the spearhead of a coalition hostile to Russia. But it will have no opportunity to do so if Germany is disarmed and Russia and the great powers of the west remain firm partners. But the Russians, it would now appear, intend to set up what could only be called a puppet government. Apparently they want no Pole around who is on speaking terms with London or Washington. . . . The Russians may only be hedging against the possibility of an eventual break-up among the Allies and an eventual failure to enforce the peace. But the methods which the Kremlin is using are reviving distrust of Soviet purposes, and not only among the smaller nations of Europe but among the peoples of the United States and Britain."
Mr. Lindley notes the Administration’s hope that "when Germany has been defeated, and after the Allies have proved their determination and ability to keep Germany demilitarized and have got the proposed world organization in proper working order, the Russians will feel less apprehensive about their security."
That sounds like a reasonable outcome. But it sounds reasonable that Stalin would have embraced the Polish government-in-exile as a wartime ally and given aid to its Warsaw rebellion. It also sounds reasonable that the Soviets would now be making sincere diplomatic efforts to incorporate the London-based government-in-exile into the Moscow-backed Polish National Committee. So why hasn’t any of this happened?
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TESTING, TESTING. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In The Bronx, Acting Captain John Cronin, head of the Missing Persons Bureau, hunted for his two children, found them hiding in Woodlawn Cemetery. Explained eleven-year-old Alice: 'We wanted to see how good you were.'"
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Tuesday, October 3, 1944
WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (IX). The voices warning us that the European war will likely continue into 1945, or might not have a clear-cut "end," have become more numerous lately. Prime Minister Churchill’s statement this past week-end indicates he's become one of them --
"I shall certainly not hazard a guess . . . as to when the end will come. Many persons of the highest technical attainments, knowledge and responsibility have good hopes that it will be over with by the end of 1944. On the other hand, no one -- certainly not I -- can guarantee that several months of 1945 may not be required. There is also the possibility that, after organized resistance of the German state and army is completely broken, fierce warfare may be maintained in the forests and mountains of Germany by numbers of desperate men conscious of their own guilt and impending doom. It may be necessary fo the Allies to declare at a certain date that the actual war against the German state has come to an end and that a period of mopping up of bandits and war criminals begun. No one can foresee what form exactly the death agony of Nazidom will take."
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WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (X) Another vote for 1945, from E.C. Daniel in the New York Times --
"The prospect of a winter of war sharpened London’s autumn chill this week . . . . The facts behind this fear that the campaign against Germany may be prolonged into 1945 are these: With the liquidation of the British First Airborne Division’s gallant effort to bridge the lower Rhine at Arnhem, the swift impetus of the Allied armies all along the great front from the North Sea to the Alps has unquestionably been slowed to a slogging walk. For the first time since the breakthrough from Normandy, the German line has solidified and at Arnhem a sharp setback has been inflicted on Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s forces."
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WHEN WILL THE WAR REALLY END? (I) It’s odd how everyone in the press, if not everyone period, talks about the "end of the war" when what they really mean is the end of the European war. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to think about how far a road we still have ahead against Japan. From George Connery in the Washington Post --
"An official American forecast that the war against Japan will last at least a year and a half after defeat of Germany was followed yesterday by an appeal for more assault craft of a type that can be loaded with men and equipment in this country and sent direct to hostile landing beaches in the Pacific."
A year and a half. If that forecast holds true, and if the Hitler regime holds out through "several months" of 1945, then we might not get this war won until late 1946, or early 1947.
A sobering, and even depressing, thought for an autumn day.
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FIGHTING CRUELTY WITH CRUELTY. Time magazine adroitly sums up the Morgenthau Plan for governing postwar Germany as "barely above the level of 'sterilize all Germans.'" It is by far the harshest approach being discussed inside the Roosevelt administration. Secretary Morgenthau advocates removal of all industrial machinery from Germany; closing of all German mines; cession of the Rhineland industrial area to France; breakup of large estates into small farms; denial of economic or relief aid to the German people; and occupation by Russian, British, and American troops for a generation or more. According to Time, President Roosevelt is said to be "leaning" toward these extreme steps.
But I think columnist Ernest Lindley sums it up well -- "The plan is vengeful. It proposes almost everything that could be contrived to destroy Germany and the German people short of shooting a good many million of them." And what happens to an entire nation of many millions who are reduced to sustenance farming, who have watched their loved ones die of starvation -- and who are given no hope of attaining a decent life? Would a single generation of military occupation be enough? Would we, in the end, be that much better than the Nazis if we were ever to force an entire people to live in such a squalid state -- even if so many of them could be said to richly deserve it?
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