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.

posted by Michael 8:03:00 AM

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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.

posted by Michael 8:01:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:58:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 8:02:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:59:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:56:00 AM

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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.

posted by Michael 7:43:00 AM

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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.

posted by Michael 7:41:00 AM

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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.'"

posted by Michael 7:35:00 AM

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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?

posted by Michael 7:46:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:44:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:53:00 AM

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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.'"

posted by Michael 7:50:00 AM

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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.

posted by Michael 7:55:00 AM

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...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.

posted by Michael 7:51:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:47:00 AM

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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?

posted by Michael 7:34:00 AM

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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."

posted by Michael 7:32:00 AM

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