The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  However, while Mr. Roosevelt in replying to questions left the door open to all possible future courses of action to mark the displeasure of the United States, it was understood that at his regular Friday Cabinet meeting this afternoon a decision was reached to reject any action so drastic as severing diplomatic relations with Russia, at least for the present.

  In his statement, the President described the “profound shock to the government and the people of the United States” caused by Russia’s resort to arms, said it was tragic to realize that “wanton disregard for law is still on the march,” and declared that Russia’s action menaces the security of small nations, and “jeopardizes the rights of mankind to self-government.”

  He closed with a fervent expression of the warm regard of the government and the people of the United States for Finland.

  President Roosevelt in 1939.

  STRONGEST OF HIS STATEMENTS

  The significance of the pointed phrasing was enhanced by the fact that this is the first time since the outbreak of the European war that the President has gone so far in expressing his disapproval of the politics of conquest. Even when Germany overran Poland, he did not issue such a statement, although to the last he pleaded for peace and left no doubt as to his concern over the course of events.

  As the President was making his announcements at the press conference the United States legation in Helsinki reported to the State Department that it was evacuating many Americans from the capital to the legation’s emergency quarters at Grankulla in private cars of members of the legation staff.

  Still later the United States Minister to Finland, H. F. Arthur Achoenfeld, reported that the Minister of the Interior in a radio speech to the nation at noon said that there was calm throughout the whole country, and that evacuation from Helsinki was proceeding smoothly. He solicited continued public cooperation, praised the soldiers and appealed to the public to follow their example. He said that the Finnish people have chosen independence, and are unanimous, and that history will show whether their choice was right.

  Hjalmar Procope, the Finnish Minister here, said today that the new government at Helsinki was truly representative of all political parties in Finland and had the unanimous support of the people, while the Communist-fostered government of Mr. Kuusinien consisted of a few Finnish Communists who lived in Russia.

  “The appointment of this Communist government,” he said, “shows the real value and meaning of the statements of Mr. Molotoff [Soviet Premier-Foreign Commissar Vyachesloff M. Molotoff] and other Russian leaders that the aim of the action against Finland is to insure its independence and freedom. This shows that they intend the incorporation of Finland in the Soviet Union and the Bolshevik freedom.”

  DECEMBER 3, 1939

  POLAND PROTESTS GERMAN ‘HORRORS’

  Ambassador to Britain Says Country ‘Has Become Sport of Bestial Hangmen’

  Special Cable to The New York Times.

  LONDON, Dec. 2—Count Edward Raczynski, the Polish Ambassador, handed to Viscount Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, today a strongly worded protest accusing the Germans of robbery and murder in Poland and charging that human life in that country “has become the sport of ferocious and bestial hangmen.”

  TEXT OF THE PROTEST

  The text of the protest follows:

  Reports reaching us every day during the whole month of September on the matter of the warfare employed by the Germans against Poland have shocked the whole world.

  Never before and nowhere else has an enemy treated with such ruthlessness the whole of a defenseless population on whom in cities and even in villages there rained bombs, shells and machine-gun bullets. One would have thought that as soon as the whole country had been subjugated this lust for inflicting misery would have ceased.

  However, the contrary has happened. From all parts of the country occupied by Germany where, side by side with the military authorities, who declaim phrases about honor, and the administrative authorities, who talk so willingly and eloquently about culture, order and justice, there rule the Gestapo and Hitler Elite Guard detachments, reports are arriving which fill us with horror.

  While the property of the population has become the object of unending robberies and is being seized on the spot from its owners, who together with their families are being evicted from their homes, so the entire population is being driven from vast and ancient Polish areas and human life has become the sport of ferocious and bestial hangmen.

  Never before in modern history, not even during periods of the fiercest wars, have such gloomy events occurred as now occur daily in Poland.

  In all districts of Western Poland leading citizens in the life of the nation are being shot, one after the other, and their names are whispered throughout the horrified country over their silent graves.

  UNIVERSITY FACULTY JAILED

  Within the space of a single day there were jailed and deported into the interior of Germany all professors of the ancient University of Cracow. These are only the most glaring of the acts of violence that are being perpetrated amid the incessant general oppression of millions of people.

  The Polish Government is preparing an official publication containing a tabulation of the cruelties which have come to its cognizance. Before this White Book is published, however, it considers it its duty to declare without delay that the soil of Poland under German domination has become the soil of martyrdom.

  National Socialist savagery is writing a new and ominous page in the history of German cruelty, which by its slaughter of the helpless outdoes the darkest memories of the past.

  The spirit of conquest and robbery, which has marked in blood and destruction the march of Germany throughout the centuries, has come to life again and is sowing its seed amid ruin and crime.

  The Germans will learn once more that by such acts one gains before the eyes of the world no greatness but contempt, no fame but infamy, no victory but defeat.

  Poland will only fortify her will to resist and struggle. The world will raise the arm of justice and God will judge and chastise the criminals.

  Three Poles who were hung in a public square in Warsaw, 1940.

  DECEMBER 8, 1939

  FINNS OPEN DRIVE ON FOE IN KARELIA

  HELSINKI, Finland, Dec. 7 (AP)—Finnish troops launched a strong counter-attack today in the Karelian Isthmus in an effort to halt a Red Army surge toward the eastern terminus of their Mannerheim Line.

  The Russians bombarded the southern coast of Finland from the sea and renewed their land attacks on the central front.

  Contrary to Russian assertions, a Finnish Army spokesman said, the invaders were not yet threatening the Mannerheim Line, a water defense system composed of an irregular chain of lakes extending almost across the narrow isthmus. The line begins at Sakkola on the east and follows a westward course through the town of Muolaa to Kuolema Lake, “The Lake of Death.”

  The heaviest fighting was reported along the Taipale River and along the southern edge of Lake Ladoga near Sakkola, which is twenty miles from the frontier, and at Uusikirkko, about twelve and a half miles from the frontier and fifteen miles southeast of the Mannerheim Line’s eastern terminus.

  DAMAGE BY RED FLEET DENIED

  Despite the bad weather the Red Fleet bombarded undisclosed points along the southern coast, but the Finns declared the big guns had caused no damage. They said their famed coastal batteries, designed by Lieut. Gen. V. P. Nenonen, Chief of Finnish Artillery, had beaten off the attacks.

  On the front in Central Finland the Finns reported they were holding their own against new Soviet attacks. Soviet fighters were aiming at Tolua Lake on this front.

  A government spokesman said army physicians were treating eleven cases of gas poisoning at Salmi, on the northern shore of Lake Ladoga.

  An army spokesman said papers taken from captured Russian officers indicated the Soviet forces were aiming at reaching the Atlantic. The prisoners had maps of the Aland Islands and Eastern Sweden on which certain o
bjectives were marked for bombing, the spokesman asserted. He added that the papers indicated Russia had long planned her attack on Finland.

  AWAIT RUSSIAN MOVE

  With a rocky, ice-coated No Man’s Land separating the two forces, the Finns were said to be leaving it to the Russians to take the initiative. The severe Winter weather—the temperature was reported at 20 degrees below zero—made both land and aerial activities extremely difficult there. The Russians were said to be awaiting long-overdue provisions and ammunition stocks.

  Increasing cold and heavy snowstorms over the country led Finns to hope that the war might settle down to a long-drawn siege in which the Finnish troops might benefit to an even greater extent from their guerrilla type of warfare and in which the Russian troops, already reported to be suffering from inadequate clothing and food, would be handicapped by long lines of communication over trackless, snowbound territory.

  Reports from the fighting fronts paid tribute to the effectiveness of the Finnish Army’s anti-tank gun, a portable weapon easily carried by one man and said to be able to halt and cripple the light tanks that the Russians have been using.

  Unofficial military quarters estimated that the Red Army had suffered at least 10,000 casualties, including dead and wounded, since the start of the invasion eight days ago. Finnish losses were said to be “amazingly small” by comparison.

  DECEMBER 11, 1939

  ‘KEEP OUT OF WAR’ KENNEDY ADVISES

  He Warns Against Any Talk That We Can Make Things ‘One Whit Better’

  By The Associated Press.

  BOSTON, Dec. 10—In his first speech since the start of the European war, Joseph P. Kennedy, Ambassador to Great Britain, strongly urged tonight that the United States “keep out” of the conflict.

  “As you love America, don’t let anything that comes out of any country in the world make you believe you can make a situation one whit better by getting into the war,” he said.

  “There is no place in this fight for us. It’s going to be bad enough as it is.”

  He spoke extemporaneously at a reunion of parishioners of Our Lady of Assumption Church, where he served as an altar boy.

  Smiling, but admittedly “not optimistic” concerning the world situation, he later declared in an interview:

  “There is no reason—economic, financial or social—to justify the United States entering the war.”

  One of the chief influences that might bring such an involvement, he said, was the American people’s “sporting spirit” in “not wanting to see an unfair or immoral thing done,” but he reiterated that “this is not our fight.”

  Asked whether there was any possibility of peace in the near future, he replied that it was “anybody’s guess.”

  “All want peace but all have their own ideas as to what peace should be,” he asserted. “Under such circumstances, who can say when there will be peace?”

  Emphasizing his feeling that the United States should “stay out,” he declared:

  “If anybody advocates our entering the war, the American public should demand a specific answer to the question: ‘Why?’”

  Joseph P. Kennedy in 1939.

  DECEMBER 16, 1939

  MOSCOW ACCEPTS EXPULSION QUIETLY

  Geneva Body Is Said to Have Degenerated Into Organ of Allied Imperialism

  By G. E. R. GEDYE

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, Dec. 15—The Soviet Union has accepted with unexpected quiet its expulsion from the League of Nations. Apparently recent exuberance here has been subdued by the general condemnation of the invasion of Finland and by the slowness of the Finnish campaign. However, the only opportunity Soviet citizens have had to learn of Russia’s expulsion was contained in an inconspicuous news item, the heading of which did not allude to that action but said non-committally: “Session of the Council of the League of Nations.” The message that follows, sent by the Tass Agency from Geneva, says briefly:

  “The Council of the League acquainted itself with a resolution passed by the Assembly of the League of Nations and issued a decree on the expulsion of the U.S.S.R. from the League of Nations. The delegates of Greece, Yugoslavia and China refrained from voting. The delegates of Iran and Peru were not present at the session.”

  The item itself is tucked away in a corner under a long ironic dispatch from Geneva describing the degradation of the League, intended as a genuinely international body, into an auxiliary enterprise of the Anglo-French war bloc.

  DECEMBER 18, 1939

  RAIDER BLOWN UP

  By JOHN W. WHITE

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec. 17—The South Atlantic Odyssey of Germany’s proud pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee reached a dramatic and tragic end at sunset this evening when her commander, Captain Hans Langsdorff, stood in a launch and pressed an electric button that blew her up and caused her to burst into a roaring and exploding furnace as she sank in the mud in the mouth of the River Plate.

  Standing at the salute with Captain Langsdorff in the launch were his officers. Floating near the doomed battleship were barges and launches into which the commander had loaded his crew of young, stern-faced Germans. A mile away stood the German cargo steamer Tacoma, which had followed the Graf Spee out of Montevideo Harbor to pick up the crew.

  On board the Tacoma were all the married men of the crew. They had been transferred to the cargo ship a few minutes before the warship’s departure.

  The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in flames after being scuttled off Montevideo, Uruguay, December 17, 1939.

  TACOMA’S CAPTAIN ARRESTED

  The captain of the Tacoma was arrested tonight because he took his ship out of the harbor without the customary permission of the port authorities. Members of the German crew aboard the Tacoma will be interned here. The rest of the crew has been taken to Buenos Aires where it is presumed they will deliver themselves to the Argentine authorities.

  The crew was taken to Buenos Aires because, if it were returned to the shore here, its members would be interned. They expect Argentina to treat them as survivors of a sunken vessel.

  The German Legation published a letter from Captain Langsdorff tonight in which he blamed Uruguay for the loss of his ship on the ground that insufficient time had been allowed to make the vessel seaworthy.

  EXPLOSION IS TREMENDOUS

  Captain Langsdorff pressed his electric button just as the top rim of the sun sank below the horizon, dyeing the sky a brilliant blood red. A dull, tremendous explosion followed. A great cloud of gray smoke hid the warship for a minute, then a light wind blew it toward the shore.

  Overhead floated small, lazy clouds exactly the same color as the smoke. High in the blue sky, the half moon looked down completely unconcerned.

  As this correspondent stood on a hotel roof and watched the breathtaking spectacle, it did not seem real. The setting was too perfect. But in three minutes the Graf Spee had settled on the bottom and flames had begun to burst up from her exploding magazines.

  The electric button that the commander pressed was on the end of a long electric cable leading to a huge electric time mine that had been planted in the magazine. The effectiveness of that mine was terrific. In ten minutes the flames were roaring from the entire length of the warship, accompanied by constant explosions in the hold.

  BURNS FOR SOME TIME

  The Graf Spee burned steadily, and explosions of petroleum and shells continued. Fires later reached the petroleum stores and will probably burn all night. At 9:15 there was an unusual and heavy explosion that sent brightly colored rockets and great balls of flame high into the air in all directions.

  As darkness settled down around the remains of the warship, on which Germany had pinned so many hopes, the bright Morse lights of an approaching warship signaled to Captain Langsdorff. Approaching the warship at 9:15, was the Argentine gunboat Libertad, which had come to take Captain Langsdorff and his officers aboard for their journey u
p the River Plate to Buenos Aires.

  The last short chapter of the Spee’s history began at 6:20 P. M. when the warship started moving slowly from her anchorage toward the outer entrance of the harbor with a big red and black Nazi flag flying smartly from the mast behind the funnel and fighting top.

  LARGE CROWD WATCHES

  It was a bright, sunny afternoon and virtually the entire population of Montevideo was jammed along the seawalls and docks and on housetops, watching the Graf Spee’s departure. For four days she had been an unwelcome visitor in Montevideo’s pretty harbor and the city had talked or thought of little else. Now the unwelcome visitor was going.

  Some of France’s and Britain’s greatest battleships were known to be assembled near the mouth of the River Plate, determined to hunt down and destroy the pocket battleship. For four months she had eluded her enemy and then been caught in a battle and forced to flee into Montevideo for refuge.

  Any attempt to get through the Allied blockade seemed certain suicide, yet there were many who thought and said that that was what Captain Langsdorff was determined to do.

  Hundreds of thousands of spectators actually held their breath in suspense as the Graf Spee’s nose began to push through the narrow entrance between the two converging breakwaters here. If she turned southward she could be going only to Buenos Aires or to some other Argentine port. If she turned in any other direction undoubtedly she was planning to run for safety or to fight it out. The battle-scarred warship slipped through the harbor entrance and turned southward into the channel leading toward the middle of the river. It was the route to Buenos Aires.