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

by The New York Times

  General Marshall pointed to the limited number of seasoned regular troops and emphasized the importance of the time element in the event of an emergency.

  The General’s statement followed criticism by some of the President’s request to Congress for the authority to summon the Guard.

  The statement caused considerable excitement in Congressional circles and gave weight to persistent reports that it may eventually be necessary to send American soldiers to South America to aid several countries in meeting the challenge of Nazi “fifth columns.”

  SITUATION UNDER STUDY

  Reports that as many as 25,000 soldiers might be requested to aid in guarding airports and coastal harbors in such countries as Brazil and Uruguay have come from high circles in several countries, but have been formally denied.

  Government officials have been giving serious consideration to the situation regarding Greenland, colony of Nazi-occupied Denmark, and other colonies in the New World.

  General Marshall’s statement was as follows:

  “In view of the limited number of seasoned regular troops available in the continental United States—we have but five peace-strength triangular divisions with a sixth now in process of organization—and the recognized possibility of dangerous developments in this hemisphere, it is necessary that more troops be made available, trained and seasoned, to enable missions to be carried out without denuding this country of ground troops in a state of sufficient preparation to meet unexpected eventualities in some other direction.

  “Time is the essential factor in such matters. In other words, this means that we should make the preliminary moves in time to be prepared against the unfortunate necessity of definite action.

  “The War Department is opposed to ordering the National Guard out for active duty, and it is hopeful that by quickly building up, on the foundation of scattered organizations of the Regular Army still available, additional divisions and some special corps troops, we can avoid the necessity of utilizing the National Guard at this time.

  NEED FOR TRAINING CITED

  “Even if it were found necessary to bring the National Guard into service, it is believed that for the present only a portion of the Guard would be involved. However, it is essential in these days that the War Department, through the Commander in Chief, be in a position to act with rapidity to plan with the definite assurance that such plans can be made effective without uncertain delays.

  JUNE 2, 1940

  IMPACT OF THE WAR ON THE NATION’S VIEWPOINT

  Surveys Show Increasing Desire To Find Ways of Aiding the Allies

  By HADLEY CANTRIL

  Director, Princeton Public Opinion Research Project

  Since the war in Europe has become a grim reality challenging the attention of the American people, it has forced decision and the weighing of alternative courses of action. The crowded events of the past three weeks have jostled some opinions once held by the American people. Other opinions have been crystallized. People are not by any means as sure as they were that the Allies will win, and there is a growing feeling that this country will participate in the war and that we should do more than we are now doing to help the Allies. In short, the attitude of aloofness has nearly disappeared, even though the great bulk of the American people are still quite unwilling to go to war.

  These conclusions are based on information obtained by the Princeton Public Opinion Research Project. This project, financed by a Rockefeller grant, has sampled nation-wide opinion over a period of time through the fact-finding machinery of the American Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup poll). The institute has, furthermore, given the project access to its own material. Carefully selected samples of the population in every geographical section have been questioned by the institute’s interviewers. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat, farmer and city dweller, are all represented in proportion to their numbers.

  ACCURACY OF POLLS

  According to statisticians, the size of the sample used in these surveys is sufficient to give results which probably would not depart more than 3 per cent from the figures that would be obtained if the whole population of the country were interviewed.

  What, precisely, are the people thinking now, as revealed by the polls? First and foremost, the overwhelming majority of them do not want this country to declare war and send our army and navy to Europe. Only one American in fourteen is in favor of an immediate declaration of war against Germany.

  But the percentage who believe that the United States will eventually get into the war is much higher. Although about one-fifth of the people have no opinion on this question, of those who do have an opinion five out of eight feel that we shall be drawn in if the war continues for any length of time, or if Germany appears to be winning. There is, apparently, a certain fatalism, a certain feeling of inevitability, of personal helplessness to avoid action which is not desired but which may be required under certain contingencies.

  Even though only about 7 per cent want to declare war on Germany, when people are asked “Do you think the United States is giving too much help to England and France at this time, not enough help, or about the right amount of help?” nearly three-fourths of them answer, “not enough.” In addition to those who would like to declare war now, 64 per cent of the American population believes that the United States should do everything possible to help England and France except go to war. Only 6 per cent think we should give less help than we are now; only 20 per cent think what we are doing is about right.

  This general sentiment favoring more help to the Allies means that people are anxious to provide England and France with food supplies, munitions and planes. The public is more reluctant, however, to lend the Allies money which may sooner or later be needed to purchase war materials. For example, only half the population is willing to extend credit to England and France if they cannot pay cash for our airplanes. It is obvious in all poll results that the debts left from the World War still hang heavy over the heads of most Americans.

  CHANGES DURING WAR

  The war in Europe was for months regarded as a queer, quiescent war, distant and uncompelling to most Americans. It was something that they followed with interest through news reports, but something that they felt did not threaten the major social values of their culture. At the outbreak of the war 75 per cent of Americans thought that England and France would win the war and 10 per cent expected a German victory. After two months of war these percentages had not greatly changed. But German military successes following the invasion of Norway caused a rapid shift of opinion.

  At the outbreak of the war 8 per cent thought we should declare war on Germany. This dropped to 3 per cent in October. Until the middle of May, despite important developments, this figure fluctuated only between 2 and 5 percent. It is only during recent weeks that it has crept up to 7 per cent.

  When people were asked in March if they thought we were giving too much help, about the right help, or not enough help to the Allies, 50 per cent of them answered “About right” and only 15 per cent said “Not enough.” Thirteen per cent said “Too much.” Almost a fourth of the population then had no opinion on the matter. Now opinion is more crystallized. Only 4 per cent have not yet made up their minds. And what a close majority felt was “about right” in March is now regarded by a larger majority as “not enough.” In April only a third of the people were willing to extend credit to the Allies, so they could buy our airplanes. By the end of May half of the population were willing to lend money.

  THE OUTLOOK

  The polls indicate opinions will undoubtedly continue to change. As the war proceeds, more and more people are reaching positive decisions; the trend suggests that what now appears as a “no opinion” response will decrease in favor of assistance to the Allies. In March, only 58 per cent of the total population believed they would be personally affected in any way if Germany won. Now 65 per cent believe they would be affected. As the possibility of a German victory comes to be r
egarded as more imminent there will probably be a uniform feeling of potential threat to American cultural values and a diminishing of what small differences now exist between various groups.

  When people were asked early in the Spring whether or not they thought the Allies were fighting mainly to preserve democracy against the spread of dictatorship or mainly to keep their power and wealth, opinion was about evenly divided. Present results indicate the process of a shift of this opinion toward the side of preservation of democracy. This is due not so much to domestic or Allied propaganda as to a growing belief, brought about by events, that Hitlerism is a power which threatens whatever Americans hold dear, a set of conditions more generally accepted by people as democracy than as the preservation of national power and wealth.

  AHEAD OF CONGRESS

  Poll results indicate that at present there is a lag between the volume of desire of the people to help the Allies and Congressional action which would implement this desire. Almost all Americans want to keep out of war. Three-fourths of them want to give the Allies more help. Half of them are willing to extend credit. The majority seem to be groping for ways and means af assisting the Allies that would bring them no closer to the actual field of battle. When asked what such a policy might be the citizen is himself puzzled. The problem is too intricate and complex for him.

  JUNE 5, 1940

  Excerpt from The Text Of Prime Minister Churchill’s Address Before the House of Commons

  By The United Press

  LONDON, June 4—Following is the text of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s statement today in the House of Commons:

  …We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if they can be locally exercised. I have myself full confidence that if all do their duty and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, ride out the storm of war and outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone.

  At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government, every man of them.

  That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and their need, will defend to the death their native soils, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength, even though a large tract of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule.

  We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air…

  We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, for the moment I do not believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World, with all its power and might, sets for the liberation and rescue of the old.

  The exodus of Paris in 1940.

  JUNE 10, 1940

  MANY FLEE PARIS, BUT HOPE PERSISTS

  Gloom Grips Those Who Stay—Growing Refugee Throng Taxes Accommodations

  By P. J. PHILIP

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  PARIS, June 9—Those who have lived through this day in Paris will never forget it. It is going to be remembered for all time as gloomy Sunday. The morning radio and the morning newspapers announced that the battle was nearing and was more furious than ever. [Here fifteen words were censored.]

  The firing of the anti-aircraft barrage awakened those who were asleep. No one knew whether to hope or to fear, for the truth is that no one knew anything. The sugar-coated policy that has always characterized French comment on events left newspaper readers and radio listeners confused rather than enlightened.

  Many of those who were left went to church, for there at least, they felt, they might find some quiet, some refuge from the anxiety that was gnawing in every heart. There were prayers to be said for those at the front in that fantastic battle that seems each day to rise from climax to climax of fury into which Chancellor Hitler keeps pouring more men and more machines with a frenzy of energy never before let loose on the world. There were prayers to be said for France and for the world, that it should be delivered from this nightmare.

  The Cabinet met this evening at the Elysée Palace to consider the situation, and it was said that another meeting might be held tomorrow. A communication to the country may then be issued, stating the government’s intentions in view of the military situation.

  The city, greatly deserted in these last weeks and days, with only rare buses and taxicabs, was still and eerie. Neighbors gathered in little knots to talk, as people do in the waiting rooms of a hospital, caught between fear and hope and clutching at every human contact for comfort.

  For most the great issue was whether to go or stay. Great gray trucks lined up outside public buildings showed that at least some of the public services were being evacuated. There were signs of packing everywhere. Private cars were being filled with the usual miscellaneous collection of oddments, from a bird cage to a bathtub, and usually with a mattress on the roof to do the double duty of protection in the day and a bed at night.

  As the day advanced the evacuation fever seemed to spread. More and more loaded trucks and cars began to drift toward the outlets of the city. At the railroad stations from which any trains are still running the crowds of refugees, mostly incomers from the east and north waiting to go elsewhere, grew hour by hour and never seemed to lessen.

  To the confusion of it all was added the uncertainty every one feels about where to go and how to go. The south and west are already packed with those who came from Belgium and the northeastern Provinces. Reports keep running that there is not a bed to be had and that food is beginning to present a problem for those already on the road. Foreigners are limited as to where they may go and there seems to be no way for most of them to find out just what they are expected to do.

  Those who did not leave or try to leave spent most of the day packing, putting their most precious possessions in the cellars, organizing their money affairs—with all the banks closed—and preparing what must be taken if and when either an order or the evacuation infection might strike them.

  It is not possible to describe in more detail what has been going on. However, it has been one of the most extraordinary things ever seen to watch how people cling to their habits, even despite bad examples and quite obvious preparations by those to whom they are accustomed to look for guidance and to whom they give respect as the authorities in their lives.

  Thus, amid the confusion and bustle of packing in some places, one found the curious contrast of bourgeois people taking their walk in the Bois or sitting quietly in the shade of the trees all the length of the Avenue Foch, watching the spectacle of these trucks and automobiles leaving town. There was no rush, no panic among these people.

  Every now and then the sound of the guns pushing back raiders who were attacking a district near the city would hit the ears and the little puffs of smoke from the exploding shells would dot the sky. They were matters for curiosity only. No one stirred from his or her seat under the trees.

  Probably these people—and there are hundreds of thousands of them—have just quietly made up their minds to stay, whatever happens, most of them probably arguing that the discomfort and even danger of being a refugee is worse than staying at home. There is in most hearts, too, still a hope—though vague perhaps—that, whatever happens, the war itself will not reach and touch Paris, that the city will be saved.

  And, of course, in it all there is comedy, the everlasting comedy of routine in the middle of an earthquake. One family cannot leave tomorrow because the son, 16 years old, is taking an examination. All day today he sp
ent busily at his books.

  JUNE 11, 1940

  DUCE GIVES SIGNAL

  Announces War On the ‘Plutocratic’ Nations of the West

  By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

  By Telephone to The New York Times.

  ROME, June 11—Italy declared war on Great Britain and France yesterday afternoon, to take effect at one minute past midnight. The land, air and sea forces of the Italian Empire were already in motion.

  It is a war, as Premier Benito Mussolini announced to the people from his balcony at the Palazzo Venezia at 6 in the evening, against the “plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West.” For the moment that does not include the United States, but few Italians believe that they will see the war to a finish without having the Americans against them.

  Signor Mussolini expressly excluded Turkey, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Greece and Egypt as enemies unless they attacked Italy or the Italian possessions.

  Turkey provides the burning question of the day. Italians are absolutely convinced that the Turks will not move against them and will not honor their agreement with the Allies. It is hoped to confine Italian activity to France, Great Britain and the Mediterranean and to keep the Balkans tranquil. If that can be done, Italians think, the Turks will remain quiet.

  SOVIET ACTION DISCOUNTED

  Russia has washed her hands of the struggle. The Italians know that any disturbance in the Balkans will immediately bring her in; but as long as the struggle is confined to the west and south the Soviet will do nothing either to hinder or help. This was told to your correspondent a few hours ago by a very authoritative source.