In point of fact there were indications that President Roosevelt’s swift action had surprised even the government, which, though it had taken some precautionary measures to meet the consequences of its move on French Indo-China, had been rather hopefully relying on former Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka’s past assurances of America’s passivity and on the influence of American isolationists. These latter have been commanding considerable attention in the Japanese press.
NO FURTHER AGGRAVATION
At the same time perhaps the most notable feature of the situation is that, except for some alarming newspaper statements, there is no desire in any Japanese quarters to aggravate the situation any further. Business circles even express the hope that the American decrees may leave some loopholes for a modicum of trade on a cash basis.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka circa 1940.
In respect to its advance into French Indo-China, the government, both in its official announcement and in a radio broadcast by Dr. Nobufumi Ito, president of the Information Board, who is sometimes referred to as the “Japanese Goebbels,” has emphasized that Japan was acting in “self-defense” and in perfect agreement with the Vichy government.
The official announcement stressed France’s consistent friendly cooperation with Japan and the long-standing friendly relations between Japan and French Indo-China, antedating Japan’s century-long self-isolation. It asserted, however, that new developments in Europe and East Asia were threatening the security of French Indo-China, which in self-defense neither Japan nor France could overlook.
NEGOTIATIONS CALLED FRIENDLY
For that reason, the announcement continued, Japan opened up negotiations with Vichy, which, it said progressed smoothly in a friendly atmosphere and led to the conclusion on July 21 of a joint defense agreement for Indo-China, the exact nature of which was not specified.
“Japan and France,” the announcement says, “thus have been ushered into more intimate relations with each other, with French Indo-China serving as their connecting link.” Needless to say, it will greatly contribute toward the stabilization of co-existence and co-prosperity in Greater East Asia.
In line with this announcement Dr. Ito repeated the constant complaint of all Japanese quarters, that “the United States Government fails to understand Japan’s real intentions.”
Government quarters have been careful to refrain from any direct charges against either the United States or Britain. The press, however, asserts that French Indo-China was threatened with the fate of Syria because of British measures, and a large de Gaullist element in Saigon as well as concentrations of Chungking troops on the north.
Domei, the official news agency, says that the Japanese step involves “neither territorial aggression nor a prerequisite for Japan’s armed southward advance, but merely a peaceful economic policy.”
In the view of some seasoned observers here the Japanese advance into French Indo-China might in fact be more a flanking move to cut off the last communications of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek for the “last big push” advocated by Major Gen. Shunroku Hata, Japanese Commander in Chief in China, to “settle the China incident,” which is still Japan’s primary concern rather than another step in Japan’s southward advance.
THREAT TO THAILAND
But the government radio suggested today that Britain might undertake the “military oppression” of Thailand as a countermeasure to the Japanese step. This suggestion holds ominous possibilities.
As regards the American and British freezing order, it is generally admitted here that it is bound to have a crippling effect on Japan’s trade, not only with the United States and the British Empire but also with South America. It will necessitate a drastic readjustment and more cash payments, even within the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere,” where balances still have been settled in New York in dollars.
But Finance Minister Masatsune Ogura, in a reassuring statement to the press, declared that Japan’s American balances were small and that American-Japanese trade had been diminishing, so the effect of President Roosevelt’s measure would be “comparatively slight.”
JULY 27, 1941
MacARTHUR MADE CHIEF IN FAR EAST
Former U.S. Army Head To Lead Combined Force with Rank Of Lieutenant General
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, July 26—General Douglas A. MacArthur, who retired in 1937 at the age of 57 years, was today recalled to active service in the United States Army, and supplementing President Roosevelt’s order creating a new Army component to be known as “The United States Army Forces in the Far East,” received the rank of lieutenant general and command of the combined United States Army in the Philippines and the entire Filipino forces.
Under his new appointment General MacArthur, who has been military adviser to the Philippine Commonwealth since 1935, and has ranked as a field marshal of the Philippine Army in the islands since 1937, will now outrank Major Gen. George Grunert, commander of the Army’s Philippine Department. He will have the task of welding into a single efficient military unit the United States troops now in the islands and the partially trained Filipino reserves. His new appointment created a stir in military and political circles here today because of the divisions of expert opinion on his plans for defending the islands.
WAS ADVISER IN PHILIPPINES
General MacArthur, who was the youngest Chief of Staff the United States Army has ever had, was assigned as military adviser to the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, two years before he retired, and just after he completed five years as Chief of Staff in Washington.
His plans for raising and training a defense force for the Philippines were at first received with acclaim by President Manuel L. Quezon and many other Filipino leaders, but a year ago continuing criticism of the feasibility and effectiveness of his scheme evidently cooled Mr. Quezon’s enthusiasm for the project, for the Commonwealth President then stated publicly that he did not believe an invader could be repelled even if every citizen were to be well equipped militarily and perfectly trained.
A month before President Quezon’s statement the American High Commissioner to the Philippines, Francis B. Sayre, had criticized the MacArthur plan, stating that he did not believe that even the then whole military strength of the United States Army could successfully defend the islands.
STATEMENT OF CONFIDENCE
In 1939, envisaging a possible Japanese attempt at an invasion, General MacArthur issued a statement at Manila saying: “The battle would have to be brought to these shores, so that the full strength of the enemy would be relatively vitiated by the vicissitudes of an overseas expedition. … In any event, it would cost the enemy, in my opinion, at least a half million men and upward of five billions of dollars in money to pursue such an adventure with any hope of success.”
This led to a series of sharp disputes with other military men, who cited Japan’s overseas expeditions to China, their successes against Chinese armies infinitely better drilled and equipped than the Filipino forces, and the fact that long before the Japanese suffered 500,000 casualties in China they had conquered an area more than five times as large as the area of the whole Philippine Archipelago.
The MacArthur plan, adopted by the Commonwealth in 1936, envisaged a Filipino defense force of 400,000 men by 1947, each of whom would have had roughly half a year of training. The plan was to train 40,000 youths of 20 years of age every year. When the plan first went into effect it was received with enthusiasm by the Filipinos, and in the first two years there were many more than the 40,000 desired applicants, but only 40,000 were accepted each year.
Early in 1939 General MacArthur declared that the Commonwealth then had a well-trained army of 80,000 men. In view of this statement, more than two years ago, today’s estimate issued here by the War Department, that the force now consists of only 75,000 men, occasioned considerable surprise.
Philippine President Manuel Quezon, left, congratulating General Douglas MacArthur
on his return to active duty.
JULY 27, 1941
JAPANESE OCCUPY BASES AT SAIGON
Observers in Indo-China Think Japan Will Move Toward Russia as Next Step
SAIGON, Indo-China, July 26 (AP)—A Japanese military outpost far down the coast of French Indo-China toward Singapore and the Netherlands Indies began sprouting in Saigon today with the arrival of the first Japanese equipment and high army and navy officers.
Japan apparently was losing no time transforming her newly acquired site into a base for her own uses. The French already have begun vacating Saigon’s modern air field and the half-mile of warehouses at the waterfront.
With Japanese here out for a flag-waving reception, Maj. Gen. Raishiro Sumita, chief of the Japanese military mission in Indo-China, landed with three army and navy aides in a French civilian air transport from the north and the first column of Japanese military trucks rolled in.
Naval and transport ships are expected here within the next three days, possibly tomorrow, and trains were understood already to be en route from Hanoi with more Japanese Army and Navy officers and business men.
It is believed here, however, that the accomplishment of this new advance completes Japan’s plans for the present in Southern Asia. Observers here contend that the Japanese now will turn their attention toward Russia before undertaking any new venture in this direction.
JULY 27, 1941
RUSSIANS SKILLED IN GUERRILLA WAR
Army and Civilians Trained to Fight Behind Lines
By BERTHOLD C. FRIEDL
Five weeks of the Battle of Russia have thrown into clear relief the chief difference between German and Russian military education. German shock troops are drilled in isolated offensives in enemy territory, in destruction of the enemy’s communications and opening the way for the advance of their own infantry columns. The psychological basis of German initiative is an offensive war.
The Red Army is quite different. One of its outstanding activities has been the training of soldiers and officers for guerrilla war, and the providing of technical bases for this type of fighting. Emphasis has been laid on making small army units independent of the center, through the development of initiative even among the lowest-rank commanding officers. All its units are capable, if cut off from the main body, of continuing the battle. When the army is forced to fall back, predetermined groups remain behind the enemy lines and form the kernel of future guerrilla units. Not only do these groups have at their disposal specially made small, speedy tanks and sometimes even artillery (an entirely new feature in this type of fighting), but there are also previously located bases to which they can retreat and where they find supplies, arms and munitions.
GUERRILLA STRONGHOLDS
Because of these preparations the German Army has not been able to clean up the Pripet marshes, in which there is an enormous network of guerrilla bases. The widespread forests of the Ukraine and White Russia are also strongholds of the “irregulars.” In cases where Red Army divisions, or even whole armies, have been encircled, these large units divided up into prearranged small groups.
In such a guerrilla war, ordinary methods of assessing victory and defeat and old conceptions of what positions are militarily defensible or indefensible become worthless. While in past Nazi campaigns the conquest of a key position was the end of a battle, in this one it is only the beginning.
The new development in warfare is one of the reasons for the reintroduction of political commissars in the Red Army. While it may be that to a certain extent the task of the commissars is the supervision of unreliable military commanders, their main purpose today is coordination of the general political interest with the military one. Continuation of a battle may thus be possible long after the position has become untenable from the military specialist’s point of view.
How have the people been prepared for this type of fighting?
To begin with, the whole Russian nation has had a certain amount of military training. Factories and collectives are armed. At least a quarter of the population knows how to handle firearms. Throughout the last twenty years all life has been organized around the central idea of meeting the threat of war and of planning the role of each individual in the common task of national defense.
Even the education of youth is conducted along lines of national defense. Care of physical health, strengthening of emotional stability, early socialization, organization of sports, have been bound up with this motif of raising a race of strong, courageous fighters. Contemporary Soviet dramas are often based on the deeds of heroes in the civil war. Children practice parachute jumping, and do exercises of defense against enemy parachutists. The pupils of every Soviet school receive physical training. If they can pass a rigorous examination they are entitled to wear the GTO (Ready for Work and Defense) button, a great honor. Eighty-four per cent of Red Army men of 1940 wore this button.
EVERY FACTORY A FORT
When young people come out of school into the factory or kolkhoz they are enrolled in the armed workers’ and peasants’ groups, which are a continuation of the old partisan troops of civil war days. Every industrial plant has an armed defense force. Wrecking of factories, roads and bridges in consonance with Stalin’s “scorched earth” policy is an easy matter, since every plant has its secret munitions depot, where is stored sufficient dynamite for use in case of need. Furthermore, the psychological handicap of private ownership—reluctance to damage one’s personal property—is not a factor. In regions overrun by German troops those Soviet citizens organized in collective farms and workshops remain together as guerrilla groups.
The attitude of the ordinary worker in Russia, an attitude traditional in Russia, is that the welfare of the Fatherland depends on him and him alone. War has, if anything, strengthened this attitude, so that any given Russian may be counted upon at the proper moment to risk all he has, even his life. This may be noted in contrast with the psychology of the French, who for years were told that the Maginot Line would defend them and that they might go about their business even in case of an enemy invasion. Just as this teaching tended to stifle in the French people all initiative and desire to fight, so, on the contrary, Russian psychological preparation has not only built the resistance of the Red Army, but created the basis for its support by the entire population.
Russian guerrillas discuss a plan to attack German positions in 1941.
JULY 30, 1941
BERLIN CONFIDENT OF SOVIET DEFEAT
By C. BROOKS PETERS
By Telephone to The New York Times.
BERLIN, July 29—In its communiqué today, the German High Command revealed little of importance of its operations on the Eastern Front. Other reports from the Russian theatre also gave slight indication as to how quickly or slowly the German forces are advancing against the tenacious resistance of the Red Army.
The vital battle of Smolensk continues. According to an editorial in tomorrow’s Voelkischer Beobachter, it is being fought in the zone between Vitebsk and Mogilev, where the Germans reportedly cracked the Stalin Line at Vyazma, some sixty miles east of Smolensk.
After the gigantic hole in the Stalin Line between Vitebsk and Mogilev had been made, it is said here, tanks and motorized infantry were to push through it and resume the tactics of a war of movement.
To close this hole, however, the Russians are reported to have hurled wave after wave of men into the opening. The attempt, the Germans report, “can now be viewed as having failed.” The war of movement, they add, is in full progress between the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers in a zone at least 100 miles deep.
Most of the Soviet units reported pocketed by German pincer movements between the Stalin Line and Smolensk were said officially today to have been wiped out. The “last pocket east of Smolensk,” the High Command asserted, was in the process of being destroyed.
This pocket evidently is between Smolensk and Vyazma. Whether other Russian forces in this same sector broke through the German pockets has not been revealed here
.
In a few days, the German command promised, the results of the Smolensk battle would be disclosed to the world. For the present the Germans asserted only that large numbers of prisoners and sizable quantities of materiel had been taken.
From the southern wing of the invasion, the Germans announced that Rumanian troops had occupied Akkerman, at the mouth of the Dniester River and on the Black Sea. Therewith, they asserted, German and Rumanian forces under General Ion Antonescu, Premier of Rumania, had freed Bessarabia from the Soviet. Odessa, the Germans pointed out, is only thirty air miles from Akkerman.
In the southern Ukraine, allied German, Rumanian, Hungarian and Slovak forces were reported to have the Russians in retreat, to be meeting only local resistance and to be approaching the Black Sea on a broad front, although the weather remained inclement. Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, appears still to be in Russian hands, and there is no reason to believe that German troops succeeded in crossing the Dnieper River in this sector.
In the north the Finns and Germans were reported to be making progress. Between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, units under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim were said to have crossed the old Russian-Finnish border at three points.
West of Lake Peipus, the Germans officially reported that Soviet forces had been trapped and were about to be destroyed by the Nazi forces charged with cleaning up Estonia.
MOSCOW BOMBED AGAIN
Moscow was attacked for the seventh time last night by the German Air Force. Continued air raids on the Russian capital, which is at the same time the Russians’ major communications and industrial center, must “in time” reduce the Soviet power of resistance, authoritative military quarters here asserted.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 52