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

by The New York Times

  Speaking at the annual dinner of the Steuben Society of America, held at the Hotel Biltmore, Senator Nye, a leading member of the Congressional isolationist bloc, contended that the United States was “still at peace with the world” and that national unity here was impossible of achievement as long as the President and his supporters continued to uphold their foreign policy.

  One thousand members of the society attended the dinner and applauded Senator Nye’s speech. Although a heavy police guard was on duty within and outside the hotel, no disorders occurred during the evening.

  “Americans, when America is at stake, will give every ounce and every measure of unity that an intelligent people can and will afford,” Senator Nye asserted. “But that unity can be invited only by frankness; that unity can never be won on the issue of hunting and building a war for America.”

  “I insist that the manner in which the President has brought our country to the peril of involvement in war is not a thing inviting of ‘unity’ however great may be the desire to afford loyalty to one’s government. There is a thing to which none can shut their eyes; namely, that so long as the present situation in the world remains only what it is today, never, never, never can there be unity in America on the issue of asking ourselves into these foreign wars.”

  As Senator Nye spoke in the grand ballroom to the members of the society, which is composed of Americans of German descent, the outside of the hotel was picketed by representatives of the Fight for Freedom Committee, the American Youth Congress and several other organizations in protest against the Senator’s isolationist stand.

  Senator Gerald P. Nye

  These pickets carried placards which read: “‘Der Fuehrer thanks you for your many services,’ Senator Nye.” The Fight for Freedom Committee and other organizations had urged Theodore Hoffman, society president, to permit a speaker expressing an opposite viewpoint to Senator Nye to be heard at the dinner “in fairness to loyal Americans of German descent.” But the request was declined.

  Throughout the night a heavy detail of police was on hand at the hotel to prevent any possible disorder. Commanded by Deputy Chief Inspector John J. De Martino, the police, 175 strong, permitted the pickets to parade before the hotel, but chased away curious passersby who sought to congregate in front of the building.

  Theodore H. Hoffman, president of the Steuben Society, in a message printed in the dinner program, declared that the members of his organization resented the attempt of “professional agitators, certain newspapers and certain commentators to brand the American of German ancestry as being un-American or fifth columnist.”

  “Americans of Germanic extraction do not want communism, fascism, nazism or British imperialism,” he said. “They believe in only one ism and that is Americanism. The aims and principles of our society teach us to have faith in our country, faith in our form of government and faith in the principles on which our government was founded.”

  SEPTEMBER 21, 1941

  KIEV MOPPED UP, NAZIS ANNOUNCE

  By C. BROOKS PETERS

  By Telephone to The New York Times.

  BERLIN, Sept. 20—Surrender of the Kiev garrison, mopping up operations in the Ukrainian capital and progress in liquidation of 200,000 Russians trapped in the triangle between Kiev, Priluki and Kremenchug to the east were featured in today’s German Supreme Command communiqué. Desperate Russian attempts to break out of the trap were declared thwarted in every instance.

  Kiev’s conquerors were said to be pushing east past Poltava, while attention shifted to the Baltic front, where two islands were reported taken in a drive to clear the sea approaches to Leningrad.

  [The Associated Press transmitted a D.N.B. report that a “very heavy” air attack was carried out yesterday against Leningrad and Soviet troops encircled in the city’s defense zone.

  A number of fires were started in the city and anti-aircraft positions, supply centers and barracks were hard hit, the dispatch said. The main force of the Luftwaffe’s attacks, however, was said to have been directed against Russian artillery positions and bunkers.]

  AIMS HELD ACHIEVED

  Tomorrow the German invasion of Russia enters its fifteenth week. In the opinion of informed Berlin quarters, the major portions of the German plan of operations in the East have already been fulfilled. The objective of the German leadership is said here to encompass explicitly the destruction of Russian resources for resistance in five ways:

  By continuing to attack the Russian reservoir of men, which in former wars was regarded as inexhaustible, until all trained soldiers had been captured or killed.

  By destroying or capturing as much of the Soviet’s available war materiel as possible.

  By so weakening Soviet industrial potential that the Russians are no longer competent to carry on effective large-scale operations.

  By destroying Russian lines of communication, particularly through the use of the German Air Force, making cooperation between the war industry and fighting units at the front difficult, when not impossible.

  By Luftwaffe air raids on political centers, making it extremely difficult for the Russians effectively to administer their country, thus placing a tremendous strain upon attempts to continue a centralized direction for the war.

  The concentrated attack on Kiev, it is stated, began last Wednesday. Yesterday morning the citadel with its arsenal and barracks was taken by storm. Throughout the remainder of the day one portion of the city after another was cleaned up and occupied, says today’s communiqué.

  The Russians are reported to have made elaborate preparations for defending Kiev in street fighting. Civilian formations and N.K.V.D. [Soviet secret police] regiments, according to D.N.B., erected barricades, tank traps and other obstacles in the streets. All these measures, however, are said to have been rendered fruitless by the suddenness and speed of the German attack from the north and south.

  DONETS DRIVE WELL STARTED

  Following the successful German operations in the Kiev sector, all of the Northern Ukraine appears already lost to the Russians. In the drive on Kharkov and the Donets Basin the Nazi legions are already beyond Poltava, which they captured Thursday.

  German vanguard units are thus already less than seventy-five miles from Kharkov. Therewith the threat to the entire Eastern Ukraine has become acute, it is emphasized.

  Crimea is believed entirely to be cut off from land connections with the north by the Nazi thrust on Perekop. How deeply the German forces have already penetrated into this peninsula on their drive to Sevastopol is not revealed. The attack is believed to be in constant motion, however, and official information from this sector may be expected in the near future.

  SEPTEMBER 24, 1941

  NAZIS TO BANISH JEWS FAILING TO WEAR STAR

  Prison Camp To Be Punishment Even for Children’s Laxity

  BERLIN, Sept. 22 (AP)—Thirty-five provisions on the required wearing of the Star of David by Jews have been communicated to the Jewish Central Council to clear up uncertainties as to when and how the star, first required last Friday, must be displayed.

  The Jews were informed it must be worn where it may be seen every moment a Jew is outside his own home. It is not sufficient to have a star affixed to a coat or topcoat. If a Jew steps into his yard in his shirtsleeves, he must have a star on his shirt.

  By Nazi edict, German Jews were forced to wear the Star of David.

  If a Gentile rings his doorbell, the Jew must wear the star when he opens the door. Jews who hide the star by covering it with a briefcase or shopping bag in the streets may be sent to concentration camps.

  [Usually reliable sources said a sentence to a concentration camp was the standard punishment for violation of these regulations, The United Press reported. Parents and guardians were said to be liable to punishment for violations by children.]

  Jews are barred from railway waiting rooms or station restaurants unless they have written permission to leave the city and have purchased tickets. Jews without written permis
sion may not use taxicabs, hospital cars or first-aid trucks.

  Two “non-Aryan” Catholic priests in Cologne are wearing Stars of David on their cassocks.

  SEPTEMBER 28, 1941

  RUSSIANS MAKE READY FOR WINTER CAMPAIGN

  They Believe Their Chances Then Will Be Much Better Than The Germans’

  By CYRUS L. SULZBERGER

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  WITH THE RED ARMY ON THE CENTRAL FRONT, Sept. 27—“This is a war of blitz grinding. On a large part of the front the German troops already are digging in. What lies ahead of them is trench warfare, the mud of Russian roads and Winter.” Such is the opinion of Lieut. Gen. Vassily Sokolovsky, one of the Red Army’s ablest generals on the central sector. It is his belief that, as has already occurred along most of the length of that front where Marshal Timoshenko is operating, stabilization of the fighting lines will soon come about in both north and south.

  According to General Sokolovsky, the Russian soldier will have a tremendous advantage as soon as this situation is established. The German Army will have lost its hitting power when its manoeuvrability is obviated by terrible road conditions. German morale, he believes, will be cracked with the shattering of the Blitzkrieg tradition.

  WEATHER AS ALLY

  How accurate these predictions will prove the next few months can demonstrate. The Nazis already are sending sheepskin-lined coats to the front, as shown by tattered garments in reconquered central trenches. The Russians, however, are confident the invaders won’t be able to face the climatic rigors for long.

  Whatever should prove to be the case—and in this respect it may be recalled that difficulties of climate or terrain facing the Germans in other campaigns of this war have been habitually exaggerated—the Red Army is making ready for Winter and organizing thoroughly for a long struggle in which it is hoped Hitler’s war machine will not only be ground to a stop but entirely disintegrated.

  These preparations may be divided into three categories—those of the rear, those behind the front area and those of the front itself. The first include such essential steps as opening new trade routes to Iran whence Allied matériel may arrive, the continued moving eastward of important quantities of machinery from threatened areas in order to maintain sufficient internal manufacturing power, the training of new groups of soldiers including a hundred thousand Poles encamped in the Urals region and the institution of military science courses in all high schools.

  FACTORIES REORGANIZE

  Factories in the rear are reorganizing production schedules—and the success of this phase already is signalized, according to General Sokolovsky, by the fact that twice as many aircraft as a month ago are now functioning with the Red Air Force in the central sector. One of the great staff problems is to keep transport routes clear to the front during the Autumnal spells of bad weather which naturally hamper both sides.

  With the exception of the few highways which are paved, most of the roads can be used only with the greatest difficulties except during the short period between the evaporation of the Spring meltings and the commencement of the Autumnal rains. Even in Winter when the mud is frozen the passage is not easy because of vast drifts of snow.

  This at best slows up, at worst enormously impedes, the transport of the mobile invading forces at the same time that a lesser if still difficult problem is presented to the Red Army’s supplying lines. Therefore as the cold comes up and the rains continue one can notice more and more attention devoted to maintenance of communications.

  LABOR ON THE ROADS

  Quoting from this correspondent’s own notebook jottings:

  “After the macadam road ends squads of workers keeping up the dirt highway; men and woman peasant laborers; steamrollers; piles of earth interspersed along sides for surfacing; intermittent sentries and patrols; helmeted soldier driving a procession of tractors down the road; truck stations hidden in the trees off the road; squads of workers by the roadside in charge of armed guards; a blazed trail in the woods avoids the regular road which is a terrible soup of mud; a squad of peasants with spades working on a bad patch; soldiers laying a corduroy road over a marsh; gangs of soldiers stationed at bad places to help shove traffic across.”

  In order to maintain the army during the Winter it is essential to keep up a high standard of health, which in itself necessitates ample food and warm clothing. Russians are proud of their ability to withstand cold. As General Sokolovsky says:

  “Winter will create even greater difficulties for the Germans. Every Russian has his sheepskin coat. He is also used to hard weather and he has his felt boots. As the Finnish campaign showed, we can stand 50 degrees of frost. The Red Army man can remain in the open day and night when necessary, but the German will freeze. In this very part of the country we have 35 to 40 degrees of frost Centigrade—about the same as Siberia. Although the Germans are buying up skis in large numbers in Norway I doubt whether many of their soldiers know how to use them. They are no good for transporting tanks and heavy equipment. As a result there will be further stabilization of the war and gradual exhaustion,”

  This Winter will scarcely be a pleasant one for either party, but the Red Command is determined to do its utmost to make it physically bearable for its soldiers. The motto is, “A Russian’s meat’s a German’s poison.”

  SEPTEMBER 29, 1941

  WAR GAMES OVER; BLUES NEAR GOAL

  MARSHALL PRAISES MEN

  New Army Fast Becoming a ‘Powerful Machine’—350,000 Troops Ready for Rest

  By HANSON W. BALDWIN

  Special to The New York Times.

  FIELD HEADQUARTERS, Second Army, Shreveport, La., Sept. 28—As the hot Southern sun sank in a red blaze above the Texas plains tonight, the concluding phase of the greatest manoeuvres in the country’s history ended with Shreveport almost ringed by “enemy” forces.

  Tired, sweat-soaked, mud-covered and dusty after the hardest two weeks of mimic war in which any American troops have ever engaged, the 250,000 soldiers of the Second and Third Armies were moving to bivouacs all over this 30,000-square-mile manoeuvre area tonight, happy over the prospect of a fifteen-day furlough which awaits them on their return to home stations.

  They were cheered, too, by the knowledge of a job well done and a pat on the back from the Army’s Chief of Staff.

  MARSHALL PRAISES SPIRIT

  General George C. Marshall, in a telegram addressed to “all commanders and their officers and non-commissioned officers and to the men in the ranks,” said:

  “The manoeuvres just completed have been a great success on the ground, in the air and for the supply and maintenance services. The zeal and energy, the endurance and the spirit of the troops have been a model of excellence. There is much more to learn, but the mistakes of the past two weeks will be corrected, the deficiencies in material will be made good.

  “The armored units and the air squadrons are now a part of the military team supported by dive bombers of the Navy and Marine Corps. The supply services have proved they know their business. The new citizen army is rapidly on its way to becoming a powerful machine with all its parts in close cooperation.

  “To all of you, and especially to those older men soon to be released from active service, my thanks and those of the entire War Department for having done a grand job.”

  The “cease firing” order came at 4:45 P.M. after a grueling day in the sun for the armies of both sides.

  When the umpires waved their flags for the last time small units of the attacking Blue Third Army had seized Shreveport’s water works, pushed into the city’s northern suburbs and were fighting units of the defending Red Second Army at the end of the Cross Bayou Bridge in the city’s outskirts.

  MAIN FORCES TWENTY MILES AWAY

  The center of Shreveport was clearly within artillery range from the north, but the Blue forces to the north were described by the Red defenders as light harassing forces only; the main Blue forces were still eighteen to twenty-five miles distant,
and Lieut. Gen. Ben Lear, commanding the Second Army, still had used only part of his powerful Army reserve—the First Armored Division and the Sixth Infantry Division.

  Tonight General Lear particularly praised three aspects of the Second Army’s work in the manoeuvres. He put first, as the finest thing about the Louisiana exercises, “the thorough willingness of the men to do their job.” He described the functioning of his intelligence services, including his reconnaissance and security elements, as outstanding, and declared that “I got everything I asked for from the aviation.”

  The “cease firing” order, although issued from Lieut. Gen. Lesley J. McNair’s director headquarters in late afternoon, did not reach all elements in the field until almost sunset. At that time armored elements of the Blue First Armored Division, supported by infantry, were battling in the thick woods along the Sabine River in East Texas with units of the Second (horsed) Cavalry Division, supported by a corps reconnaissance regiment of cavalry, a regiment of infantry and an anti-tank group.

  DEADWOOD, TEXAS, BUZZES

  At and around the little town of Deadwood, Texas, which has never known such excitement since the frontier days, there were gathered several regiments of the old “hell-for-leather” cavalry of tradition, their horseflesh plainly showing the grueling tests that the men have been through in the last two weeks. And near by were parked captured thirteen-ton light tanks, their steel sides splashed with mud and dust.

  The two horsed cavalry divisions and the horsed cavalry brigade participating in the war games have done outstanding service. The horsed cavalry available at these manoeuvres probably outnumbered the horsed cavalry which the German Army possessed at the outbreak of war, for the German Army then mustered only one division, besides numerous regiments, although this number may have been increased since.