There has been, and still is, considerable difference of opinion as to the tactical value of horse cavalry in modern war. But in this manoeuvre, the two divisions, the First under Major Gen. Innis P. Swift and the Second under Major Gen. John Millikin, acquitted themselves with pride. They were operating in tangled terrain, extremely difficult for tanks, in fact, in places too difficult for horses.
Both divisions, in addition to the Fifty-sixth National Guard Cavalry Brigade from Texas, now commanded by a regular officer, earned commendations for their work.
WEATHER AND TERRAIN BAD
The two brigades of the Second Division—the Third, led by Brig. Gen. Terry de la M. Allen, and the Fourth, by Colonel Duncan G. Richart—were in the thick of most of the fights and traveled hundreds of miles through some of the worst weather and over some of the most difficult terrain these States can muster.
On one occasion the Second Division marched seventy miles and fought an action in a thirty-hour period; the Fourth Brigade covered forty-five miles in one day, and the night of this week’s hurricane, when a twenty-five to forty-five-mile-an-hour wind was blowing, the rain was pouring in torrents, the back woods roads were fetlock deep in mud and many motorized vehicles were bogged down, the horsed cavalry marched twenty-five to thirty miles.
The horses, thin but still strong, and the men, sun-baked, wind-burned and drawn-looking, show the results of this sort of grind, but they are proud of their record and their endurance and they are heading back to home stations in Texas and Kansas singing the old songs of the cavalry with a new lilt.
The Fourth Brigade’s songs are generally a little off the Army line, however, for the Fourth is a Negro outfit, and tonight as they marched to their bivouacs, the strains of “Flat Foot Floogi” echoed over the cactus and through the pines, supplanted often by the mournful notes of the Negro spirituals, such as “All Gods Chillun Got Shoes.”
SEPTEMBER 30, 1941
BRITISH CONFIDENT AT SINGAPORE BASE
Steady Improvement Has Made Far Eastern Bastion Even More Formidable
By F. TILLMAN DURDIN
Wireless to The New York Times.
SINGAPORE, Sept. 29—The British now face the possibility of war in the Pacific “without anxiety,” Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, Commander in Chief of the British fleet based on Singapore, told this correspondent today in an interview at his shore headquarters at the famous Singapore naval base.
Asked to give an indication of the increase in British strength at Singapore, Sir Geoffrey said that had Singapore been attacked a year ago the defenders would have had “definite cause for anxiety.” “Now,” he said, “we view the possibility of attack without anxiety.”
Britain, he said, “obviously does not want a war in the Pacific now,” but he declared that “if any of our territories are attacked we shall certainly fight.”
He made it clear that the British in the Far East now felt their strength sufficient successfully to resist attack from any quarter. Based on Singapore, Admiral Layton commands the British ships in the vast expanse of ocean that includes not only the Malay archipelago but also the seas from mid-Pacific westward to the Bay of Bengal.
SILENT ON INDIES DEFENSE
Asked about arrangements for mutual defense with the Netherlands Indies, Admiral Layton declined to comment saying that a statement on such a matter would have to come from the British Government. But, he asserted, “obviously an attack on any part of the Netherlands Indies would be a matter of immediate concern to us as it would jeopardize our life line to Australia.”
He emphasized the importance of Malaysia to the United States.
“I hope Americans are coming to realize,” he said, “that if this area ever comes under Japanese control the United States will have to go to Japan to beg for the rubber, tin and oil here, which are indispensable to American defense and industry.”
Explaining how the British position is becoming stronger day by day, Admiral Layton from the window of his office surveyed the enormous expanse of the naval base, pointing out the sites where thousands of men are working on projects designed to improve the facilities and defenses of the base.
NEW BUILDING IN PROGRESS
“Over there,” he said, “we are building a new torpedo depot; there work is starting on a new dock; yonder we are constructing new facilities for the Fleer Air Arm. The base is completely ready for any use to which we might want to put it now, but we shall always be improving its facilities and protection.”
The correspondent toured the base following the interview. Two ships being repaired in the huge graving dock—one of the world’s largest—looked like midgets. One construction crew was rushing the erection of quarters for additional forces which Admiral Layton had said “keep coming in so fast we hardly know where to put them.”
Everywhere, from the sites where more anti-aircraft guns are being erected to the big kitchens in the comfortable quarters for fleet crews come ashore, were scenes of efficient and well-ordered activity. They added up to that impression of impregnable power that the base has come to signalize for Britain in the Far East.
Air Force Marshall Conway Pullford, Major Gen. Arthur E. Percival, Air Chief Marshall Sir Robert Brooke-Popham and Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton discussing maneuvers in 1941.
OCTOBER 2, 1941
MOSCOW PARLEY PLEDGES HUGE AID
Talks Ended Speedily as U.S. And Britain Agree To Supply Almost All Soviet Asks
By The Associated Press.
MOSCOW, Oct. 2—The United States and Great Britain agreed to fill virtually every Soviet need for war supplies in exchange for “large quantities” of Russian raw materials at the concluding session last night of the three-power conference.
The conference closed two days ahead of schedule after only three days of sessions—probably the shortest international council of such dimensions ever held. A communiqué issued by the British and United States delegations and one by the Russians announced its results.
For the United States and Great Britain, W. Averell Harriman and Lord Beaverbrook, heads of their delegations, promised “to place at the disposal of the Soviet Government practically every requirement for which the Soviet military and civil authorities have asked.”
In return, said the communiqué issued by Mr. Harriman and Lord Beaver-brook, “the Soviet Government has supplied Great Britain and the United States with large quantities of raw materials urgently required in those countries.”
Arrangements were said to have been made to “increase the volume of traffic in all directions.”
The Soviet communiqué stressed the “atmosphere of perfect mutual understanding, confidence and good-will,” and said that the delegates had been “inspired by the eminence of the cause of delivering other nations from the Nazi threat of enslavement.”
In a speech to the closing session Foreign Commissar Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff said that the conference had shown that “deliveries of arms and most important materials for the defense of the U.S.S.R., which were commenced previously, must and will become extensive and regular.”
Mr. Molotoff added that “these deliveries of airplanes, tanks and other armaments and equipment and raw materials will be increased and will acquire growing importance in the future.”
U.S.-BRITISH STATEMENT
Mr. Harriman and Lord Beaverbrook issued the following joint statement:
The Moscow conference of representatives of the Soviet, American and British Governments has been brought to conclusion.
Members of the conference were directed to examine the requirements from the United States and Great Britain necessary to supply the Soviet Union, fighting to defeat the Axis powers.
The conference, which assembled under the chairmanship of Vyacheslaff Molotoff, Commissar of Foreign Affairs, has been in continuous session since Monday. It examined available resources of the Soviet Government in conjunction with the productive capacity of the United States and Great Britain.
It now has
been decided to place at the disposal of the Soviet Government practically every requirement for which the Soviet military and civil authorities have asked. The Soviet Government has supplied Great Britain and the United States with large quantities of raw materials urgently required in those countries.
Transportation facilities have been fully examined and plans made to increase the volume of traffic in all directions.
Mr. Stalin has authorized Mr. Harriman and Lord Beaverbrook to say he expressed his thanks to the United States and Great Britain for their bountiful supplies of raw materials, machine tools and munitions of war.
The assistance has been generous and the Soviet forces will be enabled forthwith to strengthen their relentless defense and develop vigorous attacks upon the invading armies.
Mr. Harriman and Lord Beaver-brook, speaking on behalf of the United States and Great Britain, acknowledged the ample supplies of Russian raw materials from the Soviet Government which will greatly add to the output of their own weapons of war.
Mr. Harriman and Lord Beaver-brooks emphasized the cordial spirit of the conference which made the agreement possible in record time. In particular they made it plain that M. Stalin was always ready with sympathetic cooperation and understanding. They thanked Mr. Molotoff for efficient chairmanship of the conference and all Soviet representatives for their help.
In concluding its session the conference adheres to the resolution of the three governments that after the final annihilation of Nazi tyranny a peace will be established which will enable the whole world to live in security in its own territory in conditions free from fear or need.
OCTOBER 3, 1941
NAZIS SAID TO BID FOR SOVIET PEACE
Washington Foreign Circles Hear Stalin Has Not Yet Rejected Offer by Hitler
By BERTRAM D. HULEN
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2—Reports received in some foreign diplomatic circles from Moscow today were to the effect that Reichsfuehrer Hitler had made what was described as a liberal peace offer to Premier Stalin and that it had not yet been definitely rejected. The circles are not closely identified with any of the belligerents. Details were not available.
No such reports have been received by the United States, as far as could be ascertained. There was a disposition in this quarter to question the accuracy of the information. On the other hand, the reports were not considered beyond the realm of possibility.
HALIFAX DOES NOT SHARE VIEWS
Viscount Halifax, the British Ambassador, just back from London, however, did not share even these qualified views. As he left the White House after a conference with President Roosevelt, he was asked about rumors that Russia might enter peace negotiations with Herr Hitler.
“I did not see anything of that at all [in England],” he replied. “Indeed, I would put it stronger. Those sorts of rumors received flat contradictions from the communiqué issued [yesterday] in Moscow by Mr. [W. Averell] Harriman and by Lord Beaverbrook and by the Russian Government. Their conference seems to have been successful.”
Nevertheless, the neutral reports received here are said to hint that Mr. Stalin impressed the Americans and British at the tripartite conference so deeply with the urgency of his position that promises to give all the aid requested were speedily forthcoming. Provided the reports have substance, diplomatic observers comment, the offset to these pledges could be the ability of Herr Hitler to make concessions to Russia in the Near East, as well as in reference to territory in European Russia.
The determining factor, it was suggested, might turn out to be the disposition to be made of the Soviet Army, rather than territory. If the reports were true, it was commented, Mr. Stalin still could be weighing one side against the other before reaching a final decision.
OCTOBER 13, 1941
GERMANS SMASH ON
One Spearhead Is Said to Be Only 90 Miles from Capital
By Telephone to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Oct. 12—Military observers here are of the opinion that a spearhead of the German invasion forces is less than ninety miles from the gates of Moscow. The progress achieved in the last forty-eight hours, German sources said tonight, has been possible because the Red Army is able to offer only desultory opposition.
A special war bulletin announced that the German forces pressing toward Moscow had left the Vyazma and Bryansk battlefields far behind them, and the Berlin press stated flatly that Marshal Semyon Budenny’s armies defending the Donets Basin had been “completely dissolved.”
200,000 CAPTIVES CLAIMED
The German communiqué reported that 200,000 Russian soldiers had been captured thus far in the Vyazma and Bryansk battles of encirclement. It added that despite desperate Soviet resistance and continued attempts to break out, the Russians “have no prospect of escaping their fate.” The number of captives is rising steadily, the High Command said.
The communiqué also declared that a “new phase” in the operations begun on Oct. 2 had opened with the approach to Moscow, but it did not make clear just what that new phase was. It was said that from the Sea of Azov to the Valdai Hills south of Lake Ilmen, a front 750 miles long, the troops of Germany and her allies were in offensive movement eastward.
A statement in the communiqué relating to the closing of a trap on Soviet forces north of the Sea of Azov led the press to declare almost unconditionally that Soviet resistance in the south had ceased. An official military spokesman was slightly more cautious, declaring that Marshal Budenny possibly could “throw against the German forces a few quickly assembled reserve troops.”
“However,” the spokesman continued, “it must be said that a regular army, or army group, no longer exists there. With the prospect of an early loss of the Donets Basin, the Russians are robbed of the possibility of ever making good, even in part, the war materials they have lost.”
NAVAL ACTIVITY REPORTED
D.N.B., the official news agency, reported that units of the German Navy were operating in the Black Sea. A number of captured Soviet bases on the Black Sea coast have been rebuilt and, with captured Soviet merchant ships, are being used to supply German land forces, D.N.B. said.
In the Leningrad area the Red Army forces of Marshal Klementy E. Voroshiloff continued their bitter counter-attacks, according to other German dispatches, but these attacks were said to have been crushed by German fire. There are, however, no reports of further German advances in that region. An eyewitness account published in the German press gave one reason for this. The report came from an observer who made a flight over the Soviet defenses around Leningrad.
“Below us we saw nothing but one single enormous field of forts,” the observer said. “One could try for half an hour and longer and the picture remained the same: anti-tank guns, trenches, innumerable little machine-gun nests and other trenches. The land southwest of Leningrad is like this for a depth of about thirty miles.”
Danger to the Soviet Capital Increases: Of the several German drives on the central front, indicated by black arrows, the most menacing ones seemed to be those stemming from the Vyazma region (1) and the Bryansk region (2). The eastward thrust above Vyazms was the one that had reached closest to the capital. Moscow acknowledged that its forces had evacuated Bryansk and Berlin said that a German column sweeping around that place had reached Kaluga (3). The solid line shows the front at the beginning of the offensive; the broken line shows delineation of the present forces as issued in Berlin.
OCTOBER 7, 1941
U-BOATS ROAM SEA WITH A NEW FURY
Battle of Atlantic Held More Critical In Iceland Than London Had Believed
By The Associated Press.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Sept. 28 (Delayed)—The Battle of the Atlantic is entering a crucial period.
A great onslaught of German submarines against the North Atlantic supply line equal in scope to that of March and April is well under way, informed persons say.
A vast amount of war material, much of it the product of
American industry, is the objective of a campaign designed to cripple the British war effort.
Crew of an English cargo liner ship leaves it to the Germans, June 1941.
There was some complacency in high political circles in London this Summer over the Battle of the Atlantic, but this is not reflected in the minds of British and United States naval officers or merchant captains here. They regard the situation as critical.
The actual figures of tonnage losses are secret.
STRENGTH PUT AT 600 U-BOATS
The popular estimate in London of the German U-boat strength last Spring was 600 submarines of all types operating in the Atlantic, plus a third as many Focke-Wulf Kuriers and Condors for observation and bombing.
Despite German losses of last Summer, in which an increased number of destroyers and aircraft dealt severe blows to U-boats, the German submarine strength is believed in informed quarters to remain at 600.
Considering the required rest in port for crews, periods of refit for the submarines themselves and the time spent in reaching the hunting grounds, it appears probable that always 200 German submarines are operating in the Atlantic north of the Azores, and that these are replaced by another 200 at the end of each two weeks.
Guenther Prien and other U-boat commanders who were the most accomplished and boldest of the German undersea fighters in the first months of the war are now dead or missing. However, the fall of France gave the German Navy unequaled facilities for submarine warfare, and newly trained commanders and crews have gained in audacity with each voyage.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 56