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

by The New York Times

  JULY 1, 1942

  ROMMEL IS GAINING

  Reinforced U.S. Air Units Help R.A.F. Hammer Axis Army and Assault Tobruk

  By RAYMOND DANIELL

  Special Cable to The New York Times.

  LONDON, June 30—The German tide in Egypt continued today to sweep eastward toward Alexandria. News reaching here from various sources indicated that the enemy had been slowed down but not halted. It was obvious that the fate of the great naval base and perhaps the Nile and Suez depended on the outcome of the race between General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s advancing troops and the British reinforcements being rushed up from the east.

  A report received here tonight said that advance units of Marshal Rommel’s forces had passed the coastal point of El Daba, about seventy-five miles east of Matruh and 100 miles from Alexandria. It had been hoped that General Sir Claude J. E. Auchinleck, now in command of the Eighth Army, would be able to anchor one end of his line on El Daba, with the other on the Qattara Depression.

  ALEXANDRIA THREATENED

  The Axis drive eastward seriously threatens the most important British naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean. The possibility that the British Navy may have to leave its base at Alexandria, where it has in its custody important demilitarized warships of the French Navy, should not be overlooked.

  The best and safest way for the British ships to leave would be through the Suez Canal, which is wide enough and deep enough for the biggest battleships and aircraft carriers. But even if Alexandria is lost, some warships might be based on Haifa, Palestine.

  [Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander of Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet until recently, said in Washington that the loss of Alexandria would be “awkward,” but that Haifa, Port Said and Beirut could be used as bases for many British warships.]

  Any weakening of British naval strength in the Mediterranean not only would threaten Malta, but also would increase the danger of an Axis push toward the oil of the Middle East.

  NEW TANKS ENTER BATTLE

  New tanks were thrown into the battle in Egypt this afternoon by General Auchinleck. The battle now covers several hundred square miles of desert and British mobile units seem to be having some success in breaking up Marshal Rommel’s massed forces. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that a few scattered British units still are snapping at Marshal Rommel’s heels as far westward as a point south of Matruh. All this may be taken as an indication that reinforcements in men as well as material have improved the British position, although there certainly is no ground for optimism.

  General Auchinleck seemingly has called on all available reserves in an attempt to halt the enemy somewhere west of the Nile. Among these are fresh troops from Syria and Palestine, Free French units of Foreign Legionnaires, motorized Spahi units and Senegalese. British, Australian, South African, United States, Free French and Greek planes are being used to blast the enemy’s supply depots and drawn-out communication lines.

  It appears that General Auchinleck is awaiting further tank reinforcements and is trying to avoid a decisive combat now and keep the fighting open and fluid. He may attempt to form a line from El Alamein to the Qattara Depression, using the Eighth Army to cork the coastal bottleneck and block Marshal Rommel’s advance.

  Field Marshall Erwin Rommel with the 15th Panzer Division in North Africa, 1942.

  JULY 2, 1942

  NAZIS CLAIM PORT

  Crimean Base Captured after 25-Day Assault, Berlin Asserts

  By DANIEL T. BRIGHAM

  By Telephone to The New York Times.

  BERNE, Switzerland, July 2—After four days’ incessant bombing and shelling, German and Rumanian forces shortly before noon yesterday, in an action that for sheer bloody horror must have surpassed anything seen at Verdun in the last war, stormed the last line of Sevastopol’s defenses and, according to a special announcement in Berlin late last evening, captured Russia’s great Black Sea naval base.

  “Sevastopol has fallen,” the announcement said. “Over the bastion, city and harbor the German and Rumanian war flags are flying.”

  The bulletin added that “the remnants of the beaten Soviet Sevastopol army have fled to the Chersonese Peninsula,” which juts into the Black Sea west of the city, where, “pressed closely together within the narrowest space, they are facing destruction.”

  MOSCOW LACKS CONFIRMATION

  The midnight Soviet communiqué admitted German advances in the Sevastopol lines and mentioned fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The lack of information in the Russian military commentator’s broadcast indicated that wireless communication with the beleaguered city was cut off early yesterday.

  Pounded to rubble by merciless bombing attacks that tore blocks the size of buildings from the rock east and south of Sevastopol, which formed an important part of the city’s defenses and its main hope that the defenders could hold out, the fortress fell after twenty-five days of hammering by constantly reinforced formations. The city and naval base had been under intermittent siege since last November.

  With the fall of Sevastopol, the last strong point in the Crimea has gone into German hands, theoretically opening the way for a violent drive on the Caucasus, which was predicted by German commentators two days ago.

  Lieut. Gen. D. T. Kozloff’s marines, which made a heroic bid from Yalta to divert some of the Axis pressure against Sevastopol by breaking through the Inkerman pass, apparently are fighting rearguard actions back toward their bases, inflicting still further losses on the Germans.

  JULY 5, 1942

  NAVAJOS COMPLETE TRAINING AS MARINES

  Group of 29 Indians Is Ready for War Assignment

  SAN DIEGO, Calif., July 4 (AP)—Twenty-nine Navajo Indian warriors have ended Marine Corps training and are ready for assignment.

  The descendants of braves who roamed the Arizona and New Mexico plains enlisted in a body at Fort Defiance, Ariz., several weeks ago and were sworn in at Fort Wingate, N.M. All are from the Navajo Reservation, which covers Northeast Arizona and Northwest New Mexico.

  Marine platoons number sixty-three men, but provisions were made for this one of twenty-nine.

  It set an aggregate rifle range record of 93.1, outshooting any platoon which fired on the range in that particular week. One Navajo emerged as an expert, fourteen as sharpshooters and twelve as marksmen.

  In the platoon is Private Johnny Manuliete, who bears the name of the last war chief of his tribe.

  JULY 7, 1942

  SOVIET OIL SUPPLY HELD NAZI TARGET

  Hitler Said to Stake All on Cutting Off Army of Caucasus From Rest of Russia

  The writer of this article is a veteran foreign correspondent who has just returned to England after several months in Russia.

  By NEGLEY FARSON

  North American Newspaper Alliance.

  LONDON, July 6—It is perfectly plain now that the Germans are staking everything on their ability to cut off the bulk of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s army and the army of the Caucasus from the rest of Russia. Once they do this—and they have not done it yet despite their swift success in reaching the main railway line—they must carry on to demolish Marshal Timoshenko’s forces before they enter the Caucasus.

  If they can do that the Caucasus lies wide open to them. They can ship troops from Odessa to Sevastopol and across the Crimean Peninsula to land across the five-mile-wide Strait of Kerch on the Caucasian mainland. They can march from Taganrog, where they are heavily engaged with the left flank of Marshal Timoshenko’s army now, around the eastern corner of the Sea of Azov, and go down main roads and railway lines that lead from Rostov-on-Don into the Caucasus to Makhach Kala, then down along the railway line and the coast of the Caspian Sea to the one prize of all prizes they have been trying to grasp in this war—the oil fields of Baku, which supply 82 per cent of all Russia’s oil.

  But the army of the Caucasus is well supplied and has big reserves and the Russians have a strong base, though not nearly as strong as Sevastopol, at Rostov-on-Don.<
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  NAZIS FORTY MILES FROM ROSTOV

  Mark these facts: The Germans today at Taganrog are only forty miles from Rostov, but they have demonstrated that they know they could not swing around the corner of the Sea of Azov from there, leaving Marshal Timoshenko’s fighting army still intact on their left flank.

  They must shatter Marshal Timoshenko’s army before they enter the Caucasus themselves. That is hopeful, for it shows that they seem to have abandoned the idea of any straight attack across the Black Sea or even of using badly weakened Turkey as a base for an attack on Baku across the southern Caucasus.

  Rostov is the gateway not only to the Caucasus but also to Astrakhan, at the head of the Volga delta, to which all oil tankers from Baku must eventually come. It is also the southern land gateway to the Urals, and unfortunately Rostov is only 250 miles from Stalingrad, on the Volga, at which point German shore batteries could sink any oil barges that tried to come up.

  There is always the possibility that the Germans, with a quick change of tactics, might suddenly cut across this 250 miles of country to the Volga itself. But as a main German objective is to keep this oil from the Russians, there is another alternative that they might use. That is to destroy the refineries.

  There are seven big Russian oil refineries. Two of these are already in German hands—at Odessa and Kherson. The five others are all in the Caucasus, at Krasnodar, Tuapse, Grozny, Batum and Baku. Both Krasnodar and Tuapse are about 150 miles from the present German flying fields on the Kerch Peninsula. The big oil refinery at Batum could function to refine and ship by rail back again to Baku to compensate for the loss of refinery capacity, but there would be no use in trying to ship from Batum up the Black Sea with the Germans less than eighty miles from the railhead at Novorossisk.

  So there remain Grozny and Baku. Grozny is 500 miles from German air attack and Baku is 850—that is, unless Turkey permitted the Germans to use the Black Sea Anatolian coast as an air base. Then the rich fields and refineries of Baku might be brought within 450 miles of German flying fields and Batum would be right next door.

  This is the blackest, perhaps the very blackest side of the picture that one could paint. The bright side is that the Germans have not got Rostov yet.

  EVERY GALLON A NECESSITY

  If Alexandria falls and the British fleet has to evacuate the eastern end of the Mediterranean, then the oil of Iraq is lost anyway. Only the Iranian oil would remain. But you must be hard-boiled about the realities of oil. The Iraq fields produce only 1.5 per cent of world production, the Iranian fields only 3.7 per cent and the Netherlands Indies only 2.8 percent.

  The United States still produces more than 60 per cent of the world’s oil, although in normal times the Americans themselves consumed more than 90 per cent of that.

  But for the Russians—the world’s third largest oil producers with 10.2 per cent of the global total, every gallon of which was used in Russia—the situation is desperate. If they lose the Caucasian oil they have no alternative supply. It will be only a question of time before their highly mechanized Red Army is paralyzed and famine must come because of idle tractors on the vast collective farms.

  This is Reichsfuehrer Hitler’s main blow of this war and we see now why he is willing to murder the flower of German manhood to put it over.

  German infantrymen carrying work tools in the Caucasus area of Russia, 1942.

  JULY 8, 1942

  GEN. SPAATZ NAMED AIR CHIEF IN EUROPE

  U.S. World War I Veteran, Who Set Endurance Record, Takes London Post

  By CHARLES HURD

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, July 7—Further indication of the growth of American air power in the British Isles developed here today with the appointment of Major Gen. Carl A. Spaatz as commander of United States Air Force in Europe.

  General Spaatz already has assumed his command in London, under the direction of Major Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of American forces in the European theatre. The latter was nominated today by President Roosevelt for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general.

  The new Army Air Force commander in Europe is a veteran pilot who shot down three German planes over the Western Front in World War I and won the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in action. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1929 for establishing an endurance record of 150 hours 40 minutes 15 seconds.

  Among other announcements of changes in military personnel today by the War Department was that Major General George E. Stratemeyer had taken over the duties of Chief of Staff of the Army Air Force, relieving Major General Millard F. Harmon. General Harmon was assigned “to another very important post, which has not been announced.”

  JULY 15, 1942

  ‘DOOR-KEY’ CHILDREN OFFER BIG PROBLEM

  WPA Nursery School Director Tells of ‘War’ Mothers

  WASHINGTON, July 14—Dr. Grace Langdon, director of the nursery school program of the Work Projects Administration, reported today a great increase in “locked-up” or “door-key” children as more mothers go into war industry.

  In Memphis, Tenn., she said, some children brought younger brothers and sisters to school because there was no one at home to look after them.

  In Washington, a government worker locked her child in a car outside the office and peered out of the window from time to time to see if she was asleep, Dr. Langdon added.

  Dr. Langdon ascribed the condition to the difficulty in obtaining servants in war production areas and the increasing employment of mothers in cities where no adequate nursery system exists. The result, she said, is often that small children are locked out of the house with keys around their necks.

  Mrs. Florence Kerr, Assistant Commissioner of WPA, said that many school-age children are tardy because they have to clean house after their parents go to work in the morning. She said that the problem is worse in summer when women in low-income groups take jobs while children are on vacation.

  Congress has appropriated $6,000,000 for nursery schools and Mrs. Kerr’s office has set up 1,250 free or nominal-fee schools to care for 55,000 children in defense areas where women are employed. At Long Beach, Calif., twenty-two children whose fathers were killed at Pearl Harbor are cared for in a nursery school while their mothers work in aircraft factories.

  JULY 17, 1942

  ALLIED INVASION OF EUROPE IS URGED

  48% of Nation’s Voters Favor 2d Front Abroad Now, Gallup Poll Finds

  DELAY SEEN AIDING HITLER

  These surveys are made by a system of highly selective samplings in each of the forty-eight States in proportion to voting populations; thereby, the American Institute of Public Opinion holds, is obtained a result which would not vary from that of a much larger canvass.

  By GEORGE GALLUP

  Director American Institute of Public Opinion

  PRINCETON, N.J., July 16—Nazi military successes in Russia have given rise to renewed demands both here and in England for a second front against Hitler in Europe.

  The decision rests, of course, with military leaders, but when and if they make such a move it will be closely in line with the ideas of the nation’s armchair strategists, barber shop generals and country-store tacticians whose military judgment on such matters as air power has, incidentally, proved better than that of many military experts.

  At any rate, the consensus of amateurs in the United States, as well as in Canada and Britain, is that the Allies should undertake a large-scale invasion of Europe with what equipment they now have rather than wait until they are stronger.

  This is by no means a unanimous opinion. About one-third of the country counsels a waiting policy to accumulate greater military strength and reserves for the blow.

  As measured by an institute survey, the attitude of the country shapes up as follows on the second-front issue:

  %

  Attempt attack now

  48

  Wait till we are stronger

  34

  Undecided />
  18

  A recent poll by the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion showed that approximately half (46 per cent) of all Canadians interviewed were in favor of the opening of a second front now, while 18 per cent wanted to wait, 6 per cent were against a second front, and the rest were undecided.

  A similar survey in Britain conducted last month found 49 per cent believing that an invasion of the continent this Summer would be worth the cost, while 17 per cent disagreed and the rest were without opinion.

  In the United States the chief argument put up by those who favor a second front this year is that every hour of delay works in Hitler’s favor.

  JULY 19, 1942

  Portrait of a Chiupa

  A chiupa is a Chinese doughboy, far different from the mercenary of the old war lords. He has courage, stamina, and knows what he is fighting for. His pay is only 30 cents a month.

  By Harrison Forman

  Li Pao-shan (pronounced Lee Bowshan) is a typical chiupa (pronounced jooba)—a Chinese doughboy or Tommy. He is a bright, eager farm lad: diligent, inherently honest, possessed of amazing stamina and ability to undergo extreme hardships uncomplainingly, with courage to challenge the hated Japanese despite their overwhelming arms, and beating them every time he has met them on anything like equal terms. Above all, LiPao-shan has a revolutionary sense of nationalism and appreciation of what he is fighting for.