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

by The New York Times

  The New Delhi government statement noted that “the Congress working committee admit ‘there may be risks involved.’” It then continued:

  “They are right. Acceptance of the resolution must mean the exposure of India to an Axis attack from without.

  “Internally, withdrawal of British rule invites civil war, the collapse of law and order, the outbreak of communal feuds and the dislocation of economic life with its inevitable hardships.”

  It accused the Congress party leaders of having worked “in the interests of securing their own dominance and in pursuit of a totalitarian policy,” and added that they have “consistently impeded the efforts made to bring India to full nationhood.”

  “But for the resistance of the Congress party to constructive efforts, India might even now be enjoying self-government,” the statement added.

  “It is not too much to say that acceptance of the demand must mean the betrayal of the Allies, whether in or outside India, the betrayal in particular of Russia and China.”

  It urged the people of India to unite with the government “in resistance to the present challenge of a party.”

  Britain’s own previous offers of post-war independence have been rejected by the Congress party, which is primarily Hindu, and by the Moslem League and other major and minor elements of the mutually distrustful and complex elements of India’s racial, religious and political life.

  TIME FOR ACTION NOT SET

  As provided in the resolution, Mr. Gandhi was in full control of the campaign, but there was no indication of the exact moment he intended to get it started.

  In his concluding Congress address he called on all Indians to “begin to feel that they are free men,” asked all Indian newspapers to stop publication until independence was granted, and told teachers and students to be ready to cease work.

  He urged Indian princes to “act as trustees for their people” and stop being autocrats. He already has said his campaign this time would include the princes’ States as well as the areas known as “British India.”

  In the morning, before the civil disobedience resolution was taken up, Mr. Gandhi announced he was appealing to the United States, in a letter “to American friends,” to act “while there is yet time” to bring about independence and ally Indians wholeheartedly on the Allied side. He predicted a repetition of the disasters of Malaya, Singapore and Burma “unless Britain trusts the people of India to use their liberty in favor of the Allied cause.”

  An injured man being taken during the Bombay riots, India, 1942.

  Mr. Gandhi also complained that he had been “painted as a hypocrite and an enemy of Britain under disguise,” and said nothing he could say would offset “the false propaganda that has poisoned American ears.” He said the United States, having made common cause with Britain, “cannot therefore disown responsibility for anything that her representatives do in India.”

  In a concluding speech Jawaharial Nehru, the No. 2 man of the Nationalist movement, declared that the “Quit India” resolution was not a threat but an “offer of cooperation.” Nevertheless, he warned that “behind it is the certainty that consequences will follow if certain events do not happen.”

  “We are on the verge of a precipice and we are in deadly earnest about it,” he asserted. “The very act of freeing India will make the Allied cause a completely right cause. It is only negatively right just now because Germany is worse and Japan is worse.

  “If Japan comes to this country you and I will suffer or die, not the people sitting in London, New York or Washington. They say we do not know what Japan is. We know what Japan is. We know what subjugation is better than any people in the world. We have had 200 years of it. We prefer to throw ourselves into the fire and come out a new nation or be reduced to ashes.”

  AUGUST 19, 1942

  COMMANDOS RAID NAZI-HELD DIEPPE

  French Advised Blow Is Not ‘Invasion’

  By The Associated Press.

  LONDON, Aug. 19—The Commandos raided the Dieppe area of occupied France early today, British Combined Operations Headquarters announced. A bulletin said that the operation was still in progress.

  The French people were being advised by radio that the raid was not a full-fledged invasion, headquarters said.

  Dieppe is on the French shore of the English Channel, a short distance west of Dover Strait.

  A raid on that section of the coast might be aimed at silencing Nazi long-range coastal batteries, a constant menace to shipping through the Channel. These recently have been unusually active and their volume of fire has indicated that they have been reinforced.

  Another possibility was that such a raid was a feeler of German coastal defenses as a forerunner of the actual opening of a second land front in Continental Europe, or that it sought—as Commando raids on the French Channel coast have in the past—to knock out anti-aircraft emplacements or radio location stations.

  Now that United States Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force have launched attacks in greater weight on Northern France, a break in the Nazi air raid alarm network would be helpful to the Allied airmen roaring in from the Channel coast.

  Dieppe is only thirty-three miles north of Rouen, target of the first big United States Flying Fortress raid on Nazi-held France, and is, itself, a Channel port and junction of two railroads to Paris. In past centuries it was France’s chief seaport.

  AUGUST 11, 1942

  MARINES ON SHORE

  Fighting Is Heavy After Surprise of Japanese in Tulagi Region

  By CHARLES HURD

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, Aug. 10—American forces have landed in the Tulagi area of the Solomon Islands in the course of an engagement that has been in progress for about three days and is continuing, according to a Navy announcement issued today over the signature of Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet.

  [According to The Associated Press, a naval spokesman in Washington identified the landing groups as parties of Marines. The spokesman was not clear at first as to whether troops other than Marines were engaged, but he said later that the best information available was that Marines alone were making the landings.]

  Heavy fighting has developed, the announcement stated. After “an initial surprise was effected and planned landings accomplished,” Japanese forces “counter-attacked with rapidity and vigor,” the admiral declared.

  ENEMY PLANES DESTROYED

  Incomplete information from the scene of operations, Admiral King said, indicates that the Navy has lost one cruiser and suffered damage to two cruisers, two destroyers and one transport. Japanese losses include “a large number” of planes destroyed and “surface units put out of action.”

  “This operation in the Tulagi area is significant,” said Admiral King’s statement, “in that it marks our first assumption of the initiative and of the offensive. All of the previous operations in the Pacific, however successful, have been essentially defensive in character.

  “It should be understood that the operation now under way is one of the most complicated and difficult in warfare. Considerable losses, such as are inherent in any offensive operation, must be expected as the price to be paid for the hard-won experience which is essential to the attainment of far-reaching results.”

  “Far-reaching results” involve a series of prospective actions by which United States and other United Nations forces eventually must roll back the Japanese from the string of fortified bases and outposts that run from Japan on the north to the Solomons and New Guinea on the south.

  THE OBJECTIVE IS GIVEN

  The present operations, Admiral King explained, are designed essentially to take away an important base from the Japanese so that it can be used for our own purposes. Because of Tulagi’s position, 600 miles east of the southern tip of New Guinea, enemy forces there can threaten the supply line from the United States to Australia. On the other hand, Tulagi is a stepping stone from which United Nations offens
ive operations could be conducted toward the Japanese defenses that dot the islands to the north.

  The fleet and air units that are making the attack in the Tulagi area are commanded by Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, former naval observer at London and now Supreme Commander of United Nations Naval Forces in the South Pacific. The attacking force—obviously formidable—is under the general direction of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

  Admiral King’s report was considered by observers to mark an important step in giving the public a type of explanation generally lacking heretofore in news released in the form of communiqués. It differentiated between offensive action, like that now undertaken, and defensive operations, like those in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway Island, in which American forces—principally planes—fought off invasion fleets sent out by the Japanese.

  It has been demonstrated that an attack based on surprise, as were the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and Dutch Harbor, can cause extreme damage to the offender. This, it appeared, was the initial result of the attack on the Solomon Islands.

  In this new engagement, however, the American forces are attempting something that the Japanese did not attempt at Pearl Harbor—permanent landings as a follow-up to the surprise attack. This necessarily involves changing over from the operations that mark a raid or foray to a determined fight to take and maintain a foothold despite the reserves that the enemy will bring to bear.

  RAIDS ON OTHER BASES

  Admiral King’s statement of known American losses indicated that the invading forces had found formidable opposition waiting for them, despite repeated aerial attacks against Tulagi and three supporting bases lying to the north and west—the Japanese-held port of Rabaul, on New Britain, and the bases at Salamaua and Buna, on New Guinea.

  Tulagi was used in May as the embarkation port for a Japanese invasion force aimed at Australia. That force was “all but annihilated” by air attacks. The island has been a base for sea raiders that have threatened the most direct line of communications between the United States and Australia, a route that is so long as to require a disproportionate amount of shipping to maintain the forces in Australia.

  More recently the Japanese were reported to be constructing an air base on the island of Guadalcanal, near Tulagi. This base would extend by several hundred miles the radius of operation for Japanese bombing planes sent out to intercept supply convoys. By the same token, its capture would give American land-based planes a great advantage in their operations to disrupt Japanese concentrations in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, where Rabaul is situated.

  AUGUST 23, 1942

  Text of Nelson Statement on War Production

  By The Associated Press

  WASHINGTON, Aug. 22—The text of the statement by the Office of War Information on the second war production report by Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, was as follows:

  Munitions production increased 16 per cent last month, continuing recent months’ expansion in the output of planes, guns, tanks, ships and other war equipment, WPB Chairman Donald M. Nelson announced today in his second war production report.

  Although progress was uneven, and efforts are being directed toward bringing about balance between production items, the WPB index of munitions production advanced in July to 350 (preliminary)—three-and-a-half times as great as in November 1941, the month before Pearl Harbor, upon which the index is based. The June index (revised) was 303.

  But July output was 7 per cent short of the production forecasts made on the first of the month. It was, nevertheless, an improvement over June performance, indicating that progress is being made in working up toward scheduled objectives.

  In brief, the score on war production for July (measured by the index) was as follows:

  Aircraft production: Up 11 per cent over June.

  Ordnance production: Up 26 per cent over June.

  Naval ship production: Up 22 per cent over June.

  Merchant ship tonnage: Up 6 per cent over June.

  PRODUCTION REPORTED UNEVEN

  Study of the results reveals that production is uneven in relation to schedules. In some cases July production outstripped the forecasts; in others the forecasts were not approached. Even within certain categories, such as ordnance, we find unequal progress as between various types of equipment. Particularly is it important to keep the production of finished weapons and their component parts in step.

  Analysis of these factors suggests that the war production effort has entered a new phase—one in which more careful balancing of requirements will become increasingly important. For a long-range solution there must be a close, effective control of the flow of materials and a comprehensive system of production control, to make certain that the right materials get to the right places at the right time.

  EXPANSION PROGRAM PUSHED

  This does not involve a reduction of our major programs. It will mean that while we expand the production of raw materials we shall have to limit the production of some items which are easy to make. At the same time, we shall have to exercise care that production of vital weapons needed right now continues to increase.

  The real test of what our industrial machine is doing is how much are we turning out—what are we producing. So far, we are running at a rate three-and- one-half times as great as during the month before Pearl Harbor; the rest of the year will tell the story.

  Based on figures before the month of the Pearl Harbor attack, this index was used by Mr. Nelson in arriving at his conclusions.

  SEPTEMBER 5, 1942

  ‘RED VERDUN’ HOLDS

  Greatest Nazi Onslaught Kept from Advancing by Volga Defenders

  By RALPH PARKER

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, Sept. 5—The defenders of Stalingrad held their ground today as the gigantic struggle for the city—the greatest battle of the war—moved inexorably toward its climax.

  The midnight Soviet communiqué reported that the Germans kept up their attacks in the critical sector southwest of the city, but were beaten off with heavy losses. New German reserves were thrown into the battle in an attempt to follow up an assault by 100 tanks on the Russian defenses. No further advance was made and counter-attacking Soviet tanks did heavy damage, it was reported.

  Northwest of Stalingrad the Russians struck powerful counter-blows and withstood the attacks of enemy tanks thrown into the assault without respite. Across the Don the Russians deepened their dent in the top of the German salient.

  FLEET JOINS COAST DEFENSE

  Furious fighting was reported in the region of Rzhev, while operations continued without significant change northwest of Novorossiisk, where units of the Black Sea Fleet used their guns in coordination with land forces against German and Rumanian forces striving to reach the Caucasian port and naval base. The battle with the Germans, who breached the water line at Mozdok, in the mid-Caucasus, also continued.

  [The Germans reported that their forces were in the suburbs of Stalingrad and claimed a virtual blockade of Volga River traffic. Other troops were said to have crossed the Kerch Strait from the Crimea to join in the advance down the Black Sea coast on Novorossisk. Defensive Axis operations continued west of Moscow and south of Leningrad.]

  The Red Army defending Stalin-grad is withstanding the greatest land and air assault that Germany has ever launched against a single objective. It is doubtful whether less than forty German divisions—about 500,000 men—are involved, and the strength of the German air force there is computed at 1,000 front-line planes. As many as 150 planes have appeared over Stalingrad at once recently.

  Yet despite the terrible weight of the attackers, some of whose troops are comparatively fresh, and the numerical superiority they have established in some sectors—as much as three to one in parts of the northwestern salient—the defenders yield ground very slowly and only after taking a great toll of the enemy.

  ‘RED VERDUN’ IS RECALLED
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  The Stalingrad battle was described in Red Star as unprecedented in the present war in the number of men involved and the violence of the fighting. The army newspaper reminded the Red Army that the city, then Tsaritsyn, was known during the civil war as “Red Verdun” and exhorted the troops to show the same resolute devotion in defense of this gateway of the Caspian and heart of the Volga basin as did their fathers. Stalingrad can be held, Red Star asserted, and no superiority of tanks and planes can prevail over a resolute, well-organized defense.

  Earlier reports indicated that the Germans were continuing to edge the defenders back in individual sectors of the two fronts northwest and southwest of the city, though nowhere had the main enemy forces been able to advance their lines generally.

  The most serious threat from the south comes from a force of about 100 tanks, the remnants of a full panzer division that entered the attack forty-eight hours ago and forced its way through village “K” and strongly defended high land. This break-through had the support of 250 planes, which concentrated on Soviet gun positions, and a considerable force of self-propelled artillery.

  Lodged in the city’s defenses, the foe’s mechanized vanguards now are attempting to worry their way into Stalingrad’s approaches from the southwest, rip open the Russian lines and win passage for large infantry forces lying before Kotelnikov and along the railroad to Stalingrad.

  In the other sectors of General Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s lower thrust the Germans are attacking relentlessly, varying their direction and power in an attempt to bewilder the defense. Though their tank strength is being whittled down by Russian artillerymen, whose heroism defies description, reserves continue to reach the enemy and the pressure is maintained day and night.