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

by The New York Times

  This reflects the greater thoroughness of the pre-employment interview at the personnel office which inquires into the home conditions of the applicant. If there are children, what are their ages? What plan has been made for their care? Has the prospect had many colds during the Winter? Does she have sinus trouble? The rigid physical examination supplements the answers given by the women. Absenteeism can be reduced by attention to these conditions before employment and by proper coordination of first aid and dispensary service with the personnel office.

  We have found the women punctual on the job. They get to work on time. In our first two and a half months’ experience at the first Todd Shipyard to employ women, not a single woman has been tardy even once and the foremen noted it, appreciatively. Perhaps, it is long habit of getting the children off to school on time.

  There is uniform agreement that the women do a swell job—that they work conscientiously and well and are anxious to learn. They are amenable to discipline. Their interest in their work is typified by an incident that happened to me recently. A foreman sent for me, saying he wanted me to see “the two best men I have.” Both were attractive young women, working on a big armature. They told me. “This is such responsible work. We know it must be done just right else the motor of this ship might fail and the men aboard would be at the mercy of a German submarine,” and they turned back to their work with frowning attention.

  Employment of women in industries hitherto accustomed only to men does involve new problems. The solutions are to be found in analysis of the problems and ingenuity in meeting them. If more attention is paid to pre-employment interviewing at the personnel office, resulting in a steadier type of employee, and if more attention to physical requirements results in a better integrated medical service, the benefits that flow from these changes will help the employment problems of men as well. Lessons learned during the war emergency will remain as standard practice after the war.

  Work places where heretofore too little attention has been paid to sanitation will be better places now and after the war. Changes in working hours that produce steadier employment will likewise remain as post-war practice. Improved methods of work which reduce fatigue for women will help the men and make for more efficient operation after the war. too. The very necessity for devoting time and thought to the problems affecting women cannot but result in a more alert and quickened attention to the whole process of manufacturing methods. The necessity for maximum efficiency in winning the war will have long-range results in our whole industrial system.

  JANUARY 25, 1943

  LEADERS GO BY AIR

  Aim at ‘Unconditional Surrender’ By Axis, President Says

  MILITARY AIDES TALK

  French Chiefs Declare Groups Will Unite to Liberate Nation

  By DREW MIDDLETON

  Special Cable to The New York Times.

  CASABLANCA, French Morocco, Jan. 24 (Delayed)—President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill today concluded a momentous ten-day conference in which they planned Allied offensives of 1943 aimed at what the President called the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers.

  The President flew 5,000 miles across the Atlantic with his Chiefs of Staff to confer with Mr. Churchill and British military, naval and air chieftains in a sun-splashed villa within sound of Atlantic breakers. Every phase of the global war was discussed in conferences lasting from morning until midnight. Both war leaders emphasized that the conference was wholly successful and that complete agreement had been reached on great military enterprises to be undertaken by the United Nations this year.

  General Henri Honoré Giraud, High Commissioner for French North Africa, and General Charles de Gaulle, leader of Fighting France, met at the conference and found themselves in accord on the primary task of liberating France from German domination. President Roosevelt predicted that French soldiers, sailors and airmen would fight beside the Allied armies in the liberation of France.

  STALIN KEPT INFORMED

  The President and Mr. Churchill expressed regret for Premier Joseph Stalin’s inability to leave the Russian offensive, which he is directing personally, but emphasized that all results of the conferences had been reported to the Soviet leader. [Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was similarly advised, The Associated Press reported.]

  Assurance of future world peace will come only as a result of the total elimination of German and Japanese war power, the President declared. He borrowed a phrase from General Grant’s famous letter to the Confederate commander at Forts Donelson and Henry—“unconditional surrender”—to describe the only terms on which the United Nations would accept the conclusion of the war.

  He emphasized, however, that this did not mean the destruction of the populace of Germany, Japan and Italy, but the end of a philosophy based on the conquest and subjugation of other peoples in those countries.

  Sitting side by side in the bright sunlight on the grassy lawn of the villa, the President and the Prime Minister reviewed the work of the conference, in which the Chiefs of Staff conferred two or three times a day, reporting at intervals to them.

  American and British military leaders at the Casablanca conference, Morocco, 1943.

  The President saw three objectives before the United Nations in 1943.

  The first of these is maintenance of the initiative won in the closing days of 1942, its extension to other theatres and an increase in those in which the Allies now hold the upper hand.

  Second, the dispatch of all possible aid to the Russian offensive must be maintained with the double objective of whittling down German manpower and continuing the attrition of German munitions and material on the Russian front.

  Third, Mr. Roosevelt called for assistance for the Chinese armies, now in their sixth year of war, with Japanese domination ended forever.

  BOTH LEADERS SATISFIED

  To gain these objectives the military and political leaders of the United Nations are determined to pool all their resources, military and economic, in 1943 to maintain the initiative wherever it is now held and to seek every opportunity to bring the enemy to battle on terms as unfavorable as those now prevailing in Tunisia.

  Both leaders were extremely satisfied at the successful conclusion of the fourth meeting between them since the beginning of the war. Cooperation between the American and British Chiefs of Staff was described by Mr. Roosevelt as the closest possible, with the military leaders living together and working as personal friends more than as allies.

  President Roosevelt predicted that the war would proceed according to schedule, with every indication that 1943 would be an even better year for the United Nations than 1942.

  The conference, which probably made more important decisions than any other called by the United Nations, was held in a lush tropical setting in conditions of greatest secrecy. The President’s villa was shaded by palm trees, with Bougainvillaea climbing on trellises around the house, and oranges nodding on trees in the yard. A swimming pool in the back yard had been turned into an air raid shelter, but no German planes approached Casablanca during the conferences, and if any had come they would have been greeted by squadrons of British and United States fighter planes flying guard over the region.

  TALKS CLOSELY GUARDED

  Many acres of the resort were enclosed in two lines of barbed wire, on which tin cans were hung. If anyone had been foolhardy enough to approach these lines he would have been riddled by bullets from machine guns or bayoneted by some of the hundreds of American infantrymen who stood helmeted atop roofs or patrolled the shady walks around the area.

  Both the President and the Prime Minister seemed confident and satisfied when they appeared at the noon press conference today. The President wore a worn gray suit and the Prime Minister was dapper in a gray pin-stripe suit topped by a somewhat battered gray Homburg hat. The sunshine winked in a jeweled “V” and an American Distinguished Service Order bar in his lapel buttonhole.

  The two unmilitary-looking men, who lead half of the
strongest coalition in history, were accompanied by General de Gaulle and General Giraud. For the benefit of camera men the two generals shook hands.

  “A historic moment,” President Roosevelt commented.

  The sun beat fiercely on the group. Mr. Churchill asked the President, “Don’t you want a hat?”

  “I was born without a hat,” Mr. Roosevelt replied.

  While the President and the Prime Minister talked, guards silhouetted on nearby rooftops never relaxed their vigil and tight formations of fighters roared overhead.

  Mr. Roosevelt revealed that the Allied victories in North Africa had made his fourth meeting with Mr. Churchill necessary. The situation had been reviewed in the meeting and plans made for the next steps in 1943, he said.

  Both he and Mr. Churchill expressed deep regret for Premier Joseph Stalin’s inability to leave the Russian offensive which he is directing personally, but emphasized that all the results of the conferences between the President, the Prime Minister and their Chiefs of Staff committees had been reported to the Soviet leader.

  Mr. Churchill agreed with Mr. Roosevelt that the conference was unprecedented in history. Describing himself again as the President’s ardent lieutenant, Mr. Churchill declared they worked together as partners and friends and described their cooperation as one of the sinews of war of the Allied powers.

  The Prime Minister began to speak slowly, but gradually raised his voice as he described the frustration of the enemy by the men Adolf Hitler had called incompetents and drunkards. This brought a laugh. Mr. Churchill beamed.

  The events in North Africa have altered the whole, strategic aspect of the war, making the Germans and Italians fight under conditions of great difficulty, he declared. He described General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as a fugitive from Libya and Egypt now trying to pass himself off as the liberator of Tunis. But he reminded the correspondents that General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery was hot on Marshal Rommel’s trial and that everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.

  PURPOSE IS UNCONQUERABLE

  Design, purpose and an unconquerable will lie behind all that is being done by Britain and America, the Prime Minister said solemnly. These will be applied to enforce unconditional surrender upon the criminals who plunged the world into the war, he concluded.

  Both the President and Mr. Churchill seemed hopeful on the results of the de Gaulle–Giraud meeting, in which the two French leaders found themselves in “entire agreement” on the end to be achieved, which is the liberation of France and defeat of the enemy. Yet although a joint communiqué issued by the two generals said this could be achieved only by union in war on all Frenchmen fighting side by side, it gave no clue as to how the present difficulty in the North African political situation is to be adjusted.

  It is felt, however, that the conference between the generals and their talks with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt had cleared the way for an agreement of some sort between Generals Giraud and de Gaulle on the political aspects of their crusade for the liberation of France. The mere fact that they were seen talking together and were photographed shaking hands should do much to unite the French all over North Africa and to emphasize that a union of General de Gaulle’s followers with the other factions must be carried out swiftly if the French are to bulk large in the United Nations’ war plans.

  FIRST FLIGHT OF PRESIDENT

  Mr. Roosevelt, the first President to leave the United States in wartime, became the first to inspect United States troops in the field since Abraham Lincoln when he reviewed armored and infantry units in a day snatched from the long series of arduous conferences. Riding in a jeep, the President inspected camps, talked with dozens of men and officers and ate “chow” with the soldiers.

  “We had a darn good lunch,” he said. “I wish the people back home could see the troops and their equipment. They have the most modern weapons we can turn out. The men are in good health and high spirits and I found the officers and men most efficient. Their morale is splendid and I know they will keep it up. Tell the folks back home that I am mighty proud of them.”

  The President visited Port Lyautey, scene of heavy fighting during the American landing, and placed wreaths on the graves of American and French soldiers buried there. He also directed that a wreath be placed on the grave of Edward Baudry, Canadian Broadcasting Company war correspondent, who was killed by a Spanish anti-aircraft bullet on a flight to cover the conference.

  Among the happy features of his visit were talks the President had while here with two of his sons, Lieut. Col. Elliott Roosevelt, who is with the Allied Air Force, and Lieutenant Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., who is on duty with the Navy.

  Mr. Roosevelt had one other break from the conferences. This came when he dined with the Sultan of Morocco, Sidi Mohammed, at “a delightful party.” According to the President, they got along extremely well and he found the Sultan deeply interested in the welfare of his people.

  The President flew to Africa in two aircraft, switching from one to the other at a point on the journey. It was his first flight since his historic trip from Albany to Chicago in 1932 when he accepted the presidential nomination. He was accompanied by Mr. Hopkins on the flight, the first ever made by a President of the United States.

  [The President flew by Clipper to a point in North Africa, then changed to a four-motored bomber especially fitted for comfort, The United Press reported.]

  SERVICE CHIEFS IN TALKS

  The United States Chiefs of Staff, General George C. Marshall of the Army, Admiral Ernest J. King of the Navy and Lieut. Gen. Henry H. Arnold of the Air Forces, preceded the President and already had begun conferences with their British “opposite numbers,” General Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, Chief of the Naval Staff, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles F. A. Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, when the rest of the party arrived. W. Averell Harriman, United States Lend-Lease Expediter, joined the conference from London.

  The Chiefs of Staff were assisted by Lieut. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, chief of the United States Services of Supply; Field Marshal Sir John Dill, chairman of the British military mission to the United States; Lord Louis Mountbatten, chief of the operational command, and Lieut. Gen. Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to Mr. Churchill as Defense Minister, Conferences took place two or three times daily, with constant reports going to the President and the Prime Minister.

  The Prime Minister, who arrived first at the rendezvous, was accompanied by Lord Leathers, British Minister of War Transport. The President had just settled in his spacious white villa when Mr. Hopkins ushered in Mr. Churchill and the first of their many conferences began. It lasted through dinner and continued until 3 o’clock the next morning.

  The Chiefs of Staff, the President and the Prime Minister conferred with Allied military and political leaders from all over the African theatres. Lieut. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of Allied operations; his deputy, Lieut, Gen. Mark W. Clark, and General Sir Harold R.L.G. Alexander, Commander in Chief of the Middle East forces, represented the ground troops. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, Allied naval Commander in Chief in North Africa, gave the naval views on what Mr. Churchill described as the great events impending, while Major Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, chief of Allied air operations; Air Marshal Sir Arthur William Tedder, vice chief of the air staff, and Lieut. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, United States Middle East commander, discussed the air situation.

  Not the least interesting of these conferences were those between Mr. Churchill, Mr. Roosevelt, Harold Macmillan, British Resident Minister in North Africa, and Robert D. Murphy, civil affairs officer on General Eisenhower’s staff, in which the tangled political situation was reviewed.

  It is impossible to assess the value of the conference as yet, but it may be said that its close probably heralded the end of the long lull in Tunisia. Both Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt gave every indication that the Allies’ watchword is “get on with the job.” The Casablanca “uncondi
tional surrender” conference was a directors’ meeting of one-half of the mighty coalition now definitely on the offensive.

  Two chief results of the conference appear to be, first, full admission that the Allies intend to press home the present strategic advantage during their campaigns in 1943, and, second, the fact that Generals de Gaulle and Giraud have been brought together in a meeting that, if barren of definite political agreement, at least showed France and French North Africa that they have agreed in principle and are ready to work together.

  The President’s use of General Grant’s famous cry, “unconditional surrender,” gives the key to the Allies’ political strategy in the closing months of the war and indicates that, although mercy may be shown to the Axis peoples, none will be shown to their leaders.

  This warning should do much to hush the German propaganda that claims that events in North Africa show that the Allies have been willing to cooperate with “Quislings” here and may be expected to do so again when the Continent is invaded.

  There is no doubt that the conference was the most important of the four held by the two leaders, for this time they were not occupied by expedients to gain time or hold the enemy in check, but to fashion a crushing offensive against the Axis.