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

by The New York Times

  It probably will be directed in the future against all foreigners and may verge upon xenophobia, as nationalism in its extreme forms usually does.

  Meanwhile, in less friendly quarters the first assumption mentioned above was flatly rejected on the ground that none could tell who, if anyone, represented the imprisoned French people of today. Some frankly feared that General de Gaulle and his underground Allies within France might turn out to be communistic. Had not a Communist Deputy joined General de Gaulle in London? In the same quarters the second assumption was angrily denounced as calculated to interfere with the military operations of the Allies, since it was accompanied by a demand for a purge of French Army officers that our military authorities thought would impair the efficiency of a force which had fought extremely well against the Germans.

  ALLIED RESPONSIBILITY

  Moreover, it was regarded as absurd for Frenchmen to squabble over technicalities of sovereignty at a moment when Allied armies were preparing to liberate France, whose sovereignty could not be said to exist unless those Allied armies won the war. The Allies had a right to determine how the French could best cooperate in that common task, since the Allies were bearing the major burden and expense and were responsible for the high command.

  The two assumptions apparently have generated in General de Gaulle supreme confidence in his popularity and his destiny and a sense of having a kind of Joan of Arc mission to save France. All men with missions tend to inspire boredom or distrust or both in those who do not share their enthusiasm; and de Gaulle, by frankly expressing his aspirations, seems to have put some people’s backs up, notably at the conference at Casablanca.

  Moreover, General de Gaulle for three years has carried on a campaign that necessarily clashed all along the line with American policy. For he was denouncing as unworthy and traitorous the government of defeat which the United States recognized and dealt with—although with constant misgivings—as the government of France. It therefore seemed to Washington that de Gaulle’s mission was to frustrate our policy; and for that there was no quick forgiveness.

  The recognition of the Vichy Government is now gone, but General de Gaulle is still sabotaging our policy, this time our military policy which alone can save France—so it seems to Washington officials. If he wants to dispel distrust, why does he not stop arguing and start fighting Germans, since he is a military man, ask his critics.

  OUR INTERVENTION

  American emotions are stirred mainly by the first assumption—that de Gaullism is democracy and all that opposes it is toryism. Prime Minister Churchill’s acceptance of what is described as an antide Gaullist policy is explained by recalling that he is a Tory. President Roosevelt’s adoption of the same attitude is not so easy to explain, but the critics attribute it to some of his advisers in North Africa and here.

  From Algiers this week comes the report that many Americans object to Allied intervention in French affairs “to frustrate de Gaulle.” Others think it would be more logical to object to intervention as such, whomever it might frustrate.

  The invitation to General Giraud to come here was interpreted as designed to increase his prestige not only with the Army but with civilians in North Africa. His visit is now officially described as strictly military, although it would be rash to suggest that in the General’s conversations here no mention will be made of the committee that aspires to rule the French Empire and its armed forces.

  UNITY STILL ABSENT

  The status of that committee remains obscure pending definition of the Allied attitude toward it. The case of Martinique, where the Vichy regime has collapsed, offers the opportunity for such a definition.

  Meanwhile, the extent of de Gaulle’s influence in the committee and in the French Empire, and the somewhat un-bending nature of de Gaulle, seem to preclude at least for the present that French unity which everybody has professed to desire.

  JULY 11, 1943

  FOURTH-TERM RACE TAKEN FOR GRANTED

  But Recent Washington Rows Suggest Re-election Is Far From Certain

  POLITICAL TACTICS SHAPED

  By TURNER CATLEDGE

  WASHINGTON, July 10—Regardless of the political strain which the intramural feuding and clashes between the White House and Congress undoubtedly have imposed lately upon the Administration, the nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term as President is still taken for granted here.

  Reports from the country as to reactions to the continuing squabbling in Washington suggest the advisability of a recheck by those who would make Mr. Roosevelt a heavy-odds favorite for reelection against the entire field, Democratic and Republican. There appears no evidence that he will be seriously countered in his own party, but a general disgust with the Washington rows, as reported, especially from the Middle West, may, if the quarrels continue, bring about a tightening up of the winter book quotations for 1944.

  SIGNS OF WANING SUPPORT

  Regardless of the belief that Mr. Roosevelt will be nominated again—assuming, of course, that he wants to be—he perhaps will have less emotional support than ever before from the rank and file of the heterogeneous aggregation that has occupied the Democratic wigwam for these last ten years.

  Ardor for him has cooled and is cooling perceptibly among his partisans in some regions. Feeling has run pretty deeply in the South over the activities of the Administration, and particularly of Mrs. Roosevelt, in relation to the delicate racial problem, and in the Middle West over efforts to control farm prices.

  Realizing all of this, the White House political high command headed by Harry Hopkins, with David K. Niles as first assistant, is not expected to try to give the fourth-term nomination the semblance of a “draft,” as they did the third-term nomination in 1940. They are expected, on the other hand, and in their own time, to go after the plum by direct and obvious means, always with this legitimate question: “Pray, who else?” And, if the fighting is still under way in the fall of 1944, they can be expected to present the case of Mr. Roosevelt’s fourth-term election as a military necessity to assure victory for the United Nations, and as a means for insuring a more lasting peace for the whole world.

  PREPARATORY STEPS

  The fourth-term planners are letting no grass grow under their feet. The recent appointment of George E. Allen as secretary of the National Committee can be considered as in line with the purpose of the planners to become more active, especially in appeasing the virulent opposition within the party. Mr. Allen is what is known in his native Mississippi as “a smooth operator.”

  While the fourth-termers have made no outstanding open moves to date, they have been laying the groundwork. Proof of the skill with which they have been laying it may be found in some degree in the fact that until now no opponent of the fourth term has stuck his head very high within the party. At this stage four years ago at least two—John N. Garner and James A. Farley, then respectively Vice President and Postmaster General—were offering themselves as rallying points for antithird term Democrats.

  Politics is an ever-present element in Washington. It has its influence, one way or another, on practically every major action taken here. The war has brought no exception to that rule—in fact, politics is more present in current measures than at any time for several years.

  Yet it is difficult to see the influence of the fourth-term campaign, so far as the “fourth term” is concerned, in these actions and discussions. The question of the two-term limitation seemed to have been disposed of quite definitely in 1940 so far as it involved Mr. Roosevelt. Opposition to him and his measures now is based on other things than his threat further to shatter tradition.

  RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

  Recent Washington developments, particularly the action of Congress in running roughshod over some of the projects of the President, have underscored the view that Mr. Roosevelt’s strength politically is not what it used to be on the domestic front. It may not be basically what it used to be on any front, but Congress, being uncertain of itself a
nd lacking information on international issues, used home ground on which to make its stand.

  The trouble between the White House and the Capitol cannot be ascribed altogether to a difference on issues. Of political importance from an intraparty political standpoint is the method which the President and the little inner-circle group around him have used for several years now in dealing with their sensitive partisans on The Hill. So far as the trouble to the White House is concerned, it is a case in large degree of chickens coming home to roost.

  One thing which many Washington observers seemed to think settled by the recent feuding was that Vice President Henry A. Wallace would be off the ticket for 1944. Mr. Wallace’s chances already were considered to be dimming, what with his own failure to strike political fire and the availability of other highly placed and more romantic figures. But his row with Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce and Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, undoubtedly set off active opposition. It will be remembered that Mr. Jones was one of a long string of possible Vice-Presidential nominees who, under White House pressure, withdrew their names in favor of Mr. Wallace at the Chicago Convention in 1940.

  JULY 14, 1943

  Editorial

  HITLER IN COMMAND?

  There are reports by way of London that Hitler is back in command on the Eastern Front. Good news, if true. There are excellent reasons for believing that the overvaulting ambition of this self-infatuated man played an important part in the disasters which overtook the German armies at the end of last year’s campaign in Russia. It was his decision, most accounts agree, that split the German forces when they should have been united, in a too greedy effort to grab both the Volga and the Caucasus, thereby bringing on the catastrophe at Stalingrad. In the earlier stages of the war, when Germany’s neighbors were unprepared for sudden treacherous attacks, Hitler’s “intuition” frequently worked wonders. In the present stage of the war, with the supremacy of power shifting to the Allied side, any enemy of Germany would prefer to have Hitler’s “intuition” substituted for the cool competence of the German General Staff.

  Moreover, if Hitler is now back in command on the Eastern Front, the German people will be reminded, at an inconvenient stage of the war for such remembrances, of past promises about performances in Russia that failed to come off. There was Hitler’s confident declaration, as early as Oct. 3, 1941, that “This enemy is already broken and will never rise again.” There was his promise, on Dec. 11 of the same year, that “With the return of summer weather there will be no obstacle to stop the forward movement of the German troops.” There was his iron-bound guarantee, on March 15, 1942, that “The Russians will be annihilatingly defeated by us in the coming summer.” And there was the famous declaration of last Sept. 30 that Stalingrad would stay in German hands: “You can be of the firm conviction that no human being shall ever push us away from that spot.”

  Hitler’s record as a military commander on the Russian front is strewn with pledges he has not redeemed.

  JULY 15, 1943

  BRITISH ADVANCE NEAR CATANIA; AMERICANS SEIZE KEY AIRDROMES; 12,000 AXIS PRISONERS CAPTURED

  U.S. TROOPS LANDING IN SICILY UNDER ENEMY FIRE

  By The Associated Press.

  ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN NORTH AFRICA, July 14—The British Eighth Army bore down tonight on Catania, the port city halfway along the eastern Sicilian coast toward Messina, opposite the toe of Italy. Late dispatches said that Catania’s fall was imminent.

  [The Eighth Army stood on the plain before Catania, The United Press reported. According to an Algiers broadcast recorded in London by The Associated Press, the British had driven a wedge into the city’s defenses. A Madrid report quoted by The United Press said that German sources had told of a large-scale landing of British para-troops in the plain, though the Germans claimed that they had wiped out the attackers.] In the southwest a powerful force of Americans, which has already taken more than 8,000 prisoners, scored a fifteen-mile advance on the left flank, captured two more key airdromes and struck inland toward Caltagirone, the southwestern gateway to the Catania Plain. More than 12,000 prisoners altogether have been captured on Sicily, it was announced tonight. On the fifth day of the campaign the Axis defenses appeared to be still paralyzed.

  The American middle column, headed toward Caltagirone, was last reported only a few miles from there, fighting a German unit at Niscemi.

  MEET NO ‘SERIOUS OPPOSITION’

  But an Allied commentator said that, in the over-all picture, the Allies “are not really meeting any serious opposition.” Dispatches made it clear that the invaders were ahead of their timetable.

  British troops and the Canadians attached to the Eighth Army were reported to be within fifteen miles of Catania during the afternoon after a swift twenty-mile advance from Augusta. At this rate the Eighth Army should be nearing Catania, unless serious opposition had developed at the intermediate inland cities of Lentini and Carlentini, on the edge of the Catania Plain below Mount Etna. Catania itself has no natural defenses.

  The British were moving along a road that curves inland toward

  Lentini and may already have taken that city. Catania is thirty-five miles from Augusta along this winding route.

  The Americans captured airdromes at Comiso, six miles west of Ragusa, and at Ponte Olivo, nine miles inland from Gela. Plunging west and north from Licata, the Americans overran Palma and Naro. The latter is only twelve miles from Agrigento, where the Axis was said to have concentrated heavy forces for a counter-attack. Hundreds of prisoners were swept up in this fifteen-mile drive.

  The American sector of the 150-mile bridgehead was a long, shallow one, with the invasion plan apparently calling for the Americans to deepen and protect the Allied left flank while the British raced up the eastern coast to Messina.

  French forces have landed in Sicily and are participating in the Allied campaign, it was officially announced at the headquarters of French forces in North Africa.

  JULY 15, 1943

  GEN. PATTON WADED ASHORE TO BATTLE

  Leader Leaped into Surf from Landing-Craft as Tanks Periled U.S. Force

  BY NOEL MONKS

  London Daily Mail Correspondent (Distributed by The Associated Press.)

  ABOARD A DESTROYER, Off General Montgomery’s Sicilian Headquarters, July 13 (Delayed)—Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., commander of the United States Seventh Army invading Sicily leaped into the surf from a landing barge and waded ashore to take personal command of bitter fighting against German tank units opposing the landing.

  At General Patton’s American bridgehead at Gela I heard the story of General Patton’s great personal courage and the magnificent fighting quality of his troops.

  When the Americans landed at Gela they found the town in control of two German tank regiments. During the next twenty-four hours the fiercest fighting of the whole Allied invasion took place. Twice the Germans were driven from the town and twice the Americans were forced right back on to the beaches.

  At this stage General Patton leaped into the surf.

  Step by step the Germans were driven back from the beaches as wave after wave of Americans landed from the troopships. By sunset Sunday the bridgehead was well established and the Americans had pushed the Germans back to a few miles beyond town.

  When Gen. [Dwight D.] Eisenhower visited General Patton’s headquarters yesterday he warmly congratulated his old colleague on his splendid fighting achievement.

  Lieutenant General George S. Patton during the campaign to liberate Sicily, Italy, 1943.

  JULY 18, 1943

  SUCCESSES ELATE MOSCOW

  Failure of Vast German Effort Is Potent Russian Tonic

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, July 17—Today there is a feeling of excitement and exaltation in Moscow unequaled since the height of last winter’s victories. Everyone has become more aware than ever of the enormous change that has occurred since last year.

  The Germans�
�� failure to cut off the Kursk salient had become increasingly clear since July 5, when the Nazis launched their offensive. It was clear that the Russians had devised, through months of careful training and preparation, means of breaking any Blitzkrieg attack the Germans could devise with their shock tactics and Tiger tanks.

  The Russian Army was trained to withstand what seemed impossible, first an artillery barrage of enormous intensity, then an intensive air bombing, and finally vast waves of tanks, including a high proportion of Tigers. When these broke through, still nothing was settled for the Germans. Through remarkable coordination of weapons, the Russians always succeeded in limiting the damage of the break-through and usually managing to destroy the broken-through tanks after detaching them from their infantry or forcing them to turn tail.

  The magnitude of the attack may be gauged from the fact that the Russians in many cases succeeded in a small sector in repelling, dispersing and partly destroying as many as 6,000 tanks attacking simultaneously.

  This is explainable by several factors working together—the cultivation of Russian iron nerves, for it takes iron nerves to crouch inside a trench, allow a Tiger tank to cross beyond it and then fire from an anti-tank rifle into the tank’s vulnerable rear; iron discipline and an unlimited spirit of self-sacrifice; all this, together with admirable coordination of weapons, an extraordinarily rich endowment of infantry with all types of anti-tank weapons and a general richness in automatic and semi-automatic weapons; failure of the Germans to gain air control in the Kursk-Orel and Belgorod battles, the effectiveness of Russian aviation and above all the high power and skill of the Russian artillery, which bore the brunt of the German onslaught.