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

by The New York Times

  The start of the war in Europe brought new problems and accentuated old ones in Harlem. Since Pearl Harbor the principal cause of unrest in Harlem and other Negro communities has been complaint of discrimination and Jim Crow treatment of Negroes in the armed forces, according to responsible Negro leaders. Visits and letters from Negro soldiers and articles in the Negro press keep Harlem continually reminded of the tension in Southern States where Negro troops are stationed.

  WAR JOBS A FACTOR

  Closely linked to the status of the Negro in the armed services in breeding resentment is that of his status as a worker, particularly in war plants. Not until labor shortages began to threaten war production, Negro leaders say, could Negro workers break down the reluctance of many employers and labor unions to give them jobs in any large number. Even now, they charge, the Negro worker has to contend with many subtle discriminations, especially in upgrading for better jobs.

  Students of the problem agree that the most important long-range factor is that of employment, for the refusal to give work to Negroes, or their confinement to menial, low-paid jobs regardless of merit, not only breaks down morale and increases disillusionment but also aggravates the other basic causes to which Negro leaders attribute trouble in Harlem—bad housing conditions, inadequate educational and recreational facilities, substandard health and hospital service, and crime and delinquency.

  Much has been done and is being done to improve the situation. After the 1935 riot, the Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem made a report which was critical of certain aspects of the way the problem had been handled. Although the report was never released, the Mayor has put many of its recommendations into effect. There has been improvement in police methods, housing, health, educational and recreational services. Steps taken against discrimination in civil service examinations have brought more Negroes into the city departments.

  OTHER CORRECTIVE STEPS

  The City-Wide Citizens’ Committee on Harlem, organized in 1941 with outstanding white and Negro leaders among its officers and directors, has succeeded through cooperation with city officials and private employers, in persuading some large department stores, insurance companies and public utilities to employ Negroes in larger numbers and in better jobs than ever before.

  One of the outstanding Negro leaders of the community, Lester B. Granger, executive secretary of the National Urban League, is convinced that much more could be done if there were better leadership among both the whites and Negroes who are actively interested in the problem. He thinks the Negro leadership should return to the more moderate hands in which it was held before 1934 and 1935, when Communists and other extremist advocates of “mass pressure” took over, and that the white leadership should include more practical business men and labor leaders and fewer sentimentalists, professional liberals and the like.

  AUGUST 11, 1943

  RUSSIA STILL ASKS FOR SECOND FRONT

  Sicilian Campaign Considered Fine But Not a Substitute for Major Operation

  PESSIMISM IS APPARENT

  Many Believe Allies Have the Power To Open Big Drive, Yet Are Not Willing To Do So

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, Aug. 10—The Russian people do not dispute that the campaign in Sicily is a grand show, but they consider it a small show compared to the military power represented by the combined British Empire and the United States.

  It was with some bitterness that a Russian friend said to the writer:

  “Of course, our troops would have preferred to take a well-deserved rest after winning the two colossal battles of the Kursk salient and Orel.”

  Then he added: “If they are still going ahead, perhaps it is because our high command no longer believes in the early opening of a second front, and we want the war to end soon, anyway. But it would be infinitely easier if a second front were there. Then we really could cut like a knife through butter.

  “Today, in addition to the bulk of their land forces, the Germans have every available bomber on this front, That’s why Goebbels had to apologize to the Germans for the German Government’s inability to retaliate against the Allied bombings of Hamburg and the Ruhr, and so on.”

  That attitude is fairly typical of the general mood, and it is reflected also in the press. With unconcealed bitterness, Ilya Ehrenburg wrote the other day:

  “How soon will the British and Americans move from Italian psychology to the German fortifications?”

  There is also some suspicion that, whereas the Allied argument last year that they could not open a large-scale second front was more than plausible, now the Allies “can, but don’t want to.” There also is a tendency to disbelieve the view that the French coastline is impregnable. If we broke through the Orel defenses, why can’t you break through the Atlantic wall? is the attitude.

  AUGUST 17, 1943

  QUEBEC PLANS LAID FOR RUTHLESS WAR

  Military Decisions Covering Germany and Japan Stress Increased Aggressiveness

  By P. J. PHILIP

  Special to The New York Times.

  QUEBEC, Aug. 16—Until today the Quebec conference has been engaged mainly with the gigantic military and joint operational measures that must and can be taken at this stage toward winning the wars in Europe and the Pacific. All accounts from inside the Chateau Frontenac, where the general staffs have been at work, are that by intense application and goodwill on every side the problems entailed have been largely solved.

  The plans for attack and the invasion of enemy and enemy-occupied territory in every war zone have been studied from every angle and a blueprint of the course of the war during the next months—and years, if necessary—has been prepared.

  What these plans are will, of course, only become known when they are set in motion. The one thing that can be said about them is that they have been made in a ruthlessly aggressive spirit. What is being sought is the defeat of the enemy in all war zones in the shortest possible time. To that end it is certain that every one of the United Nations will be called upon to fight harder and work harder.

  In the discussions of the Chiefs of Staff there have been, of course, no questions of politics. Their job was to plan how to win the war in the shortest time.

  POLITICAL ISSUES TO THE FORE

  This week the second task of trying to solve the political questions that attach to the military problems must be tackled. A beginning has undoubtedly been made already in the conversations at Hyde Park between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to which W. L. Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister, also added his quota of council. Before the conference here ends it is expected that Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary, will arrive from London,

  Like their military chiefs, the political heads of the governments assembled here will have to face their problems realistically. Prejudices and even past policies, it is said, may have to be set aside if sound solutions are to be reached.

  The foremost of these problems is how to treat the Italian Government and people. It is now clear that the action of King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Pietro Badoglio in getting rid of Benito Mussolini and trying to break the fascist regime came too soon. Perhaps some will say that the Allies were not quick enough and powerful enough to take advantage of it.

  The German resistance in Sicily has succeeded in gaining time for the application in large part of the plan to which Mussolini gave his assent and to which the King refused his. For all practical purposes the Italian King is as much a prisoner of the Nazis as King Leopold of the Belgians, and the Badoglio government is powerless.

  This is a problem that obviously calls for a combination of firm and delicate treatment.

  Next, in order of public interest at least, is the question of the recognition of the French National Liberation Committee as the provisional government of France. Here in Quebec and throughout. Canada feeling runs high on this issue, with opinion strongly in favor of immediate recognition as a proof on the part of the Anglo-Saxon powers of their intenti
on to respect their past promises with regard to the entire sovereignty of France and incidentally of all those nations which have been occupied by the enemy.

  SUSPICIONS OF IMPERIALISM

  It may be said that the publicity given to “AMGOT” has created a suspicion here as well as among some of the governments in exile that the post-war policies of the Anglo-Saxon governments have a flavor of Imperialism that is considered both unwelcome and unbecoming in Allies fighting for the preservation of international as well as national democracy. The third problem on which there is a public demand for clarification is that of the relationship between the Government of the Soviet Union and the other governments engaged in the war.

  All these questions of the policy to be followed with regard to Italy, to the French Liberation Committee, to the various governments in exile, and to Russia’s attempts at independent political action are regarded by many here as so closely interlocked that a solution for all of them can be best found in the formulation of a clear statement of joint policy by the governments which are and will be represented here.

  AUGUST 17, 1943

  CHINA COMMUNISTS FIRM IN DEMANDS

  But Chungking Refuses to Give Approval to the Party Or to the Organization’s Armies

  CIVIL WAR SEEN UNLIKELY

  Some in Government Believe Differences Can Be Removed By Compromises

  By BROOKS ATKINSON

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  CHUNGKING, China, Aug. 16—No change is expected in the relations between the central government of China and the Chinese Communists, at least for the present. Although relations are strained, as they have been for years, they seem not to be any better or worse and both sides have many reasons for wanting to avoid violence.

  When Gen. Chou En-lai, unofficial liaison officer between the Communists and the central government, started for Yenan, the communist capital, about two months ago with the consent of the central government, many persons hoped that he was carrying information or at least a point of view that would result in a settlement or hold out the promise of a settlement. But by the time he arrived at Sian, the situation had begun to deteriorate.

  Now a war of words is going on. From Communist-controlled areas in Shansi and Shensi come bulletins accusing the central government of inefficiency in the war against the Japanese and of preparing to dissolve the Communist party by force. Newspapers in the rest of free China print petitions to Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh to dissolve the Communist party and turn over the Communist armies to the control of the central government in the interests of a completely united China.

  CENTRAL GOVERNMENT’S VIEW

  For several years no journalist has been to the region where the Communists are in control so there is no disinterested information on what is going on there but it is easy to discover what the point of view of the central government is. The Ministers and political leaders interviewed in recent weeks agree on one point: There will be no civil war unless the Communists start it.

  The Communist representatives here have political and military reasons against civil war. Despite reports of occasional skirmishes all is quiet in the border region with no fundamental change in the political and military situations.

  The People’s Political Council and the central executive committee of the Kuomintang, the Government party, are scheduled to meet soon and it will be interesting to see whether they arrive at a decision respecting the Communists.

  The differences between the central government and the Communist party are fundamental. The central government cannot tolerate one section of the country that has its own government, army and currency and collects its own taxes. As long as the Communist party remains outside the law of the central government it cannot be recognized as a legal party.

  The Communist party asks nothing except recognition as a political party.

  But it is unwilling to give up its military force on the speculation that the Government and the Kuomintang will accept it as a legal party. It also distrusts certain aspects of the Government.

  BOTH LACK UNDERSTANDING

  Apart from these fundamental differences, there is a fundamental lack of understanding on both sides which possibly is more serious than the chief points at issue. The minor accusations are bitter.

  Some members of the Kuomintang and of the Government think the differences can be resolved by a series of compromises. Since it would be to everyone’s advantage to remove this flaw in national unity, they believe in compromises without violence.

  Although the Communist party is not recognized in law, it is recognized in fact. There are seven Communist members of the People’s Political Council. The Chungking Communist party publishes a daily newspaper that can be bought on the street.

  To a foreigner who enjoys the paradoxes of Chinese life the only entertaining aspect of the current situation is the presence of Communist headquarters in the former dormitory of the Executive Yuan. On the second floor still live some high officials of the Executive Yuan and near by is the youth hostel of the central government’s political training department.

  AUGUST 22, 1943

  Cold, Fog, Mud-Life In the Aleutians

  By Foster Hailey

  LIFE in the Aleutians in the good old summertime is like this: You crawl out from under the blankets about 7:15—that is, if you want breakfast—hurriedly pull on your heavy underwear, G.I. trousers and close the ventilators. Then you take the rest of your clothes and go into the front room—shut off from the sleeping quarters by a cardboard partition—and complete your dressing there by the little Diesel stove. If you’re finicky about such things you then grab your towel and a bar of soap and head for the washroom, a block away. Careful of that slope there, because the mud is like grease and you’re liable to end up in a slit trench or on top of the quonset at the foot of the slope.

  The washroom is warm and steamy from the heat of the Diesel water-heater and the hot water running from ten faucets at which twenty or thirty men are trying to brush their teeth or wash their faces at the same time. You take your turn in line and then gallop back to your quonset to brush your hair and slip on a fur-lined flight jacket or parka.

  American soldiers trudge through muddy ground near the American base at Attu in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 1943.

  By this time the sun may be shining, or more probably not shining One thing the sun never does is rise. It just starts coming through the mist or a hole in the clouds, some time during the morning. It never sets, either. There always seems to be fog or clouds in the way. Down south you get so you hate the sight of the sun, a brassy furnace mouth that sears your eyeballs. Up here when it shines you open the door and haul a chair to the lee of a building and bask in it.

  The trip to the mess hall, a quarter of a mile away, is a wandering course around mud puddles or through them, if they can’t be avoided. A loblolly of yellow mud six inches thick spreads over the main road. You catch a break in the line of trucks and jeeps and ambulances and dash across. The Lord help you if a truck catches you within twenty feet of the road. You will be spattered from head to foot as it passes.

  You pay your 30 cents at the window as you enter the transient Navy mess (luncheon is 40 cents and dinner 50 cents) and sit down on a bench to a breakfast of canned fruit juice, a dish of peaches or apricots or figs, dry cereal with powdered milk (which tastes like chalk, incidentally), eggs and bacon or French toast or hot cakes and coffee. There is plenty of butter and you can have three or four cups of coffee if you like. Luncheon and dinner are in proportion, with fresh salads and dessert and a soup at night. There are no napkins, but, then, what are trouser legs for?

  If you are in the Navy or Army you go to work at the change of the watch at 8 o’clock; or, if you have been on duty during the night you go to your quonset and go to bed. If you are a newspaper man you go back to your hut, called the “Press Club” and match quarters for the jeep the Army has furnished and start the rounds of Fighter Command, Bomber Command, Air Force, Island Co
mmand, Navy Headquarters; or perhaps you catch the crash boat for a ride out to some ship that has been bombarding Kiska or is just back from the States or Attu.

  If there has been a promise of a clear day you won’t have needed an alarm clock. The planes will have been taking off at daylight, seeming almost to scrape the ventilators off the roof of your quonset as they roar over, fighting for altitude to clear the encircling, snow-covered hills.

  A visit to the area where Vice Admiral T. C. Kinkaid and Lieut Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner have their headquarters involves a round of dog patting. General Buckner and Maj. Gen. W. O. Butler, commanding general of the Eleventh Air Force, both have springer spaniel pups. Lieut Col. W. J. Verbeck, General Buckner’s intelligence officer, has a magnificent big Irish setter and also is taking care of a retriever for a fellow-officer who is in the hospital. There are many other dogs around the base.

  For the men assigned to the base it is a not too uncomfortable life. The temperature generally is in the forties or fifties and everyone has a sufficiency of foul-weather clothing, heavy underwear, wool shirts and trousers, boots, woolen hose, slickers, waterproofed parkas and fur-lined jackets.

  The weather is not too bad and probably would go unnoticed in San Francisco. It is the lack of paved roads and sidewalks amid the mud, the long treks to the washroom or the mess hall in the rain that makes it so disagreeable at times. And the lack of sun makes you sympathize with Oscar Wilde’s feeling in “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” when he spoke of “that bit of blue that prisoners call the sky.” A rift in the clouds with the blue sky showing through has everyone pointing and looking and enjoying it