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

by The New York Times

  On the one hand, we have urged that women stay at home and raise their families. That job done—what is there left for them to do? Still young and vigorous, they find themselves not wanted in a busy, active world. Pearl Buck has said that if American women were not to be allowed to fulfill their bent, whether it be for home making or professional life, they should not be given the educational opportunities they now have. I think she is right.

  The woman past 40 is far from useless. As the records show, she can achieve much after 40—giving the first years of her life to her family. But the way is not easy. Society ought to make it uniformly possible for such women to use their talents, and this applies not alone to the professionally trained women.

  Finally, what of the children of women workers? We all have heard or read of children locked in parked cars while their mothers work in war plants; children sitting through repeated performances in the movies until their mothers get home from the second shift; children locked in or out of homes day after day while both parents work. No one can deny that juvenile delinquency and destruction of home standards are rampant where you have such an emergency mass employment of women as the war machine has required. But need these things be? In a few communities where the labor market has been very tight the community has started nursery schools, food kitchens or other communal feeding, and supervised play periods, to make it possible for the mother of even small children to work. I think the whole situation should receive more intensive study.

  Some people question whether children should be turned over to nursery schools and playground supervisors. There is plenty of precedent which will be cited. It will be said that children’s institutions are everlasting proof that even a poor mother is better than no mother. Social welfare organizations have learned this and instituted the system of “foster homes.”

  But the fact remains that some women are temperamentally unsuited to caring for children, or untrained for housework, and having been in the business world before marriage, find themselves happiest in that life. Many children would be better off in a good nursery school than under the constant nagging of an irritable, because unadjusted, mother.

  Many mothers come home to their children better able to give them affection and intelligent care because they have not had them all day long. But it is the rare woman who can successfully swing a job and a home with children. The problem pretty well boils down to one for individual decision. Although I believe most women will put the welfare of their children first, it seems only fair that society should provide a job opportunity for all who want to work or for all who must work irrespective of sex.

  There are three courses we can follow. First, the Russian system, where all family life is subordinated to the needs of the State. Second, we can cling to the old idea that woman’s place is in the home and waste a lot of good citizens and make for more unhappy homes. Third, we can leave it to the individual choice and see to it that there are jobs for all who want them. This is a middle ground.

  If we take this middle course there is still the need to emphasize that most young children will fare better in their homes—though the Russians might dispute this. But the important psychological element in this picture is that women would stay home only if that were their choice. If they wanted to work or had to work, the way would be open.

  If Mme. Curie had not made such a choice the world might have lost one of its most distinguished scientists. I know it is not easy to do all three things. But I do not believe the children suffer under such circumstances as they are popularly supposed to. Mme. Curie’s children have achieved their own distinction, helped by the richness of the lives of their parents. All women should have a chance to make their choice of home, children or career—or all three.

  SEPTEMBER 9, 1943

  GEN. EISENHOWER ANNOUNCES ARMISTICE

  Capitulation Acceptable to U.S., Britain and Russia Is Confirmed In Speech by Badoglio

  TERMS SIGNED ON DAY OF INVASION

  Disclosure Withheld by Both Sides Until Moment Most Favorable For the Allies—Italians Exhorted to Aid United Nations

  By MILTON BRACKER

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN NORTH AFRICA, Sept. 8—Italy has surrendered her armed forces unconditionally and all hostilities between the soldiers of the United Nations and those of the weakest of the three Axis partners ceased as of 16:30 Greenwich Mean Time today [12:30 P.M., Eastern War Time].

  At that time, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower announced here over the United Nations radio that a secret military armistice had been signed in Sicily on the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 3, by his representative and one sent by Premier Pietro Badoglio. That was the day when, at 4:50 A.M., British and Canadian troops crossed the Strait of Messina and landed on the Italian mainland to open a campaign in which, up to yesterday, they had occupied about sixty miles of the Calabrian coast from the Petrace River in the north to Bova Marina in the south.

  The complete collapse of Italian military resistance in no way suggested that the Germans would not defend Italy with all the strength at their command. But the capitulation, in undisclosed terms that were acceptable to the United States, the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, came exactly forty days after the downfall of Benito Mussolini, the dictator who, by playing jackal to Adolf Hitler, led his country to the catastrophic mistake of declaring war on France three years and three months ago this Friday.

  NEGOTIATIONS BEGUN SEVERAL WEEKS AGO

  The negotiations leading to the armistice were opened by the war-weary and bomb-battered nation a few weeks ago, it was revealed today, and a preliminary meeting was arranged and held in an unnamed neutral country.

  The Italians who had approached the British and American authorities were bluntly told that the terms remained what they had been: unconditional surrender. They agreed, and the document was signed five days ago. But it was agreed to hold back the announcement and its effective date until the moment most favorable to the Allies.

  U.S. General Walter Bedell Smith (future director of CIA) signs the armistice between Italy and the Allied forces in Siracusa, September, 1943. Looking on, from left, English Commodore Royer Dick, U.S. Major General Lowell Rooks, English Captain De Haar, and the Italian General, in civilian clothes, Giuseppe Castellano, U.S. Brigadier General Kenneth Strong and the Italian officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Franco Montanari.

  That moment came today, when the Allied Commander in Chief, in a historic broadcast, announced the armistice. He concluded with the reminder that all Italians who aided in the ejection of the Germans from Italy would have the support and assistance of the United Nations.

  One hour and fifteen minutes after the General’s voice had gone out over the air, Marshal Badoglio faced a microphone in Rome and confirmed the armistice. He concluded with the promise that the Italian forces would oppose attacks “from any other quarter,” although they were laying down the arms that they had taken up against the Anglo-American armies.

  MILITARY ASPECT EMPHASIZED

  Although it was emphasized that the armistice was a strictly military instrument, “signed by soldiers,” it was disclosed that it contained a clause binding Italy to comply with political, economic and financial conditions to be imposed at the Allies’ discretion.

  [It was believed that the armistice conditions were substantially the same as those imposed on France in 1940, which allowed the Germans to use all strategic French ports and military bases to wage war against Britain, The United Press reported.]

  Immediately after the announcement of the armistice, the Allies made two appeals—one to the Italian people and one to the Italian Fleet—urging them to rally to a cause that was, in effect, the liberation of their own country. The appeal to the people was disseminated by radio and airborne leaflet, while that to the Navy was broadcast by Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, the Allies’ Mediterranean naval commander.

  The Italian people, particularly transpor
t, railroad and dock workers, were asked not to give the slightest aid to the Germans. The men who man Italian ships received specific instructions how to bring their vessels into the protection of the United Nations.

  Although the fear was proved unjustified by Marshal Badoglio’s broadcast, the Allies had taken no chances of a German move to forestall his giving the news to the people. As a safeguard, they had obtained from the Italians an agreement to leave one senior military representative behind when the others returned to Rome. This man is now in Sicily and presumably, had Marshal Badoglio not gone on the air, his representative would have broadcast the decision to the Italian public. As a further earnest of good faith, Marshal Badoglio had arranged to send the text of the proclamation that he made this evening to Allied Headquarters here. He kept his word.

  1,181 DAYS AT WAR AND LOSSES

  Italy quit the war after 1,181 days, during which she steadily lost territory and prestige. Last May 7, with the fall of Tunis and Bizerte, the last Italian soldier in North Africa was doomed. Since then, Sicily, part of Metropolitan Italy, was occupied in thirty-eight days.

  The Italians endured two raids on military targets in Rome and felt the weight of 20,000 tons of bombs on the mainland in the past six months. Of this total, 11,300 tons fell in August alone.

  But, despite the abject condition of the nation today, it was emphasized here, the Germans were still expected to fight on in the worst way. It would be wrong and dangerously foolish to regard Italy as geographically out of the war, even though she is so politically. Thus the Allies kept up the air war against Italian airdromes yesterday even though the effective time of the armistice was almost at hand.

  Despite rumors of negotiations of one kind or another ever since the fall of Benito Mussolini, it may be said that the news of the capitulation struck this area with stunning impact. It was known that Italian resistance and morale, as evidenced by the Sicilian and Calabrian campaigns, were dwindling, but complete capitulation was something of which few persons outside General Eisenhower’s immediate circle had any idea.

  Maj. Gen. Walter B. Smith, General Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, said at the close of the Sicilian campaign that one lesson had been never to give up the possibility of achieving surprise. That apparently applied to the news of the armistice as well as to that of military developments.

  SEPTEMBER 10, 1943

  MAFIA CHIEFS CAUGHT BY ALLIES IN SICILY

  Coup, Led by U.S. Soldier, Helps to Break Black Market

  Distributed by The Associated Press.

  WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES IN SICILY, Sept. 9—The Mafia, Sicilian extortionist gang that fascism tried for years to rub out and then incorporated as one of its own criminal appendages, has been smashed from the top.

  Two of its notorious leaders, Domenico Tomaselli and Giuseppe Piraino, and seventeen district bosses were nabbed in a joint British-American coup in which Scotland Yard had a hand.

  All of them are behind bars, and the responsible Allied authorities have enough leads on the other regional chiefs to insure their capture.

  The Mafia men already jailed and those on the way to joining them controlled the black market, which still has a stranglehold on Sicilian life. It follows that breaking the Mafia gang means breaking the black market.

  Within the secret society are men who have fought fascism since its inception, men of unquestionable integrity who shunned all ties with the sprawling majority of the fascistized profiteers. This group, genuinely interested in the future of Sicily, aided the coup.

  Operations that led to the roundup began when the American Third Division, then on the Messina drive, chose Castel d’Accia, inland from Trabia, which is about twenty-two miles from Palermo, for its rear echelon headquarters.

  Louis Bassi of Stockton, Calif., a technician in the special service staff, discovered that the tiny hamlet was nothing more or less than the Mafia fortress. He reported to his colonel, investigated by day and by night alone and reported again and again until he had accumulated enough evidence for an open and shut case against the racketeers.

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1943

  Editorial

  AMERICAN POST-WAR POLICY

  We hope that Congress, returning to work today, will lose no time in putting itself on record regarding the main outlines of a post-war settlement. The stage is set for such a declaration. A clear statement of policy, made at this time with overwhelming bipartisan support, could help both to shorten the war and to win a better peace.

  Before Congress adjourned for its midsummer recess the House had before it a resolution which had received the unanimous approval of its Foreign Affairs Committee. This resolution, introduced by Representative Fulbright of Arkansas, proposed that Congress go on record as “favoring the creating of appropriate international machinery with power adequate to establish and to maintain a just and lasting peace and as favoring the participation by the United States therein.” Since then an almost identical declaration has been adopted, again unanimously, by the Republican policy-makers in their conference at Mackinac Island. Republican support of the Fulbright resolution is thereby assured.

  The great merit of adopting such a resolution now is that it would tell the world, before the fighting ends, that this time the United States intends to help enforce world peace when it is won. Such a declaration would strengthen the ties that now bind the United Nations. It would thereby help win the war. By encouraging our allies to put their faith in a new post-war alliance or a new league of nations, instead of attempting to find an independent and precarious security in the acquisition of new territory, it would help win a better peace.

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1943

  HARD-FIGHT RAGES IN SALERNO ITSELF

  City Changes Hands Several Times in Day, But Allies Break Counter-Blow

  TOWN FOUND DESPOILED

  Germans Had Looted It of All That They Could Take in Earlier Withdrawal

  By L. S. B. SHAPIRO

  For the Combined Allied Press

  IN THE SALERNO AREA, Sept. 14 (UP)—The town of Salerno was the scene of a violent battle yesterday and changed hands several times as the Germans fought with desperation.

  German “ghost” formations, built around a nucleus of the battered remnants evacuated from Sicily, flung themselves against the advancing Allied forces in a desperate effort to prevent the exploitation of our beach-head. The effort failed against a quickly mounted Anglo-American defense line that sealed the Allied foothold.

  Thus far in the battle, it is estimated that more than forty German tanks, mostly Mark V’s, have been destroyed in this area. The attack has been held off, after the bitterest of fighting, at some cost to the Allies. Warships off the coast have joined with the land forces to fling a withering barrage along the line of the German counter-attack.

  Over the battle area the air fighting is the most violent that has been experienced since the closing days of the North African campaign. Dogfights swirl overhead continuously during the daylight hours, and the nights are filled with the flash of multi-colored tracer bullets reaching up at attacking planes.

  Allied planes are gradually gaining domination over the area, but the German air force is battling with a daring that matches the desperate resistance of the German land forces.

  An explosion during the invasion of Salerno.

  SEPTEMBER 16, 1943

  ‘MUSSOLINI’ SETS UP NEW KIND OF REGIME

  Broadcast from Reich in His Name Creates ‘Republican Fascist Government’

  TERROR REIGN INDICATED

  Seizure of ‘Traitors’ Called for in Radio ‘Orders of Day’—Militia to Be Formed

  LONDON, Sept. 15 (AP)—Italy’s ousted and invisible “Premier,” Benito Mussolini, apparently attempted to dethrone King Victor Emmanuel today in a proclamation) read in his name by a radio announcer, recasting defunct Fascism in Italy as the “Republican Fascist Party,” with Mussolini as its supreme leader.

  The manifesto, read over a German-controlled “Fascist government radio�
�� failed to mention the King by name, but the reconstitution of the party under the “Republican” label obviously meant that the King no longer ruled in the eyes of the Nazi-sheltered ex-Duce.

  This action was in line with predictions that the new German-nurtured government would disestablish the House of Savoy and establish a republic. There was little likelihood, however, that the population, which joyously welcomed the end of Fascism, would assist in re-establishing the old regime.

  REIGN OF TERROR INDICATED

  The threat of “exemplary punishment of traitors and cowards” signaled that a reign of terror might be expected in Italy.

  The appointment of Gen. Count Carlo Calvi di Bergolo as Governor of Rome—with German consent—to carry on the government failed to square with the previous German announcement that the “national fascist government” had been placed in charge.

  Mussolini remained in the shadows. At last accounts he was reported to have gone to Berchtesgaden for treatment of a gastric disorder. Only yesterday the Germans said he was a very sick man whose condition had been greatly aggravated by his recent experiences.

  NEW CABINET IS SET UP

  German broadcasts reported to the Office of War Information by the United States Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service asserted that Gen. Calvi di Bergolo, puppet commandant of Italian forces in Rome, had formally liquidated the Badoglio Cabinet and named commissioners—all of them well known in the fascist regime—to take the functions and responsibilities of the Ministries.