Quoting front-line correspondents in Praga, Moscow said the writer had not found any evidence that General Bor’s forces had played any role in the recent uprising there, although Praga was claimed by General Bor’s forces to be one of their strongholds.
Meanwhile the apparently seething conditions behind the front lines in liberated Poland was bluntly laid by Polpress at the doors of the Polish Government in London. In addition to the direct method of terrorism, agents of the London group were charged with issuing appeals to the civil population to sabotage the Lublin Committee’s mobilization measures.
Outright assassination of members of the Lublin Home Army is coupled with numerous other “gangster attacks,” Pol-press charges, attributing the trouble to the committee’s mobilization decree of Aug. 15, which it says was issued “to form a new unit of the Polish Army, to increase its strength for the struggle against the Hitlerite invaders, and thus hasten the victory of the United Nations.”
“All good Poles” greeted the decree with enthusiasm, says Polpress, but the “reactionary clique” in London, and its agents in Poland, “have proved incurable.”
SEPTEMBER 21, 1944
Fight at Arnhem Is Without Mercy
Our Sky Troops in Netherland Pocket Hold Off Nazis—Hear British Guns Approaching
By STANLEY MAXTED
For Combined Allied Press
WITH ALLIED AIRBORNE FORCES in the Arnhem Area, the Netherlands, Sept. 20 (UP)—Fighting is continuing bitterly throughout this area. There have been moments when our position looked very sticky, but you would never know it from the faces of our men, who are dug into hedges along the roadside, behind trees and where have you.
Soldiers of the First Allied Airborne Army search a bomb-damaged school in the Netherlands for snipers during the Battle of Arnhem.
Hopes went up this afternoon because of the arrival on two separate occasions of Stirlings and Douglases with much-needed supplies. The planes flew through murderous flak to drop their loads.
This is the fourth day and our ears are wide open to the sounds of guns ten miles away, where the British Second Army is approaching from the south to relieve this surrounded bunch of fighting men who are hanging on and trading punches with a steadily reinforced enemy.
Sniping is going on continuously. It seems to come from the most unexpected places; but the mortaring is worst of all.
In a nearby town the Germans are sniping from the houses, firing even on medical parties.
Fighting is the most relentless I have ever seen. There is no quarter.
SEPTEMBER 23, 1944
U.S. to Be ‘Hard’ With Germans
By JOHN H. CRIDER
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22—-The temper of American policy toward defeated Germany has already been set by President Roosevelt, it was learned today on unquestionable authority. It is definitely a very “hard” policy.
President Roosevelt’s attitude, now well known to the officials who are busily spelling it out in various policies that should become known in the next few weeks, was stated in writing so that no one could misunderstand him.
He said that it was wrong, as some proposed, to attempt to restore Germany as Belgium and the Netherlands were to be restored. Some persons here and in England, he added, believed only the Nazis in Germany should be punished.
The fact is, the President said, that the whole German people must be made to understand that they have been defeated so that they will never again attempt to perpetrate a monstrous crime upon humanity. In thus making it clear that he had no patience with those who would be “soft” with Germany, the President laid the foundation of the policy that is now being implemented.
The President’s attitude toward Germany, which has become the official Administration attitude, was reflected yesterday at a news conference held jointly by Elmer Davis, Director of the Office of War Information, and Robert Sherwood, Director of OWI Overseas Operations.
When Mr. Sherwood was asked what was the first problem facing OWI in Germany when the military situation permitted it to act, he replied:
“The first thing we must do is to convince the Germans that they have really lost the war.”
“And,” Mr. Davis put in, “to convince them that they would lose it if they ever start it again.”
ARMY MANUAL IS CONDEMNED
The President took policy formation into his own hands about three weeks ago when he found evidences of “softness” in an Army manual prepared for guidance of Americans entering Germany. He let it be known that he thought the manual was “pretty bad.”
Thus the formation of American policy toward defeated Germany, which had been developing tortuously from the ground up in various departments without any success at merging conflicting views into a solidified policy, is now being made under specific direction from the top.
A curious counterpart of the “hard” policy toward Germany adopted by the President is the feeling in official circles that German reparations should be relatively light, compared with those imposed following the last war. This time Germany will have been the scene of battle, with a large part of her industry destroyed. The reason for the stand for light reparations is that the Allies would have to provide money, materials and machines to restore her capacity to pay a large amount.
SEPTEMBER 24, 1944
CHINESE COMMUNIST TELLS OF CIVIL WAR
By Wireless to The New York Times
YENAN, China, Aug. 15 (Delayed)—Taking sharp issue with the optimistic statement regarding the Kuomintang-Communist negotiations, made by Information Minister Liang Hanchao on July 26, Chou En-lai, Communist party leader who has taken a leading part in the relations with the Government said today that the negotiations have yielded no result.
Mr. Chou said that although Mr. Liang had repeatedly said China certainly would avoid civil war, many raids on the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia border region had been made in recent months. He charged that Yen Hsi-shan’s Sixty-first Army had attacked the Communist-led Eighth Route Army in Shansi Province in agreement with the Japanese, that Kuomintang troops under Li Pin-hsien had attacked New Fourth Army units in Hupeh who had rescued American pilots and at that time were attacking the enemy to divert them from campaigns on the regular fronts, and that Kuomin-tang troops under Lo Mao-hsun had attacked guerrilla detachments in the East River region of Kwangtung.
“These incidents,” he said, “show that armed clashes still continue and that the danger of civil war is not yet past.
“To win final victory over Japan the Kuomintang and Communists must unite and the existing problems between the parties must be solved immediately. For this it is necessary that the ruling authorities in the Kuomintang immediately give up their one party dictatorship and their policy of weakening and exterminating those differing from it, must at once put democracy into practice and through democratic procedures reach a fair, just solution of the relations between the parties. Only thus can success be attained, and this is the heartfelt hope of the Communist party.”
Mr. Chou said that the Communists, since the kidnapping of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at Sian, had maintained that only democracy could strengthen China’s defenses and that only democracy could provide a basis for a just settlement of the Kuomintang Communist and other political problems. He declared that this was the view not only of the Communists but also of 99 per cent of the Chinese people.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1944
PEACE CONFEREES 90% IN AGREEMENT ON WORLD SET-UP
By JAMES B. RESTON
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25—The American, British and Russian Governments have decided to be satisfied, for the time being, with 90 per cent agreement on the kind of international security organization they wish to see established and to take up at “the highest level” the other 10 per cent at some future date.
It has not been possible for the three Governments to reach full agreement on the procedure for voting in th
e proposed Executive Council in the event of a charge of aggression against the United States, Britain, Russia or China, but on all other major points discussed at Dumbarton Oaks agreement has been achieved.
A “final draft” of the proposed agreement has been submitted by UnderSecretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr. to President Roosevelt, who is said to have approved it. Prime Minister Churchill is also understood to have approved the draft, and the Russian Government has indicated its support of all points contained in the “90-percent” draft. The Russian Government’s final approval is expected tomorrow or Wednesday, when the Russian phase of the conference, now in its sixth week, is expected to end. The second half of the conference with the Chinese delegation will start probably Thursday.
WOULD SET UP COURT
The three Governments, as distinguished from their delegations at Dumbarton Oaks, are understood to have agreed to create:
An international court of justice to deal with justiciable disputes. The court would have competence to deal with any dispute referred to it by the Executive Council of the proposed League and an international commission would be established to codify existing international law and propose additional laws for the consideration of the member States.
A General Secretariat headed by a Secretary General who would act as Secretary General of both the League Council and the League assembly.
An assembly of all peace-loving countries with equal voting powers to deal with any questions referred to it by the Executive Council and with certain other general questions. This assembly would meet once a year and could be convened in cases of emergency. Its powers, however, would be mainly advisory.
An Executive Council composed of four “permanent members,” the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Russia and China, and seven other non-permanent members, to be selected on a geographical basis. It is understood that the three powers engaged in the first phase of the conference also agreed that France should also become a “permanent member” when that country has a government freely elected by the French people.
This Executive Council would have primary responsibility for security and for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Under the proposals understood to be accepted by the three Governments, this council would be empowered to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, or breach of the peace, and to decide on the action necessary to maintain or restore the peace.
It is understood that the three powers agreed to recommend to the other United Nations that, as soon as possible after the creation of the security organization, the member states should enter into a general agreement governing the number and type of forces each would be obliged to place at the disposal of the Executive Council for the purpose of preventing or repelling aggression.
Several weeks ago the question arose at Dumbarton Oaks as to what should be done in the event of charges of aggression against one of the permanent members of the council. One of the countries suggested that no party to a dispute should have the right to vote, regardless of whether it was a permanent member of the council. This proposal was opposed by Russia.
In the first place, the Russians pointed out that the country attacked as well as the aggressor nation was “a party to the dispute” and should not therefore be denied the right to vote in its own defense.
This discussion went on for days, and one of the proposals for solving it was that it should be left to the council to determine who should vote in the event of charges of aggression against a permanent member of the council. This proposal was said to have received considerable support at Dumbarton Oaks, but was finally rejected by the Soviet Government, which insisted that each of the permanent members should have the right to veto any proposed action by the League against any future aggressor.
When several additional sessions failed to produce full agreement on this point, it was finally agreed to defer final decision until some future date. Discussion on this point will, it is believed, be continued through regular diplomatic channels, and eventually it is hoped that Mr. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin may discuss it in another personal meeting.
SEPTEMBER 28, 1944
Editorial
WITHDRAWAL FROM ARNHEM
The story of the British First Airborne Division is finished. As a division it no longer exists. Its dead lie in the woods west of Arnhem. Its disabled wounded are in German hands. About two thousand of its original eight or nine thousand fighting men have been “withdrawn” to safety. The circumstances of this “withdrawal” across a river that rescuing forces had not been able to pass must be imagined. Arnhem was a defeat, a red blotch on a brilliant page of victories, a reminder that the advance into Germany is no parade.
When the bold stroke fails, as this one did, we still have no right to criticize those who ordered it. The chance was worth taking. The airborne troops might have turned the German right flank. The official communiqué” says that they did enable “other elements to the south to hold the bridge at Nijmegen.” They did detain some of the best Nazi units, probably far exceeding their own numbers. Their sacrifices were not in vain. They could not keep the ground on to which they were plummeted from the air, but they helped with their blood to buy ground for others. There will be no prouder men in years to come than those qualified to wear the Arnhem badge or ribbon.
Shall we say that these men were brave and let it go at that? The Nazis at Brest were brave. The “mad colonel” at St. Malo did not lack courage. But the airborne Britishers did not have the valor of fanaticism or desperation. They risked, and many of them endured, the hardest death the soldier has to die—when the flags are flying and the bells ringing in liberated cities, and the hope of victory and home makes life seem sweet. This is their tragedy and their ever lasting honor.
Chapter 21
“NUTS!”
October–December 1944
One sign that the end was approaching in Europe, if more slowly than the Allied public would have liked, was the transfer of correspondents to Eisenhower’s new Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), set up in Paris. Correspondents were still subject not only to censorship but also to the limits of what the fighting forces would tell them. In the Soviet Union and on the Chinese Front reporters were constantly frustrated in what they could or could not publish.
On November 14 Arthur Sulzberger flew out to the Pacific theater to meet General MacArthur. MacArthur’s forces had begun the reconquest of the Philippines on October 20, when four divisions landed almost unopposed on the southern island of Leyte. Sulzberger was too late to witness the great naval battle of Leyte Gulf, when three Japanese task forces, the last of the Japanese Combined Fleet, tried to engage the American armada off Leyte. Although able to inflict some damage on American escort carriers, the Japanese lost twenty-eight out of sixty-four warships, a decisive defeat from which the Japanese Navy never recovered. Sulzberger arrived after the costly occupation of Peleliu, secured by November 27, and went on to spend three days at MacArthur’s headquarters before returning to the United States. Leyte surrendered on December 19 with the loss of 80,000 Japanese soldiers who fought to the death. On December 15 American forces reoccupied Mindoro as a stepping-stone to the reconquest of the main island of Luzon. MacArthur had made good on his promise of 1942: “I will return.”
In Europe the confidence that the war would be quickly over ebbed away. On November 8 Roosevelt was reelected with a great deal still to be done to bring the war to an end. A few days earlier, Mont-gomery’s Twenty-First Army Group had finally succeeded in clearing the estuary around the mouth of the River Scheldt so that Antwerp could be used as a port. But even before that a new German secret weapon, the A-4 rocket (or V-2), had begun to fall on the port. With no way to intercept or anticipate the rockets, their one-ton warheads did heavy damage, not only in Antwerp but in London and southern England as well. Meanwhile the problem of bringing a major port to full efficiency slowed down the advance to the German frontier as the
flow of supplies failed to keep pace with the demand.
Then, contrary to all expectations, the German Army launched a surprise attack out of the Ardennes Forest to break open the Western Front and perhaps recapture Antwerp. Operation Autumn Mist came as a complete surprise against the weakest part of the Allied line. On December 16, in poor weather that kept Allied airplanes on the ground, half a million German troops and 1,000 tanks broke through toward the Meuse River, carving out a salient forty miles wide and up to sixty miles deep, which the Allies called the “Bulge.” Eisenhower immediately ordered Patton and Montgomery to blunt the attack and to try to cut through both flanks to encircle the German force. German units began to run out of fuel and when the clouds lifted in the last week of December, thousands of Allied aircraft pounded the German positions. In the middle of the Bulge was a small fortress at Bastogne, held throughout the assault by the 101st Airborne Division against repeated German attacks. When on December 22 the commander, Brig. General Anthony McAuliffe, was invited by the Germans to surrender, he famously replied, “Nuts!” Four days later the embattled division was relieved by Patton’s Third Army. By early February the Germans were back where they had started, but with little chance of being able now to defend the Reich.
OCTOBER 4, 1944
WARSAW GIVES UP AFTER 63-DAY FIGHT
Losses Put Above 300,000—Bor Said to Have Fled—Some Poles Escape to Russians
By SYDNEY GRUSON
By Wireless to The New York Times
LONDON, Oct. 3—After sixty-three days of bitter resistance, the patriots of Warsaw have been forced to surrender and the Germans again are in control of the shattered Polish capital.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 127