The rising, which began Aug. 1, when the sound of the Red Army’s guns could be heard in the city, ended at 8 o’clock last night, it was announced by Lieut. Gen. Tadeusz Komorowski [General Bor], commander in chief of Polish forces, who is believed here to have escaped at the last minute.
In London tonight Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk told why Warsaw had to quit fighting. The main reason was that “all hopes of relief from outside had vanished” with the failure of Soviet and Polish forces to forge the Vistula River in the Warsaw area, the Prime Minister said, and the Home Army laid down its arms after vain efforts to fight its way out.
Moscow reported that some units got through to the east bank of the Vistula held by Russians.
The decision to surrender was taken, M. Mikolajczyk said, with all food and water supplies exhausted, the garrison and the people starving and thousands of wounded lying in underground hideouts without attention and with no medical supplies or dressings available.
85 PER CENT OF CITY BATTERED
The saddened Poles in London estimated that the city suffered 200,000 casualties in the first six weeks of fighting and that another 100,000 had been imprisoned. This total is almost one-third of the capital’s pre-war population. Half of Warsaw’s buildings were destroyed and another 35 per cent damaged, the Poles said.
“Warsaw’s fighting throughout August and September of 1944 is the only instance in the history of this war in which a great city has conducted such a long and isolated defense with her own means, without heavy equipment or considerable help from outside against a superior enemy having at his disposal the whole destructive might of modern warfare,” M. Mikolajczyk declared.
He added: “The defense of Warsaw will remain forever a testimony to the invincible moral strength of the Polish nation and its unyielding will to independent life.”
The Germans said tonight that the members of the Home Army who had surrendered “have been dealt with as prisoners of war in stead of as franctireurs.” Until the Allies warned that they would exact retribution, the Germans shot Polish captives as outlaws.
Soldiers of the First Polish Army attack a German position in the Warsaw suburbs in October, 1944.
OCTOBER 11, 1944
NEWSMEN AT SHAEF TRANSFER TO PARIS
Last of Eisenhower’s ‘Family’ Flown From London To Be Nearer to News Sources
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Oct. 10 (AP)—War Correspondents covering Supreme Headquarters wrote their stories closer to the scene of action tonight. Forty-five correspondents moved today from London to Paris—virtually the last of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s official family to get across the English Channel.
Supreme Headquarters has been dribbling to the Continent for the last two and a half months. General Eisenhower moved his advance command post to an apple orchard on the edge of Cerisy Forest in Normandy early in August. The bulk of his staff had set up headquarters elsewhere in France by the first week in September. Now nearly everything is in Paris.
The war had run away from communications as long as a month ago and it had become increasingly difficult to keep abreast of developments from London, eighty miles from the fighting at Dunkerque, but 450 miles from the Seventh Army front before Belfort Pass.
The regular morning “briefing” for correspondents was held today at old SHAEF headquarters in Britain. Then the correspondents had an hour to write their stories before boarding special planes for France.
“Moving closer to the front will shorten our lines of communication many miles and should considerably speed up the relay of official news,” a headquarters spokesman said.
On this first move, press associations were permitted to send two correspondents each; individual newspapers one.
OCTOBER 12, 1944
Correspondents Complain to Chinese On Censorship
By The Associated Press.
CHUNGKING, China, Oct. 11—Complaints against Chungking censorship of dispatches filed from the Communist area of China were voiced today by two correspondents at a government press conference.
Guenther Stein, correspondent of The London News-Chronicle, spent four and one-half months in the area. On his return, Mr. Stein said, he found that censors here had excised more than 5,000 words from seventeen messages. Chungking is the relay point where messages from Communist territory are handled by the censor before retransmission abroad.
Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times, who recently returned from a fortnight in the area, also complained about the severity of censorship on news about the Communists.
K. C. Wu, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggested that the matter be discussed with government spokesmen at his office, rather than at a press conference.
OCTOBER 15, 1944
NEW LEAGUE STARTING WITH GOOD PROSPECTS; ‘UNITED NATIONS’ AS NEW NAME
By EDWIN L. JAMES
As things stand now the new League of Nations, which will probably be called The United Nations, is off to a good start. The work of Dumbarton Oaks, which may be termed a subministerial plan, although it represents more than that implies, has been well received; even the isolationists have not had much to say against it—yet. It is presented by its authors as representing 90 per cent agreement on the many and difficult problems which arise in connection with any attempt at agreement by a number of nations with different Governments, different philosophies, different ambitions—but with the common purpose of preventing another world war. As Secretary Hull said so aptly, any such document can represent at best a highest common denominator and not the consecration of any one nation’s plan.
Now the world has before it the initial plan of The United Nations. That plan resembles the old League of Nations in that it calls for a free association of national Governments rather than some form of superstate with powers independent of national Governments. However, it is evident that the rules will be somewhat different in that there is no sanctification of the political status quo in the world and therefore no guarantee of the political sovereignty and territorial integrity of the members as was contained in the much-mooted Article X of the League covenant. There will be other differences which are not yet in final form in some instances.
OFF TO GOOD START
Both Presidential candidates have praised the work at Dumbarton Oaks. When the text was given out it was accompanied by a statement from the White House in which President Roosevelt commended it in high terms. Governor Dewey has called it a fine beginning. Inasmuch as the platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties call for world organization to preserve the peace, these statements by the two candidates must be regarded as highly important.
It has been held that the establishment of The United Nations will call for action by both Houses of Congress. There will be a treaty for the Senate to ratify and action by the House of Representatives may be needed in connection with the setting up of the limits of a force the United States might be called upon to supply. Both Houses of Congress are on record as favoring the participation of the United States in a world peace-keeping organization. The leaders of both parties approve the Dumbarton Oaks plan.
This ought to mean that when the isolationists start their effort to block the new League they will face a formidable undertaking. Of course, it is not to be forgotten that even Senator Lodge said the last time that the majority of the American people wanted the League and that was why he adopted the indirect method of killing it by reservations and amendments. It is up to the American people to see that they are not bamboozled the second time so that the path to World War III is not opened as the path to World War II was opened by the nationalistic isolationists of a quarter of a century ago. They were not all in this country, but we pointed the way along the tragic road.
SUPER-STATES ARE OUT
The praiseworthy interest of the American public in the proposition of preventing another world war has led to widespread and sincere study of many post-war plans. Some of these have been of a nature which must appea
l sentimentally to almost anyone—the provisions for a real Parliament of Man, for a union of peoples rather than government—and such plans have been discussed by millions of our peoples.
These folks should now direct their attention to backing the Dumbarton Oaks plan and what will follow from it. Of course, it will not satisfy the pure idealists. But it represents what can be had, while their plans represent what cannot be had. The need is for something to be done while the iron is hot, for if there is delay until two or three years after the fighting is over nothing will be done.
The main idea is to get the nations of the world into an organization with a common purpose—that of preventing another war. The rules are, of course, important but not all-important. Rules can be changed in the years to come. But a world organization cannot be evolved in the years to come unless it starts while the United Nations are united.
The greatest advance which can be had now, or while most of us are living, is an organization of national governments. That is what Dumbarton Oaks provides. Those who believe in international cooperation should get behind the principle it represents. One may quarrel about details, but the quarrels should be about details. The main idea should stand.
OCTOBER 20, 1944
GENERAL M’ARTHUR FULFILLS A GALLANT VOW
Americans Seize East Coast of Leyte Isle, Are Widening Hold
By The Associated Press.
GENERAL MACARTHUR’S HEADQUARTERS in the Philippines, Oct. 20 (Army radio pool broadcast)—American invasion of the Philippines was officially proclaimed today by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Two years and six months after he took sad leave of the islands and relinquished them to Japanese invaders, vowing “I shall return,” he announced that his Navy and air-covered ground forces had landed in the archipelago.
[Japanese broadcasts, beginning some twenty-four hours previously, had listed at least three landings, all in the central sector where the invaders would be in position to split the archipelago’s 150,000 defenders in half.]
General MacArthur, aboard a warship, went along with the huge convoy from New Guinea, and within four hours after his forces landed began making plans to go ashore.
EAST COAST SEIZED
The special communiqué text, in part, follows:
“In a major amphibious operation we have seized the eastern coast of Leyte Island in the Philippines, 600 miles north of Morotai and 2,500 miles from Milne Bay from whence our offensive started nearly sixteen months ago.
“The landing in the Visayas is midway between Luzon and Mindanao and at one stroke splits into two Japanese forces in the Philippines. The enemy expected the attack on Mindanao.
“Tacloban was secured with small casualties. The landing was preceded by heavy air and naval bombardment which was devastating in effect. Our ground troops are already extending their hold.”
General MacArthur said supplies were rolling ashore.
225,000 OF FOE IN ISLES
Among participants in the action were the Sixth United States Army, Navy forces of the Seventh United States Fleet, the Third United States Fleet and the Far Eastern Air Force.
The return to the Philippines began at Leyte Gulf (1). Tokyo said the Americans had first invaded Suluan Island (shown in detail on inset). General MacArthur announced the capture of Tacloban in northern Leyte Island, a landing near Cabalian at the southern tip and occupation of the whole eastern side of island. Bombings were reported at Davao (2), Cotabato (3), Zamboanga (4), Cebu (5), the much-bombed area of Clark Field and Manila (6) and Aparri (7).
The landings pitted the invaders against Japanese Philippine defenders, estimated at 225,000 under command of Field Marshal Juichi Terauchi.
[The Japanese exulted exactly four days ago that their alleged naval-air victories off Formosa had set back “the impending invasion of the Philippines by at least two months.” It turned out that they didn’t score any naval-air victories either.] Eyewitness accounts from the scene reported the American Navy and airforce were on hand in such mammoth strength that the Japanese Navy was nowhere in sight and the Japanese air force, knocked out at all airfields in the Philippines, offered scarcely token resistance.
Every able-bodied man who escaped from Corregidor in Manila Bay before it surrendered May 6, 1942, went along on the invasion to liberate the Filipinos and their imprisoned fellow-Americans from bondage.
The preparation for the invasion included the destruction of more than 1,300 planes, the sinking of eighty-six ships, damaging of 127 ships and widespread devastation of airfields and reinforcement bases since Oct. 9 in task force blasts at the Ryukyus, Formosa and the Philippines.
An Associated Press war correspondent, reporting from the scene, said the invasion convoy stretched as far as the eye could see.
OCTOBER 26, 1944
HITTLERS CHANGE NAME
Cognomen Embarrassing, Butcher Now Becomes Hiller
Having suffered sufficient embarrassment with the name “Hittler,” even with two t’s, Jacob and Molly Hittler of 3478 Fish Avenue, the Bronx, and their two children received permission yesterday from Justice Ernest E. L. Hammer in Bronx Supreme Court to use legally the name “Hiller.”
Mr. Hiller, a retail butcher at 1964 Amsterdam Avenue, said in his application that the name “Hittler” had been of particular embarrassment in his social and business life. He added he would have changed his name legally years ago but for the publicity.
OCTOBER 27, 1944
‘17 Hours of Hell’ Rage in Sea Battle Off Leyte
By RALPH TEATSORTH
United Press Correspondent
ABOARD ADMIRAL KINKAID’S FLAGSHIP, off the Philippines, Thursday, Oct. 26-The Tokyo Express rammed into the American Navy Limited today. The pride of Japan was wrecked so badly it may never make another long run. It was the day our Navy had dreamed about for considerably more than a year. It was seventeen hours of concentrated hell and the most amazing thing about the battle was that our Pacific Flight Carrier Force which nobody thought could deliver such a terrific punch-held off the bulk of the Japanese fleet all day and had it on the run all afternoon. When evening came and most of the pieces of the huge naval puzzle had been fitted together, a Navy spokesman announced “The enemy has been decisively defeated with heavy losses. Our fleet is without serious losses and fit to fight tomorrow.”
It is yet too early to ascertain accurately the destruction and damage wrought on the Japanese fleet but the enemy’s minimum losses are estimated at one Yamashiro class battleship sunk, one battleship knocked out and probably sunk, three battleships damaged “severely,” several cruisers and destroyers sunk, three cruisers and several destroyers damaged. Four other warships were either sunk or very heavily damaged.
OCTOBER 27, 1944
SUMMARY OF DESTRUCTION VISITED ON THE JAPANESE MAIN FLEET BROKEN
Halsey Force Inflicts a Staggering Defeat on Enemy Off Formosa
By GEORGE HORNE
By Telephone to The New York Times.
PEARL HARBOR, Oct 26.—Japan’s Navy was so decisively beaten in the two-day Battle of the Philippines it no longer figures as a major factor to be reckoned with in immediate American war plans.
Intercepted northeast of the tip of Luzon in a furious American assault that took the enemy by surprise, the main body of the enemy force was completely demoralized and crushed in a day-long series of air and surface actions so completely one-sided as to make questionable the use of the term battle.
The two smaller forces of the badly separated fleet were intercepted in separate actions, which raged with unprecedented fury involving enemy land-based air forces, elements of the Seventh Fleet, an assisting group of the Third Fleet and Australian sea forces serving under the Seventh Fleet.
FLEEING SHIPS PICKED OFF
Damaged units of the beaten enemy force are being pursued by air and sea and some of them have already been picked off.
An entire Japanese carrier force of three and possibly four carriers was wiped out by Admiral
William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet, which intercepted it. The Third Fleet is intact, having suffered no damage whatever.
There is no question that Japan has suffered the greatest blow in her history as a seafaring nation or that such damaged elements managing to get back home will be but ineffective fragments of the great force sent out to crush the Americans once more.
While no one claims that nothing escaped the deadly accuracy of American planes and guns, it can be claimed that not a single big ship went through unscathed, not a battleship, cruiser or carrier in the mighty force, which had at least sixty ships and perhaps sixty-seven.
It will be many months before the Japanese fleet can be repaired and reconstituted as a fighting force.
MANY DETAILS MISSING
There are still many details missing and the picture is complicated by the fact that action involving General MacArthur’s forces is not being reported here. With air and sea battles swirling around the islands in the vicinity of Leyte, some of them involving Third Fleet forces cooperating in repelling the enemy attack, duplication may occur and is in fact expected.
A fairly accurate account of the entire action is now possible, however, beginning at the time the two smaller enemy forces were discovered early Monday and ending at around 2 A.M. yesterday, when surface units of the Third Fleet caught up with a fleeing straggler cruiser and finished it off in the San Bernardino Strait.
General Douglas MacArthur and his staff coming ashore during initial landings of U.S. forces at Leyte in the Philippines, October 1944.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 128