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

by The New York Times

  Field dispatches have reported the use of V-2 rockets in the battle zone, but correspondents indicated they were too inaccurate to have military value. V-l robots have also been used at the front and against several captured cities in Belgium, France and Holland. Rockets fired at troops were reported to have been slightly smaller than those used against England.

  At least thirty-six persons have been killed or badly injured by the V-2 bombardment of Britain, a check of casualties in reported incidents showed. The casualty figure is unofficial and incomplete because reports of some incidents did not include the fatalities.

  In one case a rocket fell into a shopping crowd and “a number” of persons were killed. Nine children were killed at a birthday party.

  One rocket exploded in an open area, and several ducks were the only victims. Still another rocket dug its deep crater in the open and killed only a pig.

  The German radio continued its propaganda campaign on the effectiveness of the V-2, saying that one rocket damaged or destroyed 600 houses in London. The German home front was told that the new weapon “exceeded all imagination.”

  “Employment of V-weapons has just begun,” German propagandists said, adding that the bombardment of London would increase.

  Claims were made regarding the otherwise unsupported report that Antwerp, too, was under bombardment and that “a large part of the population has fled into the country.” DNB, German news agency, said the V-l and the V-2 were being fired against Antwerp and that dock and harbor installations had been heavily damaged.

  NOVEMBER 19, 1944

  Editorial

  V-1 AND V-2

  THE second of Germany’s “vengeance weapons,” V-2, is now in action. V-2, the rocket, has much in common with V-l, the robot plane. Both are pilotless. Both are jet propelled—that is, they have “reaction motors”; they depend for their forward motion on the reaction to the explosive jets of gas that stream back from them at great speeds. But there are basic differences between them, too. V-l looks like a small plane without a propeller. V-2 looks like a shell or a huge Fourth of July rocket. V-l gets its oxygen (the essential element in combustion) from the air. V-2 carries its own oxygen supply and can therefore fly high into the sky, where there is little oxygen.

  There are differences in performance, too. The robot plane has a speed of 350 to 400 miles an hour; the top speed of the rocket has been put at anywhere from 1,000 to as high as 3,500 miles an hour. The range of the robot plane is believed to be about 150 or 200 miles; the rocket has a range of about 300. The robot flies low—the average height of those aimed at London was 2,300 feet: the rocket shoots up 60 or 70 miles.

  The robot can be seen and heard and therefore can be fought very effectively by planes and anti-aircraft guns; the rocket travels faster than sound and therefore cannot be heard until it has struck; it travels so fast that the familiar methods of defense cannot be used against it.

  How the rocket is launched and controlled is a question that has caused much speculation. The flying bomb can be launched from a plane, but the rocket is too big to be carried into the air and its exhaust is too dangerously hot. Platforms for launching flying bombs have been captured in France; they are necessary because the robot planes must have an initial momentum of 150 or 200 miles an hour before their engines work efficiently. The rockets however would not seem to need elaborate launching apparatus; they apparently get off under their own power and simply require platforms with guiding rails to start them in the right direction.

  Once in the air, the flying bomb’s direction of flight, altitude and stability are maintained by automatic pilots or gyroscopes—the “brains” of the robot. The bomb may also be controlled by radio. Its range may be determined by the amount of fuel or its motor may be cut off by radio. The rocket’s range is apparently set in the same ways. Therefore by decreasing the amount of explosive or increasing the amount of fuel, the range of the rocket may conceivably be extended.

  The drawing on these pages shows the differences in construction between V-l and V-2; it was made by Martial & Scull, industrial designers, on the basis of the best available information.

  V-1 is made up of five elements: the wings, the fuselage, the motor, the control mechanism, the explosive and the fuel. The explosive (A) is in the nose. The fuel tank (B) is placed between the wings. Compressed air, stored in spherical bottles (C) in the center of the plane, operates the mechanism (D) for controlling the direction of flight and the stability of the robot. The motor (E) is above the fuselage and in the rear. Air rushes through vents in the front of the motor, the fuel is mixed with the air and exploded, the resultant gases slam shut the vents and open the jet in the rear through which the gases escape.

  V-2 is even simpler in construction, though more expensive to build and trickier to handle. It has four parts: the casing, the explosive, the fuel and the control mechanisms. The explosive (I) is in the nose. Behind it are the fuel tanks (II), which make up a chemical motor, one containing the explosive, the other the oxidizer (III). The fuel is forced along a pipe (IV) either by a pump or by the pressure of compressed nitrogen (V). It is exploded in a chamber (VI) at the end of the rocket. The mechanism (VII) that controls the flight of the rocket is in the rear.

  Will either V-l or V-2 be decisive weapons in the war? Goebbels is banking on them (or at least he tells the German people that they will make for victory in time) but no military expert believes that they will have any major effect on the course of the battle. Rather they are considered the weapons of the future.

  NOVEMBER 26, 1944

  School of Battle for Doctors

  The Surgeon General says that the lessons they are learning at the front will help us at home.

  By MAJ. GEN. NORMAN T. KIRK

  Surgeon General, U.S. Army

  THE primary responsibility of the Army medical officer is to conserve the fighting strength of our Army. In discharging that task, however military doctors contribute in large measure to the general fund of professional knowledge in the fields of surgery and medicine. Lessons learned by application in the hard school of war under the whip of necessity become available to the medical profession generally, for the ultimate benefit of the civilian as well as the soldier.

  The war has served as a vast clinic and laboratory in which thousands of doctors have obtained experience far exceeding in scope and variety the work which the civil practitioner might expect to encounter in his private practice. After the war the public will be able to draw on the services of physicians and surgeons whose skills have been sharpened by intensive practice in caring for the sick and wounded. Many more American hospitals in the post-war period, it is safe to say, will be staffed by doctors competent, as a result of war experience, to deal with almost every conceivable type of surgical case.

  War has given great impetus to research and new developments in the use of whole blood and its by-products, the sulfonamides and penicillin, both in medicine and surgery and their possibilities have by no means been exhausted. The results of much of this work already are available to the civilian population, but they undoubtedly will be used on a much wider scale when the military need is relaxed.

  In preventive and curative medicine the civil population will profit by the application of new methods of treating disease developed during the war, by increased knowledge of sanitation nutrition and diet by more effective methods for control and destruction of disease-carrying insect pests and by advances in immunization. The recent announcement of the development of a vaccine to prevent the spread of influenza should the disease become epidemic within the Army, is only one example of progress in immunization that eventually will prove of immense value in protecting the general public against disease.

  THE Army Medical Department for the time being, however, must devote itself to its principal task, the maintenance of the health of the troops and the rapid restoration to duty whenever possible of men who suffer wounds or disease. How well Army doctors are performing their jobs in this re
spect is best shown by two facts.

  Ninety-seven per cent of all our war wounded recover, notwithstanding the terribly destructive power of modern weapons. Furthermore, the death rate from disease in the Army, many of whose members are fighting in the most plague-ridden sections of the world, has been reduced to less than 6 per 10,000 men annually, a rate below that prevailing in civilian life. The magnitude of these accomplishments may be better understood when it is considered that the death rate from wounds is more than 50 per cent below the level of the first World War and that the disease mortality rate is 95 per cent below that of the war of twenty-six years ago.

  The excellent survival rate among our wounded may be attributed principally to five factors: Prompt and skillful surgery performed in the forward areas of the battle zones as soon as possible after a man has been hit; blood plasma and whole blood transfusions; the new drugs, including the sulfonamides and penicillin; a fast and efficient system of evacuating the wounded to fixed installations, where they receive definitive care, and a comprehensive program of immunization and other measures in preventive medicine.

  The plan of the medical service in the fighting zones is based upon the principle, which was well learned in the last war, that the sooner a wounded soldier can receive surgical care the better are his chances for recovery. To implement this principle the Army is using highly mobile surgical teams composed of skilled surgical specialists, nurses and enlisted men of the Medical Department, who operate close to the front lines. Usually within ten minutes after a man has been hit a “medical soldier” is at his side to administer first aid, relieve pain, dress his wound and prepare him for evacuation to the rear.

  In addition to saving lives, surgical specialists are performing wonders in reconstructive and rehabilitative surgery. Remarkable results that even a few years ago would have been considered impossible are being effected in vascular, nerve, plastic, brain and orthopedic surgery. The extensive use of land mines in this war has resulted in a relatively high number of amputations. Yet many who have lost one or more limbs will suffer comparatively little disability in civil life. Improvements in the manufacture, fitting and adjustment of appliances and the training the men receive in their use, so effectively conceal the amputations that these men are very unlikely to be the objects of morbid curiosity or to be publicly labeled as the “handicapped.” The opportunity for normal, useful lives will be open to many of them.

  Venereal disease, always important in military medicine, has been reduced to a rate of 30 per 1,000 men per annum, a record that is unmatched in an army at any time. Days lost from duty because of venereal disease have dropped from 1,278 per 1,000 men in 1940 to 400 per 1,000. In addition, more than 147,000 men with venereal disease have been inducted into the Army and successfully treated. Even greater improvement in venereal disease rates is anticipated as refinements in treatment with the sulfonamides and penicillin are perfected.

  DECEMBER 1, 1944

  SUPPLY LAG DELAYS EISENHOWER DRIVE

  Stimson Reveals Offensive Was Postponed By Bottlenecks in Shell Delivery

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, Nov. 30—Shortage of ammunition forced Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to hold up his general offensive just as the armies neared the Rhine, Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, announced at a news conference today in making a plea for greater production.

  The War Secretary said the ammunition situation has been and is “extremely complicated and equally critical” and may continue so unless there is a great increase in output.

  General Eisenhower’s delay, Mr. Stimson explained, was partly attributable to the European railroad situation, but chiefly to the fact that limitations of ports prevented reception of the shells. Now, the Secretary added, we are nearing another limitation—the availability of ammunition in this country.

  ANTWERP INCREASES FLOW

  Opening the port of Antwerp will “tremendously” raise the possibility of delivering ammunition to the battlefront, Mr. Stimson said and will “therefore correspondingly increase the amounts” that must be made and delivered from this country.

  “Last April,” he said, “following our experiences in the mountain warfare in Italy, where artillery consumption tremendously increased beyond all previous estimates of theatre commanders or the War Department, a careful survey of the entire situation was made and it was then decided to increase greatly the heavy artillery, both as to guns and as to ammunition, and to make general increases in artillery ammunition throughout, anticipating an approach to a trench-warfare situation during periods of stalemate in the campaigns which had then been decided upon, notably the landing in France.

  “Then following the breakthrough at Avranches and the rush across France, we experienced a series of artillery difficulties: first was the limitation imposed by disrupted railroad lines for the delivery of the ammunition available in the ports. As the railroad situation greatly improved, the next bottleneck was the incapacity of the ports to deliver the ammunition available in Great Britain.

  “Following this we arrived at a situation as the armies approached the Rhine, where it became necessary for General Eisenhower to delay a general offensive until an adequate reserve of artillery ammunition could be accumulated. Rail deliveries were partially responsible, port limitations were principally responsible.

  HOME SUPPLY NOW INVOLVED

  “As both these two factors improve we are reaching another limitation, and that is the availability of ammunition in the United States. We could disembark more if it were available and we could transport across France more if it were available.

  “However, the delay accepted by General Eisenhower has enabled us to accumulate the ammunition for the great offensive now in process. Even so, as a result of the transportation difficulties, portions of the front that otherwise would have been very active were forced to remain quiescent.

  “The consumption of ammunition is necessarily on a tremendous scale. Throughout the Apennines, in Italy, and along the entire Western Front we are firing probably ten times the amount of ammunition the Germans are, but we are forced to use it to destroy concrete structures as well as to destroy the enemy himself.

  “We insist on an overwhelming artillery power for the support of our infantry, not merely to gain success in battles but more particularly to hold down the number of casualties. We foresee still further increased requirements, and it is for that reason that every possible measure should be taken to stimulate production in this country.

  “The fanaticism of the enemy, who apparently has accepted the inch-by-inch destruction of Germany, has imposed additional requirements. Our determination is to smash the German Army and to give our troops every conceivable advantage of weapons and materiel. That, I think, should be the point of view of every American.”

  DECEMBER 3, 1944

  BOARD FACES HARD TASK IN SELLING WAR SURPLUS

  Largest Store of Things Ever Amassed Must Be Disposed Of Wisely

  By CHARLES E. EGAN

  WASHINGTON, Dec. 2—Imagine a job in which one was ordered to find markets for 22,000,000 flashlight batteries, a dozen live monkeys, 1,000 garbage cans, 10,000 carrier pigeons and half as many dogs, and one will gain a slight conception of the range and variety of surplus property which the Surplus War Property Administration will be called upon to market over the next several years.

  The items mentioned are only part of the more than $465,207,000 worth of war holdings already declared to be surplus. Of this amount $85,007,000 had been sold up to Sept. 30, this year. It does not include the twelve monkeys (seven of which have since been sold to the Columbus, Ohio, zoo), nor the 22,000,000 flashlight batteries which will go on sale to dealers soon.

  The total already declared surplus and available for sales is but a small fraction of such war goods as aircraft, machinery, plants, real estate, ships and foodstuffs for which markets will have to be found at the end of the war.

  HARD TO TELL VALUE

  Officials of
the Surplus War Property Administration, now headed by Will Clayton but soon to be directed by a board of three members under terms of the surplus property disposal law enacted this fall by Congress, say there is no way to give an accurate figure as to what the value of surplus property will be at the war’s end. Until fighting actually stops, they explain, goods and equipment held in reserve cannot be regarded as surplus. When the cease-fire order is given, however, a large percentage will become surplus overnight.

  Best estimates on Capitol Hill and in Government agencies place the probable value of surplus materials when the fighting ceases in excess of $100,000,000,000. Of this, $16,000,000,000 is represented by war plants and adjacent realty owned by the Defense Plants Corporation. This does not count the extensive war housing and other Government-owned realty which runs well above $1,000,000,000.

  Until the war ends, only those items of equipment and plant which are declared to be no longer needed by the armed services, Maritime Commission, War Food Administration, National Housing Administration and others are officially regarded as surplus and allowed to be sold as such.

  LARGEST STORE EVER

  After V-E day, but particularly at the close of the war with Japan, the real task of the SWPA will open up. Then it will find on its hands the greatest collection of merchandise, machinery, real estate and other facilities of war that has even been assembled for disposition. Stocks of raw materials of all kinds, goods in a semimanufactured state, canned and preserved foods of all kinds, electric appliances, cargo ships, aircraft numbered in the thousands from trainers to B-29 bombers, tanks, trucks marine engines and a seemingly endless array of other types of goods, will await disposal.