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

by The New York Times

  “We shall press forward with the other United Nations toward a victory whose terms will deprive Germany and Japan of the means with which to commit aggression ever again, and toward the establishment of a world organization endowed with strength to keep the peace for generations and to give security and wider opportunity to all men.”

  COMMANDS UNUSUAL SUPPORT

  It was admitted by those Senators who have followed foreign affairs closely that the death of Mr. Roosevelt would undoubtedly raise some questions in the minds of Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin as to what policy President Truman would follow, but the general opinion expressed was first, that the new President would carry through the international policies of President Roosevelt, not only because of a sense of obligation, but because of a sense of conviction that they were right, and second, that he would be able to command unusual support on Capitol Hill for this policy.

  The President will not go to the San Francisco conference. He indicated to his associates today that he would probably address the conference by radio. Consequently, it is assumed that he will give considerable leeway to the members of the delegation in drafting our national policy.

  If there were any doubts about Mr. Truman’s desire to see the United States not only participate but assume a leading part in a world security organization, these doubts would undoubtedly be found among those Senators who have led the fight for such a policy and who have discussed it at great length with him.

  REACTION OF SENATORS

  The reaction of these Senators, however, was not only that he would maintain the continuity of the Roosevelt foreign policy but that he would “in some respects go further” than the late President.

  It was recalled, for example, that Mr. Truman participated with Senators, Ball, Burton, Hatch and Hill in the campaign centering around the resolution to force the Administration to take the lead in establishing an international security organization.

  That campaign, in fact, was planned at a luncheon called by Mr. Truman, who discussed it on a number of occasions with Senator Hatch and supported the campaign whenever he could.

  At the same time, however, Mr. Truman did not at any time go far enough with this group to become vulnerable to criticism from other groups who did not favor such an advanced position.

  The quality which contributed so much to his nomination as Vice President, his ability to keep out of serious trouble with almost every group on Capitol Hill, is thus thought to be of great value to him in gaining the support necessary for ratification of whatever treaty is approved by the American delegation and proposed by the San Francisco conference.

  That the President recognizes this support on Capitol Hill as one of the main sources of his strength and that he intends to do everything he can to narrow the gulf between the legislative and executive branches of the Government, was indicated today by his decision to go to Capitol Hill to have luncheon with some of his former colleagues there.

  Throughout his stay there he kept saying to his friends:

  “We must stay together; we must see this thing through together.” This frank and friendly attempt to carry the White House to Capitol Hill was the first clear theme of the new Administration and those Senators, who have been seeking most avidly for American leadership in world affairs, consider it a good and important augury for the success of the policy they favor.

  APRIL 14, 1945

  ROOSEVELT DEATH ENCOURAGES NAZIS

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  PARIS, April 13—The German strategy of withdrawing what forces are left into two national redoubts in the north and south of the Reich, which has been evident for some weeks, has undoubtedly been encouraged by the death of President Roosevelt, one of Nazi Germany’s most implacable enemies, according to a senior officer at Supreme Headquarters.

  German strategists have gambled on the chances of a disagreement between the three leading Allied powers and this source believed that Hitler’s political and military strategists would view the President’s death as weakening the ties between the United States and Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other.

  In the past the enemy has paid Mr. Roosevelt the compliment of naming him as the man who roused the Western World to action against fascism. Berlin has regarded his powerful personality as the chief element in welding Russian and western strategy for the final phase of the conflict in the west.

  The Germans undoubtedly will redouble their efforts to construct a strong defensive position across north Germany, probably from Luebeck on the east to Emden on the west, with Kiel, the former headquarters of the German fleet, as “capital” of this northern redoubt.

  HEAVIEST DEFENSE IN NORTH

  The heaviest opposition met by Allied forces north of the Harz Mountains has been on the front of the British Second Army, where yesterday elements of the Seventh Infantry and the Twenty-first Parachute Divisions, the former one of the finest remaining in the German Army, were pivoting northward on Bremen.

  The western end of the German line evidently is intended to extend from Bremen west to the mouth of the Ems, while the eastern sector will run from Bremen eastward, crossing the Elbe south of Hamburg, and then extending northeastward to reach the Baltic east of Luebeck.

  Today pilots of the British Second Tactical Air Force sighted large convoys of German troops, guns and trucks streaming into the area east of the Elbe and southeast of Hamburg. Other convoys were moving into the area of Cuxhaven on the North Sea and Wilhelmshaven, another German naval base.

  The northern redoubt has one purpose and one advantage. The purpose is to deny the use of the great ports of the northern Reich to the Allies in a bitter defensive action that will postpone the moment when the Allies’ full might can be directed against the redoubt in southeastern Germany. The advantage is that it is one of two areas in the Reich that can be reinforced from the outside. Troops can move in from Denmark or the ports of Norway. That will be difficult in view of the Allies’ sea and air supremacy, but granted the fanatic valor of the SS troops, it is not impossible.

  Meanwhile, the Germans will move troops and supplies southeastward into the larger redoubt in the mountains east of Lake Constance, in which Nazi leaders hope to hold out for months waiting for a split between the western Allies and the Soviet Union, which they believe to be inevitable.

  This redoubt, too, can be reinforced from the outside. There already are some indications from Italy that some of the best troops of the German armies there are moving northward toward the Alps and the southern perimeter of the redoubt.

  The forces from Italy, which the Germans regard as unbeaten, will probably form a considerable percentage of the defenders of the southern redoubt. They have a high propaganda value for whoever directs the German radio broadcasts from the redoubt to the people of Germany because the propagandists undoubtedly will refer to the forces there as still unbeaten.

  The Germans have gone to a great length to protect the routes into the-southern redoubt. Resistance on the front of Lieut. Gen. Alexander M. Patch’s United States Seventh Army in western Bavaria has been extremely fierce. The Germans have committed to battle in that area reinforcements that could have been more usefully employed on the central front were it not for the necessity of defending the highways and railroads running from western Czechoslovakia into the redoubt.

  It is from the forges of the great Skoda Works and other industrial plants in the Prague area that the enemy is creating stocks of arms and ammunition in the redoubt.

  According to Swiss reports, some small factories already have been moved in the redoubt into which stocks of food have been pouring since late last summer.

  Those, briefly, are the outlines of the German strategy, a plan that relies on a split between the Allies to allow the Nazi gang to escape with their lives and perhaps even with some semblance of power. The enemy, although he has convinced no one else, has convinced himself that such a split was inevitable and that it would be hastened by the deat
h of Mr. Roosevelt.

  Until it appears, they intend to hold on, first in the north and finally in the south.

  APRIL 15, 1945

  SOVIET FLAGS SHOW MOURNING BORDER

  Tributes Never Before Paid To Foreigner Honor Roosevelt As Friend of Peace

  By C. L. SULZBERGER

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, April 14—The official black-fringed red banner of national mourning was raised over the Kremlin early today as the Russian people and their Government grieved for their friend Franklin D. Roosevelt and did him honors such as no foreigner has ever received in the history of the Soviet Union.

  The President’s death is, one might hazard, almost as keenly felt here as in America. Among Government leaders who had the privilege of meeting him and among the great mass of the people who knew him only as a true friend of Russia and of peace, an enemy of fascism and of war, and a venturesome, smiling liberal whose face had won him sympathy and liking in many newsreels, his loss is regarded as a personal blow on the eve of this war’s end.

  One can detect this feeling in all quarters. Premier Stalin received United States Ambassador W. Averell Harriman last night to express his condolences. So many Russians, both officials and little people, have been telephoning the American Embassy to voice their sympathy that extra operators have been taken on. Huge crowds form queues at movie theatres for a glimpse of the late President in newsreels of the Yalta Conference, which have already been on view for many days.

  The black-bordered red flag which the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics employs to honor and mourn its own great dead was flapping this chill spring day not only over Marshal Stalin’s residence but on all Government and many private buildings. People traveling about their affairs in the subway are still talking about what President Roosevelt meant.

  MANY RUSSIANS WEEP AT LOSS

  It may seem strange to Americans that many, many people here who never even saw Mr. Roosevelt with their own eyes have wept and are weeping over what they feel is a personal tragedy. This bereavement has apparently brought the Soviet and the American people psychologically closer at this moment than at any time in the personal knowledge of this correspondent.

  Coupled with this moving, emotional phenomenon is a keen intellectual interest in American politics and in everything concerning President Truman, past, present and future. This earnest curiosity is exhibited from the very top to the very bottom of the social structure.

  In all possible ways, however, the Government is encouraging the population to honor the memory of their friend who first brought diplomatic recognition of the U.S.S.R., and then stood by it during its blackest moments. In Leningrad, a public library memorial exhibition dedicated to Mr. Roosevelt has been opened. At an All-Slav reception for Marshal Tito, a minute of silence was observed for the dead leader.

  TITO CABLES HIS SYMPATHY

  Marshal Tito cabled to President Truman that he considered that this was “a tremendous loss for all the United Nations.”

  Alexander Troyanovsky, first Soviet Ambassador to Washington, wrote a tribute to Mr. Roosevelt in Red Star, the Army newspaper. He said that Mr. Roosevelt’s prewar political life “was a preparation for the outstanding role which he played during the Second World War as a leader in the cause of guaranteeing security to the world” and that he often swam against the current and was proved right. Calling him an outstanding statesman, the former Ambassador said that the present grand alliance would have been impossible without the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries twelve years ago.

  Mr. Troyanovsky said that Mr. Roosevelt had bequeathed to President Truman “a rich heritage in the form of a militant commonwealth of freedom-loving peoples, huge armed forces, successful military operations on all fronts to the glory of the United Nations now killing the Fascists.”

  The Soviet-recognized Polish Provisional Government declared yesterday, in a broadcast over the Moscow radio, as reported by the Federal Communications Commission to the Office of War Information:

  “Roosevelt is dead.

  “This tragic news has profoundly shaken all Poland. It seems as if we could hear the rustling of pages of history. One of the greatest men of America has entered the Pantheon.

  “A gigantic personality who, in the history of America, will take his place next to Washington, Franklin and Lincoln. We have lived in Roosevelt’s times and so have lived in great times.”

  APRIL 19, 1945

  Ernie Pyle Is Killed on Ie Island; Foe Fired When All Seemed Safe

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  GUAM, April 18—Ernie Pyle died today on Ie Island, just west of Okinawa, like so many of the doughboys he had written about. The nationally known war correspondent was killed instantly by Japanese machine-gun fire.

  The slight, graying newspaper man, chronicler of the average American soldier’s daily round, in and out of foxholes in many war theatres, had gone forward early this morning to observe the advance of a well-known division of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps.

  He joined headquarters troops in the outskirts of the island’s chief town, Tegusugu. Our men had seemingly ironed out minor opposition at this point, and Mr. Pyle went over to talk to a regimental commanding officer. Suddenly enemy machine gunners opened fire at about 10:15 A.M. (9:15 P.M., Tuesday, Eastern war time). The war correspondent fell in the first burst.

  The commanding general of the troops on the island reported the death to headquarters as follows:

  “I regret to report that War Correspondent Ernie Pyle, who made such a great contribution to the morale of our foot soldier, was killed in the battle of Ie Shima today.”

  Ernie Pyle, chronicler of the American soldier, filing a story from the Anzio Beachhead, Italy, March 18, 1944.

  AT A COMMAND POST, Ie Island, Ryukyus, April 18 (AP)—Ernie Pyle, the famed columnist who had reported the wars from Africa to Okinawa, met his death about a mile forward of this command post. Mr. Pyle had just talked with a general commanding Army troops and Lieut. Col. James E. Landrum, executive officer of an infantry regiment, before “jeeping” to a forward command post with Lieut. Col. Joseph B. Coolidge of Helena, Ark., commanding officer of the regiment, to watch front-line action.

  Colonel Coolidge was alongside Mr. Pyle when he was killed. “We were moving down the road in our jeep,” related Colonel Coolidge. “Ernie was going with me to my new command post. At 10 o’clock we were fired on by a Jap machine gun on a ridge above us. We all jumped out of the jeep and dived into a roadside ditch.

  MAY BE BURIED WHERE HE FELL

  “A little later Pyle and I raised up to look around. Another burst hit the road over our heads and I fell back into the ditch. I looked at Ernie and saw he had been hit.

  “He was killed almost instantly, the bullet entering his left temple just under his helmet.

  “I crawled back to report the tragedy, leaving a man to watch the body. Ernie’s body will be brought back to Army grave registration officers. He will be buried here on Ie Jima unless we are notified otherwise.

  “I was so impressed with Pyle’s coolness, calmness and his deep interest in enlisted men. They have lost their best friend.”

  Colonel Coolidge was visibly shaken as he told the facts of the columnist’s death. Almost tearfully, he described the tragedy. He said he knew the news would spread swiftly over the island.

  FEARED BEING DISLIKED

  Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

  No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

  President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

  Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything
he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

  For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

  In the Eighth Avenue subway yesterday a gray-haired woman looked up, wet-eyed, from the headline “Ernie Pyle Killed in Action” and murmured “May God rest his soul” and other women, and men, around her took up the words. This was typical.

  It was rather curious that a nation should have worked up such affection for a timid little man whose greatest fear was “Maybe they won’t like me.”

  He wrote simple, gripping pieces about five days spent with the lepers at Molokai, and put his feeling on paper: “I felt unrighteous at being whole and clean,” he told his readers when he came away.

  He wrote of Devil’s Island, of all South America, which he toured by plane. He covered some 150,000 miles of Western Hemisphere wearing out three cars, three typewriters; crossed the United States thirty-five times.

  MAGNET PULLS HIM TO LONDON

  In the fall of 1940 he started for unhappy London. “A small voice came in the night and said go” was the way he put it, and his writings on London under Nazi bombings tore at his readers’ hearts.

  He lived with Yank troops in Ireland and his descriptions of their day-by-day living brought wider reception. When he went into action with the Yanks in Africa, the Pyle legend burst into flower.