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

by The New York Times

Miss Zucca, who renounced her United States citizenship in 1941 because she “liked to live in Italy,” took her sentence calmly and with only a blinking of her eyes. Before she was led away by a British guard she smiled broadly at the German, Karl Goedel, who played “George” in the propaganda skit “Sally and George.”

  “Sally” testified that she had taken the job with the German-controlled Rome radio only because she needed the money for her Italian lover; that she never organized or wrote the scripts for the propaganda programs but merely read prepared dialogues.

  Just before the court returned its verdict her Italian attorney, Ottavio Libotte, received a cable from the United States asking postponement of the trial and saying the defendant’s mother, Mrs. Edvina Zucca, was sailing for Italy “with important documents.” It came too late, however.

  Signor Libotte announced he would appeal the sentence to the Supreme Military Tribunal.

  Three American soldiers testified briefly that they had heard “Sally’s” broadcasts. Statements of each of the three that the program was designed to demoralize American troops also were read.

  SALLY’S PARENTS NOT AVAILABLE

  “Axis Sally’s” father is Louis Zucca, owner of Zucca’s Italian Garden at 118 West Forty-ninth Street. At the restaurant last night it was said that Mr. and Mrs. Zucca were out of town.

  A cousin, Tino Zucca, who acted as spokesman, said: “There is nothing that we can say. The whole thing has been a terrible shock to the family.”

  Epilogue

  “ATOM BLAST IN RUSSIA DISCLOSED”

  1945–1949

  The four years that followed the end of World War II decisively shaped world politics for the next fifty years. The immediate task in 1945, however, was to complete the business left over from the conflict. War crimes trials in Nuremberg, and later in Tokyo, exposed the guilty and assuaged for many the thirst for revenge. Oppressed populations exacted retribution from those regarded as traitors. For the major victors, the end of the war brought on rapid demobilization from the extraordinary conditions of war. Armies were sent home, prisoners released and repatriated, industry retooled for civilian production and trade resumed. This proved a difficult transition as men replaced women who had gotten used to wartime wages and independence, businesses tried to compensate for the sudden loss of military orders, and nations bankrupted by war and occupation tried to address the pressing issues of food, fuel and work for their impoverished populations.

  By 1947 it was evident that the post-war world could not be remade easily and on June 6, at Harvard, Truman’s secretary of state, George Marshall, announced what was to become the European Recovery Program, or, more simply, the Marshall Plan. “This project fires the imagination as nothing has done since the end of the war,” The Times declared. Nevertheless, the Marshall Plan exacerbated the widening rift between the West and the Soviet Union. People in areas now under Communist domination in Europe were not permitted to apply for American assistance. When the Czechs thought about doing so, a Communist coup removed the last hope of a genuinely democratic system in the bloc now dominated from Moscow.

  The Cold War, a term coined by the correspondent Walter Lipmann, was taking shape by the end of 1945, with ongoing arguments over the future of Germany and Soviet input in the areas liberated by the Western Allies. Churchill addressed this issue on March 5, 1946, at a small college in Fulton, Missouri. While on a speaking tour, he took the opportunity to denounce the Communist construction of what he called an “Iron Curtain” across Europe. The Times did not immediately endorse the speech and the Soviet leadership interpreted it as an attempt to torpedo collaboration between the former wartime allies. But Churchill was not wrong in describing what became by 1949 international reality—a world divided along ideological lines between a democratic, capitalist West and an area from East Germany to North Korea, dominated by Communist dictatorships.

  Civil wars in Greece and China exposed the wider battle lines of the Cold War. In Greece, Truman finally intervened, offering American assistance after declaring what became known as the “Truman Doctrine” which supported democratic freedoms in the face of authoritarian threat. In practice, the doctrine could only be applied selectively. Greece remained outside the Soviet bloc, but China, where Mao Zedong’s armies finally routed the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, became a second Communist power.

  In Germany the issue remained finely balanced, since the Soviet Union wanted a unitary, but pro-Soviet German state. When the United States and Britain predictably rejected the Soviet ambition, Moscow blockaded the western zones of Berlin in hopes that the former German capital would become a Soviet city. The West responded by initiating an airlift that supplied Berliners long enough to persuade Moscow to call off the blockade, but the result was two separate German states, which remained separate until their reunification in 1990 after the Berlin Wall was toppled. Western nations, meanwhile, moved toward creating a military alliance, which The Times strongly favored long before NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was organized.

  On August 29 a Soviet atomic bomb was tested at a remote site in Kazakhstan, launching a nuclear arms race and dividing the world clearly into two superpower blocs. A month later The Times announced, “Atom Blast in Russia Disclosed.” A new and even more dangerous world had been born out of the ruins of World War II.

  OCTOBER 7, 1945

  90% CUT IN OUTPUT HITS PLANE PLANTS

  By RUSSELL PORTER

  Special to The New York Times.

  SAN DIEGO, Oct. 6—One of the most serious problems of the postwar period—the future of the aircraft industry—was spotlighted today for the group of newspaper men who are making a month’s tour of the country’s industrial centers to report on the progress of reconversion.

  I. M. Laddon, executive vice president of the Consolidated Vultee Corporation, made it clear that in his industry the problem is really not reconversion but contraction. He cited the experience of his company as typical of the industry.

  The company’s wartime sales peak, in 1944, totaled $990,000,000 in its plants throughout the country, about half of which was represented by San Diego production, whereas the 1946 country-wide estimate is $90,000,000, according to Mr. Laddon.

  DESCRIBES DOUBLE JOLT

  Mr. Laddon added that during the war the industry as a whole reached a production peak of $20,000,000,000 a year, which is expected to come down to 5 or 10 per cent after reconversion.

  Although that would be five to ten times as large as pre-war production, he said, it still leaves unsolved the problem of finding new jobs for a great many of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who worked in the aircraft plants during the war. He continued:

  “Probably no other industry received a greater double jolt than aircraft. It did not have large peacetime plants and payrolls which could be converted to war and it did not have a large normal peacetime market to which it could turn at the end of the war.”

  The company’s country-wide payroll increased from 5,338 at the beginning of 1940 to a wartime peak of 93,000 in 1944, as its production grew from 580 planes to 7,960 in the same two years. Today it is down to 17,000 employees and has closed down a number of its plants throughout the country. For the future the company is trying to develop commercial and private airplane markets in addition to whatever military planes are needed for the Government’s post-war aviation program.

  The press group was taken inside the fuselage of the XC-99, the 400-passenger Army transport now being built here. Climbing up the ladders of the two decks reminded one of going aboard an ocean liner. It is the largest land plane under construction and today was the first time, according to the company, that the Government has permitted a press preview.

  CARRY FIFTY-TON PAY LOAD

  A fleet of these planes in their commercial version—a 240-passenger ocean airliner—has been ordered by Pan American World Airways. They will carry a pay load of fifty tons 1,500 miles and have a range of 8,000 miles with a reduced p
ay load. There are six pusher-type engines. The length is 183 feet and the wing spread 230 feet.

  The reporters were also taken through a wooden replica of a new thirty-passenger domestic transport, a low-wing, twin-engine monoplane with a cruising speed of 275 miles an hour. It has luxurious passenger accommodations.

  A demonstration was given of “Jato” a jet-assisted take-off of a Coast Guard flying boat. This has greatly facilitated rescue work in high seas and is expected to find new applications in post-war commercial and private flying.

  Albert J. Reader, president, and E. F. Johnstone Jr., industrial consultant, of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, explained the city’s plans to meet its reconversion problems, and said the city was taking the shrinkage in aircraft employment in its stride as a result of post-war planning done over the past three years.

  From 1940 to 1944 the city’s population grew from 203,000 to 286,000 and is expected to level off at 280,000.

  JOBS FOR 23,500 EXPECTED

  Pre-war industrial employment was 12,000. The wartime peak was 65,000, the present figure is 16,000. And the estimate after reconversion is completed is 23,500, or about double pre-war.

  Most of those laid off seem to have remained in the city, some have been absorbed by other industries, trades and services that have been short of help. Some have gone back to the farm, the kitchen, the school and the retirement list.

  OCTOBER 7, 1945

  PATTON INCIDENT SERVES TO SPEED DENAZIFICATION

  His Attitude Focused Attention on Mistakes Now Being Corrected

  By RAYMOND DANIELL

  By Wireless to The New York Times

  BERLIN, Oct. 6—In his own inimitable fashion Gen. George S. Patton has rendered still another service to his country. It is his misfortune that this time it took such form that it won him banishment to an obscure command instead of another decoration to add to his five rows of ribbons. But by voicing frankly some of the doubts and reservations in the minds of many American officers regarding the denazification program laid down by the heads of State at Potsdam and implemented by General Eisenhower in a clear-cut directive, he helped dramatize an issue, which was stultifying one of the primary steps toward the reorientation of Germany.

  By his ill-timed, ill-chosen phrases, likening the situation in the defeated Reich to the aftermath of a Democratic-Republican election fight, he drew clearly the issue between himself and Eisenhower, which could not be ignored.

  As Lieut. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff to Eisenhower, phrased it, the real danger of the situation that resulted was not that Patton would fail to carry out his superior’s orders but that his remarks would be misunderstood and misconstrued by junior officers throughout the whole American zone by creating doubt regarding the real purpose of American occupation. As Patton saw it, the purpose was to “show the Germans what grand fellows we are.”

  A DANGER REMAINS

  Eisenhower’s action in forcing Patton to remove the reactionary Bavarian Government, which the former Third Army commander was propping up in office long after it had lost all usefulness to us, and the subsequent transfer of Patton from the role of military governor of Bavaria to a purely literary role of directing compilation of a tactical history of the war he fought so well in the field, should end all danger of such misconceptions. One danger remains, however, and that is that the drastic action taken against General Patton will be mistaken for a cure of the fundamental cleavage between promise and performance in occupation policy, instead of the purely disciplinary action that it was..

  Yet it cannot be denied that General Patton’s interview and its aftermath have had a healthful effect upon the execution of our declared policy of ridding Germany’s economic as well as her political life of a Nazi nucleus which might seize control after our occupation ends. If it did nothing more than remind the officers in the field—many of whom were drawn from civilian life where the tradition of obedience is less ingrained than among the Regular Army officers—that their role is to enforce and not to make policy, it would have been a net gain.

  But it did more. It led to the overthrow of the ultra-conservative, one-sided German Government in Bavaria, support of which had begun to arouse skepticism in Bavaria regarding our sincerity in advocating democratic principles. It has brought a showdown on the denazification order which was being evaded and avoided in the name of expediency and efficiency.

  But denazification is only one phase of our occupation program. There may have to be a large number of similar showdowns before the policies as laid down at Potsdam, envisaging a disarmed Germany limited to a standard of living not to exceed that of her European neighbors, are realized. For in all phases of the occupation machinery cleavages are developing between those ready to enforce peace terms as stringent as those laid down at Potsdam, and those who would soften them by closing an eye here and cutting a corner there.

  It was Patton who dramatized and crystallized an issue which might have dragged along indecisively for an indefinite period. He is the one who has felt the brunt of punishment. But it would be a mistake to regard him as the only sinner. There are scores, perhaps hundreds of lesser figures who feel as he did but who now can be expected to carry out orders as issued on denazification at least because they know now it isn’t healthy to disobey.

  The lackadaisical attitude that prevailed in the American zone toward denazificaion is not, however, limited to that part of Germany. Its counterpart is to be found in the British-occupied Ruhr where old managers of industries which played the Nazi game have still to be removed from their lucrative and influential positions.

  OCTOBER 9, 1945

  Editorial

  UNREST IN INDONESIA

  In the Netherlands East Indies, as elsewhere in what the Japanese used to call their “Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the end of the war has not restored the conditions existing in December, 1941. The Japanese rebellion may not be serious in the military sense, but it suggests wide discontent. And discontent among a total population in the Indies of nearly 75,000,000, gathered into an area about one-fourth that of the United States, with some regions, as in Java itself, of intense congestion, could be extremely significant.

  The East Indies under Dutch rule have had an enormous population increase—about 100 per cent since 1905. This population, about eight times that of the mother country, is 85 per cent Moslem. Twenty years ago it had a strong independence movement, with a religious basis. Under the Japanese threat and later under actual Japanese occupation this movement lost ground. The East Indians did not like European imperialism, but they liked the Japanese variety still less. But like other East Asiatics, they have been influenced by the democratic professions of the Allies, and presumably what they are after is greater political and economic freedom without the complete withdrawal of European protection.

  No doubt the root grievance is that the native continues to occupy an inferior position and does not have the first claim on the exportable natural resources of his own country. He wants a higher standard of living and a say as to his own destiny. In the Philippines the native is soon to achieve the latter, whatever may happen to the former. The Indonesian, looking northward, may wonder why he should not be equally fortunate.

  OCTOBER 10, 1945

  ARMY TO DISCHARGE MILLION A MONTH

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, Oct. 9—The Army and the Navy announced today that their respective demobilization programs were being accelerated. An Army spokesman stated that the present tempo of discharges would mean that men would be leaving for civilian life at the rate of 1,000,000 men a month.

  The Army expects to reach the 1,000,000 rate by the end of October. The number of men discharged from the Army in September was 597,302, far beyond the goal of 450,000 estimated by General Marshall on Sept. 20 in a talk with members of Congress.

  The Navy announced today that its critical score for medical officers had been reduced from 60 to 53, which means that 4,000 doctors will return to
civilian life by Jan. 1.

  Possible further reduction of the score will depend on the rate of general demobilization. Medical officers are being discharged at present at the rate of three doctors for each 1,000 men demobilized.

  REPORTS 208,000 DEMOBILIZED

  As for general demobilization, the Navy stated that in the six days ending Oct. 6, 60,000 men had been discharged, bringing the Navy’s total demobilized to 208,000 men.

  On the incoming side, the Navy reported that 16,000 men had voluntarily enlisted in the Navy during September, including 11,800 who joined the Regular Navy.

  Consequently, the Navy Department will reduce its draft request for November from 5,000 to 1,000 men.

  On Oct. 1 there were 539,000 men with points to qualify for discharge, and 335,000 of these were at sea or overseas.

  OCTOBER 14, 1945

  WASHINGTON BACKS A ‘HARD APPROACH’ TO RUSSIA

  By JAMES B. RESTON

  WASHINGTON, Oct. 13—The current trend at the State Department is to be firm with Russia. The purpose is not to minimize our cooperation with Moscow but to increase it. The theory is that the “soft approach” has failed and the “hard approach” will put our cooperation on a sounder basis.

  This is presently a popular thesis in Washington, particularly on Capitol Hill. When Secretary of State Byrnes came back from the London conference and developed it before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he was generally well received. The main questions raised by the committee, in fact, were not whether the tough line was right but whether it was tough enough and whether it was his intention to “be tough” or only to “act tough.”