The Charlotte News

Wednesday, July 15, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "High School for the Army" speaks of the maneuvers in the Carolinas the previous year. The maneuvers actually had occurred in October and November, though by this point in time, it no doubt seemed like it had been a year to those who had lived through the previous seven months.

"Shoot, Juden" reports of the interesting anomaly of Jews being conscripted to fight for the Reich, signal of Hitler's manpower shortage following the year-long slaughterhouse on the Russian front. The story was not apocryphal. Two Jews in Nazi uniforms had been captured in Egypt by the British Eighth Army; they informed of the matter.

The desperation forebodes well for the Allies, the piece suggests, and also makes likely the prospect of sabotage at the front. For what coercive threat might be posed in reality to a Jew who committed an act of treason against Das Vaterland, who laid down his weapon and refused to fight in the face of the enemy? Death was imminent should he simply prove either ineffective at his post or no longer necessary to the fight. He had no way out of the war, no way back home after it was concluded, and that was so regardless of what he did on the battlefield. His best bet was to be captured by the enemy. But then, if he had family...

Paul Mallon speculates on where the second front might open, south of Brest, problematic for its distance from British airfields, Norway and Sweden, subject to Hitler's own ready counter-thrust with ten divisions, a landing accomplished through the Mediterranean to Sicily and Tripoli thereby enabling the crush of pincers on Rommel's panzers, made difficult for insufficient forces of the moment to accomplish it, settling therefore, instead of these alternatives, on that which was the most likely route of assault--the simple, direct crossing of the Channel from Dover back to Dunkerque, or thereabouts.

It would come soon enough, not as precisely described by Mr. Mallon's speculation, but rather starting with the Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia landings in North Africa in November, "Operation Torch", taking Rommel's forces out by May, and then starting the drive into Sicily in summer, 1943, leading to the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. All in good time.

A letter to the editor from fellow newspaper man Bob Reynolds memorializes his return of the two dollars offered up as subscription money by The News for a year's worth of pleasurefully erudite reading in "The Vindicator", edited by his truly.

After recently publicly assailing The News as a Bob-hater, Bob appeared now to be trying to become cuddly with the editors, offering the olive branch, or, in his case, perhaps, just the olive, or maybe the maraschino cherry left over from his aperitif.

The Vindicators, themselves, you will recall, just a couple of weeks earlier had been officially disbanded before the Federal District Court in Raleigh by special request of his truly. Yet, the publication, as a News editorial had laid bets it would, apparently continued vibrantly in circulation. Whether its content still protested the existence in America of aliens for their extraordinary supposed contribution to the crime rate, inveighed against the various perfidies of Albion, gave praise to Hitler's astute management skills, and sought repayment of the World War debts by transfer of Bermuda and other British and French possessions in the Caribbean to the United States, and other such romantic jousts with Rosinante, (and his aperitif), at his side, we don't know.

A letter appears from Tuskegee Institute announcing only one lynching so far in the first six months of 1942, that of a black man in Missouri accused of mere assault, while another possible case out of Texas remained under investigation.

Immediately below it, a very short story is offered up from Ambrose Bierce, Civil War veteran, author of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", all anent the stuffed shirts among the cops and robbers.

Mr. Bierce disappeared in Mexico in 1913 and was presumed dead. The origin of this piece is not provided. He wrote for several publications during his career as a journalist, most regularly a column for William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Sunday Examiner.

Whether there is comprehensible cohesion between the letter from Senator Bob, the letter from Tuskegee, and the very short story by Ambrose Bierce, we leave to the reader to discern.