Friday, August 13, 1943

The Charlotte News

Friday, August 13, 1943

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The Seventh Army, reports the front page, captured Cape Orlando as General Patton's forces moved another eight miles closer to Messina, now just thirty-five miles away.

The British Eighth Army along the east coast closed in on Taormina, also thirty-five miles from Messina.

The combined forces of the American and British continued to menace the central point of the German rearguard, Randazzo, now nearly overrun.

Axis prisoners in Sicily had increased to 130,000.

Meanwhile, Canadian forces previously engaged in the fight for Sicily had been reported withdrawn, apparently in preparation for deployment elsewhere in Europe.

Another contingent of 500 American Flying Fortresses, about the size of the July 19 raid, hit Rome, again striking the San Lorenzo and Littorio railroad yards, crucial junction for delivery of Axis troops and supplies to Southern Italy.

On the Russian front, the Red Army moved closer to taking Kharkov, some forces having gotten within five miles of the city, as the taking of Chuguev to the southeast enabled encirclement.

The Army had also advanced to within twenty-five miles of Bryansk.

Speculation began to run as to who would be named Allied commander-in-chief of European operations, set to be named out of the Quebec Conference. The betting money was on either General Eisenhower, General Harold Alexander, or Lt.-General Bernard Montgomery.

Future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Eisenhower, Maj.-General Nathan F. Twining promised that the air offensive in the Solomons would not only continue but would be substantially increased as time wore on. He suggested that it was the second quarter of the game and the Allies were now ahead.

A juxtaposed piece reinforces the fact that General Twining’s wife and children resided in Charlotte.

And on this Friday the 13th, Clark Gable was reported to have returned safely from his third photographic mission aboard a Flying Fortress. On this particular mission, a burst of shrapnel missed him by but two feet.

Regardless, Captain Gable got no good pictures during the sortie.

On the editorial page, "There's No Peace" finds the public post-war peace talks to be conducive of aid to the enemy.

"Liquor Shortage" suggests that there was no shortage in and around Charlotte where the bootleggers always took care of their trade, war or no war, grain shortage or not. Nevertheless, it wonders whether the liquor shortage wouldn't this time turn the average drinker to sobriety rather than find him enduring the desultory and vengeful, vestigial demons attendant with popskull.

"Looking 'Em Over" examines the possibility that Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, son of former President William Howard Taft, might get the nod for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination. He would bring foreign policy experience to the podium which Thomas Dewey lacked. His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, eschewing the idea of a run for the nomination, Taft's organization, the piece believes, was essentially that of Governor John Bricker of Ohio, that the Bricker people would throw their support to Taft when the Bricker candidacy gave up the ghost.

Taft was semi-isolationist prior to U.S. involvement in the war, had opposed Lend-Lease and now opposed the concept of an international police force after the war, believed that the peace had to be maintained by another organization similar to the League of Nations. (It had done so well the first time without any enforcement mechanism.) Domestically, he opposed much of the New Deal legislation, advocated smaller government and lower taxes. (A return, in other words, to the good old days wherein there was a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, the Great Depression.)

Is it any wonder that he did not attract the nomination of his party?

Dorothy Thompson rhetorically asks what Stalin was up to with statements issuing from Russia, still impatient for a stronger second front. She answers the query by asserting that he wanted peace in 1943, that the toll of war had devastated Russia, with five million or more dead and starvation running rampant through its cities. So, she suggests, he was taking the initiative to set forth a formulation for peace, similar to President Wilson's Fourteen Points.

She recommends that the Western Allies begin to formulate a clear policy on post-war governance of conquered nations lest Stalin beat them to the table.

Samuel Grafton again suggests the same enunciation of clear policy, rather than the ad hoc approach which led to Darlanism in North Africa and the disunity for a time thereafter between General Giraud and General De Gaulle. Now, the State Department had been slow to recognize the French National Committee of Liberation, formed jointly by the forces supporting General Giraud and those supporting General De Gaulle. The road lay open thereby for problems with post-war France should the indecisive policy continue, not only with respect to France but as well to Italy and Germany.

Drew Pearson, amid a paper shortage which extended to newsprint, looks at the high salaries and bonuses being paid nevertheless to International Paper executives.

Greed, as with the thirst for liquor, never abates in someone with the taste, come war or high water.

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