The Charlotte News

Thursday, August 19, 1943

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: For the first time, reports the front page, the American Navy bombarded the mainland of Italy, striking twenty miles north of Messina on the west coast at Gioia Tauro and Palmi on the Gulf of Gioia.

President Roosevelt, in Quebec for the conference with Prime Minister Churchill, sent General Eisenhower a message of congratulations on the taking of Sicily in just 38 days. He asked that the General convey to all of the Allied soldiers the simple message, “Well done!”

Meanwhile, a reliable British source confirmed the Swiss report of the day before that several divisions of German troops had been moved into Northern Italy during the previous week or two. No reliable estimate, however, of the numbers could be provided.

French radio broadcasts from Algiers and London urged French patriots to ready themselves for a potential Allied invasion of France, while hedging on whether the time was nigh or later.

A report out of Bern quoted from the Nazi official organ, Voelkischer Beobachter, that the entire Nazi government had fled Berlin, possibly for Vienna, Linz, or Breslau.

In what was described as a decisive maneuver against Kharkov, the Russians captured Zmyev, a German stronghold twenty miles south of the steel city. Some twelve hundred German shock troops were reported killed in the action. Gains were also reported northwest and west of the city. Russian shock troops within the city itself maintained a street-to-street battle with the Nazis.

At a shipbuilding yard in Long Beach, California, a rat dubbed "Hitler" turned out the lights for awhile by gnawing through a power line. His efforts were not without terminal results, however, as Hitler was electrocuted in the process.

A 24-year old North Carolinian from Farmville, Flight Officer James Montgomery, had been dubbed "Robinson Crusoe" by his mates for his efforts after having to bail out of his Spitfire over the Tyrrhenian Sea, thirty miles northeast of Palermo. He didn’t open his parachute until he was but a thousand feet over the sea's surface. He made it aboard his inflatable dinghy and floated all night below passing planes. At one point, he decided to spear a fish to try to obtain fresh water from it, but said it wasn't so good. Finally, after doing battle with a sea turtle, he was able to hail a British rescue plane after nearly a full day on the water.

Unofficially, though not reported, they said that, had the plane not arrived, he was going to ride the sea turtle back to shore, fashioning reins from the hairs on his back.

And in Valletta on the island of Malta, the church bells were permitted to ring again after the fall of Sicily.

On the editorial page, "He Moves!" provides praise to FDR for finally putting teeth in the War Labor Board's rulings with his order for sanctions in the event of either Labor or management resistance to the rulings. The praise is tempered, however, by the editorial's assertion that the President's hand was forced by members of the Board who had criticized his lenient treatment of Labor.

"An Ancient Sin" doubts the likely application of the still extant law of 1891 in North Carolina regarding sale of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 17, making it a misdemeanor to do so and a misdemeanor for the minor not to reveal the source if caught with cigarettes. The cigarette habit, believes the piece, was here to stay, rendering that law quite obsolete.

Times change and sometimes times change back.

"Two-Way Report" comments on the relatively mild public declarations of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker after his return from touring the fighting fronts, when compared to his statements criticizing the war effort during the previous year.

But he had said that he believed that, barring a miracle, the war would not end before the fall of 1944. And yet he expected the miracle by the winter. The editorialist is left in a state of confusion.

"Time for Talk" echoes the syndicated columnists on the page in recent weeks, urging America to adopt a solid stance in favor of democracy in the conquered lands and against Fascists. It urges such a strong statement to Italy. In light of the experience in North Africa with the French, the piece concludes that the world was not quite convinced that America and Great Britain would recognize a man for a man when they saw one.

Samuel Grafton picks up where Raymond Clapper left off the day before, arguing that Pietro Badoglio was being deliberately ambiguous, seeking to have it both ways for Italy and Rome, trying to renounce Italy’s role in the war without surrendering. The declaration of Rome as an open city, he suggests, was false. For Rome was still defended by the rest of Italy.

Badoglio, he reminds, had used mustard gas on the Ethiopians in 1936. And so his appeal to international law rang hollow. There could be no recognition of Rome as an open city because it was a fiction; there could be no recognition of Italy as a neutral nation because of its role thus far in the war.

Raymond Clapper provides a straightforward solution to the dilemma of what to do after the war with Mussolini and Hitler: shoot them without a trial. There was no necessity of a trial, he argues, as everyone knew that they were guilty of war crimes.

His solution would never have to be implemented. The people of Italy took care of Mussolini. Hitler, of course, took care of himself.

Drew Pearson points out the double standard being applied by the newspaper PM in its crusade against anyone who had ever been courted publicly by Mussolini during his twenty year reign. Yet, it turned out that PM's owner, Marshall Field, had been willingly courted and decorated by Il Duce and had gone even further, joining certain Italian-American organizations espousing Fascism.

John L. Lewis, reports Mr. Pearson, had again switched allegiances. In 1940, he deserted his old friend FDR and lent his support to Wendell Willkie. Now, he was turning against Mr. Willkie and throwing his support to Tom Dewey for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1944.

He next reveals how a tricky Chicago Tribune reporter managed to obtain from a leaky government the highly confidential gasoline rationing quotas yet to be released.

And Burke Davis, seeming curmudgeonly to borrow a leaf from a piece by Cash published October 31, 1937 just as both joined the News staff, by-lines a piece on the surge in popularity of Frank Sinatra, at a time when it seemed that the popularity of classical and operatic music had enjoyed a renascence in opposition to the monotonous rhythms of popular music, swing and jazz.

Mr. Davis predicts that one day the swooning girls would wake up and realize that Old Blue Eyes couldn't croon at all, was just a nice personality who, at best, produced a kind of lowing into the microphone.

In 1943, he may have had a point. Nevertheless, the little Suzies never seemed to wake up, continued enraptured by the lowing.

Sometimes, he sounded pretty good though.

Whatever the case, he did it his way. Even if that swell publicity agent of whom Mr. Davis makes remark probably made some offers to some club owners which they couldn't refuse.