Monday, January 8, 1945

The Charlotte News

Monday, January 8, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that combined advances from the north and south by the First and Third Armies had narrowed the German Bulge line to less than ten miles in width, causing the Germans, under a fresh snowfall, quickly to have to remove surviving elements from the western tip of the Bulge at Rochefort to avoid entrapment. The Germans, however, appeared to be reinforcing their defense positions in the area around St. Vith to the east.

The First Army and the British Sixth Airborne Division captured a fifteen-mile segment of the St. Vith-La Rouche Highway, from Vielsahm to beyond Dochamps. The highway was one of the last two escape routes for three panzer divisions in the western part of the Bulge. The 82nd Airborne Division of the First Army took Thierdumont Ridge northwest of Salmchateau, the key point overlooking the highway. The Second Armored Division occupied Dochamps while the Third Armored Division took Joubieval, three miles west of Salmchateau, fighting into Hebronval.

It was believed that closure of the north and south pincers, however, would not result in capture of large numbers of Germans between Bastogne and Dochamps, but would free for duty at other locations on the front Allied troops having to defend against the Bulge.

The other route of escape, through Houffalize southwest of Bastogne, was maintained under Allied artillery fire from both north and south.

The Germans were reported to have three armies comprised of twenty divisions, actually twenty-four, within the Bulge sector. Field Marshal Gerd Von Rundstedt was said to be sacrificing his infantry to protect and salvage the mobile panzer divisions.

The Third Army captured Flamierge, two miles from the road from Libramont to St. Vith through Houffalize.

There was no update of a weekend report of a German bridgehead established across the Meuse north of Venlo in Holland.

The Seventh Army won back lost ground eight miles north of Strasbourg and repelled German counter-attacks. Military observers were viewing this offensive as a diversion to draw off troops from the Third Army pressing on the southern flank of the Bulge.

In a delayed report from December 29, Lewis Hawkins related of the 320th Regiment of the 35th Division of the Third Army having moved 93 miles in 32 hours across the Sure River in Luxembourg to take three towns, helping to break the Bulge offensive, enabling relief of Bastogne and saving the city of Luxembourg.

At the start of the offensive on December 16, the Third Army had been busy in Dillingen and Saarlautern, heading for the Siegfried Line in the Sarreguemines area.

On December 18, it was decided that General Patton would shift his men to attack the southern flank of the Bulge. On the 19th, the Army started to make its move and by the 22nd, it was heading northeastward, north, and west from Luxembourg to the area of Bastogne. Within three days, six of the Army's eight divisions began the transit and were striking their targets by December 27.

The total movement varied between 70 and 110 miles and was always within ten minutes' flying time of enemy fighter positions. Nevertheless, the transfer was accomplished with minimal losses.

From a point twenty miles south of Bastogne, the Fourth Armored Division began its movement December 22, and by December 27 had broken through to afford a narrow mile-wide relief channel to the besieged crucial road junction held by the 101st Airborne and parts of other divisions.

More than 700 bombers and 200 fighters struck targets along the Belgian Bulge this day, hitting the line for the sixteenth time in seventeen days. A thousand bombers of the RAF had hit Munich during the previous night.

On Sunday, in blizzard conditions and temperatures of 50 below zero, more than 2,100 American bombers and fighters dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs on five freight yards, two Rhine bridges, and six railyards between Hanum and Karlsruhe. Nine bombers and one fighter were missing.

The Germans had wrested Esztergom back from the Russians along the Danube, twenty miles south of Budapest, in the Germans' continuing drive to try to relieve the garrison of German and Hungarian defenders of Budapest. The Russians, however, had gained 12.5 miles to the north of the Danube, crossing the Hron River and reaching to within ten miles of Komarom, west of Esztergom.

Within Budapest, the Germans had launched twelve separate counter-attacks on both sides of the Danube.

In Italy, the Canadians, during the previous four days, had taken fifty square miles of marshy land north of Ravenna.

Tokyo radio reported that more than 450 American transports were heading north toward Luzon as some 70 warships and carrier planes struck continuously for two days at Lingayen Gulf, 120 miles north of Manila. Tokyo was uncertain as to whether the objective was Lingayen or Manila. In fact, it was Lingayen, where this date the Sixth Army made its amphibious landing on Luzon, returning to the island for the first time since the fall of Corregidor in early May, 1942. Lingayen had been the locus of the Japanese landing on Luzon, December 22, 1941.

General MacArthur stated only that his forces had moved up fifteen miles on Mindoro Island to within 90 miles of Manila, capturing Palaun, 30 miles from Luzon. More air attacks were confirmed as striking Luzon.

Admiral Jonas Ingram, chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, warned that German robot bomb attacks against New York and points along the Atlantic coast were not only possible but probable. He added, however, that there was no cause for alarm because no more than a dozen such bombs would fall.

Besides, if one hits you, you won't know it anyway. What's the difference?

The Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Texas law requiring paid union organizers to register with the Texas Secretary of State before soliciting for members. The case, Thomas v. Collins, 323 US 516, was decided 5 to 4 with Justice Wiley Rutledge delivering the opinion of the majority. Justice Owen Roberts filed a dissent, joined by Chief Justice Harlan Stone and Justices Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter.

The opinion, while upholding the right of the state to regulate union organizing for the protection of the public, ruled that this particular regulation exceeded permissible bounds by intruding on the inviolable rights of freedom of speech and assembly, violating thereby the First Amendment. The Court drew a bright line between speech and conduct, the latter being subject to regulation, such that when pure speech used in solicitation of union membership turned into conduct, collecting funds or subscriptions, for instance, then the activity could be regulated by the state.

In another case, Western Union v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490, the Court ruled 5 to 4 that Western Union was not prohibited by child labor laws from transmitting messages from offices which employed persons under the age of sixteen. Justice Robert Jackson delivered the opinion of the majority. The dissent

In New York, a nightclub press agent was served with papers in the El Morocco Club, seeking annulment of his marriage to a nineteen-year old heiress. His "witty" reply to the service was that his marriage to the "cigarette heiress" made it no easier for him to obtain cigarettes than anyone else.

Ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, he-he-he.

He should have thanked her for helping to save his breath.

A German soldier, age 16, is shown in a photograph after surrender in the Belgian Bulge, having missed Christmas in Paris as promised by his commanding officers.

Ho-ho-ho, he-he-he, ha-ha-ha.

On the editorial page, "Two Policies" contrasts North Carolina's conservative fiscal policy of holding the line on tax reductions, despite presence of a surplus, with that of the Federal Government. The President, in his State of the Union message Saturday, had recommended, despite fourteen successive Federal annual deficits, a post-war tax cut to encourage business, investment, and consumption, while not mentioning any effort to reduce government spending.

While conceding that the Federal Government had to see to it that people were fed and had jobs, even if at Government expense, the editorial favors North Carolina's practice of paying the musicians as they played for the party.

"Smoke & Fire" warns of the hazards of smoking, believe it or not, describes nicotine, as a "poisonous alkaloid", which, it explains, when used in aqueous solution, was employed as an insecticide.

In the old days, twenty-five years earlier, it reminds, when men who wore wristwatches were viewed as effeminate, cigarette smoking had been deemed degenerate, that true men had smoked pipes and cigars or chewed tobacco. In those earlier times, compared to the 350 billion cigarettes being produced in 1945 and not keeping pace with demand, 40 billion had been adequate to meet the population's smoking needs.

It boiled down the statistic to show that every man, woman, and child in the nation could have smoked 2,400 cigarettes during 1943. Those over eighteen could have lit up 3,100 of the nicotine delivery devices.

It was a New World phenomenon developed by Sir Walter Raleigh. The word "tobacco" originally meant the pipe in which the Indians smoked the plant, erroneously taken up by the Spanish as the name for the plant itself.

Then came the cigarette manufacturers after the Civil War and the cigarette manufacturing machine, first utilized by Buck Duke during the 1880's. American Tobacco was formed in 1890 and ordered to dissolve its monopoly on the industry in 1911. The successor four companies produced 90 percent of the cigarettes.

So, the editorial, though admitting its authors to be smokers, advised readers to cut down on ingesting of the poison. Besides, as there were few editors and many readers, the only way, it concludes, to make a dent in the practice was for the readers to make the sacrifice.

As we have previously stated, the only beneficial use we have ever known of cigarette tobacco is to remove the sting of a bee after its pall-mall lucky strike. When wetted, that works. And that probably ought to tell you something about what Nick does to your lungs and innards.

It leeches them.

"Two Against One" comments on the fact that, just after the American Government had indicated its intention to stick by the Polish government-in-exile in London, despite Prime Minister Churchill having abandoned it, the Soviets embraced the Lublin Government as the recognized Provisional Government of liberated Eastern Poland. It signaled Stalin's intent to follow his own course in Eastern Europe regardless of Western Allied policy.

But, the editorial finds this independence to be wholly forgivable given that Russia had been far more resolute in its pursuit of foreign policy than had the United States and had been, as in Spain, proved correct many times when the West had made missteps. Russia was only looking after its own interests, as was Britain.

Meanwhile, the United States was standing on principles, those laid down in the Atlantic Charter, despite those principles being in danger of being trampled.

Opines the piece in conclusion, the U.S. could stand to live in a world in which there were spheres of influence in Europe, where Russia dominated Poland, where Britain dominated the Italian colonies. So, if protests were not strong enough to prevent such occurrences, then the United States would simply have to accept matters as they would become.

All of that thinking, however, would enormously change a mere seven months hence with the beginning of the nuclear age, making the world both a more dangerous place and also one in which each nation was more easily dissuaded from major aggressive moves against another for fear of the ultimate sanction.

"Hear, Hear!" discusses new Mecklenburg Congressman Joe Ervin, brother to Sam J. Ervin, already beginning his legislative drafting, preparing a bill to create a school of American diplomacy, one which would be on par with West Point and Annapolis. Its intent was to remove politics from the appointment of diplomats, even if the State Department would provide the instruction at the school.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ervin's bill never became law, even if numerous states, including North Carolina, have, as part of their university systems, schools of government.

"A Great Farewell" presents the eloquent reply of Demosthenes in 282 B.C. to the supplication of the Macedonians that he surrender after they had conquered Greece and he had fled to the Temple of Poseidon for sanctuary. He was promised a pardon if only he would surrender. He instead stated his reasons why he would rather be dead, having spoken for the liberty of Athens throughout his career, would not subjugate himself to the will of a master, took the poison from his pen and died.

Perhaps, the great orator of Greece would have been better served to have simply utilized with the Macedonians General McAuliffe's terse but eloquent reply to the Germans when faced with their invitation to surrender Bastogne on December 22.

Drew Pearson first addresses the decision by War Mobilizer James Byrnes to continue for four more months, despite opposition by the Office of Price Administration, the premium price being charged on tires. It was so despite profits almost 800 percent higher than those of the tire industry in the period 1936-39. Mr. Byrnes was bowing to his friends in the Army who insisted on the higher prices for civilian tires to afford a continued supply for military needs.

So, you will need to fork over an extra $1.20 per tire for at least another four months, pal. That's an hour's wages gone down the drain.

Senator Mead had commented to Senator Harold Burton, future Supreme Court Justice, that Senator Burton did not need to hurry back from his trip to Africa to be able to attend the President's inauguration, unless he planned to be gone through early 1949.

Mr. Pearson next relates of how Roy Hofheinz of Houston, owner of radio station KTHT, a competitor to Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones who owned the other Houston stations, was able in a mere eight days to cut through bureaucratic red tape in Washington with the FCC to obtain a change in his licensing status from a corporation to a partnership, despite the intrusion of bad weather and frustrated attempts by every means of communication and transportation to get his application to Washington by its required deadline prior to the end of the year, until he finally had to telegraph the application on Friday night, December 29. The FCC considered it on Saturday and granted the request at 5:30 that afternoon, despite the Commission not meeting on Saturday.

Marquis Childs provides his conversation with Major General Paul Williams, at home on leave from his position as commander of the Ninth Troop Carrier Command of the Ninth Air Force. One of the major operations carried out by the Command was the attempted relief of the British infantry trapped in Arnhem in mid-September. His troops had been dropped into the zone and were supposed to hold for 48 hours. They held for five days before having to surrender. That was not, insisted General Williams, a failure.

He further told of the time to come when large numbers of divisions would be deployed at once by air, overshadowing ground troops. This type of warfare was progressing daily. The time between the 1,662 aircraft involved in the Normandy landing operations and the 3,900 sorties flown by U.S. planes and another 750 by British planes in the Arnhem operation, had been but three and a half months. Only 91 planes had been lost over Arnhem, with 25 crews lost, many of whom had been captured. Depositing supplies and men by air was now a chief means of providing supplies and reinforcement.

Hal Boyle reports from Malmedy on January 5 of the favorite "pin-up girl" of the G.I.'s in Belgium, a doctor who had tended wounded soldiers and civilians, risking her own life to do so. Dr. Cecile Van Ackere and Madame Cemille Detry, a social worker, formed the dauntless tandem, Madame Detry being described as the Florence Nightingale of Belgium, caring for 12,000 refugees and doing an admirable job of it.

Within two days, Dr. Ackere had treated some 400 persons, many of whom were American soldiers. She had lost two hospitals to bombing raids. One had been in a small hotel, destroyed by a bomb with 25 patients on one floor and 30 elderly persons in the basement. Six were killed, but everyone else escaped. She then established a second hospital in a church school, only to have it hit by a bomb the next day.

The only thing she wanted, when asked, was a little handcream for her scratched, calloused, and chapped hands.

Harry Golden registers his two-cents plain in a letter, finding it not unexpected that liberated countries in Europe would have their populations at odds with one another and therefore should come as no surprise that there would be differences among the Allies as to how these situations should be handled. It was no cause for loss of morale at home, for the voices of pessimism in the war to have their day at carping that the United States should never have entered the war in the first place.

He predicted that, through it all, the Americans and Englishmen would join together with the entire world and go to the ballot box to settle their differences.

Tom Jimison expresses that, despite his not being entirely pleased with his Christmas offering on the editorial page, as he had penned it when "puny", he nevertheless had received enormous response from readers for which he gave due thanks. Among those who had sent their good wishes were politicians, bankers, bootleggers, white and black, men and women of every walk of life. They all found solace in his simple Christmas message. He ended with a wish for a Happy New Year.

As we indicated, it would be Mr. Jimison's last Christmas and New Year. He would pass away the following September.

Among the quotes of the day is one from a Boston woman who complained that obscene words, painted on walls and sidewalks of her fair city, were a terrible blight on the landscape and presented a bad image to outsiders. "Why, some of the words aren't even spelled right," she said.

General Patton, apparently no longer using those sorts of words, is quoted as having responded to a letter from a private who had thanked the General for time in a rest area, telling the private that he had been looking after the welfare of soldiers for 35 years, but it was the first time anyone had ever written him thanking him for his mercies, and he was most appreciative of the gesture.

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