Friday, February 16, 1945

The Charlotte News

Friday, February 16, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that 1,500 carrier-based planes of the Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, had struck for nine hours over Tokyo and Yokohama in by far the largest, longest, and most concerted raid yet on the heart of Japan. It was believed that, true to pattern, the attack would persist for the ensuing day or two.

Smoke plumes rose 7,000 feet in the air in the wake of the attack. According to Japanese radio, ten carriers were in the armada. Japanese planes were caught flat-footed and many were destroyed on the ground.

It was hoped by the Navy that the Japanese Fleet, believed holed up in home waters, would emerge to engage in combat. The Navy was still longing for a decisive knock-out blow, having inflicted a staggering punch to the Fleet in the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea in late October.

Another task force, comprised of 30 warships, struck 700 miles south at Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands.

Both attacks involved also land-based bombers, with the Tokyo and Yokohama raids being accompanied by B-29's for purpose of reconnaissance. In both instances, the targets were airbases from which Japanese planes originated to attack B-29 bases on Saipan and now Tinian.

Tokyo radio predicted that invasion of Iwo Jima was imminent. Though that prediction had been made by Tokyo periodically for several weeks, this time it was accurate. The American forces would begin invading Iwo the following day. Though only half as costly as would prove the invasion of Okinawa, to begin April 1, the battle for Iwo would be the second most costly campaign yet in the Pacific war, taking over 6,000 lives. The campaign for Guadalcanal saw 7,000 Americans killed.

In Manila, captured documents showed that the Japanese had intended to make a stand in the capital city and had garrisoned 20,000 troops there.

On the Western Front, the Canadian First Army continued its drive for the Ruhr Valley, moving a mile deeper into the Rhine Valley in northwest Germany amid stormy weather and heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire. The Canadians held twenty miles of the south bank of the flooded Rhine, from the Nijmegen sector to the area opposite Emmerich, but still made no effort at crossing.

Scotch, British, and Welsh troops continued their move toward Goch and Calcar in the center of the front. The Scots moved to within a thousand yards of Moyland while other troops were less than two miles from Calcar. Other Scotch troops, kilted, advanced a thousand yards east of Kleve forest.

Enemy resistance along the Rhine was light, as fog, mist, and rain, plus the width of the Rhine, expanded by flood waters, slowed progress.

Military observers noted that the offensive might have resulted in a major breakthrough by this point had it not been for concentration of too much equipment on muddy roads and a narrow battlefield not able to withstand the traffic.

The Third Army advanced a half mile toward Prum.

The Seventh Army in northern Alsace, having overrun Rimling, two miles south of the German Saarland, rested.

As the Roer River waters receded at the edge of the Cologne plain, enabling advance by the First and Ninth Armies, the Germans were concentrating V-weapons on that part of the front.

More than a thousand American heavy bombers, flying with 200 escorts, struck in Western Germany at seven oil targets, at Dortmund, Salzbergen, and Gelsenkirchen, as well as railyards in six cities, including Hamm, Osnabruck, and Rheine.

Wednesday's raid of 2,250 planes had cost the Americans eight bombers and five fighters. The previous day's losses had been 12 bombers and two fighters.

Berlin radio reported that the British attempted to land an amphibious force on Schouwen Island in the Rhine Estuary in the Netherlands, 32 miles northeast of Antwerp and 24 miles southwest of Rotterdam, and north of previously captured Walcheren Island.

It was the right thing to do.

On the Eastern Front, the First Ukrainian Army of Marshal Ivan Konev, having joined in strength the First White Russian Army of Marshal Gregory Zhukov, descended on Berlin's Spree River defenses from the southeast, moving along a 30-mile front toward Beeskow and Cottbus, 31 and 52 miles from the capital, respectively. Armored columns were now within sight of the Spree. The movement allowed flanking of the enemy forces at Frankfurt and Kustrin, which had prevented further advance thus far of the the First White Russian Army from the east and north.

According to Moscow reports, the Niesse River defenses had been shattered, following the battles in Forst and Guben. The First White Russian Army, its flank now secure, continued its assault on Fuerstenberg in the Oder bend below Frankfurt, 12 miles north of Guben.

On the editorial page, "A Clean Record" remarks on the confirmation battle in the Senate for Aubrey Williams as head of the Rural Electrification Administration, thus far proving tame, with little controversy. Mr. Williams, for his role in directing the National Youth Administration, now defunct, had the label "Communist" hung around his neck, apparently stemming in part more recently from his having written a newspaper article praising Texas for getting rid of Red-baiter Representative Martin Dies, and Alabama for dumping Joe Starnes, likewise of the House Un-American Activities Committee—the same fellow who once thought Kit Marlowe a Communist and wished to summon him to the House for testimony—and South Carolina for getting rid of now-deceased Cotton Ed Smith.

He had also been associated with youth pacifist movements in the past and had, in 1937, urged the Workers Alliance to keep its friends in power.

In all, though liberal, he was tempered in his views and acceptable to the position of REA head. The Senate appeared to view him likewise.

"Rich Man's Scheme" comments on the Mecklenburg delegation in the General Assembly having put forth a resolution to the Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to limit taxation to 25 percent of total income. Unlikely of success, it nevertheless put North Carolina with 18 other states who had so sought such an amendment.

Congressman Wright Patman had been a critic of the proposal and had listed its several drawbacks: that it would end progressive taxation; would disadvantage small business because corporations would be allowed to accumulate profits; would hinder revenue such that the Government could not even bear the interest on the war debt; and would reduce benefits, including veterans and old age benefits, and would end the soil conservation program.

The overall adverse impact of such an amendment, opines the piece, was that it would overwhelmingly advantage the rich to the disadvantage of the middle class. It was not a good idea.

"Freedom of Youth" comments on the controversy at the College of William & Mary, in which the female editor of the campus newspaper, Flat Hat, had been removed as editor by the governing board of the college and the newspaper taken under faculty control after the student had written an editorial in support of the idea of social equality of blacks, that blacks would, not today or tomorrow, but "the day after tomorrow", enter the college, fraternize with white students, and even intermarry.

The concept in 1945 was too shocking to the college to endure. But the students, while not endorsing the editorial stand, stood their ground for freedom of press and proposed to shut down the newspaper entirely unless it was once again free from faculty control. A compromise had been reached by which one faculty member would be on call for questionable cases of censorship, but otherwise the newspaper would be free—to publish that which the new editor believed would not run afoul of faculty scowls.

In other words, they would be chilled, even if superficially they would enjoy some level of freedom of press.

The piece finds the editorial stand by the young woman "unfortunate", but favors the students' stand and believes that, in the end, respect for free speech would be better instilled in the student body were the newspaper allowed to function without any faculty restriction.

It cites as example of a freely operating campus newspaper, one which it credits as being one of the better ones in the nation, U.N.C.'s Daily Tar Heel.

"The Same Drys" finds that the Prohibition forces of the state, seeking a referendum on the issue of local control, were not only trying to abolish state-controlled sale of hard liquor in the 25 wet counties, but also had targeted all beverages with any trace of alcohol, including all wines and beer, leaving out, the editorial mocks, "stout, sake, and silabub".

The editorial asserts that such a move was unwise, as it was overbroad in its reach, that these forces of absolutism and tee-totalism never had learned the lesson of the great experiment with Prohibition during the Twenties.

It doubts, however, that the Legislature would adopt the resolution to place the referendum on the ballot.

Whether it did or not, the ABC stores are still alive and well in the wet counties of North Carolina to this day.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record finds Representative Everett Dirksen of Illinois—who, in the latter 1960's, after becoming Senator, would hold forth in a series of television press conferences with then Minority Leader Gerald Ford on the "Ev & Jerry Show", as it came to be called, criticizing Johnson Administration policies—speaking in favor of insuring that spending was properly overseen with responsibility to obtain value for each government dollar allocated. He offered that a million dollars was still a lot of money where he came from, and that, while programs of importance should not be curtailed, allocations should neither be made without due regard for value.

--"A, I know where we can get a million dollars."

Drew Pearson comments on the opinion of the diplomatic corps regarding the outcome at Yalta, finds them of the belief that FDR obtained a good deal more than they had anticipated, especially given that he had few chips to play at the meet.

It was one of the first such conferences in 400 years at which the British arrived without a superior Navy to all others in the world. Just 90 years earlier, the British had carried 200,000 troops to the Crimea to do battle with the Russians to prevent the Czar from moving through the Black Sea to the Dardanelles held by Turkey, then affording, if ta'en, access to the Mediterranean. The Russians since had been forced to exist without a warm water outlet to the sea.

On this occasion, Churchill had to rely on Roosevelt to do the bargaining, for it was now the Americans with the superior Navy and Air Forces. FDR had two major objectives, to obtain the cooperation of Stalin in continuing his advance to Berlin, thus saving American and British lives, and to construct a permanent peace in Europe. To get the first objective, the Western Allies had to provide concessions to Russia, which had come in the form of agreement on the cession of Polish territory to the Curzon Line.

The plusses obtained by the President from the agreement included: preservation and strengthening of Allied military cooperation, it having been in severe disrepair just weeks earlier; that the Red Army would not dominate Germany, whereas before the conference, it was generally believed that the 10,000 Free Germans inside Moscow would take over Germany; and that democratic governments in Europe would be guaranteed, contrary to the practices of the British in Greece, Belgium, and Italy, and those of Russia in Yugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria.

The negatives were three: that there was no announced agreement for Russia to enter the Pacific war; that, apparently, there was no resolution as to the necessity of unanimity of the Security Council in the proposed United Nations organization, when arose a question of whether the body would condemn aggression; and that Poland had been forced to accept new boundaries, even if it had been anticipated by diplomatic observers as inescapable.

Samuel Grafton gives praise to the foresight and sagacity of the President in appointing so many conservatives to the State Department in November, including Secretary Edward Stettinius, and Assistant Secretaries Joseph Grew, Nelson Rockefeller, and Will Clayton. As they had provided their imprimatur to the plans laid forth for Europe out of the Yalta Conference, it lent the agreement legitimacy among American conservatives.

He indicates that Germany would be divided into four zones, would be disarmed by the power of this occupation force. Governments in the liberated countries would be set up in accordance with declared principles of democracy. The issue of Poland would be settled.

Now, with Yalta past, Mr. Grafton asserts that those who were glad of the settlement would be separated out from those sorry to see it.

Marquis Childs, crossing the English Channel to France aboard an LST, tells of the large ongoing transport of men and supplies across the Channel to the front. While the LST's crossed daily, it was never a routine ride for the continued presence of German U-boats in and around the Channel.

On this voyage, those aboard were enshrouded in fog, protected from enemy observation. But it also made the passage more problematic for needing to rely on navigational charts.

The crew was not allowed to disembark on the French side and the stay was always brief, just affording enough time to offload men and supplies, and then return across the Channel.

It had been 243 days since D-Day, reminds Mr. Childs, but the replenishment of the war machine continued apace day by day.

Dorothy Thompson remarks that the most notable thing about the Yalta Conference had been that the fate of Europe had been determined without a single central Continental country present. It was the first time that the Big Three had become the arbiters of Europe's political future.

Of further historical importance, she adds, was the large hand of the President of the United States in formulating the policy for Europe, and FDR's input had been significant in insisting on collective security as opposed to spheres of influence, and in establishing the new governments of Poland, Yugoslavia, and France, in which all three powers would participate.

General De Gaulle, she asserts, would not be happy with that outcome, as he had wanted autonomy for France, to establish its government as soon as free elections could be held. As a carrot, the Big Three had told France it could participate in the occupation of Germany if it so chose, implicitly suggesting that France would first need to accept the conditions imposed on France and the establishment of limits of territory in Germany to be ceded to France.

Germany was to be permanently disarmed, de-Nazified, and liable for reparations. But it had not been established whether Germany would be dismembered. The conference report only indicated that it was not the intent of the Big Three to destroy the people of Germany, but declared a determination to extirpate Nazism completely from German life. There was also no mention of the prior plan to divide Germany into three or four Allied occupied zones. (As above indicated, Samuel Grafton offers this date that it was to be a four-way split with occupation forces from the Big Three and France to govern each sector.) The plan would put all Allied military personnel under a central authority.

The rest, she asserts, apparently would await surrender for determination.

Hal Boyle, with the Sixth Parachute Combat Team, tells of every jumper sweating out the notoriously unlucky 13th jump, dubbed the "Black Cat".

He tells of a corporal who made his Black Cat jump without a parachute, having leaped from a third floor window to escape a blaze in his quarters in Belgium, after someone had knocked a gasoline can against a hot stove. He dove from habit and wound up hitting a snowdrift.

A private, landing on top of an enemy dugout, with only an empty mortar as a weapon, upon realizing that the enemy was below, sternly ordered the Germans to surrender. They complied.

A private who had captured Nazi souvenirs, a bayonet, belt, and iron cross, each of which he wore on the outside of his uniform, was placed under arrest by a captain for being a German soldier. When he informed the captain that he was a paratrooper, the captain scoffed at the notion, saying he was too small. He was sent back to the prisoner of war pen. But before he entered, someone he knew spotted him and informed the captain. The captain said he thought it peculiar that the private had been the first prisoner who spoke with a Southern accent.

Another private found that he had doubled his allotment of cigarettes by virtue of a piece of shrapnel having cut through his jacket and severed the pack in two. He offered some of the extras to his buddies.

It doesn't say from whence they came, but probably the Twin City, or at least the Twin City Laundry.

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