Thursday, March 29, 1945

The Charlotte News

Thursday, March 29, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the First Army turned north and moved 40 miles, threatening to cut off the Ruhr from the rest of Germany, advancing to Langwiesse, 48 miles southeast of Hamm, the easternmost point of the Ruhr, finally reaching Frankenburg, southeast of Langwiesse and 200 miles southwest of Berlin, 78 miles from Muenster and the Em River running through it.

The First and Third Armies, joined together, moved 20 miles during the night to capture Marburg on the Lahn River. The Fourth Armored Division of the Third Army had advanced along the Frankfurt-Leipzig autobahn 19 miles to reach Gruenberg, 214 miles from Berlin and 14 miles east of Giessen, with one part of the division advancing eight miles northeast to the vicinity of Beltersham. Weisbaden was captured, together with the area five miles to the east. The infantry, in a six-mile advance, cleared Florsheim, the original home of the shoe family. No wingtips were to be found in stock.

Nobody was reported to have lost their noses, by switch-razor or other circumstance.

The Fifth Division had nearly finished the mopping up in Frankfurt where the Germans held onto the northern sector only, though shelling of the city continued.

North of the Ruhr, British and American troops of the Ninth Army, were reported to be threatening Hannover, just 142 miles west of Berlin. The Ninth gained six miles along the autobahn, as Duisburg, bypassed the day before, surrendered. Haltern was also captured.

A BBC report stated that Mannheim was surrendered by its Mayor via telephone to an American officer of the Seventh Army after all Germans had evacuated.

The seven Allied Armies fighting east of the Rhine, consisting of about 1.5 million men, continued to move rapidly with little interference while the Germans fled pell-mell to the east or continued to surrender readily.

On the Eastern Front, the Third Ukrainian Army, moving from captured Csorna, had broken through the German defenses at the Bratislava Gap in the Danube Valley to reach the Austrian border, hitting the defenses of Pamhagen, 38 miles southwest of Vienna, St. Johann on the frontier to the northeast, and Moson, 21 miles southeast of Bratislava. German reports stated that the Russians had crossed into the Austrian frontier, but Moscow did not confirm this report.

There was no update on the progress of the Silesian offensive toward Vienna or the Prague offensive from the northeast. The Russians were heavily bombing Mahrisch Ostrau in the Moravian Gap.

President Roosevelt announced that Major General Lucius Clay would take charge of Germany's civil affairs as soon as the country was occupied. General Marshall had recommended General Clay for the task. He would become deputy to General Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander.

It was also announced that Lt. General Alexander Vandegrift, commandant of the Marine Corps, would be elevated to full general. Vice Admiral Russell Waesche, commandant of the Coast Guard, was nominated to become an admiral.

Admiral Nimitz confirmed that Okinawa had undergone six consecutive days of Naval bombardment and assault by carrier-based aircraft. At least 19 enemy ships had been damaged, including three destroyers or destroyer escorts and five cargo ships. At least 38 aircraft were also destroyed. One American destroyer had been damaged seriously, but no vessels were lost.

In the Philippines, the Americans pursued Japanese into the hills above Cebu City, following the capture on Wednesday morning of that second largest city on Cebu, two days after the Monday invasion of the island. Cebu City had been badly damaged by Japanese demolition. The enemy fought stubbornly for a time at Pardo on the southern outskirts of the city but eventually gave way before the 182nd Regiment.

On the editorial page, "Empty Saddles" reports of the overhaul in administration of the State hospitals pursuant to the action by the General Assembly in its now ended 1945 session. The superintendents at Dix Hill and at Morganton had both resigned, the result indubitably of the power given the State Board by the new law over the hospitals.

While the superintendent at Morganton had been associated with programs in the past which were not to the good of the patients, The News had never taken the position that he should leave. His departure left only three physicians at Morganton to care for 2,000 patients. There was thus raised the question of whether the new law unduly penalized the medical staff of the institutions in favor of the business side.

It was likely that, in the long haul, the new system would work better for the institutions, but in the short run, while adjustments were being made in personnel, the patients might suffer more under the new system than under the old.

"Peace Rumors" comments on early broadcasts announcing peace in Europe, in misinterpretation of remarks by the President earlier in the week, apparently with regard to the statement that ambassadors and ministers in foreign countries should remain at their posts and not attend the San Francisco United Nations Conference.

It had come as a lone broadcast but had nevertheless stimulated excitement at news desks around the country, as listeners phoned the newspapers, including The News, to determine the truth or falsity of the report.

Such reports had plagued the latter days of World War I as well, as the Armistice was announced four days prematurely by correspondent Roy Howard. Confetti parades spontaneously began in New York in the wake of that false report and similarly hit other cities where the U.P. was the news service.

The piece cautions against accepting on face value any such report, especially one provided via radio. The peace would be announced officially, would appear in the newspaper as such.

As the front page indicates, official word would be transmitted from General Eisenhower when it was time—time now being but 40 days away to the final surrender, 32 days to the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels and the end in all respects save the final formalities.

Yet, there would be one dramatic and saddening news story for the country intervening that time.

"Last Arrival" describes Argentina's late entry to the war on the Allied side as mere expedience, so that it could sit at the peace table among the United Nations. But, it cautions that Argentina should not be treated as an equal among the Allies for this midnight conversion, its heart and soul having been consistently, during the prior five and a half years of war, on the side of the Axis and Fascism. It was to be treated as "a sort of ex-officio mascot of a victorious team."

"Negro Scout Camp" finds encouraging the plan to create a Boy Scout Camp at Berryhill Township for African-Americans, suggests it as a move which signaled among the white people of the community an intent to accept their broad responsibilities toward blacks. While the facility was late, its plan promised an adequate and complete set of features. Given the use by African-Americans of the Federal housing project in the city and the inadequate YMCA in the black community, the piece finds it likely that the new camp would be put to good and thorough use.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Congressman Robert Rich of Pennsylvania in a dispute with Congressman Malcolm Tarver of Georgia over whether the first paragraph of a bill to which Representative Rich was seeking to offer amendment had been fully read by the House Clerk. Congressman John Taber of New York insisted as adamantly as Mr. Rich that the paragraph had not been fully read. Mr. Tarver continued his insistence that it had been, that he had been following it closely as it was read and that it was complete.

Mr. Rich gets the last word on the matter, as printed: "I do not care what the chairman of the subcommittee [Mr. Tarver] says, the Clerk did not read it. The gentleman is not going to put anything more down the throat of any individual here."

Drew Pearson reports of a meeting of a thousand Jewish leaders at the Hotel Astor in New York, the lead topic of conversation having been the meeting in Alexandria in February between President Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, following the Yalta Conference. Criticism had been directed by attendees of the New York conference to President Roosevelt's statement in his March 1 speech to Congress that he learned more regarding the Muslim and Jewish problem in Arabia in five minutes of meeting with King Saud than he could have in two or three dozen letters. Normally Administration-friendly, New York Congressman Emanuel Celler had even heavily criticized the President for this meeting.

Senator Ed Johnson of Colorado, normally a critic anyway, joined in the fray with glee, remarking that he marveled at how the President could learn so much of Jews from a King whose kingdom contained none and who had never been outside it.

Senator Owen Brewster of Maine found fault with the Roosevelt-Churchill policy which had limited migration of Jews to Palestine, now cut off completely. He also chafed at the acquiescence of the President to the King's request that a military mission of American officers be sent to Saudi Arabia, some 50 to 60 having been so dispatched by the President.

Mr. Pearson notes that not all Jews favored establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. The primary motive behind the President's meeting with King Saud was said to have been to discuss oil, in which American firms had substantial concessions.

The column reports further that, in Germany, the situation had become so bleak that even Gestapo men were deserting their posts and seeking terms of individual surrender within neutral border towns. Desertions by the wholesale were taking place within the ranks of the German Army. Railroad stations, through which few trains passed, were teeming with masses of people, increasingly difficult for the police to control. Even the police had joined the refugees.

Still, conventional wisdom had it that Hitler would hold out to the end and possibly try a last stand in the Bavarian Alps.

Finally, Mr. Pearson imparts of Democratic National chairman Robert Hannegan having been informed by a New York City restaurateur that he would obey the President's midnight curfew as a good patriot, rather than trying to follow the allowance of the extra hour added by the largesse of Mayor La Guardia. He appended the less than altruistic reason that if the customers were not drunk by midnight, then they "ain't trying".

Marquis Childs, reporting from Cologne, remarks that one could not conceive of complete and utter destruction unless Cologne were observed. Everywhere one looked in the city, with a former population of three-quarters of a million, there was nothing except total devastation. Any survivors remaining had sought refuge in cellars and amid the rubble. Civilian casualties in Cologne throughout the war had been estimated at 125,000. As many were likely still inhabiting the ruins of the city.

Forty-two American officers and 26 enlisted men were working to restore Cologne. The rule had been established by the commanding officer that no Nazi was to take part in the Allied Military Government. But the problem still lay ahead to weed out the Nazis from the regular Germans, as most Germans had been compelled to belong to the party and most who were interviewed claimed no party loyalty, past or present.

The AMG began by forming a police force and re-establishing telephone service. Substantial stores of food had been found within the city and was being distributed to the Germans under American direction. No American food was being provided to the native population.

Despite their ordeal, lasting nearly three years since the first thousand-plane Allied raid had hit Cologne at the end of May, 1942, the civilians looked "respectable and fit".

The German artillery was still shelling the city as the Germans maintained control of the other bank of the Rhine and thus the suburbs of Cologne. Standing on the steps of the cathedral, one could look across the Rhine to see strongholds of the enemy.

The editors set forth a portion of the opening statement of Aubrey Williams to the Senate committee charged with recommending or not his nomination to be head of the Rural Electrification Administration, a nomination turned down by the Senate the prior week.

Another report compiled by the editors remarks on the efforts of Ed Flynn, President Roosevelt's personal representative in Rome, to convince Pope Pius XII to recognize Soviet Russia. The Vatican and Moscow had not normalized relations since the Communist Revolution in 1917. Prior to the Revolution, the Vatican and Tsarist Russia enjoyed normal state relations, though only nine percent of Russia's population had been Catholic and the Orthodox Church the official state religion.

The rapprochement in diplomatic recognition would likely take place, but it would not signal a sea change in actual relations. The two governments remained antagonistic to one another as shown in recent statements by the Pope condemning the action of the Soviets in taking Eastern Polish territory as part of the post-war plan, as well as in statements by Pravda recently that the Catholics in Germany were seeking, with Vatican backing, to protect the existence of the German Army and sustain German imperialism.

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