Saturday, August 18, 1945

The Charlotte News

Saturday, August 18, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Japanese, at 6:33 p.m., had informed General MacArthur that they would depart Sunday morning, weather permitting, for Ie Jima, to be transported from there by an American plane to Manila to receive formally the terms of surrender. The intended arrival time, via two planes, was 1:20 p.m., 12:20 a.m. EWT, with departure from an airfield near Tokyo, Kisarazu, at 7:00 a.m.

The statement varied from the instruction of General MacArthur who had demanded that only one plane be used and that it depart from an airfield on Kyushu, Sata Misaki. The Japanese stated that the two planes would fly over Sata Misaki, then proceed via Nakano Takara and the Tori Islands to Ie.

Whether this variation would produce an international incident remained to be seen.

Both unarmed planes, not to be the Zero, Model 22-L2D3, as specified by General MacArthur, would be painted white with green crosses as required—once they found the guns for the spray job. The variation of model, however, was allowed by the General.

The transport from Ie would likely reach Manila between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. local time, twelve hours ahead of Washington time.

The conference with General MacArthur would not begin until Monday.

The General had made no reply to the demand of the Japanese the previous day that he instruct the Russians to cease fire in Manchuria. It was likely he would make no response. The Russians had contended that they were only responding to continued Japanese offensive attacks.

The chief liaison between General MacArthur's occupation forces and the Imperial Government would be Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigematsu, who had also held the post in the Koiso War Cabinet prior to the Suzuki Cabinet. He told a Japanese press conference that the Japanese had to face the fact that they had been defeated and he encouraged all of the people to read and understand the Potsdam Declaration.

From Okinawa it was reported that two unescorted B-32's on photographic missions over Tokyo had been fired upon by Japanese Zeke fighters, killing one photographer and wounding two of the crew, damaging both planes. One of the planes was piloted by Lt. J. R. Anderson of Charlotte. Two of the Japanese planes had been shot down and probably two more.

This attack was distinct from the one reported on B-32's the day before, also on a photographic mission and unarmed.

Lt. Anderson and his co-pilot radioed the second B-32 flying behind them to slow down. They then heard a Japanese pilot respond in English, "Yes, slow down so I can shoot you." Lt. Anderson stated that their reply was not printable.

Fighting continued in Central Manchuria as Soviet troops moved from three directions into Harbin against Japanese resistance, despite the Japanese having been provided an ultimatum to surrender by noon on Monday. Whether the ultimatum promised otherwise Fat Girl was not stated.

Some 20,000 Japanese troops had already surrendered to the Russians. One Russian force captured Chaluntun, a communications center of Lungkiang. Forces moving from the west hit Wutancheng, Kailu, Tungliao, and Kaitung.

A Soviet commission was reported to have landed at Harbin to make contact with the surrendering Japanese in the province.

A decision to march the Chinese First Army into Canton rather than fly them in would likely delay their arrival to receive the surrender of the Japanese forces in South China. The First Army, trained by the Americans, had fought in the Burma Campaign. Similar conditions might also delay arrival of the Chinese Sixth Army at Shanghai to accept the Japanese surrender there.

It was unclear whether Britain would continue the policy enunciated by Prime Minister Churchill that Britain intended to retain Hong Kong as part of the British Empire. Unconfirmed reports stated that the Chinese were seeking to move on Hong Kong, to occupy it before the British. A liberal British weekly, The New Statesman, predicted that the new Labor Government and its Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin would likely not wish to retain Hong Kong or Malaya within the Empire. The Foreign Office, however, stated that Hong Kong remained a part of the Empire and that the British thus intended to occupy it.

On Bougainville in the Solomons, Japanese peace envoys waded through tropical rains across the Mivo River to meet with three Australian officers, waiting three days to receive their surrender, which they then provided to the senior officer.

In Burma, 50,000 Japanese showed no inclination of surrender, though no longer fighting. They were, however, seeking to escape to the east into Thailand.

The puppet Thai Government had surrendered, but the puppet state of Viet Nam, formerly Annam, in Indo-China, had stated an intent to maintain its independence from the French, despite the report from Paris that 60,000 French troops were ready to re-enter the former French colonial possession.

—Ho who?

The 95th Division of the Army, previously in Europe for eleven months, with 145 combat days, had sent a letter to Congress protesting its being redeployed to become an occupation force in Japan. Most of the men had served for three years and their points averaged 55 per man, 80 points having been the requisite number to this point for discharge, though promised soon by the Army to be lowered. The letter contended that more than a million men fit for service who had never been shipped overseas were available in the United States.

The 86th Blackhawk Division was being sent to the Pacific, having also fought in Europe since February, accumulating 42 days of combat service. All of its drafted men with 85 points or more and those over 38 years of age were being left behind in the U.S. for discharge.

The United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration voted at its conference in London to allow the relief of refugees who refused repatriation to their homelands. Only Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Czechoslovakia, among the 30 voting member nations, opposed the resolution.

Copper, aluminum, and steel were released in large quantities to the civilian market by the War Production Board.

Price controls were released from imported wines and distilled spirits, such as brandy, rum, and cordials, but not whiskeys. These items had been selling below ceiling prices anyway.

Hundreds of war plants would be turned over to private industry in the coming months, according to the War Surplus Property Board.

Quinine, required for the military in the Pacific to combat malaria from mosquitoes, was being released in limited quantities to the civilian market.

All restrictions on the building industry were to be removed by Christmas, at which point it was anticipated that a great building boom in the country would begin.

The large steel mesh anti-submarine nets which had been maintained in place during the war in San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles Harbor were being lifted.

Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson announced that the Army had ended its priority preference on beef, in place since prior to D-Day, and so meat rationing would soon end, possibly in September. The Army would continue to purchase large quantities of meat but it would compete with civilian distributors in the open market, without any longer having preference.

Pan American Airways announced that it would begin a service for infants. Prior to this date, service had been limited to war priority passengers, which excluded infants. Whether free drinks and a nice beef entree, with a big chocolate pie on the side, and rattles as a chaser, were included in Pan Am's service plan was not stated.

It could be, though, that this service is why the airlines started with those little bottles.

Four yeggs took over the payroll wagon of the Clyde Beatty wild animal circus, then kidnaped Lewis Bobo, a taxi driver, and two employees of the circus, all of whom had sped after the escaping thieves. The lot were driven sixteen miles to Roxana, Ill., where the robbers broke open two safes, then bound their captives, left them behind, and fled toward Alton. The loot was estimated at $15,000.

The three bound men worked themselves loose and walked to Roxana.

If you see the robbers, do not approach. Call the police.

On the editorial page, "No Appeaser" remarks on the expected resignation of Joseph Grew as Undersecretary of State and the somewhat unexpected appointment of Dean Acheson in his stead. It signaled a new policy toward Japan as Mr. Grew, who had been the Ambassador to Japan between 1932, appointed by President Hoover, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, had been in favor of retention of the Emperor and, generally, that which was regarded as a soft peace. Mr. Acheson, by contrast, favored dethroning the Emperor and much tougher sanctions against Japan.

Mr. Grew, prior to Pearl Harbor, had favored continued shipments of scrap iron and oil, until the occupation by Japan of Indo-China in late July, 1941 triggered the cessation of those shipments. He had also trumpeted the idea that the warlords, not the Emperor, were responsible for the war. He had formulated the Potsdam Declaration which now formed the terms of surrender and peace.

It posits that it could take years for Mr. Acheson to undo this work and that it might never be undone. He favored encouraging democratic movements in Japan and working with farm and labor groups, the while neutralizing the influence of the Emperor.

It further suggests that Mr. Acheson's wisdom might prove the more propitious for maintaining the peace. The Emperor appeared to remain arrogant and defiant to the strict terms of the peace. The Japanese Army was still intact at home. Perhaps, with Mr. Acheson's new influence to be brought to bear and that of General MacArthur, America might yet occupy Japan in such a way as to prevent future war.

"Full Employment" states that the President had put his weight behind the full employment bill of Senator James Murray of Montana. The experts were predicting that if postwar output of production fell below the level of 1939, there would be 20 million unemployed, about a quarter of the available labor force.

Under the bill, the President would set the goals for output and employment and, should there be a deficit in expenditure, he would recommend additional Federal appropriations to provide for public works constructed by private business. Should there be enough business to absorb labor supply, then the President would recommend a reduction in Federal outlays. The bill assured that the Government would not undertake to run any plants or factories, but that assurance would likely not be enough for business, suspicious of government takeover, having endured the practice at times during the war.

It concludes that to achieve full employment, the President was going to face a joined battle, reminiscent of the height of the New Deal.

"Now Say It" reflects that war censorship, now ended, would stand as a model for the future of any nation at war. It had been largely fair and applied only to military secrets. Sometimes, the boundaries were stretched, but there had been few protests along the way. Byron Price had been the head of the Office of Censorship and had performed admirably.

Journalists had been instructed not to speculate on the Russo-Japanese neutrality pact and whether the Russians would abandon it. Censorship had blacked out reports for months anent the slapping incidents involving General Patton and the two soldiers in Sicily in August, 1943, just as the campaign in Sicily ended.

It leaves out the friendly fire incidents reported by Stars and Stripes in which paratroopers were shot down in two separate incidents in Sicily in August, 1943, the Army cover-up of which had stirred substantial controversy at the time.

It concludes that the public would notice little change between the way news had been reported during the war and how it would be reported after the war, as the military had not unduly impinged on the public's right to know.

"Coddling" finds the permission granted by the AMG to Germans to participate in a lottery to help rebuild the country to be a case of lenient treatment, given that Americans could be arrested for gambling for participating in the practice.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Jessie Sumner of Illinois suggesting that a bill being urged by Representative Harold Cooley of North Carolina was one which portended danger by allowing the agricultural and food organization proposed a year earlier at the Hot Springs food conference, attended by 44 nations, to subpoena any processor of an industry and obtain all its patents.

Mr. Cooley differs.

Drew Pearson makes quick notes from memories of both the end of the war in 1945 and the Armistice of November 11, 1918. In the present period, he had been in Washington; in the former, in Philadelphia.

He quotes from Alfred Noyes in World War I: "We who lie here have nothing left to pray. To all your praises we are deaf and blind. We may not even know if you betray our hopes to make earth better for mankind."

And again, he quotes from John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields": "If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep..."

And again, Alfred Noyes: "We have heard men say when we were living that some small dream of good would cost too much; but when the foe struck we have watched you giving and seen you move the mountains with one touch."

Telephone books and tickertape... A million pairs of eyes of the American casualties of the war intently scrutinizing Jimmy Byrnes... Sailors kissing pretty girls... Sleepy children. May you never know! May you never have to go off to war!

These are among the disjointed thoughts Mr. Pearson sets down in between ellipses this date describing his observations of the day of peace, August 14, 1945.

" 'The tumult and the shouting dies, the captains and the kings depart...' A great war is won. A greater opportunity lies ahead."

Dorothy Thompson observes that the fact that Britain, Russia, and China had allowed the United States to negotiate the terms of surrender in the Pacific demonstrated America as now the pre-eminent power in that part of the world. Japan would be under the command of General MacArthur during its military occupation. The result had followed not just from the atomic bombs but also because the entire Pacific war had been fought principally by the United States.

President Truman had announced that the U.S. would maintain island bases in the Pacific and so the intent was to remain and permanently exert an influence. Dealing with Asiatic problems would therefore be part of America's new role, and the first issue of concern on the horizon was a civil war brewing in China between what would become known as the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the Red Chinese of Northern China under the leadership of Mao Tse Tung, which would end in 1949 with the victory of the Red Chinese on the mainland, forcing the Nationalists onto the island of Formosa, occupied during the war by the Japanese.

The Russians favored the Northern Chinese because they feared that a victory by Chiang would lead to a Chinese attempt to make incursions into the Russian industrial areas of Siberia. The situation was similar to that distrust held by Russia in Eastern Europe with respect to future attempts by Germany to invade, leading to the Russian desire for buffer territory in Eastern Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, and the Balkans, also driven by the need for outlets to the sea.

Neither Britain, the U.S., nor Russia wished a confederation to be established in Europe as it would cause a competing amalgamated force on the Continent and upset the new power arrangement between the Big Three. It also could conceivably become a threat to future peace.

China would not have restored its possessions previously held in the nineteenth century, Indo-China and Korea. Furthermore, Outer and Inner Mongolia would be, along with Manchuria, granted independent status, similar to that of Poland.

Still, a problem remained with China because of the competing forces at work internally, which included, in addition to Chiang's Government and the Red Chinese, the former collaborators with the Japanese and the territory which had been occupied by the enemy forces. There was a competition ongoing between the forces of Chiang and the forces under Mao to obtain this territory.

The Americans did not want either side to have it but instead sought reconciliation of the Chinese government and compromise to avert a civil war. As long as the Russians were onboard with this concept, then it could likely be effected.

Marquis Childs, in the midst of the celebrations of the end of the war and its, as yet, unregistered feeling of euphoria, asks the million-dollar question, a question perpetually relevant to any time and age in the future: "Have we learned enough this time?"

He points out that the last months of World War I had seen the limited use of the airplane and tank, precursors to World War II. Following the Armistice, major powers had continued to develop these weapons in secret, with the Germans making the most rapid advance, a reason having been that the old military system had been junked under the Versailles Treaty, disarmament having been the watchword to try to prevent future war. It served to favor the Germans who were not thereby saddled with traditional concepts of warfare, war machinery, and armament.

The opposite had been the case in France as the veteran generals, Weygand, Petain, Gamelin and the rest continued to plan and think in conventional terms of fixed fortifications, relying primarily on the Maginot Line for security from the East and the Channel from the West. General De Gaulle had sought to modernize the French Army with tanks and airplanes but was outnumbered and outranked.

Mr. Childs suggests that should a similar pattern develop in the present post-war period, with no nation placing great trust in the new U.N. as a peacekeeping organization, and should an arms race develop among the nations, "then it is a death sentence." And it would be so for all nations this time, he asserts, not just for one or two. For now on the landscape was the threat and specter of the atomic bomb, a "revolution unparalleled in the world's history."

Should the nations begin to compete to develop the bomb to greater destructive capability, then, he predicts, time would be short. The military observers were already spouting the aphorism associated with traditional weaponry, that for every new offensive weapon is developed a defense. But, he insists, there was no way to defend oneself against a smashed atom with the power of the sun released from its nucleus.

And even the conventional weaponry used in Europe, he points out, had done incalculable damage, and proved ultimately to be without an effective defense.

A few men in the Norwegian underground and members of British intelligence had narrowly saved England from being the recipient of the first atomic bomb from Germany.

While admitting that it was not the right thing to say in the midst of celebration, Mr. Childs urges that the time for putting in place controls of this new force in the world was the present, regardless of the tendency to want to forget the horrors of the previous six years and put the war behind.

"Perhaps human beings do learn from experience. We must believe that, or the end is darkness and despair."

An inside page reminds of the President's proclamation that Sunday would be a national day of prayer.

Harry Golden provides the third synopsis of eight famous trials, this one on the divorce suit of Henry VIII of England from Catherine of Aragon, resulting in the establishment of the Church of England and the beginning of close diplomatic relations between England and France, as well the start of Spain's decline as the world's preeminent power.

Catherine was the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had conquered Moorish Spain and expanded the Spanish Empire through the discoveries of Columbus and other Spanish-sponsored explorers.

Catherine had been taken to England at age 16 to marry the heir to Henry VII, young Prince Arthur. It was a marriage arranged when both had been in the crib, to cement relations between the two nations against France.

Then, a year into the marriage, Prince Arthur died, leaving Catherine a widow. Queen Isabella favored a nuptial with the younger brother, Prince Henry, new heir to the throne. But, since England was at the time a Catholic country, it would follow the literal interpretation of Leviticus, prohibiting the uncovering of the nakedness of the wife of one's brother for it being the nakedness of the brother also, and the clearer proscription against taking a brother's wife as one's own. Yet, because Catherine's marriage to Arthur had never been consummated, she was given special dispensation by Rome to enter the marriage with Henry, occurring in 1503, when Henry was but 12 and Catherine, 18.

Seven years later, Henry assumed the throne. During the next twenty years, as Henry grew to great corpulence, Catherine bore up under four stillbirths and one child born living, to become Queen Mary. By this point, Henry had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn and communicated his desire to divorce Catherine.

Henry importuned of Cardinal Wolsey to intervene and ask the Queen to grant the divorce, for boon to his continued bon appetit. Hesitant, for his duties to Rome, the Cardinal nevertheless acquiesced.

When the Queen refused, the trial ensued, in which Henry sought to prove that the marriage to his brother Arthur had, after all, been consummated, if unenthused, and so the union with Catherine was unholy. Based on the testimony of a lady-in-waiting to Catherine at the earlier time, the contention was affirmed and the divorce granted. Sine die.

Henry then embarked on a friendship with France, and also established the Church of England.

Catherine left the court humiliated and died eighteen years later in religious retirement, doing, no doubt, obeisant, genuflectious penance in sentence for His Majesty's obesogenesis.

Mr. Golden quotes the lament attributed to her in Shakespeare's Henry VIII.

Henry survived four other wives, six in all, including Catherine and Anne Boleyn, gravis dulcis immutabilis.

Chamberlain

Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,
Place you that side; I'll take the charge of this:
His grace is entering. Nay, you must not freeze;
Two women placed together makes cold weather:
My Lord Sands, you are one will keep 'em waking;
Pray, sit between these ladies.

SANDS

By my faith,
And thank your lordship. By your leave, sweet ladies:
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.

ANNE

Was he mad, sir?

SANDS

O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too:
But he would bite none; just as I do now,
He would kiss you twenty with a breath.

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