The Charlotte News
Monday, September 3, 1945
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Japan's Empire was reduced to the four home islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, with a few minor outlying islands. Stripped away were the Ryukyus, the southern half of Sakhalin, which returned to Russia for the first time since 1905, the Kuriles, also going to Russia, the Bonins, the Volcanoes, and the World War I mandates, the Marshalls, the Carolines, the Palaus, and the Marianas. The Empire was thus reduced to its size in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay to open trade relations with Japan.
General MacArthur had stared coldly at the Japanese as he handed the first pen, while breaking then into a smile, to General Jonathan Wainwright at the start of the surrender ceremonies. The stare was for Bataan and Corregidor.
Within thirty minutes of the signing on Saturday night, Washington time, 42 ships steamed into Tokyo Bay landing 13,000 Eighth Army troops, bringing occupation forces to 35,000. Indicative of the smooth landings, Admiral Halsey had sent a message to the commander of the amphibious forces: "Will provide well-armed rowboat for fire support if necessary."
Occupation schedules might become disrupted by the largest typhoon of the year, expected to strike Honshu on Tuesday.
Russell Brines comments on the new structure of Japan under the leadership of General MacArthur. With the militarists eliminated, two vying groups remained, the industrialists and politicians. Some Japanese journalists were predicting a new vigor for Communism, which had spread rapidly, especially among students, in the 1920's. Many of the intellectuals hoped that the American presence would act as a stimulus for democracy. But even these interests based their hopes on a continuing throne, similar to the parliamentary system in Britain. The Japanese appeared grateful that the throne was allowed to survive. Hirohito appeared to have increased in stature with the public because he had been credited with effecting the surrender without violence, indicative of his power.
In Baguio on Luzon, General Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya", surrendered his remaining 40,000 troops to General Wainwright, who had flown in from the surrender ceremony, and was placed in a prison near Manila. The act officially ended the war in the Philippines. The Manila press was asking for Yamashita's execution, charging him with the slaughter of thousands of Filipino civilians during the previous February as the Allies had moved in on Manila.
Horror stories of captivity in Japanese prison camps continued to issue from released prisoners of war. A crew member of the submarine Tang, which had been sunk in the Formosa Straits on November 25, 1944, told of only nine of 81 men surviving, picked up by a Japanese destroyer escort, taken to Takao and finally to Omori three weeks earlier. They had been beaten often, especially after interrogation, and without reason. Only rice and soup were provided as food.
A survivor of Bataan told of being taken aboard a boat dubbed "Beecher's Boat" with 1,500 men, only 500 of whom were thought to have survived the journey to captivity. The men were provided only one canteen cup of water for three men every two days. Their resulting thirst drove them mad such that some drank their own urine; others drank their own blood.
An air tour over Honshu was taken by General Carl Spaatz, strategic air forces commander, along with his chief of staff, Maj. General Curtis LeMay and Lt. General Nathan F. Twining, both to become eventually chiefs of staff of the Air Force, with General Twining to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 1957 to 1960. General Jimmy Doolittle also took the tour.
General LeMay stated that he believed the bomb damage was worse than the conservative estimates had it, as far as what they observed over Tokyo, Yokohama, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, and Nagoya. The aircraft assembly plant on the east side of the river in Nagoya, for example, had been estimated to have been 60 percent destroyed, when in fact there was nothing left. General Twining commented that the Japanese had not attempted repairs to facilities as had the Germans. Of course, they did not have the masses of slave labor which the Germans had.
General LeMay commented that even the best automobiles left in Japan would not hold together for 24 hours. Attacks on oil refineries had been so successful that the Japanese had but one tanker left at the end of the war.
General Doolittle returned for the first to the site of his famous April 18, 1942 run of thirty seconds over Tokyo.
In a Labor Day address, William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor, called for a 50 percent increase in the American standard of living. He urged quick reconversion and an immediate wage increase, accord between labor and industry, a shorter work week, and enactment of the proposed increase in unemployment benefits.
On the editorial page, "FDR's Memorial?" discusses a move in the country to construct an elaborate memorial to President Roosevelt, as well as the conception of a university in Washington, endowed by the many nations, to study world problems of freedom and peace.
The editorial finds the latter the more interesting and beneficial.
Of course, no memorial would be established to the President until 1997, a relatively simple memorial on the Mall.
"The Shelby Team" tells of the popularity in the South of
"Unknown Enemy" suggests that, by comparison to the stories of Japanese torture of prisoners of war, the atrocities of the Nazis, while brutal, had some scientific thought behind them. The average Japanese soldier appeared only to be an animal.
It suggest that, while the war criminals of Germany could be sorted out, it would be very difficult to do so with the Japanese, as the West knew little of the culture, the fanaticism with which its members had fought, or the regimented thinking which sustained it.
Most Americans seemed not to want vengeance any longer and there was the chance that only peaceful occupation of Japan would be demanded.
The quick end to the war may have come too easily, it opines, such that it would cost the lives of men into the future. War criminals might escape and foster contempt for American policy. The end result could be to leave the foundations for future war.
It suggests that the day might come when America would rue the decision not to drop more atomic bombs on the Japanese home islands and force the conflict to a bloody end.
The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Congressman Ross Rizley of Oklahoma debating with Congressman John Dingell of Michigan regarding the bill to extend renegotiation of war industry contracts, with Mr. Dingell having to endure numerous interruptions from several Congressmen with desires for a roll call, which he allows.
Representative Albert Gore of Tennessee, chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, then determined that the committee had come to no resolution on the bill.
Reactionary Congressman Clare Hoffman of Michigan, substituting for Drew Pearson, decides to attack his host, accusing him, along with many other columnists and commentators, of deceiving his readers, deliberately misstating the facts, preying off the gullibility of readers. These commentators had an opportunity to provide a service to the people. Many did. "Others, like Mr. Pearson, have established a reputation for inaccuracy, for vilification and for sensationalism."
These commentators liked scandal and dirt, the bizarre, indecency. Some of the stink stirred in consequence had become pandemic because of the widespread dissemination of such choleric and damnable opinions.
Mr. Hoffman urged Mr. Pearson to consult his conscience, if he had one, and follow a different course.
As the piece run a little short of the normal column length, the editors add a quote of March 14 from Representative Hoffman, in which he had stated: "I recall not long ago when the Republicans had a conference, much of the proceedings that took place at the conference were reported by Mr. Drew Pearson. We wondered whether it was some Republican who was at the proceedings or whether it was some House employee who was listening in. I would like to know who is listening in on the conferences and sessions."
In response to Mr. Hoffman's diatribe, the editors compile a list of Drew Pearson's accurate predictions: that the war with Japan would be over during 1945; on July 21, that the Allies would permit Emperor Hirohito to remain on the throne, pursuant to the plan of Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew; on July 20, that the United States was ready to recognize only Finland among the Soviet-controlled states, and on August 21, Secretary of State Byrnes having announced the fact; a week before anyone else, Mr. Pearson had reported a plan proposed by President Truman for the withdrawal of the Russians from Manchuria; the report on August 10 of FDR's secret commitment to an occupation force in Germany of 500,000 troops and the consequent determination by the Army to continue with a high conscription rate after the war to fulfill these needs; on December 13, 1944, Mr. Pearson had questioned Joseph Grew's qualifications to be Undersecretary of State, and on August 16, the President and Secretary of State Byrnes announced the acceptance of Mr. Grew's resignation, to be succeeded by Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson.
Marquis Childs suggests that the manifold horrors revealed in the remains of the Nazi concentration camps as they came to light in April from Buchenwald, Dachau, and others, were so horrible that the natural tendency was to wish to put them out of mind. He posits that one reason might be a feeling of collective guilt for these crimes against humanity.
Anti-Semitism was, by all reports, still thriving in Europe. The survivors of the death camps were not being welcomed with open arms. It was in part due to the seeds of hatred sown for so long by Nazi propaganda. The Nazis had stolen Jewish property and then provided to the natives of the occupied countries little jobs to quell and seduce them. Some seven to eight million Jews had been pushed out of the economic order of Europe. It would now be next to impossible to get their replacements to step aside so that the Jews who had lost their positions could reacquire them.
Yet, migration from Europe was also problematic, with quotas still limiting immigration from Europe to a trickle. Zionists wanted to set up a Palestinian homeland for Jews. A half million refugees had already gone to Palestine. But the Arabs wanted to keep out the Jews and were willing to fight to do so. The British had just sent home the regent of Iraq for having made statements denouncing the plan for the Jewish homeland.
The world, he offered, had to find an answer to this problem. "Anti-Semitism, as we have learned to our immense sorrow, is a poison that destroys the poisoner and the poisoned."
Harry Golden predicts that generations hence, the first use of the atomic bomb during the previous month would be regarded as one of the three important developments in the history of mankind.
Only prehistoric man's discovery of the ability to make fire, by the "one man", as Emerson had termed the singular individual who managed to keep the human race on the right track toward progress, and, 20,000 years afterward, the development of the wheel, had equaled, he suggested, the discovery of the ability to crack the atom, yet another 20,000 years following the rolling stone and tumbling tumbrel.
He predicted that in years to come, it would not manifest itself as a bomb, as it had effectively banned warfare forever as the world had previously known it. It had suddenly equalized the war-making capability of all nations, large and small, with the wherewithal of inventing the device.
It would be harnessed for the benefit of mankind and all of the fear which had spread surrounding the force was unfounded. There would always be, he concludes, "the one man".
Let us, in this instance, hope not. As rosy as the picture looked in 1945, no one really yet grasped the many dangers to the planet and the atmosphere from atmospheric testing of the bomb, or even the hazards from peaceful uses of nuclear energy to produce power.
Times and opinions, as attested by this program
Framed Edition
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.