The Charlotte News

Monday, August 30, 1943

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page, continued on the inside page, reports of the fall of the Nazi stronghold at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov in Russia. The city had been heavily defended since mid-February when the Nazis fell back to the city after the fall of Rostov. Taganrog was considered the southern anchor of the 1,500-mile Nazi front and thus a key position. It had been held by the Nazis since early summer, 1942, after it had first exchanged hands in November, 1941.

The Soviet columns south and west of Kharkov were said to be threatening to bottle up 800,000 Nazis in the Donets Basin.

In Denmark, after five days of demonstrations and unrest, the Germans took control of the government as the Cabinet and King Christian X were interned in the King’s castle, as the King threatened to abdicate in protest. The Cabinet had refused to accept demands of the Nazis to order the wholesale arrest of demonstrators and saboteurs and so the Nazis seized the government and declared martial law, thus ending the Nazis‘ showpiece of occupation in Europe. Denmark had been displayed as a model of cooperative occupation by the Nazis. Underneath the surface, troubles had obviously been brewing throughout the three years of occupation.

The Danish Navy meanwhile scuttled 85 ships of various size floating in Copenhagen Harbor.

Danes tried to evacuate to Sweden, the Nazis gunning down many in small boats along the way.

With the death of King Boris, Bulgaria was also reported in turmoil and close to collapse, with pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi forces among the five regents, substituting for the new boy King, Simeon II, vying for power.

In the Pacific, some ground was lost by the U.S. and Australian troops seeking the airdrome at Salamaua, in the face of strong Japanese counter-attack.

In the Solomons, however, the U.S. infantry landed unopposed on Arundel Island, two miles south of Kolombangara, enabling artillery shelling of Vila airbase.

It was announced that the U.S. Eighth Air Force had in one day lost a record 59 Flying Fortresses on August 17 during the raids on Regensburg and Schweinfurt. The number exceeded by one the 58 RAF losses numbered on August 23 during the night raid on Berlin. The number of losses by the Eighth Air Force was offset by the 307 Luftwaffe fighters destroyed during the two-city raid.

American and RAF bombers struck during the day and night at the rail center Torre Anunziata in Italy on the Bay of Naples. Another railway center, forty miles north of Rome, Orte, was hit for the first time by Flying Fortresses.

And the new Hornet was launched, replacing the Shangri-La version of the Doolittle Raid and, subsequently, Midway, lost later, in late October, 1942, in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

On the editorial page, "Up, Danes" praises the brave revolt of the Danes against the Nazi occupiers, ending the touting of Denmark as a model for occupation. Now, the Nazis had to divert troops to maintain order, troops needed badly elsewhere in Europe. The piece predicts that the uprising, its participants disregarding their personal safety, would stand Denmark in good stead with the Allies when liberation came.

"Joe's Friends" offers that Roosevelt’s early recognition of the Soviet Government in 1933 possibly stood him in a better light with Josef Stalin than did Churchill’s past writings and speeches sternly denouncing Communism. The piece excepts, however, the August, 1942 meeting between Churchill and Stalin in Moscow, out of which both countries pledged a firm commitment to defeating Nazism and mutually agreed not to seek a separate peace with Germany.

The piece leaves out Churchill's remark upon the invasion of Russia by Germany June 22, 1941, when Churchill denounced the action, saying by way of explanation, that if Hitler invaded Hell itself, Churchill would be willing to put in a good word for the Devil.

"Times Are Good" points out that big business never had it better, notwithstanding their complaints about high taxes and overly intricate regulation by the Government. The piece cites the high profits of Big Oil as first example that they were crying all the way to the bank, even if not profiteering off the war for the high excess profits taxes.

"Two Down" finds the job of commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy to be perilous as Admiral Mineichi Koga had reportedly been killed north of New Guinea in July, appearing to follow in the footsteps of Admiral Yamamoto, killed in April on the first anniversary of the Doolittle Raid, both men reported to have been killed in action in airplanes.

The death of Admiral Koga, however, was announced prematurely as he would not die until March 31, 1944. But he would die in an airplane while overseeing the transfer of the Combined Fleet from its headquarters in Palau. Thus, the report, while jumping its time, was nevertheless eerily prophetic.

Raymond Clapper bemoans the fact that many a good man had volunteered, at significant reduction in salary, to serve the Government and left Washington with his reputation in tatters because political forces were targeting Roosevelt and chose his understrappers as the easy pickings. He cites, among others, Elmer Davis of O.W.I.

Samuel Grafton opines that there is nothing at all mysterious in the Soviet demand for opening a second front on land which would divert between 40 and 60 divisions of Germans. It is, he says, a simple matter of wanting respite from the dying.

Drew Pearson comments on a sensitive issue brewing within Alabama. Governor Chauncey Sparks proposed to make a speech on race at the 1944 Democratic convention, denouncing Mrs. Roosevelt and plumping for adoption of a plank in the platform countenancing white supremacy. Liberal Democrats of Alabama had protested the intended action as divisive and liable to drive the black base of the Party to the Republicans.

The argument thus joined was whether to send an anti-New Deal delegation or a pro-New Deal delegation from Alabama.

The War Department believed that the proposal of the Governor would provide fodder for the Japanese propaganda machine.

Mr. Pearson next informs that the division between Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles had first arisen in 1940 when the issue of the third term for FDR had first come up. Jim Farley appealed to Hull to run for the presidency while Farley would be his vice-presidential candidate. Hull eventually succumbed to the temptation and began to take a liking to the idea, only to find that Welles favored the third term. Hull viewed the opinion as disloyalty.

In the ensuing campaign in 1940, says Mr. Pearson, Mr. Hull waited until the eve of election finally to campaign at all for FDR, had through August predicted a Willkie victory.

Finally, Mr. Pearson reports of a program to divert or reduce from dog and cat food proteins and meat to enable livestock and poultry to have the goodies of the animal world. Replacement for the lungs, udders, and other packing plant refuse matter which normally packed the canine and feline fancies to provide 60 to 65 percent protein, was to be cereals.

Yick. We'll stick to those udders.