Monday, June 19, 1944

The Charlotte News

Monday, June 19, 1944

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that American troops of the Ninth Division on the Cherbourg Peninsula had advanced to within eight miles of Cherbourg, capturing Bricquebec, eleven miles south of the port. It was estimated by General Montgomery that 50,000 Germans were trapped on the northern tip of the Peninsula. On Sunday, the Americans had widened the ground held across the Peninsula by two times its previous size, to a seven-mile front.

The Germans had attempted to effect escape from the trap on Cherbourg by attack near St. Jacques de Nehou, but were repulsed.

A second column of American forces were driving the Germans toward La Haye du Puits, forcing another trap of a substantial number of Germans between St. Lo and the coast.

A third column hit south of Lison to within six miles of St. Lo, important rail and highway junction.

The British, at the other end of the now expanded 116-mile front, fought their way into the northern side of Tilly-sur-Seulles, as the Nazis maintained their hold on the southern part of the town.

Enabling easy transfer of supplies and reinforcements, the beach areas were said to be quieter than southern England at present because of the V-1 raids on the latter area.

A poignant photograph reminds of the most tragic effects of war, that on the children, in this case those of Normandy.

For the fifth day in a row, England was hit by V-1 flying bombs, though appearing less heavily concentrated than the previous night. Two types of the V-1 had been identified, one flying at 200 to 230 miles per hour, and the other flying at 400 miles per hour with a larger wing-span and carrying larger explosives. (It should be noted that some sources indicate that the V-1 was first launched against England on June 13. That appears to be incorrect, as all the contemporaneous reports state it as June 15, including the report by James King on this day's page, specifically mentioning the initiation of the attacks as having been on Thursday--when Jeannette's stockings needed mending.)

Britons were reported to be adjusting to the attacks, as anti-aircraft batteries, often operated by women, were now working at full strength to combat the menace and fighters had been positioned at strategic locations to intercept the buzzbombs. The hearty British, with the Blitz just three years past still etched and echoing in their minds, laughed at the German propaganda reports that the V-1 had spread panic among the populace. The London newspapers mocked the scenario ruefully.

Only about one-quarter of the nearly 10,000 V-1’s launched during the ensuing three months would reach England. The others were destroyed en route, some by barrage balloons.

Meanwhile, 500 to 700 U.S. heavy bombers hit the launching facilities of the V-1 at Pas-de-Calais. Other bombers struck at Cherbourg and at communications lines in southeastern France, while still others bombed roads north of Paris to disrupt German reinforcement lines. In one instance, the American pilots sighted a line of horse-drawn shays which appeared other than menacing, but upon closer inspection, turned out to be German soldiers pulling shays loaded with ammunition. The column was bombed.

Increasingly, reported the pilots, the Germans were turning to horse-drawn transportation. Speculation anent the choice of mode was that the battle-scarred and rocky terrain did not easily accommodate motorized vehicles. Of course, the other problem was getting gas to the Germans on the Cherbourg Peninsula. Then, also, there was the notion of Richard.

The RAF had hit Pas-de-Calais the night before after 250 American bombers had hit the facility on Sunday. Also on Sunday, more than 1,500 American heavy bombers, in what appeared therefore as a record-setting raid, had struck oil refineries and storage facilites near Hamburg and three airdromes in northwest Germany. Flak was especially heavy in the raid on Germany, but no fighters arose to meet the bombers. The same was true over the French coast, as the Ninth Air Force encountered only two fighters on Sunday.

In London, Prime Minister Churchill spoke before the Mexican Embassy, hinting that victory could come during the ensuing three months over the German Armies. Whether it came in 1944 or in 1945, he insured that plans were being laid to protect the rights of small nations in the post-war world.

The Russians had advanced to the outskirts of Viipuri in Finland on the Karelian Isthmus after penetrating the Mannerheim Line and capturing Koivisto Fortress at the mouth of Viipuri Bay. It appeared that the Red Army had broken the back of the Finns and victory was imminent. Large artillery barrages, utilizing the new Russian big gun, the Katinsha, had enabled the quick success.

On Saipan in the Marianas, American soldiers and Marines advanced toward the principal harbor at Magicienne Bay.

A little more than a hundred miles south, American warships struck Guam on Thursday, hitting it heavily for the first time in the war.

In northeastern India, the last Japanese troops had been expelled from Assam, while operations were proceeding to do likewise along the remaining stretch of the Imphal-Kohima Road. The monsoon rains had begun, however, and were hampering operations, necessitating the use of rubber boats to effect evacuations and to maintain some Allied positions.

In Northern Burma, Chinese troops reached the north bank of the Mogaung River, opposite the key remaining Japanese base at Mogaung, as Chindits held the ground east of the town. Of the other two key positions, Kamaing was already captured, as fighting within Myitkyina for full occupation was still ongoing.

A hundred miles to the southeast of Myitkyina, the Chinese had to give up Lunghing, captured June 11 and credited then as the greatest success in Burma thus far for the Chinese in their offensive west of the Salween River out of Yunnan Province.

Hal Boyle, reporting from a port in England on June 15, provides the expressions of some American infantrymen just before boarding ships for the Normandy front.

One sergeant said that the hardest part, that of the preparation, was behind them. Combat, by comparison, was none the harder.

All expressed confidence and relief that they were finally getting into the fight, and also expectation that the end might come soon such that they could go home.

A T 5 from Kingston, N.Y., was eager to get to Berlin to see if the beer was as good as the Germans contended.

Another T 5, from Brooklyn, former hotel clerk, said, "We hope to do better than the Bums at Ebbets Field." Apparently, the Dodgers had been losing of late.

They would not improve, finishing seventh in the National League out of eight teams, with a woeful 63-97 record, a mere forty-two games back of the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals. By the end of September, the Boys of Summer in France would, indeed, have done considerably better, better than even the Cardinals, even if some hard times during the winter to come still lay ahead.

On the editorial page, "Success" provides high praise to the fighting men of the U.S. Ninth Division, trained at Fort Bragg, for breaking through to the West Coast of Cherbourg in just 12 days, sighting the coastal town of Barneville-sur-Mer the day before. The stunning advance in so short a time had demonstrated that the U.S. fighting troops were able to vanquish the German with alacrity and efficiency, the Ninth having honed its fighting edge in Tunisia, being the Division which had cracked the stubborn Axis defenses at Lake Bizerte, enabling the taking of Bizerte in early May of 1943, led, as now, by General Bradley.

German invincibility, concludes the piece, had once again shown itself to be no more than a myth.

"A Unity" praises the British and American forces for their solidarity and continuing complementary facilitation of battle on the fighting front in Normandy. No signs of tension had been noted within the command structure.

The only exception to the copasetic atmosphere had come in the form of General De Gaulle's reported refusal to send hundreds of French officers to act as liaisons with the French people, at the last minute rescinding the order on the long-planned action and substituting just twenty officers in its stead. The French, however, had insistently denied the report.

The editorial contrasts the cooperative association with that of World War I when there was no cooperation between the British and French until the Germans stormed through the French lines in March, 1918. Each country's infantry and navy had until then waged the fight under discrete command structures. General Foch had been only an advisory supreme commander with respect to the British and Americans, with each force's commander able to appeal to his home country for different orders. General Pershing had done so when General Foch wanted the Americans to infiltrate with the French and British. Likewise, the Italians fought alone in Italy and the Russians fought alone on their front during World War I.

Thus, the inter-coordination of command structure in this war was an innovation, one running smoothly through and beyond D-Day.

"The Rivals" compares the new V-1 of the Nazis to the new American B-29 Superfortress and finds the latter by far the more utilitarian weapon of war. Whereas the terror weapon of the Nazis had little impact other than instilling some fear in England, the B-29 had changed vastly the entire scope of the war in the Pacific, making the mainland of Japan now well within range, to become even more so when the islands of Tinian and Saipan were subdued in the Marianas.

It predicts well that, long after the V-1 would be forgotten, the B-29 would be wreaking the havoc necessary to bring the Axis finally to surrender.

With its delivery of the relentless bombing of Tokyo to come and the final coup de grâce in August 1945, the B-29 would prove invaluable finally to effecting a conclusion to the war in the Pacific, saving hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

June 15, 1944, seeing, over the Pacific, the first extended-range bombing flight in human history while, at the same time, over the English Channel, the beginning of the jet age, hard on its heels, the age of the rocket, held greater portent for the future of the world than did even D-Day. Arguably, held in the light of future impact on the world, it was the most significant single day of the war. Everything since, militarily, flows from that single day.

"No. 3" reports that North Carolina, bucking its "Old 42" trend, that is being usually near the bottom of the list of states in various social and economic statistics, found itself in third spot in terms of farm income as well as in farm population, despite being 32nd in farm acreage. A fourth of the state's economy was bound up in the agrarian sector, most of it constituted by cotton and tobacco crops.

The piece concludes that diversification of crops therefore would result in a necessary but substantial short-term hardship during the requisite transitional phase.

Samuel Grafton finds that the isolationist-nationalists of the country, with their slogan, "Why don't we put America First?" were having a hard time determining where first was and sometimes were instead heading first toward third. (Jim Piersall appears to have emulated the move later.)

They commended the Russian view of nationalism and insisted that America follow the trend. But, Mr. Grafton points out, the Russians were actually busy orchestrating an international policy of collective security. If such was good enough for the Russians, wasn't it so for the American nationalists who counseled following their example?

Putting America First, in the sense the nationalists meant, appeared, in the final analysis, more likely to be putting Chicago Tribune publisher Robert McCormick first.

Who's on First?

Marquis Childs writes of the disclosure in advance to many journalists of the maiden flight against Japan by the B-29 and that, despite it, no word had leaked from the American press. Nevertheless, the Japanese radio had crackled with reports of the prospect for some period in advance, had become aware of the B-29 as soon as the first shipment of 18 had landed in India, even had reported the serial numbers, visible on the sides of the planes, and also had become aware that they were bound for Chengdu in China from which they would conduct the air raid of June 15 on Yawata.

Mr. Childs wonders why something could not be done to strengthen security in the China-India-Burma theater, which had a track record for loose lips.

He informs that the raid would not be an isolated punch as with the Tokyo raid two years earlier of General Doolittle's fliers, but rather was the beginning of regular and persistent strikes on the Japanese mainland. Yet, those raids would not necessarily ensue immediately, as wrinkles, inevitable with any new airplane placed for the first time in combat, had to be first corrected.

A letter writer indites in favor of a compulsory war labor draft, in lieu of the voluntary program to go into effect July 1. The author expresses consternation at the fact that the Government could draft men for combat and yet not see fit to draft labor to enable the best fit between available skills and the jobs necessary in the war industries.

Drew Pearson delivers an open letter to a woman who had written him of her son's fighting in Normandy, expressing doubt that the fight was worth anything, given that his father had also traversed Normandy 26 years earlier to reach the Marne, to no avail in the end.

Mr. Pearson responds, however, that he was not so cynical to accept that another war of the type being endured would necessarily recur in twenty years time. For, between the wars, he insists, progress, though failing in the end to prevent war, had been made. From that progress and its mistakes could be learned the salutary principles by which to preserve the peace into the future.

He cites the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war, authored by Secretary of State Frank Kellogg under President Coolidge, as a valiant attempt to end war. Secretary Kellogg had made it his passion and had convinced the leaders of Asia and Europe to sign it. Mr. Pearson had attended the endorsement proceedings at Le Havre. The Japanese representative who signed the agreement had been Count Uchida, who, as Foreign Minister three years hence, at the time of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, would laugh at the principles embodied in the agreement.

Then came present Secretary of War Henry Stimson, as Secretary of State under President Hoover, following a determined policy to avert the smaller wars at their inception to avoid their becoming larger and more pervasive. He sought determinedly to resolve the Chinese-Japanese conflict regarding Manchuria, yet to no avail. Three times he had gone to Europe for the purpose and was nearly successful. An isolationist Cabinet surrounding him in the Hoover Administration, plus the adamancy of the British industrialists in continuation of the British Empire interests, ultimately had thrown a monkey wrench into his efforts.

But, given these efforts and failures, Mr. Pearson asserts to the mother questioning whether her son might be sacrificed for naught, the future held promise for learning from past errors, such that would not go gentle into that good night the words written by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, who had stood beside Secretary Stimson in the attempted resolution of the Manchurian Crisis, as well as by Secretary Kellogg in 1928: "How heavy, how heavy a simple dove, bearing an olive branch, can weigh upon a man's wrist."

Roger D. Greene, an A.P. correspondent with the British forces in Normandy, who had landed with the A.E.F. on D-Day, poignantly describes the way of war, the green pastures and chirping birds, remindful of California or New England, suddenly supplanted by the sound of bombers and naval guns and tanks, then, as suddenly as the clackolorum of war had begun, so it would subside--leaving only the faint hum of housing bee, as fades its spell down the rugged dell.

He describes of sleeping at night on the floor of a farmhouse, engaged in la recherché du temps perdu. Then, from out of the night would come the sudden sound of a German fighter causing him to interrupt his mental train into the past to head for the rat-infested cellar below, affording reasonable security from the bombs. Then, as the rat's little feet scampered over his cheek to satiate, amid the wine bottles, its pre-instructed whimsy left aught to explain, came deep sleep, albeit without dreams--thus not deep enough for escape from the cycle of the day reckoned by the drafty dew of morn's first light, mixed of anxious speculation in beckoning events and gracious supplication to have lasted yet mere the dark's sleight.

He describes the hardest task he had ever endured, that on June 6, in a brief but moving postscript.

A news piece tells of the many nicknames already provided the V-1 in England: "buzzbomb", "winged comet", "bumble bomb", "flying bomb", "whirley", "robot raider" and "P-plane". In German propaganda, it was yclept variously "Hell hound", "Hell dog", "dynamite meteor", and "Kivik rocket", the latter too arcane for translation.

In any event, here is a view, from the Nazi perspective, of the buzz-winged-comet-bumbling-whirley-robot raider P-plane in action. Leave it to a Nazi to invent something which had absolutely no utilitarian purpose in war than to kill innocent civilians. Leave it to Hitler to order the deus ex machina's full-scale deployment, as a spiteful and disturbed child.

One of the quotes of the day: "Those who watch us take off think we aren't coming back and that we take all the risk while we think we have all the fun and all they get is stripes we get the citation."--Major Robert Johnson, holder of record kills over Europe, 27

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