Friday, August 4, 1944

The Charlotte News

Friday, August 4, 1944

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Americans in Brittany had advanced twenty miles south of captured Rennes to within 43 miles of the port of St. Nazaire, as the significantly accelerated pace of the drive out of Normandy continued. Another column was within 41 miles of Nantes on the Loire River, while 27 miles west of Renne, other units had moved to within 108 miles of Brest while menacing Lorient, midway between Brest and St. Nazaire on the southwestern coast of the peninsula. Yet another column moved from captured Dinan toward St. Malo on the northeastern area of the peninsula.

A map on the inside page shows the extensive progress.

Not yet reported, in addition to being out of the hedgerow country and facing German troops now severely diminished in fighting capacity, another reason for the sudden acceleration was that the Third Army under the command of General Georgy Patton had been deployed in Normandy and Brittany on August 1, General Patton returning to action for the first time in a year since the slapping incident in Sicily, August 10, 1943, which had relegated him to the sidelines.

On the eastern side of the front, the British were also advancing, pushing into the outskirts of Villers-Bocage, as the Germans appeared to be evacuating to the south toward Epinay-sur-Odon.

More than 1,200 American heavy bombers, supported by a thousand fighters, attacked several targets in Germany, including the rocket research facility at Peenemunde, last attacked July 18. Other targets included Anklam, 47 miles northwest of Stettin, Rostock, Kiel, and an oil refinery at Bremen.

Meanwhile, the V-1 attacks were reported to have slackened during the day after British Channel defenses had knocked out several score of the buzz bombs during the night. A few, however, had penetrated into London and Southern England. Thousands of Londoners were evacuating the city ensuing advices by the Government, as the bombs continued to claim casualties, albeit in small numbers.

Russian troops were now within 91 miles of German Silesia while other forces continued to bombard East Prussian territory from a position three miles from the frontier. Other forces to the south moved to within 58 miles of Krakow and to within 20 miles of Tarnow.

The Polish government-in-exile reported that underground forces operating from within Warsaw claimed control of the whole of the old city and were in strong positions in the northern, southern, and western sections of the city.

Berlin announced that a small court of honor had been set up to try and purge the Army officers who were disloyal to the Reich. Eleven had already been fired or executed, including execution of the five principal plotters of the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair. The ousted included Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, who had been one of the leaders in breaking the Maginot Line in 1940. The broadcast claimed that the Army had requested that Hitler initiate the purge and that Hitler had approved the request.

South African troops of the British Eighth Army entered Florence as German defenders of the city evacuated to the north, blowing five of the city's six bridges as they went, leaving only Pontevecchio intact, blocked at each end by destroyed houses. New Zealand troops had driven the Germans from heights abandoned by the Nazis the night before to the southwest of the city.

On Guam, the American Marines and soldiers had entrapped more than 7,000 Japanese on the northern plateau of the island, with sure death or surrender their only options remaining.

In Northern Burma, Myitkyina, after a two and a half month siege marked by heavy house to house fighting for the city since its penetration May 17, had finally been captured completely by the Allies. At least 3,000 Japanese defenders had been killed since May 17. The capture gave the Allies two airfields and an important road and rail junction in the area. Forward troops of the Allies were thought likely within 20 miles of the Chinese troops moving out of Yunnan Province, seeking to link their forces to clear the section of the Burma Road in Northern Burma, joining it with the Ledo Road out of India to re-establish the land supply route into China, since the closure of the road by the Japanese in early 1942, accomplished only by air transport over the Himalayas.

In Philadelphia, beset by racial unrest since Tuesday's strike of transportation workers resulting from a new policy of hiring black drivers, the Army, at the direction of the President, took control of the city's transportation. Several hours after the deadline of 5:00 a.m. for workers to return to work, only 14 of the usual 77 trains were running at rush hour. Attorney General Biddle was investigating reports of attempts by some workers, purported to have enemy connections, to hinder the resumption of service.

On the editorial page, "The Sun", while recognizing that with fewer than 30 percent of the nation's newspapers backing FDR in 1940, he had still won handily, finds at least the possibility of prophecy as to Maryland's electorate in the Baltimore Sun having come out against a fourth term for Roosevelt. The newspaper had backed Wendell Willkie in 1940 and had remained silent in 1936. Stretching back to 1896 when it endorsed William McKinley over Democrat William Jennings Bryan, it had supported Republicans seven times, including all of the intervening Presidents, save Warren Harding.

Maryland had turned in ever decreasing majorities for FDR since 1936 and so perhaps the Sun was having its impact.

"The North" finds the racial unrest in Philadelphia, stemming from white transportation workers having refused to accept a new hiring policy allowing black drivers, to be emblematic generally of the North's racial problems. The previous summer's riots in Harlem and Detroit were echoed in the latest fracus. Moreover, the North had higher relative percentages of blacks on relief than the South. War industries began hiring blacks in the North only after the President had ordered them to do so to receive war contracts. In 1940 and 1941, very few blacks worked in these same industries.

Thus, the North had no bragging rights over the South when it came to racial problems, opines the piece, admitting the while the significant problem in the South.

"A Vision" finds no foreshadowing quality in favor of the Republicans in the defeat in the Missouri primary of Senator Bennett Champ Clark, long an isolationist. His victorious opponent, Attorney General Roy McKittrick, despite being a Republican, had plumped for Roosevelt and the New Deal. Thus, Republican rejoicing that, with Clark gone from the party ranks, there was a new day on the horizon predictive of victory in November, was sorely misplaced. If anything, the result suggested a sweeping victory for the President, when Republicans were winning by endorsing his policies and rejecting the policies of the old guard and its isolationism.

"The Censor" remarks on the intolerable results of the law sponsored by Senator Robert Taft of Ohio banning all political content from being received by soldiers of the armed forces. Even Senator Taft had recently pronounced that the law was being applied too strictly by the Army.

There were exceptions for magazines and newspapers, but with the absurd results that, for instance, Charles Beard's history, The Republic, itself having been banned, nevertheless was distributed to the soldiers via abstracts appearing in Life.

The soldier-vote act, of which the Taft amendment was a part, was temporary, only for the duration of the war. But the amendment would be permanent. A bill, sponsored by Senator Green of Rhode Island and Senator Lucas of Illinois, to permit men in service to read whatever was available to civilians, was now pending before the Senate. The piece expresses full support for its passage.

Marquis Childs addresses the political situation in Pennsylvania in the wake of a speech to businessmen and labor in Pittsburgh. The speech was that of a person trying to present himself as a public servant able to solve local and regional problems, but not that of an active campaigner, an extension of the Dewey pre-convention non-campaign for the nomination.

It was, suggests Mr. Childs, a political striptease show in slow motion. But, at present pace, it would be only after election day that the real Dewey would emerge from behind the wraps.

With the Democrats organizing support via the CIO Political Action Committee which promoted the CIO as having a half million members in Pennsylvania, and with the Republicans hard at work organizing their support, it appeared that the state, close in 1940, would be carried by the camp doing the better organizing.

Samuel Grafton writes of the false distinction at work in the minds of too many Americans regarding "good" and "bad" Germans. There were no good and bad Germans, just Germans in need of being conditioned away from fascism and toward democracy. The incessant bombing of their cities was teaching them that the wrong decisions have consequences. But it was still up to them to sort things out and make the right decisions. It was not for the Allies to search out the good Germans and punish the bad. The Germans had to determine their own course through experimentation, to see that which would stop the bombing and the war which they had started.

Drew Pearson reports of the new V-1 launching platform consisting of a couple of rails which could be easily set up, unlike the more complex platform previously in use. The simpler device allowed quick replacement after bombing and resumption of the launches, now coming more regularly on England since their initial launch June 15. More fiendish weapons were expected from Hitler.

It would not be but a few more weeks until the V-2, an actual rocket, would begin its launch history.

The information available at the time was a bit in error, as the underground tunnels of which Mr. Pearson writes were not per se launching facilities but storage areas out of which the V-1's were rolled into position for launching from their catapults.

He next examines the possible explanation for the mass surrendering of German troops on the Eastern front. He posits that perhaps they hoped that Stalin's cultivation of the Free Germany Committee in Moscow, having Junker officers among its membership, would result in preservation of the Junker military tradition under a truce with Russia.

Further instilling this notion were Stalin's disfavoring of unconditional surrender of Germany and his having consistently favored giving East Prussia, Pomerania, and Upper Silesia, all Junker inhabited lands, to Poland at war's end.

Mr. Pearson next imparts his collection of potpourri, from bits and pieces collected on Eastern front fighting to the battle between the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun for scarce newsprint.

Harry Truman, he reports, was a Baptist, but had shown interest in the Buchmanites.

Probably, hence the slogan on his desk eventually at the White House, "The Buch stops here."

Hal Boyle relates of the impressions of soldiers fighting in Normandy, different from their fathers who had fought in France in 1918. The cherished memories of the older veterans anent lush French wines and lush French women were no longer realized. The women, stocky, not the petite forms of which the soldiers had dreamed, were only interested in doing the soldiers' laundry for a few francs, not romance. And the wine and other distilled concoctions were little better than American moonshine, with equivalent results to the head. The French tavern owners kept their prime stock of wines out of sight. So, too, apparently did the parents of the petite mademoiselles.

The mud was the same, however, even if the hedgerow country was not an area with which the veterans of 26 years earlier had to cope.

Dr. Herbert Spaugh, by way of example of the moral precept to do all things heartily that they might flourish, tells of the origins of chewing gum. Thomas Adams discovered a flexible substance, chicle, the coagulated sap of a tropical tree, sapodilla, left behind in a desk by his neighbor on Staten Island, deposed and exiled Mexican dictator and general, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Trying without success first to turn the strange substance into a rubber substitute and then a denture adhesive, Mr. Adams alas bit off a piece and found it chewy. He then boiled it, rolled it out, poured sugar on it and distributed it to candy shops. The rest, as they say, is the future. Thus, every time you chew gum, think of Santa Anna, the Alamo, Davy Crockett, Will Travis, and Jim Bowie.

Ah... You know the rest.

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