Saturday, March 3, 1945

The Charlotte News

Saturday, March 3, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Ninth Army had advanced six miles to join with the Canadian First Army at a point between Geldern and Kevelaer, to forge a stand on the Rhine at Uerdingen, just northeast of captured Krefeld, forcing two German armies, the 15th and First Parachute, into swift and disordered retreat toward the Rhine between Xanten and Cologne.

Ten miles to the south, the Germans blew all of the bridges across the Rhine to Duesseldorf. The bridges, including one to Neuss, had been built in 1929 with loans from Allied countries.

To the north, a division was within eight miles of the Homberg bridge near Duisburg.

The First Army advanced another mile to Poulheim, within four miles of Cologne and 12 miles of Bonn.

The Americans and Canadians now held a solid front from Xanten to Bonn along the Rhine.

Hal Boyle reports of two American companies, consisting of 300 men, waiting to enter battle against 1,069 handpicked German veterans to withstand an Allied breakthrough to the railway and highway bridges across the Rhine into Duesseldorf. In theory, the Americans should have had three to one, not one to three, odds before attacking. But, despite the appearance of suicide worthy of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, the men marched anyway, firing at the enemy as they went. In the end, the offensive succeeded.

Another piece by Mr. Boyle, that which ordinarily would appear on the editorial page, tells from an inside page more of brave Company F, this time, of its quest for "Hotbox Hill" in Germany.

General Eisenhower, in a radio broadcast to Germany, warned civilians west of the Rhine to remain where they were, that fleeing east of the river would endanger their lives, as those areas were under intense Allied artillery and aerial bombardment.

More than 1,800 planes, including 1,100 heavy bombers, hit targets in central and southeastern Germany, making a feint toward Berlin and then flying south to the Brunswick-Magdeburg area. Targets were also struck at Ruhland, north of Dresden, and Misburg, near Hannover. Chemnitz was also struck for the second successive day.

The previous night, RAF Mosquitos attacked Berlin for the eleventh straight night and also hit Kassel. RAF heavy bombers out of Italy hit the Porto Vescovo railyards at Verona.

The previous day's raids had totaled finally 6,000 planes, with incomplete figures showing that the Ninth Tactical Air Force had destroyed 122 Luftwaffe planes, 65 in aerial combat.

On the Eastern Front, the Second White Russian Army had severed communications between Danzig and Stettin, isolating the German troops in Eastern Pomerania and the Danzig Corridor. The wedge driven between Rummelsberg and Bublitz, southeast of Koeslin, had broken the German defensive line. Both Rummelsberg and Pollnow had been confirmed as captured.

In Italy, the Eighth Army was suffering and inflicting casualties in the fight along the east bank of the Senio River.

On Iwo Jima, the Third Division Marines, having advanced 700 yards to take a 362-foot hill, were but 600 yards from the last line of enemy interconnecting pillboxes in the northern sector of the island, as American losses continued to mount, as did those of the enemy at even greater pace. The Japanese had only one remaining height, near the steep cliffs, still within their control.

The Fourth Division Marines on the right flank of the Third inched forward after having been stopped for five days by intense enemy fire. On the left flank, the Fifth Marines made limited advances in the face of the strongest enemy counter-attack in several days, but captured another 362-foot hill, that dubbed "Hill 362" in the report of the previous day.

A Thursday raid of Fifth Fleet carrier planes on six islands of the Ryukyus damaged or sunk 55 Japanese ships and 91 planes. There was no enemy opposition to the raid. Following that raid, a night-long attack had taken place against Okio Daito, 210 miles east of the Ryukyus. The Fleet was only 350 miles from Japan, the closest approach yet by American ships to the home islands.

An inside page shows an aerial photograph of bomb damage inflicted on Tokyo since the beginning of the B-29 raids the previous June.

In Burma, the Japanese base on the Burma Road, Lashio, was brought under siege from both the air and from forces of the Chinese First Army. Allied precision bombing took out the last of six bridges to the city, making enemy retreat difficult.

It was announced that Lt. General Millard Harmon, deputy commander of the 20th Air Force, was missing in a plane over the Pacific, along with nine other officers and men aboard the flight.

The wreckage of the flight between Kwajalein and Hawaii would never be found. Also on board was General Harmon's chief of staff, Brigadier General James Anderson.

Some poignant photographs appear on another inside page.

A front page photograph shows a Third Army private feeding Honeybunch, his unit's mascot, while in the German town of Ferschweiler.

He was spoiling the pup rotten.

The pup had reportedly asked, however, for Sugarpie.

We think we may take that Lions Club sight saving class. Why don't you join us. We all need to save our sight.

On the editorial page, "Half-Victory" comments on a speech by Mark Ethridge of The Louisville Courier-Journal to the Georgia Academy of Political and Social Sciences, stating flatly that the reason Henry Wallace had been opposed for Secretary of Commerce so long as the RFC lending responsibilities remained intact, was that reactionary Southerners were opposed generally to his progressivism, not that Mr. Wallace lacked any competence for the job. Mr. Ethridge opined that it represented a primary problem of the South, stultifying the region's progress.

The piece finds the sentiment one to be growing among a minority of Southerners. Perhaps it had been reflected in the fact that on Thursday, Mr. Wallace had been finally confirmed by a Senate vote of 56 to 32, following the President's signing of the bill to divorce RFC lending powers from the Department of Commerce.

The editorial cautions that, as one wing of the party would likely promote Mr. Wallace for the 1948 nomination for the presidency, controversy within party ranks regarding him would continue. The position of Secretary of Commerce, though divested of the ability to lend millions of dollars to stimulate the economy after the war, nevertheless was still possessed of substantial power.

"The Partisans" assays the partisan dissent to the speech of President Roosevelt on Thursday regarding the Yalta conference and his confident hope that the Senate would ratify the agreements reached. Republican Senator from Michigan, Arthur Vandenburg, had said nothing in response; Robert Taft of Ohio had pronounced the speech merely interesting but lacking of any news; Harold Knutson of Minnesota found the President to be trying to sell the nation a pig in a poke; Burton Wheeler of Montana, though a Democrat, voiced his suspicions of Russia and that the President might be naively placing the interests of the country in the hands of Russia and Britain.

The divisions portended trouble ahead as to whether a two-thirds required majority could be achieved in the Senate for approval of the Yalta accord and the charter of the United Nations organization.

"Cash With Order" indicates that a story in The News written by Dick Young had caused a sudden pause in the Ivory Tower. The story had stated that the total proposed post-war bond issues for Charlotte's various projects slated for the immediate future would exceed the debt limit of eight percent set forth in State law.

The piece asserts that, while many desirable items appeared on the wish list, heavy post-war indebtedness of Charlotte was not one of them. Already Charlotte owed annual debt service of $700,000 on past borrowing. Were this debt service retired, then issuance of new bonds to pay for the proposed new projects could be accomplished comfortably. But adding more borrowing to the current outstanding debt was simply mortgaging away the future of the community with a too high tax rate to pay for it.

It favors the possibility of short-term loans with a substantially higher tax to the citizenry to pay for them on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record consists of an inserted dialogue between the audience of a recent presentation of Town Hall of the Air, moderated by George Denny, and Senators Dennis Chavez of New Mexico, Allen Ellender of Louisiana, and Claude Pepper of Florida.

Senator Chavez answered an audience question regarding the meaning of the Atlantic Charter by saying that, essentially, it was an agreement between the signatory nations to live and let live other nations.

Senator Ellender explained that the proposed post-war peace organization would presumably allow as members all nations desirous of peace.

Senator Pepper expressed that the question of Poland resolved at Yalta, by giving the Russians what they desired, was one which had, in his opinion, provided too much deference to prior agreement between Britain and Russia, both signatories to the Atlantic Charter, and not sufficient regard for the necessity of all three powers to assent on policy matters falling within the ambit of the Charter.

Drew Pearson discusses plans within the Allied military command structure to accommodate the Russians despite the fact that they had not yet entered the war against Japan. Likely, Marshal Zhukov would join General Bradley and Field Marshal Montgomery as combined chiefs in Europe.

Another issue had arisen as to whether Admiral Nimitz or General MacArthur would lead the final drive to Tokyo. The Navy had made the case that, without Navy ships, the drive in the Philippines of General MacArthur on land would have gotten nowhere. Not only were the troops landed by the Navy but, following the Leyte operations, the Navy's guard had prevented reinforcements of the enemy from reaching Luzon as well.

Likely, the solution would be to appoint General Marshall as overall Army and Navy commander in the Pacific following the defeat of Germany. General Eisenhower would be sent home to Washington to take over General Marshall's position as Army chief of staff and General Bradley would become commander-in-chief of American forces in Europe.

Mr. Pearson next relates of Prime Minister Churchill trying out his Russian on Premier Stalin at Yalta to try to match Stalin who had learned some limited English phrases from Ambassador to the U.S., Andrei Gromyko. Mr. Churchill's efforts, however, brought only puzzled expressions from both Comrade Stalin and his interpreter. The interpreter asked that the Prime Minister speak either Russian or English, as those were the only two languages with which he was familiar.

In Paris, it had been announced that General De Gaulle had arrested Vichyite Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil, who had arranged for Admiral Darlan to turn up in North Africa in 1942 prior to the invasion of Morocco and Algeria November 9. Having been living in exile on Portugal, Lemaigre-Dubreuil and another Vichyite, Jean Rigault, had been kidnaped by night at gunpoint in a small Portuguese village near Estoril.

The fact had prompted concern at the State Department because U.S. Charge d'affaires Bob Murphy knew both men well, Lemairge-Dubreuil having been key in selling Mr. Murphy on the idea of U. S. Government cooperation with Vichy. Mr. Murphy had also aided in the escape of M. Lemairge-Dubreuil from North Africa to Portugal.

Marquis Childs, at the Mediterranean Air Command Headquarters, describes the thousands of planes under the command of Lt. General Ira Eaker, in Italy, Southern France, the Balkans, and part of the Middle East. The number of planes exceeded that of the entire Luftwaffe at the height of its prowess. Men of nine nationalities flew everyday on missions for this air force. Officers were assigned to command each mission, regardless of nationality, a departure from other theaters.

Mr. Childs expresses the hope that the command might be maintained after the war to form the nucleus for the international peace-keeping force.

The future of the peace, he offers, as well as the war, would be determined by the airplane. The world had only begun to understand its implications. Jet propulsion and rocketry, he predicts, would also play a vital role in the future.

Samuel Grafton finds extant opinion anent the world scene to be torn between whether to play the safely pessimistic cynic, so familiar to journalists, or to be optimistic.

The conservative pessimist foresaw a war between the United States and Russia, probably to occur regarding control of Middle Eastern oil interests or the future of China, perhaps the future of Poland. The Cassandras were unable to specify the battlefield or a strategic plan through which either nation could hope to achieve victory or even what would be obtained in victory.

One thing was clear to the pessimist: that a Georgian Communist, an American country gentleman, and a British Tory could reach accord on such weighty matters, was assurance of substantial entropy within the universe.

Dorothy Thompson, again quoting from G. K. Chesterton's "Lepanto", addresses the subject of Prime Minister Churchill's report to Commons earlier in the week regarding the Yalta agreement, finds it curiously somber in tone at its conclusion. The Prime Minister obviously felt a tremendous sense of responsibility toward future generations in participating in the decisions reached at this watershed conference. Of primary concern was the guarantee to Russia of Polish territory to the Curzon Line.

The London Polish government-in-exile was in strong disagreement with the outcome and reports had it that Polish soldiers in Italy had committed suicide at the news. The Prime Minister expressed the hope that many of the Polish soldiers who had fought with the British during the war would be rewarded with citizenship in the British Empire, should they so desire.

He intimated, as had President Roosevelt in his speech of Thursday to Congress, that the structure of voting on the Security Council of the United Nations organization had been established, but, as with FDR, did not reveal yet what that agreement had been.

He had also stated that there would be free elections in Poland and that all "democratic parties" would be included. But just what "democratic" meant had yet to be settled. Ms. Thompson wonders aloud as to how that would occur.

Dick Young, among several other things, reports of Mrs. C. C. Duncan, but for the Kite, checker-mated in the rings, being the envy of her friends for having been locked up for half an hour with the benefit of nine men of the Planning Board.

Just what they were planning is not related by Mr. Young, mayhap, hum a hymn, something nice, perchance a haw untoward, as with the ritual of Key-Ice. He only conveys that the meeting took place at the Hotel Charlotte and that a cop, per pice, twice-grazed in juice potations, had to be summoned through a window from off the street to unlock the door.

Surely there will be an investigation, if not then, now. We need to know what happened behind those locked doors.

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