The Charlotte News
Thursday, February 8, 1945
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Moscow radio stated that the Oder line to the east of Berlin had completely collapsed before the onrushing First White Russian Army. Berlin radio reported that the Russians had established seven bridgeheads on the Oder in the area of Berlin, one thirty miles northeast of the capital, between Kustrin and Stettin. Fully a dozen other bridgeheads on the river had been established along 185 miles of its length from Ratibor in Silesia to Gruenberg, 50 miles southeast of Frankfurt. Kustrin was said by the Germans to be under "concentric attack" by the Russians, a phrase the Germans had used previously. The Russians confirmed that Alt-Drewitz, a northern suburb of Kustrin, had been taken.
The Moscow broadcast also reported that Heinrich Himmler had been assigned the task of defense of the capital. Herr Doktor Goebbels, originally in charge of Berlin's defense, was said to have evacuated the city for southern Germany.
Moscow further reported that the Red Army had freed 4,500 prisoners from a Nazi death camp located 35 miles southeast of Krakow. The camp had four gas chambers and twelve crematoria.
On the Western Front, the First Army occupied Schmidt after breaking through one of the strongest points of the Siegfried Line north of the Roer River dam network. Schmidt had been seized the previous November in the fighting for Hurtgen Forest, but then lost to Nazi counter-attack. The 78th Infantry Division during the night moved into the edge of the Hurtgen Forest and cleared all but minor enemy resistance by daybreak.
The capture of Schmidt had now opened the way for taking the largest of the five dams controlling the water levels of the Roer River, the 985-foot Schwammenauel, (not to be confused with Jan Swammerdam), which was two miles from Schmidt. It was imperative first to obtain control of the network of dams from the Nazis before crossing the Roer and entering the Cologne plain, as the dams could send an 18-foot wall of water into the area within a four-hour period, thus potentially drowning any Allied troops.
The prospect appeared imminent that Airborne Army forces would soon be called to action on the Rhine front, as Allied forces approached the Cologne sector. But the paratroops did not want to repeat the mistake made at Arnhem, where, after parachuting into the breach, they had eventually to withdraw for the inability of support personnel to arrive quickly enough to secure the established bridgehead. It was believed by Allied military experts that the most probable areas for landing of the paratroops had been booby-trapped with stakes, wires, and other obstacles.
To the south, the Third Army continued its drive, pushing through a seven-mile opening in the Siegfried Line to within 1.25 miles of Prum, 53 miles southwest of Coblenz, appearing to be the inception of a breakthrough to the Rhine.
In other action, Allied troops were hurling artillery shells against bypassed Dunkerque, wherein a desperate garrison of Germans still were defending.
The RAF, without resistance or loss, hit German E-boat pens at Leimuiden on the west coast of Holland for the second time in six days, dropping 12,000-ton bombs on the facility. Other bombers struck south of Emden, west of Muenster, in the area of Nordbadsen, at North Friesland, Brunswick, Bremen, and Hannover. Some 700 British heavy bombers the previous night had struck at Kleve and Goen, between the Meuse and Rhine.
The Fifteenth Air Force out of Italy again struck in the area of Vienna. The raids of the previous day by some 500 Liberators had consisted of 2,000 sorties from which 34 planes had been lost, the largest single day's loss of the Fifteenth in recent weeks.
In Italy, the limited new mountain offensive of the Fifth Army southeast of Bologna had been stymied by heavily defended German positions. Enemy resistance also stiffened in the Serchio Valley where Colle was captured, while other ground was lost a mile north of Castel Vecchio and then regained. Fifth Army commander, Lt. General Lucian Truscott, reported that by Tuesday afternoon, the Army had reached to within nine miles southeast of Bologna and seven miles from the main Bologna-Faenza Highway.
In Manila, the battle continued for the south side of the city, with American artillery striking over the Pasig River. The puppet government of the Philippines was reported by the Japanese to have fled Manila for the northern sector of Luzon. All of the area of Manila north of the Pasig was now under American control.
Enemy casualties thus far on Luzon since the invasion January 9 had amounted to 48,000, against 7,076 American casualties.
B-29's were reported by Tokyo to have attacked Kobe in Japan. The report was not yet confirmed by American sources. Admiral Nimitz reported the 62nd straight day of bombing operations against the Bonin Islands, primarily targeting Iwo Jima.
Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced that the number of American casualties now totaled 764,584, an increase of 27,242 since the prior week. The number reflected casualties reported to the War Department and Navy Department through January 28, reflecting battle casualties through early January. The number of Army dead had risen by 8,600 to 130,266; wounded, by 16,500, to 396,176; prisoners, by 1,350, to 58,878; and missing, reduced by 100 to 91,476. Of the dead, 4,522 had been shifted from the list of the missing as they had now been confirmed as dead, meaning that about 4,100 of the increased number of dead had actually been killed during the additional week since the period covered by the prior report. Fully 191,429, a bit less than half, of the wounded had returned to duty.
Navy losses included an increase of 1,100 killed, to 33,192; 450 wounded, to 40,248; three fewer prisoners, 4,473, because of a shift to other categories; and 123 more missing, 9,873.
German prisoners since D-Day now amounted to 865,000.
It was accurately reported that the Big Three Conference was halfway completed somewhere in the Black Sea area, possibly in the Crimea
In Commons, Conservative M.P. Earl Winterton asserted that millions of people in liberated Europe were on the verge of starvation, in a worse condition than under Nazi occupation. Deputy Prime Minister Clement Atlee, to become Prime Minister in July, stated that, while conditions were not as they would be wished, his information had been that there was no serious malnutrition within the liberated areas of Europe except in sectors where the problem had preceded the liberation.
From Livorno, Italy, it was reported that the third brewery would be established in the Mediterranean theater to afford 40,000 12-ounce bottles of beer per day for servicemen. The other two were at Naples and Algiers.
Meanwhile, many Italians were without more than a minimum ration of basic daily food.
On the editorial page, "A Closed Door" tells of a problem in addressing juvenile delinquency in North Carolina arising from the fact that the court system refused to share its records with social agencies of the State.
To try to remedy this gap, a State Senator had introduced a bill to require the courts to provide the information on juvenile delinquency to the Public Welfare Department. But the bill, passed by the Senate, had gone down to defeat in the House because of a fear of release of information to the public on individual cases, compromising the anonymity afforded juvenile defendants. That was so, even though no such actual danger existed.
The resulting perpetuation of the wall between the courts and the public agencies assigned the task of dealing with delinquency on a social level produced stultification inimical ultimately to the progress of understanding of the
"Sweet Reunion" finds the admission of UMW into the AFL camp to be one promising competition for the role of leadership between current head of AFL, William Green, and UMW leader John L. Lewis. The two had clashed in the past and Mr. Lewis had expressed harsh words toward Mr. Green, though Mr. Green had exhibited constraint in responding.
Apparently, all of that history had been brushed aside and Mr. Green had decided to embrace the UMW to present a united front.
In the end, however, with the power enjoyed by John L. Lewis, it was unlikely Mr. Green could survive for long as AFL leader.
"Navy Priority" comments on the ability of the Navy to continue to recruit the bulk of the most desirable young men for service before they were drafted into the Army, leaving manpower shortages for the Army as a result, on the premise that the Navy would need more manpower the further along in the Pacific campaign the fight progressed.
The editorial asserts that, with thousands of Navy men not being put to productive use, the sensible method of allotment to each branch of the service would be to place all men in a common pool to be assigned the branch where their individual skills and basic manpower were most needed.
As News editor J. E. Dowd had, the previous August, completed a twenty-month hitch in the Navy, served entirely stateside, he was in a uniquely qualified position to understand, first-hand, this problem.
"In the Making" discusses the several plans for expansion and modernization of Charlotte as proposed by the Charlotte Realtors, that the proposals set forth a progressive agenda for the city after it had lain largely dormant in progress of this type through the previous fifteen years.
The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Lister Hill of Alabama obtaining unanimous consent to place in the Record the military achievements of Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, up for promotion, as recommended by the President, to the rank of brigadier general.
He had been on continuous overseas duty since the landings in North Africa of November, 1942, and was currently assigned to photographic reconnaissance in Europe. He had logged 1,100 hours of flight time during the war, of which 300 had been in combat. He had flown on 303 combat missions in which he had been the lone pilot--(seeming, candidly, a bit excessive in number, but that is what it says). Colonel Roosevelt had received several listed decorations for his service.
Drew Pearson reports of how the OSS under William Donovan had sought to cultivate anti-Nazi Germans, predominantly Catholic leftists and moderates, to engage in psychological warfare through broadcasts similar to those made effective by the Russians via the 10,000 German officers, soldiers, and civilians of the Free Germany Committee and Officers Union. But someone at the State Department had blocked the attempt by the OSS to engage in this activity. It was thought that the nixing had come from former Ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson, who, during his tenure, had gravitated toward rightist Germans and away from the leftists.
Like attempts by the Psychological Warfare Division to disseminate anti-Nazi propaganda across Germany had been halted. An attempt to start a German-language newspaper at Aachen as an experiment, shortly after the capture of the city October 21, had yet to be implemented. Thus, the Army would take over German newspapers as they moved further into Germany, then to be operated, if at all, by men with little or no experience in publishing a German newspaper.
These inchoate attempts at stimulating anti-Nazi propaganda from the West were in dramatic contrast to the ongoing program in the East, the Germans having considerably helped the Russians in their advance through Poland via broadcasts urging other Germans to surrender without fear of reprisal.
Mr. Pearson then explains how Representative Dewey Short of Missouri had taken to task the Army for trying too much to steer war production policy in the country with the work-or-fight legislation pending before Congress. The Congressman urged that the Army could never, in its own eyes, be wrong, that it considered itself Christ-like and impeccable in sagacity.
Marquis Childs points out from London that a longstanding American resident of Britain had observed that there were two types of English, big and little, the big always having roast beef and other delectable things to eat while the little were consigned to living on a more restricted diet.
He then proceeds to describe the diminutive Arthur Horner, leftist Welsh labor leader, a Communist, who had carved for himself an important place in the labor movement in Britain by being an effective organizer, having been largely responsible for bringing the British coal miners into a single union. Mr. Horner favored nationalization of the mines as the only solution for a failing industry. With 700,000 miners in the country, the Government had to listen to their collective voice.
Mr. Horner had just returned from a tour of the American coal fields, had been impressed by the extent to which they were mechanized, far ahead of British mines still largely reliant on manual labor. In America, 550,000 miners mined 620 million tons of coal annually, compared to the greater number of miners in Britain able to produce less than a third that amount, 200 million tons per year.
This disparity, among other like discrepancies in production capability, raised eyebrows in Britain with respect to post-war concerns of America's ability to predominate economically over Britain. Mr. Horner and others on the left argued that Britain's only salvation would be to turn to socialism, recognizing that America was in an earlier phase of economic development and not yet ready for such a system.
Dorothy Thompson argues that continuing with a plan of demanding unconditional surrender of Germany effectively pre-empted any possibility of an underground movement to overthrow the Nazi regime from within and thus left the burden of having to govern post-war Germany on the shoulders of the Allies.
She points out that a year earlier she had recommended that German prison camps within the United States be divided between those prisoners loyal to the Reich and those who were non-political so that re-education of prisoners, utilizing the German prisoners themselves in combination with American military officers, could begin stateside before these prisoners would eventually have to be repatriated to Germany after the war. She had been told by the Provost Marshal at the time that such re-education would be contrary to the Geneva Convention, when in fact the document said nothing about re-education, did not prohibit the practice.
The Russians had been pursuing this policy within the Free Germany Committee and the Union of German Officers, the latter with 50 generals and thousands of other officers and soldiers, including Prussian Junkers.
Those in the United States who had attacked Ms. Thompson's recommendation a year earlier and since as seeking hopelessly to identify "good" and "bad" Germans, had not stepped forward likewise to criticize the Soviet policy impelled to the same end. Moreover, reports had indicated that the occupation government of Aachen, controlled by the Allies, was 85 percent German in its composition.
Samuel Grafton finds it mystifying that no celebrations, aside from ceremonies by veterans' organizations, had taken place to mark the retaking of Manila by the Americans. The dearth was in keeping with American life generally during the war. There had been no celebration after the liberation of France, not even a single bonfire.
He wonders why Americans had become so disposed, that it had not always been the case: in May, 1898, when Admiral Dewey had defeated the Spanish Navy in Manila Bay, there had arisen unreserved outpourings of reaction, even on the Senate floor, where Senators yelled, "Hip, hooray!"
Part of the reason could be traced to the Administration's deliberate dampening of enthusiasm regarding victories, for concerns that war production would suffer in consequence. So, the country cried the
He remarks that, had there been a national service act earlier in the war, then there might not have been so much fear of the impact of good news. Had Congress solidly backed the target of 60 million new post-war jobs, promised during the campaign by the President, then the country might not be so leery of the peace to come.
The problem seemed to carry over to the Army, he says, where officers were required to spend only one hour per month on orientation, answering inquiries as to where the soldier was, how he got into uniform, and what he would do when he
He does not tell how much time the
A letter writer begins his missive thusly: "I have been reading about the soldiers being put off the plane so the dog could get home. Isn't anyone going to defend the dog's rights? Always someone has come forward in time of need to defend the dogs."
He then tells of the drunk's dog which had bitten someone. The man's lawyer had argued that the dog only wanted to remain his master's best friend, made such an impassioned plea to the court that the dog's owner was found not liable for negligence.
The correspondent reports that when his own dog had bitten a woman, he put him in his car and spirited him a way away from the scene lest his dog be put to death by the howling, bloodthirsty rabble with nooses swinging unrestrainedly before their collective mind, bent as it was on retribution against his dog.
"Everyone" approved what he had done, save the bitten woman, "and she didn't matter because she didn't like dogs anyway."
Everyday, he saw reports in The News of wonderful things done by dogs. The newspaper praised dogs to the skies. The
Society had given dogs all the breaks. Dog owners only paid taxes if they wanted to, "and show me the police official that dares bother a dog. He will arrest your child before he will bother your dog."
"Why, I know of a case in Charlotte in which a man killed another man for bothering his dog, and got off with five years.
"Since no one can say anything against the dog, this fuss is just to get at the Roosevelt boy. So let's drop the whole thing."
Amen, Brother Lee. We concur wholeheartedly.
Every dog has its day and also is allowed one bite with impunity. So why not Blaze, too?
This entire matter amounts to one of those
...Above our modern socialism, and out of the worship of the mass, must persist and evolve that higher individualism which the centres of culture protect; there must come a loftier respect for the sovereign human soul that seeks to know itself and the world about it; that seeks a freedom for expansion and self-development; that will love and hate and labor in its own way, untrammeled alike by old and new. Such souls aforetime have inspired and guided worlds, and if we be not wholly bewitched by our Rhine-gold, they shall again. Herein the longing of black men must have respect: the rich and bitter depth of their experience, the unknown treasures of their inner life, the strange rendings of nature they have seen, may give the world new points of view and make their loving, living, and doing precious to all human hearts. And to themselves in these the days that try their souls, the chance to soar in the dim blue air above the smoke is to their finer spirits boon and guerdon for what they lose on earth by being black.
I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the eaves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?
--from The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois,
1903
Framed Edition
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.