Tuesday, March 5, 1940

BOMBING OF A BRITISH LINER. A moment of silence for at least eighty-eight Indian seamen who died Sunday in the English Channel after their vessel, the British India steamship Domala, was struck by three hits from a German Heinkel bomber. Raymond Daniell tells in Monday’s New York Times of the terrible circumstances which led these men to their doom --

“[The Indians] had been serving aboard German ships and were interned at the outbreak of the war. Through the cooperation of the United States Embassy in Berlin these men had been released and had boarded the Domala at Antwerp and were on their way home for repatriation when their ship was attacked.”

About fifty of the Indian passengers survived, though many were badly wounded by bomb splinters. Twenty of forty-eight British officers and sailors have been reported missing, presumably lost. According to the Times, the sinking took place just a few hours after Germany’s Grand Admiral Raeder announced that all British shipping will be from now on subject to Nazi attack because no British ships are engaged in “peaceful” commerce.

Perhaps another moment of silence would be appropriate -- silent contempt, for the German high command’s pointless and shockingly heartless approach to what it considers “warfare.”

NO SPRING OFFENSIVE AFTER ALL? Commemorating the six-month mark in Europe’s “Big War,” Hanson W. Baldwin writes in Sunday’s New York Times that all the talk among journalists about a German spring offensive might be nothing but talk --

“Far-flung aerial action and a land offensive in the West might be undertaken in the hope of striking a tremendous blow and ending the war. The possibility of such a gigantic military success exists, but the scales seem weighed against it, and we must not forget that every one of the major German offensives in the World War was undertaken in the hope and expectation of a decisive success. The same will-o’-the-wisp may lure hundreds of thousands to death this Spring and it is possible, if the Germans are willing to pay the cost, that they could achieve a local penetration of the Maginot Line. But nothing less than the capture of Paris and the Channel ports, and paralysis of the life of England and France by air, sea, and land attacks could achieve a decision. Such a definitive success, even if backed by the full smashing force of the mighty German military machine, seems unlikely; hence, many observers here, who a few months ago thought German attack most likely, now feel the scales are fairly evenly weighed between attack and continuation of the present character of warfare.”

I wonder, too, if the reports of 100,000 Russian dead in the last month in the slow-moving assault on Finland’s Mannerheim Line aren’t giving Hitler pause. An attack on the Maginot Line, or even on the fortified areas of northern France, is likely to be at least as bloody, with little to show for it. But that fact argues as much for a German aerial attack on Britain as it does for no German attack, period. Then again, Hitler could stick to aggression against smaller countries, whose small armies appeal to his bullying instincts. Occupation of Europe’s neutrals might well give the Germans a better prospect of success, through having improved access to natural resources and a larger number of strategic bases on the continent. Most likely targets in the coming weeks, in my opinion -- the Low Countries and Rumania.

FINLAND FIGHTS ON, ALONE. Donald Day, the Chicago Tribune’s man in Finland, writes stories that show himself to be passionately supportive of the Finns. His dispatch in Monday’s paper is no exception -- “Despite the soviet advance into the Finnish lines toward Viipuri, the Red Army is still far from breaking the Mannerheim defense zone, the prepared positions of which, before and behind Viipuri, still are in the hands of the Finns. Altho the fourth month of the war finds Finland still fighting alone against Russia, I have not seen the slightest evidence of discouragement among the Finns...The Finns are confident of their ability to defeat communism’s plans to overrun Finland.”

Perhaps Mr. Day ought to cable his editors back home, and see if he can talk them out of their hysterical opposition to U.S. military sales to Finland -- as well as any other kind of U.S. government aid to the Finns.

ROOSEVELT NOT RUNNING? Monday’s Washington Post is claiming to be the first with the big news, as reported by Roosevelt biographer Ernest K. Lindley. As the Post’s headline puts it, “Roosevelt Won’t Run, Hull His Candidate.” Mr. Lindley reports the President recently had a talk with one of the “elderly stalwarts” of the Democratic Party, and crafts a mythical conversation relating the “substance” of what ensued.

Mr. Lindley claims President Roosevelt said, in so many words, “I’m not going to run again. I’m getting tired. It’s time for someone else to take over this job. Of course, if the Germans overrun England and head in our direction I won’t desert the ship. But unless something like that happens, I won’t run again.” When the visitor asked F.D.R. who he would endorse to be the Democratic nominee, the President replied something like, “I think [Secretary of State] Hull would be a good man, don’t you? He’s safe. He can be elected. He would keep us out of war.”

There’s no public reaction yet from the President to what the Post says he “said.”