“THE PAUSE BETWEEN THE BATTLES.” If the numbers given by Frank R. Kelley in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune are correct, then Britain seems to be getting in a few blows in her smoldering air war with the Luftwaffe. He writes, “Since June 18, when the Germans began massed aerial assaults on Great Britain, the defenders of this island fortress say they have destroyed 109 enemy planes.” Of that total, 72 Nazi warplanes were downed in the last six days. The R.A.F. is also pounding Nazi targets inside of France, the Low Countries, and northwestern Germany. But the Germans are getting in their licks as well -- the Associated Press reports 14 British civilians killed and 47 wounded in air attacks on England’s southeast coastal ports, while a second A.P. dispatch says Reich bombers scored “deadly blows” Friday on industrial Scotland, and also struck at southwest England and in Wales. What may be worse from a morale standpoint is news that Nazi planes came within a few minutes Thursday of killing or wounding King George VI. According to the United Press, the bombers struck shortly after the King inspected troops at “a town on the east coast,” and caused heavy casualties.
But William Shirer said last night in his C.B.S. broadcast from Berlin that the early editions of Monday’s German newspapers don't mention German bombing of objectives inside Britain, as they have in the past several days. Instead, they’re emphasizing the air battles over the English Channel, and reporting stories of “great distress and even panic” in Britain -- sabotage, strikes, hopelessness. Mr. Shirer says the Nazi papers call the relative quiet of late “a pause in the battles”, and that the average German thinks the his country’s armies will attack England in a “mere few weeks.”
THE INVASION MIGHT BE NEAR. Weeks? I’d guess maybe days. Some months ago Barnet Nover of the Washington Post described Hitler as “a man in a hurry,” before it became apparent just how much in a hurry the Fuehrer actually is. And, before it became apparent how much the Germans continually defy expectations. I wouldn’t doubt that we might wake up some morning before the end of this month to startling news on par with the biggest headlines of this spring. Say, a German paratroop attack on Ireland, followed by a quick jump onto the less-defended west coast of England and Wales and an unprecedented and horrifying air assault on London. At a glance, that doesn’t seem to be a likely possibility -- but neither did the assault on Norway, the quick seizure of Eben-Emael, the breakthrough on the Meuse, etc.
BRITAIN “APPEASES” THE JAPANESE. I’ve got strongly mixed feelings about the new Anglo-Japanese agreement to partially close traffic on the Burma Road to China. On the one hand, it smacks of Munich-style appeasement, and both the Chicago Tribune and New York Times use the dreaded word to headline their stories on the tentative pact. According to Kimpei Sheba’s story in the Tribune, the agreement proscribes further road shipment of “arms, ammunition, trucks and gasoline” to China, and allows Japanese consular officials at Rangoon to check on supplies moved over the Road.
On the other hand, it’s a relief to hear that the escalating crisis in Britain’s relations with Japan will probably be put back on the shelf, at least for now – the British can’t fight successfully throughout the Pacific while struggling for their survival against an anticipated German invasion at home. And the United States could more easily be drawn into a Pacific war than a European one. Moreover, Robert Post’s account in the Times differs in some details from the Tribune’s account and suggests that the practical effects of the closure might not be great. Mr. Post writes that Britain is only agreeing to partially close Road traffic to China “for the next two or three months,” which would practically make it a symbolic gesture, since “this is the rainy season and the Burma Road would be closed or virtually closed for the next two month by floods.”
On the other other hand, if a Pacific war crisis is merely being postponed for “two or three months,” then it could rear up at the height of the U.S. presidential campaign -- when the nation would be most divided in the face of a new threat. That’s not a pleasant thought, either.
WILL HE OR WON’T HE? (II). The New York Herald Tribune isn’t so sure, but the New York Times is now taking it as a given that President Roosevelt will run for a third term. The Herald Tribune’s Saturday story, by Geoffrey Parsons Jr., says the Democratic Convention opening Monday in Chicago is unprecedented – “Delegates...still don’t know if whether they are convening to renominate President Roosevelt or to participate in a hot and probably lengthy contest among a dozen candidates who are ready to enter the fray a the first intimation that the President does not choose to run.” But James A. Hagerty writes in the Times that the arrival Friday in Chicago of Senator Byrnes of South Carolina and Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins, leaders in the draft-Roosevelt movement, “dispell[s] any remnant of doubt that the President would run again.” The President himself says he won’t attend the convention, but is being his usual coy self about whether he would accept a third-term nomination, or whether he’ll address the convention in some manner.
The Chicago Tribune goes a bit farther than the Times, predicting Saturday that “if the President has his way about it the Democratic ticket will be: ROOSEVELT AND HULL.” The story, by Arthur Sears Henning, says that the so-called “Roosevelt draft” has actually been shaped by New Dealers sitting in White House conferences, under the direction of the President’s men. Mr. Henning writes that although Secretary Hull has declined the nomination, F.D.R. isn’t inclined to accept the refusal as final. And the isolationist Tribune also trumpets an exclusive report, somewhat hopefully, that six Democratic Senators, among them Byrd of Virginia and Tydings of Maryland, will symbolically vote against the third term at the convention, to the point of opposing any move to make Roosevelt’s nomination unanimous.
Who would run, if not Roosevelt? Vice President Garner insists he’s having his name placed in nomination, no matter what. Postmaster General Farley says “unenthusiastically” he will offer himself as a candidate, according to the Herald Tribune, and Montana’s isolationist Senator Wheeler plans to do so as well, if the President doesn’t run. But the Chicago Tribune is right this time -- it’ll be Roosevelt and Hull.
A DELAY IN THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN? Barnet Nover writes in Friday’s Washington Post that the current skirmishing between the British and Italian navies in the Mediterranean might indirectly delay the Battle of Britain --
“The Italian fleet appears to be smaller in size and fire power than the naval strength which the British appear to have assembled between Gibraltar and Suez. But it is by all accounts a first-rate fighting force and has the support of a considerable number of planes. Yet the conduct of Italian land, sea, and air operations from the moment Italy entered the war suggests that Italy is determined to proceed cautiously, in full realization of her own weakness....In part this attitude of caution may be the result of a sheer lack of fighting power, though this is by no means certain. But it may also be the result of psychological forces. Throughout their history the Italians have had a very healthy respect for sea power, and because of that for Great Britain...That is why Hitler may decide to defer the invasion of Britain, certain to prove a costly venture at best, until the British position in the Mediterranean has been made untenable. German-occupied territory now reaches to the borders of Spain. An attack on Gibraltar plus a simultaneous thrust in the direction of Portugal, so as to keep the British navy away from that country’s coast, is not outside the realm of immediate possibility.”
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