A JOINT U.S.-CANADA DEFENSE BOARD. An informal visit between President Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King has led to something with "potentially far more importance than many formal treaties," says Monday's New York Times. It’s called a "Joint Board on Defense," to be composed of four or five members from each of the two countries. Times reporter Charles Hurd notes that it’s "not only the first mutual defense agreement made between the United States and Canada, [it] is also extraordinary in view of the fact that that this country, while at peace, seeks to cement an effective union with a country actively at war."
It’s a good common-sense idea, so much so that the Chicago Tribune reports on it without their usual inflammatory rhetoric about Rooseveltian plots to embroil us in war. The Tribune’s story, by Walter Trohan, does note that one of the first subjects to be tackled by the board will be U.S. acquisitions of air and naval bases inside Canada, in order to prevent the Axis powers from invading America through Canada. The isolationist crowd has previously called for U.S. bases to be set up on various foreign colonies in the Americas, though the method preferred by the Tribune’s editorial writers is for the U.S. to seize these colonies militarily, in Hitler-like fashion.
MORE EVERY-OTHER-DAY AIR RAIDS. The Germans have apparently settled into a queer pattern of hitting Britain with enormous air raids one day, then skipping the next. Another 600-plane raid took place Sunday, according to Frank R. Kelley in the New York Herald Tribune. Mr. Kelley writes that the object of the raids was London, but that they "fizzled out in the suburbs." Still, the Germans left Croydon Airport in flames and, says the Associated Press, struck a "mighty blow" at R.A.F. bases in the London area and along the southeast coast. Britain is claiming a big number of Nazi losses -- 140 to be exact. The Germans only admit to thirty-four planes downed. If the British number is closer to the truth, then it doesn't seem like Hitler can afford to launch this type of large-scale raid too much longer.
COMMENTS ON THE WILLKIE SPEECH. Praise for Wendell Willkie’s Saturday speech accepting the G.O.P. nomination, from the editorial columns of three major newspapers --
New York Times -- "Mr. Willkie is not afraid to say we must face the threat of Hitler. He is not afraid to tell us that we must do a great deal more than we are doing now if we wish to keep Hitler and his ideas on his own side of the Atlantic. He is not afraid to tell us, despite the timid advice of politicians, that he favors selective service as ‘the only democratic way’ of obtaining the trained men we need in adequate numbers for our national defense. He is not afraid to tell us the unpleasant fact, which the Roosevelt Administration either glosses over or does not really understand – with possibly tragic consequences for all of us – that we can become a stronger nation only if we all work harder....Mr. Willkie deserves the gratitude of all Americans for the tone that he has set in this first speech of the campaign....He has met the test of a great occasion with courage and candor and foresight that do him honor."
Washington Post -- "Mr. Willkie did not follow the lead of lesser politicians by making President Roosevelt’s bid for a third term the major issue of the campaign. Nor did he indulge in any loose talk of New Deal attempts to set up a dictatorship in Washington. His fears for the future of liberal government in this country are based on much more solid ground....The Republican candidate takes vigorous exception to the way in which Franklin Roosevelt has reversed Theodore Roosevelt’s policy of walking softly and carrying a big stick. Since the President has not recently indulged in useless ‘inflammatory statements,’ it may be that he has already taken to heart previous criticism of that practice."
Chicago Tribune -- "Mr. Willkie’s acceptance speech helped the American people to an understanding of the political change which is complete all except in party names. The Democratic party retains its name but nothing else recognizable except the elements represented by the metropolitan Democratic machines....Otherwise the Democratic party gets its ideas from persons who are not seeking action within the frame of the American political system but against it.....Probably it was inevitable that when the third term was sought it would be by a man whose work and words would prove the value of the unwritten limitation of tenure. That limitation would never seem more important then when that man tried to break thru it....Mr. Willkie will prove to be an able champion of the form of government that the people have known and have defended."
THE U.S. NEEDS WARPLANES – AND SOON. In Sunday’s New York Times, Edwin L. Jones blames Congress for the frustrating delay in building an American air force worthy of the name --
"Three months ago, President Roosevelt called for an air force of 50,000 planes for this country....What has happened since then? Secretary Stimson, and he ought to know, says thirty-three of the 50,000 planes have been ordered. What is the matter? For weeks Congress has been debating as to how many years shall be allowed for depreciation of new plants to be built, whether the planes shall be built on a a cost plus basis or whether the airplane manufacturers shall be limited to a profit of 8 per cent before taxes or after taxes. Millions in contracts have been signed by the manufacturers but not executed by the government because of uncertainty regarding terms, which hang on action by Congress. Hitler didn’t have to bother with such delay. No attempt is being made here to say airplane makers should be assured of making this or that profit, nor is there intended any inference that in insisting on this or that specific provision they are putting the profit incentive ahead of patriotism. The point is that regardless of what provisions may be found to be just, those provisions ought to be fixed quickly."
Mr. Jones says that if Britain loses the war -- "and there are people in Washington who keep on saying she hasn’t got a chance to win" -- then the U.S. might quickly by faced with a Nazi danger due to our lack of air power -- "If Hitler has a free hand in the Atlantic, what will prevent him from establishing air bases in Greenland? We have said that we will not allow that, but what will we use to prevent it? Suppose he establishes air bases in Greenland from which to carry his air warfare to Canada and suppose he gains control of the air over Canada, would he not be in a position to talk business with the United States? If not, why not?"
VOTERS NOT HAPPY WITH PACE OF BUILDUP. The slowness of our military preparedness program could be a winning issue for the Republicans this fall, if the numbers in Dr. Gallup’s latest survey are any indication. The newest Gallup survey, in Sunday’s Washington Post, says that only 32% of voters are "satisfied" with the progress of U.S. rearmament measures, and 40% are not satisfied. Significantly, 28% say they are "without sufficient information" to make a judgement -- meaning that if there are more shocking disclosures of defense delays while the presidential campaign is on, there could be a significant popular outcry against the Administration.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Sunday, August 18, 1940
WILLKIE ACCEPTS THE G.O.P. NOMINATION. I haven’t seen a transcription yet. But as heard on the Mutual network yesterday afternoon, Wendell Willkie’s formal acceptance of the Republican nomination was a pip. He spoke eloquently for individual liberty and rightly scored the Roosevelt Administration’s secrecy and inefficiency, the stagnation of the New Deal, and a preparedness program that badly lags behind the Rooseveltian rhetoric.
But more importantly, he demonstrated that he would not oppose the Democrats merely for the sake of opposing them, and said a number of things which must be terribly grieving to isolationist Republicans -- "Peace is not something that a nation can achieve by itself." He endorsed conscription, in bold, plain language. He rejected the arch-neutrality of some in his party, condemned Hitler’s "barbarous and worse then medieval persecution of the Jews," and made it clear that the survival of Britain was essential to American liberty -- "The loss of the British fleet would greatly weaken our defense....If the British fleet were lost or captured, the Atlantic might be dominated by Germany....This would be a calamity for us." He also heartily endorsed the President’s pledge to aid other countries resisting Axis aggression.
What’s more, Mr. Willkie argued convincingly that he, more than President Roosevelt, is interested in a genuine coalition government to see us through the current emergency. He prominently identified himself not as a Republican, but as a "liberal Democrat who changed his party affiliation because he found democracy in the Republican Party and not in the New Deal Party." The crowd of 250,000 gathered in Elwood, Indiana for the acceptance ceremony enthusiastically cheered almost every remark, though doubtless a good number of them probably differed with their nominee’s anti-isolationist opinions. But Mr. Willkie seems above all to have the leadership ability to bring isolationists and inteventionists together.
GERMANS BOMB LONDON SUBURBS. Just one day after the Germans launched a 1,000-plane air raid that hit within eight miles of London, the Nazis sent another 1,000 to 1,500 air raiders to blast five of London’s southwestern suburbs bordering both sides of the Thames River. Sigrid Schultz’s account in the Chicago Tribune prominently describes the docks, storehouses, and industrial plants of the East End as sustaining terrific damage. James B. Reston’s New York Times story emphasizes the rush-hour timing of the raid -- "Hundreds of thousands of people were crowding out of their offices and factories to go home. Trains, subways, buses and streets were absolutely jammed." Despite the pounding, Mr. Reston writes that civilian morale "remains excellent" and adds, "If on the coast they are getting a little tired of the constant raids, certainly there are few complaints and in London optimism seems to increase as the air war develops."
Miss Schultz quotes a German source as saying rather ominously that "the German air force will prove that no power in the world can prevent it from dropping its bombs wherever it wants over England, and even if it should be necessary, over the city of London." But she adds that "authorized sources said...the city of London would be spared." For how much longer, one wonders?
THE HUMAN COST OF THE BOMBING. Frank R. Kelley’s account of the raid in the New York Herald Tribune pauses from the facts and figures of the air battles to describe what happened to a few ordinary people and places near London --
"One bomb burst close to a garage in which three persons were killed. Another victim was a man in his twenties. Girls in a factory were near where another bomb fell, and when they rushed out of the building machine-gun bullets spattered among them. Another missile blew out the windows of a saloon and wrecked a telephone booth. Shop windows were smashed. In some streets hardly a pane of glass was left in houses. Many were demolished, while others were made uninhabitable."
The New York Times account mentions a war reserve policemen who discovered the body of his thirteen-year-old son while cleaning up debris in an alley near his home. Drew Middleton of the Associated Press says the first sight he saw when entering the bombed area was "two dead air raid wardens, lying on the ground in their tin hats and blue overalls."
SPAIN, GREECE JOINING THE WAR? In the Chicago Tribune's Saturday editions, Larry Rue passes along unconfirmed reports of large Spanish troop movements in North Africa, which are seen as "a prelude to Gen. Francisco Franco’s entry into the war, depending on Italian successes in Somaliland." And as far as the battle in British Somaliland goes, Mr. Rue says that the small British force there is facing two Italian divisions, and that Britain’s meager forces will likely have to withdraw to the capital of Berbera. Friday’s New York Times says the British are in an "extremely grave position" in Somaliland, and "may have to adopt the advice given in a recent editorial in the Daily Telegraph to withdraw...altogether." (But Joseph M. Levy reports in Saturday’s Times that the Italians are still more than thirty miles from Berbera, and one of the Fascist columns has been slowed by an R.A.F. bombing and machine-gunning attack.)
Meanwhile, Greece has partially mobilized her forces after a squadron of Italian bombing and fighting planes attacked two Greek destroyers in the Aegean Sea on Friday. According to the Associated Press, Italy’s naval attache in Athens has apologized for the attack, explaining the destroyers were mistakenly identified as British. The incident doesn’t say much for Italian military prowess -- the A.P. reports seventeen bombs were lobbed at the ships, and not one hit its target. No damage was done.
HITLER’S IN A HURRY. Major George Fielding Eliot writes in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune that an invasion is probably coming, and soon --
"Judging solely from the evidence now available, accepting the British figures as to proportionate losses of planes engaged, bearing in mind that air power alone has never yet been decisive but had always proved the more formidable in combination with surface forces, it seems probable that an attempt at invasion will be forthcoming before very long, perhaps within a comparatively short time, for under present circumstances, and in face of the ominous signs (ominous to the Germans, of course) of growing Anglo-American co-operation, German leaders can hardly dare to resort to the long drawn-out and very uncertain process of blockade with such means as they have at their disposal for it. If they actually attempt invasion, it will be a cast on which Hitler will for the first time set all his fortunes. There will be no minimum and maximum objective about such an enterprise. If it wins, he wins everything; if he loses, it will assuredly mark the definite declining of his star toward the dark horizon."
That’s the most persuasive argument I’ve heard yet. But can the British claims be trusted? C.B.S.’s Edward Murrow implies they can -- he observed the bombing of Portland’s naval base last week, and saw first-hand that the Admiralty’s reports were true that the most of the Nazis’ bombs had missed their targets. (Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune’s "air war box score" in Saturday’s editions shows the disparity between German and British claims is as great as ever -- the Nazis say they’ve shot down 599 British warplanes while losing only 142 of their own, while the British claim to have destroyed 536 German planes and lost only 127 R.A.F. planes.)
AN UNSIGHTLY GERMAN INFLUENCE. From the New Republic’s Bandwagon section, quoted from the New York Daily News -- "Michael Dorfman, president of the Hay Fever Sufferers Society of America, started a campaign yesterday to stop well meaning people from saying ‘gesundheit’ when anyone sneezes. Instead, he insists, everyone ought to say, ‘God Bless America.’"
But more importantly, he demonstrated that he would not oppose the Democrats merely for the sake of opposing them, and said a number of things which must be terribly grieving to isolationist Republicans -- "Peace is not something that a nation can achieve by itself." He endorsed conscription, in bold, plain language. He rejected the arch-neutrality of some in his party, condemned Hitler’s "barbarous and worse then medieval persecution of the Jews," and made it clear that the survival of Britain was essential to American liberty -- "The loss of the British fleet would greatly weaken our defense....If the British fleet were lost or captured, the Atlantic might be dominated by Germany....This would be a calamity for us." He also heartily endorsed the President’s pledge to aid other countries resisting Axis aggression.
What’s more, Mr. Willkie argued convincingly that he, more than President Roosevelt, is interested in a genuine coalition government to see us through the current emergency. He prominently identified himself not as a Republican, but as a "liberal Democrat who changed his party affiliation because he found democracy in the Republican Party and not in the New Deal Party." The crowd of 250,000 gathered in Elwood, Indiana for the acceptance ceremony enthusiastically cheered almost every remark, though doubtless a good number of them probably differed with their nominee’s anti-isolationist opinions. But Mr. Willkie seems above all to have the leadership ability to bring isolationists and inteventionists together.
GERMANS BOMB LONDON SUBURBS. Just one day after the Germans launched a 1,000-plane air raid that hit within eight miles of London, the Nazis sent another 1,000 to 1,500 air raiders to blast five of London’s southwestern suburbs bordering both sides of the Thames River. Sigrid Schultz’s account in the Chicago Tribune prominently describes the docks, storehouses, and industrial plants of the East End as sustaining terrific damage. James B. Reston’s New York Times story emphasizes the rush-hour timing of the raid -- "Hundreds of thousands of people were crowding out of their offices and factories to go home. Trains, subways, buses and streets were absolutely jammed." Despite the pounding, Mr. Reston writes that civilian morale "remains excellent" and adds, "If on the coast they are getting a little tired of the constant raids, certainly there are few complaints and in London optimism seems to increase as the air war develops."
Miss Schultz quotes a German source as saying rather ominously that "the German air force will prove that no power in the world can prevent it from dropping its bombs wherever it wants over England, and even if it should be necessary, over the city of London." But she adds that "authorized sources said...the city of London would be spared." For how much longer, one wonders?
THE HUMAN COST OF THE BOMBING. Frank R. Kelley’s account of the raid in the New York Herald Tribune pauses from the facts and figures of the air battles to describe what happened to a few ordinary people and places near London --
"One bomb burst close to a garage in which three persons were killed. Another victim was a man in his twenties. Girls in a factory were near where another bomb fell, and when they rushed out of the building machine-gun bullets spattered among them. Another missile blew out the windows of a saloon and wrecked a telephone booth. Shop windows were smashed. In some streets hardly a pane of glass was left in houses. Many were demolished, while others were made uninhabitable."
The New York Times account mentions a war reserve policemen who discovered the body of his thirteen-year-old son while cleaning up debris in an alley near his home. Drew Middleton of the Associated Press says the first sight he saw when entering the bombed area was "two dead air raid wardens, lying on the ground in their tin hats and blue overalls."
SPAIN, GREECE JOINING THE WAR? In the Chicago Tribune's Saturday editions, Larry Rue passes along unconfirmed reports of large Spanish troop movements in North Africa, which are seen as "a prelude to Gen. Francisco Franco’s entry into the war, depending on Italian successes in Somaliland." And as far as the battle in British Somaliland goes, Mr. Rue says that the small British force there is facing two Italian divisions, and that Britain’s meager forces will likely have to withdraw to the capital of Berbera. Friday’s New York Times says the British are in an "extremely grave position" in Somaliland, and "may have to adopt the advice given in a recent editorial in the Daily Telegraph to withdraw...altogether." (But Joseph M. Levy reports in Saturday’s Times that the Italians are still more than thirty miles from Berbera, and one of the Fascist columns has been slowed by an R.A.F. bombing and machine-gunning attack.)
Meanwhile, Greece has partially mobilized her forces after a squadron of Italian bombing and fighting planes attacked two Greek destroyers in the Aegean Sea on Friday. According to the Associated Press, Italy’s naval attache in Athens has apologized for the attack, explaining the destroyers were mistakenly identified as British. The incident doesn’t say much for Italian military prowess -- the A.P. reports seventeen bombs were lobbed at the ships, and not one hit its target. No damage was done.
HITLER’S IN A HURRY. Major George Fielding Eliot writes in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune that an invasion is probably coming, and soon --
"Judging solely from the evidence now available, accepting the British figures as to proportionate losses of planes engaged, bearing in mind that air power alone has never yet been decisive but had always proved the more formidable in combination with surface forces, it seems probable that an attempt at invasion will be forthcoming before very long, perhaps within a comparatively short time, for under present circumstances, and in face of the ominous signs (ominous to the Germans, of course) of growing Anglo-American co-operation, German leaders can hardly dare to resort to the long drawn-out and very uncertain process of blockade with such means as they have at their disposal for it. If they actually attempt invasion, it will be a cast on which Hitler will for the first time set all his fortunes. There will be no minimum and maximum objective about such an enterprise. If it wins, he wins everything; if he loses, it will assuredly mark the definite declining of his star toward the dark horizon."
That’s the most persuasive argument I’ve heard yet. But can the British claims be trusted? C.B.S.’s Edward Murrow implies they can -- he observed the bombing of Portland’s naval base last week, and saw first-hand that the Admiralty’s reports were true that the most of the Nazis’ bombs had missed their targets. (Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune’s "air war box score" in Saturday’s editions shows the disparity between German and British claims is as great as ever -- the Nazis say they’ve shot down 599 British warplanes while losing only 142 of their own, while the British claim to have destroyed 536 German planes and lost only 127 R.A.F. planes.)
AN UNSIGHTLY GERMAN INFLUENCE. From the New Republic’s Bandwagon section, quoted from the New York Daily News -- "Michael Dorfman, president of the Hay Fever Sufferers Society of America, started a campaign yesterday to stop well meaning people from saying ‘gesundheit’ when anyone sneezes. Instead, he insists, everyone ought to say, ‘God Bless America.’"
Monday, August 15, 2016
Thursday, August 15, 1940
A MAJOR BATTLE NEARING IN EAST AFRICA. Judging from Associated Press coverage, the British are nonchalant so far about the Italian offensive in eastern Africa. On one of the battlefronts, British Somaliland, Fascist troops have marched steadily through desert heat and have taken two strategic points, the Karris Pass and the Godajere Pass. They are now fifty miles from Berbera, the colony’s chief port and the region in which the British are expected to make their chief defense. The British command in Cairo put out a statement expressing remarkable disinterest in the advance thus far -- "The more the Italians dissipate their forces and their means, the more they lengthen their communications and complicate their administrative difficulties, the better it is for us."
Wednesday’s New York Times indicates the Italians have moved ninety miles forward and have taken the village of Adadleh. But the British are claiming to have repulsed their enemy in the jungle-covered region around the Karin Pass.
Beyond the day-to-day reports, there are some hopeful signs in the African campaign so far -- Italy doesn’t have anything like air supremacy in this campaign, and the British at Berbera have a steady and unmolested source of supply from Royal Navy ships coming up through the Red Sea. So far the Italian push doesn’t look much like a blitzkrieg. At least not yet.
A FOURTH DAY OF BIG NAZI AIR RAIDS. C. Brooks Peters of the New York Times describes yesterday’s 500-plane German raids on England’s southern coast as "a pulverizing process seemingly designed to pave the way for more serious activities." An Associated Press dispatch is more explicit -- the Nazi raids are apparently aimed at "smashing out an invasion bridgehead" by concentrating their bombs on the destruction of airports, oil tanks, antiaircraft batteries, and search lights. Main difference between Wednesday’s raids and earlier ones is that Nazi fliers are hitting the industrial Midlands as well. The Germans claim to have scored their greatest victory ever, of course, and maintain they now control the air over southern England. The British ridicule the claims.
But as the Times of London commented yesterday, ‘This is in fact the beginning of blitzkrieg." The huge raids are already a common-enough occurrence that the Chicago Tribune ran an "Air War Box Score" on Wednesday’s front page, listing the conflicting claims made by both sides of planes destroyed. And those claims are as different as night and day -- the British say that in four days of bombing, they’ve shot down 265 German planes and lost only 68 of their own. The Nazis, on the other hand, say they’ve shot down 327 British planes, while losing only 79 themselves.
HITLER’S "SUPREME BID." Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover thinks the raids are definitely intended to be the precursor to an invasion, if they succeed --
"The mystery of Hitler’s next move is a mystery no longer. What happens now in the Battle of Britain which began last Thursday and which, during the past three days, has developed with ever-increasing fury will depend on circumstances. If Hitler does not invade England it will be only because the raids carried out by his air force during these latter days have failed to achieve their maximum purpose. For both the nature and the ferocity of these raids point to the inevitable conclusion that they were designed to be the prelude to an all-out attack. Not otherwise would the southern and southeastern coast of England have been made the major objectives of this aerial assault carried out on a scale never before witnessed in the annals of modern warfare. For it is on that coast fronting the English Channel...that the Germans are likely to land if an attempt to invasion is made."
Mr. Nover also contends that it’s not just propaganda to say the British are unlike the enemies Hitler has faced thus far -- "They are not shot through with defeatism was were the French; they do not appear to be riddled with Fifth Column elements as were the Belgians and other victims of the Nazi blitzkrieg. Great Britain will be no easy nut for Hitler to crack. And there is at least a chance that he may break his teeth on it."
A REMINDER OF THE STAKES. In case anybody needs it, the Washington Post reminds us in a Wednesday editorial of just how important it is for Britain to prevail against Hitler, and how important it is for us to help her do so --
‘The stakes of this battle, which may prove the greatest and most decisive of the war, are of incalculable magnitude. Great Britain now stands alone in the path of Hitler’s hope of European mastery. If that last bastion of freedom is overcome, the whole of Europe will be under the domination of the totalitarian dictators. On the contrary, if Britain triumphs, a blight which for years has been spreading over the world will be arrested. So none who has the cause of freedom and democracy at heart can be indifferent to the titanic struggle now under way in the skies over England. Its outcome will affect the lives of every human being and of generations yet to be born."
A U.S. DRAFT WOULD HELP HITLER? There’s more peculiar isolationist logic circulating in Congress this week, starting with Senator Wheeler’s assertion that passing the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill would give Hitler ‘his greatest and cheapest victory to date.’ According to Chesly Manly in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune, the Montana Democrat claims a military draft would "slit the throat of the last democracy still living," and, thus...well, I don’t know what. It seems that somehow a rapid build-up of America’s armed forces would hearten the Nazis, who hate America. Or something. In any case, Mr. Manly writes that the isolationists are now offering a compromise, in which conscription would be deferred until next year, while the army seeks to meet its troop goals through permitting one-year enlistments (instead of the current three years) and raising basic pay from $21 to $30 a month.
The isolationists have already delayed the build-up of the army (which presumably Hitler must be very glum about) and have forced the military to change its plans toward greater reliance on the National Guard. A story in Wednesday’s Washington Post by John G. Norris cites General Shedd, assistant chief of staff for personnel, as telling a House committee that "the amount of time required by Congress in considering the conscription bill had made it necessary for the Army to postpone previous plans to have 900,000 men in uniform by early October. It now hopes to have such a force under arms by January 1...‘and even that is an optimistic program.’ The present program, he said, calls for mobilizing some 200,000 guardsmen -- virtually the entire militia -- and about 388,000 draftees by late December."
One-year enlistments didn’t help George Washington very much during the Revolutionary War, but the isolationists still argue that if "we’re really in danger," enough volunteers will come to the colors to save the country. The trouble is that an army, in the age of lightning war, needs large numbers of highly trained men who can be put into battle immediately. Short-term enlistments mean more turnover and confusion in military ranks, and fewer trained men to count on. And that really could give Hitler a cheap victory.
SOUNDING OFF ON THOSE ‘TANK’ SIGNS. The Chicago Tribune comes much closer to hitting the target with a wittily sarcastic response to those embarrassing army maneuvers in New York --
"The Washington program has a strange slogan: ‘War in three months; ready for it in four years.’ In the National Guard maneuvers in New York trucks are labeled ‘Tank.’ That is for the information of the referees. They are to score a tank so labeled with the striking power of a tank. Three months from now we’ll still have the signs but not the tanks....The National Guard troops now in the field for training use gas pipes for antitank guns against the tank signs. That’s a better break for the boys with the trucks than for the boys with the gas pipes. The trucks can run over the pipes....There is a hurry to conscript men who cannot be armed and to call out the National Guard. There will be a month or so of nice weather for it and then there’ll be a matter of winter housing, presumably in the south. It hasn’t been attended to. The easiest way will be to print some more signs. ‘This is a cantonment.’...War in three months, some tanks and airplanes in a year, full army equipment in four years, and some new battleships in five years. That’s our war program. Just now the congressional appropriations are our first line of defense. It is to be hoped that the hostiles can read signs."
If government and industry don’t produce war equipment at a much faster pace, and soon, it promises to be a major scandal, and a hot issue in the campaign this fall. But that’s not nearly as relevant to the army’s need for manpower as the isolationists make it out to be. Certainly much can be done to train young men in the interim, and thus conscription would help make us more secure. We shouldn’t wait until the danger is imminent before we take such action, as the Tribune and its allies bid us to do.
Wednesday’s New York Times indicates the Italians have moved ninety miles forward and have taken the village of Adadleh. But the British are claiming to have repulsed their enemy in the jungle-covered region around the Karin Pass.
Beyond the day-to-day reports, there are some hopeful signs in the African campaign so far -- Italy doesn’t have anything like air supremacy in this campaign, and the British at Berbera have a steady and unmolested source of supply from Royal Navy ships coming up through the Red Sea. So far the Italian push doesn’t look much like a blitzkrieg. At least not yet.
A FOURTH DAY OF BIG NAZI AIR RAIDS. C. Brooks Peters of the New York Times describes yesterday’s 500-plane German raids on England’s southern coast as "a pulverizing process seemingly designed to pave the way for more serious activities." An Associated Press dispatch is more explicit -- the Nazi raids are apparently aimed at "smashing out an invasion bridgehead" by concentrating their bombs on the destruction of airports, oil tanks, antiaircraft batteries, and search lights. Main difference between Wednesday’s raids and earlier ones is that Nazi fliers are hitting the industrial Midlands as well. The Germans claim to have scored their greatest victory ever, of course, and maintain they now control the air over southern England. The British ridicule the claims.
But as the Times of London commented yesterday, ‘This is in fact the beginning of blitzkrieg." The huge raids are already a common-enough occurrence that the Chicago Tribune ran an "Air War Box Score" on Wednesday’s front page, listing the conflicting claims made by both sides of planes destroyed. And those claims are as different as night and day -- the British say that in four days of bombing, they’ve shot down 265 German planes and lost only 68 of their own. The Nazis, on the other hand, say they’ve shot down 327 British planes, while losing only 79 themselves.
HITLER’S "SUPREME BID." Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover thinks the raids are definitely intended to be the precursor to an invasion, if they succeed --
"The mystery of Hitler’s next move is a mystery no longer. What happens now in the Battle of Britain which began last Thursday and which, during the past three days, has developed with ever-increasing fury will depend on circumstances. If Hitler does not invade England it will be only because the raids carried out by his air force during these latter days have failed to achieve their maximum purpose. For both the nature and the ferocity of these raids point to the inevitable conclusion that they were designed to be the prelude to an all-out attack. Not otherwise would the southern and southeastern coast of England have been made the major objectives of this aerial assault carried out on a scale never before witnessed in the annals of modern warfare. For it is on that coast fronting the English Channel...that the Germans are likely to land if an attempt to invasion is made."
Mr. Nover also contends that it’s not just propaganda to say the British are unlike the enemies Hitler has faced thus far -- "They are not shot through with defeatism was were the French; they do not appear to be riddled with Fifth Column elements as were the Belgians and other victims of the Nazi blitzkrieg. Great Britain will be no easy nut for Hitler to crack. And there is at least a chance that he may break his teeth on it."
A REMINDER OF THE STAKES. In case anybody needs it, the Washington Post reminds us in a Wednesday editorial of just how important it is for Britain to prevail against Hitler, and how important it is for us to help her do so --
‘The stakes of this battle, which may prove the greatest and most decisive of the war, are of incalculable magnitude. Great Britain now stands alone in the path of Hitler’s hope of European mastery. If that last bastion of freedom is overcome, the whole of Europe will be under the domination of the totalitarian dictators. On the contrary, if Britain triumphs, a blight which for years has been spreading over the world will be arrested. So none who has the cause of freedom and democracy at heart can be indifferent to the titanic struggle now under way in the skies over England. Its outcome will affect the lives of every human being and of generations yet to be born."
A U.S. DRAFT WOULD HELP HITLER? There’s more peculiar isolationist logic circulating in Congress this week, starting with Senator Wheeler’s assertion that passing the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill would give Hitler ‘his greatest and cheapest victory to date.’ According to Chesly Manly in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune, the Montana Democrat claims a military draft would "slit the throat of the last democracy still living," and, thus...well, I don’t know what. It seems that somehow a rapid build-up of America’s armed forces would hearten the Nazis, who hate America. Or something. In any case, Mr. Manly writes that the isolationists are now offering a compromise, in which conscription would be deferred until next year, while the army seeks to meet its troop goals through permitting one-year enlistments (instead of the current three years) and raising basic pay from $21 to $30 a month.
The isolationists have already delayed the build-up of the army (which presumably Hitler must be very glum about) and have forced the military to change its plans toward greater reliance on the National Guard. A story in Wednesday’s Washington Post by John G. Norris cites General Shedd, assistant chief of staff for personnel, as telling a House committee that "the amount of time required by Congress in considering the conscription bill had made it necessary for the Army to postpone previous plans to have 900,000 men in uniform by early October. It now hopes to have such a force under arms by January 1...‘and even that is an optimistic program.’ The present program, he said, calls for mobilizing some 200,000 guardsmen -- virtually the entire militia -- and about 388,000 draftees by late December."
One-year enlistments didn’t help George Washington very much during the Revolutionary War, but the isolationists still argue that if "we’re really in danger," enough volunteers will come to the colors to save the country. The trouble is that an army, in the age of lightning war, needs large numbers of highly trained men who can be put into battle immediately. Short-term enlistments mean more turnover and confusion in military ranks, and fewer trained men to count on. And that really could give Hitler a cheap victory.
SOUNDING OFF ON THOSE ‘TANK’ SIGNS. The Chicago Tribune comes much closer to hitting the target with a wittily sarcastic response to those embarrassing army maneuvers in New York --
"The Washington program has a strange slogan: ‘War in three months; ready for it in four years.’ In the National Guard maneuvers in New York trucks are labeled ‘Tank.’ That is for the information of the referees. They are to score a tank so labeled with the striking power of a tank. Three months from now we’ll still have the signs but not the tanks....The National Guard troops now in the field for training use gas pipes for antitank guns against the tank signs. That’s a better break for the boys with the trucks than for the boys with the gas pipes. The trucks can run over the pipes....There is a hurry to conscript men who cannot be armed and to call out the National Guard. There will be a month or so of nice weather for it and then there’ll be a matter of winter housing, presumably in the south. It hasn’t been attended to. The easiest way will be to print some more signs. ‘This is a cantonment.’...War in three months, some tanks and airplanes in a year, full army equipment in four years, and some new battleships in five years. That’s our war program. Just now the congressional appropriations are our first line of defense. It is to be hoped that the hostiles can read signs."
If government and industry don’t produce war equipment at a much faster pace, and soon, it promises to be a major scandal, and a hot issue in the campaign this fall. But that’s not nearly as relevant to the army’s need for manpower as the isolationists make it out to be. Certainly much can be done to train young men in the interim, and thus conscription would help make us more secure. We shouldn’t wait until the danger is imminent before we take such action, as the Tribune and its allies bid us to do.
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