The Pittsburgh Press (March 15, 1943)
Best military opinion –
At least 2 years of bitter fighting lie ahead of U.S.
If Nazis are crushed in 1944, Japs may be beaten in 1945, but longer war in Europe will drag out Pacific conflict
Following is an authoritative size-up of the Allied position and prospects for victory in the two major theaters of the war by two United Press executives who met in New York this week after assignments in Europe and the Southwest Pacific.
Frank H. Bartholomew, vice president in charge of the Pacific Area of the United Press, left his desk in San Francisco in December and visited all the important Allied bases from Hawaii to Australia.
Joe Alex Morris, the foreign editor, went to London last September and was in charge of the European staff of the United Press while the United Nations were laying their plans for 1943 and making their first thrusts toward an invasion of the continent.
Both men talked with all the military leaders in their areas about the outlook for this year. Their conclusions are based on the latest and most authoritative information that it is possible to obtain within the framework of the rules governing security.
Defeat of Nazis possible in 1944
By Joe Alex Morris, United Press foreign editor
New York –
The United Nations will have their opportunity to break the back of the Axis in Europe before Christmas, but the ultimate defeat of Germany almost certainly will be a long, tough and costly task. The final victory cannot be expected until 1944 or later.
That is the broad impression you bring back from six months of close contact with men of all ranks and positions in Europe. There is no mistaking the accent on speed as essential to victory.
Details of how and when we are going to strike at the continent will be known only after operations are launched.
Time in enemy’s favor
Time is now running in favor of the enemy’s efforts to make the European fortress impregnable by exploiting the resources of the continent. Hitler has won an important success by delaying our occupation of Tunisia – a success that increases with each day of delay.
Allied power is being massed along a great steel ring drawn around Germany in preparation for land, sea and air attacks this year designed to keep the enemy on the defensive and permit us to strike where we choose and establish a bridgehead on the continent.
Hitler will undoubtedly attempt to regain the initiative in Russia or elsewhere this year, even if only for indecisive, short-lived attacks that would delay our invasion plans.
Airpower mustered
The mustering of Allied power, especially in the air, in the European and African theaters means that when Tunisia is cleaned up, we are going to strike at many points in both the Mediterranean and along the North European coast. These thrusts will be designed to force the enemy to distribute his defensive strength in a thin line or leave some avenues of approach virtually undefended.
Guerillas to rally
Every point at which we strike in Europe will potentially be the point of a major invasion because we will be in a position quickly to develop any bridgehead we establish. Once we force the enemy to fight on two or more fronts, we will be in a position to rally the guerilla strength of occupied countries and to attack other points closer to Berlin. Only then will we be able to take full advantage of the war on the Eastern Front.
The Allied purpose is to keep the Axis guessing as to where and when we strike, and this has resulted in considerable speculation as to the best avenue for attack.
One plan often discussed in London calls for an invasion by way of Greece. This would have the advantage of stretching enemy lines to the limit across Europe and, if successful, of opening the Dardanelles route for our convoys through the Black Sea to Russia. In effect, we would seek to make a junction with the Red Army.
Emphasis put on raids
What we expect to do this year is coming into dim outline in words and deeds. Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews explained part of it on the day he took over the European command when he said we were going to bomb the enemy out of the war.
The British and U.S. Air Forces have already started the pre-invasion “softening up” of the Axis, but it would be foolhardy to assume that the present scale of aerial attack can achieve that goal. We have made only a beginning.
The appointment of Gen. Sir Harold Alexander and Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, under U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, to drive the enemy out of Tunisia indicated another phase of our plans. Alexander is a handsome, soft-spoken administrator who knows modern warfare from Dunkirk to the Burma Road. Montgomery is a cold, relentless strategist who was more than a match for roughhouse Rommel.
Seeing them together, you get the idea of organization, striking power and endurance. They are not in the Mediterranean merely to clean out Tunisia.
Our commanders expect much heavier casualties as we intensify our offensive operations to break the Goebbels myth of the impregnability of the European fortress.
Hitler will certainly attempt to seize the initiative at sea this spring, probably within a month, by launching an unprecedented U-boat offensive to cut off American men and materials from the frontlines.
He has made clear that the estimated 250,000 Axis troops in Tunisia will fight to the bitter end and continue to receive supplies in an effort to hold the Mediterranean narrows to the last possible hour and thus prevent us from shifting to the North Atlantic two-thirds of the ships now supplying the Middle East and Russia by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
He may strike anew at Russia this summer because elimination of the Red Army is still his greatest single hope of victory, but if that task seems too formidable, he may attempt to set up a defense line in the east and then break through Spain to Gibraltar in a bid to rescue Rommel from the Tunisian trap.
He may attempt to disrupt our advance invasion base by an airborne “sabotage” attack on the British islands in which several specially-trained divisions would seek to destroy communications centers, airfields, bases and harbors. Such an attack might do incalculable damage before it was repelled.
If those counterblows prove futile, the Nazis can still attempt to hold us back from the European coastline and play for a prolonged war of exhaustion ending in a compromise which would be a victory for Hitler.
That is why the accent is on speed – speed on the home front, the air front and the battlefront. That is why Hitler fights for time to muster resistance in Europe and why we must strike with our maximum power on Europe this year.
Time on side of Japanese
By Frank H. Bartholomew, vice president of the United Press
New York –
If you travel some 11,000 miles southwest of San Francisco and have a first-hand look at the combat points along the 5,000-mile battlefront of the Pacific War, you realize quickly what the American and Australian leaders mean when they say time runs in favor of Japan.
The men who have tried conclusions with the Japs at every opportunity during the last year – Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Adm. William F. Halsey Jr. and Lt. Gen. Delos Emmons – are believed to be unanimous in the heartening conclusion that the Japanese can be defeated in a relatively short time after the men, ships, planes and equipment now required in Africa and Europe can be diverted to the Pacific.
The composite opinion of these men seems to be that the war can be ended by the invasion of Tokyo in the winter of 1945 provided the European Axis powers are conquered next year, which competent reporters believe to be the earliest practicable date.
10-year fight possible
If the European War runs into a stalemate, the majority (but not the unanimous) opinion of top American military leaders in the Pacific is that it will take between five and 10 years to defeat Japan.
In that event, time would run heavily in Japan’s favor. The enemy would be able to sit back behind his outer perimeter of defenses and digest the fabulously rich loot of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and particularly the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese Navy, starved for oil before the war began, is now busily restoring captured wells of the Indies, getting the rubber and tin production functioning again and organizing a protected supply line into Tokyo for these priceless commodities.
Heavy sacrifices needed
If the United Nations allow that to happen, they will have to win the war the hard way. It will be particularly hard if a stalemate still exists in Europe and the United States is forced to continue fighting on several fronts. It would call for the maximum of civilian sacrifices, something that has not even been approached yet.
A great increase in the production of our war materials would be essential. And we would have to raise an Army and Navy which would call for the drafting of every available male up to the age of 45 – single, married and fathers – except those engaged in direct war production.
We have had victories such as Guadalcanal, Papua and the Bismarck Sea. But if Adm. Nimitz’s fleet happened to lose just one major engagement with the Japanese fleet, the whole picture in the Pacific might be changed radically in a matter of a very few minutes. Our strategists then would have to contemplate the possibility of invasions of Australia, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California and the Panama Canal rather than proceeding with their present plans for the reduction of Tokyo.
The reason most of our Pacific military leaders believe we are not winning the war there at present goes back again to the time factor. True, we have been able to establish a physical line along the vast Pacific battlefront and have succeeded in halting enemy encroachments, at least temporarily, but the experts believe that is offset by the fact that the Japanese, working behind that line, have won time to exploit the loot they captured in the early days of the war.
Jap is no superman
But after talking with top officers and buck privates alike, you conclude that we have done one important thing. Since Pearl Harbor, we have thoroughly debunked the idea that the Jap is a superman. Gen. MacArthur and Adm. Nimitz and Adm. Halsey have measured the enemy and know beyond any question that they can lick him. What’s more, their “dirt soldiers” – the boys who do the ground fighting at the front – and their fliers and Marines and sailors know it too.
The picture of the Jap has changed. No longer is he the invincible opponent who swept down upon Hong Kong and who slithered quietly through the jungle to capture Singapore. The new picture of the Jap is that he is a tough, undersized soldier of a low mental order who can always be made to give ground before a tougher, larger and more intelligent opponent: a U.S. Marine, for instance.
Allies taught to be tough
The Jap taught the Americans and Australians how to be tough in jungle warfare and now has cause to regret it. The legend of Jap invincibility evaporated when Radio Tokyo complained that its troops had to relinquish Guadalcanal because the Americans were “better conditioned” to jungle warfare.
Another Jap complaint dealt with the large number of Nipponese gold teeth in circulation among the U.S. Marines as a sort of jungle money. No one, American or Jap, doubts any longer that a well-equipped American is more than a match, man for man, with the flower of the Nipponese Army.
How will we strike?
What will be the pattern of action once the planes, men and ships are available in the Pacific to start punching? You are told that it will include a gigantic aerial assault on Japan itself with the idea of knocking out Tokyo, Yokohama and the heart of the island kingdom, this attack will be based chiefly on the Chinese mainland. With that land-based aerial assault will come an attack by the three powerful divisions of the Navy – surface, submarine and air. A simultaneous aerial attack from Alaska by way of the Aleutians may also be anticipated. Then will come the invasion.
A route into China will have to be opened and maintained to supply the great fleet of bombers that will be needed. At present, Britain’s Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell is testing the tenacity of the Jap’s grip on the southern end of the Burma Road. When he has found out what he wants to know, he will be heavily reinforced with men and supplies – including American men and American supplies – for his great drive to build the springboard in China that will catapult the Allies into Japan.