Gen. Vandegrift cites amphibious operations as proof that present plan is effective
By Edward C. Eisenhart, United Press staff writer
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By Ernie Pyle
London, England – (by wireless)
If the Army fails to get ashore on D-Day, I think there are enough American correspondents here to force through a beachhead on their own.
There are gray men who covered the last war, and men from the Pacific, and there are little girls and big girls and pretty girls, and diplomatic correspondents and magazine contributors and editors and cubs and novelists. If Dog News doesn’t get a man over here pretty quickly to cover the dog angle of the invasion, I personally will never buy another copy.
At last reports, there were around 300 correspondents here. They say transmission facilities are being set up to carry a maximum of half a million words a day back to America.
While in London, we correspondents can wear either uniforms or civilian clothes. Some correspondents up from Italy have no civilian clothes and can’t get any – since we can’t get British coupons – so they have to wear uniforms constantly.
I am a civilian again for this little interlude, thanks to the old brown suit I left here a year and a half ago. The only trouble is, I get cold if the day is chilly. For the only outer coat I have is a dirty old mackinaw. I can’t wear that with my brown suit, for you can’t mix military and civilian clothing. I can’t wear it with my uniform, for it is nonregulation for city dress, and the MPs would pick me up. And I can’t buy a topcoat, for I can’t get British coupons. So, I just freeze, brother, freeze.
We live where we please, and that is a problem. It’s hard to find a place to live in crowded London. Some correspondents are lucky enough to find apartments or to share apartments with Army officers they know. Others manage to get into hotels.
Through a friend I got into one of London’s finest hotels. Ordinarily you are allowed to stay there only a few days. But, again through the influence of this very influential friend, I think the hotel is going to shut its eyes and let me stay, although nothing has actually been said about it – and I’m afraid to bring up the subject.
Odd feeling of guilt
For the first two days in my luxurious hotel room, I had an odd feeling of guilt. I’m really sincere about it. I felt ashamed, coming from Italy where so many live so miserably, to be sleeping in a beautiful soft bed in a room so tastefully decorated and deeply carpeted, with a big bathroom and constant hot water and three buttons to press to bring running either a waiter, a valet or my mail.
But I find I have a very strong willpower when it comes to readjusting to comfortable life. After a couple of days I said, “Boy, take it while you can get it,” and I don’t feel the least bit ashamed anymore.
Most correspondents who were through the campaigns in Africa, Sicily and Italy are up here now, and we feel like a sort of little family among all the new ones here.
Before I arrived, they had a big banquet for the correspondents who had been in the Mediterranean. There has been no general get-together since I got here, but a few of us call each other up and get together for a meal.
Most correspondents base on London and work out to the camps or airfields on trips of a few days each, then come back to write their stuff and wait on the invasion.
A vast Army Public Relations Branch occupied one huge four-story building and overflows into several others. They have set up a “correspondents’ room” as a sort of central headquarters for us. We get our mail there, and we go there to ask questions, and get various problems worked out, and meet each other.
Mail comes through fast
The mail, incidentally, is a revelation here. In the Mediterranean, the average letter took at least two weeks and a half to come from the States, and most of it much longer. Up here half of my mail is coming through in a week. I even have had one letter in five days, and the longest has been only two weeks on the way.
Obviously, no correspondent knows when the invasion will be or where. I imagine you could count on your fingers all the Army officers in England who know. All we correspondents can do is be ready.
Only a few will go in on the initial invasion or in the early stages. Some of the eager ones have tried to pull strings to get front seats in the invasion armada. Others with better judgment have just kept quiet and let matters take their course. Personally, I am trying to get accredited to the British Home Guard to help defend the mid-England town of Burford from German attack.
Tentative vote now exceeds majority
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
President Roosevelt has a tentative majority of Democratic National Convention votes sufficient for a fourth term nomination, barring substantial defections in the big New York delegation where James A. Farley’s strength is still to be determined.
Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, North Dakota and Wyoming have been added to the Roosevelt column this week despite what is termed by Ohio experts here as a nominal favorite son commitment to State Auditor Joseph T. Ferguson. Washington is to select delegates this week, probably to Mr. Roosevelt’s further advantage.
More votes picked up
The fourth term campaign picked up 118 convention votes in five states this week. Washington has 18 votes. If Mr. Roosevelt could depend on the entire New York delegation, he would be reasonably certain now of 600 convention votes variously pledged, informally committed or reasonably sure. A bare majority in the Democratic convention will be 589 votes.
Of the 21 states and territories from which delegates contribute so far to the Roosevelt total, few have far to the Roosevelt total, few have formally bound their representatives to the President’s renomination. But by convention action, write-ins, commitments by party leaders or otherwise, the votes appear to be safe for the administration.
Pennsylvania in bag
Among the larger states which have already acted, there is no doubt about Pennsylvania’s 72 votes and Ohio’s 52. There is little doubt about Illinois, which casts 58. The favorite son commitment in Ohio is reported to be merely a technicality to conform with state law.
The situation in New York is more difficult to determine. The state casts 96 convention votes. That Roosevelt supporters control most of those votes goes without saying. Mr. Farley is the unknown quantity. He was against a third term and he will be a convention opponent of a fourth, although none doubts that if Mr. Roosevelt is renominated, Mr. Farley will vote for him and reveal such intention publicly.
Robert E. Hannegan, Democratic National Chairman, says it is his firm conviction that FDR will run again. We suspect so too. We also suspect that Mr. Hannegan doesn’t know any more about it than we do, and we don’t know anything about it for sure.
John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, breaks his engagement to remarry the AFL and demands the return of what Fred Perkins calls John’s $60,000 engagement ring – the check he deposited as a warrant of good faith when he applied for reaffiliation of the Mine Workers with the AFL. John reminds us of the boy who goes home with the baseball bat when the rest of the kids won’t let him be pitcher.
Capt. Robert S. Johnson knocks over his 26th and 27th enemy planes in combat over Germany, tying Maj. Richard I. Bong’s Southwest Pacific score. That’s one victory for each of Capt. Johnson’s years, and three to boot, he being 24. Maj. Bong is 23. Oh decadent American youth, oh effete democracy!
Francis Biddle, Attorney General of the United States, dines on crow at Chicago, confessing in effect that he talked too big the other day when he said that in wartime “no business or property is immune” to a presidential seizure. Can it be that somebody has called Mr. Biddle’s attention to a document known as the Constitution – or to a little matter known as public opinion – or to an event scheduled for November?
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By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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WLB handling inadequate, union’s leader claims as output is curbed in big war plants
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Refuses to comment on Stalin interview
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But Hitler has little reserve
By Nat A. Barrows
How tough an opposition will our invading forces encounter when they land in Western Europe? What is really going on behind Hitler’s Atlantic Wall? From his observation post in neighboring Sweden, Nat Barrows has been collecting closely guarded information about Germany’s ability and willingness to cope with the titanic forces assembled in England for Allied victory. In a most important series of articles, of which the following is the fourth, Mr. Barrows reveals many hitherto unknown facts about the men directing the German war effort, Germany’s heavy industry, and other hitherto undisclosed information about the German war machine.
Stockholm, Sweden –
That vast mysterious war organization, the Speer Ministry, is herewith stripped of its secrets and shown for what it is – an industrial empire, conceived by a genius and implemented by five Nazi warlords ruthlessly exercising incredible powers, still intact but dangerously near collapse.
Nothing like it ever came out of any war before. No five men ever had greater power.
Now, after weeks of painstaking survey and rechecking of available sources, the story is told:
How the briefcase, lying beside Gen. Fritz Todt’s body in his wrecked airplane, offered the Third Reich two alternatives – in February 1942 – for revolutionizing German industry… how the second scheme, reducing red tape and bureaucracy to the barest minimum and permitting industry the maximum of self-government consistent with strong central authority, produced an empire without parallel anywhere… how that plan was developed into a smooth-working, skillfully coordinated network of war industries turning out huge quantities of guns, tanks, planes and submarines.
Controls the factories
Today, in the shadow of the Allied invasion, that great brainchild of Fritz Todt still wields immense power, still directly or indirectly controls every factory in the Reich, still keeps war production at high pitch.
But now it is at the saturation point. The peak has been reached. Munitions Minister Albert Speer and his four companions are extending the limits of Nazi war factories almost to the breaking point in their frantic necessity for building up more reserve stocks.
Germany, momentarily, has enough weapons and material on hand for an all-out counterattack of extremely vicious scale – in the west behind the Atlantic Wall, but only for a short-term campaign. I repeat: only for a short term.
The Speer Ministry based its production plan on the theory that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (anti-invasion supreme commander) would succeed in crushing Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s bridgeheads and tossing the Allies back to the sea after a momentary breakthrough in the Atlantic Wall.
Industrial trouble
The Nazis do not have enough reserves and weapons, if not enough aircraft, for such a short-time defense. That is a fact.
But as soon as our invasion reaches the digging-in stage, the Germans are going to find themselves in serious trouble on the industrial front. Then they must begin drawing on reserves, already heavily strained by reserves on the Eastern Front, by terrific Anglo-American bombing raids and by hundreds of isolated setbacks, which are now beginning to show themselves on the production line.
In assembling material for this series – inside the Atlantic Wall – my colleague, Ossian Goulding of the London Daily Telegraph, and I have repeatedly been told by informants freshly arrived from Germany or France, that the Allies must continue their strategic bombing at any cost – even during the actual invasion – if they want to knock out German industry.
Transportation hard hit
Europe’s transportation has already taken such a heavy battering from the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Force that it is tottering and shaking. Factory workers are overworked and very tired. Enough key plants have been knocked out to increase the future value of every factory many times over.
Germany’s five autocratic warlords have definitely provided their soldiers and sailors with ample weapons and supplies to meet the Allied invasion on D-Day. But after the first stage is over, it is a black picture for them, especially if the Red Army mounts simultaneous attacks on the East.
In no way am I suggesting that the Nazi Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine or even Luftwaffe is going to fall apart like the old one-hoss shay for lack of equipment or lack of fanatical desire to fight to the death.
Even a brief analysis of Germany’s internal setup – the Speer Ministry, for example – will show that although industry is being strained as tight as an extended rubber band, we cannot yet afford the luxury of thinking that Germany is about to blow up like a bursting ack-ack shell.
The big five
Read this explanation of how the five men of the “Magic Circle,” the five warlords, have set up their organization – and realize the kind of experts with whom we are dealing.
The five men are: Speer, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Undersecretary Körner (manager of Göring’s Four Year Plan), Field Marshal Erhard Milch (chief of staff of the Luftwaffe and Göring’s “honorary Aryan” and protégé) and Economic Minister Walther Funk.
They determine in what proportion available raw materials are to be divided among the fighting services and home industries, decide every question about production policy and adjust priority claims.
Under them are 11 coordination officers and distinctive units called Rings and Committees (Ringe und Ausschüsse).
The Rings deal with production and raw material, the Committees with finished articles: thus – Rings for iron, steel, electricity, wood and chemicals, but Committees for engines, ships and guns.
‘Little Hitlers’ of industry…
Appointed directly by Hitler upon Speer’s or Göring’s recommendation, members of the Committees are able to do anything they please subject only to appeal to Hitler – afterwards. They can take over whole factories at a moment’s notice; they can confiscate and commandeer at will, unhampered by red tape or bureaucracy.
Always at their disposal are airplanes, autos and motorcycle escorts.
These are the “Little Hitlers” in German industry: Röchling and Krupp for steel; Blücher for electricity; Hahne, Porsche and Roland for panzers; Heinkel, Messerschmitt and Dornier for aircraft. These are the men, working under direction of the “Magic Circle” autocrats, who have to keep the German armies fighting by substituting rapid results for red tape.
Supposing Rommel or his chief in France, Gen. Karl Gerd von Rundstedt, decide, for instance, that the Germans cannot compete with some new Allied tank. What happens then is simple enough, the way Fritz Todt foresaw it long ago, the way the “Magic Circle” carries it out.
Rommel’s demand is approved by the Central Planning Committee – the big five – then handed along immediately without confusion of paperwork to the Speer Ministry. Promptly it reaches the armaments delivery office, which stamps it “SS Unmittelbar Heeresbedarf” …urgent army requirement… and turned it over to the chief of the panzer committee.
The panzer committee obtains the necessary raw materials from the Speer Ministry and the job is underway in a matter of hours after the desired model has been drawn up. When Rommel’s new tanks are ready, the armaments delivery office arranges transportation to the front. No more red tape than that.
Hanns Kerrl, as president of the Speer Planning Office, is second only to Speer himself in the ministry. Once the big five have made their decisions, Kerrl translates them into action.
Types simplified
Simplification of industrial types has been one big achievement.
For example, locomotives in Germany today have 978 fewer parts than in 1941. Factories, of course, are obliged to exchange patents and production secrets.
This system has worked and worked amazingly well… one million tons of oil yearly for the fighting forces, 450 U-boats maintained and another 125 building, steel production raised from 20 million tons in 1937 to between 45 and 50 million tons in the spring of 1943.
Then came Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen – the Battle of the Ruhr… then the smashing of the Möhne and Eder Dams… then the U.S. 8th Air Force daylight raids in ever-intensified force against aircraft factories and ball-bearing plants and against dozens of Speer Ministry links in Fritz Todt’s industrial empire.
Steel production is now down to 30 million tons yearly. Ruhr Valley production of guns and tanks is well below the 30% previous level. Transportation grows worse after every Allied raid.
On the home front, the big five are stripping the country bare in a desperate effort to find scrap metal for feeding the hungry maws of the blast furnaces. Lampposts, iron railings, autos and even yacht keels are being confiscated. The loss of the Nikopol manganese deposits, the East Ukraine coal fields and now Turkish chrome, and the reduced Spanish wolfram add no brightness to the German industrial picture.
Germany has reserves today as it awaits invasion – how much only a few know. But accumulated reserves are in peril. The empire has its saturation point as it nears its final struggle inside the Atlantic Wall.
TOMORROW: Mr. Barrows tells how Hitler and his cohorts are making their own post-war plans.