The Pittsburgh Press (December 12, 1943)
U.S. fliers down 138 Nazi planes, lose 20 in heavy raid on Emden
Germans suffer crushing defeat in savage sky battle
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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Allied troops clear out key pass in Italy
Gateway to important Liri Valley believed held by 5th Army
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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18–22 group, father or not, eyed by draft
Selective Service office corrects interview on family status
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At last!
UMW, mine men agree on pact
Contract modeled on Ickes-Lewis agreement
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Ohioan defies U.S. on bonus
$3 million shared by 1,300 employees
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Hitler outlasts the Kaiser in waging war on Allies
Second world conflict has now raged as long as first; costs much heavier
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
London, England –
Adolf Hitler has outlasted the Kaiser.
At 6:00 a.m. today ET, World War II was four years and 102 days old. Within that time, the Allies ended World War I, smashed the Second Reich of Wilhelm Hohenzollern and sent the deposed ruler fleeing into exile.
Today, Hitler is at bay but his Third Reich is still far from beaten. Sober military men in Moscow, London and Washington know the cost in blood that must be paid to bring Nazi Germany to her knees.
A survey by the United Press reveals that already the Allies have paid a far greater price to resist German aggression than they did in the same span of World War I.
Military authorities believe that total Allied military deaths on all fronts already total more than 7,500,000, compared with 5,152,115 in the first war. Germany’s military deaths are estimated at 2,500,000, compared with the loss of 1,773,700 in World War I.
Another 10 million civilians are believed to have died in this war.
Only a small fraction of Allied civilian losses are attributed to direct “enemy action” in air raids or land attacks. The overwhelming number died as a result of maltreatment – cold and systematic starvation – and the mass executions in Poland and Russia.
The staggering loss of civilian property, which was resulted from modern war-making methods and the broad scope of the conflict, is beyond estimate but must already be several times the total of the first world conflict.
Figures on the comparative cost in money of the two wars are not available from all Allied countries, but the United States has spent $142,500,000,000, estimated through Dec. 13, compared with $32,830,000,000 in World War I.
The First World War is calculated to have started on Aug. 1, 1914, on the heels of the first hostilities between Austria and Serbia when the Kaiser declared war on Russia, committing the world’s major powers to war. Four years and 102 days later, the German Navy was in mutiny, the army was reeling along the dismal “road back,” the home front had cracked wide open and every ally had deserted the Reich. Germany proper would have become a battleground in a few more days, so the Germans quit.
Fighting with desperation
Hitler plunged the world into the Second World War Sept. 1, 1939, with his attack on Poland, which spread war across the globe until World War I was dwarfed by comparison. Today, Hitler is still fighting, with the desperation of a cornered gangster.
Most military men here believe Hitler cannot last another year, but they also believe that he intends to make the closing months as bloody as possible and to destroy as much of Europe with him as possible.
They appraise Germany’s remaining strength as follows:
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THE ARMY: Suffered probably 2,500,000 fatalities, three-quarters of a million more than in the first war; exhausted the strategic reserve once held to meet any new Allied attack, but still has 300 well-equipped divisions.
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THE LUFTWAFFE: No longer can compare with Allied airpower on offensive, but still strong defensively.
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GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION: So strongly held that Russia, Britain and the United States will have to fight their way over hundreds of miles of slave states before they can strike the Reich.
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ECONOMY: Superbly planned to assure Germany food regardless of whether the rest of Europe starves.
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HOME FRONT: Control so organized that German morale must still be rated as good. The Nazi Party has convinced the people that they are lost once they crack.
German weakness
They appraise German weakness this way:
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ALLIED AIRPOWER: Has turned the key industrial centers of Germany into battlefields as terrible as in any war save possibly Verdun and Stalingrad; has deprived the armies in the east of tanks, trucks and weapons with which to fight the Russians.
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RESERVES: With huge stocks of men and weapons now coming to the Big Three, Germany finds her reserves of both deteriorating.
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U-BOATS: This weapon has failed the Germans and been brought under control.
Sometime next year, Germany faces converging land attacks from at least three directions which in the end may involve five million Allied soldiers.
Legend of silver Jap Zero claims ace can ‘evaporate’
Pilot is said to have survived direct-hit bursts, but story always told of someone else
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In Washington –
New tax may make Christmas gifts dearer next year
Luxury items will be hardest hit; OPA freezes New Year’s Ever prices for nightspot frolics
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Aussies drive against Japs
Fighting flares in Ramu Valley area and on Huon Peninsula
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Canadian plan asked to ease whisky pinch
Senator Van Nuys asserts national rationing may be needed
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Poll: Union support for Democrats is falling off
Republicans now favored by 34% as compared to 20% in 1936
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Glass throws his support to soldier vote
Guffey repeats criticism of Senate opponents of measure
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Mrs. Luce suggests 4-Fs precede women in draft
‘Let’s get the men into service first,’ author of national service bill urges
Washington (UP) – (Dec. 11)
A WAC is nothing but a “feminine 4-F,” according to Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT), but wait a minute – she doesn’t mean it disparagingly.
Asked today if she would favor drafting of single women into the Armed Forces to reinforce the shortage of WACs, Mrs. Luce replied:
I’m not opposed to drafting women, but let’s get these men into the service first.
You know what a WAC is. She’s nothing but a feminine 4-F. There’s not a thing my 19- or 20-year-old daughter can do that the boy across the street with bad eyes can’t do. I’m for making use of the 4-Fs first, and then if we need more women in the Armed Forces, we can draft them later.
Mrs. Luce is the author of a national service bill now before the House Military Affairs Committee which would draft 4-Fs and other men in non-essential activities into war work as needed.
New WAC recruits to report after Jan. 1
Washington (UP) – (Dec. 11)
The Women’s Army Corps will grant temporary “pre-induction furloughs” to recruits enlisting between now and Jan. 1 so they may celebrate the Christmas holidays at home, the War Department announced tonight.
These recruits will be placed in the ranks of the enlisted reserve and called to active duty after Jan. 1.
U.S. speeds notice to prisoners’ kin
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Sky trails –
U.S. aviation booms 40 years after birth
Plane production rate on West Coast is 100 a day; commercial, military flying increases
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Binder: Grave error to think war almost over
Analyst says fight left in enemy must not be underestimated
By Carroll Binder
Although the conferences of the past few months – Québec, Moscow, Cairo and Tehran – have expedited as well as assured defeat of both Germany and Japan, it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the fight still left in the enemy and the enormity of the effort and the sacrifice which must yet be made to achieve victory.
The Chicago Daily News Foreign Service correspondents in all of the fighting areas were asked to estimate the duration of the war this week. The earliest that any of them believed Germany could be defeated is the summer of 1944.
Several thought it would take until autumn to defeat Germany, one until a year from now. No one believed Japan could be defeated before 1945 and one correspondent, fresh from the Battle of the Gilberts, thought it might take as long as 1949 to defeat Japan if Russia does not join in the war against Japan after Germany is defeated.
Hardest fighting ahead
Prime Minister Churchill and Prime Minister Smuts of South Africa envisaged the defeat of Germany in 1944, but warned, as did Secretary of War Stimson, that the hardest fighting of the war and the heaviest casualty lists lie ahead.
Every American would like to know the nature of the military operations agreed upon at Tehran and Cairo and no patriotic American would like the enemy to know what to prepare for.
The enemy, however, has his own ideas of what we are up to and freely tells the world what to expect.
Tentative deductions
Having no knowledge of what is actually planned and therefore being free to make deductions from published reports, I set forth some tentative impressions subject to revision in the light of fuller information.
I expect to see a large-scale winter offensive in Russia when the mud hardens and the rivers and marshes freeze in the central and southern battle zones. The Germans, however, are fighting on shortened lines and enjoy undisrupted communications lines over territory systematically damaged by the retreating Germans.
It may be assumed that the air warfare will be continued with maximum force against German industries, communications and key cities.
Rome airfields objective
We will continue to fight our way north in Italy at least until we gain mastery of the airfields beyond Rome which will enable us to bomb those portions of German-occupied Rome not easily accessible from Africa or the United Kingdom. I doubt if Italy will be one of our major military operations.
We will continue our combined air and sea warfare against the U-boat so as to keep the seas free for our ships supplying our Allies and our forces and the use of our steadily expanding naval power wherever it will do most injury to the enemy. Our merchant vessel losses from U-boats in November were lower than for any month since May 1940.
We will continue assisting the guerrillas in Yugoslavia, Greece and wherever else patriots fight the Germans so as to make the turbulent Balkans increasingly difficult for the Germans to contain.
Bulk for Partisans
Inasmuch as the Partisan forces of Yugoslavia headed by Marshal Tito (Josip Broz) and estimated by the British to number 200,000 men are putting the most formidable resistance against the Germans. Great Britain and the United States, it was officially announced this week, will give the bulk of their military assistance to the Partisans.
What military operations will be undertaken in the Balkans by British or American armies in the near future may in part be contingent on Germany’s reaction to Turkey’s public rapprochement to Great Britain and the United States this week.
On Nov. 20, I suggested that the Moscow Conference could hardly have succeeded without American and British assurances of an early attack on Germany in Western Europe. Last week, overimpressed by the possible deterrent influence upon Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill of the risks and losses inherent in an attack upon Germany in Western Europe while German morale remains strong and German capacity to resist is so great, I ventured the opinion that such an attack might not be made for “many months.”
In the light of what I have read since then, I think the Nov. 20 viewpoint was the sounder one. The invasion is likely to take place a few months hence rather than many months hence.