Editorial: The Philadelphia strike
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Editorial: See Wilson
See Darryl Zanuck’s $5-million motion picture Wilson, but don’t take it seriously.
It’s designed to prove that the 28th President was one of the world’s greatest men and that we are at war today because we welshed on his proposal to join a League of Nations.
None of us believe that Germany should come out of this war with all her territories. We think today that the best guarantee of future peace is a weak Germany.
The fact that Wilson couldn’t sell us a league, therefore, is not the sole cause of the present war. He has to bear the blame for leaving Germany strong enough to stage a new effort at world conquest in our generation.
The film compares Wilson with Lincoln, but the Emancipator’s theories of freedom and dignity for all included the humblest of citizens. It included colored people.
Wilson was eloquent and persuasive when he said we fought the first war to “make the world safe for democracy.” When he cried aloud for self-determination for minorities, we took him at his word. But he double-crossed colored people just as he welshed on the political bosses who made him President.
Before he was elected, he promised colored leaders a square deal. After he became President, he told them he could not appoint them to office because it would cause troubled with the South.
Senator Nye shocked the Senate in 1936 by declaring that Wilson lied about his trip to Europe and his connection with the secret treaties. Senator Glass hopped up to defend Wilson, but Nye proved his point by the diary of Wilson’s Secretary of State hauled out of its hiding place in the Library of Congress.
Colored people distrusted Wilson as strongly as the Senate. They knew the great(?) Woodrow as a Southern politician to whom it was “second nature to pay lip service to laws he has not the slightest intention of obeying, and to principles he does not an instant propose to follow.”
The Turkish Ambassador was handed his passports by President Wilson for calling attention to America’s professions of democracy and its mistreatment of colored people.
In the midst of World War I, civilization was outraged by race riots in Springfield, Waco, Memphis, and East St. Louis. A colored delegation from Maryland sought an interview with the President, who was too busy to see them.
On that occasion, the late Kelly Miller wrote his famous open letter to Mr. Wilson, titled the “Disgrace of Democracy.” He said the President was preoccupied with his fight to abolish all war abroad and was unable to prevent lynchings and race riots at home.
Dr. Miller wrote:
A doctrine that breaks down at home is not fit to be propagated abroad. You have given the rallying cry for the present world crisis… but [your] democracy for white people only is no democracy at all.
Dr. Miller described Wilson’s attitude on the race problem as one of “passive solicitude.” He said:
It seems you regard it as a regrettable social malady to be treated with cautious and calculated neglect… During your entire career you have never done anything constructive for colored people…
All the segregation in the Armed Forces we suffer in this war, all the exclusion from promotion, and from service in the Navy, and Nurse Corps, we endured in a double portion under President Wilson.
We were Jim Crowed in Southern Army camps and publicly humiliated before our allied abroad. Of course, none of that is in the film, whose only colored character is an obsequious flunkey.
Be sure to see the 20th Century-Fox film Wilson. AFRO readers will glimpse $5 million worth of propaganda, a lavish spectacle and a tragic figure – how tragic colored people know better than most Americans.
The Red Cross regrets–
In response to a soldier’s complaint that the word “nigger” was used in a puppet and minstrel show in the station hospital, Camp Campbell, Kentucky, after which colored soldiers walked out, Clarence E. Vrooman of the Results Analysis Unit, Red Cross, told the AFRO this week:
The part of the program complained about was the prologue to the minstrel show. The particular reading was given by a 16-year-old high school girl who was a member of the dramatic club at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and was presented with no thought of possible resentment that took place, as it had been given in many parts of Tennessee recently.
This alleged objectionable term will never be used again at Red Cross entertainments in that hospital, as the field director advises us that he intends to preview all programs before presentation. We regret that this program was not previewed.
415 in 93rd Division team qualify as jungle gunmen
Men able to tackle peculiar problems of jungle warfare after training on island
By Vincent Tubbs
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Vote looms in Georgia court battle
Atlanta, Georgia (ANP) –
A double-barreled legal attack on the Georgia white Democrats was mapped here Saturday by members of the Georgia Association of Democratic Clubs.
Meeting for the first time since its members were denied the right to participate in the July 4 statewide primary, the association drew up plans to seek redress through both criminal and civil prosecution in the federal courts.
The association went on record as pledging support to the Roosevelt-Truman ticket and members asserted that they would renew their efforts to secure a record vote in Georgia in the general election in November.
Los Angeles Railway won’t hire us
FEPC finds colored conductors in Frisco; coast boilermakers are under fire
By J. Robert Smith
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Adam Powell wins New York nomination to Congress
New York –
A promise to institute impeachment proceedings against Congressmen who may try to use their Congressional immunity to preach hatred was made by Adam C. Powell, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, on Tuesday, Aug. 1.
By winning both the Republican and Democratic primaries in the 22nd Congressional district on Aug. 1, Mr. Powell, who said he will identify himself with the Democratic Party, is practically assured of election as New York’s first colored representative.
Polled overwhelming lead
On the Democratic ticket, he led Mrs. Sarah Pelham Speaks by almost 6,000 votes, and in the Republican voting by more than 800 votes.
Complete returns, unusually light, from all of the 119 election districts in the Harlem area were:
| Powell | Speaks | |
|---|---|---|
| Republican | 3,115 | 2,268 |
| Democratic | 8,862 | 1,934 |
Incumbent William T. Andrews won by 291 votes over Ruth B. Price in the 12th district for the Manhattan Assembly.
Novel interview held
The Rev. Mr. Powell’s warning on race hatred was given in a novel interview in which he spoke by telephone from his summer home in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, while reporters sat in his church office here and a press secretary read questions and took down answers.
His first act against the offender, he said, will be to raise a point of order and give him a lecture on democracy; then, if the practice continues, he will introduce a resolution asking impeachment.
Declaring his nomination “a people’s victory” and a further manifestation of the colored man’s independence in politics, he promised his cooperation to all groups “that work for full equality and full democracy for all people.”
Campaign platform
His platform called for the abolition of the poll tax, the white primary and restrictive covenants, end of segregation in the Armed Forces, federal law to end discrimination in interstate transportation and increased working opportunities.
As corporation manager at the church, he was instrumental in organizing the members for a protest march on City Hall, a movement which won greater recognition for doctors at Harlem Hospital. He succeeded his father as pastor in 1937.
Hillman lauds Powell’s victory in primaries
New York –
CIO Political Action Committee chairman Sidney Hillman hailed the victory of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the Congressional primaries here as “a tribute” to his “consistent and courageous work on behalf of the people of Harlem.”
In his congratulatory message to Powell, Hillman further states:
Your constituents realize that the cause of liberalism will best be served through the election of progressive Congressmen committed to the support of President Roosevelt’s leadership.
Radio Address by President Roosevelt
August 12, 1944, 5:00 p.m. PWT
Delivered at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington
Broadcast audio:
Ladies and gentlemen, officers and men of the Puget Sound Navy Yard:
I am glad to be back here in well-known surroundings, for, as you know, I have been coming here off and on ever since I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, and that’s over thirty years ago.
It’s nearly about four weeks ago since I left Washington, but, of course, at all times I have been in close touch with the work there and also in daily communication with our forces in the European and Far Eastern theaters of war.
Since my visit here at Bremerton nearly two years ago, I have been happy at all times to know of the splendid progress that is being maintained – kept up – both here and at many other places on the coast, progress in turning out ships and planes and munitions of almost every other kind and in the training of men and women for all of the Armed Forces.
So I have thought that you would be interested in an informal summary of the trip I have just taken to Hawaii and from there to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, from which, when I get across the Sound, I am about to step foot on the shore of the continental United States again.
When I got to San Diego three weeks ago, I spent three days before going on shipboard, and I had the opportunity at the southern end of the Pacific Coast to visit many of the patients in the large hospitals there, a large number of these patients having just come back from the fighting in the Marshall Islands and the Marianas.
And I also witnessed a large practice landing operation on the beaches of Southern California, between Los Angeles and San Diego.
It’s a kind of warfare that has been most successfully developed by us during the past two years. It’s a warfare of a wholly new type calling for all kinds of new equipment and new training.
And I think I can safely say that no other nation in the world has worked it out as successfully as we have – the way we have shown it within the past few weeks in the capture of Saipan and Tinian and the recapturing of Guam, an effort which is resulting in new threats against Japan itself and against all of their operations in the Southwest Pacific.
You know, it takes a personal observation – you’ve got to see things with your own eyes, such as I saw from a high bluff right on the coast overlooking the shore below – to understand how well the application of experience in war is being carried out.
The landing craft, a wholly new type of ship, one we didn’t dream of two years and a half ago, came to the beach from the transports that were lying offshore under cover of a fog.
They came on in waves, the Marines and the infantry getting the first toehold, followed by other waves and then by all manner of equipment, ammunition and wire and tanks, all protected by air coverage and preceded theoretically – because I wouldn’t be here today if it was real – by a devastating bombardment from heavy ships lying offshore.
When the beachhead was obtained to a depth of a mile or two, there followed the unloading of great quantities of supplies and stores of all kinds, including tanks and trucks and jeeps.
Timing – that’s why we have to practice this – timing is of the utmost importance. Any operation of this kind has to be carried out click-click-click, right on schedule, together with instantaneous communication – both the radio, the written kind, and the voice from the shore to the ships and to the planes themselves.
Here was demonstrated the perfect cooperation between all the services – Army and Navy and Marines, and to this should be added the teamwork for the immediate care of the wounded – in the case I saw it was the theoretically wounded – and the quick transfer of them back to the hospital ships.
We in our comfortable homes, I think, ought to realize more than we do that to all troops and Marines who are to conduct a new landing expedition on some far-distant island in the Pacific, as well as on the coast of France, this amphibious training is being given at a number of places in the United States before the expedition ever starts.
Hundreds of instructors are required, nearly all men who have participated in actual combat operations beforehand, and many of these instructors, most of them, indeed, will, of course, accompany the troops in the actual operation of the future landings.
The cruiser, which is on her way to another place, the cruiser on which I went from San Diego to Honolulu, is one of a number of what we call post-treaty cruisers, much larger, more powerful and faster than the prewar cruisers, which were limited by the old treaties to 10,000 tons.
This particular ship on which I voyaged joined the Pacific Fleet less than a year ago in the Western and Southwestern Pacific. Hers is a magnificent record. Her skipper and crew have brought her through all of these many offensive missions unscathed, fifteen of them, fifteen battles.
And because of the experience that she has gained and that they have gained she is an even more powerful weapon than she was the day that she joined the fleet.
Well, the voyage was uneventful and we arrived at Pearl Harbor on July 26. At this moment may I just add a word of appreciation to the press and the radio of our country. You know we have a voluntary censorship, purely voluntary. I want to thank them for the protection and the security which they gave to me and to my party at a time on this trip when nearly all the time I was within easy reach of enemy action.
The press associations and some of the newspapers actually refused to publish the facts which they got from local friends who had heard of my arrival and my trip around the Hawaiian Islands – or from local friends whose sons out there had written home about it – and the newspapers didn’t print it. That is a modern marvel.
Well, I got there on July 26 and what an amazing change since my visit there ten years ago: as big and bigger a change than a comparison between the Puget Sound Navy Yard of today with what this was ten years ago.
But out there – the change! At that time Pearl Harbor had maintained a steady growth as this yard has, so that today it is capable of making repairs to the heaviest ships, and employs a force nearly ten times as great as it did then. And, incidentally, very many of that force came straight there during the past two years and a half from the West Coast.
All of the battleships and smaller craft that were sunk or damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, have been raised with the exception of the Arizona. In her case, because of the explosion in her forward magazine, salvage was impossible. But again, in her case, her main battery of heavy guns was removed and remounted and now forms a part of the coastal defenses on the island of Oahu.
All of the other ships are afloat, most of them having been put back into commission here at Puget Sound, and nobody will ever forget that.
And, incidentally, the ships that you put back into commission, what you did to them in the process, has made of them vastly more powerful ships, better ships, with more gun power than they had before they were sunk.
And that’s one thing that I’ll never forget, the way that sunken fleet was set afloat again and has gone over the world in actually carrying out the plans of this war.
They’ve been in service, they’ve been in action, in the Pacific and elsewhere. Indeed, one of them, I think it is the Nevada, took part in the bombardment of the coast of Normandy during and after the landing operations there on June 6 this year.
I spent three days on the island of Oahu, and everywhere, as at the Navy Yard, the war activities have multiplied almost beyond belief.
On the afternoon of my arrival my old friend Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived by air from New Guinea and we began a series of extremely interesting and useful conferences, accompanied by Adm. Nimitz and by my own Chief of Staff, Adm. Leahy, who stands beside me now, and Gen. Richardson, the commanding general of the Army forces in the Hawaiian area, and Adm. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet.
In the three days we were there we talked about Pacific problems and the best methods of conducting the Pacific campaign in the days to come. These discussions developed complete accord both in the understanding of the problem that confronts us and in the opinion as to the best methods for its solution.
All of us must bear in mind the enormous size of the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific area, keeping a mental map of the world constantly in mind. The distances are greater there than anywhere else on earth.
In the old days the Hawaiian Islands used to be considered an outpost. We were not allowed to fortify Guam, nor did we fortify Wake, or Midway or Samoa.
Today the Hawaiian Islands are no longer a mere outpost. They constitute a major base from which, and from the Pacific Coast, frontline operations are being conducted twice as far away as the distance between the coast and Hawaii itself.
The Hawaiian Islands have helped to make possible the victories at Guadalcanal and New Guinea and the Marshalls and the Marianas. The Islands will make possible future operations in China – will make possible the recapture and independence of the Philippines and make possible the carrying of war into the home islands of Japan itself and their capital city of Tokyo.
In a few minutes I think it will interest you if you will let me say a few additional words about the future of the Pacific.
But first, during the rest of my stay in Hawaii, I visited the many activities, including the great airfields, the hospitals, and an ambulance plane at Hickam Field which had just flown in with wounded men from Saipan. I reviewed the 7th Division, which has made such a splendid record.
I saw a large Army group that was going through a complete course in jungle warfare – they have to do it there because we haven’t got any jungles around here – jungle warfare, an art which we have developed so expertly that our troops are more than a match in the jungle for any Japanese whom we have met yet. And I am proud of all of this basic training and the final training of our sons – all that they’re getting both at home and when they get near the front.
After rejoining our ship, we headed for the Aleutian Islands. I had read about them – heard about them – but I’d never been there before.
Arriving four days later at Adak, which is one of the more westerly islands of the group, there again I found intense activity at what might be called a nearly completed advance base. It was from there that a great part of the expeditions for the recapture of Attu and Kiska started. Adak two years ago was a bleak and practically uninhabited spot which with the other Aleutian Islands seemed relatively unimportant in the plans for the security of our own continent.
You here can well realize the commotion that followed the Japanese occupation of Attu and Kiska. You’ve dreamt of Japanese marching up the streets of Bremerton or Seattle tomorrow morning. You may have thought that the Chiefs of Staff in Washington were not paying enough attention to the threat against Alaska and the coast. We realized, of course, that such a Japanese threat could become serious if it was unopposed. But we knew also that Japan did not have the naval and air power to carry the threat into effect without greater resources and a longer time. to carry it out.
Preparation to throw the Japanese from their toehold, very skimpy toehold, had been laid even before the Japs got there, and the rest of the story you know.
It took great preparations and heavy fighting to eject them from Attu and by the time the great expedition to recapture Kiska got there the Japanese had decided that discretion was the better part of valor. They decided that retirement and retreat was better for them than hari-kari, and so they abandoned the Aleutians.
The climate at Adak is not the most inviting in the world, but I want to say a word of appreciation to the thousands of officers and men of all the services who have built up this base and other bases, many other bases, in the extreme northwest of the American continent, built them up in such a short time to a point where the people of our Pacific Coast, the people of British Columbia and of Alaska, can feel certain that we are safe against Japanese invasion on any large scale.
We were delayed by fog and rain as almost everybody is up in those parts; we had to give up putting in at Dutch Harbor but we did stop at Kodiak, a large island off the end of the Alaskan Peninsula. Here, also, the three services completed a very excellent, though smaller, base. That was the first little town really that we built in those parts, and there’s actually a small community there, the first that we saw in Alaskan waters and the first trees that we saw, because the outer Aleutians just don’t have trees. That town and those trees made me think of the coasts of Maine and Newfoundland.
We were told that a number of officers and men at this place and other posts are considering settling in Alaska after the war is over. I do hope that this is so because the development of Alaska has only been scratched and it is still the country of the pioneers, and in one sense every American is a descendant of pioneers.
Only a small part of Alaska’s resources have been explored and there is, of course, an abundance of fish and game and timber, together with great possibilities for agriculture. I could not help remembering that the climate and the crops and other resources are not essentially different from northern Europe-Norway, Sweden, Finland – for the people of these countries in spite of the cold and in winter darkness have brought their civilizations to a very high and very prosperous level. On my return to Washington, I am going to set up a study of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands as a place to which many veterans of this war, especially those who do not have strong home roots, can go to become pioneers. Alaska is a land with a very small population, but I am convinced that it has great opportunities for those who are willing to work and to help build up all kinds of new things in new lands.
So this trip has given me a chance to talk over the social and economic future of the Hawaiian group with Governor Stainback and the future of the people of Alaska with Governor Gruening. By the way, he asked me to assure you that the tan which I have acquired in Alaska in a week has come from the bright sunlight of Alaska. Near Juneau one afternoon, when we were nearly fogged out, I played hooky for three hours. I went fishing and I caught one halibut and one flounder.
Speaking again of the future, of the future of the defense of the Pacific and the use of its strong points in order to prevent attacks against us:
You who live in the Pacific Northwest have realized that a line for sea and air navigation following the Great Circle course from Puget Sound to Siberia and China passes very close to the Alaskan coast and thence westward along the line of the Aleutian Islands.
From the point of view of national defense, therefore, it is essential that our control of this route shall be undisputed. Everybody in Siberia and China knows that we have no ambition to acquire land on the Asiatic continent.
We as a people are utterly opposed to aggression and sneak attacks. But we as a people are insistent that other nations must not under any circumstances through the foreseeable future commit such attacks against the United States. Therefore, it is essential that we be fully prepared to prevent them for all time to come.
The word and the honor of Japan cannot be trusted. That is a simple statement from the military and naval and air point of view. But with the end of a Japanese threat, soon we hope, there is an excellent outlook for a permanent peace in the whole of the Pacific area.
It is therefore natural and proper for us to think of the economic and the commercial future. It is logical that we should foresee a great interchange of commerce between our shores and those of Siberia and China.
And in this commercial development Alaska and the Aleutian Islands become automatic stepping stones for trade, both by water and by cargo planes. And this means the automatic development of transportation on the way there, including the Puget Sound area.
It is as long as ten years, I think, that I talked with Mr. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, in regard to the development of highways, in regard to air routes and even a railroad via the Northwest and British Columbia and the Yukon. Great interest in both nations was aroused but it took the war to get quick action.
Today the Alcan Highway is practically completed and an air route to Fairbanks enables us to deliver thousands of planes to our ally Russia by way of Alaska and Bering Straits and Siberia. These planes are an important factor in the brilliant and brave advance of the Russian armies on their march to Berlin. And I might observe also that our close relations, our true friendship with Canada during these years has proved to be an illustrious example of working hand in hand with your neighbor for the general good.
South of this northern route, Alaska and the Aleutians, the use of other island groups must also be thought of for defense and for commerce in getting to and from the Asiatic and the American continents. We understand at last the importance of the Hawaiian Islands. It is important that we have other bases, forward bases nearer to Japan than Hawaii lies.
The same thing, we have to remember, holds true in regard to the defense of all the other American Republics, twenty others, from Mexico down past the Panama Canal and all the way down to Chile. There are hundreds of islands in the South Pacific that bear the same relation to South America and Central America and the Panama Canal as Hawaii bears to North America.
These islands are mostly in the possession of the British Empire and the French. They are important commercially just as they are from the defense point of view because they lead to New Zealand, and Australia, and the Dutch islands, and the Southern Philippines. With all these places we undoubtedly are going to have a growing trade.
We have no desire to ask for any possessions of the United Nations. But the United Nations who are working so well with us in the winning of the war will, I am confident, be glad to join us in protection against aggression and in machinery to prevent aggression. With them and with their help I am sure that we can agree completely so that Central and South America will be as safe against attack – attack from the South Pacific – as North America is going to be very soon from the North Pacific as well.
The self-interest of our allies is going to be affected by fair and friendly collaboration with us. They too will gain in national security. They will gain economically. The destinies of the peoples of the whole Pacific will for many years be entwined with our own destiny. Already there is stirring among hundreds of millions of them a desire for the right to work out their own destinies and they show no evidence in this Pacific area to overrun the earth – with one exception.
That exception is and has been for many, many years that of Japan and the Japanese people-because whether or not the people of Japan itself know and approve of what their war lords and their home lords have done for nearly a century, the fact remains that they seem to be giving hearty approval to the Japanese policy of acquisition of their neighbors and their neighbors’ lands and a military and economic control of as many other nations as they can lay their hands on.
It is an unfortunate fact that other nations cannot trust Japan. It is an unfortunate fact that years of proof must pass by before we can trust Japan and before we can classify Japan as a member of the society of Nations which seeks permanent peace and whose word we can take.
In removing the future menace of Japan to us and to our continent we are holding out the hope that other people in the Far East can be freed from the same threat.
The people of the Philippines never have wished and never will wish to be slaves of Japan. Of the people of Korea, that ancient kingdom which was overrun by the Japanese half a century ago, the same is true. The peoples of Manchuria and all the rest of China feel the same.
The same thing is true of the peoples of Indochina and Siam, the peoples of Java, and even the most primitive peoples of New Guinea and the so-called mandated islands from which I am glad to say we are in the splendid process of throwing the Japs out.
I am glad to have the opportunity of taking this short trip, first, for the conferences with Gen. MacArthur and Adm. Nimitz and, second, for the first-hand view of certain bases that are of vital importance to the ending of the war and to the prevention in the future of any similar attack.
More than a million of our troops are today overseas in the Pacific. The war is well in hand in this vast area, but I cannot tell you, if I knew, when the war will be over, either in Europe or in the Far East or the war against Japan itself.
It will be over sooner if the people of this country will maintain the making of the necessary supplies of ships and planes and all the things that go with them. By so doing we shall hasten the day of the peace. By so doing we will save our own pocketbooks and those of our children. And by so doing we will stand a better chance of substantial unity not only at home but among the United Nations in laying so securely what we all want, the foundation of a lasting peace.
Völkischer Beobachter (August 13, 1944)
Vielsagender Truppenbefehl Montgomerys –
Das Beispiel Saint-Malo
Auch der Erzbischof von Canterbury spricht in anderer Tonart
vb. Wien, 12. August –
Der Kulminationspunkt des ersten Invasionssommers ist überschritten. „V1“ fliegt nach wie vor unentwegt und mit stetig wachsender Wirkung gegen London, so daß Mister Edens Yorkshire Post heute geradezu als Bilanz schreibt: „Keine Stadt der Erde ist bisher jemals in der Weltgeschichte einer solchen Belastungsprobe ausgesetzt gewesen wie London.“
Die Regierung Churchill aber hüllt sich weiterhin in Schweigen, während die Lage an der Invasionsfront am empfindlichsten Punkt angelangt ist. Es ist der feindliche Schlauch von Avranches, wo im Zeichen erfolgreicher deutscher Gegenangriffe bereits die anglo-amerikanischen Panzerspitzen im Raum von Le Mans zur Umkehr gezwungen wurden. Hinzu kommt ein von der Feindseite nie in Rechnung gestellter, von dieser selbst als unvorstellbar fanatisch bezeichneter deutscher Widerstand. Endlich kostet Nordwestfrankreich die Alliierten einen Material- und Munitionsverschleiß, mit dem sie ebenfalls nie gerechnet haben.
Diese Faktoren mögen der Anlass dazu sein, daß gerade in diesen Tagen der ersten gelben Blätter auf der Feindseite Stimmen laut werden, die erheblich vorsichtiger und zurückhaltender zur gegenwärtigen Kriegslage wie auch zu politischen Problemen sich äußern, als dies noch angesichts der ersten Früchte des Durchbruches von Avranches vor einer Woche der Fall war, zumal damals auch die russische Flut im Osten das Halt von heute noch nicht erfahren hatte.
Überraschend klingt ein Truppenbefehl des Invasionsgenerals Montgomery vom Freitagabend, im Gegensatz zu jenem nassforschen „Gute Jagd,“ dass man früher kennengelernt hat.
Bei allem Optimismus, der zu einem Truppenbefehl gehört, haben sich in dem gestrigen Text einige Wendungen eingeschlichen, die man kaum in dem Sprachschatz des hemdärmeligen Generals vermutet hatte. „Wir sind durch schwierige Zeiten hindurchgeschritten und zuweilen war ein gut Teil Vertrauen notwendig, wenn wir nicht straucheln wollten. Als der Kampf in seinem kritischesten Stadium stand, gab es einige, die Zweifel daran hatten, ob wir uns durchbeißen würden.“ Montgomery ist der Ansicht, daß die Al
liierten sich „in diesem großen Abenteuer,“ wie der General selbst diesen für die Anglo-Amerikaner angeblich so heiligen Krieg um die Menschenrechte bezeichnet, inzwischen durchgebissen haben, gibt aber dann doch wiederum zu:
In diesen heißen Augusttagen ist es inmitten des Dunstes der Schlachtfelder nicht immer so leicht, dem Druck standzuhalten, aber solche Tage gehen vorüber. Lassen Sie uns also die Schlacht fortsetzen mit erneuerter und immer größerer Energie.
Damit gibt Montgomery selbst zu, daß alle bisherigen Anstrengungen eben doch noch nicht genügten, um das Notwendigste zu erreichen, sondern daß noch weiter erhebliche Anstrengungen auf der Feindseite nötig sind. Da aber bisher von den Leistungen der Alliierten bereits in den höchsten Superlativen gesprochen worden ist, bleibt die Frage, ob sich jetzt zu suchende „Über-Superlative“ überhaupt noch in die Wirklichkeit übersetzen lassen. Verlangt Montgomery endlich von seinen Soldaten, „dem Druck der heißen Augusttage standzuhalten,“ so gibt er damit zu, daß ein Teil seiner Truppen, zumindest in einzelnen Abschnitten, sich bereits in der Defensive befinden müssen, denn einen Druck kann selbstverständlich nur der Angreifer ausüben.
Die deutsche Härte im Angriff wie Verteidigung kommentiert geradezu ein Bericht der amerikanischen Nachrichtenagentur United Press aus Saint-Malo, der davon spricht, daß die Anglo-Amerikaner hier den deutschen Oberst von Aulock „buchstäblich angefleht“ haben, er solle kapitulieren, nachdem man ihn mit sämtlichen Kampfmitteln sowie zahllosen Ultimaten hierzu vergeblich zu zwingen versucht habe. „Dieser Stalingrad-Veteran aber gab mit seinen teils aus Köchen sowie Hilfsmannschaften bestehenden Truppen den Widerstand nicht auf. über eine noch heile Telefonleitung telefonierten die Amerikaner schließlich in die Zitadelle hinein, erhielten aber nur die Erklärung, daß die Besatzung nicht die Absicht habe, zu kapitulieren.“ Dass man nach vergeblicher Verwendung aller sonstigen Mittel den Feind schließlich um Übergabe „anfleht,“ ist fraglos ein Novum in diesem Kriege. Hinter dieser Tatsache aber steht wiederum die unbedingte Notwendigkeit für die feindlichen Truppen, vor den deutschen Stützpunkten zwangsläufig liegen zu bleiben, ohne mobil zu neuen Offensiveinsätzen zu werden, um den Krieg noch vor dem gefürchteten Herbst, über dem als besonderes Moment die quälende Drohung der neuen deutschen Waffen steht, zu entscheiden.
In dieses Programm des Feindes passt schließlich auch nicht hinein, daß der Chef der US-Heeresverwaltung, General Somervell, soeben feststellen mußte, daß gerade in dieser „Schlussrunde“ des Krieges die Produktion an dem so besonders gefragten US-Kriegsmaterial gegenüber den erhöhten Forderungen abgesunken ist, während anderseits „das Feuertempo der Artillerie mehr als doppelt so hoch“ sei, als man geschätzt habe. Der General gibt weiter zu, daß derzeit Mangel an etwa 320 „kritischen“ Bedarfsartikeln besteht und daß unter anderem bereits mehr als hundert Fliegerunternehmungen abgesagt werden mußten, weil nicht die richtige Art Bomben zur Verfügung standen. Der Chef der US-Heeresverwaltung fordert dementsprechend weitere Tausende von Arbeitern, nur bleibt auch hier die Frage, wie diese Zukunftsplanung sich mit dem so kurzfristig gesetzten Termin einer Kriegsentscheidung synchronisieren läßt.
Es läßt sich von hier aus nicht feststellen, wie weit derartige Bedenken auch bereits in die Gedanken der englischen Hochkirche, die mit maßgebenden Spitzen zu den vornehmlichen Kriegshetzern und Deutschenhassern gehört, eingedrungen ist. Immerhin hat gerade der Erzbischof von Canterbury soeben eine hochamtliche Erklärung über die „Nachkriegsstrafe für Deutschland“ herausgegeben, die von Londoner Korrespondenten des schweizerischen „Bund“ als eine völlig neue Wendung im Denken der englischen Kirche und vor allem des englischen Protestantismus bezeichnet wird.
Der Erzbischof sagt nämlich in seiner Erklärung, daß im früheren Stadium des Krieges es ihm als gerechtfertigt erschien, daß den Friedensbedingungen für Deutschland für eine begrenzte Zeit ein Element der Strafe eingeschlossen sein müsse, um der Gerechtigkeit zu genügen. Aber die Verschärfung des Bombardements der deutschen Städte haben eine Änderung in der Meinung des Erzbischofs herbeigeführt. So sagte er:
Wir müssen anerkennen daß damit eine Strafe abgedient wird, die so schwer ist, daß nicht mehr gefordert werden kann. Von nun an muß jeder Gedanke an Strafe für Deutschland über das hinaus, was durch den Krieg selbst bewirkt wird, aus dem Denken derer, die Christus folgen, ausgeschlossen bleiben.
Wir wollen nicht im Einzelnen untersuchen, wie weit bisher die Engländer genügend Möglichkeiten bereits gehabt haben, sich als Christen zu zeigen und wieviel sie davon versäumt haben. Wer das Denken eines Erzbischofs von Canterbury bisher verfolgt hat, ist nicht versucht zuzugestehen, daß ihn diesmal ausschließlich menschenfreundliche Gedanken bewegten. Wir selbst tun gut, die britische Besinnlichkeit stets auf reale Ursachen zurückzuführen, gleich ob sie in diesem Falle auf „V1,“ die gegenwärtige Lage an den Fronten oder, was wohl das Entscheidende sein dürfte, auf die deutschen Ankündigungen für den Herbst zurückzuführen sein dürften. Eine von der englischen Hochkirche uns plötzlich erteilte Absolution wird uns nicht in unserer Überzeugung irre machen, was von einem britischen Sieger den Kapitulanten erwartet. Das Beispiel für unsere Haltung bleibt der Oberst von Saint-Malo.
Neuer Erfolg unserer U-Boote –
Ergebnislose Durchbruchsversuche in der Normandie
Heftige Kämpfe bei Le Mans, um Alençon und Saint-Malo – Erneute sowjetische Angriffe zerschlagen
dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 12. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Südöstlich Caen und beiderseits der Orne wurden starke örtliche Angriffe unter hohen Verlusten für den Feind abgewiesen. Im Abschnitt südlich Vire–Mortain setzte der Gegner seine Durchbruchsversuche den ganzen Tag hindurch fort. Durch unsere sofort einsetzenden Gegenangriffe konnte er jedoch an keiner Stelle wesentlichen Geländegewinn erzielen. Heftige Kämpfe sind noch im Gange.
Nördlich Le Mans hat sich der Feind verstärkt und ist bestrebt, durch Angriff nach Norden in den Rücken unserer Hauptfront zu stoßen. Um Alençon sind heftige Kämpfe entbrannt.
Die tapfere Besatzung von Saint-Malo schlug auch gestern wieder alle feindlichen Angriffe in erbitterten Kämpfen verlustreich für den Gegner ab.
Unterseeboote versenkten vor der Invasionsküste und in anderen Seegebieten vier Frachter mit 22.000 BRT und zwei Minenräumboote. Drei weitere Schiffe und ein Zerstörer wurden torpedierten, drei feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
Schweres „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer liegt Tag und Nacht auf dem Großraum von London.
Aus Italien werden keine Kampfhandlungen von Bedeutung gemeldet.
Im Osten wurden erneute Angriffe der Sowjets bei Sanok und Mielec nach hartem Kampf ebenso zerschlagen wie im großen Weichselbogen westlich Baranow und südöstlich Warka. Eine größere Anzahl feindlicher Panzer wurde abgeschossen.
Nordwestlich Bialystok wurden erneute Durchbruchsversuche der Sowjets durch unsere Panzerverbände vereitelt. In einer Einbruchsstelle sind die Kämpfe noch im Gange.
An der lettischen Front wurden andauernde, von Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützte Angriffe der Bolschewisten im Wesentlichen abgewiesen, örtliche Einbrüche abgeriegelt. Südwestlich des Pleskauer Sees konnte der Feind nach erbitterten und verlustreichen Kämpfen etwas Boden gewinnen. An der Narwafront blieben Angriffe der Sowjets erfolglos.
Nordamerikanische Bomber führten Terrorangriffe gegen Südwestdeutschland. Besonders in den Städten Straßburg, Saarbrücken und Mülhausen entstanden Schäden in Wohnvierteln und an Kulturdenkmälern. Das Straßburger Münster wurde beschädigt.
In der Nacht griff ein schwächerer Verband feindlicher Störflugzeuge die Reichshauptstadt an. Elf Terrorbomber wurden abgeschossen.
Zum heutigen OKW-Bericht wird ergänzend mitgeteilt:
Die zur Sicherung der italienischen Westküste eingesetzten Sicherungsverbände unter dem Kommando des Kapitäns zur See Rehm haben sich bei der Abwehr feindlicher Angriffe zur See und aus der Luft besonders ausgezeichnet. In den letzten drei Monaten versenkten diese Verbände eine Korvette und vierzehn Schnellboote. Ein Unterseeboot und 21 weitere Schnellboote wurden so schwer beschädigt, daß mit dem Untergang eines Teiles dieser Schiffe zu rechnen ist. Außerdem wurden zahlreiche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
Im großen Weichselbogen hat sich Leutnant Wittrock in einem Grenadierregiment durch beispielhafte Tapferkeit hervorgetan.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 13, 1944)
Communiqué No. 127
South of CAEN, contact has been made by Allied forces converging between the rivers ORNE and LAIZE. A thrust from BRETTEVILLE-SUR-LAIZE through BARBERY reached MOULINES, while another advance from the ORNE bridgehead captured BOIS-HALBOUT.
Fighting continued all day in the SAINT-SILVAIN area where a number of counterattacks were beaten off and local advances were made.
West of the ORNE, fighting continued around Hill 229, which remains in our hand. An Allied advance down the CONDE road made some progress beyond SAINT-PIERRE-LA-VIEILLE.
East of VIRE, an advance of a mile was made in the face of heavy resistance.
Forces advancing southeastward in the VIRE area are experiencing decreasing enemy resistance. Progress has been made to a position east of MAISONCELLES. Patrols have penetrated as far as SOURDEVAL in the sector between VIRE and MORTAIN. MORTAIN has been reoccupied by our troops, but the enemy is still offering strong resistance in the vicinity of the town.
In BRITTANY, our forces are attacking the citadel at SAINT-MALO, where remnants of the enemy garrison are still resisting. Heavy fighting continues in DINARD. In the area of BREST, a local enemy counterattack was repulsed north of the city. The situation at LORIENT remains unchanged.
In the LOIRE Valley, mopping up is proceeding in ANGERS, which is now in our hands.
A large area north, east and south of Paris was swept continuously yesterday by our long-range fighters which reported great destruction of enemy rolling stock, ammunition trains and lorries, barges, marshalling yards and bridges. There was some air opposition and six enemy fighters were shot down.
U-boat shelters at BREST, LA PALLICE and BORDEAUX, a petrol dump at FORÊT DE MONTRICHARD, railyards at METZ and nine airfields were attacked by heavy bombers.
At OISSEL, the only usable SEINE bridge north of PARIS was successfully attacked by our medium bombers, which also operated against road junctions and other targets near ARGENTAN.
NORMANDY-based aircraft operated throughout the day, giving immediate support to ground forces.
Enemy shipping off the west coast of FRANCE was attacked by coastal aircraft which reported setting fire to a medium-sized vessel and blowing up a minesweeper.
Last night, enemy troop concentrations in the FALAISE area were attacked by our heavy bombers.
U.S. Navy Department (August 13, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 507
For Immediate Release
August 13, 1944
Extensive bombing raids were carried out by the Central Pacific and North Pacific shore-based air forces on August 10 and 11 (West Longitude Dates).
One enemy patrol vessel was sunk and another damaged near Paramushiru Island by two Liberators of the 11th AAF during daylight on August 10.
Chichijima in the Bonins was attacked by Liberators of the 7th AAF on August 11, which bombed the airfield and a cargo ship in the harbor. The enemy made no attempt at interception and antiaircraft fire was meager.
Pagan Island in the northern Marianas was hit by Mitchell medium bombers of the 7th AAF on August 11, damaging gun positions and runways.
During the day a single 7th AAF Liberator also bombed the Island. Antiaircraft fire was moderate.
Gun positions on Rota Island were bombed and strafed by 7th AAF Thunderbolt fighters on August 11. More than 50 tons of bombs were dropped.
A single Navy Liberator bombed Truk atoll, and 7th AAF Mitchells bombed Ponape in the Caroline Islands on August 11.
In the Marshall Islands, more than 80 tons of bombs were dropped on remaining enemy positions by Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing on August 10, hitting coastal defense guns and other defense installations. On the same day, Wotje in the Marshalls was attacked by 7th AAF Liberators. In the foregoing operations, one Dauntless dive bomber and one Liberator were damaged but all of our planes returned.
The Wilmington Morning Star (August 13, 1944)
ROOSEVELT BACK IN STATES
Defense needs given stress
Roosevelt says United Nations must prepare barriers against Japanese
Bremerton, Washington (AP) – (Aug. 12)
President Roosevelt came home, from a 15-day inspection of the Pacific war zone tonight to declare the United Nations must prepare permanent defenses against any future aggressions by the Japanese.
“The word and the honor of Japan cannot be trusted,” he declared.
The President came into dock at this huge Navy yard about 4:00 p.m. PWT, ending a war tour that began when he left the Marine base at San Diego, California, on July 21 – a day after his fourth-term nomination by the Democrats.
During his absence he visited Pearl Harbor, where he conferred with the war chiefs of the Pacific, and inspected military bases in the Aleutians.
He brought a laugh when he said he played hooky near Juneau, Alaska, long enough to sneak in three hours of fishing. The result: One halibut and one flounder.
Permanent Pacific defenses must be obtained, Mr. Roosevelt said, to protect this hemisphere from Alaska to Chile. It is important, he added, that we have permanent bases nearer to Japan.
He said:
We have no desire to ask for any possessions of the United Nations, but the United Nations who are working so well with us in the winning of the war will, I am confident, be glad to join with us in protecting against aggression and in machinery to prevent aggression.
With them and with their help, I am sure that we can agree completely so that Central and South America will be as safe against attack from the South Pacific as North America is going to be from the North Pacific itself.
As for Japan, the President said:
It is an unfortunate fact that years of proof must pass before we can trust Japan and before we can classify Japan as a member of the society of nations which seek permanent peace and whose word we can take.
The President said that during his absence – he left Washington July 13 – he kept in close touch with developments in the capital and on all war fronts. But he didn’t offer a guess on the war’s end. Sailors, workers and guests who jammed the dockside of the Puget Sound Navy Yard waved as the President’s ship moved in. The Chief Executive, wearing a felt hat and dark suit, waved back and chatted with those on shipboard as the vessel came in. He puffed easily on a cigarette and conversed with his daughter, Anna Boettiger who went out to meet the President’s ship early this afternoon.
For the most part, his talk was devoted to a serious discussion of the Pacific War and future military and economic developments in the vast area.
Mr. Roosevelt said:
The self-interests of our Allies will be affected by fair and friendly collaboration with us. They too will gain in national security. They will gain economically. The destinies of the peoples of the whole Pacific will for many years be entwined with our own destiny. Already there are stirring among hundreds of millions of them a desire for the right to work out their own destinies, and they show no evidence of seeking to overrun the earth – with one exception.
That exception is and has been for many, many years that of Japan and the Japanese people – because whether or not the people of Japan itself know and approve of what their lords have done for nearly a century, the fact remains that they seem to be giving hearty approval to the Japanese policy of acquisition of their neighbors and their neighbors’ lands, and a military and economic control of as many nations as they can lay their hands on.
Mr. Roosevelt said it is “an unfortunate fact” that the world cannot trust Japan.
By removing the future menace of Japan, he said, “we are holding out the hope that other people in the Far East can be freed from the same threat.”
He said the peoples of the Philippines, Korea, Indochina, New Guinea and the Mandated Islands have no wish to be Japanese slaves, and he declared we are in “the splendid process” of throwing the Japanese out.
The President said the war in the Pacific is “well in hand” but observed:
I cannot tell you, if I knew, when the war will be over either in Europe or in the Far East or the war against Japan.
He said:
It will be over the sooner if the people of this country will maintain the making of the necessary supplies and ships and planes. By so doing we will hasten the day of peace. By so doing we will save our own pocketbooks and those of our children; by so doing, we will run a better chance of substantial unity among the unified nations in laying more securely the foundation of a lasting peace.
The President stood at a microphone at the base on a gun mount on the destroyer to deliver his address in the navy yard. A cloudy sky obscured the sun.
He appeared tanned from his long sea voyages of recent days.
Sailors and workers jammed the area before his ship to listen to his words. As he stood to speak, a cheer and applause went up from the audience. He waved a return greeting.
While the President sat aboard the vessel before time for his speech, the Puget Sound Navy Yard band played swing tunes from a temporary bandstand thrown up on the dockside.
In his speech, Mr. Roosevelt went into detailed description of the military installations he visited in the Pacific.
He told of his military conferences in Honolulu with “my old friend Gen. Douglas MacArthur,” and said he had participated in “interesting and useful conferences accompanied by Adm. Nimitz and my own chief of staff, Adm. Leahy, and Gen. Richardson, the commanding general of Army forces in the Hawaiian area, and Adm. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet.”
The three days of conferences, he said, “developed complete accord both in the understanding of the problem that confronts us and in the opinion as to the best method for its solution.”
The Chief Executive interrupted his prepared text to comment on what he termed “a modern marvel” – the fact that newspapers did not break security to discuss his trip although they were in on the secret from the time he left Washington.
The President said the Hawaiian Islands have been converted from a mere outpost to a major base for frontline operations in the Pacific. He brought a cheer from his audience when he declared “the islands will make possible future operations in China – make possible the recapture and independence of the Philippines, and make possible the carrying of war into the home islands of Japan itself, and its capital city of Tokyo.”
Mr. Roosevelt said upon his return to Washington he intends to set up a study of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands as “a place to which many veterans of this war, especially those, who do not have strong foots in their own homes, can go to become pioneers.”
Returning to the future of the Pacific, the Chief Executive said:
Line for sea and air navigation following the great circle course from Puget to Siberia and northern China passes very close to the Alaskan coast and thence westward along the line of the Aleutian Islands. From the point of view of national defense, therefore, it is essential that our control of this route shall be undisputed.
He said:
Everybody in Siberia and China knows that we have no ambition to acquire land on the continent of Asia. We as a people are utterly opposed to aggression or sneak attacks – but we as a people are insistent that other nations must not under any circumstances through the foreseeable future commit such attacks against the United States.
Therefore, it is essential that we be fully prepared to prevent them for all time to come. The word and the honor of Japan cannot be trusted.