Simms: Escape clause
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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War life in Buenos Aires –
The rich go to ‘bowery,’ while laborers go snooty
Writer’s visit to ‘tough district’ fizzles but trip to ‘nice place’ has surprise
By Ernie Hill
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Indians confer with Viceroy
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, every big criminal makes a wrong move sooner or later and that old Hitler has finally made his. Reports are he is running around garbed as a member of the feminine sex.
Girls, he’s on our home ground now! Let’s get him!
After all, with apologies to those good-looking fellows in the FBI, aren’t women the greatest man-hunters in the world?
Next time you see a particularly pushy woman with a peek-a-boo bang showing at a bargain counter clerk to see that it isn’t Adolf. Next time you see a pair of high heels walking down the street make sure that a third heel isn’t wearing them. Or next time you see a woman driving on the right side and making correct hand signals at a corner, something’s fishy.
So Adolf wants to be a pin-up girl, eh? Too bad we don’t wear hatpins anymore and could oblige him.
Pirates lose ground in flag chase
Trip to West brings setback; Bucs split Sunday bill with Reds
By Chester L. Smith, sports editor
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Dodgers lose no ground but Braves snap string
By the United Press
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Youngstown Vindicator (June 25, 1945)
ON THE RECORD —
No-politics plan in Germany
By Dorothy Thompson
PARIS, France – I confess that after the enormous effort crowded into the few weeks spent in Germany, I have no notion of what, if anything, is going on in the German mind. There is despair, there is immeasurable shock and disillusionment, there is terrible and unfocused hatred, there is shame and truculence, there is fear. There are all signs of demoralization, callousness, self-pity and, it seems to me more than anything else, a docile, almost imbecile vacuity of morale, both intellectual and political.
It is as though the whole history of Rome from the Republic through Nero and Caligula to the fall has been crowded into 12 years of national experience and all reactions are emotional.
My overwhelming impression is nothing is going on in the German mind at all – everything is happening in the solar plexus and, like dreadful problem children with unaccountable shifts in mood, the German people are, at one moment, throwing themselves into our arms with low moans and, possibly, in another they may be biting our throats or rending their own garments or holding Holy Roller meetings. I just don’t know. Neither, however, do the people entrusted with military government and obviously they never will know as long as they prohibit any sort of political activity.
No way to find out
When we entered Munich, the Bavarian separatist movement was contending with the free German movement. Our people seem to think neither amounted to anything. Probably we are right, but unless the Germans could speak and publish papers, how in the world can we know?
All life of the mind depends upon communication and reactions of others to the communication. We are living in a world here where there is no communication between the Allied Military Government and the people except for the communication of orders, and there is no communication of the German people with one another.
We select officials by asking them to answer questionnaires, though no housewife would hire a cook that ways. The non-fraternization order holds at the highest levels. The military governor of a province may not sit down and talk sympathetically in a two-way conversation with someone he intends to entrust with an important task, such as forming an anti-Nazi cabinet. But one has to talk sympathetically with people even to find out that they are scoundrels.
Devers home, calls German people docile
Says Germans met master, are out for 100 years; Simpson also home
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Lawrence: Exposing war blunders
Urges inquiry before deciding on Army-Navy union
By David Lawrence
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6 GM executives top salary listings for year
Company president first with $459,041; industrial chiefs replace movie stars in lead
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Hitler kept hopes Japs would attack Russia
Even after Stalingrad, he counted on action; admitted he didn’t know what Nips planned
By Jack Fleischer, United Press staff writer
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Eliot: Price Okinawa cost not too high
Compares casualties with Iwo and Saipan battles
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot
While we do not as yet have the full breakdown of the American casualties on Okinawa, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz has made public enough figures so that some comparisons can usefully be drawn. These comparisons suggest that the Okinawa campaign has not been as costly as hasty assumptions have led many of us to believe.
In the first place, we have – in comparing Okinawa with Iwo Jima and Saipan – tended to forget that on Okinawa we were using many more troops than we did at either of the other two places. Hence comparisons based on total casualty figures are misleading; a better comparison may be had by using percentages.
The total numbers of troops and navy personnel employed are not available. But we do know that we used seven divisions on Okinawa as against three divisions at Iwo Jima and at Saipan. We will not go far wrong if we assume hat the amount of naval and air support, special service units, and so on, will be roughly proportionate to the number of divisions employed.
Compares casualty figures
Now let us look at the casualty figures.
| Total casualties | Killed and missing | Wounded |
|---|---|---|
| Okinawa | 11,260 | 33,769 |
| Iwo | 4,630 | 15,308 |
| Saipan | 3,426 | 13,099 |
| Average casualties per division engaged | Killed and missing | Wounded |
|---|---|---|
| Okinawa | 1,608 | 4,824 |
| Iwo | 1,543 | 5,103 |
| Saipan | 1,142 | 4,366 |
If you look only at the first two columns, the natural tendency is to say: “Good Lord, it is getting worse as we go along. At this rate the conquest of Japan will cost us millions.”
But if you also look at the second two columns, you realize that in proportion to the numbers engaged, the losses on Okinawa were about the same as on Iwo, and not vastly greater than on Saipan.
95,000 Japs defended Okinawa
But there is still another yardstick which must be applied to these figures, and that is the number of days that the fighting continued. We cleaned up Saipan in 24 days and Iwo in 26. It took us 82 days to possess ourselves of Okinawa. The reason is, of course, that Okinawa is a much larger place than either Iwo or Saipan, was more heavily garrisoned, and we had to use much larger forces. Iwo was defended by 24,000 Japanese, Saipan by 30,000, while on Okinawa, including a certain number of local selectees, we had to deal with 95,000 of the enemy.
On both Iwo and Saipan, the fighting was conducted in one sustained, intensive operation, almost without pause. On Okinawa, there were operational pauses here and there, as is inevitable in any campaign involving an entire army.
Moreover, it should be remembered that in the Okinawa campaign, we were fighting much closer to the mainland of Japan and therefore to the sources of Japanese power – especially airpower – than we were either on Iwo or Saipan.
And by the time we got to Okinawa, the Japanese were really beginning to get their suicide air attacks going on a large scale. Hence at Okinawa we had a disproportionately high ratio of naval casualties.
Strongest axis co-operation during entire war.
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The Syonan Shimbun (June 26, 1945)
Enemy had to pay terrible price: Okinawa proves costly venture
80,000 casualties, 600 ships sunk, damaged
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