Vandercook: AEF fears job depression
Returns from invasion area
By Si Steinhauser
Just back from Normandy where he covered the invasion for NBC, John W. Vandercook says:
Our American fighting men are more interested in whether they’ll have a job when they come home than whether they’ll get to vote at the fall election. They have a definite fear of unemployment and another depression.
British soldiers have been greatly liberalized through their contacts with Yanks. They’re going home to change England. The New Deal position is now a British Conservative Party policy while the Labor and Liberal parties are thinking of something further to the left.
Our Americans boys want to come home to the same country they left, just the good old USA with all of the privileges that go with being a real American, including the right to say who’ll be boss in the nation’s capital.
Vandercook said the medical men of the Army are real heroes.
They serve day and night under constant fire, and in Normandy, the Nazis have deliberately fired on them. Because of their loyalty to the wounded, our casualties have a better-than-average chance of medical care within 10 minutes after they are hit and are likely to be in the hands of skilled surgeons within a half hour at the most. Because of fine air cooperation, these wounded can be taken from France to England or America in a matter of hours.
No army has ever had more or better equipment than ours in Italy and France and there have never been armies with such complete confidence. But that does not minimize the morale of our enemy. The German Army’s morale is higher than that of the civilians they left behind. Anti-war spirit in Germany has no leader, so we are still in for a fight.
Our greatest mistake here at home is to minimize the weight and importance of the Italian campaign. It is now facing its decisive test.