Chapter 6
“A CALL TO NATION”
January–May 1941
T he New Year opened with the news that Winston Churchill had been selected as the “Man of the Year” by Time magazinein 1941. But it was President Roosevelt who dominated Times reporting in theearly spring of 1941. On January 6 he told Congress that four freedoms had to be upheld in the world—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. What Roosevelt sought was popular support for the introduction of Lend-Lease into Congress. There were powerful debates between isolationists and internationalists about how far the United States should go in helping any country at war, but in the end, on March 12, 1941, the House approved the legislation by 317 votes to 71. The Times ran long reports on the sweeping new powers that the president now enjoyed as a result of Lend-Lease, but rather than following the line from the 1930s against increased executive authority, Arthur Sulzberger, The Times publisher, continued to support American internationalism and the drive to rearm.
The course of the war abroad became even more confused as German bombers continued to pound British cities while the British Bomber Command dropped bombs whenever it could on German towns. But unlike coverage of the early Blitz bombing, news of the heavy raids between January and March 1941 faded away, to be replaced by keener interest in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The British invasion of the Italian Empire in East Africa met scant resistance, while the Italian Army in Libya was pushed back across more than half the country. The crisis for the Italian troops in Greece and North Africa forced Mussolini to ask Hitler for help. On February 12 General Erwin Rommel was sent with the first units of a new German Afrika Korps to Libya and in March he began to push back the overstretched British Commonwealth forces. The German Army also prepared to invade Greece to keep the Italians from being defeated. Efforts were made to get Yugoslavia to join the Tri-Partite Pact as an ally, but no sooner had The Times reported “Belgrade in Axis” than a coup by the Yugoslav Air Force and Army overthrew the government and canceled Yugoslav agreement. Times reporter Ray Brock was in Belgrade and scooped the world in reporting the coup, which he watched from the street. He was at the forefront of the subsequent German invasion too, and by April 11 The Times’s headline was “Nazis at Belgrade.” The Times’s own history later claimed that this was “story-book journalism.”
The Yugoslav defeat opened the way for a series of disasters for Britain. In March Churchill dispatched an expeditionary force to Greece to help shore up Greek defenses, but by April 28 Greece was overrun by a combined German-Italian force and the British had to evacuate to Crete. On May 20, 1941, German paratroopers commanded by General Kurt Student dropped out of the sky onto British air bases on Crete. Despite heavy losses, the German troops consolidated their position and the British Commonwealth forces once again had to evacuate, leaving 10,000 in German hands. For the Allies at this point, the only bright spots in the war news were the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck on May 28, after the British HMS Hood had been blown up by a lucky hit from the Bismarck’s guns, and the successful suppression of an anti-British rebellion in Iraq. As more of the world succumbed to violence it was clear in the United States that a major crisis was approaching and 85 percent in a Gallup Poll expected to find America in the war at some point, though far fewer wanted it to happen. On May 28 Roosevelt proclaimed “an unlimited national emergency” so he could better assist the British in the Atlantic. “Germany must be defeated,” he announced, “whatever effort, including war, might be involved.” The Times headlined it “A Call to Nation.”
JANUARY 2, 1941
BRITISH CENSOR EXPLAINS
Says Aim Is Simply To Bar Useful Data From Nation’s Foes
Special Cable to The New York Times
LONDON, Jan. l —The man who watches over British cables, telephones, mails and the radio stepped before the microphones last night and told why and how he did it.
He is C.J. Radcliffe, Acting Controller of the Press.
He described the censorship as “the rationing of news.” Rationing is unpopular in this country where food is affected and even less popular as far as news is concerned.
Mr. Radcliffe’s major point was that there was no intention of hiding ugly facts from the people.
He said the censorship’s only aim was to bar information that might help the Nazis. He asserted that if the government permitted the announcement of town names after every bombing “it would enable the enemy to correct errors in navigation and be more accurate the next time.” 
JANUARY 6, 1941
20-DAY SIEGE ENDS
Commander of Garrison Is Among The Italians Captured at Port
Special Cable to The New York Times.
CAIRO, Egypt, Jan. 5 —Bardia, the first big Italian stronghold in Libya, has fallen after the greatest British onslaught of the war thus far—an onslaught in which Australian forces played a conspicuous part and in which the British Army, Navy and Air Force cooperated in simultaneous bombardment of Italian ports, batteries, ammunition depots and air bases.
Within thirty-six hours Australian infantry, fighting in perfect cooperation with the British mechanized units, warships and bombers, smashed the iron defense ring of the strategically important seaport base constructed by the Italians near the Libyan-Egyptian border. The port fell at 1:30 o’clock this afternoon after twenty days of siege.
Earlier in the day it was reported that more than 15,000 prisoners had been captured and that the northern sector of the Bardia defenses had been forced to surrender. The Italian defenders were pushed to a southeastern zone, where mopping-up operations went on. What remained of the Italian garrison of more than 25,000 men surrendered later in the day and the Italian flag was hauled down from the staff over Government House in Bardia. The British were unable to make a complete count of the number of prisoners, saying only that it exceeded 25,000.
British take port in desert ‘Blitzkrieg’: Less than a month after the start of the Egyptian-Libyan offensive Australian troops have smashed into Bardia. Shown on the map are the successive stages in the campaign.
BARDIA COMMANDER SEIZED
The British communiqué announcing the capture of Bardia said that the prisoners included General Annibale Bergonzoli, in command of the garrison; another corps commander and four senior generals. All the Italian stores and equipment were seized, it was stated. The British captured or destroyed forty-five light Fascist tanks and five medium tanks.
The Australians were in high spirits as they surged into Bardia, some of them shouting “Boy, what do you think of us now?” and “What time do the pubs shut in Bardia? We mean to get in this evening.”
The full force of the British attack was launched against the Bardia garrison at dawn on Friday. A correspondent at the scene wrote that the “decisiveness of the British victory was due to the meticulous preparations made during the preceding weeks.”
“Australian patrols had penetrated the defense perimeter night after night and obtained exact details of all anti-tank traps, pillboxes and other defense positions,” the correspondent said. “At the zero hour on Friday Australian sappers advanced to cut barbed wire. The Australian infantry followed and kept the Italian first line busy while the sappers coolly blew up the sides of the tank traps, filled them in with earth and smashed a double apron of fencing.
RESISTANCE WAS DESPERATE
“In the initial stage of the offensive the Italians put up a desperate resistance and it was at this stage that the British casualties, slight throughout, occurred. By the end of the first evening the Australian brigades had penetrated the outer ring of defenses to a distance of 3,000 yards on a 12,000-yard front.
“Meanwhile, to the north British mechanized forces had infiltrated the positions for a considerable distance.”
Before darkness fell yesterday the Italian troops occupying the northern sector of the Bardia defenses were forced to surrender.
JANUARY 11, 1941
Text of Lease-Lend Bill
By The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 —The text of the measure introduced in Congress today to effect President Roosevelt’s plan of lending or leasing military equipment to “democracies” was as follows:
A BILL
To further promote the defense of the United States, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this act may be cited as “an act to promote the defense of the United States.”
SECTION II
As used in this act:
The term “defense article” means:
Any weapon, munition, aircraft, vessel, or boat;
Any machinery, facility, tool, material, or supply necessary for the manufacture, production, processing, repair, servicing, or operation of any article described in this subsection:
Any component material or part of or equipment for any article described in this subsection:
DEFENSE ARTICLES DESCRIBED
Any other commodity or article for defense. Such term “defense article” includes any article described in this subsection: Manufactured or procured pursuant to Section 3 or to which the United States or any foreign government has or hereafter acquires title, possession or control.
The term “defense information” means any plan, specification, design, prototype, or information pertaining to any defense article.
SECTION III
Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the President may, from time to time, when he deems it in the interest of national defense, authorize the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head of any other department or agency of the government:
To manufacture in arsenals, factories and shipyards under their jurisdiction, or otherwise procure, any defense article for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.
To sell, transfer, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any defense article.
To test, inspect, prove, repair, outfit, recondition, or otherwise to place in good working order any defense article for any such government under Paragraph 2 of this subsection.
To communicate to any such government information pertaining to any defense article furnished to such government under the proposed bill.
To release for export any defense article to any such government.
The terms and conditions upon which any such foreign government receives any aid authorized under subsection (A) shall be those which the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to the United States may be payment or repayment in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory.
SECTION IV
All contracts or agreements made for the disposition of any defense article or defense information pursuant to Section III shall contain a clause by which the foreign government undertakes that it will not, without the consent of the President, transfer title to or possession of such defense article or defense information by gift, sale, or otherwise, or permit its use by anyone not an officer, employee, or agent of such foreign government.
SECTION V
The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head of any other department or agency of the government involved shall, when any such defense article or defense information is exported, immediately inform the department or agency designated by the President to administer Section VI of the Act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714), of the quantities, character, value, terms of disposition and destination of the article and information so exported.
SECTION VI
There is hereby authorized to be appropriated from time to time, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such amounts as may be necessary to carry out the provisions and accomplish the purpose of this act.
All money and all property which is converted into money received under Section III from any government shall, with the approval of the Director of the Budget, revert to the respective appropriation or appropriations out of which funds were expended with respect to the defense article or defense information for which such consideration is received, and shall be available for expenditure for the purpose for which such expended funds were appropriated by law, during the fiscal year in which such funds are received and the ensuing fiscal year.
SECTION VII
The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the head of the department or agency shall in all contracts or agreements for the disposition of any defense article or defense information fully protect the rights of all citizens of the United States who shall have patent rights in and to any such article or information which is hereby authorized to be disposed of and the payments collected for royalties on such patents shall be paid to the owners and holders of such patents.
SECTION VIII
The Secretaries of War and of the Navy are hereby authorized to purchase or otherwise acquire arms, ammunition and implements of war produced within the jurisdiction of any country to which Section III is applicable, whenever the President deems such purchase or acquisition to be necessary in the interests of the defense of the United States.
SECTION IX
The President may, from time to time, promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry out any of the proposals of this act; and he may exercise any power or authority conferred on him by this act through such department, agency or officer as he shall direct.
JANUARY 12, 1941
BEHIND THE SCENES IN EUROPE
William L. Shirer, Correspondent for Radio, Discloses the Obstacles Met in Following the History-Makers
By GEORGE A. MOONEY
“We take you now to Berlin. Come in, Berlin.…” Until recently those words were the set patter by which WABC’s announcer in New York introduced William L. Shirer, Columbia’s correspondent in the German capital. Mr. Shirer, tall, scholarly and somewhat grayer than is usual for one of 30-odd years, recently returned here after having “covered” Berlin and Eastern Europe since 1937. The job was not easy.
To listeners, relaxed comfortably in their easy chairs at home, his voice from a nation at war has been but another taken-for-granted bit of radio magic. For them the broadcasts from sources of world events involved only the snapping of a switch. For Mr. Shirer the programs meant working at all hours of the day and night under the combined hardships of censorship, blackouts, air-raids, limited rations and other wartime restrictions. Interviewed here soon after his arrival, he told how it was done.
A CORRESPONDENT’S SCHEDULE
While he was in Berlin his working “day” was patterned on the following schedule, he disclosed. The comments are his own.
10 A.M. Rise. (“Pretty tough if an air raid has kept you up to 6 or 7.”)
10:20 A.M. Breakfast.
11 A.M. Read papers, magazines, etc.
12 P.M. Visit persons passing through, from occupied areas and elsewhere; diplomats and government officials.
1 P.M. Attend Foreign Office press conference. (“The information is read out and questions are permitted.”)
1:30 P.M. Go to short-wave station about five miles from the center of Berlin. Read German news agency [D. N. B.’s] ticker radio reports. Write script. (“The censors, most of whom learned their English in England or America as professors or business men, are right there in the station and usually I submitted my script page by page. After it was found acceptable an English-speaking checker stood next to me in the studio during the broadcast. Until the occupation of Scandinavia the censors were fairly liberal. It’s funny: some days an item would get by, other times it was killed. You had to keep trying.”)
American foreign correspondent William L. Shirer (center) with other reporters in France, June 1940.
3 P.M. Broadcast. (“On German Summer time that was 8 A.M. in New York. When the broadcast was finished it was too late to get lunch. Berlin restaurants are required to close at 3 on account of limited help and fuel. I would go back to my hotel, where I had a supply of cheese I got from Denmark each week. Then I’d send out for hot water and have tea and a cheese sandwich.”)
5 P.M. Attend Propaganda Ministry’s press conference in the Theater Salle; prepare for late broadcast, etc.
The Theater Salle, an auditorium decorated in the modernistic manner, was constructed especially for the accommodation of such conferences, Mr. Shirer explained.
VISITS BY GOEBBELS
“It seats about 200 people in very comfortable upholstered chairs, facing the stage where the officials sit. On the stage, as a sort of backdrop, there is a huge illuminated map where the High Command boys used to try to tell us what it was all about. Goebbels himself occasionally dropped in.”
Other, lesser officials and military men figuring in the news, Mr. Shirer said, would occupy the stage from time to time, and interviews were often conducted more or less “over the footlights.” Occasionally, uncensored newsreels and “nonpolitical” American movies were shown for the enjoyment of the correspondents, he said, for “the Germans did everything possible to keep the correspondents in the best possible humor.”
Foreign correspondents in Berlin are classified as “heavy laborers,” a device which doubles their food allotment, he continued. At the time he left, he said, the double ration consisted of two pounds of meat each week, a half pound of butter and four pounds of bread. In addition the Germans established a club for the correspondents where they could get “better food and real, honest-to-goodness coffee.”
“The chance to get a cup of real coffee and a juicy steak there WAS a temptation,” he added.
For all the official “cooperation,” however, Berlin life was scarcely pleasant in any normal sense, and in general the correspondents were required to observe the regulations. During November, December and January it is dark in Berlin by 6 P.M., Mr. Shirer recalled, “and the raiders could be over by 8, which meant you had to stay where you were caught by the sirens.”
“It was strictly verboten to circulate in the city during an alarm,” he said. “All transportation stopped and if you were in a car you had to leave it at the curb and take shelter. So, although my second broadcast was not until 1:45 A.M.—6:45 P.M. here—I had to be at the station by 8 in the evening and then just sit.”
Greater than the inconvenience of time differences were the difficulties encountered in “filing a story” from battle areas. In covering the Battle of Gdynia, in the Polish campaign, Mr. Shirer had his observation post on a hill about two miles from the front.
“But to get on the air,” he explained, “I had to go to Danzig, twelve miles away. There a time had to be arranged with New York. I telephoned the people in our office in Berlin and got from them the list of times available. After I’d picked one they reported it to New York over the two-way hook-up. At the appointed minute Berlin got its cue from New York and I started talking when I got the signal from Berlin by phone.”
COVERING THE WESTERN FRONT
Covering the campaign in the west was even more difficult, Mr. Shirer said. The only outlet then was a station in Cologne, nearly 200 miles from the front; so “it meant plenty of night driving to make a 4:30 A.M. broadcast.”
About the war in general and its effect on the German public Mr. Shirer said the chief effect of the Royal Air Force raids so far has been to cut down the number of hours Berliners may sleep.
“They seem convinced that they will win the war,” he said, “and food restrictions have not been severe enough yet to affect morale seriously.”
Mr. Shirer said that while it was impossible to know how many Germans listened to foreign radio broadcasts, “certainly some do.”
JANUARY 29, 1941
NO DOLLARS LEFT
Secretary Says Fate of Democracies Is Now Up to Congress
By HAROLD B. HINTON
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 —Secretary Morgenthau told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that Great Britain, Greece and China could not continue to fight unless Congress passed the pending lease-lend bill. The Secretary made the statement at the morning hearing and amplified it when the committee reconvened after luncheon.
“Lacking a formula by which Great Britain can buy supplies here,” Mr. Morgenthau said in a colloquy with Senator Nye, “I think Britain will just have to stop fighting, that’s all. I am convinced after having lived with this for several years, wanting to satisfy myself as to the financial necessity.
“I have come to the conclusion they haven’t any dollars left and I am convinced, if Congress does not make it possible for them to buy more supplies, they will have to stop fighting.”
The reply was given in answer to Senator Nye when he asked why the situation has suddenly become “so urgent as to necessitate this all-out effort on our part.” Just before the committee recessed for luncheon, Mr. Nye asked the Secretary of the Treasury if he considered Great Britain a good loan risk.
At that time, Mr. Morgenthau replied that he did consider Great Britain a good risk, not thinking in terms of dollars, but with a view to gaining time for the rearmament program of the United States. For many reasons, which he outlined at various points, he had asked the British Government to make known its financial position.
SAYS IT IS UP TO CONGRESS
“They are not hysterical about it,” he said. “They simply placed the facts before us. If this bill doesn’t pass they cannot continue to fight. Congress must weigh very seriously the question whether it wants Great Britain, Greece and China to continue to fight.”
Asked by Senator Nye whether the British Government had expressed this view, Mr. Morgenthau replied:
“Not in so many words, but that is the situation.”
Mr. Morgenthau said that an expert from the British Treasury was waiting in Lisbon to come here and sell to American investment trusts all American securities held by British subjects.
“England being willing to sell every dollar of properties in the United States, and the American investor being willing to buy, will only enable her to get dollars to pay for what is already ordered,” he said. “We have searched every possible corner to see if there are any hidden assets, and we don’t know of any.”
FEBRUARY 9, 1941
BRITISH FAST WRECKING ITALY’S AFRICAN EMPIRE
By EDWIN L. JAMES
When Winston Churchill some weeks ago in making an appeal to the Italian people told them the British would chew their African empire to pieces, Rome retorted that it was just a bit of braggadocio propaganda. Now Rome knows more about it.
Soon after Mussolini took what he thought was a cheap ride on Hitler’s bandwagon he started Graziani toward the Suez Canal from Libya. The orders were to take over Egypt as a part of the movement to make the Mediterranean really “Mare Nostrum.” Now, in a few weeks, the Italians have been driven out of Egypt and back and back until with the capture of Bengazi the British are in control of most of Eastern Libya. Graziani has lost about 120,000 men, most of them prisoners, which is to say about half of his army.
In the British drive which took them from Sidi Barrani the first part of December, and then to Bardia, to Tobruk and to Derna at the end of January and thence on to Bengazi, the Italians were nowhere able to hold even with superior forces. The only real fight put up was at Bardia, where the garrison resisted in order to give the main Italian forces time to retreat westward. Now the British have reached the coast south of Bengazi, cutting off an Italian force of several divisions. It is a major defeat for Mussolini.
THE DRIVE IN ERITREA
In the meanwhile the British have been chewing on the Italian territory to the south of Egypt. A drive has taken them halfway across Eritrea and they are after Massawa and Asmara, supply headquarters for the Italian Army holding Eritrea and what was Ethiopia, which Mussolini conquered in 1936. Haile Sellassie, former Emperor of Ethiopia, has again been recognized by London as the ruler of Ethiopia and his men are harassing the Italians in a savage form of guerrilla warfare.
The Italian forces in Eritrea and Ethiopia are in a peculiarly difficult position. Every bullet they shoot can not be replaced and the same is true for every gallon of gasoline they use. They have no communication with the homeland, since the British control the Suez Canal and the southern approach to the Red Sea, even if Rome could get ships around Africa past the British blockade.
Naturally, the Italians have large supplies in the region, but these supplies have been kept around Asmara, which is now the target of the British push eastward from the Sudan. If the British can reach the supply bases, the Italian forces in Ethiopia will be in a perilous position, with troops advancing north from Kenya and east and south from the Sudan regions, not to mention the activities of Haile Sellassie’s men.
IMPORTANCE OF CAMPAIGN
It is frequently said that the British success in Libya is all right but that it does not beat Hitler. In one way that is, of course, quite true. On the other hand if the Italians had succeeded in reaching the Suez Canal, which was their hope, it would have seriously crippled British lines of communication and would have made it much easier for the Axis powers to try to wrest control of the Mediterranean from the British Navy.
The defeat of the Italians in Africa, following their defeat by the Greeks, certainly puts Hitler’s Axis partner on the spot. There must be a difference between an Italy victorious and an Italy defeated, so far as Mussolini’s value to Hitler is concerned.
An interesting aspect of the campaign in Libya is the failure of Germany to give efficacious aid to Italy. It is true that German planes bombed British ships one day and made several minor raids from Sicily against Malta. But that is a long way from what may have been imagined possible. Indeed, so far, Hitler’s aid to his partner in Africa has been as weak as his aid in Albania. And now it is to be noted that the coming of hot weather in some five weeks casts doubts upon the practicability of the Germans sending a force into Libya or Tripoli capable of aiding successfully the retreating forces of Graziani, even if troop ships could make the trip in the face of the British Navy. While planes could be sent even now, there is room for doubting that a German army could be sent.
FEBRUARY 16, 1941
LEASE-LEND BILL EXTENDS WIDE POWERS OF PRESIDENT
Under the Constitution He Has Control of All Executive Functions Of Government, But More Authority Would Be Added
By DEAN DINWOODEY
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 —Debate in Congress on the bill to aid Britain is revolving about the issue primarily, not of aid to Britain, but of the powers of the President. Upon this issue the Senate this coming week will continue the debate. The question before the Congress and the country which has evolved relates not so much to the objective of aiding Britain as it does to the means for attaining that objective.
The question is one, like other fundamental issues at various times confronting the nation, that involves the so-called doctrine of separation of powers embodied in the Federal constitution. This time, the discussion pertains to the respective powers of the President and Congress.
TWO MAJOR POWERS
Under the Constitution, the President has two great powers legislation cannot affect, which have a direct relation to the present situation:
To conduct the foreign relations of the United States;
To act as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.
The latter power places in the President the supreme command over all the country’s military forces and the sole authority to direct and employ these forces in time of peace and war. This authority of the President, however, is dependent upon the exercise by Congress of its complementary constitutional powers “to raise and support armies,” and “to provide and maintain a navy.”
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., chairman of the War Resources Board and administrator of the Lease-Lend Bill.
These powers of the President and the Congress are stated, but not defined by the Constitution. It seems to be generally recognized though, for instance, that his constitutional authority to command the military forces empowers the President, if he sees fit, to provide convoy by the Navy of merchant shipping.
EXCLUSIVE AUTHORITY
The constitutional power of the President to conduct foreign relations also is an exclusive power. The Supreme Court has said that the President alone is the constitutional representative of the United States with regard to foreign nations. In 1936, in an opinion written by Justice Sutherland, which the administration is utilizing in support of its lease-lend bill, the Supreme Court described this power as a “very delicate, plenary, and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the Federal Government in the field of international relations—a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress.”
To these primary constitutional powers of the President, the Congress has added many other statutory powers having to do with national defense in an emergency period. Some of these enactments are of long standing; others, the more important ones, are of recent origin. They include, among others, the power to:
Prohibit or curtail exports.
Requisition materials denied export.
Regulate foreign exchange.
Control shipping.
Restrict the business of banks.
Regulate or close broadcasting stations.
Place mandatory orders for materials with any business.
Commandeer any plant refusing to comply with mandatory orders.
Establish priorities for essential materials.
Suspend labor conditions relating to government contracts.
PURPOSE OF AID BILL
These statutory powers which Congress already has enacted that the President may exercise are operative within the United States; they relate to internal, not to external, affairs. Congress, by its enactments has not intruded upon the Constitutional powers of the President to conduct foreign relations and command the military forces; rather, Congress has implemented the President’s constitutional powers.
MARCH 12, 1941
THAI BORDER DEAL CLOSED FORMALLY
Japanese See Victory for ‘New Order in Asia’—Vichy Explains Surrender
Wireless to The New York Times.
TOKYO, March 11 —Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka today registered what the Japanese call his first diplomatic victory for the “New Order in Greater East Asia” as France and Thailand accepted his adjudication of their frontier quarrel. Simultaneously Mr. Matsuoka announced his immediate departure for Berlin and Rome.
In the background of both events was the passage, seventy-two hours earlier, of the American lease-lend bill. According to Japanese press comments, this heralds America’s appearance on the Pacific stage in the role of a formidable naval, air and military power, collaborating with Britain to obstruct Axis plans for new world orders.
Amid the whirr of movie cameras and the glare of calcium lights, in the presence of press representatives from all parts of the world Japan formally assumed what is called her role as the leader in East Asia when Mr. Matsuoka presided at the final session of the Franco-Thai conference. The affair had been speeded up to allow Mr. Matsuoka to start his European trip, and the document that the delegates initialed was a preliminary protocol, the terms of which will be embodied in a formal treaty drawn up by the three Foreign Offices later.
CEREMONY IN KONOYE’S HOUSE
The ceremony took place in the main hall of the official residence of Premier Prince Fumimaro Konoye, in the presence of the full Japanese, French and Thai delegations. They were grouped around a horseshoe table, while the heads of the delegations sat at a smaller table in the center.
After being briefly welcomed by Mr. Matsuoka the heads of the delegations affixed their initials. French Ambassador Charles Arsene-Henry and René Robin, head of Indo-China’s delegation, signed with pens from France. Mr. Matsuoka and Hajime Matsumiya, Japan’s plenipotentiaries, stressed the Oriental note by painting their names with brushes. Prince Varvarn and Thai Minister Phya Aria Sena signed for Thailand with pens.
Besides initialing the boundary agreement the French and Thai delegates exchanged letters with Japan in which Japan guaranteed the settlement now reached, and all the signatories undertook subsequently to enter into an agreement “with respect to the maintenance of peace in Greater East Asia and the establishment and promoting of specially close relations between Japan and Thailand and Japan and Indo-China. Nothing was disclosed today regarding the nature of those prospective agreements.
MARCH 22, 1941
‘JEEP WAGONS’ GET TESTS AT FORT DIX
Powell Passes ‘Drivers’ Clinic’ And Finds New Vehicle Does All but ‘Climb a Tree’
Special to The New York Times.
FORT DIX, N.J., March 21 —Driving one of the Army’s new “jeep wagons,” Major Gen. Clifford R. Powell, Forty-fourth Division commander, passed the division’s “driver’s clinic” today with flying colors.
The tests comprise indoor and outdoor examinations and are conducted by enlisted personnel of the 119th Quartermaster Regiment, under the supervision of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Department and the Pennsylvania State Police.
After driving the “jeep wagon,” officially known as a command car, cross-country through muddy fields and up and down steep slopes in gravel pits on the west side of the camp. General Powell said he was convinced that the new vehicles could do everything “except swim or climb a tree.”
Jeeps for use during WWII waiting for shipment at dock in San Francisco, 1941.
Considered far more rigid than the examinations for State drivers’ licenses, the Army test includes, besides cross-country driving, indoor tests for color blindness, steering with an artificial horizon, headlight glare and coordination. About 30 per cent of the nearly 5,000 auto and truck drivers of the division have failed to pass the tests. Those with poor coordination or those suffering night blindness are permanently rejected, but those who fail the road tests receive further training.
More than 3,000 divisional licenses have been issued by Colonel David S. Hill, division quartermaster, to drive any government vehicle. General Powell will also receive one of the cards.
MARCH 26, 1941
BELGRADE IN AXIS
Joins Three-Power Pact on Pledge No Troops Will Cross Nation
By C. BROOKS PETERS
By Telephone to The New York Times.
BERLIN, March 25 —The role Yugoslavia will play in world political and military developments received some clarification today when that country became the fifth European nation, exclusive of the original signatories, formally to adhere to the Tripartite Pact and therewith recognize the validity of the principles of the “new order” for Europe and the world.
In the presence of Reichsfuehrer Hitler in Belvedere Castle in Vienna—where less than four weeks ago Bulgaria also formally joined the Axis powers—Premier Dragisha Cvetkovitch and Foreign Minister Alexander Cincar-Markovitch, as representatives of the Belgrade government, early this afternoon signed a protocol of adherence to the Tripartite Pact. This protocol is identical in content with those signed previously by Hungary, Rumania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
At the same time, however, the governments of Germany and Italy delivered notes of identical text to the Yugoslav Government informing the latter, first, that the Reich and Italy were determined at all times to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, and, second, that the Axis powers had agreed not to request from the Yugoslav Government during the war the right to march through or transport troops over Yugoslav territory.
CVETKOVITCH VOICES PEACE AIM
Yugoslavia thus enters the Axis orbit, leaving Greece as the only Southeastern European State that is not an active collaborator of Berlin and Rome, for by signing the pact Yugoslavia obligates herself to “assist with all political, economic and military means” the other signatories in case any one of them is “attacked” by any power not now engaged in the present European war or the Sino-Japanese conflict.
In his speech following the formal signing ceremonies M. Cvetkovitch declared that “the main objective and practically the only objective of Yugoslav foreign policy was and remains: To preserve peace for the Yugoslav people and to strengthen their security.”
With this end in view, he continued, Belgrade’s efforts had always been directed toward intensifying Yugoslavia’s relations with her neighbors. Yugoslavia, he remarked, had always enjoyed the best possible relations with Germany, which had found expression in a number of important events from 1934 to the present.
Whereas Yugoslavia has no demands on others, M. Cvetkovitch continued, interests vital to her existence and progress require that Southeastern Europe be preserved from a new extension of the war and that European economic “cooperation, which prepared the way for European pacification—the only salvation for our European continent and its thousand-year civilization”—be strengthened.
It is only on the basis of “sincere and positive cooperation,” the Yugoslav Premier continued, “that Europe will be able to find the basis for its new order, which will be in position to eliminate the old prejudices and artificial moral and material obstacles from which all of us in Europe today are suffering.”
In closing his brief address, M. Cvetkovitch declared:
“On this day on which Yugoslavia joins the tripartite pact she is doing so with the intention of assuring her peaceful future in cooperation with Germany, Italy and Japan. In so far as she is contributing her part to the organization of the new Europe, she is fulfilling the highest duty as much to herself as to the European community.”
New York received an enthusiastic vote of approval yesterday from twenty “convoy-weary” British models, who arrived by ship and by train.
But mystery as ironclad as that which surrounds the next move of the R.A.F. cloaked twenty-four cases of clothing that arrived with three models and three representatives of the British Department of Overseas Trade on the Dutch freight and passenger ship Bodegraven, and represent the latest fashion creations from London.
But for a private preview showing given before the King and Queen in February, the costumes by nine French and English houses in London are not to be exhibited until they arrive in a few weeks in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. According to William Young and C. J. Roberts of the D.O.T., “this is the first official trade mission to cross the ocean in an attempt to establish London as the heart of the fashion world and this showing is especially for South America.”
Vollying light-hearted banter from the moment of their arrival until it was muffled under dryers in a mass recoiffing, hair-do expedition, the young models dismissed the subject of fashions. From brief murmurings of Empire styles and bouffant skirts they turned to talk of buying all the fresh vegetables and silk stockings in sight.
Seventeen who arrived in Grand Central Terminal at 12:45 P.M. came from Halifax, where they landed Monday, were excited over the “grandeur” of the train and terminal and the large portions of butter obtainable in restaurants. “Just about a whole week’s ration in one serving,” they marveled.
Met soon after their arrival at the station by the three others, the models joked about the long woolen socks many were wearing. The ships were very cold, and besides, silk stockings are not for sale now in England, they explained. They chided each other over “pre-war” dresses they were wearing.
“We’re not spending our time buying dresses,” several declared.
Asked if modeling was a glamorous and gift-receiving career in London, they replied: “Definitely and unfortunately not.” “Anyway, at this point, we’d prefer a string of onions to one of pearls,” one of them said.
In their eleven days here they want to see “everything.” Skyscrapers were a first “must” for Miss Cynthia A. Maughan, niece of Somerset Maughan. Others said they intended to make a short visit to Washington to see the Lincoln Memorial and the capital. After their trip to South America they will return to England, probably in June. A recent bill in England calls for the conscription of all women over 18, it was explained.
APRIL 4, 1941
BRITISH PUSHING ON FOR ADDIS ABABA
ITALIANS RETREAT RAPIDLY
Morale Is Held Deteriorating Under Air Bombing
Special Cable to The New York Times.
CAIRO, Egypt, April 3 —British and Indian forces, rolling rapidly southward from Asmara in Eritrea toward Adowa in Ethiopia today, found many groups of Italians along the road waiting to surrender, and the total of prisoners was increased over the already large figure.
The Italians were badly disorganized and were retreating with little regard for precautions of defense, abandoning quantities of guns and other war materiel to the British.
The state of Italian morale was illustrated by the situation at Asmara after the main Italian force had moved south. Native troops, probably Ethiopians, left the city and began a desert riot that became so dangerous that the police chief and a priest went out to ask the British to enter to protect the white citizens of that city of 100,000, which is the administrative capital of Eritrea.
Some British forces were investigating the situation around Massawa today, but that port and Assab, farther south, were believed here to have been evacuated. An indication of this came from a Royal Air Force report that British planes had bombed and strafed trucks along the road from Assab to Dessye in Ethiopia.
[British troops have already taken 6,000 Italian prisoners in the vicinity of Massawa and the occupation of that city is imminent, the British Broadcasting Corporation said last night in a statement recorded here by the National Broadcasting Company.]
The morale of the Italians retreating south from Asmara was being pushed nearer and nearer to the breaking point by constant British bombing and strafing. “Free French” forces, meanwhile, bombed an Italian encampment on the road between Aksum and Adowa.
The rising tide of British occupation edged farther into East Africa: In the north retreating Fascisti were bombed and strafed south of Asmara (1). British troops marching on Addis Ababa captured Miesso, west of Diredawa (2) and 180 miles from the capital. In Southern Ethiopia another column took Soroppa (3). Shading indicated approximate area held by British.
RAILROAD TOWN CAPTURED
African advance troops captured the fire and bomb-razed town of Miesso, 180 miles east of Addis Ababa along the Jibuti railroad. The South African Air Force made the place a shambles during the process of blasting Italian trains, and the station was ablaze for days.
The Italians were retreating rapidly. There was some skirmishing, but the Awash River, ninety miles farther west, appears to be the first place where a stand is likely to be made.
Although it is possible that Italian morale will crack and the Fascist forces will disintegrate before Addis Ababa falls, the British are already considering the possibility that the Italians may retreat toward Dessye or Gondar. The latter place, north of Lake Tana, is easy to isolate and difficult to capture because the country is rough and has positions guarded by pillboxes, hidden gun emplacements and other modern defenses.
The British may, however, cut off and surround the Italians before any such move can be completed, and it seems probable that the Italians will fight somewhere in the Addis Ababa region because of the tremendous damage to the vestiges of Italian prestige that the fall of the Ethiopian capital would entail.
YUGOSLAVIA FIGHTS
Belgrade Has Air Raid as Armies Resist
DRIVE FROM BULGARIA
By RAY BROCK
Wireless to The New York Times.
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, April 6 —At 3:25 o’clock this morning the air-raid sirens in Belgrade sounded an alarm. For the Yugoslavs it was the first indication that the nation was at war.
An hour later, at 4:32, two Yugoslav fighter planes appeared over the city, flying in an easterly direction. They came from the Zemun airdrome. Two more fighter planes appeared a short time later.
[At this point wireless connections with Belgrade were cut.]
APRIL 12, 1941
NAZIS AT BELGRADE!
Another Force Occupies Zagreb and Ljubljana—Battle in the South
ITALIANS STOPPED
By DANIEL T. BRIGHAM
By Telephone to The New York Times
BERNE, Switzerland, April 11 —Two heavy German columns pushing down the Sava and Drava valleys in Yugoslavia, from the Austro-Italian frontier and down the valley of the Mur from Graz during the last twenty-four hours have succeeded in occupying a line running roughly southeast by east through Ljubljana and Zagreb eastward.
Another column, moving westward, presumably from Virset, at the Rumanian border, have arrived on the outskirts of the devastated city of Belgrade. That this column had effected a junction with the Ljubljana-Zagreb column was denied in reports reaching Berne last night.
In the southeast the situation was reported to be “stationary,” with Germans vainly trying to force the Kachanik Pass, where the Bulgarians were held in 1915. In many respects today’s lines recall those of that campaign. If the Yugoslavs hold they threaten the German bases for the Tetovo action at Skolpje; if they are trapped the possibilities of resistance in the Kosovopolj Valley toward the flat plains in the north are restricted, to say the least.
Civilians remove rubble after a German armed forces attack on Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1941.
ITALIANS DRIVEN BACK
Four attempts by the Italians in Albania to effect a sortie through the Rara Orman heights in an attempt to join the Germans pushing down the Tetovo were driven back with “heavy losses to the attackers.”
With the occupation or Zagreb and Belgrade it was understood here the Yugoslav Fourth Army on the west, based at Zagreb, and the First Army on the east, based at Novi Sad, had withdrawn according to plans, moving southward and toward the center from their original position toward a fixed point probably south of Brad and the Sava River. It was reported that those armies withdrew fighting only small rear-guard actions.
The Yugoslav High Command communiqué covering operations up to noon yesterday and dated “Somewhere in Yugoslavia” said “the enemy continued his advances in the valley of the Morava, occupying Paracin and Cuprija. On the northern front,” It said, “the enemy had little success on the Virovltitza sector, where he was halted by the vigilant action of our troops.”
“Some activity” on the Italian front in the northwest was reported. “Parachute troops, dropped in different places, were all surrounded and captured,” the communiqué said.
After remarking, “No change in the situation in Albania,” the communiqué added that “owing to poor weather conditions aerial activity was restricted.”
The drive down Morava Valley was being made from Nish, captured yesterday by motorized forces under General Paul von Kleist. Yugoslav military circles pointed out, however, that the Morava Valley was still east of the main defensive positions and that, although the situation was serious, it was not disastrous.
Contact with the Hungarian border was still maintained, as proved by the reports of frequent clashes between frontier guards on both sides of the line yesterday. These actions, it was reported here, were brought about by Hungarian units attempting to advance into Yugoslav territory and, on encountering Yugoslav units, opening fire.
The Yugoslavs reported they returned this fire with heavy machine-guns and “other automatic arms.” There were casualties on both sides.
Despite the terrific destruction inflicted upon Belgrade during five German air raids, order was rapidly being restored there yesterday. Communications were being re-established and food and health services restored. By order of General Krsisch, civilian evacuation ceased and refugees, after having spent four days and three nights in fields to avoid aerial bombardment, were returning.
It is reported that neutral diplomatic intervention succeeded in extracting a promise from the Germans that Belgrade would be spared further bombardment. There was no confirmation of this.
APRIL 27, 1941
Letters to the Editor
IRAQ DANGER SPOT
MANY FACTORS INDICATE NEED FOR WATCHFULNESS
To the Editor of The New York Times:
While events in Iraq and other Arab States are temporarily overshadowed by the war in the Balkans, there is little doubt that they will assume crucial importance in the next phase of the world struggle between the British Empire and the Axis powers.
The recent coup d’état in Iraq deposed the pro-British government of General Taha al Hashimi and the regency of Prince Abdul Ilah and set up an ultra-nationalist government under the Premiership of Rashid Ali al Gailani, Sunni Moslem religious leader, revered by millions of Sunnis in Iraq, Persia and India. He has been in and out of the Iraqi Cabinet several times in the past, and while dispatches describe him as a friend of the Axis powers the truth of the matter is that he is pro-nationalist and anti-foreign.
German emissaries headed by the astute Franz von Papen, in Ankara, with the active collaboration of the shrewd Grubba, German Consul General in Baghdad, are undoubtedly leaving no stone unturned to win the Iraqis, but there are deeper rooted factors than a mere tug-of-war for Arab friendship. It is absurd to assume that the warrior-like Iraqis would willingly and voluntarily give up their hard-won independence and exchange the satisfactory Anglo-Iraq treaty for Axis domination.
OIL THE BIG ISSUE
First among these factors is the battle for oil and the long cherished German ambition of a Berlin-to-Baghdad route first promulgated by the ex-Kaiser upon his visit to the tomb of Saladin in Damascus at the turn of the century. The Mosul fields supply about four million tons of crude oil annually. The concession for this coveted prize is held by an Anglo-Dutch-American company which pays a royalty to the Iraq Government, but it is possible, though purely conjectural, that a more liberal partnership may have been offered by Nazi agents in the event of a British defeat. Other oil wells are located in Bahrein along the Persian Gulf, and control of the Persian Gulf opens the pathway to India.
It may be a mere coincidence that the coup in Iraq took place soon after the Arab conference convoked by Ibn Saud at Ryadh last March. But shortly after this conference the nationalist agitation in Syria was resumed, and it is possible that both these events are parts of the Arab program for the complete independence of all Arab States and the creation of a United States of Arabia.
F. I. Shatara.
Brooklyn, April 23, 1941.
APRIL 28, 1941
GREECE 14th STATE FALLING TO REICH
Nazis’ Occupation Of Athens Brings 152,000,000 Of Other Peoples Under Germany
With the occupation of Athens yesterday the fourteenth nation to come under the domination of Germany in a little more than three years fell to Adolf Hitler. He has now become master of 767,305 square miles of “Lebensraum,” or more than three times the 182,471 square miles that compose the German Reich. The lands under German domination contain a population of 152,028,036, or nearly twice the 79,375,281 population of Germany.
All but three of the nations were conquered by armed invasions and the three, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria, capitulated to “diplomatic control,” as German armed forces massed at their borders.
The following is a timetable of the German military and diplomatic conquests:
1938
Austria—34,064 square miles, population 8,009,014. Absorbed into Germany by invasion in March.
Sudentenland of Czecho-Slovakia—Occupied by Germany after the Munich Pact, October.
1939
Czecho-Slovakia—44,500 square miles, population 13,000,000, including the Sudetenland. Occupied in March, with Bohemia and Moravia organized as a Protectorate of Germany.
Poland—74,254 square miles, population 22,400,000. Invaded and conquered, September, as Britain and France declared war on Germany. Eastern Poland, about 78,000 square miles with a population of 12,775,000, was occupied by Soviet Russia.
1940
Denmark—16,575 square miles, population 3,800,000. Occupied in April.
Norway—124,556 square miles, population 3,000,000. Invaded in April, conquest completed in June.
Luxembourg—999 square miles, population 300,000. Occupied in May.
The Netherlands—12,000 square miles, population 8,728,569. Occupied in May.
Belgium—11,775 square miles, population 8,386,553. Invaded and conquered in May.
France—127,000 square miles, population 27,900,000. Invaded in May, conquered in June. (The figures are for the area occupied by German forces.)
Hungary—59,830 square miles, population 13,507,000. German troops sent to the country under an arrangement for diplomatic control, November.
Rumania—72,425 square miles, population 14,100,000. Occupied by troops for diplomatic control, November.
1941
Bulgaria—42,808 square miles, population 6,500,000. Occupied by troops for diplomatic and military control, March.
Yugoslavia—95,558 square miles, population 16,200,000. Invaded and conquered, April.
Greece—50,257 square miles, population 7,196,900. Invaded and conquered, April.
MAY 1, 1941
RUSSIA REPORTED BOLSTERING LINES
Said to Be Increasing Forces in Ukraine, Poland and Estonia Against Reich
By DANIEL T. BRIGHAM
By Telephone to The New York Times.
BERNE, Switzerland, April 30 —Threatened in the south with the closing of the Dardanelles, because of a vacillating Turkey, and in the north by the reported recent arrival of a German armored division at Abo, in Finland, Russia was reported here today to be taking extensive steps for the immediate bolstering of already strong Soviet forces in the Ukraine, Poland and Estonia in preparation for a worsening of Russian-German relations in the near future, which, it is said, might even lead to war.
These measures are understood to include the rushing of another twenty-five Russian divisions to join the reported forty already strung along the Dniester and Pruth Rivers from Lwow to Odessa. In the same region the Russians recently amassed so much aviation material that it was reported a German inquiry was made in Moscow to ascertain the reason. The inquirer was informed that between 600 and 700 first-line bombers and a considerable number of pursuit ships were there for the purpose of “spraying the wheat crops this Spring.”
In Estonia it is understood no attempts are being made to conceal the defensive preparations of Russian long-range artillery on the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland. With approximately twenty divisions in the neighborhood, the Russian High Command is understood to be moving another fifteen to twenty to protect its newly acquired territories of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
REPORTED JOINING RUSSIANS
Meanwhile in the seized Polish territory the Russians are understood to have won over “a considerable number” of the conquered Poles in Russian-occupied territory, who are reported to have joined Russian ranks in the hopes of getting revenge for the German assault on their territory—freely promised by local Russian commanders.
The fact that most of these Russian reinforcements consist of strong regiments drawn from the Far East has led to speculation in diplomatic quarters here as to the exact extent of the “published” Russo-Japanese pact of mutual friendship and non-aggression. Most quarters here feel that it provided a welcome escape for the Japanese Government, whose Foreign Minister, during his stay in Europe, witnessed several Axis rebuffs.
The Russian concentration of the main reinforcements in the south, however, is interpreted here as a measure of the gravity with which Russia regards the German occupation of the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace following the collapse of Greek resistance. From these positions German forces not only could threaten an intransigent Turkey with aerial attacks but could bottle up any Russian fleet bent on operating in the Mediterranean from the Black Sea.
It further shows the importance that the Russian High Command attaches to the possibility of Germany’s re-employing the famous “Hoffman Plan” used so successfully by Generals Hoffman and von Mackensen in 1917 against the Russians. That plan envisaged an enveloping operation of the Russian armies in the Ukraine by simultaneous pushes from the north and south and, only if these operations progressed, a direct frontal attack from the west. The success of these operations resulted in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March, 1918.
Russian apprehension is further heightened by an increasingly acrimonious tone in the Axis press in its references to the Soviet Union. According to one report reaching this capital tonight, several German newspapers and one Italian paper this afternoon, after sarcastically referring to Russia’s repeated statements she “wished to preserve Europe from a further extension of the conflict,” listed the following five actions on the part of the Moscow government, qualifying each as a deliberate attempt to disturb the “construction of a new order in Europe.”
1. Repeated conversations in London between Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador, and Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary, which the Axis interprets as indicating a hostile attitude on the part of Moscow, which is held to be desirous of entering into “a closer alliance with Britain.”
2. The Russian assurances to Turkey on the eve of the Vienna visit of Dragisha Cvetkovitch and Dr. Alexander Cincar-Markovitch, former Yugoslav Premier and Foreign Minister, respectively, to adhere to the Axis pact. The reported extension of Russian-Turkish exchanges, which Berlin allegedly interprets as directed against herself, further irritates the Axis Powers.
3. The Russian-Yugoslav agreement on non-aggression and mutual friendship, signed in Moscow a bare three hours before the German onslaught against Yugoslavia, was entered into, according to these papers, despite Russian knowledge of the impending German action. It was interpreted as a deliberate and calculated act of “passive hostility.”
4. Russia’s sharp accusation that Budapest should “be ashamed of itself” for attacking a country with which it had just concluded a non-aggression pact and the subsequent polemics in the world press were, according to the Axis charges, “deliberately engineered to put the worst possible interpretation on a delicate situation.”
5. Russia’s repeated attempts to keep Bulgaria in line and prevent her from gravitating to “her natural allies, the Axis powers,” are not interpreted as the outcome of normal Russian apprehension at German expansion in the Balkans and the Middle East, but as an unwarranted interference in “Germany’s sphere of influence.”
MAY 4, 1941
OUR ARMY TRAINS FOR NEW WARFARE
Military Experts Say Germans Have Made First Change in Basic Methods Since Crecy
By CHARLES HURD
WASHINGTON, May 3 —Behind the drilling and marching of the new American Army and the record production of war material, military experts in this country are shaping a force based on the conviction that the German staff has invented the third basic change in military science to occur since masses of men waded into each other armed with clubs, swords and spears.
The first vital change in warfare occurred in the fourth century A.D., when a horde of wild horsemen rode down the formerly invincible Roman legions. Their victories, which destroyed the old Roman Empire, started the career of the mounted soldier and laid the foundations for the age of chivalry.
That age lasted for about 1,000 years, until the Battle of Crécy, when an English army of men appeared with powerful longbows and fired arrows that penetrated the armor of the knights and their horses, and thus restored the basic power of war to the man on foot. From the longbow came the development of missiles, ranging from bullets to 2,000-pound shells.
NEW TACTICS
The European conquests of 1940 again took basic striking force from the man on foot, the infantry, and put it in the hands of two types of “mounted” men, acting in unison.
Careful studies of the German campaigns in the Low Countries and in France last year, and more recently in Cyrenacia and in the Balkans, have revealed the union of tanks and airplanes.
Tanks themselves needed artillery preparation to lay a path of destruction ahead of them. Airplanes can bomb and machine-gun objectives, but these air raids have little value unless places attacked by airplanes can be raided and “mopped up” immediately by forces strong enough to hold them. And infantry cannot keep up with the pace of modern lightning thrusts.
Accordingly, the Germans “married” their aircraft and tanks, relegating infantry to the job of occupation.
MAY 7, 1941
WASHINGTON WARY ON STALIN’S MOVE
Diplomatic Observers Believe It May Mean Opposing Axis or Joining It
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, May 6 —The replacing of Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff as Soviet Premier by Joseph Stalin aroused great interest here. It was considered to be significant, although official experts recognized that in the light of experience the full import might not become known to the outside world for some time.
The State Department had no official confirmation of the change, but the Moscow radio announcement was accepted at its face value. However, the fact that Mr. Molotoff will remain as Foreign Commissar, it was believed, robbed the announcement of overshadowing importance, even though that office is subject at all times to the orders of Mr. Stalin.
Joseph Stalin in the 1940s.
Diplomatic experts thought the change might mean one of three things:
The merging of the Communist party and the State so that Mr. Stalin can deal with problems as head of the State in a critical time.
The taking over of power by Mr. Stalin in the face of a threatened German attack on the Soviet Union.
The discarding of old policy for a new one of doing what Germany wishes. This presumably could mean joining the Axis.
At least officials were satisfied that the announcement meant the merging of the party with the State for the present. In their opinion that obviously must inevitably weaken the party.
Although there have been rumors of a German attack on the Ukraine, diplomats were inclined to doubt that Reichsfuehrer Hitler intended to launch such an attack.
On the other hand, they weighed more carefully the question as to whether it meant a new policy of more complete friendship between the Soviet Union and Germany, even to the point of Moscow joining the Axis.
Had Mr. Molotoff gone as Foreign Commissar also, this possibility would have been treated very seriously. It was recalled in this connection that when Maxim Litvinoff was ousted as Foreign Commissar there followed the Russo-German pact that precipitated the present war.
While this condition, according to the reports, does not now exist, there have been rumors recently that Russian generals were exerting pressure on Mr. Stalin to adopt a more conciliatory policy toward the Axis. These reports have been without official confirmation.
MAY 7, 1941
INDO-CHINA SIGNS PACT WITH JAPAN
Wireless to The New York Times.
TOKYO, May 6 —After four months of negotiations Japan and France today signed two agreements for economic collaboration between Japan and French Indo-China. They are hailed here as another concrete step in the establishment of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” under Japanese leadership.
Signatures were affixed this afternoon in a ceremonious setting by Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka and Hajime Matsumiya, Special Ambassador to Indo-China, for Japan, and by French Ambassador Charles Arsene-Henry and former Governor General René Robin for France and French Indo-China.
The first agreement is a convention regarding residence and navigation, providing reciprocal treatment of nationals as the basis, and most-favored nation treatment, as the occasion demands, for entry, establishment, acquisition and possession of movable and immovable property, conduct of commerce, manufacture, imposition of taxes and treatment of companies.
In particular, French Indo-China agrees to admit Japanese capital in the development of agriculture, mining and hydraulic concessions. Ships of the two countries are to be treated on an equal footing in principle.
The second agreement, a bulky document that will require months of study before ratification, concerns trade, tariffs and payments.
TARIFF CUTS FOR JAPAN
It provides reciprocal most-favored nation treatment in respect to customs and tariffs, but French Indo-China agrees to admit Japan’s principal products either duty free or at reduced minimum duties and to impose only minimum duties on all other Japanese products. In return Japan agrees to give favorable customs treatment to the principal products of Indo-China.
The trade provisions envisage increased mutual trade. French Indo-China will export rice, maize, minerals and other principal products to Japan and will import Japanese textiles, other manufactured articles and miscellaneous products.
Payments are to be made in Japanese yen and Indo-Chinese piastres and will be cleared on a basis of compensation through Japanese and Indo-Chinese banks without the intermediary of foreign currency. French Indo-China agrees to afford a “special favor regarding the payment for Indo-China rice purchased by Japan.”
Furthermore, French Indo-China agrees to the admission of Japanese commercial firms into the Federation of Importers and Exporters, which has been one of the principal issues until recently. Indi-China agrees also to the establishment of Japanese schools and the institution of periodic economic conferences to examine general economic questions between the two countries.
MAY 8, 1941
IRAQI SIEGE BROKEN BY BRITISH ASSAULT
By DAVID ANDERSON
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 7 —Iraqi troops threatening the British garrison at the airport between Lake Habbania and the Euphrates River were blasted from their strong position in the sandhills yesterday by a sustained Royal Air Force attack with bombs and machine guns, supported by infantry.
The insurgent Iraqi force withdrew in the direction of Feluja on the Baghdad road after suffering heavy losses—estimated by Prime Minister Winston Churchill today at 1,000, including twenty-six officers and 408 men taken prisoner. The Air Ministry disclosed that howitzers were transported by plane from Basra to enable the British force at Habbania to return some of the shelling to which they had been subjected for more than four days.
[Germany is reported to have demanded that Syria permit her troops to pass through in their push toward the Suez Canal. She is also reported to have threatened that they would enter by parachutes if barred at the frontier. The British Press Service in New York said reports from abroad showed that Palestine had “never been so quiet” and branded Axis reports as “fantastic.”]
Headquarters of the British Middle East Command at Cairo reported that Imperial troops, bolstered by Iraqi levies, had advanced up a slope of the Habbania escarpment after R.A.F. night patrols had told of finding Iraqi trenches and gun emplacements empty. Aircraft then located Iraqi detachments clustered around the oil pipeline to the East. They were waving white flags.
The motley garrison of Habbania, consisting of regular soldiers, Arabs and airmen, occupied the site from which the forces of Premier Rashid Ali Beg Gailani had menaced them since Friday. The communiqué said it was the Iraqi levies who faced their fellow countrymen remaining on the hilltop and drove them toward the flood waters of the Euphrates.
While this was going on, the Royal Air Force harried the retreating foe by skimming over the disorganized columns and showering high explosives and bullets on them. They were in no mood to offer resistance, for the British planes had kept up a relentless attack the previous night.
BAGHDAD AIRPORT DAMAGED
Moascar Rashid, the airport of Baghdad, was bombed again. One hangar was completely destroyed by fire, a twin-engined aircraft standing on the apron was blown up and others were damaged.
Basra, where the British troops landed from the Persian Gulf, remained quiet throughout the day. Action was reported at Rutbah Wells, a desert air station on the pipeline to Haifa, where the hostile Iraqis surrendered when an R.A.F. patrol appeared at the same time as a small group of British soldiers. The communiqué said “the gate was opened and the troops were allowed to enter. A number of families were rescued and removed to safety.”
The Prime Minister left the door open for news of German intervention in Iraq, saying it might happen before the revolt was crushed—“in which case our task will become more difficult.” He explained that Britain was not at war with Iraq, being intent rather on speeding the restoration of a “constitutional government and assisting the Iraqis to get rid of their military dictatorship at the earliest possible moment.”
MAY 13, 1941
BRITISH ASTOUNDED
Hitler’s Deputy Is in Hospital After Bailing OutOf War Plane
By ROBERT P. POST
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 13 —Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the German Nazi party and the third-ranking personage in the German State, parachuted to earth in Scotland on Saturday night and is now a prisoner of war.
That may sound like something from a mystery thriller by Oppenheim. But in sober truth, 10 Downing Street issued a communiqué last night that is probably the strangest and most dramatic document ever to come from the official home of a British Prime Minister.
THE BRITISH STATEMENT
This statement said:
Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuehrer of Germany and party leader of the National Socialist party, has landed in Scotland in the following circumstances:
On the night of Saturday, the tenth, a Messerschmitt 110 was reported by our patrols to have crossed the coast of Scotland and to be flying in the direction of Glasgow. Since a Messerschmitt 110 would not have fuel to return to Germany, this report was at first disbelieved.
Later on a Messerschmitt 110 crashed near Glasgow with its guns unloaded. Shortly afterward a German officer who had bailed out was found with his parachute in the neighborhood, suffering from a broken ankle.
He was taken to a hospital in Glasgow, where he at first gave his name as Horn, but later on he declared that he was Rudolf Hess.
He brought with him various photographs of himself at different ages, apparently in order to establish his identity.
These photographs were deemed to be photographs of Hess by several people who knew him personally. Accordingly, an officer of the Foreign Office closely acquainted with Hess before the war has been sent up by airplane to see him in the hospital.
IDENTIFIED BY OFFICIAL
Ivone A. Kirkpatrick, who used to be first secretary in the British Embassy in Berlin, was the official sent to Scotland, and the Ministry of Information announced early this morning that Herr Hess’s identification had been definitely established.
Earlier the Germans had announced that Herr Hess, who was outranked only by Reichsfuehrer Hitler and Reich Marshal Hermann Goering in the Nazi hierarchy, had been suffering from hallucinations and had violated Herr Hitler’s orders in taking the plane.
It was just before nightfall Saturday that Herr Hess was found by a Scottish farm worker; he was groaning in agony, with his parachute wrapped around him. He was taken first to a little two-roomed cottage and then was turned over to the military authorities. This morning he was in a military hospital somewhere near Glasgow.
That is the bare outline of the facts as they are known so far. What do they mean? The Germans have already announced that Herr Hess’s “adjutants” have been arrested. The British are inclined to believe that there may be another purge in Germany—a purge similar to the one following the arrest of Captain Ernst Roehm, who was also one of Herr Hitler’s closest collaborators, on June 30, 1934.
But from this distance it is almost impossible to say what this development means as far as Germany is concerned. One can record only what the British believe it means. One Briton told the writer that “this is the first ‘break’ we have had since the war started.”
The British are not inclined to believe the German contention that Herr Hess was unbalanced. They assert that it is impossible to fly a Messerschmitt fighter adequately if one is suffering from “mental disorder.” Furthermore, the British emphasize, there is the fact that Herr Hess had with him photographs to establish his identity. That, it is insisted here, is clear proof that Herr Hess was in his right mind.
Rudolf Hess’s starting point—Augsburg—was disclosed by Berlin; his point of arrival—Glasgow—was disclosed by London. The flying distance between the two places is 825 miles.
POSSIBILITY OF ROW
It is possible, of course, that Herr Hess had been in some sort of row with other leaders of the Nazi party and got out while the getting-out was good. It is also possible that Herr Hess, a fanatical Nazi, found that there was some sort of “monkey business” going on that he could not stomach.
In either case, the British would appear to have caught a prize of untold worth. If Herr Hess is sane and really fled from Germany, he can be an intelligence officer’s dream. The information he could give, if he were willing to give it, would be invaluable. Since he apparently set a course straight for Britain it would not appear that he is unwilling to help the British.
There is one other consideration that the British are thinking about. For months—indeed, ever since the war started—many British officials have been basing hopes for a final victory on a crack-up in Germany. Others have believed that a crack-up would not come until Germany had been hit so hard that the Reich would crack under the force of the blow.
In view of the Hess development, one British problem will be to choke off those persons who will interpret this dime-novel occurrence as indicating that Germany is cracking. Of course, these persons may be right. But British leaders know that they must not make any such assumption.
From the British point of view it is still a long, hard war. It is not likely that Prime Minister Winston Churchill or anybody else will succumb to an overoptimistic interpretation of this development.
MAY 13, 1941
HESS ACTED SANELY, PSYCHIATRIST NOTES
Flight Called for Calm Plan, Dr. Overholser Remarks
WASHINGTON, May 12 (AP) —One of the country’s leading psychiatrists said today that Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s second lieutenant who landed from a Messerschmitt plane in Scotland on Saturday, was probably “much more sane than crazy.”
Dr. Winfred Overholser, head of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the Federal Government’s principal institution for the insane, said that while it was possible that Herr Hess “got the jitters and thought the world was coming to an end,” he probably did a cool, sane job of calculation and estimated his chances were better in being interned in Britain than they were in staying in Germany.
Even if the man were insane he still could pilot an airplane, the psychiatrist said, “but it is much more reasonable to think that he was in full possession to his faculties and merely wished to escape” from some situation that he considered no longer tenable for him.
Such an escape by a man who had been discouraged from flying by Herr Hitler himself would indicate calm deliberation and planning well in advance, which a man with a very unbalanced mind would be hardly capable of carrying out, Dr. Overholser said.
MAY 16, 1941
5,000 PARIS JEWS GO TO LABOR CAMPS
Refugees Routed from Beds And Interned—Vichy Denies Order Originated There
Wireless to The New York Times.
VICHY, France, May 15 —Reports from Paris tell of the rounding up there of 5,000 Jews between the ages of 18 and 40, mostly from Central and Southeastern Europe, and their transfer to labor camps near Orleans.
The reports indicate that this action has been taken “under the law of Oct. 4, 1940,” which must be an error. The law affecting Jews is dated Oct. 3 and contains no reference to their conscription for labor. However, there is a law that enables the authorities to enroll destitute and unemployed aliens in labor companies without distinction as to race or origin.
In government circles here it was declared that the measures of internment in the occupied zone were not ordered by this government.
[The British radio quoted German controlled sources as saying that Vichy authorities had arrested 20,000 foreign Jews in unoccupied France. The British report, attributed to the Hilversum radio in the Netherlands, was heard here by the Columbia Broadcasting System.]
FURTHER LAWS EXPECTED
Further measures relative to the status of Jews in France are expected in the near future. If it had not been for the importance of the present phase of French-German relations, it is probable that the Cabinet would already have approved a draft that came under the consideration of several Ministers last week when both Marshal Henri Phillipe Pétain and the Vice Premier, Admiral François Darlan, were absent from Vichy.
Jews at the Austerlitz station in Paris departing for an internment camp in Orleans, France, May 1941.
It is understood the new measures are intended to complete the law of Oct. 3, which excluded Jews from high government posts, including the armed forces, as well as from journalism and the cinema.
It is declared in authorized circles that the intention now is to complete, enlarge and codify all the steps already taken concerning Jews, not because of ideological or religious considerations but because of “necessities of national protection.” Present indications are that most of the Jews in France will be subjected to the laws regulating the presence of aliens on national soil.
Several exemptions are likely to be included in the new law in favor of Jews who fought for France in the last two wars, those converted to a Christian faith before June 20, 1940, and those who have rendered signal service to the country or whose forebears have long lived here.
It may be recalled that at present the treatment of Jews differs in the occupied and unoccupied zones. In the former the German authority has issued ordinances on the lines of the Nuremberg “ghetto laws.” The latest of these comes into application on May 20; in brief, it excludes Jews from all commercial activities without compensation.
MAY 20, 1941
BRITISH PUSH RAIDS ON NAZIS IN SYRIA
Report German Planes Ruined—Iraqis Claim Gains in Clashes with Foe
Special Cable to The New York Times.
CAIRO, Egypt, May 19 —While General Henri Fernand Dentz, French High Commissioner for Syria and Lebanon, talked belligerently over the radio last night about British intervention in Syria, Royal Air Force planes again were bombing German aircraft on Syrian airdromes.
[French chaser planes shot down their first British bomber over Syria yesterday, according to a German broadcast heard here by the Columbia Broadcasting System.]
A Heinkel-111 and another large plane were burned out as a result of a new raid on the airfield at Tadmur [Palmyra] and German machines at both Damascus and Rayak were damaged by bombing and strafing, according to a British communiqué issued here today. The Iraqi airdrome at Rashid, near Baghdad, also was bombed again.
R.A.F. raids Saturday night started several fires on the Axis airdrome at Calato, on the Island of Rhodes, believed to be used as a stopping place in the transport of planes, men and materiel to Syria and Iraq.
MAY 25, 1941
HOOD IS BLOWN UP
World’s Biggest Warship Sunk Between Iceland And Greenland
1,300 FEARED KILLED
By ROBERT P. POST
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 24 —The 42,100-ton battle cruiser Hood, pride of the British Fleet and the world’s biggest fighting vessel, was blown up today by an “unlucky hit” scored on a munitions magazine by the new German battleship Bismarck in an engagement off Greenland, the Admiralty announced. The Bismarck was damaged.
The German battleship Bismarck firing on the Royal Navy ship HMS Hood which sank almost immediately.
Apparently the British had had word that the Bismarck , accompanied by other German naval units, was trying to slip into the North Atlantic by the Germans’ favorite route—the northern route via Norway, Iceland and Greenland. The British sent a strong force, including the Hood, to intercept the German ships. The two forces clashed and the Hood was sunk.
The Hood carried a normal complement of more than 1,300 men, and the Admiralty said it was feared that there would be few survivors.
“The pursuit of the enemy continues,” the Admiralty reported. This statement probably means that the British ships are attempting to intercept and finish off the Bismarck if she is really crippled. Undoubtedly they are maintaining wireless silence, and therefore it remains to be seen whether the Hood will be avenged.
[In Berlin it was reported that the Hood had been sunk off Iceland during a five-minute engagement between a German flotilla and “heavy English naval forces.” The German units suffered no damages “worthy of mention,” it was said, and continued their operations.]
SYMBOL OF BRITISH POWER
The news of the Hood’s sinking is bound to cast a spell of gloom over the British people, because she was a symbol of British naval power. She was the show ship of the Royal Navy, and the British liked to think that they had the biggest warship afloat.
The Hood was of the same general type as the battle cruisers Queen Mary, Indefatigable and Invincible, which were blown up in the Battle of Jutland, supposedly as a result of insufficient armor over their turret magazines. The Hood, laid down in 1916, was redesigned to meet the lessons of Jutland, but apparently this was not enough.
At any rate, the greatest naval victory of the war since British cruisers bottled up the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, which was scuttled at Montevideo, Uruguay, must be chalked up for the German Navy.
This is the first time the world has known that the Bismarck
, a ship of 35,000 or more tons, is loose on the seas. She was launched on Feb. 14, 1939, with Reichsfuehrer Hitler present. The Bismarck
is supposed to have three sister ships, the Tirpitz, launched April 1, 1939, and two others believed to be still under construction.
MAY 28, 1941
THE HOOD AVENGED
U.S.-MADE PLANE AIDS
Sights Quarry and Puts Big Fleet on Trail—Reich Cruiser Flees
By ROBERT P. POST
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 27 —The Bismarck , Germany’s newest and finest capital ship, was sunk at 11:01 o’clock this morning [5:01 A.M. New York time] about 400 miles due west of Brest after naval action that had lasted for three and a half days and covered 1,750 miles from Denmark Strait. The British battle cruiser Hood, blown up by an “unlucky” hit from the Bismarck , was thus avenged.
The full account of the action, released by the Admiralty tonight, is a tale not only of gallantry and courage at sea but also of excellent staff work and quick, effective action into which the British threw all the might of their sea and air power, even leaving convoys unprotected and pulling the Western Mediterranean Fleet away from Gibraltar.
The far-ranging British aircraft that worked with the navy really deserve most of the credit for the most successful naval search in history. The plane that found the Bismarck after the pursuing forces had lost contact with her was a United States-built Consolidated flying boat. In the British service this plane is known as a Catalina; it is known as a PBY-5 when it patrols for the United States Navy.
WARSHIPS SEEN AT BERGEN
The story begins with the little-sung Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force. Its patrols, endlessly winging over Norway, discovered the battleship Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen, a new 8-inch-gun cruiser, lying in Bergen harbor some time last week. The Admiralty began at once to throw its net around the North Sea.
The 8-inch-gun British cruisers, Norfolk and Suffolk, the former wearing the flag of Rear Admiral W. F. Wake-Walker, dug out for Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. The British apparently guessed that the two German ships might go north around Iceland and try to slip down into the Atlantic. Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggested today that their mission was commerce raiding, but another suggestion was that they might have been trying to slip into the Mediterranean to turn the balance of power there.
At any rate the guess as to their immediate move was a good one. Last Friday evening Admiral Wake-Walker flashed to the Admiralty the signal that he had sighted the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen steaming under forced draft to the southwest. The range was only six miles when the ships were first sighted, but storms, snow, sleet and patches of mist sometimes reduced the visibility to one mile. Nevertheless the two British cruisers swung around and began to shadow the enemy. They successfully kept touch throughout the night.
HOOD GOES TO INTERCEPT
Meanwhile a signal had gone out and the British Fleet began to move. The Hood, largest fighting ship in the world, went steaming to intercept. She was accompanied by the Prince of Wales, one of Britain’s newest battleships and a sister ship of the King George V, which took Ambassador Viscount Halifax to his post in the United States.
Early Saturday morning lookouts on the Hood sighted the German squadron. The action began across miles of wallowing water, with big guns blasting at each other. Then German gunnery found one of the Hood’s turret magazines and she blew up with heavy casualties. The Prince of Wales, in action for the first time, was damaged slightly. But the Bismarck did not go unscathed. She also was hit, and at one point was seen to be on fire.
But the first round went to the Germans. The Bismarck and Prinz Eugen sped away, still steering to the southwest, and the two British cruisers continued to trail them. The Bismarck apparently had been damaged in the engines, for her speed was reduced. Coastal Command aircraft—they also formed a part of the net that was being flung around the Bismarck —reported that she was spewing oil.
Throughout Saturday the chase continued. By Saturday night the Prince of Wales had made good her damage and caught up with the fleeing Germans again. There was a short action, entirely inconclusive. The German ships turned westward, and the Prince of Wales and the British cruisers swung around to conform. Then the Germans turned southward again. Night fell and the pursued ships drew away.
NEW CARRIER IS SENT OUT
But British forces were converging on the scene, and Fleet Admiral Guenther Luetjens, aboard the Bismarck , must have known that he was trapped and could escape only with exceptional luck. Among the British ships speeding to the battle area was the new aircraft carrier Victorious. Miles away from the Germans she threw her torpedo bombers into the air. One of them hit the Bismarck with an aerial torpedo.
All through Saturday night and early Sunday morning the Norfolk, Suffolk and Prince of Wales continued the pursuit. Their lookouts strained their eyes, but the weather grew worse and the visibility poorer and at 3 o’clock Sunday morning contact was lost. The German ships were then about 350 miles south-southeast of the southern point of Greenland—not so very far from Canadian shores.
It was a bitter moment, both on the bridges of the pursuing ships and in the Admiralty operations room, when it was realized that contact had been lost and that from then on it would be a question of searching the wide seas. Naval officers knew that it might be a long and hard search, with the odds favoring the enemy. But it had to be faced, and the order to take up searching dispositions was flashed out to the fleet.
At the time contact was lost the Bismarck was heading southward. Already the Home Fleet had sailed from the north—probably Scapa Flow—with the commander’s flag of Admiral John C. Tovey on the King George V. The Western Mediterranean Fleet—or part of it—with Vice Admiral Sir James F. Somerville’s flag on the Renown, a battle cruiser of the Hood class, had weighed anchor and left Gibraltar, steaming northeastward to intercept. Both fleets doubtless were trying to keep between the probable course of the Bismarck and the French and Spanish coasts, where there might be ports to receive her.
BATTLESHIPS LEAVE CONVOYS
Out in the Atlantic the battleships Rodney and Ramillies, which were escorting convoys, turned and raced for the enemy from east and west. So from four directions British ships were closing in on the Bismarck .
British submarines were moving to cover German ports and ports on the French coast, especially Brest, where the damaged Bismarck might possibly take refuge.
But the most important search of all was the one in the air. At the Coastal Command airports rimming Britain’s shores all pilots were at action stations. Patrols were doubled and tripled and Sunderlands, Lockheeds and Catalinas thundered over the sea in a wide hunt.
Newfoundland, far away across the Atlantic, felt the excitement. From bases there the Royal Canadian Air Force flew away eastward and took up the patrol of its waters. To these patrols was added a ceaseless search by the Fleet Air Arm planes launched from carriers.
For a while these searches were in vain. Contact with the German ships had been lost at 3 A.M. Sunday, 350 miles south-southeast of Greenland. It was not established again until 10:30 A.M. yesterday, when a Catalina of the Coastal Command, patrolling the waters off England, spotted the Bismarck 550 miles west of Lands End.
The Catalina was immediately attacked, probably by a plane launched by the Bismarck ’s catapult. The Bismarck , by now, was alone. As a result of the attack, the Catalina, big and clumsy, lost contact again, but not before she had given tongue by wireless to the rest of the pack.
PLANES FROM ARK ROYAL
Luckily the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, apparently with Vice Admiral Somerville’s squadron, was somewhere near by. At 11:15 A.M. one of the Ark Royal’s flights sighted the Bismarck , which was still alone and steering eastward. It is interesting to note that this contact was made by planes from a carrier that the Germans have reported as sunk many times.
From then on contact was never lost. As soon as he had received the Ark Royal’s report, Vice Admiral Somerville threw the cruiser Sheffield out ahead to shadow the Bismarck . During that afternoon, while the chase continued, the Ark Royal launched an aerial-torpedo attack, but it was unsuccessful.
How the use of air power widens the extent of a modern naval battle is shown by the fact that, while the Ark Royal’s planes made contact at 11:15 A.M. yesterday and the Sheffield, which probably was steaming far ahead of the Ark Royal at the time, started her shadowing mission almost at once, it was not until 5:30 in the afternoon that she sighted the Bismarck .
Within twenty minutes after word had been received that the Sheffield was in touch, the Ark Royal launched another squadron of planes. They torpedoed the Bismarck amidships and also on the starboard quarter. It was reported that after this attack the Bismarck made two complete circles and her speed was reduced. The Germans said that one of these torpedoes had smashed the rudder and screws.
All the British forces were now converging on the doomed ship. British destroyers in the pursuit were determined not to let the big ships and the air forces have all the glory, and last night it was their turn.
DESTROYERS SCORE HITS
A squadron of Tribal-class destroyers made contact about 11 o’clock last night. Between 1:20 A.M. and 1:50 A.M. this morning they went in to attack. First the Zulu and then the Cossack and the Maori drove in on the Bismarck . The latter two destroyers scored hits with torpedoes. After the Maori’s attack the Bismarck ’s forecastle was seen to be afire.
One hour after the attack the shadowers reported that the Bismarck had halted. She then was about 400 miles due west of Brest. Subsequently she started out again, but the trap had clamped shut and she could only crawl away, making only eight miles in one hour. Her armament apparently was not damaged.
A cloudy dawn broke over the Atlantic this morning as the last phase of action developed. The Bismarck could not get away. It only remained to be seen what damage she could do before she ended the briefest and most adventurous career of almost any ship in naval history, with the possible exception of the Merrimac.
At dawn the Ark Royal tried again with another squadron of torpedo planes, but visibility was so poor that the attack had to be broken off. The trapped ship then struck back at the hovering destroyers with gunfire. But by now the main British battle line was pounding up to the scene and by poetic justice it was the Norfolk, which had borne the brunt of the chase, that first opened fire. Soon afterward 16 and 15-inch salvos from the biggest British ships were pounding the Bismarck .
Details of the kill are not known here, but it is known that the cruiser Dorsetshire was ordered to sink the Bismarck
with torpedoes. By then she must have been a helpless, blazing wreck. The long battle was over at 11:01 o’clock this morning.
MAY 28, 1941
A CALL TO NATION
President Takes Step Permitted Only When War Threatens
STRIKES MUST END
By FRANK L. KLUCKHOHN
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, May 27 —President Roosevelt tonight proclaimed that “an unlimited national emergency exists,” a step which, under the law, the Chief Executive can take only when he believes war to be “imminent.”
President Roosevelt declares an ‘unlimited’ national state of emergency over the radio in response to German aggression on May 27, 1941.
The President himself made the announcement in a radio address to the nation.
The United States, he declared, will not permit Germany to dominate the high seas and thus make ready for an attack on the Western Hemisphere.
The United States was prepared to take any steps necessary to assure the delivery of war materials and supplies to Great Britain and the eventual defeat of the Axis powers.
Declaring in so many words that the aim of the Nazis and their leader, Adolf Hitler, was world dominance, the President called upon all Americans to join in the defense effort and warned management and labor that the government is prepared to use all of its power to assure the production of armaments.
TO TAKE A HAND ON BASES
The President made it clear that the United States would not permit Germany and her allies to get bases, such as Dakar, the Azores, the Cape Verdes, Iceland and Greenland for a possible attack on the New World, and stated that, with further American naval units transferred, and to be transferred, to the Atlantic, this government intended to assure war supplies reaching Britain.
“The delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative,” he declared. “This can be done; it must be done; it will be done.”
At another point he said the nation was placing its armed forces in strategic military positions, and added:
“We will not hesitate to use our armed forces to repel attack.”
With this he warned the nation that because of the development of modern instruments of war attacks may be started from farther away than heretofore.
“With profound consciousness of my responsibilities to my countrymen and my country’s cause, I have tonight issued a proclamation that an unlimited national emergency exists and requires the strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority,” the President said.
In his proclamation of the national emergency, made under the law of 1917, the President gave as his formal reasons:
1. That a succession of events made it clear that the Axis belligerents plan “overthrow throughout the world of existing democratic order,” accomplished by the destruction of all resistance on land, sea and in the air.
2. That indifference to this on the part of the United States would place the nation in peril, so that common prudence dictates a policy of passing beyond peacetime military measures to a basis which will permit instant repulse of aggression “as well as to repel the threat of predatory incursion by foreign agents into our territory and society.”
“Now therefore,” said the proclamation, “I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do proclaim that an unlimited national emergency confronts this country, which requires the use of its military, naval, air and civilian defenses to be put on the basis of readiness to repel any and all acts or threats of aggression directed toward any part of the Western Hemisphere.”
Paraphrasing Hitler’s own statement that there are today “two worlds,” the President declared that today the entire world is divided “between human slavery and human freedom.” He said that the United States chooses human freedom.
MAY 30, 1941
85% SEE US IN THE WAR, GALLUP SURVEY FINDS
Number Holding That Opinion Doubled Since Conflict Began
By GEORGE GALLUP
Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
These surveys are made by a system of highly selective samplings in each of the forty-eight States in proportion to voting populations; thereby, the American Institute of Public Opinion holds, is obtained a result which would not vary from that of a numerically much larger canvass.
PRINCETON, N.J., May 29—The number of American voters who think the United States will likely get into the European was some time before it is over has nearly doubled since the war began twenty months ago.
Although public opinion surveys by the American Institute of Public Opinion have repeatedly shown that the majority oppose entering the war at this time, a survey just completed indicates that more than eight voters in every ten hold the fatalistic belief that the United States will be drawn into the conflict.
This sentiment began to rise sharply at the beginning of the year—during the period of debate over the lease-lend bill and the period when British ship losses were mounting rapidly—and was accelerated by Hitler’s invasion of the Balkans in April.
The trend on the question whether the United States will go to war, as measured in twelve successive surveys since October, 1939, follows:
| Think U.S. Will Go In | Think U.S. Will Stay Out | |
|---|---|---|
| October, 1939 (outbreak of war) | 46% | 54% |
| February, 1940 (war’s quiet phase) | 32 | 68 |
| May, 1940 (invasion of France) | 62 | 38 |
| June, 1940 | 65 | 35 |
| September, 1940 | 67 | 33 |
| December, 1940 (Greek-British successes) | 59 | 41 |
| January, 1941 | 72 | 28 |
| February, 1941 | 74 | 26 |
| March, 1941 | 80 | 20 |
| April, 1941 (Balkan invasion) | 82 | 18 |
| Today | 85 | 15
|
MAY 30, 1941
NAZI TROOPS POURING TO RUSSIAN BORDERS
Forces Returning From Balkans Said to Be Sent to Frontier
Special Broadcast to The New York Times.
ANKARA, Turkey, May 29 —Further confirmation was received from diplomatic sources today that the German High Command is withdrawing German troops from the Balkans and concentrating a formidable army on the Russian frontiers in Rumania and Poland.
The motorized assault divisions hurled against Yugoslavia and Greece and the vast reserves concentrated in Western Rumania and Bulgaria are being transported into Rumania’s Siret Valley and back through Budapest and across Slovakia to the Russo-German frontier in Poland, these reports said.
Though there is no accurate estimate of the German strength in Poland, this correspondent was reliably informed in Bucharest only recently that the concentrations in Rumania numbered upward of forty-one divisions. These are said to include two armored divisions and one parachute division.
JUNE 1, 1941
BRITISH IN BAGHDAD
German Fliers Reported Fleeing—Civil Group Rules The Capital
By DAVID ANDERSON
LONDON. May 31 —An armistice signed in Baghdad late this afternoon brought to an end the rebellion in Iraq against Britain, London learned tonight. Indian fighters of the British forces took up positions in the outskirts of the capital city from which Premier Rashid Ali el Galiani, leader of the revolt and all his followers able to do so had fled.
The Emir Abdul Illah, the Regent deposed by Rashid Ali, will form a new government without delay. Apparently the sole damper on celebrations at these developments is the absence of 6-year-old King Feisal II who is said to have been kidnapped by Rashid Ali.
[An Associated Press dispatch from London said that a British motorized force had driven into Baghdad. The same dispatch contained a report that German airmen were fleeing from Iraq.]
A British armored car waits outside Baghdad, while negotiations for an armistice take place between British officials and the rebel government during the Iraqi Revolt, May 30, 1941.
MAYOR ASKS ARMISTICE
A request for armistice terms was made to the British by the Mayor of Baghdad after Rashid Ali had crossed the Iranian frontier at the town of Kasr-i-Shirin yesterday and British troops had closed in on Baghdad. A committee of four citizens, headed by the Mayor, took charge of Baghdad’s affairs first ordering all irregular military organizations to disband according to reports that reached London by way of Cairo.
An Iraqi officer carrying a white flag presented himself at the British headquarters before Baghdad as the first step in the armistice negotiations. Earlier the Mayor had seen Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, the British Ambassador to Iraq, who recommended parleys with British military commanders.
The terms of the armistice guarantee Iraq’s unity and independence. The people are asked to return to work at once. The blackout has been lifted in Baghdad but no traffic is permitted on the streets after nightfall. Without question the British will receive the right to use all highways, railroads, airports and other communication facilities in Iraq which figured in the treaty over which Rashid Ali started the dispute.
Archad el Omari Mohafez, president of the Iraqi Commission of Internal Security, said in a statement today:
“The hostilities for which there is no longer any reason, will be ended as soon as the commission has received assurances that the complete independence of the country and the honor of the army will be guaranteed.”
ITALIAN MINISTER HAS FLED
Significantly, among the reports received after the armistice was one that the Italian Minister at Baghdad and the legation staff had departed in haste. They are believed to have gone to Iran with Rashid Ali. It was through an Italian diplomatic outlet that Germany conducted a long and patient drive, utilizing propaganda and intrigue, against Britain In Iraq.
It is thought here that this German effort was supposed to blossom into revolt when Reichsfuehrer Hitler was ready to strike for the oil fields. However, fighting broke out in Iraq soon after Rashid Ali had seized the government on April 3. It probably would have suited Berlin better if this had occurred June 3 or even later, thus giving the Luftwaffe time to complete the Crete offensive first.
Authorized statements clarifying the situation in Iraq have been given out in London. They say that the trouble has been cleared up and that it now is plainly evident that the dispute was not between the British Government and the Arab peoples but between Britain and Germany. It is thought that the Nazi failure to go to the aid of Rashid Ali in force was due in large measure to the way the British troops fought tooth and nail in Crete, thereby tying up the German schedule.
Stress is laid in the fact that Rashid Ali fled to Iran instead of going to Mosul, where Germans still are to be found. The campaign against these German forces, mostly air units, will continue; the struggle in Iraq is over only as far as the Arabs are concerned.
FIELDS BOMBED BY R.A.F.
The British forces now operating at Baghdad advanced from Feluja, according to a communiqué issued in Cairo today. The Royal Air Force had bombed the Washwash and Rashid airports near the capital and raided Kazimain in support of the ground troops.?If, as many observers in London assume, Syria is the next battleground, it will mean a race between the British and the Germans to determine who consolidates the position first. The British have gained an advantage by settling the Iraqi conflict before the Germans got control of Crete. Should the British sweep northward along the banks of the Tigris to Mosul and westward across the desert in the direction of Syria in sufficient force in the next few weeks, they may be able to forestall a German thrust.
Britain conducted the operations in Iraq with a small number of men, drawn mainly from India. She practiced economy there much as she did last Winter in the sensational exploits in Libya that culminated in the capture of Benghazi. This is one reason why it has taken so long to defeat the Iraqis, who at only one place—Habbania airport—threatened to score a telling blow.
Looking over the field from the viewpoint of General Sir Archibald P. Wavell, the British Commander in Chief in the Middle East, The Times of London will say tomorrow:
“One may distinguish two forward areas, Crete and the Western Desert and two rearward areas, Iraq and Abyssinia. In both of the former we are heavily pressed by the Germans. In both of the latter we have made a timely clearance of weaker but dangerously placed opponents. The news from Iraq is particularly gratifying. The success should confirm the faith placed in the US by the Arab world generally.”
JUNE 2, 1941
WAR IN IRAQ ENDS
Vital Oil Fields of Mosul Are Under Control of London’s Friends
ARMISTICE TERMS GIVEN
By DAVID ANDERSON
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, June 1 —Hostilities ceased throughout Iraq today as Emir Abdul Illah, the Regent, entered Baghdad. Six-year-old King Feisal II, who had been reported kidnapped by Premier Rashid Ali el Gailani, who fled to Iran, is said unofficially to be safe.
A brief outline of the terms of the settlement of the Iraqi-British war reached here tonight. The British, it is stated, are certain to gain access to all highways, railroads, airports and all other communication facilities, as provided in the original Anglo-Iraqi treaty, which Rashid Ali broke two months ago. The Premier’s action brought about the war.
Iraqi troops are to be returned to their peacetime stations—including the Ramadi garrison, which threatened the Royal Air Force station at Habbania. British prisoners are to be released and Germans and Italians are to be interned. Iraqis who were captured will be handed over to Abdul Illah, who will deal with them.
UNITED STATES ENVOY PRESENT
A large gathering of Baghdad’s prominent citizens joined Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, the British Ambassador to Iraq, in greeting Abdul Illah at the gates of the capital this morning. He received them a short time later at a reception. Among those present was Paul Knabenshue, the United States Minister.
Word has reached London from Cairo that the important Mosul oil fields in Northern Iraq are controlled by authorities friendly to Britain. This tempers anxiety over German activity there, as it is known that German agents have been entrenched there for months and have established air bases. The Iraqi Governor in Mosul is said to have long opposed Rashid Ali, so it is expected that he will take steps to counteract the German influence.
The British, taking stock of their month-long campaign in Iraq, have come to the conclusion that close cooperation between the ground and air forces played a decisive part. Air Vice Marshal John H. d’Albiac, who commanded the Royal Air Force in Iraq, was in hourly consultation with the General Staff of the Imperial troops from 6 o’clock each morning until midnight, working out a system for mutual support.
HABBANIA FORCE PRAISED
“The flying training school at Habbania did a fine job in handling the Iraqi revolt by taking on an operational task with the greatest success,” an R.A.F. spokesman said. He added that reinforcements of aircraft were pouring into the Middle East steadily.
The first account of events in Baghdad during the last few weeks was received today. As far as the stranded colony of several hundred Britons was concerned, Mr. Knabenshue, the United States Minister, played a leading role. Altogether 500 persons were sheltered at the British Embassy and the United States Legation for more than a month. British women and children had been evacuated from the capital on April 29. The men were placed under the orders of Sir Kinahan and Mr. Knabenshue.
Police guards and then Iraqi soldiers took up posts outside the legation on May 2, but two days later they were withdrawn. Excitement was greatest when the Iraqi Foreign Minister telephoned to say that Iraqi subjects must leave the building, as it might be bombed within the hour. It was explained that the British had threatened to destroy Baghdad’s public buildings unless the Iraqi troops menacing the R.A.F. garrison at Habbania were withdrawn. Rashid Ali, it is stated, sent a counter-ultimatum saying that all British subjects within the capital would be bombed in retaliation.
Mr. Knabenshue refused to listen to his guests’ offers to surrender to the Iraqis to save the United States Legation. He helped them to toss out all inflammable material, including old records, from the basement. Any kind of bomb would have flattened either the British Embassy or the legation, but the crisis passed without an attack. From then on Mr. Knabenshue remained close to his British charges, sharing hardships with them.
JUNE 2, 1941
NAZIS LIST CAPTIVES IN CRETE AT 10,000
Berlin Says That Invasion Has Been Completed as Port on South Coast Is Taken
By C. BROOKS PETERS
By Telephone to The New York Times.
BERLIN, June 1 —It was said in Berlin tonight that the invasion of Crete had now successfully been completed. With the joining of hands between Italian and German forces at Ierapetra, which occurred yesterday, the single harbor at all navigable on the otherwise precipitous southern Cretan coast is in Axis hands.
Therewith the only possible avenue of escape for any sizable contingent of the remaining British and Greek troops is said to have been closed. It was announced here tonight that around 10,000 of them had already been captured. At Ierapetra there is a sandy beach from which small groups of soldiers might have escaped in light craft from the pursuing Axis forces.
The harbor at Ierapetra itself, Germans declare, however, is so badly in need of dredging that the entrance of any sizable vessel into it is impossible. Small groups of British and Greek troops have attempted to flee and gain the open sea in light boats, it is reported here. Not many of them, however, it is added, have been successful.
EXPECT MORE PRISONERS
The Germans apparently count upon either capturing or destroying whatever Allied forces are still operating on Crete. Even those forces that succeeded in reaching open water are not necessarily safe. Yesterday the German Air Force is reported to have attacked British naval units endeavoring to cover the escape of as many troops as possible in the waters between North Africa and the southern coast of Crete. They are reported to have hit directly and badly damaged a destroyer, sunk a merchant vessel of 3,000 tons, destroyed a schooner loaded with ammunition and damaged a small troop transport—which was already within seventy-five miles of the Egyptian coast.
The cleaning up of the dispersed remnants of the Allied forces in the southern portion of Crete is making good progress, according to the German High Command. Authoritative quarters declare, moreover, that although some of the dispersed Allied units have taken to the mountains, the breaking of all resistance and therewith the total occupation of Crete will be completed in a very few days.