North Carolina Newspapers

\ * ? c ?' - -^'^MM The Alamance Gleaner 1 VoL LXXI GRAHAM, N. C., THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1945 No. 16 WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Truman Warns Japs to Quit as U.S. Shifts Weight to Pacific; More Civilian Goods to Come - Released by Western Newspaper Union. /?rniTOR'S NOTE: When spin lens are expressed Is these celamas, they are these ef Weaters Newspaper Unftsa's sews analysts and set necessarily mi this newspaper.) Flags identify Allied forces occupying German territory in accord ance with postwar plans. 'In addition to Russia taking over the east, the ?Idhh the northwest, and the Americans the south, the French reportedly ase to' eeeapy the Rhineland. . ONE FRONT: Speedy Shift Despite persistent reports of Jap peace feelers, America is going full meed ahead for an all-out war in toe Pacific following Germany's un ?liliunul surrender, bringing the bropean conflict to an end after bnost six years of the bitterest Uiting in history. ?o sooner had Col. Gen. Gus tos Jodl officially thrown in the ^?age for Germany on orders of Ptoluu Karl Doenitz than the tout11 h an high command geared it self for a shift to the Pacific, with ftoes calling for retention of an euuy of 6,968,000 and navy of JOB.000; the transfer of many air wings to the east to supple ment Super-Fort raids on Japan, and toe shipment of almost 3,000,000 tooops from Europe within a year. At the same time, however, pro "niiiei was made for keeping 400,000 American troops in Germany to oc ngiy the southwestern part of the uwilij while the French take over toe Rhineland, the British the north west and the Russians the east. Vmy Out Reading the handwriting on the wan even while Germany was still Frcm. Tram an hanging on the ropes, Jap business men, seeing their industries being re duced to rubble even before the U. S. could throw her full weight into the fray, reportedly made indirect ap proaches for peace. If such is Japan's intent despite the recent announce ?wnt of her government officials ?bout a fight to the finish. Pres. Barry S. Truman was seen as offer a*g the Japanese an opportunity to give up and still save face by his detailed definition of "unconditional surrender" in a V-E day statement. Then, the President said: ' "It (unconditional surrender) ?wans the end of the war. "It means the termination of the Maence of the military leaders who bare brought -Japan to the pres ent brink of disaster. "It means provision for the re tarn of soldiers and sailors to their taniilii i, their farms, their jobs. - "It means not prolonging the pres et agony and suffering of the Japa nese an the vain hope of victory." ta shifting U S. strength to the P??-ifc, the ? services plan to ship ?m construction, supply and main tenance forces directly from the Wtaa|u mi theater, while moving the M over through this country. Map Movements Including some 1,000,000 troops nflh extended combat records, who aee to be released along with the Mamded and over aged, the army wfll being 845,000 men home in the ?ret quarter after V-E day; 1,185.000 ?a the second, and SOT<000 in the taird. Those who will be retained ?ar the Pacific war will be given a St day furlough, then reassigned for Meed for staggering the return at tins from Europe stems from the ppwtip task trasMfcrrfatf equip iiiiin'to to** per cent of materiel in Europe will be fit for shipment to the Pacific theater. More Goods Though war production, will con tinue to dominate U. S. industry until the Japs quit, civilian output Fred Vinson should Increase in proportion to the volume of material and manpower freed from army cut backs. About 1,500, 000 workers prob ably will be re leased by contract cancellations within the next six months, War Mobilization Director Fred Vin son estimated, with another 3,000,000 let out after that, but all should find ready employment in reconversion, expansion and basic industries. Washing machines, vacuum clean ers, radios and furniture should be available in limited quantities with in a year, Vinson said, and some automobiles should also come off the assembly lines, though not enough will be manufactured to meet demands until 1948. With textiles and leather continuing to re main scarce until the Pacific war ends, the government will push up production of low-cost clothing and non-rationed footwear. With the nation's food stocks be low requirements, rationing will be maintained, with meat, sugar and butter in the tighest supply. With civilian gas allotments up 100,000 to How Discharge Plan Works Over 1M.M4 men a month are to be discharged raider the army's separation system based on vet's credit of (5 points, with 1 point for every month of service since September, 19M; 1 point for every month of over seas outside the U. 8.; 5 points for every combat award sncb as the distinguished service cross, the purple heart or battle partici pation stars; and 12 points for every dependent child raider 18 up to a limit of three. 200,000 barrels daily, "A" and com mercial card holders may be al lowed smalll ration increases. Though more tires may become available, an acute shortage will persist. Allied Terms Having vanquished Germany, the Allies showed no disposition to soft en up in the imposition of terms, with extended military occupation aimed at a close supervision of in dustry, finance and government to prevent a rebirth of militarism. According to occupation plans, the British have taken over the most highly developed industrial terri tory of Germany along with the im portant North sea ports; the Rus sians the heavy wheat and grain growing districts and "Little Ruhr" of Silesia; and the U. S. the agricul tural area of the southwest. Lang sought by the French for its military as well as industrial im portance, the Rhine land reportedly was assigned to them. Prise plum of this tosrUusy is tha Sear coal land, which provided the French with one-third at their prewar solid fuel. POSTWAR SECURITY: , Regional Pacts * Against protests that such ar rangements would narrow the ac tivities of a general security organ ization and eventually displace It, South American nations pushed for recognition of regional defense sys tems at the San Francisco confer ence. Based on the Act of Chapultepec drawn at the recent Pan-American convention in Mexico City, the South American proposal envisions the use of force to repel aggression against any of the Latin republics without awaiting the official sanc tion of the international security or ganization, any of whose major members might veto such a move. An extension of the Monroe Doc trine, the plan thus preserves pri mary responsibility for the secu rity of an area in the hands of coun tries immediately concerned. Discussion of the regional security proposal came as the U. S. and Brit ain tried to reconcile their differing views on postwar trusteeships over conquered territories after the war, with this country standing for ex clusive use of military bases upon . strategic islands and the British in sisting upon control subject to the security organization. Meantime, sentiment in congress grew for unfettered U. S. use of any postwar bases in the Pacific vital to defense in the area. Sinfie this country primarily will be responsi ble for keeping the peace in the Pa cific, Senator Byrd (Ta.) declared it should not be subject to supervision by any other nation or group- "It's little enough for us to ask," said the senator. SUGAR: New Problem Latest of the food problems con fronting the nation is sugar, with re ports that the 1945 Cuban crop will fall 790,000 tons short of the 1944 harvest, pointing up the tight supply expected to persist throughout the year. The report of the smaller Cuban crop came in the midst of the house food committee'8 investigation of the sugar situation, with evidence indi cating that manpower shortages, Importation of twelve million thort tons of food trill be necessary to im prove living conditions in liberated nations and to prevent starvation in enemy territory in Continental Europe this year, according to an analysis completed by the office of foreign agri cultural relations This total would consist largely of wheat but should also include substantial quantities of fats, animal protein foods and sugar, the report says Survey of food condi tions on the continent indicate the food supply this year will be from 50 to 70 per cent of the prewar energy intake. bootlegging and inaccurate apprais- , al of existing stocks have all played a hand in the growing shortage. Though operators' inability to se cure sufficient help to harvest sugar beets and bootleggers' use of illegal supplies of the commodity have con tributed to the tight situation, the committee found, the industry's indication that adequate stocks ex isted led to consumption of about 800,000 tons more last year than originally allotted. SUPREME COURT: Award Miners Drawn after laborious parley be tween companies and union repre sentatives, the new soft coal contract was clouded by a Supreme court de cision holding that miners were en titled to pay for full underground travel time under the wages and hours law. Thus, the high court's ruling up set the new contract's provision that such pay was to be made on the basis of an average of all miners underground travel time, and at the same time allow for a reexami nation of the pact. In line with a previous Supreme court verdict covering iron ore miners, the latest decision came at a time when negotiations between hard coal miners and operators had bogged over differences in under ground travel pay. WAR COSTS: High Toll With the war half-won, U. S. casu alties total over 990,000 and mili tary expenditures $279,000,000,000. Late reports showed 747,104 cas ualties in the European theater, with the army reporting 139,498 dead, 487,408 wounded, 72,374 missing and 92,990 prisoners; the navy 0,419 dead, 3,012 wounded, 994 missing and 29 prisoners, and the marine corps 34 dead, 1 missing, 1 wounded and 3 prisoners. Having already spent $279,000,000, 000 on the war, government expendi tures will remain high during the Japanese war and for some time after to finance veterans' care, pen sions, benefits and interest on the public debt, presently at $230,990, Bgt.mm Dew From a San Francisco Fog: Walter Duranty, former N. Y. Times correspondent in Moscow and elsewhere. Joined our table foe other noon to talk shop. . . . We were de pressed, we told Mr. Duranty, over our sour luck. Before a Molotov story broke on all foe front pages, we had written and filed foe story exclusive 36 hours earlier. "Nobody," we added, "seems to know anything about it, although Ivan Paul of foe San Francisco Ex aminer (who motored us to the place) was witness to foe fact." "Oh, well," said foe veteran cor respondent, "you can't 'get them all, you know." "You don't seem to understand," we groaned. "There's excitement in getting a scoop now and then. Don't you try to get scoops?" "No," said Duranty. "I'm in the erudite part of foe profession.'*' Things I Never Knew Till Now: After the First World War, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery shop I which failed. He refused to dodge I his debts by resorting to bankruptcy. . . . Truman spent the next 14 years paying off $20,000 worth of haber dashery debts. There is a lot of talk about what we ougni 10 ao to ijermany tana Japan) for mass-murdering prison ers and labor slaves. This pillar suggests that we let the "things" whip themselves with memories of their bestiality?with us just prod ding the memory. There are evi dences of German savagery all over Europe, so let's preserve them as monuments. Let future German generations see them and find out what kind of blood they are born with. If they can grow up among reminders of what it costs to be a monster, maybe they'll work a little harder to get back into the human race. Hitler's name must be perpetuated among the Germans. Every platz and strasse and highway named for him should continue to wear the Adolf Hitler tag. Why shouldn't his name offend German noses the way it has the noses of other people? After all, they nourished him, so they can be stuck with him. His puss must also be kept public?all over the billboards, the school books and calendars. He must always be referred to as Der Fuehrer, and we can drop around a couple of decades from now and ask them what they think of the founder of the master race. And that master race should be a must, too. They must never refer to themselves as anything else. If they fail, the penalty will be a solo rendition of the Horst Wessel song, a verse and a chorus. The only ex cuse for not uttering master race will be a doctor's certificate swearing the holder got the phrase stuck in ms uiruai. ne u jusx nave 10 wroe "Heil, Hitler" a hundred times. Germany's big day af the fatnre will be called Der Tag and will be observed annually, with everybody compelled by law to participate. The day will begin with broadcasts of Hitler's pop-off speeches (record ings), featuring those denouncing the rotten democracies and also those excusing the German murderers on the ground that inferior races de served to die. Then there will be movies, with attendance compul sory, showing the beaten and starved prisoners of war at Lublin, Maide nek, Treblinka, Mi est e. Belsen. Every German apoa reaching his or her 21st birthday will be made to make a pilgrimage to Lidice, and there hear a reading of the report of hangman Heydrich, who mur dered in vengeance every innocent child and woman in that Czech vil lage. Ta return to the celebration of Der Tag, the final exercises of the day would be a standing vote by the population on what they think of the Versailles Treaty of World War L And they would be asked if they had plenty of living room, or had their patience become exhausted the way it had so often before 1939. If any of the Krauts cared to learn English they would be given lessons culled from some newspapers in the U. S. Since these lesaons were origi nally written to comfort the Nazi ideal, they would probably be easy to absorb. The Germans would be particularly interested in the Amer 1 ican columns that sneered at report ed German atrocities as so much ' Weather Enters Big Business Field of World's Armies, Navy, Trade and Farms I By WALTER A. SHEAD WNU SUf Correspondent. There is one thing in which the nation's farmers and our mili tary leaders have a common stake ... an element which can upset the most carefully laid military plans and the most meticulously planned agricul tural program?the weather. The farmers' success in plant ing and harvesting and Ameri can combat success in com bined land-sea-air operations can come only through close ob servance of the scientific pre dictions of the weatherman. For the weather is often used as a military weapon by our military strategists, and our farmers are dependent upon the vagaries of t the weather to harvest a record production, or a crop failure. No military operation?whether it is a minor sortie by a group of fight ers, a bombing mission on an enemy city, naval bombardment of a Jap island, a ground attack in China, or I ? iai gc o^aic luvauoa?is aever oiue I printed unless latest weather infor mation is first consulted. Success of an attack is ofttimes dependent upon clear weather, though American I forces have profitably exploited bad weather to make offensive strikes against the enemy. Our military strategists were quick to recognise the impor tance of aeearate meteorological data, and so have greatly ex panded the network of observa tion posts, trained thousands of officers and enlisted men and adopted new technological de vices to guarantee reliable fore casts. Together, the AAF, the navy and { the U. S. Weather bureau weather , systems form a vast network of E information, research, observation f and forecasting reaching from the E United States to all parts of the world. Observation units vary in size from two men occupying a hut on an isolated Atlantic or Pacific isle to a major research station with a full staff of specialists. The AAF maintains several major j research centers and more than 1,000 observation and forecasting i stations reaching from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and its weather report system spreads and moves as rapid ly as the fighting fronts. The nerve center of this vast, scattered weath er force is in the Pentagon build ing in Washington where approxi mately 50 persons watch the weath er in all regions of the world and prepare long-range forecasts and special studies to guide our high strategy planners. Navy Maintains Stations. The navy maintains about 1,400 observation and forecasting sta tions, including 14 major weather "centrals." In some instances serological units may be aboard flagships or aircraft carriers, or on advanced island bases and the units may consist of one man on a small ship or a full fledged "central" with a full complement of 100 or more i officers and men. How the navy weather bureaus have grown since 1940 may be seen by the fact that in that year navy aerology under the bureau of aero nautics consisted of less than 200 of ficers and men in about SO units, whereas today the personnel totals about 8,500 officers and men as signed to the 1,400 units. The AAF staff of weather specialists numbers 20,000 officers and men, and the force of observers alone has grown from SO to 10,000. Service provided by these thousands of forecasters in This photo shows the effect of weather on the soil so a sooth Pacifo island. This track is really mired. chides technical operation and ] Interpretation oI results record ed by radio sonde, a small box containing a single-tube short ware transmitter. Seat aloft on a balloon, the transmitter fires temperature and humidity read ings at various heights. There are also repair technicians schooled in the maintenance of delicate weather Instruments, communications men who radio or teletype weather reports back to headquarters, and aircraft weather reconnaissance fliers, who observe conditions along the flying routes. According to our military men ac ormation, the AAF and the navy , leather forces have been made poa libit by the careful selection of men rom the ranks to specialize in veather information, by intensive Germany took UruU|? a( bad, irercait weather, with rain aad now to make their counter-attack n the Belgian bulge tn the Ar lennes. Low risibility aad cold kept tar superior alrforee grounded, until clearing weather gare us a break. itation training and by releasing personnel from the weather bureau tor military dpty and replacing them ly new civilian recruits. Weather Important Weapon. According to our military men ao :urate evaluation of weather, plus the constant flow of up-to-the-minute meteorological information from all theaters of war, make it possible to use weather as an important weap on. Cited as examples of weather strategy is the Sicilian invasion. Plotting of prevailing winds and of the movement of cold air front over Italy indicated our invasion ships would encounter rough seas on the ourney from North Africa, but at he lama time our forecasters pre iicted tranquil waters in Sicilian larbors, and the almost miraculous talming of the seas as our landing :raft neared the Sicilian shores has jecome a military classic. Admiral Halsey took advantage of the cover of a "zero-zero" storm aft er raiding the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. With visibility zero and ceiling zero, his ships, large and heavy enough to ride out the storm, were meanwhile safe from enemy air attack. At Rabaul detail plotting of the upper air strata enabled our forces to lay down a smoke screen to blot out our vessels and our planes from Japanese ack-ack and dive bomb ers. Low wind velocity was required so that our screen would not sud denly veer and cover our target in stead. Conditions were exactly as predicted and ordered. , Many other instances of the sse of weather forecasts by ess ( militarists arc gives, for is- ( stance Is the Normandy lava- J sion, weather was bad aad AM ( sea choppy, hot the forecasts sere that severe eondlHoaa I weald prevail for at least SI days after the D-Dsy cboeea. Axis Are Weather Casaelens. ") Both Germany and Japan are ex tremely weather conscious aad both have used weather, particularly bad weather, to acreea their activities. For instance, Germany's battle off the bulge in the Ardennes was tm doubtedly arranged to coincide witb bad weather that would keep our so perior air strength incapable of de cisive blows, while German ground forces, numerically stronger at that point, smashed through. A clearing break in the weather came ulti mately and our air power went Into action to help gtop the German of fensive. According to the navy, the Japs are not as far advanced in weather technique as either Germany or our own military. In at least oao instance a Japanese plan of action did not work' out as scheduled be cause of their weather miscalcu lations. They attempted to bring reinforcements to New Guinea un der a storm front so that our planes could not spot their movements. An unexpected or miscalculated shift dissipated the Storm front. Tha troop and supply armada was spot ted by our reconnaissance planes. They were attacked and destroyed by the AAF in the famous Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Methods used by various countries in weather forecasting vary. The AAF and the navy use the Norwe gian theory of air masses and polar fronts and the long series of daily weather charts of the world pre pared by the weather bureau as n basis. Research Essential. Almost endless research was nec essary to code the world's weather data. Starting in 1942 the weather bureau, in cooperation with the mili tary services, started in this task using all available weather informa tion in the northern hemisphere for each day since 1899. This informa tion was replotted and reanalyzed, transferred into a standard code and into a punch card system. In this way 30 years of weather were chart ed and analyzed within a year. From the areas studied by the army, high priority sections, where military ac tion would most likely take place, a card system was evolved and total weather tabulations to data