THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW WHILE the Big 3, surrounded by their retinues of experts, sat down at Potsdam to plan the peace of Europe (see Kenneth Cratvford's article on Page 1), the war in the Pacific...
...Cripps, who sought unsuccessfully in...
...The Messrs...
...CZECHOSLOVAKIA President Eduard Benes announced that his government would remove 3 million German and Hungarian residents as undesirables, if he could get approval of the Big 3. Nothing less than transfer of 2.500,000 Germans and 400,000 Hungarians can assure the nation a reasonably secure future, Benes said...
...Even as they met there were significant developments in many countries, some of the more important of which are reported briefly below...
...More than 50,000 GI's were arrested in 2 months for violating the non-fraternization ban...
...As a substitute for effective resistance, the Japanese threw out hints of a great new secret weapon to come...
...Nowhere did the enemy offer resistance, aerial or naval...
...Actual completion of these equipments," blared the Tokyo radio, "would enable the Japanese to meet enemy carrier planes twice or thrice as large as those that operated lately...
...1942 to win acceptance of a dominion-status plan for India, urged that elections be held for a new Indian constituent assembly which would draw up the constitution...
...ACROSS the world in Europe, the Big 3 sat down to talk the terms of peace for a battered and bleeding continent ruled by political chaos and economic insecurity...
...GERMANY A ticklish dispute between Russian and Anglo-American officials on problems of administration and food for Berlin—now jointly occupied by the 3 Powers—was settled by a compromise agreement which cleared the air for the moment but settled no basic issue...
...The agreement was reached just as British and American military governments began to function in Berlin after several months'of exclusive Soviet occupation in the German capital...
...INDIA The prospect for at least partial settlement of the grave political crisis in India faded this week when the Simla Conference of Indian political leaders ended without agreement on Viceroy Lord Wavell's proposals for greater Indian self-government...
...It is monstrous that the world should allow this to happen...
...Truman, Stalin, and Churchill had a host of knotty problems before them, and there could be little doubt that their decisions would go far toward determining the shape of postwar Europe and perhaps the world...
...Admiral Chester Nimitz disclosed as U. S. surface vessels pounded coastal cities with 16-inch shells while planes ranged inland to pour their fire bombs over 10 cities...
...This is Hitlerite racialism in reverse...
...More than 1,000 carrier-based planes of Admiral William F. Halsey's powerful Third Fleet struck the urban centers of Japan in successive raids, while the surface vessels, battleships, carriers, and cruisers, in vain challenged what was left of the Japanese Navy to come out and fight...
...The left-wing London Tribune bitterly denounced the Benes move as an "insane and utterly brutal policy of racialism" which is costing the Benes government the "sympathy it enjoyed ever since its infamous betrayal by Britain and France during the fateful days of Munich...
...We urge the world to wait for the opportunity which is not far off to see the real Japanese Navy and Air Forces in action...
...Meanwhile, Anglo-American brass hatg bdwed to the inevitable when they announced a partial relaxation of the non-fraternization policy under which British and American troops were prohibited frorn associating with any Germans in any way...
...Delegates representing the Congress (Gandhi) Party placed blame for the conference failure on the Moslem League, saying its attitude on the issue of Moslem representation in the proposed interim government was the immediate cause of the failure, and on the British for allowing the Moslem League's veto on a single point to block the Wavell plan despite the agreement of all other factions...
...The Kommandatus, or joint Allied council governing Berlin, decided that the policies and regulations established by the Red Army would remain in force "throughout the British and American zones for the present...
...Dwight D. Eisenhower and Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery backed down to the extent of allowing Allied troops to talk with adults in the streets and in public places...
...Meanwhile recurring demands in Congress and the country for a specific declaration of the U. S. aims in the Pacific war, last week smoked out the State Department on reports that the Japanese have thrown out "peace feelers...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW WHILE the Big 3, surrounded by their retinues of experts, sat down at Potsdam to plan the peace of Europe (see Kenneth Cratvford's article on Page 1), the war in the Pacific continued its remorseless pace as American naval and air forces took a great new toll of life and property on the home islands of Japan while American land forces continued their grim task of mopping up in the Philippines, Okinawa, and other areas wrested from the Japanese...
...Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew issued a vaguely-worded statement in which he denied that any Japanese surrender offers had been made, but admitted that there had been unofficial "peace feelers" which "have invariably been inquiries as to our position...
...Following the collapse of conference negotiations, Sir Stafford Cripps proposed in London that immediate steps be taken to give India self-government under a constitution...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 30
