The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-12-11
THE LIBERATED CoUNrRIEs

lens of the war as whole Will
tae war goes on nothing the Allied
governments can do to relieve and
TO renabllltate can be enough. and
tiiey must rely upon the capacity
OF the people to understand. be-
cause the situation can only he
renewed and not cured, why in the
tlrst winter of freedom their ma.
terlal nardships are so severe. For
TINS reason the first concern Of
Allied diplomacy must be to sus-
tam, and to come into close con-
fldence with the heroic spirit Of
the resistance. Only if the men
and women who never ceased to
tight the Germans can continue
10 &c >lntuse the whole population with
the conviction that they are still
at War-only then will the little
be enough, the little we can now
90 to make life better.
The immediate problems oil
Europe are entirely insoluable if
we rest our diplomacy upon the
passive and non-resisting elements
OF the population. In so far a. the
people take the view that they
nad to submit to the Germans be-
cause the Germans were so strong
and so cruel and that now they
must wait for the Anglo-Ameri-
cans who are SO strong and so
rich, they will be in no state of
mind to face the situation. The
truth is that while we have to
wage war against Germany and
against Japan. the liberated peo-
pies can cover the great deficit
between what we can provide and
what they need only by the spirit
ual act of realizing that they are
our allies in world war. The men
of the resistance are that part
Of the population who are Injured
to the task of prosecuting war, and
of not expecting peace for them
selves while the enemy is unde-
feated.
The material situation Of liber-
ated Europe is dominated by two
great circumstance of war. One
is that in expelling the Germans
from occupied territory, we have
to destroy by patriotic sabotage,
by bombing and bombardment the
means of communication and of
industrial energy; the Germans, as
they retreat, demolish what re-
mains in order to impede our ad-
vance. The war, in other words,
is waged in such a, way that
liberated country is economically
a paralyzed country.
To this there is a notable and
an important exception. The de-
feat of the German armies last
summer became such rout that
France from Paris to the present
line, and also Belgium and Luxem-
burg, were freed so rapidly that
they were not deeply devastated.
For the time being the facilities
of this region of western Europe
are monopolized by the armies
which are hammering at Germany.
But in the future Immediately
after fighting ceases this augurs
well for the recovery of western
Europe.
Elsewhere, in the ports Of
France, in the Netherlands, where
the position is exceptionally bad,
in Italy, in Greece, and in the
Balkans, the public utilities on
which all economic life depends
have been, or are likely to be, sys-
tematically wrecked. Materials
and machinery will have to be i'm
ported to repair them, and even
then it will be very long time
indeed before they can be made
to operate tolerably well.
The other controlling circum-
stance is that we do not have
enough ships to conduct the Euro
pean war and the Japanese war
and to transport to Europe food
to prevent starvation and the ma
terials and the machinery needed
to enable the Europeans to get
into their cities the food and fuel
which they themselves are able
to produce.
The fact of the matter is that
our shipbuilding program, though
it is an, industrial miracle, has
not produced anywhere near SO
many ships as We actually need.
The reason is that in one impor-
tant respect we did not correctly
anticipate what would happen to
shipping in our amphibious oper-
ations in the Mediterranean, in
northern Europe, and in the South
Seas.
We have enough ships to carry
all the troops and supplies we
need-enough provided the ships
can be unloaded when they ar
rive overseas and can then return
to take on another cargo. But in
Europe the strategy of the enemy
has been to foil us by holding and
wrecking the ports where ships can
be unloaded. We obtain and re-
pair ports only with the greatest
difficulty. There are not enough
to unload all the ships. Therefore
loaded ships have had to wait
weeks and months before they are
unloaded. They have mad to wait
because the needs of battle change
quickly. and no one could posi-
Nv foresee three months in ad-
vance in New York Harbor which
SHIPS carrying which supplies
would need to be unloaded and in