Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-05-07

FRANKLIN D. Roosevelt, who ha.
modified the world against them.
President Roosevelt, one of tn
first leaders to recognize the ulG
mate meaning of the Rome Berlin
axis, died April IL, 1s45, while work
ing on plans for world rehabilita
ton. He lived to see the Allie,
Armies burst into Germany for tn
kill. He was mourned by freedom
loving peoples everywhere with al
almost personal grief.
Unmourned and unhonored, hi
final clay battered by the boots o
his former subjects, Mussolini wa.
executed by italian Partisans. H
had been little more than a back
ground shadow in the final days O
the war he entered with dreams o
empire.
On May /, a few hours aftel
Mussolini was buried. the Hamburg
radio broadcast that Hitler had dice
in the Berlin Reichschancellery
There were some doubts as to The
manner. but the Allied world seemed
disposed to accept the fact of death
The collapse of Germany was fore
Swallowed last July 20, when ar
attempt was made to kill Hitler anc
seize power by what the dictator
said was a small clique of foolish
criminally stupid" German officers
This revolt among Hitler's entour-
age, coming almost exactly a year
after Mussolini had been broken in
Italy; the rapid advances Of Rus
sian armies in the east, the drive OF
Allied armies in Italy, and the sue
cess Of the most difficult amphibi-
Gus invasion in history, the invasion
OF Normandy, all suggested that the
German Army was approaching a
debacle
Victory From Defeat.
At the start, the war looked to
the world, grossly undertaking Ger
man preparations, like the throw
Of q mad adventurer.
It turned out that the Allies
snatched victory only after hair
breadth escape from defeat.
Hitler opened it with a razzle-
dazzle Of propaganda, secret weap-
ons, armored spearheads. bombing
armadas, parachute troops, fifth
columns and political sleight-of-
hand which quickly established him
as a sinister Barnum Of war.
Before it ended, merged with the
war in Asia and the Pacific by the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
1t had been fought on all the oceans
and continents.
In this war there will be no VIC
tors and losers, but merely suryi-
vors and annihilated, Hitler threat
ened. And. accordingly, he set
pace for ruthleSsness and cruelty
unprecedented in modern war.
The conflict became
A war Of secret battles-long, 81
lent struggles to smash his invasion
fleet OF Britain, to master the sub
marine which imperiled the United
States as never before, to crush
robot bomb launching sites in
France.
A war of secret weapons-in
which the Allies with radar, a
conception of massed
fleets of invasion barges, the tech
nique Of mass bombing through
clouds, and host of inventions,
outdid Hitler.
War in the air-in which whole
armies Of millions engaged. For the
first time, the capitals of great ma
tons and scores of other cities were
marked for methodical destruction.
A war of cities-Stalingrad. Lenin-
srad, Odessa. Sevastopol Casino,
whose streets and houses were
urned into trenches and forts. A
lew technique of battle in the rub
de of cities developed. London was
lifted, and Berlin shattered.
Many New Weapons.
A war underground between Outs !
ings and armies of resistance, and
war of psychology in which the
our freedoms and the Atlantic
,harter were used to combat Nazi
deology.
A war fought In the extremes Of
weather. and terrain, from Africa to
he Arctic, in the worlds worst bogs
md jungles and most inaccessible
The war saw the advent OF the
lying bomb and many different
'ocket weapons, the blockbuster,
rapid firing guns which made artil-
cry barrages more intense than ever,
mass mobility of tanks and vehicles,
the air-borne army, the flying bat
tleship, amphibious invasion on a
grander scale than ever.
All this was started about 3 o'clock
on Friday morning, September l,
1899, when German armies invaded
Poland.
PoIund
Hitler planned a blitzkrieg-a
lightning war-and probably never
that England and France
would do more than wage token
war when they saw the uselessness
Of trying to save their ally.
Amazing armored spearheads
sliced through the Polish cavalry di-
to the Wisla (VistulD, trap
ped a huge army in the Kutno area
west of Warsaw and another at
Radon to the south.
In Is days, Hitler boasted of vic
tory in a speech at Danzig, though
it was September ~ before Warsaw,
battered to a pulp, surrendered.
Taking cognizance of British pre-
dictions OF long war-three years
Hitler declared he was ready for a
seven years war.
The same day, Joachim Won Rib
bentrop arrived in Moscow, and two
days later concluded with Russia
the fourth partition of Poland.
The 'Phony War
Great Britain and France served
an ultimatum on Germany on Sep
TENDER ! and declared war on Sun
day, September 8, while London
hastily evacuated her children and
waited breathlessly for the bombs to
fall. None fell. This was the
"phony war;