Evening star., 1945-07-05
Few Military Leaders
Know Real War Story
Writer Says Public Only Gets
Pieces of News Through Censors
Bv Dapid Laurence

VEitSf 0ayo
Pieces of News Through Censors
By Dapid Laurence
From priyates to generals and from
seamen TO admirals, the men in the
armed services all have their own ideas
on how the war should be fought. But
unfortunately few have the overall
picture of the strategy behind the opera
tions or the availability of troops and
supplies at given moment for par
ticular campaigns.
The truth about what Is happening
in the war zones cannot be pieced To-
gether entirely in local theater OF
operations and hence the job OF re-
porting what really is going on in tln1s
war comes back to general headquar-
ters, which is here in washington.
The public, to be sure, gets only
small part of the story because the
offlciaI communicates are limited in what
they tell War correspondents on the
scene cannot tell all because of censor
ship rules and often they do not know
the reason for moves which occur IN
their area but which are dictated by
considerations far away from the scene
Of action.
Full Story Awaits Wars End.
Not until the war is over will the
whole story come out and perhaps by
that time the public will not be so in
terested. AS often happens, the public
is satisfied with the fact that victory
in a particular campaign is won and
not much thought Is given to the posSi-
bility that lessons are not learned and
that wrong procedures are stubbornly
repeated.
The public leans to some extent for
guidance on so-called military analysts.
Most of them live far away from WASH
ington and write about the war from
skyscrapers in distant cities. There
are. of course. some military analysts
who come to Washington regularly and
keep in touch. Some still live IN the
past and do not know Of the changes
which have been necessitated by modern
warfare. Others are well posted, like
Hanson Baldwin Of the New York Times,
who not only has analyzed war opera
tions accurately, but has not hesitated
to criticize. Constructive writings Of
this kind have their influence on mill
tary men here.
The chief dificulty about getting the
truth to the public, however, is that
high military men cannot allow them
10 he 4al x4.,
take his choice between writing i'm
portant information on his own au-
thority and omitting mention of the
source or failing to print what Is going
on. The reporter, therefore, when sub
| jected to criticism for stating some-
| thing fatty cannot reveal the sources OF
information and must accept the char
| acterization Of armchair" strategist
| even when he is rejecting the views of
important sources quite competent to
| speak. e.
! If there were some way by which the
| public could be assured that mistakes
would be corrected-so that they would
not be repeated-it would not matter
much whether the public got concur
| rently the inside story of blunders and
errors made.
Tendency TO Hide Mistakes.
Unhappily, the system Of burying mis-
takes is very scientific process and
calculated to keep the public from
knowing what really has happened. If
the Army, for instance, makes a mis-
take it creates its own board of inquiry
but tells no other branch of the service
about it. The same is true of the other
armed services. The tendency Is for
each service to cover up its own records.
Serious mistakes have been made in
this war. But it will be long time
before the facts will be known about any
of them, including the truth about the
reasons why the Germans were able to
break through our western front last
winter and increase our casualties. what
happened at Anzio and Casino, why
400 Americans were shot down by
our own guns when they were fiy-
ing into Sicily, what happened ut
Saipan when Marine general found
himself compelled to remove an Army
major general and pulled whole divi-
sion out Of action, what happened at
Leyte when the first landing was made
in the Philippines and what happened
at Okinawa when the Navy provided
tactical air cover for three months and
the losses to our surface ships mounted
TO the highest total of any single naval
engagement we have had in the Padific.
In every case, of course, we won the
victory. Did we, however, suffer nm
necessary losss There are military men
who would like to let bygones be by
cones. But there are enormous tasks
ahead, notably an invasion of Japan.
which is expected to be very costly If
the lessons Of our various encounters
with the Japanese truly have been
learned. however, American casualties
should be materially reduced. This is
more important to the American people
than to accept the "old school tile"
method OF protecting fellow officers from
criticism and 1t is more important, too,
than the prides and rivalries of the
different branches Of our armed services.
War Bond Editoriol
From the Garden City tKsns.) Telegram.
TO whom 1t may concern. ., This d
the way Stan Sergt. Bob Potter ad-