Last week long-dreaded World War II was six months old (Sept. 3 to March 3).
As the first half-year drew to a close, and a solemn, long-nosed reporter for President Franklin Roosevelt went the rounds of Europe to learn if total war was truly inevitable, spokesmen for both sides restated their war aims more grimly and finally than ever. For the Allies, British Prime Minister Chamberlain said again: Hitler and his crushing "ism" must be wiped out of Europe. For himself and his oligarchy, Adolf Hitler said: he must dominate 125,000,000 Europeans and the world's trade arteries must be freed from Great Britain's "pirate" grip.
As spring breathed sweetly on Europe, as the first crocuses peeped up in French mountain slopes, as the first storks returned to Belfort and other birds started taking mates, the wings of war rustled more and more ominously. Scouting planes from both sides of the Maginot-Siegfried stalemate soared over the enemy's interior now in massed squadrons instead of singly. Over the North Sea, Nazi bombers dived with increasing fury and frequency on Allied merchant convoys and British trawlermen. The crew of a Dornier bomber flying inside the Belgian line on the Luxembourg border felt so springlike when three Belgian patrol planes came up to chase them away that they opened fire, sent the Belgian squadron leader crashing to death, forced another down with holes in his gas tank, wounded the third plane's pilot.
Somewhere on the Rhine, the Germans were reported massing pontoon bridges. The German people, remembering Hitler's mystical faith in March,* stirred excitedly, confidently expecting a vast Nazi offensive to begin soon. Some even named the day: March 15.
The casualties from what fighting had already taken place in the war's first half year—leaving out Germany v. Poland and Russia v. Finland—stood about as follows:
Allies Germany
Soldiers 1,000 1,400
Airmen 1,000 850
Sailors 3,500 2,500
Compared to World War I figures, the above are infinitesimal. And the reason was that this is indeed a total war, a war of embattled economies as well as armed forces. Significantly, and strongly reminiscent of the last total war (1914-18), the debates and edicts loudly audible on both sides in the last week of War II's sixth month were almost exclusively concerned with FOOD.
"A Mean Get-out." In England, white-maned David Lloyd George, 73, the little Welsh lion who galvanized and led the British in 1916-18, has appointed himself a scourge to the Chamberlain Government on the subject of Food. His model farm at Churt, Surrey is but part of his credentials as Food expert: he revealed last week that he faced (and averted) a moment in 1917 "when we were within three weeks of having no bread in the country." Last week, speaking at a luncheon in London's swank Dorchester Hotel, he cried: "I have one message. It is essential that the nation's food be guaranteed for a long war. If you want a short war, you must be prepared for a long one. Better a long war than a mean get-out."