The March of Time: 8 March 1945 (MUSIC: HIT THEME) VAN: THE MARCH OF TIME! (MUSIC: THEME UP AND DOWN) ANNOUNCER: TIME, the weekly news magazine, takes you to the news fronts of the world: Can Fascist Spain survive in a democratic Europe? The heroic and tragic story of an American guerrilla chief in the Philippines. And a personal meeting with the first U.S. Marine to return from Iwo Jima. Stand by for the MARCH OF TIME! (MUSIC: THEME UP TO CURTAIN) VAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Westbrook Van Voorhis speaking for the editors of TIME Magazine. It is now the Allied Watch on the Rhine. U. S. civilians at home, remembering how we dealt with Italian civilians, and well aware of the doughboys' soft heart may well ask: How are we treating German civilians? Are we coddling them? A new answer and a firm one came this week in a cabled report from officers of the American Military Government of Neuss, first Rhine city to come under American control. In the Rathaus, or city council house, the U. S. captain in charge marches into the office of the Buergermeister, or Mayor of Neuss. (SOUND: MILITARY BOOTS TO HALT) MAYOR: Ach, good morning, Herr Captain! I am at your service. CAPTAIN: (TOUGH) O. K. You can continue as mayor of this town, but I'm the boss. Get that straight. MAYOR: Ja wohl. I shall cooperate. CAPTAIN: As long as you do, and as long as your people behave, okay. Otherwise, out you go. In the first place, all civilians will be confined to their homes until further notice. MAYOR: But Herr Captain, how can they? Where can 30 thousand people go? Half the homes in Neuss are in complete ruin! CAPTAIN: [I don't care where German civilians live.] They've got to stay off the streets so as not to get in the way of our military operations. My order will be obeyed. [(MUSIC: STING) [(SOUND: SOME OFFICE BUSTLE IN B. G.) [MAYOR: (CAUTIOUSLY) Herr Captain . . . [CAPTAIN: Well, out with it, Buergermeister! Are your town cops helping my military police clear the streets as I told you? [MAYOR: Alas, Herr Captain, my police are prisoners of war, your prisoners. Apparently your soldiers rounded them up thinking they were German soldiers. Their uniforms are green gray . . . [CAPTAIN: If we've made a mistake, we'll release them, put them in civilian dress, and give them arm bands. But if a German has a uniform, it's better to throw him in a prisoner of war pen and investigate later.] (MUSIC: STING) (SOUND: SAME) DOCTOR: (VERY CAUTIOUS) If you please, Herr Captain, I am the sanitation official . . . Water and sanitation facilities have broken down completely, of course . . . CAPTAIN: Well, round up whatever German doctors there are, and let them take care of any civilians who get sick . . . DOCTOR: But your own medical corps . . . your own wonderful sanitary equipment . . . CAPTAIN: Not a chance, doc! I'll see that notices are posted where water is available; that it must be boiled before drinking. That's all we can do at present. (MUSIC: STING) (SOUND: SAME) MAN: But, Herr Captain! You do not understand. Meine frau she will have the baby any minute! Now your army doctors . . . I have read how they . . . CAPTAIN: Not in Germany. Go get a midwife or one of your German doctors and consider yourself lucky if you find one. It's your affair, not mine. (MUSIC: STING) (SOUND: SAME) CAPTAIN: What's the trouble now, Buergermeister? MAYOR: It is my people, Herr Captain. They stay off the streets, as you command. But they are hungry. I beg, I implore you to release emergency army rations to them! CAPTAIN: Look, Mayor. We got better use for our army rations. Collect whatever food there is in the shops that hasn't been destroyed. Then, gather the food your civilians have hoarded in their homes . . . MAYOR: Hoarding? Oh, nein . . . CAPTAIN: And _sell_ it to these hungry people of yours. The money will go into a food fund that won't cost us a cent. Because we aren't putting out any. MAYOR: But you are already housing and feeding some civilians. CAPTAIN: Sure, we're feeding three thousand. They're Russians, Poles, French, Dutch, Belgians and a few Algerians we found here in Neuss. And we're going to keep on feeding 'em, until we can get 'em back to their homes. They're entitled to it. You're not! (MUSIC: IN .... ) VAN: That's the way American Military Governors handle German civilians. If you've been worrying about it, forget it. Worry about something better or worse. (MUSIC: CURTAIN) (MUSIC: HIT ORCHESTRA AND VOICES RODGER YOUNG--ENOUGH TO ESTABLISH--FADE) VAN: This week a new war song is marching into American hearts: The Ballad of Rodger Young, written to honor all infantrymen in the name of one. Its author, Private First Class Frank Loesser, writer of "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and many another topflight hit. The story of Private Rodger Young that led Composer Loesser to write what may well be the war's top song is told in LIFE magazine. VOICE: Rodger Young of Clyde, Ohio, was one of the smallest men in Company B of the 148th Regiment in the 37th Infantry Division. But he was a good soldier. How good was revealed in an incident that occurred just before the 37th Division went into combat, for the first time, on New Georgia Island in the southwest Pacific, Sergeant Young approached his company commander. YOUNG: Sir, I have a request to make. OFFICER: Yes, Sergeant? YOUNG: I've been slightly deaf, sir, ever since I was in high school. When we were in training at Camp Shelby, sir, my ear trouble got worse. OFFICER: Having trouble now Sergeant? YOUNG: Yes, sir, worse than ever. OFFICER: And you want a medical discharge? YOUNG: Oh, no, sir. I'm just afraid my poor hearing will interfere with my job as a squad leader. I may miss some important message, or some sound in the jungle. That'll be dangerous for the men under me. OFFICER: Then what _is_ your request, Sergeant? YOUNG: Sir. I want to be demoted to the rank of private. (MUSIC: BRIDGE) VAN: Soon thereafter the 37th Division landed on New Georgia, fought bitterly resisting Japs back through the jungle. Late one afternoon the platoon in which Rodger Young was fighting was ordered to withdraw a little for the night. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machine gun concealed on higher ground only seventy-five yards away. (SOUND: MACHINE GUN FIRE OFF IN AND OUT AS CUED BATTLE SOUNDS) SERGEANT: Hold it, you guys! Hold it! Anybody hit? YOUNG: I am. SERGEANT: Rodge. Hit bad? YOUNG: No. SERGEANT: Okay, you guys. Pull back. Keep low. YOUNG: Hey, Sergeant! I got that machine gun spotted. I'm going after it. SERGEANT: Come back here, Young! YOUNG: (OFF) I'll get 'em! Stay where you are! (SOUND: MACHINE GUN FIRE. THEN SEVERAL GRENADES) SERGEANT: They hit him again! MAN: He's still throwin' grenades, though! (SOUND: GRENADES--MG FIRE--THEN A BIG GRENADE BLAST AND QUIET) MAN: He knocked the gun out! RIGBY: Yeah--but they got _him_! (MUSIC: BRIDGE) [VAN: The Commander of the 148th Infantry, Colonel Lawrence K. White, wrote to Private Rodger Young's mother: [WHITE: Private Young fought and gave his life in order that you and his other relatives and friends might continue to enjoy our American way of life. We are indeed proud to be members of Private Young's Regiment.] VAN: President Roosevelt gave Private Young posthumously the nation's highest award for heroism, the Medal of Honor. That is the story that led Composer Loesser to write the Ballad of Private Rodger Young, and, in honoring one hero, to honor all infantrymen. Here is the Ballad of Rodger Young. (MUSIC: VOICES AND ORCHESTRA) VAN: This week on the Rhine and across the vast arc of the Pacific, American commanders are making many bold decisions based on many different facts. All day long and all night long these facts pour in--reports from the battle lines, reports on supply and transportation conditions behind the fronts, intelligence reports about the enemy ahead. And back here on the home front, editors are having to do much the same kind of thinking . . . to help Americans understand the complicated, everchanging current of the week's news. All this week, for example, the editors of TIME, The Weekly Newsmagazine, have been receiving reports from their correspondents on every battlefront of this war. For instance, there are five TIME and LIFE men on the Western Front--men like Senior Editor Sidney Olson, whose account of the Ninth Army's push to the Rhine you can read in TIME this week. And in the Pacific theater there is Teddy White, soon to take off again for the Burma front. There is Bill Gray in Manila and Robert Sherrod and Gene Smith on bloody Iwo Jima. From their reports and those of other TIME correspondents all over the world, TIME's editors write into TIME Magazine one clear, complete story of the week's news --a story that makes the war news really make sense. And that is just one of the reasons why more than a million busy, well-informed American families now turn to TIME--this week and every week. VAN: War must always mean separation of fighting men from their loved ones. But one of the most tragic romances of this war concerns a young American officer in the Philippines and his sweetheart. It is the story of Major Bernard "Andy" Anderson, the greatest leader of Filipino Guerrillas, and it was cabled this week by TIME and LIFE correspondent Carl Mydans. A few days after U. S. troops had pushed into Manila into the American lines east of the Philippine Capital, came a man in a tattered and dusty uniform. He had lines on his face, and more years than his age. He was escorted to a nearby command post. (SOUND: BATTLE EFFECTS IN B. G.) ANDY: Major Anderson reporting, sir. COLONEL: Not Andy Anderson! ANDY: Yes, sir. United States Armed Forces in the Far East. COLONEL: (BE SURE TO SMILE) Well, Major, if I wanted fifty thousand pesos, I could turn you over to the enemy. ANDY: (SMILE) Yes, sir, I understand there is a price on my head. But all I care about right now is to get to Manila. COLONEL: I'm sure we can arrange that, Major. ANDY: You see, I'm going back to Betty Lou. COLONEL: Betty Lou? ANDY: My fiancee. COLONEL: Oh! ANDY: It's been a long time. It's been Betty Lou who kept me going when things got so tough in the hills I thought I was reaching the end. When the Japs were closing in and there was no food and you felt like this is it, I thought of Betty Lou and kept going. COLONEL: (SOFTLY) We'll get you to Betty Lou, Major . . . ANDY: I haven't seen her for more than three years, sir. It was New Year's day Nineteen Forty-two in Manila. I'll never forget it. It was early, very early in the morning. Her father, Captain Gewald, had already left for Bataan. (FADE) I was with her in her mother's apartment . . . BETTY LOU: Oh, darling, after you've gone, I'll think of so much we should have said. ANDY: I know, Betty Lou, there's so much and so little to say. Here we were to have been married on January 10, but that will have to wait, now, until I come back. (SOUND: KNOCK OFF) ANDY: (UP) What is it? Oh, hello, Bert. (SOUND: DOOR OPEN) PETTIT: (OFF) Andy! Come on! We've got to go now. We're going to blow up the last bridge to Bataan. ANDY: (UP) I'll be right with you, Bert. (LOW) Goodbye, Betty Lou. We'll be back as soon as possible. BETTY LOU: Yes, darling, I'll be here. I'll be waiting for you. (MUSIC: IN) ANDY: Betty Lou and her mother stayed behind in Manila waiting for the Japanese. For them, it meant Santo Tomas internment camp. After the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, Bert Pettit and I managed to escape to the mountains. We planned to go on to Mindanao and Australia, but everywhere it was the same. Filipinos flocked around us. (SOUND: SOME FILIPINO CROWD IN B.G., BRUSH EFFECTS) FILIPINO I: You not going to leave us? PETTIT: Yes, I'm sorry, but Lieutenant Anderson and I have to leave Luzon. FILIPINO I: No, no! ANDY: We'll come back with MacArthur! FILIPINO II: You stay, please. You tell us what you want us to do. FILIPINO I: We want to fight the Japans. PETTIT: How about it, Andy? ANDY: Bert, it looks like maybe we got a job to do here. PETTIT: Yeah, it looks that way. All right, you guys, but understand this: There's no pay, no allowance. Any man who joins up does so for one reason and one reason only--love of his country. (APPROVALS) Okay. ANDY: You know, Bert, I'm glad we're staying. I'll be closer to Betty Lou. (MUSIC: IN) ANDY: In three years, not one man backed out on us. It wasn't long before we had word from General MacArthur: MACARTHUR: Hit the enemy wherever he can be hit. Destroy his communication lines, his dumps, harass him so he cannot move without protective strength! (MUSIC: IN) ANDY: Our problem was not in finding men. It was sorting the best out of the endless stream of volunteers. When our funds ran out, we were overwhelmed by offerings from Filipinos. They fed and clothed us. At first, I kept in regular touch with Betty Lou in Santo Tomas camp. And always, I could hear her say: BETTY LOU: (FILTER) Yes, darling. I'll be here. I'll be waiting for you. ANDY: Later, I had to stop writing for fear it might mean her life. Besides, we were always on the move. We now had hundreds of men and our chief shortage was arms. Two men, then three, were assigned to every pistol, every rifle, every machine gun, so that if one man was killed, another could carry on. Of news from outside, we heard nothing. The guerrillas would ask me: FILIPINO I: When are the Americans coming back? ANDY: I don't know, son. Honestly, I don't know. FILIPINO II: When the Americans do come back, sir, will we be free? ANDY: That will be up to you Filipinos. The problem now is to kill Japs. (MUSIC: IN) ANDY: Finally, in 1944, we made contact with guerrilla forces on Mindanao and Samar, and we became part of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East. Two Filipino radiomen arrived with full equipment. Supplies and men began to come in. Our orders were to avoid combat with the Japs that might endanger the safety of the people. But on January 6, three days before the Lingayen landings, a new order came through the island radio network: VOICE: (FILTER) Now is the time for maximum violence against the enemy. (SOUND: RUMBLE OF BLAST BUILDING TO) (MUSIC: WIPE) ANDY: For three years, my men had trained for this moment. Bridges were blown up. Railroads were cut. Jap units were cut off, annihilated. My job was done. Now I could look forward to Manila and to Betty Lou: BETTY LOU: (FILTER) Yes, darling, I'll be here. I'll be waiting for you. (MUSIC: STING AND OUT) (SOUND: TRAFFIC IN B. G., JEEP TO HALT, STEPS OUT, CONTINUING UNDER) COLONEL: This way, Major. ANDY: Three years. I wonder how she'll look. It's been a long time. COLONEL: Yes, and a horrible time for everybody in the prison. You'd best be prepared for . . . . ANDY: I understand, Colonel. (SOUND: DOOR OPEN AND SHUT) VOICE: (FADING IN) Yes, Colonel? COLONEL: This is Major Anderson. (AD LIBS) We're inquiring for a Miss-- ANDY: Betty Lou Gewald. Tell her Andy's back. VOICE: I'm sorry, Major Anderson. ANDY: Don't be sorry, fella. Just take me to her. VOICE: Miss Gewald died two weeks ago. (MUSIC: IN) VAN: In Manila, Carl Mydans cabled, there are big pennants welcoming Major Anderson, greatest of guerrillas. As Andy walks down the streets Filipinos crowd about him, show off their babies named in his honor. But one welcoming face is missing, the thought of which sustained him for more than three years, brought him back to Manila. Betty Lou is not there. (MUSIC: CURTAIN) VAN: Here tonight at the March of Time's New York microphone is the first United States Marine to return home from Iwo Jima. His name: Marine Gunner Paul White. As combat photographic officer he has participated in D Day landings on three of the greatest Marine Corps amphibious operations in the Pacific, and at Iwo Jima, working under Commander McLain, he was attached to the staff of Task Force Commander Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner and Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, tough, able commander of the Marines' toughest landings. Gunner Paul White! WHITE: During D Day I spent most of the time in a small rocket-firing ship very close in shore, to coordinate the work of several teams of photographers. At dusk of D Day I saw one of the unforgettable sights of the war. The sun was setting on the other side of the island from us, which threw everything into sharp black relief. At our left was the volcano mountain Surabachi, which we knew was honeycombed with caves filled with Japs and guns. We went in at Iwo Jima with our eyes open. Every man who hit the beach knew as much of what to expect as our top commanding officers. We could see the black shapes of several of our tanks crawling up the slope of the mountain. In front of each one were the figures of four or five Marines, and in back of each, perhaps ten more. While they were advancing, our Navy ships were firing at the mouths of the caves, hoping to seal them up. But the Japs kept firing. Then I saw our first tank take a direct hit and burst into flame. We saw silhouetted figures hurled into the air by the explosion. Marines around the tank hit the dirt, then got up and moved ahead. Then another tank was hit. I saw the silhouette of one man bend down to pick up a fallen comrade. But he couldn't pick him up alone. Another Marine came to help him. Then, very slowly, the three men came down the slope and disappeared into the darkness. That entire sight, in sharp black relief lit up only by gun flashes, hit me harder than anything I have ever seen. On shore for the next nine days the Marines fought slowly ahead through the toughest fighting they have ever faced. Iwo Jima is not like other islands we have taken, where we have been able to secure some territory and hold it safely after a few days. Iwo Jima is so small that even four days after D Day, every inch of the part we held was still under Japanese shell and mortar fire. The mortar fire especially inflicts horrible wounds. In spite of that, our wounded were evacuated with wonderful speed, by ambulance jeep from the fighting lines and by small boats out to the hospital ships. If civilian nurses could have been with me when I went alongside a navy hospital ship, and took a look at the hundreds of bleeding broken bodies waiting to be lifted aboard, the Navy wouldn't have to take our precious time and personnel to do recruiting. In battle when we are not doing our own jobs we pitch in on anything else we can find. We helped carry wounded, and I took messages back and forth between the fighting areas and the ships offshore. The worst of that was having to report the deaths of men who had been my friends. Compared to all the other shows I've seen, this one makes the others seem almost like rehearsals. It is more intense, more explosive. In the eight or nine days I was there, there wasn't a letup. The whole thing is close-in, pointblank firing by heavy weapons. On an island only five miles long by two and a half miles wide, how could it be anything else? It is like getting caught inside an arsenal that's blowing up in every direction. On the night of D Day plus three, we heard a Japanese broadcast ordering the Japs on Iwo Jima to annihilate ten Marines each before they died. The score to date is the price of seven dead Japs for every one dead Marine. VAN: Thank you, Gunner Paul White. (MUSIC: HIT AND FADE) VAN: This week, in Mexico City, the Inter American Conference is ending. Its prime accomplishment, the Declaration of Chapultepec, uniting twenty North, Central and South American republics against aggression from within and from without. One little noted meaning of this Declaration: It marks the failure of Fascist Spain under General Francisco Franco to win Latin American republics to a Spanish Fascist ideology. And, while Fascism fails in the west, in Europe, too, General Franco's friends are growing weaker. Spain, scene of the first military victory for Fascism in Europe, may soon be the last openly Fascist country in Europe. Therefore shrewd observers are asking these questions: Which will come first: peace in Europe or revolution in Spain? And will the overthrow of Franco really solve Spain's internal problems? (MUSIC: BRIDGE) VAN: Newest, most comprehensive report on Spain today appears in the current issue of TIME'S sister magazine FORTUNE, based on first-hand material gathered by Gabriel Javsicas. Its title: "Spain--Unfinished Business." Its author: Henry Hart. Mr. Hart. HART: Spain was the scene of the bloodiest civil war in modern history. It lasted from 1936 to 1939, cost a million lives, and incapacitated a million more, ended in victory for the Fascist rebels under Franco and a single Fascist political party, the Falange. Yet Franco is now certain of only one thing, that the people are waiting to get rid of him. On the surface Spain appears to have recovered somewhat from her civil war. There has been some revival of Spanish industry. VOICE I: Most important cause of that revival: 160 million dollars poured into Spain by the American and British governments since 1941. VOICE II: Its purpose: To buy up wolfram, the ore of tungsten, indispensable in war material, and prevent the Germans from getting it through conquered France. HART: But the liberation of France last summer ended the Allied need for buying Spanish wolfram. Thus, Franco has lost his chief economic support. Now goods are getting scarcer. Prices are rising continuously. The masses of Spain wait grimly for the disintegration of the Falange, which has totally controlled Spain for six years. VOICE I: There is no freedom of press, religion or public assembly. Four different kinds of secret police and armed guards spy on the populace. VOICE II: All employment depends on the Falange, which supervises or manages all production and distribution, VOICE III: The Falange rules by martial law! (MUSIC: BRIDGE) HART: Early in its regime the Falange tried to win the Spanish people over by a grandiose program of social and economic reform. [One of its main features-- the export of Falange ideology to Spanish-speaking people elsewhere in the world--is a failure in Latin America. The workers, who were promised new rights, are instead kept in abysmal poverty by rigorous wage ceilings in the face of fantastically rising prices.] But the ten-year plan of industrialization is still only a blueprint. For example: VOICE I: Out of four thousand kilometers of railroad scheduled to be electrified, only fourteen have been completed. VOICE II: The new factories envisaged to make synthetic rubber, nitrates, gasoline and oil, do not exist. VOICE III: The proposal to break up the great private estates has resulted in the resettlement of only six hundred families, at a cost of more than eighteen thousand dollars per family! (MUSIC: BRIDGE) HART: The real explanation of Spain's food shortage is the business activity of the Falange itself, which creates three different prices on food--all black market. VOICE I: Farmers and land owners are compelled to sell their produce to government syndicates, at ceiling prices, but actually sell most on the black market. VOICE II: The government syndicates in turn sell a great deal of produce on their own black market. VOICE III: The Army contributes bread to still a third black market, because it sells its surplus at illegal prices. HART: The result is that today the Spanish people get from one-fourth to one- half the minimum number of calories they need. As one Spaniard said: SPANIARD I: They spilled so much blood to give us this! (MUSIC: BRIDGE) HART: Private business men are constantly protesting, with amazing frankness, against the arbitrary acts, regulations and corruption of Falange officials. For example: in the office of the transport ministry: SHIPPER: Your new decree is graft! It is our ruin! SECRETARY: But senor, you are free to join the new syndicate. SHIPPER: Hombre! Much good that will do us! Our profits will go to the syndicate, to our competitors, and to the minister who signed this decree! HART: In Spain such talk is a daily occurrence because so few of the people, even in the Falange itself, really believe in the Franco regime. One of the current jokes goes like this: SPANIARD I: Hey, Gonzales, who is the greatest general in Spain today? SPANIARD II: It is not General Franco. It is General Protest. [(MUSIC: BRIDGE) [HART: The top army officers have become hostile to the Falange. And finally, the Church has begun to oppose it. These are the facts about the Catholic Church in Spain: [VOICE I: Before the civil war, only ten to fifteen per cent of the population were active Catholics. [VOICE II: During the civil war, the Spanish Church supported Franco, which alienated many of those who had remained faithful. [HART: Soon after coming to power, Franco helped the church by restoring property and schools to the religious orders. But he has now alienated the church by dissolving Catholic unions and, through Fascist youth organizations, loosened the hold of the church over the young.] (MUSIC: BRIDGE) HART: The present political situation was summed up for Fortune Magazine by Franco's hard-boiled, cynical Minister of Industry and Commerce, Demetrio Carceller: CARCELLER: The monarchy gave us bad government and took recourse to dictatorship under Primo de Rivera. Then the Republic was rotten. We, of course, are no good, either. The fellows who come after us will be just as bad. Look at the Spaniards in exile. All of them are agreed only on the obvious: They don't like us. No one in Spain likes us, either. But no one can agree on what they want instead of us. (MUSIC: BRIDGE) HART: In spite of that cynical estimate all Spanish political leaders want to avoid another civil war. They want a parliamentary government free of the use of force. But whoever follows Franco will have to give land to the peasants in the South, and develop industry in the North. Until that happens, Spain will continue to be the most explosive element in Western Europe. VAN: Thank you, Henry Hart, for that report on Franco Spain. VAN: Time Marches On! (MUSIC: IN) VOICE: Over this same network every afternoon at 4 o'clock Eastern War Time, listen to TIME VIEWS THE NEWS, another program prepared by the editors and correspondents of TIME magazine. And next Thursday evening, at this same time, listen again to the MARCH OF TIME. (MUSIC: UP AND DOWN FOR) (MUSIC: CURTAIN) __________________________________ Originally broadcast: 8 March 1945