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Show w , ' i -rll I " y ' 0 !'' m-- ; :' I White INSTALLMENT EIGHT Considering only military effectives, effec-tives, the miracle Is that any German Ger-man soldier was able to set foot on Russian soil. They were able to penetrate to the suburbs of Moscow and Leningrad and range as far as the Caucasus (1,500 miles from Berlin) Ber-lin) not only because of Russia's technical poverty and the disorganized disorgan-ized state of her industrial development, develop-ment, but also because at the time the Red Army lacked experienced officers. Her Initial air force, for instance, in-stance, could not compare in quality with that of the Germans. Much of It was smashed in the first few weeks of fighting. If the Russian air force Is primitive, primi-tive, this is no reflection on the skill of Russian pilots, who rank among the world's best. But Russia Rus-sia lacks the skill to turn out good planes. Of all branches of any air force, long-range bombers such as the British Lancaster and the American Amer-ican Fortress and Liberator require the highest degree of industrial skill for production and operation in large numbers. They are almost totally absent In the Red Air Force. .V'.-y,'. -: s, , i ' l v ,; , 1 - f h i 11 i , 4 ' ; LAi.... . . J Russian pilots ranked among world's best. The men who plan the Red Air Force have skillfully designed it around the country's many shortages; short-ages; they have concentrated on production of the Stormovik, a slow, low altitude strafing plane. Since this efficient little tank buster usually usu-ally operates at treetop level, the Soviet fighters which protect it have no need for high altitude equipment. equip-ment. Of the 10,000 planes which America Amer-ica has delivered to the Soviet Union the Russians like best the Bell Aira-cobra, Aira-cobra, which Is a light, low altitude, ground co-operation plane, similar in function to the Stormovik. ; It is standard Red Air Force procedure Immediately to remove all high altitude al-titude flying equipment from most American planes, replacing the weight with extra ammunition. Lacking night fighters and radar, Soviet targets within range of the Luftwaffe are particularly vulnerable vulnera-ble to night bombing, and the standard stand-ard Russian method of defense Is ground fire from anti-aircraft batteries, bat-teries, such as was used to protect Moscow. However, lacking radar to guide their fire, the gunners can shoot only at the sound, which is a rough indication not of where the bomber is, but where it was several sev-eral seconds ago. Therefore, to be effective, batteries must be massed about the target, vomiting continuous continu-ous fountains of fire during a raid, an expensive procedure. Katyn Forest is near Smolensk and is the grave of some 10,000 Poles, mostly officers, who were shot In the back of the head. Whether this slaughter of helpless war prisoners was done by Russians or Germans, there is violent disagreement and evidence both ways. To understand the complexity of the case, a little history is necessary. neces-sary. When in 1939, the Germans and Russians divided Poland, the Russian share of the loot included more than 180,000 prisoners of war, of whom 10,000 were officers. A few were generals. The most distinguished distin-guished of these, including General Anders, were confined to Moscow's Lubianka prison. The rest of the 10,000 officers were sent to three prison camps in the Russian towns of Staroblelsk, Kozlelsk, and Osta-szkov. Osta-szkov. These camps housed twelve Polish generals, sixty-nine colonels, seventy-two lieutenant colonels and In all 5,131 regular army officers and 4,096 reserve officers. Few of the last had been captured in combat. com-bat. Most of them had not yet been called up for duty, but, when Russia Rus-sia occupied her half of Poland, obeyed the Sovie summons to assemble. as-semble. The Polish officers were reasonably reason-ably well treated at the three camps until April, 1940, when the Soviets began evacuating them, telling the men they might be sent back to their homes. They left in groups of from twenty to sixty every few days during April and early May. What became of them after that, the Poles have a few clues. Most of the 10 000 vanished from the earth except for 400 who were finally taken tak-en to a camp at Gryazovets. On June 22, 1941, Hitler attacked Russia. The Polish government in London immediately offered the hand of friendship to the Soviets, suggesting the formation from prisoners pris-oners of war in Russian hands, of a Polish army. The Soviets accepted. accept-ed. General Anders was released from his prison cell, installed in a comfortable hotel room with apologies, apolo-gies, and with Soviet co-operation began forming his army. Poles, released from prison camps all over the Soviet Union, began flocking to his headquarters, but there were almost no officers. General Anders was at first not alarmed, believing that they probably prob-ably had been transferred to some far-away Arctic labor camp and presently would turn up. But as months went by and not one additional addi-tional officer reported he became concerned. November of 1941, Polish Ambassador Ambas-sador Kot interviewed Stalin on this perplexing problem. The Marshal appeared genuinely astonished. In Kot's presence, he rang up the NKVD and said the prisoners who had been in those three camps should be released at once. A month passed, during which the Poles were collecting, from the 400 survivors of the three camps, a list of the names of their missing brother broth-er officers. On December 4, when Stalin received Generals Sikorski and Anders, they took with them an incomplete list of 4,500 names. This time Stalin expressed no surprise or Indignation. The Poles felt he answered an-swered evasively, suggesting that the 10,000 officers might have returned re-turned to German occupied Poland or fled over the Manchurian border. Knowing how closely the NKVD supervises su-pervises all travel in Russia, It was difficult for the two Polish generals to believe such a large number of officers could have accomplished this journey undetected. Picking up his telephone. Stalin called General Pamfilov at NKVD headquarters, again issuing orders to release all Poles who had ever been in the three camps. More time passed but not an officer of-ficer turned up. A really disturbing rumor began to circulate. A few months before the German attack on Russia, the NKVD assembled several Polish staff officers, including a Colonel Berling, and suggested to them that possibly a Polish army might be organized or-ganized to fight the Germans. At a conference with Russian NKVD officials, of-ficials, Beria and Merkulov, Colonel Colo-nel Berling agreed, provided it was organized 'Irrespective of political creeds," and then added that, at the three officers' prison camps, "we have excellent army cadres." Whereupon, Merkulov answered quickly, with some embarrassment, "No, not these men. We have made a great blunder in connection with them." Only rumors, perhaps, but they disturbed the Poles. Then on April 13, 1943, the German Ger-man radio announced that in Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, which they then held, they had discovered mass graves of about 10,000 Polish officers, of-ficers, each killed with a bullet through the back of his head. They said Russian peasants in the vicinity vicin-ity told them these prisoners of war were murdered by the NKVD in the spring of 1940, giving dates corresponding corre-sponding closely to the time the prison camps had been evacuated. The Germans also claimed that letters let-ters and papers found in the clothing, cloth-ing, as well as the condition of the bodies, indicated that the men had been murdered in the spring of 1940. Names announced over the German Ger-man radio corresponded with those of Polish officers missing from the three camps. Radio Moscow took cognizance of the German charges In a bitter broadcast saying "These German lies reveal the fate of Polish officers whom the Germans employed In construction work In that region." Russian news agency, Tass, issued a communique explaining that these Polish prisoners, who had been employed em-ployed by the Russians on construction construc-tion work west of Smolensk, had been captured by the Germans during dur-ing the Soviet retreat in the summer of 1941. This explanation did not satisfy all Poles. Their officers had been evacuated in April, 1940. Ever since the Russo-German break in June of 1941, the Polish government had been trying to get from the Russians Rus-sians some hint as to where they had been taken. Only after this German Ger-man broadcast do they learn from the Soviet government that the officers of-ficers had been taken to the Katyn Forest region, with the additional statement that in 1941 they were captured cap-tured and murdered by the Germans. Ger-mans. On April 26, the Soviet government govern-ment broke off relations with the Polish government in London, and set up in Moscow her own "Union of Polish Patriots" which, according accord-ing to the London Polish government, govern-ment, was made up of Polish Com munists unknown to the people of Poland. The Red Army reoccupied Katyn, and on January 22, 1944, issued a communique saying that a Soviet investigating in-vestigating commission had been called to settle, once and for all, the Katyn Forest dispute. The Russian Commission was a 100 per cent Soviet picnic. Their experts distinguished Russian academicians determined that the Germans, following their occupation of Smolensk, had carried out the mass shootings in the autumn of 1941, and in 1943, "calculating to set Russians and Poles at loggerheads, tried to ascribe this crime to the Soviet government." The Russians charged that in the spring of 1943 the Germans had even brought to Katyn Forest, Polish bodies from other districts, dis-tricts, and had used 500 Russian prisoners of war in the work of removing re-moving from the Polish bodies all documents which would incriminate the Nazis and substituting documents docu-ments which would tend to incriminate incrim-inate the Russians, after which the Germans had shot the Soviet war prisoners. The evidence of German guilt, gathered by the Soviet Commission answers all questions but this one: if the Polish officers were still alive in the summer of 1941 and could be captured by the Germans, why were the Poles not told this at once? Why were important Polish government govern-ment officials allowed to go wild-goose-chasing all over the Soviet Union for nearly two years in search of their army's officers, when the Russians knew the men were already in German hands? An observant reporter noticed that one Polish body was clad in long, heavy underwear, and mentioned It to the Soviet doctor in charge. The doctor remarked that most of the bodies wore either heavy underwear, under-wear, or overcoats, or both. That pointed to the theory that these Poles must have been shot during April, 1940, as the Germans claimed, rather than in August and September, 1941, after the Germans moved in, as the Soviet government was contending. When this point was raised with the Soviet conducting officers, there was considerable confusion and the Russians finally argued that the climate cli-mate of Poland is uncertain, so that fur overcoats and long underwear under-wear might be worn in September. If a reporter would write "I AM NOT A MEDICAL EXPERT BUT DOCTORS SAY the condition of these bodies proves they were murdered mur-dered by the Germans," the censorship cen-sorship would strike out the qualifying qualify-ing phrase (capitalized), leaving only the bare charge. Also stricken out were all phrases Indicating any doubt in the correspondents' corre-spondents' minds such words as "In my opinion," "probably," or "evidence we were shown would tend to prove," with the result that the stories as received in America were as firmly damning of the Germans Ger-mans as Pravda's editorials. In 1939, when the Anglo-French Military Mission was in Moscow trying try-ing to negotiate an alliance with the Soviet Union one of the Soviet de- i rl o : - t i ' ..' : Si' 'i' 5 X i XS iX -X" xxx xp x m & ? !vx:xxlx sX ,: r 'XX . ;.: ; s "r r " - iii Russians Improved the technique of paratroops that they created. mands was the right, under certain circumstances, to occupy the three Baltic States. The British demurred. When I was in London in February of 1940, an intelligent young man in their foreign office gave me their position. posi-tion. "Here we are," he said, "supposedly "suppos-edly defending the rights of small European nations. We could hardly start by delivering three of them to the Russians as a price for their alliance. al-liance. We have to consider opinion in the States. What would you people peo-ple have said to that?" "They would have been in favor of almost anything you had to do to win the war without their having to get in," I said, and I still think I was right. (TO BE CONTINUED) |