World War: The Russians Will Stick

The New York afternoon newspaper PM this week ran a two-page map of the travels of its editor, Ralph McAllister Ingersoll, home from a trip around the world in 100 days. Besides the map there was a full-page memorandum from Editor Ingersoll announcing: 1) 16 articles about Russia (with five left-over subjects for possible articles; sample: Piece on a day in a Russian hospital for head wounds}; 2) eleven articles on the Mediterranean; 3) two on Turkey; 4) a series on England; 5) a series on the Pacific; 6) a series of “three or four good pieces exclusively on traveling around the world in war time”; 7) a short series describing “the world as it is today.” “I,” wrote Mr. Ingersoll, “happen to be the only man in the world equipped to write such a series.” This week Editor Ingersoll’s first piece of first-person narrative appeared. It was also the first uncensored, firsthand report on fighting Russia by a capable U.S. journalist. Excerpts: “If Hitler cares to pay a fantastic price in men … he may be able to encircle Moscow. From what I have seen, I do not believe he will be able to take it in frontal assault.

“I have been through the suburbs which the Germans are approaching, driven 30 miles down the broad, smooth, Smolensk road—a point which must be approximately the location of the front lines now. The ground is gently rolling, woods interspersed with fields. The defenses are not continuous fortifications, lines of trenches or barricades. They are an almost infinity of strong points. Camouflaged positions are on every rise of ground and on the edge of every woods. And on the roads through the woods, when I was there, were columns of tanks, parked trucks, supplies. . . .

“I had been through the end of the blitz in London last year, and watched anti-aircraft work in China and Egypt. I’ve seen nothing to compare with the volume and intensity of the barrage around Moscow. . . .

“The besieged capital of the Soviets is a huge city. . . . The main avenues are so wide that, pacing one off, I figured it could carry 20 lines of moving traffic—10 eastbound and 10 westbound.

“There was practically no bomb damage in Moscow when I was there in September.

I heard the German short wave boasting of the city’s destruction. Drivel. . . .

“I was in Moscow for three weeks and there were only four raids during this time.

I saw no bombs fall. I sat on a balcony looking across the square to the Kremlin, watching the show. One night a German dropped two enormous flares directly over the Kremlin, and it was so light you could read a newspaper. I got a newspaper and tried it just to be sure. . . .

“The American diplomats who have been negotiating with Stalin have not deceived you. I saw him. He is in excellent health.

“The Muscovites love their city. They talk a lot about it. It seemed to depress them that I should see it sandbagged and packed up for war, even the lights in its subways dimmed. They seemed to think it wasn’t fair of me to look at it and judge it when it was not at its best. . . .

“The news that I bring back—and I hope it’s no longer news to you—is that the Russians will stick. I have seen the men and women on whose fighting qualities, on whose staying power, so much depends. … I found them wholly prepared to see the war through, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it costs.”