 words at war this is a dedication to those politicians statesmen and leaders of the world who either actively brought on this war or passively failed to raise a finger to prevent it to those financiers bankers and industrialists who armed fascist Japan while she was in the very act of crushing China and who now in the midst of war are still engaged in their slimy imperialist game of obtaining materials for the next war to those leaders and their henchmen who have twisted this war into what it should not have been and who today are both consciously and unconsciously betraying the democratic will of the enslaved people of Europe and Asia in hate and to the soldiers of all nations who are lying on the once good but now mangled and bloodied earth striving to get each other's throats who are staring up at the stars at night recalling their lost youth and the forgotten days of peace who are consumed not so much with mutual hatred for each other as with their united hatred for war in love this program is dedicated national broadcasting company in cooperation with the council on books and wartime presents another of the most widely discussed programs in America words at war dramatizing the most representative books to come out of this great world conflict tonight still time to die as told by foreign correspondent Jack Belden seven months ago I was wounded in Italy and I'm only just now recovering from my wounds after the long and tormented years of war it was like a dream fulfilled to lie in a hospital bed for days there was the wonderful thrill of tasting and filling up on such simple things as eggs and milk and fruit there was the excitement of the free press the moving experience of talking in a loud unguarded tone without peering through the windows to see if anyone was listening and the simple knowledge of being free from the slamming racket of war then it happened World of America came into my hospital room at first it came in with a newspaper is in an editorial or a sentence by a columnist sometimes it came through the door with visitors or a speech by a politician and after a while it drove in on me like a flood this thing the thing that I abhorred was in this country on the radio I heard today the 8th Army advanced being enemy resistance it was a victorious army fighting gloriously with the determination that only American boys have giving the enemy blow for blow staggering him with every exchange moment when they can in the theaters in the newsreels I saw and heard and high-ranking officials elected by the people were saying I say it's unfair to my constituents to ask them to forego their cars for the duration I tell you the American people won't stand for it we have plenty of gasoline why here with our constitutional rights of driving cars and all this time the hero in the motion picture was telling the girl back home you see what I'm driving at these people did not know the meaning of war did not know the meaning of the struggle raging throughout the world war was a remote adventurous episode the moving of pins and a map the glib voice of a commentator the smugness of an orator when I heard these things my heart was torn asunder and out of the tears gushed up a stream of bitter memories I had to tell the people what the war was all about I had to tell the truth listen to me now it isn't just a shock you that I say these things it's to make you understand to make you realize that we're not immune to the dangers we see abroad we may be next our turn might come tomorrow unless we stop repeating the mistakes of other nations because war may be remote one moment and the next it is in your home in your living room ripping away at your flesh stop then and think what war does to blood and bone and living tissue to begin with what is war war is hell that sounds familiar doesn't it familiar and trite a cliche but what exactly does it mean what picture flashes through your mind when you read the latest communicate in the front what for instance does this sentence mean taken from the seventh sporting final a communicate buried on the bottom of the second page printed in bold letters against the date line July 50 Japs outflank Chinese troops moving north let me repeat that Japs outflank Chinese troops moving north what do you see cold print words upon a page what do you see two pins one yellow one black a jagged line across a map or do you see this the death of the city comes suddenly one day the enemy is miles away and there's hope of resistance the next he is pounding at the gates and panic seizes the populace in the city everything is in motion tired men tired faces tired feet people moving aimlessly through the streets saying nothing just moving the rich have gone a long time ago on railways in carts on trucks but the poor remain and then the bombardment comes I was in the midst of a crowd in the city of chaos staring at a fire the walls of a house gave way before the licking flames and the roof crashed in suddenly a voice called out a woman was caught in a square of fire between three burning houses her dark hair hung over her face and she looked like a witch first running to the flames and then jumping back she went to look for her child the woman ran around in a circle once and like a rabbit darted through the small opening between the houses he was distorted and ugly but he was on fire and she was screaming and the people were running after it was in the outskirts of Su Chow and I was walking with the chief of staff when we came across a peasant he was running around a tree he was running around and around and the site of the scene was both horrible and fantastic it seemed impossible the peasant could keep up his dizzy circuit devil two devils they came and now there shall be no soup what's the matter with them general you must be crazy hey old country man good evening master can you tell us where Lilo is are you out for a walk yes and you oh no oh no well we are out on a walk we are walking to Lilo are we on the right road no I am not out for a walk I am looking at the fields beautiful fields so full of things wheat birds and devils madman all of them these persons of ours come down what is the matter with these people listen all come to a man where is Lilo the eastern ocean men have come oh they have come my daughter and my wife I went back and couldn't find them couldn't find who my daughter and my wife I couldn't find them too big birds oh oh too big birds come and now this evening there is no soup these words came out of a human merry-go-round the two big birds had taken away his wife and daughter and they had taken away his mind God is this the world we live in is this the tree is this the sand is this the sky what blind alley will I come to next the general took me on a tour and we visited a village recently occupied by the Japanese the village was deserted and ghostly many of the houses were burned down and the stomach turning odor followed the air we went into a half burned house and I saw a naked girl upon a bed two gashes ran across her stomach like dark brown welts her face was bashed in but her mouth had frozen wide open you see mr. Belden that is how the Japanese make war couldn't speak I couldn't move but kept staring at the mutilated form on the bed I was sick with fear and horror each day the planes came earlier to chow was being destroyed slowly systematically shrieks of falling bombs frightened screams of children the ghastly moans of dying women filled the air and in the outskirts of the city young girl was picking the coarse leaves from the tree I stare at her what's the matter far enough I'm I'm wondering why you're picking these leaves can it be medicine for food to eat strange you really eat leaves of course there is nothing else to eat but the grain you planted last years is all gone and this year is not yet right there's nothing else to eat so we eat the leaves later a peasant told me why are we forced to eat leaves let me tell you we cannot get credit for seed the officials and the banks and the merchants who have the cash are gone and the landlords who have reserves of grain sell it to the army they don't care if we starve are you fighting in a war of resistance war of resistance resistance for what so we can starve it is so rich who have something to resist for but they are not suffering too greatly void either but you will fight when they come here when the Japanese come here you you just won't stand by I don't know all I know is those with money give a little yes but it isn't their money and it isn't life for the poor there is nothing left but but death hasn't had stopped speaking and the grisly events of the China war trooped in weird procession through my brain a young man losing his mother smell of opium a taste of bombed horse meat peasants executed and traitors and thrown in high places and then I look at the half written message on my typewriter red Japs outflank Chinese troops moving north I get up to a limit the shells were flying over the city the crowd was willing about desperately and the airplanes dropped their bombs around the east station there was not a clean spot to be seen only blood house wreckage trash bomb splinters early summer wind the smell of the dead and dying along the street three hours later so chow was a dead city the streets were deserted not a dog barked the planes beyond so chow the people gathered for the trek in but there were those who remained to fight the enemy and among them I saw a peasant who said he would not fight did this happen only in China hardly falseness is a product of any battle in Malta Africa Sicily Italy the pattern repeated itself and to America the news of war came like a dream terse communiques and newsreels showing only a victorious army marching ahead only the enemy was dead tonight words at war is bringing you another vital book of our times Jack Belden still time to die we are now entering the 14th year of war if we include the people of Manchuria the eighth if we include the people of China and Spain the sixth if we think it concerned only Europe and the conclusion of the third year for the people of America during all this time how many of us have stopped to think what a battlefield means to the fighting men how it feels to be wounded what it means to live in fear to see a city bombed your home destroyed your women raped and your children starved listen tonight and find out as Jack Belden continues with his narrative in the hospital room where I lay wounded the nurse turned up the radio and I heard the voice of a man speaking about the war the analyst well that's what he claimed to be you all the answers he had analyzed the whole thing with little pins and sketches his head was whirling with maps and arrows and shaded lines and what he said was very good very inspiring and very cock-eyed the battle for the Mediterranean which stands out like a gleaming jewel in the military history of the world in those dark days when the skies were black with enemy planes it was plucky little Malta which stood alone and faced the enemy with unshaken courage and determination it was the Maltese people who flung their challenge at the sky and dared to be conquered you want to know what really happened in Malta all right then listen in this spring of 1942 Malta was a shambles an average of 175 bombers swept over our island every day on April 7th alone one million pounds of bombs were dropped by invading planes the food situation was desperate rations were issued every fortnight a can of bully beef and a can of smoked herring between two people every two weeks 75 percent of the houses were knocked down during the all socialite ceased light centered around sleeping and eating we lived on the ground there was no warm clothing no soap no transportation a jewel in military history you say it was a sordid dirty mess that's what it was a bloody mess plucky little Malta know just a tired little island tired and bombed out and full of misery and despair a former act gunner took me over to my solar point we went into a narrow dark cavern tunneled out of the side of a cliff in the light of a candle I saw a line of dirty slap boards hung one above the other against the dank wall we paused before one of these dirty smelling slap beds mother and daughter and two sons sleep in this bed the mother had tuberculosis when it rains the water leaks down I went to the officials and told them about you know what they said to me tell her if she wants to keep dry to buy an umbrella went outside again and I saw a group of women with long webby hair hanging down over emaciated faces a gunner pointed to one of them see that one she's supposed to get oranges because she's pregnant when she goes to get them the rations officer says get them next week always next week but she never gets them and look at these kids he was pointing at a horde of bony children dressed in one piece rags look at them not a pretty sight are they well it was decided to give a feast for the children on the island you think these children were invited now they want children who were dressed up to date these children have gotten their clothing they can't go to the feast but why not in heaven's name why not why not because they're not wanted that's why they can't even go to school they won't keep them in school unless they've got clean shoes and clean clothes I try and do something it's no good I talk to the officials like I talk to you and they say agitator me agitate we came to a rubble barrier and suddenly emerged in a street corner and a curb stone set a young woman her legs were bare her shoes torn and her skin was covered with sores and her arms and neck I had my notebook and pencil in my hand rations what she wants to know when the rations are going to be increased she thinks you're an official oh the rations will be increased when the war is over I guess ma'am why why does a pretty girl like you sit on a curb stone like this got nothing to do where's your husband working in the dark yards in Alexander hadn't seen him for three years what's the matter with your skin scapegoats scapegoats she gets those from the bombing every time there's a bombing she gets sick in her house and sores come out to other women had appeared mysteriously they clustered about it when will the government bring clothing and lipstick I have a son you must bring shoes and baby clothing not lipstick or rules only shoes and clothing I want stocking my name is everyone in the number of my house is 51 put that down to put that down get the lips night down give me those were the people of Malta united in a firm determination to fight the enemy yes but mainly united in misery and despair and dirt and squalor and hunger for a better life and now another voice came in my hospital room and it was the most sinister voice of all because it was the voice of the people looking at the world through rose-colored glasses believing what they wanted to believe I tell you the simple isn't it sweep on to forest Europe Europe on the road to Berlin but the road to Berlin is a two way both victory and defeat can travel on its side by side and in death there is little distinction between the two we're on the way to invade Salerno I groped unsteadily along the deck a nameless sinking feeling well within the soldiers were clean to the stanchions and holding on to ladders and even in the distance their faces seem tense and greenish suddenly a voice beside me yelled hey there's a man overboard yeah right over there I cry to jump overboard at a time like this a guy must be yellow he was yellow he wouldn't jump overboard it was probably sick and fell over the side and fell in couldn't they pick him up couldn't at least pick him up do you think this leads a taxi if a guy wants to get off here before we get to Salerno that's his own lookout well probably would have got it at the beach anyway our duck hit the beach and we've all to the ground barbed wire clutched us but the wire the wire was cut and we moved on over a railway embankment into a garden down a narrow cement irrigation ditch through a lemon grove keep moving now the hill going straight up timing in a column of the man ahead of you stepping on your hands men weak from tired rear from exhausted from fever and then your chest bones swelling from the climbing your breath crushing out of you and your strength they're being away at the very moment when you have to go into battle and then snipers bullets and men falling dead at your feet keep climbing higher higher over the rocky pinnacle over the top of the hill onto a narrow hole you've made I was crawling behind the wall I came abreast of the truck door I made my way beyond the front of the truck and looked over the stone man hammered into my leg a cloud of darkness and fell at me and a great weight pushed my leg into the ground of the leg swelled and tried to push off the weight and suddenly there was black this day I was on a hospital ship there was a fellow in the bunk below with a bullet in his spine and he couldn't move on one side of me was a boy from Texas with a bullet in his stomach and he couldn't eat ship was attacked by dive bombers listening to the sound of the underwater explosions we wondered what would happen if we started sinking a sailor came into our bunker I'm so mad I'm never gonna believe a commentator and newspaper guy again I don't know and not you just a dumb guy who gets himself wounded but I just heard the radio say that correspondence report that the Italians set up the beach for us and we stormed ashore under cover of a heavy bombardment against the Germans and everything looked like Coney Island I'm still so mad I feel like crying I'm mad because I heard another voice just now a pump a spatuous boy smug and satisfied a voice coming from a man with no conception of the thing we're fighting for and against this man said to me well my friend I guess it's all over but the shouting pretty soon we'll be in Berlin and that'll be the end of fascism yes the thing that I abhorred was in this country too for while the glib tongues wagged about the end of fascism throughout the world I found it here right in the United States bold loud repellent and widespread it was everywhere even in the hospital it was a nurse who said to me one day I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner honey but those dirty foreigners get in my hair if you ask me we ought to send them back where they came from was on the floor of congress listen closely to this list of names letters protesting a speech I made lift it swats rivkin goldstein must come from they call them and it was the well-bred country club voice who said there is only one way we can live in peace with the japanese people and that is by keeping the emperor in power in japan after the war so it was after 10 years of wandering in war that I was furnished proof of what I'd known for a long time that the world was all of one piece that america like all the rest was sick with the dread world sickness of the soul america because she's a wealthy country was getting her fascism late the land was pregnant with reaction and has all this fighting been in vain has all this bloodshed and misery been futile pointless I hope not I hope the people will open their eyes and see and realize what this war is about I hope they will go forward instead of back I hope they will discover the new democracy of the world that's why I've told you my story I'm just flowing by now I'm going back into battle and I hear far off the buzzsaw roar of the planes and we who once retreated advance again there may not be time to live in freedom but there is time to fight for it there is still time to die tonight on words at war we've brought you jack Belden still time to die the radio dramatization was written by ben cagan Walter Vaughn was heard as jack Belden the music was arranged and played by william meter and the production was under the direction of anton m leader next week words at war will present the radio dramatization of brex warner's return of the traveler this series of programs is brought to you in cooperation with the council on books and wartime by the national broadcasting company and the independent radio stations associated with the mbc network jack costello speaking this is the national broadcasting company