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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne New Violence in Nazi Aerial Blitz Aimed to Cripple British Shipping; Destroyer 'Lanes' Across Atlantic Urged to Replace Hard-Hit Convoys (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these colomns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I (Released by Western Newspaper Union, t Hailed by some experts as one of the really great military exploits of all time has been the sweep of the British forces against the Italians In Africa. Shown here with two of his aides is the British commanding general. gen-eral. Sir Archibald Wavell, (center). General O'Connor of the British forces is shown at left and Australia's General Mackay at right. Real test of Wavell's military genius would come if his troops should clash with Hitler's in the Balkans. AERIAL: Blitz Groivs Nazi Germany brought out its heaviest air blitzkrieg, perhaps as a "workup" of an invasion attempt, at-tempt, and the results were not too happy, as far as the British defense was concerned. The first three days of the main attack were directed at London, Liverpool Liv-erpool and Bristol, and while the damage was heavy, and casualties correspondingly high, British aerial leaders were jubilant over the fact that 30 German attackers were shot down, and gave the credit to the night-fighting air arm, the antiaircraft anti-aircraft batteries, and a "new weapon." This latter, it was later explained, consisted of some sort of anti-aircraft shell which contained coils of wire, which unwound when the shell exploded with lethal effect on enemy ene-my planes. However, later news was not so favorable. The opening attack was followed by another terrific blast at Bristol, one at Glasgow and a third at Hull. The first two cities, in a single night reported around 1,000 casualties, casual-ties, and the blast at Hull was reported re-ported to have been -ven more severe. se-vere. The British apparently figured that they might as well abandon any attempt to disguise the towns attacked, at least in news dispatches. dis-patches. At first they would simply designate desig-nate the town as "a northeast town" or a "town in the Midlands" or a "southeast town," and then, within with-in minutes, the German releases would be out with the name of the city, and what observers reported from there. This British reticence continued up to and Including all the attacks except that on Hull. In this case, the morning dispatches said "a southeastern port town," but the afternoon aft-ernoon papers were able to carry the story undor a direct Hull dateline. date-line. It was apparent that Hitler's airmen air-men were not trying day attacks, being satisfied with heavy night bombings in large force. One after another they were trying try-ing to knock various British provincial provin-cial cities out of the picture. Charts were being printed showing it was costing Hitler an estimated $-13,000 to kill each civilian slain in air-bombing. air-bombing. Britain published her losses since the start of the war at 25.000. The ominous character of the raids on Bristol. Glascow and Hull were that although the German raiders raid-ers came over in large numbers. Judging by the weight of bombs dropped, in two nights the total British Brit-ish claims of bombers shot down was exactly two. Prior to this attack, British commentators com-mentators had been proudly saying an estimated 3 per cent of the bombers bomb-ers were being shot down, and that if this figure could be raised to 10, then the German air force could not stand the strain. Those observers who saw in the heavy blitz from the air a prelude to an invasion attempt, while they were numerous, ranged all the way from "any day" advocates to one high Japanese official, who, at 10.000 mile distance, blandly announced that the "Germans would land on British soil In a matter of hours." Hull, Glasgow and Bristol, the hardest hit towns, are not note-worthy note-worthy as being invasion-resistant centers but ore rather famous as general shipping centers. The first is the central ship-building point, the second is a great center cen-ter for shipping to and from the United States, and Hull Is where most of the sailors arc trained. There seemed more weicht, at the moment, to the argument that the heavy nir bombing of such centers was aimed at Itritnin's genera ocean life-lines, a ml not as a sot-up for the landing of trraun CONVOY: Or Lanes? Britain was sticking to the convoy system, while American shipping experts ex-perts suggested abandoning it and substituting the "lane protection" system, which seemed full of typical typi-cal Yankee ingenuity. The Great Circle route, about 2,000 miles long, according to this project, proj-ect, was to be patrolled with at least 50 destroyers, each of them given 50 miles to patrol 10 times a day. That would mean that every 2.4 hours a destroyer would pass any given spot in the lane, and with a constant lookout, should be able to spot enemy submarines. The plan would be putting 40 destroyers de-stroyers on the lane, with 10 allowed to be in port refueling and getting supplies. Advantages were these not only a better lookout and more warship strength for protection purposes, but a much more efficient use of ships. For under the convoy system, if 40 ships are gathered together, the speed of the fastest is the speed of the slowest ' The proposed Traffic Lane Plan would permit the faster vessels to move at top speed from one side of the Atlantic to the other, permitting them to take many more loads, in the long run. They would sail from destroyer to destroyer, and it would be the latter's duty to keep the lane clear of enemy raiders. And the present great hazard, of lumping 40 or 50 slow-moving vessels ves-sels together for a mass target would be removed. Plan Debated As an interesting background for this very question of convoys, and how they ought to be conducted, Washington debated the statement of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, chief advocate advo-cate of the lease-lend bill, urging that the U. S. provide guards for convoys. The President, conferring with the press, dismissed the question, saying say-ing there had been some reports to that effect, but that he had paid no attention to them. However, in view of the Committee's Commit-tee's action, it was believed that the President was more interested than he was willing to admit. British authorities, au-thorities, also, it was learned, were expecting the United States to do something along this line. It was recalled that the British naval leaders had said that they had men enough on hand to man the entire U. S. navy, if necessary, and this was taken to mean that Britain was prepared for a "lease-lend" of more naval vessels. There were two possible plans being be-ing discussed: 1. The transfer of more destroyers and possibly cruisers to Britain so they could be assigned to convoy service. 2. An extension of the neutrality zone further into the North Atlantic to keep the Nazi warships away further, fur-ther, andor to permit U. S. naval vessels to patrol those areas and release the British ships for the more distant patrol duty. The navy department transmitted to ship operators the news, sent to the U. S. by Churchill, that Nazi raiders and submarines were operating oper-ating inside the forty-second meridian meridi-an of longitude, some of which is within the present neutrality , zone. ETHIOPIA: NeaririK Fall The "battle of Ethiopia" in which the Italians, as thry did in Albania, started out with successes and ended end-ed up with reverses, seemed about In its final phases, with a British victory if not certain, at least extremely ex-tremely likely. This again was a reversal of early war predictions by the llritish themselves, them-selves, who had warned the English Eng-lish public that it could expect no success whatever in the general African Af-rican campaign. STRIKES: Hold Attention i - .. - f,; ... s Here are some of the pickets u-hich surrounded sur-rounded the Hariill Aircraft Die Casting Cast-ing corporation plant early in the labor dispute there. See Below Two strikes, one big in volume and the other involving only 423 men, but holding a vast menace to plane building, held the attention of those in charge of production management man-agement The big strike was at the $5,900,000 construction project at Wright field, Dayton, Ohio, huge testing ground for army airplanes. The strikers were refusing to negotiate, saying "we'll go back to work as soon as they chase those other fellows, (non-, union members off." This was a strike of the A. F. of L. building trades unions of Dayton. It' seemed, to the public, a picayune matter. The work of thousands was being held up by 400 A. F. of L. men, who objected because an electrical elec-trical subcontractor put 4 C.I.O. men to work. The contract of the electrical subcontractor sub-contractor was held up, and the men went back to work. The contract finally was reinstated, and out went the men again. There was talk at this point of the government taking over. The other strike was that of the Harvill manufacturing company, an organization headed by a 42-year-old former soda jerker who invented a process for casting airplane parts from aluminum and magnesium, light metals. Harvill's plant employing only 423, makes parts for practically every ev-ery big plane manufacturer on the Pacific coast including such giants as Boeing and Lockheed, Douglas and Vultee, Vega and North American. Amer-ican. The men were asking raises from 50 to 75 cents an hour, and the strike, according to Harvill himself, was threatening plane factory shutdowns shut-downs that would throw 60.000 out of work and would jeopardize the construction of thousands of war-planes. war-planes. This the workers denied, saying that the factory was well ahead of the needs of the other plants. Here, too, the government and the defense administration were looking with an anxious eye, wondering how far to go to break the walkout TURKEY: Green Light? The Bulgar-Greek front continued to teeter on the brink of war, and observers were interested to hear through "grapevine" channels that Soviet Russia had given Turkey the "green light" to go ahead and defy Germany. Whether this was wishful thinking think-ing or not, many of those on the scene considered it was sound politics poli-tics and even sounder diplomacy. They harked back to the old statement, state-ment, which has been held to since the beginning of the war, that Russia's Rus-sia's long-range policy would be that of a "fisher in troubled waters," that she would egg on the weaker party against the stronger, particularly where this suited Russia's convenience, conven-ience, and then step in for her own personal grab. They pointed to the Polish experience, experi-ence, and the Rumanian outcome as proof of this contention. Just as Jugoslavia was tottering and about to be forced to sign a Nazi pact after showing plainly that her sympathies were on the other side, and just as the British had landed 300.000 men in Macedonia and Thrace, and were said to have more on the way, and Just as Turkey Tur-key was debating whether or not to "toss in with England," came the dispatches about Russia's attitude. Russia was soundly placed in this position. The Soviet Is friendly with the Hulgars, also with Jugoslavia, both by race and general sympathy, nnd especially with Bulgaria because be-cause of her location on the Black sea. Russia had picked up half of Poland, Po-land, a huge slice of Rumania, and was sitting with her legions ready to grab off the Black sea coast of Rumania Ru-mania if the slightest chance offered. of-fered. RAIL WRECKS: Tuo The death list was not large, but the number of injured extremely heavy In two railroad wrecks within one day of each other. Near Pittsburgh a crack flier was purposely derailed, crashed Into the Ohio river, with four dead and scores hurt. Near Ravenna, Ohio, a commuting train, loaded with hundreds of workers work-ers bound for A government arsenal, backed out onto a cross over and was cut in two by a freight train. |