. WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Germans Fight to Hold Vital Industrial Districts in West; F.D.R. Draws Pattern for Peace Released by Western Newspaper Union . i ... nT,,d these columns, they are those of CKDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion. f necessarily of this newspaper.) Western Newspaper Union news analysts ana not p - - ' " f , ; i Able to perform the work of 12 coolies, this elephant loads gas drums on American transport command plane flying supplies to troops in Burma. PACIFIC: Sliare Spotlight Carrier pilots, marines and army men all shared the spotlight in the developing attacks aimed at smashing smash-ing Jap outposts of the home islands is-lands to smoothen the road to Tokyo. Unchallenged by the once-vaunted Nipponese imperial fleet. Vice Admiral Ad-miral Marc Mitscher's famed Task Force 58 continued to roam in the enemy's home waters, with his carrier car-rier planes, following up daring attacks on Tokyo, smashing at the Ryukyu islands flanking the sea route to the east. Having overrun the southern hall of Iwo Jima, battle-hardened marines ma-rines pressed the remnants of 20,000 EUROPE: Vital Areas With Allied armies poised against both the vital Ruhr and Saar valleys, val-leys, the Germans fought with their backs against the wall in a desperate desper-ate effort to hold on to these industrial indus-trial districts so important to their ability to continue the war. Already heavily battered by aerial bombardment, the Ruhr and Saar faced the prospect of destructive artillery ar-tillery drum-fire, destined to lay their smoke-blackened cities and coal and iron-mining districts in gaunt ruins. Offering only sporadic resistance to the rolling columns of U. S. and British troops west of the Rhine, the Germans beat a steady retreat back MM to the river, evidently intending to put up a strong stand behind the 1,300 to 3,270 foot wide waterway rather than in the rolling plains before be-fore it, where superior Allied armor could chew up their diminishing strength. During the Nazis' withdrawal, fleets of Allied bombers roared over rear areas, not only smashing at road and rail lines in an effort to hamper troop movements, but also hitting at armored formations concentrated con-centrated behind the Rhine for a last ditch defense of the Ruhr. Full extent of the magnitude of the Allied Al-lied aerial bombardment can be gathered from reports that British-based British-based U. S. planes alone dropped 51,000 tons on Germany in February. While falling back to the Rhine on the U. S. 9th and 1st and the British 2nd army fronts in the north, the Germans utilized the rugged Eifel and Hunsbruck mountain country at the northern north-ern rim of the Saar in an effort to slow up the U. S. 3rd army's smash to the south. In every way, the Germans, familiar from A to Z with the country, were making every attempt to use the terrain to meet the Allied Al-lied threat with a minimum of manpower. Slightly larger than the state of Delaware, the besieged Ruhr cradled cra-dled 75 per cent of the enemy's war industry in 1942, with its great coal deposits, 'estimated at 90 per cent of Germany's reserves and half of continental Europe's, forming the basis for its manufactories. Besides armaments, the Ruhr's 5,000,000 people peo-ple produced .steel, chemicals, pig iron, textiles, synthetic oil, high octane oc-tane gas, rayon, drugs, plastics, dyes, bricks, glass and pottery. Smaller than Rhode Island, the Saar also relied upon massive coal beds and iron deposits for the basis of its thriving industry, which produced pro-duced steel, machinery, cement. With face deleted according to censorship censor-ship rules, Jap prisoner receives smoke from U. S. marines on Iwo Jima. defenders into the northern part of the island, using flame throwers along with light arms to root the enemy from well-designed natural entrenchments. In the Philippines, army men, having cleared Manila, fanned out to the north, east and south to clear resistance from the rest of Luzon, with heavy fighting still ahead. WORLD PEACE: Pattern for U. S. Once quoted as saying that scholarly schol-arly "Woodrow Wilson failed to secure se-cure U. S. entrance into the League of Nations because he was not a politician, Master Politician Franklin Frank-lin D. Roosevelt fired the first gun in the campaign to obtain approval for this country's participation in a postwar organization to preserve peace in an address to the nation and congress on the historic Yalta conference. To assure the effectiveness of a postwar peace program, the President Presi-dent said U. S. collaboration must be two-fold: First, this country must join in a world organization to suppress aggression, ag-gression, if necessary, by force. Second, the U. S. must provide relief to alleviate suffering in the liberated states, and furnish credits for the reconstruction of their economy econ-omy so that they might be able to resume full production and stand on their own. "There can be no middle ground," I declared the President. "We shall plate glass, shoes, paper and textiles besides war goods. Pocketed before by the Germans Ger-mans during the latter's great sweeps through Russia earlier in the war, wily Red generals were taking no chances on being nipped off all over again on the eastern front. Although their forces had reached the Oder and Neisse rivers due east of Berlin on a broad front, the Red generals sought to minimize the possibilities pos-sibilities of a German attack on their flanks far to the rear of the forward positions. Holding up their fire on the central front until securing their flanks, the Reds exerted strong pressure against the Germans strung out along the Baltic coast immediately above the right wing of Zhukov's 1st White Russian Rus-sian army. To the south on the left wing of Konev's 1st Ukrainian army, the Reds guarded against the danger of a Nazi thrust from Upper Silesia, where the latter had set up strong lines to defend the industrial district and approaches to Czechoslovakia's Axis-worked war plants. have to take the responsibility for world collaboration or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict. . . ." Aid French In an agreement that might set the pattern for future arrangements, the U. S. granted the French a 2W billion dollar lend-lease credit to be paid within 30 years. I Under the agreement providing for shipment of over 1 billion dollars of raw materials, food, petroleum products and light manufacturing equipment, repayment would be in i 30 annual installments at 2 per cent interest, while deliveries of almost al-most 1 billion dollars of locomotives, freight cars, machinery for mines, industrial equipment, ships and barges would be made with a 20 per cent down payment and 30-year ; amortization of the remainder. j To maintain the present French army and double its strength of eight divisions, the U. S. agreed to continue con-tinue lend-leasing military supplies. In return, the French promised in- I creased reciprocal aid.