OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Russ Situation Grows 'More Serious' As Nazis Move New Troops to Front; Jap Pacific Supply Lines Endangered By Increase in U. S. Naval Activities (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) (RnipaQPri by Western Newspaper TT"'"" ' Juan Antonio Rios is shown taking the oath of office as president of Chile at inauguration ceremonies in Santiago. The event was attended by 40 foreign ambassadors and various dignitaries of the Chilean congress. At left is Dr. Jeronimo Mendez, former vice president. At right is Dr. Fiorencio Duran, president of the Chilean senate. RUSSIA: Situation Serious Spring officially had arrived in the United States with the opening of the wartime baseball season, but it was hardly far advanced on the Russian front, though warm enough in the southern portion. But the Nazis' spring drive was on, and the Russians, keeping themselves them-selves highly on the alert, had never seemed so active, and were attempting attempt-ing to continue to "beat the Germans to the punch." Kuibyshev and Moscow reported constant attacks on German positions, posi-tions, Berlin was admitting breakthroughs break-throughs here and there, with huge tank attacks, and the Reds were proudly declaring that much American Amer-ican equipment had arrived. Best report tending to show the Russian situation was serious had emanated from neutral sources, and said that Hitler had begun to move additional troops from occupied France, probably from other occupied occu-pied countries onto the beleaguered Russian front. If true, and it might well be, this might be tied in with General Marshall's talks in London, hinting that the time was ripe for invasion. Perhaps, on the other hand, Russians Rus-sians were claiming continued victories vic-tories in hopes of convincing "fence-sitting" "fence-sitting" England that she ought to cross the channel. At all events there were signs that the German spring offensive was fairly started in Russia, and also that it was getting nowhere fast. BRITISH: Days Still Dark From the unsuccessful mission of Sir Stafford Cripps England was forced to the admission that her days continued dark indeed. Britain had the galling reminder that she was keeping large fleets of naval vessels in the Indian ocean; that her troops were bravely fighting fight-ing in Burma; that she was suffering suffer-ing heavy losses on several fronts, and that India was blandly talking over post-war conditions while the Japs were at her very gates. In fact, after the loss of the Hermes, an aircraft carrier and two cruisers in the waters off Ceylon, word came that the British were planning to send a punitive fleet for a final showdown with the Jap navy in the Far East. But Britain was having a tough time in Libya, in the Mediterranean generally, and the threat to Australia Aus-tralia was a serious one indeed. The failure of the Cripps mission had been handled by Bernard Shaw, anti-government speaker, as "to have been expected," but the rank and file of England didn't feel that way about it, nor did Sir Stafford himself, who left India a grim and sadly disappointed man. His last word to the Hindus had been that Britain naturally would have to withdraw her proposals, but that she would not withdraw from attempting to defend India, but would do her duty whether the Indians In-dians helped or hindered. Many believed the breakdown of the conferences had laid the groundwork ground-work for possible revolution or civil war within India, either of which would surely seal her fate if the Japs (as they certainly would) should move in with a strong invasion inva-sion force. As to friendliness with the Japs, few believed the Indians felt that way. The Japanese smacked too much of occidental civilization and thinking to suit the Indians. RAF: A Ton a Minute Finally the British had hit a tempo of bombing Germany which was catching the imagination of the man in the street. In one raid they had dropped a ton a minute in high explosives, sending thousands of tons of bombs across the channel in a single squadron. Some of the squadrons had totaled as high as 300 planes, a figure which the British compared with the estimated esti-mated 400 which Germany had sent over during the height of the air war on one day over British objectives. The Londoner was getting a good deal of satisfaction over these bombings. At last, he felt, Britain was on top in one department of the war, the air raid business. At last the Germans were feeling the heavy hand of air bombs as the British had. There were some desultory raids by Germans over England, but for the moment the air supremacy over western Europe had been definitely with the British. It was so much so, in fact, that a real land offensive offen-sive on the continent was definitely talked of. OUR NAVY: Busy; Building Despite the published details ot the losses of the Java sea and at Pearl Harbor, also the heavy losses of merchantmen in the Atlantic, also the occasional ship reported "missing "miss-ing and presumed lost" in earlier actions, many believed that the navy was doing a big job, particularly in the Pacific and doing it well. One recent report told of activities activi-ties of submarines in points as far removed from each other as "near Bali" (right off Java), and in "Japanese "Jap-anese waters," probably close to the coast of Japan. Four more Jap ships had been sunk, bringing the total since December De-cember 7 to 217 ships sunk or damaged. dam-aged. This was a toll far enough in advance ad-vance of our own to make any layman lay-man realize that a battle with such unequal results could have only one ending. Those who chafed against a navy which could not wipe the Japs off the seas in a matter of weeks, and which, in the only two large engagements engage-ments lost heavily, were forced to admit that in actual ship and tonnage ton-nage losses, the Japs were doing very badly. And there also was the realization that once fleet supremacy was established es-tablished in the Pacific, the Japanese Jap-anese supply lines, and therefore their conquest, must fall immedi ately because of its own weight. Also those who believed in the job the navy was doing pointed with pride to the thousands of troops and tons of supplies transported to Australia Aus-tralia with a single loss, of the other thousands of troops and huge supplies sup-plies sent to England without loss. Japanese transports have been sunk, but our troops were getting to their destinations safely. That was a superiority not to be denied. Many felt that this move had won an important victory in the war and that Japan, afraid of our link with Australia, had definitely turned aside from a real effort of invasion of that continent and would live on the hope that the Allies could not develop a real winning offensive from that territory. ter-ritory. AMERICANS: Up and Doing Speaker Sam Rayburn of the house had reviewed the situation as far as the present attitude of Americans Amer-icans toward the war outlook was concerned when he revealed pertinent perti-nent facts about the armed forces and their progress. He pointed out that America now had on foreign battlefields, six times the number of men we had in Europe Eu-rope after eight months of the last war. He declared that planes were being be-ing turned out at the rate of 3,300 a month; that Garand rifles were far ahead of production schedules, with already enough on hand for every soldier in uniform to have one; that tanks were ahead of schedule, with one factory turning them out at the rate of a trainload a day; that the building of merchant mer-chant ships would catch up with schedule by midsummer, and other items of like importance. Rayburn felt that the temper of the people was such that no lessening, lessen-ing, rather an increase of this good work would be demanded. He said that on one recent day 100 men had been on strike in all war industry, in-dustry, and added "that was 100 men too many." Some Americans were puzzled by the demands, in view of our production, produc-tion, that all old-style army rifles, the Springfields and the Enfields of the last war, all that were fit to fire, at least, be turned back to the war department for shipment to other oth-er members of the United Nations. This was to include a highly controversial con-troversial point, the recalling from the 48 state guard organizations, all their rifles. , They were to get shotguns, as were the military police, and the war department announcement added add-ed "that is all the arms they need." But guard officers were loud in their claim that the removal of the rifles was going to ruin the morale of the guards, and asked where it was going to get the shotguns. There was little answer to this latter plea, but the thought of thousands thou-sands of serviceable rifles going out of the country brought protests to the department from various political leaders, including Senator Russell of Georgia. War material was moving through the factories at a ten ' rate, but daily the people wi 'ing the pinch more and mc |