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Show V, , . WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne U. S. Isolationists 'View With Alarm' All Moves to Aid Britain and Greece; 'Bottlenecks' Worry Defense Leaders; Italian Drive Suffers New Reverses (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are thuse of Ibe news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) i Released by Western Newspaper 1 nnn r v f. I 1 T uras the night before Christmas, " When all Through the house Not a creature uas stirring, Not even a mouse. Clement Clarke Moore xfrferw J HEROES: Sagas of the Sea The 20,000-ton merchant cruiser Carnavon Castle took its place among sea heroes when it limped into Montevideo after telling of a "chase" fight of nearly 24 hours with an unidentified Nazi surface raider that has taken a heavy toll of British and neutral shipping. Once more, as in the case of the Graf Spee, the battle took place in South Atlantic waters, tending to confirm the British belief that ports in that general neighborhood send out ships which refuel and re-provision the raiders. The Carnavon Castle, undoubtedly lighter in armament and slower in speed than the German raider, reported re-ported that it left its antagonist badly bad-ly hit astern, and afire. Carnavon's skipper expressed the opinion that the raider had not long to survive. The merchant cruiser arrived in port hit a dozen times, with many killed and wounded, and listing heavily to port. Ballast tanks had been filled on purpose to accomplish this, and to lift her starboard side out of water, thus bringing huge holes at the waterline up out of the water, keeping the ship afloat. REDS: In School An aftermath of Dies committee revelations occurred in New York, where the American Legion took cognizance of hints that Communist party members were teaching in New York classrooms, and the revelations reve-lations were sensational. No less than 24 teachers, many of them in Brooklyn college, a city-owned city-owned institution, were found in colleges, col-leges, high and grade schools who were charged with being Red party members. Instances of circulation of Marxist Marx-ist propaganda, also the teaching of Communist doctrines were uncovered, uncov-ered, and the matter well-aired. CRASH: Another Tragedy Perhaps a mite smug over their wonderful record of safety in passenger-carrying, the plane lines had a rude shock when a mainliner crashed in Chicago, with the loss of many lives. Review of accident brought two things to the notice of investigators: investiga-tors: (1) that Pilot Scott changed from one plane to another in Cleveland Cleve-land because he didn't like the sound of one motor when he "revved" it up prior to a takeoff; (2) He had to circle about for 28 minutes in a blinding snowstorm over the Chicago Chica-go airport before he could land. Six ships were "in line," stacked up at thousand-foot intervals as they took turns coming into the port. The possibility of snow-blindness was mentioned, as at the last moment the pilot radioed ground forces that he "had a good view of the landing field" and was coming in. Suddenly a wing dipped and he crashed from 150 feet Six died at once, and four later. Pilot, copilot co-pilot and stewardess lost their lives FOREIGN JOTTINGS: C Berlin Jan Kubelik, master violinist, vio-linist, was reported to have died in Prague at 60. Reckless of money, he died in comparative poverty and with his beloved Czecho-Slovakia crumbling around him. By his side was "Charles Dawson," a Hindu medical student who once heard Ku belik play, deserted his own life and studies to "stay forever" with "such a master." ft Paris An "international incident" inci-dent" was the detention by Nazi oc cupation authorities of Mrs Eliza beth Deegan. 40. a clerk in the American embassy. It took Wash ington days to find what had become of her. C. London -Londoner! who think German raiders are aiming rinh, at them" were disabused of this notion no-tion by British pilots, who reported that at usual bombing height, five miles up and more, "London looks as b.g as a book on the "floor" an" bombers are lucky to hit the citv I let alone particular obieotivec. TAKING HAND: U. S. Steps In While prominent isolationists "viewed with alarm" each successive succes-sive step, it was evident that the United States was becoming daily a more vital factor in the various phases of World war II. Summed up, these might be catalogued cata-logued under (a) promised aid to Greece; (b) promised food credits to Spain; (c) placing aid to Britain even ahead of vital national defense; (d) preparations to place the navy immediately in shape to aid Britain in patroling ocean lanes. President Roosevelt's assurance to King George of Greece that material ma-terial aid will come from this country, coun-try, and immediately, was couched in terms that showed the nation ready to succor any and all peoples suffering from aggression. At the same time that the state department and national defense council busied themselves with this problem, Ambassador Weddell approached ap-proached the more ticklish task of aiding Axis-friendly Spain. The Spanish admittedly were in dire need of food to tide them over the winter. Franco was unable to give immediate imme-diate assurance of Spain's non-participation in the war, but while America apparently was willing to waive a definite pledge, a demand was made that Spain announce her principle of non-intervention. The United States was anxious to give Spain food, partly from this country, partly beef from the Argentine, Argen-tine, but equally as anxious that these provisions not fall into the hands of Axis belligerents. In addition to huge American commitments to give Britain planes, tanks and war material of all kinds, the need for merchant ships was being met through the purchase here of 150 ships, more than 100 of them to be constructed by one shipyard ship-yard alone. NAZI SPEECH: Rival Worlds In a 90-minute address to German Ger-man war workers, Adolf Hitler, told them and the world that the current war was a fight between two worlds, one of "special privilege," in which he included the United States, the 1 other a world of equality andfreedom as represented by Nazi Germany. He indicated that Britain would feel more and more the might of Nazi armed force. Expressing supreme su-preme confidence in Germany's strength, Hitler promised his followers fol-lowers that the tempo of war would be stepped up until Nazi victory was assured. LAGGING: Bottlenecks Appropriating billions for defense production is one thing, getting the material another, as the U. S. defense de-fense leaders were rinding out The headache bottlenecks! Number Num-ber One of these was Engines Number Two. Aluminum; Number Three, Landing Gears; Number DOMESTIC SCENE I 1 ft Miami President Roosevelt, after aft-er kidding newsmen that he was going go-ing into the Caribbean sea to visit Easter island and hunt Easter eggs, showed up at various naval bases on inspection. ft Washington Dies committee probers say they knew sabotage had been committed on a pursuit plane of a type to be delivered to Britain some time before the plane crashed in a test flight. Four, Machine Tools, and Number Five, Guns. In spite of big increases in production produc-tion at the Pratt-Whitney, Curtiss and Allison plants, facilities for making mak-ing planes were still far ahead of the engines to make them go. Those in the know admit that U. S. commitments to Great Britain are such that our plants will not be able to deliver engines in quantity to this country until around next September. Septem-ber. After 'that time the Ford plants, it was said, will be geared up to make Pratt-Whitney engines in quantity, quan-tity, and the Packard factory will have the Rolls-Royce liquid-cooled motors in hand. These are essential essen-tial for pursuit planes. Two other auto factories are surveying sur-veying their ability to turn out airplane air-plane engines, but even if they work out the problem, they won't be in production until late in 1941, well behind the Ford and Packard situa tion. As to aluminum, the country is increasing its production of the raw material rapidly, but there is a long lag between raw material and the sheets and forgings necessary to make turrets, mounts and fuselages. Next bottleneck was the landing gears, the shortage being in wheels, brakes and the air-compression cylinders cyl-inders necessary for the heavy types of bombers with retractable wheels. Factories are gearing up for these in mass production, but are far behind be-hind the plane factories. Machine tools, starting point in all mass production, constituted the biggest headache among the bottlenecks. bottle-necks. Knudsen and his associates started on the machine tool problem prob-lem first, knowing it would be most vital, but the lag here has been even greater than expected. One new machine tool, having to be built and turned out in mass production, pro-duction, may cause a lag of months in making airplanes on an assembly line basis. The guns referred to are of heavier heav-ier caliber than those we formerly used on our planes. Here, again, the defense leaders have realized that guns are not designed and built in quantity in a day, and concentrated concen-trated effort is being made in this direction. ITALY: Unrest at Home? Serious signs of Italian unrest at home matched continuing news of disaster at the Grecian front, although al-though the lapse between occurrence and admission still was about ten days to two weeks. The Italians have to wait at least that long before learning what has happened to their boys "over there" across the smiling Adriatic. At first there were reports of constant successes suc-cesses as the Fascist war machine smashed into Grecian territory, sweeping the Greeks ahead of them as the defenders marshalled their forces swiftly and sought defendable positions for men and guns Then the Evzones, those kilted mountaineers, began striking and Italian gains became losses, and the invaders were swept back across the Albanian frontier into a retreat that was steadily continued. It was 10 days after the fall of Pogradetz, important northern base, before the Italians learned of it officially. of-ficially. Northern Italy learned of it through their Jugoslavian neighbors neigh-bors long before the press had it. The news of the abandonment of Porto Edda and Argirocastro was similarly delayed. Reports of rioting riot-ing inside Italy, especially in northern north-ern cities, was persistent but unconfirmed un-confirmed officially, as Marshal Pi-etro Pi-etro Badoglio, popular hero, was summarily set down for the failure of the Albanian invasion. |