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Show i WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne' Orient Bristles With Military Activity As U. S. and Japan End Conferences; U. S. Planes Aid British Libyan Drive; Nazis Admit Russia Recaptures Rostov (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed tn these columns, they are thooe of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I , (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) , - -' i J I Here is a view of the TJ. S. S. Ellyson, new destroyer for the XJ. S. 1 navy, during commissioning ceremonies at the New York navy yard. ' Officers and crew are facing aft as the colors are raised. The Ellyson Is a sister ship of the U. S. S. Kearny, which proved her mettle by standing I up and making port under her own power after taking what a German torpedo had to offer. U. S. ARMY: Changes Ideas Partly as a result of maneuvers in the South, partly as a result of reports from American observers with the warring armies in Europe and Africa, the U. S. army's ideas of a fighting force are undergoing rapid changes. Modern arms had been accepted, also modern motor transport, and our army had its planes, tanks, antitank anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, and all the other appurtenances of modern mod-ern warfare. But this has not been deemed the best arrangement, and army officers now are rearranging the basic arm, the infantry, so that each unit is practically a whole mechanized army in itself. Each infantry outfit, the new army idea envisions, will have its own screen of tanks, will be completely motorized as regards transport from place to place; it will have its own battery of plane; even its own self-propelled 75-millimeter guns. Thus what used to be a regiment of foot-soldiers, working in conjunction conjunc-tion with separate outfits of plane, artillery and tanks, will now become a complete little army in itself, with all the necessary arms. FINNS: Being Replaced? The report by the British admiralty ad-miralty that submarines of the Royal Roy-al navy had sent to the bottom eight Axis troopships and supply vessels recently in Arctic waters gave rise to the belief that the Nazis were seeking to replace Finnish troops on the northern Russian front. This indicated a probability that Finland might not be as wholeheartedly whole-heartedly in the war as the German High Command would have the world believe. One submarine, the British reported, re-ported, sank five ships and seriously damaged a sixth, and the other sub sent three to the bottom out of a convoy con-voy of seven and damaged the others oth-ers so that ' "their destruction was believed probable." At least two of the vessels were carrying troops, London said. GILLETTE: His Letter Senator Gillette of Iowa, a Democrat Demo-crat who was the first target of one of the New Deal's unsuccessful purge efforts in 1937, and who has long been a relentless and capable foe of the President's foreign policy, had written a letter to the President Presi-dent offering his services in any capacity during the present emergency. emer-gency. The President replied, in part: "If the occasion should warrant it, I would not hesitate to ask you to place your abilities at the disposal dis-posal of your country in some other capacity than as United States senator." sen-ator." The incident was regarded as another an-other spectacular development in the progressive collapse of opposition opposi-tion to the administration's foreign policy in the light of the extreme tension in the Far East. The Iowan informed the President that he had not retreated from his viewpoint. He said, however, that he was utterly willing under the present circumstances to work for causes which were in conflict with his personal opinions. Said he: "This is for the purpose of enlisting en-listing myself and all that I have in service for the duration of the emergency." JAPAN: Demands Following exploratory talks between be-tween special Japanese envoy Ku-rusu Ku-rusu and Secretary Hull which had more or less been kept secret the latter suddenly issued a five-point ultimatum to Japan which showed plainly that the United States feared no crisis with Nippon, and that her attitude toward Japan's plans in the Pacific was unchanged. The United States boldly asserted she was insisting on Japan's withdrawal with-drawal from the Axis; that Japan must get out of China ; that she must withdraw from Indo-China; that she must be willing to keep the open door in the Pacific. This was followed closely by a welter of rumors that Japan was sending 30,000 men in 70 transports to Indo-China that the U. S. was going to patrol the supply lines to China along the Burma road with airplanes. On top of all this came Premier Hideki Tojo's blunt statement that in the light of developments Japan considered Britain and the United States "hostile nations" accusing the Western powers of attempting to exploit East Asia, and saying: "We must purge this sort of practice prac-tice with vengeance." Then came word from Singapore that all army leaves had been cancelled can-celled and that the entire British force there had been placed "on the alert." There was little doubt but that the sword of war was dangling by a thread in the Pacific, a fact which President Roosevelt had recognized in taking a brief vacation to Warm Springs, Ga. As he left he remarked that his date of return "depended on Japan." Tojo continued his tirade against Britain and America by taking note of the rumor that this country was planning a Burma Road patrol. He said that Japan "could not ignore" such a move, and would consider it a "deliberately hostile action." Real spot that all eyes were turned upon was the border of Thailand, Thai-land, against which many believed that Japan would launch an invasion attempt as an . "answer" to Hull's latest message. Such a move, Washington observers observ-ers felt, would instantly touch off war in the Pacific. RUSSIA: Gateway Gain As the Russians admittedly had their backs to the wall in Moscow, they had claimed an outstanding victory in the central southern sector sec-tor where they asserted their armies had reoccupied Rostov-on-Don, an important gateway to the Caucasian oil fields previously lost to the Nazis. For several days the Russians had been talking about a counterattack counter-attack somewhat to the west of Rostov, Ros-tov, an attack which was driving southward with some success. At that time Pravda and the army paper Red Star had hinted that this counter-attack was seriously affecting affect-ing General Von Kleist's supply lines. Suddenly the Russian armies fell with full force on the Von Kleist army corps, and Kuibyshev reported report-ed the entire corps was annihilated and that the Russians had the Nazi forces in the Rostov district rushing rush-ing off w-estward in "disorderly retreat." re-treat." The Germans admitted the evacuation, evacu-ation, and ascribed it to an effort to gain time for retaliation against the attacks of the civilian population on the German rear "in defiance of international in-ternational law." Stripped of its Nazi propaganda angles, this seemed at least a partial par-tial admission on the part of the German High Command that the Russian attacks on the German communication lines, which had featured fea-tured Red dispatches for a week, had played a big part in the German Ger-man disaster at Rostov. LIBYA: British Ring After winning battle after battle by swift encirclements based on the use of fast tanks and screaming dive-bombers, the Nazi forces in North Africa had evidently received a dose of their own medicine, and while dealing out deadly punishment punish-ment to the British, had been unable to break the iron ring which had trapped an estimated half of the German armies. The German High Command had blithely announced early in the battle bat-tle that a "counter-offensive" had retaken Sidi Omar and was moving mov-ing across the Egyptian frontier, despite de-spite the fact, obvious from the maps that in this maneuver the German Ger-man tanks were going the "wrong way up a one-way street" as one British commentator put it. The chief Italian mechanized force, the Ariete division finally managed to join forces with the chief remnants of General Rommel's Rom-mel's tank outfits, and were attempting attempt-ing to break out near Rezegh. But Rezegh was at the extreme west end of the British trap, not the extreme east end, as was Sidi Omar. It was obvious that it was at Rezegh that the main battle was joined, the battle that would spell success or failure for the British effort. Despite the fact that Germany was sending airplanes from Europe to back up her tank forces in Africa, Af-rica, the British claimed they were still able to hold supremacy in the air, being equipped with hundreds of American planes in addition to their own. The British also claimed they were steadily widening their wall within which the Nazis were trapped, and that each day the battle continued contin-ued found them better able to continue con-tinue it. ARMS: For Merchantmen As America rushed to arm its merchantmen in accordance with the permissions under the neutrality act as revised, the controversy raged hotly as to what good the weapons would do the vessels. Naval authorities pointed out that they would do little good if the vessel ves-sel encountered a surface raider. But against submarines it was a powerful weapon if the ship were able to fire a lethal weapon at its attacker. Naval men gave figures from the last war, showing that of 302 unarmed un-armed merchant ships attacked, only 67 escaped; but of 310 defensively defen-sively armed merchant vessels attacked, at-tacked, 263 got away. The secret was this, they said: Submarines attacking a ship while submerged, must get close enough to get a good view of the target through the periscope. Through a choppy sea this is well-nigh impossible because be-cause the vantage point is so close to the surface. But if a submarine may attack a ship from the surface, then its chance of missing its mark is much less. Hence the presence of guns, fore and aft, on the armed merchantman practically forces the submarine to remain submerged for its own protection. pro-tection. Guns and depth charges on merchantmen mer-chantmen may spell safety for a large percentage, navy men believe. VICHY: Surrendered? London had become perturbed over reports it had obtained from a "reliable foreign source" that Vichy already had yielded to German demands de-mands for air and naval control in French North Africa. While the reports had been current cur-rent that Petain was ducking a final showdown with Hitler while watching watch-ing anxiously the British offensive in North Africa, it was reported that the Nazis had taken over four French commercial airlines. |