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Show OCD ROW: Siveeps V. S. i. 7 WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Jap 'Culture Offensive Is Assisting Aggressor in Continuing Attacks; Heroic Stories Arrive From Luzon; Nazi's Subs Add More Ships to Toll (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these colnmns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I (RuifaoH by Western Newspaper TTninn ) . , - I ' X : ''J MENACE: Of 'Jap Culture' As the tentacles of the huge Japanese Jap-anese advance throughout the southwest south-west Pacific stretched themselves across the map, it was evident that the "culture offensive" of the Nipponese Nip-ponese throughout Asia was a most grandiose scheme that might yet cause the United Nations all their utmost power to circumvent. Observers found it obvious that Japan was playing on the anti-Christian anti-Christian tendencies of the entire Moslem world in the hope that some day all these millions might be bowing bow-ing to the Mikado, from the brown races of eastern Asia all the way to the tribes of North Africa. The vital battles of this war found Britain menaced not only by the necessity of keeping far-flung forces LUZON: Epic of Defense Eyewitness stories of MacArthur's men in action began to filter in from the Luzon front, and though they were delayed, the spirit they showed bore out the feeling of the "man in the street" that the Battle of Ba-taan Ba-taan was a heroic struggle in the extreme. These stories pictured the Japanese Japa-nese as fanatical fighters, battling to the death, trembling and moaning, moan-ing, perhaps, when cornered, trapped and about to die, but hurling hurl-ing themselves into the fray, and forcing the American-Filipino troops to shoot them down rather than surrender. sur-render. One correspondent told of seeing an American captain, waving a bloody-bandaged arm, shouting "surrender, "sur-render, you s, we have you surrounded" sur-rounded" and getting the reply from the trapped Japs, in perfect EngHsh, "Nerts to you, Joe!" The American tank crews were forced to run down and trample into their foxholes small bands of a Jap "suicide battalion" that had tried to land behind MacArthur's lines. Yet, outside of these repelling skirmishes between bands of 100 to 300 of the enemy, and of frontal attacks in greater force, it was evident evi-dent that MacArthur's position was ever-narrowing,, ever-shrinking. The Japanese land batteries had Forts Drum and Hughes and Mills under fire, ancf the duels between the huge guns of the forts and the more numerous field guns of the invaders in-vaders continued with indecisive result. re-sult. Meantime, the average American, glowing with pride over the achievement achieve-ment of the men on Luzon, worried because no reinforcements had arrived, ar-rived, and prayed that help might come before the gallant defenders were hurled back on Corregidor and to ultimate surrender or perhaps evacuation in another "Dunkirk." ATLANTIC: Sinkings Grow The torpedoing of the Swedish steamship Amerikaland, 15,355 tons, sent to the bottom, only 200 miles oft New York harbor, one of the biggest freighters plying the seven seas, and raised the total of tonnage lost in the Atlantic to a high figure. Yet the navy department assured Americans that many German subs were making it a "one-way" trip in their fight in the Atlantic, and that the Nazi navy was finding it an expensive ex-pensive war on the eastern ocean. Tragic was the loss of the submarine sub-marine S-26 off the coast of Panama. The captain and three companions were on deck when the accident happened, hap-pened, and, helpless to aid the men MELVYN DOUGLAS An extra $8,000 a year . . . As the congress made ready the first $100,000,000 for civilian defense, the spotlight of publicity was turned on various appointees who would serve on Mrs. Roosevelt's section of the nation-wide OCD. As a matter of fact, congressmen themselves were leaders in the criticism criti-cism of the appointees at the very same time that they, themselves, were being lampooned and laughed at from coast to coast for taking action on a bill to put congressmen who had been defeated into the pension pen-sion plan for civil service workers. One group on the Pacific coast started a "bundles for congressmen" congress-men" movement in an effort to laugh the bill into defeat. But the OCD row not only involved the representatives themselves, but caused a mountain of mail to fall on Washington. Mayris Chaney, a vaudeville dancer and protege and friend of Mrs. Roosevelt, named to a $4,600 job as children's activities director for physical fitness; and Melvyn Douglas, film-star named to an $8,000 job (while working) to direct the arts division of the setup, were the central figures of most of the criticism. ' But some newspapers, leading the fight against Mrs. Roosevelt's group, began publishing lists and backgrounds, and one paper ran a cartoon which said, quoting Representative Repre-sentative Faddis, "When the Dies committee exposes someone, that individual in-dividual immediately is given a job." The word "boondoggling," which had not been bandied about on editorial edi-torial pages for some years, made its appearance again, and congressmen congress-men leaders of the opposition declared de-clared their desks flooded with congratulatory mail. ANZACS: Grim, Hustling Australia and New Zealand, anxious anx-ious over the trend of events as Japanese Jap-anese tentacles reached ever southward south-ward toward the great continent "down under," were grimly and seriously readying themselves for the most determined war effort in their history. Another evidence that first-class and large American support was arriving ar-riving in the area was seen in the announcement that an American, Vice Admiral H. F. Leary, had been appointed head of the naval forces operating in the Australia-New Zealand Zea-land area. A new American naval command, officially titled "United States Naval Forces, Southwest Pacific," also was created. Vice Admiral William A. Glassford, it had been announced, had been placed in command of this force. Both are in their fifties, Glassford a native of San Francisco and Leary of Washington. Both will serve under the general command of Admiral Ad-miral Hart, head of the naval portion por-tion of the Batavia headquarters, who in turn is under Admiral Nimitz, at least technically. JAP SPIES: Caught in Net That the FBI had not been sleeping on its guns since December 7 has become evident in the announcement announce-ment of a series of widespread raids on the Pacific coast. One hundred agents of the FBI swooped down on a Japanese colony overlooking the upper army reservation reserva-tion of Fort MacArthur, near Los Angeles and took into custody a number of Japanese. They also seized quantities of Axis propaganda, firearms, cameras,- radios ra-dios and other contraband. They found a revolver, 50 rounds of ammunition. Axis propaganda and other material hidden away in a secret place on one farm. At the same time a group of four Japs was arrested near Portland, Ore., in the Bonneville dam area, and a considerable quantity of dynamite dyna-mite was found in their possession. Six more Japanese were arrested at Portuguese Bend in southern California, and revolvers, rifles, motion picture cameras, radio equipment, equip-ment, flashlights and a large camera cam-era were seized. RETIRE? Short, Kimmel Just when the nation was wondering wonder-ing whether or not a court-martial would be held to try General Short and Admiral Kimmel for their dereliction to duty in Hawaii, both officers simultaneously asked the army and navy for retirement. Whether this would be the outcome out-come of "Pearl Harbor" as far as the two men blamed for the disaster would be concerned remained problematical. prob-lematical. 2,000,000: The plan to put two million men into the flying and ground troops of the American army was in line with President Roosevelt's victory program pro-gram to create an air armada of 185,000 planes, enough to sweep the world clean of oppression and dictatorships. dic-tatorships. Though the new registration was at hand, expected to yield enough army men to win the war, the announcement an-nouncement that the air force would be increased to 1,000,000 men in 1942 and 2,000,000 men the following year. GENERAL WAVELL A very busy man . . , organized and supplied, but by the unrest of India, as evidenced by the fact that the house of lords was considering con-sidering giving the Hindus all they had been asking for, and what, in many instances, they had been jailed for demanding. Burma, for instance, where one of these vital ' struggles was taking place, was a hotbed of anti-British sentiment among the higherups, this attitude making the defense of the shores of the Irawaddy river between be-tween Rangoon and Mandalay doubly difficult. Yet China's miracle-working coolies coo-lies are hard at labor creating two, perhaps three new "Burma roads" which would have outlets at points other than Rangoon, besides the fact that China was sending strong military forces southward to protect the present road. Many realized, however, that between be-tween the Hindus, the British and the Chinese were many gaps in understanding, un-derstanding, the latter tending to wonder whether the British understood under-stood the important nature of the Far East war, and whether the Hindus Hin-dus were anxious to take any part in it other than to surrender. Chief benefit to United Nations unity, however, was the fact that the Japanese, instead of fighting with propaganda, were coming in as the hated military invader. This, it was hoped, might finally result in their downfall. Certain it was that America, perhaps per-haps as overconfident on the Pacific Pa-cific situation as the British, were rapidly waking up to the seriousness serious-ness of the conditions in the battlefield, battle-field, and joined by the Australians were making ready to do something drastic about it. Two things stood out Wa veil's calm promise ttat Singapore must hold out for "great reinforcements" were on the way; and second, that General Percival, in charge of Singapore's Sing-apore's defenders, said "of course" Singapore would be held. Evacuation of at least a part of Britain's naval forces from the naval base had been deemed a military expediency, a sort of "clearing the decks" for the siege, and it was obvious that the British were not going to be cleared from the Pacific itronghold without a bitterest kind of fight. Shortly after the siege had begun, Japanese troops, crossing at low-tide low-tide the narrow channel between the mainland and the island, began their attack. Slowly they pushed back the beleaguered British troops who contested con-tested each foot of ground that they were forced to relinquish. The Japanese showed the same brand of fight here as they displayed dis-played against MacArthur's men. (See "Luzon.") .....M .......iv - ...yWwyxKW.A-... ..MA ...,. ' ' v: ' s - y :: ' : J i 1 K;' ' J .........-.-,.SY..,,. SECRETARY ICKES Ready for an oil shortage . . . trapped inside the submersible, had to watch their craft take a dive under un-der the water, leaving them to swim. Three were picked up one drowned. The rest of the crew died below at their stations, in 301 feet of water. It did not seem that the American plan of keeping the sealanes open was like the British, to run ships in heavy convoys, for most of the sinkings sink-ings reported were of "single birds" rather than groups of ships, as had been the record of British losses. But they were, nevertheless, severe, se-vere, and seemed to show that the Nazis were sending large numbers of submarines, some of them of the largest type, far across the ocean to attack coastwise vessels. They also seemed to be aiming particularly at tankers, and so many had been sunk that Petroleum Administrator Ad-ministrator Ickes began preparing the eastern states again for a likely shortage of gasoline and fuel oil. |