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Show NEW VOKK A1K DEFENSE Washington, I). C. The army is not anxious to publicize pub-licize the fact, but as of today there are only 39 anti-aircraft guns in the whole New York city defense area. Six months ago not even the most cautious generals would have worried wor-ried about this. But after watching German air operations in the past month, and after doing a little figuring fig-uring with paper and pencil on the flight performances of German phmes, the army is rushing more aircraft guns to the nation's biggest city. Twenty-two battalions with 264 additional ad-ditional guns will be sent to New If .; t - - ii t f'n.r:ti'i iiEiiisit the cwvns AmbasmJor l.olhinn of Gretit Itrittiin (Irfl) and Ambassador dfi Saint (Juen-tin (Juen-tin of Frunce find Mimt'thing to cheer them after a conference in Washington Washing-ton uil'n State Department officials. York as soon as the army can get them, but that will not be before the end of the year. Note The arithmetic which worried wor-ried the army was this: Norway to Iceland, 733 miles; Iceland to Newfoundland, 1,500 miles; Newfoundland New-foundland to New England, 800 miles. More arithmetic: German Mes-scrschmitt Mes-scrschmitt No. 110s have a flying range of 1,700 miles; German bombers bomb-ers have a minimum range of 1,230 miles, most of them more; and Germany Ger-many has between 8,000 and 10,000 of them. NAZI STRATEGY When Sumner Welles was in Berlin Ber-lin on his peace pilgrimage, the Hitler Hit-ler entourage told him flatly that if Britain wanted to continue the war, Germany was ready to lose 9,000 planes if necessary In raining the greatest barrage of bombs in history his-tory on England. With Dutch air bases, plus new submarine bases in Norway, the Nazis plan to put the greatest squeeze in history on England, subject sub-ject her to a terrific air bombardment, bombard-ment, and land invading forces for the first time since the triumphal march of William the Conqueror in 10G6. The military strategy of the Nazis is the old SchliefTen plan used by the kaiser's troops in the last war. Briefly summarized, the plan is: Outflank, Develop, Destroy. To this, the Nazis have added some streamlining of their own, namely the "locusts" or parachute troops, whose objective is to get into the enemy's radio and telegraph offices, of-fices, disrupt communications, and cause as much confusion as possible possi-ble behind the lines. ARGENTINE NEUTRALITY If anyone around the state department de-partment ever had any doubt that Cordcll Hull was not a candidate for President, they changed their minds after seeing him sit upon the Argentine proposal for the American nations to give up neutrality for a state of "non-belligerency." This meant a status somewhat similar to Italy's but friendly to the allies instead in-stead of to Hitler. The Argentines pointed out that, like President Roosevelt, they had sent sympathetic messages to the king and queen of Belgium and Holland; Hol-land; that they had impounded the money and property of the Low Countries in order to keep it out of Nazi hands; and that as a matter of cold fact, none of the Pan-Americans was really neutral anyway. German Supplies. Diplomats arriving here from Berlin Ber-lin tell a significant story of Germany's Ger-many's shortage of food and materials. materi-als. Undoubtedly this bad something some-thing to do with Hitler's decision to stake everything on victory this summer. Returning officials report that "Ersatz" coffee is brewed from apple ap-ple peelings. The shortage is not only in foodstuffs food-stuffs but also in clothing, which is rationed to insure the supply for the armed forces. A woman may buy clothing only to the extent of 100 "points" in the course of a whole year. And a single pair of silk stockings rates 30 points. More important from the military viewpoint is the report that German gasoline is of such poor quality that it befouls the motors and causes frequent replacements. In other words, the question of observers is how long is the supply line? Note German people are forbidden forbid-den to listen to foreign radio broadcasts, broad-casts, but in many German households house-holds at night you might see a strange looking mound covered by a bedspread the family huddled together to-gether secretly near the radio, listening lis-tening to broadcasts from overseas. |