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Show uulhA . L I . Washington, 1). C. BRAZIL AND U. S. OFFENSIVE Though the landings on North Africa Af-rica were a carefully guarded military mili-tary secret between high British and American officials, one other country coun-try let In on the secret was Brazil. In fact. Brazil, through Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha did soine important spade work for the United States in regard to vital Atlantic islands, the Azores and Madeiras. These lie along the route of the American supply line to North Africa, Af-rica, the Madeiras close to the African Af-rican coast. ' Therefore, it was considered possible pos-sible that the Germans might attempt at-tempt to use these islands as submarine sub-marine or even air bases, or that the United States in turn might need the islands for emergency bases. Both island groups are Portuguese. Portu-guese. So, long ago, Brazil, which looks to Portugal as Its mother country, coun-try, made informal diplomatic soundings to make sure that these islands would line up with the United Nations in case of emergency. SOLOMONS vs. AFRICA One thing that got under the skin of high U. S. army ofilclals during the weeks Just before the North African Af-rican landings was the navy's policy regarding the battle of the Solomon Islands. Though all the details had not been worked out, It had been definitely def-initely agreed with Churchill and the Russians to start some kind of second front operation this summer. However, the navy also claimed that it could start the Solomon Islands campaign simultaneously without taking any ships out of the Atlantic or disturbing the Second Front preparations. prep-arations. The admirals promised the war department that the number num-ber of ships used in the Solomons would be very small indeed. But before the Solomons operations opera-tions had lasted many weeks, the navy had used several times as many ships as it expected 6ome of them sent to the bottom of the Pacific. Ships were taken off the supply lines to Russia, despite definite def-inite promises made to Russia. Ships were also taken off the supply lines to England to such an extent that supplies to England dwindled to a driblet. LESSON FROM ALEUTIANS Inside the navy it is pointed out that one of the best jobs Admiral Nimitz ever did was to let the Japs get into the tip end of the Aleutian islands. This proved to be a beautiful beau-tiful decoy, like flies to molasses, The Aleutians were too exposed for the Japs to defend safely, too near our bases. As a result, the Japs lost 10 destroyersa de-stroyersa big chunk out of any navy and we are continuing to whittle them down with no loss to ourselves. U. S. bases are now so close to Kiska that U. S. planes bomb the Japs every day without fail and bomb them so badly that recently no Jap fighter planes have been put in the air. Apparently they are all smashed. But in the other end of the Pacific, army strategists fear that we may have got ourselves in the same position posi-tion as the Japs have in the Aleutianswith Aleu-tianswith our necks so far stuck out that, despite current successes, we have lost more ships than the Solomons were worth. CHRISTMAS TRAVEL The railroads have been negotiating negotiat-ing with the schools and colleges to extend their Christmas holiday period pe-riod so that it will begin before the usual Christmas home-going dates and extend beyond the usual returning return-ing dates. The purpose was to get rid of the school and college traffic before taking on the burden of the furlough movement of soldiers, going go-ing home for Christmas. This longer vacation would be okay with a lot of girls and boys, but most of the schools and colleges col-leges have turned thumbs down. They said they could not change their schedules. Result is that the American railroads rail-roads will carry the greatest burden bur-den In history during the period from December 15 to January 5. The peak will come between December Decem-ber 20 and 24, when the railroads will have to carry: (1) Home-going students; (2) the usual heavy civilian Christmas travel; trav-el; (3) soldiers on furlough; (4) soldiers sol-diers on week-end passes; (5) the normal troop movement, which will not be suspended for Christmas. So between December 15 and January 5, civilians are asked to stay off the railroads! AFRICANA . C. Frenchmen listening to Roosevelt's Roose-velt's broadcast to the French people peo-ple in the French language wondered won-dered who wrote his speech. They said it contained grammatical errors er-rors and sounded like schoolboy composition. Roosevelt's accent, however, was good. C. General Giraud, new French commander com-mander In North Africa, is the first Frenchman to use motorized units In cleaning up North Africa. He waged a successful campaign against the Riffs. |