Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS 1 by edward C wayne merchant vessel losses in atlantic cause shortage of shipping crews crew s india dissatisfied with cripps plan observers ponder new jap strategy EDIT 18 aben lons art in these her columns coln mn they her art jr at those thor ol of the lh nw news analyst and a not as ar I 1 ir of this abl Helt ased by western Newspaper union MI 01 B mw 1 ya R M 5 X I 1 i AK wal X irwi y U X i A 0 o Q 71 4 pictured somewhere in australia pacific naval chiefs of the united nations discuss mutual war problems left to right vice admiral herbert V F le leary aay in command of allied naval forces in the anzac area vici vice admiral sir guy royle chief of the naval staff and commodore parry chief of the he new zealand naval staff BATAAN defense vigorous most serious attack against gen oral eyal Wain wrights bataan defense had been launched in the form of a land attack ordered by general whose men had remained quiescent altogether too long to satisfy tokyo who soon might have ordered another hero hara kirl to be carried out but the japs found that the men who had served macarthur so well were the same ones working under who proceeded to make a quick shift in his front to get reinforcements to the be league red scotland spot and land to meet the japs with the bayonet so vigorous was the hand to hand fighting that japanese dead had littered the battlefront but the american line had held firm and was not reported pierced at any point wainwright had admitted to the loss of a few advance positions that was all WAR AT SEA whittling away the german U bonts boats perhaps with some italians working with them were the only sea force of the axis which was wag causing any lasting concern to the allies as the japanese fleet was rapidly and constantly being whittled downto awn to american size while our fleet was growing larger by about two warships daily best news neap was the no navys announcement that a total of 28 axis submarines submarine i have been sunk by U S military and naval forces up to april 1 I 1 thi the japanese air fleets were sut suf fering terin glosses losses of five to one pearl harbor was already twice avenged in ship and plane losses and the general outlook of the battle against the nipponese was more favorable looking as time went on despite the map showing of conquered conow red territories the U boats were continuing their ratio of sin kings along the atlantic coast for a wide area but some hopes had been expressed that the loss of the port of saint Naz nazaire alre might be a costly blow to the nazis and that the arrest of a spy ring in brazil might make it more difficult tor for the U boat skippers to find targets the sin kings by U boats still was not exceeding our commissioning of now new merchant vessels but it was making it constantly inconstantly more difficult to get skipped and crews congress had before it a bill to award sailors hero medals for bravery at sea in torpe doings of the same t type y pe as those awarded to navy heroes while many seamen were brave enough in newspaper interviews it was getting increasingly hard to man ships with survivors of torpe torp e doings and the shortage created by those who had died at sea had to be filled by new trainees for the most part it was one of the worst war bottlenecks and the army and navy were combining in a coastal patrol to which small boats were to be added in an effort to sweep the subs out of americas shore lanes one plan brought forward was to haul oil and sugar up the east coast by the inland waterway wate iway in boats of 80 to tons and in shallow shallo v draft barges this traffic could be carried out safely and profitably surveys had showed LABOR both the american federation of labor and uit the CIO had sent messages to general macarthur in complete support of cf his command there and this was was held in most circles to mean general support for the war effort in the meantime the senate had backed up tip the administrations antagonism to tampering with the 40 hour week law and it seemed that tills this effort to take away from labor its chief gain since the last war was doomed to defeat JAPANESE plans obscure tile the certainty felt by germany that the japs were going komove to move into india with their major offen offensive instead of australia gave rise more and more to a feeling that perhaps the landing of substantial reinforcements in the down dow under continent may have given the japs pause at that it was certain that the japs were having more success in burma than they were around Au australia australi a a and n id the view was held that perhaps the japanese might keep a token force north of australia and a considerable naval power there to immobilize the americans and aussien Aus sies at the same time these observers had held the japs might turn their attention to india and profiting by thi the difficult efforts britain had had to line up the hindus on their side in the forthcoming battle sweep in with their military and uin ivin their way to the persian gulf chief drawback to this view was the fact that the japs were said to have only half a million soldiers in the entire southwest pacific I 1 perhaps enough to attempt an invasion of population scarce australia but surely not enough to spread out through a country populated with people unless the hindus were more than passively i ely opposed to the british unless they were willing to welcome the jap invaders with open arras arms it would be a hopeless attempt occupation of the whole sub contil nent any more than the japs capi had bee been able to do anything in china chin with far more troops 1 i therefore many took still a third view that neither australia nor in ini i dia was the prime objective of the japs but Si siberia berli to open a new front against the russians in hi the first place and simply to hold and at r tempt to develop the east indian resources of oil and rubber child doing their r real eal fighting back 0 of Manchu kuo it if either of these objectives however were carried out instead of 0 the occupation of australia it was wag pointed out that it would play into hands of australians and amer leans whose ultimate objective wa wag 3 an off offensive against the japs no not merely holding their own INDIA dissatisfaction whether india was finally to ac 1 cede to britaina Brit ains wishes or not it still had been evident that the rank and file of the indian people had been vastly disappointed with the mission of sir stafford cripps and the message he brought them virtually they pointed out it was the same as that offered them back at the beginning of the war with the ale difference that britain was commett committing in 9 h herself erse if to the giving of india 0 of f s some ome form of gominion dominion status while heretofore britain had merely said she would talk it over after the war it apparently so much that the hindus wanted their free freedom dorr now but it was that they want to be put into the position of having to fight for their freedom under tinder the direction of the british and as a vassal staw the indian leaders wanted britain to give them the right to organize finance and carry out their own defense with the aid of britain and the other allied nations to this sir stafford cripps had indicated he had no power to accede gandhi and nehru both being quoted as saying they hoped for a settlement and other leaders joining them in ill this hope bick back of it all was the hindu desire to carry out a 11 passive resistance to the tha japs figuring on their own enormous numbers and their dark and dev devious IOUs ways of doing things to beat the japs rather than to attempt the seemingly seeming v hopel hopeless ess task of organizing the country militarily for a battle with planes tanks tank sani and guns OFFENSIVE expect drive in two directions londona Lon dons listening posts on the european continent apparently had been able to confirm that germanys germanas Germ anys spring offensive was as had been thought to be directed against russia w with i th new divisions many of sh them e m from conquered or an ed countries al at the same time the clamor had been renewed in england for a 1 spring offensive on the part of britain that would include a major land off offensive as well as the air blitz which already had got under way A new front in europe europ e had been urged right along in many quarters and now lord beaverbrook Beaver brook himself had broken with churchill at least to that extent and from miami fla had joined joine d the ranks of those who believed the time had come for britaina Brit ains large land army to break out of the islands and alid go across to some soine occupied country and start for berlin victory in 1942 was the slogan of those who believed the time was ripe to strike ashore as well as in the air and they pointed out that russia had fighting men on the eastern front against hillers Hit lers even with the new divisions and that a new front on the west would spell ruin to adolf even the bulgara Bul gars traditional blood relatives and friends of the russians had been forced to contribute men to the new german armies the reports had it italy instead of sending a million men as had been demanded by berlin had sent half this number and had tried to get out of that it had been reported the italian losses on the east front last winter had been frightful the direction of the probable offensive was seen as twofold two fold one m ajor series of drives to be headed toward the crimea and the territory south bathe of the donets basin the other major objective was to be the far north the port of mur mansk through which most of the american and british lease lend aid had been going BURMA air power gone cone once again the british according to their own reports had found themselves on a fairly major battlefront with no air support at all the japs the british wired to new delhi have complete control in in the air the chinese under general stillwell an american and the british 4 7 fal GENERAL STILLWELL fighting a divided front and indian forces had divided the burn burmese ese front between them and were fighting a brave though apparently patently ly losing battle against combined japs and burmese the latter having gone over to the nipponese soon after the invasion started the british themselves unable to arm the indians to defend their homeland had found the taps japs in no such when it cameto came to giving arms to natives willing to join their fighting forces thus the ife defenders fenders were finding themselves battling as they did in malaya with a force well equipped with native guides and andi native fighters in the anomalous position of defending burma from the burmese as well as the japs miscellany LANY chinese sources said that infected material dropped deliberately libera tely from japanese planes had caused an outbreak of the bubonic plague cairo nine persons were killed in a rush for shelter during an air raid the casualty lists showed two thousand ran for a shelter built for vichy the vichy government be lieveld by many in the united nations to be secretly making mun munitions for the axis had requisitioned all hotel and restaurant fixtures containing aluminum or brass washington it had been considered significant in some quarters that the new pacific council of defense included neither india nor britain the report followed statements that the british had wanted returning to go to india not to their homeland detroit the auto industry was divided on the merits of the reuther pl plan an brought forward by a labor leader to speed up the conversion of auto plants in into to factories to meke tanks and planes some held it foolish others praised it and the van plan was being debited debated V t |