Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne attacks on Us so S ships in west atlantic ailanti C termed acts of piracy by the president orders navy to shoot any axis raiders in waters held to be out of war zone ED editions EDI TOnS nate wh en pin ion ar are e see d iu in tace thel tatt are n hose hoc a f lh the nw news yet and not n t at a t y ot of newspaper I 1 Release dbY by western newspaper Nw paper union 1 11 1 0 1 11 N 7 A 1 7 m J when news was flashed that the U S freighter steel seafarer had been sunk in the he red sea the war came home to more than one family in the V U S here you see mrs airs rose mccade in jersey city and members of her family eagerly listening to bulletins which finally told them that her husband alexander mccade and the rest of the crew had been rescued by passing ships INCIDENTS piling up In incident was piling on incident when president roosevelt in a radio broadcast heard all over the world declared german attacks can ships twice on U S warships as acts of piracy and ordered the U S navy to shoot first when sighting any of the axis submarines or surface raiders in the western atlantic the president in vigorous fashion declared for the freedom of the seas and announced ships of any flag would be given protection when plying their peaceful trade in waters which the president defit malitta maintained ined ware were not in the war zinb zone the incidents the president stated waie were plainly calculated by hitler as part of his plan to control the seas as well as land areas by a series of aggressions the president vigorously assailed obstructionists who would lull the nation with any false thought that with the british navy gone we could possibly be a match against the axis navies to the greer affair was added the sinking sinkin grof of the sessna a former Danish ship and the steel seafarer an Ame american vessel the latter carry carrying ing lease lend aid to the british maddle east command all but three of the crew aboard the Sessna were drowned and the ves vessel it was said sald carried ao no war materials whatever solely food and other supplies corthe for the danish government of iceland the sinking took place lace prior to the greer i in affair ff a ro and X was only announced following the picking up of the survivors the steel seafarer was sunk in the red sea and all hands were acre saved but only by their own brisk action in difficult straits the vessel according to survivors was sunk by a heavy caliber aerial bomb per hap hansan san aerial torpedo toy the explosion which would be heard for 10 miles tore open the starboard plates of the ship amidships and sent her to the bottom so swiftly that the captai captains nil boat only left the side twp minutes before the doomed ship took her final plunge members of the crew said it was impossible that the boat could have been mistaken for foi Brit british lih tor for the american flag was fly flying IngIn in the vessels floodlights flood lights and she was not nol in convoy traveling p lohe alone the import of the loss was considered trifling being less than 2 per cent of the lease lend old aid sent to the middle east so far that would roughly place the amount of this aid at 50 i shiploads ship loads it was a typical genera general 1 lend lease cargo two i americans were lost jost on the sessna but in the presidents recapitulation odthe of the events for which he intends to hold nazi germany strictly accountable he cited five american owned ships sunk presumably surn ably by german action and at least 65 american citizens who suffered loss of life inthe in the sinking of the american and other vessels many felt that the recent three incidents coming so close together might have been the result of an order from hitler for an all out effort against the american lend lease campaign as hitler might be fearing the effect of an all winter war with russia in this event it was felt he might be afraid that the U S would strengthen britaina Brit ains hand so much in n the interim that a successful mill military move against the british would be impossible for all time thus malting making victory for germany well nigh hopeless GERMANY GERMAN A 4 warning arning JV after first stating positively that the greer was the aggressor in th the e battle with a german submarine in the waters off iceland germany issued finally a flat warning that all ships of whatever nationality in her war zones were subject to attack without warning this was similar to the warning issued in the last war which brought about the sinking of the lusitania and a definite american demand for entry into the war the state department in washington at the same time lifted its restrictions strict ions and said it would permit t american cit citizens ilens journeying from britain and the united states to travel on belligerent ships the nazis said that there was no use talking about a general order to atuk attack american ships the they y said the only general order was vas to ito attack all shipping 4 they added that they considered president Roosevel ts dictum that the red sea constituted neutral waters and that american flag ships could navigate there was premature and constituted a provocation to the germans and italians to attack such ships SPY thrills in trials the expected thrills in the spy trials in new york in which 16 persons are accused with having taken part in espionage on behalf of germany against the united states panned out early in the case FBI witnesses revealed that the german spy system had been tricked for months the G men built a radio station on long island arrangements having been made through an informer entirely at the request of the germans for a quick method of getting information for months the station operated kidding the nazis with false information about the army navy and air force however all the victories of wits were not on the american side for one witness testified that thinking to make his german masters happy he offered to steal plans of the secret american bombsight and send them over ills his higher up told him you worry yourself it already is in our hands STRIKE 11 halted a cited by F D R the railroad strike which had seemed imminent and which would have thrown the entire defense production structure into a turmoil was at least temporarily halted by president roosevelt who personally set up a five man mediation board fourteen non operating unions had voted to walk out september 11 and tour four days later the big five brotherhoods brothe had decided to quit work legally this put the strike in moth balls for 60 days the railway hallway labor act stipulates that the presidents board has 30 days in which to examine the evidence and an other 30 days in which to make its report during this 60 day period the workers are under obligation not to leave their jobs S spitzbergen SPITZ BERGEN A coup though censorship hid ld from the public many of the details t the h e british invasion of spitzbergen Spitz bergen group of islands close arctic circle undoubtedly was a coup of considerable considerable industrial and military importance it gave the british another base threatening german occupied norway also important coal mines and more important still willing workers to go to england and aid in id the operation of british mines it also freed several french officers and men who had escaped there after the fall hoffr of france ance when the british warships hove into the spitzbergen Spitz bergen hir harbor bor these french came out in their small boats and some of them were seen to kiss the wai war painted side of the big transport one grizzled c captain former commander of a tank battalion said for 14 months we were dead men britain Brita inand and canada have given an us new life all planned to get back 0 to o various fields where they could join the free french forces of De the military import of the far north was made obvious in the ahe british commentary on the occupation iceland greenland spitz siberian ports further north petsamo Pet samo Mur mansk these are the arctic circle ports which britain believes vitally important por tant most of them are in british hands the british have felt the effect of the ithe nazi of narvik barvik norway of Mur mansk and other points of that nature and still did not ap patently realize it when the first nazi naz I 1 victories brought them under german control now they realize that thai the far north orth constitutes afrank a flank against the enemy and the spi Spitz tz bergen adventure was in order to add one more more strong point to the list alrea already dy held short sea routes exist up in those regions and may yet yec be us used ed in the ithe plans for british russian amer ainer ican trade routes pr 1 the long awaited probe of the movies and the radio as to whether they are carrying on pro war propaganda brought sparks right from the start senator nye leading non inter vent appeared as the chief prosecuting witness and ran slap and headlong into wendell Will willkie kle who appe appeared ired as cou counsel tor for the film industry nye proceeded to list a number of films aspro as pro british propaganda and then made the declaration that chehad he had been informed that if britain lost the yar war a number of american fill film il companies would go into bankruptcy he painted a picture of these companies desper desperately i atel making pro brit ish and pro war pictures endeavoring to get the american people to take up the cudgels more vigorously and thus to save their bacon but willkie countered by calling nyes ayes statements wild and unsupported and scored a telling blow against the witness when he charged him with fighting a rear guard a action c against the foreign policy of the administration which the sonata ata on more than one occasion has overwhelmingly supported thus the former republican presidential nominee in a few adroit words aligned the cause of the film industry with that of the adm administration lils tra tia tion LENINGRAD battlo battle the nazis admittedly on the outskirts of leningrad and officially opening its siege followed their cus customary tom ary of making general sweeping claims and then being forced to contradict themselves day by day they announced that leningrad was as completely cut off biland by land from the rest of russia on september 8 and two days later had to admit that this was a premature claim |