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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Allied Drive in Italy Gathers Speed As German Forces Face Encirclement: Aerial Blows Kit Japs in New Guinea; I Battle Lines Drawn for Subsidy Fight fEIHTOK'S NOTE: Whe- opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of V extern Newspaper Inion's news analysis and nul necessarily of this newspaper.) J Released hv Western NewsDarjer Union. ' . i vv iv' Jy; - "A TV ' - NJ AW 2 This picturesque chapel m an American military cemetery on Guadalcanal in the Solomons was designed by natives. Chaplains Oliver Grotcfund (left) of Detroit, Mich., and John O'Niel of Boston, Mass., are shown conducting firrt service. ITALY: Take Big Air Base Clinging stubbornly to the mountainous moun-tainous terrain, German small artillery artil-lery and machine gunners slowed the progress of Lieut. Gen. Mark Clark's advancing Fifth army in the Naples area. The whole German line facing the Fifth army, however, was in danger dan-ger of encirclement, following the British Eighth army's capture of Foggia, 80 miles to the northeast. With the British threatening their rear, the Nazis could continue to hold out only so long as it would take Montgomery's men to cross the mountains and get behind their backs. Thus, a slow and bloody German Ger-man withdrawal up the Italian mainland main-land loomed. Possession of Foggia gave the Allies Al-lies a network of airfields from which they could blast southern Germany Ger-many and the Balkans. From Foggia, Fog-gia, Munich is 500 miles, Vienna with its airplane factories 465 miles, and the Ploesti oil fields of Rumania Ruma-nia 580 miles. Feet in Both Camps With the restoration of Fascism in northern Italy under German aus- s88S5iMftK?;ws pices and the re- Vj t Ported recognition k SfA V 1 of King Victor g a T e. '-vj Emmanuel's gov- ym'?",,W!'sl4 emment as . a tXSS' a Partner by the Al- lf J lies. Italy appar- fli I 3 ently has stuck fA. V ll a foot i" both I ftTs 1 camPs- . I 1 1 Although the U. fcSf LJ s' and Britain "St"-" have refused to King Victor v. ... , accept King Vic- Emmanuel r tor Emmanuel s government as an ally, they would welcome its assistance in helping throw the Germans from Italy, and thus give it rank as a military rather rath-er than a political partner. King Victor Emmanuel's government has been anxious to enter the Allied camp as a military partner, hoping that its co-operation would promote better peace terms for it. Meanwhile, Benito Mussolini has been active in reforming his fallen Fascist regime in the north with German support. The Duce expects to raise an army to fight alongside of the Nazis again, and he has promised prom-ised to abolish the monarchy and establish es-tablish a republican government in which the people, rather than the king, would have the final voice. SOUTHWEST PACIFIC: On Move Again Continuing Gen. Douglas MacAr-thur's MacAr-thur's policy of striking directly at enemy bases, Allied troops moved farther up the northeastern coastline of New Guinea to strike at the Japanese Japa-nese shipping port of Madang from the rear. As the Allied forces worked their way up the Markham Valley toward Madang. other units bore down on Finschafen, the important sea and air base which lay encircled from three sides. Australian troops landed land-ed by sea to the north of the Jap base encountered bitter resistance. Despite heavy attacks by Jap bombers, more American troops were put ashore on Vella Lavella island is-land in the Solomons. Reinforcement Reinforce-ment of the U. S. garrison there fur- ther tightened the noose around the last Jap holding of Kolambangara j island in the area. DRAFT: Eye U. S. Employees With Sen. Burton K. Wheeler's bill for the deferment of fathers doomed, Sen. Josiah Bailey "1 Proposed another l'V v 3 measure which iT I would require the rfx 1 induction of all ?1 draft-age single or W Tl chMless married L , 1 men now on the gov- f -f Jernment payroll ( I J who did not switch iL vU essential work. Senator Bailey's Sen. Josiah bill also provided Bailey for the transfer of all physically fit army and navy commissioned officers offi-cers between 18 and 38 years of age from noncombatant duty in Washington, Wash-ington, D. C, to actual fighting. In recent testimony before congressional con-gressional committees, it was estimated esti-mated that approximately 650,000 single and childless ' married men were on the government payroll. Opponents Op-ponents of the dads' draft insist that all eligible men from this group should be taken by the services before be-fore fathers are called. A bill drawn by Sen. Robert Taft would first draft all dads under 30 years of age. Workers Needed Declaring that in 1943 the civilian employment has remained below the level reached last year by 1,300,-000, 1,300,-000, the army's industrial personnel director, James P. Mitchell, said the nation was faced with increasing the efficiency of the present labor force, or of drafting workers from non-essential to essential occupations. occupa-tions. Manpower is poorly distributed, Mitchell said, so that while there is adequate labor throughout the country, coun-try, there are acute shortages in some areas and surpluses in others. Mitchell urged that more consideration consid-eration be given to the employment of women, stating that they compose the chief source of manpower remaining re-maining in the nation. . SUBSIDIES: 'Fight Is On "The battle is on!" With these words the American Farm bureau president, Edward A. O'Neal, declared (-"TW"'-j tnat agricultural or-s or-s , j ganizations would J back up the con- gressional farm t " "'C bloc's opposition to f " -vl subsidies for the dell de-ll crease of consumer i food costs. I The battle lines iLtk. k.iJ were drawn following follow-ing reports that ef-Edward ef-Edward A. forts would be made O'Neal to increase the Com modity Credit corporation's cor-poration's operating fund by at least 250 million dollars, to continue the crop loan program and initiate subsidy sub-sidy payments to producers, particularly par-ticularly to vegetable growers. Authority Au-thority also would be sought to allow al-low the CCC to resejl produce at a loss. Strong criticism was directed in congress at the government's announced an-nounced plan for subsidizing dairymen dairy-men between 25 and 50 cents per hundred pounds of milk for increased feed costs. It was felt prices should be determined by production costs. 'COAL: Rationing Possible As the OPA drew up plans for possible pos-sible coal rationing, John L. Lewis' United Mine Workers Work-ers and Secretary --of --of the Interior Har- f old L. Ickes' office I found themselves in lK'r 1 disagreement on the n r nation's supply. i A I'MW spokes- ' ? man declared that ' -J shortages of some j by - product coals -s 1 used by industry A-Kiaumuamim may exist, but pro- Jolm L Lc.is auction from other mines would more than make up for such scarcity. On the other hand, Ickes' office said weekly production would have to be increased if total supplies for the year were to approximate ap-proximate estimated needs of 600 million tons. It was said any increase in-crease was questionable in view of the constant loss of miners to other industries. RATION POINTS: Increased Sharpty Because of declining production, the office of price administration has raised the point value of butter from 12 to 16 points, the total allotment al-lotment of red points per person each week. At the same time increases in points on nine items, and reductions reduc-tions in four others were announced. The following increases have been ordered, based on the No. 2 size can: Apricots, from 27 to 36 points; red sour cherries, 14 to 25; other cherries, 14 to 23; figs, 13 to 21; grapefruit juice, 10 to 18; plums and prunes, 7 to 15 points. Grape juice was raised from 3 to 6 points a quart. Asparagus and mushrooms also were elevated in point value. Reductions were ordered for canned green or wax beans, down from 10 to 8 points for the No. 2 can; corn, from 16 to 13, except for whole kernel vacuum-packed, which went down from 20 to 18 points. Dried peas and lentils have been placed on the unrationed list. OPA: Dealers Licensed Only farmers, fishermen and government gov-ernment agencies are exempt from federal licensing following an OPA order that all persons or concerns selling services or commodities under un-der price controls are required to have licenses. Most wholesalers and all retailers automatically were licensed, and the recent order was designed to take in canners, meat packers, auctioneers, auction-eers, brokers and other agents. Licenses of operators found guilty of price control violations can be suspended for as long as 12 months. NAZIS AND JAPS: Strength Greater "... Recent victories have failed to affect in any vital degree the strength of the enemy en-emy . . ." With FpT"swT"l these words Under- ?fc V secretary of War f s Robert Patterson f 1 summed up state- , "r ments of Gen 1 V- H George C. Marshall, f" J Gen. H. H. Arnold P 'jd and Maj. Gen TAd$ George V. Strong f y f f, 3 to a gathering of taMa ranking industrial- Gen. H. H. ists, labor leaders Arnold and newspaper executives. As chief of military intelligence, General Strong revealed that the Nazis now have three times as many combat divisions as they had when they invaded Poland, and their domination dom-ination of conquered countries has given them a labor force of 35 million mil-lion workers. Despite recent heavy losses, the Nazis' air force exceeds its pre-war strength. Japan can call upon four million soldiers for action, General Strong said, and, like the Nazis, her conquests con-quests have, given her a vast pool of manpower' and natural resources, RUSSIA: Last Ditch The Dnieper river reached, the Nazis dug into its western banks in an attempt to throw back the charging charg-ing Russian armies. Failure to hold the line along the 750-mile Dnieper river would compel the Nazis to withdraw to prepared defenses on the 1939 pre-war boundaries. boun-daries. - No sooner had the Nazis reached the broad Dnieper, however, than Russian units forced their way across the river at several points, and paratroopers were dropped behind be-hind the German lines on the west bank. The Nazis sought to wipe out these detachments before they could establish footholds. In the oil rich Caucasus, the last German trsops were thrown out, relieving re-lieving the threat to the Russian fuel supply. In all the Reds have regained re-gained over 300,000 miles of the territory ter-ritory overrun by the Nazis. REAL ESTATE: Enjoying Boomlet Rising selling prices in 87 per cent of all cities in the country, and increased in-creased sales in 71 per cent, distinguish dis-tinguish the current real estate market. mar-ket. Realty is in greatest demand in cities with war-time industrial activity, ac-tivity, and buyers' interest has not been dampened by ceilings on rentals. rent-als. Inquiries for business properties proper-ties have decreased because of goods shortages. |