OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Long Expected Defeat on Bataan Cited as Heaviest Single Reverse; Labor Leaders Present Solid Front To Keep Production at High Peak (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they xe those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) ' Released by Western Newspaper irninn f ; --it C ) v "- I-1 V" - - 1 y- s-.' ' Chiefs of the A.F.L. and C.I.O., appearing together on a public platform for the first time since the split in labor's ranks in 1936. William Green, left, president of te A.F.L., and Philip Murray, president of the C.I.O., are shown shaking kwnds, symbolizing the national labor unity which they hope to create. Paul V. McNutt, federal security administrator, looks on. BATAAN: The Curtain Falls When the gallant stand of American Ameri-can and FiWpino forces came to an end on Btaan, the nation recorded the heaviest reversal ever suffered by an American force in a single engagement with a foreign foe. New of the fall of Bataan was made blacker still when Secretary of War Stimson disclosed that 36,583 valiant defenders, exhausted by short rations, disease and lack of relief, were overwhelmed by a numerically nu-merically superior enemy. The closing clos-ing chapter of the Bataan battle found the defenders lacking in air power, and completely battered by ever-increasing waves of fresh, well-equipped well-equipped enemy troops and planes. Stimson declined to estimate the number of Jap troops employed in the final drive against Lieut. Gen. Wainwright's men. It had been estimated es-timated that approximately 220,000 Japs were used in the Philippine campaign. The story of the last-ditch stand on Luzon island is one of the most heroic in history. On December 7, Jap bombers first struck at Luzon. Air assaults were followed in the first few weeks by Jap troop landings at five locations in the Islands. Pushing on .Manila from north and south, they drove the greatly outnumbered defenders back, bombing Manila after it had been declared an open city. The Japs entered Cavite naval base and Manila on January 2. American and Filipino troops withdrew toward Bataan, beginning their history-making stand. ; Ten days later the Japa nese launched a heavy frontal attack at-tack on the Bataan defenders, but were .repulsed. For weeks the battle bat-tle surged back and forth. Early in March Lieut. Gen, Masa-haru Masa-haru Homma, the Japanese commander, com-mander, committed suicide as a result re-sult of his failure to crush MacArthur. MacAr-thur. He was succeeded by Lieut. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita. A few days later MacArthur was ordered to Australia and was replaced by Wainwright. March was comparatively quiet, and attacks on March 28 and April 2 were repulsed. On April 4 the Japs began the all-out drive. Although it was a stunning defeat, de-feat, one military correspondent declared de-clared that the defense of Bataan has meant "prodigious butchery in Japanese lives," severe air and naval na-val losses to the Japs. It also retarded re-tarded the advance to Australia until un-til that commonwealth was able to better equip itself for war. BURMA: No Side-Issue More and more observers were inclined to believe the Burmese campaign of the Japanese to be a major one, and not just a side-issue side-issue with Australia the main target. Whether it was resistance of American airmen and navy men, or whether it was the heavy rainfall, things had been much quieter off Australia, while picking up speed in the more western Pacific areas. The British had been forced to back-pedal again in Burma, drawing draw-ing ever closer to their Chinese allies al-lies under American General Still-well Still-well in the north. That they were leaving important territory was revealed by the prospect that they had destroyed oil and cement properties prop-erties before withdrawing. The British troops were described as being outnumbered 3 to 1 on the ground and 10 to 1 in the air. The evacuation of Rangoon, followed fol-lowed by the British withdrawal up the Irawaddy river were believed to have cleared the way for a drive by the Japs toward Akyab and Calcutta, I along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. Few believed the Japanese had the manpower to attempt a real invasion inva-sion of India, but certain it was that they were heading that way more powerfully than they were moving into Australia. LABOR: United Front The A.F.L. and C.I.O. leaders, for the first time since 1936, had gotten together on the same platform at Pittsburgh, had pledged themselves to an unselfish and complete war effort, ef-fort, and to produce all the things America needed for victory. This united front was presented at the time when labor was on the spot because of the effort in the congress to force the administration to abandon the 40 hour week. President Roosevelt had considerably consider-ably clarified the issue when he came out with a new plan, which let the hat sit on its proper spot. To prevent the proposed 48 hour week from being used as a wage-cutting wage-cutting plan, he asked labor to consider a freezing of wages at present levels on the basis of a 48 hour week (which would give workers work-ers their overtime for the duration) but to withdraw their demands for double time for Sundays and holi-' days. One of the C.I.O. groups, the United Unit-ed Automobile Workers, at the same moment had foregone the extra pay except when these days constitute a sixth or seventh workirig day, which was a partial meeting of the President's idea. The congress, it was thought, might be willing to go along with this plan, and certainly labor would have no objection, particularly if it carried what Mr. Roosevelt hinted it would, a formal recognition of the 40-hour principal. The President's plan was to have labor recognize the need of 48 hours of work, to have all workers carry on for 40 hours at regular pay, permit per-mit labor to work one more day at time and a half, but not to permit the seventh day under any circumstances. circum-stances. William Green, labor leader of the A.F.L., said labor was in accord with this plan. RUSSIANS: Air Victories Claiming more than 400 German planes shot down on the east front in the period of a little more than a week, the Russians had given figures fig-ures indicating that the Nazi spring drive in the air was well under way, but that the British and American Amer-ican planes, added to the Russians' own, were taking a terrific toll. The British R.A.F. had been cooperating co-operating on the other side of the front by bombing German supply industries, in-dustries, and at the same time had estimated that their bombing attacks, at-tacks, carried out by from 300 to 400 big planes at a time, had destroyed de-stroyed the supplies for five divisions. divi-sions. The Russians, despite the setting in of the spring thaw, which had immobilized im-mobilized both sides to a greater or less degree, were still on the offensive, offen-sive, with Berlin admitting now and then that the Russians had broken through at several points. The Red air force's biggest bag of planes had run to more than 100 on a single day in fact on two days they had claimed 221. Some of the heaviest aerial activity activi-ty had been over the port of Murmansk, Mur-mansk, on one day 200 planes of the Russians and the Germans having hav-ing engaged in dogfights over the harbor, while below them American and British supplies were being unloaded. un-loaded. NEW DEAL: The New Deal, despite some opposition op-position here and there, notably in the fields of taxation, profits and labor, was whining victories. Particularly sweet to the White House was the result of the fight over a senate effort to set a schedule for profits on war contracts. Many holders of contracts were returning some excess profits, and arrangements had been made to tax them out of most of such money, whether paid to employees as bonuses or not. INDIA: Indecision Precedes Action Continuing a "maybe we'll do it and maybe we won't" attitude, India had kept Sir Stafford Cripps and his associates in Churchill's mission on the anxious seat before they finally final-ly evinced a willingness to accept the projected plan for national government gov-ernment for India. At the same time the powerful Pandit Nehru, past president of the All-India congress, had temporized once more with the announcement that India would resist invasion by the Japanese, "or by any other invader." in-vader." The chronology of the whole affair af-fair showed its heavy and bitter complexity. Britain, prior to the war, had offered India dominion status, sta-tus, then had renewed this offer during the early days of warfare, and when Sir Stafford Cripps was sent there the offer had remained the same. The finally presented plan called for Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell to be supreme commander for conduct of the war under an Indian war cabinet, cab-inet, whose defense minister would be an Indian. Nehru had been scheduled sched-uled to take the defense portfolio. The sole point which had kept negotiations alive had been the Indians' In-dians' admission that with the enemy en-emy at their gates, it was a bad time to be quarreling with Mother England, a potentially powerful partner in the defense of India. Mohammed Sli Jinnah, leader of 70,000,000 Moslems, complicated the issue by contending that his people were ready to fight if Britain would give them a separate freedom. That tangled the whole issue, for Nehru, when Britain said the postwar post-war freedom would be coupled with a provision for certain autonomous states, hotly and angrily declared: "India has been united in slavery, and we'll be united in freedom." OIL: By Inland Route It had seemed that perhaps the famous yachters' paradise, the inland in-land waterway from Philadelphia to Flqrida, might become one of the main eastern arteries of trade. Cartoonists showed small boats sailing up and down inside a strip of protective land while the U-boat skippers gnashed their teeth outside, unable to get at them. Joseph Eastman, head of the defense de-fense transportation, said he had un- i yyv 1 Iy - - ' y -; JOSEPH EASTMAN U-boat skippers gnash their teeth. der consideration a plan to hurl a fleet of dredges into that part of the waterway between Jacksonville and southern points, to increase its depth from 6 to 11 feet. The 11-foot depth exists all the way from Jacksonville north. , President Pres-ident Roosevelt said there are plenty plen-ty of small shipyards which could build wooden barges at a fast rate to provide more bottoms for the sugar, gasoline and oil trade up and down the eastern coast. They have, under consideration just such a plan, he said. SALES TAX: Now Opposed President Roosevelt had revealed that even though the treasury wants to raise seven and a half billions by various income and excise levies, he, personally, is opposed to the sales tax. In this stand he had been joined by union labor throughout the country, coun-try, the workers believing the sales tax unfair, as it would fall most heavily on the very poor, and in a lesser degree in proportion to income in-come on upward along the scale of living ladder. Many congressmen, however, were reporting that mail from their constituents con-stituents showed a growing favorable favor-able reaction to the general sales tax on account of its huge potential yield, and its more or less "painless" "pain-less" character, in that it would be paid by the people a few cents here and a few dollars there without the annual shattering blow of an income levy. MISCELLANY: Washington: The War Production board has cut gasoline deliveries t j filling stations in the East and West coast curtailment areas from 80 per cent to 65 per cent of the jmountr. received previously. New York: President Roosevelt's navy lieutenant son. Franklin Junior, Jun-ior, had been down with a severe case of bronchitis at a naval hos pital. |