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Show 1 1 I j WEEKLY NEWS AMALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne I Jap Dreams of Easy Conquest Fade ! As U. S. Aid to Australia Grows; President's 'Victory Plan' Depends On Successful Offensive in Pacific (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are I hose of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) ! (Released by Western Newspaper iTninn VICTORY: F or Navy Forces Almost coincident with the arrival it General MacArthur in Australia :he first great word of an offensive igainst the Japanese had been revived, re-vived, and the U. S. had hailed a ;reat naval victory in New Guinea. First reports had been of the sink-ng sink-ng of 23 Japanese vessels, a dozen )f them vessels of war, and though 'ew details were announced, it was jbvious that it had been a battle of ;he air rather than of the sea. Important in the first dispatches iad been the word that they were 'island based" forces of the United States and Australia, and this had Deen comforting in the extreme, for jntil this point America had not snown that there were any island Dases left to us in the Pacific theater thea-ter with the exception of Hawaii. It had been learned, of course, that the Japanese, after taking Wake Island, had later abandoned it, but few believed that our own navy had moved back in there. Aside from speculation about where the base was, a fact the Japs would like dearly to know, the victory itself it-self was important. In the battle of Java sea we had lost one heavy cruiser ourselves, and our allies had lost four. In this battle the Japs had lost two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and other ships of war of lesser import im-port The rest of the ships sent to the bottom or put out of action were freighters, some of them being used as troop transports. OFFENSIVE: Aussies' Viewpoint Almost coincident with the arrival Df General MacArthur, his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Sutherland, and the rest of his party, official Australia began to talk and think in terms of an offensive against the Japs on a scale hitherto not dreamed of. As to the Japanese themselves, after having previously reported, weeks ago, MacArthur's flight from the battlefront to Corregidor and other untrue stories about the commander, com-mander, they were considerably taken tak-en aback by the news that the commander com-mander was in Australia. They did just what President Roosevelt had predicted, and de- r 1 mKvit PRIME MINISTER JOHN CURTIN "American aid is doubly welcome." clared that General MacArthur had "run away" from the Philippines, and then went on to say that "American "Amer-ican resistance in Australia would be shortlived." The resistance in Bataan had stood as a monument to Japanese falsehoods and false hopes of easy conquest, and some believed that MacArthur's assignment to Australia Austra-lia might give the Japanese pause in going through with the invasion. At any rate. Prime Minister Cur-tin Cur-tin had said: "It is most gratifying that the American troops are now here in force. Their numbers are most substantial. sub-stantial. "We are the base from which to strike at the enemy. "American aid is doubly welcome wel-come because Britain could not carry car-ry the burden of the Pacific while engaged in a life and death struggle strug-gle with Germany and Italy. "Our nation must demonstrate to history that it has the moral and physical stature to stand up and trade punches with the enemy not for six weeks or months but year after year if necessary, giving odds, but fighting the enemy to a standstill. stand-still. "If we fail ourselves, nothing will save us. We have to show ourselves worthy of aid." His sentiments were echoed all over Australia, and in the halls of congress at Washington, senate and house leaders joined in. Chairman Snyder of military affairs said, after aft-er the applause had died down: "I hope from now on many of our swivel chair generals' will remember remem-ber that on this day many things are under way which will be just as pleasing to them, when they find out about them, as is the change in Genera MacArthur's status." MAC ARTHUR: And His Job The sending of MacArthur from Bataan, where the man in the street had regarded him as a sort of "dead hero" certainly a hero, but condemned, con-demned, apparently to either death or a Japanese prison to Australia, where he could start with j clean page in the defense of that continent had been greeted with wild enthusiasm enthu-siasm from one side of the nation to the other. Paeans of praise had resounded not only in the press but upon the streets, and the general view was that the whole move had been made cleverly because while General MacArthur had given his Bataan job into the hands of General Wain-wright, Wain-wright, he was still technically in command, as the Philippines were placed under his jurisdiction. No less was the delight felt by the Australians, who had demanded demand-ed MacArthur to lead them. The American public regarded it as significant sig-nificant that the move had been ordered in late February, but had not been carried out until mid-March, mid-March, thus showing that MacArthur MacAr-thur was not rushing after personal honors or safety, and that he would Gen. Douglas Maj. Gen. MacArthur Sutherland not leave his command until he had been given time to arrange things to suit him. MacArthur was accompanied accom-panied by his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, and by Brig. Gen. Harold H. George of the air corps. Considerable editorial praise had been heaped on Mrs. MacArthur when it was learned that she and her son had not chosen the comparative compara-tive safety of Manila and internment, intern-ment, but had chosen to go to the battlefront with the general, and then to take the long and perilous plane journey to Australia with him. As to the general's job in Australia, Aus-tralia, it was the toughest of the whole war. That was conceded on all sides. For he was taking on bis shoulders the command in an area where all had been defeat thus far. The Japs were figured to attempt the Australia blitz, despite the fact that they had learned that American troops "in force" were on the continent con-tinent and that more were on the way. The Australian occupation was so vital to the Japanese, however, that they were apparently ready to risk the showdown battle that would surely ensue. There was little, question but that Australia was poorly prepared, for Prime Minister John Curtin had been stressing that since the beginning. begin-ning. But with considerable Amer ican aid it was hoped that the defense de-fense could be carried out successfully. success-fully. Strategically, however, MacArthur's MacAr-thur's job was even bigger than defending de-fending Australia, for if President Roosevelt's victory plan were to be carried out, it was up to him not only to defend Australia successfully, successful-ly, but to be "in at the death" of the Japanese hopes in the Pacific, and to carry on, from Australia as a hop-off spot, the successful offensive that would, at least so America hoped, knock the Nipponese out of the war. MacArthur, on his arrival, had found more than just American troops on the ground, he had found an air force which was carrying out his own ideas on Bataan striking often and fiercely at the enemy before be-fore he arrived on the scene. There were few who believed MacArthur, even by a miracle of strategy, could prevent Japanese landings on Australia, even as he was unable to prevent them on the Philippines. But many hoped that he could and would find some method meth-od of striking such forces such terrific ter-rific blows as to drive them into the sea and prevent their organization organiza-tion 'into any sort of a successful land army. PRODUCTION: A demand by congress that WPB Director Nelson report formally on production had followed some apparent ap-parent dissatisfaction with the national na-tional output which, in turn, had come to light after a vital resignation resigna-tion within Nelson's group. Nelson himself had come out with a fighting statement, threatening coolly to "knock down" any individuals individ-uals or groups that showed any tendency to interfere with the smoothness of national war production. produc-tion. i RUSSIANS: Clamp Donn The Russians, having carried out their continued offensive during the coldest of the winter, had clamped down on several important points, including Kharkov and Vyamza, and claimed that 200,000 German troops were trapped in the latter area. The Germans also, the Reds had asserted, were steadily giving ground : in the Kharkov region, dubbed the Pittsburgh of Russia. There also had been considerable favorable military activity in the district of Smolensk, which for a time, rumor had it, had been Hitler's Hit-ler's personal headquarters. In the meantime the Russians had taken over the suburbs of Kharkov and had started what they described as the fiercest sort of house to house fighting. In each of these encounters the Russians had been able to mass well-trained troops in superior numbers num-bers over the Germans, and in the Staraya Russia sector they had asserted as-serted that the Germans were refusing re-fusing -to yield, and were gradually being exterminated. Even in the southwest, where Hitler Hit-ler was supposed to have ordered a counter-offensive, the Russian machine ma-chine was still moving ahead, Moscow Mos-cow had reported. SUICIDE: Confirmed A roundabout method of confirming confirm-ing the suicide of General Homma in the Philippines by the hara-kiri method was discovered by Carlos Barry, a Chilean newspaper man stationed in Tokyo. He sent a dispatch to the newspaper news-paper El Chileno in which he said the suicide of "General Masaharu Homma for failure to destroy the American and Filipino defense forces had been confirmed." He did not say that Tokyo confirmed con-firmed it, but added: "The confirmation came through the fact that his successor General Tomoyuki Yamashita was announced officially." This, under the rules of the Samurai, Samu-rai, can have only one meaning, Homma would not have been permit' ted to live through this disgrace. He must, according to the code, retire re-tire to his room and retire himself with a sword. LOTTERY: Number Three Washington's selective service heads, aided and abetted by draft boards from coast to coast swung into the task of classifying and calling call-ing up 9,000,000 men, drawn in the third draft lottery. The word had, gone out that not all would be drawn for military service, but that many might be drafted into defense industry. In the nine millions of men between be-tween the 20-44 age limitswere many of the older men, more settled the heads' "of businesses and owners of property, and their reaction to the draft had been just as enthusiastic as had that of the younger men in the previous groups. In this lottery, as in those previous, pre-vious, there had been some small errors, two numbers having turned up missing, 6,342 and 2,069, and one being duplicated, 2,885. MISCELLANY: Washington: In order to improve the war spirit of the people generally, general-ly, President Roosevelt had said that he would like to see more military parades. "It is time to wave the flag," the President said. Moscow: The Russian press dismissed dis-missed with one paragraph the news that General MacArthur had been made supreme commander in Australia. Aus-tralia. Montevideo: Street rioting followed fol-lowed the announcement that an Axis submarine had sunk a ship of Uruguayan registry. Boulder City, Nev.: Forest rangers rang-ers were searching for two "swarthy men" who had fired on a soldier-scoutmaster soldier-scoutmaster and his troop of Boy Scouts, out for a hike. San Francisco: All machinery was in progress for the moving of 90,000 Japanese from the Coast to interior points. Bargain hunters were having hav-ing field days in Chinatown, as the Jap stores, having to move, were selling out at terrific rerfurtior. .1 |