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Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS U. S.-British War Strategy Meeting Forecasts Opening of Second Front; Job Freeze Ends Pirating Practice; Mexico and Brazil Fight Axis Subs (f-JKITOK'S NOTI-: When opinions are expressed In the-p columns, they are those of the news analyst and nut necessarily of this newspaper.) , Released by Western Newspaper Union. A ff 1 'i ; ' ' i A ' A i-' i w Li- For outstanding service to the nation, two of the navy's current heroes were honored by Secretary Frank Knox (center). Lieut. John D. Bulkeley (right) received the Navy Cross, in addition to the Army Distinguished Service Cross he held previously. Lieut. Comm. Richard E. Hawes was awarded a gold star to accompany Navy Cross he had already received. U. S. AIR MISSION: . Bad Neivs for Reich First body blows by the United States against Nazi Germany will be delivered from the air, it was forecast when Lieut. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, head of the U. S. army air forces and Rear Adm. John H. Towers, Tow-ers, chief of naval aeronautics, arrived ar-rived in London to "consult with British officials on details of Anglo-American Anglo-American military co-operation." Air raids of a magnitude and de-structiveness de-structiveness such as the world has never before seen will eventually be the sequel to plans perfected at the conferences, observers declared. In creating a second front against Germany, American planes and fliers fli-ers operating with the British to bomb German factories, defenses and communications would be under their own command. The "softening up" process fore-. fore-. cast by joint American and British air offensives over the Reich would, it was believed, be a prelude to invasion in-vasion by United Nations' land forces of the continent of Europe later on. This was confirmed by a statement of Lieut. Gen. Somerville that "America is ready to supply men and materials on a large scale to a European front." The American air mission in Britain Brit-ain was regarded as a logical corollary cor-ollary to Gen. George C. Marshall's London conference on strategy recently. re-cently. The U. S. army chief of staff's talks with Prime Minister Churchill and British chiefs of staff were known to have covered every war zone including Russia. 600 MILLION: Fund for Housing The appropriation of an additional $600,000,000 to provide living quarters quar-ters for 1,600,000 war workers who will migrate to munitions producing centers was asked by President Roosevelt in a message to congress. Congress had previously appropriated appropri-ated $1,020,000,000 for war housing to provide shelter for workers producing pro-ducing essential munitions. Mr. Roosevelt said in his message mes-sage that while workers are being obtained locally as far as possible and new sources of labor supply are being called on, it will be necessary neces-sary for at least 1,600,000 to move to centers of war activity during the coming year. Existing structures are being counted on to absorb a large percentage of the workers, he said, but many workers will have to be cared for through new public construction, "largely temporary in nature and designed to serve the lower-income brackets of war workers." LYBIAN FRONT: Active Again Although the weather timetable said it was too late in the season, active warfare flamed again in the Lybian desert when Nazi Gen. Erwin Rommel's armored units opened an offensive against British forces south of Tobruk. In the opening phases of what was regarded as Rommel's long-awaited long-awaited general attack, the British held the npper hand and repulsed and inflicted heavy losses on the Nazis in a series of fierce tank battles. British tank units were strongly supported by squadrons of Royal Air force planes, according to communiques com-muniques from Middle East headquarters. head-quarters. The German army was reported operating with stronger air forces. Observers speculated about what foxy General Rommel had up his sleeve. A master of "feinting" tactics, tac-tics, the Nazi leader was believed by some experts to be making a token thrust against the British southern flank in order to screen a general advance eastward along the coiist toward Egypt. TWO NEW ALLIES: Mexico and Brazil More effective measures against the submarine menace along the Atlantic At-lantic seaboard and in Latin-American waters were forecast through the co-operative action of Brazil and Mexico in joining the United Nations' Na-tions' warfare against the Axis. Operating under "shoot on sight" orders, Brazilian airmen were reported to have sunk three U-boats lurking off their northern coast. Brazil had to send her armed forces Into action, ac-tion, said an air ministry communique, com-munique, "to safeguard our sovereignty sov-ereignty and the lives of our undefended un-defended sailors." Seven Brazilian Brazil-ian ships had been torpedoed. Mexico's action likewise came after aft-er the sinking of two of her ships. "We recognize the limits of our military resources," said President Camacho, "but we shall respond to the aggression of our adversaries, collaborating energetically in safeguarding safe-guarding America." JOB FREEZE: Aids War Output In answer to the growing practice of "pirating" war workers from one industry to the other by inducements induce-ments of higher wages and other incentives, the War Manpower commission com-mission moved drastically to hold "essential" workers in critical war industries and agriculture in their present jobs. Primary purpose of the action was to step up war production hampered ham-pered by shifts of workers. Officials said the United States Employment service would be designated des-ignated as the sole hiring agent for vital war industries. It was indicated indi-cated that the service would be empowered to prevent any employed em-ployed from leaving one job for another, an-other, except in cases where his skills were needed for a particular task and where there was a shortage short-age of skilled labor. Men in key positions would not be subject to military service under the draft deferment provisions of the proposal. WAR WIVES' AID: U. S. Is Generous Substantial financial aid for the families and dependents of enlisted men in Uncle Sam's armed forces was approved by the senate military affairs committee, when members voted an allowance scale beginning at $50 a month for wives. The benefit system worked out by the committee included a much more liberal war risk insurance plan than in World War No. 1. The program's provisions would start with a government allowance of $28 per month for a wife with no child, to which would be added $22 from the monthly pay of her husband. A wife with one child would receive $40 from the government, govern-ment, plus the $22 allotted from the soldier's pay and $10 for each additional addi-tional child. In case of a soldier with parents, brothers, sisters or grandchildren dependent on him, an additional scale of benefits was provided, including in-cluding $15 for one parent, $25 for two and $5 for additional B class dependents. MISCELLANY: Washington: Senator David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, chairman of the naval affairs committee, predicted pre-dicted the Atlantic coast submarine subma-rine menace will be "increasingly checked" through new plans being put into effect by the navy. New Delhi: Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell, British commander for Burma Bur-ma and India, disclosed that 80 per cent of the Imperial troops sent into Burma had been safely returned to the Indian frontier. LEND-LEASE: More for Russ The basis for closer economic cooperation co-operation beUvecn the United States, Soviet Russia and Great Britain both during and after the war was laid in a proposal for a master lend-lease agreement presented by the state department to the Russian government. govern-ment. President Roosevelt described the proposal as similar to other master lend - lease agreements already signed by Great Britain. In effect, the acceptance of the agreement by Russia would make the Soviet a party to attaining the economic principles of the Atlantic Charter sponsored by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. The foundation principles of the master agreements already existing between the U. S. and Britain, include in-clude "national and international measures to expand production, employment em-ployment and the exchange and consumption con-sumption of goods," and elimination of "all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce, com-merce, to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers and generally to attain at-tain the economic objectives of the Atlantic Charter." The significance of this latest move is that a victorious America, Britain and Russia, working in close economic collaboration, would compose com-pose an economic bloc that would dominate the entire world. DE GAULLE; Warrior Only Hopes of Gen. Charles de Gaulle that the United Nations would recognize rec-ognize him as the political leader of France as well as the military symbol sym-bol around which Free Frenchmen have rallied, were dimmed by reactions reac-tions from both Washington and London. In a statement to the world, De Gaulle had demanded that the Allies 83i -1 GEN. CHARLES DE GAULLE . . . Demands "partnership." treat his organization as a full-fledged full-fledged government and war partner part-ner instead of an agency for recruiting re-cruiting French fighters. The Free French leader used the American negotiations for demilitarizing the French Caribbean as an example of the inadequacies of his representation representa-tion in the family of United Nations. Official Washington made it clear that while the United States is continuing con-tinuing to give the De Gaullists every aid possible, it prefers to wait for an eventually liberated France to designate its own political leader. TO JO BOASTS: China Performs Boasting that Japan would stay in the war "until the influence of Britain and America and their dreams of world domination were wiped out," Premier Hideki Tojo reaffirmed his country's determination determina-tion to "contribute to the utmost her share as the partner of Germany Ger-many and Italy." Describing Australia as the "orphan "or-phan . in the Pacific, helplessly expecting ex-pecting Japan's attack," the Nipponese Nip-ponese tried again the war of nerve technique by warning the Commonwealth Common-wealth it must reconsider its attitude atti-tude toward Japan. But while Tojo was making brave talk, disquieting news for his people came in Chinese reports that the Japanese army of 100,000 which had launched the offensive in Chekian province had been decimated. Of casualties totaling 10,000, the Japs lost 1,500 in killed through the explosion ex-plosion of land mines near the key city of Kinwha. RUSS-NAZIS: Tanks Take Toll As drier ground and warmer weather permitted greater movement, move-ment, the tempo of war on the Russian-Nazi fronts was stepped up. While German sources made claims of strategic flanking attacks. Red army communiques reported advances ad-vances along the 150-mile Kharkov front. Mechanized units were poured into the conflict. One report told of phalanxes of 52-ton Russian tanks lumbering through German lines. In addition to successes reported at Kharkov, the Russians claimed advances near Barvenkova. RAIL TRAVEL: With "rubberneck" sightseeing busses already banned and drastic curtailment of airline service in effect, ef-fect, the next step would be elimination elimina-tion in the near future of all "nonessential" "non-essential" railroad passenger service, serv-ice, federal transportation officials declared. One step already taken was the rearrangement of streamline stream-line train schedules to make such service available for local traffic, ODT, representative-, j pointed out. |