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Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS Egypt Defenders Turn on Axis Armies In Struggle for Middle East Control; Nazi Spy Ring Smashed in Canal Zone; Allies' Wheat Pool Aids Famine Areas (KDlTOIt'S NOTK When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Rt-lesed by Western Newspaper Union. EGYPT: Defenders Hit Hard Even as parliament by a 475 to 25 majority voted its confidence in Prime Minister Winston Churchill after a prolonged debate over the Libyan defeat, reports from Egypt revealed that British imperials, heavily reinforced from the Middle East, had struck fiercely at the flank and rear of Marshal Rommel's Axis army to counter its assault on the main British positions. At the same time it was disclosed that United States army air force and Royal air force planes had unleashed un-leashed a terrific air offensive throughout the eastern Mediterranean Mediterran-ean area. In one assault on Marshal Mar-shal Rommel's supply port of Bengasi, Ben-gasi, hundreds of bombers' rained destruction down on munition dumps and equipment concentrations. Reinforcements of both men and material had strengthened the British Brit-ish Egyptian position in the battles on which rested the fate of Allied power in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Crucial battle area was the 40-mile wide strip of desert lying between the impassable Quat-tera Quat-tera salt marshes and the Mediterranean Mediter-ranean shore. Few observers had doubted that Prime Minister Churchill's position V if " " r"' i PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL would be sustained. Facing his critics in the most critical period since the fall of France, Churchill had admitted that Marshal Rommel's Rom-mel's victorious drive from Libya into Egypt had placed Britain in "mortal peril." Meanwhile on the Russian front, the Nazis had opened a new drive north of Kharkov, while hand to hand fighting in the ruins of Sevastopol, Sevas-topol, Russia's last stronghold in the Crimea, had highlighted what the Reds termed "an extremely grave situation." SHIPBUILDING: Yanks Break Records Hope that American shipyards would soon equal and then exceed the total sunk by Axis submarines was seen in a report issued by Vice Chairman Howard L. Vickery of the maritime commission which disclosed that 66 vessels totaling 731,900 tons deadweight had been delivered in June and that production produc-tion was speeding ahead toward a level of 900,000 deadweight tons a month. Admiral Vickery reported that 288 ships of approximately 2,544,000 deadweight tons had been delivered by American shipyards in the first six months of 1942. SECRET SPENDING: F. D. R. Accounts How President Roosevelt spent $239,500,000 in secret emergency funds since the war crisis became acute in June, 1940, was revealed in an accounting which the Chief Executive Ex-ecutive presented to congress. Eighty-seven per cent of the total was allocated to the army, the navy, maritime commission and Federal Loan agency, the President said. Large sums were spent to suppress sup-press subversive radio activities in connection with the German submarine subma-rine campaign. Important among expenditures was $52,000,000 for secret naval bases in the Western hemisphere, $12,000,000 for purchase of Australian Austral-ian wool for uniforms,. $8,000,000 for development of air, rail and highway transportation in Latin America and $36,500,000 for construction con-struction of merchant ships. NEW NAVAL BASE : Mystery Explained Why hundreds of American workers work-ers embarked for Northern Ireland last summer to toil on a mysterious construction project long before the United States entry into the world war, was explained when the navy department announced formal completion com-pletion of a giant operating base at Londonderry, guarding the western approaches of Britain. Capt. William Wil-liam J. Larson, was placed in command com-mand of th strategic new post. j NAZI SPIES: Rival Fiction In a series of dramatic moves matching the thrills of a mystery best-seller, the United States Caribbean Carib-bean defense command arrested 20 alleged Axis agents and broke up what was believed to be a Nazi spy ring refueling submarines and supplying sup-plying them with vital information on United States shipping. Nineteen of the enemy agents were rounded up in a trap in Belize, British Honduras. The twentieth a trusted employee of a labor recruiting re-cruiting office for the Panama canal had been seized a few days earlier ear-lier in the Canal Zone. The army disclosed that the leader of the ring was George Gough, a British citizen, citi-zen, who was a shipping executive in Belize. Details of the seizure of the spies were disclosed by Lieut. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, chief of the Caribbean defense command. WHEAT POOL: To Balk Famine With famine stalking many nations na-tions and wheat surpluses taxing the storage capacities of others, an agreement of historic importance to the future of the world's bread supply sup-ply became effective when five na tions signed a pact creating a vast international wheat pool. Signers of the agreement were the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Can-ada, Australia and Argentina. The agreement, initiated at a Washington Washing-ton meeting last April, created a wheat pool of not less than 100,000,-000 100,000,-000 bushels for the relief of famine in war-stricken areas. It forecast international action toward control of prices, production and export of bread grains after the war. The United States is to provide 50,000,000 bushels of wheat or flour to the relief pool and Canada and the United Kingdom 25.000,000. These nations, with Argentina would furnish additional supplies as needed need-ed on a basis to be worked out by their respective governments. Agriculture department officials pointed out that benefits to American wheat farmers would be of a long-term long-term rather than immediate nature. The agreement will have no effect on the 1943 farm program calling for a planted area of not more than 55,000,000 acres of wheat and assuring farmers of parity returns. PRICE CEILINGS: First Hole First hole in the universal price ceiling instituted by the OPA was made when Price Administrator Leon Henderson announced that he was "compelled to take measures that will "raise retail prices of the 1942 pack of canned and dried fruits by as much as 15 per cent and possibly pos-sibly more." Henderson indicated that congress was to blame for this, because of - : v S r x Tf 1 I 1 - f : LEON HENDERSON special price concessions it granted to farm products and its failure to vote government subsidies to maintain main-tain price ceilings. Throwing down the battle gage to congress, the fiery price official issued is-sued a statement in which he said that the $75,000,000 appropriation contemplated for the OPA in a bill passed by the house, or any amount below the $161,000,000 he originally requested, would cripple his agency and mean "in short that price, rent and rationing controls are all placed in jeopardy." Mr. Henderson termed the canned fruit price situation "inflationary" and said it constituted "a serious threat in the battle being fought to maintain stability in the cost of living." liv-ing." "This is not a satisfactory solution." solu-tion." his statement continued: "It is inflationary. It translates into retail re-tail price increases a burden that the government might properly assume as a charge connected with the war. This burden will fall heaviest on large families, especially in the low income groups who can least afford the added expense." COMMANDOS: Strike at Japs Serving notice on Tokyo that the Australians, the Yanks and the Dutch were ready for hit-and-run thrusts preparatory to the general land offensive which Gen. Douglas MaeArthur has promised eventually. eventual-ly. Allied Commandos swept down on the big Japanese base at Sala-maua, Sala-maua, New Guinea. Using the elements of surprise and terror which have made Commando Com-mando raids on Europe so spectacular, spec-tacular, the United Nations' raiders slashed through the defense screen and carried away prisoners, booty and information about the layout of one of the most important Nipponese bases in the Southwest Pacific. Salamaua, on the Huon gulf, lies 170 miles north across New Guinea from Port Moresby, last Allied outpost north of Australia. It was captured by the Japs early in March and ever since the enemy has been attempting to use it as a base for widening their occupation of New Guinea. It has served as one of the principal air bases for attacks against Port Moresby. SCRAP: U. S. Wants More A "new and greatly intensified" program that will reach into every American home and industrial plant and increase the flow of vital scrap materials to the nation's war plants was announced by War Production Chief Donald M. Nelson and Lessing J. Rosenwald, chief of the bureau of industrial conservation of WPB. The new program has a threefold objective: 1 To collect metals, and rubber and other waste materials which will flow through regular channels of trade. 2 To gather up waste kitchen fats, such as bacon drippings from households via meat dealers. 3 To collect tin cans in specified areas. "The immensity of our task," said Mr. Nelson, "makes it absolutely necessary to step up the tempo of our national salvage program." REPATRIATION: Nazis Break Pact Termination of the exchange agreement by which more than 1,400 American nationals were brought home from Axis territory in Europe resulted when Germany withdrew the safe conduct granted the Swedish Swed-ish liner Drottningholm which had docked at New York with 800 repatriated re-patriated Americans and alien refugees. refu-gees. The agreement for exchange of nationals held by the respective belligerent bel-ligerent governments had provided for continued voyages of the Drottningholm Drott-ningholm under safe conduct until all Americans held in Europe and Germans held here were repatriated. repatri-ated. No reason was assigned for Germany's Ger-many's withdrawal of the safe conduct, con-duct, but it was understood the Nazis cancelled the agreement to emphasize its "paper blockade" of America. Suspicion that the Axis powers might be attempting to get saboteurs sabo-teurs or spies into this country in the guise of friendly aliens, caused the government to institute the most rigid scrutiny of passenger credentials creden-tials ever conducted in any east- ern harbor. |
