OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Russian Army Plan for Slowing Blitz Follows China's Retreating Technique; Churchill Hails Soviet as 'Real Ally'; Extension of Draftee Service Sought (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) ' (Released by Western Newspaper Union. I if Vv7 va 5 Deeper into Russia than their companions but unarmed these invading in-vading Nazi soldiers are marched off to a Red prison camp after capture "Somewhere on the eastern front." That bald-headed, shirt-clad panzer trooper, fourth from left, in the front line, looks out of place among his companions, who seem to be shock-headed boys. BEAR: On Defense The Russian Bear, no matter what the communiques might say, was obviously putting up a hard fight before the advancing German mechanized mech-anized forces, and the British, who had taken the quick defeat of Russia Rus-sia as a foregone conclusion were beginning to cheer. Churchill, who had been through three previous milder stages of hailing hail-ing Russia as a companion in arms, finally and very bluntly told the house of commons "of course Russia Rus-sia is an ally of Britain." One of the signs that the Reds' defense de-fense of their homeland was vigorous vigor-ous and not without military merit came from an official admission on the part of Germany's high command com-mand that the Nazi armies had hurled back a considerable counterattack. counter-attack. Communique "solvers" naturally saw in this admission proof that the Russian armies were actually fighting, fight-ing, and battling to some purpose in their gradual withdrawal to the Stalin line and perhaps further to the interior. Washington observers cautioned against too much faith in an eventual eventu-al Russian victory, however, unless the defenders would be able to withdraw with-draw their armies with much of their equipment intact into that hinterland broadly described as "the Urals." As in the Battle of France, it was conceded that the French would have had a chance of immobilizing the war only if they were willing to give up Paris and other cherished cher-ished cities, and move backward with the assault, harassing the advancing ad-vancing Nazis and softening their blows, "riding with the punches" as the boxing phrase has it TMs was the technique which enabled en-abled to make a four-year-old war of position out of the Japanese blitz of 1937 in China. It was the same technique which observers in this country were recommending for Russia. There was nothing in dispatches to show that the Reds were not doing do-ing just that, save that no city of vital importance like Leningrad, Moscow or Kiev had yet fallen, though Germans claimed they had passed the latter. It was impossible, in view of conflicting con-flicting claims, to determine with even probable accuracy and allowing allow-ing for a wide margin of error to figure the price being paid by either side in the Russo-Gcrman war. If German claims were to be believed, be-lieved, Russia had left only a fragmentary frag-mentary part of her motorized equipment and her air force. If Russia were to be believed Germany was reduced to using "canvas" tanks and mere boys to operate them. But even the German communiques communi-ques admitted Russia still had hundreds hun-dreds of tanks in action, and hundreds hun-dreds of planes, and the Reds' bombing activities were reported from neutral points to be hitting targets tar-gets far within Rumania and far within Finland. The actual facts of the war, however, how-ever, remained continually clouded in mystery, despite the fact that correspondents cor-respondents finally were admitted to Moscow, which also installed a short-wave radio to give out war news to the United States and other countries. HOPKINS: To London iliirry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's Roose-velt's "trouble shooter" and confidant, confi-dant, was being sent to London OK.'MM. While there was little definite information in-formation readily available ns to the reason for Hopkins' second trip to KnKland, it was recalled that only the other day in the house of commons com-mons there had been some bitter statement over the handling of American plane purchases. MARSHALL: His Plan Gen. George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the U. S. army, urged two major points before congress' senate sen-ate military affairs committee, and apparently the President was willing will-ing to go along with one, but not with the other. Point No. 1 was that the selectees should be kept in uniform longer than a calendar year from the time of their induction. He wanted this restriction removed by congress from the selective service law. Point No. 2 was that he wanted the restrictions removed ordering that selectees could serve only in the Western hemisphere. The President Presi-dent apparently was willing to exert ex-ert some White House pressure on congress to get the second provision passed. However, early polls of senatorial reactions to both points were unfavorable, unfa-vorable, though a majority of those questioned reported themselves "undecided" "un-decided" and "preferring to hear the debate." The question had broadly resolved itself into how large an army the U. S. should have, and how long it takes to train a soldier. General Marshall also made the point that the selectees had been poured into all army units, with the result that if they were sent home after a year, these units would suffer suf-fer dismemberment. JAPAN : On the Verge The sudden resignation of the Japanese Jap-anese cabinet together with many dispatches quoting the indefinite "diplomatic sources," seemed to indicate in-dicate that Nippon might be on the verge of some important step in world affairs. What this might be remained hidden, hid-den, though British statements seemed to hint that Japan might be contemplating a move into Indo-China. Indo-China. A secondary guess was that Japan might be planning a "token" assault as-sault on Russia's east coast-Siberia, coast-Siberia, perhaps to attempt to close the port of Vladivostok name famous fa-mous in the Japanese-Russian war at the turn of the century. The quitting cabinet is the one which put Soviet Russia into the Rome-Berlin axis, and also, strangely strange-ly enough, into a neutrality accord with Russia. The government was almost exactly ex-actly a year in ofliee, so it could not be charged with the stalemate in China, in fact it was not organized to do anything about the Chinese war. There was little that could be said surely about the situation, some holding that the cabinet resignation resigna-tion meant that Japan's whole foreign for-eign policy would be reoriented in view of the German-Russian war. Whether this would mean that Die next government would be more pro-German, or whether Japan was getting ready to withdraw from nil European commitments could hardly hard-ly be told. Certain it was that in Tokyo was a little group of Nazis who were said to have dominated the last cabinet, cab-inet, and to have been urging the strongest possible intimidation of America In the Pacific, in order to occupy the United Slates so strongly strong-ly with the West coast that aid to Britain might be minimized. KOOSKVKLT: Nazi Names The German press, in Its previous references to this country, had been relatively mild. On the contrary, the papers were now vicing with each other to use strong language about President Roosevelt. The President, said one paper, "Is circling like a vulture over the Azores and the Cape Verde islands." Another said: " Roosevelt bus raised gangsterism gangster-ism to be a symbol in politics." SYRIA: Noiv British The victory of the British and Free French in Syria, being somewhat some-what dwarfed by the news from Russia and the war developments in this country seemed to receive only minor mention in the American press, though the British were getting get-ting more solid satisfaction out of it than had appeared on the eve of the armistice. Some of the terms began to come overseas, and it was significant that they called for the turning over to the British of all arms except those belonging to individuals, including ships and planes. Paris was quick to report that all planes and ships had escaped capture, cap-ture, though this dispatch, coming from German-controlled territory, was somewhat discounted. Churchill summed up the advantages advan-tages of the Syrian victory briefly as removing to a greater distance the threat to Suez, also the fact that some of the disaster of Crete had been overcome, in that the air base on the island of Cyprus now could be protected. The Germans, heavily heav-ily engaged with Russia, however, seemed in no hurry to try another air conquest from Crete to Cyprus. That the Germans' air position in the eastern Mediterranean was sufficiently suf-ficiently strong was indicated in the sinking of a British small naval vessel of 1,200 tons by air fire, the survivors reporting that they were attacked by 80 dive bombers at one time. Their convoy escaped with supplies destined for Tobruk's beleaguered be-leaguered garrison. Most important of the Syrian armistice ar-mistice terms was the choice to be offered to French residents, civilian and military, as to whether they would be deported to French territory, terri-tory, or whether they would join the Free French government under British mandate. R.A.F.: ' Business as Usual The Royal Air force, stepping up its bombing scale steadily, reported as one day of "business as usual" the dropping of 1.500 tons of bombs on cities in Germany and occupied countries. The British were claiming that these attacks were at least as severe as any Britain had had to withstand during the hey-day of the German onslaught from the air and that they would get stronger as time wore on. One contrast between the Nazis' blitz of London and other British objectives and Die British attack on Germany and occupied countries was in the photographic evidence. Outside of one or two pictures sent out from Germany showing fire fighters atop buildings in Berlin, the country might as well be entirely unscathed, as far as picture evidence evi-dence would go. Whereas the American newspapers news-papers had carried literally thousands thou-sands of photographs of air-raid effects ef-fects in England, from tile digging out of the dead and wounded to the damage that was done to Westminster West-minster Abbey and the tower from which Big Ben chimes out the hours. The reason was that the British took the pictures of their own damage, dam-age, and the censors permitted them to be sent out. So the United States got a view of what modern war was like. The Germans permitted two or three such pictures to get to this country, but for more than a year nothing of the kind was shown, and as the air attacker -can't get low enough to photograph his own dam-nge dam-nge it didn't look ns though any would get out. Among the targets were Bremen, Cologne and other big centers of rail and steamship tralllc. And the British assumed that 1.500 tons of their bombs would wreak about the same havoc on Hremcn ns the same weight of German bombs had on London. Churchill summed it up when he said that he believed if the British people were permitted to vote on whether bombings of cities would continue or he stopped hy holh sides, they would vote NO! And his audience audi-ence cheered to the echo. |