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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Fifth Army Patrols Move Into Cassino As Nazis Begin Withdrawal Movement; Russian Troops Press Drive to Baltic; Winter Drouth Broken in Midwest Area (KDITOR'8 NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union. - , Zt lake Ladoga I 'fJIJLF OF Finland HZZfitt.T- FREEING LENINGRAD Map shows direction of Russian drives to relieve long-besieged city of Leningrad. (See! Russia.) ITALY: Nazis Trapped Taking one daring jump up the long Italian peninsula, Allied troops under command of Mediterranean Chief Sir Henry Maitland h"( v 1 Wilson landed far to - the rear of 100,000 I . ,s 1 ' Nazi troops fighting i') S off steady U. S. and f , British advances in f". ,'',JSt the mountainous t . .', Cassino area. f r ft$ Swarming ashore Y t i along 30 miles of sandy beach a short Wilson distance below Rome, the Allies seemingly caught the Germans off bal-r bal-r v5M ance, with no oppo-f oppo-f sition encountered. I As supplies were be- m rushed to the i "f invading army, the IL ' Nazis launched a f series of fierce r - ' v K counterattacks near l"' Cassino to cover I '1 t AJ" t'le'r withdrawal Lutf. a4 fj.om the town Enort- Kesselring lyJUe The German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring found himself in a pretty pickle, with a big Allied army at his rear threatening threaten-ing the two supply roads leading down to Cassino. The Allies first began to encounter resistance at their invasion point when they poked 12 miles inland, with one of the two supply roads already under their fire. LEND-LEASE: Food Shipments Ten and one-half billion pounds of food and farm products were sent abroad on lend-lease during the first II months of 1943, with November shipments alone aggregating 1,000,-000,000 1,000,-000,000 pounds, of which Great Britain Brit-ain got 60 per cent and Russia 38 per cent. . . During the 11-month period, lend-lease lend-lease took 15 out of every 100 pounds of pork produced in the U. S. ; 11 pounds out of every 100 pounds of lamb and mutton; 1 out of every 100 pounds of beef and veal; 4 out of every 100 quarts of milk; 13 out of every 100 pounds of cheese, and ZVt out of every 100 pounds of butter. Of the 10,500,000,000 pounds sent abroad during the 11-month period, sugar alone accounted for more than 3,000,000,000 pounds. RUSSIA: Press Baltic Drive Nazi troops fell back to the south of Leningrad as the Russians pressed their big offensive aimed at driving through to the Baltic sea. As the Reds moved forward behind be-hind the tremendous weight of tanks and artillery, they cut all of the east-west railroads over which the Nazis could remove troops from their front lines. In addition, they fought to clear the Germans from the Leningrad-Moscow railroad linking link-ing Russia's two great industrial cities. Fighting to stave off capture of the Warsaw-Odessa railroad supplying their Ukrainian troops, the Germans launched counterattacks on the southern front, slowly pressing back the Reds about 80 miles from the Rumanian border. After stabbing deep into prewar Poland on either side of the vast wastes of the Pripet marshes, the Russian drive tapered off in the face of strong resistance. ARMY SAVINGS: 27 Billion Returned Of 71 billion dollars appropriated for its use during the present fiscal year, the war department will return re-turn 27 billion dollars to the treasury. treas-ury. Reductions in requirements of certain cer-tain arms like tanks, antiaircraft guns and heavy artillery, and slashing slash-ing of costs of materials because of mass production, has enabled the war department to effect considerable consider-able savings in armament expenditures. expendi-tures. In explaining the army's original request for 71 billion dollars, a war department official declared that plans had been made for maximum maxi-mum needs to cover all possible emergencies, and as in the case of shipping, for instance, losses proved far below expectations. WINTER DROUTH: Broken in Midwest Light, spotty rainfall was expected to turn into heavy downpours throughout the Middle West, thus breaking the winter-long drouth periling per-iling late grown grains, hay and pasture. pas-ture. In the Mississippi valley, precipitation precipi-tation reached as much as a quarter-inch, with predictions that rain would turn into snow. While rainfall was forecast for northern and western west-ern Missouri and eastern Kansas, it was said only the extreme southeastern southeast-ern part of Nebraska could expect showers. The rainfall terminated almost two months of the sunniest weather the Midwest has enjoyed in years, with January the brightest since 1924 and December since 1870. Compared with normally shining 45 per cent of the time in January, this year the sun shone 56 per cent, and in December instead of shining the usual 40 per cent of the time, it shone 59 per cent. LIQUOR TAX: 1 1 Billion Collected Despite hard liquor shortages and wartime problems in production and distribution, the liquor industry paid 1V4 billion dollars in taxes to the government in 1943, 19 per cent above 1942. .. , Although all whisky and gin manufacture manu-facture was stopped and distilled spirits withdrawals were below 1942, an increase in the tax from $4 to $6 per proof gallon boosted receipts to 900 million dollars. The tax on beer was not raised as much as the levy on distilled spirits, but expanded sales of the beverage accounted for the payment of one-half billion dollars in taxes, 100 million dollars over 1942. BOLIVIA: Snubbed by U. S. Charging that the Bolivian revolutionary revolu-tionary government's seizure of power pow-er last December 20 was closely linked with Axis conspiracy in South America, the U. S. withheld its recognition rec-ognition of the new regime, but did not immediately resort to applying an economic squeeze against the country. Source of 50 per cent of U. S. tin supplies and also the source of rubber, tungsten and quinine, Bolivia Bo-livia was the recipient of lend-lease, since cancelled, and, with the U. S., put up capital for the Bolivian Development De-velopment corporation, which was designed to exploit the country's rich natural resources. RECONVERSION: WPB Plan Tackling the knotty problem of reconversion re-conversion of industry from war to peace, the War Production board has formulated a plan under which no one would get a competitive advantage ad-vantage in the resumption of civilian civil-ian output. The plan is simple enough, calling for quotas of civilian goods based on a percentage of certain prewar production to be assigned to manufacturers, manu-facturers, with such manufacturers as are still engaged heavily in war work turning over their quotas to others who would make the product for them under their trade name. The plan already has been put into operation in the authorized manufacture manu-facture of two million flatirons, with makers entitled to produce 43 per cent of their 1940 output and to transfer trans-fer their quotas to others. GAS RATIONS: More for Emergencies Local rationing boards have been given authority to issue extra gasoline gaso-line coupons to motorists in cases where inability to operate their cars might cause hardship. Previously, boards could issue extra ex-tra rations only for use in occupational occupa-tional pursuits, or in certain specific cases for which additional allotments allot-ments were permissible. Because the Washington OPA office could not draw up a list of emergency cases covering all possibilities, it decided to leave their determination to local boards. Despite the liberalization of the new regulation, local boards will not be able to issue additional gas rations ra-tions freely, since their extra supplies sup-plies will be limited. HOPKINS' LETTER: Branded Forgery The mysterious Harry Hopkins letter let-ter purporting to show the close relations re-lations existing between the present administration and Wendell Willkie was no mystery at all but a forgery to a grand jury sitting in Washington, Washing-ton, D. C, which indicted Interior Secretary Harold Ickes' once-confidential assistant, George N. Briggs, for forging the letter "for the purpose pur-pose of obtaining money or other things of value." According to the grand jury, the letter never existed at all, and when Briggs said he could obtain it from oilman Frank Phillips, upon advancement ad-vancement of money for train fare, he was making a false representation. representa-tion. ' The letter was first published by C. Nelson Sparks in his book, "One Man Wendell Willkie," and was promptly denied by Hopkins, who called in the FBI to investigate. To the Rescue! At least 30 million of the 50 million harassed Americans who have all - . but scratched Vj-ssi their heads off SSt making out their lVv L final 1943 income J(PTT tax returns will be iTrTjmK hear'ened to hear SbPuyVT .rljy that Representa-4 Representa-4 V I. '.-- J tive Frank Carl-p? Carl-p? son (Kan.) has in-"JZt in-"JZt troduced a bill In rsT- nouse under 2ZS7yy' which pay-as-yon-go deductions through the year would settle their whole tax liability with Uncle Sam. For the remaining 20 million who would still have to file a return to make a final settlement, Representative Represen-tative Carlson proposed only one tax on personal incomes, with a single set of rates and exemptions. Further, Fur-ther, he suggested use of the 1040A, or simplified form, for everybody with incomes up to $5,000 instead of $3,000 as at present. Representative Carlson also would extend the time for filing a final estimation of the individual's in-dividual's income and tax to January Janu-ary 15 following the taxable year. PACIFIC FRONT: Air Power U. S. troops dug in on the Gilbert islands in mid-Pacific turned battle-eyes battle-eyes northward to the Marshalls as American bombers continued their heavy aerial strikes against these Jap strongholds astride the supply lines to the Philippines. Farther to the southwest, other U. S. aviators took to the sky to blast the big Jap bases of Wewak on New Guinea and Rabaul on New Britain, feeding enemy troops resisting re-sisting Allied forces. With memory of strongly dug Jap shore installations at Tarawa still fresh in mind, the U. S. air force suffered no let-up in blasting the Marshalls, where the enemy apparently appar-ently also is firmly entrenched in concrete and steel fortifications. . Both airfields and shipping were pounded at Wewak and Rabaul, jumping-off places for Jap planes harassing Allied ground troops and supply lines, and feeder points for Jap forces resisting in the mountainous mountain-ous jungle country. SUGAR BEETS Growers of sugar beets will get the benefit of a subsidy of at least $1.50 a ton from the Commodity Credit corporation if a bill sponsored spon-sored by Senator Murdoch of Utah is passed. This act would specifically specifical-ly exempt sugar beets from the provisions pro-visions of the Steagall bill, which denies the CCC the right to make subsidy payments. The senate has delayed action on the Steagall bill, merely continuing the life of the CCC until February 17 by a resolution. |