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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Current War Front Shifts to Syria With Oil Fields of Iraq as Prize; 'Draft Everything' Legislation Aims To Break Strikes in Defense Plants (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) I r """' 'WAR' IN V. S. ' fs ' Citizens of Bear Mountain, N. - x 1 received a taste of what actual war "n attack might mean when the coast or- S ! tillery and West Point cadets put on I VS V C ' a dive-bombing attack and anti-aircraft j defense of a big bridge near that i point. Guns and equipment used were I gi in same positions they would actually I ' . occupy in an .actual battle for defense of the bridge. I s " J Si?' I -i "t - ' H ynmi'ini'in'iii. n '- - rrt,Si4mmrJfi DEFENSE: Production Returning foreign correspondents, making a junket of the defense production pro-duction industries as guests of the war department, found that airplane motors, considered one of the potential poten-tial bottlenecks, are being rushed into production at one plant in Connecticut Con-necticut to the tune of 1,400,000 horsepower monthly. One official of this concern, reviewing re-viewing what he knew of the potential po-tential production of this industry, predicted that between 70,000 and 100,000 airplane engines- will be turned out during 1941-42. The total airplane industry, from a motor standpoint, should eventually eventual-ly be turning out 10,000,000 horsepower horse-power a month. While these producers had no accurate ac-curate figures on Axis production, it was figured that it might be between be-tween 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 a month at the present time, with future capabilities unfigured. In addition to the three great American aviation motor concerns' output, the automotive industry has been asked for some, and while not in production yet, they will eventually eventual-ly contribute a large percentage of the total. This turned the pages back to World War I, when America's most important fighting airplane motor, the Liberty, was turned out in quantity quan-tity in a leading automotive factory. This factory also, by the way, was making the recoil mechanism for the 75-millimeter gun then a war bottleneck. bot-tleneck. DRAFT: 'Everything9 A stiff fight against President Roosevelt's "draft everything" measure sent to the congress closely following his "freedom speech" appeared ap-peared likely, though the administration adminis-tration forces seemed willing enough to modify the measure from its first draft. The President softened the shock of the measure, which at first sight looked like an effort toward a complete com-plete economic dictatorship, by a later announcement that its major purpose was to permit the administration admin-istration to break strikes in defense industries, which were still a knotty problem all over the nation. Both Senator Byrd of Virginia and Senator Tydings of Maryland had taken the floor to demand that the President himself take the leadership leader-ship in halting strikes, Byrd saying: "There are 60 to 70 strikes in defense de-fense industries, and new ones are occurring every day. I don't assume as-sume the government would want to take over and operate all these plants. "A prohibition against strikes and compulsory arbitration would be a better method." The bill, which in its original form would give the President, under his proclamation of a state of unlimited unlimit-ed emergency, power to seize and sell anything in the nation's long list of private property, found its first compromise ofTcr coming from administration ad-ministration leaders in the form of a time limit on the President's powers, pow-ers, together with a proviso that congress must first Itself declare a national emergency before they could be used. Labor-minded members of both houses, wildly suspicious of the measure, started their own Investigation Investi-gation to try to determine its origin. U-P.OATS: Hipper Ran pp. Sinkings of eight British ships by torpedoes fired from U-boals revealed re-vealed that the German submarine, instead of being a smaller vessel with a shorter ranee operating In greater quantity. Is becoming a bigger big-ger boat with a bi(u:er range. Some of these reported sinkings took place within 700 miles of the United States, well within the supposed sup-posed neutrality patrol area. WAR: On Neiv Front The collapse of the Greco-British defense of Crete was followed by a good deal of backing and filling as the forces of Great Britain wondered won-dered where the axe was going to fall next. The preponderance of British belief be-lief was that it would be in Syria, and two things happened at once: The British started mobilizing toward Syria and began air attacks on Syrian points, and the French started propaganda efforts to prove that they needed German aid to repel re-pel British attack. The British countered by announcing, announc-ing, via their Turkish friends, that Germany already had landed 20,000 men in civilian dress, who would doff their tourist garb and take up arms just as soon as sea-borne transports landed them. Also the British asserted that 400 German planes were already at Syrian airdromes, ready for an attack at-tack on Iraq's British army from bases supplied, in defiance of Franco-British friendship, by agreement agree-ment with the Petain government headed by Darlan. The observers in this country were not fooled by this sort of diplomatic byplay, and were able to recognize the same maneuvers, with some variations, that had preceded the German occupation of the Balkans and the subsequent blitz attack upon Greece. Britain's plan was not only a delaying de-laying action, but because of the peculiar location of the immensely valuable Mosul oil field, to try to get into Syria first, while the German "tourists" were still unarmed, and to destroy the landing fields there if possible. Home Front Churchill's government, taking a great deal of criticism because of the Crete disaster, because many British people thought the Crete battle bat-tle might have been won if better handled, now found itself with an intensely serious problem on its hands. There were signs that "authorized sources" in Britain were preparing the public as gently as might be for a practical abandonment of the Mediterranean as a naval control area since the loss of Crete, and one announcement flatly said that American Amer-ican aid must hurry if it was to get to the Red sea and Suez In time to get to the British forces in North Africa. The British were expecting airborne air-borne attacks on Malta, Cyprus, Alexandria and Suez, but whether the Germans would attempt parachute para-chute troop operations after their huge losses in Crete was doubtful. In fact, the Turkish slant on the attempt to land In Syria was that sea-borne invasion would be carried out. A dozen or more large ships were to carry supplies to Syria via the Dodecanese islands, and from these It would be possible, Turkey said, to land In Syria by an overnight over-night sailing under cover of darkness. dark-ness. Five hundred motorized troops had made such a trip, Turkey said, though France vigorously denied It. Harking back to the days when Wcygand's Near-East army was estimated es-timated at 700.000 men, figures were now being given out in allied circles that De G.iullet had an army of 250,000 men at the present time. Loyal to Vichy? The stories about the first Nazis landing In Syria, in fact, stated that fliey were being sent In to "straighten "straight-en out" the French forces In Syria, whose loyally to the Vichy government govern-ment was in question. There had been many reports of disalTccted troops leaving Syria before be-fore the German infiltration to flee into Palestine, there to Join the Free French, but just how much of tills had occurred was largely a matter of conjecture. DOORN: End of Road The death of former Kaiser Wil-helm Wil-helm at 82 of a blood clot on the lung and the elaborate military funeral fu-neral accorded him by the dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler, former Austrian paperhanger, brought an odd and dramatic close to a long and interesting career. The man who was so much in the forefront of the last war that the slogan "Hang the Kaiser" was on the hps of half the Allied soldiers, died after 22 years of exile after a ripe and peaceful old age, even in the midst of a present war which had brought the conquering hordes of his former country in triumph to his point of exile at Doom, Holland. Yet, even in this triumph, though the Germans could have brought the Hohenzollern monarch back to his throne had their desire been to do so, this was not done, and the kaiser and his family remained in exile, there for death to find him while the issue of the fate of his country was still in doubt. However, the relations between Hitler-controlled Germany and the former monarch were as odd as the position of the civilized world at the time of the kaiser's death. Hitler seemed filled with respect and homage hom-age to his former monarch, though what the kaiser thought of the humbly hum-bly born Austrian who succeeded him was little in evidence, and mattered mat-tered just as little. Hitler's final move to order a funeral with full military honors, was the last there was in the news about the lord of the Hohcnzollerns. GASOLINE: An Issue No sooner had Secretary Ickes suggested "gaslcss Sundays" as a means of controlling the oil supply of the country than administration critics began asking embarrassing questions. How could this country, with control con-trol of half the world's oil supply, be facing an oil shortage? How did it happen that American concerns were selling oil and its products to Japan? To Russia? To other countries via which it might get into Axis hands? The defense investigating committee commit-tee in congress was asking some of these questions, and getting strange answers. The Standard Oil company com-pany had to explain the deal to its stockholders, and this brought the issue into more prominence. The oil concern admitted the sale of oil and gasoline (except the 100-octane 100-octane airplane gas) to Japan, but said that when the agreement was made the British, American and Dutch governments were consulted, and that the terms were entirely acceptable ac-ceptable to all three. It was one of the puzzling phases of America's defense eilort. SEA WAR: Claims Berlin, having claimed that half of Britain's entire merchant ship strength had been destroyed, asserted assert-ed that the total had reached 11,000.000 tons. Britain admitted six millions. Both agreed that British pre-war strength had totaled around 21 millions mil-lions or 22 millions of tons. The German claim was that, her ships sunk, Britain was "bleeding to dentil," and that a speedup of airplane air-plane attacks on merchant ships and war vessels might be expected. The British, still anxious for shipping ship-ping aid from the United States, expressed ex-pressed gratification that the United States, as announced, would immediately imme-diately start picking up the British shipping lines In the Orient and the Pacific, thus freeing many vessels for the carrying of munitions abroad. Most observers, while believing that the German claims were excessive, exces-sive, admitted that the ship losses were tremendously heavy, and that It was one of Britain's most serious challenges of the war. |