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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS U. S. Bombers Blast Jap Battle Force; Approve W age, Price Stabilization Bills; Rubber Czar Promises Speedy Action In Supplying Nation's Essential Needs (EDITOR'S 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.- , 71 PORT M0RESBfk SJQX AKKOXIMATC SCALE 7ff , . a i i I SAMARIA 0 SO IdO MILES CORAL S e A Map shows Importance of Port Moresby, New Guinea, in the Japanese South Pacific strategy. Port Moresby is only 375 miles from Cape York, nearest point on the Australian mainland. The Japs crossed the Owen Stanley mountain range, thus overcoming one of their major obstacles. Australians fighting the Japs in the jungles near Port Moresby were reported re-ported to be using the enemy's own tactics of covert flanking movements and infiltration. RED FRONT: In More Than Name The need for a second front in western Europe to relieve the pressure pres-sure on battered Red armies was emphasized by Soviet military experts ex-perts in London, who needed only to point to the battle fronts for evidence. evi-dence. Russian troops, obeying Stalin's order to die rather than retreat, made the Nazis pay with blood and lives for every foot of conquest at Stalingrad. The arrival of crack Siberian Si-berian troops at Stalingrad slowed down Marshal Von Bock's German legions, but the picture, in general, remained as gloomy as before. Official communiques told of successful suc-cessful Red defensive operations in the Mozdok area of the mid-Caucasus and southeast of Novorossisk. Marines were credited with the success suc-cess near the latter front where the Nazis were attempting to drive southward along the coast. Stiff fighting continued in the Voronezh Vor-onezh area of the upper Don river. The Reds reported more than 3,000 enemy troops killed in three days of fighting in this sector. It was here where the Red army tried to relieve pressure on Stalingrad by constantly constant-ly attacking the Nazi flank. Russian troops in the Volga city had been re-enforced by workers recruited re-cruited from factories. Most savage sav-age fighting took place in the northwest north-west suburbs, where Russian and German troops fought from behind barricades and buildings separated only by a few yards. INFLATION: First Major Victory A preliminary victory in the fight against inflation resulted when the senate and house banking and currency cur-rency committees approved legislation legisla-tion directing President Roosevelt to stabilize wages and prices arid granting him power to carry out the orders. The senate bill authorizes and directs di-rects the President to stabilize prices, salaries and wages on the basis of levels which existed on September Sep-tember 15, while the house bill includes in-cludes the same provision except that August 15 would be the base date. Both bills provide that in general no ceilings may be set on wages or salaries below the highest levels that prevailed between January 1 and September 15. Both prohibit ceilings on farm prices less than 100 per cent of parity or in general below the highest price paid between be-tween January 1 and September 15. Both bills contain exceptions. The house measure adopted the "little steel" formula insofar as permitting per-mitting wage increases up to 15 per cent more than the January 1, 1941, level, but gets the President power to grant increases above that figure. The two measures placed a floor of 90 per cent of parity under basic commodities (wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco and rice) and under certain cer-tain nonbasic commodities which the secretary of agriculture is attempting at-tempting to increase for war purposes. pur-poses. Existing law requires 85 per cent of parity loans. PROMISE: Of Essential Rubber Sufficient rubber for military and essential civilian needs has been promised without reservation by William M. Jeffers, the nation's new rubber administrator. An ever-increasing amount of synthetic syn-thetic rubber will be made according accord-ing to established processes, he said, and research will continue. Mr. Jeffers spoke bluntly in his first interview with the press. "What we need is action, and we need it quickly. We are going to get just that." It is his belief, Jeffers said, that the people "are more confused about what to do than not willing to do what is right." "You can't take America off wheels," he said. "You can lose the war doing that, because of the disruption dis-ruption it would cause in our economy. econ-omy. You have to have civilian trucks running to move goods and farm products, for instance, and you have to have buses and a certain cer-tain number of passenger cars to take people to and from work. But you can reduce the use of rubber to the irreducible minimum! MAN POWER CONTROL : Advocated by Hill A bill granting President Roosevelt Roose-velt broad authority to co-ordinate man power and industry during wartime war-time was drawn up by Senator Lister Lis-ter Hill of Alabama, the Democratic whip. The measure authorized the President Presi-dent to issue an executive order giving the government power to designate specific occupations for individuals not in the armed services. serv-ices. Hill suggested that man power control be exercised through local draft boards which could than call in workers employed in nonessential industries and order them to take war plant jobs. The resolution would lay down a governmental policy "that there shall be universal service of all citizens" citi-zens" and "total mobilization" of industry. JAP NAVAL THRUST: Routed in Solomons Even while land activity in the Solomons Sol-omons slowed to minor skirmishes, army Flying Fortresses drove a Jap force of battleships and cruisers away from the American-held section sec-tion of the islands with a bombing attack which was reported to have damaged two of the battleships. The bombers discovered the Jap battle force northeast of Tulagi. The navy communique indicated the possibility pos-sibility that the fleet may be assembling as-sembling for a renewed effort to take the strategic Guadalcanal-Tu-lagi area from American forces. From General MacArthur's headquarters head-quarters came word of continuing air attacks against the vital Japanese Japa-nese base at Lae, on the northeast coast of Lae. A report said that Allied fighters and bombers blasted Japanese supply lines extending inland in-land from Buna to Kokoda, on the route of the Jap drive toward Port Moresby. Buna is 175 miles southeast south-east of Lae, on the coast HIGHLIGHTS in th week's news CLIMATE: The wide differences HARVEST: Because British agin ag-in climate throughout the 30 central riculture achieved its goal of 5 per states and the East where fuel oil cent greater crop yield from each will be rationed will be considered cultivated acre, the nation saved one in determining rations householders million tons of shipping space will receive, the OPA has an- BRAZIL: The chief of police of nounced. Rio de Janeiro ordered all Axis na- BAIT: A fisherman in Lancashire, tionals to register at the police alien England, was fined about $8 and bureau. Japanese were included in ordered to pay $16 in costs for using the order, although Brazil is not at bread for bait. war witn Japan. |