Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne nazi drive cuts deep into greece As ns army Is smashed london blasted with worst arst R raids aids in reprisal for attacks on berlin EDITORS NOTE aben aino clr ez ed in these columns the prA are those of the BOWS ana yak ad n net artly of this released by western newspaper 7 J milliant Willi ant knudsen defense corn mission chief who has announced that auto manufacturers atvill curto production 20 speed detail lense work is shown as he inspected a shipyards at quincy mass ile told workmen that time is the I 1 thing rt BALKAN catastrophe before the nazis balkan campaign had been under way two weeks it was apparent that another major catastrophe for hillers Hit lers enemies was in tile the making but how extensive or how catastrophic none was prepared to say after eleven days of fighting berlin reported that 1 s ar army y of some men had capi capitulated t u and laid down their fight fighting g equipment which hail hah proved re relatively alively ineffective against the hig highly ly mechanized nazi legions london announced bad news too with the report that it had been subjected to the worst air blitz of all time german sources say this terrific raid came as a reprisal for british raids on cultural a and nd nonmilitary objectives in berlin in the very beginning of the balkan campaign the nazi italian forces took the offensive in northern africa and the two battles proceeded almost in unison the british being driven practically out of libya by the time that the british sources were ready to admit that had been defeated reaction of the british people was bitter not that they were unwilling to receive news of a defeat that had been more or less expected but because the ministry of information and the intelligence department were accused of having fallen down on the job this also was the reaction an in washington where it was freely said by those in the military know that the british permitted roosevelt to promise aid to jug oslavia and greece when it should have been known that aid to the former was to be only a gesture and that the serbs gerbs and slovenes venes could not hope to stand up to the attack more than a week or two washington sources of high military information frankly said that the british intelligence had fallen down as it had in the battle of france and that the best information in our national capital had been to the effect that the infiltration of nazi mechanized forces into north africa had been of the smallest these sources said they had been told that this shipping of tanks and men to north africa had had only one purpose that of putting pressure on the french colonies and forcing them to stand firm with the vichy government whether this was deliberate self delusion or an attempt to delude the american and british people was not known but certainly it was bad information whether deliberate or not for in about two weeks the british had lost everything they had gained in libya and found themselves seriously on the defensive as far as the vital mediterranean port of alexandria and the equally vital suez canal were concerned GREECE on her heels the greek armies which had checkmated check mated the unaided italian forces presented against them in the albanian campaign found themselves facing a horse of another color when the nazi hordes moved in from bulgaria and south from greek sources in the united states many of them intensely patriotic and hoping against hope for a greek victory had been saying during the albanian battle that if the nazis ever got in greece could not hope to hold out a month how true these predictions were in their essence began to be seen as the nazi campaign against northern greece proceeded kalonika Sal fell fel 1 trapping much of the greek army in in eastern macedonia and thrace then the germans broke through into the river valley through the Mn monastir Mo astir gap and made contact with the italians in northern albania it was not long before the plan of the G gracco raeco british forces to defend a line running in an inverted V shape from adriatic to aegean seas had to be revised and the whole hinge of the V in the lake phlorine Ph lorina sector had to be abandoned and the armies retreat until the line was more nearly straight along this line a frightfully intense battle started and few were sanguine enough to believe that the line would hold and further retreat and withdrawal not be necessary particularly as the line as first drawn lay over heavy mountain ranges with peaks up to feet and the nazis had broken through these and the fighting in its secondary phase was on terrain more to the liking of the mechanized units LABOR and defense the strike situation showed some further amelioration with the announcement no by bethlehem steel that about of its workers would get a 10 cent an hour increase in wages this for the moment relieved the public of the anxiety lest a strike hit this steel producer holder of more defense contracts than any other one concern in the country and one of the nations largest builders of merchant ships the coal strike however continued to cause trouble with four more killed near harlan harian ky at a mine which was continuing to operate despite the general shut down negotiations for the ending of this strike were in their final phase with every evidence that the agreement would go through and that soft coal strikes would be over for another two years if not longer those watching the labor situation felt that the soft coal agreement would pave the way for better general industrial conditions and that promised strike threats against U S steel and general motors might not materialize the settling of the ford strike was held up as a shining example of handling what looked like a certain impasse yet there were still moves afoot in congress which would not exactly outlaw strikes but which would provide for a 30 day cooling off period before the actual calling of a walkout and also calling for official recognition of the dykstra headed national mediation board SHOTS arid and spies the shooting to death of editor john P F arena of an italian language newspaper in chicago was tabbed dabbed as a fascist secret police slay slaying ln g after it was learned that a few hou hours r s before he was shot he had furnished furnis lied information to the dies committee commett ee A chicago newspaper man who had talked with arena a few hours before he was murdered beside his automobile quoted the editor as saying that he had received threats against his life THE GERMAN plan long range views of the eventual german plan in the balkans as given to the house of commons by churchill and as figured out by observers in neutral points like ankara and berne centered on one general line with certain individual ramifications cat ions once greece had been tie defeated feared said these sources and the kingdom subjugated much after the pattern of norway france and the low countries then the nazi forces flushed with victory would turn their full attention to the battle of the mediterranean in this observers saw the north african campaign and the balkan campaign as a huge pincers movement aimed at the suez canal and points between the recent overturn in the government men t of iraq frankly said to have been engineered in berlin provided a backlog back log of soil turned back of turkey and syria the nazis would then it was said turn their attention to turkey and syria aiming at the oil in iran and iraq and the wheat fields of southern russia A these would be mere products byproducts by permitting a fuller supply source for the eventual campaign against suez in the meantime it was the plan these observers said for the italo german drive against egypt to continue and to meet the southward pushing nazis at that point STIMSON and knox the the growing seriousness of the crisis as far as the united states was concerned brought grave statements in congressional committees from secretary of war stimson and secretary of the navy knox stimson warning of the gravity of the situation told congress that men now in uniform would have to be trained not only for service in the united states but also in all parts of central and south amer america ica a if need be and also in other parts of the world there were many who believed that the secretary was not talking about the philippines and greenland but was pointing to the eventual likelihood of another A E F on the same day knox addressing another committee said that the day was past when we bould consider ourselves as and declared that america was being encircled by unfriendly countries the american people meanwhile had to guess at the amount of lease lend aid that was actually getting over the ocean no facts or figures were being given out and yet on the surface judging by reports from various ports along the atlantic seaboard british bound merchandise was showing a tendency to pile up and the action regarding danish and other seized vessels was still being talked about in washington LOWER draft age the selective service act popularly known as the draft may be amended by this congress to include lads of 18 and also lower the top limit from 35 to some lesser age president roosevelt told newspaper men that changing age limits was under study now in draft circles in congress a and nd that the matter may be taken up formally early in june A army amy sources also revealed that the th e war a department has modified its ban against men with criminal records from now on the induction authorities will consider each of the cases on its merits and will b be e permitted m bitted to pass for possible possie le military service those whom it considers desirable to train trainees also have been given five more days in which to report for induction after receiving an order to do so and this 10 day period can be extended to 60 days or more by order of the local board where a hardship might 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