Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne attacks on Us so ships in west atlantic termed acts of piracy by the president orders navy to shoot any axis raiders in waters held to be out of war zone EDITORS NOTE when opinion 2 a or art ex p r ess I 1 ed in thru the colom nt thet they th news paper are those of f the news new analyst a and n d n not no neta e e s rily of a released Rt leased by western Newma newspaper pez unions r 1 V F n 7 F I 1 A Z I 1 when news was flashed that the U S freighter steel seafarer had bad been sunk in the red sea the war came home to more than one family in the U S here you see mrs rose in jersey city and members of her family eagerly listening to bulletins which finally told them that her husband alexander mccade BIc Cade and the rest of the crew of 35 had been rescued by passing ships INCIDENTS piling pih ng up incident was piling on incident when president roosevelt in a radio broadcast heard all over the world declared german attacks on american ships twice on U S warships as acts of piracy and ordered the U S navy to shoot first when sight ing any of the axis submarines or surface raiders in the western atlantic the president in vigorous fashion declared for the freedom of the seas and announced ships of any flag would be given protection when plying their peaceful trade in in waters which the president maintained were not in the war zone the incidents the president stated were plainly calculated by hitler as part of his plan to control the seas as well as land areas by a series of aggressions the president vigorously assailed obstructionists who would lull the nation with any false thought that with the british navy gone we could possibly be a in match a against the axis navies to the greer affair was added the sinking of the sessna a former danish ship and the steel seffa seafarer ter an american vessel the latter carrying lease lend aid to the british middle east command AU all but three of the crew aboard the sa sessna asna were drowned and the vessel it was said carried no war materials whatever solely food and other supplies for the danish government of iceland the sinking took place prior to the greer affair and was only announced following the picking up of the survivors the steel seafarer was sunk in the red bed sea and all hands were saved but only by their own brisk action in difficult straits the vessel according to survivors was sunk by a heavy caliber aerial bomb perhaps an aerial top torpedo the explosion which would be heard for 10 miles tore open the starboard plates of the ship amidships and sent her to the bottom so swiftly that the captains boat only left the side two minutes before the doomed ship took her final plunge members of the crew said it was impossible that the boat could have been mistaken for british for the american flag was flying in the vessels floodlights flood lights and she was not in convoy traveling alone the import of the loss was considered trifling being less than 2 per cent of the lease lend aid sent to the middle east so far that would roughly place the amount of this aid at SO 50 shiploads ship loads it was a ty typical pica general lend lease cargo two americans were lost on the sessna but in the presidents recapitulation of the events for which he intends to hold nazi germany strictly accountable he cited five american owned ships sunk presumably by german action and at least 65 american citizens who suffered loss of life in the sinking of the american and other vessels many felt that the recent three incidents coming so close together might have been the result of an order from hitler for an all out effort against the american lend BRIEFS tokyo A continued softening of the japanese attitude toward the foreign policy of the united states was noted in the press generally paris the new cigarette ration has been cut from to cigarettes a month many american cigarette smokers use from 20 to 40 per day another restriction limited the number of jewish doctors and lawyers in the city to 2 per cent lease campaign as hitler might be fearing the effect of an all winter war with russia in this event it was felt he might be afraid that the U S would strengthen britaina Brit ains hand so much in the interim that a successful military move against the british would be impossible for all time thus making victory for germany well nigh hopeless GERMANY A warning arning JV after first stating positively that the greer was the aggressor in the battle with a german submarine in the waters off iceland germany issued finally a flat warning that all ships of whatever nationality in her war zones were subject to attack without warning this was similar to the warning issued in the last war which brought about the sinking of the lusitania and a definite american demand for entry into the war the state department in washington at the same time lifted its restrictions strict ions and said it would permit american citizens journeying from britain and the united states to travel on belligerent ships the nazis said that there was no use talk talking ng about a general order to attack american ships they said the only general order was to attack all shipping they added that they considered president Roosevel ts dictum that the red sea constituted neutral waters and that american flag ships could navigate there was premature and constituted a provocation to the germans and italians to attack such ships SPY thrills in trials the expected thrills in the spy trials in new york in which 16 persons are accused with having taken part in espionage on behalf of germany against the united states panned out early in the case FBI witnesses revealed that the german spy system had been tricked for months the G men built a radio station on long island arrangements having been made through an informer entirely at the request of the germans for a quick method of getting information for months the station operated kidding the nazis with ith false information about the army navy and air force however all the victories of wits were not on the american side for one witness testified that thinking to make his german masters happy he offered to steal plans of the secret american bombsight and send them over his higher up told him you worry yourself it already is in our hands STRIKE halted by F D R the railroad strike which had seemed imminent and which would have thrown the entire defense production structure into a turmoil was at least temporarily halted by president roosevelt who personally set up a five man mediation board fourteen non operating unions had voted to walk out september ep 11 and four days later the big five brotherhoods brothe had decided to quit work legally this put the strike in moth balls for 60 days the railway labor act stipulates that the presidents board has 30 days in which to examine the evidence and another 30 days in which to make its report during this 60 day period the workers are under obligation not to leave their jobs spitzbergen SPITZ BERGEN A coup though censorship hid from the public many of the details the british invasion of spitzbergen Spitz bergen group of islands close to the arctic circle undoubtedly was a coup of considerable industrial and military importance it gave the british another base threatening german occupied norway also important coal mines and more important still willing workers ork to go to england and aid in the operation of british mines it also freed several french officers and men who had escaped there after the fall of france when the british warships hove into the spitzbergen Spitz bergen harbor these french came out in their small boats and some of them were seen to kiss the war painted side of the big transport one grizzled captain former commander of a tank battalion said for 14 months we were dead men britain and canada have given us new life all ali planned to get back to various fields where they could join the free french forces of De the military import of the far north was made obvious in the british commentary on the oc occupation cu iceland greenland SP spitz itz bergen vladivostok siberian ports further north petsamo Pet samo murma Mur mansk risk these are the arctic circle ports which britain believes beli evis vitally I 1 important por tant most of them are in british hands the british have felt the effect of the nazi of narvik barvik norway of Mur mansk and other points of that nature and still did not apparently patently ly realize it when the first nazi victories brought them under german control now they realize that the far north constitutes a flank against the enemy and the spitzbergen Spitz bergen adventure was in order to add one more strong point to the list already held short sea routes exist up in those regions and may yet be used in the plans for british russian amer ican trade routes MOVIES pro british the long awaited probe of the movies and the radio as to whether they are carrying on pro war propaganda brought sparks right from the start senator nye leading non inter vent appeared as the chief prosecuting witness and ran slap and headlong into wendell willkie who appeared as counsel for the film industry nye proceeded to list a number of films as pro british propaganda gandal and then made the th declarant declaration arat I 1 on that he had been informed that if britain lost the war a number of american film companies would go into bankruptcy he painted a picture of these companies desperately making pro brit ish and pro war pictures endeavoring to get the american people to take up the cudgels more vigorously and thus to save their bacon but willkie countered by calling nyes ayes statements wild and unsupported and scored a telling blow against the witness when he charged him with fighting a rear guard action against the foreign policy of the administration which the senate on more than one occasion has overwhelmingly supported thus the former republican presidential nominee in a few adroit words aligned the cause of the film film industry with that of the administration tra tion LENINGRAD battle the nazis admittedly on the outskirts of leningrad and officially opening its siege followed their customary of making general swee sweeping ping claims and then being forced to contradict themselves day by day they announced that lenin leningrad grad was completely cut off by land from the rest of russia on september 8 and two days later had to admit that this was a premature claim |