OCR Text |
Show 1 WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Orient Bristles With Military Activity As U. S. and Japan End Conferences; U. S. Planes Aid British Libyan Drive; Nazis Admit Russia Recaptures Rostov (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these colnmns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) , (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) ; i i - J i . j S, t . f - y Here is a view of the U. S. S. Ellyson, new destroyer for the U. S. navy, during commissioning ceremonies at the New York navy yard. Officers and crew are facing aft as the colors are raised. The Ellyson is a sister ship of the U. S. S. Kearny, which proved her mettle by standing up and making port under her own power after taking what a German torpedo had to offer. JAPAN: Demands Following exploratory talks between be-tween special Japanese envoy Ku-rusu Ku-rusu and Secretary Hull which had LIBYA: British Ring After winning battle after battle by swift encirclements based on the use of fast tanks and screaming more or less been kept secret, the latter suddenly issued a five-point ultimatum to Japan which showed plainly that the United States, feared no crisis with Nippon, and that her attitude toward Japan's plans in the Pacific was unchanged. The United States boldly asserted she was insisting on Japan's withdrawal with-drawal from the Axis; that Japan must get out of China; that she must withdraw from Indo-China; that she must be willing to keep the open door in the Pacific. This was followed closely by a welter of rumors that Japan was sending 30,000 men in 70 transports to Indo-China that the U. S. was going to patrol the supply lines to China along the Burma road with airplanes. On top of all this came Premier Hideki Tojo's blunt statement that in the light of developments Japan Considered Britain and the United States "hostile nations" accusing the Western powers of attempting to exploit East Asia, and saying: "We must purge this sort of practice prac-tice with vengeance." Then came word from Singapore that all army leaves had been cancelled can-celled and that the entire British force there had been placed "on the alert." There was little doubt but that the sword of war was dangling by a thread in the Pacific, a fact which President Roosevelt had recognized in taking a brief vacation to Warm Springs, Ga. As he left he remarked that his date of return "depended on Japan." Tojo continued his tirade against Britain and America by taking note of the rumor that this country was planning a Burma Road patrol. He said that Japan "could not ignore" such a move, and would consider it a "deliberately hostile action." Real spot that all eyes were turned upon was the border of Thailand, Thai-land, against which many believed ; that Japan would launch an invasion attempt as an "answer" to Hull's latest message. I Such a move, Washington observ- ! ers felt, would instantly touch off war in the Pacific. RUSSIA: Gateway Gain As the Russians admittedly had their backs to the wall in Moscow, they had claimed an outstanding victory in the central southern sector sec-tor where they asserted their armies had reoccupied Rostov-on-Don, an important gateway to the Caucasian oil fields previously lost to the Nazis. For several days the Russians had been talking about a counterattack counter-attack somewhat to the west of Rostov, Ros-tov, an attack which war driving southward with some success. At that time Pravda and the army paper Red Star had hinted that this counter-attack was seriously affecting affect-ing General Von Kleist's supply lines. Suddenly the Russian armies fell with full force on the Von Kleist army corps, and Kuibyshev reported report-ed the entire corps was annihilated and that the Russians had the Nazi forces in the Rostov district rushing rush-ing off westward in "disorderly retreat." re-treat." The Germans admitted the evacu- ! ation, and ascribed it to an effort to gain time for retaliation against the attacks of the civilian population on the German rear "in defiance of international in-ternational law." Stripped of its Nazi propaganda angles, this seemed at least a partial par-tial admission on the part of the German High Command that the Russian attacks on the German communication lines, which had featured fea-tured Red dispatches for a week, had played a big part in the German Ger-man disaster at Rostov. Whether the attacks had been made by uniformed Russians or civilian guerrillas seemed beside the point, but the Reds had described certain of their forces as guerrillas. guer-rillas. It was reported that more than 5,000 German soldiers were killed, and enormous quantities of booty taken. It was proclaimed as the greatest single victory over the Nazi armies since the start of the war. It also was reported that the Russians Rus-sians were carrying out successful counter -blows against the Nazis further fur-ther to the south. aive-Domoers, tne JNazi iorces" in North Africa had evidently received a dose of their own medicine, and while dealing out deadly punishment punish-ment to the British, had been unable J to break the iron ring which had trapped an estimated half of the German armies. The German High Command had I blithely announced early in the bat-I bat-I tie that a "counter-offensive" had retaken Sidi Omar and was moving mov-ing across the Egyptian frontier, despite de-spite the fact, obvious from the maps that in this maneuver the German Ger-man tanks were going the "wrong way up a one-way street" as one British commentator put it. The chief Italian mechanized force, the Ariete division finally managed to join forces with the chief remnants of General Rommel's Rom-mel's tank outfits, and were attempting attempt-ing to break out near Rezegh. But Rezegh was at the extreme west end of the British trap, not the extreme east end, as was Sidi Omar. It was obvious that it Vas at Rezegh that the main battle was joined, the battle that would spell success or failure for the British effort. Despite the fact that Germany was sending airplanes from Europe to back up her tank forces in Africa, Af-rica, the British claimed they were still able to hold supremacy in the air, being equipped with hundreds of American planes in addition to their own. The British also claimed they were steadily widening their wall within which the Nazis were trapped, and that each day the battle continued contin-ued found them better able to continue con-tinue it. ARMS: For Merchantmen As America rushed to arm its merchantmen in accordance with the permissions under the neutrality act as revised, the controversy raged hotly as to what good the weapons would do the vessels. Naval authorities pointed out that they would do little1 good if the vessel ves-sel encountered a surface raider. But against submarines it was a powerful weapon if the ship were ablje to fire a lethal weapon at its attacker. Naval men gave figures from the last war, showing that of 302 unarmed un-armed merchant ships attacked, only 67 escaped; but of 310 defensively defen-sively armed merchant vessels attacked, at-tacked, 263 got away. The secret was this, they said: Submarines attacking a ship while submerged, must get close enough to get a good view of the target through the periscope. Through a choppy sea this is well-nigh impossible because be-cause the vantage point is so close to the surface. But if a submarine may attack a ship from the surface, then its chance of missing its mark is much less. Hence the presence of guns, fore and aft, on the armed merchantman practically forces the submarine to remain submerged for its own protection. pro-tection. Guns and depth charges on merchantmen mer-chantmen may spell safety for a large percentage, navy men believe. VICHY : Surrendered? London had become perturbed over reports it had obtained from a "reliable foreign source" that Vichy already had yielded to German demands de-mands for air and naval control in French North Africa. While the reports had been current cur-rent that Petain was ducking a final showdown with Hitler while watching watch-ing anxiously the British offensive in North Africa, it was reported that the Nazis had taken over four French commercial airlines. The four air bases quoted were Rabat, French Morocco; Meknes, southwest of Fez; Sfax and Cabes, Mediterranean airports in Tunisia. That there were plenty of Germans in Tripolitania was known in London. Lon-don. This new report had stated that there had been a heavy infiltration infil-tration of Germans over the border of Tripolitania and Tunisia. This source indicated that it was possible that if the British were successful suc-cessful in Libya and moved on against Tripoli, the German-Italian forces might fall back on this heavily heavi-ly fortified frontier. |