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Show WEEKLY NEWS AMALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne U. S. Destroyer Kearny Makes Port Under Own Power After Torpedoing; 11 Crew Members Reported Missing; Japan Forms Militaristic Cabinet (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, the; are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I . , (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) TO JO: A New Regime Another blow of shocking impact had been the sudden resignation of the Prince Fumimaro Konoye cabinet cab-inet in Tokyo, and the prince's replacement by General Tojo, thus forming a frankly militaristic government. gov-ernment. It had been reliably reported that the Konoye resignation had been on a basis of "this government is unwilling un-willing to accept responsibility for a KEARNY: Major Incident: Impact of the torpedoing of the destroyer Kearny near Iceland had been terrific. First reports of the incident in-cident indicated no loss of life but when the ship made port (under its own power) 11 crew members were listed as "missing" and 10 more as seriously injured. The full report of Commander Danis had been awaited with eagerness, eager-ness, particularly after Nazi sources called the entire story a "flat lie" and stated that the Kearny had probably run into an American mine. The denial had been expected, and the senatorial and congressional comment had been along expected lines. Nye said it was just the sort of thing the country could have looked for, in following the administration's admin-istration's foreign policy. Most members of congress, however, how-ever, took an extremely serious view of the situation, many permitting themselves to be quoted that "this might well be the spark needed to explode us into war." The incident occurred when the house was debating the ship-arming bill, but was not believed to have had any particular effect on the debate, de-bate, and the passage of the measure meas-ure had been a foregone conclusion. Chief among reactions to the torpedoing tor-pedoing of the Kearny had been sur- V TOKYO'S TOJO Outlook was gloomy. severe breach between the United States and Japan." Japan's terms admittedly had been received, studied in Washington. Washing-ton. Washington admittedly had been discouraged at the prospects of agreement. It may or may not be that this attitude had been conveyed con-veyed to Konoye through the Japanese Jap-anese ambassador. ' At all events, it was plain that the prince must himself have believed that agreement on the Pacific with the United States was impossible and hence his resignation. His successor General Tojo. And one of his first utterances had been that his cabinet would make early and final "decision" as to what measures to take to end the crisis. Coupled with this had been a strong and unequivocal affirmation affirma-tion of Japan's complete loyalty to the Axis. Most observers had been watching Nazi Germany whipping Tokyo into action in the Pacific, obviously to create a new front, to divide the U. S. fleet, to lessen our aid to Britain, Brit-ain, and to involve in a near-at-hand struggle the powerful continent of Australia. These seemed plain facts and watching the developments, those who wished to avoid war with Japan were becoming gloomy indeed. LT. COMMANDER A. L. DANIS Congress took a serious view. prise in all quarters that the Nazis should want to provoke the country with an incident which might result in this nation becoming a more active ac-tive and positive enemy. RUSSIA: A Defense Though the defenders of Moscow had been putting up a brilliant and tenacious battle, it had become evident that only a military miracle could save the city. SUPPLY RACE: In North Africa British and German armies faced each other on the relatively quiet desert front, and military correspondents corre-spondents believed each was afraid to start a general attack unless the reserves of supplies guaranteed a fairly certain success. Therefore, back of the front lines a race had developed, and trained watchers believed it might be weeks or months before one side or the other would gain a sufficient lead. General Auchinleck commanded the British, while General Rommel was the German commander. It had been four months since the last .real battle on the desert front, wrote one correspondent. The British are receiving enormous enor-mous quantities of goods via American Amer-ican ships calling at Suez. They were said to be arriving faster than they could be handled. The British now have, it was said, thousands of motor trucks, and enough light, fast tanks to make several sev-eral motorized units. There are hundreds of new fighters and bombers bomb-ers of the latest types. These developments, it was felt, would, within a few weeks, or a couple of months, be reflected in a terrific British drive in North Africa. But the Germans and Italians are not idle, and the British Mediterranean Mediter-ranean fleet, harassed constantly from the air and by submarines, has been hard put to it to make a serious dent in the shipping lines from Europe to Africa, constantly laden with military supplies for Rommel's forces. Perhaps a weather miracle might, but though there was snow on the battlefields, and more was falling from time to time, there seemed no diminution in the ferocity of the German assault, or the man and machine power with which it had been delivered. Of special interest to men interested inter-ested in military maneuvering was the Nazi method, aided by its mar-velously mar-velously mechanized forces, in shifting shift-ing the pressure suddenly from one front to another. Moscow was assailed from three from the northwest, along the road from Leningrad; from the -west, along the historic "Napoleonic highway," high-way," and from the southwest, following fol-lowing the route from Orel. Discounting wild rumors (there even had been one report that the Russians had recaptured Orel and Kalinin, two vital points lost at least a week before) it was apparent that the Germans had been able to make two lines out of the three roughly called the right and left wings of the assault. There could be little question that the cost to the invaders in men and material was heavy, but also there was little doubt that the retreat of the Red armies had of necessity been swift and a heavy drain on the Soviet material. Grandiloquent Nazi claims of the smashing of Timoshenkos "eight armies" and the collapse of Russian resistance were perforce discounted as wishful thinking on the part of the Germans as daily gains dropped from a score of miles to a matter of hundreds of yards. The Russian defenders on one day would be calling on their reserves to battle smashing assaults on the right, and then just as suddenly, be compelled to meet the same sort of action from the left. Diplomats moved out of the city; the report was circulated that the government had moved to Kazan. Ivan Maisky, Soviet spokesman, asking for a complete pooling of British and Red resources, pledged the nation to fight on "regardless of . . . Moscow" showing that the "we need a miracle" spirit was paramount para-mount even in the highest circles. UNREST: More Are Slain The Axis answer to the new front within the main fronts the resistance resist-ance and unrest of the conquered peoples, continued to be given through the guillotine, the headsman's heads-man's ax and the firing squad, .chiefly the latter. The daily average of those put to death in the various countries was between 40 and 50. The arrests and imprisonments formed a much higher high-er figure. PANAMA: Takes Step The expected aftermath of the abdication ab-dication and overthrow of President Arnulfo Arias of Panama followed when the little country in which hundreds hun-dreds of American-owned ships are registered, decided to permit the arming of merchant vessels. This putting of ships in Panamian registry was a device used by this country because of the neutrality act which forbids the vessels to enter en-ter belligerent ports. Instead of fleeing, Arias had returned re-turned to his country and had been placed under arrest, and it was expected ex-pected he might be sent into exile by the current regime. The new president, Adolfo La-Guardia, La-Guardia, was formally greeted by the large group of military and naval na-val officers in charge of liaison in Panama. The government of the United States took cognizance of Axis charges that the coup d'etat in Panama Pan-ama had been engineered in Washington Wash-ington by issuance of a formal denial. |
