| OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Soviet Offensive Stretches Westward; French Cooperation in North Africa Paves Way for Unified Allied Drive; Fierce Buna Battle Marks Pacific War (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these columns, they ere those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysis and not necessarily of this newspupci- I Released by Western Newspaper Union. J TAXES: Record Year Early on the agenda of the new congress was consideration of some form of pay-as-you-go tax paymen plan. There were increasing indi cations that one of the many proposed pro-posed methods for eUug 'S year's income tax out of this year s income would be adopted. Most widely discussed was the program pro-gram advanced by Beardsley Ruml, New York Federal Reserve bank official. of-ficial. Under this setup one year s taxes would go by default, and taxpayers tax-payers would meet 1943 taxes out of 1943 income rather than pay 1942 taxes this year. Well might congress study tax plans because this year brings increased in-creased income tax rates, the 5 per cent Victory Tax and larger levies on many everyday living items. And the treasury department indicated that to meet the rising cost of war even greater sacrifices may become necessary. But U. S. citizens were taking the new situation in stride. Most people realized that it takes a great deal of money to win a modern mod-ern war. GIFT: Of 20 Million In 1939, Walter P. Murphy, head I of the Standard Railway Equipment company, gave Northwestern university uni-versity $6,735,000 with which to establish es-tablish a technological institute on the Evanston, 111., campus. When death came to Walter Murphy Mur-phy on December 16, 1942, he had not forgotten Northwestern. A provision pro-vision of his will, announced at the end of the year, gave the univer- . Ann nnn Itnrt rloircl. f ' ; I " jv"-. ; I '' ' 1 ' N . -I ;. . : l ; 'y-: ? v. ' f " " ' ' 1 1 " f " - "i i - ') x Gen. Henri Giraud, newly designated high commissioner of French North and West Africa, reviews American fighters soon after his appointment appoint-ment as successor to Admiral Darlan. The appointment of the French general, famous for having twice escaped the Nazis, did much to satisfy the elements discontented over the "deal" with the assassinated Darlan. sity more tnan ;u,uvv,wu u-. op, maintain and operate the technological tech-nological institute. Beyond this restriction re-striction the will placed no limitation limita-tion on the use of the bequest. The gift raised Northwestern university uni-versity to fifth place in amount of endowment among the universities of the country. Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago and the University Uni-versity of Rochester lead. DRINKING: And the Army Drinking conditions In and around army camps do not constitute a serious se-rious problem for officials, according accord-ing to a report made by the Office of War Information after an extensive ex-tensive coast-to-coast investigation. This survey was undertaken to determine de-termine what truth if any there existed ex-isted for some of the rumors among U. S. citizens about excessive drinking drink-ing among the nation's armed forces. In all U. S. history, the OWI says, no army has been so orderly. The sale of 3.2 beer in army camps is described as a "healthy and sensible" arrangement. This is listed as the main reason for the vastly less amount of drinking by soldiers in this war as compared to- World War I. Security Planner AFRICA: Cooperation World-wide cooperation of all French leaders not captives of the Axis powers was deemed almost a certainty when Gen. Henri Giraud, successor to the assassinated Adm. Jean Darlan as high commissioner commission-er of North Africa, named Gen. Al-phonse Al-phonse Juin as commander in chief of the French forces in Africa. Juin commanded French African forces at the time of the Allied occupation oc-cupation in November and had since been collaborating with the pro-Allied pro-Allied French regime. The previous appointment of Giraud Gi-raud had a unifying effect which was missing under Darlan. French North African civil and military forces rallied ral-lied around the new commander, as did Gen. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Fighting French, who would have no part of Giraud's predecessor. predeces-sor. Battle in Tunisia Although the Allied North African headquarters acknowledged that British and American forces had withdrawn from a hill position six miles northeast of Medjez-el-Bab which they held for less than a week competent observers said that the Allied position as a whole was not materially affected. In another area of operations it appeared as though Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was intent? only on getting his broken Africa Corps to Tunisia for the Axis final stand on the African continent. Rommel had three possible lines of defense on the Libyan coast. But British eighth army patrols broke through the first one at Wadi Bei El Chebir, 55 miles west of Sirte and 185 miles east of Tripoli. Rommel's chances were lessening. And above all, the Middle Mid-dle Eastern command appeared confident. con-fident. , Plot Nipped An assassination plot against Giraud Gi-raud and Robert Murphy, President ANOTHER LESSON: For Adolf Last winter Adolf Hitler learned his first lesson about Russian winters: win-ters: That they are plenty cold and plenty inhospitable. This year he is learning another lesson: Russian soldiers fight equally well (and in some cases better) in winter as in summer. Russia's drive on the southern flank of the vast eastern front has now reached proportions of a major campaign. As the Nazi forces fell back before Rostov, Soviet troops had succeeded in capturing Kotel-nikovski Kotel-nikovski a vital link in German positions po-sitions and a point which Hitler had commanded be held at all costs. Ninety miles below Stalingrad, loss of this point meant the extermination extermina-tion of Gen. Hermann von Hoth's sixth army or what remained of its 22 divisions surrounded near Stalingrad. Stalin-grad. What was even more important, however, was that the net was closing clos-ing more surely on the million Nazis in the Caucasus. With Rostov's capture cap-ture Adolf would have had a sad looking report card and his next lesson les-son in Russian would begin. CHINESE MISSION: Ordered Home Gen. Hsiung Shih-fei, head of a Chinese military mission to this country, and a majority of his staff have been ordered home by Generalissimo Gen-eralissimo Chiang Kai-shek, it was announced in Washington. The mission was sent here 10 months ago to contact the joint Anglo-American military staff and to confer with U. S. military officials. offi-cials. Chinese sources said the return was prompted by the apparent decision de-cision of the joint staff to concentrate concen-trate the efforts of the United Nations Na-tions on sectors other than the China front. Dissatisfaction in Chungking was reported over what it considers consid-ers the minor role assigned to China ! ! tWa,.tfJ..wf..tt.11MBj.- j.-- ---- - J. ..i&jattgMajj itooseveu s minister vu ciKumi Sirica, Si-rica, was nipped in the making when Giraud announced the arrest of 12 persons, including two who helped the American landing at Algiers. Al-giers. Brief initia dispatches said that Giraud has announced that 12 persons per-sons were arrested to prevent "further "fur-ther assassinations." He said that "it is better to prevent than punish" pun-ish" and that those arrested were not going to be shot. "RATIONING: Little Hoarding Despite the fact that more than 200 canned food items will be rationed ra-tioned soon, American housewives have made very little attempt to stock their cupboards in advance, Office of Price Administration spokesmen have pointed out. The absence of hoarding was tlue to two factors: Consumers must declare de-clare all canned goods on hand, on the basis of which deductions will be made from the ration points alloted each person; the feeling that hoarding would be emphatically unpatriotic un-patriotic kept many a person from ordering more than the usual supply of foodstuffs. Even though a tremendous printing print-ing job is yet to be completed, OPA officials expressed hope that the point-rationing program would get under way some time in February. in Allied strategy. It was said that Hsiung and his colleagues have decided de-cided there is no likelihood of a large scale offensive against Japan in the near future. The closing of the Burma road was an important factor fac-tor in the Allied-China plan of strategy. SOUTH PACIFIC: Advance in Buna Japanese tenacity was nowhere in greater evidence than on the bitterly fought Buna front in New Guinea. Allied headquarters spoke repeatedly repeated-ly of advances against stubborn Japanese resistance. Striking at Jap coastal fortifications, fortifica-tions, ground troops eliminated' a triangular enemy strongpoint of 13 bunkers, then were forced to beat off a counterattack. The desperately defended bunker triangle, approximately approxi-mately 1,500 yards from the coast, had been bypassed earlier in the Allied Al-lied drive toward the Buna government govern-ment station. It was surrounded several sev-eral days before, after tanks and infantry in-fantry had gone ahead to smash through to the coast and thence turn west to advance on the Buna air strip. Up the coast from Buna, Allied bombers hit at the Lae airdrome and at Kavieng in New Ireland. Fires were started at both places. Bombers Bomb-ers also struck at the Gasmata air-i air-i field in New Britain. Pictured with his wife, Sir William Beveridge attends a luncheon at the Savoy hotel, London, in the interest of his social security plan. Sir William Wil-liam is the author of a financial assistance as-sistance plan which protects the people peo-ple of Great Britain from the cradle to the grave, It has received considerable con-siderable publicity in the United States. MISCELLANY: RECORD: American shipbuilders in 1942 turned out a record number of 750 merchant vessels, totaling 8 million tons, according to the National Na-tional Council of Shipbuilders. STRIKES: Man-days lost from war production as a result of strikes dropped to 91,925 in November the lowest since Pearl Harbor. SALVAGE: A Jap radio broadcast reported that engineers had refloated refloat-ed and repaired an 11,000-ton U. S. floating dry dock which It said American forces scuttled last April at Port Marivales, Bataan. DRAFT: 3Vz Million in '43 Approximately million men 18 through 37 years old will be called to the armed forces during 1943, draft officials have announced. They will be called at an average rate of 250,000 or 300,000 a month. About half of the quota will be drawn from the 18 and 19 year olds who completed registration in December. De-cember. The other 1,750,000 will be childless married men since the pool of unmarried men available for military mili-tary service is practically exhausted. United Nations' Armies The United Nations entered 1943 with armies totaling approximately 15,000,000 men, according to a military mili-tary correspondent for Reuters, British-news agency. This total does not include China's army. In addition, addi-tion, he said, Allied air personnel is approaching the 5,000,000 mark. At its peak the German army numbered num-bered about 8,000,000 men, he said. But Germany has . suffered heavy casualties in Russia, losing perhaps 4,000,000 men. Japcn has an effective army of from 5 to 6,000,000. GANGSTERS: Action in Chicago Described by J. Edgar Hoover, FBI chief, as the toughest mob in the nation, Chicago's Roger Touhy gang, which escaped from Illinois Stateville prison in October, .was rounded up by the G-men. Five of the seven who escaped were taken alive while the other two died under un-der FBI bullets when they tried to escape a carefully prepared trap. Hoover personally led some 50 G-men G-men in the final round-up of the criminals. AUTO RATIONING: Under recently announced liberalized liberal-ized automobile rationing regulations persons engaged in any gainful occupation oc-cupation (who can show need) can now purchase new 1941 or earlier model cars. Also available to such persons are 1942 model cars with a list price of more than $2,500. According to the Office of Price Administration it is hoped that this move will improve the transportation transporta-tion of persons buying these cars and will also release their old cars in the used car market. IMPREGNABLE: According to French radio reports, Adolf Hitler has nearly finished construction of a "new, impregnable Siegfried line" along the Atlantic seaboard of France. ORDER: The Finnish Information Center in New York has been ordered or-dered by the state department to cease issuing news releases and pamphlets, and the American legation lega-tion in Helsingfors has stopped sending send-ing out bulletins. This development followed reports that Finnish officials offi-cials joined in a toast to the Japanese Japa-nese Pearl Harbor success. ADVICE: College students who are perplexed about their military status have been advised by Dr Francis J. Brown, consultant for the American council on education to go back to school and stay there until called into military service BURMA RAF bombers, escorted by fighters, attacked the Jan air drome along the Chindwin river in" Burma, scoring hits on runways and dispersal bays. Offensive patrols were reported to have been carried out over the Mayu river district where British troops have been working their way toward Akyab |
