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Show B ATA AN: More Bombs WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Jap Failure to Overwhelm Australia Brings Revision of Pacific Timetable; Anti-War Feeling Grows in Bulgaria As Government Meets Nazi Demands (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) J (Released by Western Newspaper Union.). I i r I i "V- " 7 J ' 1 INDIA: At Crossroads While there had been no immediate immedi-ate indication that the Japs were to make India the supreme objective, and abandon any idea of an immediate immedi-ate invasion of Australia, the situation situa-tion in Burma was serious enough to give poignancy to the visit of Sir Stafford Cripps and his offer of dominion status to India after the war. The sharp division of opinion in India placed three men and their followers in the forefront of the picture, pic-ture, Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. Gandhi, the Mahatma, leader of more Hindus than any other man, had been the first to confer with Cripps, and a two-hour conference had found the two men willing to admit that the basis of negotiations was "satisfactory." But the handling of Nehru and Jinnah Jin-nah was a horse of another color. Despite the fact that Gandhi had been more than any other man the leader of resistance to 'British rule, II II . J. HI. I 11 r - TIMETABLE: Revised There had been much talk about the Japanese timetable being awry, but to the man in the street this was hard to believe, since the Japs had swept the East Indies, including Singapore, but excluding Bataan and Manila Bay fortresses, in the unbelievably short period since December De-cember 7. However, it had become apparent that the Japanese plans to enter the Australian mainland had suffered a severe setback in the arrival of thousands thou-sands of American troops on the continent, in the all-out plane attacks on Jap concentrations in islands is-lands to the north of Australia, and in the reported reinforcements being be-ing received by the Aussies of their own blooded troops back from northern north-ern Africa. These were signs all could read. The attacks on New Guinea had been going on far too long in comparison com-parison with those on other islands in the Indies without the Japs moving mov-ing in for the Australian "kill." It was inconceivable that the Japanese Jap-anese wanted to wait until the Americans Amer-icans and North African troops had landed, had become organized. They had not wanted MacArthur, and President Quezon to escape to the mainland. Nor did they want their enemy to be holding onto Port Moresby at this late date, with its airfields and garrisons gar-risons awaiting a Jap push over the almost impassable mountainsides to the southern part of the island. Here, it was evident, the Japs had met serious delay. Many believed be-lieved the attack on Australia was to be abandoned, thus setting the stage for a real Allied counter-offensive. counter-offensive. The Australians, however, particularly particu-larly General Blarney, who had been placed in command of the Aussies under General MacArthur, believe that "We must arrange our strategy strate-gy on the basis that the Japs are going to try an invasion." BULGARS: Reported on Move The Bulgarian army had been reported re-ported on the move to the German eastern front, the government having hav-ing acceded to the Nazi demands that it furnish troops for the offensive offen-sive against Hussia. But the move, highly disturbing to Turkey as well as to the bulk of the Bulgar people, was not without sharp criticism from within, almost amounting to revolution. An anti-war movement had been gaining in popularity, and when two divisions were withdrawn from the Turkish frontier, reportedly to move against Russia, one radio station kept broadcasting an appeal to the Kv:v-vv.-.w MANUEL L. QUEZON Relief not long in coming. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, picking pick-ing up where General MacArthur left off, was continuing the Bataan campaign, and Corregidor had withstood with-stood the heaviest bombing attacks of the war. The guns of Corregidor and her sister fortresses had hammered away at flights of Jap bombers, dropping four one day, two the next, with others "probably downed or damaged." .' President Quezon, on his arrival with his family and cabinet in Aus-traba, Aus-traba, predicted that the iron stand of Wainwright' s men soon would receive re-ceive its reward, and that relief for the Philippine garrison would "not be long in coming." The Filipino president had been variously reported as killed, dead of disease, and murdered on orders of General MacArthur. Actually, he had never left MacArthur's headquarters, head-quarters, and had flown to Australia to take his stand there again. AMERICANS: Cupid 'Down Under' Most interesting while the American Amer-ican troops were training in Australia, Aus-tralia, becoming acclimated, and "meeting the people" was the flood of romance sweeping over the continent. con-tinent. : Literally scores of marriages were being performed, causing all sorts of reactions. Some of the Aussie clergy deplored de-plored these "marriages in haste," and one cleric had the bad taste to say the "Americans came here to fight, not to get married." The Australian public met the romances with whoops of joy, and the press was definitely on the side of young love. One American commanding officer of-ficer forbade his soldiers to get married, and drew down on himself howls of rage from the rank and file, and a reprimand from his superiors. su-periors. The war department in Washington Washing-ton capped this climax by issuing a statement that any American soldier sol-dier had a perfect right to get married mar-ried as long as he did his duty as a soldier, and obeyed the commands of his superiors and was free to get married. And that, after all, turned out to be the only major worry of those who watched Cupid's darts flying right and left in Australia the fear that some enthusiastic lovers might forget that they had wives at homei Jawaharlal ' Mohandas K. Nehru Gandhi he was regarded as more reasonable, reason-able, more desirous of defending India In-dia than the other leaders. Nehru, the congress chieftain, prior pri-or to talking with Cripps had said that anything less than a promise of complete independence would be inadequate. in-adequate. "Japan is offering us that," he said boldly. While he professed no "love for the aggressor," he said that British failure to offer independence independ-ence would leave India no recourse other than to adopt a passive resistance resist-ance to the Japs, which he admitted would be no practical resistance at all. Nehru frankly did not believe the British could achieve Indian unity, blaming Jinnah, the Moslem head. He said that Jinnah was insisting on a divided freedom for India, and that while he; Nfchrui was willing' to "go along" with any type of freedom, free-dom, he doubted that England was going to accede to Jinnah's demands. de-mands. Relations were worse at the time of Cripps' arrival than. at any time in history, Nehru said, talking darkly dark-ly of civil war being "just around the corner," an eventuality which most observers believed would be suicidal with Japan knocking at the nation's eastern borders. COMMANDOS: Hit Daring Blow Britain's commandos, after a lull of several weeks during which they doubtless had been "cooking" another an-other raid, had descended in full power on the German-held port of St. Nazaire, important submarine and naval base, with dire results. Chief objective, outside of general demolition work around the port, had been the destruction of a huge dock, the only one on the European Atlantic coast capable of handling the 35,000-ton German battleship Von Tirpitz. The commandos had attacked St. Nazaire under cover of an aerial bombing raid, using paratroops, destroyers, de-stroyers, and motor torpedo boats. The Nazis denied all efficacy of the raid, but the British just as positively positive-ly declared it to have been a huge success. Chief item and most daring in the raid was the use of an overage U. S. destroyer as a swiftly moving bomb to ram the dock. The destroyer had been loaded with five tons of high explosive in its bow, fixed with a time fuse to permit the crew to get i mmmmii aaiwl y 1 1 -d 1".. - jMmmm KING BORIS Only a German pawn? people to "rise and emulate brave Jugoslavia." It called for the throwing throw-ing out of King Boris, who was described de-scribed as "only a German pawn," and "in Berlin with Von Papen." Cause of all this antagonism toward active entrance into the war on Germany's side was the blood kinship felt by Bulgars, as well as RUBBER-OIL: German Patents Congressmen had been looking with a wary and angry eye at the Standard Oil group which, it had been publicly charged, had possession posses-sion of a superior rubber-oil formula, formu-la, and had been negotiating- with it, and turning its patents over to a German concern even after December Decem-ber 7. For a time things had looked most serious, with Senator Truman saying: say-ing: "It looks like treason and I'm going to give the Standard officials a chance to show why it isn't," but this feature of the case simmered down a couple of days later when he said he was "willing to let bygones by-gones be bygones." But the aftermath was that Standard Stand-ard and its process for making rubber rub-ber out of oil was on the spot, and its every move was being watched. Truman said he didn't like the looks of the deal whereby the government was constructing plants for making aviation gasoline. "It looks as though the big companies com-panies are freezing out the little ones, and that they will make enough profit out of their contracts to pay for the government buildings," build-ings," he said. Another aftermath of the congressional congres-sional probe into conditions surrounding sur-rounding the rubber-making deals with German firms was that Truman Tru-man said in the future no foreign pacts of any, sort might be made without government scrutiny and approval. ap-proval. Congress didn't want to be caught napping again. OFFENSIVE: The oft-repeated question "where will Hitler's spring offensive strike" had been sufficiently answered by dispatches from Moscow. Activity was definitely .on the lull in North Africa. Activity across the channel was largely from England to Germany with the Nazis on the defensive. But on the Russian front, both at Murmansk and all along the whole 2,000-mile line, the Reds themselves were admitting widely increased German activity. The Bulgarian movement was confirmation con-firmation of earlier reports that Hit ler had demanded 1,500,000 troons from Hungary, Rumania, Italy anrt Bulgaria for the offensive. The Moscow cables showed that these men were going into action. In the. Staraya Russa trap, the Six teenth army had been trying deT perately to break through. One Russian dispatch gave the tip-off. It said "The Germans e tying with everything they have to take the offensive away from the Russians, but despite that, the in? tiative definitely remains with ashore and fight while the ship blew up. British sources had reported that this was just what happened. The vessel rammed the dock and stuck there, later to blow up and put the structure out of commission. The Germans said, however, that their coastal defense batteries struck the destroyer and caused her to blow up before reaching her objective. The Germans, however, admitted that many of the raiders got ashore, but claimed they were all killed or captured. The British said there "were some casualties," but that the objectives were carried out, and that many members of the raiding forces returned in safety to England. It was all part of the British spring offensive, which included practically non-stop raids against Germany and occupied France. The U. S. destroyer found at her end a place in history along with the Vindictive and the blockships of Zee-brugge Zee-brugge fame. Jugoslavs, in tne main, for Russians. Rus-sians. It was not considered unlikely that the government might be overthrown, over-thrown, and that the army itself might rebel against orders sending them into action against the Reds. A possibility was seen that they might only make a "token" of fighting, fight-ing, and surrender rather than meet the fate which mutiny would bring. The Jugoslavs, who overturned their government, only to succumb to unpreparedness and Croatian defections, de-fections, were still fighting in force, and a Jugoslav guerrilla force of 100,000 was reported about to start a "spring offensive" of its own against the Nazi army of occupation. occupa-tion. Chief worrier about the Bulgar situation was Turkey, who saw in this move of soldiery the war coming com-ing every nearer to her borders. Political circles in Berlin suggested suggest-ed thai King Boris might renounce his old east Thracian aspirations. |
