| OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS Russian Blitz Clears Crimea Path as Allied Bombers Pound Western Europe; 'Stop Aiding Nazis' Neutrals Warned; Japs Press 3 -Pronged Drive in India (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion, are expressed In these columns they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily ol this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union. . KQJ& i" M 0 Jifi.aW-:: Italy New Zealand troops dole on German sniper in Cassino ruins. WHEAT: Good Prospects Because of improved prospects as a result of a recent rainfall, the U. S. Department of Agriculture predicted a winter wheat crop of 601,759,000 bushels for 1944, 72,153,-000 72,153,-000 more than 1943 production. Based on official returns, the domestic supplies of wheat for 1944-'45 were estimated at 1,130,000,-000 1,130,000,-000 bushels, compared with last year's 1,440,000,000 bushels. Although moisture deficiency in western Kansas and the adjoining wheat sections in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado was offset off-set by rainfall, Nebraska was re-S ported in need of precipitation. U. S. ACES: 'Rick' Topped To army air force Captains Eich-ard Eich-ard I. Bong of Poplar, Wis., an4 Don S. Gentile of Piqua, Ohio, went the honor of breaking Capt. Eddie Rick-enbacker's Rick-enbacker's famed record of shooting down 26 enemy aircraft, established in World War I. Operating in the South Pacific -in a Lightning fighter with the portrait of his fiance, Marjorie Vattendahl of Superior, Wis., painted on the nose, Captain Bong was credited with destroying his 27th enemy craft in the air on April 12. .Previously, Captain Gentile had been credited with bagging 30 enemy planes in Europe, but seven of them were shot up on the ground. During World War I, Captain Rick-enbacker's Rick-enbacker's total of 26 included five observation balloons, so that Captain Cap-tain Bong paced the field in the number actually knocked out in sky fights. Of all of war's experiences, few were as harrowing as Sgt. James A. Raley's, who was trapped In the tail ' t J section of a Fly- yC" J ing Fortress when It broke off from F the rest of 1 plane duringa f K -bombing mission I and fell 19,000 f V feet down to L.45- 1 earth. fi When the tail section finally Sgt. Raley. landed miraculously miracu-lously on a tree top, the 27-year-old sergeant from Henderson, Ky., emerged with only a slight cut on the chin. POLITICS: FDR, Dewey Lead With the Democratic and Republican Repub-lican conventions still two 'months off, the candidacies of President Roosevelt and Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, N. Y., have picked up steam as a result of the popular favor shown them in the selection of nominating delegates. As of April 12, 46 delegates were openly pledged for the President and 157 others claimed for him, for a total of 203 out of 236 already picked, At the same date, 25 delegates stood pledged to Dewey and 123 others were claimed for him, for a total of 148 out of 356 selected. While the President polled a large vote in the Nebraska preferential primary, big highlight was the heavy write-in vote Dewey obtained. EUROPE: Invasion Path While Russia's land armies carried car-ried the war into the Balkans, Allied Al-lied bombers continued pounding Axis military and industrial installations installa-tions throughout Fortress Europe, concentrating on the invasion path in the west. As the Russians stormed into Rumania, other Red forces drove ahead in the Crimea, huge chunk of land thrust into the Black sea and guarding the water route to the eastern east-ern Balkans. As the Russians approached ap-proached the Rumanian rail junction junc-tion of, Jassi, they encountered stiffening resistance from native troops, fighting by the side of German Ger-man soldiers, strengthened by shorter defense lines. In continuing their whirlwind assaults as-saults to smoothen an invasion path, Allied bombers struck at airfields, railroad junctions and military defenses de-fenses throughout the French and Belgium area. Far to the southeast, TJ. S. bombers based in Italy hammered ham-mered Nazi airplane factories in the Vienna and Budapest regions. In. ground fighting below Rome, both sides were reported making extensive exten-sive troop movements in preparation prepara-tion for a resumption of bitter fighting. fight-ing. Warn Neutrals Having suspended oil shipments to Spain and announced restriction of steamship service to Ireland, Great Britain and the U. S. next demanded de-manded termination of Sweden's ball-bearing trade with Germany in a determined campaign to halt the neutral countries' commerce with Axis Europe. PACIFIC: India Threatened With their backs against the rugged rug-ged slopes of the Naga hills in central cen-tral India, British and Indian troops fought desperately against persistent per-sistent Japanese attempts to cut off their supply lines and entrap them in a huge pocket. While the British and Indians were locked in their death struggle, U. S. bombers operated over a wide range in the Pacific, blasting Japanese Japa-nese installations in the Kurile islands, strung out to the north of Nippon, and plastering enemy bases on New Guinea, as part of the grand strategy to wipe out their strongholds on this flank of the Philippines. Phil-ippines. In India, the Japs' continuing three-pronged drive pressed against British and Indian supply routes running both north and south and also to the west to the Assam-Bengal railroad, used to feed Lieut. Gen. Joseph Stilwell's American and Chinese troops clearing a communications com-munications highway in northern Burma to China. INDUSTRY: Postwar Reserves Looking forward toward the problems prob-lems of postwar readjustment, U. S. industry has set aside hundreds hun-dreds of millions of dollars out of profits for switching back to civilian production, rebuilding plants or providing pro-viding lay-off payments to workers during the period of change. To meet the emergency, United States Steel company has established estab-lished a nest egg of $104,153,557; General Motors, $76,051,805; General Gen-eral Electric, $73,562,337; E. I. Du Pont, $31,613,430; Sears, Roebuck, $28,500,000; United Aircraft, $28,004,- At the same time, it was announced an-nounced that the Allies would look into Turkey's increased chrome shipments to Germany during the last three months, with a view toward to-ward limiting the traffic through a curtailment ol our own trade with the Turks, whose lend-lease aid already has been cut down. In hearing the Allies' demands, the Swedes said they were in no position to comply without breaking their formal agreement with Germany, Ger-many, which, they said, the Allies Al-lies approved last September. Although Al-though there was objection to the ball-bearing shipments, Sweden's iron ore deliveries to the Nazis were hot emphasized. WOOL: Big Stocks With an all-high stock of foreign and U. S. wool, the Commodity Credit corporation was directed to go into the market to support the 1944 domestic clip estimated at 450,000,000 pounds. Whereas XJ. S. stocks stand at record rec-ord levels today, there were prospects pros-pects of serious shortages when the Japs launched their South Pacific drive, threatening the Australian and New Zealand producing areas. Approximately 400,000,000 pounds of foreign wool is now owned by this country, with the Defense Supplies corporation holding 330,000,000 pounds and dealers and manufacturers manufac-turers the rest. At the same time, 550,000,000 pounds, is being held in this country for British account. Because the U. S. clip sells about 18 cents a pound above foreign wool, the CCC has encountered difficulty disposing of the domestic stock, although al-though the army now specifies its use in purchases and about 10 per cent of navy orders are expected to call for it. 464; International Harvester, $20,-000,000; $20,-000,000; Goodyear Tire and Rubber company, $15,462,912; Borden company, com-pany, $11,305,185; National Dairy Products, $10,000,000, and General Foods, $4,492,712. Since such reserves cannot be taken out of income before taxes like deductions for depreciation, debt retirement and depletion, they must be put aside dut 'of industry's profits. Economic Protection To prevent a repetition . of the widespread bankruptcies and foreclosures fore-closures which fol-' lowed World War I, p5!5WW!R7"5 the Commodity i $ Credit corporation is empowered to make loans at 90 w "-ji per cent of parity S , ,1 on basic crops for E- ' S M two years after the " H end of hostilities, War Mobilization f t3 Director James F. Byrnes declared. James Byrnes While outlining outlin-ing the protection for farmers, Byrnes also proposed to help labor laid off from slackening war industries, indus-tries, through a system of federal unemployment benefits to be paid in addition to regular state payments. To relieve the problem of future unemployment, un-employment, Byrnes suggested that workers be shifted from lagging war plants to busier ones now while jobs were available. Byrnes advocated legislation for quick settlement of cancelled war contracts to aid industry in the reconversion re-conversion to civilian production, and he also called for congressional action to facilitate the orderly disposal dis-posal of surplus war goods without disruption of regular markets. U. S. NAVY: Plan Bigger Growth To provide for the heavy fighting ahead, congress was asked to pass a naval appropriations bill of $32,647,000,000 for the fiscal year beginning be-ginning July 1. By July of 1945, the navy will have 10,244 self-propelled, ships, 74,925 other craft, including landing vessels, ves-sels, and 37,735 airplanes. Also by July of 1945, naval personnel per-sonnel is expected to reach 3,657,000 officers and men, including women. Biggest planned expansion is for the marine corps to a total of 478,000. LABOR: Hit Poiver Politics Asserting that territorial and frontier problems of Europe should be settled by popular vote of the affected pepple, the American Federation Fed-eration of Labor's Vice President, Matthew Woll, assailed Soviet Russia's Rus-sia's alleged alteration of the continent con-tinent in defiance of principles of the United Nations. Taking his place beside Woll, David Dubinsky; president of the AFL's International Garment Workers Work-ers Union, deplored the development of policies designed to divide the world up into spheres of influences, in which the big nations would dominate militarily and politically. Decrying the proposal to compensate compen-sate Poland for the loss of territory terri-tory to Russia by giving her part, of eastern Germany, Dubinsky declared: de-clared: " . . . This means that Poland, Po-land, or what remains of her, will "remain a center of bitter and constant con-stant struggle a football for the powers." BLACK MARKET GAS So extensive has the black market in gasoline become that it is imperilling im-perilling the whole civilian motor fuel program, Petroleum Administrator Adminis-trator Ickes warned. He said that more than 2,500,000 gallons a day is sold through illicit channels, with counterfeit coupons one of the most widely used means of evasion. The most hopeful possibility for an increase in the allowance to civilian civil-ian drivers is through the crushing of the nationwide illegal traffic to gasoline, Mr. Ickes declared. ELECTRIC IRONS Hope that there would be a substantial sub-stantial number of electric irons for sale to the public faded when the War Production board reduced the quota for the year. The WPB authorized production of 2,000,000 irons for 1944 in January but later slashed it to 200,000. Quotas will be granted to nine of the thirty companies com-panies originally accepted, and these nine are allowed to make electric elec-tric irons only "to the extent thai this production will not interfere with war contracts." |
