OCR Text |
Show DEFENSE: At Home WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Knox Makes Blunt Report on Hawaii: Army and Navy Losses Set at 2,897 In Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor; Battleship Arizona Among Craft Sunk (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) (Released by Western riewspaper Union.) HAWAII: A Report From Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, just back from a flying fly-ing inspection trip to Hawaii came a report the nation had anxiously awaited the extent of damage done by the Japanese in their first blast at . Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. Army and navy casualties were set at 2,897 dead, 879 wounded and 26 missing. Six warships, including one battleship, the Arizona, went down. Knox was blunt in establishing his points. First . he said that Japan failed in what it set out to do knockout the United States in the Pacific before the war actually got under way. Second, his report stated stat-ed "The United States services were not on the alert against the surprise sur-prise air attack on Hawaii. This sole serious attempt against U. S. territory in any volume, and to this task the Japanese apparently had dedicated about 200 - odd planes, which probably meant at least two aircraft carriers. The chief Japanese objective unquestionably un-questionably was Malaya and Burma, Bur-ma, with Singapore as a necessary battle before the Japs could consider con-sider any permanent success had been theirs. The cutting of the Burma road was another, but this, it could be realized, would only relieve the pressure pres-sure from the Chinese army, and would enable the Japanese to remove re-move forces from China only after a long period. The vital need of Japan was oil, oil and more oil, without which it would be impossible for her to keep her fleet moving, her planes in the air, or to prosecute any sort of war at all. And this oil was in the Dutch East Indies. Against successful occupation occupa-tion of any of these oil-bearing islands is-lands two great obstacles stand. The Philippines stand astride the China sea at a point where it is only about 500 miles wide, and the huge Singapore base closes the neck of hoped-for . Japanese operations at the east. Hence the most serious invasion effort was made by the Japs via Indo-China and Thailand, with the landings at Malaya an effort to make the British tenure of the long neck ending in Singapore untenable. The secondary attack was on the Philippines, chiefly to obtain naval and air bases far enough outside the circle of the island defenses to permit per-mit a serious effort at capture. Army watchers saw little chance that the Japs would spread themselves them-selves out thin enough to attempt a strong attack on Hawaii or on the West coast. RUSSIANS: Refuse Peace An effort by the Nazis to make peace with Russia in order that their armies . might hibernate in their present positions and renew re-new the war in the spring was indignantly in-dignantly turned aside by the Soviet, which had the victory taste in its mouth and was not to be denied. Daily dispatches from Red army headquarters continued to develop the victory not only on the southern front, where it all started, but in front of Moscow as well, where the Russians said the German retreat s ' i I ? i ft r Grim reality of war has come to many U. S. coastal cities. Here in this startling picture big ramparts of sand bags are being hastily constructed con-structed in front of one of the telephone tele-phone . company's buildings in San Francisco. While 99 per cent of the "air raids'" reported on American continental conti-nental cities had been rumors or tests, home defense was bustling ahead. Blackouts were being practiced busily from one coast to the other, and the rules during air raids were .being read and re-read in American Ameri-can homes, while men, women and children repeated to themselves the magic words "keep calm, stay at home, lie down" and all the rest of the litany. From it all was coming a stronger strong-er realization that home defense was needed chiefly to bind the morale of the nation, and as an ever-present safeguard against fifth-column activities, ac-tivities, of. which there was more than a little. The sabotage-fifth-column activities activi-ties in the United States were notj of course, a fraction, of what they were in Manila nor in Hawaii, but they were serious and the widespread wide-spread calling out of the home guards had a much more important effect than did the same move in the last war when territorial United States was safer from attack. First evidences of the dangers of Pacific shipping were the mandatory manda-tory halting of rubber tire sales pending pend-ing a permanent rationing plan, and the freezing of all stocks of sugar. From these the nation learned it was at war and the man in the street began slowly to get the idea that it was not play. CHINESE: Fight Jap Rear Though the troops necessarily were of the guerrilla type, there were reports that the Chinese were making mak-ing a serious and important attack on the Japanese rear in the Canton neighborhood, a most welcome diversion di-version as the British sought to hang onto Hongkong. Hongkong was reported completely complete-ly surrounded by Japanese troops, and the British did admit that their troops had been withdrawn from Kowloon, its stronghold on the mainland, main-land, about 20 miles north of Hongkong Hong-kong itself. The British, however, had said it was part of their plan to abandon Kowloon and to concentrate on' a defense of hilly Hongkong itself. The Chinese attack, they said, tended to divert the Japanese from attempting to attack Hongkong from the Kowloon side. Messages of cheer following the triple war declarations went back and forth from time to time between the British and American command- Here is one of the war's first heroes he-roes Capt. Colin P. Kelly, who was killed while making a daring air attack at-tack on the Japanese battleship Ha-runa Ha-runa in a battle off the Philippines. He was credited with scoring three direct bomb hits on the vessel, leaving leav-ing it in flames and later it sank. Kelly was an army flier and former West Pointer. . . fact calls for a formal investigation which will be initiated immediately by ,the President. Further action is, of 'course, dependent on the facts and recommendations made by this investigating board. We are all entitled en-titled to know if (a) there was any error of judgment which contributed to the surprise, and (b) if there was any dereliction of duty prior to the attack." I The secretary of the navy went on to point out that after the battle began be-gan the defense by both army and I navy was "conducted skillfully and bravely." He pointed out many incidents in-cidents of individual heroism, though the report did not mention the heroes by name. Equally blunt was his statement of material and personnel losses. The navy lost the battleship Arizona, Ari-zona, three destroyers, a mine layer lay-er and the old target ship Utah. In addition damage was inflicted to other vessels and Knox said some of these would take weeks and others oth-ers months to repair. He said that the entire rest of thp flppt was nnw nut nn the Pacific t "V ? JT-1- V - I ' seeking action with the enemy. Morale on the islands was high, said Knox. Main army losses consisted of planes caught on the ground. Hangars Han-gars were also damaged. Enemy losses were declared to be . three submarines and 41 aircraft. PLAN: Of Japanese As the war with Japan progressed, and as Germany and Italy walked into the picture unbidden, Americans began to get a slightly clearer vision of just what the campaign of Nippon aimed at, and what it was likely to accomplish before the United Unit-ed States got its war machine mov-ing mov-ing in high gear. It soon became evident that the disastrous raid on Hawaii had probably prob-ably succeeded far beyond Japan's wildest hopes, but that it had been simply a "nuisance raid" in the first place, and not made with any faintest faint-est hope of occupying the islands. The attacks on . Guam, Midway, Wake islands were, on the other hand, apparent efforts to take those Pacific outposts, and were made with forces that the Japanese deemed sufficient to do the job. The effort against the Philippines, however, was just as evidently the titJTCH: Do Theit Bit The Dutch are hard to beat that's an old saying. . The Dutch were doing their bit, though their native land was occupied by the Nazis, in the war in the Far East as well as in the Mediterranean. In the sinking of an entire Italian flotilla by night by an inferior force of British ships, much credit was given the 1,800-ton Dutch destroyer destroy-er Isaac Sweers for its part in the engagement. This vessel was not finished when the Nazis went through the Low Countries, but the fore-thinking Dutch had her towed across the channel to a British shipyard, where she was completed. Four Dutch submarines, also under un-der the British Far East naval command, com-mand, trailed several fully loaded Japanese transports, bound with reinforcements re-inforcements for the Malayan front. The Hollanders waited until nightfall, night-fall, then came to the surface, out-sped out-sped the slower troopships, and, at a prearranged signal, let loose with their torpedoes. ers and Lhiang Kai-shek at Chungking. Chung-king. BRITISH: In Malaya The frightful loss suffered by the British fleet in the first days of the Malaya campaign, in which two capital ships, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, totaling practically practical-ly 70,000 tons, had gone to the bottom either the victims of Jap submarines or planes or both, had been somewhat offset by the steady resistance of the troops to Japanese advancing efforts. By the time the war was in its second week the British were able to report that the "Malayan advance ad-vance of the Japanese was at a standstill." The British commanders seemed to have been able to fathom the general Jap plan of attack, and to meet it step by step with the loss of as little ground as possible until something like a plain battle line could be developed. Day after day the report had been "the. situation in Malaya continues to be confused." Finally the British stated that they were "holding the invaders to a standstill' and that the battle was being . "confined to the northern jungles." BRIEFS: Heroes of Hawaii Heroes of Hawaii: f ; Second Lieut. George S. Welch, Wilmington, Del., 23, downed four Jap planes in one combat. A Purdue Pur-due boy, he finished his flying training train-ing 14 months ago at Kelly Field and later was sent to the Far East. Second Lieut. Kenneth M. Taylor, Hominy, Okla., 22; destroyed two Jap planes in his first fight. A University Uni-versity of Oklahoma junior, graduated gradu-ated Brooks Field in April. First Lieut. Louis M. Sanders, Fort Wayne, Ind., 34, Lieut. Gordon H. Sterling Jr., West Hartford, Conn., 22; Second Lieut. Philip M. Rasmussen, Boston, 23; Second Lieut. Harry W. Brown, Amarillo, Texas, 21, got one plane each. Lynn, Mass.: The family of Private Pri-vate Leo E. A. Gagne, 24, got a package of Christmas gifts from him. In the package was a letter which contained the words "I'm sorry sor-ry I can't be with you for Christmas." Christ-mas." The day the package arrived his family learned that Private Gagne had been killed in Hawaii. Help for Russia from Canada. This photo shows a long line of Canadian-built infantry tanks loaded aboard flat cars leaving Montreal on the first lap of the long journey to the Russian fronts for use against the Nazis. These are 20-ton tanks having a top speed of 20 miles per hour. was becoming a panic-stricken rout. The Nazis, they said, were blowing blow-ing up tanks in the path of the advancing ad-vancing Russians, and were abandoning aban-doning hundreds of vehicles and guns. War cannot be fodght at 17 degrees de-grees below zero, Hitler had told his people in announcing that "no. further effort at advance would be made in Russia during the winter.." "Yes it can," shouted the Russians, Rus-sians, as, dressed, in their warm clothing and with the enthusiasm given them by one success after another an-other they, continued to move the Germans back. The Reds' figures were so large as to be almost unbelievable. They claimed 75,000. Germans killed in front of Moscow. Their total claim for German losses during the entire campaign was 6,000,000 dead, wounded, prisoners. pris-oners. Though the Russians did not immediately im-mediately declare war on Japan, Litvinoff, new emissary to Washington, Washing-ton, called Japan "the common enemy," another "of the gang of Axis criminals," and indicated that Russia would be glad to "do anything any-thing to help." LIBYAN FRONT: The disaster to German and Italian Ital-ian forces in Libya continued to grow and expand, as the invaders had fallen back to Derna, with the British in close pursuit and constantly constant-ly whittling down the enemy. The African theater of war thus found the imperial forces on the offensive of-fensive still, with one encircling movement being carried on after another by small mobile forces, and the German divisions under General Gener-al Rommell unable to reform into one battle unit. |