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Show News rx , Behind By PaulMallon js? Released by Western Newspaper Union. VAZ1 DISINTEGRATION WASHINGTON. Our enemies are in the final stages of disintegration. I The end may come soon. Their growing weaknesses are evident I plainly in their confessed switches 1 3f military leadership in Japan the Jethronement of Tojo, in Germany the jump from Von Runstedt to Rommel, Rom-mel, the attempt on Hitler's life, stc. These glaring symptoms of. their approach to collapse are so I Dbvious as to hardly require comment com-ment or interpretation. Yet no one in authority here expects the end to come through internal collapse. There will probably have to be a military breakthrough. In short, our leaders lead-ers are counting only upon crushing crush-ing the foe by superior military might. There are no signs to justify an assumption that internal inter-nal revolution will do the job. For instance, the Japanese change I Erom Tojo does not in any degree denote a change in the ruthless military mil-itary leadership of that country. The Did gang is still firmly entrenched. They just changed faces, not control. con-trol. They are having a problem to keep their people working for war in the face of our overwhelming displays dis-plays of superior power and their cabinet change simply reflect their efforts to improve internal morale. HAS RESERVE STRENGTH So also in Europe, Von Runstedt was ousted because he failed to bring up his forces, refused to commit com-mit his reserves at once to the Normandy Nor-mandy battle. Rommel wanted to push his power fully into the fray and has brought 21 to 24 divisions into that front since he assumed control. Yet this is not more than a third of his potential strength in western Europe. Hitler can still command 58 to 60 divisions on that front. They are not full strength divisions, or crack troops, most of them being merely police forces for the Lowlands and France. Hitler has had to keep much of his power in Belgium where hidden local resisting re-sisting forces last week took a toll of 1,000 Nazis killed and disrupted railroads at 100 points, and otherwise other-wise his potential is scattered. But it is true that in Normandy we have faced the best he has, about six crack armored divisions, and while these have-been defeated, they are still to be routed. Italy, he apparently considers as a sideshow, and has produced pro-duced there no more than 28 divisions, di-visions, largely second grade. His main show is still on the Russian front where he is yet able to maintain about 180 divisions. di-visions. Thus he still controls great military mili-tary power. Say there are only 10,-)00 10,-)00 men in the average German division di-vision now as against normal strength af 15,000 and he still is able to present pre-sent an army of nearly 2,000,000 men in Russia, 600,000 in western Europe and 240,000 in Italy. To win, we must crush this strength, break through it, demoralize it by fighting. DEFEAT IS SURE Yet the inevitable destiny of defeat de-feat for our enemies is handwritten on the wall for all to see, on every front we are able to present superior power. In the Pacific, for instance, our sea might is reputed to be so far above the Japs as to be a joke among navy men. We do not yet appreciate the growth of the navy. One congressional authority I trust says our three or four task forces in the Pacific are separately the equal of the Jap navy. The change in cabinet may bring them out to fight, may cause a new sea offensive against us, but it is foredoomed, if we can muster a semblance of our power at the point of battle. Some think the Japs will try attack upon the Pacific coast to restore home prestige, or in some other sensational sensation-al way, attempt to cast off the yoke of defeat which is upon them. It cannot succeed. We have out-produced them, and when we can get our overwhelming power to bear at any point, they will be defeated. Any attack by them will probably bring the end sooner. The boys may be coming home before long. At the Chicago convention conven-tion I heard several officials predict both of our wars, in the east and west, would be over by September. The nature- of our enemies is such that this is really the crucial point of the war. They understand no language lan-guage of reason in their fanaticism. Indeed they proudly proclaim fanaticism, fanati-cism, which is a lack of reason and understanding. What we must look for next is a pause in the Russian marching to bring up communications lines. That they have gone as far and as fast as they have without stopping for this necessity is truly remarkable. But the pause is apt to be covered by a switch in Russian emphasis to the Lwow area. (The Nazis probably proba-bly have removed most of their men. ) In Normandy the same Nazi weakness weak-ness is evident. The slow fighting there lately has merely represented aur upbuilding of strength for t'ae push ahead. |