| Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne new violence in nazi aerial blitz aimed to cripple british shipping destroyer lanes across atlantic urged to replace hard hit convoys EDITORS NOTE when opinions are expressed in these columns column st they and not necessarily of this newspaper are re those of the news analyst released by western newspaper union t 4 S X go 4 e hailed by some experts as one of the really great military exploits of all time has been the sweep of the british forces against the italians in africa shown here with two of his aides is the british commanding general sir archibald wavell center general oconnor of the british forces is shown at left and alias general mackay at right real test of Wavel wavelle ls military genius would comeil come if his troops should clash with hillers Hit lers in the balkans AERIAL blitz grows nazi germany brought out its heaviest air blitzkrieg perhaps as a wor kup of an invasion attempt and the results were not too happy as far as the british defense was concerned the first three days of the main mai n attack were directed at london liverpool and bristol and while the damage was heavy and casualties correspondingly high british aerial leaders were jubilant over the fact that 30 german attackers were shot down and gave the credit to the night fighting air arm the antiaircraft batteries and a new weapon this latter it was later explained consisted of some sort of anti air craft craft shell which contained coils of wire wire which unwound when the shell exploded with lethal effect on enemy planes however later news was not so favorable the opening attack was followed by another terrific blast at bri bristol ri toll one at glasgow and a third at hull the first two cities in a single night reported around 1000 casualties ties and the blast at hull was reported to have been even more severe the british apparently figured that they might as well abandon any attempt to disguise the towns attacked at least in news dispatches at first I 1 they would simply designate the town as a northeast town or a town in the midlands or a I 1 southeast town and then within minutes the german releases would be out with the name of the city and what observers reported from there this british reticence continued up to and including all the attacks except that on hull in this case the morning dispatches said a southeastern port town but the afternoon papers were able to carry the story under a direct hull dateline it T was apparent that hillers Hit lers air airmen were not trying day attacks being satisfied with heavy night bombings in large force one after another they were try ing ng to knock various british provincial cities out of the picture charts were being printed showing it was costing hitler an estimated to kill each civilian slain in air bombing britain published her losses since the start of the war at the ominous character of the raids on bristol glasgow and hull were that although the german raiders came over in large numbers judging by the weight of bombs dropped in two nights the total british claims of bombers shot down was exactly two prior to this attack british commentators menta tors had been proudly saying an estimated 3 per cent of the bombers were being shot down and that if this figure could be raised to 10 then the german air force could not stand the strain those observers who saw in the heavy blitz from the air a prelude to an invasion attempt while they were numerous ranged all the way from any day advocates to one high japanese official who at mile distance blandly announced that the germans would land on british soil in a matter of hours CONVOY or lanes britain was sticking to the convoy system while american shipping e experts suggested abandoning it and substituting the lane protection system which seemed full of typical yankee ingenuity the great circle route about 2000 miles long according to this project was to be patrolled with at least 50 destroyers each of them given 50 miles to patrol 10 times a day that would mean that every 24 hours a destroyer would pass any given spot in the lane and with a constant lookout should be able to spot enemy submarines the plan would be putting 40 destroyers st on the lane with 10 allowed to be in port refueling and getting supplies advantages were these not only a better lookout and more warship strength for protection purposes but a much more efficient use of ships for under the convoy system if 40 ships are gathered together the speed of the fastest is the speed of the slowest the proposed traffic lane plan would permit the faster vessels to move at top speed from one side of the atlantic to the other permitting them to take many more loads in the long run they would sail from destroyer to desti destroyer oyer and it would be the batters lat duty to keep the lane clear of enemy raiders and the present great hazard of lumping 40 or 50 slow moving vessels together for far a mass target would be removed plan debated As an interesting background for this very question of convoys and how they ought to se b e conducted washington debated the statement of the committee to defend america by aiding the allies chief advocate of the lease lend bill urging that the U S provide guards for convoys the president conferring with the press dismissed the question saying there had been some reports to that effect but that he had paid no attention to them however in view of th the e committees action it was believed that the president was more mor e interested than he was willing to admit british authorities ties also it was learned were expecting the united states to do something along this line it was recalled that the british naval leaders had said that they had men enough on hand to man the entire U S navy if necessary and this was taken to mean that britain was prepared for a lease lend of more naval vessels there were two possible plans being discussed 1 the transfer of more destroyers and possibly cruisers to britain so they could be assigned to convoy service 2 an extension of the neutrality zone further into the north atlantic to keep the Nazi warships away further andor to permit U S naval vessels to patrol those areas and release the british ships for the more distant patrol duty the navy department transmitted to ship operators the news sent to the U S by churchill that nazi raiders and submarines were operating inside the forty second meridian of longitude some of which is within the present neutrality zone STRIKES hold attention nw V Y A ir 4 a here are some oj of the pickets which surrounded the harvill arvill fl aircraft die casting corporation plant early in the labor dispute there see below two strikes one big in volume I 1 and the other involving only men but holding a vast menace to plane building held the attention of those in charge of production management the big strike was at the construction project at wright field dayton ohio huge testing ground for army airplanes the strikers were refusing to negotiate saying 49 well go back to work as soon as they chase those other fellows nonunion members off this was a strike of the A F of L building trades unions of dayton it seemed to the public a picayune matter the work of thousands was being held up by A P F of L men who objected because an electrical subcontractor put 4 CIO men to work the contract of the electrical subcontractor c on was held up and the men went back to work the contract finally was reinstated and out went the men again there was tall talk at at this point of the government taking over the other strike was that of the harvill manufacturing company an organization headed by a 42 year old former soda jerker who invented a process for casting airplane parts from aluminum and magnesium light metals harville Harv ills plant employing only knales mak es parts for practically every big plane manufacturer on the pacific coast including such giants as boeing and lockheed douglas and vega and north american the men were asking raises from 50 to 75 cents an hour and the strike according to harvill himself was threatening plane factory shutdowns that would throw out of work and would jeopardize the construction of thousands of war planes this the workers denied saying that the factory was well ahead of the needs of the other plants here too the government and the defense administration were looking with an anxious eye wondering how far to go to break the walkout TURKEY green light the bulgar greek front continued to teeter on the brink of war and observers were interested to hear through grapevine channels that soviet russia had given turkey the green light to go ahead and defy germany whether this was wishful thinking or not many of those on the scene considered it was sound politics and even sounder diplomacy they harked back to the old statement which has been held to since the beginning of the war that rus sia sias Is long range policy would be that of a fisher in troubled waters that she would egg on the weaker party against the stronger particularly where this suited dussias Rus sias convenience and then step in for her own personal grab they pointed to the polish experience and the rumanian outcome as proof of this contention just as was tottering and about to be forced to sign a nazi pact after showing plainly that her sympathies were on the other side and just as the british had landed men in macedonia and thrace and were said to have more on the way and just as turkey was debating whether or not to toss in with england came the dispatches about dussias Rus sias attitude russia was soundly placed in this position the soviet is friendly with the bulgara Bul gars also with both by race and general sympathy and especially with bulgaria because of her location on the black sea russia had picked up half of poland a huge slice of rumania and was sitting with her legions ready to grab off the black sea coast of rumania if the slightest 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