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Show , WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS . Major Battles Shape As Enemy Attempts to Hold Philippines; Shake Nazis Grip on Holland I Releaied by Western Newspaper Union. 1 (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are cxpreated In these column, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news Analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) With superfortresses operating from China (1) and U. S. carrier forces ranging in Philippine waters (2), important Jap supply line indicated in-dicated by heavy broken arrow is threatened. Smaller arrows mark ports through which enemy moves material for shipment to homeland to keep war effort going and to supply his troops operating in the far-flung Asiatic theater. EUROPE: Holland Battleground While U. S. forces continued to hit the Germans hard on the central and southern sectors of the 460 mile western front, Canadian and British troops were pressed to clear the Nazis from southwestern Holland and open up the big port of Antwerp for Allied military traffic. Bitterest fighting in Holland centered cen-tered about the mouth of the Schelde river, which leads to Antwerp. Here, the enemy occupied two strategical positions, one along the south bank of the Schelde, the other on the islands is-lands blocking the entrance to the waterway. As long as the enemy could hold these positions, so long could he train his big guns on Allied ships trying to move down the Schelde to Antwerp, to unload the vital materials materi-als needed by the British forces for their drive around Kleve, at the northern gateway to the industrial Ruhr valley. Overcoming bitter German resistance, resist-ance, the Canadians gradually wore down the Nazis on the south bank of the Schelde, while Allied bombers As U. S. tank lurks in background, Doughboys lift fallen buddy during street fighting in Aachen. joined in the attack on enemy emplacements em-placements on the islands, partially flooded from ruptured dikes. While the Canadians slowly narrowed nar-rowed the German pocket south of the Schelde, the British 2nd army opened a drive to the northeast in an attempt to smash through Nazi lines, race to the sea and cut off the enemy from the rear. On the central sector of the western west-ern front, Lieut. Gen. George S. Pat-ton's Pat-ton's 3rd army pushed to the south of the ring of forts guarding the city of Metz, key to the coal-laden Saar basin, while on the southern , end of the battle-line, Lieut. Gen. Alexander Patch's 7th army pushed onward against strong prepared enemy en-emy positions on the slopes of the Vosges mountains, blocking entrance en-trance to Bavaria. East of fallen Aachen, Lieut. Gen. Courtney Hodges 1st army girded for a smash at the Rhineland. 25 miles distant. Drive Into East Prussia In East Prussia, powerful Russian forces massed along an 87 mile front chewed deep jnto the northern and eastern regions of the province, prov-ince, home of the notorious German military Junkers. As the Germans fell back before the concentrated might of the Red army, they sought to hold up their lines in the wooded lake country, which von Hindenburg had successfully success-fully defended against Russian troops in World War I. Forced to bring powerful forces into play to guard the southern gateway gate-way to Austria, the Germans slowed the Russian steamroller through Hungary as the Reds smashed within with-in 50 miles of Budapest. News Briefs . . . One billion dollars In fuel could be saved each year in the existing dwellings of the United States, according ac-cording to an estimate in the Bu-I Bu-I reau of Mines Information Circular. Such measures include caulking of cracks and other openings with modern mod-ern caulking compounds, insulation, storm windows, weatherstrips, and j other means. I ! Southern coastal waters support a i greater variety of fish and shellfish than elsewhere in the U. S. PACIFIC: Major Battle After bitter, but minor, battles in the Japs' Pacific outposts, a major engagement shaped in the Philippines, Philip-pines, with the enemy throwing in strong aerial and naval forces to back up his ground troops resisting the U. S. invasion of the islands. Principal land fighting centered on Leyte island, where General Mac-Arthur's Mac-Arthur's forces overran three airfields air-fields and sought to bottle up the enemy in the broad Leyte valley lying inland from the coast. Japanese resistance was ferocious as doughboys, paced by medium tanks, worked through the heavy underbrush un-derbrush to strike into the southern part of the valley at San Pablo, while others repulsed -enemy counterattacks coun-terattacks farther north to push into the valley beyond Palo. Having routed the Japs from the principal port of Tacloban in the northeastern section of the island, doughboys fought their way up the coast along the San Juanico straits, and reportedly jumped the narrow waters to land on the big island of Samar. As doughboys -battered forward through the heat and mire on Leyte, important sea battles developed, with U. S. carrier planes taking a heavy toll of Japanese warships seeking to move in western Philippine Philip-pine waters to bombard American land positions. In an effort to disrupt dis-rupt reinforcements, the Japs sent squads of bombers after units of the huge convoy supplying MacArthur's liberating troops. CIVILIAN GOODS: Allot Production Nearly 800 plants with available facilities and manpower have been authorized to manufacture $152,441,-000 $152,441,-000 of civilian goods within the next year, the War Production board announced an-nounced Included in the list of articles to be produced are automotive parts, building materials, plumbing plumb-ing and heating Items, harvesting harvest-ing machinery, innersprlng mattresses, mat-tresses, vacuum cleaners, household aluminum, lawn mowers, mow-ers, electric irons, bicycles, silverware, sil-verware, furniture, electric lamps and church supplies. Use of 44,270 tons of carbon steel, 512 tons of alloy steel, 902,154 pounds of brass mill products, 140,379 pounds of wire mill products, 450,148 pounds of foundry products, and 17,-395,563 17,-395,563 pounds of aluminum has been approved for the output cov ered by the report Textile Control Primarily because of short production, pro-duction, WPB will have, to maintain textile controls after the defeat of Germany, Chairman J. A. Krug announced. an-nounced. Due principally to manpower man-power difficulties, cotton textile output out-put slumped from 11,200.000.000 yards in 1942 to an estimated 9,900,-000.000 9,900,-000.000 yards this year. At the same time, Krug revealed, already lowered inventories of rationed ra-tioned shoes will be further depleted with production down 73.000.000 pairs from estimated needs of 349,-000.000. 349,-000.000. In an order relating to domestic cooking appliances and heating stoves. WPB permitted manufacture of oven thermostats and burner valves. Island Paradise With a population of nearly 17.-000,000. 17.-000,000. the Philippines consist of more than 7.000 Islands, big and little, lit-tle, says the National Geographic society. In alL the area amounts to more than 115,000 square miles a tropical trop-ical spread of luxuriant vegetation and extensive forests, with mountains moun-tains (many of them active volcanoes) vol-canoes) reaching up some 9,000 feet, above the surrounding countryside. FRANCE: Recognize De Gaulle Long the bearer of the banner of the "Free French," General Charles De Gaulle's provisional government was recognized as the proper ruling authority in liberated France, with full power behind the immediate battle-lines. Effect of the Allies' action was to strengthen the tall, still general's hand in dealing with the country's batch of political groups, which previously pre-viously had been holding out in the hope of attracting recognition in liberated France's affairs. Upon announcement of the Allies' move, the U. S. undertook to permit per-mit the travel of necessary business or professional personnel to France; unfreeze 1 billion dollars of French assets in this country to supply funds for trade, etc. Purge Collaborationists The scene in Paris' court of Justice Jus-tice trying French collaborators could have been torn from the page of a story book. Wearing a scarlet robe with a white ermine collar, Judge Auguste Ledoux sat on the bench, flanked by six jurors. Bailiffs wore frock coats and white ties and police were attired at-tired in black jackets, blue pants and red caps. Unkempt and nervous, ex-collaborationist Editor Georges Suarez stood before the bench to hear Judge Ledoux pronounce the death sentence sen-tence for contact with the enemy. Suarez's lawyer had argued that since France had concluded an armistice arm-istice with Germany, the two countries coun-tries no longer were at war, hence could not be foes. As Suarez was led away, 1,500 other oth-er collaborationists in the Paris area awaited trial. Campaign Platform Heated issue as the presidential campaign swung into its closing phases was handling of foreign affairs. af-fairs. Said Candidate Roosevelt: "I will not say to you now, or ever, that we of my party V7?7 "'.rT7- know all the an-firff an-firff swers. I am certain, ifcSl for mvself. hat 1 T' ' d nt know how all S the unforeseeable V difficulties can be I met. What I can say P-r, to you is this that iKXv;1 1 nave unlimited i' ;;l;?;4f'1 faith that the jb " 1 can be done. And FDR that faith is based on knowledge gained in the arduous, .practical and continuing experience of these past eventful years ..." Said Candidate Dewey: "To hear (some people) talk, you would think that the United States had never ty shown any compe- 00ify tence in foreign re- l$&r'$-h lations . . , The V:''V names of Blaine r and Hay and Root. pr. : . of Hughes, Kellogg fjfV - , and Stimson . . . fajS, V are linked to such ' achievements as the fy0yfy &-i good neighbor pol- , .. icy, the open door Gov. Dewey for China, the Hague peace conference, the disarmament dis-armament conference, the pact of Paris to outlaw war, the World Court, the policy of nonrecognition of (conquest) . . . Every one of these great secretaries of state . . . was a Republican . . ." CROP LOSS: Hurricane's Toll As it swirled through Cuba ant. Florida, the recent hurricane not only took a heavy toll of life and property, but also severely damaged the citrus fruit and sugar crops. Between 50 and 75 per cent of the grapefruit and 20 to 30 per cent of the orange crops were blown from Florida trees, observers estimated, and directors of the state's Citrus exchange requested an immediate boost in price ceilings. In addition to the destruction of enough cane to yield approximately 200,000 tons of sugar, machinery and warehouses of several refiners were buffeted by the hurricane in Cuba. G.I.JOE: Challenge Pickets Rallying at 12th and Baltimore streets in Kansas City, U. S. soldiers, sol-diers, including beribboned overseas vets, challenged union pickets twice within three days. On the first occasion, 75 servicemen service-men stalked to the North American Aviation company's bomber plant where 2,000 employees had struck over protest of a transfer to another anoth-er department and angrily tore up three CIO pickets' placards and broke their sticks. Two days later, another group of soldiers approached an elderly AFL picket protesting over the, employment employ-ment of non-union painters in the decoration of a liquor store, and removed re-moved a small American flag aton his placard. CUTBACKS With many cutbacks of war contracts con-tracts representing cancellations of future increases, or reductions of manufacturers' goals to attainable levels, only 85.000 workers have been displaced by the terminations, the War Production board reported. In four months, large cancellations amounted to about $930,000,000. Because of the continuing expansion expan-sion in many war programs, however, how-ever, both manufacturers and employees em-ployees have been in a position t obtain other work. |