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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Federal Agents Foil Sabotage Plot With Capture of Nazi Spies in East; Rommel Forces Drive Toward Suez; Germany Opens New Russian Front (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily ot this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union. PRODUCTION: Silence Broken America's strict seal of wartime silence on production of materials for fighting the war was broken by President Roosevelt when he disclosed dis-closed figures which as he put it, would not give "aid and comfort" to the enemy. In fact, these production figures would likely have the opposite effect ef-fect according to most Washington observers, for it was revealed that in May, U. S. factories produced nearly 4,000 planes, 1,500 tanks, 2,000 artillery and anti-tank guns, 50,000 machine guns and about 50,000 sub-machine guns. The White House announcement of these figures came at the close of the Churchill-Roosevelt conferences and indicated that the strategy of the war had progressed to a point where a definite plan was develop-, ing. This meant the problem now resolved itself into providing a method for getting these huge supplies sup-plies being turned out in the U. S. to the second front; how to continue con-tinue the flow of supplies to Russia and how to even still more speed up the output of American machines. f I tUHS-N SlSSillHlHk. EGYPT The long, solid black line shows the course of Nazi Field Marshal Rommel's African army in its drive toward Alexandria and the Suez canal. The doited line, beginning at a point beyond Tobruk, shows the coastal route toward the canal, which connects the Mediterranean with the Red sea. The short, dotted line from Crete shows the short distance that need be flown to launch a Nazi air attack. The dotted line, starting from the swastika at the left, shows a possible German encircling move from Greece through Palestine then back to meet the Rommel arm of the drive. CCC: Lease on Life In a dramatic move, Vice President Presi-dent Henry A. Wallace came to the aid of the Civilian Conservation corps and with his vote broke a senate sen-ate tie to give at least a temporary lease on life to the seemingly doomed CCC. By a vote of 32 to 32, the senate approved an appropriation of $76,-529,800 $76,-529,800 for CCC financing during the 1943 fiscal year. Previously the house had voted to liquidate the agency, one of the earliest New Deal ventures. House-senate differences will have to be ironed out in conference on the bill appropriating $1,157,498,426 for the labor department, Federal Security administration and related agencies. This bill contains CCC funds. The senate was tense as the roll call vote was taken on the CCC issue. is-sue. The first call showed that 28 members favored continuation of the CCC; 24 members were opposed. op-posed. The vote emerged 32 to 32 in a recapitulation. Then, from the chair, Vice President Wallace announced an-nounced that the vote was a tie, and added: "The chair votes in the affirmative." affirma-tive." JAP SETBACK: In China Linhsien, a major Japanese base in the Honan-Shansi border j area west of the Feiping-Hankow I railway, has been recaptured by j Chinese troops, dispatches revealed. ; A total of 5,500 Japs were killed in 13 days of combat, the dispatches added. The recapture of Lmhsien came as good news to Russia. Chinese observers were convinced that the Japanese operations in this north China area were a prelude to a surprise attack on Siberia. The day following the recapture of Lmhsien was marked by a counteroffensive against the city. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops beat off ROMMEL IN EGYPT: Fluid Fighting In the battle for Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, director of the Axis drive toward Suez, struck at the British eighth army with the full weight of three armored divisions divi-sions backed by artillery and infantry. infan-try. The first major British stand in Egypt, 15 miles west of Matruh, was by-passed early by mechanized units. The Nazi high command announced an-nounced in a special communique the "storming" of Matruh. The Axis striking force was aimed at Alexandria, Alexan-dria, 165 miles away, and the Suez canal beyond. Seriousness of the situation sit-uation was evidenced by the fact that Nazi and Italian forces were within 150 miles of the fertile Nile valley, where 98 per cent of Egyptians live. The British communique stated that "Enemy forces which have bypassed by-passed our position west of Matruh were met by our battle troops. Some of our armored forces attacked enemy forces west of Matruh." An Italian communique said the Axis army had reached a position on the coast road about 19 miles beyond Matruh and that several hundred hun-dred prisoners were captured. OFFICIAL SCORE: In Battle of Midivay SABOTEURS: Major Failure A dramatic story of attempted Nazi sabotage in the United States was unfolded by FBI agents who rounded up eight master saboteurs sabo-teurs trained by Nazi experts and landed by rubber boats from two submarines at Amagansett beach, Long Island, and Ponte Vedra beach, Fla. The four Germans who landed at Amagansett beach rowed ashore in the early hours of the morning after the submarine had crept within 500 yards of the beach. From caches In the beach sands, FBI men recovered recov-ered huge stores of powerful explosives explo-sives buried by the men when they landed. Approximately $170,000 in American currency was carried by the Nazi agents to pay accomplices. Objectives assigned to the men included in-cluded the bombing of Hell Gate railroad bridge, the bombing of all bridge approaches to New York city, bombing of the New York water wa-ter supply lines and the blasting of other vital objectives. Each of the agents was provided with many types of forged credentials, creden-tials, including social security cards and selective service cards. Their traveling bags were equipped with secret compartments for money and documents. A sequel to the story came with the arrest of several accomplices of the eight men, some of whom are regarded as associates of the Nazi agents who may have intended to take part in the sabotage effort. Two of the accomplices were arrested in Chicago. Official score of the Midway battle bat-tle has been announced by the navy department and the results were more heartening than had been previously pre-viously supposed. At least 10 Japanese ships were sunk, including four aircraft carriers, car-riers, and at least eight others were damaged. Sunk in addition to the carriers were two 8,500 ton cruisers, three destroyers, and one or more transport or cargo vessels. Probably Prob-ably sunk was a fourth destroyer. Damaged were two and probably three battleships, three or more heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and three transport or cargo ships. All the aircraft about the four Japanese cruisers, totaling about 275 planes, and all the aerial forces were lost, the communique said. American losses were reported earlier. They included an aircraft carrier damaged, a destroyer sunk and some American planes lost SUGAR RATIONS: May Be Upped A moderate increase in sugar rations ra-tions possibly half a pound per coupon has been hinted by officials of the Office of Price Administration. Administra-tion. A survey of sugar stocks in the United States shows that the supply in the hands of consumers is 50 per cent less than a year ago. Stocks held by primary distributors are 20 per cent below 1941 and total sugar stock on hand is one-third less than at this time last year. Final decision on the ration increase in-crease depends largely upon prospects pros-pects of sugar shipments from Puerto Puer-to Rico and Cuba during the next six months. In addition, the decision deci-sion will hinge on information which is becoming available on actual distribution dis-tribution under the rationing system. sys-tem. "The real question," one official said, "is how much sugar is going to be brought in from the Caribbean area." NEW OFFENSIVE: In Russia German troops opened a third summer front with a new offensive near Kursk, 120 miles north of Kharkov and 280 miles south of Moscow. The drive was opened even as more and more Nazi troops were poured against Russian defenses de-fenses in the Kharkov and Sevastopol Sevasto-pol battles. A Soviet communique said that . .in the Kursk direction, fighting fight-ing commenced against the German troops who had gone over to the offensive." of-fensive." The Nazi drive was launched from entrenchments which they had held through the great Russian counteroffensive of last winter win-ter and spring. Kursk is located on the Moscow-Crimean Moscow-Crimean railroad in an agricultural area just north of the Ukraine. On an almost-straight fine with Kharkov and Moscow, it was important for its anti-tank gun works, artificial arti-ficial rubber factory and cartridge plant. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko announced an-nounced the stemming of a German advance east of Kupyanks, then launched a counterattack on one key sector and pushed westward. German dispatches announced that operations on the Kharkov front were successfully concluded, but Russian communiques said the Red army was counterattacking successfully success-fully in several areas. A German break-through east of Kursk would threaten vital Russian communications and might bring Soviet forces in the Kharkov sector within reach of an encirclement movement from the north. CHIANG KAI-SHEK Good news for Russia. the attack, chasing the Japanese into mountainous regions where the Japs "face imminent annihilation." A Chinese communique said that Chinese troops had recaptured Lin-ping Lin-ping in the southern region of the Kianksi-Hunan border front. SECOND FRONT: And Russian Hopes Russia's fears that a second front may fail to realization were allayed by Foreign Commissar V. M. Mo-lotov Mo-lotov who reported complete agreement agree-ment between Washington and London Lon-don on a United Nations offensive in the west The joint statement issued by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill was hailed as proof of the approaching Allied offensive. U. S. POWER: In Europe One of the most important angles of the 1.000 plane raid by the British Royal Air force on Bremen, German Ger-man submarine and shipbuilding base, was the first official admission admis-sion that U. S.-made aircraft took part in the main operations of a bombing raid of this scale. These planes were reported to be Lock-heed-Hudsons, usually used to hunt subs on the high seas and not in their bases. j |
