Show weekly news analysis british greek retreating action inflicts heavy loss on nazis by edward C wayne EDITORS NOTE when OP opinions inions are re expressed in these columns they sic are those of the news analyst anil and not necessarily of this newspaper GREECE arid and britain backs to the wall with the swastika flying on historic mount olympus greeks and british fought side by side a continuing rear guard action which was costing the nazi forces dearly for each mile of t territory gained but which even the greeks and british believed could have only one finish ultimate defeat the germans were seeking this victory to give it to der fueher as a fifty second birthday present but this was denied them yet the latter days ot of the fighting were marked by a curious attitude on the part of the british press many of the papers calling for a withdrawal of the troops while the daily reports told of marvelous resistance of heavy toll from the attackers columns and long lines of prisoners and wounded in nazi uniforms pouring into athens generally speaking there was little if any bombing of the historic greek capital cradle of modern chiv P KOSTAS KOTZIAS he faced a difficult task filled with priceless relics of the days of pericles the germans claimed they were bombing athens not at all there were in fact small reports of damage much smaller than would have been the base case if bombing of the capital were a part of the german plan the first german success in thrace and macedonia was followed by a general and continued advance toward strategic points and culminated in a breakthrough break through which forced the abandonment of the mount olympus line and the entrance of the attackers into the vast plain the nazi tactic seemed to call tor for picking out one or two vital weak spots in the defenders positions and attacking these with furious pincers assaults exactly similar to the method used in the battle of france that they were not immediately successful in a larger measure was a tribute to two things the fight fighting mg qualities of british and greeks and the absence of panic jamme ways interfering with orderly military transport not repeated were the awful scenes of poland where the nazi tanks advanced to their triumphal entry into warsaw over the terrified and broken bodies of thousands of polish civilians men women and children and these also had been the scenes enacted in the low countries where the nazi panzer operators themselves were said to have been sickened as the caterpillar tractors ground noncom banta ants bodies into the pavements of the roads on which they swarmed in their forward march yet the outcome of the battle was hardly expected to be favorable to the defenders this was seen in the earliest statements of churchill himself in the continued demand that the british defenders take to their ships and escape while they might in the sudden suicide of alexandros korizis premier of greece who it was announced officially fici ally from athens took his own life in anguish at the failure of his count rys defense the tur turbulent bulen t character of the news caused this death to be reported as a mystery for nearly 48 hours with german sources claiming that the british had murdered K korizis is because he had wanted to surrender the greek army and other sources claiming that he was murdered by nazi agents who wanted his natural successor said to be more pro axis in his place but king george II 11 foiled any such plot if plot there was by taking the reins of government in his own hands and forming a military cabinet to take the place of that headed by korizis kostas kotzias was named vice premier and charged with the difficult task of forming the new cabinet in the midst of this gloomy outlook president roosevelt said that one of the dangers of the entire american setup for the national defense and aid to embattled democracies was that the people are not sufficiently aware of the serious character of the european war situation this condition the president said it will be his purpose to attempt to rectify though how he was to do it was not immediately apparent CONVOYS arid and mr tobey senator tobey of new hampshire got onto the front pages with a bang when he the original foe of convoying openly declared that he had bad been informed by certain persons whose anonymity he protected that the united states already was engaged in convoying aid to britain materials on atlantic waters this was immediately and categorically gori cally denied by two authorities these were secretary hull and admiral stark the administration rested on these denials and administration spokesmen said they certainly believed the public should believe the positive testimony of these two men rather than the unsupported and anonymous evidence presented by senator tobey however though this apparently spiked tobeys verbal guns senator nye stepped into the breach and took up the right fight and always in the background were senator wheeler and other isolationists to keep kick ing the administration anti will ball around wheelers slogan was that the public wanted to keep the country out of war but the gallup poll found that 27 per cent of the people were even willing to send part of the navy and part of the air force overseas right now though only 17 highlights in the news washington A movement has been started in 21 pan american republics to end the rule of fascism in spain HYDE PARK N T Y president R roosevelt oo sevelt and mackenzie king premier of canada met in an historic conference at hyde park to discuss matters vital to defense LONDON in a move to bring the dominions closer in touch with brit ains handling of the war prime minister churchill has called the empires leaders to london and probably will arrange for dominion participation in the war cabinet CARACAS VENEZUELA president contreras has given up the presidency voluntarily being the per cent were interested in sending part of the army but there seemed a definite dissatisfaction with the british convoy method that of sending 30 or 40 ships with a couple of small naval vessels as guard and no guard at all until the forty second parallel of latitude was reached the american method of parallel lines of naval vessels guarding the whole route and each ship moving A r A 0 K 4 SENATOR CHARLES W TOBEY front pages with a bang at its natural speed gained gaine d more favor yet how britain could spare the ships without more aid from the U S navy appeared the major problem and this brought the convoy q question u es popping up again and again gesture the sudden capitulation of the entire army after nine days of brave fighting against insuperable odds and under impossible conditions made of the serbian and slovene resistance simply a noble gesture that brought a sympathetic response from watchers on both sides of the atlantic maj george fielding eliot one military columnist said the jugo slav sacrifice was not in vain and pointed out the military advantages it gave to greece yet to the man in the street it had been a vain sacrifice they were unable to understand its benefits and all that emerged was the gesture of bravery of independence of hoping against hope that their autonomy their homes their nation and their freedom might be saved many expressed themselves puzzled that the yugoslav Jug nation should have resisted at all the picture of what ensued was brief but poignant for the ill prepared and ill equipped army found itself with overhead with panzer troops in front on the first person in 40 years so to do he is the successor of the late general gomez an election will be held to determine his successor during the interim he is continuing to act as Prep president ident schenectady the american locomotive company started delivering medium tanks and it was reported that the chrysler tank arsenal had finished its first 28 ton model and that mass production would start during the summer LONDON british troops in strong numbers landed at basra in in iraq and have taken control despite the coup by which premier rashid assumed the government ern ment it is believed in an axis maneuver flanks and even behind its lines the slow footed infantry and inadequate mechanized forces giving no time even tor for flight to the hills where the serbs gerbs and slovenes venes had hoped to conduct guerrilla warfare and prolong the struggle the surrender which followed as a matter of course was complete and put in nine days completely out of the war U S ARMY training the early contention of many army experts that america could not hope to train men in mode modern rn warfare in one calendar year starting with the raw civilian brought from many sources the word that it would be more than borne out now that the troops were proceeding into advanced training the army had now reached in numbers well past men and in this group were 27 infantry divisions alone these men it was said already had been given a good course in basic discipline and ordinary infantry training but even this was entirely preliminary to serious consideration of modern warfare and was not finished yet one american officer in the army journal criticized the war department for permitting delays in the training of troops it was said that there was a good deal of irritation expressed in high department quarters over the frank words of this officer one of the chief bottlenecks of course has been the lack of equipment of the newest types with which to train the men assuming that their basic course is soon finished but the article in the army journal and another in the cavalry journal commenting on the first revealed that our army is lagging in instruction on the use of flame throwers th rowers on defense against chemical warfare and in many other fields particularly as to modern combat A plan to cut the draft age down to 18 met early antagonism in congressional circles but that the administration had not abandoned the idea was seen in facts and figures later made public for instance the census bureau estimated that the lowering of the age limit would place more men the range of the selective service law but if the maximum age limits were lowered to 30 years more than would be taken out butof the laws scope it was said LONDON really blasted lest britain might think that hitler had moved all his air force into africa and the balkans the german started a terrific series of raids on london doing the british capital damage on such a large scale and causing so many casualties that accurate estimates were not obtainable a week later lord and lady stamp the former honored repeatedly in this country were killed removing an important figure from the government city block after city block was demolished hundreds and hundreds of persons were wiped out in underground shelters struck by direct hits the first raid lasted 10 hours the second hillers Hit lers birthday blitz was only slightly less severe britain came out of it with lon doners fighting mad walking a about ut the streets looking at the wreck wreckage oe demanding bomb berlin bomb berlin they scrawled these words with chalk on the sidewalks on the walls of torn buildings they chanted it in the canyons of their wrecked city the ti it A F had stormed berlin a few days before the first big raid and the raid itself had been a reprisal but the british forgot this and demanded more reprisals this the R A F did the following day the air ministry announcing that bombs of a larger caliber than ever used before had been dropped on the german capital german admissions of damage were small only 15 had lost their lives in the first raid berlin said and no casualties and minor damage was reported in the second how true this minimizing of the damage was no official report revealed but returning british airmen claimed the result of the reprisal waft koc the slamming attacks of the german air force continued all over the british isles with one foray over northern ireland with belfast h hard a rd hit the war at sea also was causing the british a heavy toll german claims running way past a quarter of a million tons a month and the british halt halting irig their usual practice of announcing the figures once a week and claiming that this was not a fair method of informing the public as to losses henceforth the ministry of information said the totals would be given out only monthly britain it was evident was a long way from meeting the U boat batt n ace and soon would be f facing ac ig ol 01 S rious crisis in the sea battle b v STRIKES hand there was much evidence that president roosevelt was about to call for a hand in the strike poker game especially since the about to be settled coal strike was slow in settling this appeared to be an impasse not of strikers but rather of mine management and operators for the northern and southern operators could not agree and the demanded agreement first the decision of the president to intervene appeared based on a report that steel production had been curtailed from to 95 per cent of capacity because of the coal shortage the white house felt that if the soft coal strike already was affecting this primary and vital defense industry indications were that he might take an early hand in the strike himself and rush it to settlement tl even at that steel men said the reopening of the mines would be followed by a continued shortening of steel production until the newly mined coal could find itself into the steel furnaces and ovens military medal 7 J k M X AA I 1 Z LONDON ENGLAND corporal harold sims gran k son of admiral william S sims commander of the V U S navy in the world war is shown leaving buckingham palace after he had been decorated avith the military medal by y king I 1 ing george released by western newspaper union |