Vichy, France (UP) –
The newspaper Paris Soir asserted today that Japan has engaged 84 of the 200 Army divisions it can mobilize.
Thirty divisions are in China, it said, 16 in Manchukuo, 26 in Malaya, seven in the Philippines and five in Borneo.
Those not yet thrown into the war, it added, are being held for wherever necessary – “against Russia in Siberia, against Alaska or the Aleutian Islands, against Panama or the American mainland.”
Silence indicates absence of further attacks by Japanese
Washington (UP) –
The United States today appeared to have won at least the initial round of the battle to keep Midway Island out of the hands of the Japanese.
Three weeks ago today was the last time the tiny island was mentioned in official U.S. communiqués. The last actual fighting was reported in a Navy communiqué four weeks ago tomorrow.
The silence indicated an absence of further Japanese attacks.
Midway, 1,500 miles west of Honolulu and considered by geographers as the easternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, is probably garrisoned by the twin of the Marine detachment which wrote a new chapter of American gallantry at Wake.
Japs seen blasted
But unlike the Wake garrison, which was forced to fight a heroic but losing 14-day battle without reinforcements, the Midway Island forces appear to have defeated the first Japanese efforts to blast them from their sandy stronghold.
On Dec. 22, three days before Christmas – at the peak of the battle of Wake – the Navy issued its last word on Midway:
There has been no enemy activity in the vicinity of Midway Island recently.
On Dec. 16, the Navy reported the last actual fighting in a communiqué that said Midway was “countering the blows of the enemy.”
There have been no official revelations of how the Japanese attack was beaten off. But because of Midway’s comparative closeness to U.S. air and naval support at Hawaii, it seemed possible that the reinforcements which time and distance denied to Wake were possible in the case of Midway.
Comprises 2 islands
Midway comprises two small islands and several sand bars surrounded by a coral reef. Administratively, they are part of the city of Honolulu. The largest of the islands is only 850 acres large. It is only 43 feet above sea level at his highest point. Its name, Sand Island, aptly describes it. Eastern Island, the second of the group, is less than half the size of Sand Island.
Midway’s defenses are presumably about the same as those at Wake. Midway has a naval air station, a cable station and little else.
Strength not given
There has never been any official statement of what forces are defending Midway. But it is likely that they are comparable to the Wake garrison which numbered 13 Marine officers and 365 men plus a medical detachment of seven men. Wake also had 1,000 civilians engaged in construction projects.
The Wake defense included 12 fighter planes, eight of which were destroyed by the Japanese in the opening days of the battle, six five-inch guns, 12 three-inch anti-aircraft guns and a few machine guns and smaller weapons.
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
The feminine world is stirred by the uniform question. Some folks want ‘em, some don’t. The soldier boys, being polled, seem confused on the issue, but at this writing, it looks like we’ll be wearing brass buttons before spring.
And in my opinion – which, by the way, is none too good on military matters – the thing will be a flop and a waste. Let’s consider, first, the peculiar nature of women in their attitude toward clothes. Did you ever meet one who was happy in the same style she wore six months before? Certainly not in the USA for our women are conditioned to quick fashion changes. They dote on variety. Their very morale would be imperiled by orders to stick to one model for the duration.
Next, take the soldiers. No matter what they may say now, in their burst of patriotic fervor, they want their women to look like women, especially during a war.
There’s still another factor to be considered before the matter can be settled – public sensibilities. And, folks, I leave it to you: What good will come of regimenting feminine fashions so that women of every age and every architectural mold will have to wear the same cut of dress?
Let your imagination loose. Uniforms are becoming to girls with a Betty Grable figure, but if we make this thing general, it will mean that women of grand-piano proportions, as well as the beanpole types, must appear in snug-fitting, straight-up-and-down garments.
The result would be awful. Besides, we’ve done pretty good work in other lines without such regimentation. I think we can help win a war without going into uniforms.
Lady gets her man named Lou into nasty plot
By Si Steinhauser
It wasn’t the “shooting of Dan McGrew” and the lady wasn’t known as Lou. But her husband was. Now go on and read about the wonders of love and how it got a good guy mixed up in a nasty story.
Adelaide Klein, star of radio’s “Meet Mr. Meek,” is the lead in the Broadway play, “Brooklyn, U.S.A.”, a Murder, Inc., story. In the play she is supposed to be in love with a bad guy named “Max” and in rehearsal always called him “Lou.” Authors John Bright and Asa Borges screamed, “Listen, Addie, the guy’s name is Max. M-A-X. What is this Lou stuff?”
She promised to “reform” but, when the play was premiered called him “Lou.” Backstage after the opening the authors rushed into her room to add a new victim to “Murder, Inc.” and there found Miss Klein who smiled sweetly and said, “Boys, this is my husband, Lou Weddels.” So now “Max” doesn’t live there anymore. The guy Lou she’s in love with “rubbed him out” and she ain’t foolin’ about her love as Bing Crosby would say in his best Thursday night English.
One of our fellow radio scribes originated “Me, Incorporated,” and once in a while speaks his personal likes and dislikes about radio and its personalities under that heading. We borrow “Me, Inc.” for today to talk about so-called news commentators.
For one thing, Mr. Cal Tinney – in our one man opinion – is making an unsuccessful effort to replace Will Rogers in the minds and affection of American listeners. Assuming the role of a super-patriot, he is more likely to hinder than help loyal causes by some of his inferences. We don’t favor gagging free speech but we feel that the Mutual Network should tell Mr. Tinney to pull his ears in before listeners pull theirs in and give him the air.
A favorite news broadcaster of ours is Gabriel Heatter. We admire him greatly because he is a humanitarian. It’s a grand thing to hear a national figure take time out to remind listeners to feed birds and animals deprived of their source of food by winter snows.
But if Mr. Heatter were just a little less optimistic with the news we think his services to listeners would be perfect. We realize that he has a boy in the service and that, he, like millions of other parents, wants to look hopefully and cheerfully into the future.
But why try to make good news out of bad? Americans can take it.
To those newscasters who really give the news, applause, and to those who editorialize to make it sound good – how do you spell “the bird”?
We could go on and gripe about songs with double meaning, offensive people on the air and the hike, but we’ll take Will Rogers’ (not Cal Tinney’s) tip and just twist the dial and not listen to them.
The Pittsburgh Chapter of the Institute of Radio Engineers will meet at Mellon Institute tonight, with James B. Rock, general manager, and Dwight Myer, chief engineer of KDKA, as speakers.
Isabel Randolph, “Mrs. Abigail Uppington” of the Fibber McGee Show, is celebrating her fifth year with Fibber and Molly this week.
Charles Boyer ought to do a good job as “Lafayette” on tonight’s Cavalcade of America.
Charley Correll (Andy of Amos ‘n’ Andy) and the rest of the radio-screen aviation enthusiasts have hung up their private planes now that Uncle Sam has decreed no private flights within 150 miles of the Pacific coast. Correll was radio’s pioneer private plane owner and pilot.
Pittsburgh’s Margaret Daum is scheduled as guest soloist of “For America We Sing” one week from tonight with Frank Black conducting. Kenny Baker was listed for tonight but will be replaced by Kenneth Schon. The program is a Treasury Department affair.
Did you know that Margo the actress who sings on Cugat’s program is the maestro’s niece?
Ronald Colman, our favorite radio voice, will star in Charlies Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities” on tonight’s Radio Theater.
Janet Gaynor will be Herbert Marshall’s guest on KQV at 7 o’clock.
Betty Denning, a Texas beauty, has succeeded Dorothy Lamour as Mrs. Herbie Kay. The maestro and his new mate are in Cleveland during a hotel engagement there.
Fredric March will clown with Eddie Cantor on Wednesday night.
And Lou Holtz with Kate Smith on Friday.
Huge supply available, but hoarding makes pinch for some buyers
By John W. Love, Scripps-Howard staff writer
WASHINGTON – Growing nervousness among consumers, and the trouble dealers are having in their own informal rationing of sugar, may lead to unexpectedly broad government measures for conserving essential commodities.
Although enough sugar is in sight to supply the country almost indefinitely, grocers are putting their customers on two-pound and five-pound allowances. Some retailers of soft drinks in Washington, Pittsburgh and elsewhere find themselves unable to buy all they can sell.
One business forecasting service has told its clients that rationing of sugar is on the way. Officials of the Agriculture Department say the possibility of a shortage is remote.
Different from 1918
No authority here believes a scarcity of sugar could possibly approach in severity the squeeze of 1918 to 1920. At that time, France and Italy were big buyers, the American sugar industry was far smaller, and we began war without a surplus.
Consumer overbuying of sugar is more than a year old and has been increasing since Pearl Harbor, evidently due to the public’s knowledge that about 30 percent of it ordinarily comes from the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands.
The “scare” buying is like that which spread through many commodities spectacularly in silk stockings and for a few days in tires, but now continuously in a wide range of products. The general movement is being watched carefully here but no definite plans seem to be afoot to check it.
Shopper raids noted
Sporadic raids by shoppers have been noted in pineapple juice. The hoarding of canned goods in general is almost as old as that of sugar.
Within a week, Leon Henderson of OPA has had to allay fears for storage battery supplies and spark plugs and to issue a statement that private autos would not be sequestered for their tires.
Evacuee and son hid under mattress two hours in Jap attack
By June Greene
Special to the Pittsburgh Press
NEWPORT NEWS, Virginia – For two hours Mrs. Wilson F. Moul and six-year-old Gail had been lying under the mattress.
Window glass still was flying about as Japanese planes zoomed over Hickam Field, Honolulu, and raked the place with machine guns. The thud of explosions echoed and re-echoed.
Finally an eerie quiet settled over the field and the officers’ quarters.
Little Gail fidgeted beneath the mattress which had been laid across two chairs as a canopy and glanced at his mother.
Watched ‘air show’
“Will there be Sunday school today?” he asked seriously.
“I don’t know, dear,” his mother replied. “I don’t know.”
It was just about 8 a.m. on December 7 when the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor and surrounding airfields, Mrs. Moul explained here today.
“Like many of the Army wives, I was washing Sunday breakfast dishes,” she said. “My husband asked if I had ever seen the Navy on maneuvers drop bombs. I joined several women to watch the show. I could see clouds of smoke and heard someone say he thought there was an earthquake.”
Saw ‘rising sun’
But a moment later, Mrs. Moul said, all conjecture about whether it was an earthquake or the Navy on maneuvers ended. For on the side of one of the planes, someone had spotted the rising-sun insignia of Japan.
Mrs. Moul’s husband reported to his station immediately, while she and her son lay under the improvised mattress shelter.
“I had started to pray,” she said, “but then I got so angry I felt like swearing at them.”
Evacuation order
When the lull in bombing came, all women and children were evacuated to the hills, Mrs. Moul said.
“We had been told to take only a few possessions. All I could think of was Gail and of course, worry about my husband at the field. Jewelry, money, house furnishings meant nothing.”
For a week they stayed in the hills or in civilian homes, always on the alert and ready to flee.
For three days Mrs. Moul was unable to get word to or from her husband. Meanwhile, he was searching for her.
Husband promoted
“He visited churches, schools and public buildings where people were being housed and finally, we found each other,” she said. “I had been numb with worry and fear for him.”
Today, Mrs. Moul and her son are at her parents’ home, Newport News, Virginia. Her husband remained at Hickam Field, where they had lived for two years. She has learned that he has been promoted in rank from master sergeant to a second lieutenant.
By Ernie Pyle
ALBUQUERQUE – What, pray tell me, have I wrought now? Lord have pity on my poor sinful soul; I must have been thinking about something else at the time.
For I have bought a Great Dane!
The whole thing is still a little vague to me, it all happened so suddenly. But as far as I can remember, it went like this.
That Girl was delighted and agog over the toy shepherd I brought from Washington. But I still had in mind getting her a Great Dane some day.
We talked casually about it, and she said yes she’d like a Great Dane, too, but perhaps two dogs all of a sudden would be too much for her, so she’d rather wait a while for the Dane.
But since I’m going to be gone a long time, I thought it would be smart to look at a Dane and sort of get things lined up, in case she wanted it while I was away.
So we drove out to a kennel here in Albuquerque. When we stopped the car, a monstrous beast stuck its gigantic head in the car window and almost scared us to death. It was just one of several colossal animals running around the place – all Danes. They set up such a fiendish baying that it sounded as though the Hound of the Baskervilles were entertaining at a murder party.
Well, we plugged our ears and looked around. We were rather struck by a seven-months-old puppy which was already waist-high and weighed 100 pounds. It was brindle-colored and striped like a tiger. Its face was a million years old and you couldn’t help but laugh when he looked at you. And the damn dog kept leaning against me all the time.
Good theory doesn’t work
I suppose it was that leaning as much as anything else that caused mv destruction. All of a sudden I knew the jig was up. I looked at That Girl and saw that her jig was up, too. So I just turned my head to the sky, bayed loud and long, and whipped out the old checkbook.
We did keep our heads enough, however, to make the purchase on the basis that the kennel people would keep the dog for two more months, and during that time they would housebreak it and train it.
The theory was excellent. I still think it was a fine arrangement. There was nothing at all wrong with the plan. Except that we didn’t keep it.
For the following day was warm and sunshiny and we had nothing especial to do, so we said, “Let’s get the Dane and bring him out for just an hour or two.”
The kennel people said that would be all right, so we brought him out to the house. We turned him loose in the big south lot with the picket fence around it. The little toy shepherd was there, too. A furious sniffing took place between Mr. Big and Miss Little. And all of a sudden they became friends. And also all of a sudden we knew we weren’t going to take the big dog back to the kennel – ever.
Miss Little leads Mr. Big
So now we have two dogs. The little one is named Cheetah. The big one Piper. The little one can walk night under the big one, with six inches to spare. Yet already she leads him around by the nose.
The two dogs are wonderful for each other. They walk everywhere side by side, like two soldiers. When we came out the door they were standing there at attention with their ears cocked, one so ghastly big, one so dollishly tiny.
Now Mr. Big has condescended to play and leap a little with Cheetah. He is so immense that he leaps exactly like an elephant.
That Girl is horrified and riotously delighted with her strange new team. Already she is starting to get sore at people who see our dogs for the first time and don’t go into ecstasies over them.
There is a lot of jealousy floating around our house. Each dog is jealous of the other one; That Girl is jealous of me because the dogs follow me; and I’m jealous of her because the dogs are hers.
And right now I’m facing a choice between two awful alternatives. I can’t bear to leave these creatures; and yet I don’t dare stay. For the brutes between the eat six pounds a day, so I’ve got to get back on the road in order to support them.
By Westbrook Pegler
WASHINGTON – Something is cooking in the Senate Judiciary Committee and, judged by the smell, is it something that ain’t quite fresh.
Senators Ellender and Overton of Louisiana are trying to put over as Federal district attorney in New Orleans another member of their low political mob. He is Herbert Christenberry and, if confirmed, he would be in a position to ease up or bear down on still other members of the old Huey Long gang in the prosecution of indictments pending and the investigation and punishment of much other unfinished crooked business.
Overton was elected by a fraud perpetrated by the mob but insists that he was so dumb that he didn’t know the fraud was operating. Ellender was Huey Long’s yes-man when he served as speaker of the lower house of the legislature.
They are typical Long politicians and it would be a tweedle-dum judgment to say that either is worse than the other. Nevertheless, as senators, they have the right to select the sort of politicians they inevitably would select, meaning their own kind, to sit on the Federal bench and handle grand juries and prosecutions.
Christenberry’s nomination was sent to a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a delegation of young Louisiana Citizens came up to present objections to his confirmation.
Senators bulldoze objectors
In an earlier case, Ellender and Overton put in Gaston Porterie, Long’s old attorney-general in the foul dictatorship, for Federal judge and a subcommittee quietly okayed him and the Senate confirmed him in the dark of the moon, stealthy trick on the people but over and done with before anyone knew about it.
Saturday. Sam Ballard. a young man from Ellender’s home town of Houma, La.; James L. Morrison, a law instructor from Tulane University, New Orleans, and James Domengeaux, pronounced Chumley, a young French Cajan congressman from Lafayette, La., appeared before this subcommittee of the judiciary and got such a robust tossing around that you might have thought they were the defendants in a case of murder by criminal assault.
The subcommittee was composed of Senators O’Mahoney of Wyoming and McFarland of Arizona, Democrats, and Austin of Vermont, Republican. They heckled young Ballard, nagged him for short answers which would have placed him in a false position or discredited his case, shook fingers at him, raised their voices and. just generally, carried on in the traditional bulldozing county-attorney manner which senators affect when they think they have a sucker at their mercy and nobody is looking.
They didn’t try to draw out what could be termed the people’s side of the case but rather counter-attacked the petitioning citizens to the benefit of the notorious Louisiana mob so many of whose bosses, all political associates of Ellender, Overton and Christenberry, were caught in spectacular looting.
A Federal employee who would be fired if identified confided to young Ballard after the morning session that never in his long experience has he seen a petitioning citizen so set upon by a congressional body.
The reason is no mystery
By afternoon, however, word seemed to have got around that the hearing was being watched and you should have seen the change. The august statesmen of the subcommittee were almost half-civil by the time the show closed for the day and they may be on a spot themselves Monday.
For, the inquiry is generating heat and the protesting group, respectfully but doggedly are asking that Justice Frank Murphy of the Supreme Court be invited to tell what he learned about Christenberry which, of course, is plenty, when he was attorney general succeeding Homer Cummings, who held the job at the time of the second Louisiana purchase.
And why shouldn’t Murphy tell what he knows? Who has a greater duty to guard the sanctity and purity of the court system? He hasn’t become a god, has he?
Christenberry has a brother, Earl, who was Huey’s secretary and secretary-treasurer of the notorious win or lose company, a racket which Huey authorized to sell oil out of a state preserve for the private profit of a few select members of the gang.
Indictments now pending arise from this company’s affairs and the Department of Justice has ruled, in advance, that even if Herbert is confirmed he will not be allowed to prosecute the most important of these cases against Jim Noe, another old member of the mob.
The reason for the heckling is no mystery. If senators permit citizens to block selections of brother senators, the brother senators can get dirty and retaliate in turn.
Nor is there any guarantee that the official record will show the bulldozing, for senators have a right to strike out matter revealing their prejudice and no notes could record the harassing voice or the intimidating shake of the senatorial finger.
By Raymond Clapper
WASHINGTON – Is South America going to be with us or not?
That is the real question which hangs over the Pan-American Conference that begins at Rio Thursday. The question won’t come up in such bald form. But it will be the reality behind the diplomatic language.
It is not a matter of whether South American nations declare war on the Axis. One could even think up some reasons why that might not be an unmixed gain for our side. The question is whether they will give whole-hearted help to our side as the United States helped the anti-Axis powers long before we went to war, or whether some of the South American nations will hold themselves in readiness to play the Axis game if they are crowded a little.
The time may come in this war when the Axis will attempt to work through South America to encircle us and isolate us north of Panama. It is one way they might strike at the heart of the United Nations supply base, which is America and our industry. Certainly it is a possibility that must be considered.
In that case much would depend on whether South American countries, particularly Argentina, Brazil and Chile, were ready to assist us or whether they would be passive pushovers for the Axis. The answer to that must come largely out of the heart, long before the event.
It is the difference between France and England. France lacked the heart and gave up to the Axis. Britain carried on the fight alone, through a dark and lonely hour when her chances seemed no better than France’s had been.
A matter of where your heart is
It is a matter of where your heart is, first of all. And that’s what I’d like to know about South American countries now.
Most of the small Central American republics have declared war on the Axis. But none of the important South American countries has even broken relations. None has joined the United Nations. The Argentine foreign minister only a few days ago publicly opposed going to war with the Axis and rebuked Central American republics which had done so.
The cabinet of Uruguay, however, has instructed its delegate to the Rio conference to propose that all South American nations break relations with the Axis. Argentina has given no public indication of its position on this, but the Argentine foreign minister has been caucusing with the foreign ministers of Chile, Peru and Paraguay hoping to obtain a united front.
That he was having trouble was indicated in a luncheon speech made in Buenos Aires by the foreign minister of Chile, who said America is one and that there are no blocs or artificial distinctions between north, center and south. “America,” he said, “is one and must remain one.”
Welles knows way around
That is the outward picture of the situation with which Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, the American delegate to Rio, must deal. Mr. Welles is an old hand in Latin American affairs. He knows his way around and is on good personal terms with most of the personalities involved.
There are good reasons why some of the South American governments have to walk a tightrope in respect to public commitments. They are, in some cases, caught in the same kind of internal division that President Roosevelt had to deal with before Pearl Harbor.
But Mr. Roosevelt knew which side he was on and threw the breaks that way. In that sense, the important fact out of the Rio Conference will be where the hearts of the Latin governments are, and not necessarily what formal resolutions are adopted.
One strong fact in favor of our side is that with European markets cut off, all Latin America depends on us as the main customer, just as we now depend increasingly on South America for strategic war materials.
But that doesn’t mean too much unless the heart is in the right place. We were Japan’s best customer and she depended on us for many materials essential to her war machine. But that all melted quick as a snowball in hell when Japan wanted to hit us at Pearl Harbor.
By Maj. Al Williams
“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”
When everything is said and done, the one greatest factor in making the United States the greatest nation the world ever saw is the strong, rugged individualism of the typical American. … From infancy we Americans are taught to stand on our own feet and do our own thinking. The essence of the Constitution, every precept of the Bill of Rights, founded and fostered this individualism – this basic difference between a real American and all the other peoples of the world.
We’ll think our thoughts and speak our thoughts and reach forward with our hands to do the nation’s job. And when we think that anyone delegated to boss any part of that job is not capable of bossing it efficiently, we’ll promptly say so and demand a man who can. This is the self-determination of Americans. It’s in our blood, our bones, and in our every breath. And it is this spirit, this undying spirit of self-determination which will win the war for the United States.
This is a new, a revolutionary type of warfare. No one appears to know more than a few of the answers. We are all in it. Not only the men who do the fighting, but those who are behind the lines, the men who pay the plans. Understanding full well the vital factor represented by combat efficiency in the field, on the sea, and in the air, it is well for us all to remember that this war can be won or lost in the laboratories and strategic councils thousands of miles away from any combat front. Any reverses we suffer can be directly attributed to having failed to realistically plan to fight the war that is being waged against us. That’s water over the dam, and we are only interested from here on in to the victorious finish in the rapid readjustments and ingenuity effected in out-smarting, out-thinking, and out-producing our enemies with weapons and war tools more efficient and numerous than theirs.
Old rules won’t work
To plan our strategy for out-daring our enemies and for seeing farther into the future of warfare, we must revise and scrap our old rule books of war. This calls for personal courage far greater than ever demanded from Americans since the dark days of our Civil War. It’s not the job of planning and building new weapons that worries me, but rather the Herculean task of discarding, scrapping, and ditching the old ideas and the old ways of warfare that don’t and won’t work in modern warfare.
That is the real crux, the pivotal point upon which American victory balances. Look at it, inspect it carefully, walk around and be sure you know its every shape and shade. No man’s pride, no organization’s traditions – nothing must be allowed to sway or influence us from striving and demanding to clean our defense house and build it anew, brighter. more efficient, and more terribly effective than all the Axis powers best efforts combined. To beat those outlaws, we will have to build 10,000 and more planes per month. We’ll have to train commensurate flying and ground manpower to man and service those planes – those fleets of airpower.
We can’t afford to model our plans or our organization upon any scheme that has satisfied our enemies to date. American airpower – full American airpower – free and unhampered, must be inspired and built to reach any continent, to bridge any ocean, to strike any enemy nation at the heart – at home. Show me some other weapon besides airpower that holds such promise of military effectiveness and victory and I’ll fold up and follow you. The men of England pleaded at the Namsos disaster, “For God’s sake, tell them to give us planes.” Ditto the French and English in the Battle of France and at Dunkirk. Ditto the defenders of Crete. Ditto the British High Seas Fleet. Ditto the fighting men all over the world whose own air forces were weaker than those of the enemy.
Proof is complete
The Dutch general in the East Indies pleads with us today, “We’ll do the job if you’ll send us the planes.” The gallant MacArthur, stalwart soldier, pleads not. But airpower could save him and his command. These are the lessons of destiny standing nakedly before us. What further evidence or proof could you ask for?
Read them. Study them. No matter what airpower has accomplished to date, only the surface has been scratched in the use of airpower for the purpose of warfare. Even the German Air Force was not up to the strength and unbelievable might planned for it. Why, therefore, should we Americans – who have led the world – timidly and faintheartedly plan to equal the airpower or any other plans of Germany, Italy, and Japan? Why not take the bull by the horns and interpreting the signs courageously, move our full might into the atmospheric ocean that covers the world. If we slowed down on everything else right now and built airpower – gigantic air fleets – we would be taking the first step to subduing our enemies. We are not going to land any expeditionary force in any foreign land until our planes dominate the air over those debarkation points. Why not be the Americans we boast we are and accept the challenge of destiny.
Let’s quit thinking of air service as auxiliary to any type of land or sea machinery. The nation that rules the air will rule the world, just as England ruled it with seapower for centuries. Let’s rub the cellophane scales of tradition from our eyes and get on with the full-time job of ruling the world from the air – the only way it can be ruled, and it needs ruling.
WASHINGTON (UP) – Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge said last night the Justice Department is prepared to preserve freedom of speech and to prevent the “veritable chamber of horrors” that resulted from the prosecution of critics of the first World War effort.
Mr. Berge said in a radio address the department had entrenched itself “against those pressures and influences, which cry for the prosecution of those people who are merely exercising their right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and whose utterances are not in themselves seditious and cannot be shown to constitute any direct interference with the conduct of the war.”
He referred to the latter part of the first World War when the government “embarked upon a course of prosecutions on the theory that words in themselves had a ‘tendency’ to encourage resistance to law and interference with the conduct of war.”
U.S. State Department (January 12, 1942)
Völkischer Beobachter (January 13, 1942)
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 12. Januar
Der japanische Panthersprung nach Celebes und Holländisch-Borneo hat — das wird nach den letzten Meldungen aus London und Washington immer deutlicher — alle Berechnungen der plutokratischen Raubmächte ebenso über den Haufen geworfen wie der Vernichtungsschlag gegen Pearl Harbour und die Versenkung der beiden Schlachtschiffe des britischen Ostasiengeschwaders. Er stieß mitten in die amerikanischen Aufmarschvorbereitungen hinein und schnitt die vorgesehenen Rückzugslinien nach Australien ab.
Es wirkt fast grotesk, wenn jetzt der Sondergesandte der holländisch-indischen Behörden in Batavia, Keller, der erst vor kurzem in London hausieren ging und sich dann mit leeren Händen nach Neuyork weiterbegab, amerikanischen Reportern mit ernster Miene versicherte, daß Holländisch-Indien in Singapur verteidigt werde. Die holländisch-indischen Behörden, die, anstatt die Verständigung mit Japan zu suchen, von dem früheren holländischen Außenminister van Kleffens übel beraten wurden und sich willenlos in die Front der sogenannten ABCD-Mächte zwingen ließen, ernten jetzt die Früchte einer ausschließlich von kapitalistischer Profitgier bestimmten Politik; im Kampf zwischen zwei Welten als Mühlstein zerrieben zu werden.
Fehlspekulation eines Verräters
Mijnheer van Kleffens glaubte, sein Schäfchen ins trockene gebracht zu haben, als er sich nach der Besetzung Hollands an der Gründung der holländischen Emigrantenregierung in London beteiligte. Er ist durch seine Heirat mit einer Engländerin Großaktionär der Royal Dutch-Shell-Company, mit den Petroleuminteressen Niederländisch-Indiens also persönlich verschwägert. Die Früchte seiner verräterischen Politik am holländischen Volke ernten jetzt die Japaner, die den Angriff auf Niederländisch-Indien mit der gleichen prachtvollen Vorbereitung vorgetragen haben, die alle ihre bisherigen Aktionen auszeichneten.
Was nicht nur für Niederländisch-Indien, sondern für die gesamte Front der ABCD-Mächte, die noch im November als unüberwindlich bezeichnet wurde, japanische Landungen auf Tarakan und Minahassa bedeuten, geht deutlich aus einer Meldung der United Press aus Batavia hervor, in der es heißt, daß die japanische Strategie darauf hinauslaufe, den amerikanischen Kriegsschiffen und Transportfahrzeugen die Durchfahrt durch die schmale Meerenge zwischen Celebes und den Molukken zu sperren und sie zu einem großen Umweg um die südlichen australischen Gewässer zu zwingen. Militärische Beobachter, so heißt es in der gleichen Meldung weiter, seien davon überzeugt, daß die Japaner vor einem Angriff auf Sumatra ständen und auf diese Weise ein Einkreisungsmanöver gegen Java in die Wege leiteten. Auf diese Weise werde Singapur vollkommen isoliert werden.
Neue Truppenlandungen
Die japanischen Landungsmanöver im Nordosten der Insel Celebes nehmen ihren Fortgang, ohne daß es den dortigen niederländischen Truppen möglich gewesen wäre, den Aufmarsch der Japaner wesentlich zu hindern. Nach einer Meldung aus Batavia haben die niederländisch-indischen Einheiten in der Provinz Minahassa (nördliche Halbinsel) Verstärkungen erhalten. Man glaubt jedoch, daß die Lage der Verteidiger insofern äußerst schwierig ist, als man ständig mit neuen japanischen Truppenlandungen an der an dieser Stelle stark zerklüfteten Insel rechnen muß und folglich die Truppen nicht auf einen einzigen Punkt konzentriert werden konnten.
Mit der Landung auf der Insel Tarakan an der Nordostküste Niederländisch-Borneos haben die Japaner ein besonders wichtiges Erdölgebiet Südostasiens in ihre Hand gebracht. Auf dieser Insel wird eine Jahresmenge von rund 700.000 Tonnen Erdöl gefördert, die besondere Bedeutung Tarakans als Erdöllieferant besteht darin, daß das hier geförderte Erdöl unmittelbar als Heizöl, insbesondere für die Schiffahrt, verwendet werden kann, ohne daß eine weitere Bearbeitung, beziehungsweise Raffinierung nötig ist. Entsprechend diesen günstigen Verwendungsmöglichkeiten sind die Erdölvorkommen von Tarakan bisher keineswegs ausgenutzt worden. Nach fachmännischem Urteil ist die Verdopplung der Förderung und sogar eine Steigerung über die Verdopplung hinaus möglich.
Plutokratische Ratlosigkeit
Die „New York Times“ schreibt, daß durch die neuen japanischen Operationen eine Blockade des ostasiatischen Inselreiches immer schwieriger werde. Japan nähere sich Australien, und die Verteidigung von Hawai bleibt jetzt Amerikas „Kriegsaufgabe Nummer 1“. Die Engländer dürften dagegen der Auffassung sein, daß die Kriegsaufgabe Nummer 1 in der Verteidigung Singapurs besteht. Singapur aber -mußte nach Auffassung der Amerikaner auf der malaiischen Halbinsel verteidigt werden, und daß auch die Engländer diese Auffassung teilen, zeigt der klägliche Versuch, den Fall von Kuala Lumpur noch immer zu verschweigen. Noch am Montagnachmittag behauptete der Londoner Nachrichtendienst, daß sich Kuala Lumpur in englischen Händen befände, gab aber gleichzeitig bekannt, daß sich die britischen und indischen Truppen auf Serembam zurückgezogen hätten Serembam liegt 80 Kilometer südlich von Kuala Lumpur.
USA-Stützpunkt gefallen
Während diese Aktionen im Gange sind, wurde der amerikanische Stützpunkt Tutuila in der Samoagruppe östlich der Fidschiinseln, von einem japanischen Kreuzer unter Feuer genommen, wie aus Neuyork gemeldet wird. Amerikanischerseits befürchtet man, daß die Japaner vielleicht auch gegen diese Inselgruppe weitere Operationen Unternehmen könnten.
Das japanische Kaiserliche Hauptquartier gibt weiter bekannt, daß die japanische Armee am 10. Januar Olongapo, den wichtigen Stützpunkt an der Westküste der Bataanhalbinsel auf den Philippinen, vollständig besetzt hat. Olongapo ist ein bedeutender U-Boot-Stützpunkt, der ungefähr 100 Kilometer westlich von Manila an der Subigbucht liegt. Dieser U-Boot-Stützpunkt ist damit ein schwerer Verlust für die Flotte der Vereinigten Staaten, da Olongapo ein Schwimmdock, das Kriegsschiffe bis zu 12.000 Tonnen aufnehmen kann, besitzt.
Aus Washington wird gemeldet, das nordamerikanische Kriegsministerium rechne mit neuen Großangriffen der Japaner auf den Philippinen, erhöhte Artillerietätigkeit der Japaner ließe darauf schließen. Außerdem seien neue erhebliche Verstärkungen eingetroffen, so daß mit einer neuen unmittelbar bevorstehenden Offensive der. Japaner gerechnet werde. Vermutlich seien die Verstärkungen auch auf der Insel Mindanao eingetroffen, da man dort erneute japanische Truppenlandungen beobachtet hätte.
Japanische Bomber haben, wie der Sender Rangun meldet, am Sonntag Moulmein und Tavoy in Burma angegriffen.
dnb. Tokio, 12. Januar
„Singapur ist zum Tode verurteilt“, so schreibt die gesamte japanische Presse am Montagabend. Sie betont dabei, daß bereits 80 Prozent von Britisch-Malaya sich in japanischen Händen befindet. Obwohl der Gouverneur der „Straits Settlements“, Thomas, nach Kalkutta geflohen sei und von dort über den Rundfunk Singapur zur äußersten Verteidigung aufgefordert habe, sei das Schicksal dieser Festung und damit Englands in Ostasien besiegen. Vor genau 30 Tagen seien die Japaner auf Malaya gelandet und trotz stärkster Befestigungen, trotz tropischen Klimas und vieler Geländeschwierigkeiten hätten sie im Vorstoß nach Süden täglich 17 Kilometer an Boden gewonnen.
Nach Meldungen aus Tokio wurden größere Rückzugsbewegungen der britischen Truppen aus der Gegend von Kuala Lumpur in südlicher Richtung nach Malakka beobachtet. Die zurückflutenden britischen Kolonnen sind wiederholt das Ziel der japanischen Luftwaffe. Man nimmt an, daß sich die Briten zunächst nördlich von Malakka festsetzen wollen, aber die Hauptmasse ihrer jetzt noch im Abschnitt südlich von Kuala Lumpur kämpfenden Truppen nach Singapur zurücknehmen werden. Tankvorhuten der japanischen Armee haben auf den beiden sehr guten Autostraßen im Süden von Kuala Lumpur in kräftigem Nachstoßt bereits Punkte erreicht, die nur noch 200 Kilometer von Singapur entfernt liegen.
Die Presse schildert dann die Operationen im einzelnen und schreibt dabei: Nachdem die südlich vom Krakanal gelandeten japanischen Truppen die Landenge von Kra, die Hinterindien mit Malaya verbindet, besetzt und somit den Rücken für die gegen Britisch-Malaya im Süden kämpfenden Truppen gedeckt hätten, sind nach stärkster Luftvorbereitung Landungen an der Nordostgrenze von Britisch-Malaya bei Kota-Bam vorgenommen worden. Zur selben Zeit wurden bei Singgora- und Patani (220 Kilometer beziehungsweise 120 Kilometer nordwestlich von Kota-Baru) Truppen an Land gesetzt. Sie drangen in südlicher Richtung in die Provinz Keda ein und besetzten die Insel Penang. Bei diesen Kämpfen sind die Engländer zunächst von Süden her verstärkt worden, während die Japaner ständig Nachschub durch neue Landungen erhielten. Die Moral der feindlichen Truppen ist bereits stark erschüttert gewesen, da sich unter ihnen Teile der aus den ersten Kämpfen südlich von Kra nach Süden zurückgegangenen Truppen befanden. Durch stärksten Einsatz der Luftwaffe und von Panzern sind den Japanern an allen Stellen der Front rasche Durchbrüche gelungen, die wiederholt zur Einkreisung des Gegners führten.
In wenigen Stunden erobert
Außerdem wurden an der Westküste der Insel Penang Truppen in südlicher Richtung verschifft, die überraschende Landungen im Rücken der Briten vornahmen. Schon am 2. Januar hat sich der Gegner in immer größeren Abteilungen nach Süden zurückgezogen, obwohl er über modern ausgerüstete Stellungen verfügte. Nördlich von Kuala Lipis — 110 Kilometer nordnordöstlich von Kuala Lumpur — leisteten die Briten heftigen Widerstand in Stellungen die 15 Kilometer tief ausgebaut waren. Die japanischen Pioniere zerstörten zunächst die Tankhindernisse, um den eigenen Panzertruppen den Weg frei zu machen, denen dann die Infanterie folgte. In neun Stunden wurde diese Stellung erobert.
Wie „Svenska Dagbladet“ aus London meldet, sei es für die Engländer immer noch höchst schwierig, mit der Taktik der Japaner auf Malaya fertig zu werden. Die britischen Verteidigungspläne seien auf der Annahme aufgebaut gewesen, daß der malaiische Dschungel für feindliche Truppen undurchdringlich sei und dieser Dschungel daher einen wirksamen Flankenschutz für die britischen Stellungen ihnen Teile der aus den ersten darstellen würde. Dies habe sich jedoch als ein schwerer Irrtum herausgestellt. Die japanischen Truppen tauchten ständig in überraschender Weise im Rücken der britischen Verteidigungsstellungen auf und ganze Bataillone hätten sich durch den Dschungel durchgearbeitet. Ein britischer Korrespondent schreibt: „Die Japaner sind überall und schießen überall. Sie aufzustöbern ist genau so schwierig wie die Auffindung einer Nadel in einem Strohhaufen. Sie tauchen plötzlich auf und sind äußerst geschickt im Sichverstecken.“
Angesichts der Tatsache. daß der Rückzug des Gegners immer schneller wird, ist mit einem nachhaltigen Widerstand in der Gegend von Malakka oder Johor kaum mehr zu rechnen. Es ist vielmehr anzunehmen, so schließt die Darstellung der japanischen Presse, daß der letzte große Widerstand des Feindes erst bei den Kämpfen um die Festung Singapur erfolgen wird.
Ganz Europa hallt wider vom Gelächter über die Putschmärchen, die man von England und den USA aus in Umlauf gesetzt hat, um in einer peinlichen Lage die Aufmerksamkeit von Ostasien auf Deutschland abzulenken und die eigenen Völker glauben zu machen. man könne auf deutsche Schwächeanfälle und seelische Krisen rechnen. Wir können uns im Gefühl unserer Stärke nur dazu beglückwünschen, daß man es drüben wieder einmal mit dieser alten Selbsttäuschung versucht, die stets von eigener Schwäche zu zeugen pflegt und naturgemäß die peinlichsten Stimmungsrückschläge nach sich zieht, wenn die künstlich erregten Erwartungen nicht befriedigt werden, wie es im Fall der Wollsammlung schon so überzeugend geschehen ist. Das gleiche gilt auch von den Kampfberichten aus dem Osten, die aus derselben Quelle stammen und an die man sich schon bald nicht mehr gern erinnern lassen wird.
Aber dieser Zuspruch richtet sich ja nicht nur an die Briten und Nordamerikaner. Wenn die Drahtzieher der Agitation in London und Washington ein triumphierendes Pokergesicht aufstecken, als ob sie statt einer faulen Karte eine Fülle von Trümpfen in der Hand hielten, so geschieht das vor allem auch, um die noch nicht im Kriege stehenden Völker zu beeinflussen und ihnen einzureden, sie brauchten jetzt nur entschlossen auf die Plutokraten und Bolschewisten zu setzen, damit der Krieg das schnelle Ende fände, an dem ja gerade den angesprochenen Staaten gelegen ist.
Wir sehen. daß genau am Vorabend der Konferenz der ibero-amerikanischen Länder in Rio de Janeiro diese aufdringliche Werbung mit Falschnachrichten sich aufs äußerste verstärkt hat und daß sie diese Besprechungen mit der gleichen Tonstärke begleitet wie die Agitation in der Türkei. Wir lassen dabei zunächst unerörtert, welche Gruppenbildungen sich in Rio vollziehen, welche Widerstände sich dort gegen Roosevelt zeigen oder welche Regierungen sich den Forderungen Washingtons zu beugen bereit sind. Man kann sich beim gegenwärtigen Stand der Dinge darauf beschränken, die Absichten der USA klarzustellen und auf die Folgen zu verweisen, die sich bei einer Erreichung dieser Ziele für die Betroffenen ergeben müßten.
Roosevelt will auch die ibero-amerikanische Welt in den Krieg hineinreißen, in der Hoffnung, sie dadurch für alle Zukunft sicher unter das Joch des Dollardiktats zu beugen. Es ist ihm durchaus bewußt, daß eine Durchschneidung der kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Bande, die diese Staaten an Europa knüpfen, zu Dauerkrisen führen müßte, welche die Standfestigkeit der Länder südlich des Rio Grande von Grund auf erschüttern würden. Das ist es eben, was er wünscht, um die Staatenwelt dieses Raumes auf einen kolonialen Zustand herabdrücken zu können. Ihre absolute Abhängigkeit von Washington soll der Endpunkt der Entwicklung sein, ohne daß etwa Nordamerika für die ausfallenden europäischen Kunden auf dem Fuß gleichkräftigen Gebens und Nehmens eintreten würde, da es ja die südamerikanischen Güter meist selbst zugleich erzeugt. Ibero-Amerika soll sich hoffnungslos verschulden, seine Ausfuhrüberschüsse den Yankees zur beliebigen Verwendung zur Verfügung stellen müssen und damit der Raubzug der USA auf die großen Rohstoffgebiete der Welt um einen wichtigen Schritt vorwärtsgebracht werden. Ähnliche Absichten kann man übrigens auch für die „Zusammenarbeit“ mit Kanada, Australien und Neuseeland annehmen, als deren Beschützer Roosevelt jetzt auftritt, denn in den Konzeptionen von einer Weltherrschaft der USA spielt das Rohstoffmonopol, rücksichtslos zur Aushungerung und politischen Auslöschung anderer Völker ausgenutzt, eine Hauptrolle.
Die in Rio versammelten Vertreter; der Ibero-Amerikaner wird also aufgefordert, Selbstmord zu begehen. Der Druck, unter den man sie setzt, erweist am besten, was unter der „Freiheit“ und „Selbständigkeit“ zu verstehen ist, von der in Roosevelts Agitation so verschwenderisch gesprochen wird. Wäre es wirklich so, daß alle Völker auf seiten der Briten, Yankees und Bolschewisten ständen, wie man doch unermüdlich betont (wobei die 800 Millionen Inder und Chinesen ebenso großzügig wie fälschlich in Bausch und Bogen dem eigenen Lager zugezählt werden), dann bedürfte es eigentlich nicht einer Taktik, wie sie jetzt angewandt und durch plumpste Lügen über die Lage in Europa unterstützt wird.
Inzwischen bemüht man sich, den Türken einzureden. das Dreigespann London-Moskau-Washington hege nur die freundschaftlichsten Gefühle für Ankara. Roosevelt entsendet seinen berüchtigtsten Kriegsagenten Bullitt dorthin und hat zum Botschafter in der türkischen Hauptstadt den Juden Steinhardt. bisher Vertreter der USA in Moskau, ernannt. Edens Verhandlungen in Moskau hätten für die Türkei nichts Beunruhigendes, so läßt sich der
Londoner „Daily Expreß“ lang und breit vernehmen. Stalin habe keinerlei Gebietsforderungen zu Lasten der Türkei erhoben, die bei einem Sieg der Briten und Bolschewisten nur ihren Vorteil finden werde. Zu dem gleichen Thema läßt sich Ray Brook über den Sender Ankara vernehmen. Er suchte auf die Türken Eindruck zu machen, indem er sie mit Behauptungen über einen deutschen Aufmarsch gegen die Türkei zu schrecken unternahm, worauf er hinzufügte, der englische Botschafter Knatchbull-Hugessen werde demnächst vor der Presse über die Eindrücke berichten, die er bei den Besprechungen in Moskau gewonnen habe. Es werde sich aus diesen Mitteilungen ergeben, daß die Türken von Moskau nichts Übles zu befürchten hätten.
Die Briten würden sich um diesen Nachweis gewiß nicht so hingebungsvoll bemühen, wenn sie nicht wüßten, daß man in Ankara entsprechende Befürchtungen hegte, und das mit gutem Grund! Das bekannte Testament Peters des Großen spricht die letzten Ziele aus, die jeder von Moskau geführte Ostraum der Türkei gegenüber hegen wird: vor allem die Beherrschung der Meerengen. Dahin zielten die Vorstöße der Großen Katharina ans Schwarze Meer, die Eroberung der Krim, von der anderen Seite her die Verschluckung Georgiens, dann im 19. Jahrhundert die russisch-türkischen Kriege von 1829/30 und 1877/78, mittelbar auch der Balkankrieg von 1912/13 und jenes Abkommen der zaristischen Diplomaten mit Frankreich vom Februar 1917, das sich gegen Anerkennung einer französischen Ausdehnung auf dem linken Rheinufer den Besitz der Meerengen ausbedang.
Daß die Bolschewisten dieses Erbe in vollem Umfang angetreten haben, ist bereits geschichtsnotorisch. Solange die kemalistische Türkei dazu bereit war, die Südflanke der Sowjetunion zu decken, war Moskau ihr wohlgesinnt. Als die Türken aber 1936 die Auflockerung der europäischen Gruppierungen infolge des Zerfalls des Versailles-Systems dazu ausnutzten, sich wieder die volle Verfügung über Bosporus und Dardanellen zu sichern, schlug die Stimmung im Norden jäh um. Es ist kein Zweifel, daß das Ankara mit dazu veranlaßte, sich den Briten zu nähern. Seit dem Sommer 1941 sieht sich die Türkei plötzlich einer bolschewistisch-englischen Einheitsfront gegenüber — und das mit dem Wissen um die unveränderten Absichten Moskaus auf die Meerengen!
Alle Welt weiß, daß Molotow im November 1940 bei seinem Besuch in Berlin unverhohlen das Verlangen äußerte, Deutschland solle sich mit einer Aneignung der Meerengen durch Moskau einverstanden erklären. Der Führer hat diese dreisten Forderungen, die er rundweg ablehnte, im Juni 1941 bekanntgegeben und die Belege über diesen Verhandlungspunkt der, Berliner Besprechungen befinden sich auch in den Archiven von Ankara. Wenn sich Stalin ein solches dreistes Verlangen schon gegenüber Deutschland herausnahm, das den Bolschewisten gegenüber unabhängig war, und sich keineswegs veranlaßt sah, innenpolitische Zugeständnisse zu machen, so kann man sich unschwer vorstellen, wie deutlich er erst den Briten gegenüber geworden ist, die heute angesichts ihrer Drucklage in den Bolschewisten ganz offen ihren stärksten Rückhalt sehen und die der Schwäche ihrer Verhandlungsposition dadurch Ausdruck gegeben haben, daß sie ganz Europa der Sowjetbarbarei ans Messer liefern wollen.
Schon aus dieser Absicht ergibt sich ohne weiteres, daß England selbstverständlich auch mit einer Beherrschung der Meerengen durch die Sowjets einverstanden ist. Die Beflissenheit, mit der man dieses Ergebnis der Besprechungen Edens mit Stalin, das übrigens in London auch schon gerüchtweise verzeichnet wurde, den Türken gegenüber abzuleugnen sucht, zeigt vollends, wie schuldbewußt man sich fühlt. Man stelle sich nun einmal die Stellung der Türkei vor, wenn sich tatsächlich eine Lage ergäbe, wie man sie in London und Moskau erhofft! Ein Blick auf die Karte beweist jedenfalls tausendmal mehr als alle kindischen Ableugnungsversuche, die man jetzt unternimmt, in der Absicht, den Türken Sand in die Augen zu streuen und ihnen zu verhehlen, daß auch sie zu dem von Moskau beherrschten Europa gehören würden.
Es spielt in diesem Zusammenhang keine Rolle, daß die Bäume der Bolschewisten und ihrer britischen Spießgesellen schon nicht in den Himmel wachsen werden, weil die Macht der Achse und ihrer Verbündeten zwischen Wollen und Vollenden steht. Wesentlich ist, daß solche Absichten bestehen und daß sie unfehlbar auch zu Lasten der Türkei gehen würden. Es hieße die Klugheit und Weitsicht der türkischen Staatsmänner genauso beleidigend einschätzen, wie es Briten und Bolschewisten tun, wollte man annehmen, daß sie den Wert der englischen Einflüsterungen nicht genau so klar zu erkennen vermöchten, wie es sich aus der Logik der Dinge von selbst ergibt.
Dr. W. Koppen
Eigener Bericht des „VB.“
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 12. Januar
Im Zuge ihrer verzweifelten Kriegsausweitungspolitik haben Roosevelt und Churchill nach den letzten aus London vorliegenden Meldungen beschlossen, Irlands Neutralität mit allen Mitteln zu brechen. Wie die Stockholmer Abendblätter aus London berichten, hat die britische Regierung an Irland die Forderung gestellt, die strategisch wichtigen Häfen Queenstown, Lough Silly und Berehaven sofort zu verpachten.
Demgegenüber ist noch einmal auf die Ansprache hinzuweisen, die de Valera am Neujahrstag an Amerika gerichtet hat. In dieser Ansprache erklärte er: „Es ist unsere Pflicht, unser Land außerhalb des Krieges zu halten. Wenn wir angegriffen werden, wird unser Volk sich nach allen Richtungen verteidigen.“
Nach einer United-Press-Meldung aus Washington sollen nach Überzeugung militärischer Beobachter in den USA auch die Pläne für eine Invasion auf den europäischen Kontinent ziemlich weit vorgeschritten sein.
Hierbei sollten englische Truppen, die jetzt in England stationiert seien und von denen die meisten bereits die Feuertaufe erhalten hätten, die Invasion durchführen, während die amerikanischen Streitkräfte, die Roosevelt nach Europa senden wollte. unterdessen England „beschützen“ würden.
dnb. Berlin, 12. Januar
Der einzigartige Erfolg der deutschen Woll- und Wintersachensammlung hat auch außerhalb Deutschlands tiefen Eindruck hinterlassen. Mit sichtlicher Anteilnahme verfolgte die Bevölkerung das stete Anwachsen der Millionenzahlen der freiwilligen Gaben und machte in fast ganz Europa aus ihrer offenen Bewunderung für diese unvergleichliche Solidarität der Heimat mit der Front keinen Hehl. Heute steht die europäische Presse nahezu geschlossen im Zeichen der am Sonntag verkündeten vorläufigen Ergebnisse. Unter großen Überschriften im Fettdruck werden die Leistungen des deutschen Opfergeistes hervorgehoben. Der darin bekundete geschlossene Wille zum Sieg wird von den einzelnen Blättern nach den verschiedensten Ausrichtungen gewürdigt.
Rom: ‚Wie eine Volksabstimmung‘
Der „Popolo di Roma“ schreibt, auf den Appel des Führers habe das deutsche Volk wie mit einer Volksabstimmung geantwortet. Die Sammlung sei zu einer Volksbewegung geworden. Die „Tribuna“ erklärt, in einer hinreißenden Offensive des Herzens habe das deutsche Volk seinen heldenhaften Kämpfern an der Ostfront seine Pelze, Strickwesten, Decken und Schneeschuhe zum Opfer gebracht und damit den Beweis geliefert, daß Front und Heimat eine unlösbare Einheit bilden. Der „Lavoro Fascista“ sieht in dem Sammelergebnis einen Beweis dafür, daß die Heimat sich voll und ganz darüber klar sei, daß seine Frontkämpfer in die Lage versetzt werden müßten, mit den gleichen Waffeneinen an die Unbilden der Witterung viel mehr gewöhnten Gegner zu bekämpfen. Es habe sich gezeigt, daß man nicht vergeblich an das deutsche Volk appelliert.
Kundgebung der Liebe
Das ganze deutsche Volk, so führt der „Popolo d’Italia“ aus, hat mit einmütiger Begeisterung an dieser Kundgebung der Liebe und Dankbarkeit für die Truppen teilgenommen. Über zwei Millionen Männer, Frauen und Kinder haben während dieser zwei Wochen ihre täglichen Arbeitsstunden unter Hintanstellung der eigenen Interessen und der Familie verdoppelt. Die Verteilung an die Soldaten sei so rasch geschehen, bemerkt das Blatt, daß viele, die ihren Gaben Glückwünsche beigepackt hätten, bereits Dankesgrüße von der Front erhielten. Der „Corriere della Sera“ hebt hervor, daß arm und reich, weder ungeachtet des Wertes oder der Möglichkeit, sich die Gaben in Bälde wieder beschaffen zu können, gegeben haben, was ihm nützlich, teuer oder unersetzlich erschien und dabei mit einer ergreifenden Selbstverständlichkeit. „Es war fürwahr ein Volksentscheid der Inneren Front gegenüber der Front der Soldaten“, schließt die Zeitung.
Preßburg: „Eine klare Antwort“
Eine klare Antwort des deutschen Volkes auf die feindlichen Agitationslügen nennt der „Grenzbote“ die Wintersachensammlung. Die feindliche Agitation habe sich in den letzten Tagen besonders bemüht, die unsinnigsten Märchen und Lügen über Deutschland zu verbreiten. Keine Lüge war dumm und dreist genug, daß sie nicht erfunden und aufgetischt worden wäre. Das deutsche Volk hat, so betont das Blatt, jetzt die Antwort darauf erteilt.
In 16 Tagen hat es eine Leistung vollbracht, die in der ganzen Welt ohne Beispiel dasteht und die einen unerschütterlichen Bewies der Treue und des Vertrauens der Nation in die Führung darstellt.
Bukarest: „Opferwille wie 1813“
Die rumänische Zeitung „Porunca Vremii“ bezeichnet das Ergebnis unter groß aufgemachter Überschrift als den Ausdruck einer wahren Volksabstimmung in Deutschland. Das Ergebnis — das sich nur mit dem Opferwillen von 1813 vergleichen läßt — sei ein neuer Beweis für die Volksgemeinschaft, den Opfergeist und den Siegeswillen, von dem das deutsche Volk geleitet sei.
Stockholm: ‚Großartiges Ergebnis‘
Die „Nya Dagligt Allehanda“ schreibt unter anderem: „16 Tage lang ist die deutsche Heimatfront von der Idee dieser Sammlung beherrscht gewesen. Das gewaltige Ergebnis ist einzigartig.“ Das „Svenska Dagbladet“ nennt das imponierende Opfer der Deutschen eine würdige Antwort auf ausländische Gerüchte über angebliche Uneinigkeit in Deutschland.
Brüssel: ‚Politisch mündig‘
Auch die „Brüsseler Zeitung“ brandmarkt im Zusammenhang mit der Woll- und Pelzsammlung die Lügenagitation der Gegner Deutschlands. Das Blatt erinnert an ähnliche Versuche der Feindmächte während des Weltkrieges und erklärt: Wer nur etwas von dem begriffen hätte, was seit zehn Jahren im deutschen Volk vor sich ginge müßte ahnen, wie dumm und unzeitgemäß solche Lügen sind. Die Zeitung schließt, die Deutschen hätten mit ihrer Gebefreudigkeit vor aller Welt bewiesen, daß sie nicht nur eine wirkliche, auf Gedeih und Verderb verbundene Gemeinschaft seien, sondern auch ein politisch mündiges Volk. Der Feind habe eine Schlacht verloren, auf die er die größten Hoffnungen setzte. Er verlor sie, weil der Führer rief und alle kamen.
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischer Beobachters“
vb. Wien, 12. Januar
Südaustralische Mitglieder des Bundesparlaments in Canberra haben telegraphisch den Ministerpräsidenten aufgefordert, das Parlament sofort einzuberufen. Die Abgeordneten beabsichtigen einen Eilantrag einzubringen, der eine Änderung der australischen Gesetzesvorschriften für die nationale Sicherheit verlangt. Aus diesen Vorschriften soll nämlich der Absatz gestrichen werden, der eine Verwendung australischer Streitkräfte außerhalb des Dominions erlaubt.
Die Forderung der australischen Abgeordneten ist zurückzuführen auf die Gefahr, in die Australien durch den Ostasienkrieg geraten ist. Premierminister Curtin hat selbst zugegeben, daß das unaufhaltsame Vordringen der Japaner jetzt bereits die Sicherheit des Dominions bedrohe.
Da England nicht in der Lage ist, einen wirksamen Schutz zu übernehmen, hat sich Curtin direkt an Roosevelt um Hilfe gewandt. Der Unwille in der australischen Öffentlichkeit über den rücksichtslosen Einsatz australischer Truppen an allen gefährdeten Stellen des Empire, durch den England seine eigenen Truppen schont, unterstützt den Vorstoß der Abgeordneten, deren Forderung einen Vorläufer im Weltkrieg hat, als die Verschickung regulärer australischer Truppen an dem Widerstand der starken irischen Minderheit in Australien scheiterte. Die außerhalb des Dominions eingesetzten Australier waren damals Freiwillige.
dnb. Tokio, 12. Januar
In der Malakkastraße wurden bei einem überraschenden japanischen Luftangriff auf eine ganze Reihe feindlicher Schiffe, so berichtet das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier, zwei Unterseeboote und ein Handelsschiff von 3000 BRT schwer beschädigt.
Man nimmt an, daß es sich um einen Angriff auf einen feindlichen Geleitzug handelt, der nach Singapur unterwegs war. Die offizielle Mitteilung besagt jedoch darüber nichts Näheres.
dnb. Tokio, 12. Januar
Die japanische Presse nimmt in einer Reihe von Artikeln direkten oder indirekten Bezug auf die bevorstehende Konferenz der ibero-amerikanischen Staaten in Rio de Janeiro. So schreibt „Hotschi Schimbun“ unter anderem, nachdem mit dem Fall Hongkongs, Manilas und demnächst auch Singapurs das einzige magere Ergebnis der Washingtoner Konferenz, nämlich das gemeinsame Oberkommando, ad absurdum geführt sei, stehe Roosevelt in seinen Bemühungen um Ibero-Amerika vor einer neuen empfindlichen Schlappe.
Die „Japan Times“ erklärt, die südamerikanischen Staaten täten im gegenwärtigen Augenblick gut daran, sich zu überlegen, welchen tatsächlichen Schutz die USA ihnen bieten können und ob die USA so stark seien, wie sie vorgäben. Die These von der Unbesiegbarkeit der Vereinigten Staaten sei ebenso ein Mythos wie die Uneinnehmbarkeit der Maginotlinie, Singapurs oder Pearl Harbours. Das Gebiet der USA sei im Laufe der Geschichte schon verschiedentlich angegriffen werden. Japan werde kämpfen, bis der Gegner vernichtet sei, selbst wenn es hierzu den halben Erdball überqueren müsse. Wenn die Philippinen und Singapur gefallen seien, werde es an Japan sein, zu bestimmen, wann, wo und wie es den Gegner schlagen werde. Heute habe Japan zweifellos die mächtigste Flotte und die größte Handelsmarine der Welt. Seine Landstreitkräfte, vereinigt mit denen Deutschlands und Italiens, seien in der Lage, jede Feindkombination zu vernichten.
Der bekannte politische Kommentator und Marinefachmann Saito schreibt im „Yomiuri“, das Festland östlich Suez und das Meer westlich Panamas seien im Bereich der Verwirklichung der japanischen Politik. England und die USA seien nicht mehr in der Lage, Japan zu blockieren, dagegen könne Japan sehr wohl zur Blockade der amerikanischen Westküste schreiten. Deutschland habe die Sowjetarmee so geschlagen, daß es keineswegs verwunderlich sei, wenn es den strengen Winter zur Herstellung der Ordnung der eroberten Gebiete benützt.
U.S. War Department (January 13, 1942)
ALASKA – The War Department was advised today of the destruction by fire in
Alaskan waters of the U.S. transport CLIVEDEN. The ship and cargo were a total loss. All of the personnel are safe.
The CLIVEDEN was a combination passenger and freight vessel of 7314 tons. The cause of the fire is being investigated.
HAWAII – The Commanding General, Hawaiian Department, has advised that of the 397 American soldiers wounded in the Japanese attack, 55 have fully recovered and have returned to duty. The condition of most of the others is very satisfactory and their early recovery is expected.
There is nothing to report from other areas.
PHILIPPINE THEATER – In 24 hours of continuous fighting, American and Philippine batteries proved definitely superior to those of the Japanese. Columns of enemy tanks and other armored units, as well as infantry concentrations, were shattered and dispersed by our fire, with heavy Japanese losses. Our counter-battery fire was particularly effective. Eleven hostile batteries were silenced. Enemy artillery elements have now been withdrawn well to the rear of the positions formerly occupied. Losses to American and Philippine troops were relatively slight.
Enemy air activity was confined to attacks by dive bombers in support of artillery fire. No enemy bombing attacks were made on fixed fortifications.
There is nothing to report from other areas.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 13, 1942)
Axis dealt hard blows in Far East, Russia and North Africa
By Joe Alex Morris, United Press war editor
The Allies united fighting forces engaged the Japanese offensive on all fronts in the Far East today and smashed at the Axis in Russia and North Africa.
In the Philippines, American defenders of Bataan Peninsula scored a triumph in an artillery battle that drove back the enemy, sashed armored columns and broke up infantry concentrations attempting to mass for an all-out assault.
In the East Indies, Allied air reinforcements appeared to have arrived, probably from America, and intensified aerial action was beginning against Japanese invaders of the Dutch islands of Tarakan and Celebes as well as enemy sea and land forces in the Western Pacific and Malaya.
Secret jungle airdromes
Dutch bombers, using some of the 50 secret jungle airdromes prepared against the Japanese, roared eastward over Borneo to strike at the enemy naval and land forces in the Tarakan and Celebes islands and Dutch officials said that a program of heavy, systematic bombing of the enemy was starting. An official statement said that the scorched earth program had destroyed all oil resources on Tarakan Island before it surrendered to the Japanese.
Increased Allied air forces appeared to be in action in Malaya, where the Japanese made their most severe night and day air raids on Singapore but suffered losses of almost 10 percent of the attacking bombers.
British defense forces were reported fighting bitterly on the peninsula about 150 miles north of Singapore but there was no word of any important change in positions.
Fighting due in Burma
Northward in Burma, there was another air alarm at Rangoon and indications increased that military operations were impending. Axis sources have reported that the Japanese were moving against Burma while Allied reports have indicated that the British, with the help of Chinese troops, might strike at Japanese rear bases in Thailand (Siam).
Axis claims of triumphs were less vigorous today, although the Berlin official news agency broadcast that a battleship reported sunk off Egypt last November by a German U-boat had been identified as Britain’s 31,100-ton dreadnaught Barham. London made no comment.
Hitler abandons headquarters
In Russia, Adolf Hitler was reported to have abandoned his headquarters at Smolensk and moved southward as the Red Army offensive hammered forward southwest of Moscow, south of Leningrad, on the Arctic coast in the Far North and in Crimea on the Black Sea.
In Egypt, the British Imperials captured the Axis fortress of Solum, on the Egyptian border, and took 350 prisoners.
On all war fronts except Russia the Allies still were forced to distribute their strength to vital sectors in an effort to oppose concentrated Axis strength, but there were indications that the new united High Command in the Pacific was getting results.
Jap air fleets attack
Japanese air fleets opened an attack on the central Celebes coast and Ternate Island in the Molucca group, which is 150 miles farther east. This appeared to be a possible prelude to another invasion stab, designed to give the Japanese control of the island bases that would endanger the American supply line to the East Indies and Singapore.
Thirty bombs were dropped on Kolonedale on the Celebes coast, and 15 persons were killed and 24 injured at Ternate.
The Japanese reported that they had destroyed seven Allied bombers and a Dutch mine layer in their attacks, especially on the northern tip of Celebes where they claimed to have taken the Kakas airdrome at Menado. Fighting continued in this area and Batavia reported that Dutch, Australian and American plans were striking back at the enemy fleet.
In Malaya, the British were fighting on a new line approximately 150 miles north of Singapore after having abandoned Kuala Lumpur and Port Swettenham. There was no definite assurance that their big stand would be made there, however, and it generally was believed that there would be a gradual retirement to Johore Province, which extends some 90 miles north of the big naval base and which is said to be strongly fortified and easier to defend.
125 planes over Singapore
Fleets totaling about 125 Japanese airplanes swarmed over the Singapore area in the last 24 hours and 11 of them were reported brought down, indicating a considerable increase in Allied air strength in the Malaya area. Since the Allied forces have been united it was understood that British, American, Dutch and Australian planes and men were fighting on all of the important fronts.
The Japanese bombing attack did little damage in the Singapore area and a high British official predicted that the Allies would have air superiority in that area within the next few days. London said that facilities for handling airplanes were sufficient to give the Allies superiority if planes were available, indicating that heavy American reinforcements were arriving.
Japs claim air victories
The Japanese, in a Tokyo broadcast, reported that 16 Allied planes, including a number of American-built craft, had been shot down in the Malaya sector in the last 24 hours.
In Australia, it was disclosed that Prime Minister John Curtin had opened direct negotiations on grand strategy and defense with the United States. This move had been foreshadowed by statements made recently in Canberra but had been used by Axis propaganda broadcasts as an argument that Australia was cutting away from the British Empire. Such an interpretation was denied in Australia.
In China, the Chungking press and an official spokesman indicated concern over Allied High Command plans to put their greatest effort into defeating Hitler on the theory that defeat of the Nazis would lead to collapse of the other Axis partners. The Chinese argued that the fight must be kept at white heat against Japan in the Far East, that Japanese lines must be cut and that the battle for freedom of the Asiatic peoples must not be neglected.
MacArthur’s guns knock out 11 batteries as enemy falls back
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer
Action on battlefronts in the Far East
1. U.S. forces win artillery battle; Japs claim Olongapo.
2. Japs use Davao, 400 miles from Celebes, as base for Dutch Indies attack.
3. Jap fleet in Carolines ready to strike at U.S. supplies to Far East.
4. Dutch admit Tarakan’s fall, blast at Jap warships there.
5. Nipponese planes pound at Celebes coast.
6. Fires rage after Jap raid on Ternate in Spice Islands.
7. British quit Port Swettenham; new lines are 150 miles from Singapore.
8. U.S. planes destroy 33 Jap planes in two days in Burma.
Where U.S. wins Luzon victory
WASHINGTON (UP) – The War Department reported today that Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s big guns won the opening round of the Battle of Bataan, shattering Jap tank and infantry concentrations, knocking out 11 Jap batteries and forcing the enemy to fall back.
The silencing of 11 Jap batteries probably means that between 40 and 50 Jap guns were knocked out. The usual artillery battery comprises about four guns.
The official American communique claimed a major success for Gen. MacArthur’s men in the vital artillery battle in which the Japanese had hoped to soften up U.S. positions in preparation for a grand assault.
Battle rages 24 hours
For 24 hours, the War Department said on the basis of reports from Gen. MacArthur, the battle raged without cessation with the boom of heavy gunfire rolling like thunder over twisted jungles and mountainous peaks of Bataan Province.
“Columns of enemy tanks and other armored units as well as infantry concentrations were shattered and dispersed by our fire with heavy Jap losses,” the communique said.
Eleven Jap batteries were smashed out of action by the accurate fire of the American guns. The Japs were forced to withdraw their batteries “well to the rear of the positions formerly occupied.”
Shows MacArthur’s knowledge
Gen. MacArthur’s feat was regarded as spectacular evidence of his intimate knowledge of Philippine terrain and tactics.
Despite the numerical inferiority of American and Philippine forces and the fact that the Japanese rule the air over the U.S. positions, Gen. MacArthur was able to emplace his guns and direct their fire so successfully that the Japs’ superior weight of men and metal was more than compensated for.
Even with the aid of dive bombers, the communique said, the Japanese were able to inflict relatively little damage on the American positions – further proof that these previously-prepared positions were well-selected and well-camouflaged.
U.S. losses were slight
“Losses to American and Philippine troops were relatively slight,” the communique said.
Despite the American success, military observers here cautioned against over-optimism.
They pointed out that the Japanese have great reserves of men and equipment to throw into the battle while Gen. MacArthur must fight with constantly dwindling forces. When Gen. MacArthur’s ammunition and supplies are depleted, they cannot be replaced.
However, there was no doubt that as the communique asserted, “in 24 hours of continuous artillery fighting, American and Philippine batteries proved definitely superior to those of the Japanese.”
Japs shift to Indies
The communique produced further evidence that the Japanese may have transferred the bulk of their air forces southward to back up the spreading attack on the Dutch East Indies.
It reported that “enemy air activity was confined at attacks by dive bombers in support of artillery fire. No enemy bombing attacks were made on fixed fortifications.”
That indicated that the Japanese have not renewed their heavy air assaults on Corregidor Island.
Added to the reports of sweeping air action against the northern fringe of the Dutch islands and in Malaya, it appeared that the Japanese have sent the bulk of their air strength to such points at Davao, 500 miles south of Manila.
Claim Philippine collapse due
The Jap air and sea attack on the Dutch islands was being met by a growing force of United Nations aircraft, including many American planes and pilots, and it appeared that the first major test of Japanese versus Allied airpower may come in the Dutch East Indies.
Jap propaganda accounts of the Bataan fighting sharply differed from U.S. reports. The Japanese claimed that Gen. MacArthur’s forces are “on the verge of collapse” as the result of the loss of Olongapo naval base, not yet conceded by the United States.
The Japanese said Gen. MacArthur had the choice of fleeing to the Mariveles Mountains in the center of Bataan or of heading for Corregidor Fortress in Manila Bay.
Say evacuation is planned
Another Jap propaganda claim was that a fleet of American transports is being concentrated off Bataan coast to attempt the evacuation of Gen. MacArthur’s troops.
Since the waters around the Philippines are infested with Jap naval ships and patrolled closely by Jap aircraft such a maneuver seemed most unlikely, particularly since Gen. MacArthur has made clear that he is fighting a last-ditch battle on his chosen ground in the Philippines.
Already American warplanes are striking forcefully against the Japanese on two Far Pacific fronts – that of the Dutch East Indies and Burma.
On the Singapore front, there was a hint in a British statement that air control over Malaya will be wrested from the Japanese within three days and that U.S. warplanes may be about to go into action.
There was no hint of the route by which American planes are reaching the Far Pacific front. However, it was reported that the main Jap battle fleet has taken up positions in the Jap-mandated Caroline and Marshall Islands ready to strike at any effort by American sea power to reinforce the Southwest Pacific or to make a foray toward Japan.
This makes it likely that any U.S. reinforcements for the Dutch Indies, Malaya and Burma must travel the long route around the world across the Atlantic, around Africa and through the Indian Ocean. An alternative would be a very southerly Pacific route which would add thousands of miles to normal communications distances and still would be vulnerable to far-reaching Jap raiders.
On the Burma front, American planes were credited with destroying 33 Jap planes in two days, including 24 in one day.
American planes were fighting side by side with Dutch and Australian planes in the East Indies. The American aircraft were utilizing the well-organized series of Dutch bases which have been revealed to include about 50 secret dispersal fields in Dutch Borneo.
It was presumed that air operations are under the general control of Lt. Gen. George H. Brett, second to Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell in command of the Southwest Pacific. Gen. Brett is a U.S. Air Force officer. For tactical purposes, however, the Americans are probably brigaded with Dutch squadrons.
The chief theater of operations was the Celebes Sea where the Japs are trying to gain control of Dutch Borneo and the northern arm of Celebes, making use of their excellent base 400 miles north at Davao.
The Dutch admitted that the Japanese have captured Tarakan, a rich oil center off Northeast Borneo. Small garrisons there and on the Celebes arm have been fighting brave but hopeless fights. The Japanese also claim the fall of Manado.
In the Philippines, a Jap claim to the occupation of Olongapo on Subic Bay just northwest of the Bataan Province line appeared to threaten Gen. MacArthur’s position should the report be confirmed. Thus far, the War Department has had no confirmation.
The Jap claim that Olongapo was occupied three days ago and that the attack came from the vicinity of Santa Rita Peak, the 400-foot elevation two miles inside Bataan.
This would indicate a successful Jap operation over some of the roughest terrain in Bataan Province. The peaks in central Bataan, about 15 miles south of Santa Rita, are two or three times as high but the country is much the same.
Jap forces at Olongapo would be in a position to threaten Gen. MacArthur by a drive along the bad roads of the western coast. The Japs would be able to send small sea forces around in an effort to attack Mariveles, Gen. MacArthur’s communications port with Corregidor Island, four miles across the north channel of Manila Bay.
Argentina is only country opposing rupture
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
RIO DE JANEIRO – Talks now going on behind the scenes here should decide within the next 48 hours whether the entire 21 American republics will jointly sever all relations with the Axis, or whether one or two will abstain.
This is now the paramount question of this Pan-American conference. Others are mere side issues. The mood here is overwhelmingly for taking positive action against the Axis – with unanimity, if possible, but without it if necessary.
Argentine is now apparently alone as definitely against an all-out rupture. There is some slight doubt regarding Chile, but Argentina’s recent attempts to line up a regional bloc in opposition to an anti-Axis move appears to have died a-borning. Peru and one or two others are expected to try to effect a compromise in the name of Pan-American solidarity, but no one believed the move will get anywhere.
Insisted on unanimity
Argentina almost always has led the opposition in Pan-American conferences. Again and again others have urged the United States to quit making concessions and let Argentina isolate herself if she desired, but the United States always has insisted on unanimity and has usually achieved it by eleventh-hour concessions.
Ten of the 21 American republics have declared war against the Axis and eight have taken a strong stand on the side of the United States.
Chile and Uruguay yesterday expressed the “need for American unity,” dispelling reports that recent conferences at Buenos Aires had resulted in the formulation of a block of South American nations against joint action.
Different this time
Meanwhile, proposals for strong naval and military collaboration of the 21 American nations, under a joint defense program, including the creation of a hemispheric general staff sitting in Washington, are being drafted for early presentation to the conference, it was understood. They will have the strong support of the United States as well as other key delegations, it is believed.
The proposals, to be presented by Chile, will include a broad plan of naval defense for the hemisphere shipping routes whereby the navies of the United States, Argentina, Chile and Brazil would convoy all shipping along their own coasts in relays.
This conference is different. Everybody here is saying that there is a war on and that it calls for forthright decisions, not futile half-measures. Thus here is what is expected now.
A resolution calling for a hemisphere declaration of war against the Axis probably will be introduced. This won’t get far. Then a resolution will be offered demanding complete severance of all relations with the Axis – diplomatic, economic, financial. This, it is believed, finally will be carried.
Everybody wants Argentina to go along, but if she or any other American state refuses, then the majority will act.
Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, heading the U.S. delegation, was expected to confer with Argentine Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guinazu upon the latter’s arrival today.
Minority of one
Guinazu recently reiterated his government’s stubborn opposition to a formal break with the Axis, saying Argentina would refuse to undertake further “pre-belligerency engagements.”
As of today, Argentina looks like a minority of one, with a chance of one or two quasi-associates.
Meanwhile, Mr. Welles won new and strong support for an early showdown to Argentina’s opposition. He said that talks he held yesterday with President Getulio Vargas of Brazil and Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha were “highly satisfactory and encouraging.”
I have attended numerous Pan-American conferences. This one is totally different from any other I ever saw. The others invoked finesse but this one
I have witnessed receptions to American presidents and other high officials abroad, but with one possible exception, I have never seen the equal of the reception to the American delegation on its arrival here yesterday.
Axis move anticipated
The exception was Woodrow Wilson’s arrival in Paris to make what a war-wearied world hoped and believed would be a just and lasting peace.
Thousands lined the shores to see the plane come down and then cheered madly as the delegation came ashore.
It should be said that the parley here is not designed merely for a diplomatic move against the Axis. On the contrary, specialists will work on hemisphere trade, etc. But even these things depend largely on the outcome of the main issue.
There are reports of an attempt by the Axis to wreck or cripple the conference, which it is known to dread. Rumors that it might attempt a coup designed to undermine confidence in our ability to defend the western world have been spread.
By John R. Morris, United Press staff writer
BATAVIA (UP) – Dutch bombers roared out of secret jungle airdromes today in the first phase of a reported all-out counterattack against Japanese warships and invasion forces in the East Indies.
Japan meanwhile struck by air at the Central Celebes coast and Ternate Island, 150 miles across the Molucca Passage, indicating that new landings might be attempted.
Dutch military authorities promised that Japanese invaders on Tarakan Island, whose fall was announced by the Netherlands Indies command, would be bombed regularly and systematically.
Oil field destroyed
It was announced officially that all oil fields and equipment on the tiny but oil-rich island had been destroyed before the little Dutch garrison abandoned it.
With the oil fields destroyed, the Japs had but one advantage in seizing Tarakan – use of its harbor, which would be of minor importance if the Dutch bomb it. So thoroughgoing was the destruction, Dutch authorities said, that it will take months for the Japanese to restore the oil wells to working condition.
At the same time their seizure of the island was reported to have cost them many men, for the Dutch defenders, some of whom escaped, had the advantage of a narrow beach terrain backed by marshy jungle.
Prelude to new invasion
The Japanese attacks on the Central Celebes coast may be the prelude to new invasion attempts, as in the past, but Dutch authorities said the Japanese appeared to be devoting most of their energy to consolidating their gain at Tarakan.
Thirty heavy bombs were dropped at Kolonedale, 250 miles down the Celebes coast from Tarakan but the only casualty reported was the wounding of a non-commissioned officer.
Later Japanese planes raided Ternate, killing 15 persons, wounding four seriously and 20 slightly and setting fire to copra stores, warehouses and buildings in the center of the town. The fires were put out with difficulty. Ternate is off the west coast of Gilolo, in the Dutch Molucca group, the historic spice islands.
Some of garrison escapes
A small part of the embattled garrison on Tarakan, which had fought bravely but hopelessly for three days against overwhelming odds, fought its way to Borneo in the face of merciless fire from Jap parachutists and seaborne troops and Jap invasion ships offshore.
It was known that Australian planes were cooperating and that American planes had been active in the Celebes Sea between Borneo and the Philippines.
Tarakan’s fall had been expected.
Enemy knew terrain
There was more confidence that the troops in Celebes could at least delay any Jap advance in the Menado region of Minahassa.
The Jap parachutist and seaborne troops engaged in the attack were believed to be led by Japanese long familiar with both Tarakan and Minahassa.
They operated about eight lumber estates, before the war, on the Borneo coast immediately opposite Tarakan, and many Jap naval officers had visited the harbor in oil tankers. They had two large coffee plantations and two big coconut enterprises on the Celebes coast between Menado and Gorontalo.
These plantations continued to operate at a loss when others shut down – in the same way, the newspaper Nieuws Van Den Dag pointed out, that Jap barber shops remained open with an average of one customer a month.
In expectation of air raids, the government made arrangements for the announcement of air raid alarms on the radio in English as well as Dutch, effective at once.
WAR BULLETINS!
British battleship reported sunk
BERLIN (Official broadcast recorded in London by UP) – A German submarine was reported by the official news agency today to have torpedoed and sunk the 31,100-ton British battleship Barham off Sollum on the Egyptian coast, last November 26. The Barham in peacetime had a complement of 1,184 men, but this presumably was increased for war.
Freighter torpedoed off Nova Scotia
OTTAWA – The torpedoing of a freighter 160 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia was revealed today with the arrival here of 79 survivors. They said 91 persons aboard the vessel lost their lives.
U.S. planes get 2 Jap cruisers
MELBOURNE, Australia – Air Minister Arthur S. Drakeford said today that in three days of action, American-built bombers of the Royal Australian Air Force had scored two hits on Japanese cruisers, shot down two fighter planes, and attacked numerous enemy warships engaged in landing operations.
Reinforcements asked for Borneo
LONDON – Allied reinforcements are needed urgently in the East Indies if the Dutch islands of Borneo and Celebes are to be saved, a Dutch spokesman said today. He said the situation resulting from Japanese attacks was most critical and that the loss of Borneo and Celebes was probable.
Australia given recognition
MELBOURNE, Australia – Australia will conduct direct negotiations with the United States, in a radical departure from empire policy, as part of the Allied discussion of grand strategy in the Pacific, authoritative sources said today.
Japs lose 45,000 at Changsha
CHUNGKING – Total Japanese casualties in their unsuccessful campaign to take Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, now are 45,000 to 50,000, a Chinese military spokesman said today. In addition, he said, thousands of prisoners have been taken.
Tide of Pacific War will turn with arrival of more planes – Allied position already improved
By Leland Stowe
RANGOON – The first five weeks of the Pacific War already have established several cardinal principles about the Allies’ job of defeating Japan. Although newly established, the principles are long-term in essence.
They may go far toward charting the ultimate elimination of Nipponese totalitarianism throughout Eastern Asia. Among them, the following seem unchallengeable:
The Pacific War must be won first and foremost in the air, with the striking power of both the naval and land forces of the Allies determined by the degree of Allied aerial predominance.
Because this is true the most vital points in the Far East for British, Americans, Dutch and Chinese alike are those from which Allied air squadrons can provide offensive opportunities for land or sea forces. In other words, Singapore’s great naval base will remain virtually useless until the Japanese air bases on the Malayan Peninsula and Thailand can be cleaned out by our aviation.
It is already an established fact that American and British pilots are superior to Japanese and that even our older models can outfight and severely punish both Japanese fighters and bombers. Therefore, the tide of the Pacific War will begin to turn just as soon as units of first-class British and American aircraft are thrown into the battle in any considerable numbers anywhere in the Orient.
The entire course and length of the Pacific War will be governed by the amount of time the Allies are able to gain through bitter resistance during the next month or two. In this respect, the gallant struggles of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s little Philippine Army and of the British and Indian forces in Malaya may well spell the eventual doom of the Japanese. Every day and every week gained in these two sectors hastens the time when the invaders will begin to pay heavily for their conquests. Thus, the loss of the entire Philippines would be infinitely of less importance than the length of time they are able to hold out, and the same principle applies to Malaya.
Whereas at the war’s outbreak Singapore and Manila might have seemed most essential to the Allies, it is now abundantly clear that Burma and the Dutch Indies have a greater key and long-term significance. In regard to Burma, Washington, London and Chungking alike are compelled to give its defense and fortification the foremost attention in its role of a combined aerial and land spearhead against the Japanese aggressors. The severe aerial setbacks inflicted on the Nipponese in the Burma sector thus constitute an immeasurable gain for the Allied cause.
Position improving
Taking into consideration all these factors, it is possible to say that the Allies’ position in the Far Eastern war theater, even though still on the defensive, is considerably better than might have been expected a month ago.
More reserves and perhaps some stinging losses may still occur, but on the long-term basis, the Allies’ military situation has improved and is still improving, however slowly. If the United States fleet should be able to strike a telling blow in the near future, the constructive effect upon all our Allied activities throughout the Far East might be very great.
Nevertheless, the ABCD powers must continue the fight for time – time to build up their air, land and naval forces and armaments – and also to gain time as a seasonal weapon and ally. This is especially important in Burma and Malaya, and perhaps most of all in Burma.
Rainy season in May
For the rainy season begins in mid-May at the latest and will bring two things, mist and fog, rendering Japanese air activity in these sectors almost negligible, coincident with mud-soaked terrain and flooded rice paddies, which will be a formidable barrier to the Japanese land forces. Unless the Japanese can conquer Malaya and most of Burma before the rainy season, it would appear virtually certain that they will never be able to do so.
Here, as with every vital factor of the Pacific War, the decisive magnetic needle swings back to aviation’s role in the anti-Japanese conflict. So long as the Allies can fight the Nipponese squadrons on anything approaching even terms, our land and sea initiatives will be assured.
That day is bound to come and will determine everything the Allies can achieve here in future. But, meanwhile, certain Allied spearheads in the Far East must be held at all costs and one of the foremost of these is Burma.
In the battle to hold Burma, it would be less than catastrophic if the invaluable American lend-lease war materials already stored here in large quantities were not placed immediately at the disposal of Burma’s defenders. This has been done to some degree already, but a great deal more should and could be done in this respect providing Washington, London and Chungking act with much-needed speed. Battles are usually won by those who act the fastest.
Roosevelt may also name Willkie, Farley, Smith
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt was reported today to be considering the selection of Charles Evans Hughes, Wendell L. Willkie, James A. Farley and possibly Alfred E. Smith as members of a supplemental board of umpires to assist the new National War Labor Board.
The White House announced that Mr. Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential candidate, was under consideration for such an appointment.
The report regarding the others could not immediately be confirmed.
Mr. Hughes retired last year as chief justice of the United States. Mr. Farley resigned the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee and the postmaster generalship in Mr. Roosevelt’s Cabinet after the latter’s nomination in July 1940 for a third term. Mr. Smith was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928 and opposed Mr. Roosevelt’s nomination in 1932 and his renomination in 1936, bolting the party in the latter year in protest.
Mr. Willkie arranged to confer with Mr. Roosevelt today, but White House Secretary Stephen Early said he did not think the possibility of Mr. Willkie’s appointment to the supplemental body was the primary purpose of the conference.
Issues order
Mr. Roosevelt created the War Labor Board by executive order yesterday.
In most important cases that come before the War Labor Board, Mr. Early said, the board members will sit as a panel with selected umpires from the supplemental list.
There have been reports for some time that Mr. Roosevelt is planning to utilize Mr. Willkie’s services in a war post. Mr. Early’s emphasis that the Roosevelt-Willkie meeting today was not necessarily to discuss Mr. Willkie’s role as an umpire or arbitrator renewed speculation that the president may still have a more important post in mind for his 1940 rival.
Faces closed shop issue
One of the first tasks of the new War Labor Board may be a determination of the explosive closed shop issue. The test may come in the case involving labor demands for a union or closed shop at the Kearny, New Jersey, plant of the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Company.
Labor officials said the plan for appointment of umpires to assist the War Labor Board provides for selection of 12 or more impartial men who would be “on call” to arbitrate labor disputes when the board is unable to settle a controversy.
The Navy, at the direction of Mr. Roosevelt, took over the Kearny plant last fall after the National Defense Mediation Board failed to settle the dispute between the company and the Industrial Union of Shipbuilders (CIO). It returned the management to the company last week.
Direct negotiations fail
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was said to have told the union and the company that if they could not settle their dispute by direct negotiation, it would be sent to the new War Labor Board. John Green, the union president, has informed Mr. Knox, President Roosevelt and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins that direct negotiations have collapsed.
The War Labor Board was established on the request of industry and labor representatives to carry out their pledge of uninterrupted war production and peaceful settlement of all disputes by negotiation, conciliation, mediation and arbitration.
Davis heads board
Six of the members of the new board were on the old Mediation Board, which it replaces. William H. Davis, chairman of the new board, was also chairman of the NDMB which collapsed after ruling against United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis’ demand for a union shop for his “captive” coal miners. The union shop was granted later by an arbitration board.
One of the most difficult problems facing the new board is whether to take jurisdiction or closed shop demands. The industry-labor conference called last month by Mr. Roosevelt to draft a program for full war production argued for four days about including closed shop demands among “proper” disputes for consideration, but never came to any agreement.
Unions insist
Both the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations have insisted that it do so.
Industry representatives have been equally insistent that closed shop demands be settled by direct negotiations and some said they would never agree to arbitration. Mr. Roosevelt’s acceptance of the industry-labor conference report and his executive order creating the board last night made no mention of the closed shop.
The order outlined this procedure for settling disputes:
“The parties shall first resort to direct negotiations or to the procedures provided in a collective bargaining agreement.
“If not settled in this manner, the Commissioners of Conciliation of the Department of Labor shall be notified if they have not already intervened in the dispute.
“If not promptly settled by conciliation, the Secretary of Labor shall certify the dispute to the board, provided, however, that the board in its discretion after consultation with the Secretary may take jurisdiction, the board shall finally determine the dispute, and for this purpose may use mediation, voluntary arbitration, or arbitration under rules established by the board.”
Lacks enforcement power
The board has no power to enforce its decisions, other than the agreement of labor and industry not to strike or lockout during the war. Neither side is required to accept an arbitration decision unless an agreement to do so is reached before arbitration begins.
Along with the six members of the Mediation Board named to the War Board, Mr. Roosevelt transferred all employees, funds and records.
The board named comprises four public members, four labor representatives and four representing employers. In addition, Mr. Roosevelt named four alternate labor members and four alternate employer representatives.
Public members
The public representatives, in addition to Mr. Davis, are George W. Taylor, professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, vice chairman; Frank P. Graham, president of the University of North Carolina and NDMB member, and Wayne L. Morse, dean of the Law School of the University of Oregon and chairman of the recent special Railroad Mediation Commission.
Labor representatives are Thomas Kennedy, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers and former NDMB member who resigned when the board ruled against UMW union shop demands; George Meany, secretary of the AFL and NDMB member; R. J. Thomas, president of the United Auto Workers (CIO), and Matthew Woll, AFL vice president.
Employer members are A. W. Hawkes, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president; Roger D. Lapham, chairman of the board of American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, and NDMB member; E. J. McMillan, president of Standard Knitting Mills, Inc., and Walter C. Teagle, chairman of the board of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and NDMB member.
Alternate members
Labor alternates are Martin F. Durkin, secretary-treasurer of the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters (AFL); C. S. Golden, Steel Workers Organizing Committee (CIO) regional director; Emil Rieve, president of the Textile Workers Union (CIO), and Robert J. Watt, AFL international representative. Mr. Golden and Mr. Rieve were NDMB alternates.
Employer alternates are L. N. Bent, vice president of Hercules Powder Company; R. R. Deupree, president of Proctor & Gamble Co.; James W. Hook, president of Geometric Tool Co., and H. B. Horton of the Chicago Bridge & Iron Corp.
Mr. Davis said the board would start work as soon as the members can convene and that it would consider all disputes “promptly, fearlessly, and fairly.”
By Florence Fisher Parry
I’ve been meaning to give you a first-hand report on the State of the Union so far as the Manhattan Theater is concerned; for what, pray, contributes more directly to our general morale than the Amusement World?
Great Britain found this out the hard way. When she was first Blitzed, her people fled to the Underground and lived like hunted moles. The Anderson Air Raid Shelter was deemed the First Necessity for every family. Theaters closed, Glamor blacked out, women discarded their beauty and grace, and England became a grim and awful habitat.
Then her people learned a valuable lesson. Character and purpose were not enough. Grim resistance was not enough. Even the stern stuff of patriotism was not enough. What really counted was GRACE under pressure.
So the first thing they did was to open their theaters. Lights, music, song and dance! And England kept not only a stiff upper lip, but more important, a smiling lip as well. Her people came out of their Anderson Shelters, they knew daylight and fresh air again. This, long before the Blitz subsided.
We in America are a long way from such Ordeal as England braved. But in a lesser way, we have known Shock and Purpose. The first week after Pearl Harbor we were stunned. The theaters emptied of their audiences, and the blight of inertia settled upon the Amusement world.
Then, with our native resilience, we rebounded. The Musicals in New York are doing an amazing business. The movie houses are boasting their old-time queues. The biggest money-making star on the screen is Mickey Rooney. The biggest single one-man attraction is Eddie Cantor. The biggest play hit in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.”
Fortnight program
In the fortnight I spent in Manhattan, (with the exception of George Jessel’s glorified burlesque, “High Kickers,” which I found myself content to miss) I saw all the shows. One beautiful revival awaits us, in Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” which will contain most of its original players. Two brand new openings in New York were seen in advance here in Pittsburgh, and received exactly the same reception there as was given them in Pittsburgh. They are “Clash By Night” and “Papa Is All.” Tallulah Bankhead attracts her own fans to the play but Odets’ latest is not rated highly. I saw the play again, only to find that Lee Cobb’s performance of the carpenter husband has degenerated into a Hairy Ape exhibition, which throws into still bolder and more inconsistent relief Tallulah’s own sultry self. She has become a hunted leopard panting in the heat, understandably revolted by her Lenny-like consort.
I had a good visit with her after the play, and had occasion to marvel again at that strange blind devotion which all stars seem to have for the play they happen to be in, regardless of how inadequate the vehicle may be.
I saw the following during my brief stay.
“Angel Street,” which you will recall, was offered by our Pittsburgh Playhouse last year under the title “Gaslight,” and which is the biggest dramatic hit in New York. (By the way, the girl who played the important maid part, here, Helen Lake, was much better than the girl in the New York play, and it’s a shame she wasn’t given the chance to appear in the Manhattan company.) I still am mystified over the play’s success, for although it invokes a certain macabre spell, and is handsomely mounted and acted, it cannot compare with other plays of equally painful content, such as “Payment Deferred” and “Kind Lady,” which failed to be hits.
Hoorah for Eddie
“Banjo Eyes,” Eddie Cantor’s grand vehicle in which he returns to New York for the first time in 12 years. This musical, taken from “Three Men On A Horse,” is to my mind a far more satisfactory show than “Best Foot Forward” and “Let’s Face It” and shows up in magnificent contrast with the potpourri nonsense of “Sons O’ Fun.” Eddie surprises with a real characterization, and becomes a legitimate ACTOR, as well as a far better comedian than he ever was before.
“Junior Miss,” possibly the most delightful play in Manhattan today. How define its tender, comic charm? Myself, I cannot. I only know that it took charge of me completely, rendering me a misty-eyed sentimentalist shaking with laughter and moved to unaccountable tears.
The play is about you and me when we still had a Junior Miss in our home; and it’s about her funny, mighty absurd problems and the completely unrelated world she moved in. You’ll love it and if you’ve ever had a Junior Miss around the house, the play is simply compulsory.
“Spring Again” was dealt gently with by the New York critics, who plainly adore Grace George, as indeed they should, for she is a lovely ivory miniature of gentility and grace! But her play, in which C. Aubrey Smith assists her, is as slight and inconsequential as they come, and to me at least a gentle bore except in the last act, when one Joseph Buloff redeems the evening with one of the most hilarious takeoffs on Hollywood’s movie moguls ever to be conceived.”
Three fine attractions since withdrawn, were “The Land Is Bright,” “Sunny River” and “Letters to Lucerne” – which just goes to show how necessary it is to see the “failures” first.
The hits are always with us!
Red Cross contributions total $631,710
The Red Cross’ war fund drive in the Pittsburgh District crossed the halfway mark today as volunteer workers in the $1,250,000 county campaign met for a second report meeting.
A total of $191,007 in new gifts was turned in today at a meeting of workers in the William Penn Chatterbox. This, added to the previously reported $440,703, brought the total contributions to date to $631,710.
The next report meeting will be held at the Chatterbox in Thursday.
Meanwhile the drive extended its circle of activities as county volunteers pushed solicitation in out-of-the-city districts.
This phase of the campaign was delayed because of the necessary size of the personnel which had to be recruited, Artemas C. Leslie, county chairman, said.
H. S. Wherrett, campaign chairman, said heads of the special gifts, commercial and industrial divisions had appealed to volunteers and contributors to hurry returns so the goal can be reached as quickly as possible to meet growing demands for services of the Red Cross of soldiers and civilians.
A contribution of $1,000 by the Serb National Federation was announced by Mr. Wherrett. Other nationality groups, he said, were not only “swinging behind the Red Cross drive daily,” but were urging members to participate in obtaining additional gifts.
Conferees report warning by President against adoption of Senate’s price control bill
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt was reported to have told members of the House Banking Committee today that adoption of Senate farm bloc amendments to the price control bill would be likely to cause renewed labor unrest that would hamper the nation’s war effort.
The president met with the five members of the House committee who will represent the House in the conference to compromise differences between the price legislation passed by the chamber and the Senate.
To oppose amendments
One conferee forecast that the House group would see to reject the Senate amendments which would permit farm prices to rise higher that they would under the House bill and which would place control of farm prices in the Agriculture Department.
The House conferees, it was believed, also will go along with the president and accept the Senate amendments which restore the price administrator’s authority to license business as a means of enforcing the legislation.
Mr. Roosevelt was said to have told the House conferees that if farm prices were to raise about 25 percent, the resultant increase in the cost of living would bring from labor renewed demands for wage hikes which employers might refuse to meet.
Sees strikes
Chairman Henry B. Steagall, D-Alabama, of the House Banking Committee, said: “We discussed all phases of the House and Senate bills and the President asked us to get the best bill we can,” Mr. Steagall said.
The group would not say, however, whether Mr. Roosevelt had discussed the controversy between Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard and Price Administrator Leon Henderson over the fixing of farm prices.
Wants veto power
Mr. Wickard wants veto power over any price ceilings Mr. Henderson might order for farm products. The Senate’s bill would give him that authority. President Roosevelt and Mr. Henderson oppose the divided authority.
Mr. Wickard said both production land prices of farm products should be controlled by him to assure adequate food supplies for the united nations. He doubted that Mr. Henderson would “give farmers a square deal.”
Later, Mr. Henderson issued a statement containing a chronological report of consultations between his office and Agriculture Department officials prior and subsequent to the price order affecting fats and oils. A similar report of consultation could be prepared for “any other farm commodity regarding which OPA has acted,” the statement said.
“It would appear that Secretary Wickard is either mistaken or, as has happened in other cases, he has not consulted with members of his own staff,” Mr. Henderson said.
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
WASHINGTON – The next report of Sen. Harry S. Truman’s war contracts investigating committee will be the hottest yet.
Now being prepared by the Missouri senator and his able chief counsel, Hugh A. Fulton, the report will give OPM a bare-knuckled going-over for failing more effectively to utilize the nation’s industrial system for war production.
Sen. Truman will flatly demand the elimination of all dollar-a-year and “WOC” (without compensation) men as the first step in a top-to-bottom cleanup of the OPM, which he will recommend should be undertaken immediately.
In blasting the dollar-a-yearers, the report will charge that many of them, under the pretense of “giving” their services to the government, have in fact exploited their official positions to get juicy contracts for their corporations.
Also. unless a change is made in the Truman-Fulton draft, the report will declare bluntly that many of these dollar-a-year men have been undercover lobbyists for their firms.
Equally sensational will be the accusation that a number of them have received substantial increases in the salaries they have continued to draw from their companies while working for the government “for nothing.”
NOTE: OPM now has 246 dollar-a-year and “WOC” men on its rolls. It costs the FBI $250 per man to investigate the background of these officials.
How they do it
The report will say that the probe has uncovered no technical violation of the regulation barring OPM officials from handling contracts in which former business associates are interested. However, the report will charge that some dollar-a-year men have helped their companies get big-profit contracts by surreptitious devices.
One such device is to give their firms advance tips on orders, a tremendous advantage to a bidder. Another is to advise their firms on “how to go about” getting a contract, who to see, the amount to bid, and so on.
Also, the dollar-a-year boys are in a position to know of impending shortages of certain materials and to help their companies out by giving them inside information on when and how to stock up.
Sen. Truman’s report will strongly recommend that the government either pay dollar-a-year and “WOC” men regular salaries or get rid of them. As now written, the report declares:
“No man can serve two masters, his company and the government. Human nature being what it is, a dollar-a-year man cannot be expected to forget the interest of his company, especially while he is still on the payroll of that company.”
Wally’s lost trip
It did not leak out at the time, but just a few days before Pearl Harbor the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were preparing to take a trip to Mexico on the “Southern Cross,” famous yacht of Axel Wenner-Gren, mysterious Swedish industrialist.
Herre Wenner-Gren, who had been entertaining the niece of the Mexican president on the yacht, actually started for Nassau to pick up the Duke and his Duchess when the war broke. But the Duke changed his mind. He decided to stick to his job in Nassau.
Colonel Lindbergh
The colonel’s commission discarded last year by Charles Lindbergh while waging his bitter isolationist crusade will be reinstated by the War Department – when his formal application has been received.
As this is written it has not yet reached the War Department. Mr. Lindbergh signified his desire to regain his reserve commission in a personal letter to Gen. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Air Corps and an old friend. It was Arnold who gave out the news story that Mr. Lindbergh wanted to be restored to Army rolls.
So far, the War Department knows nothing about it officially. However, when Mr. Lindbergh’s formal application is received it will be approved and he will be assigned to active duty. Approval will be routine, since under Army procedure, reserve commissions are reinstated without delay if request is made within 12 months after resignation. After the lapse of a year, such applications are handled just as original requests. But it was only seven months ago that Mr. Lindbergh quit.
NOTE: Since the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, stripling Army pilots almost daily are performing feats of daring and skill flying big bombers vast distances that make the first trans-Atlantic flights look like amateur aviation. For military reasons the story of these spectacular flights now cannot be disclosed. But later it will be one of the truly great epics of aviation.
Brass mine
The Bureau of Mines recently received a phone call from an official of the OPM metals and minerals division asking about “brass mines.”
“What are you trying to do, kid us?” said a BM expert.
“What do you mean, kid you,” protested the OPM-er. “I’m serious. We want to find out all we can about brass mines – how many there are in the country, where located and the total annual production of brass ore.”
“Mister, we’d like awfully much to accommodate you,” was the flabbergasted reply. “But any schoolboy can tell you that there just is no such animal as a brass mine. Brass is an alloy made chiefly of copper and zinc.”
“Oh,” was the startled gasp from the OPM end of the line.
By Henry McLemore
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida – For one whose musical accomplishments are limited to the juke box, the player piano, and the comb and tissue paper, I have been paid an undeserved honor by the amateur song writers of the United States.
They have chosen me as a sort of combination critic and clearing house for their war ballads. Not a mail comes in that doesn’t bring a batch of musical attacks on Japan and other Axis members. The song writers may have been caught asleep by the outbreak of the war, but they apparently haven’t been asleep since.
The songs that have come in to me fall into half a dozen categories. The blood-curdlers are in the majority at the moment. A good example of this type is the contribution by Martin Dale, of San Francisco, entitled “The Japs, The Wops and the Hun.” A few lines of this song is sufficient to show you that Mr. Dale disapproves of the Axis:
“The Japs, the Wops, and the Hun; buzzards, snakes and scum! We won’t relax till we sharpen the axe and cut them down, one by one.
“The Japs, the Wops, and the Hun; the buzzards, snakes and scum! They’ll be carrion feed, for their own mad breed, when our hard work is done.”
Mr. Dale undoubtedly feels that in times like this no one should quibble over the difficulty of rhyming scum and Hun. I agree with him.
Robert Ward, of Chicago, has sent in “Smackie Jap,” which begins this way:
“Smackie Jap, Smackie Jap, he no friend of mine. Makee me velly sad, say Chinese Charley Chine. If I was Melican, and big and strong and brave, I’d blow up all Japan, the world would then be safe, from Rising Suns of guns, and cousins of the Huns, snake in grass, bite his last.”
James Ward Lynch, who doesn’t give his address, has sent me “Let’s Take a Pokyo at Tokyo.” It has sentiment as well as destruction mixed in it.
“Let’s take a pokyo at Tokyo, send over some bombs of good cheer, goodbye Mother and Father, remember my last kiss, Dear. Take care of my ol’ dog Coon, I’ll be back real soon, I’ll bring you a Jap, a German or two, and a little fat guy from Italy, too. Let’s take a pokyo at Tokyo.”
Scores of the amateur tunesmiths hit on the “avenge Pearl Harbor” theme, and Mr. M. G. Brown, of Pittsburgh, expressed it thus:
“Out on the broad Pacific, Pearl Harbor peacefully lay, never a thought of disaster, on that December day. Out of the north, the south and the east, Jap bombers came when expected least, while they talked peace that they don’t know well, and bombed Pearl Harbor all to hell. We will send the Rising Sun, to the bottom of the sea, and we will learn the treacherous Japs, America is the home land of the free.”
Only lack of space prevents me from giving you the lyrics of “Only Nuts Have Almond Eyes,” by the Messrs. Andrade, Bond and Fogelson, of Dallas, Texas.
Keep ‘em rhyming, boys!
Collapse of Philippines’ defense due soon, Japs declare
TOKYO (Broadcast recorded in U.S. by UP) – Japanese Imperial Headquarters announced today that 16 British warplanes were shot down over Singapore and Johore in yesterday’s raids by Jap aircraft.
Jap air squadrons encountered 16 Buffalo-type British planes over Johore and in a spirited combat, 10 of the Buffaloes were shot down, it was announced.
After the raid, the airfield at Tengah was severely bombed, and a Blenheim was brought down over the airfield there, it was said.
Claim Philippine collapse due
Later yesterday, powerful formations of Jap planes encountered another formation of Buffaloes and shot down five of them over Senetar, Imperial Headquarters said, adding that all the Jap raiders returned to their base.
A dispatch from the Philippines said that the fall of Olongapo, the remaining American forces resisting on the Bataan Peninsula are on the verge of wholesale collapse.
“These troops now are forced to the choice of continuing their resistance in the mountainous areas of Mariveles, or fleeing to Corregidor,” the dispatch said. “However, reconnaissance over Corregidor by Japanese planes reveals the remaining troops appear to be trying to flee in transport vessels gathered along the coast.”
Rescue interned Japs
After mopping up the remnants of the American base at Olongapo, Japanese forces rescued interned Japanese, and now are cleaning up the remaining American forces in the swamp district, the dispatch said.
Radio Berlin, heard by The United Press in London, said Jap planes attacked the air base at Singapore twice yesterday.
Nine American fighters and five British pursuit planes engaging Jap aircraft over the Thailand-Burma border were driven off after dogfights, a dispatch from Saigon said. Several enemy planes were shot down when Anglo-American bombers attempted to raid Jap military establishments in Thailand, it said.
Radio Rome, quoting a Bangkok dispatch, said the situation in Burma was becoming “steadily worse” under unremitting Jap bombardments. It said the civil population, angered by repressive British measures against Burmese nationalism, hoped for a Jap victory.
Jap sources said important naval establishments were destroyed in a surprise attack on Tutuila, American Samoa, by Jap naval forces.
A Shanghai dispatch from Rangoon said Britain had announced that China had agreed to supply munitions to British forces in Burma. Jap sources ridiculed this, pointing out that China had asked munitions and supplies for itself from the United States.
By Harold Guard, United Press staff writer
SINGAPORE (UP) – Increasing numbers of Allied airplanes battled intensified Japanese daylight raids on the Singapore area today.
At the same time, 150 miles north of this key naval base, Imperial forces bitterly resisted enemy land attacks.
Reference to Allied airplanes indicated that American, Dutch and Australian as well as British planes were joining in the defense of the Malaya area and that reinforcements, probably from America, had arrived. Only yesterday a British official visiting a guerrilla camp in Malaya had asserted that the Allies would have air superiority within a few days.
The tempo of enemy air raids has increased in the last 24 hours but the Japanese have suffered higher losses with at least 11 bombers reported destroyed.
Two Japanese bombers were seen falling in flames as one group of raiders turned away and raced out to sea. Fighter planes were active everywhere.
The last 24 hours witnessed what appeared to be the most severe daylight raids yet made on the Singapore area. Apparently, these were Japanese efforts to prevent this Allied base from frustrating enemy attacks on the Dutch East Indies. The increased attacks were attributed to Japanese seizure of air bases in Malaya closer to Singapore.
The Japanese were reported to have taken 15 British air bases in their advance down the Malaya Peninsula.
London circles professed “astonishment” today at claims that the Allies soon would have air superiority over Singapore. It was pointed out that the Japs hold most of the landing fields outside Singapore proper, and therefore it was difficult to see how the “superiority” claim could be true.
There were clouds and a misty rain during today’s late morning raid. Isolated fighters were visible frequently below the clouds and the drone of multi-engine bombers could be heard.
Detonations shake city
Heavy anti-aircraft detonations shook the city during the air alarm period.
On the Malaya front, British forces had abandoned Port Swettenham, 40 miles southwest of Kuala Lumpur on the Strait of Malacca, in the face of an intense enemy drive.
The Japanese also had entered Kuala Lumpur but found it stripped of everything usable, according to British dispatches.
Japanese airplanes, totaling about 125, bombed the Singapore area yesterday and during the night but suffered high casualties.
Six planes destroyed
Official reports said that six planes were destroyed and four more probably shot down. Unofficial reports said 11 had been downed.
Bomb damage was slight due to the increasingly strong opposition and the toll of enemy planes – almost 10 percent – approached the mark that military authorities regarded as too costly for continuation of bombing attacks.
Fierce fighting was reported today in the Kelangor-Negri Sembilan border area where the new imperial line was based.
The Japanese were reported to be attempting to line their east and west coast forces for he real fight for Singapore, which experts here said was just starting on a line 150 miles to the north.
Triangle defense
The present line, with the Empire forces based at Seremban, was the base of a triangle which had Singapore for its apex.
As this base narrowed, assuming that the Japanese were able to continue their advance, it was believed that Empire resistance would get increasingly stronger.
The Japanese had reached Kuala Lumpur by effecting innumerable penetrations in which small groups moved unseen through the forests, accompanied by small and then heavy tanks.
Greater fire power
Now fighting had reached more open country, favorable for tanks but favorable also to defense because the Imperial forces had greater fire power, man to man.
However, there was still sufficient cover for the Japanese on a fluid front to continue their practice of disappearing when Imperial patrols approached and then reappearing suddenly on the flanks or rear of the Imperials.
There was cover also for the Imperial commandos who were operating many miles behind the Japanese lines.
Though a continued delaying action was indicated, there was strong belief here that the Imperial forces would organize for a big counteroffensive at the proper moment.
Well-informed sources said the battle for Singapore would certainly be fought on lines a considerable distance from this island. They admitted that the Japanese might advance further southward but said there was a definite plan for the defense of the rest of Malaya.
The northern Johore sultanate boundary, 90 miles from Singapore, is the natural frontier of Singapore. Experts said that the entire area below there, roughly south of Muar on the west coast and Endau on the east coast must be closely defended both frontally and on the coasts because of the danger of Japanese landings in force within striking distance of Singapore.
Roosevelt fails to heed management in naming of labor board
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON – In establishing a National War Labor Board intended to keep industrial peace during the war, President Roosevelt has declined to follow the plea and advice of management leaders.
The 12 employer members of the recent management-labor conferences, while “endorsing without reservation the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively,” recommended that the closed-shop question be ruled out as a grievance for consideration by the War Labor Board.
Although declaring that employers should not attempt during the war to change present labor contracts providing for the closed shop, they argued against efforts by unions to extend the closed shop. They said:
“To accept it as an issue for government arbitration would intensify agitation, increase labor disputes, and divert the energy of both management and labor from the vital job of production.”
Subject unmentioned
A closed-shop demand in coal mining brought on the breakdown of the National Defense Mediation Board, and the threat of anti-union legislation which is lying dormant in the Senae after 2-to-1 passage by the House.
No mention of the subject was made in the president’s executive order for the new board, and inferentially it is left to the processes of that agency.
The War Labor Board of World War I, established by President Wilson in April 1918, formulated policies – which Mr. Wilson adopted – “freezing” closed-shop conditions for the duration.
Target for Lewis
President Roosevelt, in naming the 12 members of the new board, also rejected a recommendation of the National Association of Manufacturers that the four “public” members be chosen from retired members of federal courts, and that the chairman be Charles Evans Hughes, retired chief justice.
William H. Davis, who becomes chairman of the War Labor Board, has been chairman of the National Defense Mediation Board, and in that position has been a target of attacks by John L. Lewis.
Questions, answers on tires
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Office of Price Administration today issued the following interpretations of tire rationing regulation:
Q. A certificate holder purchases a new tire which blows out or otherwise is destroyed. Does he need a new certificate to purchase a new tire to replace the tire so destroyed?
A. Yes.
Q. Is a tire, for which the local board issued a certificate in the manner described in the proceeding question, taken from the local quota?
A. Yes.
Q. May a retail auto sales agency put its own new tires on used cars to be sold to the public?
A. No.
Q. What are the general provisions relating to obsolete tires and tubes?
A. Certificates for the purchase of obsolete tires and tubes may be issued by the local board without regard to quotas, provided the applicant establishes his need for such types and agrees to turn in tires to be replaced.
Q. An eligible vehicle has four serviceable tires and a spare which is not serviceable. May the local board, subject to its quota, issue a certificate to enable the operator of such a vehicle to obtain one serviceable spare?
A. Yes, but the local board has discretion to require the applicant to obtain a retread or used tire for this purpose.
Q. May tires be obtained for trucks of a warehouse jobber used to distribute semi-finished steel from the jobber’s warehouses to steel processers?
A. Yes, if the trucks are used exclusively for this or other authorized purposes.
Q. Is a car operated by a volunteer Red Cross worker an eligible vehicle?
A. No.
Q. May a manufacturer of new tires, tubes or casings sell to the manufacturer of new vehicles tires, tubes or casings to be used as part of the original equipment of such vehicles?
A. Yes, with the approval of OPM.
Q. May a certificate holder lease from a manufacturer new rubber tires, casings or tubes of the number and size specified in the certificate?
A. Yes, provided the lease is made pursuant to an agreement or renewal of an agreement in effect December 11, 1941.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UP) – Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., answering “recurring rumors,” emphatically denied today that the government plans to confiscate savings accounts.
In a formal statement, Mr. Morgenthau said: “I wish to state most emphatically that there are no foundations whatever for such rumors. The federal government does not have under consideration any proposal involving the confiscation of saving deposits of this country for any purpose.
"Furthermore, anyone circulating rumors of this character is acting against the welfare of the nation.”
By William H. Stoneman
LONDON – Astonishment was caused in London today by the reported statement of a high British official that the British would have air superiority in Malaya within three days.
Nothing is known here to support his claim and in view of the fact that the Japanese already hold most of the airdromes and landing grounds outside of Singapore proper, it is difficult to see how it could be true.
One possibility is that considerable reinforcements of American fighters and bombers may have reached Java and Sumatra and may operate from there against the Japanese land and sea forces attacking Singapore.
Dispersal problem serious
Known Malayan airdromes remaining in British hands included Batupahat, northwest of Singapore; Skudi, a landing ground due west of Singapore; Muar, a seaplane base on the west coast of Johore, and dromes on Singapore Island, the largest of which are Seletar and Tengah. Due to the confined space available on the island the problem of dispersal to prevent destruction of planes on the ground is serious.
Well-censored reports reaching London indicate that some reinforcements are arriving in Malaya and that greatest forces are reaching Sumatra and Java, which, with Singapore itself, form the keys to Allied resistance. The valiant American defense of Luzon continues to command the astonished admiration of the British but it is assumed that Philippine naval bases must eventually pass into Japanese hands.
As long as the main Dutch islands and Singapore can be held, however, the Allies will be in a strong position and will maintain the possibility of striking back hard when men, ships and planes are available.
Knox statement important
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox’s statement in Washington yesterday is felt here to have provided a badly needed note of realism among the confusion and wistful thinking which has resulted from the Pacific war.
His insistence upon the need for beating Hitlerite Germany as a prelude to complete victory checks with the studied opinion of Winston Churchill and British service chiefs. That opinion has been tenaciously held here despite the fact that Britain’s investments in the Far East far exceed those of the United States and the additional fact that London is submitted to constant pressure from the Australian and other governments which take a primarily eastern view of an situation.
It is felt here that everything possible must be done to hold Singapore and the Dutch East Indies but that “everything possible” must not include any violent, hasty action which might cripple the American fleet.
Organization may have been operating within military forces
WASHINGTON (UP) – The uncovering of an “organization of subversive individuals” – perhaps within the Army itself – was announced today by the War Department.
The Army did not reveal identity of the group, but it may have included military personnel or civilians employed by the Army since members of the Counter Intelligence Corps “function as special agents in the detection and investigation of espionage, sabotage, disloyalty and general subversive activity wherever found in the Army.”
Action against the organization was not disclosed but the Army’s statement said:
“The War Department believes that the public should know that enemy agents and other subversive persons will meet with effective treatment wherever encountered.”
Uncovering of the case “involved the comparative analysis of the handwriting of unidentified persons who had addressed communications of a highly inflammatory and insulting nature to persons in authority,” the announcement said.
“In investigating the case, the agents uncovered an organization of subversive individuals whose connection with enemy activities was not previously known,” it said.
The Counter Intelligence Corps is composed of officers and men whose “education and professional experience are such as to make them particularly qualified for specialized duties,” the War Department said.
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Senate yesterday passed and sent to the House a bill designed to vindicate the late William Mitchell, a pioneer advocate of air power, by awarding him posthumously the rank of major general.
Sen. Bennett C. Clark, D-Missouri, paid tribute to Mr. Mitchell’s work and the bill was amended on Mr. Clark’s motion to give Mr. Mitchell the rank of major general. As introduced by Sen. Alexander Wiley, R-Wisconsin, it merely would have restored Mr. Mitchell’s rank of brigadier general.
Mr. Mitchell was reduced in rank and relieved of command as a result of a court-martial which developed from his criticisms of Army policies and his demands for heavier airpower.
The posthumous promotion of Billy Mitchell to the rank of major general, as provided in a bill just passed by the Senate, is at once belated and very timely.
Belated, of course, because Billy Mitchell is long since dead. Timely because recent events have substantiated his argument that in the wars of the future airpower would be paramount – an argument he pushed with such persistence and vehemence that he was drummed out of the Army for “conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service.”
If Billy Mitchell’s views had prevailed at the time he was uttering them, if this country had given its Army and Navy flying officers a real chance to develop airpower as he so plainly saw it could be developed, the war situation today might have quite a different face on it.
But his counsel was ignored, and we are now paying in blood and sweat and tears the price of that mistake.
We hope the bill to give Billy Mitchell his two stars is enacted. But we suspect that he would take much greater satisfaction from the vastness of the new aircraft production program, and from the other evidence that brass-hat reluctance to strike the shackles from airpower is being dissolved by the pressure of reality.
By John W. Love, Scripps-Howard staff writer
WASHINGTON – To save the American way of life as to autos, the government in partnership with industry is going to bring into being synthetic-rubber factories capable of supplying more than half of our normal demand for tires.
The announcement of Jesse Jones that the factories would be ready by a year from next July was thought “optimistic” by some of the Akron rubber experts in Washington, but they admitted that no dangerous bottlenecks stood in the way of rapid construction of the 400 million dollars’ worth of plants.
These works are to produce around 400,000 tons a year of the stuff on which the German and Russian mechanized legions are rolling. Their material will be petroleum – under two per cent of America’s output – and a little coal.
Locations not announced
The announcement of the new plants is looked upon as evidence of forebodings here of ruin in the rubber plantations of the Far East. Regardless of who scorches the earth in that part of the world, little hope now is being held for their restoration intact, in adequate acreage, at the end of the war.
Most of the remaining half of the rubber normally required in this country can come from plantations of guayule, a desert shrub, according to its advocates in Washington, and some of them expect an announcement this week that the government will finance plantations capable of yielding up to 300,000 tons by 1944. With such crude as can be had by that time from Latin America, the hemisphere should be able to squeeze by with no rubber from the Orient.
Locations of the synthetic-rubber factories have not been announced. Akron, Ohio, now has three such plants of “pilot” size or larger, those of Goodrich, Goodyear and Firestone. Others have been built by du Pont, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Dow Chemical and United States Rubber. Goodrich is building one in Louisville, Kentucky, in partnership with Phillips Petroleum.
Taken by surprise
The synthetic product has been used lately in self-sealing gasoline tanks and de-icing sleeves on planes, as well as in auto tires. It will cost around 25 cents a pound, about three times the 10-year average for crude rubber.
The 40,000 tons of synthetic-rubber capacity which is to be available with current additions is about to be raised to 120,000 tons under arrangements recen.ly made by the RFC. Mr. Jones’ announcement implies a further addition of 280,000 tons.
In taking by surprise the sections of OPM and SPAB which have been working on this problem, Mr. Jones (a recently added member of SPAB) leaves them in a spot similar to that in which the procurement divisions of the services found themselves following last week’s disclosures of the 1942-43 aircraft and tank programs.
No. 1 commodity problem
Adoption of the synthetic enterprise on so vast a scale crowns the work of two great American chemists who first undertook the problem 15 years ago. One is Dr. Walso Semon of the B. F. Goodrich Co., Akron, who originated that company’s “Ameripol.” The other was the late Dr. Julius H. Nieuwland of Notre Dame University, whose discoveries led to the duPont Co.’s production of “Neoprene.”
Stacked against the dismal outlook for crude rubber from the Far East are the Army’s heavy demands for combat-car and airplane tires, barrage balloons, and treads for tanks, the sum of which means no rubber could be spared for even some of the “essential” civilian needs.
Even if these synthetic plants are finished on time, millions of tires will wear out before owners of autos can be supplied. No hope is offered for a softening of the rations on tires this year. But the announcements apparently do mean that drivers who lay up their machines next fall may begin to run them a year later on tires which comes from the same wells that supply the fuel.
WASHINGTON (PWB) – The Gulf Oil Corp., with headquarters in Pittsburgh, was named yesterday by Jesse Jones, federal loan administrator, among major petroleum concerns that will take part in development of an American synthetic rubber industry.
The oil companies’ task will be to make the basic material, butadiene, while chemical and rubber companies will do the intermediate and finishing jobs.
Expansion of aluminum production, made necessary by the huge new demands for military and naval planes, is being handled by the Office of Production Management, according to Mr. Jones. He said he is ready to furnish financing for any concerns recommended by OPM, including the Aluminum Co. of America and the Reynolds Metal Co.
Hershey asserts Army may not require such men until eight million are in uniform
WASHINGTON (UP) – Fathers will probably not be drafted for military service until the Army has seven or eight million men, Brig. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Selective Service Director, told the Conference of U.S. Mayors yesterday.
Hershey said the United States was probably not capable of producing more than 10 million men fit for military service. To do that, he said, “obviously we’re going to have to reduce many of our physical requirements.”
He did not refer specially to married men without children, but the policy in these cases has been to decide them in favor of deferment where the wives do not support themselves.
Students, even though they might graduate in one year or less, will not be deferred more than 60 days hereafter, provided they meet other requirements for service, Hershey said.
“The college man owes not what the average man owes but a little more,” he said. “I do not believe we can justify deferring a student for no other reason than that it interferes with his plan of life.”
HOLLYWOOD – Movie comedian Jack Oakie was fined $500 in Municipal Court on his plea of guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. Judge Frank G. Tyrrell suspended $300 of the fine, placed the actor on probation for three years and ordered him to surrender his driver’s license for 60 days.
Cecil Brown, war correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System who recently has been broadcasting his news reports from Singapore, has been forced off the air by the British military authorities at Singapore.
The British authorities charged, according to reports from Singapore, that Mr. Brown’s broadcasts were “detrimental to local public morale” and that for a period of months his broadcasts “showed an attitude which led the authorities to regard him as ‘persona non grata’.”
But he could not have been “persona non grata” very long or the British Navy would not have taken him aboard the cruiser Repulse only last month. Mr. Brown’s vivid eyewitness story of the heroism and coolness under fire of the British seamen when the Japs sank that great warships was published in The Press December 11 and certainly could have evoked no criticism from anyone.
Since that time, Mr. Brown, once a reporter for this paper – and a good one – has written several magazine articles, one clearly indicating that there virtually was no war morale in Singapore and that the British were decidedly unprepared for the Japanese assault on that all-important Far East seaport.
This story was passed by the British censors and official British action indicates it to be true.
Mr. Brown months ago was chased from Rome by Mussolini because he attempted to reveal the true situation in Italy.
There is more than the morale of the people in Malaya at stake in this incident. There is the morale of the people of Great Britain and the United States and all the other nations supporting the Allied cause. And it will do the morale of these peoples no good to know that the British in Malaya, having missed the boat, now intend to suppress facts which the Allies should know if they are to meet the problem head on in that sector.
Or do the Malayan authorities want to come a Mussolini?
In his speech the other night on safeguarding freedom of speech during the war, Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge no doubt was stating the policy of the Roosevelt administration.
Previous expressions of the President himself would indicate as much. And it is unlikely that Mr. Berge delivered the speech without advance administration approval.
Certainly the policy enunciated by Mr. Berge should be the administration’s policy and the policy of all Americans.
The Department of Justice, Mr. Berge said, is prepared to prevent the “veritable chamber of horrors” that resulted from the prosecution of critics in World War I. At that time, he said, the government “embarked upon a course of prosecutions on the theory that words in themselves had a ‘tendency’ to encourage resistance to law and interference with the conduct of the war.”
He said the Department will batten down those who clamor for prosecution of people “who are merely exercising their right of free speech.” The Department, he said, will attempt to protect free speech as long as it is not seditious.
Seditious speech and free speech are two separate things.
The government is the people’s government. It is the kind of government this war is being fought to preserve. The people, therefore, have the right to criticize the government’s conduct of the war, to mold the government’s general policies, to demand and get the action essential to victory.
Freedom of speech is as important in winning the war as any other factor. Any other course is dangerous, offensive and contradictory to democratic principles.
The worst news from the far Pacific is not that we are losing the Philippines, that two-thirds of Malaya is gone and Singapore gravely threatened, that Sarawak has been taken and the Dutch Indies invaded at four points. It is not even that the Allies have lost bases, ships and planes. In time those losses can be made good, we hope.
Much more disturbing are reports that the British are allowing large quantities of raw materials to fall into the hands of the Japanese in Malaya. According to American correspondents, the enemy has taken virtually intact not only radio, naval and military stations, but also supplies of tin and rubber.
We hope these reports are exaggerated, that they apply only to small areas under the correspondents’ observation and not to the two-thirds of Malaya already captured.
The serious implications are obvious. It is bad enough for the Allies – particularly the United States, which uses most of that raw rubber and tin – to be deprived of those materials so essential to war production. But that is the fortune of war to which we must be reconciled, since we and our Allies were so grossly unprepared in the Far East.
It is not the fortune of war, however, if those life-and-death resources are simply left for the Japanese to use. That would not be bad luck or defeat in a battle; it would be giving direct aid to the enemy of the very kind he needs most. It would be criminal. The lives of unnumbered Allied forces and civilians would depend upon it, the entire outcome of the war would be influenced by it.
The best hope of eventually defeating Japan, now that she has gained and the Allies lost so many bases, is her severe shortage of raw materials. Time fights for us as long as we keep her short. But if she gets the rubber. Tin and oil of the Indies, as well as the bases, she will be almost invulnerable.
There is only one way to prevent that. It is by destruction of every base, every storage center, every tin mine, every oil well, before retreat.
The British should best know the stakes. They know what happened to those French who were too property-minded to destroy their bridges, roads and crops. They know that the hungry and cold Nazi army would not be retreating today had not the Russians left only a land of desolation and waste to the invaders.
A scorched-earth policy, ruthlessly complete, must be carried out by the retreating Allied forces in Malaya and elsewhere. Anything less would be betrayal.
German officers are plotting a revolution against Hitler, according to an official spy report of an Allied government to our War Department.
Such reports are interesting, if true. But they can have a most insidious propaganda effect in lulling Allied war plans and efforts.
Doubtless it is true that the old conflict between Hitler and the officer caste continues; that the war has shifted some power from the Nazi party to the army; that huge losses and suffering in the eastern campaign increase soldier and civilian discontent; that Hitler and the officer caste are maneuvering, each seeking to make the other the public scapegoat, and to profit by any popular revulsion.
But much of this has happened before, though perhaps in lesser degree, and each time Hitler has emerged stronger in his control of public, government and army. Each time, however, the Allied governments and Washington have been tempted to exaggerate the significance of these German internal weaknesses and to underrate Hitler’s ability to surmount them.
This wishful thinking, fed by half-truths from Germany, is the chief reason to date for the Allies’ long and tragic record of giving “too little, too late.” And the net effect of this newest crop of reports – regardless of their source and intent – can be to slow down our working and fighting unless we stop wishing.
Nobody can predict what will happen in Germany, and when – not even Hitler. Our job is to win the war, regardless.
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Wars are started by two kinds of people – fanatics and fools. They are won by clear-thinking and intelligent men. We are now in the midst of a conflict which was begun by a super-fanatic. To win it we shall need sanity and strategy, as well as self-sacrifice and loud talk.
That is why I sincerely hope the War Department will accept the offer of Charles A. Lindbergh to serve in the air forces. True, he is cordially hated by many people and has been subjected to a campaign of abuse which would do credit to Dr. Goebbels himself. Nevertheless, one fact stands forth clearly. Mr. Lindbergh knows a lot about airplanes. His services would be a thousand times more valuable in a crisis than those of individuals whose only ability to win a war seems to be thinking up nasty names to call their enemies.
There is a group which regards Mr. Lindbergh as pro-Nazi, but no actual proof has ever been offered that he is such. his only crime was a sincere belief in isolationism when isolation was not the vogue. And, mad as we get, we can hardly accuse a person of disloyalty to country because he has put that country first in his thinking and worked to keep its arms and supplies for the use of its own people.
Obviously, it is time to shut up about isolationists. Under the Bill of Rights, they can still claim citizenship, and many of them are great and intelligent citizens.
To go on reviling them is a sorry way to maintain the unity we must have. And, as I see it, to deliberately deprive the nation of the services of a competent flier and airplane expert, because of past political differences, would be an act of supreme folly.
By Editorial Research Reports
Since the Revolutionary War, the government of the United States has nearly always found it necessary to borrow money from its citizens when the nation has been at war. Few persons dreamed the day would come when Uncle Sam would be asking his nephews and nieces to lend him such articles as blankets, shovels and axes; yet that is what is happening today.
Dozens of items which are common household equipment must be accumulated in community pools for civilian defense purposes. Factories which produce these articles already are overloaded with war orders, and raw materials in most cases are too scarce to be used in any except the most essential production.
To meet this situation, the Office of Civilian Defense has instructed its regional directors to begin campaigns in their localities to obtain, either as loans or gifts from citizens, those implements which will be needed for civilian protection in case of enemy air attack.
The system of borrowing and pooling is to be extended all the way through the civilian defense setup. Civilian defense headquarters at Washington will lend, or give, to communities such equipment as it is able to obtain from other branches of the government or by purchase with funds appropriated by Congress. This equipment, pooled with that lent by individual citizens, will then be lent to district organizations within each community.
Much of the needed equipment is of a special nature and cannot readily be purchased in the open market. Chemicals for fighting incendiary bombs, gas masks, firefighting equipment, decontamination solutions, must be manufactured especially for civilian defense. Supplies of this character will be purchased by civilian defense headquarters and distributed as needed. Under the House version of the pending Civilian Defense bill, the appropriation for such supplies would be limited to 100 million dollars. If gas masks are to be provided for 50 million persons, this alone would require more than the $100,000 allocation. Borrowing of other types of equipment from individuals is expected to make civilian defense dollars go farther in purchasing specialized types of supplies.
The borrowing method already has been tried successfully by one small town, Suffern, New York, of 4000 population. It was estimated that purchase of all the supplies needed for civilian defense with public funds would cost the town $17,000. Members of a committee went from house to house with lists of the things needed. The committee collected rifles with ammunition, revolvers, cots, sheets, blankets, pillow cases, shovels, pick-axes, helmets, lanterns, flashlights, fire extinguishers and first-aid kits. The amount required to purchase other items, not obtainable from householders, was only $1000. To some degree, at least, the OCD hopes the experience of this community can be duplicated in many other towns and cities.
Another important factor in civilian defense is the pooling of fire equipment. Such absurd situations as used to exist when fire apparatus stood helplessly at a town or county line and watched a building burn are not to be repeated. Fire equipment, like other defense facilities, will be pooled for use where it will render maximum service.
‘Panama Hattie’ features Frances Williams, Arthur Treacher
By Kaspar Monahan
By and large, things are much better this week at the Nixon than they were last week – as, I think, the majority of folks who lean toward musical comedy will agree. For “Panama Hattie,” unlike so many tune shows which come out of New York, labeled “hit,” is still a hit. It has the gusto and bounce without which a musical comedy comes a-cropper.
And another thing: despite its relative age (it ran more than a year on Broadway) this Buddy De Sylva show has a fresh appearance in the matter of sets and costumes. And the cast, which has undergone changes, throws itself whole-heartedly into the merry, rowdy business at hand, mainly the activities of sailors on leave in a port not celebrated for its adherence to the straight-laced conventions.
To put it bluntly these tars are seeking relaxation with whatever Panama may afford in the way of feminine companionship, and the ladies they encounter, it goes without saying, are not the type your Aunt Tabitha invites to her tea and croquet parties.
Producer De Sylva and his collaborator, Herbert Fields, have borrowed liberally and, on the whole, judiciously from the burlesque stage in writing their tall tale about the female of the title. Old gags and “business,” dolled up and refurbished, carry the unmistakable flavor of the burlesque marts, in and out of which weave the clever music and lyrics of Cole porter, the novel dances arranged by Robert Alton, the whole brightened by Raoul Pene DuBois’ excellent settings and colorful costumes. The eye is beguiled no little while the risibilities are assaulted by humors of unrefined origin.
For the prima donna of this bold inspection of off-duty activities of Uncle Sam’s stalwarts in the now all-vital region adjacent to the canal, Mr. De Silva has chosen Frances Willias for the road tour. Miss Williams as the Hattie of the frolic meets her singing assignments more than half way. This seasoned veteran of the tune shows knows what to do with a sophisticated tone.
The book calls for a butler, a butler of stern, supercilious mien and contemptuous outlook on the bulk of humanity. And what better choice for this role could there be than Arthur Treacher who scores of times on the screen has played such a haughty personage to the very life? Given uncouth sailors and the unlettered ladies of Panama’s honky-tonks as targets for his bleak stares and blighting comments, Mr. Treacher goes to town triumphantly. One of his best scenes is played with Mr. Red Marshall in a saloon where the latter, as a sailor, infuriates Mr. Treacher by his uncanny ability to “best” a slot machine. And Mr. Treacher’s chill, virginal opposition to the advances of a light lady will delight any audience.
About Mr. Marshall, now. He’s a draftee from the burlesque halls and he’s an extremely funny fellow, as are also Pat Harrington and Dick Bernie, his companions in amorous pursuits.
James Dunn, that nice fellow from the movies, in his own quiet way manages to hold his own in such boisterous company; Vera Allen is a top-notch dancer and a gorgeous eyeful, to boot; Ann Barrett, the Ambridge gal, works well with Mr. Treacher in their comic scenes and Jane Sterling as the villainess of the piece is a cool beauty who engages the eye.
“Villainess” Yep – there’s some sort of plot to blow up the Panama Canal. The canal isn’t blown up. Miss Williams’ Hattie prevents that, the nation is saved and the audience has an entertaining evening.
Whether it’s fighting or dying, burly actor always seems to enjoy himself
HOLLYWOOD – Whenever there’s a rip-roaring fight in Hollywood, you can safely bet a button that Alan Hale is in the thick of it.
This refers, of course, to screen fights, not to those publicized fisticuffs in the bistros and night spots in which nobody gets hurt. The Hale fights usually end up with people getting thrown through doors. Other people get chars smashed over their heads. Hale, big, blond, bluff, is always shown enjoying his battles, doing violence for the sheer joy of battering conflict.
And he has, come to think of it, jousted under almost every flag. He fought as a Spaniard in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” as a U.S. Marine in “Leathernecks,” as a Union soldier in “Dodge City,” as an Englishman in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,” and again in “The Sea Hawk,” as a doughboy in “The Fighting 69th,” and now we have him as a Canadian aviator in “Captains of the Clouds.”
Abhors fighting
He doesn’t, he says, like the fight.
He means personal, angry combat. Screen fights are all right, lots of fun, good exercise.
“It’s one of the penalties of being a big man,” said the big man. “A fight with another big man can be almost fatal for one of us. When a 230-pounder claps you one under the chin or over the eye, it’s due to lay you lows. With lightweights it’s different. They can bang away all day and nobody gets hurt. Not even other lightweights.
“Say – you ever notice, big men don’t fight each other? Well, hardly ever. They know better. It’s always little men who hop on big guys, or big guys who pick on little ones, or little ones that fight little ones.
“That’s not complicated. It just makes sense. A big guy who clouts a little one is a coward. And if the little man licks him, he’s yaller. And if he fights another big fellow, he may get his bean knocked off. So you see – the most peaceful people in the world are big men.”
Besides the art of the barroom brawl at which, as aforesaid, he is skilled, Hale is a master of death scenes.
“I die like a wounded bull moose,” he said. “Nothing delicate about my passings-out, no drooping eyelashes with one eve cocked for the camera angle, When I die, I die dead.”
Alan’s most celebrated fight was the battle he put on in “Leathernecks,” and he was a casualty. He was working with Bill Boyd, who was supposed to be his partner in an affray against overwhelming numbers. Just the kind of brawl Hale likes.
In the midst of the battle, somebody with a wonderful left hook reached over and laid Hale cold as an ice box. The blow came from Boyd.
When Alan had goggled back to consciousness, Boyd apologized.
“But why swat me?” Hale complained. “I was on your side.”
“Well, I didn’t really mean to, Alan, but you were the closest.”
Between these screen experiences, Hale spends most of his time at an experimental laboratory devising new manufacturable and salable articles and gadgets. He is already in the fire extinguisher and theater seat business, probably making as much money from these enterprises as he makes on the screen.
“I’m a busy man,” he grinned. “I have lots of fun. I like to fight – on the screen. And get paid for it.”
The Bundles for Bluejackets program pushes ahead in Hollywood
HOLLYWOOD (UP) – The “Bundles for Bluejackets” program is receiving enthusiastic support in Hollywood.
A list of the persons giving time and money to the plan is almost a who’s who of the film city.
Mrs. Emst Lubitsch, wife of the director, is national president of the organization which was founded to aid not only the sailors in service but their families as well.
Already much warm clothing has been added to sailors’ sea-bags and assistance given to families whose husbands and fathers are thousands of miles away.
Here are names of a few of those working to make the program a success:
Mrs. Darryl Zanuck, Mrs. Meryn Leroy, Mrs. Jack Warner, Dolores del Rio, Merle Oberon, Myrna Loy, Kay Francis, Mrs. Sam Goldwyn, Mrs. Brian Donlevy, Mrs. Charles Boyer and Mrs. Ronald Colman.
Sponsors include Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Miriam Hopkins, Norma Shearer, Frederic March, Alexander Korda, Victor Rossetti, Harry Warner, Arthur Hornblow and Dr. Joel Pressman.
Jean Arthur, actress, gave $2,000 to buy wool. An actors’ agent, Charles Feldman, contributed $3,000 to be used in assisting wives and children of men lost in the battle of the Pacific.
In addition to the “Bundles” program the group has assisted in sale of defense bonds and is supporting three “coffee and doughnuts” canteens in the Los Angeles harbor area.
By Hedda Hopper
Paulette Goddard, proving that she’s without fear, is going into “The Forest Rangers” with Madeleine Carroll and Fred MacMurray. And this time, Paulette’s been promised the man. She certainly had oodles of them on her trip to Mexico and New York. Even King Carol of Rumania was only too happy to attend a dinner in El Patio restaurant and be photographed all over the place with Paulette. When I asked her what he was like, she said, “Oh, he’s just a man. But Madame Lupescu is Anita Stewart with oomph. She’s terrific.”
The portrait Rivera, finally finished of Paulette, is going to hang in Chaplin’s marble halls, but she brought back five more for herself. When I asked her if she was rested, she said, “Heck, no! I never stopped going for one second. Now I hope to get a week of sun and solitude at Palm Springs before beginning the picture.” She meant sun – not solitude.
With Jimmy Cagney leaving Warner Brothers after his next, I suppose Humphrey Bogart will be doing 12 pictures. What with the old guard like Pat O’Brien, Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins all gone, it won’t look like old home week over there any more… Has anyone mentioned that the romance between Marlene Dietrich and Greg Bautzer is hotter than hot? He takes over spare time she has from Jean Gabin.
Tommy Mitchell plays his first screen villain in “Moontide,” and it’s made a complete wreck of him. It was bad enough to beat up little Ida Lupino for two days’ shooting, but when he had to finish off by tossing her into a tank of live bait, he just about threw up his job! … If you see Bill “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd marching down the street with his middle all lit up like an electric light, don’t run, but take a good look. Paul Flato has designed him a belt buckle, exact replica of his ranch, with several of the little houses done in diamonds. (I’m not saying which ones.) It is colossal. I’d advise him to keep his coat buttoned so his horse doesn’t get a squint at it, or he’ll be biting the dust!
…It’s no yarn – Gary Cooper and Bob Taylor are really hunting lions in Mexico. … On “My Gal Sal” set, Rita Hayworth was wiggling out of on 1890 corset. She said, “I get up at 4:30 a.m., get myself into this thing. If that isn’t giving your all for art!” Incidentally, Rita rests in Florida before starting her next, a dancing one, with Fred Astaire.
Now that metal buttons are on the defense materials list, Gwen Wakeling, at Twentieth Century, is using pottery buttons. … And Eddie Stevenson has designed a dress for Ellen Drew with all accessories made of same material as dress, which saves leather needed for defense. … There’s one defense material most of us will say goodbye to without too much grief, and that’s cellophane. The joy of being able to break your way into a cake of soap without losing a fingernail! … Monogram’s picture, “Here Come the Marines,” is the last production filmed with the cooperation of our armed forces. Picture was completed at the Opa Locka Airport in Florida, just prior to our entry into the war. … Ran into J. Carrol Naish as a make-up man was penciling his eyes for a scene in “Tales of Manhattan,” and he said, “Don’t dare let that pencil slip and have me ending up looking like a Jap! … Damon Runyon, ace correspondent during the last war, may have to leave his producer-writer job and cover this war, too.
Shades of Pvt. Kenneth Wilkinson, who after seeing 300 pictures a year, was feted here as Army’s number one film-goer! Republic’s kicked the plot of “Yokel Boy” around to base the lead on a character similar to his. Incidentally, with Judy Canova, star of “Yokel Boy” on Broadway, on their own lot, Phil Silvers and Buddy Ebsen at leisure, not a single one of the legit cast was put into the picture. Heigho! … Maxie Rosenbloom says it was pretty swell of Beverly Hills to put in that bridle-path for newly married couples!
By Ernie Pyle
ALBUQUERQUE – One more Albuquerque column and then we’ll hie (what a silly word) back to the Coast and see how the war is getting along.
It’s a good thing I’m leaving here, or this column would probably consist of nothing but dog stories from now on.
When we got our dogs we had to send away, like children, for all the books we could find. We’ll probably never read them, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.
The other afternoon, when I was away, That Girl decided to take a nap. The two dogs – the Giant and the Fox – kept playing around in her room and she couldn’t get to sleep, so finally she put them out in the living room and shut her door.
Then she listened, just to make sure, for the dogs are young and haven’t had very much house training.
For a long time, there was complete silence – not a sound or a sniff. “They’re asleep,” she thought, and she was just dropping off to sleep herself when from the living room came a tornado of sound – a tearing, shaking, chewing, ripping and rending.
She leaped out into the other room and there, strewn all over the floor in a thousand little pieces, were the remnants of a book. And the book was: “How to Train a Dog.”
Two books in three months
Speaking of books, last fall’s three-month layoff gave me the first chance I’ve had in years to do all the reading I’ve wanted to do. And what do you suppose I did with this golden opportunity? Well, I threw it plumb away.
In all that time I read only two books. One was Arnold Bennett’s “Old Wives Tale,” which I’ve been trying to get at for years. The other was Erich Maria Remarque’s “Flotsam,” the pitiable story of present-day refugees in Europe.
I enjoyed both books, but it took me a long time to get them finished. Which proves what I said in an earlier column, that when I’m lazy I don’t even want to think.
A friend of mine went duck hunting along the Rio Grande one morning last fall. He and his companion built a blind, and after they’d waited an hour or so a flight came by. My friend banged away, and lo and behold a big greenhead dropped out of the sky practically at their feet.
Whereupon the other hunter turned to my friend and said: “You just wasted that shot. The fall would have killed him anyhow!”
When That Girl was so sick last fall, she spent her time in St. Joseph Hospital here, which is operated by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. She was there seven weeks, so we both got on pretty old-pally terms with all the Sisters.
Most of us who are seldom in contact with Sisters of the church think that they are dour, humorless people who can’t talk our language. Well, that’s all wrong. The Sisters at St. Joseph are the sweetest bunch you ever saw. And not just churchy sweet; they’re as human and witty as anybody.
Nun is rabid baseball fan
The Mother Superior is Sister Margaret Jane, and do you know what she is? She’s an absolute nut on baseball. She can just about tell you the name and batting average of every player in the Big Leagues. During the World Series she’d gulp her lunch and whisk away to her room to listen to the broadcast. She was for Brooklyn, and it almost killed her when Brooklyn lost that game they’d already won.
The nun who goes around to the various rooms and visits the patients is Sister Marie Isador. She is friendly toward baseball, but admits she doesn’t know a thing about it. In fact, the only player whose name she can recall is Babe Ruth.
So while discussing Sister Margaret Jane’s rabid interest in baseball, Sister Marie Isador got to telling That Girl a story about Babe Ruth.
It seemed that a certain priest went to see a certain game, and before game time Ruth was sitting in the stands talking with him. Just as the game was called Ruth shook hands with the priest and said to him (according to Sister Marie Isador):
“Father, I’m going to make a touchdown for you this afternoon.”
And Sister Marie Isador continued:
“And he did, too. In fact, he made three touchdowns that afternoon.”
That Girl never cracked a smile, and Sister Marie Isador doesn’t know to this day about her mistake. She’ll find out about it when she reads this column, and I’ll bet she goes to the other Sisters and laughs and says: “How silly that was of me. I meant to say he made three goals.”
By Westbrook Pegler
WASHINGTON – Note to editors:
Let’s quit printing those poisonously optimistic cutlines under the news service photographs of tanks, bombers and the like, shot in long perspective so as to create an illusion of plenty, which speaks of these vehicles as “rolling off the assembly lines.” They aren’t rolling off the assembly lines and these pictures, and especially the cutlines, give a dangerously false impression. If the pictures come with readymade cutlines, edit the cutlines ‘way down.
You don’t need to say the tanks and bombers are stationary on the assembly lines, because, of course, they are inching along slowly, but they aren’t rolling off like flivvers as the pictures have suggested they are and nobody knows it better than Hitler and the only people who are deceived by the exaggeration are the Americans who shouldn’t be hopped up with such habit-forming encouragement.
The fact is that the rate of production to date is a disgrace to the greatest industrial nation on earth and a menace to life and liberty.
U.S. is no cinch to win this war
It wouldn’t be the worst idea, or a false one, either, to put across the suggestion that it is no dead sure thing that the United States is going to be on the winning side of this war. The beating we have taken in the Pacific is not comparable to other setbacks in other wars, because there is no basis of comparison, but there is not a single ray of consolation and it might prove to have been the worst in American history and one of the worst in all history.
If we don’t spit on our hands, pull up our socks and begin to realize those fatuous lines about heavy war stuff “rolling off the assembly lines,” this country might get licked and never mind what the Russians are doing to Hitler or how many German generals get fired or how much the Italians really hate the Heinies in their hearts.
When we have developed a minute imitation of the Russian efficiency, it might be all right begin to look at our muscles in the glass and say, “How well we are looking,” but that ain’t yet and it won’t be tomorrow or six months from now.
Do you want a one-word description of our rate of production? You don’t want to be kidded, do you? All night then, the word is awful, which is short for bloody-awful awful.
Who is to blame? You, me, us, everybody – and that goes for the President of the United States as well as for John Lewis and the dirty Bolos who were holding back production until Hitler struck Russia. But the only people who are reduced to blame-placing as a national sport are losers, as we may observe in France where they are blaming the Communists, the Jews, the Masons, the 200 families and even the British and us. Victorious nations don’t place blame for their victories, and this country still can turn to and make the stuff, although there has been a horrible waste of time already and we are still wrangling and haggling over degrees of authority and the closed shop.
A lot of our trouble has been just apathy, personal, individual, let-George-do-it indifference and we have been regarded also by the dreadful confusion and headlessness of the effort here in Washington which, I am afraid, is the President’s ragdoll.
Production lacks a head man
There is just no head man, no tough guy with authority to make brutal decisions, issue orders and compel obedience. Just to show you how the whole disorganized mess admires and pines for such a tough guy I can report that at this writing the man who commands most respect in the Capital, next to the President, himself, of course, is Leon Henderson, who had the gumption to say that, with small reservations, there would be no more tires of pleasure cars. The boss could appoint him head of production tomorrow and even industry would forget his dream-book ideas of economics and give him a good substantial yell.
I have got a candidate who would be even better in action, but I want to save his name for the end, so I can have the last word. Otherwise I would be mobbed by all the pinkoes and bleeding hearts and the greedy and power-hungry ignoramuses of the union racket.
My man is as tough as Henderson. He is as dirty in a fight as any eye-gouging New Dealer and on his record he is so much better at producing hard stuff out of big factories than any of your ivy-league lawyers, social workers, punk poets or misanthropic failures of the newspaper business that no comparison is possible. He met that beetle-browded bulldozer John L. Lewis toe-to-toe and ripped the belly right out of him with body punches and knocked him through the skylight.
He is one of the most valuable men in the United States and most of his ability is being wasted now in an aircraft job that isn’t one-fiftieth of his size.
His name is Tom Girdler.
By Raymond Clapper
WASHINGTON – To those who read between the lines, Secretary Knox, in his address to the conference of mayors, answers the Nation’s question of the week: Where is the fleet?
In a word, the Secretary of the Navy tells us not to expect full-scale naval engagements in the Pacific, or a conclusive showdown with the Japanese Navy in the near future.
That should be sufficient information for our purposes here at home. Of course we all have strong personal curiosity for more details. But of what use would those secret details be except possibly to supplement the information of Japanese intelligence services?
For our purposes we know all that is necessary. Our common sense will tell us the rest. We know we have suffered a severe blow in the Pacific. We are told not to expect a full-scale naval assault on Japanese forces in the near future. We know that Japan thus far has advanced rapidly through sea and air superiority. We know that until we can throw large numbers of planes into the Southwest Pacific, the Japanese onrush probably cannot be stopped. Since we are not to expect a naval attack on Japanese forces, we must look to the air, and must put our effort there.
Job is to pump planes into Pacific
What else do we need to know here at home? Nothing. The job is plainly marked out. It is to pump planes and more planes and yet more into the Southwest Pacific until the Japanese are driven out of the air. That job starts here at home.
It is that job and a whole lot more. For there is also the battle of the Atlantic, and the organization and dispatch of American forces to various parts of the world as suggested in President Roosevelt’s annual message. Winning this war is going to be the hardest job this Nation ever tackled. There isn’t an informed person here who doesn’t realize it.
But here at the center of the effort, we have shaky, confused, uncertain direction or lack of direction. This is having a befuddling effect on the whole town and likewise on those who must deal with Washington in doing their war work. The place is seething with feuds and backbiting.
Fresh faces would be a tonic relief
Because Mayor LaGuardia and Mrs. Roosevelt are stubbornly sitting tight at the Office of Civilian Defense, despite the appalling dissatisfaction inside and outside that organization, Mr. Roosevelt makes a slight reshuffle and slips in as an executive officer Prof. James Landis of Harvard. He is a brilliant man in his field but he has had no notable experience in such a nation-wide job of organization and handling large numbers of people scattered throughout the country as the civilian defense job requires. Meanwhile a man like Jim Farley, who knows the people in every county of the country who can get things done, is left outside to sell soft drinks.
Not only Republicans like National Chairman Joe Martin, but many ordinary citizens, are asking when Mr. Roosevelt is going to use the talents of Wendell Willkie. This war is big enough to need all of those men like Farley and Willkie who have long ago demonstrated their loyalty and capacity. Plenty of others could be used to great advantage in this total effort, as Mr. Roosevelt is finally again using Bernard M, Baruch, after a term in the doghouse.
Some fresh faces around here would be a tonic relief from the feuding, from what Secretary Ickes thinks of Harry Hopkins and vice versa, and what Secretary Wickard and Leon Henderson think of each other, and all of the inside gouging around OPM and SPAB.
Total harmony is a futile dream, but the demoralization here has reached the point where it is interfering with the wholehearted, aggressive direction of the total war effort that must be had before the short time that has been left runs out.
By Maj. Al Williams
“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”
The headline, “Separate Air Arm Urged in House,” is pathetic. Such a move would be trying merely to equal what other nations have already done in minor and major forms. Such a headline implies that long debates will be held as to whether or not anything should be changed.
It is no mark of shame that Army and Navy experts should have tried to sell Congress on continuing the old order of defense things. These are the men who regarded airpower as something to be tacked on to the Army and Navy as eyes of the fleet and the eyes of the Army. (That was their own estimate of airpower a few years ago.) Change and reformation never come from within an organization. They always come from some agency outside the existing organization.
A man’s estimate of the future – his vision – is always commensurate with the fullness of his understanding of what exists around him and with the significance of its details. And only if he is fully abreast of his own age can he plan adequately and wisely for the next.
Few understood airpower
The catch in this instance is that that all too few were aware of the part to be played in this war by airpower until the fall of France and until accomplished facts slapped them to awakening. Crusades for modernization in any department of the government should originate in Congress. But Congress has been listening to people representing the status-quo of armaments and warfare. They have not appreciated that a one-time experimental weapon – airpower – has come of age and is smashing the old machinery of warfare all over the world.
No one seems worried about the still unanswered question as to who and what organization is going to be charged with welding, training, employing and commanding 50,000 to 80,000 planes and at least 800,000 men into that war arm called “airpower.”
Airpower is an integrated machine, an engine of war, the three timing gears of which are: (1) research, to ascertain what kind of airplanes can be built; (2) mass production, to build them; and (3) training programs to provide competent manpower.
Who is going to develop the barely scratched science of air strategy and tactics? Can such a gigantic series of jobs be done by a half dozen agencies with overlapping and gaps? The entire task is a full-time, full-career job for a single agency. That’s the way landpower and seapower were developed.
Fleets and armies have moved into the air. This war is to be won and lost in accordance with the ability of the various nations to think and act in such revolutionary terms. This war will be won on the “vertical flanks., that is, above the horizon with airpower and below the surface with submarines. All other wars have been won and lost on horizontal flank movements – on the lateral flanks. That’s the true significance of the new military phase – “vertical flanks” (coined in desperation to express a new military thought).
No limits in air
About 70 percent of this planet is covered with oceans; and the other 30 percent by land. We are basically fighting for the land, where we can live. The atmospheric ocean extends all over the land and sea alike – 100 percent. Until navies were built, armies dominated. Neither an army nor a navy can work directly and offensively beyond its own medium. But now we have a new winged type of machinery that knows no 70 percent or 30 percent limitations on its capacities to cruise, strike and wage active warfare. That’s airpower.
Airpower now completely dominates the 30 percent (land) and a growing section of the 70 percent (oceans) and has smashed every army and navy hat has fought it to date. Does anyone dare to guess we have done more than scratch the flight range of wings and engines with thousands of miles additional flight range each few years?
On which of these three arms – land, sea and air – are you placing your bets to dominate the world of the future? We are trying to build air fleets of say 80,000 planes right now. What of the future proportions of airpower? And how far ahead is this future? All I can say is don’t ask those who don’t believe it will ever come and who base that vain hope on their inability to have foreseen what’s actually around us today.
WASHINGTON (UP) – Rep. Samuel A. Weiss, D-Pennsylvania, today said he will enlist in the Navy immediately “as an able seaman” if he can meet the requirements.
Married and the father of two children, the Pittsburgh legislator will be 40 years old on his next birthday. He said he will waive all rights and hopes he can pass the physical examinations.
“I have an appointment today with Lt. Cmdr. Edward A. Hays, special assistant to Secretary Knox,” Mr. Weiss said, “and I am going to ask that the Navy accept my enlistment and put me anywhere they see fit – except at a desk job.
“I want to get into this thing and help get this war over as soon as possible.”
CONCORD, New Hampshire (UP) – A “solemn compact to hold until victory” which prohibits strikes in New Hampshire was signed yesterday by Gov. Robert O. Blood and union and industry representatives.
The compact calls for an all-out industrial war effort and provides that there shall be no stoppage of work through differences between labor and industries.
The compact provides for negotiation, arbitration and submission to state or federal agencies of all disputes.
By Maxine Garrison
I was having a cup of coffee in the airport lunch room when the loudspeaker began to drone insistently for “Miss Suzy Storm, passenger to New York on Flight O.” (We might as well say Suzy Storm, since it isn’t the name at all.)
That alone wouldn’t have aroused a flicker. But repetition of the name made me realize that two harassed-looking young gentlemen nearby were also discussing Miss Suzy Storm.
“I didn’t want to come out here to see Suzy Storm off!” one said petulantly. “And here it is just five minutes before her plane time, and she hasn’t shown.”
“Yeah,” said the other sad young man. “I know. I’ll go take a look.”
He returned in a minute, gesturing in despair. The loudspeaker was still demanding Miss Storm’s attention, and I began to wonder what manner of woman this was who kept everyone waiting so successfully.
Adoring convoy
Just as I stepped into the waiting room, Miss Storm arrived, rushed breathlessly to the desk, and gave her name. Convoyed by eight (I counted them) openly adoring young men, Suzy Storm made an entrance Tallulah Bankhead would have envied.
She was hatless, and many limp bows of vari-colored ribbon did little toward confining her unkempt blond hair. An inexpensive fur coat hung clumsily from her young slender shoulders. Her short nose was absurdly tip-tilted, and her glance fell with equal disinterest and helplessness on all her escorts.
One carried her handbag. Another carried her purse. A third asked for change for a dime to make the phone call which had apparently caused the loudspeaker message. A fourth escorted Suzy to the phone booth, and dialed the number for her. A fifth found the plane ticket, which she said she had lost. Nos. 6, 7 and 8 just stood around, rocking on their heels, smiling hopefully. Nos. 9 and 10, the two in the lunch room, didn’t appear, probably having decided to drown their sorrows in coffee.
Suzy, through all this, did nothing. She was a helpless leaf blown before the storm. Or something equally poetic.
Her appeal not evident
She wasn’t pretty, she exerted no appeal that could be seen outside that charmed circle (if there is a green tinge to those words, you must remember that any ordinary woman watching a femme fatale in action is somewhat less than charitable), she wasn’t well-dressed, she wasn’t even neat. She had none of the qualities that women strive for in self-improvement. But she did have all those men dancing attendance.
Miss Storm, I decided, like the heroine of old-fashioned and now frowned-upon fiction, was helpless, useless and slightly absurd. I felt sure that women everywhere would agree with me that the fewer Miss Storms there were in this world, the better it would be for everyone.
–And I felt even surer that there wasn’t a woman among us who wouldn’t trade a ticket on a sweepstakes winner for the secret of Miss Storm’s illogical, maddening, irresistible charm.
NEW YORK (UP) – Heavyweight champion Joe Louis winds up a brief bit of business with the Naval Relief Society today before leaving for Camp Upton, Long Island, to be inducted into the Army tomorrow morning.
Louis, with his co-managers, Julian Black and John Roxborough, and promoter Mike Jacobs will assist in a brief ceremony of presentation this afternoon in which the Navy’s Relief Organization will pocket a check for $89,092.01 as their share of Joe’s successful title defense against Buddy Baer in Madison Square Garden last Friday night.
A breakdown of the gate receipts of $189,700.55 will also be made available.
Louis went through a line of doctors at Fort Jay at Governor’s Island yesterday and was pronounced fit to fight for Uncle Sam. It was the most ballyhooed Army examination ever staged and according to Louis, topped any physical once-over that he has received in his long ring career.
ALBANY, New York (UP) – Maj. Gen. William Ottman, state commander of the New York State Guard, was expected to announce today whether Jack Dempsey would be permitted to enlist.
Dempsey made a surprise visit to Gov. Herbert H. Lehman yesterday in an attempt to enlist in the guard after the War Department at Washington had announced that his application for enlistment in the Army was denied because of his age, 46.
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (UP) – Barney Ross, former world’s lightweight and welterweight boxing champion, applied today for enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The former champion, 32 years old and married, has been in Milwaukee to coach an amateur boxing team. His duties will be completed by the end of the month.
“I don’t want a job as boxing instructor when I join up,” he said. “I want a gun and I hope to get to the Philippines.
KQV will broadcast the Soose-Bivins bout beginning at 10:30 p.m.
CLEVELAND – Billy Soose, former middleweight champion from Farrell, Pa., makes his second start as a light-heavyweight tonight at the Arena taking on Jimmy Bivins of Cleveland in a ten-round engagement.
Soose made an impressive start in the heavier division several weeks ago when he trimmed another Clevelander, Jimmy Reeves.
Sammy Secreet of Cecil, Pa., will meet Tony Ferrara of New York in the eight-round semi-final.
Increase due to renewed buying of government securities
WASHINGTON (UP) – Renewed buying of government securities by Federal Reserve member banks in 101 leading cities lifted their combined loans and investments $47,000,000 in the week ended January 7 to a total of $30,132,000,000, according to the weekly condition statement issued by the system today.
Member bank loans were down $48,000,000 for the week, making net reduction of $120,000,000 in their loan volume over the past two weeks, while their investment holdings rose $85,000,000 in contrast to a $136,000,000 drop in the preceding week.
Commercial, industrial and agricultural loans were unchanged at $6,726,000,000 to rail reporting banks and loans to brokers and dealers were down $14,000,000 to $521,000,000. Both commercial and brokers loan volume for the preceding week were revised in the New York district as was the total of “other loans” which dropped $34,000,000 to $1,936,000,000 at all reporting centers.
Holding of U.S. Treasury bills were up $56,000,000 at New York and $74,000,000 at all banks, while holdings of government bonds rose $20,000,000 and Treasury note investments remained unchanged. Holdings of government-guaranteed issues were increased $2,000,000 on the week, but investments in other securities dropped $1,000,000.
Demand deposits-adjusted showed a rise of $234,000,000 at all banks to a total of $23,884,000,000, with New York members accounting for $125,000,000 of the increase, while deposits credited to domestic banks declined $58,000,000 at New York and rose $4,000,000 to $9,044,000,000 at all centers.
Individuals, corporations to foot most of bill
WASHINGTON (UP) – Congressional sources said today that more than half of the nine billion dollars in new taxes to be raised probably would come from individual and corporation income levies.
Higher income taxes are expected to bring in five and a half billion dollars according to these sources. Excises on selected commodities would yield a billion and a half and the remaining two billion dollars would come from increased social security taxes which congressional leaders expect to handle separately from general taxes.
The Treasury program for excise taxation would call for steep rates, perhaps 35 percent, on luxury commodities and commodities which compete with armaments for raw materials and production capacity. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. told congressional tax committee chairmen last week that he was not ready to go to general sales taxation which is more popular in Congress than income withholding taxes.
Informed congressional sources said the Treasury was considering several types of income withholding taxes to raise between three and four billion dollars. One would be a high rate, 15 percent on net income – income after personal exemptions, now $1500 for married couples and $750 for single persons, are deducted. Another would be a lower rate – maybe five percent – on gross income.
Most congressional tax authorities were of the opinion that not more than two billion dollars in new taxes could be collected from business. Excessive taxation of business, Treasury and congressional leaders both believe, would result in diminishing return by forcing many businesses to shut down and pay no taxes.
NBC officials to become ‘Blue’ executives
By Si Steinhauser
When the National Broadcasting Company and the Communications Commission tangled in a knock-em-down and drag-em-out fight over alleged trust law violations, RCA (parent owner of NBC) decided to reincorporate the Blue Network under the name “United Broadcasting System.” Radio scribes chided that the name “United” had sly implications, so the new corporation is now “Blue Network Company, Inc.,” under a Delaware charter. And, now we have four major networks, the Red becoming the NBC and Columbia and Mutual continuing.
Mark Woods, treasurer of NBC and brother-in-law of Harry Woodman, former KDKA manager, is president of the new Blue Network, Inc., and Ed Kobak, sales manager of NBC, is vice president of Blue. Niles Trammell, president of NBC, is chairman of the board of the Blue.
NBC still holds a long-term lease on 711 Fifth Ave., New York City, the old “crap shootin’” location at which the network got its start. The Blue may move back there but until a new location is found will operate from Radio City.
What irony, for a major network to move from a spot built precisely for its service, yet its owners remain in Radio City. Maybe Mr. Rockefeller will find room for the Blue in one of his other Radio City skyscrapers or, build another one into the blue just for the Blue.
We wonder – when the Blue Network moves – and prepares to set up its plant equipment at a cost of millions of dollars where will it get equipment now that technical radio laboratories are exclusively on war and defense projects? And what about a fortune in equipment – now in Radio City – destined for inevitable waste in the separation process? Perhaps FCC Chairman James L. Fly will find those problems dumped in his lap.
Meanwhile NBC and Mutual are involved in court proceedings in which Mutual asks several millions for “restraint of trade.”
For long years A. L. Ashley, former dean of law at Pitt who became general counsel for NBC had quite a peaceful life in New York but the young fellows in the network business and the FCC have been quite annoying of late.
Add to the versatile talents of Marian Jordan (Molly McGee) the role of Mrs. Wearybottom. Many listeners had inquired who does the part.
Tonight’s “We, The People” program will bring stories about England’s Commandos, who invade the European coast, German concentration camps, and life in the Philippines.
Jack Benny will move his entire cast to New York about the end of January, so he can see some stage shows.
Since the Screen Guild Show is rebroadcast via recordings at 10 o’clock Sundays after the original 7:30 broadcast the guest stars arrange parties and hear themselves “at home” with guests.
Winston Churchill declined a guest appearance on “We, The People” with thanks and best wishes.
KQV sets aside a half hour, 10:30 to 11 tonight, for the Soose-Bivins fight.
Maj. Bowes has established a precedent for radio studios by having ushers take up collections for the President’s birthday ball fund.
The cigarette maker with that pesky “Modern Design” plug on the air is auditioning an entire program by the same name to feature questions from men in the armed service of our country.
The Columbia network concludes every broadcast with “The Star-Spangled Banner” played for the studio audience. A flag is lowered at the conclusion of the anthem.
John Brown, one of the biggest stooge voices of the Fred Allen Show, won the role of “Mr. Meek” when little men were auditioned for the part.
That’s Nicholas Joy you’re hearing as Joan Blaine’s leading man in “So Big.”
Ted de Corsia, who portrays the police sergeant on Ellery Queen broadcasts, had to call police when a prowler was heard around his Rye, New York, home.
And Pinto Colvig, who did the dog “voices” on the “Great Gildersleeve” broadcasts. He impersonates “Pluto” and “Goofy” in Walt Disney pictures.
Bill Thompson, the dialect expert of Fibber McGee’s shows who portrays Old Timer, Wimple, Boomer and De Popolus, has a new character growing into reality for early introduction.
Bow Hawk’s new program is rehearsed without the star. Reason? Bob ad libs the entire show, so only Vaughn Monroe’s band must be rehearsed and timed.
To help the Musicians’ Union Medical Fund, Benny Goodman lead a group of top swing musicians in recording “Dear Old Southland” and Count Basie’s “Royal Flush.” The band included Harry James, Cootie Williams, Lou McGarity, Toots Mondello, Vido Musso, Gene Krupa, Count Basie and Roy Eldridge, names familiar to followers of hot music.
Gang Busters will make their debut on the screen in April.
Youngstown Vindicator (January 13, 1942)
Asserts administrative weakness can’t be remedied by reshuffling same old faces
By Walter Lippmann
NEW YORK – In the five weeks since Pearl Harbor the President has necessarily devoted his main attraction to planning and organizing the common war effort of the United Nations. This has required the making of decisions on question of strategy, of diplomacy and of supply which embrace the whole world, and in this work no one can substitute for the President, nor is anyone even nearly his equal in competence.
But there is a limit to the endurance and to the energy of any man, and while Mr. Roosevelt has been planning the war abroad, he has not had the time or the freshness of mind, to organize the war at home.
The weakness of the present system – the pre-Pearl Harbor system – is glaringly obvious. We have seen the Army-Navy-OPM system caught without the necessary plans for expanding the military requirements and for expanding production by conversion of commercial industry.
We have seen that no adequate provision was made for conserving supplies and far amassing stockpiles of materials which were certain to be cut off when war broke out. We have seen that no one in the administration was able to offer firm and commanding leadership in the critical matter of labor-management relations or of price control.
In none of these fields is there as yet clarity of purpose, definite and sufficient authority, and in some critical positions there are bottlenecks of downright incompetence.
No delegation of power
Weakness cannot be remedied by making a new blueprint chart and then reshuffling the same old faces. For the seal of the trouble is that the President himself has not fully adjusted his own mind and habits to the complexity and difficulty of the undertaking in which he is engaged. For that reason he does not delegate power and responsibility.
This is soft leadership – in quality far below what the country is ready for and in spirit far below what the occasion calls for.
Mr. Roosevelt is operating under a system where the whole responsibility is concentrated upon himself alone. As a result, every mistake and every failure falls upon him alone, and every criticism whittles away at his prestige and influence.
This is a very serious matter. For no sane and conscientious man can wish to do anything but to uphold the hands of the President, to lighten his burdens and to strengthen him. But it is impossible to suspend criticism of inadequacy, incompetence or failures in the administration of the war effort.
Civilian defense example
The extreme example in the case of Mrs. Roosevelt and the Office of Civilian Defense. In theory the President appointed Mayor La Guardia as director and the director appointed Mrs. Roosevelt as assistant.
What has been the result? There is deep dissatisfaction throughout the country with the way the civilian defense has been administered a sentiment indeed acknowledged by the President in his appointment of Mr. Landis.
Yet though Mr. Landis has been brought in, Mayor La Guardia and Mrs. Roosevelt remain more or less where they were, and nobody will know who really has authority in where they were, and nobody will civilian defense or where the responsibility lies.
Now in the case of Mrs. Roosevelt this Is particularly awkward and embarrassing. She is the wife of the President and the first lady of the land. If she is lo be treated as any other public official, the fact that she is Mrs. Roosevelt means that every criticism of her is an injury to the prestige of her husband.
There are many others who, because of the President’s loyalty to his friends, are carried along and nursed along as members of a political family. They are reshuffled but almost never displaced, thus blocking the promotion of abler men.
Wars cannot be won by such soft, cozy good-fellowship in the highest places. For in war the test is results and not good intentions, success and not amiability, efficiency and not Auld Lang Syne.
Now holds it authorized strike in commercial mines last fall
By David Lawrence
WASHINGTON – Three weeks before the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, the CIO was conducting a strike in many of the coal mines of America. As to the captive coal mines owned by the steel companies, there was plainly a dispute. But in the commercial mines, whose owners had already granted a closed shop many months before, tens of thousands of miners engaged in what was termed an “unauthorized strike.” No dispute existed between the owners of the commercial mines and the CIO, but a serious interruption to the nation’s fuel supply was accomplished just the same.
A strange sequel to that episode has just come to light. Although the CIO never officially or publicly admitted that it had brought about the sympathetic strike in the commercial mines, now, when the employers seek to invoke the penalty for unauthorized strikes, the CIO says the strike was authorized and that their position was sustained by an arbitration board appointed by President Roosevelt.
Too often those who differ with the labor union technique that makes scraps of paper of formal contracts are charged with omitting some extenuating circumstance, but the record in this case is written over the signature of the CIO rational union executives in a letter to owners of the commercial mines.
The CIO letter
It says, first of all, that the so-called Appalachian agreement, signed June 19, 1941, has in it a protective wage clause which gives the United Mine Workers “the right to call and maintain strikes throughout the entire Appalachian area when necessary to preserve and maintain the integrity and competitive parity of the agreement.”
Now it appears that the CIO claims it gave notice under date of September 16, 1941, of its intention to invoke this clause. It will be recalled that subsequent to September 16, the President Intervened and the captive issue was laid before the National Defense Mediation Board.
At no time thereafter, when the subject was taken up by a government mediation agency, was any cognizance taken of a strike call alleged to have been given to workers in commercial mines. But the CIO says of its notice of September 16: “This constituted reasonable notice by the international union. Later the strike was approved by the Policy Committee of the international union. Finally, our position was fully sustained by a Board of Arbitration appointed by the President of the United States. Therefore, I am requesting that the fines illegally assessed against our membership be refunded without delay.”
Charges evasion
This is the type of evasion of responsibility which makes disinterested persons lose confidence in the forthrightness of some labor union heads today. It is this sort of thing which is losing friends for the labor movement and causing management to refuse to sit with the CIO in the making of production plans wherein labor and management are supposed to share responsibility.
Will the owners of the commercial mines accept the set of claims put up by the CIO in its attempt to conceal the fact that it authorized a strike which at no time during the period of the strike would it admit having called? And can Congress sit by and see the closed shop or union shop used to enforce this kind of one-sided interpretation of a contract with employers?
Incidentally, the CIO comes in for a scathing denunciation, by Charles E. Wyzanski Jr., a New Dealer who has just been confirmed as United Stales district judge for Eastern Massachusetts. Mr. Wyzanski was one of the public members of the National Defense Mediation Board which refused to grant the compulsory union shop in the captive mine controversy.
The board’s conclusion
In a speech delivered last night in Chicago, he said:
“I have no intention of reviewing the coal dispute. But I may say this, the problem there was complicated by special facts. The question at stake was whether a coal miner should be required to join a union which or. its record had shown irresponsibility by calling strikes in a great emergency; which had collected large sums for political purposes and activities having no relation to coal mining; which was prepared to exercise a complete unregulated labor monopoly throughout the whole of the coal industry; and which on the record showed no need to have a union shop to preserve its existence. In denying the union’s demand for a union shop, the board was governed to a large extent by these special facts.”
It would seem that many “special facts” are just coming to light which were not known during the coal strike of last autumn.
The Deseret News (January 13, 1942)
By Gladys Hobbs
Carole Lombard, shivering in mink, a halo of yellow veil around her bright hair, got off the Union Pacific Streamliner in Salt Lake today to begin a new role – that of “barker” for Uncle Sam.
“Barker” is Carole’s own description of what she’ll be doing for the next year, when she virtually gives up her screen career to promote defense bond sales. “I’m going to make one picture and then I’m going to spend the rest of the time selling bonds,” she said.
‘I don’t have to tell you what to do’
Such was the declaration of Carole Lombard, famed film star here in the interest of Defense Bonds sales today, as she was greeted by Pvt. Floyd Rollins, U.S. Army airdrome, Yeoman First Class F. W. Swedlund, Navy Recruiting station, and First Sgt. James Fountain, U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting office. “Go out and buy a bond,” she added.
A good-sized crowd was reluctant to let the winsome screen actress, who is Mrs. Clark Gable, get back on the train after the insistent bellowing of “all aboard.” The train stopped for only five minutes, just long enough for the celebrity to get in her “plugs” and discuss her plans.
Her Salt Lake appearance was arranged largely through the efforts of Charles R. Mabey, state defense savings administrator.
Miss Lombard will go to Indianapolis, her hometown, for her first major campaign for defense bonds and from there she will go to Cleveland and eastward to major cities on the Atlantic Coast.
Explaining the reason behind her mission, the actress said, “this is a year we should all devote to our country. I’m going to become a ‘barker,’ just an old-fashioned ‘barker’ and go out and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, come on out and buy a bond.’”
When she isn’t “barking,” Carole plans to make personal appearances at military camps. With hoydenish enthusiasm filling with familiar throaty voice, she said, “You know how it is. You’ve got to go around and pep up the boys when they get bored with standing around.”
Her parting shot was: “I don’t have to tell you what to do. Go out and buy a bond.”
U.S. State Department (January 13, 1942)
Völkischer Beobachter (January 14, 1942)
Wer soll jetzt Singapur retten? — fragt England
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 13. Januar
Vor einer Versammlung amerikanischer Bürgermeister hielt Roosevelts Marineminister Knox eine Rede über die Aufgaben der USA-Flotte im Krieg. Seine Hörer werden ihren Ohren nicht getraut haben, als sie aus dem Munde dieses Burschen, der früher nicht schnell genug in den Krieg hineinkommen konnte und der den Japanern mehr als einmal prophezeit hatte, er werde ihre Flotte von den Meeren hinwegfegen lassen, folgende kleinlaute Erklärung vernahmen: In der nächsten Zukunft sei kein größerer Einsatz amerikanischer Seestreitkräfte im Pazifik zu erwarten. Einen baldigen entscheidenden Waffengang mit der japanischen Marine dürfe man nicht ins Auge fassen.
Ausnahmsweise verdienen es Worte des Mister Knox einmal, im vollen Wortlaut genossen zu werden, denn erst so entfalten sie ihren ganzen Reiz und gewinnen sie ihr ganzes Gewicht. „Die Elemente von Zeit und Entfernung“ — so drückte sich Knox in großangelegter Übersicht aus — „und die notwendig bedingte weite Verteilung unserer Marinestreitkräfte lassen das nicht zu, was Sie alle, wie ich annehme, von mir als Vorschlag erwarten: einen baldigen entscheidenden Waffengang mit der japanischen Flotte. Ich würde Ihnen gegenüber nicht offen sein, wenn ich Sie zu der Annahme verleiten wollte, daß Sie in naher Zukunft günstige dramatische Entwicklungen durch triumphale amerikanische Operationen zur See erwarten dürfen.“
Selbstverständlich versuchte Knox diese höchst unangenehmen Wahrheiten wenigstens in eine freundliche Verpackung zu hüllen. Er bemühte sich um den Nachweis, daß die Ohnmacht der USA-Flotte, die unter den Schlägen von Hawai und von den Philippinen eingetreten ist, in Wirklichkeit als Ausdruck überlegener Strategie zu betrachten sei. Nicht Japan, so erklärte er, sei der Hauptgegner in diesem Krieg, sondern Deutschland. Die Aufrechterhaltung der Verbindung mit England sei die wichtigste Aufgabe, die die amerikanische Flotte zu erfüllen habe. Es wäre ein Fehler gewesen. so dozierte er in überraschend neuer Erkenntnis weiter, wenn sich die Vereinigten Staaten dazu hätten verleiten lassen, in „übermäßigem berechtigtem Zorn“ unüberlegte Maßnahmen gegen Japan ins Auge zu fassen. „Aber die kühl überlegene Führung unseres Obersten Befehlshabers, des Präsidenten, hat uns vor dieser Gefahr bewahrt“ — so fuhr er fort, um auch seinerseits einen Beitrag zu der mit amerikanischer Reklametüchtigkeit in Gang gesetzten Verherrlichung des „Feldherrn“ Roosevelt zu leisten. „Unter Roosevelts Leitung haben wir ruhig Blut bewahrt und werden wir unsere Pläne nach unserer Art machen. Wir werden zuschlagen, wo und wann wir dazu bereit sind, und nicht vorher.“ Damit wolle er natürlich nicht sagen, daß die Flotte der USA im Pazifik untätig sei. Man würde von Zeit zu Zeit von ihr hören, falls sorgfältige strategische Erklärungen dies möglich erscheinen ließen.
Der selbstbewußte Prophet
Wir bezweifeln, ob die amerikanischen Bürgermeister in alten europäischen Fabeln bewandert sind, sonst müßten sie sich wohl an die schöne Geschichte vom Fuchs erinnern, der die Trauben plötzlich sauer fand, als sie für seine Sprünge zu hoch hingen. Schließlich war Herr Knorr noch vor einem guten Monat einer der selbstbewußtesten Propheten, der die japanische Flotte auf den Meeres grundschickte, als sie sich nur von weitem sehen ließ, und das ganze amerikanische Volk war ja in den selbstüberheblichen Wahn hineingetrieben worden, man werde die Japaner vom Stillen Ozean nur so hinwegblasen. Nach diesen Vorankündigungen fehlt Knoxens heutiger gedämpfter Weisheit die rechte Überzeugungskraft.
Die „Times“ ist andern Meinung
Den Briten vollends dürfte bei dieser Tonart sehr bedenklich zumute sein. Für sie sind die neuen Einsichten des alten Säbelraßlers schließlich mehr als eine persönliche Blamage des Marineministers der USA, für sie bedeutet die Impotenzerklärung der USA-Flotte einen radikalen Strich durch die Hoffnungen auf Rettung Singapurs.
Am selben Tag, an dem Knorr den Pazifik und damit auch Ostasien als einen Nebenkriegsschauplatz zu bezeichnen beliebte, erklärte die „Times“ unzweideutig:
„Niemand betrachtet Ostasien mehr als einen Kriegsschauplatz zweiten Ranges. Die großen Inselgruppen bilden nicht nur eine Brücke zwischen Ostasien und Australien, sondern gleichzeitig eine Sperre zwischen dem Stillen und dem Indischen Ozean. Wird diese Sperre von den Japanern erobert, so kann die japanische Flotte in den Indischen Ozean eindringen und die Seeverbindungen von England und den USA nach dem Roten Meer und nach dem Persischen Meerbusen angreifen.
Diese Verbindungen sind für die Kriegführung im östlichen Mittelmeer und in Sowjetrußland von lebenswichtiger Bedeutung. Eine solche Bedrohung kann sich zu einer noch größeren Katastrophe entwickeln als der Verlust der ungeheuren Naturreichtümer, die sich auf den ostindischen Inseln und in Malakka finden und deren Bedeutung für die Kriegführung gar nicht überschätzt werden kann. Neuseeland, Australien und Indien werden dann bedroht sein und der für China lebenswichtige Burmaweg gesperrt werden. Angesichts solcher Zukunftsaussichten sind sie erst jetzt zu der wichtigen Einsicht gekommen, was die japanische Gefahr tatsächlich bedeutet. Die Losung des Tages muß daher lauten: Singapur um jeden Preis zu verteidigen.“
Über die Möglichkeiten aber, diese Forderung zu erfüllen, hat sich die „Times“ ebenfalls recht, einleuchtend ausgelassen, und zwar mit folgenden Worten:
„Es gibt nur ein Mittel, die japanischen Heuschreckenschwärme, die über die ostindische Inselwelt hergefallen sind, aufzuhalten, und das ist die unanfechtbare Seeherrschaft im Stillen Ozean, für die ihrerseits wieder, wie überall im modernen Krieg, die Vorherrschaft in der Luft notwendige Voraussetzung ist.“
Wie die Anglo-Amerikaner diese Vorherrschaft zur See erringen Wollen, wenn die Yankees nach Herrn Knox die Vorsicht als den besseren Teil der Tapferkeit erwählen, ist eine Preisfrage, die man in der britischen Admiralität schwerlich beantworten wird. Dort rechnete man ja nach dem Untergang der „Prince of Wales“ und der „Repulse“ gerade mit dem vollen Einsatz der USA-Flotte und schickte die bekanntesten englischen Militärschriftsteller immer unverhohlener mit der Parole vor: Wo bleiben die Schiffe der USA?
Sie bleiben zu Hause
Herr Knox gibt die Antwort: Sie bleiben, soweit sie noch einsatzbereit sind, zu Hause. Sie wollen sich hüten, den Japanern auf hoher See zu begegnen.
Man versteht daher den dumpfen Pessimismus, mit dem die britischen Blätter der weiteren Entwicklung auf Malakka und in ganz Ostindien entgegensehen. Solange keine britisch-amerikanischen Verstärkungen eintreffen, heißt es zum Beispiel im „Manchester Guardian“, werden die Japaner ihre Landungsversuche ungestört fortsetzen. Eine Sicherheit, daß Singapur die japanische Bedrohung überlebt, ist nicht gegeben, schreibt resigniert die „News Chronicle.“
Der „Daily Telegraph“ erklärte — offenbar noch vor der Knox-Rede — es werde notwendig sein, mehr als ein Geschwader nach Singapur zu schicken, falls man die Japaner aufhalten und zum Gegenangriff übergehen wolle. Und der „Daily Express“ setzt nach gutem britischem Brauch seine höchsten Hoffnungen bereits auf General Wetter. Wenn sich Singapur nur 130 Tage halte, so meint er, dann sei alles gerettet. Dann komme die Monsunzeit mit ihren schweren Stürmen und Regengüssen, die den Japanern Einhalt gebieten werde.
England als Landmacht
Außerordentlich aufschlußreich für die Auffassung der Lage in Ostasien durch die Briten ist es schließlich, daß mehrere militärische Mitarbeiter der Londoner Blätter rücken, man könne den Japanern zur See entgegentreten. Sie schlagen als einzigen Weg zur Entlastung eine Großoffensive zu Lande von Burma und von China aus vor, wo neue Armeen aufgestellt werden müßten.
Man denke, was dieser Vorschlag bedeutet: Das stolze Albion, das einst die Wogen beherrschte, sucht die Rettung bei Landoperationen, auf einem militärischen Gebiet also, auf dem es in seiner Geschichte stets die geringsten Fähigkeiten entwickelt hat.
Von Dr. Heinz Hoepf‘l
Churchill hat die Meldung neutraler Korrespondenten in London dementieren lassen, daß er de Valera aufgefordert habe, die irischen Häfen Lough Swilly im Nordwesten, Berehaven im Südwesten und Cobh (Queenstown) in der Mitte der Südküste Irlands an England abzutreten. De Valera hat ebenfalls abgestritten, daß irgendwelche geheime Verhandlungen „zwischen Eire und einem anderen Lande“ stattgefunden hätten, und bei dieser Gelegenheit erneut Stellung genommen zu der von Churchill dementierten Forderung: „Wir werden uns gegen Angriffe aus jeder Richtung verteidigen. Wir haben versucht, und wir versuchen noch, uns Waffen zu verschaffen. Die Waffen, die wir bekommen können und werden, werden zur Verteidigung unseres Gebietes gegen jeden Angreifer dienen, gleichgültig, wer er ist.“
Es ist nicht zu überprüfen, aus welcher Quelle die Londoner Korrespondenten ihre Nachricht über die Forderung Englands an Eire erhalten haben. Unbezweifelbar aber ist es, daß Churchill diese Meldungen, vermutlich über das Foreign Office, hat lancieren lassen, um eine Forderung wieder in die politische Diskussion zu bringen, die er wiederholt erhoben hat und für deren Erfüllung er seit dem Kriegseintritt der USA der Unterstützung Roosevelts gewiß ist, da er nunmehr keine Rücksicht mehr auf die Millionen USA-Iren zu nehmen braucht. In die gleiche Richtung gehört der Vorstoß des USA-Marineministers Knox, der erklärte, der Hauptschlag müsse gegen Deutschland geführt werden, was, wenn auch unausgesprochen, darauf hindeutet, daß in den Washingtoner Verhandlungen die Irlandfrage eine erhebliche Rolle gespielt hat. Der Londoner „Sunday Express“ ist noch weiter gegangen und hat Eire als den „natürlichen Übungsplatz des amerikanischen Expeditionskorps“, das Roosevelt angekündigt hat, bezeichnet.
Bereits im November 1940 hat Churchill in einer Rede auf die drei strategisch wichtigen Häfen, auf die er jetzt wieder die Aufmerksamkeit gelenkt hat, angespielt: „Die Tatsache, daß wir die Süd- und Westküste Irlands nicht benutzen können, um unsere Flottillen und Flugzeuge mit dem nötigen zu versehen und auf diese Weise einen Handel zu beschützen, von dem Irland ebenso wie Großbritannien lebt, diese Tatsache ist eine der schwersten und schmerzvollsten Bürden, die niemals auf unsere Schulter gelegt sein sollte, so breit sie auch sein mögen.“ De Valeras Antwort war ebenso unmißverständlich wie die Anspielung Churchills: „Eine Abtretung von Häfen kommt nicht in Frag, solange unser Land neutral ist. Jeder Versuch, auf uns von seiten irgendeines Kriegführenden einen Druck auszuüben, würde nur in Blutvergießen enden.“
In der englisch-irischen Auseinandersetzung seit dem Vertrag vom 6. Dezember 1921, der dem damals neugegründeten Irischen Freistaat den Dominionstatus gab und der auch die Unterschrift Churchills trägt, haben die drei genannten irischen Häfen eine erhebliche Rolle gespielt. In einem Anhang des Vertragswerkes wurde die Verteidigung Irlands zur See „den Reichsstreitkräften Seiner Majestät“ überlassen. Der britischen Admiralität wurden die Häfen Coyehaven, Cobh und Lough Swilly und Belfast Lough überantwortet und die Instandhaltung in allen Einzelheiten bis auf die Hafenbojen und die Brennstofflagerung für die Küstenverteidigung festgelegt.
Die im Dezember 1937 nach der englischen Thronkrise in Kraft getretene neue irische Verfassung, die den Namen Irischer Freistaat durch Eire ersetzte und in ihrem Text weder den englischen König noch das Empire überhaupt erwähnte, hat die Grundlage geschaffen für neue englisch-irische Verhandlungen im Jahre 1938. Am 25. April dieses Jahres wurde in der Downing Street ein Vertrag unterzeichnet, der Eire endlich die ungeteilte Wehrhoheit brachte: England gab die irischen „Vertragshäfen“ (so genannt nach dem Vertrag von 1921) Berehaven, Cobh und Lough Swilly zurück, während der Hafen ‘ von Belfast englisch blieb wie die sechs Nordprovinzen Irlands. Winston Churchill hat bezeichnenderweise gegen diesen Vertrag polternd protestiert, was belanglos blieb, da er damals kein Regierungsamt besaß, sondern ein oppositioneller Außenseiter war.
Die rechtliche Situation war damit klar, was allerdings Churchill nicht gehindert hat, später ein Anrecht Englands auf eine ihm günstige Haltung Irlands mit der Behauptung zu konstruieren, das britische Mutterland sei verpflichtet, über die Gliedstaaten des Empire zu wachen und gegebenenfalls Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Abgesehen davon, daß dieser Anspruch Englands eine nicht einmal geschickte Fälschung Churchills darstellte, der das Empirestatut von Westminster, die Verfassungsurkunde des britischen Weltreiches, eindeutig widerspricht, ist im Falle Irlands diese Tatsachenverdrehung noch aus einem anderen, zusätzlichen Grunde nur ein durchsichtiges Zweckmanöver ersichtlich: Eire erkennt weder eine Verpflichtung gegenüber dem Empire noch eine solche gegenüber der Krone verfassungsmäßig an, was schon daraus hervorgeht, daß es einen Generalgouverneur, der in den Dominions Kanada, Südafrika, Australien und Neuseeland den König vertritt, in Dublin nicht mehr gibt.
Wäre Eire heute immer noch nur ein Dominion, wie es der Irische Freistaat von 1921 bis 1937 gewesen ist, so wäre auch dann sein Recht auf Neutralität unbezweifelbar. Weder der juristische Ausschuß des geheimen Staatsrates in London noch irgendein englischer Kronanwalt hat dieses Recht seit der Reichskonferenz von 1926, die dem britischen Weltreich seine neue Form mit dem Mutterland völlig gleichberechtigter Dominions gab und diese Form im „Statut von Westminster“ 1931 schriftlich fixierte, jemals bestritten.
Allerdings gibt es keinen Zweifel darüber, daß weder Churchill noch Roosevelt sich durch diese klare Rechtslage davon abhalten lassen würden, unter Anwendung von Gewalt ein neues „Recht“ zu schaffen. Das Argument des damaligen Abgeordneten Winston Churchill gegen die Rückgabe der Vertragshäfen ist heute, nach den schweren Schlägen, die die britische Flotte im Laufe dieses Krieges erlitten hat, nicht weniger entscheidend geworden: Der Aktionsradius der Flotte Seiner Majestät werde um 400 Meilen verkürzt. Der Verlauf des „reizenden Kriegs“ hat den Wert dieser 400 Meilen in einer Weise gesteigert, von der sich der zum Premier aufgestiegene Abgeordnete wohl nur eine unvollkommene Vorstellung gemacht hatte. Es geht für ihn nicht nur um die 400 Meilen mehr, die von den Geleitzügen jetzt zusätzlich gefahren werden müssen. Der weiß heute, daß in diesem Bereich vielleicht einmal der Tod auf England wartet, nicht, weil das Reich die ihm geflissentlich untergeschobenen Pläne gegen Irland hegte, sondern weil Churchill 400 Meilen fehlen werden, um das Mutterland zu versorgen.
De Valera hat das Wort vom Blutvergießen gesprochen. Er weiß, in welcher Gefahr sein Land und sein Volk steht. Es stehen auf irischem Boden, in den Ulsterprovinzen, englische Truppen. Es „arbeiten“ dort bereits „Ingenieure“ und „Facharbeiter“ aus den USA. Vor allem aber kennt er seinen gefährlichsten Widersacher Churchill und seine Methoden, und er weiß hinter ihnen Roosevelt und seine Ankündigung, England, das „Helgoland der Vereinigten Staaten“, mit allen Mitteln zu halten. Die Ergebnisse eines jahrhundertelangen, erbarmungslosen Kampfes stehen für Irland auf dem Spiel. Seit 1171, seit den Tagen Heinrichs II., hat England auf der Grünen Insel durchexerziert, was es unter der Freiheit der kleinen Völker versteht, und zwar mit Methoden, die an sadistischer Grausamkeit selbst in der Geschichte des Empire beispiellos sind und nur noch von England bolschewistischen Verbündeten erreicht werden. Es stehen ihm also überreiche Erfahrungen zur Verfügung, allerdings auch jene, die es nach den schweren Kämpfen seit dem Osteraufstand von Dublin 1916 zum Abschluß des Vertrages von 1921 zwangen. Im Munde de Valeras hat das Wort Blutvergießen für England einen bitteren Klang.
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 13. Januar
Die von der englischen Presse geforderte Besetzung der irischen Häfen und damit des Bruches der Neutralität Irlands ist der britischen Regierung außerordentlich peinlich. Sie sieht ihre Pläne aufgedeckt und mußte daher zu einem Dementi Zuflucht nehmen, das gar kein Dementi ist.
Von maßgebender Seite, so schreibt Reuter, werde erklärt, daß keine Verhandlungen mit der irischen Regierung wegen der Abtretung von Stützpunkten eingeleitet wurden. Nichts deute auch darauf hin, daß Irland von seiner seit Kriegsausbruch verfolgten strikten Neutralitätspolitik abweichen werde.
Von Verhandlungen war in der englischen Presse auch gar nicht die Rede, sondern von militärischen Maßnahmen, die von Nordirland erfolgen sollten. Trotz des amtlichen Dementis erklärt der „Daily Telegraph“, der über ausgezeichnete Beziehungen zum britischen Außenamt verfügt, daß de Valera angegangen wurde, bedeutende „wirtschaftliche“ Konzessionen zu machen. Was für einen „wirtschaftlichen“, Charakter diese Konzessionen haben sollen, zeigt das Beispiel der amerikanischen Stützpunkte in Nordirland, die anfangs ebenfalls nur als rein wirtschaftlich bezeichnet wurden.
Der Entschluß, Irlands Neutralität zu beseitigen und die Iren zum Kriegsdienst auf der Seite Englands und Amerikas zu pressen, ist — daran kann trotz aller Londoner Dementis nicht gezweifelt werden — in Washington gefaßt worden.
Den besten Beweis dafür erbringt die amerikanische Presse. So erklärt die „Chicago Sun“: „Wir brauchen Irland!“ Die „Chicago Tribune“ schreibt: „Kein anderes Land hat Irlands Sache mehr gefördert als Amerika. Die Überlassung von Stützpunkten in irgendeiner Form muß diese Hilfe wieder gutmachen.“
Hinter dieser Pressekampagne steht die Hoffnung, die Iren in Amerika gegen de Valera aufzuputschen. Der „Manchester Guardian“ schreibt ganz offen: „Wenn de Valera bei seiner ablehnenden Haltung bleiben sollte, so wird er in Gegensatz zu seinen Landsleuten in Amerika geraten.“
Eigener Bericht des „VB.“
dr. th. b. Stockholm, 13. Januar
Der amerikanische Admiral Thomas Hart, der unter dem Oberbefehl Wavells die alliierten Seestreitkräfte im südwestlichen Pazifik kommandiert, ist in Java eingetroffen. Er hat die Reise in einem — Unterseeboot zurücklegen müssen!
Man kann dem Admiral nachfühlen, welche Gefühle ihn beherrscht haben müssen, als er durch die Turmluke eines Unterseebootes kriechen mußte, anstatt von der Kommandobrücke eines Schlachtschiffes aus den Operationen seiner Flottenverbände zu leiten.
Schlachtfest bei Roosevelt
Roosevelt: „Na, nun will ich mir mal ein fettes Stück rausschneiden!“
Zeichnung: Hövker (Interpreß)
U.S. War Department (January 14, 1942)
PHILIPPINE THEATER – The enemy yesterday made two determined attacks which were in the nature of reconnaissance in force. These attacks were well supported by artillery and aircraft. Both were repulsed by our troops, with the Japanese suffering heavy losses. American and Philippine casualties were comparatively small.
Hostile air operations were confined to support of ground troops. No attacks were made on our fortifications.
Reports received from Mindanao and Jolo indicate that the Japanese are establishing advance bases in these islands from which to support attacks on Malaya and the Netherlands Indies.
NETHERLANDS INDIES – Three American bombing planes, cooperating with the forces of the Netherlands Indies, attacked a Japanese naval force engaged in landing operations in the Tarakan area of Borneo. Unfavorable weather conditions made it difficult to determine the results of the attack. However, it is known that two enemy fighters were destroyed. Our planes returned to their base undamaged.
There is nothing to report from other areas.
U.S. State Department (January 14, 1942)
The Pittsburgh Press (January 14, 1942)
Philippine defenders still pack wallop, Jap radio indicates
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer
The battlefronts in the Far East
1. Japs raid north of Rangoon; Allies blow up train in Thailand.
2. Chinese besiege town near Changsha; Japs open drive from Canton.
3. Singapore heavily raided; battle due at border 90 miles from city.
4. U.S. forces making Luzon area an “American Tobruk.”
5. Dutch blast Jap base, believed to be Davao in Philippines.
6. U.S. and Dutch bombers raid Tarakan; Dutch troops fight in Sarawak.
7. Japs claim their troops land on both sides of Celebes Island.
Washington –
Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s men have beaten off two more “determined” Jap attacks in Bataan, the War Department reported today, and U.S. warplanes have sunk two Jap fighters in operations for defense of the Dutch East Indies.
Earlier, Jap reports said that Gen. MacArthur’s counterattacks were beaten off yesterday after an artillery battle.
It was the first time the War Department had officially confirmed that U.S. airpower has joined the Dutch in combined efforts to beat off the Jap offensive against the oil and rubber-rich Indies.
U.S. planes – the communiqué said three participated in the operation – attacked Jap landing forces at Tarakan, the rich oil island adjacent to the northeast Borneo coast, and sank two lighters which were engaged in putting Jap troops ashore on the island.
Japs seek weak spots
On Luzon, where Gen. MacArthur is fighting to turn his Bataan-Corregidor positions into an American “Tobruk,” the Japanese launched two more heavy assaults against his lines.
Both these attacks were beaten off. The Americans were said to have inflicted “heavy losses” on the Jap forces which attempted to assault the U.S. lines despite the failure of their artillery preparations the previous day.
The War Department characterized the Jap operations in Bataan as “reconnaissance in force” indicating that the Japanese pressed forward in an attempt to find weak spots in the U.S. lines against which the main assault could be delivered.
Attack Corregidor again
The communiqué said:
These attacks were well supported by artillery and aircraft. Both were repulsed by our troops, with the Japanese suffering heavy losses. U.S. and Philippine casualties were comparatively small.
Again, the Jap Air Force was employed entirely in support of ground operations and new attacks were made on U.S. fortifications, including the rugged rock island of Corregidor.
The War Department reported that information from Mindanao and Jolo Islands in the Philippines indicated the Japanese are rapidly establishing advance bases there for the support of their operations against the Dutch Indies and Malaya.
Raid Tarakan in bad weather
Mindanao is the southernmost large Philippine island where the Japanese have set up an important base at Davao. Jolo is a small island southwest of Mindanao in the Sulu Archipelago close to the northeast Borneo coast. It is about 100 miles southwest of Zamboanga.
The U.S. air attack on the Jap landing operations at Tarakan was carried out in unfavorable weather, the communiqué said, which made it difficult to determine the effectiveness of the attack. U.S. planes returned to their base undamaged.
For nearly 40 days, Gen. MacArthur has held out against devastating Jap assaults and today there were hints in Tokyo propaganda reports and the official U.S. communiqués that his forces still pack a potent punch.
The Japanese, in fact, went further than Washington’s official advices and frankly admitted that Gen. MacArthur has launched counterattacks against the troops which are pressing his Bataan Province lines. Tokyo insisted, however, that the counterattacks were not effective.
However, it was emphasized by all informed military sources that Gen. MacArthur’s battle is strictly defensive and against odds which mount in direct ratio to his losses of men and consumption of ammunition, food and material.
Like British at Tobruk
Gen. MacArthur’s position was likened to that of the British at Tobruk on the Libyan shore with the difference that there is only the scantiest possibility of reinforcing and supplying him by sea as the Tobruk garrison was during its long siege.
In contrast, Gen. MacArthur’s forces and supplies are presumed to be considerably more amply than those which the British had when they were hemmed in at Tobruk.
A Jap report of a “hospital ship” torpedoing in the South China Sea, indicated that Jap sea power in those narrow waters is not unchallenged by U.S. submarines.
Gen. MacArthur’s success in beating back the Jap artillery attack yesterday on his northern Bataan lines was estimated to have cost the enemy between 40 and 50 field guns.
It seems likely that the American success was achieved, at least in part, by Gen. MacArthur’s careful advance preparation of gun positions and thorough knowledge of the terrain. The U.S. guns probably fired from emplacements from which ranges had been carefully plotted and calculated in advance.
There was no official statement on the type of artillery involved by the U.S. guns probably included a considerable number of 75s backed up by 105s and 155mm howitzers.
Inability of the Japanese to spot the American gun positions probably resulted from careful use of heavy jungle vegetation to mask and camouflage the battery sites. The gun sites, experts believed, were carefully picked to lay down a crossfire on any advancing lines of Jap tanks – a task simplified by the rugged terrain and the relatively few routes which the Jap advance might follow.
Authority centralized in key production board as move to spur drive on Axis
Washington (UP) –
Donald M. Nelson, America’s new war production and procurement chief, declared today his aim is to produce enough war weapons to whip Germany and Japan “in the shortest possible time.”
In letters to Office of Production Management Director General William S. Knudsen, Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Under Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, Mr. Nelson said that any organizational changes needed to “lick Hitler and the Japs” will be made.
The present defense production setup, he said, “must and will evolve into the most effective possible instrument to do it.”
Given free reign
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early had previously disclosed that Mr. Nelson would be permitted to write his own ticket in establishing the sort of organization he desires. The actual drafting of the presidential order creating the new agency is being delayed until Mr. Nelson works out the details.
Nelson’s letter to his colleagues in the government concerned with production was short and to the point:
We have just one job to do – to make enough war material to lick Hitler and the Japs, and to do it in the shortest possible time.
Any organizational changes that have to be made in order to do this job will be made. The present organization must and will evolve into the most effective possible instrument to do it.
Everyone connected with production and procurement, in all agencies of the government, must carry on with the utmost devotion and energy.
May abandon OPM
Mr. Nelson’s assertion was believed to foretell abandonment of the OPM as a distinct entity.
Mr. Patterson and Mr. Forrestal have been representing Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox at the OPM’s regular weekly meetings.
Mr. Roosevelt said yesterday that Mr. Nelson, as board chairman, would have “final” say on all questions of procurement and production.
Mr. Early said he had no knowledge of reports that Mr. Nelson might head a supreme Allied Supply Council. There has been considerable speculation that such an organization is in the making.
Senator praises Nelson
Senator Tom Connally (D-TX) praised Mr. Nelson as the “strongest man” in the defense organization. He said that if Mr. Nelson is given administrative authority:, “I’m sure he will see that production gets going.” Mr. Connally interrupted a Senate speech by Senator Alexander Wiley (R-WI), who called for national unity and asked that there be “no buck-passing spree” in the war effort.
Mr. Nelson, former Chicago mail-order house executive, and Lord Beaverbrook, Great Britain’s Minister of Supply, would presumably be the most important members of that council.
President Roosevelt announced last night that Mr. Nelson will be named chairman and responsible director of a new War Production Board which will set up soon to replace the present Supply Priorities and Allocations Board which took the top defense production spot from the Office of Production Management last August.
The War Production Board parallels creation of the World War Industries Board which was headed by Bernard M. Baruch.
Mr. Nelson’s new job will place him in a position comparable to the one held by Lord Beaverbrook. Some sources said the grant of power contemplated for the new production czar would make him a virtual Minister of Supply and place him “head and shoulders” above any other official in the government except Mr. Roosevelt.
Appointment hailed
Many observers believed that Mr. Nelson might be made the head of the new Allied Supply Council – even over Lord Beaverbrook. That speculation was based on belief that an American would be chosen to head such an organization because of the United States’ dominant place in the war production picture.
The choice of Mr. Nelson ends many months of criticism of Mr. Roosevelt’s production setup.
Congressmen hailed his appointment as a “long step forward” in our production effort. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who will serve on the new board, thought it was “a perfectly grand setup – one we have been parrying for all the time.”
Blanket authority
Even Lord Beaverbrook, who came to this country with British Prime Minister Churchill and is still conferring with war production leaders, had criticized the American program, complaining that there was no central production and procurement agency in this country where joint Anglo-American supply problems could be discussed.
Others have been denouncing the pattern and accomplishments of the Office for Emergency Management, top “holding company” in the administration’s production and procurement pyramid, under which SPAB, OPM and the Army and Navy procurement branches functioned without clear definition.
Mr. Nelson’s appointment appears to answer those critics.
We will have full and binding authority over granting of contracts, the production of raw materials and finished munitions, and the methods and procedure of all war procurement.
Can cut red tape
The new board is believed to follow lines that Mr. Nelson, as Executive Director of SPAB, has been urging for weeks. It was understood that the present system of procurement, production and awarding contracts would continue, but that Mr. Nelson would now be able to step in to cut red tape and speed up work in situations inimical to the production program.
The President’s announcement was unexpected. In fact, the dead cats were still flying and at least one was caught in the air. Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential candidate who conferred with the President at the White House yesterday, had prepared a speech for delivery last night to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He modified it after Mr. Nelson’s appointment, indicating that he had not been informed of the move during his White House visit.
Knudsen cancels talk
OPM Director William S. Knudsen, who will now answer to Mr. Nelson, had planned a radio address last night, but called it off. Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Nelson, however, are good friends and it was rumored that the OPM leader may be given a new production job.
The President’s assertion that Mr. Nelson’s “decision as to questions of procurement and production will be final,” places control in civilian hands of the Army and Navy’s procurement programs. As OPM Purchasing Director, Mr. Nelson revised quartermaster procurement policies to avert collision with civilian markets through application of “mail-order house technique” – which he acquired in his former duties with Sears, Roebuck & Co.
No new faces
As armament procurement and production chief, Mr. Nelson will assume command of President Roosevelt’s new all-out war program which calls for delivery this year of 60,000 airplanes, 45,000 tanks and 20,000 anti-aircraft guns. Much of the contemplated $56-billlion expenditure for the war effort for fiscal year 1943 will come under his direction.
There are no new faces in the President’s fourth organization to run war production. Other members of the new board will be the present members of SPAB – Mr. Wallace, Mr. Knudsen, OPM Codirector Sidney Hillman, Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Knox, Price Administrator Leon Henderson, special assistant to the President Harry Hopkins and Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones.
Roosevelt announcement
It was believed that Mr. Nelson would call principally upon OPM personnel to direct the new board’s work. However, the organizational status of OPM remains uncertain pending issuance of the new executive order.
The President’s announcement said:
By executive order, I will establish a War Production Board which will be granted the powers now exercised by the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board.
I will appoint Donald Nelson as chairman… in addition… he will be charged with the direction of the production program and have general supervision over all production agencies. His decisions as to questions of procurement and production will be final.
Mr. Nelson will report to the President as to the progress of the program. He will no longer serve as director of the Priorities Division but will devote his entire time to directing the production program.
Vice President Wallace, as chairman of the Economic Defense Board, will serve as a member of the War Production Board as will the other members of SPAB.
New curbs put on private home construction
Washington –
The Office of Production Management is planning to stop all civilian radio production “in a couple of months” and to place new controls over private home construction, it was learned today.
OPM officials said radio production would be cut approximately 30% soon and that output would cease entirely shortly thereafter. The drastic curtailment order will be issued by OPM’s Civilian Supply Division.
Restrictions and ultimate elimination of civilian radio production, officials said, will not result in hardships because an estimated 57,000,000 sets are already in private homes, large stocks are held by dealers and an adequate supply of repair and maintenance parts will be made available.
An order is also under discussion by the OPM’s Priorities Division, it was disclosed, which will limit the amount of metal available for construction in private homes. Priority assistance is now given to those homes costing less than $6,000 or renting for less than $50 a month, but there are no restrictions on use of metals.
While private homebuilding will not be prohibited under the order, defense officials said it would result in “new restrictions and small homes.” All supplies in the hands of contractors would also be regulated by the proposed order. No new restriction would be placed on defense housing construction.
Regarding curtailment of radio production for private citizens, OPM officials stressed the importance of keeping existing sets in good order to inform the public and as a civilian defense measure. But production of new sets will not be allowed to interfere with output for the Army, Navy and Allied nations.
To use whole output
Armament orders for radios were said to be so large that the industry’s present capacity will be used entirely. The auto industry will produce some large equipment and many small machine shops and plants will be enlisted for increased production.
Orders may top $1 billion, it was said, compared with the $500 million worth of new equipment and repair parts produced by the industry last year.
The radio that a civilian cannot buy will provide material for another set to be used in an airplane tank, ship, or vehicle, or by a parachute trooper, or the Signal Corps. Radio was said to be replacing telegraphy and signaling in the armed services.
Henderson sees inflation in ‘farm relief’
Washington (UP) –
Price Administrator Henderson charged today that the amended price control bill passed by the Senate would lead to “national suicide” through inflation.
Mr. Henderson told the Conference of U.S. Mayors:
As far as inflation is concerned, we would be worse off under the bill that passed the Senate Saturday than we are today.
His statement followed a declaration by President Roosevelt yesterday that the Senate bill was in effect a measure to compel inflation.
Both centered their fire on an amendment by Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY), which would permit prices of farm products to rise to about 120% of parity before any ceilings could be put into effect. The amendment would also make industrial wages a factor in determining parity, so that increases in wages would lead to further increases in farm prices. The administration is working to have this amendment eliminated by the House.
Mr. Henderson described the O’Mahoney Amendment as “an automatic escalator.”
He said it would permit present milk prices to jump 40%, beef 20% and lambs 28% before action could be taken.
He said the country has already lost $13 billion as a result of price increases since the defense program got underway, and predicted price increases accompanying the U.S. war production program would reach $67 billion at the present rate.
At the suggestion of Boston Mayor Maurice J. Tobin, the conference passed a resolution empowering its president, New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, to make representations to prevent final passage of the price control bill in its present form.
He’s ‘really scared’
Mr. Henderson told the conference that the bill was “workable” in the form in which it was submitted to the Senate, but that he was “really scared” by the O’Mahoney Amendment.
He said general wage increases of approximately 10% last spring have been “entirely eaten up” by the higher costs of living.
President Roosevelt, continuing his active participation in shaping the legislation that has been before Congress since last summer, also reminded two of his top officials who have been arguing about joint authority over farm prices, “I can fire either one of them.”
Mr. Roosevelt allowed direct quotation of his press conference statement involving Mr. Henderson and Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard. Mr. Wickard, opposing the President’s views on pending price control legislation, wants veto power over any ceilings Mr. Henderson might set over farm product prices.
Conferees will meet
Senate-House conferees have scheduled a meeting tomorrow to begin work on a compromise between the differing versions passed by the Senate and House.
The Senate bill would require Mr. Henderson to get Mr. Wickard’s consent before fixing price ceilings on farm products and, in addition, would prevent the fixing of any ceilings below a level equivalent to about 120% of present parity.
Mr. Roosevelt described the former provision as thoroughly unsound and the latter as more likely to contribute to inflation than anything he knew of. He contended that it would lead to a rise in the price of farm products that would bring demands for wage increases in industry, thus starting an upward price spiral which in the long run would be expensive to farmers as well as to the rest of the country.
Size of vote cited
Senator O’Mahoney said of his controversial amendment:
The members of the Senate are actually not children and 55 of them – a clear majority – voted that the economic status of one-fourth of the entire population [farmers] need not and should not be jeopardized by the price control bill.
Asked whether he would veto the bill if it retained the farm bloc provisions, Mr. Roosevelt replied that he does not think of things like that until Congress has completed action.
But House conferees, with whom the President discussed the bill earlier in the day, indicated that Mr. Roosevelt had sounded them out on the likelihood of Congress sustaining him on a veto. He was quoted by House members as predicting widespread labor unrest based on the demand of employees for wage increases if the 120% of parity provision remained in the bill.
Washington (UP) –
Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold said today that price control legislation is essential but that it will undoubtedly “encourage” monopolistic price-fixing practices by industry.
Mr. Arnold, head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, warned a House defense investigating committee that the government must be on guard against the possibility that price ceilings may lead to industrial conspiracies that would permit enormous profits.
He said a price control law would constitute a strong temptation to industries to “get together” on what they will tell price-fixing officials about costs, to seek means of evading ceilings and to “boycott” the most efficient distribution systems. Any of these courses, he said, might result in promulgation of higher-than-justified ceilings.
Local tire boards will also parcel cars
Washington (UP) –
Price Administrator Leon Henderson said today that the passenger auto rationing program will go into effect Feb. 2 and will be administered by the local boards which are handling tire and tube rationing.
As in the rationing of tires and tubes, eligible buyers will include doctors, visiting nurses, farm veterinarians, and persons engaged in firefighting, crime prevention or detection, protection of public health and safety, and the transportation of mail.
Preliminary details of the auto rationing plan were announced by Mr. Henderson after he testified before a House committee investigating small business problems on government plans to afford relief for car dealers who face hard times because of auto production curtailment.
Purchases through dealers
Under the rationing plan, eligible persons will make their purchases through dealers, once they have been granted priority certificates.
Mr. Henderson said that between 614,000 and 674,000 new cars would be released for rationed sales.
Persons who before Jan. 3 purchased new cars then in their dealer’s possession will be able to obtain delivery on Feb. 2 without getting approval from the rationing boards.
Used cars status undecided
Mr. Henderson asked the committee to be excused from answering questions whether the government plans to ration used cars.
He said:
If I say no, and we later have to, it looks like a breach of faith. If I say yes, it precipitates all kinds of speculation.
He said later, however, that he did not think “even Germany is rationing used cars.” England, he said, is down to about 3.5% of its former use of passenger cars and:
I understand from Lord Beaverbrook [British Supply Minister] that they plan to pull their belts in even further on matters of rubber.
What of defense workers?
Asked by Rep. William J. Fitzgerald (D-CT) what plans were in the making for the transportation of defense workers who live many miles from their jobs, Mr. Henderson said efforts were being made to furnish tire treading facilities “as fast as we can.”
The problem, Mr. Henderson said, will be “acute in three or four months” and may require revision of bus schedules, doubling up on private transportation” or resurrection of a form of railroad “jitney service” such as that which carried workers to explosives plants during World War I.
Asked if ceilings would be placed on the prices of used cars, Mr. Henderson replied, “If necessary – and the schedules for that are in the icebox.”
Maximum price likely
Mr. Henderson said he expected a maximum price to be placed on rationed cars, to be determined by what he called “Formula A.” This, he said, would be the manufacturers’ list price, plus the federal excise tax, plus a transportation allowance, plus an additional 5% of the total list price or $75, whichever is the lower.
As the 130,000-140,000 cars to be frozen from January output come off the assembly lines, they will be offered to dealers for storage, Mr. Henderson said.
When they are sold, the dealer will be entitled to add to the sales price a further amount of 1% of the list price or $15 (whichever is lower) for each month “that he has acted as a government storehouse.”
Will mean higher price
Mr. Henderson said that this 1% increase would be added to the consumer’s price, thereby providing for an upward sliding scale of prices on the new cars sold later from the frozen stockpile.
Mr. Henderson said:
No dealer will be compelled to take these autos. This will be an offer available to them.
Final plans have not been completed, he said, but he assured the committee that when they are, they will contain such terms as to permit the dealer to maintain some status in commercial life.
He said:
It is our intention to go as far as we can to keep this very necessary service going.
Committee members planned to ask Mr. Henderson to explain an earlier statement that there was a “possibility” of commandeering private autos. Witnesses before the committee yesterday said the remark resulted in “tens of thousands” of cars being offered for sale.
Arthur Center, a Springfield (Massachusetts) dealer, suggested that the government repossess all available scrap now in junkyards, and attempt the manufacture of a standard small car in limited quantities. Other dealers were enthusiastic about the proposal.
Joseph W. Frazer, president of Willys-Overland Motors, proposed a nationwide survey to determine how the dealers’ facilities can be light, medium and heavy trucks and utilized in the war effort, and at the same time keep the dealers in business.
He said:
Auto dealers might become key distributors of civilian defense items such as gas masks, stirrup pumps, air-raid shelters and other similar products.
