America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

428

Henderson announces –
Auto rationing to begin Feb. 2

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.

429

WAR BULLETINS!

Axis ship losses set at 5 million tons

London, England –
The Press Association’s naval expert said today that the Axis had lost five million tons of shipping since the war began, figuring on the basis of observers’ reports and Admiralty and Royal Air Force communiqués.

Capture of Australian general denied

Sydney, Australia –
War Minister F. M. Forde said today that he believed that reports that Maj. Gen. H. Gordon Bennett, commanding Australian troops in Malaya, had been captured were untrue. He said he was sure he would have been advised at once if Gen. Gordon Bennett had been made prisoner by the Japanese.

British may send food to Greeks

London, England –
The Ministry of Economic Warfare said today it was considering sending supplies to Greece to relieve distress among thousands of starving civilians, many of whom were reported dying in the streets. A spokesman said this departure from the principles of economic warfare would necessitate lifting the British blockade.

Gas masks for all in Hawaii

Honolulu, Hawaii –
Every resident of Hawaii is to be given a gas mask because of the chance the Japanese will use gas in air attacks, the Army announced today.

Norse paralyze communications

Stockholm, Sweden –
Travelers arriving in Sweden from northern Norway reported today that Norwegian saboteurs have paralyzed land communications between Norway and Finland by blowing up two bridges in the province of Finnmark.

Quisling reported wounded

London, England –
The Moscow Radio asserted today that Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian pro-Nazi puppet leader, had been wounded in an attempt on his life and was not merely ill, as had been asserted.

Japs claim 62-mile gain in Malaya

Tokyo, Japan (UP) – (broadcast recorded in U.S.)
Jap forces driving toward Singapore were reported by the Dōmei News Agency today to have pushed 62 miles southward from Kuala Lumpur in two days and to be battering at a new British defense line between Port Dickson and Seremban.

Port Dickson is about 185 miles north of Singapore.

1 Like
430

Triple offensive –
Dutch bombers aid MacArthur

Netherlanders also fight in British territory
By John Morris, United Press staff writer

Batavia, NEI –
Dutch land and air forces went into action in Dutch, British and American territory in the South Seas today in a triple counteroffensive against the Japanese on Tarakan Island, British Borneo and the Philippines.

A Dutch East Indies Army communiqué said Dutch land forces, going into action on the Sarawak frontier in British Borneo, killed 18 Japanese troops, with the loss of only one Netherlander, missing and presumed killed.

A Japanese ship was hit in a Dutch Air Force bombardment of the Dutch island of Tarakan, it was asserted.

In the third phase of the Dutch counterattacks, a flying boat of the Dutch Indies Air Force penetrated Japanese defense lines in the southern Philippines and bombed a Japanese air base, dropping numerous bombs on the runway and scoring three direct hits on the base barracks. It returned safely.

As the Dutch forces, in the first big gesture of a completely unified Netherlands-United States-British Empire defense, were operating on territory of all three partners, it was announced here that Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell, the new British Command-in-Chief of United Nations forces in the Far Pacific, had arrived in the Dutch Indies to establish headquarters.

The announcement of the arrival of U.S. Navy Adm. Thomas C. Hart, Gen. Wavell’s deputy in command of the Allied Far Eastern naval forces, had been made previously.

Japanese bombers were also active, raiding ships in the Balikpapan Harbor, the most important oil port in Dutch Borneo, but, according to the Dutch East Indies news agency, inflicted no damage.

Japanese planes bombed Tandjoeng Oeban, in the Riau Archipelago, not far from Singapore, killing one soldier and wounding three others. The raid caused no serious property damage.

Other Japanese bombers attacked a Dutch warship, but their bombs fell far from the vessel.

Installations destroyed

Dutch authorities said the defenders of Tarakan Island had carried out complete destruction of installations there before the Japanese took the island. They completely wrecked the naval air base building and workshop, and the jetty was destroyed by burning oil on the surface of the water.

The Dutch news agency reported from Ternate that two soldiers were killed, one was wounded slightly and one is missing as a result of the air raid mentioned in a previous communiqué.

It was believed that the Japanese would consolidate their new position on Tarakan Island before striking anew, possibly against Balikpapan, the midway point on Borneo’s east coast.

It will take the Japanese at least six months to reoperate the destroyed oil wells on Tarakan, it was estimated, and the Dutch will try to break up their attempts to get them going.

431

Parry

I DARE SAY —
You asked for it

By Florence Fisher Parry

Oh, the indignation and purpose which have swept into the hearts of all Americans since Pearl Harbor! And with these emotions a still deeper one: that of exaltation. We are beginning to look upon ourselves as instruments of destiny – even the least among us has found himself caught up in a finer emotion than he may have thought possible, before the challenge came.

So, I think it is only natural that those of us whose profession, presumably, has made us more articulate, find ourselves, too, lifted up upon the wave of the future. We must be pardoned when we give vent to our feelings in some lofty reach of purpose.

Nor must these outpourings be identified too closely with our actual capacity to live up to what we write! We are bound to fall sharply short of what we express. In a fine frenzy of intention, we may deliver ourselves of sentiments which we ourselves cannot humanly sustain.

I know this to be the case with me. And so, when I get letters deriding me for daring to “set myself up” as a critic or adviser, I feel bad. But I dare say this is the penalty most columnists pay when they try to set a course of conduct they cannot themselves hope to reach.

Yet it seems to me that in times of duress, like these, it is an easy temptation for any columnist to feel himself more solemnly obligated to his readers than ever before. The printed word, however lightly set down, does carry a singular weight, out of all proportion to its deserving. No writer, however obscure, but feels a new sense of responsibility. And if, from time to time, this column might appear to bandy advice too freely – please be reminded that it is advice I offer to myself as well, knowing how badly I need it!

Answer

The other day I wrote a column to young women who are letting this war provide them an excuse NOT to have babies. And the letters I have received since then remind me, in their tone, of those I received some years ago when I was conducting a little side-campaign against the all-too-free recourse of birth control. At that time, this was the accusation hurled at me: “What about yourself? I notice that two children were enough for YOU.”

This taunt finally wrung from me the defense that there was no time for more, as my husband died right after our second baby came; and, not remarrying, I could scarcely be expected to have more children.

I remember at the time how mad it made me to have to haul out my own private life to fend off attack.

And now I am mad again for the same reason. For the gist of the letters here on my desk is this:

It’s all very fine for you to give US advice about having babies, and handing over our sons to be killed. It would be more becoming if YOU had a son of war age, then you might know what it’s like to give him up.

Well ladies, you asked for it.

I HAVE a son of war age. He is thousands of miles away. He is flying by night and by day. He writes that he is safe and well as they all write – when they write.

Noblesse oblige

Now there is another matter which I should like to dispose of, once and for all.

History will record, among its miracles, “just what was accomplished by the attack upon Pearl Harbor.” A national unity of sentiment and purpose unknown before in our whole national course.

Washington did not have it. Lincoln did not have it. Wilson did not have it. Roosevelt has it.

Remembering as we must the sharp divisions, the terrible disunion, the passionate politics, that preceded this unity, it is indeed the miracle of all miracles in history.

And we all, each one of us, to the last man, contributed to it.

From the instant the first word of the attack upon Pearl Harbor, all that we had thought and said before, was wiped clean. For some of us, there was much to wipe out. But with instant zeal, we set our hearts in tune and in tempo to the President of the United States, supreme commander of our national destiny.

Look us over, look us over, examine every word that we have written, spoken, since, and you will find, among the journalists of the American press, a unity of support unexampled in the history of journalism. Considering our open use and misuse of “the freedom of the press” before the war, this is no mean accomplishment, and I may be pardoned if I brag about it here.

This being so, then in God’s name, WHY the recriminations, the reproaches, the post-mortems, the vindictiveness of the very ones who BEFORE this unity came about, preached it so shrilly?

WE ARE WILLING TO FORGET. We who were the black-hearted, hard-shelled, willful minority; we who believed in and wanted Willkie; we who opposed and criticized the President – yes, we who were among the last to become militantly aware – WE ARE WILLING TO FORGET.

Where we were mistaken, we acknowledge openly, eagerly, contritely. What reservations remain in our secret souls, we guard with patient tact. Nothing matters now to us, but unity and victory, behind our President.

But do not goad us. Do not gloat.

Noblesse oblige.

For the duration, let us keep, in heaven’s name, UNITED!

433

Waves of Jap planes hit again in Rangoon area

By Darrell Berrigan, United Press staff writer

Rangoon, Burma –
Jap planes returned today to bomb objectives north of Rangoon.

A military bulletin said only that Rangoon had “an early morning air-raid alert.”

It appeared to independent observers, however, that the number of Jap planes was larger than usual and that anti-aircraft fire was heavier.

British planes struck at Jap bases in Thailand yesterday and the Japs bombed points in Burma, but the balance was in favor of the British.

Airdrome attacked

The Japs attacked an airdrome north of Rangoon and also bombed Ayungon, but there was no damage or casualties.

British fighters shot down a Jap patrol plane in flames over Tavoy, 250 miles southeast of Rangoon. British bombers attacked Prachuap Khiri Khan and Ratchaburi, in the narrow strip of southwestern Thailand opposite Burma, severely damaging two enemy planes on the ground at Prachuap Khiri Khan and blowing up a train in the Ratchaburi Station.

There were no British losses.

Officials here were pondering the extent to which development of rich mineral resources in southern China and northern Burma would offset the loss of Malaya and the Philippines as sources of tin, tungsten, antimony, and other essential war metals.

Jobs for war council

The proposed inter-Allied war council would probably work out plans quickly to develop these untapped resources. American mining experts for the last few months have been touring southwestern China, eastern Tibet and northern Burma in search of new sources of important metals.

These areas are rich in them, but they have not been mined because of their inaccessibility.

Any plan to work such deposits would entail speeding traffic along the Burma Road because the metals would have to be shipped down it to Rangoon, whence they would be loaded aboard ships for the United States or Britain.

Traffic moves slowly

The traffic along the Burma Road moves slowly and Chinese exports along it to Rangoon are hardly more than a trickle. British and Chinese interests are rushing to completion an alternative route from China to India and a considerable portion of the China end is reported finished, with armies of coolies rapidly pushing it through the formidable terrain of southern China and northern India.

When the railway is opened, Calcutta and Bombay will become the ports through which Allied assistance to China – mostly American – will move and to which the raw materials of northern China and Burma will flow for transshipment to the United States.

434

Japs again claim sinking of U.S. aircraft carrier

Tokyo, Japan (UP) – (broadcast recorded in U.S.)
Imperial Headquarters today claimed the sinking of the giant aircraft carrier USS Lexington at a point west of Hawaii Jan. 12.

Two direct hits from a Japanese submarine sent the carrier to the bottom, the announcement said. The submarine, it added, was forced to submerge immediately due to a cruiser attack, but the crew positively ascertained the Lexington was sunk.

The Navy said today in Washington that it had no comment on the latest Japanese claim of sinking the aircraft carrier Lexington.

The Navy Section of Imperial Headquarters also reiterated that the seaplane tender USS Langley was sunk Jan. 8.

Today’s claim was the third time the Japanese have claimed to have sunk the Lexington. Only last week, they claimed to have sunk the aircraft carrier Langley. These claims represent a well-known Axis technique – an effort to invoke a denial that will reveal the whereabouts of the vessels.

The Jap statement said:

American radio reports have sincerely laughed at the claims the Japanese had sunk the Langley three different times at three different places. The reports had no doubt been carried on previous occasions based in foreign dispatches but the official announcement was issued by Imperial Headquarters on Jan. 9.

Compared to the frequent claims of the alleged sinking of the Japanese battleships Kongo, Haruna and the mythical Hiranama, the following satisfaction can be reported: The Kongo and Haruna are both very active and ready for special demonstrations before the very eyes of the American people. At least no demonstrations can be made by the Langley, now definitely lost to the American Navy.

435

Jap hospital ship sunk by sub in South China Sea

Tokyo blames American submersible for torpedoing vessel – six members of crew reported drowned

Tokyo, Japan (UP) – (broadcast recorded in U.S.)
Japanese headquarters said today that an enemy submarine sank the Jap hospital ship Harbin Maru in the South China Sea Jan. 8.

Some of the Harbin Maru’s personnel was said to have been saved.

Radio Berlin was heard by United Press in London broadcasting a dispatch from “Tokyo headquarters” that the Harbin Maru was sunk last Saturday by a U.S. submarine, and all but six members of the crew and the wounded were rescued.

A dispatch from Malaya said a tank unit, the vanguard of the Jap forces, crossed the frontier of Negeri Sembilan State last night and was pursuing the British, who were in hasty retreat toward Malacca, 120 miles northwest of Singapore.

Because of the difficult terrain in the interior, the Japanese are advancing close to the coast on the west aside of the peninsula, a Radio Berlin broadcast, recorded by United Press in London, said.

Official sources claimed that Japanese bombers had sunk seven Allied ships in the Malacca Straits. The nationality of the ships was not reported.

40,000 British fighting

Forty thousand British troops were estimated to be fighting in Negeri Sembilan.

It was said:

Their construction of trenches, destruction of roads and laying of mines shows that their technique is far superior to the technique the British possessed when the Malayan offensive began.

Despite bad weather, formations of Jap planes raided Singapore yesterday afternoon, it was asserted, doing important damage to military installations. All the Jap planes were said to have returned.

Landing on Celebes Island

A communiqué said special naval units had landed on the east coast of Celebes, an island of the Dutch East Indies, south of the Philippines, and occupied the town of Kema, in the extreme northeast.

Jap airmen were said to have shot down seven enemy planes during this operation. Other Jap units were reported to have taken Tondano, in the north of Celebes Island, and it was “supposed that Jap troops advancing from the west and east coasts of the Celebes Island will join each other in the center of the island.”

Two enemy bombers were said to have been shot down around Tarakan, Borneo.

Japs cite size of foe’s army

A naval spokesman said yesterday that losses in landings on Celebes and Mindanao Islands were “negligible.” He said the regular East Indies Army was composed of 35,000 men, plus 70,000 added in general mobilization, but a high percentage of the Dutch forces are natives “and for this reason such an army is no match for Japanese forces.”

The Tokyo newspaper Asahi estimated Dutch East Indies military strength as follows:

About 72,000 regular troops and 25,000 volunteers, 100 pursuit planes, 80 bombers, 90 scout planes, 100 hydroplanes, six cruisers, 10 destroyers, 15 submarines, five minelayers, eight minesweepers, seven torpedo boats, one gunboat and smaller craft.

Claim Americans reinforced

A special correspondent of Asahi said in a dispatch from the Philippines that the Japanese were continuing encirclement operations against enemy forces – mostly Americans – in the Bataan Peninsula. The Americans have been reinforced by coastal artillery and some tanks and have counterattacked, but without result, he said.

The German official news agency said fighting in the Philippines was going on in the mountains of Bataan Peninsula, 40 miles from Olongapo. The agency’s dispatch, recorded by United Press in London, said U.S. and Filipino forces were doing their utmost to defend the eastern part of the peninsula “their last center of resistance.”

The Germans quoted the Jap newspaper, Nichi Nichi, that an “estimated” 30,000 Americans and Filipinos were fighting and suffering from a food shortage.

The Germans added that several transports had been observed near the fortress of Corregidor at the mouth of Manila Bay and that they were probably there to evacuate “encircled U.S. forces.”

The Rangoon radio was quoted as saying that Robert Seal, U.S. Consul in Singapore, had been transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Rangoon.

The Tokyo radio said:

This action of the State Department in Washington is being interpreted as a preliminary to the withdrawal of all diplomatic officers in the imminent collapse of the Singapore defenses.

436

U.S. War Department (January 15, 1942)

Communiqué No. 59

Philippine Theater.
The Commanding General, USAFFE, has advised the War Department of the publication of the following proclamation in Manila newspapers over the signature of the Commanding General, Japanese Army of Occupation in the Philippines:

Warning

  • Anyone who inflicts or attempts to inflict injury upon Japanese soldiers or individuals shall be shot to death.

  • If the assailant or attempted assailant cannot be found, we will hold 10 influential persons as hostages who live in or about the street or municipality where the event has happened.

  • Officials and influential persons shall pass this warning on to your citizens and villages as soon as possible and should prevent these crimes before they happen on your own responsibilities.

  • The Filipinos should understand our real intentions and should work together with us to maintain public peace and order in the Philippines.

In addition, a radio announcement from Tokyo was made which stated that the Japanese military authorities in Manila had decreed the death penalty for any of a list of acts detrimental to the security of the Japanese Armed Forces. The penalty is to be inflicted, irrespective of the nationality or race of the person responsible. The acts listed in the announcement included disturbing the peace, violation of military orders, espionage, interference with communications, damage to military property, concealment of requisitioned goods and circulation of rumors concerning the Japanese forces.

The severity of these official pronouncements is in marked contrast to the terms of cajolery used in leaflets dropped by Japanese aviators prior to the occupation of Manila. These leaflets promised the Filipinos freedom from any oppression and assured them of the friendliest of intentions on the part of the Japanese. In these leaflets, the natives were assured that the Japanese soldiers were coming as friends, not as conquerors, and would free them from the so-called oppression of the white race.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

Communiqué No. 60

Philippine Theater.
Nine heavy Japanese bombers attacked the fortifications on Corregidor Island in Manila Bay.

Two were shot down by our anti-aircraft artillery and others were hit. Damage to fortifications and casualties among our troops were slight.

Aggressive enemy ground activity continues, with attempts at general infiltration all along the line. Although greatly outnumbered, U.S. and Philippine troops are holding well-prepared positions with courage and determination.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

U.S. Navy Department (January 15, 1942)

Communiqué No. 28

Far East.
A 17,000-ton Japanese merchant ship of the YAWATA class has been sunk by a U.S. submarine.

There is nothing to report from other Pacific areas.

Atlantic Area.
The menace of enemy submarines off the East Coast of the United States remains substantial.

There is nothing to report from other Atlantic areas.

437

The Pittsburgh Press (January 15, 1942)

ROOSEVELT DOUBLES ARMY SIZE
Mechanized and air units also boosted

Aviation cadet rules given complete overhauling; 75,000 commissions due
By Mack Johnson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced today that U.S. Army strength will be boosted to a war basis of 3,600,000 men this year, more than double its present size.

The vast expansion will double U.S. armored forces, more than double air combat strength and add 32 new triangular divisions to the present total of 27. The Army’s strength now approximates 1,700,000 men.

The Army announced complete revision of qualifications for Army air cadets to make available a new pool of two million men from whom candidates can be drawn.

75,000 to get commissions

The officer training program was stepped up to put 90,000 privates into training schools from which 75,000 new second lieutenants will be commissioned.

These moves will provide the office and air cadre for the vastly-expanded armed force of 1942.

Revision of the air cadet requirements brings the air arm potential into line with the win-the-war program under which President Roosevelt has ordered the construction of 185,000 planes in the next two years. However, Mr. Stimson noted that not all these planes are for use by U.S. airmen. Many of them will go to our Allies.

Authorized by President

The Army increase, authorized by President Roosevelt, will give the United States its most powerful striking force since World War I.

Mr. Stimson said the bulk of the new triangular divisions will be fully motorized.

The program provides a big increase in anti-aircraft units, engineer and special units together with 50 or more new military police battalions to replace troops now guarding key industrial establishments and other strategic centers.

Mr. Stimson said:

You can see from this picture that plans are already underway for a very great enlargement of the Army, but they are based upon the same balanced requirements that we have followed in the past. The Air Force will have a very large part in the program.

The Secretary said the program also envisages a large increase in trained men for new units to be created in 1943.

The Secretary said this means of camps, there will be some new construction. Nine cantonments for 30,000 men each are being built, and all training centers and posts will be expanded.

In addition, five temporary tent camps will be erected, the Secretary said. He believed that this will house all troops remaining in the continental United States.

Mr. Stimson was asked if the ROTC would step up its training program in colleges which have compressed their courses to three instead of four years because of the war.

Stimson said:

If the boy is taking a four-year course but is only going to be there three years, we are providing a speedup to conform to his regular studies.

Favors Daylight Time

He said, in answer to a question, that the War Department favors Daylight Savings Time to speed up industrial production, conserve power, and get better efficiency from workers.

Asked for comment on the report of the Senate committee investigating defense activities, which criticized War Department methods and procedure, Mr. Stimson said that he had not read the findings.

Simplified air tests due

The major features of the new Air Corps program are reduction of the age limit to 18 years, application of a simplified test to replace previously-required written examination or college credit, and eligibility of married men.

Formerly, aviation cadet training was limited to single men between 20 and 26 years old, while the new program provides for acceptance of those between the ages of 18 and 26, inclusive. The new program applies to pilots, bombardiers, navigators and Air Corps ground officers.

Previously, only unmarried men were trained as aviation cadets but now married men can enlist if they submit a written statement that their dependents have adequate support.

438

Daylight Savings Time to start next month

Washington (UP) –
The House today completed Congressional action on Daylight Savings Time legislation to advance the nation’s clocks one hour in the second week of February.

The House adopted a conference report in the bill by voice vote. Senate approval of the report was voted yesterday.

President Roosevelt requested the legislation to conserve about 500,000 kilowatt hours of electric power a day for war production. The measure will go into effect 20 days after it is signed by Mr. Roosevelt. If he signs it Monday, the clocks will be advanced Sunday, Feb. 8.

439

Report blasts war output –
Plane production condemned; types are called faulty

‘Excessive fees and bonuses, staggering profits, gross waste and petty jealousies’ are charged by Senate committee
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington, Jan. 15 –
A severe criticism of our plane production program and its administration, including an assertion that “we must make radical changes in our methods” if we expect to produce the fighting ships President Roosevelt has ordered, is contained in the second interim report of the special Senate committee investigating the national defense program, made public today by Chairman Harry S. Truman (D-MO).

The Senators declared that:

Only about 25% of our present production is of combat types considered to be equal or superior to the best types produced abroad.

The report, drafted before President Roosevelt’s appointment of Donald M. Nelson as all-powerful war production and procurement chief, fired both barrels at the Office of Production Management, but members of the committee were quick to point out that the naming of Mr. Nelson promised to meet some of their fundamental objections.

The committee said its only interest was to win the war with:

…a minimum expenditure of life and property.

In pointing out past faults of the production program, the committee studded its report with such phrases as “too few planes”… “lobbyists”… “excessive fees and bonuses”… “staggering profits for ship repair”… “gross waste”… “Petty jealousies.”

The report says:

After two years of frantic effort, we have too few planes to allow adequate flying time to our own pilots.

It may be claimed that this shortage existing within our own forces comes as a result of huge shipments diverted to foreign consumers. Actually, the facts do not indicate that to be the case. Information made available to the public has shown that of the best types, our shipments have been very limited.

Furthermore, only a limited amount of our present production is…

440

WAR BULLETINS!

Berlin: Japs near Singapore

Berlin, Germany (UP) – (broadcast recorded in U.S.)
A German official news agency dispatch from Tokyo said today that Japanese tank forces on the west side of the Malay Peninsula were “not far from Singapore.” Tank formations on the east coast were said to have advanced to less than 100 miles from the tip of the peninsula.

British dispatches indicated the Japs were at least 110 miles from Singapore.

Dutch warned against carrying arms

London, England –
Nazi-controlled newspapers in the Netherlands have published new warnings against possession of arms, the official Dutch news agency Aneta said today. The warning was interpreted by Aneta as new indication of German alarm over “preparations for revolt in the Netherlands.”

U.S. fliers destroy 90 Jap planes

Chungking, China –
American volunteer aviators fighting with the Chinese Air Force have destroyed 90-100 Jap planes in combat with a loss of only three planes and three men, including a flight leader, the official Chinese Central News Agency said today.

17 Malta raids in 24 hours

London, England –
Dispatches from Malta said today that the island, Britain’s Mediterranean naval base athwart the Axis supply line to Tripoli, had undergone 17 air raids in the 24 hours ended at 5:00 p.m. CET yesterday and that only slight civilian damage and no casualties had resulted.

To re-register Axis aliens

Washington –
Attorney General Francis Biddle announced today that re-registration of Axis aliens would begin Feb. 2 in eight Western states and in the remaining states Feb. 9. The re-registration will affect all Axis aliens 14 years of age or older.

441

To ‘make hair curl’ –
Big production overhaul due

Nelson eyes many changes to spur U.S. output

Washington, Jan. 15 (UP) –
Donald M. Nelson promised today that so many old ideas were going to be junked in the next few weeks and so many new ones adopted to get America’s production system into high gear that it would:

…make your hair curl.

Ordinary, peacetime, even “sensible” methods are going to be tossed overboard for a system that will probably bring charges of insanity from the old-liners, the new boss of production and supply said in a speech read for him last night in Vincennes, Ind.

Mr. Nelson said:

We need to be cracked enough, if you please, to try to do things that sensible men would not try to do under ordinary circumstances.

These statements were made as he redoubled his efforts to revamp lagging Army, Navy and OPM procurement and production policies. Under the new War Production Board he will head, he has been given complete authority to recommend any steps he deems necessary to harness industry to the huge armament production task ahead of it.

There can be no more halfway…

442

U.S. sub sinks big Jap liner

17,000-ton boat used as plane carrier or transport torpedoed
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer

Washington –
A U.S. submarine has sunk a 17,000-ton Japanese liner, which was possibly being used as an aircraft carrier to support Japan’s Southwest Pacific offensive, the Navy reported today.

The sinking occurred in Far Eastern waters but the Navy did not disclose the exact location.

It probably occurred in waters not far from the Philippines where Gen. Douglas MacArthur today reported his men standing fast under persistent and heavy Japanese attacks.

The sunken ship was a crack Japanese liner of the Yawata class, built with a view to conversion as aircraft carriers. A Navy spokesman said he understood one of the three Yawata ships was in service as a carrier, but it was not certain which of the Yawatas was sunk.

Pride of Japanese line

The vessels are the pride of the Japanese NYK Line and have a speed of 22 or 23 knots – a fast target for the relatively slow-moving submarine.

One ship of this class broke the speed record between Yokohama and San Francisco last year.

The ship was the largest yet to be bagged by the U.S. submarine fleet which is operating in Asiatic waters under the command of Adm. Thomas C. Hart, chief of the United Nations sea force in the Southwest Pacific.

Sinking of the Yawata ship brought the certain toll taken by U.S. subs since the start of the war to five transports, a minesweeper and a supply vessel. U.S. communiqués have also claimed the probable sinking of a destroyer, a transport, a seaplane tender and three 10,000-ton cargo ships.

May have been transport

The Yawata, however, was the best of the bag. These ships are huge 557-foot-long vessels with a 74-foot beam, built only three years ago by the Mitsubishi interests. They are well-equipped with direction finders, echo-sounding devices and modern gyrocompasses.

If the Yawata was not in service as an aircraft carrier, it was probably acting as a troop transport due to its great size and speed.

The Jap land assault against Gen. MacArthur’s Bataan Province positions, said a War Department communiqué, was pressed vigorously. But the Americans and Filipinos, although heavily outnumbered, held their positions “with courage and determination.”

The Japanese, said the communiqué, are attempting persistently to infiltrate Gen. MacArthur’s line but apparently with little success due to the skill with which the American commander has drawn his battle lines.

Attack Corregidor again

Jap heavy bombers, after nearly a week’s interlude, again attacked Corregidor Fortress guarding Manila Bay.

A formation of nine heavy Jap bombers, the communiqué said, attacked the Corregidor fortifications. Two of the Jap planes were shot down by U.S. anti-aircraft guns and others were damaged.

Casualties among U.S. troops were light and only small damage was done to fixed installations.

Japs claim Luzon gains

The American communiqué gave no indication of the lines now being held by Gen. MacArthur in northern Bataan. Jap claims today asserted that their forces have captured Hermosa, an important point in northeast Bataan, and that in addition to the Olongapo Naval Base just north of the Bataan line, they have taken Grande Island, a small fort which protects Subic Bay where Olongapo is situated.

There were also Axis reports of Jap air attacks on a U.S. airfield east of Subic Bay which would indicate that Gen. MacArthur still holds positions just north of the Bataan Province line.

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson told a press conference that no plans have yet been made to evacuate Gen. MacArthur and his forces from the Philippines.

Stimson mum on Luzon

He said:

If I may borrow an expression from President Lincoln, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes and it hasn’t come yet.

He offered the same response to inquiries whether Gen. MacArthur would be instructed to leave Luzon if his position becomes hopeless.

Mr. Stimson said that he had no figures available for “publicity” on American losses in the Philippines and that the casualty lists are “not complete yet anyway.”

As Gen. MacArthur fought his lone battle in Luzon, U.S. air and sea power were being concentrated against Japan on a second line of defense in the Dutch East Indies.

Earlier, Gen. MacArthur told the War Department that Jap occupation forces in the Philippines had warned residents that they will execute any assailants of Jap soldiers and will take hostages if the guilty ones cannot be found.

Meanwhile, the weight of U.S. air and sea power was already being hurled against the Jap forces which are striking strongly down the Celebes Sea toward the oil and rubber riches of the Dutch Islands.

Two high-ranking U.S. commanders – Lt. Gen. George H. Brett and Adm. Hart – were on the ground in Java to direct U.S. operations in collaboration with the Dutch, British and Australians.

Asiatic Fleet at new bases

U.S. planes have struck at least three times – and possibly more – against the Japanese who are slashing southward along the northeast Borneo coast and through the Straits of Malacca and Makassar.

Operations of U.S. warships have been cloaked in some mystery. But it became known today that the entire U.S. Asiatic Fleet and its important train of tankers and supply ships has slipped through the tight Jap guard and has safely arrived at new bases.

The Asiatic Fleet had been based at Cavite but before the fall of that point and of Manila, it had slipped away. There was no official indication of its new theater of operations, but statements from Batavia made it obvious that at least a considerable part of U.S. naval strength in the Far East is now based at the Dutch Islands. The Dutch have at least one major naval base on the island of Java at Soerabaja.

Japs will start hostage killings

Washington (UP) –
A hint of Jap difficulties in their occupation of Manila was seen today in a report that they have invoked Germany’s drastic reprisal tactics and will hold 10 hostages for every person that attacks a Jap and escapes.

The harsh new Jap decree was reported by Gen. Douglas MacArthur who noted that it contrasted sharply with the glittering promises of friendship for the Filipinos distributed by the Japanese in the opening phase of their campaign.

The Jap warning said 10 “influential persons” would be held as hostages in the event that perpetrators of terroristic acts – who will be shot if found – are not apprehended.

A radio announcement from Tokyo, the War Department said, that Jap military authorities in Manila had decreed the death penalty for any of several acts “detrimental to the security of the Japanese Armed Forces.”

443

Farm leaders hit Roosevelt on price curb

Federation asks minimum ceiling of 110% of parity

Washington (UP) –
The American Farm Bureau Federation today renewed its demand for Agriculture Department control over farm prices, but said it would be satisfied with a 110% of parity minimum ceiling in the pending price control bill.

The Federation’s position was set forth by its president, Edward A. O’Neal, in a letter sent to all members of the Senate and House conference committee.

House and Senate conferees on price control legislation agreed at their first meeting today to postpone action on controversial farm amendments to the bill until minor points are compromised.

Senator Prentiss M. Brown (D-MI), Senate manager of the bill, interpreted the Federation’s letter as a repudiation of an amendment by Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY), which was one of the provisions of the Senate measure to which President Roosevelt objected and which was severely attacked by Price Administration Leon Henderson.

Mr. O’Mahoney’s amendment would write a new definition of parity price for the special purpose of fixing farm prices. In effect it would prevent any price ceilings on farm products below 120% of parity as now figured.

Mr. O’Neal, taking issue with Mr. Roosevelt, wrote the conferees that it is “imperatively necessary” to retain the amendment by Senator John H. Bankhead (D-AL) giving Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard veto power over Mr. Henderson’s farm price ceilings.

Challenges assertion

On the Senate floor, Senator Clyde M. Reed (R-KS) challenged Mr. Roosevelt’s description of the bill as one which would compel inflation, and criticized him for “interference” in the Congressional attempt to write price control legislation.

Although Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley, of Kentucky, protested that the President was within his right, Mr. Reed said:

I want to challenge his statement that the Bankhead or O’Mahoney Amendment makes for inflation or is a very important factor in inflation. I do not think it was good taste for the President to say what he said and then call the conferees down to the White House.

Mr. Henderson, in an address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, attacked the O’Mahoney Amendment as threatening “national suicide” through inflation. Later, the mayors authorized their president, Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York, to urge that it be eliminated.

Mr. Henderson said Mr. O’Mahoney’s amendment provided an “automatic escalator” for prices and that he was “really scared” by what it might produce. Under its provisions, he said, milk could increase 40% in price, beef 20%, and lambs 28% before any control action could be taken.

Cites resolution

On this point, Mr. O’Neal’s letter cited to the conferees a resolution adopted by the Farm Bureau at its last convention, held in Chicago in December, advocating that no farm price ceiling be fixed at lower than 110% of present parity.

The resolution added:

We deplore efforts that are being made to raise the parity prices of farm commodities through a revision of the formula upon which parity prices are determined.

…and Mr. O’Neal’s letter explained that the resolution referred to the existing parity formula in proposing a 110% ceiling.

House ceiling is lower

A provision for prohibiting any ceiling lower than 110% was in the bill approved by the House and in the Senate bill before the O’Mahoney Amendment replaced it.

Mr. O’Neil’s letter cited additional language of the Farm Bureau resolution asserting that if efforts to revise the parity formula are successful:

…the sound and defensible basis of present parity, which is intended to give farm commodities a price structure representing a fair exchange value with the product of industry, would be destroyed, and agriculture would be breaking faith with the masses of the people. The Federation has never asked for more than a square deal.

Farm wages show increase during 1941

Washington (UP) –
Farm wages showed a marked increase during 1941, moving from 124% to 166% of the 1910-14 average, the Department of Agriculture announced today.

444

Tanker is hit by torpedoes off New York

Two crew members killed in attack on tanker; Navy hunts subs
By Gardner Frost, United Press staff writer

Fullscreen capture 1172021 73423 AM.bmp
Where tanker was struck.

Newport, Rhode Island –
The Navy was “dealing” with one or more enemy submarines menacing the East Coast today following the torpedoing of a tanker off New York City. Two seamen were killed, a third was missing and 37 were in hospitals.

The nature of the “dealing” and of all matters pertaining to naval operations were military secrets, but it was no secret that the Atlantic Coast, on which border the nation’s largest cities, most busy ports, and richest industrial districts, was closely protected by warplanes, surface ships, and submarines, and enemy submarines operating offshore were in imminent peril.

In Washington, a Navy spokesmen said that naval, air and seas units were hunting enemy submarines that were ranging “pretty well up and down the coast.”

An early afternoon communiqué issued by the Navy Department said:

The menace of enemy submarines off the East Coast of the United States remains substantial.

The first ship torpedoed off this coast in the new war was the 9,577-ton Panamanian tanker Norness. The Navy revealed that the submarine, presumably German, though it could have been Italian, used typical Axis “sneak” strategy, attacking by night without warning, it hit the Norness with three torpedoes, yet it did not sink her for, though awash, she was still afloat today.

Hit 150 miles from New York

Rear Adm. Edward C. Kalbfus, commandant of the naval operating base here, reported to Washington that the vessel was “beyond towing” and probably beyond salvaging. Her exact location was not revealed, but she was torpedoed 60 miles southeast of Montauk Point, approximately 150 miles from New York City, at 1:30 a.m. yesterday.

Of her crew of 40, her master and eight others were taken to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the fishing boat Malvina D. and then to the naval base here by naval autos.

Put in naval hospital

Thirty others, including six officers, were picked up from their lifeboats by naval vessels and brought here. No American was in the crew which was Scandinavian, chiefly Norwegian.

Adm. Kalbfus disclosed the casualty toll at a press conference. Those missing, and presumed dead, he listed as Kaare Reinertsen and Ecil Bremseth, Scandinavians of unknown addresses. The injured man was Nils Mikalsen, address unknown, who received a fractured kneecap and contusions.

Adm. Kalbfus said most of the 37 hospitalized for immersion, exposure and nausea from contact with oily seawater would probably be discharged during the day and turned over to immigration authorities as aliens.

Lifeboat sighted

The Malvina D. was inbound to New Bedford from the fishing grounds off the entrance to Long Island Sound, when she sighted a single lifeboat. She had known nothing of the torpedoing. Before she could start looking for other lifeboats, naval craft arrived on the scene and she proceeded on her way.

But from what was already known, it was apparent that the crew of the tanker had spent from six to 12 hours in lifeboats. Patrol planes sighted their ship, its deck awash, yesterday morning, lifeboats loaded with men hovering around. Naval vessels were rushed to the rescue.

There was no secret of the fact that the Navy had anticipated enemy submarine action along the Eastern Coast, particularly in these winter months when heavy weather reduces submarine activity in the North Atlantic.

Warning is issued

A week after Germany and Italy declared war on the United States Dec. 10, there were reports that enemy submarines had been sighted off this coast, but the Navy refused comment.

Yesterday, when the torpedoing of the Norness became known, the Navy in Washington warned that the submarine menace had increased and ordered merchant ships to take suitable precautions.

It was the second attack within a few days off the coast of the North American continent. A 10,000-ton merchant ship was torpedoed previously 160 miles off Nova Scotia with a loss of 91 lives.

Recall 1918 sub action

The loss of the Norness recalled German submarine activity off the coast from May to September in 1918, the last year of World War I. One came to the surface off Rhode Island and sent a few shells into a town. Others attacked merchant ships and schooners in coastwise trade. On June 2, 1918, one sub sank six ships off the New Jersey coast.

Captain is Norwegian

The Norness was completed in 1939 in Hamburg, Germany. Erling D. Næss, president of the Tanker Corporation (her owners), said in New York that her master was Capt. Harald Hansen, a Norwegian. He was not at liberty to disclose her port of destination or from whence she had sailed. The company is owned by American, British and Norwegian interests.

445

The Washington Merry-Go-Round –
Argentine prima donna

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

NOTE: Drew Pearson is in Rio de Janeiro attending the Pan-American conference.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil –
Nearly every Pan-American conference in recent years has had its Argentine prima donna who has left the stage in a huff just as the chorus of 21 republics was ready to shout hurrah for hemisphere harmony. This one promises to be no exception.

The first Pan-American conference this reporter attended, at Havana in 1928, was disrupted when the Argentine Ambassador packed his trunks because Calvin Coolidge and Charles E. Hughes wouldn’t O.K. a customs union. And the last conference at Lima, Peru, was kept waiting by temperamental Argentine Foreign Minister Cantilo, who took a couple of weeks off at a mountain resort in Chile, refusing to go near a telephone to O.K. the last act of the conference.

Today, the gentleman scheduled to do the prima donna act on behalf of Argentina is new Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú.

He is married to a German, has very definite sympathies with Spanish dictator Franco, has spent a large part of his life as a diplomat in Europe and believes that Argentina’s future must lockstep with Europe, not with the U.S.A.

It was Foreign Minister Ruiz Guiñazú who tossed the neat little bombshell into the Rio de Janeiro preliminaries last week by announcing to the world that Argentina could not agree to any alliances or “measures of pro-belligerency” at Rio.

No Argentine meat

Some people attributed Argentina’s lack of cooperation with the United States to the fact that every time President Roosevelt proposes buying a few cans of tinned beef, Senator O’Mahoney of Wyoming or Senator Connally of Texas lashes out against Argentine meat. Or even when we undertake to admit Argentine meat from the remote island of Tierra del Fuego, the tip end of the country where foot and mouth disease does not exist, the American Livestock Association yells to high heaven.

However, the real fact is that the bulk of the Argentine people forgive our cow-Senators and understand that this is just playing politics. Furthermore, the great bulk of the Argentine people are 99% with us.

Perhaps we have Adolf Hitler to thank for it, but the U.S.A. was never so popular in Argentina as it is today. You would think that Mr. Roosevelt was the president of Argentina, judging by his popularity in Buenos Aires.

But this is among the Argentine people – not with the government. The government represents the old aristocratic ranch owners, who came into power through the revolution of 1930 and have been using Tammany methods to keep themselves in power ever since.

Japanese schools

Washington –
After three years’ probing of subversive activities, it takes a lot to excite Rep. Martin Dies, but the other day, the rangy Texan hit on a discovery that took his breath away.

His committee has been making a sweeping inquiry of Jap fifth-columning on the West Coast, including subversive teaching in Japanese-language schools located all over Southern California. Investigators found that from the primary grades up, students in these schools are indoctrinated with militarism and the ideology of their Japanese ancestors.

Primer books, for instance, are filled with pictures of the Japanese flag and soldiers, accounts of the greatness of the Jap Navy, and stories with titles like My Brother Enlisted in the Army.

However, the thing that stunned Mr. Dies was a portion of a story entitled Submarines. Although written several years ago, it was a perfect description of the sneak Jap submarine attack at Pearl Harbor.

Printed in both Japanese and English, it said:

It is our duty to go underwater when the enemy’s battleships draw near and sink them by shooting torpedoes and at times to go secretly to the enemy’s harbor and attack his battleships without warning.

Censorship

Some of the most important questions affecting the American press since 1918 have been under discussion in secret conferences held by the new censor, Byron Price; also by the Office of Facts and Figures under Archibald MacLeish; plus representatives of the State, War and Navy Departments.

Upon the outcome of these discussions will depend in a large measure what war news authorities will permit the U.S. press to print. However, criticism of war policies, of war production and of war mistakes supposedly will not come under the jurisdiction of the censors. This has been the general policy laid down by President Roosevelt, who, although severely criticized by the press during his first eight years in office, staunchly champions the right of the press to criticize.

In a recent meeting of the government officials to discuss censorship, however, the State Department representative proposed that a ban be clamped down on criticism of the State Department’s activities and policies.

Movie probe

Several days ago, Senator D. Worth Clark announced that the movie probe he headed had been abandoned “in the interest of national unity.”

But what he did not mention was the fact that this isolationist-propaganda stunt, pulled off by Senators Clark, Burt Wheeler and Gerald Nye without Senate authorization, is going to cost taxpayers the neat sum of $2,300.

446

Britain moves to bolster its Middle East force

Auchinleck named supreme commander; U.S. port planned in Iran

Auchinleck,_Claude_John_Eyre_IB2095
Gen. Auchinleck.

London, England (UP) –
Great Britain, in a double action to speed American supplies and to strengthen its bulwark in the Middle East, moved today to implement plans for an all-American port in Iran and named a new commander-in-chief for all British and Indian forces in Iran and Iraq.

A United Press Tehran dispatch announced that Gen. Edward P. Quinan, British general of command in Iraq and Iran, had arrived in Tehran from Baghdad to discuss an American project for an American port as a feeder for American materials for tank and plane assembly and repair plants and to speed deliveries for Russia against the expected German spring offensive.

Gen. Quinan said that the port would be all-American, with American personnel, and that it would be established at a point some 30 miles from Basra on the Persian Gulf.

Bulwark strengthened

The War Office here announced the appointment of Lt. Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck, British Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, as Commander-in-Chief of all British and Indian land forces in Iran and Iraq.

In this way, it strengthened its Iran-Iraq bulwark on India’s western frontier and on the Caucasus frontier of Russia.

Previously the land forces in that region had been under the Command-in-Chief in India.

Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell had now been moved to the command of the United Nations forces in the Far East. Gen. Auchinleck had previously been Commander-in-Chief of India.

Coordinated command

The War Office said Gen. Auchinleck’s appointment was “necessitated by recent developments ion the course of the war” and that it was in accordance with the policy of ensuring coordinated command in each strategic area of major importance.

The War Office said:

The position thus that the outward defenses of India, both east and west, are in the hands of two distinguished soldiers who, having both recently been commanders-in-chief in India, are in a exceptional position to view the situation with a full appreciation of India’s viewpoint.

Gen. Auchinleck will retain his commandership-in-chief on the Middle East.

The United Press Tehran dispatch said that Gen. Quinan during his visit there was discussing possible reorganization of the Iranian Army as well as the speeding up of supplies to Russia along the trans-Iranian route and other problems.

447

Tokyo claims 36 U.S. ships

245,140 tons sank at Hawaii, Japs say

The following claims of the Japanese have not been confirmed from any other source.

Tokyo, Japan (UP) – (broadcast recorded in U.S.)
Jap naval sources claimed today that 36 American war vessels, aggregating 245,140 tons, were sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7.

“On the basis of photographs of the Hawaiian attack, taken within 2 minutes of the initial assault,” these figures were attributed to the Japanese Naval Command:

Known sunk:

  • 4 battleships
  • 2 cruisers
  • 1 aircraft carrier
  • 4 destroyers
  • 15 submarines
  • 1 target ship
  • 1 minesweeper
  • 1 seaplane carrier
  • 3 gunboats
  • 2 tankers.

Navy Secretary Frank Knox, after a flying visit to Honolulu, reported to President Roosevelt Dec. 15 the battleship Arizona, the destroyers Cassin, Downes, and Shaw, the target ship Utah and the minelayer Oglala, had been sunk by Jap aircraft.

Claim 13,000 U.S. casualties

The casualty list of the 36 U.S. warships sunk included no less than 13,000 officers and men, the Jap Navy source said.

He asserted that Jap losses to date included only four destroyers, two submarines and two minesweepers, aggregating 8,600 tons, compared with American claims that 28 warships, including a battleship of the Haruna class, have been sunk.

The Jap Navy command said the U.S. Navy Department Dec. 24 admitted the loss of 198,000 tons of naval craft, which would bring the average displacement of the admittedly lost ships to 33,000 each.

Japs list war trophies

The Sasebo Naval Station yesterday announced the arrival of war trophies which fell into Jap hands when its navy on Dec. 8 captured the U.S. gunboat Wake and sank the British gunboat Peterel at Shanghai.

The booty from the Wake, which is now in the service of the Jap Navy under the name of Tatara, included a copper-framed map of the island of Guam, 30 U.S. naval flags and the two name plates of the gunboats which graced the stern and bow of the captured vessel.

The bell of the Peterel was also listed among the trophies.

Hawaiian Japs pay ‘protection’ fines

Honolulu, Hawaii (UP) –
18 Jap aliens have paid a total of $875 in fines into the U.S. defense fund for stealing $50 worth of lumber from a defense project, Provost Court Judge Maj. Henry Dupree revealed today.

The Japanese said they stole the lumber to build bomb shelters to protect themselves from their countrymen.

449

New Dealers vs. newcomers –
Battle for power greatest peril to all-out war drive

Muttering rises to growl as Congress and isolationists quit politics but business and industrial men in capital wrangle over domestic reforms
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

First of a series of three.

Washington –
The U.S. government, in the beginning of the all-out war effort, is troubled with certain handicaps so obvious here that private muttering is rising to a low growl that may get much louder.

Some, but not all, of these handicaps are dealt with in President Roosevelt’s decision to create a War Production Board headed by Donald M. Nelson, who is promised power to make final decisions on production and procurement.

This is designed to take care of an organization problem that has become acute. But aside from that problem, there is a question of the spirit and atmosphere of Washington.

Everybody seems to agree that there is unity in the country, that the people are aroused and determined to win the war as quickly as possible.

Not strictly political

The disunity is not in the strictly political field. Partisan politics has virtually disappeared. Congress has piped down. Former isolationists are wholeheartedly behind the war program.

The disunity might be described as ideological.

That is, the New Dealers and the newcomers, these latter being businessmen and industrialists who have come here to help in the war program, are still fighting the war that began in 1933 over domestic reforms.

Behind the scenes, there is a nasty struggle for power. It was understandable, if not excusable, in the days before Pearl Harbor, when we were neither in nor out of the war but making a half-hearted effort to prepare for the eventual entry that most people here expected.

New Dealers keep control

New Dealers were afraid that the business and industrial elements which they had driven from power in Washington might move on, under cover of the need for then assistance in war production and might take over the government and wreck the social reforms achieved after such a long fight. In each of the numerous defense organizations set up here from time to time, New Dealers were careful to maintain control, backed always by President Roosevelt.

Yet they have continued to worry and plot and connive.

It is true that they have reason to be suspicious of some who are ready to capitalize the war effort for their own advantage and profit. It is true, too, that they have called attention to the delinquencies of some industrialists, some powerful groups who have acted through champions in OPM and other high places.

But the newcomers say the New Dealers are open to the charge of capitalizing the war effort to perpetuate their power, and through that, to extend their control further over business and industry after the war.

Bureaucracy increasing

The impression is created that a good many people directly engaged in the war program, including both New Dealers and newcomers, have their eyes more on winning the “war after the war” than on winning the war with the Axis.

The New Dealers’ zeal to perpetuate their power is party responsible for the creation of an even bigger bureaucracy which seems, to the ordinary observer, to be growing beyond all bounds of need for expert and efficient people.

Agencies are piled upon agencies, partly because the heads of various bureaus, jealous of their power, vigorously resist the merging of agencies – and get away with it.

Encourages tendency

President Roosevelt has encouraged this tendency by creating additional boards instead of reorganizing those already existing – an administrativer weakness that has been pointed out constantly since the start of the defense program.

Until the President acted Tuesday night, the top command of the war program had been a hodge-podge, with powers interrelated, divided, subdivided.

But below that, the confusion is just as pronounced. There are a dozen agencies which have to so with defense housing, 14 of which are charged with the training of workers for defense industries, several concerned with labor, a score or more concerned with statistics and research, and so on.

Agencies jealous

The man or woman with a government job comes to regard that job as a vested right, and is as hard to dislodge as the raccoon which clings to the limb of a tree. Likewise, the various agencies concerned with one general function are all jealous of each other, a fact which becomes apparent as soon as the visitor walks in the door and gets in his ears the din of backbiting and name-calling.

In the little over two years since war broke out in Europe, the number of federal employees all over the country has increased from 939,876 to 1,558,000. More than 75,000 new workers have come to Washington in that time. There were 125,842 government workers in the District of Columbia in September. There are 203,000 today.

Every train brings more.

Next:
How feuding between New Dealers and newcomers hampers the war program.