Railroad managements oppose OPA request
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Jap bombers strike close to Australia
Raid islands only 30 miles off tip of northeast coast
Foe’s airdrome hit
Aussie fliers inflict heavy damage with blow at Rabaul
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Guthrie resigns war board post
Textiles branch chief and two key aides quit
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Naval heroes cited by FDR
Pearl Harbor and Wake group, living and dead, rewarded officially
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FDR urges 40-mile speed limit to conserve rubber
States seen giving quick compliance
Letters to governors say more mileage can be obtained
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Mary Astor’s husband given wings in RCAF
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada (AP) – (March 14)
Manuel del Campo, husband of Mary Astor, Hollywood actress, had his wings today as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force. After his graduation from training school, he left for Hollywood by plane to spend his leave with his family.
WRITERS SEE MILLIONS LOCKED IN TITANIC STRUGGLE IN SPRING
Expect Allies will start big offensive
Experts predict all-out effort by Hitler to crush Soviet
By Wide World Features Service
Violent offensives dwarfing anything the world has ever known – millions of men locked in battle along thousands of miles of battleground – are foreseen with the arrival of spring.
That is the major point of aggression reached the independently by the correspondents and war experts of Wide World in many key points who foresee a desperate, all-out drive by Hitler to knock Russia out of the war.
But there is another view – that the time has arrived when the United Nations will take the offensive, with Russia refusing to let Germany regain the initiative on the vital Nazi-Soviet front, and the United States turning from defense to attack, upon Japan especially.
There’s no difference of opinion among observers on the magnitude of the coming struggles – only what direction they will take.
Some believe the Nazis may strike through the Middle East. A possibility is held out that Japan may try a push through India in an effort to join forces with the Germans in the Middle East. And there is some speculation too that an Allied invasion of Europe, perhaps through Norway, may be attempted to force Germany to fight on a second front.
Now it’s Stalin’s drive
John Evans, chief of Wide World’s Foreign Service, New York:
Joseph Stalin agrees with Adolf Hitler that there will be a massive drive on the Russian battlefield. Stalin, however, says the drive will be by the Soviet armies, with the Germans defending themselves instead of starting again toward the Caucasus and the dream of floods of oil.
Hitler’s plan, as he announced it, was to reorganize his troops on a winter liner and to throw in scores more of his supposedly invincible divisions when the sun dries the ground in late April or May.
Stalin turned the winter to his advantage, pushing back the Germans while new armies were being organized safely in the rear.
Some of Hitler’s spring reinforcements are reported to have been thrown in for defense.
Stalin and his generals display confidence. The Russians lost armament plants in the 1941 campaign, but aid from the United States and Britain is filling gaps in equipment.
In the Japanese war zone, there is promise of the other big offensive. It is less definite. The Japanese have warned Australia against resisting, and Australia has accepted the challenge.
The United States, however, without saying when or where or how, has talked offensive action as the next step and as necessarily inevitable. Reinforcements have been moving to Australia.
One thing is certain, and that is that the present disposition of the United States and of Australia is to use whatever forces there are for attack upon the Japanese rather than defense.
The ultimate goal is to bomb Japan heavily and steadily.
Sees Axis lines exposed
Drew Middleton, London:
Hellbent for victory in 1942, Germany and Japan will direct a giant spring offensive aimed at girdling the great European and Asiatic land masses by the Axis armies.
The magnitude of the Axis plans for world conquest exposes them to Allied counterthrusts. A stand by the British in India is expected to check the Japanese and expose them to attack from Australia on the southern front.
Germany intends to drive in two directions: Through southern Russia toward the Caucasus and through Egypt at Suez, Iraq and Iran. Simultaneously, Japan hopes to move across the Indian Ocean, India, Ceylon and Madagascar to the Persian Gulf, cutting off supplies to Russia.
An invasion of Northern Europe by Anglo-American forces from Britain might smash the German plan, but the British are still reluctant to make another trip to the continent until they are sure they can stay.
If the British could invade Europe successfully, Germany might be beaten this year.
Oil motivates Hitler
Kirke L. Simpson, Wide World war analyst, Washington:
Urgent necessity for obtaining adequate oil sources controls the action of Hitler and his European war associates. Axis conquests are meaningless until the vital oil slack of the Nazi “new order” economy has been met.
This writer believes that the Nazi attack on Russia was dictated by the hope of reaching Russian oil sources in the Caucasus. If that is true, the moist probable main effort of the Nazi soring offensive would still be aimed at Russia.
Short of Turkish submission to Hitler, there is no other front where German Army power might be aimed at oil as effectively as in southern Russia. The third largest oil pool in the world is still just around the Rostov corner from German advance posts. The great question still unanswered is whether Russia’s winter offensive has whittled away Nazi reserves beyond Hitler’s ability to break through.
In the Pacific, Japanese communication lines are becoming increasingly vulnerable to United Nations sea-air attack, but the creaking of these lines definitely must await the hour when enemy air and sea power can be outmatched in those distant waters. When the lines are cut, the whole Japanese conquest campaign must collapse of its own weight.
Public’s ideas on war setup sought in backyard poll
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West Coast tattoo artists experience boom from Army
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Army fights on old front
Engineers try various tactics in efforts to tame Mississippi
By Mortimer Kreeger
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Women turn to war jobs
Thousands already at work on planes and tanks in Detroit
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U.S. pushing air program
Statistician puts coast of turning out Army pilot at $75,000
By Devon Francis, Wide World aviation editor
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Capital gets defense test
Windows darkened for 10 hours in all-night blackout drill
By Frank I. Weller
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Reading Eagle (March 16, 1942)
14 Jap bombers smash at Darwin
Port suffers some damage in fourth raid
Casualties also reported in attack on Australian base; return blows dealt
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3 Axis subs believed sunk by Navy
Scribe tells of U.S. action in Atlantic
One U-boat was certainly destroyed, reporter relates
Stationed on blimp
Attacks by Americans occurred in period of three hours, he says
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WPB probe promised
Charges arms program is hampered will be investigated
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Body of seaman found on overturned lifeboat
North Wildwood, NJ, March 16 (UP) –
The body of a seaman, recovered from anb overturned lifeboat five miles off Stone Harbor, was tentatively identified today as Howard Coppage (no address).
Coast Guardsmen, who discovered the body lashed to the boat, believed it was from a small American-owned freighter.
U.S. and Axis diplomats may be exchanged soon
Stockholm, March 16 (AP) –
United States and Axis diplomats may be exchanged late in March by traveling the Atlantic on the Swedish steamship Drottningholm.
The Foreign Offices confirmed today that negotiations were in progress for use of the ship, now berthed at Göteborg. The voyage would be made via Lisbon.
Curb sought in war profits
Congressional friends of labor serve notice they propose fight
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Sales tax would yield $5 billion
Treasury renews its objections to levy in giving estimate
5 PC Base used
Statistics offered to House Committee in revenue search
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Corregidor women short of hairpins
U.S. Army nurse relates 'things are not too bad’
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500 U.S. troops seized in Java, Japs claim
Late bulletin
Tokyo, March 16 (AP) –
400 American troops were captured by the Japanese at Bandeong, central Java, and 100 more in eastern Java, a Dōmei dispatch said today.
All are now prisoners of war, it was said.
War materiel seized from the Americans included 93 automobiles, 8 field guns, 19 machine guns, 390 automatic and regular rifles, and 80,000 rounds of ammunition, the dispatch said.
British war materiel captured by the Japanese is still being counted, it was said, but so far it includes 600 automobiles, 76 guns, 90 machine guns, and 6,000 rifles.