America at war! (1941– ) (Part 1)

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 3:52am

Translate greetings to world

Former W8XK to be shortwave Santa
By Si Steinhauser

There will always be a Christmas and Uncle Sam will turn to shortwave radio to tell the world that he wishes it Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men and means it. Even the people of enemy countries – their leaders permitting – may hear Christmas broadcasts from the human side of the world in their own language.

Behind the scenes will be Pittsburgh’s and the world’s first powerful shortwave transmitter the former W8XK, now WBOS, at the shortwave center in Boston. What was once good old W8XK then WPIT will relay special Christmas music and greetings to South America, Britain, France and Germany.

Christmas Eve at 11:30, the NBC Symphony will precede midnight mass from New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Spanish versions of the sermon will be read.

President Roosevelt’s tree lighting ceremony will be described in Spanish, French and German. Carols, chorals, Marine Band programs and other special Christmas broadcasts will be beamed by shortwave to lands below and across the seas from America.

Folks in Kittaning must have enjoyed hearing Clifton Fadiman call their town Kitten-ing on Friday’s “Information, Please” broadcast.

“Back the Red, White and Blue with Gold,” a new song, will be aired for the first time on KQV’s “For America We Sing” tonight at 9:30.

Tonight’s Cavalcade of America (KDKA 7:30) will repeat its annual Christmas version of “Green Pastures,” starring the Hall Johnson choir and Juano Hernandez, famed Negro actor.

KDKA will also broadcast “The Nativity” as provided at 12:30 tonight by the network and singers of WKY, Oklahoma City.

Veterans at Aspinwall Hospital and similar institutions all over America will listen tomorrow at 3:30 as Veterans Administrator Frank T. Hines and American Legion Commander Lynn U. Stambaugh extend holiday greetings.

Bill Thompson, character ace of Fibber McGee’s program has never missed a Christmas at home and he will be there – in Chicago – Thursday. He leaves the program after tomorrow’s broadcast.

Jan Peerce quit medical studies to take up music. After a career on the air he leaped to grand opera.

MMF – The “Spotlights Band” program is not a recording. A different band is chosen for each night except Sunday.

Glenn Miller has been named national chairman of the Dance Orchestra Leaders’ Division for the celebration of President Roosevelt’s birthday.

Tommy Dorsey’s band will replace Ozzie Nelson’s outfit on the Red Skelton Program in a few weeks.

Pennsylvania’s Sen. Joe Guffey is slated for an NBC network talk on December 28.

Three Guy Lombardo arrangers turn out 350 orchestrations a year out of 2,500 songs submitted.

Announcers scheduled to handle New Year’s Day football bowl games are wondering about restrictions on dope, on weather, wind directions, etc.

Columbia’s gift bonus to Cecil Brown for his broadcasts from the Far East after his narrow escape from death aboard the Repulse when it went down is a cable money order for $1,000.

Betty Hutton who got her start with Vincent Lopez as America’s Number One Jitterbug joins the Bob Hope cast.

Jack Leonard, “fresh out” of the Army and soon to go back, says the boys want no more of the old war songs like “There’s a Long, Long Trail” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” Now they sing, reports the former Tommy Dorsey vocalist, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” and “Twenty-One Dollars A Day – Once A Month.”

We have a hunch that all that will change now that we’re really “in it.”

Mrs. Myron McCormick (Martha Hodge on the stage), wife of the male lead in the “Joyce Jordan” serial, is out of a job because her play “The Admiral Had a Wife” was silenced because its action took place at Pearl Harbor.

Tommy Dorsey who won Saturday’s best-seller record award on the Spotlight Bands program returns to the program tonight. The record was Frank Sinatra’s “This Love of Mine.”

U.S. Army speeds long-range force to meet attack

Stimson emphasizes development of aviation but opposes independent branch; value of new Atlantic bases stressed as defense factors

WASHINGTON (UP) – The U.S. Army, profiting by experiences in Europe, is expediting development of a “powerful long-ranged air force of such size and mobility” that it can strike at any attempted naval attack from overseas or South America, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said today.

He emphasized the development of air forces in his annual report, which was written in November, prior to the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7. That attack resulted in assignment of Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, chief of the Army’s Air Force Combat Command as commander of the Army’s forces at Hawaii.

“The recently-demonstrated effectiveness of air power as against sea power in the confined limits of the Mediterranean has suggested revolutionary possibilities for the defense of American interests in the similar seas of the Southwestern Pacific,” Mr. Stimson said.

Separate air force opposed

“It has also suggested the enormous powers of a hemispheric defense, which, radiating out from the manufacturers and training grounds of the United States and taking advantage of our now existing ocean and continental bases, may strike at and ward off aggressive hostile sea power long before it is able to approach our shores.”

Mr. Stimson reported that the Army is pursuing a policy of unifying command of air, ground and sea forces for special theaters of action, but he opposed creation of an independent air force such as some congressional sources have urged. He said there must be a single head for the “Army as a whole” for both air and ground forces.

Cooperation lauded

“At the recent maneuvers in Louisiana, there were employed at least four types of combat planes which were concededly superior to any yet produced by the warring nations of Europe,” he said.

“In their work of cooperation with the ground forces at those maneuvers our airmen displayed a spirit and technique of cooperation which, in the light of their comparatively brief training, was astonishing. An organization which can produce such results in so brief a time should not be subjected to the destructive efforts of hasty legislation.”

Discussing the Army in general, Mr. Stimson said the major purposes are to develop:

“A powerful long-ranged air force of such size and mobility that, operating centrally from the United States but using as stepping stones our Atlantic and Pacific outposts, it can effectively strike at any naval attack from overseas or South America.”
“Well-trained teams of air and ground forces which can not only immediately meet any hostile expeditionary forces threatening the western continent, but which can also furnish the reserves and cadres of trained men and weapons necessary to save our own country from conquest in the critical event of a threatened mass invasion of our boundaries.”

Germany assailed

Mr. Stimson charged Germany with cold-blooded development of a plan for “complete world domination” under a military despotism for four years prior to 1939, when the current war began. He said that never in history has there been such a “carefully planned and powerful aggression.”

The collapse of France, he continued, brought the menace to the Western Hemisphere closer because of the grave threat of the collapse of British seapower, which then was guarding the Atlantic. But sending of lend-lease supplies, acquisition of new Atlantic bases from the British in exchange for 50 overage destroyers, creation of air and ground forces on Iceland and Greenland, and the convoying of war materials have strengthened this country’s position, he wrote.

Mr. Stimson lauded Russia’s resistance to Germany’s invasion, and urged that lend-lease funds and supplies be made available to the Red Army in the fullest degree possible.

War hits hard in Argentina

Needs may influence nation at Rio parley

BUENOS AIRES (UP) – Argentina’s pressing economic needs may influence political decisions of the nation’s delegation to the conference of foreign ministers of the American republics at Rio de Janeiro in January, political observers believed today.

The war has crippled Argentine economy, causing the loss of important foreign markets, mostly European, and a severe shipping shortage which has made the moving of Argentine products to remaining markets a serious problem.

The United States has been helpful to Argentina since the war shut off European markets, but now it is feared that fewer ships will be available for the United States-Argentine trade, thus cutting imports and exports.

It also is feared that the United States may have to reduce exports of metals, which would affect the important Argentine meat-canning industry and hamper expansion of construction and industry in general.

Argentina’s fuel supplies are greatly reduced. There is a paper shortage. Agricultural economy has been hard hit and is expected to become worse as new crops will add to surpluses, although the government crop purchasing plan has aided farmers to some extent.

As the agenda of the Rio conference will include discussion of means to provide essential products to Latin American countries and maintain sufficient ships in service to carry a two-way inter-American trade, it is believed that this phase is the one in which Argentina’s delegation will direct its major efforts.

Lonesome Pine slayer pardoned by governor

RICHMOND, Virginia (UP) – Edith Maxwell, pretty school teacher of the “Trail of the Lonesome Pine” Country, who was sent to prison for the murder of her father because he objected to her staying out late of evenings, has been pardoned by Gov. James H. Price of Virginia.

The governor’s office announced today that Miss Maxwell, now 27, was granted a conditional pardon and released from the state industrial farm for women last Friday, after serving almost five years of the 20-year sentence she received in her second trial at Wise, Virginia.

Gov. Price would not reveal where Edith was today, but said she had been promised employment outside the state.

Holidays curtailed in Navy shipyards

WASHINGTON (UP) – Christmas will be observed as a holiday but New Year’s Day will be just another work day in Navy shipyards and other naval establishments, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said today.

He requested that in the case of urgently-needed items of equipment that work be continued as usual, even on Christmas. The instructions were sent to naval district commandants, naval supervisors of shipbuilding and inspectors in all plants.

Men working New Year’s Day or Christmas will receive overtime, Mr. Knox said.

Monahan: Oakie ace halfback in gridiron rumpus

Film at Fulton broad satire on collegiate football
By Kaspar Monahan

Jack Oakie has a field day in “Rise and Shine” as an All-American halfback so superior in all phases of the gridiron game that single-handed he probably could wallop the Chicago Bears. Mr. Oakie, hog fat and just this side of 40, is by way of being the perennial campus cutup of the screen. He’ll never graduate – but that’s all right with that big proportion of filmgoers who like their farces fast and funny and preposterous.

“Rise and Shine” rates high under all three classifications, even if its story outline is as old as the first movie to devote itself to football. The hero wins the game in the last split second of play; the gambling clique kidnaps him to prevent him from playing so it’ll clean up on the long odds; the grid star escapes from the gangsters’ clutches in time to enter the game and save the day for his old alma mater.

Out of such hoary stuff, however, author Mark Hellinger and director Allan Dwan have manufactured a fable solely for laughs and Brother Oakie was never one to let the writer and the director down if they meet him halfway.

The rotund clown seldom misses in “Rise and Shine” As Boley Bolenciecwcz, the greatest and dumbest football gladiator of all time, Jack snoozes through most of his hours off the playing field, but once on the striped greensward with a football in his paws he is TNT, bowling over and through his adversaries for a multitude of touchdowns; he passes like a super Sammy Baugh; tackles with the fury of a charging rhino, and his field goals soar accurately over the crossbar the full length of the field.

There’s a broad satire to the film which opened at the Fulton in the efforts of alumni, student body, faculty and the president of Clayton College to drill enough primary grade knowledge through the thick skull of Boley to keep him in school.

But even the low scholastic standards of Clayton are too much of a barrier for the Neanderthal intellect of Boley. So he is sent to live with a professor’s family, so that the prof and his pretty daughter may tutor the half-wit halfback day and night.

The professor’s household is modelled after that of “You Can’t Take It with You,” what with a grandpa possessed of Harpo Marx’s maniacal yen for strange blonds and the prof’s avid interest in magic. The prof is forever pulling eggs out of the cars of new acquaintances and grandpa is forever making passes at blonds.

When the gangsters barge into the situation the screwball farce gets an even madder gleam in its eye, ending with the last-second touchdown mentioned above. To give you an idea – Boley runs backwards and forwards, leaving carnage and destruction in his wake as he gallops the length of the gridiron three times.

There are others besides Mr. Oakie who contribute to the uproarious goings-on, notably Walter Brennan as the amorous grandpa, Donald Meck as the eccentric professor, Milton Berle as an underworld character named Seabiscuit because he makes noises like a horse. For the romantic touch – George Murphy and Linda Darnell. There are a number of tunes and Mr. Murphy tears off a few heel-and-toe numbers. Hardly a dull moment in “Rise and Shine.” It’s downright crazy, but funny.

Hedy Lamarr plays first Yankee role

In Penn’s new film she is seen as American career girl

Hedy Lamarr, playing an American girl for the first time, teams with Robert Young and Ruth Hussey in “H. M. Pulham, Esq.”, opening Wednesday at the Penn Theater. The film is based on the best-seller novel of the same name by J. P. Marquand.

The story of Boston and a Bostonian who settles into the groove of routine and tradition after one great love experience, was brought to the screen by King Vidor, literally from the pages of the book.

Miss Lamarr plays Marvin Myles, the career-girl who becomes the one great love in the life of Pulham, played by Young. The story covers a span of years, tracing Young’s experiences from youth to middle-age. It is told in retrospect as he prepares a biography for his Harvard class alumni magazine.

Girl he marries

Miss Hussey plays the Boston girl whom Pulham eventually marries, as destined by his family. Van Heflin, Katharine Hepburn’s leading man on the stage in “Philadelphia Story,” portrays Pulham’s friend and confident, Bill King. Charles Coburn is seen in Pulham, Senior, and Fay Holden as Young’s mother. Bonita Granville plays his sister Mary, and Leif Erikson “Bo-Jo” Brown,” his football idol at college.

Old songs

Boston, in the picture as in the novel, shares importance with the cast. Vidor’s research in Boston brought rich results. The sets are Boston, the Boston of today and yesterday. Contrasted with this are the bustling sequences in New York, its night clubs and its pleasure-loving people, and the excitement that followed the first World War.

Popular songs of yesteryear are highlighted in the film.

Among the song hits of another era is “Three O’clock in the Morning,” from the Greenwich Village Follies of 1921, which is sung by Hedy Lamarr to Robert Young in a night club sequence.

In a dancing scene, in which Young and Ruth Hussey, as children, are taught to dance, “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland,” of the vintage of 1910, is used.

“Where Do We Go from Here?” one of the popular tunes of the ‘20s is heard in a football game sequence, and other songs include “How’re You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm?” “Our Director,” the Harvard song, and “Boola,” the Yale anthem.

These old-time songs parallel the period settings, costumes and dialogue of the story, supplemented by a modern background score by Bronislau Kaper.

Together with Hedy Lamarr, Young and Miss Hussey, the cast features Charles Coburn, Van Heflin, Fay Holden and Bonita Granville.

Judy Garland turns author; good, too

HOLLYWOOD – Judy Garland is the most excited girl in Hollywood. And not alone because of the wonderful reviews she received on her work in “Babes On Broadway,” Miss Garland’s a full-fledged author now!

A few weeks ago, she wrote an article about Mickey Rooney. A friend sent it to one of the biggest national magazines. The day the manuscript was received the editor wired Miss Garland, “Congratulations and welcome to our newest contributor. The writing world lost a good bet when you went into pictures. Would you like to try something else?”

Hollywood

By Hedda Hopper

It’s good news that Billie Burke, after 10 years of wealthy screwball hostess parts, is doing a straight dramatic role in “In This Our Life.” She plays the tired, sickly mother of Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, and is an embittered, lonely and tragic figure. And this time her cares are genuine – not the “who-shall-sit-next-to-whom” variety that have been bothering her pretty head these last years… And Billie herself is delighted. As she says, “The hostess role was good to me, but there didn’t seem to be anything else I could do with her, especially after ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner.’ As hostess to that ogre, Sheridan Whiteside, I achieved the ultimate. There was nowhere else to go. So it’s lucky for me that Warners remembered I was an actress before I became a hostess.” It was director John Huston’s idea that Billie Burke should have a really meaty part at long last, and let’s hope it means a new cycle for her.

Takes more than a blackout to stop our boys and gals from supplying entertainment to the Army camps. Night of our first blackout, Jack Haley, Shirley Ross, Mary Carlisle, Phyllis Brooks and Hoagy Carmichael drove down to March Field by blue lights, gave a show for the boys, but were not permitted to drive back that night – had to spend the night in the barracks. Won’t be any more such goings-on, though, ‘cause we’re not allowed to drive by blue or any other colored lights during blackouts now. … Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were forced to cancel out Brooklyn in their forthcoming p.a. tour, and received an irate wire from the Brooklyn “bums:” “Okay! So you’re not coming to Brooklyn? Well! you can’t dodge the Dodgers – we’ll see you in Fort Wayne!” … Bill Gargan and Charlie Farrell will present their “Palm Springs Vanities” again this year, with gate receipts going to Palm Springs Hospital. Franchot Tone, Jean Wallace, Frank Morgan, Ralph Bellamy, Charlie Ruggles and Margaret Lindsay will help the boys.

In “Lady for a Night,” Joan Blondell said to Ray Middleton, “You look like you have a hangover,” but one of the research department got wind of it and raised the roof. Seems “Lady for a Night” is laid in Memphis in the 1880s, and the expression “hangover” only dates back to 1910 – so they had to reshoot the scene with Joan saying, “You look awful?” Research also turned up the information that a hangover is the result of drinking “hard likker.” If you’ve only had been the night before, you wake up with a “Katzenjammer.”

Because Orson Welles wanted them to roll directly into the camera, Tim Holt and Anne Baxter couldn’t have doubles when they tumbled from a sleigh for “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and twelve takes were required before Orson (who was directing in a coon skin cap and coat) was satisfied. … When an alligator snapped at Jack Haley’s leg during a “Malaya” sequence, he broke up the scene, and Walter Abel said, “What are you so nervous about? He doesn’t bite you – just tries.” “I know,” moaned Jack, “but has he read the script?”

Cedric Hardwicke is at last on the screen as a comedian. The English film “Laburnum Grove,” which he made at the height of his success in London as a comedian, and in which he plays a no-account sponger, recently opened in New York. Since that time, Hardwicke has played only sober and villainous parts in this country. … Bob Lowry, of Twentieth Century, plays the lead in six training shorts which are run for new draftees throughout the camps, and he’s already getting more than a thousand fan letters weekly.

Bill Nigh will start shooting on “Mr. Wise Guy,” starring the East Side Kids, immediately after the New Year. So far, Monogram has not settled on the adult lead to co-star with Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, and Huntz Hall. … Bill Saroyan is getting around those steep prices in the MGM commissary by ordering three dozen hot biscuits and some honey for lunch. … Susan Hayward is wearing a fraternity pin these days. Owner not identified.

For Christmas cards, John Pawne is sending out X-ray photos of his chest, just to show his heart’s in the right place. … Leone’s in Hollywood are throwing a Christmas dinner for 300 orphaned children. Dorothy Sebastian and a group of starlets will act as waitresses, while the Dead End Kids, Billy Hallop and Frankie Thomas. will be bus boys – with W. C. Fields, no doubt, looking on – a glass of milk in his hand!

Join the Flying Corps, boys!

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Not a bad recruiting poster for Uncle Sam’s aviation corps, eh! She’s Peggy Moran, who has the leading feminine role in “Flying Cadets,” topping the dual bill starting Wednesday at the Barry. The other picture is “The Stork Pays Off,” featuring Maxie Rosenbloom and Rochelle Hudson.

Simms: Japs ‘invaded’ the Philippines 3½ years ago

Sent 22 ‘mystery’ vessels to Mindanao on war games in 1938
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

WASHINGTON – Under the unsuspecting eye of bighearted Uncle Sam, the Japs for years have been building up Davao, on the highly strategic Philippine Island of Mindanao, as a base from which to invade the Philippines and the East Indies.

Some three-and-a-half years ago the Japanese navy even went so far as to rehearse landing operations there, apparently getting away with their brazen but not-so-secret war games in that part of the archipelago.

In April 1938, 22 “mystery ships” appeared off Davao, the Nipponese “capital” of the Philippines. The Davao collector of customs reported the strange ships, yet for days Manila – approximately 700 miles north – was unable to say what they were, to whom they belonged or why they were there.

Dutch Indies menaced

The nearest government cutters and aircraft, it was explained, were at least 600 miles away. Then, after two or three days of milling about, the mysterious craft disappeared. Several explanations were offered, but in Mindanao no one seemed to doubt that the vessels belonged to Japan.

If the Japanese forces now succeed in establishing themselves at Davao, it will be a grave menace to the Dutch East Indies only about 330 miles away.

There are two wavs to invade a country. One is by peaceful penetration or colonization. The other is by force. Japan’s method has always been a combination of the two. She first sent immigrants to Korea, then annexed it. She sent her nationals into Manchuria and followed them up with troops. The same system was used against China proper.

For years Japanese emigrants have been moving southward as well as eastward and westward. They have been filtering into Indo-China, Siam, Malaya, Singapore, the British and Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Hawaii and the Philippines.

It’s bit of old Japan

Of some 30,000 Japanese in the Philippines, about three-fourths are in Mindanao. Davao is a thriving little city of some 15,000 people, almost all full-fledged Japanese. They have their own places of worship. their own schools, clubs, centers of culture and propaganda, shops, banks. It is a bit of old Nippon.

Encouraged by their government at the beginning, the Japs laid out hemp plantations in Mindanao until at last they had a monopoly of the island’s hemp industry. Sixty percent of their output is sold in the United States. The rest goes to Japan. Naturally they buy in Japan. Less than four percent of their imports have come from the United States.

As Davao grew more and more Japanified, the United States complacently did little or nothing about it. Then, suddenly, Manila became alarmed. The Commonwealth government began an investigation. President Manuel Quezon flew down to see for himself.

He ordered a detailed report. He found that at least half the Japanese in Mindanao had entered illegally. A copy of the report was given to Frank Murphy, then American high commissioner, who passed the findings on to Washington.

When Manila complained to Tokyo, the Japs got tough and began talking about “protecting” their nationals. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth finally slapped a quota of 500 immigrants a year on the Japanese – but the illegal entrants doubtless kept coming. Which apparently would be easy, if one remembers the 22 “mystery ships” off Davao, and the 7,000 separate islands with their enormous shorelines.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 5:09am

They remember Pearl Harbor!
Dying skipper fights on

Gun crew shields ammunition with own bodies as ship moves past blazing battleship Arizona
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, Dec. 20 (UP, Delayed) – The Arizona, the American battleship destroyed in the Japanese sneak attack on December 7, was struck by a torpedo before a bomb dropped into her stack, survivors of the raid said today.

The survivors’ accounts, approved by authorities, reflected naval courage and moral. They told of subordinates carrying on the battle when their captain was killed on the bridge of his ship; of gun crews protecting their ammunition with their own bodies; of a Marine remaining at his gun after a comrade had extracted a piece of shrapnel from his back.

It was disclosed that two Japanese submarines which entered Pearl Harbor were blasted to the bottom before they were able to do damage. One was fired upon by an aircraft tender and then rammed by a destroyer. It came to the surface bottom side up and then sank. The other sank as soon as it was hit.

Names omitted

These personal stories omitted the names of the narrators.

Here is the story of a commander who stood on the hot decks of his battleship and directed the fighting:

“I had just finished breakfast when I heard the alarm over the loudspeaker – ‘Japs attacking us, go to your battle stations.’

“I went up the passage way with the captain just ahead and we went to the bridge together. During this time the ship suffered the heaviest explosions. It vibrated and shook and started taking a list.

“Communications were disrupted to all stations, so we established messenger communication. The captain, who was on the port side of the bridge, groaned and said, ‘I’ve been hit.’ He was hit in the stomach and I saw he had been mortally wounded, but sent for the pharmacist’s mate.

Fires already had spread throughout the ship. I was concerned for the safety of the magazines and had men flood them, then began evacuating the wounded – I believe we managed to get all the wounded off.

“I was anxious to get the captain off the bridge but he emphatically refused. The ship was still subjected to dive-bombing, a high horizontal attack and machine-gun strafing. Two officers with the captain stayed through the entire engagement until the captain died. His body was placed in the chart house.

“These officers discovered they were cut off from the lower part of the ship by raging fires. However, they got a line to the bridge of the next ship, went hand over hand for 20 feet and made it just as the line was scorched by the fire.

“A Negro mess attendant who never before had fired a gun manned a machine gun on the bridge until his ammunition was exhausted. I stayed throughout the day with fires raging until relieved that afternoon. The attack lasted from 7:55 a.m. until 9:15 a m., and probably 70 planes attacked us.

Make ‘determined assault’

“There was no evidence of suicide attacks, but they made a very determined assault – dive bombers pulled out of their dives at about 300 feet and torpedo planes leveled off 40 or 50 feet above the water.

“I saw a few enemy craft burst into flames, but I was kept pretty busy and was unable to notice all.”

A senior medical officer on duty during the action said that “all the Japs I saw were dead – 17 bodies.”

“I saw two planes catch fire and fall right into the Navy Yard during the first wave,” he said.

Many men burned

“Over 60 percent of the casualties were from burns although I saw a good many drownings due to the oily water. That day nearly 1,000 wounded were treated, we know – many more couldn’t be kept count of. We handled them right on the beach and in the yard. We handled at least 90 percent before nightfall, then worked with flashlights.”

A 37-year-old senior officer aboard another ship was on the hospital ship Solace ready to go to mass when the attack occurred.

“I saw a flight of planes flying toward the battleship row dropping torpedoes,” he said. “I even saw one headed for my ship but it (the plane) burst into flames and a loud cheer went up.

“I was stunned by the horribleness of the thing, but squared away and went to my ship. The air was literally filled with planes. I couldn’t understand why many raiders didn’t come down in that blaze of fire from our ships but the scoundrels stayed right on their course.

Crew shields ammunition

“I went through a strafing attack as I approached the ship, but got under cover of the starboard gangway, then went up to seek my battle station. All guns were going and all defenses were manned. There were no bomb hits as yet.

“I ducked under the lee side of the signal bridge, and finally into the conning tower. Then I saw a torpedo hit the battleship Arizona, which was nearby – it was a dead sound, like a big swish of wind going through foliage. Another bomb went down the Arizona’s stack.

“I believed the flames would reach the bow of our ship, and suggested that we get under way. The engine room said it would take half an hour, but I said we had better get under way right now.

“We cast off the lines, backed the engines and the bow started moving out. We cleared the Arizona and a repair ship which was also alongside about 40 feet. Our gun crew shielded the ammunition with their own bodies as we moved past the blazing Arizona.

Bombs hit ship

“As we squared off down the channel, the Japs began dive-bombing. The ship was hit several times and shivered and shook while our batteries took the Japs under fire. Then we got the signal not to proceed out of the harbor, so we backed engines and halted at the side of the channel.

“I saw acts of heroism that I’ll never forget. I saw a Marine second lieutenant pull a piece of shrapnel out of another Marine’s back, and this Marine continued to work his machine-gun throughout the attack.”

The Navy also revealed for the first time that the two Japanese submarines which got into Pearl Harbor were put out of action before they could fire a shot. The first was fired on by an aircraft tender, then rammed by a destroyer. It came to the surface, capsized, then sank. The other “went down immediately” when hit.

Broadcasters urge restraint

Stations warned against sensationalism

NEW YORK – The National Association of Broadcasters, embracing most of the country’s radio stations, warned its members today against sensationalism, carelessness, commercialization and use of rumors in presentation of war news.

A war guide, prepared after “careful consultation with the military branches of the government,” outlawed unjustified interruptions of scheduled programs to stimulate listener interest. This practice, it said, tends to increase tension.

Unconfirmed reports were banned. Stations were advised not to use enemy communiques unless accompanied by an official U.S. statement on the same subject.

Weather reports, casualties and movements of troops and naval vessels already have been removed from the air at government request.

Audience participation programs in which the public “ad libs” were frowned upon.

The guide recommended the use of news only from recognized press services and advised that any information not provided by these sources be “thoroughly checked and verified before broadcasting.”

Mowrer: Hongkong’s plight laid to ‘too late, too little’ help

‘It couldn’t happen there’ for British believed their defenses were adequate at China’s smuggling center
By Edgar Ansel Mowrer

WASHINGTON – Six weeks ago I reached Hongkong from Chungking. The China National Aviation Co. plane, with its American pilot, dropped through the cloud ceiling at dusk, circled over the harbor, and landed in the northern end of Kowloon, just south of the hills that were the colony’s chief defense. Coming from warring China, there was something infinitely calm and peaceful about Hongkong.

Here was a prosperous Chinese population, busy about civilized pursuits despite its many refugees. The ivory carriers, the jade dealers from Canton, the Indian silk merchants, the British venders of good sound woolens, perhaps the last in the empire, the old colonials sitting about in the Hongkong Club and drinking gimlets. These all seemed engrossed in better business.

Hongkong was thriving on “smuggle” – better called blockade-running into and out of China. Never had so much merchandise gone through Hongkong. The smugglers, under the leadership of a former river pirate, had their headquarters within a few miles of a Japanese naval station. These were being assisted by a Britisher.

War just around corner

It was hard to believe that war was just around the corner, and visitors from Shanghai still insisted that the Japanese never would so far forget themselves as to challenge British or Americans.

Women – white women – had become few and far between. Most wives and daughters had left for Australia, or the United States or England.

The main line of defenses was considered very strong. There were a few small war vessels in the port. Aircraft were obviously scarce, but more, I was told, would be rushed there at the first alarm.

The defenses of Victoria Island, Hongkong proper, were pointed out to me.

The big guns at the entrance of the harbor were declared to be formidable and as you drove around the island, the impression of some strength and great self-confidence was irresistible. Whatever happened, Hongkong would not be abandoned without a siege that might last for months. Drinking water and food would not run short.

Couldn’t happen here!

I lodged in a beautiful house high on the peak with my friend, J. K. Bousfield, representative of the Asiatic Petroleum Co. From the bedroom window, I looked down the hill and across the docks to the harbor, across Kowloon and its big hotel and swarming Chinese quarters and airfield, to the lily fountain just beyond the golf course.

To the left was the waterway to Canton and Occupied China; to the right the warship anchorage, the shipyards and the China Sea. A hundred years of occidental civilization grafted onto Southern China. It could not happen here – but it did.

The rapid capture of most of the city and its all but certain fall soon is unquestionably a terrible disappointment. The British expected it to hold out a month, in any case, and made its plans accordingly. The Chinese were sure that the town could stand a considerable siege and that most of the prominent Chinese, who by opposing Japan, had laid themselves over to torture if captured, would have plenty of time to get away.

Rumors insists that there was Fifth-Column work, perfect espionage and even armed insurrection by Japanese in Kowloon, behind the British defenders. Rumor persists that the Canadians who reinforced the garrison at the last minute arrived without their equipment. But, as yet, there is no real explanation.

‘Too little, too late’

The stirring resistance of the all but beaten garrison proves that here, as at Dunkirk and Tobruk, Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, the British and American courage is second to none. It does not show that we have as yet adjusted to the speed of modern war. Hongkong seems yet another example of “too little and too late.”

Once the Japanese acquired naval and air superiority in the Western Pacific, the importance of Hongkong as an advanced base for the democracies disappeared. But they have cleared one flank of their communications southward to Borneo and Malaya and have sealed up, perhaps for the duration of the war, one of the two doors through which patient China has been receiving vital supplies.

Vital to winning

Even when the British and we re-establish command of the China Sea, Japan’s possession of Hongkong will make any reopening of the Chinese ports extremely difficult and it may have to be retaken from the mainland by the reinforced Chinese themselves.

Keeping China in the war is, together with the holding of Singapore, vital to winning. An isolated China will find it difficult to keep going.

China today is connected with the cuter world only by the ancient caravan camel route to Russian Turkestan and by the Burma Road. In 15 or 18 months, there will be a Burma railroad connecting with the British Burmese railroads south of Mandalay: a new road to Chengtu, west through the foothills of Himalaya and down into Indian Assam, far out of reach of Japanese snatches or even bombers.

While it is being built, the Burma Road must be kept open. American pursuit pilots flying for China have shown that Kunming can be defended. But so must Rangoon.

The taking of Hongkong makes the taking of Rangoon a little easier for Japan. But, if Rangoon and Singapore can be held for a few months, they may be held forever.

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

SAN FRANCISCO – The war and that first Japanese plane scare caught San Francisco with its pants down.

But now that the first jitters are over San Francisco is pulling its pants on fast.

At first there was a terrible confusion of mind all over town. Some people were scared stiff; some refused to believe there was any danger at all; the majority didn’t even know what they thought.

But since then, the public mind has settled down, the people in charge have fired up their boilers, and the business of creating a system whereby San Francisco will care for itself if the bombers come is well under way.

This city began studying its civil defense last spring. By August it had formulated an all-inclusive plan, and had it printed in booklet form. People tell me it is one of the best plans in the country.

But it was just a paper plan, and nothing more. No new fire equipment was bought, no uniforms or tools for air raid wardens were ordered, no shelter sites were picked. It was just like a guy, with a sure-fire scheme for making a million dollars, who sits around a hash-house talking about it instead of going out and making it.

They put out a call for volunteers for civil defense in November, but only 3000 registered, when actually 100,000 will be needed. There was apathy everywhere. San Franciscans just weren’t interested.

42,000 sign up in first week

All that has changed. There is action everywhere. Within a week after the war started, 40,000 people had signed up for civil defense.

Training has already begun, and wardens are at their posts during blackouts. Eventually there will be 10,000 air raid wardens. The fire department will add 3000 auxiliary firemen. The police department will be expanded. Of course it will take weeks or months to train all these people, but at least training is finally under way.

Even if the raiders should come before this new defense organization is all hung together and running smoothly, it wouldn’t be such a debacle as it might have been.

For the Red Cross has not been asleep. It has its whole organization trained and equipped and spotted all over the city. They say that, if the bombers had come that first night, the Red Cross and medical set-ups could have handled 10,000 casualties.

Hospitals already have equipped themselves to operate during blackouts. Several hospitals are being evacuated – with the less seriously ill patients discharged and other moved to hospitals inland. They say, however, this is not so much in preparation for possible raids as it is to receive the wounded from Hawaii.

The slow start in civil defense here just seems to be an old English-speaking trait. England was and is magnificent in her civil defense, but she was just about as slow as San Francisco to get started.

For example, London had been bombed constantly for four months before the great “fire night” of last December 29. Yet, despite those months of experience and warning, the British weren’t ready for an all-out fire raid, and if the weather hadn’t turned bad that night the Germans might have burned London down.

It was not until after that creepingly narrow escape that the British turned to and organized a definite fire-watching system, or put sacks of sand on the street, or set about teaching the whole population how to handle fire bombs.

But you learn fast under direct peril, and before the winter was over old British grandmas and tiny British children were putting out incendiaries as casually and unheroically as though they were blowing out matches.

They think bombs will come

The first two nights of blackout here, most people were convinced that Japanese planes actually were over the city. But by the time the third blackout came along, six days after the war began, people began figuring this way – well, if there were Japanese planes, why hasn’t the Navy found the carrier and sunk it by this time?

So now many people believe there are no Japanese planes around, and that there never were any. The public agrees that the Army did a wise thing in making the scare real at first, and in taking no chances.

Most San Franciscans are thoroughly convinced, however, that the Japanese bombers will come sooner or later, and so they’re going about their civil defense preparations with the greatest seriousness.

The blackout regulations are plenty strict. They forbid any private vehicle to move after the sirens sound. They forbid the showing of any light whatever, even cigarettes or flashlights. Violators can get up to six months in jail and a $500 fine. (In England, as I told you yesterday, it’s all right to smoke cigarettes on the street and to use dim flashlights, pointed downward.)

It won’t take long for blackouts to be running smoothly here. Already I can sense how naturally and easily people are falling into the new blackout life. They’ll soon be able to live in it, just as Londoners do. And from what I’ve seen of them, I think they will take actual bombings in just the same stoic way the British have.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK – Several telegrams have reached me signed “B. E. Thompson, editor, Nicholas Republican, Richwood, West Virginia.” I do not know Mr. Thompson and this is the first I have ever heard of Richwood, but the messages contain allegations which agree with similar experiences in other communities. If the charges were unique, I would withhold them pending investigation but in view of past performances I have a feeling that they hew pretty close to the truth.

Mr. Thompson says the Cherry River Boom and Lumber Co. of Richwood operates one of the largest lumber mills east of the Mississippi, employs about 1000 men, has defense orders and has received within the last week orders for direct shipment to Pearl Harbor.

He says two organizations are competing for the right to represent the workers and that the CIO, with less than 10 percent of the men, is trying to coerce the rest into joining the CIO, which certainly would not be a new approach.

According to Mr. Thompson, on the day after the country declared war on Japan, 100 shots were fired from 30-30 rifles into the offices and mill and at the log trains and the shooting has continued.

“One bullet penetrated the wall of an official’s home and two penetrated a public school, causing omission of school that day,” Mr. Thompson reports.

Company willing to bargain

Gov. M. M. Neely last Wednesday appealed to the lumber company in the interests of “national security” to meet with the state labor commission or permit him to appoint a board to “arbitrate the dispute which is preventing West Virginia from contributing her utmost to the winning of the war.”

To this the company replied, “Our plant is working 100 percent and has defense orders. Company will bargain collectively when labor board determines organization representing majority. CIO agreed to this on September 20, but broke agreement. Only trouble here is firing of high-powered rifles at our employees, offices, plant and trains.”

The company sent telegrams also to Frank Knox, secretary of the Navy, saying the company and more than 90 percent of the workers were anxious to do their American duty and asked whether the government could “restrain these saboteurs.”

There was another telegram to Mr. Knox, Secretary of War Stimson and J. Edgar Hoover, signed “W. H. Wilson,” saying: “I have a son in Navy last heard from at Pearl Harbor. No word since Japanese attacks. Son and myself employed in Richwood being fired upon from ambush with rifles. Demand protection as American citizens engaged in production, national defense.”

CIO dominant in West Virginia

Another telegram, signed “Richwood Loggers’ and Lumbermen’s Union” addressed to Messrs. Knox, Stimson, Hoover and Sen. Tom Connally of Texas, said: “Representing more than 90 percent of employees Cherry River Boom and Lumber Co., we are engaged in producing national defense material and are being fired on from ambush with high-powered rifles, threatened and coerced by CIO organizers and adherents. Demand protection in our efforts to cooperate 100 percent in national defense.”

Mr. Thompson reports that Mr. Hoover replied that the matter had been referred to the attorney general and that Capt. Adkins, USN, telephoned from Washington, requesting details. He adds that in addition to the Richwood boy, unaccounted for at Pearl Harbor, another Richwood boy has been reported killed in the attack there.

Mr. Thompson, himself, has a son in the service. He says the state government agencies have passed the buck, caused delays and shown sympathy for the CIO and that, only after the shooting began did the governor appeal for conciliation or arbitration.

The CIO is now the dominant political faction of West Virginia and has made great progress in coercing the state’s own employees into its ranks with the connivance of the state government, under Gov. Neely.

Recently, John H. Bosworth was dismissed from the position of chief of the state police force of 250 men. Mr. Bosworth said Gov. Neely “told me I can’t get along with labor, which he said, is antagonistic to me.”

His dismissal had been demanded by officials of the United Mine Workers, along with that of certain troopers who searched and confiscated firearms from pickets at Gary, West Virginia, during the captive coal mine strike. Mr. Bosworth said he only did his duty of enforcing the law and maintaining peace on John L. Lewis’ picket lines.

editorialclapper.up

Clapper: Blackouts

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – We haven’t any conception in this country of what a real blackout means, or how difficult it will be to achieve.

England was experimenting with blackouts two years before the war began. When I was there in the fall of 1937, rehearsals were being conducted in some localities. By the time I returned last summer, you could not see even a shiver of light at night.

One night I went to the top of the large hotel where I stayed. In daylight one could see all over London, for miles in every direction.

But as 1 looked out over the city that night, it was completely dark – as dark as in the middle of the Atlantic, except for the occasional flash of an electric car crossing a switch and the faint low glow which moved along in front of the creeping taxicabs but which they told me could not be seen from higher up in the air. It was a strange experience, as if one had suddenly met a ghost.

In Glasgow the darkness was so thick that although I knew I was in front of my hotel, it was necessary to walk along feeling the wall with my hands in order to find the entrance. People bump into each other.

When with friends, you must either lock arms or keep calling back and forth if there are many persons on the street. Picadilly circus was familiar enough in daylight but I did not recognize it the first time I walked into it in the blackout.

Visiting stops with blackouts

One night in a small restaurant the air-raid warden came in and said a crack of light was showing. The proprietor readjusted his curtains but 15 minutes later the air-raid warden was back again, this time not with a courteous request but with a sharp warning that the place would have to close if the crack of light was not shut off.

The proprietor personally supervised the doors when anyone left the restaurant. He first opened an inner door, and after everyone was inside the vestibule the inner door was pulled shut and then the proprietor would open the outer door. The greatest danger is stumbling and falling when stepping out of a lighted place into the blackout.

Buses stop running about blackout time and few people are on the streets after dark. Taxicabs are difficult to find, and getting about London after dark is a real trial. The result is that the town shuts down at dark.

Theaters have early performances. After that the only traffic is from hotel to hotel and from night club to night club. People are unable to visit back and forth in each other’s homes because of the difficulty of getting transportation.

Means change in habits

In hotels the guests are warned not to touch the blackout curtains. The floor maid is responsible for sealing the light in the rooms in her charge.

This has gone on for more than two years, every night and all night. It is a perpetual blackout after sundown, and the effect on everyone is depressing. By the time I got to wartime England I found everyone tired of the blackout.

People seemed to complain more about the inconvenience of the blackout than about the bombing. The bombing is dangerous and destructive of life and property. But the blackout is a perpetual nuisance and the grumbling is directed at it.

If complete all-night blackouts are insisted upon in this country, the life of cities so affected will be radically changed. The partial blackout has been found ineffective because lights show a long distance at night, as anyone who travels by plane after dark can see.

To attempt quickie blackouts after the alarm sounds is risky because everything has to be turned off and it is probably impossible to organize any community so that this can be done instantaneously by everyone. The pulling of central switches is a desperate remedy which would instantly stop all elevator service, refrigeration and numerous other necessities.

Now that we are tackling the blackout job, we can appreciate more the high degree of self-discipline which other countries at war have maintained, and what total war will require of civilians here.

Ex-Pacific Fleet commander dies

NEWPORT, Rhode Island – Adm. William Banks Caperton, U.S. Navy (ret.), commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet during the first World War, died at his home yesterday.

Adm. Caperton was 86. He was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval War College. He was made rear admiral in 1913 and advanced to the rank of admiral, retired, in 1919.

He was commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet in 1916.

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Ancient proverb gets modern garb

By Maxine Garrison

Judging from a study made by the University of Southern California’s bureau of business research, the ancient adage can be rewritten to read, “Them as has, wants more.”

The bureau, which is directed by Dr. Thurston H. Ross, surveyed 5000 California working women in all types of occupations. It was found that 88 percent were satisfied with their present incomes, and of those who said they needed more money, 92 percent were already in the higher brackets.

“The higher wage group complained a great deal more about the need for clothes than did minimum wage earners,” Dr. Ross said. “Those who spent most money for clothes seemed to be in the greatest need for them.”

The whole thing sounds fantastic enough to have been written under water and yet, after study, it shapes up as absolutely logical.

People contented with present earnings? Oh, yes, that is still possible.

Even in this day of exorbitant demands, there are still people who want merely to live decently, honorably. In the readjustment of values that is sure to come now, there will probably be many more.

Some women, working women especially, do not count the value of life by whether they own a limousine, a mink coat and original Schiaparelli dresses, although they admit that those things are very nice indeed.

Learn valuable lesson

It is not that such women have low standards. Materially, they do not demand much; and that means that they must have learned to obtain a lot of satisfaction from things not material – a valuable lesson.

But that women in the upper income brackets are more in need of money and clothes than their less well-paid sisters is easily understandable.

They are on the way to success, or have already achieved it, and they suffer the ill as well as the good effects of its intoxication.

Their jobs are not just 9-to-5 interludes which earn them a living but don’t demand a great deal in return. Their jobs are their life.

Instead of just being one of the girls, they have titles now, and positions to be lived up to. Instead of wearing out last year’s date dresses and sweaters and skirts at work, or wearing uniforms, they buy clothes primarily for work. They need “better” addresses, and they find that it takes more and more service to maintain the impeccability and polish which are expected of them.

Salaries don’t fit needs

Whether these needs are real or are partly imaginary makes no difference, since the effect is the same. And since they usually find that their new needs are several leaps ahead of their salary checks, it’s no wonder they’re dissatisfied.

Goodness only knows what the answer is, or whether there is an answer, or even whether there needs to be. It’s mostly a matter of human nature. The needy upper bracket worker is not necessarily more selfish, more unreasonable, than the contented lower bracket girl. And the lower bracket girl might do well to ask herself if discontent is as divine as it’s been reputed to be.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 8:19am

Why such a thin crowd in Chicago?
Does 13,000 crowd indicate that pro grid season is overextended?

Williams is shocked that only 13,000 see grid classic*
By Joe Williams

CHICAGO – Putting one little word after another, and whatever became of the Charleston? This is via Mrs. E. S. W. of Henderson, North Carolina, of all places, who wonders why we didn’t have a whatever became of last week. The answer is simple: we couldn’t think of one.

We’d like to tell you how nice it is to be here at the beginning of Christmas Week. There isn’t a more magnificent main drag than Michigan Boulevard. Really, we haven’t anything in New York that can touch it. Park Ave. and Fifth Ave. are wonderful streets but Michigan Boulevard is in a class by itself.

During Christmas Week they make it a honey. All down the street, a street all Americans should be proud of, are green wreaths. From every big building hangs a calm, aggressively American flag. In the hotel lobbies, huge Christmas trees stand, enchantingly illuminated. Did it ever occur to you what a feeling for home a Christmas tree gives? You feel it most in a hotel and you can’t wait to check out.

Not much news

What’s that? Some news? Well we haven’t got much, but our old friend Red Grange has turned down an offer of $10,000 to coach the Chicago Bears. That’s the team, if you have read the headline, that beat the Giants for the professional football championship yesterday. They were 5-to-1 favorites and they played that way. Our Giants just didn’t have it.

Your first disposition is to criticize the Giants. After all, they are from New York. They should be the best. If they aren’t the best, the assorted Maras should see to it that they are the best; at least they should see to it that they are good enough to give any team a battle. They weren’t that kind of a team yesterday.

But it is possible to be gracious about the Giants. Every so often a tremendous thing comes along. The Bears are just that. You can wrap up Jack Dempsey, Bob Jones, Bill Tilden and the Yankees and you will have the Bears. Of course this is fantastic, but at that it comes pretty close to telling you what the Beers are. They are coming into New York January 4 to meet the all-star pros. They will probably knock their brains out. But you don’t want to miss seeing them. You are never going to see a team like this again, a team that can pass you dizzy, can run all over you and can outsmart you. This is really a – well, if it had anything to do with art they would be hanging their pictures in the Metropolitan. It is one of sportdom’s classics.

Shocking lethargy

It can’t happen again because of war conditions; at least it can’t happen again soon. That’s why you must take a look at them. We are amazed and shocked that Chicago thought so little of them yesterday. The game – the world series of football – was played in comparative obscurity. Just a little more than 13,000 paid to see the game in a park that can be made to seat 55,000.

Why was that? There were a lot of answers. One of which was that the Giants are strictly a defensive football team and the customers don’t like defensive football teams. We go for that. But how about the Bears? Except for two swift forward passes which caught a five-man line and a six-man line asleep, respectively, plus one of those old Giant faithfuls, a field goal, the Bears’ defense stopped the Giants’ attack cold. Well, wouldn’t that make the Bears a pretty good defensive team, too? It certainly would. Keep in mind we are talking about why a few scattered citizens came out to see the game. The price may have had something to do with it; $4.40 for the grandstand; $2.20 for the bleachers. There could be, too, the aftermath of the terrific game the Bears played the Green Bay Packers, the game a week ago they had to win to get into the championship. They may have milked the Chicago purse and enthusiasm to a grim thinness.

What’s reason

We wouldn’t know for sure about what happened. All we do know for sure is that it was a black mark against professional football. Any time you have the world series of football and practically nobody comes out to see it – and on one of the nicest December days Chicago has ever known – then something is wrong. Could it be the season extended too long? Could be.

Nobody is going to say to us that Chicago is wrong. We happened to be out here for the second Dempsey-Tunney fight, that broke all money records. The people out here will swarm into the stands regardless of price if they are interested. They just weren’t interested.

It is perhaps true that there are one or two things the Giants can do to make themselves more attractive. This is a mild way of putting it. Football figures are significant, and these figures show the Giants may be the best, the very best, when it comes to keeping the other guy from scoring. But the customers don’t come out to see that kind of football.

At least that is the theory. That is our theory, if anybody should happen to ask. We think the greatest thing that could have happened so far as the success of the January 4 game in New York is concerned is that the Bears won. They are John Barrymore in neon lights.

Navy appoints Whelchel new head football coach

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (UP) – Cmdr. John E. Whelchel, backfield assistant during the past year, today was appointed head football coach of the U.S. Naval Academy, succeeding Maj. Emery E. (Swede) Larson, who returned to active service several weeks ago.

Whelchel, graduate of the Navy class of 1920, played in the Middie backfield during his undergraduate years and has been an assistant coach at Annapolis on two occasions, from 1920 to 1924 under Gil Dobie, and during the past season under Larson.

His duties as football coach will be coupled with another position – that of executive office of Gunnery and Ordnance. He will take over a squad which will contain only six lettermen who played against Army this year and will have only two classes to draw from because of the speed-up schedule now in order at the academy.

Whelchel is 43 and a native of Georgia.

The appointment was announced by Cmdr. Lyman Perry, graduate manager of the Academy, who said that no curtailment of the Navy football program was planned at present but that some doubts existed as to whether the Army-Navy game would be played as scheduled next season.

Whelchel has been a close student of football and, when not working at Annapolis, coached several ship teams. Perry said the appointment had been made on a year-to-year basis, rather than under the three-year plan in effect at Annapolis previously.

Maj. Larson generally was credited with returning the Navy to power in the major football ranks. This year the Middies turned in their best record in almost a decade and were ranked among the top 10 elevens in most rating systems. They lost only one game – that by a single touchdown to undefeated Notre Dame – and were tied by Harvard 0-0.

Big increase seen in war steel buying

Consumers hold up orders for non-essential materials

CLEVELAND (UP) – The expected sharp increase in demand for war steel has not yet materialized but it is “in the making and will be felt soon,” the magazine Steel said today.

In the meantime, the trade journal said, steel consumers are cooperating with the Office of Production Management and are refraining from obtaining steel for non-essential purposes.

The magazine cited the action of several customers in this district in requesting the mills to hold shipments until January on contracts scheduled and promised for December as an example of cooperation with the OPM.

Discussing war material, Steel said “a quickening is apparent in some lines of ordnance manufacture and large orders may be placed soon. A number of bomb inquiries are before the trade. One involves several hundred tons of 30-gauge sheets and another sheet tonnage is for bomb fins. Stove makers, whose regular output has been limited, are figuring on contracts for bomb clusters.”

The trade authority disclosed that one of the few indications of needs resulting from the war in the Pacific is an order for steel sheet piling placed with a Chicago mill for repairs at Pearl Harbor.

The magazine reported steel production unchanged last week at 97½ percent of capacity and declared that, only for lack of scrap, output would have been higher. It added that operations this week will be curtailed by the Christmas holiday, but said that the cut will be less than usual.

Steel’s composites held unchanged at the “frozen” levels last week, with finished steel $56.73; semi-finished steel $36; steelmaking pig iron $23.05; steelmaking scrap $19.17.

Millett: Look again! That soldier is no kid now

By Ruth Millett

Just the other day he was a lanky, raw-boned boy looking a little bit uncomfortable in his uniform. “Just a kid” you thought to yourself. You wondered where he came from, whether from one of the crowded cities of the East, from a farm in the Middle West, or a small Southern city.

But he’s not “just a kid” today. He is a soldier on whom those of us who are weaker – women, children. older men, and less physically perfect young men – must depend for our protection.

We didn’t take him too seriously yesterday. He was just a kid in an Army camp, spending his time playing at war games, and yoo-hooing at pretty girls.

But we have to take him seriously today. He – and thousands of boys just like him – are all that stand between us and whatever fate our enemies would like to mete out to us.

We didn’t make much of a hero of the soldier when we looked on him as “just a kid” giving up a year of his life in order to learn to be a soldier.

But now that it may be his life he is giving up – we’d better treat him with a new respect. He is our strength and our protection. Young as he looks, he is old enough to be facing the possibility of death. And he’s doing it to protect you and me – and the way of life in which we all believe.

Let’s let him know – not in mushy, sentimental words – but in consideration and deferences when we meet him, that he has our admiration, our respect and our gratitude.

He is ready to stand between us and our enemies. The least we can do is let him know that we already feel that we are in his debt.

Stowe: U.S. extends ‘bomber lane’ to Far East

Army Air Corps chief blazes trail in record time
By Leland Stowe

RANGOON – The air trail by which America’s flying fortresses can girdle half the globe in their rush to the heart of the Far East war theater has been blazed here from Egypt by Maj. Gen. George Howard Brett, chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps, accompanied by a staff of 12 Air Corps officers and noncoms.

Gen. Brett and his staff flew in a B-24 heavy bomber and broke all known military airplane speed records en route. They sped from Cairo to Rangoon in only three hops with a total flying time of 21 hours, 10 minutes.

A few weeks ago, Gen. Brett traversed “bomber lane” from the United States to Brazil across the Southern Atlantic and Africa to Egypt. Thus his historic flight here completes the remaining links in America’s aerial lifeline over which our flying fortresses can attain contact with the Japanese invaders in the vital Burma-Malaya-Indies sector.

The Arabian Knight

Before leaving Egypt the B-24 was christened the Arabian Knight. It magic-carpeted across the whole of India in less than 10 hours despite the fact that it was carrying a total load of 53,000 pounds which it is believed constituted the heaviest load ever taken off and landed by a B-24. Gen. Brett indicated that his fiving fortress could unquestionably have made still faster time when he said:

“We did not hurry particularly. We were five hours and 20 minutes in flying from Cairo to Shaibah, Iraq; six hours, 10 minutes from Shaibah to Karachi, India, and nine hours, 40 minutes from Karachi to Rangoon.”

Gen. Brett declined to comment on the reasons for his unheralded record in making the flight here beyond the remark that it was a military necessity for him to come to the Far East. He has not revealed how long he expects to remain in Rangoon or where he may go from here.

Pleased at performance

Gen. Brett and his staff were in excellent spirits upon their arrival and were especially enthused over the Arabian Knight’s clock-like performance.

The distance from Rangoon to New York via London is about 10,000 miles but, of course, the bomber trail across the South Atlantic and Africa is several thousand miles longer. At this early stage of the war the fact that the chief of the United States’ Army Air Corps has flown this entire route in one of our latest model fortresses cannot fail to be of great long-term constructive value.

Jap radio boasts of invasion in ‘new part’ of Philippines

Troops, landing, under protection of air squadrons, to join soldiers marching from north to south parts of Luzon, Imperial Headquarters assert

TOKYO (UP, Japanese official broadcasts) – Imperial Headquarters asserted today that Japanese troops, in a joint military and naval operation with air force support, had launched a major invasion attempt in a “new part” of Luzon, chief island of the Philippines.

A communique issued by the army and navy sections of Imperial Headquarters said: “A large number of Japanese troops are launching landing attempts on a new part of Luzon Island, under protection of Japanese airplane squadrons.

“Operations started at dawn today.”

Claim other units advance

It was asserted that Japanese troops landed in the new invasion attempt were attacking in cooperation with Japanese troops who were advancing from north and south.

The British radio, heard by the United Press London listening post, sard that reports had been received in London of a Japanese troop landing in Australian-Netherlands New Guinea, only 100 miles across the Torres Strait from northeastern Australia.

The British radio, heard by CBS in New York, quoted “a Manila announcement” as saying that a Japanese fleet estimated to number 80 transports had been sighted off Lingayen Gulf, 150 miles northwest of Manila on the Luzon coast. Japanese troops landed in this area earlier had been wiped out.

Report raid near Manila

Domei News Agency dispatches reported a 32-minute Japanese air raid today on Manila and surrounding districts, and said Nichols Field, the Army air base, and other military objectives had suffered heavy damage.

Earlier dispatches asserted that the Japanese landing operations on Mindanao Island, south of Luzon, had been successful and that as a result Japan had “driven a new wedge” into the Philippines defense system.

This means an imminent menace to Borneo, Celebes and the whole Netherlands colonial empire, a German broadcast said.

Nine subs sunk, Japs claim

Dispatches from Japanese-controlled Shanghai said Japanese planes were busy throughout Sunday over Luzon Island and especially over airdromes in the Manila area and other nearby Cavite naval base.

Fires were started at Cavite by planes which made a high altitude attack, it was asserted.

A Jap Navy communique asserted yesterday that the Japanese Navy had sunk nine submarines and damaged several others since the start of the war and added that Japanese destroyers had taken prisoner five officers and 27 men of one submarine.

Another Jap Navy communique said naval forces in close cooperation with the army were attacking several fortified points in Hong Kong Island, and newspapers continued to assert that the fall of that British stronghold was imminent.

Hong Kong blockaded

Japanese warships were reported patrolling all around Hong Kong in a great blockading circle making it impossible for any British destroyers or mine sweepers to escape.

It was asserted that Japanese Army planes made a heavy dive-bombing attack on British gunboats at Hong Kong.

A Tokyo radio dispatch said the Japanese had placed “under their protection” three Russian freight steamships at Hong Kong.

Sign pact with Thailand

Dispatches on the Malaya situation said the Japanese had completed the occupation of Wellesley Province, on the west coast opposite Penang Island and the British were hurriedly reinforcing their Burma frontier opposite Thailand (Siam).

A Domei dispatch from Lisbon reported slumps in the shares of Malaya rubber stocks on the London market.

Another dispatch from Nanking, China, reported that the Japanese had started a big offensive against the Chinese in Central China.

‘Order’ in Guam

Domei reported also that “peace and order” had been restored throughout America’s outpost island of Guam “with the completion of mopping-up operations.”

“The islanders are now calmly going about their daily business after being suddenly plunged into the midst of the Pacific War December 8,” the dispatch said. “The natives are said to be striking up friendship with Japanese soldiers.”

Japan announced yesterday the signature of a 10-year Japan-Thailand mutual assistance treaty, covering the military, political and economic fields and binding the signatories to conclude no armistice or peace with any enemy power except by agreement.

Fear ‘ABCD’ thrusts

Meanwhile, Gen. Senjuro Hayashi, former premier and war minister, urged the Axis nations to open simultaneous offensives against the Anglo-Saxon forces in Africa and the Far East.

Hayashi warned that failure to do ‘so would enable the “ABCD” (American, British, Chinese, Dutch) powers to make “dangerous” concentrations in any sector they choose.

Failure to launch this big offensive would be dangerous, Hayashi wrote in the newspaper Kokumin, because it would give Britain choice of shifting forces from Africa to the Far East (presumably after mopping up in Libya) or of concentrating all her forces in the Near East for a drive against Germany and Italy from the southeast while United States naval forces launched an all-out offensive on both the Atlantic and Pacific.

Californian appointed Democratic secretary

WASHINGTON (UP) – Edwin W. Pauley of Beverly Hills, California, president of the Petroleum Corp. of Los Angeles, has been appointed secretary of the Democratic National Committee, Chairman Edward J. Flynn announced today.

Mr. Pauley succeeds Lawrence W. Robert Jr. of Georgia, who served as secretary from June 1936 to October 1940.

The Evening Star (December 22, 1941)

Lawrence: Labor policies hotly assailed

By David Lawrence

WASHINGTON – The press of the country is law-abiding and patriotic – but the government of the United States will not trust it during war time. So a law is passed to regulate what the press may print.

The businessmen of the country are law-abiding and patriotic – but the government of the United States will not trust business during wartime. So a law is passed authorizing seizure of plants at any time and for almost any reason.

The theory back of these laws is that a small number may put their own selfish desires above the public interest – so laws are needed to maintain discipline.

But when it comes to labor unions no law is passed. The labor unions are exempt from restrictions and the Roosevelt administration trusts them to maintain discipline among themselves. Their profits are not taxed either.

Now it so happens that 8,000,000 persons – constituting the labor union membership in America – cannot discipline themselves and have no machinery to accomplish it. Yet the enactment of a law to maintain order among such a huge number of citizens is withheld.

The theory back of this is that the labor politicians who rule the labor unions and force men to go out on strikes when they do not wish to do so are a specially favored class in Washington and they must not be treated to the same sort of regulatory measures as other citizens. Where labor unions are concerned the term used is “voluntary cooperation.”

No such term is applied to the press or the management or to any other group of citizens no matter how patriotic they may be. They apparently are not to be trusted in war time to put their own interests aside in the public interest. Only labor unions are to be so trusted.

U.S. called unprepared

This is one reason why America is unprepared today for war. It is a reason why America, while full of patriotic citizens who want to do their duty, cannot meet maximum demands and do the “unheard of things” which the President appeals to everybody to do in order to win the war.

The fear of stepping on labor’s toes is a political fear. It is deeply rooted in the New Deal philosophy of special privilege for the groups to which it owes political power. The nation may have tolerated this before Pearl Harbor. It may be wondered now, however, how many more Pearl Harbors are necessary before civilian Washington wakes up to the fact that war demands that all citizens be treated alike and that no group of citizens be relied on to police itself.

To depend on 8,000,000 workers – who are ruled by labor chieftains and bosses of all kinds – to police themselves is like asking the traffic in our metropolitan centers to regulate itself without traffic lights.

There are plenty of stop and go signals for management. There are none for labor. And yet this is supposed to be a war in which mechanized weapons must be manufactured in great quantity – the biggest production job in world history.

Uninterrupted production is a military necessity to everybody except the administration that relies on exhortation and sycophantic appeals to get it. If the record of labor unions in the last 18 months had been one of maximum cooperation with the preparedness program, the logic behind “voluntary cooperation” at this time might be defended. But hundreds of thousands of man hours already have been lost through strikes which have been tolerated by both the CIO and the AFL on important defense production.

Labor parley cited

For several days the union leaders have been in conference with management. One would suppose the issues would have been settled after the President’s recent appeal. But they are not. Labor politicians still want their pound of flesh – the closed shop and monopoly. They must have advantages granted no matter what happens to the defense program.

As for management, the profits taken up by taxes are almost at the confiscation point. Prices are being regulated. Management is expected to manage efficiently and yet have all its profits taken away and at the same time submit to any demands for higher wages or working rules that labor may demand. Nothing has been done by the administration to amend either the Wagner Act or the wage and hour law. These “social gains” it is argued by the New Dealers who run the war machine here must be preserved at all costs. High military and naval officers are being made the goats for Pearl Harbor while the nation’s attention is being diverted from the more serious breakdown of a civilian administration – and a Congress, too, for that matter – which still thinks of the war as a gigantic WPA and political pork barrel instead of a battle of life and death.

On the Record…
The case of Laura Ingalls

By Dorothy Thompson

The case of Laura Ingalls, arrested by the FBI as a German agent, needs some elaboration.

Miss Ingalls was a member of the Nazi fifth column in the United States. Whether she was paid or not paid is of relatively little importance for us. It seems that she was, but if she had not been her activities contributed to serve the purpose of our enemies. That purpose was to make us as unprepared for war as possible, spiritually as well as technically. Her particular task was to work up American mothers, by accusing the President of conspiring to kill their sons on the field of battle, and so to spread defeatism, pacifism, and fear of their own government in every family.

Laura Ingalls was no great genius and no great international spy. She was one of a great network of conscious and unconscious agents, working on the mentality of a whole people.

In former wars the “foreign agent” was a spy, seeking for military secrets, organizing sabotage, and informing his government. He still has the same function, but he has another: Sabotage against the entire mentality of a people, with the purpose of confusing and dividing them – first, among themselves, and second, from their allies. They conduct a systematic, and even scientific, psychological warfare, with the directions laid down in Berlin.

How to tell fifth columnist

There is a monstrous fifth column in the United States – just as there was a fifth column in Hawaii, which contributed to the disaster of Pearl Harbor. Of course, this fifth column gave information to the Japanese. But it had another task: To create a feeling of security about Hawaii in the minds of our armed forces. Have those people been found – and are they not still operating?

The only way one can tell who is a fifth columnist today is to look at the results of certain activities and investigate their origins.

There are Axis agents in this country, American citizens, whose entire task is to spread the following talk at dinner parties and in business offices: Britain cannot win the war; Britain has already made a deal with Germany about Russia; Stalin has made a deal with Hitler and Japan; Germany has new inventions which make her invincible; it is only the fault of Roosevelt that we have been attacked.

And these people attach themselves to native movements. Miss Ingalls was a speaker for the America First Committee. This does not say that the leaders of the America First Committee were foreign agents, but it does say that the America First Committee was used by German agents. And Laura Ingalls was not the most important and influential of these agents.

This fifth column is now operating. But the attack on Hawaii changes the situation, and therewith the strategy of the psychological warfare. It is obvious that one cannot continue to spread the slogan of “Keep America Out of War,” when our fleet has been attacked without warning, in American waters, and our land attacked without warning by Japanese soldiers, and Germany and Italy have declared war upon us.

So what IS being spread?

This is what is being spread: “Let us confine ourselves to our own war.” “Americans are fighting for Britain and Russia – why not fight for themselves?” “Don’t give any more aid to Britain and Russia – you need all you can produce for yourselves.”

Their present propaganda is “one hundred percent” Americanism, and seems to be very patriotic. And their object is to lead us to defeat.

Here, as everywhere else, their tactic is to prevent a war of coalition, and thus defeat one nation after another. What they do not want is a common strategy of America-Britain-Russia-China. Hitler drove Japan into the war in order to divert us to the Pacific. Roosevelt, who saw this, did everything in his power to prevent the Pacific war – short of handing to Japan China and all the strategical points from which we could be even more effectively attacked. And what we must do is what our enemies do not want us to do – obviously.

Activity analyzed

This fifth column, furthermore, will try to cover itself by accusing others. It will spread a dreadful fear of Communism, and everyone will be a Communist who has any sympathy with liberal movements. It has been doing this for a long time.

They will attack the “enemy aliens,” as they did in France, spreading the word that the refugees from Hitlerism are German agents. Maybe there are some among them. But they are inconsequential in the whole picture, as the thousands of wretched victims thrown into French concentration camps were inconsequential in a picture that included Adm. Darlan and Pierre Laval and Marcel Deat, who spread defeatism during the whole war and counted on their own rise to power through defeat.

The usual Justice Department methods of uncovering agents and spies are inadequate to the revolutionary methods of the totalitarian powers.

How to defeat them

One of the greatest weapons that can be used against them is the press: publicity, clarification of their methods, so that the people themselves can see what is going on.

We need have no fear of disunity in pointing out a few facts. Ninety-five percent of the people of this country understand this war. But the concept that there is 100 percent unity is not justified by the experience of any other country. The people who have been counseling defeatism, attacking our allies, calling for the impeachment of the President, cannot all have been converted overnight. Here, as in France, they bide their time, counting on a terrible coming year.

Since the psychological warfare is directed against the American people, not the government, only the American people can defeat it – by constant awareness of what is going on.

Mrs. F. D. Roosevelt Jr. gives birth to second son

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A husky 8-pound-3-ounce boy was born to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. here yesterday, while his father, an ensign, was somewhere at sea with the Navy.

The baby, second son for the Roosevelts, was born at Lying-in Hospital. Mrs. Roosevelt, the former Ethel du Pont, was attended by the hospital’s chief of staff, Dr. Robert A. Kimbrough Jr. who delivered the couple’s first child, Franklin D. Roosevelt III, July 19, 1938.

Mrs. Roosevelt arrived at the hospital early yesterday with her mother, Mrs. Eugene du Pont of Owl’s Nest, near Wilmington, Delaware. The baby was born four hours later. Mrs. du Pont said the new arrival may be named Eugene du Pont Roosevelt for his maternal grandfather.

The baby is President Roosevelt’s eleventh grandchild.

White House Announcement of the Arrival of Prime Minister Churchill
December 22, 1941

The British Prime Minister has arrived in the United States to discuss with the President all questions relevant to the concerted war effort. Mr. Churchill is accompanied by Lord Beaverbrook and a technical staff. Mr. Churchill is the guest of the President.

There is, of course, one primary objective in the conversations to be held during the next few days between the President and the British Prime Minister and the respective staffs of the two countries. That purpose is the defeat of Hitlerism through. out the world.

It should be remembered that many other Nations are engaged today in this common task. Therefore the present conferences in Washington should be regarded as preliminary to further conferences which will officially include Russia, China, the Netherlands, and the [British] dominions. It is expected that there will thus be evolved an over-all unity in the conduct of the war. Other Nations will be asked to participate to the best of their ability in the over-all objective.

It is probable that no further announcements will be made until the end of the present conferences, but it may be assumed that the other interested Nations will be kept in close touch with this preliminary planning.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 8:39am

U.S. State Department (December 22, 1941)

Roosevelt-Churchill meeting, evening

Arnold-Portal meeting, evening

Völkischer Beobachter (December 23, 1941)

Der Führer übernimmt das Oberkommando des Heeres

dnb. Berlin, 22. Dezember
Als der Führer am 4. Februar 1938 die Befehlsgewalt über die gesamte Wehrmacht persönlich übernahm, geschah dies in der Sorge vor der schon damals drohenden militärischen Auseinandersetzung um die Freiheit des deutschen Volkes. Die Staatsräson verlangte gebieterisch die Zusammenfassung aller Kräfte in einer Hand. Nur so konnte die Vorbereitung auf einen erfolgreichen Widerstand gelingen, von dem man wußte, daß er noch weit mehr als der von den gleichen Gegnern dem deutschen Volk aufgezwungene Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 zu einem „totalen Krieg“ führen würde. Außerdem sprach aber noch das Bewußtsein einer inneren Berufung und der ihm eigene Wille zur Verantwortung mit, als sich der Staatsmann Adolf Hitler entschloß, sein eigener Feldherr zu sein.

Der Verlauf dieses Krieges hat die Richtigkeit dieser Erkenntnis mehr und mehr bestätigt. In vollem Maße setzte sie sich aber erst durch, als mit dem Feldzug im Osten der Krieg Ausmaße annahm, die alle bisherigen Vorstellungen übertrafen. Die Größe der Kriegsschauplätze, die enge Verflechtung der operativen Landkriegführung mit den politischen und kriegswirtschaftlichen Zielen sowie der zahlenmäßige Umfang des Heeres im Verhältnis zu den anderen Wehrmachtteilen drängten den Führer, die Operationen und die Rüstung des Heeres seinen Intuitionen folgend auf das stärkste zu beeinflussen und sich alle wesentlichen Entschlüsse auf diesem Gebiet persönlich vorzubehalten.

In folgerichtiger Weiterführung seines Entschlusses vom 4. Februar 1938 hat sich der Führer daher am 19. Dezember 1941 entschlossen, unter Voller Würdigung der Verdienste des bisherigen Oberbefehlshabers des Heeres, Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch, die Führung der Gesamtwehrmacht mit dem Oberkommando des Heeres in seiner Hand zu vereinigen.

Aus diesem Anlaß hat er nachstehenden Aufruf an die Soldaten des Heeres und der Waffen-SS erlassen:

Der Führer an seine Soldaten

Soldaten des Heeres und der Waffen-SS!

Der Kampf um die Freiheit unseres Volkes zur Sicherung seiner Existenzbedingungen für die Zukunft, zur Beseitigung der Möglichkeit, uns alle 20 oder 25 Jahre unter einem neuen Vorwand — aber im tiefsten Grunde stets aus den gleichen jüdisch-kapitalistischen Interessen heraus — mit Krieg zu überziehen, geht seinem Hohe- und Wendepunkt entgegen.

Dem Deutschen Reich und Italien sowie den bisher mit uns Verbündeten Staaten wurde das Glück zuteil, in Japan eine Weltmacht als neuen Freund und Kampfgenossen erhalten zu haben. Es sollte unter den gleichen Vorwänden und Formen abgedrosselt werden wie wir selbst. Mit der blitzschnellen Vernichtung der nordamerikanischen Pazifikflotte sowie der britischen Seestreitkräfte in Singapur, der Besetzung zahlreicher englisch-amerikanischer Stützpunkte in Ostasien durch die japanische Wehrmacht tritt nun dieser Krieg in ein neues, für uns günstiges Stadium.

Damit stehen nun aber auch wir vor Entscheidungen von weltweiter Bedeutung. Die Armeen im Osten müssen, nach ihren unvergänglichen und in der Weltgeschichte noch nie dagewesenen Siegen gegen den gefährlichsten Feind aller Zeiten, nunmehr unter der Einwirkung des plötzlichen Wintereinbruchs aus dem Zug der Bewegung in eine Stellungsfront gebracht werden. Ihre Aufgabe ist es, bis zum Anbruch des Frühjahrs genauso fanatisch und zäh das zu halten und zu verteidigen, was sie bisher mit einem unermeßlichen Heldenmut und unter schweren Opfern erkämpft haben. Von der neuen Ostfront wird dabei nichts anderes erwartet, als was die deutschen Soldaten einst vor 25 Jahren in vier russischen Kriegswintern schon geleistet hatten. Jeder deutsche Soldat muß dabei das Vorbild für unsere treuen Verbündeten sein.

Darüber hinaus aber werden, so wie im Vergangenen Winter, neue Verbände aufgestellt und vor allem neue und bessere Waffen ausgegeben. Der Schutz der Front nach dem Westen wird von Kirkenes bis zur spanischen Grenze verstärkt. Die Schwierigkeiten der Organisation der Verbindungen dieser Front, die heute einen ganzen Kontinent umspannen und bis nach Nordafrika reichen, sind zu überwinden. Auch dies wird gelingen. Die Vorbereitungen zur sofortigen Wiederaufnahme des offensiven Kampfes im Frühjahr bis zur endgültigen Vernichtung des Gegners im Osten müssen unvermittelt getroffen werden.

Die Einleitung entscheidender anderer Kriegsmaßnahmen steht bevor. Diese Aufgaben erfordern es, daß Wehrmacht und Heimat zur höchsten Leistung angespannt und zum gemeinsamen Einsatz gebracht werden. Der hauptsächlichste Träger des Kampfes der Wehrmacht aber ist das Heer.

Ich habe mich deshalb unter diesen Umständen heute entschlossen, als Oberster Befehlshaber der deutschen Wehrmacht die Führung des Heeres selbst zu übernehmen.

Soldaten! Ich kenne den Krieg schon aus den vier Jahren des gewaltigen Ringens im Westen 1914/18. Ich habe den Schrecken fast aller großen Materialschlachten als einfacher Soldat selbst miterlebt. Zweimal wurde ich verwundet und drohte endlich zu erblinden. Mir ist daher nichts fremd, was auch euch quält, belastet Allein ich habe nach vier Jahren Krieg in keiner Sekunde an der Wiedererhebung meines Volkes gezweifelt und es mit meinem fanatischen Willen als einfacher deutscher Soldat fertiggebracht, die ganze deutsche Nation nach mehr als fünfzehnjähriger Arbeit wieder zusammenzuschließen und von dem Todesurteil von Versailles zu befreien.

Meine Soldaten!

Ihr werdet es daher verstehen: Daß mein Herz ganz euch gehört, das mein Wille und meine Arbeit unbeirrbar der Größe meines und eures Volkes dienen, daß mein Verstand und meine Entschlußkraft aber nur die Vernichtung des Gegners kennen, das heißt, die siegreiche Beendigung dieses Krieges. Was ich für euch tun kann, meine Soldaten des Heeres und der Waffen-SS, in der Fürsorge und in der Führung, wird geschehen. Was ihr für mich tun könnt und tun werdet, das weiß ich: Mir in Treue und Gehorsam folgen bis zur endgültigen Rettung des Reiches und damit unseres deutschen Volkes. Der Herrgott aber wird den Sieg seinen tapfersten Soldaten nicht verweigern!

Führer-Hauptquartier, den 19. Dezember 1941.

Adolf Hitler.

Verstärke Offensive gegen die Philippinen:
Japanische U-Boote an der Westküste der USA

vb. Wien, 22. Dezember
Am 22. Dezember gab das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier in Tokio amtlich bekannt: „Neue starke japanische Truppenverbände haben heute morgen unter dem Schutz der Flotte Landungen an verschiedenen Plätzen auf Luzon durchgeführt.“ Fast gleichzeitig mußte das USA-Marineministerium mitteilen, daß japanische U-Boote an der Westküste der Vereinigten Staaten tätig seien. Der Tanker „Agwiworld“ (6771 BRT) sei von einem feindlichen U-Boot beschossen, der Tanker „Emidio“ (6912 BRT) torpediert worden. Ein Teil der Besatzung habe gerettet werden können.

13 Kriegshäfen Sperrgebiet

Diese beiden Meldungen, die Durchführung der Landungsunternehmungen auf den Philippinen und die Operationen japanischer U-Boote an der Küste der Vereinigten Staaten zeigen die Weite des Raumes, in dem die japanischen Streitkräfte operieren. Insbesondere die letzte Meldung dürfte in den USA ein beträchtliches Aufsehen erregen und hat auch bereits die ersten Folgen gezeitigt. So sind nach einer Anordnung des USA-Marineministeriums 13 Kriegshäfen der Vereinigten Staaten zum Sperrgebiet erklärt worden. In diese Gebiete dürfen damit Schiffe künftighin nur bei Tage oder mit einer besonderen Erlaubnis einfahren.

Die japanischen Unterseekreuzer

Mit diesen Meldungen zeigen sich bereits die Erfolge des japanischen U-Boot-Programms, das darauf abgestellt war, eine besonders große Zahl von Booten zu bauen, die infolge ihrer Größe und Ausrüstung in der Lage waren, auf weite und weiteste Entfernungen zu operieren. So verfügte nach amtlichen Angaben die japanische Flotte bis 1936 schon über neun derartiger Unterseekreuzer von etwa 2000 Tonnen Wasserverdrängung bei Überseefahrt. 16 weitere Schiffe dieser Art waren im Bau, und wie viele es heute sind, darüber fehlt es aus verständlichen Gründen an amtlichen Unterlagen. Um Schiffe dieses Typs dürfte es sich handeln, wenn heute gemeldet wird, daß japanische U-Boote an der USA-Westküste, das heißt etwa 13.000 Kilometer von ihren Stützpunkten entfernt, auftauchen.

Dreimal Fliegeralarm in Manila

Nicht weniger erfolgreich waren die Japaner auch auf dem „westlichen“ Kriegsschauplatz. Japanische Flugzeuge unternahmen am Sonntag ausgedehnte Erkundungsflüge über Luzon, der Hauptinsel der Philippinen, vor allem über Flugplätze im Innern des Landes sowie über Manila und Cavite. Schon am Vormittag erlebte Manila drei Fliegeralarme. Hochfliegende japanische Flugzeuge warfen Bomben auf Cavite, wo mehrere Brände ausbrachen. Der Bevölkerung Manilas bemächtigte sich zunehmende Erregung. Vor allem ist man auch mit dem mageren Inhalt der amtlichen Berichte höchst unzufrieden. Allem Anschein nach ist das USA-Oberkommando selbst über die Vorgänge an den Fronten schlecht unterrichtet. Privattelegramme bezeichnen die Lage der USA-Truppen an der Nordfront als unsicher. Militärische Stellen in Manila geben zu, daß sie kein klares Bild von den Kämpfen haben, auch nicht von den Ereignissen auf Mindanao, wo die japanischen Truppen den Gegner in heftige Gefechte verwickeln.

Die „Wilden Adler“ im Angriff

Zwei Korrespondenten von „Tokio Nitschi Nitschi“ schildern die ersten Angriffe der „Wilden Adler“, der japanischen Marineflieger, auf Flugplätze und militärische Einrichtungen bei Manila. Sie heben hervor, daß die japanischen Flieger mit den USA-Fliegern „Zirkus gespielt“ hätten, sofern diese sich überhaupt in die Luft wagten.

Am ersten Tage hätte man leider wegen des dichten Nebels nicht starten können und habe schon gefürchtet, daß der Angriff auf Hawai die Amerikaner auf den Philippinen mobil gemacht habe. Deshalb sei vom Geschwaderchef die Parole ausgegeben worden, „alles, selbst das eigene Opfer, für die Ehre Japans hinzugeben“. Als man über dem Lufthafen Clarkfield bei Manila angelangt sei, hätten die japanischen Flugzeuge sofort 17 „fliegende Festungen“ und Flughallen mit Bomben belegt, die sämtlich ein Raub der Flammen geworden seien.

Beim nächsten Angriff auf den Flughafen Nicholsfield hätten sich feindliche Flieger hervorgewagt, seien aber stets in großer Entfernung geblieben. Auf dem Rückweg hätte man wegen des schlechten Wetters sehr niedrig über dem Wasser fliegen müssen, aber alle Flugzeuge seien zur Basis zurückgekehrt. Bei den wenigen Luftkämpfen habe man die wenigen Amerikaner mit überlegener Taktik eingekreist und wie im Zirkus im Kreise herumgejagt. Als japanische Jäger einige Bomber nach Manila begleitet hätten, seien 50 feindliche Flieger in der Luft gewesen, aber sofort geflohen, als japanische Jäger auf sie herabstießen. Sie hätten noch nicht einmal das Feuer eröffnet, sondern seien in größtem Durcheinander entwichen. Noch aus großer Entfernung, so erzählen beide Korrespondenten abschließend, hätte man die Zerstörung der militärischen Einrichtungen beobachten können. Die Flammen seien bis 300 Meter hochgeschlagen.

Wie aus Nachrichten aus Manila hervorgeht, ist das Wirtschaftsleben auf den Philippinen völlig durcheinandergeraten. Auch die Finanzen, der Bankenverkehr und die Geldüberweisungen sind erheblich gestört. Zahlreiche Firmen waren bereits gezwungen, Gehaltsauszahlungen einzuschränken, da die Überweisungen aus Amerika ausgeblieben sind. Auch wissen Unternehmungen in Manila nichts über das Schicksal ihrer Zweigstellen im Inneren des Landes, da alle Verkehrsmittel, selbst der Telegrammverkehr lahmgelegt sind.

Besonders günstig lauten die Nachrichten von der Singapur-Front. Die britischen Truppen in Perak befinden sich nach Meldungen aus Bangkok in wilder Flucht und lassen viel Ausrüstungsstücke und Verwundete zurück. Die japanischen Truppen haben Kuala Kangser, nördlich von Ipoh, 500 Kilometer von Singapur entfernt, erreicht.

Auch an der Front von Kelantan ziehen sich die Engländer weiter zurück. Der zu den vereinigten Malaienstaaten gehörende britische Schutzstaat Perak ist bei einer Gesamtfläche von über 20.000 Quadratkilometer und einer Bevölkerung von fast einer Million infolge seines Zinnreichtums und seiner riesigen Kautschukplantagen der wirtschaftlich wichtigste der Malaienstaaten.

Der Malaienstaat Kelantan an der Ostküste der Halbinsel hat 15.000 Quadratkilometer und 400.000 Einwohner. Seine Hauptstadt ist das im Verlaufe der Kampfhandlungen oft genannte Kota Bharu.

Unier japanischem Schulz

Sir Mirza Ismald Ismail, der Sultan von Kelantan, der Nordprovinz von Malaien ist, wie Domei berichtet, am Sonntag in die Hauptstadt Kota Bharu zurückgekehrt. Der Sultan, der im Anschluß an die Landung der japanischen Truppen in Kota Bharu sich ins Innere geflüchtet hatte, stellte sich unter japanischen Schutz und ersuchte die japanische Verwaltung, in Kelantan Ruhe und Ordnung herzustellen.

Aus Singapur selbst wird bekannt, daß auf allen öffentlichen Plätzen Singapurs Schützengräben ausgehoben und Hindernisse aufgestellt werden sollen. Die privaten Landeigentümer werden aufgefordert, das gleiche in allen Gärten und auf allen Feldern zu tun, um feindliche Luftlandungen zu verhindern. Auch vor Fallschirmspringern Wird gewarnt.

Von den Kämpfen bei Hongkong

Ein japanisches Flugzeug hat ein englisches Kanonenboot, das die Umgebung der Insel Lantau Westlich von Hongkong mit seinem Geschützfeuer gegen die japanischen Streitkräfte deckte, angegriffen und durch zwei Volltreffer versenkt. Das japanische Flugzeug kehrte zu seinem Stützpunkt zurück, nachdem es sich über den Untergang des Kanonenbootes vergewissert hatte.

„Gegenseitige Unterstützung mit allen militärischen Mitteln“
Zehnjahresbündnis Thailand—Japan

tc. Tokio, 22. Dezember
Zwischen Japan und Thailand ist ein auf zehn Jahre befristeter Bündnisvertrag abgeschlossen worden. Die Unterzeichnung dieses Vertrages fand in Bangkok durch den thailändischen Ministerpräsidenten und Außenminister Luang Pibul Songgram und dem japanischen Botschafter Tsubokami statt.

Der Vertrag, der das Datum des 11. Dezember 1941 trägt, sieht die gegenseitige Anerkennung der Unabhängigkeit beider Länder vor. Die Vertragspartner sichern sich gegenseitige Unterstützung mit allen politischen, wirtschaftlichen und militärischen Mitteln zu, für den Fall, daß eine der vertragschließenden Mächte mit dritten Mächten in einen bewaffneten Konflikt gerät.

Einzelheiten über die in diesem Fall zu leistende Hilfe sollen einem besonderen Abkommen überlassen bleiben. Schließlich verpflichten sich Thailand und Japan, ohne gegenseitiges Einverständnis weder einen Waffenstillstand noch einen Frieden abzuschließen, falls sie gemeinsam Krieg führen.

Eine Erklärung Togos

Anläßlich des Abschlusses des Bündnisses zwischen Japan und Thailand gab Außenminister Togo eine längere Erklärung ab, die eingangs auf die schon seit vielen Jahren bestehenden Freundschaftsbande zwischen den beiden Nationen hinweist. Zur Stärkung dieser engen Freundschaft sei bereits im Juni vorigen Jahres ein Freundschaftspakt abgeschlossen worden. Zu Beginn dieses Jahres sei dann durch Vermittlung Japans der Grenzstreit zwischen Thailand und Französisch-Indochina friedlich beigelegt worden, wobei Thailand, einem langgehegten Wunsche entsprechend, seine verlorenen Gebiete zurückgewinnen konnte. Gleichzeitig sei ein japanisch-thailändisches Protokoll unterzeichnet worden, das eine gegenseitige Verständigung in politischen Fragen vorsah und zur weiteren Vertiefung der Beziehungen beitrug.

Seit vielen Jahren, so heißt es in der Erklärung weiter, sei Thailand Gegenstand politischer Intrigen und wirtschaftlicher Ausbeutung seitens Englands gewesen. Schon vor langer Zeit habe der derzeitige Premierminister Thailands die Autonomie in thailändischen Staatsangelegenheiten befürwortet.

Nach Beginn des japanischen Krieges gegen die USA und England sei zwecks Verhinderung einer britischen Besetzung Thailands der japanische Botschafter beauftragt worden, in Verhandlungen mit Premierminister Song gram die thailändische Zustimmung für den Durchmarsch japanischer Streitkräfte zu erhalten. Diesem Vorschlag habe Songgrarn zugestimmt. Am 11. Dezember wurde eine Übereinstimmung der Ansichten hinsichtlich des Abschlusses eines Offensiv- und Defensivbündnisses erzielt, und der sofort ausgearbeitete Vertragsentwurf sei heute in Bangkok unterzeichnet worden.

Togo nennt abschließend den Pakt ein epochemachendes Ereignis in der Geschichte Ostasiens, denn Thailand habe klar und konkret seine Entschlossenheit ausgedrückt, den derzeitigen Krieg gegen die USA und das britische Empire in Zusammenarbeit mit Japan bis zum Endsieg durchzukämpfen.

Japans Volk spendet für den Krieg

Die Geldspenden für den Krieg, die im Kriegs- und Marineministerium bis zum 20. Dezember aus allen Teilen Japans eingingen, beliefen sich auf insgesamt 31,819.688 Jen, davon waren 19,131.915 Jen für die Marine und 12,687.773 Jen für die Armee bestimmt.

Japanische Frauen und Kinder hingeschlachtet
USA-Greuel auf Mindanao

dnb. Tokio, 22. Dezember
Das Außenamt teilt mit, daß auf Mindanao bei Ausschreitungen nordamerikanischer Fliegertruppen dreißig japanische Zivilisten getötet und vierzig verwundet wurden.

Hierzu veröffentlicht „Asahi Schimbun“ in einem Sonderbericht aus Schanghai folgende Einzelheiten: Im Morgengrauen des 20. Dezember befreiten die auf Mindanao gelandeten japanischen Truppen 12.000 von insgesamt 20.000 japanischen Zivilisten, die von den USA-Soldaten vor deren Rückzug rücksichtslos mit MGs beschossen worden waren. In Diensten der USA-Armee stehende japanische Angestellte wurden schwer verletzt. Angesichts dieser Mordtat packte die japanischen Truppen eine außerordentliche Erregung, die den Entschluß zur Folge hatte, über die Leichen der nordamerikanischen Soldaten hinweg die übrigen Japaner zu retten.

Die USA, so schließt der Bericht, haben jetzt ihre teuflische Natur enthüllt, nachdem sie bisher unter der heuchlerischen Maske der „Missionsarbeit“ ihre wahren Absichten verborgen hatten.

„Tschungai Schogiu“ meldet, daß die japanischen Truppen in Mindanao die Entdeckung machten, daß zahlreiche japanische Arbeiter auf den Hanfplantagen rücksichtslos mit Maschinengewehren beschossen worden waren, während japanische Frauen und Kinder in ihren Heimstätten hingeschlachtet wurden. Zahlreiche japanische Angestellte auf USA-Farmen seien von ihren nordamerikanischen Arbeitgebern mit Jagdflinten erschossen worden.

Mr. Roosevelt ohne Maske
Giftgas auf Guam gefunden

Die Presseabteilung der kaiserlichen Hauptquartiere der Armee und der Marine äußern sich zu der Entdeckung von Giftgaswaffen auf der Insel Guam und erklärten, das Vorhandensein derartiger Waffen deute in unverkennbarer Weise auf die Absicht eines Einsatzes gegen die Japaner hin. „Dadurch wird einwandfrei bewiesen, was unter der nordamerikanischen Menschlichkeit zu verstehen ist.“ Dieselben Stellen erklären, glücklicherweise seien die Nordamerikaner wegen der Schnelligkeit des japanischen Angriffs nicht in der Lage gewesen, das Gas anzuwenden, doch sei dessenungeachtet schon der Besitz des Giftgases eine Verletzung des internationalen Abkommens!

Zum Oberkommissar im Pazifik:
Admiral Decoux ernannt

dnb. Vichy, 22. Dezember
Der Ausbruch des Konflikts im Pazifik hat die französische Regierung Veranlaßt, sämtliche französischen Besitzungen im Fernen Osten, im Indischen Ozean, im Pazifik und in Ozeanien einer einzigen Autorität zu unterstellen.

Durch ein im amtlichen Gesetzblatt vom Sonntag erschienenes Dekret werden dem Generalgouverneur von Indochina, Admiral Decoux, die Funktionen eines französischen Oberkommissars im Pazifik übertragen.

An zuständiger Stelle in Vichy wird dazu mitgeteilt, daß die französische Regierung durch die neue Maßnahme eindeutig feststellen will, daß Frankreich auf keines seiner Rechte und keines seiner Besitztitel im Stillen Ozean Verzichtet hat, und daß die Regierung zu einer wirksamen Verteidigung die Behandlung aller Fragen, welche diese Besitzungen betreffen, in einer Hand vereinigt hat.

Führer-Hauptquartier (December 23, 1941)

Wehrmachtbericht

Die schweren Kämpfe im mittleren Abschnitt der Ostfront dauern fort. An mehreren Stellen wehrten unsere Truppen starke Angriffe des Feindes. erfolgreich ab und vernichteten hierbei 19 sowjetische Panzer. Kampf- und Sturzkampffliegerverbände unterstützten die Kämpfe auf der Erde. Sie fügten dem Feind hohe blutige Verluste zu, vernichteten zahlreiche Panzer- und Fahrzeuge aller Art und setzten mehrere Batterien außer Gefecht.

In den Gewässern von Sewastopol beschädigte die Luftwaffe ein sowjetisches Kriegsfahrzeug durch Bombenvolltreffer. Ostwärts der Fischerhalbinsel versenkten Kampfflugzeuge einen Frachter mittlerer Größe; ein weiteres Handelsschiff wurde in der Kolabucht durch Bombenwurf beschädigt.

Wie durch Sondermeldung bekanntgegeben, griff ein Unterseeboot unter Führung des Kapitänleutnants Bigalk im Atlantik einen britischen Flugzeugträger an, der zur Sicherung eines Geleitzuges eingesetzt war. Das Unterseeboot machte den Flugzeugträger durch Torpedotreffer in die Schraube manövrierunfähig. Nach zwei weiteren Torpedotreffern im Vorschiff und in der Mitte ist der Flugzeugträger über das Vorschiff gesunken.

In Nordafrika kam es am gestrigen Tage im Raume ostwärts von Bengasi zu Kämpfen, die noch andauern. Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge zersprengten in der westlichen Cyrenaika britische Truppenansammlungen und Lastkraftwagenkolonnen.

Militärische Anlagen auf der Insel Malta wurden bei Tag und bei Nacht bombardiert. Deutsche Jäger schossen hierbei zwei britische Flugzeuge ab.

Die britische Luftwaffe warf in der vergangenen Nacht mit schwachen Kräften eine geringe Zahl von Spreng- und Brandbomben auf Wohnviertel einiger Orte an der Deutschen Bucht. Marineartillerie schoß einen feindlichen Bomber ab.

Comando Supremo (December 23, 1941)

Bollettino n. 569

Il Quartier Generale delle Forze Armate comunica in data 23 dicembre 1941:

Situazione invariata sul Gebel cirenaico, dove si sono avute azioni di pattuglie.

Intensificata attività delle artiglierie nemiche contro le posizioni di Bardia e Sollum.

Le sfavorevoli condizioni atmosferiche hanno limitato le operazioni aeree; sono state efficacemente bombardate, da reparti dell’aviazione tedesca, Tobruk e Derna.

Velivoli italiani e germanici, portatisi a più riprese sull’isola di Malta, ne hanno colpiti gli obiettivi militari nonostante la vivace reazione contraerea.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 9:00am

U.S. War Department (December 23, 1941)

Communique No. 23

PHILIPPINE THEATER – Intense fighting continues along the coastal areas of Lingayen Gulf, 150 miles north of Manila on the island of Luzon.

Attempted landings by the enemy near San Fabian and Damortis were frustrated. Japanese infantry landed near Agoo and moved south toward Damortis. American and Philippine troops, using artillery and tanks, have engaged the enemy south of Agoo.

Japanese destroyers moved into Lingayen Gulf to cover a landing at Damortis, but were driven off by our artillery.

HAWAII – The Commanding General, Hawaiian Department, reports that 273 Japanese aliens are now interned. Out of a total population of 425,000 in the Hawaiian Islands, 160,000 are of Japanese ancestry. Of these, 35,000 are aliens. For the most part, the Japanese population of Hawaii has given no evidence of disloyalty. However, as was reported by Secretary Knox on his return from his recent trip to Hawaii, there is strong evidence to support the belief that some Japanese were engaged in “Fifth Column” activity and provided the enemy with valuable military information prior to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

These activities were entirely confined to Japanese residents, all other elements of the population, as well as the great majority of the Japanese, remaining loyal to the United States. There were no “Fifth Columnists” among the members of the armed services in Hawaii.

The military authorities have imprisoned all known Japanese leaders of subversive activities. Federal and territorial law enforcement agencies are cooperating with the Army in detecting and suppressing enemy “Fifth Column” activities among the Japanese residents of the islands.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

Communique No. 24

PHILIPPINE THEATER – Combat operations are continuing with increasing intensity along the eastern shore of Lingayen Gulf, north of Damortis.

A major engagement is being fought in the vicinity of Santo Tomas with defending American and Filipino troops having attained some initial successes.

Japanese troops are continuing to land between Agoo and San Fernando. Landing operations are being supported by increasing numbers of bombing and attack planes.

Fighting is continuing in the vicinity of Davao on the island of Mindanao.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

U.S. Navy Department (December 23, 1941)

Communique No. 16

ATLANTIC THEATER – There are no new developments to report.

EASTERN PACIFIC – Two U.S. merchant ships were attacked by enemy submarines off the Pacific Coast. Both attacks were unsuccessful.

CENTRAL PACIFIC – Wake Island sustained another strong air attack in the forenoon of the 22nd. Several enemy planes were shot down. An enemy force effected a landing on Wake the morning of the 23rd.

FAR EAST – Japanese claims of seizure of a large number of American merchant vessels are without foundation. The only U.S. merchant vessel known to have been seized by the Japanese is the SS PRESIDENT HARRISON.

Statement on War Production Policy with Canada
December 23, 1941

Statement of the President:

Joint War Production Committees of Canada and the United States have unanimously adopted a declaration of policy calling for a combined all-out war production effort and the removal of any barriers standing in the way of such a combined effort. This declaration has met the approval of the Canadian War Cabinet. It has my full approval. To further its implementation, I have asked the affected departments and agencies in our Government to abide by its letter and spirit, so far as lies within their power. I have further requested Mr. Milo Perkins, the Chairman of the American Committee, to investigate, with the aid of the Tariff Commission and other interested agencies, the extent to which legislative changes will be necessary to give full effect to the declaration.

Through brute force and enslavement, Hitler has secured a measure of integration and coordination of the productive resources of a large part of the continent of Europe. We must demonstrate that integration and coordination of the productive resources of the continent of America is possible through democratic processes and free consent.

Statement of War Production Policy for Canada and the United States:

Having regard to the fact that Canada and the United States are engaged in a war with common enemies, the Joint War Production Committee of Canada and the United States recommends to the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada the following statement of policy for the war production of the two countries.

Victory will require the maximum war production in both countries in the shortest possible time; speed and volume of war output, rather than monetary cost, are the primary objectives.

An all-out war production effort in both countries requires the maximum use of the labor, raw materials, and facilities in each country.

Achievement of maximum volume and speed of war output requires that the production and resources of both countries should be effectively integrated, and directed toward a common program of requirements for the total war effort.

Each country should produce those articles in an integrated program of requirements which will result in maximum joint output of war goods in the minimum time.

Scarce raw materials and goods which one country requires from the other in order to carry out the joint program of war production should be so allocated between the two countries that such materials and goods will make the maximum contribution toward the output of the most necessary articles in the shortest period of time.

Legislative and administrative barriers, including tariffs, import duties, customs and other regulations or restrictions of any character which prohibit, prevent, delay, or otherwise impede the free flow of necessary munitions and war supplies between the two countries should be suspended or otherwise eliminated for the duration of the war.

The two Governments should take all measures necessary for the fullest implementation of the foregoing principles.

Members for Canada
G. K. Sheils, Chairman
R. P. Bell
H. J. Carmichael
J. R. Donald
W. L. Gordon
H. R. MacMillan

Members for the U.S.
Milo Perkins, Chairman
J. B. Forrestal
W. H. Harrison
R. P. Patterson
E. R. Stettinius
H. L. Vickery

Statement to the Management-Labor Conference on Uninterrupted Production
December 23, 1941

Gentlemen of the Conference:

Moderator Davis and Senator Thomas have reported to me the results of your deliberations. They have given me each proposition which you have discussed. I am happy to accept your general points of agreement as follows:

There shall be no strikes or lockouts.

All disputes shall be settled by peaceful means.

The President shall set up a proper War Labor Board to handle these disputes.

I accept without reservation your covenants that there shall be no strikes or lockouts and all disputes shall be settled by peaceful means. I shall proceed at once to act on your third point.

Government must act in general. The three points agreed upon cover of necessity all disputes that may arise between labor and management.

The particular disputes must be left to the consideration of those who can study the particular differences and who are thereby prepared by knowledge to pass judgment in the particular case. I have full faith that no group in our national life will take undue advantage while we are faced by common enemies.

I congratulate you – I thank you, and our people will join me in appreciation of your great contribution.

Your achievement is a response to a common desire of all men of good will that strikes and lockouts cease and that disputes be settled by peaceful means.

May I now wish you all a Merry Christmas.

U.S. State Department (December 23, 1941)

Roosevelt-Churchill meeting, forenoon

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 9:24am

The Pittsburgh Press (December 23, 1941)

JAPS LAND ON WAKE ISLAND
Battles rage at Luzon; 4 Jap ships sunk; Churchill, Roosevelt map war tactics

Heroic Hongkong garrison still holds – Dutch fliers aid U.S.
By Joe Alex Morris, United Press war editor

The Philippines battlefront

map.ph.122341.up538×593 122 KB

The main battle in the Philippines raged today near Lingayen on Luzon Island. The squared area on the map above is shown in detail in the inset map. Other battles were fought at Vigan and Aparri north of the squared area.

Three Jap troopships were reported sunk in Lingayen Gulf. Two landings were frustrated near San Fabian, but the Japs landed near Agoo and moved south. The principal fighting area is on the coast near Santo Tomas and near San Fernando.

American and British forces held the edge in Pacific fighting today, but a Japanese force landed on tiny Wake Island and Tokyo claimed the American Marine garrison had been overpowered.

American forces in the Philippines had the advantage in heavy fighting on Lingayen Gulf 135 to 150 miles north of Manila. Three Japanese transports, carrying possibly 3000 to 5000 troops, were reported sunk and a Dutch bomber blasted a 10,000-ton Japanese tanker at Davao on the southern coast of Mindanao Island.

The small British garrison at Hongkong fought valiantly against overwhelming Japanese numbers and reported “local successes” in their battles to defend strong points on the island peaks.

Midway still holds

Indications were that the U.S. Marines on Wake Island who have held out for more than two weeks against repeated Japanese attacks may have finally been overwhelmed.

A U.S. Navy communique from Washington admitted that Japanese forced landed on the little Pacific sandbar this morning. A Japanese naval spokesman in Shanghai claimed that the Japanese forces won control of the island, the second of the Pacific stepping stones to fall under Japanese attack. The first was Guam. Midway Island, the third of the stepping stones, still holds out. Midway is the nearest of the three to Hawaii and actually is the westernmost island of the Hawaii group.

New activity of Japanese submarines was reported close in shore off the California coast. A submarine attacked the tanker Larry Doheny off Estero Bay, the fifth submarine attack off the coast since last Thursday.

Dutch civilians killed

The Dutch reported that some 500 civilian casualties have been suffered thus far in Japanese air attacks on the Netherlands East Indies.

A United Press Staff Correspondent reached the fighting lines in the Lingayen area and telephoned the first battle description from a point only a quarter of a mile from where the fighting was raging.

He revealed that seasoned American and Filipino troops are fighting on terms apparently even or better against the Japanese effort to put 80,000 to 100,000 men ashore on Luzon.

American tanks and artillery blasted at Japanese positions. The Japanese appeared, he said, to be aided by someone with an intimate knowledge of local terrain, possibly Japanese nationals long resident in the Philippines.

U.S. successes reported

The Japanese air force was attempting to provide strong cover for the landing attempt, attacking the area in which fighting was in progress and also the American air bases to the rear. The attacks were not effective, dispatches indicated.

A War Department communique at Washington indicated, however, that the Japanese are making powerful efforts to strengthen their landing parties but that U.S. forces had “some initial successes.”

Dutch naval aircraft came to the aid of the Americans on the Davao front on the southerly Philippines island of Mindanao. The Dutch reported that a 10,000-ton Japanese tanker was sunk in an attack on Japanese shipping in Davao harbor. Tokyo in a propaganda broadcast claimed that Japanese forces are in full control of Davao.

Canadian officers killed

A Hongkong dispatch from United Press Staff Correspondent George E. Baxter, the first direct word from the beleaguered garrison in seven days, reported that British forces still were fighting determinedly.

Ottawa learned that Brig. L. K. Lawson, commander of the Canadian units at Hongkong, and Col. Pat Hennessy of the military administrative staff at Hongkong have been killed in action and that Canadian forces have suffered “very heavy” casualties in the last-ditch battle.

The small Hongkong garrison of Canadian, Indian and British troops, reinforced by civilians, was holding strong points on mountainous Hongkong Island, chiefly in the southern and southeastern sections.

Mr. Baxter’s dispatch made plain that the British are selling their lives dearly at Hongkong and exacting the highest possible toll in Japanese casualties from their rock-hewn positions on the Hongkong peaks.

The Baxter dispatches appeared to discredit Japanese propaganda dispatches indicating that the fighting at Hongkong was nearing an end.

Despite the fierce resistance the British had little hope that the defending forces could hold out indefinitely provided the Japanese are willing to pay the price in men killed and wounded to storm the fortress peaks of the island.

The fighting in the Philippines was the hardest of the war. But Gen. Douglas MacArthur indicated that American and Filipino troops, long concentrated in Lingayen Gulf in anticipation of a major Japanese effort there, are giving as goof as they receive or better.

The American defense line was said to be north of Damortis, about 35 miles north on the curving gulf shore from the town of Lingayen.

Japs claim Davao

American tanks engaged the Japanese land forces and American artillery, including big coastal guns, blasted at the Japanese transport fleet.

The Japanese stepped up their air activity in the Philippines to cover the major expeditionary force but it was indicated that the U.S. Air Force was meeting the Japanese challenge.

On the Singapore Front there was little action at the moment, but the British momentarily expected news of the start of a major battle on the new defense line about 300 miles north of Singapore.

Japanese reports admitted that their Malayan operations are impeded by difficult terrain, but claimed to be at a point about 15 miles north of Ipoh, important communications center of northern Malaya.

The big news in Europe was the repercussions of Adolf Hitler’s action in “dropping the pilot” – his dismissal of the German commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch.

Opinion in London was that Hitler is preparing to move somewhere to open a new Winter front – possibly by striking at Turkey, through Spain to French Africa or against the British Isles themselves.

In connection with possible Nazi moves against Turkey it was noted that whole falling back elsewhere along the long Russian front the Nazis renewed their assault on Sevastopol, major Soviet naval base on the Black Sea.

With Sevastopol in German hands, Hitler would have virtual control of the Black Sea and could utilize naval power in an operation against Turkey.

There also were rumors of German plane concentration in Crete and troop concentrations in Bulgaria. Many reports sifted through Europe of German ancestry in French North Africa.

There were new rumors of trouble between Hitler and the Army and reports that Field Marshals Fedor von Bock, Gerd von Rundstedt and Ritter von Leeb – all the top officers of the Russian campaign – were in disfavor or have been disaffected by differences with Hitler.

It seemed possible, however, that all or most of these rumors actually have been put into circulation by Nazi propagandists to conceal the real German plans for the Winter.

Japanese make landing after air raid on Wake

WASHINGTON (UP) – Japanese forces have effected a landing at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific, official advices said today.

The Navy disclosed the Wake landing in Communique No. 16, which said that several enemy planes were shot down when the garrison beat off a strong air attack Sunday afternoon – December 22. The landing was effected Monday Wake Time (Tuesday morning EST).

The communique contained no reference to the fate of the heroic Marine defenders of the tiny island stepping-stone or whether they were successful in preventing the invaders from overrunning the island.

The Marine garrison’s defense of Wake against repeated bombing attacks has been the object of widespread praise. Observers predict that the defense of the island – hundreds of miles from any other U.S. base and apparently beyond the reach of succor – will go down in history.

The garrison was credited with having destroyed a Japanese light cruiser and destroyer during the first four attacks.

Today’s communique said of Wake: “Wake Island sustained another strong air attack in the forenoon of the 22nd. Several enemy planes were shot down. An enemy force effected a landing on Wake the morning of the 23rd.”

WAR BULLETINS!

Six more Axis ships sunk

LONDON – The Admiralty reported tonight that six more Axis transports and supply ships have been “accounted for” by British submarines in the Mediterranean.

Burma remains loyal

RANGOON, Burma (Delayed) – Japan is fighting to enslave Asia and Burma prefers a partnership with Great Britain, Burmese Home Minister U Aye declared in a radio speech today.

Canadian brigadier killed in Hong Kong

OTTAWA – Brig. L. K. Lawson, commander of the Canadian units at Hong Kong, has been killed in action, National Defense Headquarters announced today. Canadian casualties at Hong Kong were described in the statement as “very heavy.” It also was announced that Col. Pat Hennessy of the military administrative staff at Hong Kong had been killed in action.

Japs mass troops in China

CHUNGKING – A Chinese military spokesman said today that the Japanese had concentrated 20,000 troops near Yokow, possibly for an attack to divert the Chinese offensive in the Kowloon-Canton area.

China names foreign minister

CHUNGKING – T. V. Soong, former finance minister and brother-in-law of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was appointed foreign minister by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) today. Soong, credited with having obtained vast financial and Lend-Lease aid for China in the United States in the past few years, succeeds Quo Tai-Chi, former ambassador in London, who received another post.

San Salvador to seize Germans

SAN SALVADOR – The government today ordered the arrest of all German and Italian nationals in the country.

Catapult planes cut sea losses

LONDON – With British planes, catapulted from ships, playing a leading part in convoy protection, Atlantic shipping losses have continued at low levels in recent weeks, reliable quarters said today. The U.S. Navy, it was disclosed, is cooperating closely with the British in developing catapult-plane protection for Allied shipping.

Chinese rumored en route to Burma

HOLLYWOOD – Radio Tokyo, as heard by the NBC listening post here, broadcast a report that Chiang Kai-Shek is sending a strong Chinese army from Yunnan Province into Burma to strengthen the British defenses in that area.

Starvation threatens Finns

STOCKHOLM – The Finnish newspaper Suomen Sosiaalidemokraatit said today that “direct starvation is threatening Finnish cities.” Other Finnish newspapers reaching here similarly mentioned “disastrous undernourishment” and said that rations had reached their minimum limit.

Saboteurs strike Belgian plants

STOCKHOLM – Swedish newspapers today continued to publish reports of unrest in territory under German occupation. The Dagens Nyheter reported from Berlin that attempts had been made to dynamite military buildings in Brussels, causing heavy military damage. Three Brussels power plants also were reported damaged by explosions.

Seventh Italian general killed

ROME (German broadcast recorded in New York) – Gen. Giulio Borsarelli di Rifreddo of the Italian Army was reported today to have died from wounds suffered while leading the Trento Division in action in Libya. He was the seventh Italian general killed in combat.

U.S. probers arrive in Hawaii

HONOLULU – President Roosevelt’s commission to investigate the Pearl Harbor attack arrived today. Justice Owen J. Roberts, chairman of the commission, said that owing to the nature of the inquiry, no statement will be issued “at this time.”

Aircraft carrier sinking denied

LONDON – British sources said today that no British aircraft carrier has been attacked by a Nazi submarine, and denied the claim of the German high command that a British carrier has been torpedoed and sunk.

Hitler decrees death for profiteers

BERLIN (Official German radio) – Adolf Hitler today decreed the death penalty for any person in Germany or occupied territory profiteering in connection with the collection of winter clothes for the German Army.

Wilhelmshaven bombed

LONDON – British bombers last night attacked the German naval and submarine base at Wilhelmshaven. All planes returned.

Jap tanker set ablaze

BATAVIA – Netherlands planes operating with American forces near Davao in the Southern Philippines have bombed and set ablaze a 10,000-ton Japanese tanker, a Dutch communique said today. A direct hit was scored.

Nazis execute 4 Dutchmen

LONDON – The official Netherlands news agency Aneta reported from Lisbon today that four Dutch citizens had been executed by German troops in the Netherlands for assisting British fliers. The executions were the first in Holland since September when five Dutchmen were ordered shot for having “assisted downed British aviators,” the agency said.

Nazis say they bombed 3 ships

BERLIN (Official broadcast) – German bombers damaged a Russian vessel off the Crimean naval base of Sevastopol, sank a medium-sized merchantman east of Fisherman’s Peninsula off the northern coast of Finland and damaged another merchant vessel in Kola Bay off Northern Finland, the high command said today.

Goal is Axis defeat…
Council calls first session in U.S. capital

President, premier speed victory program with high-ranking aides
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Roosevelt welcomes Churchill

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British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt are shown on the south grounds of the White House after Mr. Churchill arrived on his historic and unprecedented visit to discuss the “concerted war effort.”

WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt today called a meeting of the “United States-Great Britain War Council” in the White House Cabinet room for late this afternoon.

The meeting will mark the first formal gathering of the joint council – so described by the White House – under the direction of Mr. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who arrived at the Executive Mansion last night.

Others at parley

Others at the conference will be:

For the United States: Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson; Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox; Lt. Gen. H. H. Arnold, deputy chief of staff for Air; Gen. George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff; Adm. Harold R. Stark, chief of Naval Operations; Adm. Ernest King, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet, and Harry L. Hopkins, lend-lease aide to the president.

For Great Britain: Lord Beaverbrook, minister of supply; Adm. Sir Dudley Pound; Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Gen. Sir John Dill, former British chief of staff.

Groundwork for the initial full-dress meeting was framed by Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill in an informal conference that began after the latter’s arrival here last night and continued until 1 a.m. today in the president’s study.

Mr. Churchill conferred with British Ambassador Lord Halifax and ministers of Canada, the Union of South Africa and Australia, for more than an hour in the special White House consultation room which has been set aside for the prime minister’s use.

80 come with Churchill

The scope of the grand strategy conversations was indicated by the White House disclosure that Mr. Churchill, who is now a guest at the Executive Mansion, was accompanied to this country by a staff of more than 80 technical experts and by W. Averell Harriman, U.S. Lend-Lease expediter in London.

During the morning, Lord Beaverbrook and Mr. Harriman arrived at the White House together, and later Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox went to the Executive Mansion.

Lord Beaverbrook declined to say with whom he had conferred. Mr. Harriman said the purpose of his visit to the White House was to talk with Mr. Hopkins.

Officers go to White House

A group of high-ranking British Army officers also went to the White House in a U.S. Marine Corps auto. Shortly after they entered, aides followed them in with numerous large dispatch cases.

Mr. Knox left without disclosing the purpose of his visit or whether he had talked personally with Mr. Roosevelt.

On the production front, meanwhile, the White House made public an agreement between the United States and Canada, which has the effect of pooling the gigantic war production machine of this country with the munitions factories of our northern neighbor for the output of ever-increasing numbers of tanks, planes, ships and guns.

Wipes out barriers

The agreement wipes out existing tariff and tax barriers on interchange of vital war materials, making it easier for the two neighboring countries to streamline their production for greater efficiency and output.

Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King, who is to participate in the inter-Allied talks here, will probably delay his arrival until after Christmas, it was disclosed by officials in Ottawa. Mr. King has been invited to come here by Mr. Roosevelt.

White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said that Sir Gerald Campbell, director of British press relations in this country, would make public the names of the entire personnel of the prime minister’s party, “some 80 in number.”

To go to church

Mr. Churchill will accompany Mr. Roosevelt to church on Christmas Day, but Mr. Early declined to give the name of the church or the hour of his attendance.

The unprecedented White House conferences between Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill were understood literally to be dividing the globe into four major war theaters to organize the Allies for “the defeat of Hitlerism throughout the world.”

They are expected to set up an Inter-Allied War Council.

There was speculation whether that move would be followed, ultimately, by nomination of a supreme commander-in-chief.

See unified command

But there seemed to be good ground to believe that the least to come from the Potomac-side conference of the leaders of the English-speaking peoples would be a unification of command in various theaters of war.

Under any such division of responsibility, U.S. military and naval officers would get the tough and hazardous job of licking the Axis in the Pacific and the Far East. But the first job out there is to hold our own – ours and Great Britain’s – and no one here minimizes the tremendous nature of that assignment.

Mr. Churchill arrived in Washington by air last night out of a mist of speculation and secrecy. He left London December 12. He was met at a service airport by Mr. Roosevelt, the first meeting between the two men since they sealed the eight-point Atlantic Charter at sea in mid-August.

Sea trip indicated

Mr. Churchill’s pea jacket and jaunty Cowes Regatta cap seemed to suggest that he had come most of the distance from Britain by sea. The date of his departure from London suggested that theory.

There was a flurry of gunfire off the Delaware-Maryland coast some hours before Mr. Churchill’s arrival here. The best current explanation was that the U.S. Navy had given the sea-going Briton proper salute.

Never had more secrecy and precaution accompanied the arrival here of a distinguished visitor. It was more like the coming and going of troop transports in World War I. Not even the June 1939 visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth compared in importance with yesterday’s arrival of the heavy-jowled Englishman, who rallies his countrymen with promises of “blood, sweat and tears.”

With Mr. Churchill’s arrival at the White House, a single roof sheltered two of the four men now most directly responsible for the fate of the world for generations to come.

TELEPHOTO: Anglo-American leaders confer

churchill.smile.up699×557 67.2 KB

Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s usually grim face turns to smiles as he confers with President Roosevelt at the White House after his secret trip across the Atlantic.

Third becomes war lord

The British prime minister and the president met within 48 hours of the announcement that another of the quartet, Adolf Hitler, had assumed direct command of the Nazi legions which smashed all before them until they challenged the Soviet Union.

The fourth man is Joseph Stalin. His Red armies evidently are to be charged with major responsibility for defeat of Hitler on the continent of Europe.

The White House conferees are dividing the world for battle, actually forming a League of Nations against the Axis league. They began their discussions last night. They will continue them today and the prime minister’s visit here as a “guest of the president” will continue for a “few days.” Actually, he may be far at sea or in the air or back in London before it is announced that he has left Washington.

War areas listed

The four theaters of war expected to be agreed upon probably will be assigned variously to the control of major members of the anti-Axis League. They are expected to be:

Europe.
Middle East and North Africa.
The North Atlantic.
The Pacific and Far East.

Stalin’s Red Armies already have taken charge of fighting the Axis on the continent of Europe.

The Middle East and North African show is and will remain for some time a purely British and Dominion venture.

The North Atlantic may be assigned to Great Britain as well, under the unified command of British naval and air officers, probably the former.

U.S. would lead in Pacific

The Pacific and Far East, under such a division of responsibility, would become the field of operations for a unified command under American officers. Those officers, it is believed, will be Adm. King and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the latter a four-star officer who commands the dangerously-infested defenses of the Philippines.

High on the agenda of the White House conferees is what emergency measures, if any, can be undertaken to extricate vital Singapore from a position admittedly precarious and to prevent Japanese landings in force in the Philippines. Both of those strategic areas must be held by the anti-Axis league unless the war is to be lengthened by many months and perhaps by years. There is no effort here to disguise the seriousness of the situation created in the Pacific by destructive Japanese blows at our defenses in Hawaii and in the vicinity of Manila.

May seek bases

There was speculation in London that the Roosevelt-Churchill conversations also might deal with the possibility of obtaining access to certain strategic areas as bases for anti-Axis efforts. Vladivostok may be such a potential base. Some experts believe it would be useful as a haven for American bombers shuttling from Manila and across Japan. These London reports suggested that there might be discussion of using lend-lease in any persuasion undertaken in connection with such strategic areas.

The Roosevelt-Churchill conversations are judged here to be the beginning of a two-phase program. The first would be the determination of immediate strategy and objectives to minimize confusion of military operations. This would be followed by establishment of a permanent Inter-Allied War Council. Some experts believed technical studies would be undertaken immediately that the president and the prime minister have agreed on broad objectives of the common effort.

Seek to define authority

But the most immediate problem is said to be a clear definition of authority in the four major war theaters. That means that someone or the officers of some single nation must be assigned to each of those theaters to coordinate battle and supply strategy. It is assumed that high-ranking officers of the Allies would occupy staff positions in all theaters.

Most assuredly, the White House conferees will discuss allocation of war supplies and munitions. Pressing for determination are the equally urgent demands of the Philippines and of the British defenders of Singapore for reinforcement with all arms. Division of available supplies between those two hard-pressed areas is a major problem which the two leaders themselves may have to decide.

Ultimately, a single military commander may make such decisions, although the obstacles to agreement among all the Allies up a single head are tremendous. And it is pointed out here, also, that this is a World War in fact whereas World War I was actually confined substantially to the continent of Europe. The responsibilities of Marshal Foch who became generalissimo of Allied and associated forces on the Western Front would be comparatively insignificant when ranged against those of a man who undertook to direct a war being fought in every continent but one.

‘Unknowns’ faced by Allies in mapping strategy plans

By William H. Stoneman

LONDON – Several formidable unknowns will face the Allies when they sit down in Washington and attempt to the best of their ability to map out a strategic scheme for victory.

Because of these imponderables which nobody is capable of solving, any plan which may be drawn up will have to provide for a number of contingencies which, in fact, may never have to be faced.

While Germany and Italy may prove to be relatively easy meat and Japan may not be half as potent as she seems, the Allies will have to arrange their plans on the hypothesis that all three of those countries are powerful enemies which can be beaten only by all-out effort.

Four chief unknowns

The four principal unknowns in the situation are:

The internal position of Germany.
The internal position of Italy.
The capacity of the Russians to maintain their offensive.
The extent to which Japan will consolidate her position in the Pacific before the western powers can start hitting back.

In drawing up a plan for the joint defeat of Germany, the British reckon on the possibility that Germany still has got enough punch left to launch a mighty spring offensive against Russia, to drive through Turkey toward Syria and Iraq, and to take aggressive action in Spain and French North Africa. They are also forced to count on the possibility that the Luftwaffe and German U-boat fleet will make another all-out effort to starve out the United Kingdom.

In the case of Italy, morale is known to have been badly shaken and there is the double chance of British invasion and civil war. Yet, if the Allies are to play safe, Italy must still be regarded as a power which it may take a crushing onslaught to knock out of the war.

Consequently, expensive and elaborate plans must be made to do a job which may, in practice, take care of itself.

Russia’s ability to continue the present offensive against the Germans throughout the winter becomes less questionable as the days go on but, here again, the Allies must play safe by not counting on too much. For purposes of planning they must count on the possibility that the Germans will manage to hold the Baltic states, White Russia, the Ukraine and the Crimea during the winter and be able to hit back.

In the Far East it still looks as though the greatest pessimism may prove to have been justified. So, while immediate and prodigious steps must be taken to hold Singapore and the Dutch East Indies the Allies must reckon on the possibility of retiring from Malaya and having to fight an enriched and powerful Japan from such distant bases as Ceylon and Hawaii.

Any safe plan will demand the complete mobilization of resources in the British Empire, the United States and the Soviet Union, and complete agreement between the three countries.

One result of the conversations now going on in Washington should be to bring Russia into more intimate contact with Britain and the United States. Russia has got to play a dominant part in the defeat of both Germany and Japan. This cannot be accomplished unless the Allies are able to talk frankly with Premier Stalin and work with him.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 10:05am

U.S. lines hold in Philippines

Japs fail to gain in 48 hours, MacArthur says
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer

MANILA (UP) – Jungle-toughened American and Filipino troops fought on even terms or better today against a massive Japanese attack on Luzon Island and unofficial reports said at least three Japanese transports, crammed with thousands of invaders, have been sunk in Lingayen Gulf.

The Japanese attackers used air power in an attempt to ease terrific American pressure on their beachheads along the Lingayen coast 135 to 150 miles north of Manila.

But Gen. Douglas MacArthur, U.S. generalissimo, reported tersely that the Japanese have failed to better their position in nearly 48 hours of the fiercest land combat the Philippines have yet seen.

American tanks and American artillery battered the Japanese divisions – an estimated six to eight are involved in the attack – and newspaper reports said at least three of the 80-odd transports which appeared in the Lingayen Gulf have been sent to the bottom.

Three Japanese transports might carry 3,000 to 5,000 troops. The 80 transports were estimated to have aboard 80,000 to 100,000 troops.

A communique of Far Eastern Army headquarters indicated that invasion fronts were blazing throughout Northern Luzon Island as the Japanese, developing their landing on the gulf coast 110 miles north of the capital, attacked also in the Vigan and Aparri areas.

All remaining infantry, artillery and engineer corps officers were called to colors for immediate active duty today as the combined U.S.-Philippine armies girded for the most savage Japanese attack of the Pacific war.

The Far Eastern headquarters communique said: “Very heavy fighting is going on in the northern front.”

It reported intensified Jap bombing activity and said that eight Japanese planes had been shot down in recent days by three pilots, one a Filipino, the others American.

Lt. Jose Kare, on reconnaissance, shot down a Japanese fighter. Maj. Emmett O’Donnell Jr. of New York City shot down four and Lt. Jack Adams and his crew shot down three.

Many places bombed

An earlier communique had said that principal fighting had taken place yesterday near Santo Tomas, in La Union Province on the Lingayen Gulf coast and that latest reports indicated the U.S.-Philippine forces were holding positions north of Damortis at the north end of the bend on the coast.

An Army spokesman, developing this communique, said Jap planes had been most active throughout Monday and many places had been bombed. Jap planes also supported ground troops in invasion areas.

The spokesman, commenting on the general situation, said it was too early to determine the exact status of fighting.

War Department communique No. 24 issued at Washington today said that Americans and Filipino troops have scored “some initial successes” in the great battle of the Philippines 150 miles north of Manila, but Japanese landing operations are continuing, “supported by increasing numbers of bombing and attack planes.”

Scene of the major engagement is Santo Tomas, which lies between Agoo and San Fernando on the east coast of Lingayen Gulf, where the Japanese have sought to land an estimated 80,000-100,000 troops from 80 troopships.

The communique also reported continuation of fierce fighting in Davao, in Mindanao, southern island of the Philippine Archipelago, where a large number of Jap immigrants gained a foothold years ago.

Three Jap transports destroyed

Manila had a 25-minute air raid alarm and a 33-minute alarm, but no Jap planes appeared over the city.

A dispatch to the newspaper Taliba said three Japanese transports were destroyed by coastal defense guns while trying to approach San Fabian.

Other dispatches reported that artillery was effectively shelling Japanese transports off Agoo, to the north.

These dispatches said that ten or more transports were seen off Agoo yesterday but that no landings were reported.

These reports fitted the War Department communique last night reporting the repulse of two landing attempts near San Fabian.

United States and Philippine defense reinforcements were moving into the Lingayen lines to support the troops under Maj. Gen. Johnathan M. Wainwright, commanding the Central Luzon forces.

It was indicated that fighting steadily was intensifying in fury and broadening in scope. Dispatches reported heavy Jap air raids on San Fabian, Lingayen and Dagupan.

Enemy guides know their way…
Weisblatt: Watches Luzon battle

Reporter at front phones in story amid roar of bombs as Jap barges scrape onto Philippine beaches
By Franz Weisblatt, United Press staff writer

ON THE LINGAYEN FRONT (By Telephone to Manila) – American planes and tanks are blasting at the Japanese invaders only a quarter of a mile from the spot from which I am telephoning this first dispatch from the Philippine fighting front back to Manila.

Overhead I can hear the drone of Japanese planes trying to attack the strong forces which Gen. Douglas MacArthur has assembled on the first big land front of the Philippines.

The Americans are defending a line in the vicinity of Santo Tomas against the attack of Japanese forces landing between Agoo and San Fernando slightly to the north.

As I am telephoning this dispatch, I can hear the roar of battle from the nearby fields where the fighting is underway.

We have tanks here and tough, seasoned Army forces – both American and Filipino. Their morale is high and they are meeting the enemy eagerly.

The Japanese, after getting ashore in 150-man barges from their transports off Lingayen Gulf, infiltrated this area, I learned, evidently guided by someone who knows this territory well.

The battle along this line started yesterday and our forces gave a good account of themselves.

Only two hours ago, Japanese planes attacked a village near this point. Their bombs killed some civilians and wounded others.

As I made my way up to the front from Manila, I watched one Japanese bombing attack less than half a mile away. The planes were blasting at a nearby American fort from an altitude of 25,000 feet.

Second wave

One wave of Jap bombers, the Rising Sun emblem gleaning on their wings, came over to attack. A second wave of six bombers appeared 15 minutes later.

The Jap attack was useless, however. Their bomb salvoes landed in the vicinity of an airfield, but I could see that none of them hit the landing field itself.

American ground defenses at the airdromes defending the Philippines are increasingly effective. One Air Corps officer told me that in the first seven days of the war, the batteries at one field alone accounted for at least 14 Jap attackers.

Farmers stay in fields

As I made my way northward, I saw Filipino farmers in their fields. They were working calmly, harvesting their crops and carrying out their planting as though there was no war within 1000 miles of them.

In the fighting, Col. Salvador Reyes, a divisional chief of staff, was wounded slightly. However, he is remaining at his post.

The American tank forces on this front have been training in this very sector for months. They are a rugged lot of men who know their business and know the terrain of Lingayen as well as their own backyards. They have high confidence in their machines.

Tank downs bomber

I was told that during a Japanese attack on one Philippine air field, four tanks moved out onto the landing ground, and opened fire at a low-flying Japanese bomber, downing it.

Japanese planes then strafed the tanks for half an hour, peppering them with machine gun fire without injuring the tanks. The Japanese bullets, apparently .50 caliber, bounced off the steel hide of the tanks like hail.

Walkout wanes…
Soldiers leave shipyard posts

Strike of welders ‘fizzles’ following rebukes

SAN FRANCISCO (UP) – The Army withdrew soldiers from outside four shipyards today, indicating that it believed a strike, which could have threatened the construction of merchant ships vital to the war effort, had fizzled.

Meanwhile, thousands of AFL shipyard and defense plant workers marched through picket lines without incident. Plant management spokesmen said there was no interruption of work on building naval and commercial ships and producing other armament and defense supplies.

The troops had been called out to see that workmen, particularly welders who wished to work despite the strike of the unaffiliated Brotherhood of Welders, Cutters and Burners were not intimidated by the brotherhood’s pickets.

“They are available for further duty at the plants if the need for them arises,” the Army statement, announcing the withdrawal of troops, said.

The strike is strictly jurisdictional. The welders seek to compel the AFL to grant them a charter for an autonomous union. The boilermakers and other AFL unions now have jurisdiction over them.

Sidney Hillman, associate director of the Office of Production Management, who settled a similar jurisdictional strike of welders four months ago, accused the strikers of betraying their country.

“When American ships are being sunk and enemy ships lurk off our shores, the strike of some welders in West Coast shipyards is a shocking act of disloyalty to the nation,” he said.

The Office of Emergency Management said that of the 8,000 welders employed in the four yards, only 495 responded to the strike call and the plants were operating about normally. Welding is a vital process in shipbuilding and an effective strike of welders could eventually close the yards. The yards are building one billion dollars’ worth of merchant ships for the United States and Great Britain.

Anthony Ballarini, president of the California State Metal Trades Council (AFL), ordered AFL members to go through the picket lines. Ralph Sheafe, spokesman for the welders’ union, professed to regret the withdrawal of troops, saying the picket lines, not the non-striking workers, needed protection. He was afraid “some heads would be broken” when the AFL men went through the lines.

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen

WASHINGTON – John L. Lewis lost no time at the labor-management conference in displaying his personal grudge against Moderator Will Davis. Also, he demonstrated that he and not Phil Murray was the real boss of the CIO delegation.

At the first meeting of the conference – which organized methods of procedure – Mr. Davis, at the request of reporters covering the story, proposed that he be authorized to give the press a daily factual “fill-in.” Shaking his wavy mane, Mr. Lewis, without even a glance at Mr. Murray or the other CIO delegates, immediately objected.

“I don’t think,” rumbled John L. sonorously, “that extemporaneous observations and effusions by certain individuals who like to hear themselves, talk will add to the success of this undertaking.”

“I second that,” piped up George Meany, AFL secretary-treasurer, who also harbors a personal pique at Mr. Davis. Mr. Meany has secret ambitions to be a big shot in the defense labor set-up, is peeved because he hasn’t been given an important position.

NOTE: At his White House session with the delegates, the President shook hands with each of them, including Mr. Lewis, who, with a deadpan expression, said, “How do you do, Mr. President.” To which Mr. Roosevelt, also deadpan, replied, “How do you do, Mr. Lewis.”

Mail early

“If our mailman don’t get fallen arches, I think we’ll make it,” says genial Postmaster-General Frank Walker about the expected record volume of Christmas mail.

Postal authorities are certain it will be the biggest, by far, in history. More than five billion stamps of all denominations were ready for the Yuletide rush – the biggest advance booking on record, and nearly a billion and a half more than last year. To handle this increase, 200,000 extra employees were hired.

Mr. Walker and his aides anticipate that Christmas postal revenue will come to well over 100 million dollars as compared to last year’s record high of $95,704,500.

Because of the tremendous volume of mail, postal officials urgently advise that last-minute Christmas cards and parcels be sent special delivery and airmail. Special deliver letters, gift parcels and perishable matter (so marked) will be delivered on Christmas Day, but there will be no regular mail delivery.

Men under 21

In view of congressional discussion regarding conscription of men under 21, it is interesting to note that during the Civil War the Union Army totaled 2,778,304 men, which 2,159,789 were under 21.

In addition, 104,987 were under 15 years of age; 1,523 were under 14 years of age; and 300 were under 13.

Also there were actually 38 boys in the Union Army from 10 to 11 years old, and 25 boys under the age of 10 – drummers and buglers.

Postscript on Guam

Guam, strategic U.S. “stepping stone” base apparently captured by the Japs, was long a subject of hot controversy between the Navy Department and Congress. For years the Navy tried to get funds to fortify this vital little insular possession and Congress repeatedly blocked the plan.

Characteristic of this congressional shortsightedness was the debate that took place in the House on February 23, 1939, when a Guam appropriation was voted down 205 to 168. Here are a few of the gems uttered that day by some of the congressional master-minds who killed the item:

Rep. John M. Robison of Kentucky, Republican isolationist: “The real danger to our country does not come from Japan. Japan, more than 7000 miles from our shores, and with a navy only two-thirds as large as ours, could make no successful attack on the Hawaiian Islands or continental United States if we mind our own business and stay neutral.”

Rep. James P. Richards, South Carolina Democrat who voted against the neutrality revision bill: “I’m against this appropriation. If you believe in arming for defense, but not in spending $1 to go into foreign seas, 5000 miles away from home, to fortify a position we cannot hold and which is not necessary for the defense of our country, then vote to strike out the Guam provision.”

Rep. William Sutphin, New Jersey Democrat who opposed the neutrality revision bill: “We can avoid a lot of trouble in the future by striking out the fortification of Guam.”

Rep. Earl Michener, Michigan Republican isolationist: “This is not essential to national defense.”

Rep. Joseph Shannon, Missouri isolationist Democrat: “All this oratory about the need of fortifying Guam is a lot of bushwa.”

Others who fought against fortifying Guam were Reps. Ham Fish, Bernard J. Gehrmann; Wisconsin Progressive isolationist; Emmet O’Neal, Kentucky Democrat, and Dewey Short, Missouri isolationist Republican, who last month made a speech demanding the expulsion of Wendell Willkie from the GOP because of his advocacy of war against the Axis.

Capital chaff

The Rockefeller Office is sending to Latin-America more than 100,000 copies of the President’s war radio message, in Spanish and Portuguese. … Rockefeller’s illustrated magazine, En Guardia (“On Guard”) has been stepped up from 80,000 last month to 150,000 this month. It pictures the armed forces of the USA.

McLemore: Give this nation enough Christmas tree putter-uppers and it can never lose!

By Henry McLemore

NEW YORK – I speak today as a husband, a householder and a man whose draft number is nestling in the files of Precinct 22, Ward 15, New York State, New York County, New York City.

If our government wants a Selective Service measure that will bring the cream of the country’s manhood to the colors it has only to do this:

Pass a bill that requires every male who has ever successfully put up a Christmas tree to report for active service.

Any man who has ever mastered a Christmas tree, any man who has ever surmounted the mental and physical problems of choosing the proper tree, getting it in the front door, getting it to stand up, and getting it decently decorated, is the type of man Uncle Sam needs most in a crisis.

Any man who has ever been able to step back and admire a Christmas tree, complete with decorations and with every little light burning, is the perfect fighting specimen. Having conquered a Christmas tree, he would never be afraid to tackle such a minor item as a Jap, a German, or an Italian. He is of necessity a man of courage, action and tenacity. He has the will to carry on in the face of heart-breaking obstacles.

To prove my point, let me carry you through the ordeal of a man who has to arrange for a Christmas tree for his home. First he must be a man of decision. No man is ever shown one Christmas tree. The salesman leads him into a forest of trees, each prettier than the other, and asks that he make a selection.

Transportation problem

Then there is the problem of transportation. No matter what tree a man finally chooses, it won’t fit into anything that was ever made by the auto manufacturers. Nature and Detroit do not work together. If it fits in the car it isn’t big enough for the living room, and vice versa. Nature always wins, so, he winds up putting a half-Nelson on a tree and forcing it into the car.

The drive home with an undomesticated Christmas tree in the car brings out the best in a man. He has to shift gears with leaves in his ears. branches jabbing him in the neck, and the small insects which always come with Christmas trees for no extra charge, setting up housekeeping on his person. Then he arrives home. This is supposed to be his refuge, his haven of peace, but it isn’t. Someone always meets him with an exclamation like this:

“Where do you expect to put that redwood? John, you know that won’t fit in any room we have. You go right back and exchange it for a smaller tree.”

John is now ready for the kill.

Invariably too tall

“This tree is coming in the House or the house is coming down,” he shouts. With that he charges toe ward the front door, with the tree held in the manner of a medieval battering ram. He finally gets is into the living room. For the first time he sees that the tree is about three feet too tall.

Now comes another difficult decision – which end to cut off. If the tree is trimmed from the top it will lose all of its Christmasy-tree shape and take on a bush appearance. If it is sawed off from the bottom it will lose its majesty and seem to squat on the floor like a frightened thing.

Following the sawing off comes the problem of making it stand up. A tree seems to lose its pride when brought into a house and does not give a rap about standing straight. I have seen trees which actually appeared tired, and which would attempt to lean against the wall or on the shoulders of passers-by.

The only way to make a dispirited tree stand up indoors is to resort to nails, wooden braces, boxes, tubs, etc. It takes a stern, relentless man to bring these into play and half tear up the living room floor.

Decorating a tree, once it has been made to stand straight, is a task that calls for the dare-deviltry of a steeplejack, the skill of a skyscraper window washer, and the desperation of a cornered squirrel. To do this a man must make three or four dive-for-life leaps from a ladder, balance himself precariously on chairs and occasionally crash to the floor with a gaudy necklace of bulbs and candles entwined about him.

But today the homes of America have Christmas trees. There must be millions of them rearing their heads against the ceilings of living rooms.

This is a tribute to American men.

Give this nation enough regiments of Christmas tree putter-uppers and it can never lose.

Flier from New Brighton tells of Philippine exploit

Says Jap guns tried to riddle him after bailing out

War may mean a lot of things to a lot of people – but to Lt. Walter L. Coss of New Brighton, Pa., it brought an experience as unique as a Hollywood scenarist’s dream. First, the 24-year-old Carnegie Tech graduate was shot out of the air as a formation of Japanese planes swooped down on him over northern Luzon.

Then, he was machine-gunned as he floated down in a parachute and even as he swam 150 yards to shore after landing in a stream.

Walked seven days

And to top it all off, he was obliged to walk seven days through the Philippine jungles before he could get back to his base – only an hour’s flying time away.

The dark-haired Air Corps pilot, who once operated an amateur radio station in New Brighton, related his experience in a splendid broadcast from Manila last night.

“I was out on scout duty,” he said, “when I ran into a formation of Japanese planes and had my own plane crippled.

“I was forced to bail out but even as I took to my parachute the Japs continued to machine-gun me.

Machine-gunned while swimming

“The parachute worked all right but I landed out in a stream about 150 yards from shore. Those fellows came back again and started peppering the water with machine-gun bullets as I swam.

“I thought if I could swim under water I could fool them into thinking I was shot so I did so but it was awfully difficult because I had trouble getting my ‘chute off and I was still fully clothed.”

Lt. Coss said he finally got ashore safely – “their aim was poor” – but that he felt “very cold and wet.”

Meets Filipino pair

He said he wandered along for a few minutes before bumping into a pair of Philippine natives who inhabit the mountain jungles of northern Luzon.

“They were very friendly,” he continued. “For seven days, they led me through the mountains over trails that I could never have found myself.”

The natives worked in relays, he explained, with one group leading him only so far before turning him over to another group.

“But I had to walk the whole distance,” he mused. “I don’t know how far I walked.

‘Worn out but okay’

“It took me one hour to fly out from my base to the place where I was shot down, but it took me seven days to walk back. My feet are terribly blistered and I was awfully worn out, but other than that everything’s okay.

“Right now I’d like to wish everyone in America – and especially my family and friends in Western Pennsylvania – a Merry Christmas.”

Lt. Coss, the son of Dr. and Mrs. W. L. Coss, of 1109 Third Ave., New Brighton, was graduated from Carnegie Tech as an electrical engineer in June 1939.

He enlisted in the Air Corps a few weeks later and was commissioned at second lieutenant in March 1940. He was promoted to a first lieutenant November 1.

Poll: Nazis called bigger threat than Japanese

Germany is ‘core,’ Tokyo ‘puppet,’ according to balloting
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

PRINCETON, New Jersey – Many American observers have feared that public attention would become so fixed on the war against Japan that the country might underestimate the importance of aid to Britain and Russia, or forget that the Japanese war is only part of a world conflagration.

These observers argue that the big job ahead is to beat Germany and that the Axis group cannot be decisively defeated until that is accomplished.

While military strategists are the ones to determine the merits of this contention, the attitude of the public is nevertheless an important factor. In order to determine how public thinking is oriented to the two wars, the American Institute of Public Opinion has undertaken a nation-wide survey of attitudes on the issue.

Germany greater threat

The results shows that the public, whether rightly or wrongly, accepts the point of view that at the present time Germany, rather than Japan, is the greater threat to the future of the United States.

The study was conducted during the period December 11-19 on the following issue:

“Which country is the greater threat to Americas future – Germany or Japan?”

The results are:


Believe Germany the greater threat	64%
Believe Japan the greater threat	15%
Believe they are equal threats	15%
Undecided	6%

A survey on the same general issue was conducted simultaneously among Canadian voters.

The majority of Canadians likewise look upon the European front as the more important, but not to the same extent as Americans do.


European and African Front	51%
Pacific Front	32%
Undecided	17%

In the United States, the voters who singled out Germany as the greater threat gave two main reasons – that Germany is the “core,” the “driving force” of the Axis, while Japan is the “puppet,” and that Germany’s aims are world-wide.

On the other hand, those who expressed greater fear of Japan pointed out that the Japanese are in a better position geographically to inflict damage on the United States, and that Germany has her hands full now.

U.S. air volunteers praised by Chinese

CHUNGKING, Dec. 21 (UP, Delayed) – A high government spokesman at Kunming, Yunnan Province, terminus of China’s supply road from Burma, today described American volunteer airmen who shot down four Japanese bombers as “the most efficient combat group in the world today.”

The American volunteers, he said, fought off Japanese planes making their first attempt to bomb the Burma Road since the start of the Pacific war.

“They downed four fast, heavy bombers without scratching a single defender and prevented hundreds of deaths in Kunming. Their greatest desire, it seems, is to have more Japanese call on us,” he said.

Alaska militia voted

WASHINGTON – The Senate today passed by unanimous voice vote a bill to authorize creation of militia forces in Alaska. Chairman Robert R. Reynolds, D-North Carolina, of the Military Affairs Committee said the measure was needed to provide forces for guarding important defense facilities and plants in the territories.

Eagle dies in action

LONDON – Robert Patterson of Richmond, Virginia, a member of the American Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force, has been killed in action, it was learned today.

Boston Harbor mined

WASHINGTON – The Navy Hydrographic Office warned today that the approaches to Boston Harbor have been mined.

Welles to attend parley

WASHINGTON – Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles will represent the United States at the Rio de Janeiro consultation of American foreign ministers next month, the State Department said today.

Maureen O’Hara to wed

HOLLYWOOD – Maureen O’Hara, Irish screen star, and Will Price, film dialogue director, announced today that they will be married December 29.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 10:18am

Aloha to glamor…
Casey: Blackout in paradise

Hawaii, invisible by night, militarized by day, becomes ‘frontline’ of U.S. defense
By Robert J. Casey

On the heels of his epic coverage of America’s chain of air bases in Alaska, Robert J. Casey is now in Hawaii to report American conduct of the war against Japan from that Pacific outpost.

HONOLULU, Dec. 21 (Delayed) – Some 2,500 funerals are finished. Temporarily at least, there seems to be an end to murder in paradise. And, visiting skeptics are pleased to report, this front-line outpost of the United States is getting on with the war.

Since the ghastly morning of December 7, one gets to this place only with difficulty. Thereafter one circulates with even greater difficulty about this strangest and most tragically indescribable battleground that the spread of the Nazi idea and the rising ambitions of the Honorable Son of Heaven have produced.

As one might expect in a region where peace has been a habit and of a people who, like their relatives on the mainland, governed their lives on the principle “they can’t do that to us,” the business of civil defenses has been crammed into the public craw with palliatives. When you are prepared in advance for trouble, you may contrive to hold out a few of your individual rights. When you have not bothered to prepare, you find your personal privileges, if any, blacked out by the general need of the community.

Invisible by night

And – you go to bed at 7 o’clock at night in a room as dark as a black cat – it is no solace to think that things might have been different if you had learned anything from what you read in the newspapers about places like Rotterdam and London and Crete.

This, my friends, is the most completely militarized civil community by day and the most nearly invisible by night that you will find anywhere among the warring nations of the world.

It took England more than a year to educate the home folks in the belief that the war was going to be of any importance in their lives. France never got around to it before the Germans came in. Honolulu, on the other hand, was convinced in a matter of hours. And even if you don’t know anything about Hawaii except what you’ve seen in the cinema, that should be startling.

What a change

As recently as two weeks ago, this was still a land of “dolce far niente” where Hollywood beauties sunned themselves on the terraces of swank hotels and honey-voiced ukulele players serenaded sentimental old ladies on the moonlit beach and ornamental native girls slunk about with gardenias in their hair and wreaths of ginger blossom about their necks. Song drifted over the waters on the languorous breezes far into the perfumed night.

Today this is a place where – because of government requisition – you can’t buy drugs over the prescription counter, or photo film in a camera store, a place where you have to get a permit from the army to buy a radio set.

Movie houses play only matinee performances. Stores close early afternoon. The lazy life of the decorative beaches is finished unless it can be compressed between daylight and 6 o’clock in the afternoon.

Switches pulled

The sun goes down at 6 o’clock and then, with the abruptness of the tropics, it is night, the main supply switches are pulled in all hotels, clubs and apartment buildings. There are no street lights – not even crossing markers. Buses, street cars and taxicabs quit running. And that is not all: in this most complete of all blackouts, no civilian may walk abroad without the risk of being shot. The curfew is just as strict as the blackout and just as effective.

A few hotels have lighted lobbies where male guests, unable to go to sleep at 6 or 7 o’clock, sit about reading old magazines, and women, the diehard remnants of the winter colony, do their endless knitting.

All bars and liquor stores in town are closed as tightly as Yokohama Specie Bank, and this time prohibition really works. You can’t buy a flashlight or a flashlight battery anywhere in town and even if you aren’t allowed to wander about the darkened streets, this shortage is serious. You have to have some sort of torch to find your room in the hotel.

Fifth column responsible

The strict rules governing the circulation of civilians after nightfall have derived, of course, from the activities of the large and healthy fifth column that flourished here under the protective coloration of one of the largest Japanese populations in the world outside Japan.

The problem of dealing with these nationals has been made more difficult by the fact that there are so many American-born citizens of Japanese extraction. Some of these are passionately loyal. Some aren’t. And nobody seems to know which is which.

This has resulted in a definite attempt to treat enemy aliens here with consideration – not to say kindness. “Such people are not criminals,” announces an army order issued yesterday (Saturday).

Jap stores still open

Japanese stores are still running in Honolulu and elsewhere on the islands just as they always did with the possible exception that they can no longer do business with Japanese banks. And this, despite the widespread belief hereabouts that many of the raiding airmen who took part in the Pearl Harbor massacre were graduates of local high schools.

It is even more surprising that the extent and quality of the blackout and the effectiveness of the military supervision of what passes for normal civil life is the reaction of a people suddenly and completely subjected to this almost intolerable regime. They have recovered from their first shocked surprise at the discovery that United States territory was not protected by some mysterious hocus-pocus against armed invasion and that a so-called civilized power is not necessarily debarred from committing mass murder while suing for peace.

The jitters one might have expected do not show in any of the activities of the people, including Christmas shopping. But they are definitely wary, not to say uneasy.

It can happen again

They are completely convinced that an attack so unscrupulously conceived and so cold-bloodedly executed as that of December 7 may well be attempted again. And this time, they place little credence in the theory that the Japanese will recognize the hopelessness of a major operation on this side of the Pacific.

If the bombers come, the populace now knows that it will be bombed without warning as it was bombed before, for there are no stretches of land – such as the approaches to London – over which the invader must fly before he suddenly bursts out of the clouds over Diamond Head.

More army chiefs reported ‘purged’ for balking Hitler

Fuehrer believed ready to defy best brains of Germany and take desperate gamble after ousting two other marshals as one quits
By Frederick Kuh, United Press staff writer

LONDON (UP) – Indications multiplied today that Adolf Hitler may be embarking on a desperate gamble in an attempt to make up for his losses in Russia.

At the moment when President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill were discussing Allied strategy in Washington, when Britain and Russia were discussing policy at Moscow and inter-Allied delegates were discussing problems of grand strategy at Chungking, the Chinese temporary capital, there came indications from all over Europe that Hitler might strike on a new front in defiance of the best brains of the German High Command.

Refuse German demands

Every evidence of rapid progress toward coordination of Allied strategy was matched by signs of a serious division in the German High Command.

It was reported in private and reliable reports from Europe that Vichy France had refused German demands that it enter fully the Axis front; today it was reported here that Sweden had three times within the past month refused German demands for passage of troops across Sweden to Finland.

Zurich dispatches reported that in addition to the dismissal of Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, commander-in-chief of the German Army, Hitler had dismissed Field Marshals Fedor von Bock, commanding the Central Russian Front, and Gerd von Rundstedt, commanding the Southern Front, and that Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, commanding the Northern Front, had offered his resignation.

Three possibilities of German offensive action were foreseen if Hitler desired to strike – a thrust through Spain to French North Africa, a thrust through Turkey to the Russian Caucasus and a direct attack on Britain.

A News Chronical Zurich dispatch reported as from Vichy that German troops had been moving through occupied France to Spain for a week, and that the Spanish Bay of Biscay frontier had been closed to ordinary traffic.

Madrid reported that Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador to Spain, left yesterday for Berlin, and the Berlin correspondent of the Madrid afternoon newspaper “Madrid” in hinting at forthcoming surprises, said that even if Russia were snowbound there exists for Germany another theater of war in North Africa.”

Since last week the chief civil and military officials of French North Africa have been conferring with the Vichy government.

See Axis activity in Africa

United Press Malta dispatch asserted that since the recent dismissal by Vichy of Gen. Maxime Weygand, French commander-in-chief in Africa, preparations had increased “a hundred-fold” in North Africa to receive and supply German and Italian armies on French colonial soil.

This dispatch asserted that British air reconnaissance over Western Libya had shown a two-way flow of trucks along fine military highways between Libya and French Tunisia.

It was asserted also that there were indications that guns moved at Italy’s demand from the Tunisia defense ling opposite Libya, were now being put back into commission, under supervision of the German armistice commission, to cover a possible withdrawal of Axis troops from Libya into Tunisia.

Von Papen busy in Turkey

Malta quoted a French citizen, recently escaped from Tunisia, as reporting a steady influx of German staff officers.

Suspicion, rather than evidence, interested diplomatic quarters in the possibility of a German attack on Turkey. This suspicion was intensified by reports that Baron Franz von Papen, the German ambassador to Turkey, had given eloquent assurances to Turkey recently that Germany was her friend. Von Papen yesterday saw President Ismet Inonu, in the presence of Foreign Minister Sukru Saracoglu, radio broadcasts asserted. There was one report that Von Papen also saw Premier Refik Saydam.

Nazi airmen move south

Information reached a responsible Turkish source here today that the Germans continued to strengthen their garrisons in Southeastern Europe, especially their air force.

It was asserted that a very large number of German planes had arrived in Crete, the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece, the small Aegean Sea islands and Bulgaria, all within striking distance of Turkey.

Informants were uncertain whether these reported German moves were aimed at Turkey or North Africa, or even at other Middle Eastern objectives.

Simms: Allied council due to result from parleys

War strategy board may grow out of White House meeting
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

WASHINGTON – The conferences which began here today between American officials and Prime Minister Churchill, Minister of Supply Lord Beaverbrook and their entourage, following their secret arrival last night, are expected to:

Lay the foundations for a supreme war council to work out the grand overall strategy of the war in all parts of the world.
Create an inter-Allied munitions board or material authority, to pool resources and allocate them, where, in the supreme war council’s opinion, they are most needed.
Create five fronts and designate commanders-in-chief for each of these fronts.

Pacific front under U.S.

It is believed these will be the Atlantic Front, the Pacific Front, the Russian Front (including Siberia), the Middle and Near Eastern Front, and the China Front.

The Atlantic Front, it is felt, would be under British command, whether in Britain or at sea. American and other forces there would take orders accordingly.

In the Pacific, an American would naturally be in command, the British and Dutch receiving their instructions from him.

All Allied forces in Russia would be under the command of Moscow’s choice, whereas in China the commander-in-chief probably would be Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek.

Cooperation expected

Military and naval men here do not believe the situation lends itself to the designation of a Ferdinand Foch as in 1918. The theaters of war are far too separated. But they do feel that unity of command in each individual theater of conflict should be agreed upon.

On the other hand, a supreme war council could well sit at one place – Washington perhaps – and work out the broad plan of action. Once it had reached an understanding, the commander-in-chief of the sector concerned would be given his orders accordingly. All forces under the battle chief, regardless of nationality, would be expected to cooperate.

Prime Minister Churchill’s secret journey to Washington did not surprise insiders here. He was known to have “disappeared” days ago from London, and his trips within the British Isles are always well publicized. The last time he dropped out of sight was when he and President Roosevelt met in the Atlantic.

Invasion story cited

That plans were afoot to create an inter-Allied war council was also well known, and this would be difficult without a second meeting of the executive heads of the two great Anglo-American nations.

But there may be another be somewhat sensational reason why Mr. Churchill lost little time coming to the United States. It has to do with Adolf Hitler. Reports have reached London that the break between the Fuehrer and General Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, commander-in-chief of the German forces, was over England. Hitler is said to have told von Brauchitsch to invade Britain, and von Brauchitsch to have replied that it would be folly to try it. The Fuehrer insisted and others of the general staff supported the commander-in-chief. Whereupon Hitler fired von Brauchitsch and took over the command himself.

If this story is true, Britain may be in for an early attempt at invasion. It would also cause Prime Minister Churchill to want to get the supreme war council going at the earliest possible moment.

Lucey: Secrecy-plus shrouds visit of Churchill

Newspaper ‘death watch’ follows tip on prime minister’s arrival
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Secrecy beyond anything the White House has attempted in years veiled the arrival of Winston Churchill for his conversations with President Roosevelt to “plan the defeat of Hitlerism throughout the world.”

The stakes were high, of course – the very safety of one of the war’s great leaders. In Washington, as in London, there had been rumors for days:

Mr. Churchill had seen Mr. Roosevelt and was already back in England…

Mr. Churchill had lunched at the White House on Monday…

Mr. Churchill had arrived off the Delaware coast, and a 21-gun salute had been heard at Cape Henlopen.

Editor passes tip

The rumors began to be something more than rumors Saturday when a Canadian editor passed along a tip about a probable arrival of the prime minister at Annapolis, on Chesapeake Bay. Newspaper photographers rushed there, and some remained over the week-end. A newspaper “death watch” began at the White House. Early Monday, by official request, the photographers were called away from Annapolis.

By late Monday afternoon, the White House press room began to fill, but no one had anything very definite. The State Department referred queries to the White House, and the White House would confirm nothing. At 6 o’clock, it was said, there might be an announcement.

Just before 6 there was a press release about a board for joint Canadian cooperation in war planning. Reporters grabbed for it, read the first few words, went back to their vigil.

Climax comes at last

Six o’clock came and no release. None at 6:30. The crowd of newspapermen, passed through a heavy guard at the gate of the White House grounds, grew steadily.

One of the girl secretaries in the office of Presidential Secretary Stephen T. Early darted into the room where the reporters waited, and they surged toward her.

But she merely wanted a cigarette. She got it, and the crowd subsided.

At last came the climax, just before 7 o’clock, with newspapermen and White House staff members crowding into Mr. Early’s office.

Steve Early had been sitting on big stores for years, but never was he more exacting than now.

To each of two doors of his office he dispatched a girl assistant.

“No one leaves the room,” he warned, “until I say go – and I can’t say go until I get word over that phone.”

Breaks news in London

Carefully he explained that Sir Gerald Campbell, head of the British press service in this country, was at that moment breaking the news in London by telephone. When the call came, he could release it here.

Almost at once the telephone rang, and Steve Early gave out the news – that the prime minister of Great Britain, he began, was now with the president in the White House. He had arrived by air and Mr. Roosevelt had come to a nearby air field to meet him. With him were Lord Beaverbrook and a technical staff.

“There is a statement by the president which, insofar as he can at the present, outlines the purposes…”

The conference was over and Mr. Early’s desk ornaments were turned topsy-turvy in the rush for copies of the announcement. Secrecy, temporarily, was ended. Outside, the guards clanged shut the great iron gates. The lights burned late at the White House.

Stokes: Lobbying stirs capital’s legal circles

Bar assn. aroused, plans curb on ‘influence practice’ in defense contracts
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Leaders of the District of Columbia Bar have become aroused over the so-called “influence practice” in defense contracts, currently being aired by congressional committees.

As a result, an effort will be made to curb this widespread abuse to protect the public, businessmen, and members of the legal profession here, upon whom an unwarranted reflection is cast by the operations of the “influence” crew.

Many of those in the “influence practice” are not even lawyers. Many lawyers practicing before government agencies have never been admitted to practice in Washington. These run into hundreds.

In the latter category is Thomas G. Corcoran, who, though making much of his legal capacities in his defense before the Truman Committee, has never taken the trouble to have himself admitted to practice here.

Campaign nears climax

The campaign to eradicate the “influence” abuse will come to a head at the meeting next month of the District of Columbia Bar Association when an advisory committee of nine, headed by Kenneth N. Parkinson, will recommend that the association again seek enactment of a measure which passed the Senate several years ago but lost in the House.

This bill, then presented by Mr. Parkinson as chairman of the local Bar Association’s Committee on Unauthorized Practice, would prohibit the use of the expressions “attorney,” “attorney-at-law,” “lawyer,” “counsellor-at-law,” etc., unless those who use it are in fact members of the Bar of the District of Columbia and subject to its discipline.

The bill also would meet the problem raised by the vague group variously labeled “experts,” “counsellors,” “consultants,” etc. by requiring that they stale on their stationery and in advertising their true status.

‘Haven of refuge created’

The Treasury now makes admission to the District of Columbia Bar, through the U.S. District Court, a prerequisite to practice before the Treasury. But no other department has such a requirement.

Discussing the situation in Washington, Mr. Parkinson said in a recent address that “there is thus created a haven of refuge within this district, a soft spot, where those who are so inclined may, through the absence of statutory restriction. carry on the practice of law by actually handling legal problems, when they are not lawyers in fact, or if in fact, not members of the Bar in this district.

Gates wide open

“As the result, you have lobbyists, who in instances have operated under the guise of lawyers; you have so-called experts, in some instances real experts, who have gained certain experience within the confines of the government of the United States and have retired from its services, and under the guise of being attorneys-at-law or lawyers when in fact they are not.

“In other words, you have the gates wide open for every form of chiseler and racketeer to seek to mislead or misguide you and others beyond the confines of the District of Columbia, into the belief that as a lawyer he possesses certain experience of value to you, or has certain contacts of influence which he can make available to you.”

Babies die of exposure; young mother accused

SYRACUSE, New York (UP) – Mrs. Beatrice Felicia, a 20-year-old mother, was charged today with first-degree manslaughter in the deaths of her two babies, Beatrice, 2, and Cosmo, 1.

The babies were alleged to have died from exposure to sub-zero temperatures when their mother had left them at home for “several hours” to visit her husband in a hospital.

When she returned the fire had gone out.

Wallace stresses enduring victory

BOSTON (UP) – The Democracies under leadership of the United States and Great Britain must “build a world in which our human and material resources are used to the utmost” to achieve an enduring victory and a permanent peace, Vice President Henry A. Wallace said today.

“The overthrow of Hitler is only half the battle,” he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in an article titled, “Foundations of the Peace.”

An Allied victory, Mr. Wallace said, will give the world a “second chance to organize its affairs on a basis of human decency and mutual welfare.”

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 10:43am

Complete victory claimed at Davao by Tokyo radio

TOKYO (UP, Official Broadcasts) – Imperial Headquarters said today that Japanese troops have been in complete occupation of Davao on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines since Saturday.

Headquarters said the Japanese occupied Davao the same day they landed. Naval units were reported cooperating closely in Southern Philippine operations where enemy casualties up to Sunday included 200 killed and 600 prisoners.

The Japanese admitted that the British garrison in Hong Kong still was withstanding terrific aerial and artillery onslaughts, but said slashing attacks were crushing its resistance.

Advance in Western Malaya

Japanese news agency reports from Indo-China said the Japanese had advanced in Western Malaya to within 15 miles of Ipoh, an important mining and communications center.

A German broadcast said that in Northwest Malaya the British were retreating from positions at Perak and that Japanese reinforcements were moving by bus down the Perak valley.

German reports also quoted the Japanese newspaper Nichi Nichi as saying that in fighting at Hong Kong yesterday, the Japanese took 714 prisoners, most of them Canadians and Indians.

Japanese forces were said to be attacking “the last British strongholds in Hong Kong.” At Mt. Cameron, located near the center of the island, the capture of a semi-permanent fort was claimed in a fierce attack which began last midnight.

The sea and air surrounding the island were said to be in complete Japanese control.

Premier Hideki Tojo, in his capacity as war minister, and Navy Minister Shigetaro Shimada gave detailed reports on the first two weeks of the war at today’s regular cabinet meeting.

Radio Berlin, recounting the fortnight’s hostilities, said some 50 enemy warships and 425 merchant vessels and other ships of all tonnages have been either seized, sunk or severely damaged by the Japanese. It said 776 enemy aircraft had been shot down and destroyed on the ground.

Japan’s losses, the German radio said, quoting Domei (Japanese) News Agency, were one destroyer and a mine sweeper sunk; one light cruiser and mine sweeper heavily damaged; 75 aircraft lost and five submarines unreported.

Japanese propaganda claimed that the “American and British plan to blockade Japan has been knocked into a cocked hat” and said the Navy now was in position to counter-blockade all those countries. Early successes have cut off rubber supplies from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies to Britain and the United States.

Radio Berlin said the Japanese had taken over oil wells intact in Borneo. Natives, who hindered British efforts to destroy the wells, “offered their services at once to Japan,” it said.

Domei announced that Japanese troops advancing down the Malay Peninsula now were 15 miles northwest of Ipoh, on the east coast, nearly 300 miles north of Singapore. It pointed out that the fall of Ipoh would open a modern road leading to the British stronghold.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 11:03am

Fifth U.S. ship shelled off coast of California

Unidentified sub attacks oil tanker, which is able to make dock 50 miles away

SAN FRANCISCO (UP) – Twelfth Naval District headquarters announced today an unidentified submarine shelled the Richfield tanker Larry Doheny off Estero Bay today.

The submarine, presumably Japanese, did not sink the Doheny – which was able to dock at Estero Bay.

It was the fifth submarine attack on U.S. shipping off the California coast since Thursday morning.

50 miles off coast

The attack on the Doheny was 50 miles north of Point Arguello where a submarine shelled the Standard Oil tanker H. M. Storey yesterday morning.

Army and Navy bombers may have sunk two of the Japanese submarines preying on coastwise shipping within sight of the California shore, witnesses indicated today.

Seamen who survived the attacks on four unarmed, unprotected ships and a resident who watched one of the attacks from her seacoast home, revealed that in two instances, the bombers who answered pleas for help arrived while the submarines still were in the vicinity and that, in both cases, their depth bombs produced terrific explosions, indicating that perhaps they had found their mark.

Army, Navy silent

The Navy and Army, however, kept mum on their activities and gave out no information regarding possible success of their night and day hunt for the submarines which approached within two miles of shore to attack American vessels.

They failed to sink any but severely damaged the tanker Emidio, killed five of its seamen and injured five.

The survivors said two Army bombing planes were overheard 10 minutes after the ship issued its first SOS as it was 20 miles off Cape Mendocino, Cal., Saturday.

Depth charge dropped

“The submarine must have heard or seen them for it ceased firing and submerged,” they said. “One of the planes flew over the spot and dropped a depth charge. The planes wheeled and came back and one of them dropped another depth charge. That produced another explosion but we couldn’t tell whether the charge hit the submarine.”

Besides the 6,912-ton General Petroleum tanker Emidio and the 9,838-ton Storey, the attacked ships were the 6,771-ton Richfield Oil tanker SS Agwiworld and the 1,172-ton lumber carrier SS Samoa.

All the attacks were similar. The submarines first were sighted operating on the surface. From point-blank range, they shelled the vessels but missed in all cases except that of the Emidio. Then they submerged and fired torpedoes, which also missed all vessels except the Emidio.

Three lost in shelling

Three seamen were lost when the Japanese submarine shelled the Emidio’s lifeboats as they were launched over the side, spilling the crew members into the sea. Two were killed in the engine room by the enemy torpedo.

A Navy communique from Washington set the number of men missing from the Emidio at 22.

The survivors reported that the Emidio was running south Saturday afternoon en route from Seattle to San Francisco when crew members sighted a submarine on the surface about a quarter of a mile away.

“As we watched, it began approaching us swiftly,” they reported. Then it opened fire. One of the first shots struck the radio antenna and carried it away. Other shots struck lifeboats which were in their slings on deck.

Other sinkings announced

“The captain ordered us to take to the lifeboats. Three of the crew were attempting to launch one boat when a shell struck it, spilling them into the water. Other lifeboats were put over the side to search for the three missing men.

“Before the antenna had been snapped, Sparks (the radio operator) managed to get out an SOS.”

The Navy also announced the sinking by a Japanese submarine of the freighter Lahaina December 11 near Hawaii with the loss of two lives.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 11:24am

The outlook for 1942…
American industry ready, NAM president declares

Price control, fair labor laws asked; non-arms production needed
By William P. Witherow, President, National Association of Manufacturers

America faces a war year. Only by planning their lives with care can Americans contribute their utmost in time and energy towards the final victory. To help them plan, outstanding men in government and industry have written six analytical articles, of which the one below is the third.

NEW YORK – The year 1942 will burn the last of the fat off the muscles that have made America great.

Not that American industry has much fat left since 1929. From then through 1940, industry as a whole spent 30 billions of dollars of its reserves to keep going, to keep business alive, to give men jobs.

That sacrifice proves now to be one of the strengths of the nation. The fact that during the good years industry had been able to save up some fat on which it could live through the bad years proved one of the present strengths of the nation. When the call came to build defense an industry still existed that could go to work speedily and effectively.

New workers needed

Now the call is to build armaments and equipment for war, and industry is its very life blood.

It will be an aggressive war. America, armed by industry, will carry the fight.

In the large that will be the whole story of 1942.

The basic industries are, whenever possible, going into a 168-hour week. Some have already been able to do it. It is necessary to find and train new supplies of workers – both men and women.

Every factory and every industrialist who can service the basic industries in any way will try to do the same thing. That means all of the sub-contractors on war goods down to the smallest employer whose managerial skill and equipment can help to make a tool.

Non-defense plants vital

But there is another body of industry. These are the factories which cannot make war goods or any part of any item of war goods, because they do not have and cannot get the equipment.

They also have their duty to perform. To the degree that workers are available and to the extent of materials that can be used without interfering in any way with the production of war goods, these factories will work as hard to support American morale as the war industries will work to keep our fighting forces and our allies armed.

Americans cannot work without the goods and services to keep their daily lives supplied, any more than fighting men can fight without the ships, tanks, airplanes, guns, small-arms and ammunition to fight with.

Must profit by mistakes

Since the fall of France, England has done a truly magnificent job in turning its national industrial plant over to war production. But now England has learned that such transformation can be too absolute. The strength of the nation is sapped if supplying the needs of living of the people is cut too fine. There is danger that during 1942 America may lose its head and repeat England’s mistake.

We in America must benefit from all the experiences of the last two years in Europe and not repeat the same delaying mistakes in any field of endeavor. This applies to tactics, strategy, armament, government prosecution of the war program. Inflation is already with us. There is no point in chiding Congress for its dilly-dallying with a price control law. The law it toyed with would not have solved much.

Fair play expected

War conditions demand a price control law that covers all sections and elements of prices including wages, rents, interest and service charges, and agricultural products – which are food. That means sacrifice, but equal sacrifice for everybody. The year 1942 will prove that industry was right in asking for such a law in 1941.

Industry confidently expects that there will be no defense-crippling strikes during 1942. All America is at war, not just a part of America – at war for its life. Government should seek to make labor laws fair to both employer and employee and thus induce them to settle their differences without strikes in the interest of maximum war production.

Industry asks one thing from its fellow Americans during the storms of 1942. It asks fair play. In return it offers maximum armament production with a minimum production of delay. To win the victory freedom this must be so!

Allied chiefs realize role of Singapore

Asiatic base called key to Mediterranean as well as Pacific
By Thomas M. Johnson

WASHINGTON – The organization, in Washington, of a supreme war council to direct the Allies’ grand strategy of the war is, essentially, born of the recognition by military and naval leaders of the fact that this greatest of wars is all one war.

The Atlantic and the Pacific are not compartments, but complements. So when the Allied strategists meet around the green-covered table, their first attention will be given to the following things:

Singapore is the key, not only to the Far East, but indirectly to the Mediterranean theater. It is Japan’s prime objective, because victory there means far more to the Japs than does even victory in the Philippines. And it means more to us in the long run.

Base is 15-yard line

To the anti-Axis team, the Philippines are the 40-yard line and Singapore is the 15-yard line.

Singapore is the great crossroad of the Far East, and on that crossroad is not only our tin and rubber supply. but one of the world’s great oil filling stations. To hurl back Hitler from the Caucasus oil country is not enough unless we also hurl back Japan from the Indies. Sabotage of oil wells could be repaired in a long war; oil could be taken through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, which then had become an Axis lake.

Not all at once, of course. First steps would be to use Singapore as a base against ships bearing precious war supplies from America, Australia and India to the “new arsenal of democracy” we are establishing in Northeast Africa. All this is the only place south of Hawaii where our battle fleet can base.

Hasten new ships

That is why, to play our part on the anti-Axis team, we are hastening to replace our own losses in ships and stores. Guam’s loss hampers the air ferry, but heroic Wake and Midway are still there and so is unadvertised Samoa.

Important on the sea ferry is another unmentioned island – Cocos. That ancient pirate haunt becomes, through Costa Rica’s war declaration, a treasure for the defenders of our great ferry-house at Panama.

Off the Canal’s Pacific entrance, tiny Cocos is now a warning station against what struck Hawaii – dawn air attack from carriers sneaking up overnight.

Picture looks different

Panama, Singapore, the Philippines; those three loom large in talk around the green-cloth table. There the Philippine picture looks a little different than in the headlines. Perspectives have changed since we drew our defense policy for the 7000 islands. Under our former policy we would give up 6999, fight delaying actions and scorch the earth everywhere save on Luzon where we would concentrate defense.

It was thought that if the Japanese could not take Manila, nothing else would matter, because our Pacific Fleet was stronger than theirs and would sink theirs and starve out Japan. Or if the Japanese did take it, we would take it back later. We were so sure of this that some thought we should not defend the islands at all – just come back and pick them up after we had beaten Japan.

That was the old plan. It was dropped when Gen. Douglas MacArthur persuaded Presidents Roosevelt and Quezon that the islands could be held. But now come Pearl Harbor and airpower.

Landings important

The intention back of the separated Jap landings in parts of the islands that in old wars seemed remote and insignificant may be to use them as takeoffs for bombing of the Manila area, especially of our naval installations.

These are important right now, for while Manila, unlike Singapore, is not equipped as a major fleet base, it is a submarine base. And our submarines are among the world’s best.

The 111 in commission are being increased rapidly (the confidential figures are astounding) and nearly fifty can cruise 12,000 to 20,000 miles allowing plenty of time to lurk in the Sea of Japan or off Malaya.

That is Japan’s weakness; she is all spread out: Malaya, Philippines, Indo-China, Manchukuo; and mostly spread all over the water.

‘Lose’ new word for Axis radio

Foe propagandists change tune on broadcasts
By Si Steinhauser

Take this for what it’s worth: Italian and Nazi newscasters speaking in English are now using this expression for the first time: “Win, or lose…”

We have listened to shortwave propagandists since the war between Britain and Berlin started to hear what the boys are handing out and not once until Sunday night have they ever used the word “lose.” Now Rome and Berlin newscasters use identical expressions, “Win or lose…” They sneer at the awful licking they’re taking in Africa by referring to “the handful of sand we’re losing” then refer to the “oil we’re pumping in Burma.” They don’t even whisper “Russia.”

If you know your American slang that oil they’re “pumping” is strictly oil and nothing but.

Tonight’s Treasury Hour program (KQV at 8) will feature a parade of stars. Hollywood will offer Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Red Skelton, John Nesbitt and the King’s Men. New York has scheduled Alec Templeton, Sabu the elephant boy, Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Allan Reed, Tito Guizar, Barry Wood, and the regular members of the cast.

Mr. March, Miss Eldridge and their co-star in “Hope for a Harvest,” Allan Reed, will do a dramatic sketch.

Ginny Simms sings with Nat Brandywynnes’ orchestra on tonight’s (WCAE 10:15) Spotlight Band program.

The Columbia network “Dear Mom” programs making comedy of army training are no more.

Uncle Sam has bought the 100,000-watt WGEO shortwave station in Schenectady. Those who have followed this station will still hear it but on the old 50,000-watt transmitter.

A special performance of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” will be presented by the Dramas of Youth Company from Hollywood via WCAE at 3:30 Tuesday.

The Quiz Kids will move to Hollywood after the first of the year to make shorts.

Tommy Dorsey has talked Frank Sinatra out of his plans to leave the band and go it alone. They’ve signed a contract.

Dick Himber is featuring a five-man violin section in his new all-sweet band.

Bea Wain is captain of an all-radio bowling team known as the “Midtown Blues.”

Irene Winston of the Valiant Lady cast will star in “Brooklyn, U.S.A.”, a stage play to open on Broadway tonight.

Army field drums are showing up in radio orchestras to keep step with the military tempo and introduction of marches to broadcasts.

Tell Charles Elgar Sherman Jr. of San Francisco, “There ain’t no Santa Claus” and he’ll argue ‘till day is done. For tonight on the “Are You a Missing Heir?” broadcast Mr. Sherman, a descendant of Gen. Sherman and himself a former soldier will receive $25,000 he didn’t know he had coming to him. What’s more, he’ll have a reunion with his two children whom he hasn’t seen since 1936.

Jap acrobatic trio dropped by circus

SARASOTA. Florida (UP) – The Akimoto family, a Japanese acrobatic trio which performed for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus last season, was looking for a new job today.

Henry Ringling North. who manages the circus, said the fact that the Akimotos are Japanese had nothing to do with their contract not being renewed. The circus discards some acts and obtains new ones every year, he said.

“Our sympathies lie with America,” said the father and head of the troupe, who uses the professional name, “Ming Foo.” He was born in Europe. “We cannot help our Japanese origin.”

Ming Foo said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had certified him as harmless and that he had a brother in the British Army.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 11:24am

Editorial: Churchill in Washington

Remember Hitler’s boasts, in “Mein Kampf” and elsewhere, about his advantage over the leaders of the despised democracies? He could move quickly; they must go slowly. He knew how to make most effective use of modern machines; they were impeded by tradition and red tape and decadence.

We’ll venture that Hitler got an unpleasant surprise in news that Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook and a staff had arrived at the White House to discuss wars and means of accomplishing the “defeat of Hitlerism throughout the world,” through an overall unity in the conduct of the war. For here is another dramatic proof – like Frank Knox’s quick air trip to Honolulu and back, and like the prompt action of Congress to widen the draft and vote new billions – that democratic leaders can do big things fast.

Axis strategy is cunningly coordinated. The drive for Moscow, which almost succeeded, and the Japanese surprise attack on us, were timed together. Hitler’s reinforcement of his African army and his threat to the Caucasus diverted American and British supplies from Manila and Singapore. The new wave of Nazi submarine activity off our Atlantic coast matches similar Japanese sea terror off California, while both prevent concentration of Allied naval relief for Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila.

Only a common Allied strategy and supply, an Allied united front, can cope with such Axis unison.

But that is easier said than done. It means bringing London to Washington, or the other way round. For without both President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill there can be no joint policy decisions for consideration of other Allied representatives. Those two must agree first.

Once more Mr. Churchill proves himself a man of wisdom and of action. Whatever name is given it or none, this Allied policy meeting at the White House can get more done in a few days than could be done in months, or maybe years, of long-distance genuflecting and alibiing.

Here is the basis of unity and speed. We congratulate Prime Minister Churchill on making such a war council possible, and we welcome him to America.

Editorial: Too soon to crow

The German Army is falling back. American correspondents at the Russian front confirm that enormous quantities of equipment are being left behind in the snow, which suggests more than an orderly strategic retreat. But it is also true that the territory lost by the Nazis is insignificant compared with the vast Russian areas, important industrial cities, and vital communication lines they still hold.

The Germans are running backward fast in Libya. But it is also true that they are heavily outnumbered in men, tanks, planes, and supply lines; that they have held out several weeks longer than seemed possible to Gen. Auchinleck and Prime Minister Churchill; that they have forced the costly diversion of American planes needed in the Pacific.

From the established facts it seems safe to conclude that Hitler overextended his Russian lines in his almost successful race to reach Moscow before winter. It also seems clear that the panzer is a machine which runs better in high gear than in reverse; it can go places but, unlike humbler conveyances, it can’t always come back. All of which can be embarrassing – especially to a leader who pledged victory by a given date, now long past – but not necessarily fatal.

As for the purge of the army leadership, certainly there is nothing new in dictators making scapegoats of generals or getting rid of those in the way. Von Brauchitsch merely follows Von Blomberg, Von Fritsch, Von Schleicher, Von Seeckt and others. Before any American assumes this means Germany is breaking up, or that Hitler henceforth will lack expert military advice, he should recall how often similar “proof” has been offered that Hitler was through – or, for that matter, that the Red Army could not fight because Stalin purged its high officers.

No amount of Nazi fifth-columning in America or Britain could be more deadly than the spread of this notion that – because Hitler barely missed bagging Moscow and because his small secondary army in Libya cannot hold out indefinitely against larger forces – Nazi strength is now sapped.

Germany still has the biggest and most experienced mechanized army in the world, backed by the resources of all Europe and by the highest production of war materials, plus interior supply lines which enable her to strike easily and quickly in any direction or in several directions at once.

Ferguson: Yes – and no

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

A reader wants to know whether I favor more censorship for the movies. The answer is “yes – and no.”

“No” to the Comstockian clamping down on every item which offends the prejudices of some narrow-minded group or sect. “Yes” to the idea that parents should demand good entertainment for their children.

I am well aware of the several censorship boards already functioning, and that every picture released has to run the gamut of one or many of them. And I do sincerely believe some sort of attention is necessary, because there are over present among us people ready to put out the most degrading filth in order to make money. Nothing but public opinion, backed by the law, can stop them.

It is undeniably true that films which are enjoyable for sophisticated adults – and are there any other sort left in our world? – are not amusing for children. Come to think about it, it seems highly absurd that we should give babies in kindergarten the same movie fare we dish up to the college senior, his parents and professors.

Suggestions have poured in to me on the question. A good many people are of the opinion that the churches, out of their tax-exempt wealth, should provide theaters for children. Certainly, when an excellent film suitable for them is released, the parents and teachers in the community ought to see that it makes expenses.

Producers aren’t in the business for fun; the box office speaks louder than moral lectures. But is there any reason why club women, school and church people shouldn’t get together and do something besides talk about this social problem?

Background of news –
The law on censorship

By Editorial Research Reports

The situation as to censorship at the present time may be thus stated in a nutshell: (1) The government has direct and positive power to censor all forms of communication with foreign lands. (2) Within the United States any censorship put into effect is voluntary. Thus (3) anyone may publish or utter what he pleases within the United States, but must be prepared to suffer the consequences if what he publishes or utters runs foul of the various anti-sedition laws on the statute books.

The First War Powers Act of 1941, signed by the President on Thursday, December 18, gives the President broad powers to censor wholly or partly, under such rules and regulations as he may establish, “communications by mail, cable, radio, or other means of transmission” with any foreign country which the President may specify. The coverage includes anything carried by a vessel touching a United States port and bound to or from any foreign country, also any attempt to evade the censorship by use of a code. Violation entails a fine up to $10,000 or imprisonment up to 10 years, or both.

This provision is similar to a provision, effective during the last war, in the Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917. In fact, it is now enacted as an amendment of the 1917 act.

During the last war President Wilson asked Congress for full powers of censorship in wartime. Two days after the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany, an administration bill presented to Congress would have subjected to imprisonment up to life anyone who in war should publish certain broad types of military information without legal authority, or statements likely to interfere with the success of the United States. The Senate passed the bill; the House took no action.

After the United States entered the war, another bill supported by President Wilson proposed to give the President power in time of war to prohibit the publication of any information on the national defense likely, in the President’s judgment, to be useful to the enemy. The press was almost unanimous in deploring this provision, and the Hearst papers collected a million and half signatures to a petition against it. The House deleted the censorship section by slightly less than a 3 to 2 vote. It was restored by the Senate, but the House stood firm, and the domestic censorship in force during World War I was voluntary. The voluntary censorship system operated through the Committee on Public Information, of which George Creel was chairman, and of which the central function was publicity rather than censorship.

The Espionage Act of 1917 is now in force. The Senate voted in 1930 to repeal it, but the House took no action. However, the drastic amendment of 1918, sometimes called the Sedition Act, was repealed in 1921.

The Espionage Act forbids in time of war the willful promulgation of false statements to interfere with the success of the United States, also willful attempts to cause refusal of duty by the armed forces. Any letter or publication violating this provision is barred from the mails, as is matter advocating treason. Second-class mail privileges may be denied to any newspaper found after trial to have systematically published false statements calculated to interfere with military success.

Treason against the United States is the only crime defined in the Constitution, which limits it to levying war against the nation or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Misprision of treason consists in concealing from the authorities knowledge of treason.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 11:31am

British expect unified Allied navy command

London says Singapore’s fate also hinges on U.S. conference
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

LONDON (UP) – An Anglo-American strategic and tactical plan for the Pacific war and possibly an agreement for unified naval command in the Battle of the Atlantic were foreseen in British quarters today as the immediate results of the conference between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Washington.

It was suggested that the fate of either Singapore or the Philippines might hinge on the decisions made on joint defense operations.

See alliance

Looking beyond the question of immediate Anglo-American cooperation, well-informed quarters here foresaw the possibilities of first an Anglo-American alliance, secondly an agreement on measures to combat a possible German thrust through Spain to French North Africa, thirdly a thorough discussion of Russia’s role in the Pacific war and fourthly an ultimate alliance binding the United States, the British Empire, Russia, China and the Netherlands Empire for coordinated war on a world scale against the Axis powers.

Great importance was attached to Russia. The feeling here is that Britain is willing for Russia to concentrate on Germany, and keeping out of the Far Eastern war. The tremendous Russian victories have strengthened this feeling, because Germany is the final enemy.

May seek bases

But it was suggested here that it was less likely that the United States would be content to see Russia refrain from any activity in the Pacific while it has invaluable airplane and submarine bases within a short distance of Japan.

For this reason, perhaps, it was reported here that the United States lease-lend program might be used to influence Russia.

It was early this morning here when the announcement was made that Mr. Churchill was in Washington. A Ministry of Information communique said:

“The British Prime Minister has arrived in the United States to discuss with the President all questions relevant to a concerted war effort. Mr. Churchill is accompanied by Lord Beaverbrook and a technical staff. Mr. Churchill is a guest of the President.”

Mr. Churchill, Lord Beaverbrook and other members of his party left London in extreme secrecy on the night of December 12. The special train which took them from London was blacked out and nobody was permitted on the platform of the station here.

Suggested trip

It was understood that Mr. Churchill suggested the visit, immediately after Japan attacked the United States and Britain.

Provisions arrangements already have been made for Mr. Churchill to give a full statement on his mission when the House of Commons meets after the Christmas recess, and to take part in a full-dress war debate.

It was believed also that Mr. Churchill would broadcast to the empire either while in the United States or shortly after he returns home.

Despite the extreme secrecy of his departure, the news that he had left was soon well known among politicians and newspaper correspondents, as was his departure last summer for his Atlantic conference with the president.

Singapore is key

The question was asked whether a decision might be made that Singapore could not be held at reasonable Allied cost. Such a decision, it was said, would mean that the Allies would have to reckon on a much longer war against Japan and that the loss of all the immensely rich Allied possessions between Hawaii and Ceylon might have to be envisaged.

Newspapers saw in the Washington conference the commencement of a common Allied war program which would stop the Axis tactic, hitherto successful, of destroying victims one by one.

First Lady is away as Churchill arrives

WASHINGTON (UP) – Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s arrival at the White House was such a secret that even Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt may not have known in advance the exact time he would get there. Or else, she may have insisted on fulfilling a previous engagement.

At any rate, she was not at the Executive Mansion when the prime minister arrived.

Instead, she made her annual Christmas rounds among the poor in Huntoon Alley near the Potomac waterfront.

There she joined Negro residents in singing “Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Silent Night” and shook the hand of a 97-year-old former slave, Betty Queen Anne.

Kirkpatrick: U.S. men keep mum in Ireland

Bases for British nearly completed by Navy
By Helen Kirkpatrick

LONDONDERRY, Ireland, Dec. 22 (Delayed) – Northern Ireland bases being constructed for Britain by American technicians under the supervision of the United States Navy are nearly completed. The work is proceeding seven days a week.

The presence of many hundreds of Americans in and around Londonderry would be hard to miss. Getting off the train the first sign seen is “American tenders” pointing to the docks. Chevrolet and Ford station wagons with left-hand drives whirl through the streets of this small northern port. Men in unmistakably American clothes can be seen in stores and restaurants and even the newspapers advertise “American-type lumber jackets.”

And that is about all you will see. If the Russians are right, and secrecy is one of the war’s most important weapons, the United States possesses that weapon in its naval personnel.

They won’t even talk to correspondents with the best credentials from Navy officers in the U.S. embassy in London. And the Navy has inspired the American workmen with the same respect for silence.

As work on some bases nears completion, workmen are being moved to other bases where work is not so far advanced. Others, their work finished, have left for the United States. Some asked to be allowed to go home to enlist but the majority are skilled engineers and over enlistment age.

On Saturday, 8000 Londonderry children were given a Christmas party by the American technicians. A U.S. welfare organization arranged a movie party at which Santa Claus gave each child a bag of American candy. The children at one movie house sang the Star-Spangled Banner and gave three cheers for their American hosts.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 1:50pm

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Woman is in her glory using cosmetics

By Maxine Garrison

It is probably indicative of something that a woman fussing with her face is a happy woman. The trouble is that it’s impossible to tell in which direction the indication points.

By “happy,” I don’t mean that she’s ecstatic. It isn’t anything to make her go around gurgling about what a beautiful world it is and how blue the sky is and don’t the birds sing sweetly. In fact, she doesn’t even know she’s happy.

But she’s completely absorbed. The effect seems to be much the same as with a scientist deeply engrossed in some elaborate experiment, or a musician on the harpsichord, or an actor listening to someone rave about his (the actor’s) latest triumph. For these people, the outside world doesn’t exist. Its small annoyances, usually so irksome, simply don’t penetrate.

The effect on a woman is most noticeable when she takes out her compact in a restaurant or some other public place. From the minute her eyes rest on the mirror until she puts the case back in her handbag with a satisfied little smile, she sees and hears nothing. She doesn’t even notice that her own pimping acts as a signal for every other woman in the room to do the same thing (and the other women, as if hypnotized, don’t even notice that they’re mimicking her.)

For a really good look at this psychological phenomenon, you have to sit beside a woman in front of her mirror at home.

Devoted concentration

She smoothes the cold cream in and takes it off in devoted concentration. She lifts her chin and looks closely at the throat lines; then she turns for a profile view, and pats abstractedly at any suggestion of a sagging point.

With a hand mirror or a magnifying one, she gives her face really close scrutiny. Is this a crow’s foot? Is that a new line? Should she have electrolysis used on that mole? Do the eyebrows need tweezing? What about those blackheads?

She tries a new “nourishing” cream because it smells good, and watches her face carefully to see if it will bloom immediately with new youth and radiance, the way the jar says. She pats on a darker foundation than her usual one, applies rouge and powder to match, decides she doesn’t like the effect and cold creams the whole business off again.

She pencils in new lines for her eyebrows – serene wings or quizzical quirks, depending on which movie star she saw last. She tries out the beauty column advice on painting on a new mouth.

She puts eye shadow on, shading it in carefully, and then, deciding that it looks awful, tries to wipe it off without ruining the rest of her makeup. She’s tired of her hair-do, so she tries to comb her hair some other way, finds that the accustomed waves simply won’t budge, and has to start all over again.

Boy friend kept waiting

By this time her boy friend has chewed his fingernails down to the quick wondering what’s happened to her, or her husband has entirely given up the idea of going out for the evening, and is settled down with his pipe and slippers.

The house could burn down around her, and she’d hardly look over her shoulder.

Yet in most cases it isn’t vanity. There is too much calculating study and criticism for vanity. But when a woman wants to forget her troubles, all she has to do is reach for a mirror and a pair of eyebrow tweezers – and anyone must admit that the simplicity of the method has its advantages.

U.S., Canada pool war production

WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt today approved a plan for combining all the productive resources of Canada and the United States and for removing “any barriers” standing in the way of an “all-out war production effort.”

A declaration of policy unanimously adopted by the joint war production committee of the two countries said that to fulfill such a plan, legislative and administrative barriers, including tariff, import duties, customs and other regulations and restrictions, “should be suspended or otherwise eliminated for the duration of the war.”

The committee’s policy statement and an accompanying statement by President Roosevelt were released by the White House.

“This declaration has met the approval of the Canadian war cabinet,” Mr. Roosevelt said. “It has my full approval.”

The plan apparently would combine not only the productive facilities but the raw materials of the two countries – even to the extent of breaking down tariff walls and other monetary restrictions.

Mr. Roosevelt said he had instructed the chairman of the American Joint War Production Committee, Milo Perkins, to investigate, with the aid of the Tariff Commission and other government agencies, “the extent to which legislative changes will be necessary to give full effect to the declaration.”

The plan was revealed as Mr. Roosevelt began consultations with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on a joint plan of action seeking defeat of “Hitlerism.” The Canadian prime minister, W. L. Mackenzie King, will join the discussions at the White House today or tomorrow.

The “statement of war production policy for Canada and the United States” approved by the committees said:

“Having regard to the fact that Canada and the United States are engaged in a war with common enemies, the Joint War Production Committee of Canada and the United States recommends to the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada the following statement of policy for the war production of the two countries:

“1. Victory will require the maximum war production in both countries in the shortest possible time; speed and volume of war output, rather than monetary cost, are the primary objectives.

“2. An all-out war production effort in both countries requires the maximum use of the labor, raw materials and facilities in each country.

“3. Achievement of maximum volume and speed of war output requires that the production and resources of both countries should be effectively integrated, and directed towards a common program of requirements for the total war effort.

“4. Each country should produce those articles in an integrated program of requirements which will result in maximum joint output of war goods in minimum time.

“5. Scarce raw materials and goods which one country requires from the other in order to carry out the joint program of war production should be allocated between the two countries so that such materials and goods will make the maximum contribution toward the output of the most necessary articles in the shortest period of time.

“6. Legislative and administrative barriers, including tariffs, import duties, customs and other regulations or restrictions of any character which prohibit, prevent, delay or otherwise impede the free flow of necessary munitions and war supplies between the two countries should be suspended or otherwise eliminated for the duration of the war.

“7. The two governments should take all measures necessary for the fullest implementation of the foregoing principles.”

Mr. Roosevelt said he had requested all affected departments and agencies of this government to abide by the “letter and spirit” of the declaration of policy “so far as lies within their power.” He called upon the people of this continent to demonstrate that they can match through the democratic processes the all-out efforts of the totalitarian nations.

“Through brute force and enslavement,” Mr. Roosevelt said, “Hitler has secured a measure of integration and coordination of the productive resources of a large part of the continent of Europe.

“We must demonstrate that integration and coordination of the productive resources of the continent of America is possible through democratic processes and free consent.”

Perkins: Labor parley’s secrecy points to stalemate

However, unions assent to plan calling for no-strike pledge
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON – The secrecy that shrouds military and naval operations has been extended to the conference summoned by President Roosevelt to bring peace on the labor front for the duration of the war.

The reticence of the labor as well as the management spokesmen in the 24-man meetings indicates only that no conclusion has been reached in the argument – whether labor unions can strive for more power during the emergency by making closed-shop demands on employers and having these demands entertained by government conciliators or arbitrators.

Meet since Thursday

The conferees have been meeting since last Thursday in the deluxe home of the Federal Reserve Board. This afternoon they re-assemble in less sumptuous quarters in the Labor Department. Apparently the Federal Reserve Board room will be needed in connection with the momentous conferences now beginning between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and their staffs.

Sen. Styles Bridges, R-New Hampshire, demanded in the Senate today that Congress take action on anti-strike legislation because President Roosevelt’s industry-labor conference is “quibbling while American boys are dying.”

One break in the labor meeting’s secrecy came yesterday when reporters were informed from a labor source that Sen. Elbert Thomas, D-Utah, vice moderator of the conference, had presented a proposal to which the union spokesmen had given assent, and which the management representatives still were considering. As outlined, the Thomas proposal involved a no-strike pledge, plus the setting up of machinery for mediation and probably arbitration. It did not mention the No. 1 issue – whether unions may strive during the emergency for improvement of their positions by drives for the closed shop.

Say policy stated

It was learned that the management position included a claim that until the government policy on the closed-shop question is stated definitely, labor’s demands are likely to be numerous and the controversy interminable.

President Roosevelt has said the government will never impose a closed shop against men who do not want to join unions, and the labor discussion was brought to a crisis when the National Defense Mediation Board refused to give John L. Lewis a union shop for the United Mine Workers in “captive” mines – a demand that he later won, however, from a presidentially named arbitrator.

Luminous garb set for convict during blackout

Ultraviolet ray would light treated suit of prisoner

NEW YORK – Specially-treated prison clothing to “light up” inmates in total darkness was suggested today as a preventive to possible jailbreaks during air-raid blackouts.

The suggestion was presented here by S. G. Hibben, blackout expert of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., to a conference of prison wardens and guards studying civilian defense precautions in event of air raids.

Mr. Hibben said that because of the heavy construction of the buildings and special equipment kept on hand for peacetime emergencies the average jail need not actually be blacked out and in fact might even serve as an ideal bomb shelter.

New system cited

If it should become necessary to turn out lights in a prison, however, Mr. Hibben added: “New lighting tools such as invisible ultraviolet floodlights are available to light up specially-treated prison clothing in complete darkness.”

Mr. Hibben said engineers also have perfected ultraviolet and infra-red “eyes” which could serve as inaudible alarm systems if an inmate should try to escape during a blackout.

Total blackout unnecessary

Under present plans being developed by technical experts in Washington, Mr. Hibben explained, total blackouts of cities will not be necessary to thwart possible air raids.

Under any circumstances, he said, “a small amount of protective lighting around the walls of prisons to avoid possible escapes or riots should be retained and switches should be so arranged that the entire grounds of a prison could be flooded with a blaze of light on a moment’s notice.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 2:02pm

Rambling Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco is gradually taking on the outward signs of a city at war.

When I arrived, the city looked the same as usual. I rode in from the airport with a man who lives here and had been away for a week. “Why,” he said with surprise, “it looks just like it did when I left.”

But day by day things are changing. The warlike effect isn’t great yet, but there are touches here and there.

There are piles of sand on the streets, and you see buckets of sand in apartment houses and public buildings. Permanent air-raid sirens are being installed. Bars and other public places are blacking out their windows. Hundreds of Neon signs have been turned off for the duration, and the city has lost some of its Christmas-tree color.

So far, only one building in town has been sandbagged. That is the telephone building. It probably was done at the Army’s request. Two helmeted sentries stand guard.

The sandbags are stacked in a pyramid-like slope clear up to the second story. Whoever supervised the job must have visited England, for it has been done well. And as soon as the bags were in place, carpenters built a board framework over them, to prevent weathering.

That is one thing that often makes London look ratty. In a damp climate the bags will weather and fall apart in less than six months. The sand dribbles cut and gives a moth-eaten effect. The English have boxed in many of their sandbagged places.

War hits Christmas shopping

Typical war placards are beginning to spring up. You see the famous “Open for Business as Usual” sign that became so popular in England.

When I first saw these signs here I thought, “Aren’t they a little premature? There haven’t been any bombs yet.” Then I discovered that the signs had been up for some time, and they don’t mean business as usual despite the bombers. They mean business as usual despite the strike.

A hotel and restaurant strike has been going on here for months. The hotels are operating anyway, and that’s what the signs mean. When the bombing do come they don’t have to get new signs.

In Chinatown all the stores left open have signs saying, “This Is a Chinese Store.”

And the discovery that knocked me cold is that about two-thirds of the stores in Chinatown are closed and padlocked by the government – because they were owned by Japanese!

The opening of war hit Christmas shopping an awful smack. People apparently were afraid to venture from their homes. But city officials and the papers have been drumming it into the public that the best way to conduct the war is to keep on going about your natural business. The first scare is over now and people are coming out again. You can hardly get through the stores.

The big stores, incidentally, have all put in new wartime hours – 8:45 to 4:45 – in order to give people time to get home before dark in case of a blackout.

Authentic ‘war face’ appears

There are no barrage balloons over San Francisco. Yet there is something else that gives vaguely the same effect. I just happened to notice it today when I looked out the window.

The day is clear and the wind is blowing. And from the flagpole of every high building in town there flies a huge American flag. The wind blows them out straight, and they make quite a startling picture against the whitish sky. I stood at my window and counted more than 40, just as I used to count barrage balloons from my window in London.

You seldom see an airplane over San Francisco now. There are no guns on rooftops, as you see in London. But on some of the grassy hilltops you can see sound detectors and guns.

There are no gas masks for the public. You don’t see many uniforms on the streets – probably because nobody is getting leave these days. Occasionally you see a soldier in a tin hat.

There are no barbed-wire entanglements here. From high office buildings, looking down on the docks, you can see a white ocean liner painted completely black in one day. And then in another day or two it has disappeared. The public has been barred from the Embarcadero, or waterfront.

There are no crisscrossed strips of paper on windows to prevent shattering, but there probably will be soon. There is one big building here whose front is entirely of glass. I’ll bet passerby in the last week have remarked 20,000 times, “Boy, what wouldn’t a bomb do to that!”

The people of San Francisco must have read pretty thoroughly about England, for they seem to know how to talk correctly, and how to put an authentic “war face” on their still peaceful city.

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK – I just don’t believe that any considerable number of American citizens would object to legislation which would relieve them of the obligation to quit their jobs in war industries at the command of union bosses and compel the bosses to observe the requirements of ordinary honesty and business practice in the administration of union funds. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States would welcome the protection of such laws and of further provisions to compel the observance of decent election methods in all votes on union representation and on strike issues. The union bosses, themselves, are almost alone in their objection to such measures for the protection of the rank and file and the defense of the nation; and those statesmen of Congress and of the Administration outside Congress who think these bosses speak for their membership are making a grave mistake.

Labor could not suffer in any imaginable way from such enactments and the benefit to the nation in the prosecution of the war would be so obvious that it need not be explained.

Not all union bosses are selfish

The union bosses are not all necessarily selfish in their opposition. Some, of course, are surly dictators, but the most conspicuous of these could be brushed into retirement tomorrow by the back of the President’s hand, with no sacrifice of the rights of the miners.

Others are just dumb, ignorant union politicians who haven’t the faintest appreciation of the idealism which should animate the union movement and are no more fit for national authority over big groups of workers than a stupid alderman is to serve in time of war as President of the United States. Of this latter and larger group, most undoubtedly feel that they are patriotic, but simply lack the intelligence and imagination to appreciate their responsibilities and to perceive that the old union customs now are publicly for the first time and discredited.

The argument that strikes must on no account be forbidden, even in time of deadly national peril and in the interests of national security against an enemy who would abolish unionism from the face of the earth, is based on the freedom of men to work or not. However, the same people who angrily present this argument contradict themselves in demanding the right to exclude men from employment who refuse to join their union.

And, moreover, capital, which is now being drafted right and left and restricted in its activities in the interest of national security, is itself labor in the very real sense that it is the product of the toil of individual men and women. A worker’s wages are the reward of his labor and when they are invested in the stock of a corporation they are still the reward of his toil but, in this phase, by some superstition are widely regarded as an evil power and may be commandeered without any protest from the workers themselves or the unioneers. This is commandeering labor after it is done.

Such laws would not be punitive

No time is a right time to clamp chains on the workers to bind them in slave groups under the rule of union bosses, but this has been done both by Congress, in the enactment of the Wagner Act, and by the Supreme Courts of the nation and of several individual states. But any time is the right time to break these bonds and no time is more appropriate than this hour when the whole American people are fighting a hideous and utterly ruthless enemy who must be conquered lest he impose on all Americans the same slavery that he has imposed on the Poles, Czechs, French, Danes, Norwegians and Dutch.

There is not even a pretense of an excuse for the continuation in high or powerful union office of such crooks as Umbrella Mike Boyle, who runs the electricians in Chicago and, having treacherously sold out his own subjects in the past, raises a legitimate suspicion that he might sell out a graver responsibility now. Boyle showed himself a traitor to his subjects a long time ago, but union politics and depravity permit him to remain in a position to pull the switches on our second greatest city, in time of war.

The vicious crooks who infest the New York waterfront are not labor leaders but union bosses and betrayers of labor and inasmuch as union customs and laws do not empower the workers to throw them out, the Government, which performs this obvious duty, will not only serve the national interest but earn the deep gratitude of the dumb, scared slaves of this rotten system.

Such laws would not be punitive laws. They would be laws of emancipation and the workers would honor those who fought them through to adoption.

editorialclapper.up

Clapper: Source of hope

By Raymond Clapper

WASHINGTON – The real new order is having its foundations laid right now by those two master craftsmen of democracy – Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. This Christmas week of 1941 will be a week of new hope for our kind of civilization.

For there is taking place among the Allied nations a unity of resolve and a mustering of men, materials, and spirit to put the basic principles of the Atlantic Charter into living application.

This charter, announced as a set of hopes, is now to be a guide to action.

As White House Secretary Stephen T. Early has said, talks going on are preliminary to creating a supreme war council. These include all of the Allies. They look toward a united front to defeat the Axis and to win the peace.

This time we intend to be practical

The large source of hope in this is that force and the ideals of a free and peaceful world are being put into harness to pull together. We never have had that on our side before. We have used force at times in the past. And we have tried the idealistic pen as in the Kellogg-Briand Pact. We have never harnessed the two together, not even in the League of Nations attempt. The war was won and then an attempt was made to set up an ideal world organization totally disassociated from force.

This time, I think, we intend to be more practical. We know now that force must be used sometimes in the cause of justice. If it were to be announced some morning that the police force of a large city was to be disbanded at high noon, who doubts that by midnight bands of desperadoes would be looting the town? Right may be right, but it isn’t always strong enough to get along without a gun to protect itself.

A supreme war council, or whatever it might be called, can bring together the resources on our side and, by the very act of uniting them, give them greater strength than if they were used individually. It is like a rope. A handful of strands becomes stronger if you twist them together.

Hitler’s inferiority will crack Axis

There will be bad news from time to time. Hitler appears to be in serious trouble but we must expect him to make a desperate stab to cut his way out. The Pacific may give us some anxious days. Fortunes of war never run smoothly. But the strength on our side is so overwhelming that Hitler has had to admit to his people that in Russia he has been up against a superiority of men and materials. Naval strength on our side has shown its strength in keeping the supply line to England open. In time it will show what it can do in the Pacific. War production insures that in time the planes necessary to complete victory will be made. The Axis simply cannot out-produce our side. Each day that the war goes on brings nearer the time when Hitler’s basic inferiority will force the Axis to crack. I am as sure of this as of anything I know. The unity of action which is in sight on our side insures it.

An article which Vice President Henry Wallace has written for the January Atlantic Monthly on the foundations of peace maps the path still further into the future. Vice President Wallace already is deep in work on how to make the peace grow out of the daily actions now being taken by the Allies. He would put into effect now, long before the armistice plans for buying raw materials and for organizing a free flow of them as soon as the fighting stops.

Work must be started on this while the war is going on, the Vice President believes. He says the overthrow of Hitler is only half the battle. The Atlantic Charter outlined the goals. The job now, says Mr. Wallace, “is to work out as definitely as we can while the war is still in progress, practical ways and means for realizing them.” In this article Mr. Wallace outlines some of the actions that he feels must be taken in this complicated task, as part of the full winning of the war.

Maj. Williams: Seapower’s doom

By Maj. Al Williams

Before we move another foot in this war against Japan, let’s realize and force admission from the interested parties, if necessary, that the backbone of seapower, as we knew it, has been broken. We are no longer tolerant of those who would offer explanations as to why air bombs sank battleships or why it might not have happened, if something else hadn’t happened.

American, British, and Japanese warships have been sunk by air bombs in Asiatic waters. Those are the facts – facts we had to learn the hard way, and for this reason they are facts we should remember. I do not agree with those who offer opinions that the British battleship, “Prince of Wales,” would not have been sunk if the fighter planes available had been on the scene, claiming further that the fighter planes were not on the scene because perhaps the commander of the “Prince of Wales” hesitated to use his radio to call for help.

Answer is simple

Another is Adm. Yarnell’s argument, printed in a recent issue of Collier’s, trying to explain the Crete defeat of British warships by German airpower. The answer to this, too, is simple. Logically, it is evident that planes don’t need warships, but warships can’t stay afloat without planes.

The British have been cleaning house by getting rid of their over-age admirals and generals. British newspapers have aided this house-cleaning by publishing the ages of each and every British admiral and general. This is a young man’s war. I don’t mean young men in the combat forces to do the actual fighting. That’s always been evident in every war. What I do mean is that our successful leadership of the several forces in this war will be accomplished by younger officers. Young men “on the make” – on the way up. Young men will dare and challenge the new conditions of warfare with new ideas. But not those who have arrived and have little to gain in the way of rank – who are basically holding on to what they already have.

Need new ideas, too

We’ll have to find new ideas to win this war, and new ideas necessarily mean “new men.” From current reports I presume there are going to be investigations into the Army and Navy to determine the responsibility for the Hawaii and Philippine disasters. The commanders in each sector will undoubtedly be blamed. They should be blamed for the “napping,” but the deeper blame is higher up. It’s one thing to blame a single player at fault on a ball team, but losing ball teams are eventually and rightly charged up to bad managerial ability.

Those men who fought and died in the Far East fought with what they had at hand, while the men who failed to give them more of the right kind of tools are elsewhere.

Chewbacca · December 25, 2020, 3:33pm

A good way to describe what happend.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 5:08pm

Monahan: National body honors two films to be shown here

By Kaspar Monahan

Pittsburgh will see two films which yesterday were given high rating by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Chosen as the best documentary film, “Target for Tonight,” showing the RAF in action (and actually, for this is not fiction), will open tomorrow at the Warner.

“How Green Was My Valley,” picked by the National Board as second on the list of its best 10 of the year will start regular showings at the Fulton next Wednesday, following a preview for Welsh organizations the night before.

Pennsylvania for a while may lay off the war jitters for come Christmas night and the state will be safe from invasion on its eastern and western borders. Simultaneously the New York company of “Hellzapoppin’” and the road company will open in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – and there’s enough shootin’ and hell-raising in the show to scare off 50 divisions of our foes. Terrific advance sale reported in Philadelphia – more than $40,000, and that ain’t scrapple!

OVERSIGHT: Concerning the 10 best of the Board of Review, I’m reminded that I forgot to include in my “best 10,” announced a few weeks ago, that fine picture, “Here Comes Mr. Jordan.” I just couldn’t leave that off my list, so I’m putting it on now as I mail it to Film Daily, conductor of the annual poll. My other nine are “Blossoms in the Dust,” “Citizen Kane,” “Kitty Foyle,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Little Foxes,” “Maltese Falcon,” “Penny Serenade,” “Philadelphia Story,” “Sergeant York.” I had to eliminate “Escape,” an exceptional picture, to make room for “Jordan.” … And I hope all the righteously indignant citizens will be pleased at this public rectification of a bad mistake. (“But how could the dope forget that wonderful picture in the first place!”) Why didn’t I choose “How Green Was My Valley”? Because Film Daily limits selections to films generally released between November 1, 1940, and October 31, 1941. The Board picks this film as the year’s top picture on the basis of “popular appeal.” …

WARM TITLES: For torrid titles the double bill of the Art Cinema for its New Year’s Eve opening is candidate for the year’s first prize: “The Art of Love,” French picture starring Danielle Darrieux, plus “The Bedroom Diplomat,” English farce, featuring Reginald Gardiner. “Mr. and Mrs. North,” comedy mystery – and a hit in New York – will follow “Charley’s Aunt” at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. It will start a three-week run January 27. … Advance reports on “Man Who Came to Dinner” are that, if anything, it’s funnier than its stage parent, albeit considerably less salty as to dialog. In the movie version Sheridan Whiteside (take-off on Alec Woollcott) is seen taking those two epic falls – at the beginning and end of the play…

SHOPPING NOTES: Picture of an embarrassed lug – Monahan at the doll counter inquiring about “didee” dolls, then buying cradle, diapers and other equipment for same as the store detective, dressed like Santa Claus eyes him suspiciously. … Toughest job in town these days, that of being elevator girl, saying wearily, “step back please,” “face forward please,” “earmuffs on this floor, madame.” … You shoulda seen the glares when Monahan got into the crowded elevator, tipping a gent’s hat off with “didee” doll’s foot, poking a skinny blond in the ribs with the sharp edge of the cradle, and ramming the end of a “pup” tent into the outraged puss of a dowager-like old girl. Robert Benchley couldn’t have given a better – or a worse, depending on how you look at it – performance.

ON BROADWAY: Theater Guild isn’t counting too strongly on “The Rivals,” announcing a “limited engagement” of four weeks, starting January 14 at the Shubert. … Last night “Papa Is All” began a two-weeks’ stay in Chicago before coming to New York, January 6. … Eddie Cantor opens his “Banjo Eyes,” Christmas night, and “Clash by Night,” starring the fully-recovered Talloo Bankhead makes its bow Saturday night. … “Life With Father,” now that “Hellzapoppin’” has gone on tour, is the oldest play on Broadway, boasting of nearly 800 performances.

HOLIDAY SHOWS: Just to keep your show schedules straight – the Penn tomorrow opens its new feature earlier than usual. This will be “H. M. Pulham, Esq.,” with Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young and Ruth Hussey. Senator also will start its new one, “I Wake Up Screaming,” tomorrow. Betty Grable, Jane Wyman and Victor Mature are the stars…

Also, jumping the gun, the Warner will start a new doubleheader tomorrow – the aforementioned “Target for Tonight,” and “Henry Aldrich for President,” with Jimmy Lydon as the blundering Henry….

On Christmas night there’ll be “Hellzapoppin’” at the Nixon, the same company which stayed two weeks here last year. “Ice Follies of 1942” starts the same evening at The Gardens.

Hollywood

By Hedda Hopper

After listening to Jimmy Stewart’s inspiring performances on the Bill of Rights show, I think our actors deserve a few bouquets. In any
emergency, the actors always have been, always will be the first to go over the top with their encouragement, performances, and ever ready, open pocketbooks and inspiring work. Our Community Chest for the motion picture industry is way over the top this year. We’re one of the few industries to take care of our own. If entertaining is to be done, actors are the first to offer their services. If there are bonds to be sold, the same is true. During the last World War, the largest crowd I ever saw on Fifth Avenue (with one exception) was when Mary Pickford, Doug Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin came on to sell Liberty Bonds. The exception was when Col. William Hayward marched up the Avenue after the war with his colored regiment. That was really a crowd.

Everybody’s taken a crack at our profession. Some of the knocks were deserved, too, because we’ve taken in people who had no right to be called actors or actresses. We call them flibberty-gibbets, and they’re out – mostly before the ink is dry on their releases. We don’t like them either. But the real ones will always be a credit to their community. In the last war, when the greatest stars of Broadway made a tour of the country for the Red Cross, they not only gave free performances, but paid their living expenses and traveling expenses.

One of the amusing incidents of that tour was Laurette Taylor trying to get to know Minnie Maddern Fiske: And once in Pittsburgh, I believe it was, Mrs. Fishe moved her makeup kit to the roof so as not to be disturbed. Not that she didn’t want to meet Miss Taylor. She had a job to do and wanted no interference from anyone. … Speaking of fine performances, I’d like to cite one given by Mrs. Fiske just about a year before she died. She was playing a gay, eccentric character who was all fluff, in “Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh.” I went with Ina Claire and Laura Hope Crews, who aren’t bad either. And we went back between the acts to meet Mrs. Fiske. Until then, we hadn’t realized how ill she was; but we saw painted on her suffering face a masque of comedy – and the real pain underneath never once came over the footlights.

Then there was Chaliapin’s opening night at the Metropolitan and his death scene as “Boris Goudonov;” Madame Jeritza’s performance at the same place, when she shipped, fell down a flight of stairs, and sang a whole aria on her tummy because she couldn’t rise. (From then on, she never sang the part any other way.) Geraldine Farrar’s “Madame Butterfly” … One of the last performances given by the four Cohans – George M., his mother, father and sister Josephine … David Warfield in “The Music Master;” Ethel Barrymore in “Captain Jinks” (that was the performance that inspired me to run away from home and seek a career on the stage – and I’ve never regretted it). Janet Beecher and Katharine Cornell in “A Bill of Divorcement.” Also Katharine Hepburn and Jack Barrymore’s performance in the same play on the screen; Henry Miller and Ruth Chatterton in “The Rainbow;” Alice Brady in “The Bride of the Lamb;” also in the picture “In Old Chicago;” Marie Dressler with Charlie Chaplin in “Tillie’s Punctured Romance;” Bill Farnum in “The Spoilers;” Sothern and Marlow in “Romeo and Juliet;” Katharine Cornel] in “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.”

Helen Hayes in “Queen Victoria,” also “The Sin of Madelon Claudet,” a picture she thought so bad she was willing to buy back from the producer; it got her an Academy award. Marie Doro with William Gillette – I’ve forgotten the name of the play; Jack Barrymore in “Peter Ibbetson;” Jack in “Redemption” – “Richard III” – and “Hamlet;” Lionel Barrymore in “The Copperhead;” Frances Starr in “The Easiest Way;” the excitement Doug Fairbanks packed into “The Thief of Bagdad.”

Jack Gilbert and Renee Adoree in “The Big Parade;” Adolphe Menjou in “The Woman of Paris;” Gable and Colbert in “It Happened One Night;” Louis Wolheim and Lew Ayres in “All Quiet on the Western Front;” Ouspenskaya in “Love Affair;” Albert Basserman in “Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullett;” Jimmy Cagney in “City for Conquest;” Eugenie Leontovich in “Tovarich;” both Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis in “The Little Foxes;” the brat in “Children’s Hour” (understand she’s now giving a wonderful performance in “Junior Miss”); Eleonore Duse during her farewell performances; the scene in “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” where during a stage performance the boys marched right out through the theater and went to war, and the scream of an unidentified mother who realized what was happening, and that it might be the last time she’d ever see her son alive; Mae Marsh and Henry Walthall in “The Birth of a Nation;” Greta Garbo and Pauline Lord in “Anna Christie;” Florence Reed and Mary Duncan in “Shanghai Gesture.”

Helen Menken and Janet Gaynor in “Seventh Heaven;” Frank Bacon in “Lightnin’;” Fannie Brice singing “My Man;” Helen Morgan’s “My Bill;” the whole of “Show Boat,” especially Charlie Winninger’s performance; John Gielgud in “The Sea Gull;” Hattie McDaniel in “Gone with the Wind;” Todd Duncan in “Porgy and Bess;” Paul Whiteman’s first performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” at Carnegie Hall; Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane;” Pat O’Brien’s “Knute Rockne;” and more recently, Gary Cooper as “Sergeant York;” and getting back to Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” It was fitting that Jimmy, who has sacrificed most (only he doesn’t consider it sacrifice but an honor to serve his country) should introduce the President of the United States.

Pro grid faces uncertain future

CHICAGO (UP) – The championship playoff between the New York Giants and Chicago Bears probably has ended the golden era of America’s fastest growing sport – professional football.

No sport faces a more uncertain future. Its life blood is the constant flood of readymade stars from the collegiate ranks to replace veterans forced into retirement by the bruising pace of five or six seasons in the National League.

How many current college seniors are interested in football for 1942? Typical is the answer of Bruce Smith, Minnesota’s great halfback who won both the Heisman Trophy and a scroll as football’s man of the year:

“There’s a bigger game than football going on now.”

The National League draft, giving each club the right to negotiate with its 20 players without interference from other clubs, once was considered the ideal means to balance the weaker clubs and the tough ones.

Today the draft is a joke. Most seniors are eligible for selective service. Others, like Smith, are ready to enter the armed forces and the National League faces future seasons with much of its personnel consisting of married veterans or men with minor defects which do not affect their football.

A quick check on the married men shows the Washington Redskins with 22, Green Bay 20, Chicago Cards and Cleveland 19, Pittsburgh Steelers 18, New York Giants 17, Chicago Bears and Brooklyn Dodgers 13, Detroit 12 and Philadelphia 10.

Williams: Ormsby, retired from baseball, hopes to get back with Marines

By Joe Williams

NEW YORK – The old redhead is trying to get back in the Marines at the age of 46. The old redhead would be Emmett Ormsby, the baseball umpire, or rather the used-to-be baseball umpire.

The American League handed him a nice Scrooge Christmas present the other afternoon, dismissal after 19 years of calling ‘em as he saw ‘em. And now he wants to go back to his first love, the fighting Marines.

“I’m not too old to fight and I’m certainly not too old to umpire,” the old redhead snapped and it was manifest he wasn’t kidding on either point.

But certain problems present themselves. Baseball has determined he is no longer spry enough to run big league games. And we don’t suppose the Marines are enthusiastic about enlisting a dad with 12 children. Thats the dimensions of the Ormsby brood, ranging from five years to 17.

“Just the same there ought to be something I can do,” he grumbled. “I was a good soldier in the other war mainly because I like soldiering. These young Marines need veterans like me to tell ‘em what it’s all about; sort of condition their minds for the shock and the hell and the drudgery of battle.”

Marines stick together

Being a Marine must be stirring adventure. We have yet to meet one that wasn’t a hard, two-fisted, he-man, every inch a fighter. These Marines, the old ones and the young ones, stick together, too. They are frantically loyal and proud. They seem to think it takes something extra to be a Marine, and maybe it does.

The day we sat around with Ormsby there was a little story in the newspapers. The beleaguered garrison at Wake Island had been contacted by radio. “Is there anything you want?” they were asked. Supposedly word came back: “Yes. Send us some more Japs.”

The old redhead had read the story. In recounting it to us he beamed. “And you can bet all the tea in China that’s just what they said.”

Ormsby came out of the war with a spectacular record and a trunk full of honors but you can’t get him to talk about his specific experiences over there. A characteristic not at all uncommon among through-the-fire soldiers.

It was while he was on the subject of the young Marines and how they should be mentally conditioned for what they are facing that he described how it felt to be out there in No Man’s Land inching closer and closer to enemy guns.

Song of the bullets

“At first you are scared stiff. Bullets are singing past your tread. And they actually sing. They have a song all their own and until you get used to it, it can be pretty terrifying. Even now I wake up at night sometimes with a start just from hearing that song of the bullets. But when you are out there moving ahead you soon become indifferent about yourself. Just a few moments past you were wondering if the next one was going to carry your name; now you have only one thing in mind and that is to catch up with the guys who are shooting at you and make them like it. That’s when it starts to be fun.”

Ormsby was a right-handed spitball pitcher when he joined up. No world-beater but good enough to advance as high as the American Association. The slogan of the Marines – first to fight – inspired him. Stationed at Quantico he pitched for the service team. That was part of his athletic training.

But it turned out the Marines were proud of their team and refused to break it up. Troopship after troopship would leave for France with Marines but the ball players were kept behind. Ormsby, remember, had joined the Marines because of their slogan. It became apparent that unless he did something drastic he would be among the last to fight, so one day he picked up a rock and threw it through the front part of a piano, got himself arrested and was shipped off on the next transport.

Grenade tosser deluxe

Over there Ormsby found he could still make practical use of his pitching arm. Those who served with him say he was the best bomber in the outfit. The approved military technic is to sort of flip a hand grenade; Ormsby always took his full windup and let them have his Sunday pitch. They say the resultant carnage was stupendous.

We hope the Marines can find something for the old redhead to do. That’s all he aspires to now, a helpful, active turn with his beloved fighting force. The kind of loyalty, passion and enthusiasm he has for anything smacking of the Marines is too precious to be ignored in these times. And to know that it exists and that there are thousands of young Ormsby growing up in the Marines today must have a warming effect on all of us who for one reason or another must watch the big game from the sidelines.

Wake Island paradise

We didn’t like the way the American League had given the old redhead the air, and said as much. “Hell, I’ve been trying to get in the Marines since last June,” he commented. “I could see what was coming and I went to my wife and told her I wanted to get back with them. She knows how I feel and, bless her heart, she squeezed my arm and said, ‘If they’ll take you, you go’.”

Well, what will happen remains to be seen. Probably nothing because Ormsby is 46, has 12 kids and is not a millionaire. But we thought the Marines would like to know how the old redhead feels; right now, his idea of paradise is Wake Island.

Millett: Wartime marriage can be hazardous

By Ruth Millett

Before she decides to become a war bride, there are two questions every girl ought to ask herself.

The first is, “Am I old enough to undertake a marriage that has less than an average chance of working out?”

Actual age is important, but not as important as how mature a girl is in her thinking. If she is so young, she will quickly resent the status of being a married woman without a husband and wish that she were free to have a good time, then she’s much too young to be marrying in war time.

She’s too young, also, if she is going to be a burden to the young man she marries. She’ll be a burden to him if he has to worry about her ability to take care of herself, or if she tries to make him miserable over having to put his country ahead of her temporary happiness.

The other question is: “Would I marry this man right now if there were no war?”

That question will take some thinking. But if a girl has to admit to herself that she might not jump at the chance to marry her young man if she knew he would be sticking around until she was good and ready to settle down, then she shouldn’t let war rush her into marriage.

Because in war or peace time a girl is taking too big a chance if she marries a man for any reason except that she thinks that life without him won’t be worth living. It takes that much sureness to make even a comparatively safe foundation for a marriage.

If a girl is convinced she is mature enough to take on marriage under the least ideal of circumstances, and if she knows she would marry her young man tomorrow – war or no war – then she might as well become a war bride. She won’t be happy otherwise. And if anything should happen to her young man, she would never forgive herself for not having married him when she had a chance and snatching what little happiness she could.

NormanStewart · December 25, 2020, 5:22pm

Youngstown Vindicator (December 23, 1941)

Lawrence: Hitler shifts strategic plan

By David Lawrence

WASHINGTON – When the United States entered the first World War, the first step taken by our allies was to send a special mission of high officials to consult the Washington government – its army and navy and economic agencies.

The same thing can now be anticipated. The visit of Prime Minister Churchill is the beginning of conferences toward that end. For several days the discussion in the press from abroad has turned on the importance of unity of command among the Allies. The need for a supreme war council has been apparent to all sides.

Details of how the unification of command on land, sea and in the air will be accomplished will remain military secrets. But the most important question that has to be resolved and on which announcement can in due time be made relates to the manner in which American forces will take orders from a British command and the British likewise will submit to an American command.

MacArthur recommended

It would seem logical that in the Pacific theater of war, the United States would appoint the military generalissimo and perhaps the naval chieftain. The man most probable for military command is Gen. Douglas MacArthur. His elevation to the rank of full general by the President with the consent of the Senate the other day has been regarded as a forerunner of a unified command in which Gen. MacArthur would supervise the whole military operation of the Allies in the Far East.

It may be also that Adm. King will be found occupying an analogous position in the naval side in the Pacific. But in the Atlantic, where the British have a much more intimate knowledge of the waters adjacent to Africa and Europe, the delegation of full authority to a British naval officer of high rank would seem to be plausible.

In the last war, a Supreme War Council sat in Paris and made decisions for all fronts. The United States had representation on it but the generalissimo in the field was Marshal Foch, who had command of all Allied armies. Something of the same system will doubtless be applied now.

Multiple fronts

The war is reaching a broad climax in that more fronts are being opened and more areas of sea warfare are being subjected to patrol. A system of convoying supplies to Hawaii and the Philippines by means of air and sea power is unquestionably going to be arranged if it is not already in effect. The escort system used in the Atlantic, in which the British and American naval and air forces have joined, is a big success.

But the major job is to get supplies to the eastern and western sections of Africa as well as the Far East. Hitler is confidently expected to strike through Spain and Portugal at Gibraltar and the west coast of Africa with the idea of closing off the British from Western Mediterranean operations and then moving toward the Eastern Mediterranean by a drive through Turkey.

No matter how gratifying the news of Russian advances has been to Washington these last few days – and it has been very encouraging – the disposition is to look for a new Hitler move in North Africa. It is quite possible that the Japanese decision to enter the war, on which Hitler could not be sure till it happened, was the reason for a reversal of strategy on the Russian front.

Moscow less important

The Moscow objective became less Important the moment the Japanese decided to strike for Singapore, which meant a weakening of the British naval and military forces in the Mediterranean. The Japanese attack on Hawaii unquestionably spurred Hitler to change his tactics.

Since he alone knows the situation on all fronts, military and political, it was natural for him to take complete command. He has become the generalissimo of the entire Axis strategy and operation. The Russian advance may prove a rout for Hitler in the end, but the Nazi plan is doubtless to hold the Russians for the winter and then in the spring, if the battle of the Mediterranean has turned favorably, to resume the drive to the Caucasus.

High-ranking officials of Britain also are arranging for closer economic cooperation with America. Since the United States is now a full-fledged belligerent and since America is the center of supply – the arsenal of democracy – it may be that the whole war will be run from Washington and that the supreme war council will sit here.

Lippmann: U.S. should attack Hitler by rousing occupied nations

America must make formal alliance with Nazis’ foes, show conquered lands that hope exists
By Walter Lippmann

The moment has come for the United States to play its part in the European theater, contributing what we can to the great Russian counteroffensive and to the British counteroffensive in Africa. We must not think we have nothing to contribute just because we are not yet prepared for large military operations.

As Hitler faces the attack from the east, he is more than ever vulnerable in the rear – that is to say in occupied Europe, in neutral Europe, and in the entangled, vassal states, like Italy and Finland. This is the soft side of the Hitler’s empire. In all this vast region, the Nazi power is stretched thin over passively resisting peoples who look to us, knowing that from us they have nothing to fear and from us they have everything to gain; deliverance from slavery and after their deliverance, the means to restore their lives.

They have always looked to us – even in the days when we were paralyzed by our debate, even when it seemed that we might never be able to pull ourselves together before it was too late. They will by this time have recovered from the first shock of the events at Pearl Harbor, and, perhaps, even more clearly than we, they will have grasped the lasting importance of Pearl Harbor.

It is that at Pearl Harbor America became totally committed to a life-or-death struggle with the Axis. For the fact that Japan struck while negotiations were in progress demolished the last conceivable basis for any kind of negotiated peace with any of the enemy governments.

Urges formal alliance

The first positive phase of our intervention in Europe will have been achieved when we establish an alternative to Hitler’s new order by a formal alliance with Britain and Russia, China and the Netherlands to fight the war and to make the peace together, and then invite all legitimate governments to adhere to the pact.

Such an alliance, accompanied by unity of command in the various theaters of war and by a pooling of supplies, is not only indispensable to the war; it is a political instrument of the first order with which to make contact with all our hidden and submerged allies throughout Europe.

This alliance will not only represent the largest agglomeration of force on earth. It will also make clear to Frenchmen and to Irishmen and to Finns and to Italians and to Spaniards and to many Germans that they may stake their future not on a Russian victory alone or on a British victory alone, but on a common victory. In the settlement which follows it will be America, the most invulnerable and the most disinterested as regards Europe, which will have the greatest reserve for the relief of their suffering and the rehabilitation of their lives.

Wise U.S. policy

During the past year American policy toward the European continent, though often criticized, has been wisely conceived. What was lacking to make it effective was the very thing it has now gained: the total commitment of the United States in war and peace.

This is what has been missing to make our policy convincing and, therefore, fully effective in the resistant capitals and among the disillusioned and frightened peoples of Europe. They did not know whether the American nation would support the foreign policy of the President.

Now they know that it will and that it must, and that a primary principle of that policy is that the liberation of Europe from Hitler is, as a matter of our own deepest self-interest, an American war aim. Our immediate business is to make this perfectly clear to them.

Calls for proclamation

For that we have laid the proper basis by refusing to recognize the declaration of war against the United States by Croatia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, Albania. We

In this proclamation we should state that we have not recognized and will not recognize as a valid declaration of war the act of any government which is occupied by Nazi troops, that so far as we are concerned, the peoples of these countries are not our enemies, and that except for the Quislings among them, we shall not treat their nationals here or in Europe as alien enemies.

We should then declare to all the peoples of the European continent who are occupied or directly threatened by Hitler that in so far as they have or may have lawful governments in exile we shall recognize these lawful governments, including of course the Free French in such parts of the French Empire as are in the hands of the Free French.

But we should state also that while we shall support anyone who fights Hitler, it is not our intention to create artificial governments-in-exile for Germany or Italy or for any other nations where no government with a legitimate title now exists. Thus we should proclaim the truth, which is that our object is the liberation of Europe and not the domination of Europe.

No peace with Hitler

With this object in mind we should declare that we shall never negotiate with the lawless governments of the aggressors nor seek to impose on any part of Europe a government which is not lawfully accepted by the nation which that government represents.

We should then make it clear to the involuntary allies of Hitler – to the Italians, the Finns, the Hungarians, the Bulgars – that the sooner they secede from the new order, and the more they contribute to extricating themselves, the better we shall be able to save them from the consequences of their entanglement.

And to the neutrals we should make it increasingly clear that in so far as we have to shed our blood to keep open the seas to deliver supplies which they must have in order to live, we shall expect them to share some of the risks. For they must not base their neutral policy on the assumption that Hitler is a dangerous fellow and must not be offended whereas we are good-natured and will not mind if we are offended.

The Evening Star (December 23, 1941)

Eliot: Navy victory seen in shifts

By Maj. George Fielding Eliot

One major lesson of this war has been that the mainspring of success in modern conflict is unity of purpose and effort, supported by unity of command.

The recent reorganization of the high command of the United States Navy is a recognition and practical application of this principle. Under conditions at the time the change was made, there were three separate fleets – the Atlantic fleet, the Pacific fleet and the Asiatic fleet – each with a commander in chief with the rank of admiral. The commander in chief of the Pacific fleet was supposed also to be the commander in chief of the whole, but it is not a sound practice to appoint the commander of one fraction of a command to be the commander of the whole as well; either the interests of his particular fraction will suffer, or he will be unable because of local responsibilities to exercise effective control in the larger sphere of activity.

Simplifies control

In addition to these commanders in chief afloat, the chief of Naval Operations at Washington exercised general control over the operations of the fleet and the entire naval shore establishment as well, being in effect a naval chief of staff, though not occupying the same legal position as the chief of staff of the Army.

This system neither provided for effective and centralized command of the fleet nor for a proper control of administration and supply. Inevitably the chief of Naval Operations became overworked and snowed under with administrative detail, while there was no commander in chief afloat who possessed adequate means for exercising supreme command.

The new arrangement immensely simplifies and clarifies the control of the naval establishment. A single commander in chief with full control of all operations has been appointed, with headquarters in Washington and with a staff functioning in the Navy Department in close touch with the President, the Secretary of the Navy and the other departments of the Government. He has nothing to do but to command the naval forces of the United States and to use those forces to the best effect to bring about victory. The three commanders of the three fleets are directly responsible to this commander in chief, who in turn is directly responsible to the President through the Secretary of the Navy. The importance of this well-defined chain of responsibility cannot be overemphasized. The commander in chief may, if he sees fit, hoist his flag afloat and proceed to any point where his duties may require him to go.

Has aviation background

The chief of Naval Operations will continue to exercise control over administration and supply, the building program, the training of personnel and the naval shore establishment in general. It will be his task to see to it that the commander in chief has the means with which to carry on his operations.

This change should not be considered in any other light than as a necessary step toward victory. The officer selected as commander in chief, Adm. Ernest J. King, formerly commander in chief of the Atlantic fleet, has had the benefit of his experience in that capacity on active service, under the conditions of modern warfare. He has the further advantage of being a naval aviator and of having commanded the aircraft of the fleet, as well as having been chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. This background gives him unique qualifications for the supreme command under present conditions. The qualifications he already has exemplified by his remarkable success in the command of the Atlantic fleet where his dispositions have been so well conceived and energetic that during the past month there has been but one successful attack on a merchant ship within the area for which he is responsible. He is furthermore an officer inspired by that spirit of the offensive which is so essential to success in naval warfare.

Stark’s burden multiplies

The chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Harold R. Stark, has for the greater part of the past two years found his chief responsibility to be the enormous expansion of the Navy with its great building program and the training of many thousands of additional officers and men. He has dealt with the innumerable details of that task with tireless energy and complete self-sacrifice. Those who, like this writer, have been privileged to know him during this time are well aware of the tremendous burdens he has been carrying, without complaint, efficiently and steadily. The work he has been doing must continue and be vastly expanded. No hands can perform this task better than those already accustomed to it, but some means must be found to lessen his burden – hence we now have this new and clear-cut division between operations on the one hand and administration and logistics on the other, and in each job we have a man whose recent experience and inherent qualities particularly fit him for the work he has to do.

Both jobs are necessary and one man cannot possibly do them both. They will both be done well and the sum of them will spell victory.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8988
Directing That Certain Commissioned Officers of the Public Health Service Shall Constitute a Part of the Naval Forces of the United States

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 23, 1941

WHEREAS the act of July 1, 1902, as amended by the act of August 14, 1912 (U.S.C., title 42, sec. 8), provides as follows:

“The President is authorized, in his discretion, to utilize the Public Health Service in times of threatened or actual war to such extent and in such manner as shall in his judgment promote the public interest without, however, in any wise Impairing the efficiency of the service for the purposes for which the same was created and is maintained.”;

WHEREAS by Executive Order No. 8929 of November 1, 1941, the Coast Guard is now operating as a part of the Navy, subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy; and

WHEREAS commissioned officers of the Public Health Service are now serving on Coast Guard vessels and with other Coast Guard units pursuant to orders issued under competent authority:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the statutory provisions above set out, I hereby direct that commissioned officers of the Public Health Service detailed for duty on Coast Guard vessels and with other Coast Guard units shall continue on such details until relieved by competent authority, and that such officers, including those ordered to such duty as replacements or in addition to present complements, while engaged upon such assignments shall constitute a part of the naval forces of the United States, subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy.

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 23, 1941.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8990
Appointment of State Employment Security Personnel to Positions in the Social Security Board, Federal Security Agency

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 23, 1941

By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 1753 of the Revised Statutes, by section 2 of the Civil Service Act (22 Stat. 403, 404), and by section 4 of the act of November 26, 1940, 54 Stat. 1214, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Any employee of a state or territorial employment security agency, required by the Federal Security Agency in connection with its operation of employment office facilities and services essential to expediting the national-defense program pursuant to the provisions of the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation Act of 1942, may be appointed to a position in the Social Security Board of the Federal Security Agency, and upon such appointment may acquire a classified civil-service status: Provided, (1) that such employee was on the rolls of the state employment security agency at the close of business December 31, 1941; (2) that he was previously approved for permanent or probational appointment, or within the six-months’ period beginning January 1, 1942, becomes eligible for such appointment, under the rules of a state merit system previously approved by the Social Security Board; and (3) that he satisfactorily completes a six-months’ probationary period from the date of his induction into the Federal service.
Finding that such action is necessary to the more efficient operation of the Government, it is ordered that the state salary rates in force on December 31, 1941, may be continued or amended as to employees affected by paragraph 1 hereof by the Federal Security Administrator until such time as the positions shall be classified in accordance with the administrative provisions and salary rates of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended.
With the concurrence of the Civil Service Commission, and for such period of time as the Commission may deem necessary, vacancies occurring after December 31, 1941, in public employment office facilities and services operated by the Social Security Board may be filled by the Federal Security Agency from eligible lists prepared under the rules of a state merit system previously approved by the Social Security Board pursuant to the provisions of the Social Security Act. Persons so appointed may, after the satisfactory completion of a six-months’ probationary period, acquire a competitive classified civil-service status in the Federal service, subject to such regulations as the Civil Service Commission may prescribe.

This order is recommended by the Federal Security Administrator as an emergency measure essential to the national defense.

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 23, 1941.

U.S. State Department (December 23, 1941)

Meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill with their military advisers, 4:45 p.m.

Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Churchill
December 23, 1941, 4:45 p.m. EST

THE PRESIDENT: I am sorry to have taken so long for all of you to get in, but apparently – I was telling the Prime Minister the object was to prevent a wolf from coming in here in sheep’s clothing. (Laughter) But I was thereby mixing my metaphors, because I had suggested to him this morning that if he came to this conference he would have to be prepared to meet the American press, who, compared with the British press – as was my experience in the old days are “wolve,” compared with the British press “lambs.”

However, he is quite willing to take on a conference, because we have one characteristic in common. We like new experiences in life.

I only have one or two things. And the first is I will get myself out of the way first-- the first is that I have established the Office of Defense Transportation, in the Executive Office of the President. They are to coordinate all of the transportation policies and the activities of the several Federal agencies and private transportation groups, compile and analyze estimates of the requirements of the future, and coordinate and direct domestic traffic movements. They will have in the Office a Division of Railway Transportation, a Division of Motor Transport, a Division of Inland Waterway Transport, a Division of Coastwise and Inter-Coastal Transport, and such other operating and staff divisions as the Director may determine.

And I have appointed Mr. Joe Eastman to the position of Director, and asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to give him leave of absence for that purpose.

I think that is all that I have.

If you want to know something about plans for the immediate future, I think last night’s statement covered the great purpose and the objective of the conference Mr. Churchill and I are having with the staffs.

And we want to make it clear that this is a preliminary British-American conference, but that thereby no other Nations are excluded from the general objective of defeating Hitlerism in the world. Just for example, I think the Prime Minister this morning has been consulting with the Dominions. That is especially important, of course, in view of the fact that Australia and New Zealand are very definitely in the danger zone; and we are working out a complete unity of action in regard to the Southwest Pacific. In addition to that, there are a good many Nations besides our own that are at war.

THE PRIME MINISTER: (interposing) Canada.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Canada, the Prime Minister suggests, is also–

THE PRIME MINISTER: (interposing) In the line.

THE PRESIDENT: (continuing) --in the line – both sides of Canada. I think it is all right to say that Mr. Mackenzie King will be here later on.

In regard to the other Nations, such as the Russians, the Chinese, the Dutch, and a number of other Nations which are- shall I say – overrun by Germany, but which still maintain governments which are operating in the common cause, they also will be on the inside in what we are doing.

In addition to that, there arc various other Nations, for example a number of American Republics which are actually in the war, and another number of American Republics which although not acting under a declaration of war are giving us very definite and much-needed assistance. It might be called on their part “active non-belligerency.”

At five o’clock we are having a staff meeting. We have already had a meeting with the State Department officials, and during the next few days decisions will materialize. We can’t give you any more news about them at this time, except to say that the whole matter is progressing very satisfactorily.

Steve [Early] and I first thought that I would introduce the Prime Minister, and let him say a few words to you good people, by banning questions. However, the Prime Minister did not go along with that idea, and I don’t blame him. He said that he is perfectly willing to answer any reasonable questions for a reasonably short time, if you want to ask him … And so I am going to introduce him, and you to him and tell you that we are very, very happy to have him here …

And so I will introduce the Prime Minister.

(To the Prime Minister) I wish you would just stand up for one minute and let them see you. They can’t see you.

(Applause greeted the Prime Minister when he stood up, but when he climbed onto his chair so that they could see him better, loud and spontaneous cheers and applause rang through the room.)

THE PRESIDENT: (to the press) Go ahead and shoot.

Q. What about Singapore, Mr. Prime Minister? The people of Australia are terribly anxious about it. Would you say to be of good cheer?

THE PRIME MINISTER: We are going to do our utmost to defend Singapore and its approaches until the situation becomes so favorable to us that the general offensive in the Pacific can be resumed.

Q. Thank you, sir.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, isn’t Singapore the key to the whole situation out there?

THE PRIME MINISTER: The key to the whole situation is the resolute manner in which the British and American democracies are going to throw themselves into the conflict. As a geographical and strategic point it obviously is of very high importance.

Q. Mr. Minister, could you tell us what you think of conditions within Germany the morale?

THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, I have always been feeling that one of these days we might get a windfall coming from that quarter, but I don’t think we ought to count on it. Just go on as if they were keeping on as bad as they are, or as good as they are. And then one of these days, as we did in the last war, we may wake up and find we ran short of Huns. (Laughter)

Q. Do you think the war is turning in our favor in the last month or so?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I can’t describe the feelings of relief with which I find Russia victorious, the United States and Great Britain standing side by side. It is incredible to anyone who has lived through the lonely months of 1940. It is incredible. Thank God.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, there have been suggestions from various sources that possibly the German retreat- or the Russian success- has some element of trickery in it, that the Germans are not particularly routed. In other words, a bit of camouflage. Can you throw any light on that, or do you care to?

THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course, it is only my opinion, but I think that they have received a very heavy rebuff. Hitler prophesied that he would take Moscow in a short time. Now his armies are joggling backwards over this immense front, wondering where he can find a place to winter. It won’t be a comfortable place. They have had immense losses. And the Russians have shown a power of resiliency, a gift of modern warfare under their leader, Stalin, which has rendered immense service to the world cause.

Q. Mr. Minister, can you tell us when you think we may lick these boys?

THE PRIME MINISTER: If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly. (Laughter)

Q. How long, sir, would it take if we managed it badly?

THE PRIME MINISTER: That has not been revealed to me at this moment. We don’t need to manage it badly.

Q. How long if we manage it well, sir?

THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, it would be imprudent to indulge in a facile optimism at the moment.

Q. Do you favor a personal conference of yourself, Mr. Roosevelt, Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek?

THE PRIME MINISTER: In principle, yes. (Laughter)

Q. Do you think it is important, Mr. Prime Minister, that our American war materials continue to go, to some extent at least, through the Middle East and to Russia during this particular period?

THE PRIME MINISTER: My feeling is that the military power and munitions power of the United States are going to develop on such a great scale that the problem will not so much be whether to choose between this and that, but how to get what is available to all the theaters in which we have to wage this World War.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, in one of your speeches you mentioned three or four of the great climacterics. Would you now add our entry into the war as one of those, sir?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I think I may almost say, “I sure do.”(Laughter)

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, during your talks here, will you take up economic, and diplomatic, and postwar problems?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I hope not too much on them. Well, really, we have to concentrate on the grim emergencies, and when we have solved them, we shall be in a position to deal with the future of the world in a manner to give the best results, and the most lasting results, for the common peoples of all the lands. But one has only a certain amount of life and strength, and only so many hours in the day, and other emergencies press upon us too much to be drawn into those very, very complicated, tangled, and not in all cases attractive jungles.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, can you say anything now about the prospect of an anti-Axis command on those discussions?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I think it would be very difficult to arrange. What you require is the broad blocking in of the main plans by the principal personages in charge of the action of the different states, and then the release of that to the highest military expert authorities for execution. But this is a war which is absolutely- literally world-wide, proceeding at the same time from one end of the globe to the other, and in the air, on the land, and on the sea. I do not think there has ever been a man born, even if he were Napoleon, he wouldn’t know anything about the air – who could assume the functions of world commander in chief for the – I would say associated powers. (Laughter)

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, are you giving consideration to creation of an Allied supplies command, whereby materials of the anti-Axis powers would be allocated under a central agency?

THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, there is the very closest liaison between our people over here and the United States officers. Lord Beaverbrook is here with an executive staff, and we have, I believe, quite a large staff here, and they are in the closest accord. Then at the summit of the problem is a fairly simple one of allocation in accordance with the emergency. And of course, the rule we have got to follow is to see how much we can help each other. It should be a rivalry in mutual helpfulness, and that is the only one.

Q. Mr. Minister, do you anticipate a German offensive on a new front in the near future?

THE PRIME MINISTER; There is a lot of talk about their coming along and making an attack in the Mediterranean. There is a lot of talk about their getting ready for an invasion of England next year. We have heard a lot of this, and I expect something will come of it, but where, I can’t tell. I will be very glad to be informed. Gentlemen, if you have got any information, it will be thankfully received. (Laughter)

NormanStewart · December 26, 2020, 12:46am

Q. Mr. Minister, have you any information as to whether the Germans have lost more materiel in Russia than they can replace by spring?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I should think that they have got ample materiel, because they not only have their own vast factories – which were running at full war speed when the war broke out – they have a great accumulation, and they have what they captured from so many other countries. I shouldn’t think that was where they would run short. But of course, the quality of the materiel, as we move on each year into new and better times – they might not have the power to keep in the race with that.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, what are the materials that Germany is most likely to run short of? What are the materials of which they are most short?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I did hear something about oil and other things, but it is rather technical for me.

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, can you interpret any of the recent events in Germany as possible internal collapse – symptomatic of an internal collapse?

THE PRIME MINISTER. Don’t let us bank on that. We have got to bank on an external knockout. If the internal collapse comes, so much the better.

Q. Mr. Minister, have you any doubt of the ultimate victory?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I have no doubt whatever.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.

Dinner party of the American and British military leaders, 7:30 p.m.

Roosevelt-Churchill dinner meeting, evening

Völkischer Beobachter (December 24, 1941)

Die USA-Stellung in Ostasien wird täglich bedrohter

Umfassende Angriffsoperationen auf den Philippinen
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“

vb. Wien, 23. Dezember
Japan hat auf den Philippinen durch Landungen größten Stiles einen zweiten Großangriff gegen die Stellung der USA eröffnet. Nach der Katastrophe von Hawai und der Eroberung der Inselstützpunkte Wake und Guam würde der Verlust der Philippinen für die Vereinigten Staaten die Zertrümmerung ihres gesamten Machtgefüges in Ostasien bedeuten. USA-Meldungen aus Manila sprechen den Kampfhandlungen auf Luzon nunmehr entscheidende Bedeutung für den Besitz der Philippinen zu. Die Japaner seien mit einer riesigen Transportflotte von 80 Schiffen erschienen, ein Unternehmen, das in dieser Art zu den größten und kühnsten der neueren Geschichte zählt. Die Situation für die Vereinigten Staaten ist um so bedrohlicher, als gleichzeitig mit dem konzentrischen Vormarsch auf Luzon die planmäßige Besetzung der übrigen Philippineninseln durch japanische Landungstruppen vor sich geht. So meldet das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier den Fall der Hauptstadt Davao auf der zweitgrößten Insel Mindanao.

Eine Mitteilung des Washingtoner Kriegsdepartements spricht von heftigen Kämpfen im Lingayengolf, 240 Meilen nördlich von Manila. Das japanische Expeditionskorps, das man auf eine Stärke von sechs bis acht Divisionen schätzt, beherrsche die Küste Luzons von Aparri bis zum äußersten westlichen Punkt Kap Bolinao. Die Japaner hatten sofort nach der Landung die Kämpfe aufgenommen und dringen nun südwärts vor, wobei sie Santo Tomas la Union bereits erreicht haben sollen.

General MacArthur versuche, wie aus Manila gemeldet wird, durch Entsendung von Heeres- und Luftstreitkräften nach dem Lingayengolf die schwere Gefahr auszuschalten, die das erfolgreiche Vordringen der Japaner für Manila darstellt. Dabei kam es in der Nähe eines Eisenbahnknotenpunktes bereits zu schweren Kämpfen, bei denen schwerste Waffen eingesetzt wurden. Das USA-Hauptquartier in Manila ist bezeichnenderweise nicht imstande, eine einigermaßen klare Darstellung der Lage zu geben, sondern kann nur ihre Unübersichtlichkeit feststellen.

Einen bedeutenden Anteil an den geglückten japanischen Landungsoperationen hatte die japanische Luftwaffe, die in rollenden Einsätzen USA-Stützpunkte mit Bomben angriff und alle Versuche des Gegners, die Landung an der Westküste von Luzon zu stören, erfolgreich abwies. Vier philippinische Schiffe von zusammen 13.188 Tonnen werden als versenkt gemeldet. Von zwei weiteren Schiffen fehlen Nachrichten.

Hauptstadt Davao besetzt

Wie das Kaiserliche Hauptquartier amtlich mitteilt, haben die am 20. Dezember früh auf der Insel Mindanao gelandeten japanischen Truppen in engster Zusammenarbeit mit der Marine den heftigen feindlichen Widerstand gebrochen und am selben Tage, 17 Uhr nachmittags japanischer Zeit, die Hauptstadt Davao besetzt. Der Gegner verlor bis zum 21. Dezember 600 Gefangene und 200 Tote sowie zahlreiches Kriegsmaterial.

Die Hauptstadt Davao liegt in einer tief eingeschnitten Bucht an der Südküste der Philippineninsel Mindanao, der südlichsten großen Insel der Inselgruppe, und hat rund 95.000 Einwohner. Sitz der Regierungsbehörde ist allerdings die kleine Stadt Cagayan an der Nordküste der Insel.

Angriff auf Ipoh

Während auf den Philippinen die Stellung der USA-Streitkräfte von Tag zu Tag bedrohter wird, müssen ihre britischen Bundesgenossen auf der Malaieninsel ebenfalls vor der japanischen Überlegenheit zurückwelchen. Nach Berichten aus Singapur konnte die rückwärtige Bewegung der Engländer im Perak (im Norden von Malaya) noch nicht aufgehalten werden. Die Briten versuchen jetzt, Stellungen bei Kuala Kangsar einzunehmen. Das ist ein wichtiger Eisenbahn- und Straßenknotenpunkt und liegt 18 Kilometer nördlich von Ipoh, das als nächstes japanisches Angriffsziel bezeichnet wird. In Ipoh befinden sich bedeutende Zinnbergwerke. Die Japaner führen für ihre nächsten Angriffe in dieser Gegend indessen auf Flößen den Perakfluß hinunter Verstärkungen nach.**

Im Sultanat Selangor war die Hauptstadt Kuala Lumpur, die gleichzeitig der Sitz der Bundesregierung aller malaiischen Staaten ist, rund 111.000 Einwohner hat und 300 Kilometer nordwestlich von Singapur liegt, einem schweren Luftangriff japanischer Flugzeuge ausgesetzt. An den militärischen Zielen der großen Stadt wurden schwere Schäden verursacht.

Hoffnung auf China

Die bedrohliche Lage auf der Malaienhalbinsel zwingt die Briten, sich verzweifelt nach allen möglichen Hilfsquellen umzusehen. Das einst so stolze England ist so tief herabgesunken, daß es schon allen Ernstes auf die Hilfe der Chinesen spekuliert und vergißt. daß diese bisher nur verachtungswürdige Objekte für die Ausplünderung durch die britischen Krämer waren. Der militärische Kommentator Reuters, Analist, gibt sich bei einer Betrachtung der ostasiatischen Situation der entwürdigenden Selbsttäuschung hin, von angeblichen Angriffen der Tschungking-Chinesen gegen japanische Verbindungswege eine Besserung der prekären Lage der Engländer zu erhoffen. „Ist es zu phantastisch“, schreibt er, „zu glauben, daß chinesische Truppen noch gebraucht werden können, um von Burma aus einer Invasion in Thailand zu unternehmen? Sie haben eine Erfahrung von, viereinhalb Jahren im Kampfe gegen die Japaner hinter sich. Die beiden südlichen Provinzen Jünnan und Kwangsin könnten mit Leichtigkeit eine Million abgehärteter Bergsteiger auf die Beine bringen, die imstande sind, unglaubliche Märsche mit der größten Ausdauer zu vollbringen, und die Offiziere besitzen, die sich in der harten Schule eines langen Feldzuges vervollkommnet haben.“

1119 Gefangene in Hongkong

Chinesisches Kanonenfutter, und noch dazu in der stattlichen Menge von einer Million Mann, könnte Herrn Churchill im Augenblick für Ostasien so passen. Sie kämen aber zu spät, um die Lage für die Briten zu bessern oder gar entscheidend zu beeinflussen. Auf der Insel Hongkong wird schon der letzte Widerstand der Briten durch die japanischen Truppen gebrochen. Japaner haben die letzten befestigten Stellungen bei Taping und Kili, die zwischen Pokfulum im Westen und dem Cameron-Berg im Osten liegen, angegriffen und sie genommen. Die Zahl der Gefangenen belief sich bei den Kämpfen um Hongkong bis zum 23. Dezember auf 1119, darunter 118 Engländer.

Außerdem aber haben die Tschungking-Chinesen weder Zeit noch Lust, ihre Kraft für die Briten einzusetzen sie brauchen sie selber, um sich gegen eine großangelegte japanische Offensive zu verteidigen, deren Beginn das Hauptquartier der japanischen Streitkräfte in Zentralchina am Montagabend bekanntgab. Sie beschränkt sich nicht auf einzelne Vorstöße, sondern greift in breiter Front die Armeen Tschiangkaischeks an, die in den Provinzen Chekiang, Anhwei, Kwangsi und Fukien stehen.

Die materielle Situation Japans auf dem ostasiatischen Kontinent ist durch tiefgreifende Maßnahmen erheblich verstärkt worden, die von der Regierung von Mandschukuo auf einer Sonderkonferenz vor Vertretern der Armee und der Industrie in Hsingking bekanntgegeben wurden. Sie sehen unter anderem eine erhebliche Erhöhung der Ausfuhr nach Japan vor. Die gesamte mandschurische Produktion soll mit der Wirtschaft Japans in Einklang gebracht und auf den japanischen Bedarf abgestellt werden.

England zittert um Singapur

Der Überblick über diese letzten Einzelmeldungen läßt verstehen, daß man weder in London noch in Washington einen Lichtblick sieht oder vorläufig einen Ausweg weiß. Selbst der englische Rundfunk verbreitete am Montag eine melancholische Betrachtung darüber, daß die Japaner mit ihrem großen Angriff im Pazifik erst vor 14 Tagen begonnen haben, daß die Nachrichten von dort aber heute schon schlimmer sind, als die schlimmsten britischen Erwartungen es jemals ahnen konnten. Die englische Betrachtung fuhr fort: „Das Unangenehmste im Pazifik ist, daß die japanische Seevorherrschaft im südchinesischen Meer und auch im westlichen Pazifik nicht wirksam bekämpft werde“, und wagt nicht zu behaupten, daß es möglich sein kann, diese japanische Seeherrschaft in naher Zukunft zu stürzen. Wenn die anglo-amerikanische Seemacht jedoch nicht bald wiederhergestellt werden kann, sind Singapur und noch eher Manila tödlich bedroht. — Der von den Japanern diktierte Gang der Ereignisse in Ostasien bestätigt die Gründe zu solchem Pessimismus in jeder neuen Meldung.

Ein neuer Fahrplan wird gesucht:
Churchill und Roosevelt besprechen ihre Sorgen

Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“

dr. th. b. Stockholm, 23. Dezember
Die schweren Rückschläge, die England und die USA in Ostasien und im Stillen Ozean erlitten haben, haben eine zweite Zusammenkunft zwischen Churchill und Roosevelt notwendig gemacht. Der englische Premierminister ist in Begleitung von Lord Beaverbrook mit dem Flugzeug in den USA eingetroffen. In seiner Begleitung befinden sich außerdem der Chef der englischen Hochseeflotte Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, der Chef des Generalstabes Feldmarschall Sir John Dill, der Chef der Luftwaffe Sir Charles Portal, der amerikanische Botschafter in London Winant und Roosevelts persönlicher Beauftragter Harriman.

In einer amtlichen Erklärung zu der Zusammenkunft heißt es, „der britische Premierminister ist in den Vereinigten Staaten eingetroffen, um mit dem Präsidenten alle Fragen zu besprechen, die im Zusammenhang mit den gemeinsamen Kriegsanstrengungen stehen. Churchill ist von Lord Beaverbrook und technischem Personal begleitet; er ist Gast des Präsidenten“.

An der zweiten Begegnung zwischen Churchill und Roosevelt ist zuerst bemerkenswert, daß es auch diesmal wieder der weit ältere Churchill ist, der die Fahrt über den Atlantik antreten mußte. Es hätte dem diplomatischen Protokoll eher entsprochen, wenn diesesmal Roosevelt die Last der Reise auf sich genommen hätte. Das erstemal war allerdings Roosevelt Churchills Gast an Bord der „Prince of Wales“; auch fand das Treffen in den Gewässern von Neufundland statt. Neufundland aber liegt innerhalb der sogenannten westlichen Hemisphäre und ist außerdem Stützpunkt der USA geworden. Wichtiger aber als der protokollarische Rahmen dieses zweiten Treffens sind seine politischen und militärischen Voraussetzungen.

Die vier Punkte des ersten Treffens

Churchill hat zum ersten Atlantiktreffen zweimal das Wort ergriffen, das erstemal nach seiner Rückkehr am 3. September im Rundfunk und sechs Tage darauf im Unterhaus. Die erste Rede bewegte sich in dem allerdings alkoholdurchfeuchteten Stil des Alten Testaments, den Churchill liebt, die zweite Rede zählte dann die vier Punkte auf, die nach Churchills Auffassung den Zweck der Besprechungen mit Roosevelt bildeten:

1. Die Verkündung der „neuen Magna Charta“.

2. Die Hilfsmaßnahmen für die Sowjets.

3. Die Politik, die Japan gegenüber verfolgt werden muß, um weitere Übergriffe im Fernen Osten zu verhindern und die durch geeignete Maßnahmen Sorge dafür trifft, daß der Krieg sich nicht auf den Stillen Ozean ausbreitet“.

4. Technische Fragen.

Aus der Aufzählung dieser vier Punkte geht bereits deutlich hervor, daß schon bei diesem ersten Atlantik-Treffen das Verhältnis der westlichen Demokratien zu Japan im Vordergrund stand. Es wird heute auch auf englischer Seite keineswegs bestritten, daß in dieser Frage zwischen Churchill und Roosevelt keine volle Einigung erzielt werden konnte. Churchill drängte zum Bruch mit Japan, selbst auf die Gefahr hin, daß sich dadurch die amerikanischen Lieferungen verringern würden. Roosevelt wollte Zeit gewinnen; in der Absicht, Japan eine schwere diplomatische Niederlage zuzufügen und es zum Rückzug zu zwingen, waren sich indessen beide Minister einig.

Welche politischen Motive aber auch immer für die Behandlung der Ostasienpolitik maßgebend waren, so sind sie heute durch den Eintritt Japans in den Krieg gegenstandslos geworden. Die japanische Politik hinderte sowohl Churchill daran, in die japanischen Verteidigungsvorbereitungen hineinzustoßen, wie sie Roosevelt daran hinderte. Zeit zu gewinnen und den eigenen Aufmarsch bis aufs letzte vorzubereiten.

In Ostasien und im Stillen Ozean ist jetzt eine völlig neue Lage geschaffen, wie die militärischen Ereignisse der letzten 14 Tage gezeigt haben. Die plutokratischen Angreifer wurden in die Verteidigung gedrängt, ohne die Hoffnung zu besitzen, wieder auf längere Sicht hin die Initiative ergreifen zu können. Churchills Erklärung vom 9. September: „Ich kann mit Befriedigung sagen, daß genügend Flottenstreitkräfte sowohl im Atlantischen wie im Indischen und Stillen Ozean zur Verfügung stehen, um die Sicherheit der Seewege zu garantieren“, ist Lügen gestraft.

Was das Widerstandsvermögen der Sowjets betrifft, so war Churchill in seinen damaligen Äußerungen sehr viel vorsichtiger. Seine damals gegebene Zusicherung an Stalin aber, die Bolschewisten selbst unter Verzicht auf die eigenen Notwendigkeiten zu unterstützen, zeigte, daß er sich von dem Eingreifen der Sowjets die entscheidende Wendung des Krieges noch in diesem Jahr erhoffte. Diese Wendung ist nicht eingetreten. Diese Tatsache wiegt schwerer als die Notwendigkeit, bis zum Frühjahr auf der 2500 Kilometer langen Ostfront zum Stellungskrieg überzugehen. Noch im August hatte Churchill die menschlichen Reserven der Sowjets auf zehn Millionen und mehr Mann geschätzt. Selbst diese gewaltige Reserve konnte indessen die Wendung nicht erzwingen.

Der zerstörte Kriegsplan

Wenn daher in irgendeinem sinnvollen Zusammenhang das Wort von dem in Unordnung gebrachten Fahrplan zutrifft, so auf den Fahrplan, den Roosevelt und Churchill bei ihrem ersten Treffen aufstellen. Man kann heute diesen Fahrplan in seinen großen Linien rekonstruieren:

Angriff der Sowjetunion im Osten trotz den ihnen zugefügten schweren Verlusten auf der ganzen Linie mit dem Ziel, die deutschen Armeen auf ihre Ausgangsstellungen zurückzuwerfen und nach der Winterpause zu weiteren Angriffen auf Europa überzugehen.
Angriff der britischen Streitkräfte im mittleren Orient mit dem Ziel der Herstellung einer direkten Verbindung mit der Sowjetunion, der militärischen Einkreisung der Türkei und der Vertreibung der deutschen und italienischen Streitkräfte in Nordafrika.
Rücksichtsloser Luftkrieg gegen Deutschland und die von ihm besetzten Gebiete.
Angriff auf Japan, sobald die in Punkt 1 bis 3 vorgesehenen Angriffsziele erreicht sind.

Schon die Aufzählung dieser vier Punkte zeigt, daß der Fahrplan des ersten Treffens zwischen Roosevelt und Churchill völlig in Unordnung geraten ist. Es nutzte auch nichts, daß man einige Weichen umstellte und einige Einzelaktionen auf ein Nebengeleise schob. Churchill und Roosevelt sahen sich gezwungen, den alten Fahrplan zu annullieren und einen zweiten aufzustellen.

Japans Waffenerfolge seit Kriegsbeginn

50 Kriegs-, 425 Handelsschiffe und 776 Flugzeuge

dnb. Tokio, 23. Dezember
In einer ausführlichen Übersicht faßt Domei die Ergebnisse der japanischen Kriegführung zur See und in der Luft in den ersten 14 Tagen seit Kriegsbeginn in folgenden eindrucksvollen Zahlen zusammen: Versenkt, schwer beschädigt oder aufgebracht wurden rund 50 feindliche Kriegsfahrzeuge sowie 425 Handelsschiffe und kleinere bis kleinste Fahrzeuge, 776 Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen oder am Boden zerstört.

Im einzelnen verteilen sich diese Verluste wie folgt:

Versenkt wurden von Kriegsschiffen 7 Schlachtschiffe, 2 Kreuzer, 1 Zerstörer, 9 U-Boote, 2 Kanonenboote, 1 Minensucher, 1 Patrouillenboot sowie 6 Torpedoboote.

Schwer beschädigt wurden 3 Schlachtschiffe, 2 Kreuzer, 4 Zerstörer, 1 Spezialfahrzeug und 2 Kanonenboote.

Beschädigt wurden ein Schlachtschiff und vier Kreuzer, ein Kanonenboot aufgebracht und ein bewaffnetes Handelsschiff. Drei feindliche Handelsschiffe wurden schwer beschädigt. An großen Handelsdampfern wurden drei aufgebracht, zwei versenkt und zwei schwer beschädigt. Ferner wurden noch 418 Schiffe verschiedenster Größen einschließlich Booten aufgebracht; an feindlichen Flugzeugen wurden 114 abgeschossen und 662 am Boden zerstört.

Demgegenüber werden von Domei die japanischen Verluste wie folgt angegeben: Gesunken ein Zerstörer und ein Minensucher, schwerstens beschädigt ein leichter Kreuzer und ein Minensucher. Fünf U-Boote sind nicht zurückgekehrt, 72 Flugzeuge sind verloren.

NormanStewart · December 26, 2020, 1:05am

Führer-Hauptquartier (December 24, 1941)

Wehrmachtbericht

Im Osten hat der Gegner seine unter hohem Bluteinsatz geführten Angriffe auch gestern fortgesetzt. Einzelne örtliche Einbrüche wurden im Gegenstoß beseitigt. An anderen Stellen wurden feindliche Bereitstellungen durch eigenen Vorstoß zerschlagen.

An der Nordostküste des Schwarzen Meeres warfen Kampfflugzeuge Öllager und Bahnhofsanlagen im Hafen Tuapse in Brand und führten erfolgreiche Angriffe auf feindliche Bahntransporte im Südteil der Ostfront. Starke Kräfte der Luftwaffe griffen in die Erdkämpfe ein und fügten dem Feind erhebliche Verluste an Menschen und Material zu. Sowjetische Kolonnen auf der Eisstraße des Ladogasees wurden bei Tag und bei Nacht mit Bomben belegt. Im hohen Norden setzten Kampffliegerverbände durch Bombentreffer feindliche Batterien außer Gefecht und vernichteten Nachschubzüge auf der Murmanbahn. Nachtangriffe der Luftwaffe richteten sich gegen Moskau.

Im Kampf gegen Großbritannien versenkten Unterseeboote vier feindliche Handelsschiffe — darunter einen großen Transporter — mit zusammen 23.500 BRT.

Das durch das Unterseeboot des Kapitänleutnants Bigalk versenkte britische Kriegsschiff ist inzwischen als der Flugzeugträger „Unicorn“ festgestellt worden. Es handelt sich hierbei um das neueste, erst während des Krieges fertiggestellte Schiff dieser Gattung, das in den britischen Flottenlisten als Flugbootträger geführt wird.

In Nordafrika gehen die Kämpfe weiter. Deutsche Truppen vernichteten in entschlossenem Gegenangriff zwei britische Batterien und acht Panzerkampfwagen. Deutsche Kampfflugzeuge zersprengten Ansammlungen des Feindes in der nördlichen Cyrenaika.

Über Malta wurden in Luftkämpfen zwei britische Jagdflugzeuge abgeschossen, an einer anderen Stelle des Mittelmeerraumes ein großes Flugboot.

Die britische Luftwaffe warf in der letzten Nacht Spreng- und- Brandbomben auf einige Orte Westdeutschlands und der besetzten Westgebiete. Die Schäden sind unerheblich. Der Feind verlor zwei Bomber.

Bei dem versenkten Flugzeugträger „Unicorn“ handelt es sich um ein Schiff von 14.750 Tonnen Wasserverdrängung. Die Länge betrug 172 Meter, die Breite 27‚5 Meter. Die Maschinen von 40.000 PS verliehen der „Unicorn“ eine Geschwindigkeit von 24 Seemeilen. Die Engländer hatten dieses Schiff, als es 1939 in Bau gegeben wurde, als „Vorrats- und Reparaturschiff für die Flottenluftwaffe“ bezeichnet.

Diese Bezeichnung „Vorrats- und Begleitschiff für die Flottenluftwaffe“ wurde jetzt vom britischen Marineministerium ausgenutzt, um gegen die deutsche Versenkungsmeldung ein durchsichtiges Dementi auszugeben. Die Londoner Admiralität ließ nämlich erklären, es sei kein Flugzeugträger versenkt worden, sondern es handle sich wohl um ein Schiff, das mit der Flugzeugsicherung eines Geleitzuges beauftragt war.

Wie die Engländer einen solchen Flugzeugträger nach außen bezeichnen, bleibt sich gleichgültig. Sie haben jedenfalls die Versenkung des Flugzeugträgers „Unicorn“ nicht abstreiten können. Damit ist durch den Verlust eines ganz neuen Flugzeugträgers eine besonders empfindliche Lücke in den Bestand an englischen Flugzeugschiffen gerissen worden.

Durch eine hervorragende Waffentat zeichnete sich am 21. Dezember 1941 im Nordabschnitt der Ostfront ein deutscher Obergefreiter einer Panzerjägereinheit aus. Der ganze Kampf hatte nur sieben Minuten gedauert, in dieser Zeit vernichtete der Obergefreite sieben feindliche Panzerkampfwagen.

Comando Supremo (December 24, 1941)

Bollettino n. 570

Il Quartier Generale delle Forze Armate comunica in data 24 dicembre 1941:

In Cirenaica, i combattimenti si sono riaccesi nella regione a sud di Barce.

Nuclei meccanizzati nemici hanno ripetutamente attaccato le nostre truppe allo scopo di ostacolarne i movimenti in corso. Sul fronte di Sollum una puntata avversaria è stata respinta; nella zona di Bardia nulla di notevole da segnalare.

Bombardamenti di formazioni aeree tedesche contro obiettivi terrestri hanno conseguito visibili risultati.

Il nemico ha perduto tre velivoli ad opera della caccia germanica; al largo di Marsa Matruh un nostro ricognitore attaccato da tre «Hurricane», ne ha abbattuto uno ed è rientrato alla base con cinque feriti a bordo.

U.S. War Department (December 24, 1941)

Communique No. 25

PHILIPPINE THEATER – The Commanding General, U.S. Forces in the Far East, reports that fighting on the eastern shore of Lingayen Gulf is increasing in intensity. Japanese invaders are using light tanks in vigorous attacks south of Agoo.

Enemy airplanes have been particularly active in supporting landings and shore operations.

American bombing planes attacked several enemy troopships off Davao with undetermined results.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

Communique No. 26

PHILIPPINE THEATER – During the night, the enemy landed in heavy force in the vicinity of Atimonan, 75 miles southeast of Manila, on the island of Luzon. The Japanese troops in this region are debarking from approximately 40 transports.

Several enemy troopships have appeared off Batangas, south of Manila, indicating the probability of an attempted landing in that region.

Heavy fighting continues in the area of Lingayen Gulf where the enemy is exerting great pressure. American and Filipino troops, though greatly outnumbered, are stubbornly resisting attacks.

Enemy air activity has been intense during the past 24 hours, with several raids over Manila and the port area.

There is nothing to report from other areas.

U.S. Navy Department (December 24, 1941)

Communique No. 17

ATLANTIC THEATER – There are no new developments to report.

EASTERN PACIFIC – The SS LARRY DOHENY was shelled by an enemy submarine, but reached port safely. Press reports of the sinking of the SS MONTEBELLO are confirmed.

CENTRAL PACIFIC – Radio communication with Wake has been severed and the capture of the island is probable. Two enemy destroyers were lost in the final landing operations.

Palmyra Island was shelled by an enemy submarine. Damage was negligible. There were no casualties. Johnston Island was also shelled by an enemy submarine with no damage to material and no casualties resulting.

The Hawaiian area was quiet.

FAR EAST – There are no new developments to report.

U.S. State Department (December 24, 1941)

Stimson-Churchill meeting, morning

Meeting of the United States and British Chiefs of Staff, 10:30 a.m.

Translate greetings to world

U.S. Army speeds long-range force to meet attack

War hits hard in Argentina

Lonesome Pine slayer pardoned by governor

Holidays curtailed in Navy shipyards

Monahan: Oakie ace halfback in gridiron rumpus

Hedy Lamarr plays first Yankee role

Judy Garland turns author; good, too

Hollywood

Join the Flying Corps, boys!

Simms: Japs ‘invaded’ the Philippines 3½ years ago

They remember Pearl Harbor! Dying skipper fights on

Broadcasters urge restraint

Mowrer: Hongkong’s plight laid to ‘too late, too little’ help

Rambling Reporter

Fair Enough

Clapper: Blackouts

Ex-Pacific Fleet commander dies

CANDIDLY SPEAKING — Ancient proverb gets modern garb

Why such a thin crowd in Chicago? Does 13,000 crowd indicate that pro grid season is overextended?

Navy appoints Whelchel new head football coach

Big increase seen in war steel buying

Millett: Look again! That soldier is no kid now

Stowe: U.S. extends ‘bomber lane’ to Far East

Jap radio boasts of invasion in ‘new part’ of Philippines

Californian appointed Democratic secretary

Lawrence: Labor policies hotly assailed

On the Record… The case of Laura Ingalls

Mrs. F. D. Roosevelt Jr. gives birth to second son

White House Announcement of the Arrival of Prime Minister Churchill December 22, 1941

Roosevelt-Churchill meeting, evening

Arnold-Portal meeting, evening

Der Führer übernimmt das Oberkommando des Heeres

Der Führer an seine Soldaten

Verstärke Offensive gegen die Philippinen: Japanische U-Boote an der Westküste der USA

„Gegenseitige Unterstützung mit allen militärischen Mitteln“ Zehnjahresbündnis Thailand—Japan

Japanische Frauen und Kinder hingeschlachtet USA-Greuel auf Mindanao

Mr. Roosevelt ohne Maske Giftgas auf Guam gefunden

Zum Oberkommissar im Pazifik: Admiral Decoux ernannt

Wehrmachtbericht

Bollettino n. 569

Communique No. 23

Communique No. 24

Communique No. 16

Statement on War Production Policy with Canada December 23, 1941

Statement to the Management-Labor Conference on Uninterrupted Production December 23, 1941

Roosevelt-Churchill meeting, forenoon

JAPS LAND ON WAKE ISLAND Battles rage at Luzon; 4 Jap ships sunk; Churchill, Roosevelt map war tactics

The Philippines battlefront

Japanese make landing after air raid on Wake

WAR BULLETINS!

Six more Axis ships sunk

Burma remains loyal

Canadian brigadier killed in Hong Kong

Japs mass troops in China

China names foreign minister

San Salvador to seize Germans

Catapult planes cut sea losses

Chinese rumored en route to Burma

Starvation threatens Finns

Saboteurs strike Belgian plants

Seventh Italian general killed

U.S. probers arrive in Hawaii

Aircraft carrier sinking denied

Hitler decrees death for profiteers

Wilhelmshaven bombed

Jap tanker set ablaze

Nazis execute 4 Dutchmen

Nazis say they bombed 3 ships

Goal is Axis defeat… Council calls first session in U.S. capital

Roosevelt welcomes Churchill

TELEPHOTO: Anglo-American leaders confer

‘Unknowns’ faced by Allies in mapping strategy plans

U.S. lines hold in Philippines

Enemy guides know their way… Weisblatt: Watches Luzon battle

Walkout wanes… Soldiers leave shipyard posts

The Washington Merry-Go-Round

McLemore: Give this nation enough Christmas tree putter-uppers and it can never lose!

Flier from New Brighton tells of Philippine exploit

Poll: Nazis called bigger threat than Japanese

They remember Pearl Harbor!
Dying skipper fights on

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Ancient proverb gets modern garb

Why such a thin crowd in Chicago?
Does 13,000 crowd indicate that pro grid season is overextended?

On the Record…
The case of Laura Ingalls

White House Announcement of the Arrival of Prime Minister Churchill
December 22, 1941

Verstärke Offensive gegen die Philippinen:
Japanische U-Boote an der Westküste der USA

„Gegenseitige Unterstützung mit allen militärischen Mitteln“
Zehnjahresbündnis Thailand—Japan

Japanische Frauen und Kinder hingeschlachtet
USA-Greuel auf Mindanao

Mr. Roosevelt ohne Maske
Giftgas auf Guam gefunden

Zum Oberkommissar im Pazifik:
Admiral Decoux ernannt

Statement on War Production Policy with Canada
December 23, 1941

Statement to the Management-Labor Conference on Uninterrupted Production
December 23, 1941

JAPS LAND ON WAKE ISLAND
Battles rage at Luzon; 4 Jap ships sunk; Churchill, Roosevelt map war tactics

Goal is Axis defeat…
Council calls first session in U.S. capital

Enemy guides know their way…
Weisblatt: Watches Luzon battle

Walkout wanes…
Soldiers leave shipyard posts

Aloha to glamor…
Casey: Blackout in paradise

The outlook for 1942…
American industry ready, NAM president declares

Background of news –
The law on censorship

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Woman is in her glory using cosmetics

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8988
Directing That Certain Commissioned Officers of the Public Health Service Shall Constitute a Part of the Naval Forces of the United States

EXECUTIVE ORDER 8990
Appointment of State Employment Security Personnel to Positions in the Social Security Board, Federal Security Agency

Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Churchill
December 23, 1941, 4:45 p.m. EST

Ein neuer Fahrplan wird gesucht:
Churchill und Roosevelt besprechen ihre Sorgen