THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW AS NAZI RESISTANCE on the Italian and Russian fronts showed increasing signs of stiffening this week, the representatives of three of the great Allied powers, Russia, the United...
...Only one objection from a member of the United Nations was registered against the recognition extended to the Badoglio government...
...Attacking in force, his fighters inflicted such heavy losses that his headquarters was able to announce that "We appear to have achieved definite air superiority on the north coast of New Guinea, not necessarily in numbers, but in flexibility and ability to cover and intercept many enemy planes simultaneously...
...On the alert for reprisal raids, Mac-Arthur's forces were not surprised three days later when a large enemy air armada appeared over New Guinea...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW AS NAZI RESISTANCE on the Italian and Russian fronts showed increasing signs of stiffening this week, the representatives of three of the great Allied powers, Russia, the United States, and Great Britain, prepared to sit down around the conference table in Moscow in an effort to settle some of the troublesome differences that have arisen among their countries...
...In a last minute effort to ease the tense atmosphere resulting from Moscow's aggressive attitude, London announced that a new Lend-Lease pact between Russia, United States, Great Britain, and Canada had been negotiated...
...It was reported that the Pope had spurned all offers made by the Germans...
...Massive Stroke' At Rabaul Meanwhile, Gen...
...Emperor Haille Selassie, of Abyssinia, whom the Italians once chased out of his country, announced that his government would refuse to grant Italy the status of a "co-belligerent...
...On the eve of the conference, for example, the Kremlin let it be known that its principal concern at the meetings would be military strategy—ways and means of knocking Adolf Hitler out of the war...
...Except for the Nazis, who were, of course, displeased and accused the Portuguese government of violating its neutrality, there was little mention of what attitude other European governments took toward the deal...
...Marshaling all available planes for the greatest single air attack yet carried out in the Pacific area by the Allies, MacArthur struck at the vital enemy stronghold at Rabaul in New Britain...
...Although these reports were lacking in details concerning the scope or aims of the reported drive, American commentators who think that only the monsoons have stood in the way of an easy and decisive victory, were already blowing the reports into stories of a full-scale invasion and were talking majestically of the imminent doom of the Japanese in that area...
...When the raid was over, the wharves and warehouses of the port lay in ruins...
...Stories from neutral countries told of repeated Nazi attempts to induce the Catholic leader to seek "safety" in the Reich or some neutral country...
...Some observers, pointing out that the Salazar government is openly and bitterly opposed to the Soviets, were sure that Moscow would regard it with suspicion...
...I think we have broken its back...
...Britain Makes A Deal Meanwhile, other political developments, destined to have a significant bearing on the political future of Europe, broke into the news...
...In Italy, the American Seventh and the British Eighth Armies were moving ahead slowly, after two weeks of stalemate...
...These forces, according to Kuh, are denouncing the arrangement by which the Churchill government has undertaken to send arms and munitions which will be used to bolster the f ascistic government of Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar in exchange for the Azores bases...
...Italians Become 'Co-belligerents' The new status of the Italian government came this week with its declaration of war on Germany...
...Observers were quick to call attention to the fact that Anglo-American delegations were made up mainly of diplomats rather than military representatives, thus obviating any conclusive decisions along the military lines to which Moscow wanted the meeting confined...
...Others, noting that the Kremlin did not hesitate to join with the United States and Great Britain in extending the anti-Russian government of Badoglio the status of a "co-belligerent," thought that the Russians would also overlook the implications involved in the Portuguese trade...
...Portugal, long friendly toward Fascist powers in Europe and ruled by a notoriously anti-democratic clique, this week granted to Britain use of air and naval bases in the Azores archipelago to help in the anti-submarine campaign in the Atlantic against the Nazis...
...Pravda Cites Main Task' Criticising American newspapers for insisting that political problems would be the main business before the conferees, the Soviet paper denied any need for discussion of post-war organization of Europe and said, "These papers forget at the present moment that the main task of the United Nations is to hasten the advent of the post-war period more rapidly...
...Bluntly announcing that the Russians have no intention of discussing post-war political problems, Pravda, official Communist Party organ, declared that number one topic on the conference agenda would be the "second front...
...More sober reports concerning developments in India stressed the fact that Lord Louis Mountbatten, who is to direct the campaign, has just recently arrived in India and has had no time in which to organize and train his forces in the combined operations that are necessary for a major offensive...
...Douglas MacArthur, making miraculous use of every bit of his limited airpower, struck blows at Japanese positions in the Southwest Pacific that left the southern perimeter of the enemy defense system badly shaken...
...While the arrangement is strategically advantageous to the Allies, it was pointed out by Frederick Kuh of the London Bureau of the Chicago Sun that the deal involves political dangers of which the liberal and progressive forces in Britain are frankly critical...
...Commentators Invade Burma On the military front it was apparent that the Nazis were fighting with desperate stubbornness to check the forward drive of the Allies...
...From across the world, in Asia there were reports that the campaign to drive the Japanese out of Burma was underway again...
...To the American and British delegations, headed by Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Russia's shrewd Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Vyaches-lav Molotov, was the host, and it was evident from late dispatches that he had a strong sense of his prerogatives in that role...
...In Russia, the Red Army was slashing ahead at some points along the Dneiper and in the campaign to retake the Crimea, but it was meeting with increasingly savage resistance...
...Announcing the spectacular raid, MacArthur said, "Rabaul has been the focus and the very hub of the enemy's main advanced war effort...
...More than 17,000 tons of shipping had been sent to the bottom of its harbor and 177 enemy planes destroyed...
...Simultaneous with the announcement that Italy was now at war with its old partner, came the news that Great Britain, the United States, and Russia accepted Italy as a "co-belligerent", recognized the royal Italian government, and accepted its cooperation in the war against Germany...
...Another political storm gathered this week around the person of Pope Pius XII...
...The new agreement provides for a substantial increase in supplies going to the Soviet Union and was especially marked by a considerable increase in the goods which Canada will contribute to the Soviets...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 43
