THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW POLITICAL developments within Germany and Japan this week provided the people of the United Nations with some of the most hopeful news since the beginning of the war. The...
...In Italy, Gen...
...The Red Army continued to rip through the German lines in the East for sensational gains...
...Allied Armies On The March The political upheavals in the two Axis countries reflected the growing tensions resulting from the smashing Allied offensives on all fronts...
...But out of it all, these important developments seemed clear...
...Tojo, it was reported, had been relegated to political obscurity...
...Douglas MacArthur hinted that aerial blows aimed at paralyzing the Philippines might soon be undertaken...
...Mark Clark's troops had driven through to Pisa in one of the most significant advances in that area in several weeks...
...The explosive events, reported by Berlin and Tokyo themselves, strongly Indicated that the Axis had reached a critical stage in its desperate struggle to avoid a crushing defeat...
...Kuniaki Koiso, who, with Admiral Mit-sumasa Yonai, was instructed by Hirohito to form a new cabinet...
...In the West, the mechanized forces of Gen...
...In Europe, the Allied vise was squeezing tighter than ever on the Reich...
...restoration of all property confiscated by the Germans and the breaking of large land estates with compensation to the Polish landlords...
...From London came reports that a Polish Council for National Liberation, consisting of pro-Soviet underground elements and Polish refugees in Russia, has been formed as the government of Poland...
...While the internal situation of Germany was thus drawing such encouraging comment from Allied leadership, the turn of political events within Japan was being treated with extreme caution by Allied spokesmen...
...There were countless unconfirmed rumors of developments within Germany, of course, and even fficial Allied listening posts were uncertain which stories should be discounted as "planted" propaganda...
...Churchill's Strong Optimism First official Allied reference to the Reich's explosive internal developments came from Prime Minister Churchill, who called the upheaval a revolution...
...their superior mechanized equipment could be used to greater advantage...
...Returning from a brief visit to the Normandy front the Prime Minister declared that there were "grave signs of weakness" in Germany, and he predicted that the war "might come to an end earlier than we have a right to say...
...Guam was invaded after 17 days of continuous "softening up" by aerial bombing and naval shelling...
...The program calls for establishment of frontiers by mutual agreement with Russia...
...The steady American drive across the Pacific was undoubtedly the most important factor contributing to the Japanese upheaval...
...The new war cabinet pledged itself to a fight to the finish...
...The bomb intended to end his life only slightly injured him...
...increased wage levels for woTrkers, and freedom of refugees, except "traitors," to return...
...Although the news from both capitals was vitally significant, it was from Berlin that the most spectacular reports come...
...The new government was quick to emphasize that the change had been made in order to prosecute the war with greater determination...
...The fall of Saipan, putting the Yanks within B-29 range of the enemy homeland, and the invasion of Guam, the first American territory seized by the Japanese, appeared to be too much for the shaky Tojo cabinet, which had undergone several changes earlier in the week...
...Reports indicated that he was carrying out a ruthless purge, which was extending to some of the biggest names in German military circles at home and on the front...
...The political crisis which this week saw the fall of Premier Hideki Tojo and his entire cabinet was generally presumed to be of less significance than the disturbance which shook Germany...
...The first act of the new Council was to repudiate the Polish government-in-exile in London, which it accused of being illegal because it is based on the "fascist" constitution of 1935, never approved by the Polish people as a whole...
...Once successfully retaken, the island, which is larger than Saipan and which lies 1,500 miles from both the Japanese mainland and the Philippines, may provide the pivot point from which American task forces can continue the drive to the West...
...After four days of fighting American Marines and infantrymen had seized one of its two big harbors and an airfield...
...2. Heinrich Himmler, number one butcher of the Gestapo, was named commander-in-chief of the home front and ordered to wipe out the men who had participated in the attempted revolt...
...pledges the restoration of democratic freedom to all "except fascist organizations...
...In a communique issued shortly after a strategy conference with Admiral Ernest J. King, United States naval chief, and Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific fleet, Mac-Arthur revealed that the southern Philippines had been under aerial surveillance for some time...
...Screaming with rage, Hitler broadcast to the German people that a "small clique of criminal officers" had attempted to kill him...
...Meanwhile, the ticklish and still unsolved political problem of Polish-Russian relations bubbled into the news again...
...Tojo, who took over the reins of the Japanese Government from Prince Fuminaro Konoye in October of 1941, just two months before Pearl Harbor, was replaced by Premier Gen...
...The quickening tempo of the Pacific war was underscored again this week when Gen...
...Here at home officials warned against "wishful thinking or false optimism" because of the Japanese political upheaval...
...Sir Bernard Montgomery has smashed through enemy defenses in the hilly section of Normandy to break out into the plains where...
...At mid-week the Gestapo strong man had apparently smashed down all overt manifestations of revolt and had temporarily, at least, met the challenge of the Prussian Junkers to continued Nazi domination of German affairs...
...In an eight-point manifesto proclaiming that the Council is "the sole source of legal authority," the new government declared its policy...
...1. Adolf Hitler had narrowly avoided assassination in a plot undoubtedly inspired by some of Germany's leading military figures...
...He was followed on the air by Reich Marshal Herman Goering and Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, both of whom asserted that a widespread plot to overthrow the Nazi rulers had been thwarted...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 31
