THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW AS American troops knifed through the German Siegfried Line and sought to skirt it with a spectacular demonstration of air-borne power this week, the talk of German capitulation...
...While speculation continued to spread throughout the country, the conference at Quebec at which many of the final decisions concerning Anglo-American plans for a conquered Germany were presumably discussed, came to a conclusion...
...Douglas MacArthur and Marines under the command of Admiral Chester Nimitz continued to strike new blows at enemy-held islands...
...Silent On Political Issues Although there had been considerable advance talk of the conference appointing a supreme commander for Pacific operations, the President specifically denied that it had even been considered...
...The most important part of the air-borne mass was reported to have struck at a spot six miles from the German border and 315 miles from Berlin...
...Eden arrived in Quebec after lengthy consultations with representatives of the Polish government-in-exile and obviously reported on the critical turn taken in Polish-Russian affairs when the Moscow-supported Polish Liberation Committee this week ordered the arrest of underground leaders and other Polish nationalists in sympathy with the London group...
...The announcement tersely stated that decisions had been reached on questions involving the "war in Europe, now approaching its final stages, and the destruction of the barbarians in the Pacific...
...New blows at other islands on the path to the Philippines were expected as the drive to free those islands gains momentum...
...Authoritative" and "reliable" sources were being quoted as setting the date at no later than Oct...
...Red troops continued, however, to roll ahead in all directions in the Balkans...
...Peace Terms For Rumania The conference adjourned as another wave of good news from the fighting fronts swept through the world...
...In the Halmahera group, Mac-Arthur's men took the island of Morotai and were already using its airfields...
...The Japanese continued to drive toward Kweilin, provisional capital in invaded Kwang-si province, and American forces in that area were abandoning their airfields to the enemy...
...Correspondents reported that there was general ineptness and confusion in the Chinese command, that communication suffered from lack of integration, and that there were many other deficiencies, which, when added to the lack of war materials, created a grimly serious situation...
...It was believed, however, that the two leaders did discuss the Polish problem...
...You now dominate the last stronghold which barred you from the Philippines," MacArthur, who had landed with his men, told them...
...Defeat now stares Japan in the face...
...Advances In The Pacific In the Pacific, regular army forces under Gen...
...The campaign in Palau, he declared, has for its purpose the establishment of a base from which MacAr-thur's campaign can be covered...
...Some commentators like Lt...
...Japanese troops on these islands hung on with their customary tenacity, but correspondents reported that so many American forces were being landed that there could be little doubt of the outcome...
...Army and Marine landing forces were smashing ashore in the enemy strongholds in the Palau group, vital stepping stones to the Philippines...
...If the breach can be maintained and properly exploited, it will permit Allied forces to fan out behind the line, thus menacing the German garrisons from both the east and west...
...Comdr...
...The Russians were having considerable trouble around Warsaw and did not seem to be able to make much headway...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW AS American troops knifed through the German Siegfried Line and sought to skirt it with a spectacular demonstration of air-borne power this week, the talk of German capitulation precipitated itself from broad generalities to specific dates...
...The Navy, he said, will provide support and protection in the liberation drive...
...Chungking frankly admitted that the situation was serious, not only for the city of Kweilin but also for the whole structure of the American military effort in China...
...On the eastern front there were no developments that materially changed the situation from last week...
...The Kremlin announced that Rumania has pledged to fight on the side of the Allies until victory, to pay $300,000,-000 in reparations to Russia, to restore all Allied nations' property, and to adhere to the 1940 frontier that gave Russia Bessarabia and northern Bucovina...
...The emphasis in the announcement was put on the Pacific war...
...Lewis Brereton, fluttered out of the sky over Holland to seize positions from which a drive around the Siegfried Line into the Reich might develop...
...He warned against "over optimism" and said that opposition would become tougher as the invading forces draw closer to Japan...
...In an address prepared for radio delivery to the national American Legion convention in Chicago, Admiral Nimitz disclosed that the campaign for reconquering the Philippines will be directed by Gen...
...The concluding paragraph of the three paragraph proclamation declared that "the most serious difficulty with which the Quebec conference has been confronted has been to find room and opportunity for marshalling against Japan the massive forces which each and all of the nations concerned are ardent to engage against the enemy...
...The British, he said, want to share in such "good things...
...In a statement which was widely interpreted as a plug for the re-election of Roosevelt, the Prime Minister declared: ". . . we get along so well and understand each other so well, that it makes it easier and quicker to reach an understanding...
...This break-through was seen as a development holding tremendous possibilities...
...Meanwhile, some hint as to the terms of peace waiting for German satellites came this week in the announcement of the settlement imposed on Rumania...
...In a semi-joking mood, Churchill told newsmen that the only friction developed was over the United States' attitude of taking on most of the fighting in the Pacific...
...At mid-week the Germans were sending wave after wave of infantry against the hard-charging Yanks in a desperate effort to smash this threat...
...However much others might guess at V-E (Victory in Europe) day, it was noted that neither Prime Minister Churchill nor President Roosevelt would hazard a prediction as to the date of German collapse...
...The sudden development of a second menace to the German interior came this week when thousands of Allied airborne troops, under the command of America's Lt...
...We have not yet come to grips with the main bodies of the well trained Japanese army," he pointed out, adding that the Japanese Navy "is still a threat to the success of our operations...
...At the press conference both leaders spent most of the time discussing the war in the Pacific and its prospects...
...C. S. Seely (See below) were far less bullish, however...
...The Soviet offensive launched in the north was meeting with stiff German resistance and reports told of fierce Nazi counterattacks...
...On the Asiatic mainland there were more sobering developments...
...Mac-Arthur...
...The American First Army was reported to have sliced its way through the Siegfried Line at Aachen, a strategic pivot point in the famed defense line, and was battering its way toward the German city of Cologne...
...The arrival of Anthony Eden, British Foreign Minister, at the conference had aroused interest in the Russian-Polish question, but no reference to this problem or any of the other tangled political problems of Europe was made in the press conference and no questions from newsmen were permitted...
...In an official announcement and in a press conference following the conclusion of the meeting there was little hint of what had been accomplished...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 39
