THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW OUT in the Pacific this week the war against Japan entered a new and possibly a decisive phase. Formosa, one of the enemy's most powerful supply bases in the Pacific area, was...
...The Vatican, the article asserted, regards the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco as "the .prototype of a Christian state" for postwar Europe...
...Formosa, one of the enemy's most powerful supply bases in the Pacific area, was under powerful attack from American task forces operating in the waters east of the island and large squadrons of B-29 Superfortresses operating from bases on the Chinese Imainland...
...De Gaulle Flays Allies There were other signs of international jockeying for war spoils...
...In Paris, Gen...
...Across the world the big military news was made by the American First Army with its heroic and successful smash into Aachen against the fanatical resistance of its German defenders...
...Charles de Gaulle bluntly criticized the lack of any political single-mindedness among the Allies...
...These planes, according to Nimitz, were being shot out of the air in great numbers...
...On the eastern front the Red Army made headlines with its headlong drive at Budapest, the capital city of Hungary...
...The Times of London, which often reflects government opinion, caused an international stir in an editorial hinting that the primary task before Stalin and Churchill was the division of the Balkans into what is known as "British and Rus-'sian security systems...
...Balkan Spoils Hinted The operation, which also included attacks on the Luzon in the northern Philippine group, was hailed by correspondents on the scene as extremely significant, inasmuch as it cut off Japanese forces in the Philippines from their supplies from Formosa...
...To keep his skirts clear, at least for purposes of the record, President Roosevelt let it be known that Churchill was not acting for the United States in any capacity...
...But it was Europe's political ferment that clogged up the news wires this week...
...In a story that might have been taken from the muck-raking files of Lincoln Steffens after the last war, the New York Times reported the struggle for Iranian oil fields between the Soviet and United States' oil interests...
...There is nothing unreasonable" in this policy of whacking up the Balkans, the Times editorialized, "and certainly nothing which need cause alarm either to this country, the United States, or the countries more immediately concerned...
...War and the Working Class, an authoritative Communist organ published in Moscow, directed a bitter attack against the Vatican, charging that the headquarters of the Catholic church had been a long-time friend of fascism and was presently favoring a soft peace that would allow Germany to escape punishment...
...One of the deals to which Churchill and Stalin were undoubtedly giving their attention was the postwar division of the Balkans...
...In Palestine the British were accusing the Jews of resorting to terror to obtain political ends...
...According to enemy claims 13 American aircraft carriers had been sunk in the gigantic naval and air engagement and Admiral Marc A. Mitcher's crack task forces had been sent in headlong flight...
...There was reason to believe that the American Pacific offensive was hitting where it hurt...
...France, he asserted, cannot depend on the "benevolence of others" to raise her to a former position of greatness...
...At mid-week Japanese propagandists were trumpeting to the world that Admiral Chester Nimitz' forces had suffered a major loss at the hands of the Japanese fleet, which Tokyo claimed had gone into battle at long last...
...In Budapest itself pro-Nazi Hungarians with the help of German troops staged a coup d'etat, put the Hungarian government headed by Regent Nicholas Horthy under arrest, and called upon the country to continue resistance against the onrushing Red forces...
...Flying more than 2,000 miles in the round trip, the huge sky giants poured the heaviest loads of destruction on the enemy ever carried by an air armada in the Pacific...
...The bold stroke was also viewed as indicative of the determination of Nimitz to drive to the China coast as quickly as possible...
...The daring venture of the Pacific fleet units in driving into the island for (several successive days of assault developed into one of the most significant engagements of the war...
...Premier Stanyslaw Mikolajczyck of the Polish government-in-exile was in Moscow to meet with representatives of the rival Soviet-sponsored Polish Committee of Liberation in an attempt to come to some agreement on the future status of Poland...
...The Japanese for the first time since the Americans began the present drive showed a disposition to stand up to the powerful American naval forces...
...Although Mitcher was reportedly withdrawing his task forces, the B-29s continued to hammer away at the supply depots and docking facilities of the strategic enemy base...
...Although the two leaders were careful to stage several public demonstrations of friendship and unity, there were broad hints in some of the news stories that the two sly, old masters of power-politics were together to do some hard-headed political trading...
...Nimitz' communiques, though they did acknowledge that the Formosa attackers were withdrawing, said nothing about the enemy fleet entering the engagement...
...Enemy claims of heavy damage on major units of the American fleet were refuted by a Nimitz assertion that no important damage had been inflicted on heavy U. S. ships...
...While the Allies were militarily united, he said, "in other respects the Allies are states, each one of whom, while fighting the same enemies as we, pursues its own in- terests and makes its own policies...
...There, it was generally assumed, a final effort was being made to settle the explosive Polish question...
...The Stalin-Churchill conferences in Moscow were the focal point of most of the political developments...
...The Associated Press reported from Moscow that there was a general belief in official circles that the whole question would be thrashed out and settled before Prime Minister Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden returned to London...
...Attacks by enemy airpower were acknowledged, however...
...At mid-week there were reports that Hungary had dispatched a delegation to Moscow to sue for peace...
...With admirable candor, the British paper defended this trading of peoples and boundary lines as necessary to the security of the two big powers involved...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 43
