THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW AFTER many montrfe of running before the gathering might of American seapower in the Pacific, the Japanese fleet came out to fight last week. The result was an historic naval...
...Reports from London indicated that Commons would go along with the Prime Minister's request, despite a considerable sentiment among strong elements in the Labor Party for an end of the coalition and a resumption of democratic elections...
...Unconditional surrender in the sense of no bargaining with the enemy is still the policy of the government," he said in an earlier discussion in the House...
...The Japanese in China were reported to be pushing into Kweilin, vital communications hub and the last link in the enemy drive to seal off the Chinese seacoast from the interior...
...Goebbels Is Gloomy He expressed satisfaction at results achieved as far as maintaining essential unity among the three great powers was concerned...
...Meanwhile, on the island of Leyte, Gen...
...It was rumored here in America that Stilwell would be given an assignment heading United States invasion of China when the drive to the coast has been completed...
...Grew Calls For Surrender What effect the crushing defeat would have on the course of the war could not be judged immediately...
...Conceding that the number one problem, Poland, was still unsolved, Churchill said that he hoped that there would be continued negotiations...
...The Associated Press reported from New Delhi, India, that there was widespread speculation that he had been withdrawn under British pressure...
...Meanwhile, a strange note was sounded by the usually bellicdse voice of Paul Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister...
...He avoided questions as to how unconditional surrender was reconciled with the fact that former enemies were now fighting on the Allied side and regarding privileges for Nazi individuals who surrendered unconditionally...
...Montgomery's troops were reported on the verge of success in this maneuver at mid-week...
...Stilwell is known for his outspoken criticism of British bungling in Burma, India, and China...
...On the political front Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the big news this week in his report to the House of Commons on the Stalin-Churchill conference just concluded...
...What difference it would make in the ability of the Japanese land forces to continue their resistance would only be known by future developments...
...Nimitz' unqualified references to the "Japanese fleet" confirmed the view of: naval observers that Tokyo had thrown everything it had into the frantic effort to smash the Philippine invasion...
...Reporting on the results of the epic battle, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of American naval forces in the Pacific, declared that 24 enemy ships were sunk, 18 so severely damaged they may have sunk, and 21 damaged, in addition to an enormous loss of airplanes...
...The liberation of Leyte and nearby Samar Island, MacArthur announced, is virtually assured...
...But the most troubling news concerning the Asiatic conflict came in the announcement that Gen...
...Reports indicated that the Germans were resisting savagely and throwing fierce counter blows at the large number of Russians who had breached the German lines on an 87-mile front...
...The Pacific war was not without its note of gloom, however...
...One thing seemed certain and that was that the enemy's task of equipping and supplying his enormous land forces would be seriously handicapped...
...Douglas MacArthur's forces of liberation...
...The Western front was quiet except for the area in southern Holland where the British were pushing hard to remove a possible German threat to their rear when the frontal assault on Germany begins...
...In a later tajk to the House he revealed that he recognized the importance of a political offensive when he cautioned the House of Commons that unless a political revolution occurred in Germany, the war in Europe would probably continue until next Summer...
...Joseph W. Stilwell, American commander in China and hero of the north Burma campaign, had been recalled from the Chinese theater at the request of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek...
...The Japanese fleet has been decisively defeated and routed...
...In Europe there was no decisive or spectacular military activity...
...The sensational development was reported to have pulled the props out from American activity in the Asiatic theater...
...His statement seemed far more pessimistic than the earlier reports cabled by correspondents in Moscow during the conference...
...In a broadcast to the German nation, Goebbels, who despite the darkness of the hour can usually be counted on to find something on which to pin German victory, talked of defeat and urged continued fighting until decent peace terms are offered by the Allies...
...Forecasting that the war against Japan may not be concluded until the end of 1946, he asked for the retention of Britain's nine-year Parliament and war-born coalition Government without an election...
...The result was an historic naval engagement that rivaled in scope and intensity the great battle of Jutland in the last war and a defeat inflicted on the enemy fleet so disastrous that it is believed to be unparalleled in the history of naval warfare...
...Douglas MacArthur's ground forces, now freed of concern over being trapped from the rear, were rolling through the island wiping out large numbers of fiercely resisting Japanese...
...The speech was seen as a plea for the Allies to relax their peace terms...
...Churchill gave Parliament little specific news on his conference in Moscow...
...Pinched in from three sides and forced to divide its forces, the 3rd and 7th United States fleets supporting the American invasion forces in the Philippines struck out boldly to meet the enemy threat...
...The fight occurred in waters surrounding the Philippine Islands when powerful units of the Japanese fleet were discovered by U. S. planes steaming in from three directions in a desperate stroke aimed at trapping Gen...
...He said: "If the Polish government had taken the advice we tendered them at the beginning of this year, the additional complication produced by formation of the Polish National Committee of Liberation at Lublin would never have arisen...
...No final results could be obtained, however, until President Roosevelt could meet with him and Stalin—"as I earnestly trust he may do before this year is at its end," he declared...
...There seemed every indication that he and Stalin had come to agreement on carving up the Balkans for their respective "spheres of influence...
...Chiang's demand for Stilwell's removal was said to have grown out of the irreconcilable conflict of temperament and ideas between the two...
...Although no one could judge what effect the defeat might have on Tokyo's determination to continue the war, it was significant that Joseph C. Grew, former United States ambassador to Japan, called upon the Japanese to surrender unconditionally and warned the American people that "an enticing peace offer might come from Japan at any time...
...The coalition of parties," he said, "ought not to be broken before Nazism is broken...
...Germans, he said, will "go on fighting until a peace is possible which guarantees our people's right to live, through national independence, and the expansion of the basis of their experience...
...The second battle of the Philippine sea ranks as one of the major sea battles of World War II in the Pacific," Nimitz said in his report...
...According to some observers the settlements were reached on the very hard-headed principle that the first army to a territory staked out a claim for that army's government...
...Six American vessels, including the aircraft carrier Princeton, were lost...
...In the East the Russians were fighting in Prussia, the traditional citadel of Germany's militaristic Junkers class...
...Rebuking the Polish government-in-exile, he indicated that he had been more persuaded than persuasive in the Kremlin talks...
...Filling the skies with their deadly carrier-based planes and roaring into the attack with their giant guns ablaze, the American forces were reported to have destroyed or damaged all but two of the large number of enemy ships thrown into the engagement...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 45
