THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THE second week of gigantic Allied offensives in every major theater of war continued to claim chief attention in the news this week, with Russia's sensational westward sweep into...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW THE second week of gigantic Allied offensives in every major theater of war continued to claim chief attention in the news this week, with Russia's sensational westward sweep into Poland and East Prussia dominating developments...
...In the Pacific, Gen...
...Further indications of the part Russia would play in eastern Europe popped into the news this week with the signing of an armistice with Hungary...
...MacArthur's drive on Manila picked up speed this week after the most stubborn resistance thus far encountered was wiped out on his left flank...
...As in Rumania and Bulgaria, Russia will dominate Hungarian affairs and censor the Hungarian press and radio, because Hungary is in the "zone of its operations...
...Negotiated by Marshal Klementy Voroshilov for the United Nations, the terms require Hungary to return to the boundaries of 1937, to pay reparations of $300,000,000— most of which goes to Russia—to provide 8 infantry divisions for the drive against Germany, to finance the Allied Control Commission and the Soviet high command in Hungary...
...We do not set ourselves up in rivalry or bigness with any other community in the world...
...At mid-week Zhukov was less than 150 miles from the German capital as the Wehrmacht sought desperately to steady itself before his pile-driving blows...
...Whole cities were being burned and anything which might be of military value to the liberators was being destroyed...
...The Ratio In Losses American losses, Churchill said, outnumbered the British from 60 to 80 to 1. He declared that Britain and Russia had agreed on a regency for Yugoslavia and unless the exiled King Peter agreed to the scheme, he would be ignored in the future...
...The impending Big Three conference, he said, will "set out the molds" to shape the problems of the peace and "above all advance to that world organization upon which the salvation of the world depends...
...Russia's Political Offensive Meanwhile, the hard-pressed armies of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek were for the first time in 7 years of fighting, receiving sustained assistance from the U. S. Navy...
...To the south, the First Ukrainian Army under Marshal Ivan S. Konev had ripped into Silesia to menace the Reich's second richest industrial region...
...It was only in those areas where the enemy had penetrated back into Belgium, however, that the Americans were on the offensive...
...We shall continue to give everything we have...
...On the Western Front the "Belgian Bulge" was happily disappearing from the news as the Germans fell back into their Seigfried'Line haven before the crushing onslaught of American armor, infantry, artillery, and airpower...
...There were reports of an imminent large-scale Nazi offensive in this sector of the front...
...The British drove deeper into Burma, to heighten the threat to Mandalay...
...He reversed his attitude in regard to Franco Spain, saying that Britain did not need the good will of Spain...
...Nazi spokesmen admitted the greatest peril since the beginning of the war and were said to be throwing the newly organized Volkssturm (homeguard) into the lines in a desperate effort to stop the Red juggernaut...
...Some observers believed that the German armies had been so staggered by the impact of the first devastating blow that it would be necessary for them to withdraw to the Oder River, the first and last natural barrier between the oncoming Russians and Berlin...
...Smashing into German positions along a 600-mile front, the Soviet armies shattered the Nazi front line defenses, slashed through southern Poland to invade the German industrial state of Silesia, captured Warsaw, Lodz, and Krakow, and at mid-week were plunging into East Prussia from the south and east in a squeeze play that threatened the traditional citadel of Germany's militaristic Junkers...
...Belgian Bulge' Disappearing How long the Red Army could maintain its sensational pace, which in the span of 10 days had overrun 22,000 square miles, was the big question...
...Top political news of the week, however, was Prime Minister Winston Churchill's appearance before the House of Commons for a 2 hour speech which culminated in another overwhelming vote of confidence for his government...
...We have but one principle about the liberated countries or the repentant satellite countries: Government of the people, by the people, for the people set up on a basis of free universal suffrage, and elections with secrecy of ballot and no intimidations...
...Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet cruised the waters off the China coast, raiding Japanese-held ports and shipping in an effort to cut down the power of the enemy's inland offensive...
...This week the Lublin government was allowed by Moscow to announce the liberation of Warsaw...
...Number one on the Big Three agenda would doubtless be Poland, where the Soviet-sponsored Lublin regime seemed to be firmly in authority...
...Withdrawing toward Manila before the advancing Americans, the Japanese were applying the "scorched earth" policy...
...Britain's aims, he asserted, could be summed up as follows : "We seek no territory, we covet no oil fields, we demand no bases for the forces of the air or the sea...
...The speedy tempo of military developments accerlat-ed the political problems springing up in the wake of the Allied armies...
...Russia, he said, could be absolved of the Communist activity in Greece, since the civil strife was the work of "Trotskyists...
...In the north the vital supply artery to Chunking, the Ledo-Burma road, was opened...
...In the area along the Rhine River north of Strasbourg, the Nazis still held the initiative, probing for a breakthrough in the extended lines of the American 7th Army, which this week continued to conduct one of the most skilful and heroic defensive battles of the war...
...The major subject of speculation and comment was the Big Three conference scheduled oon, according to rumors...
...Soon after the announcement it was made known that the Lublin government had moved to Warsaw...
...He predicted that Germans would pull out of Italy in a few months and declared that Britain had no need of Italy...
...The vote was denounced by Laborite members of Commons because Churchill forced them to vote on the issue of war appropriations and not specifically on his political policies...
...There were signs that enemy resistance might stiffen with such key cities as Mandalay and Rangoon at stake...
...B-29's continued to roam the entire Pacific war area, striking at enemy supply, shipping, and troop concentrations...
...A long truck convoy, the first to carry supplies to China via an overland route in 2% years, was already on its way to Kunming...
...In one of the frankest discussions of his career, Churchill defended his policy of intervention in Greece, admitted that American troops had stopped the German offensive in the Ardennes Forest and were doing most of the fighting and suffering most of the losses on the Western Front...
...In the center of the great offensive, driving straight west toward Berlin, was the First White Russian Army of Marshal Gregory Zhukov...
Vol. 9 • January 1945 • No. 5
