The Archer County News (Archer City, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 8, 1942 Page: 2 of 6
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THE ARCHER COUNTY NEWS
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS_By Edward C. Wayne
Roosevelt and Churchill Conferences
Aim at Strategy for Smashing Axis;
Army Is Withdrawn to Spare Manila;
Jap Sub Is Sunk Off California Coast
Plenty of Action
Benito’s Contribution to Singapore Defense
From Wake Island
(EDITOR'S NOTE—WSsn •pinion* nr* **pr**»*<l in the** column*, (her
nr* lk*M ml the news analyst and not necessarily el this newspaper.,
_iReleased by Western Newspaper Union.'
from the Philippines came the
report that before he had removed
his base of military command from
the city of Manila Gencpd Mac-
Arthur had rushed to the fighting
front to take personal command of
fighting off the Japenese attacks.
HITLER:
At the Helm
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
For ohs thing . .
PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL
U was precedent-shattering.
PHILIPPINES;
Battle
In the hope of saving the city from
bombing by Japanese, Manila had
been proclaimed an open city and
military headquarters of the forces
defending the Philippines had been
moved elsewhere. This move was
designed to prevent the civilian
population from unnecessary bomb-
ing raids.
It was becoming evident from the
news dispatches from the Far East
that the intensity of the Japanese
drive against the Philippines was
growing and that the defenders,
facing six invasion points, and the
constant landing of reinforcements,
were going to have all they could do
to defend the islands.
Five of the landing spots had been
on the island of Luzon, three to the
north, one to the east and one to
the northwest of Manila, and the
sixth was on the island of Mindanao
at Davao, which the Japanese
claimed to have occupied.
This island and particularly
Davao port are heavily populated
by Japanese, and though the defend-
ers had aid from the Dutch air force,
they had considerable fifth column
activity to face as well.
Most important landings were on
the Lingayen gulf, in which an esti-
mated 80 transports had been sight-
ed on the first day, and at Atimonan,
75 miles east and slightly south of
Manila, where there were said to be
40 transports.
Washington had estimated the to-
tal landing forces of the Japanese
at from 80,000 to 100,000 men, and
while Manila sources seemed to
think this a little high, it was prob-
able that they revised their estimate
upward after the Atimonan landing.
The combined Filipino and Amer-
ican forces had held the enemy
pretty much to a standstill in the
north, but it was evident that the
Lingayen gulf landing and that at
Atimonan had as their object the
splitting of General Douglas Mac-
Arthur’s defense forces into two
groups, a typical Axis maneuver.
The seriousness of the situation
with regard to the Philippines was
not underestimated there or in this
country, and seemed to depend for
a successful outcome on the send-
ing of supplies and fleet units to the
scene.
CHURCHILL:
Drama
The arrival in Washington of
Winston Churchill, prime minister
of England, for a long series of
Christmas conferences with Presi-
dent Roosevelt and the working out
of a united method of conducting
the war was dramatic.
It was precedent-shattering for
one thing.
It was a triumph for American
and British censorship, for another
thing.
It burst on the American press at
6:59 one evening after most of the
newsmen in Washington had known
all about the plans for a week, and
“hadn’t breathed it to a soul.”
Churchill, his pipe, his cane, his \
navy jacket and the rest, looking
very much as he did during the J
August conference, was ensconced i
in the White House while Mr. Roose-
velt sat smiling on the sidelines, i
watching his confrere from over-
seas fence with the newspaper men j
and chuckle into his cloak.
One of the prime minister’s wise- ;
cracks made history. A newiman
asked him, “How long will it take
to win the war?” He replied “About
half as long if we do it well as if |
we do it badly.”
The reporters roared, the Presi- j
dent laughed merrily and the prime j
minister gave one of his well-known j
chuckles of merriment.
HONOLULU:
Reinforcements
Reports that heavy reinforce-
ments of bombing and fighting
planes had arrived in Hawaii, and
that the air defenses of the islands
were once more on a firm footing
showed two things.
First, that Washington was not
passing up the defense of the Pacific
in favor of all other tactics, but
that Hawaii and other points would
get what reinforcements it was pos-
sible to send.
The freezing oi employees’ labor
and wages on the Pearl Harbor re-
pair job also showed there was a
determination to clean the affair up
as rapidly as possible. Hundreds
of mechanics had been rushed there
from the mainland and the work was
under way.
Also these two facts proved their
corollary to be true, that the sea
lanes between Hawaii and the main-
land were open and usable, proof
that the fleet was busy keeping
them that way.
Successes of our naval vessels
were reported from time to time,
and the list of Japanese boats sent
to the bottom continued to grow in
length and importance.
PRESIDENT:
In his holiday message of affec-
tion, love and pride to the men in
uniform. President Roosevelt as-
sured them of ultimate victory, and
that the nation was whole-heartedly
behind them whether they were
fighting, training for the battle, or
taking part in the innumerable
rices of the army and navy in
snt fields.
ie said: “You are setting an in-
example for the nation and
?le as you have so often in
COAST:
Sea Attacks
The Japanese submarine fleet, at
least part of it, was apparently ac-
tive off the California coast, coming
close inshore to attack coastwise
vessels.
At least one submarine had been
sunk, according to an official an-
nouncement. This craft had been
blown into debris by an army
bomber.
Two tankers, at least, had been
sunk, but some five others, after
attack, had been able to escape.
Few of them, if any, carried guns
as protection, and the skippers
seemed to feel they would be ex-
tremely useful.
Some of those who escaped told
of the submarines coming to the
surface and shelling them, and that
if they'd had guns “the subs would
have made wonderful targets.”
Japanese markmanship had been
so bad that the escaped vessels
were able to turn away from the
foe and make it to the mainland
coves in safety.
The attacks were widespread up
and down the coast, reaching from
the farther northern seaboard to
points south of San Francisco.
LIBYA:
Epic of Destruction
While the numbers of troops en-
gaged was not enormous as figured
from the Russian front, the British
Libyan offensive had taken on all
the aspects of what British com-
mentators called "an epic of anni-
hilation.”
General Rommel’s mechanized
forces, what was left of them, were
about to make a “last stand” be-
fore surrendering. The imperial
high command had declared without
equivocation that the British fleet
had the Germans’ escape cut off by
sea, and that the land forces had
them surrounded in Cyrenaica.
British thrusts were being report- j
ed even within the borders of !
neighboring Tripolitania, a point not j
even reached 'in the previous inva- j
sion by the British against only the j
Italians.
Reports that the Italians were not j
withdrawing as fast as the Germans !
brought cartoonists to the fore in !
this country, who showed German
and Italian forces racing away
from bayonets with Mussolini hold- |
ing a stop-watch on them, and grin- ;
fling up at a flabbergasted Hitler.
The British tactics in Libya, well i
carried out by strong forces, equal
fo or superior to the enemy at all j ^
times, had been to move westward j ““'rite
along a southern route, shooting up
to the coast at distant points, and
then mopping up the troops thus
caught in a aeries at tram.
The holiday period had been elec-
trified by the German disaster in
Lybia and Russia, and the “firing”
of leading Nazi General Marshal
Brauchitsch, and his replacement by
Adoif Hitler himself.
Many believed this “purge at the
top” would be followed by other gen-
erals leaving their command rather
than trust themselves and their
troops to Hitler’s “intuitive” policies
of military management.
At the same time all Europe had
been in a slate of jitters wondering
what ”Der Fuehrer” would pull in
the way of trickery out of the hat
of his ingenuity to scare his oppo-
nents and to cause what he might
call a “victory” to bring him for-
ward into public favor again.
Most thought that an occupation
of Spain and France’s north African
bases, and perhaps the taking over
of the French fleet might be the
answer.
In line with this it had been re-
ported that Petain had given up his
position as dictator of unoccupied
France and head of the Vichy gov-
ernment, turning the reins over to
pro-Axis Darlan.
It was also reported that 15 divi-
sions of Nazi troops were on the
march toward Spain through France
and that the occupation of Bizerte
and other important Tunisian and
Moroccan points was as good as ac-
complished.
Europe, “waiting to see,” was hav-
ing a bad case of nerves.
RUSSIA:
Finds Line
After disastrous withdrawals all
along the nearly 1,000-mile front in
Russia, late dispatches from that
district of the world war seemed to
indicate that the German resistance
was stiffening and that at long last
the Reds had found the Nazi “win-
ter line of resistance.”
Up to that point the withdrawal
had been practically a route, and
there was photographic evidence
appearing in the press to bear out
the Russian claims of enormous
losses of material in the snowy
v/astes of that part of the Soviet the
Germans had invaded.
Whether Hitler, reported raging
at his generals, would be able to
halt the backward sweep with Rus-
sian pressure apparently undimin-
ished, was a problem.
But the tone of the Reds’ dis-
patches had changed somewhat, and
were no longer telling of pursuits,
but rather of break-throughs that in-
dicated a German effort at holding
was now in progress.
Most of the other theaters of war
hoped the Germans would leave
plenty of troops in Russia, and
Churchill, in the United States,
frankly said that “Stalin had done
the world an enormous service.”
SARAWAK:
/Vary Successes
An “allied navy” and air force,
which might or might not have in-
cluded Americans, was reported by
the British to have fallen with ter-
rific force on an enemy landing
force at Sarawak.
The attack occurred shortly after
Sir Charles Brooke, the rajah, had
sharply criticized the British man-
agement of the Far East defense,
and had said that the leadership had
been poorly selected.
The allied navy and air force fell
upon the Japanese flotilla, rapidly
sank three transports and set fire
to a fourth, and threw the whole at-
tempting landing body into confu-
sion.
The stalwart British forces on the
island of Hong Kong, faced with al-
most certain defeat, finally sur-
rendered to the Japanese.
BRIEFS:
Seattle: You can’t do anything
about the weather, said Mark Twain
—now you can't say anything about
it either. A broadcast of "how hard
it rained today” might give vitai
information to America's enemies,
the war department has ruled.
New York: The new draft lav
gives soldiers 120 more days to pur
insurance without
medical examination. The draft is
expected to yield 2.00O.000 more
men for immediate military train-
ing.
The U. S. S. Arizona on fire and sinking in Pearl Harbor after
sneak raid by Japanese bombers. The 25-year-old battleship was de-
stroyed by the explosion of the first of its boilers and then its forward
magazine, due to a bomb which was said to have literally passed down
the smokestack.
String of ‘Valentines’ for Axis
A motor torpedo boat, the British
navy’s newest weapon for harbor
defense, makes a test ran across
Hong Kong harbor. In the back-
ground are two lumbering Chinese
junlu. This “Gibraltar of the East”
has lent its might sin repelling Jap
attacks.
These Breda guns, captured from the Italians in Libya, are being
reconditioned in Malaya for use against Jap invaders. During Wavell’s
desert blitz a tremendous amount of Italian equipment was taken by
the British. It has since been useful on other fronts, and will serve the
allied cause again in Malaya.
J. B. Cooke, Wake island airport
manager, and bis wife and two chil-
dren, Bleecker and Philip (front),
shown upon their arrii'al at San
Francisco on the clipper plane. This
was the third clipper to arrive safe-
ly from the war zone. All passen-
gers commented on the high mo-
rale of the civilians in Honolulu.
Wake island is one of our far Pacific
outposts that has held out so splen-
didly against the Japs.
U. S. Battleship Arizona Goes Down
Fortify Hong Kong
War Jobs for Women
At a U. S. army airport, somewhere in the U. 8., a ground crew is
making adjustments to a string of 600-pound bombs before the missiles
are loaded into a bombing plane for delivery at ... T
Where U. S. Troops Are Meeting Japs
Above is a view of the rice fields ef Apparl, on the northernmost
Up of the island of Luzon, which ic the principal island of the Philip-
pines. Toe Japanese were reported aa succeeding in landing troops in
this rongh terrain, hot met with stiff resistance from V. S. troops. Manila,
on this island, was the first major Jap objective.
Lieut. James Hoey of New fork
shows a group of members of the
American Women’s Voluntary Serv-
ices bow to slide down a pole in his
firehouse. The women have enrolled
for defense training courses. The
organization announced a shortage
of trained switchboard operators
and auto drivers.
To Direct Chinese
FT
Lieut. Col. C. L. CheanauH. fa-
mous U. S. flying officer, who will
direct a Chinese aerial offensive
against Jap bases. The 51-year-eld
Texan is a veteran ef World War L
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Martin, Charles. The Archer County News (Archer City, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 8, 1942, newspaper, January 8, 1942; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth709510/m1/2/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Archer Public Library.