r IiiIi_-_MiS0C0^_FlIDAY^_MA£CH_6^_i3A2_ GOOD EVEljlNG EVERYBDOY Today v^e have an explanation of why the defense of Java against the Japanese was hampered by lack of protection in the air. The news came as a bit of a shock in the United States, considering that we had been told our flying fortresses were on the job, But tonight we Know that our heavy bombers had to be removed from the island because there were not^ enough fighter planes to protect them, 'y And that^s one of the ironies of modern super mechanized warfare. The most deadly engines of destruction, such as heavy bo±ers are themseives desperately vulnerable to attack, almost helpless without an escort of fighter planes, just as that floating monster, the battleship. has to be protected by the small swift destroyer as well as by aircraft. LEAr - ^ t bE11ler, has to be ^otected by tjve saall.,— 9 » d&strcyer as w^Il as by aircraft. J F Ifhile ir-rgjr in Java, the American air force Z CX, did a maE:nificent job. They were based set secret A ^ airdromes cleverly hidden in the mountains of the t island. Their attacks checked the invading Japanese | for at least a week by battering at them not only on A f land but at sea. c£yen so, they were fighting at A disadvantage, ^^.ey had some fighter planes, but the A A Japanese had^ more, and wp i ! lp _ m^t a andnrthat to ^ A mate matters worse, late last week a number of American planes were destroyed on the ground just at a time when they were most sorely needed. Furthermore, reinforcements of^fighter planes e-xrecte4 did not arrive. ^ it was necessary to remove other American aircraft in order to save them from being picked ‘off on the ground by the T I iEC!ii::e n*s 2: 1 l£n2.€Z* ^*>EIL-r5 ^ *** ^ m> ^m mm mm-mlL ^ m W ^ m ^ ^ «i|» m — w m ^ ^ oz^j cTEi^Er.e icr s®rTiC€ D:it rErin t • - xmux 2r-r*€s?*rss izi ir I £ 212 £. Tliejfc iLEie 3.3 Etteart to ii€ their eager wheE they were eYtcEEted fraa « ^ ■ ar.-T . T^ere were coas ii erabic aaarsrs aot oalj of T' »*'^<-v^ rVT?v^']?. "FT ±3£: .!» siSl-iaL-L ["•*u"uw. £ rleae is eTea aore iaroteat then a CETElrj trcop Titboat a hcrse. ae rilct tcli a reporter that he had bcahed a Jararese erEada which iaciaded so eeet traasrcrts C'hserTers is those latitudes heliewe that the "ext rh^ectiTg ■f tae Jaraaese is to be Australia. \ The T® a£ is £2i!i,g ix Tata, it locks as though tuey were hurryiui to aop up there as qpickly as possihl i “1 u LEAL - i I subdue the Dutch islands tr? - g r ■ nr t -*-. t n* concentrate ^ A all their striking power fax Australia before the Americans are able to establish a strong fighting force there. It seems to be taken for granted that the fight in Java is ^ good as lost. The official admission that the United JJations had given up Batavia^^mnnirf ------------------------- ;;"-g-^1 ^. From all accounts, the position of the. defendersS is now somewhat similar to that of /\ General MacArthur and his men in the Batan peninsula,' not so favorable as Mac Arthur’s. Philippines is concentrated in a small bit of /\ /\ terrain particularly well suited for the type of tactics that he has chosen. And at his back he has the island fortress of Corregidor, a source of considerable ’ I strength. General Ter Poorten in Java has no such LEAD - 5 1 ortress at his ba tk is out-gunned, out-numbered in the air, and fighting with a tired army, whereas the^^invaders have a constant stream of reinforcements to relieve them. The Japanese now all of v/estern Java. < And they have cut the main body of the Dutch troops off from the eastern half of the island, including the naval base at Soerabaja. The Dutch high command admits that several places, including not only Batavia but Jogjakarta, had to be abandoned. *'As a result of f ) the enemy*s mastery of the air, the Dutch troops are j i |i continuously exposed to such violent bombardments that ( f ¥ I % they have been unable to rest for many days and are | ,• l^^nnfwirg<^irnT=4.i riaH y —^ mpVog the si now X situation If serious, hopeless. Whenever they have retreated,^ / /j \ the Dutch have left the Japanese nothing but scorched 1 earth, even destroying the stores of liquor in towns i LEAD - 6 likely to be taken by the invaders. r Meanv.’hile , l^he defenders of Soerabaja have started demolTshin{^ installations'Ti^^^ /V ________ --------------- ------ ci!) -------------- ii n It is becoming more and more evident that the ^ Japanese in Java are using ths tactics copied from m those of the Nazi Germans. Indeed, military experts in Washington believe it possible that the Java high lA command /A iftst actually advised by Nazi officers. ir The entire Java campaign is marked by german technique! tancpassing by the hard spots and pouring the biggest concentrations into the weakest holes. The next ti step after that is to fan-out^ after breaking up into smaller units. These tactics put the defenders up against it for means of communication and supply. Everywhere tTrcMr^CT have been used^they have been successful except against General MacArthur on the /\ Batan peninsula. And, say the Washington expert;^, the LEAD - 7 nature of the terrain on Baton has been unfavorable to those German-Japanese tactics. The Washington observers declare that man for man, soldier for soldier, the troops of th6 United Nations are gi as good scs:; or better than, the Japanese. That applies to land, air and sea. At sea, < /I the Japanese had a far larger covering force for their transports. In spite of being outnumbered, the naval A concentrations of the United Nations inflicted heavy losses. In the air, wherever American pilots have confronted Japanese aircraft, the Japanese have come off a poor second best. As the full descriptions of these i^fights are released, they will show how overwhelmingly superior (wcr American flyers are. XH.consolation l-eok n BUR;-IA IVvO In Bum a, the Japanese^^c la im to be only four teeny j miles from goonj and -tro:rrhe‘ in a position to cUtr^wo of the principal roads leading to the former Burmese capital. They also say they have captured two important places on the^railroad from Rangoon to Lashio. That*s 7F" the Japanese end of the story. From the other side, however, it*s reported that the British and their a ttackA^^^ allies have taken the offensive, the Japanese on the Pegu front, and kill^^^ large number of the invaders in heavy fighting. The Imperial forces there have tanks to help them. They are still holding Pegu, and they^^’e still waiting for the long-expected all-out attack by the Japanese for the capture of Mandalay. The cutting of the Burma Road to China has not left Chiang Kai-shek helpless. A new route has been developed and is actually being used. Part of it goes through thick jungles, where the stuff has to be hauled BURMA - 2 by elephants. Shipments of war materials have already /, gone over that road, known as 'the jungle T— • trail. It goes from India across northern Burma to I LashiOtriat the he^ of the Burma Road^ fast tskxiik thence ^ *fco . . as befor^^ And Chinese engineers are now building a i I' second highway from India to China. The Chinese are somewhat sour over the news of those American troops that were sent to Britain instead of the Far East. An important newspaper in the'^hinesG capital remarks that for three whole months MacArthur has been fighting on Batan but not a single American reinforcement has been sent to help him. J FBAI^CE Here*s more about the collapse of France. Another Ex-Cabinet Minister snoke his Piece before that war ruilt trial court at Rion. It was Guy LaChambre, the former Air Minister, who was quite out of the clutches of the pro-Nazi French Government, safe in the United States, but returned to France to defend his honor. LaChambre says the weakness of the French army in the air was largely due to the general staff. Its members seemed to be unable to make up their minds what type of planes they wanted to build. Then too. he says, there was collusion between Communist leaders and producers. One thing the general staff did. concerned fift} 6urtiss planes made in the United States. They were on the docks all ready to ship to France, but the general staff ordered them sent to Casa Blanca in Morocco, where there was no material to equip them. j BLACK MAPKET The British authorities are becoming infuriated by the wide penetration of black markets 6 all over Britain. That’s a subject that ought to Av interest us, because we may be up against the same sort of thing ourselves before Leon Henderson gets through rationing^^««xy4^w^*^ay from us. ere h^s been a vehement campaign in the newspapers, directed largely against magistrates who have been passing too lenient sentences on men convicted of infringement of the rationing laws. And today there was a general order issued by Sir William *^ames. Commander-in-'^hief of King George’s navy base at Portsmouth. The General’s order contained these words:- ”We are now fighting the greatest war in our existence and in our own country we are fighting a battle of the people against parasites. Soldiers, airmen and sailors are daily B LA CK MARKET - ? giving their lives to their country but in our midst there are people not only doing nothing to help the war effort but living in comfort on the proceeds of their illegal dealings in commodities necessary to the well-being of our people.” y» srii I SUBMARINES Two more merchant ships lost^says the Navy. The American freighter NORYANA and the tanker OLYMPIC, flying the flag of Panama, »xre—ai=±oii. overdue A 7) V saw it is presumed they have been ; I n = 3 LYTTLETON $ There seems to be a lack of coordination between the British and United States governments on the subject of giving out information. One example of this became so flagrant that President Roosevelt spoke in acid terms of a bit of news revealed by the Right Honorable Oliver Lyttleton, Supervisory Production Minister in the Churchill Cabinet. Cabinet Minister Lyttleton made public a statement about a new American naval base located somewhere in Africa. Lyttleton named the exact location of that base, adding that it ]\ II was not very big at the moment but would soon be j| i tremendous. V/hereupon President|Roosevelt declared that even discussing the existence of that base was an invitation to the enemy to bomb it. A newspapermen told the President that the story has come through the censorship on the other side several times but has m'f LYTTLETON - 2 1 always been stopped over here. The British in London point out that the story had been passed not by the censors in London but by those in Cairo. Nor should we get irritated over such things. ?'hen you are involved in a worldwide war there is bound to be plenty of fumbling. ALIENS j The latest raids on aliens by the F.B.I. in California^brought in quite a haul. The government men working in twenty-nine communities of California, found ^ contraband in large quantities.and arrested members of two Japanese military societies . The Federal Bureau obtained information about one of these from a mass of records found in the possession of a Buddhist priest at Sacramento. FINANCE As have been expecting for a couple of months, the Secretary of the Treasury wants Congress to raise Uncle Sam’s debt limit to a hundred and twenty-five billions. He sent a message to Congress today, urging quick action. At the end of February, he said, the government had almost reached the xixt^cxfxx sixty-five billion dollar limit, and was only short about one billion, four hundred millions. The Treasury will went to put out bond issues in the month of April f and unless the lawmakers raise the limit at once, the Secretary will be up against it for cash. In the meantime, both Houses are getting busy xt on the new tax bill for which Morgenthau asked yesterday. There are various ideas among the Congressmen] V Some, for instance, want to up the excise taxes imjCKd immediately on such things as the cup that cheers and '/^ 1 the cigarette smoke that people puff in your FINANCE - 2 in the middle’of dinner. Excise taxes, according to Senator Prentice Brown of Michigan, should be passed at once in order that the government might start taking in the money Also, judging by the reports from Capitol Hill, exemptions are going to be lowered, although that is -A not the Treasury’s idea. Congressmen took quick action to comply with 1 what the Secretary asked. A few minutes after reading A Morgenthau's message,the House Committee on Ways and Means voted unanimously to report a bill favorably to raise the debt limit. One thing the Secretary seems to fear is the tendency among certain Con^gressmen to pass laws for compulsory investment in defense bonds. They want to stick a clause in some bill oyother requiring money to be deducted from everybody’s pay check and invested ■ Jk I FINANCE - 3 in the bonds, go vernment^doesn H want anything with such a Nazi flavor as that. The defense bonds are selling wel^r^ says^Morgenthau, sales are high, ua. and he”^ in favor of leaving the buying of bonds up to nanulti-* ■ i nd i — A gLOga-Wll:^ 'tA 'f ' i CARS Congress will try and see to it that there is no favoritism in the use of automobiles Even members of the President’s Cabinet will have 1 ■i to go to their local rationing board before buying a car or even a tire! Whereupon, if the rationing board says "No,” then the distinguished gentleman will have to walk or thumb a ride. Possible converseit ion: - "Where do you want to go? Washington?- You say. anyhow? The Secretary of Labor! I Hsgii, Iiilister, Miss, I mean -- don’t kid me! Okay, hop in!" Huh, Who are you Huh All this may happen if the House Committee on Appropriations has its way. That Committee proposes to pass a law to eliminate the spectacle of plain citizens walking the streets while on government-j ob-holders roll along^the highways The Committee would CARS - 2 yi Dass a law forbdding the sale of new oassenger cars r//v for government use to anybody except the President and his staff, and the Departments of War and the Navy. Except, of course, for the few people who have definite work to do for the government, absolutely requiring the use of an automobile. W 'T^^T- 1 ELECTRICITY President Roosevelt wants us to use no more electricity than we have to. More and more of that vital juice is being needed for the making with them. So civilians must cooperate, save every possible kilowatt. Somebody asked the President, what about night baseball? His reply was that he thought civilian morale. And that*^ if everybody who goes to a night game turns off the lights at home, it will all be even -- Stephen! of planes, tanks, guns and all the things that go j I there ought to be night baseball, because it helps i If' i i 1