i I LiT^_-_SUN0Cg^__M0NMYj._JULY_6^12i2^ GOOD EVENING EVEEYBODY: The Battle of Egypt seems to be goini better. r But it is too early to crow yet. Auchinleck, in a'''?ounter-attack, drove Rommel and his on-rushing Panzers off a high ridge the Nazi Field Marshal was holding; took the strong position away from him -- the Germans and Italians. Rommel, shoved hixk back onto his own heels again, tried to outwit the British. Tried to lure them into another ambush. This time he had his men pretend to surrender. With hands raised over their heads, hundreds of Nazi infantry marched slowly toward a Bid tish mobile column. If the British had fallen for the trick. we are told that Auchinleck would have lost one of i his crsck msch&nissd columns* Bui Ihs Auk s msn wsrs not being fooled this time. All over the Middle East s 1 LEAD _ 2 they call him "the Great Auk." The trick, as explained to us, went this way: When the Germans got near the Biitish they suddenly, with one motion, threw themselves down to the sand, leaving the path clear for a tremendous salvo from German eighty-eight millimeter cannon, of which we have been hearing so much. And the ruse was almost successful. Thfa leading British tank was instantly smashed into scrap, and the tank squadron leader killed. Several other tanks were badly damaged. But the British caughtjon, and the final result made the affair costly for Rommel. The British tanks rolled right over the prostrate Nazi soldiers, killing hundreds, took many others prisoner. The dispatch tellslus that Rommel tried it again. Again it didn't work. And the failure of the two attempts cost heavily. It put fresh spirit into the British attack, and Auchinleck not only drove Rommel's mechanized columns off the lid* ridge where they were in strong position, but they captured another 1 LEAD important point between the ridge and the town of El Alamein. It all makes a rather harrowing tale, the story of the counter-offensive the British are making in the £yg|stiiix Egyptian desert. Two factors are contributing to it. One, riiKfBXKKK reinforcements, of men and equipment: machines, tanks, planes. In this our own air forces have taken part. Allied planes have been pounding Rommel^s columns, incessantly^Both Berlin and Rome admitted that the British have been growing stronger and stronger in the desert battle. Significant also is the fact that Berlin does not claim any new successes, today. Foremost among the reinforcements in Egypt have been the Anzac divisions - this time New Zealanders,* thoroughly trained as hard-hitting, mobile columns. They have been in the midst of the latest desert fighting. And it is they who are getting the credit LEAD - 4 for slowing down the Nazi Panzer rush, stopping it before Auchinleck*s counter-attack could be launched. And to do it the New Zealanders had to fight their way out of 'iersa Matruh, with their bayonets, almost wiping out one of Rommel’s infantry regiments. Then in another clash lads from New Zealand, along with some South Africans, put some forty Axis tanks to rout. Another element in the latest phase of the Egyptian battle is a human one. It had been observed 1 \ w LEAD - 5 of late that in all discussions of the war, we have been putting heavy stress on equipment, planes, tanks, guns But what held the Japanese back on Batan was the s£irit, of fighting men commanded by a great leader. And this time it seems to be another leader who enters dramatically and in person into that desert battle, irom themoment Auchinleck took command of the Eighth Army, the seemingly unstopable Rommel was first slowed, then stopped, then pushed back. If "the Auk" continues to throw the enemy back, his name will be on every lip, just as Rommel's has of laj^ We hope! ■i RUSSIA The news from Russia still gives plenty of reason £>r anxiety. Reports from Moscow continue full of cheer, but it’s evident that much will depend on the J outcome of the battle in the basin of the Bon River. The Germans are gi bragging that they have crossed the Don; that they have established bridgeheads, and have surrounded a considerable part of the Red Army. They crossed it, so they say, about a hundred-and-fifty miles east of Kursk. And that would put them in position to capture an important railway line. There are only two railroads connecting Moscow with the Caucasus. One of them passes through Rostov, Tagonrov and Kharkov. The Nazis already have cut that. The other is the line running from Rostov through Litki to Voronezh. And that’s the one the IJ Nazi Colonel-General, von RUSSIA - 2 Manstein is now fighting desperately to get. If he captures it, there will be days ahead for the Allies. The loss of that line would cut Russian A communications and supply lines from the Urals. The Red Army high command does not admit having lost the line of the Don River. On the contrary, it claims to have driven the Nazis back across what it « calls "a strategic river.” Maybe that means the Don/ maybe some lesser stream. In any event, there is no doubt that Hitler has huge forces massed along a front f\ of some hundred and fifty miles from Kursk and Belgorod. However, there is one phrase in the Nazi communique which is highly suspicious. It says that large Russian units face annhilation. That phrase has become so worn, you would think evenjpoebbels would grow tired of it. According to his out^^o.ur ings, the RUSbIA - 3 Russians have constantly faced annihilation. Further on, in one sentence today, Goebbels declares that the major part of the Russian tank force in the Kursk sector had been destroyed. And then he adds that the Nazi high command is expecting more fierce tank battles. Tank battles against destroyed tanks! ADD RUSSIA Here ic a bulletin fro.'n moscot ., just in, and not so cheerful. The Soviet high co.Qmand issued a bulletin at midnight, admitting some of the German claims: that the Red Army has withdrawn from a number of populated places and that iiitler*s legions have advanced a considerable distance along a hundred and fifty miles of that southern front. The latest is that the Red Army is fighting fiercely west of Voronezh, and east of J^ursk; on that railway from lose to Rostov. i CHINA Today was the fifth anniversary of the war in China, and it brought out conflicting statements from Chinese generals. First of all, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek told his people that the final collapse of Japan is only a question of time. In the same breath, he warned the Chinese that they have got to go on meeting hardships calmly. General Ho, Chinese War Minister, announced that thanks to increased help‘from us and the British, the morale of the Chinese army was never as high as I it is today. The Chinese main forces in the Provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsi are still intact, and the latest Japanese offensive injllhina he described as a hopeless rally. Over here in New York, another Chinese General uttered a warning, and a cry for help. General Hsiung, chief of the jdxitEdxi^txtKS Chinese Chinese War Minister about Chinese morale, the head 1 CHINA - 2 Military Mission to the United States, tells us that if the Japanese conquer ^hina, they wi;^. go on fighting a hundred years. That is, if they can consolidate the resources of China as they have those of the Dutch East Indies. The resources of the archipelago, A he said, were not destroyed fundamentally. The Japanese are using them right now. By contrast to the proud statement of the of the mission to America said that now the Chinese people and soldiers are getting nervous and to some degree disappointed. And he pointed out that, with China conquered, Japan will have all the resources that the United States possess,and more. President Roosevelt sent a message to Chiang Kai-shek in which he said that we and the Chinese are united as nations and peoples have never I & CHINA - 3 been united. Five years ago, continued the President, at the Marco Polo Bridge, the Chinese began their fight against the forces of darkness. And the world knows, he added, how well they have carried on that fight. It is the fight of all mankind. ALEUTIANS Uncle Sara's Navy has added to the score against the Japs. Once again our submarine fighters have given a good account of themselves. They sank three Jap destroyers and wrecked another -- in the Aleutians. And, they did it on the Fourth of July.’ An ideayway to celebrate the Fourth. Three of these Jap warships were sunk off Kiska Island. They torpedoed and sank two, and left the third burning fiercely. Then they caught a Jap dbstroyer at Agattu, the island between Attu and Kiska. The Department^of the Interior today made it that known about a thousand civilians have been evacuated from the western Aleutians, and, from the Pribilof Islands - where the seals live. Principally natives and a few whites who have been living in the islands. teaching school, or as weather observers and traders. LODGE Sitting in the Senate of the United States today | was an officer in uniform, an officer who had just been on active service. Major Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from Massachusetts, told about his experiences in the | Libyan desert. He told his colleagues that tki he must ^ lead a charmed life for men were killed within half a dozen yards of him. Once he was nearly taken prisoner. Near dusk one evening he saw three tanks approaching. f With the naked eye he couldn’t see whether they were friend or foe, but with field glasses he quickly perceived they were German. Another day, a Nazi plane came near him and a man only eighteen or twenty feet away was killed with machinegun bullets. Senator Lodge said:- "I leaped into a hole and lay flat." And he added: "Believe me, an experience like that makes you think, and it isn’t about politics either." LODGE - Lod^e was a reserve captain when he took his call for active duty last February. When he showed up | today his shoulders were decorated with the leaf clusterl I of a major: he had been promoted just recently. He ^ 1 ♦ arrived at the front, west of Tobruk, just as the ^ fighting began at the end of May. He was recalled by general order to all members of the Congress in the armed forces to return to’their legislative duties. He was on active duty with the Second Armored Force and lost twenty pounds doing it. He told the War Department that any time they want a good tank man, he is available. Th6 heat of the desert, he pronounced rather a myth. That is, it is cooler than Washington, he said. The atmosphere is completely dry and you 11 i don^t sweat at all. While he was absent at the front g friends in Massachusetts entered his name for renomination. LODGE - ? 1 ■i We have heard a good deal about the American- built tanks that have been used in the battles against 11 Rommel. Tonight we learn for the first time that ^ rli American crews were serving them. In two days of heavy fighting, they knocked'Out several German tanks. The American tanks were hit repeatedly but not seriously damaged, and the crews had no casualties in battle. This Army communique refers to the Battle of Libya on June Eleventh and Twelfth. That is quite a while ago as events are in these tim^s, and the Army just releases it. The crews who manned those tanks were taken from a group of American armored force observers who had been in North Africa for several weeks. That Army communique makes no mention of the later battles. r i RUBBER On the home front in Washington, rubber was a j I fighting topic today. Production Chief Nelson appeared 1 before a Senate sub-committee on agriculture and had a run-in with Senator Uncle George Norris of Nebraska. Norris made the statement that Nelson had done nothing to use the country’s agricultural commodities to increase our rubber supply. That,made Nelson hot t under the collar, and he called it a very unfair and untrue statement, and then he said to Norris :- "I hold you in such deep respect as a Senator that i i I don’t like you to make statements like that about me | t . i and the organization of which I am head.” And he added:- "There is only one thing I am jealous of, and | that is the integrity of the War Production Board." li i lii i A rubber dealer in|Fort Worth, Texas, had made the charge that officials of the rubber branch of the W.P.B. had tried to make a deal with him n il 1 'I RUBBFP - 2 before authorizing the building of a plant to reclaim rubber. Nelson said those charges had shocked him. The charges, incidentally, were categorically denied by the head of the rubber division of W.P.B. LAter on at the hearing. Nelson admitted that i if he were beginning his rubber program all over again, ^ i he would build a much larger percentage of plants to use alcohol for production of rubber substitutes. He is aiming, he said, to turn out eight hundred thousand tons of synthetic rubber a year. Any amount above that, would be over and above essential needs, civilian needs and war needs. LUCKNER - STABLER From time to time people write and aske this war?" I*ve wondered myself. So, when some of our correspondents were released from German Concentration Camps, and allowed to come back to America ax recently, I asked several of them: "Bid you see anything of the jolly old raider of the last World War, Count Felix Von Luckner?" Nearly all of them said they had. The most interesting report I got was at an Overseas Press Club Luncheon, where Glenn Sadler, U.P. correspondent, just back from Berlin, said that he occasionally saw the Sea Bevil and that he was always accompanied by two men who "didn’t seek his company because they were his friends, but because they were from the Gestapo. Assigned to keep an eye on Luckner, Stadler says he is anti-Nazi, anti-Hitler, but they they haven’t dared put him in a concentration camp because of his huge personal popularity and because he played such me:- "Is Count Luckner, the Sea Bevil, involved in ii LUCKNER - STABLER - 2 a big part in the rebirth of the German Navy, after the last war. i: Says the U.P. correspondent Stadler, the two members of the Gestapo who trail around with Von Luckner, sometimes relax their vigil, because the Sea Devil always invites them to join him in l » r i drinking, "an art", says the American newspaperman i I "in which the boisterous Count is so proficient that ■ after one a.m. in the morning, he often is able to walk away, alone, free of his by now prostrate guards. t So, there’s the answer to "what is Luckner doing?" Still up to some of his old tricks, still playing jokes -- and wishing he were at sea in a wind-jammer, instead of three sheets in the wind in the Adlon Bar. And now Hugh.