L^T^_SUNOCQ^-.Taua£MI. .iKii^.ll^^lUZ- GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: The conference at Rio de Janerior opened today -- the emergency gathering of the foreign ministers of tiAenty -one American republics. President Vargas of Brazil in an operning address of welcome. described it in these tersm: "The most solid and powerful alliance of free and sovereign nations that the history of humanity has ever js.nown. United States Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles promptly presented the American viewpoint | 1 to the conference. He called upon the American Republics one and ail to rally against the Axis. “There | can no longer be any real neutrality," said Sumner Welles. And he said it was of the utmost important to rid this hemisphere of all diplomatic, busines. financial and trade transactions from v^hich might benefit the Axis. Secretary of State did not CONFERENCE - 2 mention Argentina, but that South American Repub idc was what he meant. Argentina -- which nas been standing out against the plan of a joint Pan-American Delcaration aga'^nst the Axis. PHILIPPINES The late army bulletin issued at the end of the day tells us nothing about the fighting in the Philippines, But it announces the safe arrival at Australia of the United States Army Hoppital Ship carrying wounded from the island battlefields As for General MacArthur’s army, it was attacked heavily today in their defense lines across the Batan Peninsula. But they're holding their positiojni with -- "courage and detrmination." 1 ' JAP LINER The sinking of the Jap liner is the largest area was what they all "The Yawata class.* They are ship sunk may belong to that extremely significatn class of vessels. In other words, our submarine may have bagged an anemy aircraft carrier -- to make the success still more striking single success by the American submarine fleet thus far. The ship torpedoed somewhere in the Pacific War | big ones, seventeen thousand tonners. Japan had three of them, and one is understood to have been turned into an aircraft carrier. So, actually, the MALAYA News from Malaya tells of Singapore today beating off a heavy and prolonged air attac several Jap bombers shot down. This, together with other indications, intimate that the British sky forces I in Malaya have been strengthened considerably. And Singapore tells of the defeat of an | t I* enemy tank column. Australian advance troops assailed £ a force of Japanese tanks, and won a quick sharp victory. This is described as having happened in the Eastern part of Negri Sembilano, which Malay sultanate is reported now to be entirely in Japanese control. The Singapore dis|)atch says the Australians were a guerrilla band that had penetrated the advance lines of the Japs The larger aspect of the landiw fighting in Malayafeatures a City of old and romantic fame — Malacca on the Straits of Malacca. That historic port on the coast to the north of Singapore, is the next large enemy objective. There are confusing stories MALAYA - 2 about how near the Japs are to '^lalacca dnd the status of the city is tonight in considerable do’>i)t Every traveler who has wandered about in Malaya has vivid memories of Malacca — I, for one. You think of the Portuguese empire of old -- which preceded the British and theDutch. Vasco deGama, who sailed around Afiica and discovered the all water route to India and there laid the foundations of Portuguese power. His tomb to this day is in the Portuguese Cathedral at Malacca. I remember the church as a gem of old time architecture, half covered with tropical growth. And the great Alburquerque was Viceroy at Malacca -- during his years as a golden conqueror of eastern empire. So Malacca conjuresglowing and romantic memories -- and it *s odd how the glowing and romantic can be accompanied by bits of comic absurdity. li For example, X remember a Malacca cqne that I once had, a walking stick given me when I went off to Ifcorld War j MALAYA - 3 H Number One. It was a proud possession, and for years i\ I carried it all around the world. Then I lost my Malacca cane. It was stolen from me. Where? Why, in Malacca, where it originally came ..from. It had to be swiped from me there -- ironically. A trivial and absurd memory -- to accompany the formidable news that the Japanese campaign in tkE Malay a is now concentrating on that one time capital of the Porttguese Empire -- Malacca. ji; r, iL.I II nil I I FOLLOW MALAYA There is more talk of the possibility of a British Counter-attack through Burma -- striking at the rear of the Jap invasion of Malaya. A military spokesman at Rangoon said that such plans were in his words, •naturallybeing considered.* . He wasn’t very so strategic that it makes a constant appearance in the Far Eastern news. In India, next door to Burma, Mahatma Gandhi today anno need his successor aa leader of what they call "the Congress Party* -- Hindu Nationalism. Gandhi’s place is taken by Pundit Jawaharlal. In making the announcement Gandhi restated the continued opposition of himself and his party to the British Raj. "The British government," said he, "has done nothing to irv ite us to reconsider our position." And he added, that the policy of non-violent refusal to cooperate with the Empire war effort will go on. ! ! positive about it, but a blow through Burma would be | I !i I! i^' In London there is continued agitation about J FOLLOW MALAYAN- 2 the bad turn of events in the Far East, Observers in the British capital are saying that if Singapore should be captured by the Japs it might result in the downfall of the Churchill cabinet. They are still calling for an explanation of the unpreparedness in Malaya, and one member of Parliament today announced that he would try to bring the whole question to a debate in the House of Commons. Under-Secretary Lord Croft undertook today III to answer the critics. He said there simply wasn’t |j| enough armed power to protect the empire at all points. •If we attempted to have substantial forces everywhere,*® he declared, "we should be able to resist the empire nowhere.* The extent to which British resentment over deficiencies in armament can go is illustrated by a revelation today made by a Senior Air Officer in London. He reverted back to the disastrous defeat of the empire forces in Crete, when British power was conspicuously follow MALAYA - 3 ineffective. He said that R.A. F. pilots were booed and even stoned by British soldiers. CHURCHILL . One of the great contemporary institutions I is --‘fan mail. Any person headlined in the news gets his share of communications from the public -- praise, blame, advice, everything. So what about our most distinguished visitor -- Winston Churchill, Prime ii ii Minister of Great Britain? A little while ago there was a brief item of news stating that he had received a great quantity of mail and telegrams from American admirers. I thought I*d try to have a look at the Churchill-Americanl ii Fan Mail, and pick out an interesting bit. And here*s il the most amusing thing I found -- a solemn letter of | welcome written by a little girl down in Birmingham, Alab ama. It goes this way: "Dear Mr. Churchill: We are glad you are here. We thank you for not letting ^ I the war come over here. We are not going to let the Japs come over here, if we can help it. We are glad," , explains the little girl brightly, "that we have a picture of the Japs and Hitler so that we know what CHURCHILL - 2 they look like, and won’t let them come over here." And she adds, "We are going to keep Santa Claus safe in this country." That last determination is refreshing remember whom they used to call Santa Claus in the old days of the New Deal? The letter from the little girl in Birmingham concludes with the following: "We are glad you is Prime Minister of England, and hope you don’t get killed. I am going to send you some candy. Your friend, Ann Strauchan." >1 HILL A verdict was announced today in the trial of George Hill, second secretary to Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York. He’s been on trial charged with perjury. The specific accusation is that he lied i) (f when he told the grand jury when he said he didn’t J know George Sylvester Vierick, the German propagandist. | Also, that he committed perjury in denying that he gave orders for the concealment of eight mail sacks that contained isolationist literature. These were being sought by the Government and were found in a store room used by Congressman Fish in the basement of the House of Representatives. The prosecution charged that George Hill had been an important cog in the dissemination of Nazi propaganda in this country. The verdict of the jury today was -- guilty on both courts of perjury. And the Secretary of Congressman Fish faces a possible maximum of twenty year in prison HILL - 2 All through the affair the Congressman hasstood by his secretary, who has been in his employ for twenty years. And Ham Fish still stands by George Hill. This afternoon he said, "George Hill is of English ancestry, his mother and father having been born inEngland and he had no use whatever for the Nazis. He's a disable World War veteran," and then the Ham Fish defense concluded, "He had an obsession against our own involvement in the war - before we were attacked at Pearl Harbor." 11 I ' T1 ARMY The size of the United States Army is to more than doubled. Right now there are a million seven hundred thousand men in service. That’s to be increased to three million, six hundred thousand during the coming year. This huge augmentation of armed strength was announced today by Secretary of War Stimson, who explained that the number of armored units will be doubled, and the number of air combat units will be more than doubled. The War Department, meanwhile, announced that qualifications for the air cadets are being revised to make more men eligible for enlistment The age limit will be lowered to eighteen years, and the educational requirements will be broaddned. Ail this -- because of the number of men they’ll need to man one hundred and eighty-five thousand planes are to be constructed according to the schedule set by the President. CONANT 11 I was in Boston today, and found people talking about a news story that was a headline in the Athens of America. It was on the academic subject of College prospects during war times -- with President Conant of Harvard making some downright statements. He proposed that the Universities of America do their bit to win the war by functioning as schools for officers. \ President Conant pointed out that officers for our new giant army will be chosen largely from the men drafted under Selective Service -- college men picked for the most part. But that’s hardly democratic because college in general is limited to the well-to- do. So President Conant suggests that the array shoudl take primising high school boys, no matter whether rick or poor, lads with a talent for leadership -- and send them to the colleges for training as officers. Meaning of course, that the universities woikld virtually become military schools. CONANT - 2 1 The President of Harvard, in recommending army this, pointed out that wartime duty is going to hit the colleges hard -- many fewer students enrolling. f\ He said that Harvard itself faces a shrinkage of revenue by one million, seven hundred thousand dollars this calculation based on the war time experience of the universities in England. LINDBERGH 3 It isn't clear just what kind of job Lindbergh will do for the Army. He has been assigned to what the secretary of War calls "a technical commercial project." We are specifically told that the project is one in whibh the army is interested. The commercial angle wignifies that the Lone Eagle j || will serve in a Civilian capacity -- without military i t _ _ _ _ I rank. He won't become a Colonel^^a^^in. Lindbergh renounced that title, resignin^from the AxsiRg Army Reserve, when the President criticized him sharply last Spring beca\/se of his activities as an Isolation­ ist Leader. After the Jap attack on Pearl Harbor the world's best known aviator offered to serve the Army in any capacity — and the army took him up on that. ; On Monday Lindbergh conferred with Secretary of War Stimson, and he told the Secretary he was ularly Qualifieo for what he called "technical experimentation.* This was revealed by Secretary i 4 1 I LINDBERGH - 2 Stimson today. Lindbergh was referred to Chief of the Air Force, General Arnold, and today was appointed to that -- "technical commercial project." ||| Lindbergh made headlines some years ago when he did pioneering work in the development of infeer-American commerical air routes, and there is some surmise that his new job may be along that line -- j air route pioneering. CADET A wild and wooiy story comes from an army air training school at Tuscaloosla, fitjiiAlabama. The hero, or rather the victim of the fantastic sky adventure is a British Air Cadet sent over to train in this country -- Student Pilot Derek Sharp of Yorkshire. 1 i It happened yesterday, and was revealed today; an official army dispatch telling how Cadet Sharp of Yorkshire was riding as a student in a training plane. | Speeding along at an altitude of five hundred feet the plant hit a bump, and Cadet Sharp bounced right out. The army dispatch tells it in vivid terms: •Suddenly," says the report, "he found himself sitting on thin air. His next impression of the mishap, was a severe rap, when his head hit the tail of the plane. Throwing his arms around the tail, with his legs hanging below," the dispatch continues, "he managed to hold 00 long enough to wiggle himself up onto the 0l0vator surfaces." And that was a dickens of a place to be CADET - 2 The first the instructor knew about it was when the plane began to act mighty funny -- obeying or rather disobeying, the controls in a very peculiar way. He looked back and saw that his passenger was missing. He looked harder and saw Dadet Sharp of Yorkshire hanging onto the tail. So no wonder the controls were going haywire. The instructor, Jay McAusland, was in a quandry. The ideal solution would have been for Cadet Sharp to slide off the tail and aa make a parachute descent. However, at an altutudie of only five hundred feet he couldn't do it safely -- not high enough to be sure about a parachute drop. The next alternative was to climb, and give him more altitude. And that was tough -- steering the plane up into the sky, with a full-sized air cadet hanging onto the elevator surfaces of the tail. However, Instructor Jay McAusland did it. He cli±)ed to twenty-five hundred feet with what he later called "extreme difficulty." ; CADET - 3 Time to jump and parachute*. He tried to convey that information to the student. Ke tried to signal. This phase of the adventure is eloquently expressed in today*s army report. ’*In an attempt to attract the student’s attention,** the communique says, **McAusland kicks the rudder bars back and forth. And to his surprise he felt Sharp take hold of the tail and wiggle it back at him. ** And that was a deuce of a way to answer back. What it meant was that Cadet Sharp of Yorkshire wasn’t having any parachute jumping that afternoon. Pilot McAusland looked back, and saw him signally with the typical British gesture - thumbs up. It was hard to figure out what thumbs up meant in that situation, but finally McAusland got the idea that Cadet Sharpe was going to stick with the plane -- come what may. The instructor would have to land, and the Cadet would risk the trip down -- riding the elevator surfaces of the tail. [I n ?si fl l CADET - 4 The happy endling lies in the fact that Pilot McAusland in so difficult a predicament, made a perfect landing, and Cadet Sharp of Yorkshire came out of it okay. Philosophical about it too -- about riding the tail of the plane. He said he*d seen it happen before, in England. And Now, Hugh, I’ll turn the controls of this Sunoco aircraft over to you.