-I j 4»-6e^ < The latest flash of war news tonight gives us the flash and blast of an American torpedo hitting a Japanese ship. The Navy has just announced the sinking of an enemy transport by an American submarine. It doesn’t state just where ta* this occurred or how many Japanese troops were lost. The Navy bulletin also states that a Japanese destroyer was probably sunk in this blow struck by the American underwater fleet This was announced shortly after the President held a long conference on strategy with military and naval advisers -- including the new Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, admiral Nimit z. PHILlPPINii;^ Today’s word from tne Phillipines was -- vicbory* If was fh© lirsf olficiai word of victory scored by the American- Philippine Army. Hitherto there have been unofficial stories of American successes against the enemy troops, but today’s accounf^ is given in a formal bulletin issued by General MacArthur. The major success occurred in the area of Vigan. That’s to the north of Manila.^ General MacArthur reports that his forces there have inllicted a defeat upon Japanese patrols and motorize^ The Japs were driven back — axd many miles. It apparently was a sharp setback -- the first official 5 . account of offensive action by the American in the Philippines. ^And success is reported to the extreme i north of the Isle of Luzon-- Aparri. There the Japs launched an attack trying to get a drive going. ihey were sharply repelled -- driven back. There was some enemy air activity today, bombw Manila -- the air fields eii 4 that section. A ^ Not much to it, a small scale affair -- with little damage. The Philippines have had a bad steamship disaster -- a crowded passeng striking a mine It happened in Manila Bay, and two hundred persons are reported to be lost^ ) 1 HONG ^OKG I For the thira time today, the Japanese demanded the surrender of Hong Kong - and for the thira time, this was rejected. iThe Japanese are continuing their attack on that completely isolated British colony, and seem to think that Hong Kong cannot hold out. Tonight’s dispatch states that v/hen their third demand for surrender was turned down, they received the ansv;er with v/hat is described as - evident surprise. di!. M a L a YA 1 ' The latest from Singapore is an Imperial Communique stating that no Japanese activity was reported throughout the day along either of the two fronts in northern Malaya, either at the east or at the west. The eastern toattlefront is in the Malaya Sultanate of Kedah. The eastern line is in that other | Malaga Sultanate of Kelantan. These areas^ axe both along the coast, the scenes of the two-way X /V Japanese attempt to drive southward against Singapore.^ I This latest no-activity bulletin followed % earlier word that in the western sector of Malaya, I in Kedah, the Empire Forces have retired to a new line | I i behind a river. They have pulled back after fierce fighting across rice paddies and streams and swamps It isn’t too clear how this affects the northern A Malaya port of Penang which is the secondary British A naval base in Malaya -- second to Singapore (TV^ I M a L k Y a - 2 r however, gives the impression that Penang has been flanked and is possibly lost. The new position the British have taken up is said to be strong and presumably the Japanese are mustering their forces for a new attack. ' 7-‘7 add MALAYA- Thp war situation in Malaya is so iaportant and so critical right now, that it's waE to take a closer look at that jungle-land -- so little known to | I most Americans. I spent nearly a year of ay life out { I the'^e in those romantic oorts of Singapore, Malacca, j I Penang, and inland at Ipoli and Kuala Lumpur, and on excursions by elephant into the dark tangled Equatorial forest. Also having a look at the splendors and court life cf the Malay sultans in principalities of spangled elephants and glittering sword dances -- in Pera, Selangar and Negri Sembilan. But my old friend Carveth ^iVells, the noted author and lecturer, knows it even more intimately. Carveth was an engineer on the railroad,and as a surveyor he helped fix the boundary between Northern Malaya and Siam. ADL.±AkAI A - j tal^sd to him today about the terrain across which the iii battle now is raring. i g 4 li He told me that there is no greater mistake than to picture the war in Malaya as a jungle affair. He said it *s true that the greater part of Malaya is one huge expanse of tropical forest. But that*s the doesn*t count. The long peninsula, he pointed part ^ A out, is jur^le down the middle, but on both sides there are broad strips of clear and open land along the coast. These tv^o belts, one on each side, are twenty or twenty-five miles wide, and the^ are the two theatres of war right nov* - y/ith the Japs trying to advance down i I the X long clecr xy. y/ays on the east and v/est of the jungle region. p W p II s >sti!i-it's ridiculous to talk about A A i; ^ i fighting any kind of modern war in the jungle - it T trcpiv'?.! iarent? t Tsn'b 1 e thickets, would tiiy. c.efT difficult for military use. The whole thinr would have to be foufht in those strips of oren land along the coast. Through the rubber groves and rice paddies, which are comparA/t ively dry now -- The Jars timed it that way. I *0 I The lete news tonight gives us a large questicn- larh in connection with the reaote Island of Tinor. A Portuguese possession, leading from the lutch last ladies to Australia, Timor taken over by the British and Cutch - to forestall Japanese action in those I regions ^ .. That was the story earlier I today. onight the word is that the Butch have already evacuated Timor. This comes in the form of a statement by a British Embassy spokesman in Lisbon, who declared that the Butch forces have already moved out of the Portuguese island - thereby reestablishing the « sovereignty of Potugal. This is most confusing, the more so because the i ^ RT-itish who moved into, statement makes no mention o- 1 Timor - Australian troops. There is no indication that * rriCR - taey have avaca^ted. ’1e*ll h::ive to wait to see what it all neans ca’'ri2<i Q ■^h-=> ’^Titch s^wFt their bombers have ’C A 'It a he attack against Japanese warships Tiich -.aadei troops ia British North Borneo, on that island lagended as the home of the WildJIan of Borneo, and 'Thich is also the hone of some great oil deposits. « 4 e to have been set on fire. One enemj cruise, is saiv,. lo -ad ’re hear of Japanese attempts to land in ' New Guinea, the most barbarous o f all the great islands j of the earth.^ IBYA In Libya, the British report that their main forces have now driven as far as Uio hundred miles. iX\ The Axis retreatln^r, trying to avoid ____ — "* - — encirclement. ^Jjondon says that the next big battle is likely to be at Derna, which is a hundred miles northwest of Tobruk. Derna is the Number One supply rally there for a final defense of the eastern part of the Italian Province of Libya. British sources indicate that Emoire units are cutting around beyond Derna, blocking the line of retreat. So the Axis forces in the expected clash, face a bat-tle of annihilation. center for the Nazi panzers, and they are expected to j RUS^ In Russia the Red Army continues driving on, recapturing one place after another -- the Nazis drawing back all along the line. from a Swedish source we hear that the German situation in Russia is forcing a retreat of as much as forty miles. The Germans admit that they have lost a series of such key positions as Kalinin. The Nazis report it as a plan^ of withdrawal, the Soviets as treat It may very well A ^ be that the Germans- tr^3»“to effect a winter withdrawal 5 / have been hit so hard by the Red Arc^y that the thing has got out of control. 1: onfepi : nce Secretary of State Cordell Hull stated today that the United States will not be represented at the Moscow Conferences betv^een the British and the Soviet high commands. This follows word from London that the British, the Soviets and the Americans are conducting discussions of great importance, and that these would probably result in the forming of a supreme command - a super-board of direction of the war activity of the Allies, something on the order of the Allied Supreme Command in^/orld War Number One. #1 \<jr^ il if'., -1 ‘t* ’ m PLANF Todpy a great search was being conducted in the mountains of southern California. The Army had a host of soldiers and squadrons of airplanes looking for a missing army transport - nothing heard of it since last Friday. Aboard the transport were some of the highest ranking officers in the United States, headed by Major General Dargue, commanding officer of the First A Army Air Force, bas^d at Mitchel Field, New York. They took off on Friday from Phoenix, Arizona, and were last heard of on thaysame day near Palmdale, Calfironia. Ever since a widespread hunt has been going on for the plane - which must have been forced dov/n in the California mountains. Major Dargue is one of the best known of army air officers*- ke was one of the three army men trained to fly^back in Nineteen Twelve - learning in an’ old Wright biplane, one of those primitive PLANE. box kites. itaAsr Dargue had a lot of adventure in A many a risky flight. The wildest thriller was back in NineteeiiSeventeen, when he commanded a good-will sky voyage around South America - made by a squadron of army planes. Over Buenos Aires there was a collision in the air, two of the planes crashing into and shattering each other. And one was Dargue's, then a Major. He bailed out. His parachute was ripped, and he could hardly make it - but he contrived to get down safely. It was only a couple of weeks ago that we at the Dutch Treat Club ■ heard Major Dargue in an ad A here in New York. I saw him there, and renewed old acquaintance. I tnew him well when he was a Major at the time of ^at South American good-will flight. Now, tokens of the high aimy officers missing in a big, army transport that has vanished in C a 1 if o rn 1 — - —------------ -------- ------ I INGALLS There was surprise flash in the news today when it was announced that one of the ace women aviators of this nation has been arrested on the charge of being a Nazi agent. She is Laura Ingalls, who has scored all sorts of aviation triumphs. The biggest headline of these was a trans-continental non-stop flight in Nineteen Thirty-Five. It is now disclosed that Laura Ingalls was arrested last night, and was kept incommunicado until her arraignment today. The specific charge against her is, that she violated the regulation, that requires all foreign agents to register. The complaint alleges that ± of the German Governmeni she has been an agent m the pay oi xne since last August. L.„r. Ingalls protssU that Ifs .11 a .istata. ■ Sha says .hat sha .as raally aol-S ' sanntan-.spionag INGALLS - 2 ’’I didn’t take any orders from the German government," li she declared today. "I v;as carrying out my own investigation." To which she added, "I guess I overstepped." However all this may be, it comes as a decided shock to find an ace ladybird under arrest as a Nazi agent. m afpointlsent President Roosevelt todey ?/rote a letter to a man whose identity he does not know. The letter is to be delivered to somebody now in this broad land - but the President doesn’t know who he is. It’s addressed this way:- ”To the President in Nineteen A TT ifty-Six.” The gist of it is - a request, for the apointment of a boy to West Point. That boy is now a tiny orphan without a father - and his name is Colin Kelly* He is the son of America’s A first great war hero in V/orld War Number Two, the infant son of Captain Colin Kelly of th^^Air Corps, who lost his life inlthe one-man bombing attack that sank the bxi Japanese battleship HARUNA. His name has been honored and celebrated in every corner of this land, and the nation owes a debt of loyalty to his young widow and orphan. So in part payment of that debt, President Roosevelt today wrote a 7 APPOINTMENT . 2 letter to - ’’The President of the United States in Nineteen Fifty-Six.” In this message he says: ”My request is that you consider the merits of A American youth of goodly heritage, Colin P. Kelly, Third, for appointment as a cadet in the United States Military Academy at V/est Point. I make this appeal,” continues the President of today to the President of Nineteen Fifty-Six, ”on behalf of this you' as a token of the nation^s appreciation of the public services of his father.” In Nineteen\Fifty-Six young Colin Kelly will be sixteen years old, and the way is arranged for him to follow the career of his father - as an American officer. .ADY Before I tell this next one, I want to say - the ladies, God bless theml There’s nothing so wonderful as a good wonan, and all that. I certainly don’t want t to offend the ladies, but it still remains a fact - that sometimes a woman can make a man want to tear his hair out, if he has any. For example, there is Mrs. Brown of Yonkers. I fi l! Todery -at -Albany-p-tlte- v^led-. There was an air raid alarm, one of those practice affairs that v:e’ve been havin?^. And Mrs. Brown of fW Yonkers telephoned to the local office of the State 1 Conservation Department. She said - ’’Send a game warden at once.” Now - what did a game warden have to do v.'ith an air raid? That was presently Tevealed when V/ild Life Protector Harold Canepi went to the home of Mrs. Brown. There the lady explained that in her home she L^DY - ? had six children, boarding with her. She was much concerned about the little tots in her charge, and wanted to do everything^he could for than if an air raid should occur. Mrs. Brown disolaved a fine maternal solicitude. She wanted to take every precaution for their safety, i a * comfort and happiness - if there should be a bomb^J^''^ ' All this was decidedly praiseworthy on the part of the motherly Mrs. Brown of Yonkers. But still - why the game warden? What, asked the protector of wild life, did it have to do with him? (Irs. Brown explained. She said she had called the game warden to have him tell her what games little children should play during air raids. Should they play with dolls or marbles, or maybe ring-aro und.r the-rcsy*^ she asked the bewildered game warden. A A '‘I i'l LADY - 3 looked as if he had been hit by a bomb. He just shook | his headi^opelessly, and included the incident in his IS report to headquarters at Albany,^4nd they I s'^ppose have referred the matter to Mrs. Roosevelt, who suggested!