have notified the Nazi commander in Belgrade that they hold 650 Germans who will be shot if any more Serbian hostages are executed. -There is battle activity, day and night, in the vicinity of Perekop, on the land bridge from Crimea to the mainland. their productive facilities to take on arms orders without fear of prosecution under the anti-trust laws, it was announced. Oct. 12-The Russian communique said: "Fighting was particularly fierce in the directions of Bryansk and Vyazma. After many days of stubborn fighting our troops left Bryansk," (220 miles southwest of Moscow). -Seven aboard were killed when an Army plane crashed in San Gorgonic Pass, near Beaumont, Calif. Oct. 13-The Russian official bulletin said: "Our troops fought the enemy along the whole front. Fighting was especially stubborn in the Vyazma and Bryansk directions. After many days of fierce fighting, in which the enemy sustained tremendous losses in man power and armament, our troops left Vyazma." (Vyazma is a rail junction, 17,000 population, 125 miles west of Moscow). -The British destroyed an Italian airplane at Jibouti, capital of French East Africa. -The Rumanian losses to date are officially put at 20,000 dead; 76,000 wounded; 15,000 missing. Oct. 6 The Cabinet of Panama, at a session which included the President of the Republic, Arnulfo Arias, adopted a resolution under which vessels flying the Panama flag and arm against raiders, will have their registration cancelled. A bloodless revolution on Oct. 9 put Ricardo A. de la Guardia and a new cabinet in power, and on Oct. 20 the decree of Oct. 6 was revoked and a new one was adopted, authorizing the "owners of ships flying the Panamanian flag to provide-In the Netherlands Indies, near Batavia, Lieut. at their expense the arms necessary for their legitimate defense against attacks which constitute violation of the freedom of the seas and of international law." Gen. G. J. Berenschot, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and 13 others were killed in two airplane crashes. -A Portugal dispatch announced sinking, by torpedo, of the British steamer Avoceta with loss of 94 passengers and crew of 78. Oct. 14 The Russian bulletin said: "After fierce fighting our troops evacuated Mariupol." Oct. 7-Berlin said German forces had occupied Mariupol and Ossipenko (Berdyansk) coal and grain ports on the Sea of Azov. Mariupol is 125 miles east of the Dnieper River and 100 miles west of the Don River city of Rostov, and-A German bulletin said: "The enemy forces enOssipenko is 40 miles southwest of Mariupol. -An Army bulletin from the Hitler field headquarters said: "A renewed nocturnal attempt to land Soviet forces on the coast west of Leningrad was repulsed. A majority of the ships used for transport were sunk. The enemy units which landed were completely annihilated." -Finland, in a note to the British Government, declared her war against Soviet Russia was one of defense "without political obligations" and said important areas within her 1939 frontiers still were in the hands of "the enemy." This was in answer to a British note of Sept. 22, which declared that unless Finland ceased hostilities and evacuated Soviet territory the British would be forced to consider Finland their enemy and treat her as such. circled in the Vyazma area are now definitely annihilated. Dissolution of the enemy in the kettle around Bryansk is continuing unchecked. The number of prisoners taken in this double battle has increased to over 500,000. It still is increasing hourly. The total of Soviet prisoners brought in since the beginning of the eastern campaign already has far surpassed 3,000,000." -Italy reported a disabling attack on a British battleship and a cruiser in the Mediterranean. Oct. 15-Russian radio reported the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the City of Kalinin, 100 miles northwest of Moscow. It was asserted also that the Germans had broken through Soviet defenses separating the Crimean Peninsula from the mainland. -Korcheva, 70 miles northwest of Moscow, was Oct. 8-German forces took Orel, 200 miles south of Moscow, on the road to Kharkov; and Berlin said that communications between the Russian armies on the central front and those of Marshal-By consent of Portugal, a Japanese air line has Semyon Budenny in the south were severed; also, that a German tank army strengthened by Italian, Hungarian and Slovakian units had smashed through to the Sea of Azov in the region east of Dniepropetrovsk, cutting off the retreat of the 9th Russian Army which had been defeated on the Melitopol front. -A "leak" in Washington on Moscow put in Oct. 10-Berlin reported that the German army Oct. 11-The Berlin radio said Vyazma, 125 miles from Moscow, had been taken intact and that soft coal fields near it were being worked as well as numerous factories that were in good condition when seized. -United States Naval patrol has seized in Greenland and destroyed à Norwegian-German radio station used to observe weather conditions for the benefit of German submarines in the North Atlantic. --In Washington, the Office of Production Management and the Department of Justice approved a policy under which factories and plants may pool obtained landing privileges on the eastern end of Timor Island, 452 miles from Darwin, Australia. It is an extension of the line from Japan to Palau Island. -The tomb of Lenin, in the Kremlin, Moscow, has been closed, for the first time. -Tokio announced that an agreement fixing the frontier between Manchukuo and Outer Mongolia had been signed by Japanese and Russian delegates, ending a border dispute which caused open fighting at Nomonhan in 1939. Oct. 16-Rumanian Axis troops took Odessa, the Soviet Black Sea port which had been under siege for two months. German planes aided. The city was largely in flames, and the Rumanian announcement said that pockets of resistance were being overcome in street fighting. -American Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt and his embassy staff were leaving Moscow, in a general departure of diplomats for Kuibyskev (Samara) 550 miles southeast from Moscow. It is the easternmost city on the Volga River, and has connection through the Caspian Sea with the trans-Iranian railroad, which runs to the Persian Gulf. It also has railroad facilities. The special train was 412 days on the road before reaching Kuibyshev. The -The cargo steamship Bold Venture, American- that wreckage was thrown onto the bridge; 11 -In Japan, the Cabinet of Prince Fuminaro Konoye -A communique from Hitler's headquarters said Oct. 19-Premier Stalin announced a state of siege for Moscow and for 60 to 75 miles to the west. Traffic on the streets, midnight to 5 A.M., was banned. Volunteers were called for to aid the militia. The order added: "Provocateurs, spies and other enemy agents inciting breach of discipline will be shot on the spot. The State Committee for Defense appeals to all toilers in the capital to keep calm and orderly and to render the Red Army defending Moscow all possible help." (All Moscow dispatches are now transmitted to the United States by official Soviet agencies. All American news correspondents have left Moscow with the American Embassy). -German Elite Guards, Berlin said, had taken Taganrog, about 40 miles from Rostov, through which runs the pipeline from the oil fields of the Caucasus that carries northward fuel to the Red Army. Taganrog is 20 miles from the delta of the Don, and the confluence of the Don and Donets is about 100 miles to the eastward. -Afghanistan, at Britain's request, is expelling Germans and Italians. -The cargo steamship, Lehigh, flying the American flag, was torpedoed and sunk in the South Atlantic, off Africa and just north of the Equator. The crew was rescued. The next day the tanker, British Mariner, was torpedoed in the same area. Oct. 20-The United States advanced Russia $30,- -In Nantes, France, Lieut. Col. Karl Friedrich -In Eastern Karelia the conquering Finns have -War Secretary David Margesson announced in Commons that the number of war prisoners from all parts of the British Empire in enemy hands was about 66,000. -Three more British warships are in the U. S., the Navy Department announced. This brings to 35 the total number of British war vessels announced by the Department as having put into American ports for repairs. -At Bordeaux, France, a German military officer was shot to death by four young workmen who escaped. The German authorities at once arrested 100 French hostages there and in 16 nearby towns; 50 of them were ordered executed. Oct. 22-Berlin stated that snowstorms and freezing nights were impeding operations on the Moscow front and that Axis troops occupying the Donets basin had slowed down for a breathing spell after weeks of forced marches. -Beginning Oct. 28, United States war supplies for Russia are to go by way of Boston instead of via Vladivostok. -By the light of the volcano, Vesuvius, British Oct. 23-In the Moscow zone supreme command of Oct. 25-Warfare in the Donets basin is hindered -For the first time, Russian accounts spoke of Finnish and Russian troops as fighting alongside the Germans in the Moscow theatre; the two apparently, it was said, serving as reinforcements to fill the widening gaps in the Nazi lines." -The French Cabinet provided severe punishment for eyewitnesses, accomplices or others who had information of acts of terrorism against the German authorities but who failed to make their information known to officials. -Adolf Hitler conferred with Count Ciano, Italian Oct. 26-One unit of German engineers reported it -President Roosevelt in a Navy Day radio broad- "in the Donets Basin German troops entered Kramatorsk. -Rome asserted that in a three-day attack on a British convoy off Libya, two British cruisers were sunk. Oct. 29-A Hitler headquarters bulletin states that "infantry divisions with air units forced an entry into the Crimean Peninsula in stubborn fighting. Rumanian troops took one island lying off the northwest coast of the Sea of Azov and cleansed it of the enemy. -The Russians said they had evacuated Kharkov "for strategic consideration at a time when the Soviet Command deemed it expedient and not when the Germans wanted." -Washington reported an American plane missing since yesterday, with a Navy crew of 11, and an Army officer aboard, crashed in the "Atlantic Ocean" area. All were killed. Nov. 4-German forces reported capture of the Black Sea port of Theodosia, at the southeast end of the Yaila Mountains in Crimea. In the Atlantic, Berlin said, 11 merchant vessels of 53,000 tons, and one destroyer, were sunk in a single Atlantic convoy by U-boats and that bombers sank three merchant vessels of 20,000 tons off the east coast of Scotland. Finnish troops have occupied the Koivisto Islands in the Gulf of Finland, driving Russian forces from all former Finnish soil except the Hangoe naval base near Helsinki. Viscount Halifax, British Ambassador, as he entered the Chancery Building with Archbishop Edward Mooney, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit. Oct. 30-German forces headed for Moscow encirclement got through the Russian lines 90-In Detroit, women threw eggs and tomatoes at miles to the south, and they pushed up the east bank of the Oka River "not far" south of Serpukhov, 70 miles from Moscow. The fighting was hand to hand in the approaches to Tula. At Maloyaroslavets, 65 miles southwest of Mos--The British Admiralty announced that 1,276 cow, another German break-through, just south of the city, a salient up to the banks of the Nara River, to the north, snow and rain still hinder operations in that region. -At Washington, John L. Lewis called off the captive mine strike at 11:30 A. M. At 2 P. M. he announced that he had set a new strike deadline for Nov. 15. -By Presidential order the Army took possession of the Bendix, N. J., plant of Air Associates, Inc., after demonstrations by non-striking employes inside the plant had forced the removal of reinstated C. I. O. strikers under police guard. -Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, U. S. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, and John Cudahy, ex-Ambassador to Belgium, addressed 20,000 persons in Madison Square Garden, N. Y. City, under the auspices of the America First Committee. Oct. 31-The U. S. destroyer, Reuben James, was sunk by a torpedo "while on convoy duty" in the North Atlantic, west of Iceland, the Navy Department announced. Of the crew of 145 officers and men 98 were missing and believed dead, 45 were rescued, 2 were known to be dead. The Navy Department holds little hope for rescue of the seven officers and 87 men who have not been accounted for, it was stated on Nov. 4. The captain of the ship was Lieut. Comdr. Heywood L. Edwards, 35, of San Saba, Tex. The destroyer was commissioned Sept. 24, 1920. It was 314 feet long and had a maximum width of 30 feet. It displaced 1,190 tons and was armed with four 4-inch naval rifles and a battery of anti-aircraft guns. To this original equipment had been added the modern secret detectors developed in the last two years. On Nov. 26 Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox made public the fact that two of the Reuben James' depth bombs exploded after being torpedoed by the submarine and while members of the crew were struggling in the water. Some of the survivors had charged that a considerable number of those in the water had been killed by the exploding bombs. -The Germans reported taking of Kalinin, northwest of Moscow. Leningrad, they said, is encircled except as to the small strip of land between that city and Lake Ladoga. 1941-NOVEMBER He Nov. 1-The German Government denied categorically White House charges that Chancellor Hitler had planned to organize Central and South America into vassal states. He denied, also, any thought of an International Socialist Church in place of existing denominations. denied, further, that German warships had "begun the shooting." putting that responsibility on the U. S. warboats. Quite on the contrary, Hitler declared, the two American destroyers (Greer and Kearny) "had attacked German submarines and that therefore the United States had attacked Germany, a fact which has also been confirmed by the American naval authorities." -An Army bomber plane from Dayton Field crashed near Findlay, O., and five persons were killed. -London had its first air raid alarm since July 27. Nov. 2-The German High Command reported capture of Simferopol, capital of the Crimea. German planes bombed Sevastopol. -"British supply shipping" sunk during October totaled 441.300 gross tons. -A U. S. Army bomber's tail was blown off when 12.000 feet high; two of the crew were sucked out and parachuted safely; the seven others died. Nov. 3--Berlin said that Kursk, a Russian provincial capital between Moscow and Kharkov, had been taken. officers and men had been rescued from sunken enemy U-boats and are held prisoners of war. Of these 467 are Italians. The Admiralty added: "Last week when the German High Command claimed to have sunk 14 ships totaling 47,000 tons from a convoy homeward bound from Gibraltar, in fact four ships totaling 8,772 tons, were sunk. This was only achieved by the enemy at a cost to himself." Nov. 5-Berlin said German troops had driven through the Yaila Mountains to the Black Sea, moved beyond Theodosia and got closer to Sevastopol. West of Rostov they were reported digging for a siege. Other German forces were within 31 miles of Moscow, Berlin stated. Heavy fighting was going on at Tula and Kalinin. Nov. 6-German and Rumanian forces were said by Berlin to have pushed through the Yaila Mountains to the Black Sea coast between Yalta and Theodosia. -Joseph Stalin asserted that the Germans had lost 4,500,000 men killed, wounded or captured since the invasion of Russia began on June 22. Russian losses, he said, were 350,000 killed, 378,000 missing and 1,020,000 wounded. Berlin replied that Russian losses were 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 men killed, wounded, captured or missing. -The Soviet Government announced the appointment of Maxim Litvinov to be Ambassador to the United States. -The U. S. Government announced a billion dollar advance to Russia, under the Lend-Lease act. The loan carries no interest charge and is for strategic raw materials and commodities. Twenty members of an alleged Czech arson gang who specialized in burning food stores faced a firing squad in Vienna. -A merchant ship, alleged to be the Odenwald, laden with raw rubber and tires, bound from Yokohama for Bordeaux, France, was seized in the equatorial Atlantic by a U. S. cruiser. The Navy reported that the Odenwald was sailing under the name Willmoto and flying a U. S. flag. -Canadian Navy Minister Angus Macdonald announced German submarines were operating off the coast of Newfoundland, within sight of the shore. Nov. 7-The U. S. Senate, 50 to 37, voted to change the 1939 neutrality act to permit American merchant ships to arm and to traverse combat areas to carry supplies to ports of belligerents. Nov. 8-In Munich, at the celebration of the beerhall putsch, Chancellor Hitler said: "Mr. President Roosevelt has commanded his ships to shoot as soon as they see German ships. And I have commanded German ships, whenever they see Americans, not to shoot thereupon but to defend themselves as soon as they are attacked. The German officer who does not defend himself I will place before a court martial. If. therefore, an American ship on the basis of the command of its President, shoots, then it will do so at its own danger. The German ship will defend itself and our torpedoes will strike." -Hundreds of British planes made one of the heaviest raids of the war on German cities and Axis ports on the Channel and in the Mediterranean. In Brindisi alone 127 persons were killed. -Secretary of the Navy Knox announced that a Naval Operations Base had been established in Iceland under the Commander in Chief of the U. S. Atlantic Fleet "both for administrative and task purposes."' Nov. 9 Berlin reported Axis bombers had sunk a Soviet warship and 17 transports in the Black Sea. Nov. 10-Prime Minister Churchill in London said: "Should the United States become involved in war with Japan a British declaration will follow within the hour." -In the Leningrad area German forces announced capture of Tikhvin, to the southeast, in, a "surprise attack." -The National Defense Mediation Board, 9 to 2, rejected the demands of John L. Lewis for a union shop for the 53,000 workers in the captive coal mines which supply fuel for the steel industry. Thereupon, Nov. 11, Philip Murray and Thomas Kennedy, who had cast the two dissenting votes, resigned from the Board, Murray is president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and both are officers of the United Mine Workers. The alternates also resigned from the board. Nov. 11-The Finnish Government made a negative reply to the United States "warning" to stop fighting Russia, having got back the territory lost in combat with that country. Nov. 12-Berlin said German and Rumanian troops had reached the Crimean coast south of Kerch. -Russian advices were that the Germans had been pushed back five miles at Tula. -London reported British and Ethiopian forces had completed the encirclement of Gondar, in northern Ethiopia, and had captured Gianda. -In London, King Geroge opened the new session of Parliament. He said: "The United States is furnishing my peoples and my Allies with war supplies of all kinds on a scale unexampled in history." -In the south of France, Gen. Charles L. C. Huntziger, 61, Minister of War, and seven others, were killed when their plane, returning from Africa, hit a hill, in a storm, at Le Figan, in the Gard Department. Nov. 13-The House of Representatives in Washington, 212 to 194, accepted the Senate's amendments to the Neutrality Act of 1939, which, by repealing sections two, three and six of that law, had opened the way for United States merchant ships to carry arms and to go through combat zones and into the ports of belligerents with war supplies for Britain, Russia, China and other Axis opponents. The vote in the House followed personal appeals by the President and the Secretary of State, the former promising to take effective action to quell labor disputes which hinder defense production. In the final count, 53 Democrats, 137 Republicans, 3 Progressives and one Farmer-Labor member voted against the measure, while 189 Democrats, 22 Republicans and one American-Labor representative voted for it; 12 votes were locked up in pairs; 4 women members (two Rep., two Dem.) voted for the bill and three (all Rep.) voted against. The Senate 50 to 37 had voted on Nov. 7 to repeal section two, three and six. The President signed the measure four days later. -The Germans announced officially that the toll of enemy shipping sunk up to this month had reached 14,500,000 tons, about equal to the figure for four years of the World War. -The British 22,000-ton airplane carrier, Ark Royal, built in 1938, was torpedoed and sunk by German submarines in the Mediterranean about 25 miles from Gibraltar; 18 of the crew were rescued. Berlin said the sinking was the result of attacks by two U-boats. The same boats, Berlin added, "damaged the battleship Malaya so severely that she had to be towed into Gibraltar harbor. Further British units suffered torpedo hits." The aircraft carrier Ark Royal already was severely damaged Sept. 26. 1939, as a result of air attack, but after repairs she was put in service again. Nov. 14 There was no material change in the situation in the Leningrad, Moscow or Crimea areas. Violent attacks and counter attacks continued. -Fifteen survivors of the torpedoed freighter Bold Venture, arriving at Boston, reported that 13 vessels in their convoy of 53 ships were sunk in the North Atlantic on the same night (Oct. 16); that the Kearny was sunk and that two others were sunk a day or so before. -Serbian Government troops killed 103 alleged Communists and captured 200, most of whom were wounded, in a battle near Svilajnac, 50 miles southeast of Belgrade, a D. N. B. dispatch from Belgrade stated. Nov. 15 Following British plane attacks on cities and ports in Southern Italy, the Fascist Air Command was shaken up and a new commander installed. Rome said that "enemy air raids were made on Catania, Acireale and Brindisi, and dropped."' Nov. 16-Week-end conferences between the President and John L. Lewis and between the U. S. Mediation Board and both sides having come to naught, the coal strike which had been ordered began on time when the first shifts failed to report at the "captive mines" of the big steel corporations in the Pittsburgh-Youngstown and other areas. The union demand was for a "closed shop." At Detroit, the C. I. O. National Executive Board, on motion of Philip Murray, vice president of the United Mine Workers of America, voted support. This action was ratified the next day at the C. I. O. convention. -Berlin asserted German and Rumanian troops "after a stubborn fight, took the important harbor city of Kerch. The eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula was thus completely in our hands." incendiary and explosive bombs were Nov. 17-Berlin announced appointment of Alfred Rosenburg as "Reich Minister for the East," or chief civilian administrator of occupied Soviet territory. Nov. 18 The spearheads' of German columns struck beyond Kerch to reach the Yenikale area. Yenikale, like Kerch, is on the Kerch Straits in Eastern Crimea. -Mass C. I. O. picketing stopped coal production in captive" coal mines in the Appalachian areas; two members of an independent union were shot and wounded at Gary, W. Va., in a clash with pickets. -The C. I. O. convention, in Detroit, unanimously voted support of the Roosevelt foreign policy of all-aid to Britain, Russia and China. Delegations from the United Mine Workers and the United Construction Workers abstained from voting. Nov. 19-British forces launched a surprise offensive in Libya and advanced 150 miles on a front from the Mediterranean to Jarabub. British warships supported the attack as did the R. A. F. American made tanks and planes are part of the equipment of attacking British -The Germans and Russians were in violent conflict in the Moscow and Rostov areas. In the Crimea, Sevastopol is under daily air and artillery bombing. forces. Nov. 20-Marshal Petain retired Gen. Maxime Weygand, 74, as delegate general and military commander of French North Africa, and that area was placed under the direct control of Vice-Premier Admiral Jean Darlan. Nov. 21-At the H. C. Frick Coke plant in Edenborn, Pa., 11 C. I. O. pickets were shot and wounded in a row with workers. It was estimated that 214,000 captive and commercial mines in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Ohio which employ 350,000, were idle, including 53,000 captive mine employes on strike for the union shop. The strike had spread to Kentucky and Ohio. A survey indicated that 48,000 commercial miners were idle in Kentucky; 61,000 in Pennsylvania; 48,000 in West Virginia; 1,200 in Ohio and 3,000 in Maryland. -In Libya, the crossing by British troops of Premier Mussolini's barbed wire barricade along the Libyan-Egyptian boundary was opposed. -In the Moscow area, Russian forces evacuated the Volokolamsk sector as far as the eastern banks of the Lama River. -The 35,000-ton U. S. battleship, Indiana, was launched at Newport News, Va. -President Roosevelt accepted the credentials of Thor Thors, first Minister to the United States from Iceland, whose territory is jointly policed by American and British forces. Nov. 22-The German High Command announced capture of the "Caucasus gateway" City of Rostov, on the River Don, and were 15 miles beyond in the direction of Astrakhan, with 435 miles to go. -In Libya, New Zealand troops entered Fort Capuzzo. -John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers of America, accepted a proposal by President Roosevelt to appoint a board of three to arbitrate the "closed shop" dispute that caused the strike in the "captive mines" of the steel producers. The board consists of Lewis, Benjamin F. Fairless, president of the U. S. Steel Corp., and John R. Steelman, director of the U. S. Conciliation Service. Nov. 23-In Libya, New Zealand troops, it was claimed, had entered the Mediterranean port of Bardia, "which apparently had been evacuated by the Axis soldiers"; seizure of the towns of Sidi Azeiz and Sidi Omar also was asserted. This was denied by Rome and Berlin. -Germany has cut the cost to France of the army of occupation from 400,000,000 to 300,000,000 francs a day. The U. S. Consulate at Saigon, French IndoChina, was wrecked by a bomb, but none of the consular staff was injured, the State Department announced. French Indo-China is occupied by Japanese troops. Nov. 24-Surinam (Dutch Guiana) which lies on the northeast coast of South America, between British Guiana and French Guiana, has been added to the chain of U. S. military outposts in foreign countries. Brazil is to share in the arrangement, chiefly to guard her border there. The U. S. already has a military outpost in British Guiana. The bauxite mines in Surinam furnish upward of 60 per cent of the requirements of the United States aluminum industry which is vital to the defense of the United States, the Western Hemisphere and the nations actively resisting aggression, the White House explained. -The German High Command stated that "on the central sector of the Eastern Front our offensive gained further territory. After embittered fighting, the city of Solnechnogorsk, 31 miles northwest of Moscow, was taken by tank troops. Break-out attempts by the opponent from Leningrad again collapsed under heavy losses."' -In Libya, London said, New Zealand troops captured Gambut, an Axis supply station. -The bulk of the Australians who comprised the main force in the Tobruk garrison were recently withdrawn secretly by night, and relieved by a force of British, Poles and East Indians; 500 of the Australians had died and were buried there. Nov. 25-Tanks dominate the fighting in Libya and Germany is sending both tanks and infantry by planes across the Mediterranean. The German High Command reports "embittered" fighting is increasing daily in violence. London said New Zealand forces, supported by British tanks, continued their general advance toward Tobruk. -Delegates from 12 Governments met in Berlin and signed a renewal of the five-year-old AntiComintern pact, technically directed not against Russia but the activities of the Moscow Internationale. Japan cabled her adherence. The new members are Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Rumania, Slovakia and Nanking. Those renewing adherence are the old members, Germany, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Spain and Manchukuo. -The Ankara radio quoted German reports that Axis armored units were within 1811⁄2 miles of Moscow, advancing from the Volokolasmk sector, northwest of the capital. Nov. 26 In Libya, the main battle front was in the Rezegh area, which the Axis forces were trying to encircle. The British said they were bringing up tank reinforcements. Germany also was striving to get more tanks and men from across the Mediterranean. South of Rezegh, London added, "Britain and South African mechanized forces in cooperation with Indian troops have captured Gialo, taking 200 Italian prisoners together with quantities of stores and equipment. Operations in this area continue to develop satisfactorily. Our air forces continue to cooperate with bombing attacks on enemy motor transport and armored fighting vehicle concentrations in the battle area." The Italian High Command asserted that "in the central sector enemy units encircled in a pocket south of the city of Rezegh were annihilated. Among 5,000 and more prisoners counted in camps up to now, besides General Sperling, commander of an armored brigade, of the First South African division, as well as two American observers and various English and American journalists." -Sergeant Delmar Park, of Phoenix, Ariz., U. S. Army observer with the British in Libya, was killed in a German tank attack. -German forces, according to Berlin, got within 25 miles of Moscow on its northwest, by taking a town southeast of Klin. -Secretary of State Hull handed to Japan's two envoys-Saburo Kurusu and Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, a document that was the "culmination" of their conferences with the Secretary Japan's policy in Asia and the Pacific. -Riots were reported in Copenhagen over Denmark's signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact. -Berlin claims that a British battleship, damaged by a U-boat on Nov. 26. off Solum, North Africa, had been identified as the 31,000-ton Malaya. a on Nov. 27-In Libya, some of the besieged New Zealanders in Tobruk dashed forth under tanker protection and aided in recapturing Rezegh, and were awaiting infantry reinforcements, London said. Large numbers of Germans and Italians still occupy positions in areas between the New Zealanders and Tobruk. Free French bombing planes supported the forces that escaped from Tobruk. Rome stated that "on the Solum Front, while the Savona division broke up attacks by enemy tanks, German-Italian armored units recaptured the important position of Sidi Omar. British prisoners are flowing into Bardia, which we are holding firmly." -German forces in Russia, Berlin declared, had taken Klin, 51 miles northwest of Moscow, also 14 towns lying to the rear of the Soviet lines and fortifications" in the Tula area. The German advance southeast of Moscow was reported to have resulted in Russian evacuation of Skopkin, 50 miles southeast of Stalinogorsk and about 150 miles southeast of Moscow. Soviet radio said five troop transports and 600 truckloads of Germans had been destroyed. The Nov. 28-Maryland bombing planes, London said, took active part in the Libya fighting. The fall of Gondar, in Ethiopia (Italian East Africa) was announced in a British communique as having occurred on the evening of Nov. 27 with the comment: "The attack began at dawn on both flanks and was pressed home with great determination by all available forces. The battle took place in high, mountainous country very favorable to defense and averaging 7,000 feet above sea level. So falls the last enemy stronghold in East Africa which the enemy has spent six months in fortifying. Principal credit for the final battle must, however, be given to East African and patriot troops. The assault on this final position was carried almost exclusively by East Africans. Artillery of all calibers, including mediums, was also largely manned by East and West Africans. More East African soldiers took part in this battle than in any one battle of the campaign." -Berlin stated that "near Rostov and in the Donets area, strong Soviet counter-attacks supported by airplanes and tanks were repulsed with heavy bloody losses for the enemy. At several points on the front the fight is continuing." -The Finnish High Command mentioned that "on the Hangoe, Karelian Isthmus and Svir River fronts the usual artillery and trench mortar harassing fire continued. Our artillery destroyed enemy fortified positions and log bunkers and silenced enemy anti-tank guns, numerous trench mortars and a battery of howitzers. Our troops repulsed an attack on the Lake Ladoga coast." Nov. 29-The Moscow communique announced recapture of Rostov and said that it was made by an attack from the northeast, adding: "In the battles for the liberation of Rostov from the German fascist invaders we completely annihilated the army group of General von Kleist consisting of the 6th, 14th, and 16th Tank Divisions, 60th Motorized Division and the Elite Guard Viking Division. German troops are retreating in disorder in the direction of Taganrog. Soviet troops are pursuing the enemy. Germans left on the battlefield more than 5,000 dead." -The tenth day of fighting in Libya, in the Marmarica Desert (Botruk) area, Rome said, saw a continuation of violent all-day fighting: and, in the central zone bitter fighting took place between armored masses and infantry on both sides, supported by artillery and aviation, during which an entire enemy motorized brigade was annihilated and 1,000 or more prisoners fell into the hands of German and Italian troops. Among the prisoners is the English General James Karges, commander of the brigade." -Berlin's version of the Rostov situation was that "occupation troops of Rostov, in compliance with orders, are evacuating the central district of the city to make the most thorough preparations for necessary measures against the population, which, contrary to international law, participated in fighting at the rear of the German troops." Nov. 30-In Libya, the British High Command said that "the remaining tank strength of two German armored divisions, with an Italian armored division in support, made a further attempt to break westward through defended localities held by British and New Zealand troops in the area about Rezegh-Bir el Hamed." -In Tokio, the Japanese Foreign Minister Togo officially called the United States proposals were based on "fantastic" principles, adding that Japan must go on with establishment of a new order in East Asia. |