The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1942-04-10
BY DREW MIDDLETON

LONDON, April III - w -
The u lifted States and Great
Britain face a desperate battle
in the Iext three months to
maintain dominion of the seas
because of steady axis progress
in picking off key bases
throughout the world, an in
formed naval observer said to-
day.
Bataan's conquest fits into the
axis pattern since it raises tie
imminent possibility that Ma
Mia Bay will be opened up to
aid Japan's lunge toward India
and the threatened junction
with Ger many somewhere in the
Near East, this source declared
1--WE must face the facts" he
said gravely. THE Japanese,
German, and Italian fleets are
nearing numerical superiority,
if they have not yet achieved it.
LOSSES CUT EDGE
Every allied loss, such as the
Sinkings of the British cruisers
Dorsetshire and Cornwall in the
Bay of Bengal, cuts whatever
edge we have in guns and ships.
THE great naval bases on
which Anglo-American sea SUI
premacy rests either have been
captured, attacked, or are con-
tinually menaced by the adroit
axis use of combined air and
sea power"
The axis opportunity TO take
over the French fleet was de-
scribed by this source as too
good to miss" He believed it
would be seized and combined
with the Italian navy TO sup
port an axis offensive against
Egypt and points east, and thus
prepare the way for blow at
Russia's caucasian flank.
Air power, 1.-The cheapest form
of attack" has been used
wherever possible by the axis to
sink isolated allied flotillas ar /
heavy units, he declared, and
added:
The great surface units of
the Nazis, the battleship Tir-
pitt and the battle cruisers
Scharnhorst and GneiSenau, the
Italian battl, squadron, and the
entire japanese first battle line
are being husbanded carefully
against the day when the axis
forces major sea battle" in both
the Pacific and Atlantic"
COUNT ON PLANES
The axis, he said, counts on
victory in these forthcoming
battles because of greater air
power, fresh crews, and the
time factor in American arma-
ment produ ction.
Victory would mean the vir-
tual closing of all the important
maritime C m m u n C o MS
among Russia and the United
Nations across the Atlantic,
through the Indian Ocean and
around the North Cape.
The Germans learned a lot Of
lessons from the first world war
Not the least was at Jutland.
They believe that the battle
there decided the fate of the old
German empire, but that the
new Jutland, to be fought off
Norway, New York, or Calcut-
Ia, will defeat the British en-
pire and confine the American
war effort 20 North America.
Axis world strategy, he con-
tinued, up to now has been base /
on the Nazi idea of geopolitics.
This held that land power, plus
air power, could conquer Eu-
rope and nullify American and
British seapoWer.
SEAPOWER NECESSARY
But Nazi reverses in Russia,
the constant stream of allied
troops to Australia, tie Middle
East and Britain, and the pro-
digiouS scale of allied material
aid to Russia, have demonstrate
ed that Seapower is a necessary
adjunct to any plan for world
conquest.
Increased German preoccu-
patton with supplies to Russia
around the North Cape is an
obvious sign that they realize
the Soviets cannot be defeated
decisively unless their lines of
communications with Britain