Tuesday, November 19, 1940

MORE SABOTAGE IN PENNSYLVANIA. A "mysterious" fire and an "unexplained" explosion wrecked two more chemical plants in Pennsylvania on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. There doesn’t appear to be anything ambiguous about the fire in Johnstown which destroyed the Pennsylvania Chemical Company’s small factory -- the firm was working on a government order for incendiary bombs. The plant’s owner flatly declares the fire was "arson" and that he had an order to deliver bombs to the Army on Wednesday. Judging from the A.P.’s account, apparently nobody was hurt. But the plant was a complete loss.

On the same day, and just a few miles away at Bridgeville, a mammoth explosion at the American Cynamid and Chemical Corporation’s local plant injured two men and did a quarter-million dollars in damage. The blast "shattered windows of homes in the district, toppled chimneys and was felt 5 files away," says the A.P. American Cynamid has suffered blasts at three different plants in the last week. On the other hand, the company doesn’t have any government contracts.

So, could these things be coincidence? Unlucky accidents? Anything’s possible, I guess -- but then again it’s possible, maybe even more likely, that Nazi spies aren’t particularly bright about whether or not the companies they target are actively working for the Army. Plus there’s a radio report this morning on a secret meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee Monday night, in which an alleged Nazi secret agent has spilled what he knows about Hitler’s setup in the U.S. I guess we’ll hear more details today and tomorrow.

HOW STRONG IS RUSSIA? Prior to Premier Molotoff’s trip to Berlin, the debate was in full swing over whether Soviet Russia will throw in with the Axis, or ultimately decide to stand with Britain and Turkey against Germany's continued eastward expansion. I think one other question is equally important -- how much does it matter? G.E.R. Gedye takes an acute look at Stalin’s relative strengths and weaknesses in a Sunday New York Times commentary --

"The State, with its seat in Moscow, is strong in that criticism has been stamped out so ruthlessly that there is no longer the will even to imagine any alternative to the policy dictated by the Kremlin. It is strong in that all contact with ideas beyond its frontiers has been destroyed. It is strong in that it has raised a generation incapable of any ideas of retrogression...It is weak, however, in that this generation is imbued with the doctrine of Marxist socialism and therefore puzzled by the elementary material fruit of the theories that have been so long denied them through the State’s economic weakness. It is strong in its mass quantities of war material, its strength of tanks, its squadrons of war planes. It is weak, on the other hand, in generalship, organization and transport -- the Finnish campaign remains a permanent memorial to that weakness. Personally, I believe it is still strong for defense, despite the military theory that a German Blitzkrieg would cut through the defenses like a knife through butter. But the fact that it is weak for attack is no personal opinion but a military fact which the Finnish campaign of last winter established."

TARANTO IS BRITAIN’S "GREATEST VICTORY." So far in this war, at least. Hedley Donovan writes a detailed recap in Sunday’s Washington Post on just how thoroughly British torpedo planes throttled the Italians and gave the Royal Navy undisputed control of the Mediterranean --

"In Taranto harbor the [British] bombers found the bulk of Italy’s battleships and at least 100 lighter warships. Skimming close to the water, the planes loosed dozens of aerial torpedoes. Dive bombers sent their 500-pound missiles crashing into the harbor. The Italian ships, swinging at anchor, had no chance to maneuver. They were given little time to bring their antiaircraft guns into play. For 24 hours the British battle fleet steamed back and forth between the heel of the Italian boot and the western isles of Greece, waiting for the bold air assault to drive the Italian fleet out to battle. The Italian warships never ventured from their base, and what might have been the greatest naval battle since Jutland was not fought. But the account of the Armistice Night raid on Taranto, when released by the British Admiralty Wednesday, told of a major battle and a major victory for Britain."

Mr. Donovan sums up the scorecard -- "Half of Italy’s six capital ships...were crippled in the raid. One 35,000-ton ship of the Littorio class -- Italy has two -- was left listing heavily to starboard, bow so deep under water that her forecastle was covered. A 23,000-ton battleship of the Cavour class lay beached, her stern submerged and the after turret awash. Another ship of the Cavour type was ‘severely damaged,’ according to London. Two cruisers were listing heavily after the attack, surrounded by fuel oil, while two fleet auxiliary vessels lay on their sterns partly submerged."