Roosevelt Promises War Will Continue Until "Liberty Is Again Secure in World We Live In"

American forces struck hard at Japanese isolated in the Philippines yesterday, British troops stoutly defended Malaya and Hong Kong and in Russia a great Soviet offensive on a 1,000-mile front became a battle of "extermination" against retreating Nazis.

The Japanese failed to better their positions anywhere in the Pacific except for a slight advance in Malaya, and from Tokyo itself the Japanese were warned that enemy submarines menaced Nipponese home waters.

This was the situation in brief on the Pacific, Russian and African fronts of World War II:

1. American forces in the Philippines penned invading Japanese in three isolated sectors in an effort to out them to pieces, U. S. bombers blasted two more Japanese troop transports and further Japanese air attacks were beaten off with slight damage. American garrisons defending Wake and Midway Islands still held out.

2. In Russia, from Taganrog on the Black Sea to Tikhvin north of Moscow, great Soviet armies battered retreating Germans back over the bloody snow, capturing hundreds of villages and inflicting terrible losses on the freezing Nazis.

3. In Libya British Imperial forces which have Axis armored units on the run drove deeper across Cyrenaica south west of Gazala, destroying 16 more enemy tanks and taking 371 more Axis prisoners.

In the Philippines, the American air force was particularly active, battering at Japanese invaders huddled on the coast and at Japanese attempts to get reinforcements to their landing parties. The two Nipponese troop transports bombed brought to nine the total of enemy troop ships sunk or badly damaged off Luzon alone.