The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-22
.,OOO,OOO FRENCH
 READY FOR WAR
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3,00O,00O inhabitants of the capital could turn Paris into deserted city within a few hours.
 Every office building in Paris must be equipped with steel or wooden shutters so that no vagrant gleam of light will offer 8 target for air raiders.
 Busses are equipped with curtains so they can be darkened.
 Air Raid Cellars
 Air raid cellars have been built in courtyards of the foreign minis try, the ministry of war and all other important government buildings. France, if attacked, could maintain an underground government indefi- nitely.
 For Il years the Bank of France has been building gold vaults, an eighth of 8 mile deep in place, under a subterranean lake.
 War materials factories, once con- centrated in 8 10-mile belt around Paris, have been recentralized and located in 100 cities.
 As this dispatch is written, 10000 young men-clerks, salesmen, office workers-are preparing to go under ground to brush up on their knowl- edge of the mazes of the Maginot line. Many of these military re- servists will not see the sky for two weeks. They will take some of their meals five stories below the surface of the ground, and when they go back to their jobs another group of reservists will move in. Those young men are the backbone of any army of 8,000,000 which France could mobilize immediately on the declar- ation of war.
 Fighters from Africa
 France also can draw on a huge pool of black native fighters from her African colonies and can equip them with the largest stock of am- intuition any army ever had in re- serve. Ten million rounds of shells for light and heavy artillery are buried near the border. Periodically this ammunition is taken out of the ground, the powder is removed and the shells are sent book to factories to be de-rusted. Then they are re- turned to the ground. Those shells are part of the general equipment of the Maginot line. whose fortifi- cations extend back into France to a depth of 30 miles in places.
 Afloat, France probably still has the best navy of any continental nation, but Italy rapidly is catching up with her. Strong in light cruis- CTS, France also leads the world in the number of submarines. She has seven capital ships afloat and another one, the Strasbourg ready to go into service soon. The 35 ,000- ton ships, Jean Hart and Richelieu, will be ready for service by 1940 or 1941.
 All European powers keep details of their air forces secret because there is no international agreement compelling them to exchange in- formation, but year ago parlia- ment was told that the French air fleet was second only to that of Soviet Russia. France has a min- imum of 5000 fighting planes, and the actual number probably is much larger because of the increased building program since airplane fac tories have been nationalized.
 Four Months Oil
 There is a four month supply of oil and gasoline available now, but should all coal mining cease there would be enough fuel for only two days. Attempting to solve that weakness in her military setup, France has been experimenting with forest gas," made from charcoal. There are enormous forests in this nation and theoretically the French army could roll tanks and trucks on gases derived from charcoal.
 Enough cotton, a vital war mater ial, has been stored to last six months, and United States trade re- ports show that there have been heavy increases in imports of man. ganese, nickel and the other ma terials of war. So long as France remains allied with England in a war, she counts on the British navy to help her convoy war materials across the Atlantic.
 Frenchmen, living under the con- stant threat of war, are inclined to be philosophical about it. Air raid warnings in doorways remind the French that they may be at war any time. The cost of preparedness is constantly before them. For that reason many of them take the same attitude toward "Le Guerre" as Americans do toward payment of their income tax-something that IS unpleasant but inevitable.