The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1941-10-02
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I served on a subcommittee of the
Senate National Defense Investigating
committee which last week visited five
army posts and four other defense
projects in northern New York. We
visited Plattsburg barracks, Fort Ethan
Allen at Burlington, VT, Madison Bar
racks at WATERFOWL, N. Y, Fort Mag
ara at Niagara Falls and Pine camp,
about fifteen miles out of WATERFOWL,
where the Fourth Armored division Is
training.
In addition, we saw the new Air
depot being built at Rome, N. Y, the
Seneca Ordnance depot, and the new
Curtiss- Wright and Bell aviation plants
at Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
These various camps and projects,
of course. represent only small seq
ment of the total defense program, and
their size underlines the vastness of
the entire job, so tremendous that it
is no wonder we laymen have diff
Guilty visualizing it. We saw and
learned some things to criticize, but
my net impression was that the pro-
gram is going along much better than
the public realizes.
On the huge new CurtiSs- Wright
plant at Buffalo, for instance the first
shovelful of dirt was turned last De-
cember /, the first operating crews
were moved into the plant May IA,
it is now operating "a hours a day with
10000 employees and by November Is,
in less than a year, will be going at
full capacity with $4,000 employees.
Curtiss-W right's old plant in Buffalo
employees 1000 and the two together
are capable of producing 5000 pursuit
planes year.
The Bell plant was begun last Octo-
Der and has been going full blast fol-
month. 1t is making the Aircobra
pursuit ship, most heavily armed and
deadliest fighter plane in the world
We saw one being tested in flight anc
| it climbed almost straight up, to say
nothing of its tremendous speed. Ir
view of the frequently seen criticism
of American fighter planes as being
undergunned, the manufacturers fla
statement that his ship carries more
fire power than any fighter plane nov
in use in Europe was very interesting
He should know because his compan!
has technicians on the ground IL
Europe.
We saw an anti-craft regiment will
| it's full complement of 3-inch, 37-milli
meter and 50-caliber anti-aircraft guns
Incidentally, these guns can be uset
equally well against tanks, and some
army leaders figure they will be mos
effective as anti-tank weapons, mas
much as experience has proven tina
anti-aircraft guns do little except force
planes to higher attitudes.
The Fourth armored division doe
not have its full complement of equip
ment, but is receiving it in steadil!
increasing quantities. 1t officers d.
not feel the lack of equipment is seri
ously interfering with training a.
neither the men nor officers are sufn
GENTLY trained as yet to operate il
larger than battalion units.
One problem of the armored units i
to keep training of green reserve off
GERS ahead of the men. The releas'
of selectees over % years old and o
one-half of their reserve officers a
the end of a year also is creating
serious problem, as it takes six t.
eight months to shake down new mel
and officers into efficient combat teams
My impression was that these armore'
units, because of the high degree o
training, coordination and teamwork
required, probably should be on thu
same basis as the Air corps, USING
three-year enlisted men only, 81 the.
would be assured of continued per
sonnet.