The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-12

| thing. Imagine the surprise or the colonels and majors when, on pick ing up the local newspapers to look at the photograph of their arrival at the railroad station, they saw it under the headline.
 MUNRO LIEF AND PARTY ARRIVE IN TOWN"
 IT'S A WOMAN'S WAR
 Flying fortresses, the biggest, toughest fighting planes the U. s. Army or any other Army possesses today, are now being made by a la- Dor force that is 50 per cent women, and by the end of next year off, cials at the Boeing plants in Seattle and Renton, Wash, say the labor force will be 70 per cent women.
 In Washington it is believed this is the highest percentage of women employees of any aircraft plant in the country. In April, Boeing had less than per cent women em- ployes. By July it was 25 per cent ! and it has been doubled since then by simplifying work processes. Eighty per cent of, all beginning and probationary mechanics being hired are women, and there are now some women doing practically every job in the plant. Ninety-five per cent of all the rivet bucklers are women. and from two-thirds to three-fourths of the workers in upholstery, fabric covering, elec- tric wiring and tubing shops are women.
 Big surprise has been that most of the married women with chil- dren prefer the second shift, from p. m. to midnight. They do household work in the morning, let neighbor take care of the chil- dren till the husband gets home from his day shift. UNSEEN SIGHT
 The famous and highly-secret Norden aerial bombsight is still be- lieved to be just as exclusively U. s. weapon as it was at the begin- ming of the war, all of them being accounted for and none having fallen into Jap or German hands.
 What has surprised U. s. ob- servers, however, is that the Japs appear to be better precision bombers than the Germans and 1t isn't known what sight the Jap bombers are using, either. Mari time Captain Raymond Lytz of Mobile, Ala, just back in Wash ington from Guadalcanal, says that when the Japs come over Hender- son Field for a high level bomb- ing raid at 22O00 feet or better, they can hit the runways with remarkable precision. To appre- ciate what good bombing this is, you have to consider that the Jap bomber is not only more than four miles up, but he is also two-and-a half to three miles horizontally of his target at the time he releases his eggs. MOST AMAZING!
 Msot amazing thing about that rumored Harold Ickes-fo Fanny Perkins-for- Paul V. McNutt-for- Harold Ickes cabinet shift that had Washington so excited was that it offered such an ingenious solution to so many Washington headaches.
 It raised McNutt to cabinet rank, which he has long wanted. It gave Ickes a larger voice in the war pro- duction program, which he had long wanted. It put Madame Perkins back in social work, for which she is best fitted. It pleased organized labor by promising to get Miss Perkins out of the Department of Labor. It paved the way for a possible transfer of control over the petroleum industry from Ickes to the War Production Board. which WIPE has been ask- ing for. It promised a stronger manpower setup in the Depart ment of Labor, with an experi- enced, two-fisted cabinet member in charge who would get in there and fight for his rights, that is, labor's rights.
 It denoted everyone for past mistakes and promoted everyone at the same time.
 Big laugh was that organized labor seemed willing to accept the scrappy Ickes. bust as one 0. I. O. official explained, Anything would be better than what's there now, and Ickes is certainly preferable to Dan Tobin."