The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-06

These orders did not come for four days.
 So by the time they finally de- cided to follow Rommel, he had slipped far to the north, surprised 8 force of 1000 New zealanders near Tobruk, annihilated them, and then advanced almost behind the main force of the British which had started out to pu-'-uc him. The British we .akcn by surprise, and the ensuing battle turned the tide.
 SCRAP IRON TO JAPAN
 Now that Donald Nelson is even appealing for old war monuments, 1t is interesting to recall the State Departments conversations re- garding scrap iron for Japan.
 As early as August, 1940, Sec retaries Stimson, Ickes, Knox and Morgenthau persuaded the Presi- dent to sign an embargo against further shipments of scrap iron to Japan. But when Secretary Hull saw the embargo he held 1t up, persuaded the President to modify 1t so that it applied only to No. grade of scrap.
 On another occasion, before Pearl Harbor, Vice President Wal lace sat in on conferences with the State Department and urged an immediate embargo on scrap iron to Japan.
 We're going to wake up and find ourselves caught short" argued Wallace, with the scrap being fired back at us in the form of bombs"
 Secretary Hull's representative smiled condescendingly.
 Let's be patient he said, i've may find that Japan is fighting on our side in the end."
 SCRAP MASTERMINDS
 War chiefs are not saying so publicly, but they ardently hope Donald Nelson meant what he said when he announced an sin tensified campaign to stimulate the flow of all vital scrap mater iaIs," for the scrap collection phase of his organization Is one of the worst muddles of the war program.
 Some War chiefs also think he must start his intensified cam- paign" by scraping the bungling heads of WIPES Bureau of Indus- trial Conservation, in charge of scrap collection.
 Under Director Lessing Rosen- wald and Deputy Director Paul O.. Cabot, this Bureau has been one of the biggest busts of WIPE, and they have a confidential letter in their files officially telling them so. The letter is from Undersec- retary of War Robert Patterson and Under-sercetary of Navy James Forrestal, who bluntly told Rosenwald and Cabot that their agency has been very intellectual.
 This should have been nothing new to the two gentlemen involy- ed for last winter more than 30 steel mills suspended work for lack of scrap iron. Even now, although all mills are operating, Rosenwald and Cabot are still puttering around on plans to build up an ample reserve stockpile of scrap for next winter.
 TIN MESS
 The mismanagement of scrap tin collection has been even worse If that is possible.
 Tin is one of the most acutely scarce metals in the U. s. A. Yet except for some baked, fal- tering efforts, little has been done to collect the thousands of tons of tin cans easily obtained from the patriotic housewives of the whole country. These cans, incid- entally, would also provide scrap iron.
 At present the United States
 has five tin.salvage plants with
 . capacity of 225, 600 tons. Others planned and under construction
 will raise this figure to around
 6OOOOO tons in 1943. But mean
 while, due to the bungling of ROgenwaId and Cabot, the plants