Milford chronicle., 1942-12-18
Milford, Friday, December IS, 1912
MILITARY STRATEGY depends

very largely for success upon in
formation-as full and accurate as
possible-about the disposition of
enemy forces and the amount and
quality of enemy supplies and re-
serves. Lack of such information
or inaccurate reports have caused
military disasters.
The armed forces and military
intelligence necessarily must de-
vote great deal of time and often
hazardous effort to getting the
facts on which are based offensives,
large or small. Thus the prelimi-
nary exploration of the situation in
French North Africa was more than
a daring exploit, it laid the ground
work for all our later movements
in that area. More recently, it was
vital to naval strategy in the Med
iterranean to find out precisely
what degree of damage the French
fleet at Toulon had suffered.
In the service of supply it is
equally necessary to have exact in
formation on the needs of the arm
ed forces in food and equipment
adopted to the particular climatic
and combat circumstances under
which they will be used. Labora-
tory research by the Quartermas-
ter Department and by private in
dustry has developed an extraordi-
nary variety of products-dehy-
drafted foods, dairy products, and
sweets which will stand tempera-
lures ranging from 1902 F. to 20
below zero. The final test, however,
is not in the laboratory, but in use
by our fighting men, and at every
point records must be kept, data
tabulated.
In like manner, our domestic
strategy of war production and
wartime civilian'-economye depends
on the accumulation of a vast
amount of facts and information.
To secure this basic information
takes time and labor on the part
of the Government. time and labor
on the part of everyone concerned
with war production, or with civil
ian goods and services.
Whatever the details of the mea-
sures used in controlling prices,
for example, it is inevitable that at
every stage of distribution, from
raw materials to finished products,
there will be more record-keeping
and bookkeeping than in the case
under peace time conditions. Price
control, to be effective, must be
based on accurate figures. Since
last April, when the general max
imum price regulation went into
effect, retail stores have had to file
with their local boards ceiling
prices on many items of food, cloth
ing, furniture, hardware, and fuel
all of them of greatest importance
in the family expense budget. Dis
tributors, manufacturers, and pro-
ducers of raw materials also must
keep great many records of trans
actions and report on their stocks
of essential goods or products. Ex-'
ira time and labor is involved in
all these operations, yet they pay
immense dividends in the billions
of dollars saved by consumers. And
everyone is consumer.
Employers of labor must keep
detailed records of their current
labor supply in order to meet pro-
duction chedules-records as thor
ough as those of military task
force" Next year, it is estimated,
one out of every five men now en-
PACJSN III wal pAdhlo Will ~ lulO
military service. A plan-known as
the manning tables" system-has
been worked out so that this can
be done without slowing war pro-
duction. 1t involves listing 35 nee
essary war activities and industries,
listing necessary jobs within each
of these industries, and prepara-
tion of schedules in each depart
ment of a war plant or war-essen-
tial service showing just how long
it will take to train a new worker
to replace one taken into service.
Requirements must be women
(women are counted upon to fill
about 80 per cent of all war jobs)
older men and others not subject to
the draft, physically handicapped
persons, and those who previously
have been denied employment be-
cause of racial or other prejudice.
Under this plan, war workers who
would be called into service may
be deferred until their places are
filled by trained substitutes.
More efficient use of our existing
war labor force is being developed
through the work of labor-manage-
ment committees in LOO war
plants through program for train !