Evening star., 1942-11-17
Eleven Months After Pearl Horbor
Sleeping Giant Awokens as S. Puts Production in iqh Geor


by Gen. Marshall. Only men under
so may command regiments.
The Navy likewise has experienced
an expansion without parallel in its
history. -Four new battleships have
been launched this year and there
will be two or more in 1913. Orig
inally the Nays overall program
was to be completed in 1947. Most
Of it will actually be in operation
in 1914, though some building will
run over into l945. During the
fiscal year 1912, 60 combat ships
were constructed, or nearly half the
total for the 10 years before Pearl
Harbor. On the ways last June 80
were 3,448 combatant, auxiliary,
patrol and mine vessels, to say
nothing Of 11,759 district craft.
Large Carrier Program.
The airplane carrier program in
cludes a fleet In the Lexington
Saratoga class which is now build
ing, and still larger ships are in
prospect. Cruisers and merchant
vessels are being converted into air.
craft carriers on large scale. In
Navy Day speech Capt. Lovette
revealed that 13 airplane carriers
are now under construction. The
Nays entire program of shore
facilities. including yards, docks,
bases and airf1elds, is virtually COM
pleted.
Thanks to its specialization in air.
cooled motors, which have long
been supercharged, the Navy on last
December 7 possessed two excellent
fighter planes, the Grumman Wild
cat and Brewster Buffalo, each with
30,000-foot ceiling. They have
borne the brunt of high-altitude
pursuit combat in the Pacific. Ma
rines used the Douglas Dauntless
dive bomber in their occupation of
the Solomons.
Owing to miracles of conversion
and expansion, American shipyards
and factories are declared to have a
capacity twice as large as their cur
rent output of naval vessels. The
sole limitation is the volume of ore
that can be taken from the ground
There Is an acute shortage of copper
and q chronic deficiency of nickel,
BY the end of this year a serious
shortage of aluminium is expected.
The armor plate bottleneck is re-
garded as licked, but only because
the Navy, under White House or
ders, Cancelled its contracts for four
60,0O0-ton battleships.
Tonnage allocated to or used by
the armed forces has increased
from 2,500,000 tons in March to
100000 today, according to the
War Shipping Administration. This
represents an augmentation of 300
per cent in tonnage used but not
owned by the Army and Navy, since
the $500, 900 tons of last March in
cluded transports long owned by the
services.
Many New Developments.
One of the impressive advances
made by industry is the development
OF new materials and processes.
Magnesium, formerly employed. only
In Fourth Of July "sparklersp for
children, is being extracted in large
volume from sea water and salt
wells. and now is an ordinary struc-
tural material in manufacture of
airplanes. Competition provided
by aluminium has resulted in a
marked increase in the tensile
strength of steel sheets. The rubber
recovery process has been improved
100 per cent, and there has been q
revolutionary betterment in meth
ods for sharpening machine tools.
Reorganization of the industry
branches of the War Production
Board to give labor, for the first
time, definite responsibility for oper-
ations, was made public last week.
Since Pearl Harbor strikes have
dwindled and have usually been
small, of the jurisdictional type. The
SASSG O1l Wdl IlldI1u1dCCuIG WAS DTO.
In addition to direct STOP
page of production, it had been
learned that any shop passing
through the emotions of q strike
suffered a long term decline of mo-
rale and output.
There are numerous and i'm
portant respects in which the peo-
pie seem not yet fully awake.
The most urgent is the problem of
Modern war demands
twice as many men as were, required
In 1918, both in the field and in
dustry. Then there were no anti
aircraft forces and almost no avia-
ton. Today the American Army has
$50 900 men in the former branch
alone. Air forces numbering 2,O00,-
600 are planned. Mechanical war
fare exacts large increases of tech
nical troops. In the last world strug-
gle the United States obtained near
ly all its munitions from the Allies;