The people's voice., 1943-07-16

| When the committee received the
preliminary reports and had made
some investigation further action was
delayed ON request of the Army and
the company ITSELF in order to give
them on opportunity to look into the
| facts. About week later however,
upon receipt of statement from the
Army Air Forces and the Wright
Aeronautical Corporation that they
had made separate investigations and
that nothing irregular existed which
required action by either, the COM
mittee then went to Cincinnati, the
plant being located at Lockland, Ohio,
and began the taking of testimony in
closed sessions, refusing to accept the
"whitewash" of the reports made to
it. In the course of its hearings, the
committee found that the "whitewash"
report made to it by Brig. Gen. Ben
nett E. Myers, was based on informa-
tion received by him from Army Off
GERS and company personnel later
found to be active in obstructing in
quiry.
The Wright Aeronautical Corpora
ton is wholly owned subsidiary of
the CurtissW Wright Corporation and
according to the report, the Curtiss-
Wright Corporation has received more
war contracts than any other corpora
ton outside of General Motors It's
war business up to March 1 this year
totalled $4,717 SOC, 900.
The report charges that the Navy
built dive bomber plant for the com
pany at Columbus, Ohio, at cost of
$27 ,000 600 and advanced the company
$9S,4S4,23S for operation of the plant
which has not yet produced single
plane (which the Navy considers to
be usable as a combat airplane" This
has not however prevented the com
pany from buying advertising space
in which it's Hell Diver" plane is
touted as the worlds best dive bomb
en-" and the advertisement was ap-
proved by the Navy and based on a
speech by an admiral. In its COM
ment upon this, the report makes
mastery understatement and stretches
soft phrases to the limit when it re-
marks that "the navy's action was
unfortunate and premature"
The committee states that it found
evidence that inspectors, both Army
and company had been subjected to
pressure when they insisted on reject
ing material and company inspectors
reprimanded for calling the attention
of Army Air Force inspectors to de- |
fective material
The report states: at has been Of |
fered as a defense that although some |
rules were violated and some material |
accepted which did not meet specifi- |
cations, they were harmless incidents, |
since they did not result in defec- |
tive end product. Evidence presented
to the committee, however. indicates
the following:
81. Engines were built and sold to
the government which were leaking
gasoline. The chief of the Army's
engine and propeller unit testified be-
fore the committee unequivocably that
no engine with any kind of gas leak
should be passed.
"2. Unsafe material has been dis
covered in completed engines ready
'or shipment.
g. The company's own reports from
is field representatives indicate that
.hese parts had failed in a substan-
ial number of cases.
a. A substantial number of air
planes using this engine have had
crashes in which engine failures were
involved. This is also true of other
engines some of which have had high
,r accident records. But sound con-
,lusions as to causes of air accidents
,annot be drawn from the statistics
lvailable, % because in major acci-
Tents the planes are usually DESTROYED
ind the pilots killed and (2) because
is usually impossible to be certain