The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-07-03

have the unbeatable combination Dingle Macintosh Foot. parliament tary secretary of the British Minis try of Economic Warfare, now in Washington, gives a good picture ot how 1t is being done by the com bined British and American effort.
 One reason for the comparative absence of German planes on the western front is thought to be a shortage of ball bearings. The Al- lies began waging war on the ball bearing front two years ago. First the British made an agreement with the Swedish SKF ball bearing mon- opoly to reduce 1944 exports to Ger many to 50 per cent of 1943 deliv- cries.
 Then in August American Flying Fortresses bombed Schweinfurt, where 60 per cent of German pro- duction was concentrated. That has now been topped by the new agreement with Sweden pust con- cluded by Stanton Griffis for the American government, further cur tailing Swedish bearing exports to Germany.
 UNNECESSARY OCCUPATIONS CUT
 German labor decrees have al- ready squeezed her working force to the limit. Unnecessary occupa- tions have been cut off as far as the Nazis can go. That being the case, it is the role of economic war fare to contribute anything 1t can to make the German manpower sit- uation still tougher. Bombing Ger man industrial centers, for instance, has put an estimated six million workers out of their homes. The labor needed for rehousing these surviving victims of bombing raids puts further strain on Gerrnany's manpower.
 Take production of synthetic petroleum as another example. Ger many was able to begin the war without sufficient natural petroleum resources of her own solely because her chemists had licked the problem of making synthetic oil and gasoline from coal. She augmented her sym thetic supplies by imports from Ro- mania. Bombing of the Ploesti oil fields and refineries was not aimed solely at destroying this source of supply, however, for these raids had the further effect of forcing the Germans to produce more synthetic petroleum products, which require seven times as much labor per ion produced. This puts a further strain on German manpower. Ef- fects of the Ploesti raids will there fore begin to appear in full in three or four months.
 CAPTURED WEAPONS
 TELL THE TALE
 Captured German weapons have other economic uses than exhibition in public parks to stimulate war bond sales. MetallurgistS analyZe them, like economic warfare detec- tives, to see what materials Ger many may be running short of, this being a war of special alloy steels of extra hardness and toughness contributed by chromium from Tur- key and the Balkans, nickel and molybdenum from Norway and Fin land, wolfram for tungsten from Spain and Portugal.
 Bombing raids by British Mos- quitoes and American Fortresses have twice put out of operation Nor ways molybdenum mines, source of 75 per cent of Germany's supply Economic warfare deals with Tur- key have put a complete embargo on the chrome supply. One of the chief values of Marshal Tito's guer- rilla warfare in Yugoslavia is to at- tack chrome mines still open to the Axis.
 One of Germany's worst shortages is in textiles and clothing. That's why German textile mills are con- sidered good targets. AS long as 10 months ago the Nazis were com pelled to cut out ration cards for everyone save newborn babies, victims of bombing raids who were stripped of all clothing, and fnourn- CTS who wished to buy black in honor of their dead. Today the av- craze German has only one pair of stockings or socks, as the sex may be, and that is fighting economic warfare to the point where it hurts