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UNITED STATES Submarine Launches Missile
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 3.—The first effective use under simulated battle conditions of submarines with high underwater speed and of a submarine capable of firing—- while submerged—guided missiles was announced here today by 1st Task Fleet Headquarters.
A high officer said the submarines’ attacks against other ships and shore positions were “highly effective and better than expected.” Maneuvers were held last week off Point Mugu, south of Santa Barbara, Calif.
“The successful operation of the submarines shows that the advantage of attack now is all with underwater craft,” the officer said.
The two high-speed submarines used were the Pomidon and the Diodon, whi,ch were converted at the Mare Island Naval Yard here. Their actual underwater speed is a secret, but it is believed to be at least sixteen knots.
German-type V-l and V-2 rockets were launched from the submarine Cusk, against ship and shore targets.
Supplies for Point Barrow
N. Y. Times, May 15.—A group of seven Navy ships will leave San Diego, Calif., about July 1 on the Navy’s annual supply delivery trip to Point Barrow, Alaska, Admiral D. C. Ramsey, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, announced yesterday.
Units of the Amphibious Force will be used on the mission, which will be headed by the attack transport, the Union, commanded by Capt. J. U. Lademan. Three more transports, two LST’s, and one ice breaker, the Burton Island, ■ make up the task force, which is scheduled to deliver about 25,000 tons of cargo, or a full year’s supply, to the inhabitants of Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4, a 35,000-square-mile area, lying well within the Arctic Circle.
Because of the absence of regular port installations at Point Barrow, the use of amphibious techniques, developed by the Navy during the war, is necessary.
Report on Eniwetok Tests
N. Y. Times, May 19.—Recent atomic tests at Eniwetok involved a series of nuclear explosions carried out under conditions as close to laboratory control as possible. Their basic purpose was the scientific and engineering perfection of improved designs in atomic weapons. This was stated today by five staff members of Joint Task Force Seven that conducted the tests. They spoke jointly at Fort Shafter upon their return from the Eniwetok atomic proving grounds after completion of the series of tests.
Supplementing the brief announcement of the staging of the Eniwetok tests made earlier in Washington, where Lieut. Gen. John E. Hull, commander of Task Force Seven, Capt. James S. Russell, United States Navy test director, representing the division of military application of atomic energy of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Darol K. Froman, scientific civilian director, Maj. Gen. William E. Kepner of the Air Force and Rear Admiral William S. Parsons, Navy deputy to General Hull.
Staying within the bounds of security that have wrapped the Eniwetok tests in a cloak of secrecy they contributed the following conclusions and observations:
There were three series of explosions in the Eniwetok test.
There was no plane drop of any atomic missile.
No representative of any foreign Government witnessed the Eniwetok tests and no security problems involving any other Government were encountered.
Speaking from prepared notes which were released in entirety to the press, General Hull said:
“These tests had no kinship to the Bikini tests, the purpose of which was to test the effect on naval equipment and other materials as well as animal and marine life.
“The tests of Operation Sandstone were literally and truly field laboratory tests designed to determine how bombs now under development by the United States would work and to determine their efficiency. We did just that. We got our answers. We liked the answers. These answers belong to the United States Government and naturally are not for publication.
“It can be said, however, that the bombs worked. We have proved the weapon devel-
opment work done by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory during the past two years.”
The overall strength of the task force was approximately 9,800 men, including civilian personnel, General Hull said. The task force make up included staff members from Los Alamos, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Public Health Service and Coast and Geodetic Survey. About 50,000 tons of measurement material was flown or shipped to Eniwetok.
Army Maneuvers
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 9.—The nation’s biggest peacetime military maneuvers since the end of the war started today with nearly 3,000 paratroops billowing down in a mass jump to battle “guerrillas” and “fifth columnists.” The guerrillas were “besieging” the medical center at Camp Campbell, Kentucky.
The maneuvers, known as “Operation Assembly,” will involve about 30,000 troops in joint operations of the 3d Army and the 9th Air Force. The Army had to reach into posts in nearly every section of the country to get enough troops for its part of the sham warfare.
The paratroopers “recaptured” the Camp Campbell airport, received supplies by glider and dug in to await reinforcement by thousands of other troops from the 5th Corps rushing to their assistance by train and truck. The Air Force, meanwhile, threw an “umbrella” of fighting planes over the area.
When all the troops arrive, the Army will drop its play fighting for more than a week and go into a period of intensive small-unit training. Then the troops will reassemble and begin their war again May 24 to eliminate entirely the “guerrillas” and “fifth columnists.”
The jump had all the realism of war, including small-arms fire with blank ammunition, except for thousands of spectators, reporters, radio broadcasters and cameramen surrounding the landing field. It was made by the 505th Regimental Combat Team of the famous 82d Airborne Division, which in World War II was “America’s most decorated division.”
Few of those jumping today took part in any of the 82d’s four combat jumps in the
war, although its men had parachuted into the snow at Pine Camp, N. Y., the past winter in “Operation Snowdrop.”
The spectators included Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., 3d Army commander and ground force commander for the maneuvers.
The Army and Air Force apparently clicked together perfectly during the parachute maneuver. The huge C-82 “flying boxcar” planes carrying the paratroopers took off from fields in North and South Carolina, nearly 500 miles from the landing area, planning to drop the jumpers at 9:40 a.m. The first paratrooper left his ship at exactly that time.
Improved Weapons for Army
Chicago Tribune, May 2.—The army is getting ready to resume buying new weapons and equipment for the first time since the end of the war, but the new fangled robot weapons like the German V-2 will not be on the shopping list, a high government procurement official disclosed today.
The army, he said, will be in the market for improved guns, rocket launchers like the bazooka, radar directors which can track super-fast jet planes, tanks and motorized equipment to operate under arctic conditions, and light-weight artillery and vehicles for air borne troops.
Want Better Weapons
“We’re looking for improved and new weapons which can be produced in the next 12 months and are not still in the laboratory stage or a gleam in some scientist’s eyes,” he said in an interview. “We want to give our troops weapons as good or better than those other nations have developed.
“Guided missiles and push button weapons are still 10 to 15 years away. When they become practical weapons, we will buy them in quantity. But until then, we will get only a few for experimental and development purposes.”
He said the rocket weapons like the German V-2 are extremely costly, requiring almost clockwork mechanisms, rare metals, and expensive fuels. At the same time, such weapons are unreliable and of limited range. The maximum known range of such rockets
is approximately 230 to 300 miles.
The army is planning to start its weapons modernization program with supplemental funds contained in the 3 billion 481 million dollar increase in the military budget which is pending in Congress. The army has not bought any new weapons for outfitting troops since 1945.
Reversal of Plan
Intended to prepare the army for combat in the event of a war emergency in the next few years, the armament replacement program marks a reversal of the army’s original plan for introducing new weapons by 1955.
“Instead of waiting until 1955 or 1960 for our research to bring in new weapons, we are going to move into production soon on the best designs of improved or new weapons which have come from our laboratories and proving grounds,” the army official said.
U. S. Airbase in North Japan
N. Y. Times, May 3.—United States Army engineers are now approaching the completion of their largest construction project in Japan. This is the §13,000,000 Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture near the north east tip of Honshu Island.
Misawa is the latest in a chain of airfields, capable of taking the heaviest long- range bombers, that have been built at key points in Japan since the occupation began. Fighter planes have been operating since last month off the finished section of the airstrip and according to the present program the construction is scheduled for completion by the end of this year.
The occupation’s airfield building program was undertaken after the landing confirmed what already had been indicated during the war—that the airstrips with which the Imperial Army and Navy had covered Japan were not serviceable for heavy United States Army bombers. Since the Japanese did not operate any plane comparable to the B-29 or even the B-17, the runways were usually built of flimsy concrete without a solid foundation and were insufficient in length for big American bombers. This has now been remedied in many instances with the result that United States air forces stationed on surrounding islands not only would be able to patrol over Japan but in case of necessity, could find efficient bases here.
In the case of Misawa the central unit of three old strips used by the Japanese Navy has now been turned into a solid smooth-surfaced runway, which, when complete, will extend 8,500 feet. The engineers of Maj. Gen. Charles W. Ryder’s Ninth Corps who are in charge of the construction have built or are building taxiways, hangars, bomb storage facilities and other necessary parts of the subsidiary plant.
The base when completed will have equip-. ment for the storage not only of aviation gasoline and oil but for hundreds of gallons of special fuel. This will make it available for modern jet-propelled planes. The barracks and living space for the Air Force were partially completed when the first flying units moved in recently and even a part of the housing for Army dependents is already occupied.
As the largest engineer project at present engaging the occupation, the Misawa base has not been brought to its present stage of 60 per cent completion without some considerable difficulties.
Japanese Labor Used
Since the American engineer force in Japan is far too small to furnish more than general supervision, the base has been built with Japanese labor, with as many as 5,000 persons employed at the peak. Aomori, however, is an isolated farm area without either trained workers or a large available labor force.
From the beginning the canny Japanese farmer displayed a tendency to establish himself on the payroll, work for a brief period, and then return to his rice paddy while still putting in for his daily wage at Misawa. That problem has been partly solved by a system of American timekeepers who check the Japanese timekeepers—of whom in turn a few are now doing time in jail for their failure to keep proper records of hours worked.
Waldron Honored
Chicago Tribune, May 19.—Chicago, Illinois. The park board’s action yesterday in naming a drive after Lt. Comdr. John Charles Waldron honors a hero of World War II whose gallantry exemplifies that of thou-
sands of navy and army airmen who gave their lives in that conflict.
He was the leader of the immortal torpedo squadron 8, which contributed much to the victory at the battle of Midway, turning point of the war in the Pacific and one of the decisive battles in world history.
Attacked 67 Ship Fleet
Torpedo squadron 8 took off from the carrier Hornet on June 4, 1942, after the Japanese invasion fleet of 67 warships had launched its attack on Midway. Waldron and his men were flying 15 obsolete torpedo planes and they had no fighter protection, but they dared to attack the Japanese armada which had a protective screen of many fighter planes.
Although squadron 8 failed to score hits on Japanese carriers, the daring assault prevented the enemy from launching an attack on the United States task forces. Also it drew the Jap high altitude fighter patrol near to the surface, leaving the enemy warships open for later attacks by American bombers, which put three Jap carriers out of action.
The only member of squadron 8 who survived the battle, Ensign George H. Gay, Jr., spent hours on a rubber life raft before he was picked up by a navy scout plane.
GREAT BRITAIN Fleet Exercises
The Aeroplane, April 23.—A token force of Gloster Meteor III and IVs, operating from Tangmere, made an interesting contribution to the lessons of the Home Fleet Exercises held during the two weeks ending on Saturday, April 24. This force, known as the Tangmere Wing, together with the de Havil- land Vampires from Odiham, and both controlled by the Southern Sector Control Centre, was employed on one day only, April 15, in attempting interceptions of the Naval air force which was attacking installations on the South Coast.
The exercise was in two phases: the first, during the forenoon, was an attack by Naval bombers with fighter escort, on the Naval Air Station at Ford; and the second, in the afternoon, was a similar attack on the Naval Air station at St. Merryn, in Cornwall. In each instance the Naval Force consisted of three
formations of four D.H. Hornets and smaller formations of Blackburn Firebrands, Fairey Fireflies and Supermarine Seafires, a total of around 40 aircraft. Against this force the Tangmere Wing had one Meteor III and four Meteor IVs. The Odiham Force was also “all-jets,” which added interest.
In the first attack, which was on Ford, warning of the approach of the enemy was given in time for the Tangmere Wing to take off and meet them somewhere Southwest of the Isle of Wight. Each flight was airborn within 3 J minutes of the warning and from the Control Tower at Tangmere they could be seen heading Southwest and climbing fast as the voice of the Sector Controller came through ordering them up to 12,000 ft. and then to 14,000 ft. They were at this level and in a good position to attack, with the sun behind them, somewhere off St. Catherine’s Point. There was an unaccountable delay during which the formation leader was heard to say that he had seen the enemy nine miles away and to ask permission to attack and then the Controller was heard to order the Meteors back to their base and the Vampires into the attack.
By this time the attacking force had worked its way towards the dead line from Selsey Bill North through Chichester, beyond which the Meteors were not allowed to engage them. A perplexed and disappointed Tangmere Wing returned to their base just as the Naval bombers went down in a spectacular attack on their objective and the fighters circled round in apparently unbroken formations.
[It is interesting to interpolate here that the B.B.C. broadcast in Radio News Reel on April 15 made it clear that the Section Controller was satisfied, as was his audience, including Charles Gardner, that both the Meteors and Vampires had been correctly handled. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity as regards the “blips” on the radar screen.—Ed.]
The afternoon operation was more successful and more interesting. The objective was St. Merryn, in Cornwall, and the attackers were based on Ford. As Ford is only a few miles from Tangmere, no warning could obviously be given in time to allow an interception between the two stations and the alternative plan of following the attackers and engaging them was made. Two of the Meteor IVs were fitted with extra fuel tanks, which gives them almost another 50 per cent range. At zero hour the Meteor III went up and, unexpectedly, was ordered to fly over to the enemy base and report proceedings. This was highly successful as the pilot also happened to be the Station Intelligence officer and so was able to give quick, clear and concise details of the enemy force and the exact position of every aircraft on the ground and as they took off.
On his return he said that he was ordered over Ford at 4,000 ft. and, after making his first report, found himself alongside a formation of Spitfires for which he could not account. As they did nothing to molest him, he climbed to 8,000 ft. and continued his spotting activities. Not to be done out of a chance of a scrap, he waited about till the last aircraft had taken off and then followed them, catching up with the Hornets over the Isle of Wight. He engaged one unsuspecting Hornet, “shooting it down” with an attack on the quarter, and then got involved with two more Hornets, who probably retaliated by shooting him down but not before he had enjoyed the spectacle of a good mix-up of Meteors, Hornets, Vampires and Naval fighters.
In the meantime the four Meteor IVs got their signal to take off and were airborne in under two minutes from the signal. They went after the attacking force at an incredible speed and disappeared into the West. From Tangmere the progress of the battle could be heard partly on the radio, and the gaps were filled in later when the pilots returned. They overtook two formations of Hornets • (eight aircraft) over the Isle of Wight at about 12,000 ft. and went into battle. No element of surprise was possible as the sky was clear of cloud and visibility about 25 miles. An attack out of the sun was impossible at that time of the day as it would have meant a head-on attack, forbidden by the safety rules of the exercise. The Meteors had the advantage only of speed over the Hornets, as their armament is the same- four cannon.
The Hornets put up a tough fight, as did the single-engined fighters, and when the
Vampires arrived, the Meteors were called off and directed by Control on to what was said to be the Firebrand Squadron. It turned out to be three formations of four Seafires, all of which promptly took evasive action. Further battles were fought South of Bournemouth and over Weymouth, but the latter was the extreme range of the Meteors, and after some anxious inquiries by Control about their fuel state and reassuring replies from the two with extra tanks, the Tangmere Wing was called off and returned to base.
Although heavily outnumbered, the Tangmere Wing seem to have given a very good account of themselves. Even if they were not allowed to engage the enemy in the morning, certainly they intercepted them and could reasonably have been expected to make a successful attack had permission been given. In the afternoon they were quickly off the mark and into position, and had the actions been in war, would have undoubtedly taken heavy toll of the invaders. Although the results of such encounters cannot be accurately assessed until the camera-gun films have been developed, one Meteor IV pilot believed that he had scored one Hornet and two Seafires.
One or two things of special interest marked the Exercise. There was the very fine flying of the Naval Air Arm, including accurate station-keeping, good fighting tactics and spectacular bombing most confusing to the ground defense.
On the R.A.F. side, the jet fighters, both Meteors and Vampires, proved a formidable weapon for home defense. There is nothing to delay starting the motors—it only takes 30 seconds. They do not have to be warmed- up in the sense of petrol motors, and they do not suffer from dirty plugs and faulting ignition. A take-off of 2 minutes is invaluable where the warning is short, and the climb, 14,000 ft. in 2\ minutes, gives them a tremendous advantage over many other aircraft. Apparently they are easy and pleasant to handle in action, although they are uncomfortable and even painful in rough weather. Their greatest handicap is their short range, a disadvantage which is even greater in the Mark IV than in the previous types. No doubt this will be put right in time.
London Times, April 21.—During exercises in the North Sea on May 13 and 14 a composite naval force, the Admiralty announced yesterday, will be attacked by aircraft and submarines, and submarines will be searched for and attacked by aircraft.
The forces involved will include the battleships H.M.S. Anson and H.M.S. Ilowe; the aircraft-carrier H.M.S. Implacable; the cruiser H.M.S. Superb; 11 destroyers, including H.M.S. Agincourt and H.M.S. Creole; four frigates; 10 submarines; and eight naval air squadrons, comprising about 85 aircraft. In addition, a total of about 50 aircraft of Bomber, Fighter, and Coastal Commands of the Royal Air Force will take part. These will include Lincolns and Lancasters of Bomber Command, Hornets of Fighter Command, and Sunderlands and Lancasters of Coastal Command.
The area covered by the two-day exercises will be roughly between the Orkneys and Stavanger, on the Norwegian coast.
The Admiralty has issued the summer cruise programme for the Home Fleet, the mobile ships of which are still limited to one cruiser—H.M.S. Superb, flagship of Rear- Admiral the Hon. Guy Russell—and four destroyers.
Leaving home ports at the end of April, all five ships will be at Rosyth and Scapa Flow until May 21. Two destroyers, H.M.S. Dunkirk and Jutland, will then go to Londonderry for a month while the other ships visit various ports and seaside towns for a few days each. The Superb is then due to be “immobilized” in her turn, but the return of other ships to operational status is promised for the autumn.
Joint Defense in Pacific
Manchester, Guardian, April 30.—(Canberra).—Details of an Anglo-Australian five- year plan for the defense of the Pacific area were announced here to-day by Mr. John Dedman, Australian Defense Minister.
Mr. Dedman told the Federal Parliament that arrangements had been made for Australia to be represented in the higher defense machinery of Britain and New Zealand. The plan had the immediate aim to provide for the development of Australia as a main forward base in the Pacific, and this policy re-
lated not only to the armed forces but to the strategic development and distribution of the resources of the British Commonwealth.
The High Commissioners for the United Kingdom and New Zealand in Australia would be invited to attend meetings of the Council for Defense when matters affecting those parts of the Empire were under consideration. The Governments of the two countries would also maintain in Australia a joint service representative and staff, which would be accredited to the Defense Department.
Lord Montgomery Consulted
Mr. Dedman said the plan was discussed with Field Marshal Lord Montgomery when he was in Australia, and it was drawn up with the object of achieving the greatest possible co-operation in Commonwealth defense. Lord Montgomery’s view was that Australia should have a peace-time army which would provide a mobilisation basis in an emergency.
The Australian Government’s aim, Mr. Dedman said, was to raise a comparatively small, well-trained, and well-equipped force, rather than a large army with only limited training. The total cost of the programme would be £250,000,000, of which £33,500,000 would be allocated over the five-year period for defense research and development.
A fundamental factor in* Australia’s defense policy was the development of new types of weapons and armaments. The Government was considering enlarging the scope of research and development work on the long-range weapons’ project in Central Australia. A considerable amount of work had already been done and the project had been allotted the highest priority for man-power and material.
Expansion of Forces
The total cost of the Navy programme would be £75,000,000. This would include the provision of two new aircraft carriers from Britain, and the maintenance of a nucleus ship construction and repair industry capable of expansion in war.
The Army programme was expected to cost £62,500,000 and would provide for a permanent peace-time army of 18,000 men.
The five-year expansion plan for the Air Force would also cost £62,500,000. The present strength was 9,000 men but the Government’s aim was to increase this to 13,000. Supply and development, and munition and aircraft production would absorb £ 17,500,000, and there was an allocation of nearly £2,000,000 for mineral and oil research work.
Australia was co-operating closely with Britain in her long-range weapons project. Aeronautical research and highly skilled technicians were being made available from aircraft factories to help in the development of long-range weapons. Sixteen air squadrons and a task force would be provided for home defence.—Reuter.
Australian Carriers
London Times, April 29.—(Canberra).—- The Minister for the Navy, Mr. Riordan, has announced that with the King’s approval the two new 14,000-ton aircraft-carriers which are to be added to the Royal Australian Navy will be named Sydney and Melbourne, and that the naval air station to be commissioned at Nowra, on the south coast of New South Wales, will be known as H.M.A.S. Albatross, after the first Australian seaplane- carrier, which was built in Cockatoo dockyard, Sydney, in the late 1920’s and transferred to the Royal Navy in 1938.
The names chosen for the aircraft-carriers perpetuate those of the two Australian cruisers which won distinction in the first and second world wars. The new Sydney will be commissioned in England in October, and will sail for Australia under the command of Captain R. R. Dowling, R.A.N., early in the New Year. The Melbourne will be commissioned towards the end of 1949 or early in 1950. •
FRANCE
Towing Operations
La Revue Maritime, April, 1948.—During the last 10 months, the French navy has carried out especially delicate towing operations on the high seas. The execution of some of them could not be delayed for urgent reasons, and had to be carried out in the worst season.
The first of the great operations demanding special planning was carried out for our outlying areas; it consisted of towing from England to West Africa certain enormous shored pontoons, originally conceived as dock heads for the landing in Normandy, and now destined for service as floating docks at Douala and Port-Gentil. For this task, our tug flotilla was reinforced by the purchase of an American type tug A.T.A. of 1,600 h.p., christened the Rhinoceros, which a French crew picked up in New Orleans and brought to Brest via Fort-de-France. The first towing, which entailed two large pontoons and one intermediate, left Brest August 30 and reached Dakar 21 days later. The second departure with the last giant pontoons took place October 24. Despite violent storms, during which the pontoons rode waves up to 8 meters, the second convoy reached Dakar November 10. The three elements of the first convoy, after being repaired at Dakar, were towed to Port-Gentil at the end of December. The last two pontoons are undergoing repairs at Dakar before heading for Douala.
Of all these towings, the most memorable was that of the ex-German 40,000 ton dock ceded by the U. S. to France at Hamburg October, 1947, and which we had to tow by our own means within the shortest time. The dock was hauled in two sections. The first half left Hamburg December 3, towed by the Indefatigable, Implacable, and the Mammouth, under escort of the Lansquenet, and reached Cherbourg December 12. The second half was started December 31, but suffered damage enroute and was returned to Hamburg January 7. Winter storms broke up the towing operation, and the group was repeatedly obliged to take refuge in Dungeness and Dunkerque, reaching Cherbourg, finally, on February 10 after 17 days of continuous struggle with the winter storms.
U.S.S.R.
May-Day Parade
N. Y. Times, May 2.—Moscow.—Superfortress-type long-range bombers, five times as many as ever before shown here, swept majestically over Red Square today as part of the May-Day parade of Soviet armed strength.
The numbers of infantry, artillery and
tank forces that passed by the tomb of Lenin and the warplanes that flew over it were nearly double those of 1946 and 1947.
Single-engined fighters buzzed protectively around the big strategic bombers. Twin-engined bombers roared overhead. Two different types of jet fighters streaked across the sky.
Foreign diplomats agreed the parade was one of the most impressive military displays ever seen in Moscow.
Marshal Nikolai A. Bulganin, Soviet Minister of Armed Forces, in a speech opening the parade, said the power was intended to keep the peace and would be multiplied.
Stalin Reviews Parade
Premier Stalin, Foreign Minister Molotov and nearly all members of the Politburo were in the reviewing stand built on top of the Lenin mausoleum to watch the hour-long military parade and the five-hour parade of civilian workers.
[The Moscow radio said Stalin received a “tremendous ovation” when he appeared in the stand. The broadcast said the air display was commanded by Mr. Stalin’s son, Major General of the Guards, Vasily I. Stalin.]
Top-hatted foreign diplomats and be- medaled military attaches watched the show from stands flanking the mausoleum. The day was cloudless and warm. Banners, flags and pictures bedecked the square.
Thousands of soldiers on foot, in modern Soviet-built trucks, atop massive artillery pieces and in tanks passed before Mr. Stalin’s eyes.
Self-propelled guns, heavy field guns, giant guns pulled by tractors and guns the size of railway long-range siege guns—so large it took four tractors to tow one—rumbled across the sand-strewn cobblestones.
But it was in the air that the Soviet Union’s new post-war military power was displayed at its best. And this was just a sample. According to the Soviet press similar displays were seen in Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and other capitals of the republics.
Pacts With Others Cited
Marshal Bulganin asserted that the force was intended to assure the peace the peoples
of the world wanted and for which the Soviet Union had been consistently working.
“The Soviet Union is not alone in the fight for peace,” Marshal Bulganin added, after having referred to the pacts with Eastern European countries. “We must remain rallied for peace and multiply our forces.”
He declared the Soviet people were interested in a “lasting and stable peace” and the treaties with Eastern Europe and the announced demobilization proved it. The difficulty of this peace policy, Marshal Bulganin continued, is that it is “resisted by imperialist and war propagandist blocs which are increasing their arms and breaking the peace obligations.”
“Our achievements have been great, but just as great are the tasks facing the Soviet people,” the Marshal declared.
Izveslia’s May-Day editorial was even stronger.
“The imperialistic beasts of prey again are shaking their weapons and want again to hurl humanity into sanguine butchery,” the Government newspaper said. It promised they would fail, thanks to the growing strength of socialism and democracy.
Izvestia said history would note what it called the failure of the capitalist countries to recover in three post-war years, while “we, with our own forces and our own funds, without the enslaving ‘assistance’ from the outside, are restoring and developing the economy and culture of our country.”
Two-Man Submarine Output
Chicago Tribune, May 4.—Berlin.—Russia is pushing production of miniature submarines, augmenting its present 2 to 1 numerical superiority over the American navy in underwater craft. Progress reports reach Berlin through German technicians employed in the Red production program.
These miniatures, called “seals” by their German designers, weigh less than 80 tons; have a two man crew; are 36 feet long; are armed with two torpedo tubes; have a cruising range of 620 miles, and carry supplies for three days at sea. They are for coastal operations.
At 2 Black Sea Ports
The fast little craft, with torpedoes as
deadly as those fired by a destroyer, are reported to be in production at Nikolaev and Odessa, two Black Sea ports.
The Soviet is also building military and naval establishments on the eastern end of the Black Sea, for defense of its own oil fields in the Caucasus or for launching an attack south on the Iran oil fields.
“Seals” are also reported in production at the big Soviet naval base on Kotlin Island at Kronstadt, near Leningrad. There the little submarines are being built for the Russian Baltic fleet. The “seals” could be moved to bases in the North Sea should the Soviet take the offensive.
The German navy had a high regard for the “seal” which was not shared earlier in the war by Hitler. Only two were available when the allies hit the Normandy beach in June, 1944. A former Reich naval strategist told this reporter that 500 “seals” would have defeated the Normandy invasion.
Hitler belatedly approved a German navy program for construction of 500 “seals.” The main building yards were in Elbing, East Prussia. There the Russians captured newly completed and half finished “seals,” the machinery for building them, and the blueprints for their construction.
The Soviet is also pushing production of another small submarine, 252 tons, of German design. These too are being built at Nikolaev.
At least two of these 252 tonners, say reliable reports, have been moved from the Black Sea to a base on the Adriatic coast of
Yugoslavia without violating the Dardanelles barrier. They went overland part of the way.
The Germans during the war got 252-ton submarines from the Adriatic into the Black Sea without passing through the Dardanelles. The Reds reportedly have used the same method and the same route in a reverse direction.
Or Doubtful Value
The craft, of shallow draft, were towed up the Danube river between the satellite states of Rumania and Bulgaria and thence into Yugoslavia and up the Sava river. There they were dismantled. In sections they were moved overland on vehicles like the United States army’s tank retrievers which could transport a 50-ton tank. Reassembled, they were floated down to the Adriatic.
Mystery of Merchant Marine
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 17.—Russia’s growing merchant marine, veiled in secrecy and seemingly shackled with incompetence, continues to perplex the world’s shipping industry, according to the American Merchant Marine Institute.
Now the fourth largest shipping nation in the world, the Soviet Union persists in its reticence concerning the movements of the 600 vessels flying its flag. International shipping publications such as Lloyd’s Register list the activities of only 110 Russian ships, and of the eighty-seven lend-leased by the United States, only twenty-three can be located at the moment, the institute said.
Those vessels whose movements can be traced show little concern for regular schedules or services, wandering over the world’s shipping lanes on what seem to be unusually long and uneconomic voyages. As a result, shipping men suspect that they serve primarily as training ships for the personnel Russia will need if her maritime ambitions are realized.
Long Lay-Overs Characteristic
Not so puzzling, however, is the Russian operative inefficiency and inability to make voyage repairs, which the institute attributes to strict state control of the merchant marine. Lengthy lay-overs in port have become characteristic of Soviet vessels, it says, and
points out that the first nine to dock in New York this year stayed in repair yards, shifted from pier to pier or lay idle for an average of twenty days.
The haphazard schedules and slim passenger lists of Russia’s liner Rossia, which operates between Odessa and New York, could only be possible in a government- operated merchant fleet, the institute notes.
According to the institute, Russia’s present maritime strength totals about 2,580,900 deadweight tons. This comprises units left from her pre-war fleet and those acquired from the United States through lend-lease and from Germany as war reparations. Besides the 16,000-ton Rossia, she has two other large liners, the Ilitch and Pobeda, whose whereabouts have been a mystery for several months. All were German-owned before the war.
The Soviet Union was offered the twin
24,0- ton liners Saturnia and Vulcania, taken as Italian war prizes by the United States, but refused them. They have been returned since to Italy.
Seeks 3rd-Place Ranking
Some information has also been made available on what the Russians plan for the future. Under an ambitious five-year shipbuilding program, instituted after the war, the Soviet Union hopes to gain 4,000,000 tons of new shipping, a 150 per cent increase that would rank her third among maritime nations.
Included among the estimated 1,300 vessels Russian yards would produce by 1950 are twenty-three different classes of cargo- passenger ships, freighters, tankers and tugs. All relatively small, none would exceed 450 feet in length. Their operations, it is expected, will be confined to the Far East, Siberia, the Baltic, and Russian waters, since the number of deep-sea vessels acquired from the United States precludes the need for new tonnage for the Atlantic routes.
Russia is also seeking to open the Arctic route from Murmansk to the Bering Straits to regular and frequent shipping. In addition, she has achieved considerable progress in restoring war-wrecked ports and shipyards and has established several new maritime training schools.
New Torpedo Boat
Manchester Guardian, April 22.—-News has come from Dessau that a new type torpedo-boat has been designed and built in the Soviet zone since the end of the war, and was given its first tests in the Baltic last week.
At the end of last year two such boats had been completed in Rosslau, a suburb of Dessau on the River Elbe. The hulls are of hydrofoil design and are fitted with two floats on which the boat rides when travelling at high speed. The German Navy was experimenting with similar craft at the end of the war, but these boats have been redesigned and improved by draughtsmen formerly employed in the Junkers aircraft factory at Dessau.
The design and construction in Germany of boats primarily used for war purposes is contrary to the Potsdam agreement.
Bonds and Lotteries
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 4.—Moscow. —The government announced today its third annual 20,000,000,000 ruble bond issue to help finance the current Five-Year Plan for the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet Union’s economy.
As in the last two issues, the bonds mature in twenty years and, instead of paying interest, give each bondholder the right to participate in lotteries to be held twice each year during the life of the bonds for a total of 66,000,000 prizes.
The total prize money for the lotteries amounts to 18,000,000,000 rubles, which is roughly 4 per cent interest on the bond issue. The bond purchasers thus in effect actually wager the twenty-year interest on their investment for cash prizes.
Each 100 ruble bond, or fraction thereof, gives the purchaser the chance to win up to 50,000 rubles. The bonds are issued in denominations of 500, 200, 100, 50 and 25 rubles.
Former Finance Minister A. G. Zverez, in announcing the bond issue last year, said the entire five-year reconstruction plan involves 250,000,000,000 rubles in centralized capital investments, or an average of 50,000000,000 rubles annually.
He also reported that the public had subscribed to 52,000,000,000 rubles’ worth of state bonds since the end of the war.
The annual bond issue is usually subscribed within one day as a result of a well organized campaign.
(Editor’s Note: There’s a way to keep taxes down.)
OTHER COUNTRIES Belgium
La Revue Maritime, January, 1948.—- The Belgian government recently purchased an American frigate of 1,430 tons, the Sheboygan. The vessel was renamed the Lieutenant V. Billet in memory of a valiant officer of the Belgian navy who was killed during the raid on Dieppe August 19, 1942. The little Belgian navy includes besides this frigate, 2 despatch vessels, the Atervelde of 1,600 tons, and the Zinnia of 1,200 tons, 8 minesweepers of the M.M.S. type, 2 rapid torpedo vedettes, and an old British “Boom- Defense-Vessel.”
Greece
N. Y. Times, April 25.—Guns of the Greek Navy are bombarding a force of 2,500 guer- rilas in the south central area of Greece not far from the Gulf of Corinth, a General Staff communique said today.
The naval units joined the Army and Air Force to make it a three-pronged attack on the Communist-led guerrillas.
The communique gave no details of the naval attack,jbut a front-line correspondent for the newspaper Ethnos said he saw the destroyers Themistocles and Hastings in the Gulf of Corinth send shells into guerrilla positions west of Lidoriki, on the western wing of a front extending to Agrapha, sixty miles to the northeast.
About 600 of the 2,500 guerrillas were reported in the area of Lidoriki, which lies about fifteen miles inland from the coast and ninety-five miles northwest of Athens.
A press report said 1,500 guerrillas were under attack on Mount Vardoussia, one of four strategic heights held by the Communist- led fighters.
A qualified source said 450 guerrillas have been killed thus far in the spring offensive launched by the three divisions of the Greek First Corps in this area.
The Ethnos correspondent said Greek Air Force planes aided the naval bombardment by making strafing runs.
The guerrillas were reported driving women and children ahead of them. Government planes were said to have dropped messages advising these refugees to make their way to Army lines, and to display white clothing as neutrals.
Aiding the ground forces near Lidoriki were former guerrillas, who are now fighting on the side of the Government.
A battalion of these “converts” inflicted heavy losses on a guerrilla band northwest of Agrinion, killing seventy-five and wounding scores more, said advices reaching Athens.
AVIATION
Navy Jets in Fleet Service
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 10.—Jet fighter operation from aircraft carriers, the Navy announced today, has now passed out of the experimental realm and has taken its place as a routine function of the service.
It added that the latest type jets, currently being delivered, are “the equal of reciprocating-engine types in take-off and climb performance,” so that deck launchings are no longer a problem, and that they vastly exceed the old-style conventional fighter in speed.
The announcement followed a series of landing exercises last week aboard the carrier Saipan off the Quonset Point, R. I., Naval Air Base by Fighting Squadron VF-17A, the first all-jet unit in Naval aviation’s history. These constituted the carrier qualification trials for the squadron’s twenty-one pilots whose “graduation” performance was witnessed on Thursday by a large group of aviation writers and photographers.
Mishap During Landings
Both the pilots and their McDonnell Phantom FH-1 twin-Westinghouse-engine fighters went through their paces without mishap. However, the demonstration was marred after it was over and all sixteen of the squadron’s planes were on their way back to their base at Quonset. The Phantoms already had entered the landing pattern around the field when one of them apparently collided with
the tail surfaces of the plane flown by Commander Ralph A. Fuoss, the squadron leader.
Operations aboard the Saipan included both catapult and normal unassisted deck take-offs by the jet fighters. The latter were managed comfortably although most of them required all of the flight deck space available. This was attributed to the fact that the Phantom is now considered “underpowered” by the Navy because of advances made in jet-engine design in the two years that have elapsed since it was first put in experimental and shore-based service.
Reporters were also told that the stamina and reliability of the Phantom’s power plants have improved greatly so that they are capable of 200 hours continuous flight service between overhauls—a “phenomenal” achievement for this type engine.
Many New Problems
The Navy already is planning to replace its Phantoms as shipboard fighters with the more powerful McDonnell Banshee as soon as it has built up more all-jet squadrons, using the present planes primarily as trainers. Both planes are of the same general type with their small-diameter, axial-flow West- inghouse engines neatly buried in the wing roots at either side of the fuselage. This close- in power plant installation makes them particularly easy to fly in the event one engine fails—a primary consideration in over-water operation. ’
Because of the jet plane’s high fuel consumption at low altitudes, Navy officials said it might eventually be necessary to give up the present low-level carrier approach circle for one thousands of feet in the air and possibly many miles away from the mother ship. This is one of the many problems incident to the change-over from conventional-type aircraft which Fighting Squadron VF-17A was organized to solve.
While the Navy described this unit as the first of its sort in the world, it said that many carrier take-offs and landings previously had been made by individual aircraft of this type. The first was made Dec. 3, 1945, aboard a British aircraft carrier, the Navy following suit in August, 1946, with one of its first Phantoms flown by Lieutenant Commander Jim Davidson. Three months
later, Lieutenant Colonel Marion E. Carl, of the Marine Corps, repeated this performance with a borrowed Air Force Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.
In March, 1948, Commander E. P. Aur- and and Lieutenant Commander Robert Elder made similar take-offs and landings aboard the carrier, Boxer, off the Pacific Coast with two of the Navy’s FJ-1 North American Fury fighters.
Aircraft at Army War Games
N. Y. Times, May 12.—By Hanson Baldwin.—Camp Campbell, Ky.—Some of the world’s largest, smallest and strangest aircraft were on display here today as the Army and the Air Force gave a preview of the shape of things to come.
“Exercise Assembly”—the nation’s largest post-war maneuvers—continued in the rain- drenched fields and woods of this great military reservation on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, but hundreds of officers assembled at the airfield to inspect the aircraft that will increase the air transportability of the Army of tomorrow.
The demonstration was marred—but brought to a smashing climax—when a
6,0- pound 105 mm. howitzer, ejected from a C-82 cargo plane flying about 1,200 feet above the airfield, crashed when its two giant 100-foot chutes failed to open. The gun turned over in mid-air and then smashed deep into the earth—parts and pieces flying ■—in full view of the spectators’ stand 800 yards away. A 3,000 pound jeep, lowered by one 100-foot chute was ejected from the same plane, and its open chute bore it gently and easily to earth.
New System Glider Stop
A new “Buck Rogers” method of bringing a troop-laden, or cargo-carrying glider to a quick stop in a small landing space was also successfully demonstrated.
A CG-15-A glider—standard glider now used by the airborne troops—was taken aloft to mid-air by a tow plane, utilizing a short four-foot rigid steel tow bar. The glider cast off in mid-air, circled and banked and swept low toward a landing. When it was a couple of feet off the ground and flying at perhaps 55 miles an hour, the pilot fired two “guns.” The guns were steel tubes set at angles on either side of the fuselage. Each contained a black powder charge. The detonation of the charge fired two forty-eight-inch steel spikes deep into the ground.
Attached to the spikes, and to the glider by steel bridles, was a fifty-four foot length of “unylon” or undressed nylon rope. This rope has great flexibility and can stretch about 400 per cent of its original length without breaking.
As the glider landed the rope was paid out from the fast-moving craft. The flexible rope stretched and snubbed the glider to a quick but gentle halt in approximately 200 to 300 feet.
Trends in Gliders Shown
The aircraft shown here today—and others not here but described—indicated clearly the nature of trends in airborne and air transportable development.
On the one hand glider development is continuing, and a new all-metal 25,000 pound gross weight glider, the Chase CG-18- A, with a cargo capacity of 8,000 pounds— or thirty fully equipped men—is now ready for service. On the other hand this basic glider—or an even bigger version, with a
16,0- pound payload—the CG-20-A—are to be equipped with two engines and developed as aerial “assault transports” in efforts to eliminate the glider from the lexicon of airborne troopers.
Other efforts to eliminate, or supplement, gliders contemplate the use of helicopters— a Kellett with twin counter-rotating rotors, capable of lifting ten soldiers with equipment—was demonstrated.
The so-called “flying crane,” a powerful
jet-driven helicopter, capable of lifting a truck across a river or heavy five-ton loads for short distances—is now under evolution. At the same time new and bigger planes with special cargo-loading and cargo-carrying features are under development.
The Fairchild C-119-A, improved and more powerful version of the C-28 packet— troop-carrying and cargo-carrying aircraft— also was on display.
Not shown, but now successfully tested is the C-82 equipped with tracked landing gear, which is fully retractable. This gear, instead of wheels, permits landings in rough terrain, even over small logs. Some thirteen C-82 track-gear sets have been contracted for, and at least eight C-82’s are to be equipped with the new landing device, which potentially increases greatly the strategic mobility of an air force. The tracked gear, however, is still under development and it has some considerable disadvantages; it tends to slither and “crab” in mud or on very wet fields, and the present installation outweighs the conventional gear by more than 1,000 pounds.
A Swivel Landing Gear
Another new type of landing gear, developed by Goodyear for the Civil Aeronautics Commission, is the caster-type gear. The plane’s wheels swivel, or turn, in any direction like the casters on an office chair; and this permits cross-wind, quartering-wind or down-wind take-offs and landings without much danger. Potentially this equipment promises a great safety improvement both in military and commercial planes.
As yet, however, this item also weighs more than the conventional gear; in the case of the C-47 or DC-3 demonstrated here, the excess weight amounts to about 110 pounds.
Giant new planes, like the Boeing C-97-A —the military cargo version of the B-50 super-fortress—also indicate a trend.
This plane, which is likely to be the long- range-high-speed cargo “workhorse” of the Air Force of tomorrow, can carry about 134 fully equipped troops or two 155-mm. howitzers. It has a 5,000-pound hoist; loading is up a 24-degree ramp—to be decreased to 13 degrees in later versions—in the rear. It is neon lighted, and soundproofed with fiberglass.
Air Base Problems for B-36
N. Y. Herald Tribune, April 25.—The Air Force is trying to find out what kind of air base the B-36 needs.
There has been a general impression that only three or four airports in the United States can handle the 278,000-pound plane, which is the largest bomber in the world. If that were true, it might sharply limit the use of the B-36, which the Air Force says can carry a bomb 10,000 miles. And it would also mean a tremendous job of building bases.
However, the early impressions about B-36 runway requirements were based largely on its original landing gear. The two main wheels were just over nine feet in diameter. Each tire weighed 1,400 pounds and each inner tube 225 pounds.
But since the first B-36 rolled out, the landing gear has been changed to one which uses four wheels on each side. It is known as a dual tandem or truck-type gear. Each tire is fifty-six inches in diameter.
The new-type gear distributes the load over a much larger area and reduces the runway strength requirement. Furthermore, it weighs 2,600 pounds less than the original gear. Roland G. Mayer, manager of the Consolidated Vultee plant at Fort Worth, where nearly twenty of the 139-ton bombers have been built, says the B-36 can use any airport which the B-29 or its successor, the B-50, can use.
Air Force officials say that this is probably true, but they are not willing to state it as a fact until tests with the new landing gear are completed by the Air Material Command at Wright Field, Ohio.
Meanwhile, design studies are being made of a track-tread or caterpillar-type landing gear—resembling a tank track—for use on the B-36. Such a gear is now being adapted to a smaller plane. With the track tread, a large plane may be able to land on a firm beach, in a large field or on snow. Some officials say preliminary indications are that big planes will be able to fly out of mud fields.
Prospects are that track treads will provide much better braking than wheels, and cause little loss of efficiency on the takeoff. The B-36 is designed to take off from a 5,000- foot runway, but it is likely to be operated only from much longer runways. Those at the big air bases in Maine, South Dakota and Alaska have 10,000-foot strips.
Runways are a relatively simple part of the B-36 basing effort. This giant has a wing span of 236 feet and is 163 feet long. Its tail rises 47£ feet. Its big belly holds 72,000 pounds of bombs, and the tanks in its wings hold 21,116 gallons of gasoline and 1,200 gallons of oil.
Storage tanks for a group of thirty planes in peace time of such bombers would be tremendous. Work stands to permit reaching engines, propeller and tail section and fueling connections are larger than for other planes, and special equipment is being designed. The cost of such equipment and the limited number of B-36s on order make it unlikely that many bases will be equipped to house the new bomber.
(Editor’s Note: See last month’s Proceedings for planned construction.)
M.A.T.S.
Aviation Week, May 17.—The Military Air Transport Service will begin operations June 1 as the consolidated scheduled airline for the National Defense Establishment and all other governmental agencies.
Operation of all scheduled air transportation over trunklines for the three military services and other government agencies; carrying on certain feederline and nonsched- uled operations (non-tactical) and air evacuation of hospital patients.
Provide global Air Force communications, weather service, air-sea rescue service and operation of all primary facilities required to provide these services.
Maintain liaison with civil air transport to plan utilization of civil facilities during wartime; organize an air transport reserve and exchange information on such subjects as equipment maintenance procedures and technique.
MATS will not operate all military air transport. Biggest surprise of the agreement worked out between John Nicholas Brown and C. V. Whitney, Assistant Secretaries of the Navy and Air Force respectively, was the Navy’s retention of more than 50 per cent of NATS planes and personnel.
Navy Keeps Transports—Navy will keep
45 of NATS 84 C-54s, both Lockheed Constitutions not yet delivered; the four Martin Mars flying boats now operating between the Pacific Coast and Hawaii and 3200 persons out of NATS total strength of 6200. The Air Force will retain 72 four-engined transports out of ATC’s present 251.
MATS will begin operations with 215 four-engine transports, principally C-54’s with a few Boeing Stratocruisers (C-97) and Douglas Globemasters (C-74). It will operate a globe-girdling route across the North Atlantic, along the North African littoral, through the Middle East to India and across China and the Pacific. North- south routes run from Thule in northern Greenland to Rio de Janeiro. MATS will operate an extensive route pattern in the Arctic, much larger than wartime operations in that area.
Navy Feederlines—Navy will continue to operate feederlines branching from main MATS trunklines to areas used solely by the Navy. These feederlines will include runs from Samoa and Midway to Hawaii, east and west coastal routes in the United States, spurs to Guantanamo in Cuba and Argentia in Newfoundland. Both the Air Force and Navy will operate their own tactical air lift.
Typical Consolidation—Typical of early attempts at NATS-ATC consolidation in MATS is the handling of the crack transcontinental nonstop flights of both services. NATS operated the Hot-shot six times weekly between Moffett Field and Washington while ATC’s Statesman flew three times a week from Fairfield-Suisum to Washington. Both services operated at 100 per cent load factor so they will be continued as a nine-flights-a-week MATS schedule using Air Force and Navy planes and crews. Washington terminal operations have already been consolidated at the former ATC National Airport Terminal. A study is now under way to determine whether Fairfield or Moffett will best serve the San Francisco area. When this study is completed the Pacific Coast terminals also will be consolidated.
Varying Efficiency—One of the big problems in MATS will be determining the degree of economy and increased efficiency to be derived from the consolidation. NATS under
the command of Rear Admiral John W. Reeves, Jr., produced operational statistics that indicated a far greater efficiency than the record offered by ATC. In many cases ATC was unable to produce statistics covering the same ground as those of NATS.
Forrestal has directed that MATS submit quarterly reports on its operations to afford a yardstick by which to measure its progress. Gen. Kuter has indicated the NATS statistical methods have been closely studied and will probably be incorporated in the management of MATS.
An air transport board composed of representatives of Air Force, Navy and Army will be the final arbiter on all inter-service disputes concerning MATS operations.
Thunder Jets in Service
Aviation Week, April 26.—Bangor,
Me.—Republic’s P-84B Thunderjet fighter is now completely operational and has been declared ready for combat with the 14th Fighter Wing at this northeast bastion of the Air Defense Command. With a top speed of 590 mph., a service ceiling of 40,000 ft. and a range of 1000 mi., the Thunderjet is now in quantity production at the Farming- dale, L. I., N. Y., plant of Republic Aviation Corp.
The full complement of 78 Thunderjet interceptors now is in service with the 14th Fighter Wing. In addition, the 20th Fighter Wing, Tactical Air Command, Shaw Field S. C., and the 33rd Fighter Wing, Strategic Air Command, Roswell AF Base, N. M., are slated to receive fighter-bomber versions of the Thunderjet as they leave the assembly line. Three other fighter wings, not yet selected, will complete acceptance of the 600 Thunderjets currently under procurement.
New Armament—The P-84B is armed with six 50-cal. M3 aircraft machine guns with a rate-of-fire of 12-1300 rounds per minute, a 50 per cent increase in fire rate over wartime 50-cal. guns. Four of the Thunderjet guns are mounted in the nose and one is located in each wing root. The jet fighter has been certified operational with both aircraft rockets and a 2000 lb. bomb load. It features a pressurized, temperature-controlled cabin, retractable fuselage air brake and jettisonable wing-tip fuel tanks.
The pencil-slim fighter cruises at 500 mph. and lands at about 150 mph. Takeoff run to clear a 50 ft. obstacle varies from 3800 ft. at an airplane weight of 13,000 lb. to 7000 ft. at a weight of 15,000 lb. The GE-Allison J-35-A-15 turbojet engine is rated at 4000 lb. static thrust at an engine speed of 7600 rpm. Limit maneuvering load factor for P-84 pilots is 6G and maximum permissible dive speed is Mach number 0.8 or about 610 mph. at sea level under standard atmospheric conditions.
Weather Tests—The 14th Fighter Group, commanded by Col. Loring F. Stetson, Jr., received its first Thunder jet fighter last November, just in time to experience some of the worst weather ever recorded in Maine. Temperatures as low as —30 degrees F. were common at Dow Field last winter. Under the most adverse operational conditions, the group trained most of its own pilots at Dow, many of whom had not previously flown jet aircraft.
70 Group Program
New Funds Will Buy 4262 Planes
With higher appropriations, USAF plans procurement of 2727 craft, mostly jet fighters. Navy to order 1535.
Aviation Week. May 17—Final Congressional approval was given last week to the bill scheduled to pour $3,198,000,000 into the aircraft industry during the next fiscal year.
USAF will get $2,295,000,000 including procurement of 2727 new planes. Naval Aviation is authorized $905,000,000 to buy 1535 new planes (Aviation Week May 10). The 2727 new USAF planes made possible by Congressional boosts in procurement funds contrast with the 978 planes authorized in the original Presidential budget for fiscal 1949.
The Air Force plans to buy 243 bombers; 1575 jet fighters and 909 miscellaneous types including photo-reconnaissance, transport, training, rescue and liaison planes.
Testimony by Air Secretary W. Stuart Symington and other Air Force procurement officials indicated the following distribution of contracts:
Fighters—Republic P-84; North American sweptwing P-86 and the Lockheed P-80 C with an Allison 400 jet engine, will rate new production orders as the standard USAF interceptors. Curtis-Wright will get a production order for about 80 of its four-jet P-87 all-weather fighters. Lockheed and Republic fighter production will continue through 1950.
Bombers—Boeing B-50C will be the standard long range bomber with the four jet North American B-45A continuing as the prime short range bomber for the Tactical Air Force. Production contracts for a new multi-jet medium bomber design competition recently completed will not be made before the fiscal 1950 budget. North American, Convair, Northrop and Douglas all had entries in this competition.
Long Range Reconnaissance—Republic will get its long awaited order for more than 20 four engine F-12 long range photo planes.
Transports—Bulk of new USAF long range transports will be Boeing C-97s with Fairchild C-119 replacing the C-82 for troop carrier use. Some twin-engine transports will be purchased for feederline operations not included in MATS and tactical air transport.
Trainers—North American recently won the Air Force design competition for the new high speed trainer but production orders for this plane may be farmed out among several other manufacturers who have no military models available for production. Douglas, which submitted a radically-designed pusher plane in this competition, may be among the trainer sub-contractors. Initial order will be for close to 500 planes. Some jet trainer types will also be purchased.
Symington indicated that all but 95 of the planes purchased with fiscal 1949 funds would be delivered before the end of fiscal 1950. He promised Congressional leaders that all of the funds made available would be spent during fiscal 1949. Included in the 1949 budget is a $10,300,000 item for production of guided missiles.
To Buy Tooling—The Air Force offered a detailed breakdown on the additional $822,000,000 added by Congress to the original Presidential budget but claimed a similar breakdown for its entire procurement budget was still a military secret. Air Force officials
Type of Squadron U. E. ^ Test Total
explained that they had been obliged to compromise security of the supplemental appropriation to push their case before Congress.
Procurement of new planes will eat up 52 per cent of the $822,000,000 with 21 percent earmarked for modernization of aircraft now in production. Tooling for additional production required in subsequent years by the 70-Group Air Force program will require 18 per cent. In this connection Air Force Comptroller Lieut. Gen. Edward Rawlings reveals that sufficient tooling would be purchased for Boeing to boost B-50 production from its current 2-3 planes per month to a potential of 47 planes monthly. Subcontracting to avoid the expense of putting new plants into operation will take 9 per cent of the additional funds.
1952 Deadline—Symington emphasized that the new Air Force procurement program was merely the beginning of the five-year 70-Group program. Earliest deadline is the end of 1952.
Both House and Senate concurred in tacking renegotiation provisions onto the aircraft procurement bill and requiring quarterly reports from the Secretary of National Defense on the funds expended by the end of each quarter. As settled by a joint conference, renegotiation provisions now apply to contractors who do more than $100,000 worth of business annually from funds appropriated in this bill.
| Program |
|
|
|
|
Type of Group | No. of it p Units U- E' | Total U. E. | Pipe line | Test | Total |
II/M Bomber...... | 21 30 | 630* | 63 | 16 | 709 |
VLR Weather..... | 2 36 | 72 | 7 | 2 | 81 |
VLR Photo........ | 2 36 | 72 | 7 | 2 | 81 |
VLR Mapping.... | 1 36 | 36 | 4 | 1 | 41 |
Fighter (Day)..... Fighter (Allvveather) | 22 75 3 36 | 1,650 108 | 165 11 | 83 6 | 1,898 125 |
Light Bomber.... | 5 (3)« 48 | 240 | 24 | 12 | 276 |
Recon (Tactical). .. | 4 54 | 216 | 21 | 10 | 247 |
Cargo (Medium). .. | 6 (5)** 48 | 288 | 29 | 14 | 331 |
Cargo (Heavy).... | 4 (3)** 36 | 144 | 15 | 7 | 166 |
| 70 Groups |
|
|
| 3,955 |
* Including 6 medium bomber groups augmented with reserve and a tanker squadron.
** Under 66-Group program.
Emergency Rescue...... 6 36 216 22 9 247
Liaison..................... 12 16 192 19 10 221
Tow Target................ 2 9 18 2 1 21
Geodetic Control......... 1 16 16 2 2 20
Photo Mapping (Special) 1 12 12 1 (Equipped with
— Second Line Aircraft)
22 Squadrons
MATS.................... _____ 411
Training................... — — — — — 1,994
Total...................... — — _ _ 6,869
Private Flyers’ Skyway
N. Y. Herald Tribune, April 24.—Washington.—The Wright Skyway from this city to Los Angeles, envisioned as America’s first well-marked transcontinental “highway of the air” for private flyers, will be dedicated tomorrow in ceremonies across the nation.
Delos W. Rentzel, who has been nominated by President Truman to be Civil Aeronautics Administrator, will dedicate the Atlantic Coast terminal of the skyway in ceremonies here at the National Airport. James H. Doolittle, former Air Force lieutenant general, will head the dedication ceremonies at Dayton, Ohio, birthplace of the Wright brothers, for whom the aerial highway is named.
There will be other dedication ceremonies at Oklahoma City, Los Angeles and many of the other 1,500 cities and towns located inside the forty-mile-wide path of Skyway One —the C. A. A.’s official designation for the private plane airlane.
The western section runs from Los Angeles to Abilene, Tex., where pilots flying the skyway have the option of two routes. The northern route passes over Oklahoma City, Tulsa, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Dayton and Pittsburgh on the way to Washington, while the southern route is by way of Fort Worth, Dallas, Shreveport, La; Jackson, Miss.; Montgomery, Ala.; Atlanta, Greenville, S. C., Greensboro, N. C., and Richmond.
The skyway, which passes along established Federal airways, is intended solely for contact flying and the terrain it covers is the best adapted to that type of aviation operations.
Preliminary plans and work of marking the skyway already is underway under the sponsorship of the C. A. A., state aviation commissions, aeronautical organizations and regional and local Chambers of Commerce.
A survey of a part of the Wright Skyway today in the New York Herald Tribune’s Flying Newsroom, a Lockheed Lodestar, disclosed several newly-painted markers conforming with the C. A. A.’s standard specifications. These call for sign posts along the private flyers’ airlane to spell out the name of a community in letters at least ten feet high.
The latitude and longitude of the community are given adjoining an arrow pointing to true north. Another arrow points to the nearest airport and gives in easily distinguished numerals the miles to the flying field.
Eventually it is hoped to have more than 5,000 signs on roofs, towers and other prominent spots along the Wright Skyway to help keep pilots on course. Only a part of these already have been finished according to Jesse M. Hadley, chairman of the aviation Committee of the Washington Board of Trade, who explained that after tomorrow’s dedication ceremonies special efforts would be made to push the project to completion.
Meteor Fighter Squadron 12
The Aeroplane, April 19.—First duty of the Royal Air Force to-day is to defend this country against attack. That responsibility has to be carried in the first instance by Fighter Command. Consequently, special interest attaches to the demonstration given last week at Horsham St. Faith, near Norwich, by squadrons of No. 12 Fighter Group. Indeed, the general public, after watching the Meteor IV at innumerable flying displays, may be forgiven for forgetting that the Gloster Meteor was designed to intercept enemy attacks by day or night. The demonstration showed how well the R.A.F. handles its jet-powered equipment. It is worth pointing out that the jet fighters of the Royal Air Force are, in the opinion of those who should know, the finest fighters in the World.
Besides the chance to see the activities of 12 Group we were also shown around the R.A.F. station; afforded a chance to see some actual exercises in progress; and introduced to the less spectacular, but none the less important, second-line squadron. There was also plenty of evidence to show that the system of “planned maintenance,” first initiated at this airfield, is a marked success.
Fighter Defence Factors
Air Vice-Marshal T. C. Traill, C. B., O.B. E., D.F.C., the Air Officer Commanding No. 12 Group, is, in common with the rest of Fighter Command, faced with the usual peace-time dilemma. The R.A.F. has to be at the peak of efficiency (as the first attack against this country would come from the air), yet there is no indication of the type of warfare which would mark the opening phase of another conflict.
Since the War, it has been assumed that in the Meteor IV we have an aircraft capable of destroying effectively attacks by all known types of enemy bombers—at any rate those fitted with piston engines. This claim is one which can be soberly made and is not a loose expression of the air power represented by squadrons of Meteors placed at different strategic places. At the same time it should not be thought that all piston- engined bombers are necessarily easy to destroy. Trials in America have shown that the speed of the Boeing B-50 at 35,000 feet is such that unless an interception is perfectly planned without the smallest error by either the radar teams or by the pilot, even jet fighters will miss their chance to intercept. The B-50 is mentioned because General Spaatz said recently the Russians may, by now, have a bomber fleet of “Superfortress-copies” of considerable dimensions.
This, therefore, is the sort of thing that No. 12 Group is up against. Indications are that the exceptional performance at altitude of the Meteor IV does guarantee a degree of real security. At Horsham St. Faith we watched some formation take-offs, individual aerobatics and formation aerobatics by two Meteors. The leader was British and the second man—who, of course, had the harder task of formating—was an American pilot based with 12 Group under the exchange of pilots system which exists between the U.S.A.F. and the R.A.F. The military significance in the amusing hesitation rolls, the aerobatics and formation flying, is that the pilots, after only some 50 hours of flying on most of the aircraft, seem to have gained complete confidence of their mounts. It was also quite obvious that everybody in the various squadrons which comprise 12 Group is intensely keen on their jobs—which is not surprising considering the quality of the equipment.
We arrived at the Station in a V.I.P. York which was intercepted by two Meteors some 50 miles off the coast near Yarmouth. The
initial attack consisted of a couple of tremendous sweeps. From the York, all that could be seen was a brief flash of silver before the aircraft disappeared out of sight. The speed of the first attack was most salutary. The York was cruising at some 200 m.p.h., and we were, of course, a “dead duck,” but one experienced an extraordinary sense of helplessness in the face of fighters with such a difference in performance. After we had been well and truly shot down the Meteors came up and formated with us for a little while.
Later we saw an interception exercise in which the “bomber” was represented by a Spitfire. Earlier, somebody had remarked how leggy and prop-conscious the Spitfire had seemed standing among the Meteors, which looked like silver fish on their bellies in the grass.
Attacks are carried out at speed—elapsed times of minutes have been recorded from the take-off to the kill at 15,000 ft. Some very fast scrambles can be made—the starting operations taking 30 seconds and the aircraft can be hurriedly trundled along to the downwind end of the runway without the usual ignition and power checks and without warming up. If the aircraft happen to be dispersed near the downwind end (as they would be in an emergency), it will be evident how quickly the aircraft could be flown away, and they can reach 25,000 ft. in about six minutes or less,
We were told of some new methods in the control and reporting of aircraft which have been evolved due to quickened tempo of operations. The early warning information received at the reporting stations is passed over land lines to the control stations, where it is filtered ahd identified before being presented to the fighter controllers.
The Fighter Command control and reporting organization is the medium through which all air defences of the country are coordinated. Fighters, A. A. guns, and civil defences and, to some extent, the Army and Navy, all depend op the complex and widespread system for the early warning of the approach of enemy aircraft, flying bombs, rockets and ships. And it is at the master radar stations that the interception is controlled; the nearest unit to Horsham St.
Faith is No. 3620 (Norwich) Air Defence Unit, with headquarters at Norwich.
British Jets Finish Arctic Tests
Chicago Tribune, May 18.—Ottawa.— British and Canadian technicians have just concluded the most comprehensive cold weather tests ever attempted on jet aircraft and have established that Britain’s Vampire and Meteor jet fighters are capable of unusually high performance under arctic conditions, it was disclosed here today.
Full reports on the tests, conducted at Watson Lake, B.C., and Churchill, Manitoba have been requested by the United States, and will be sent to Washington this month.
The reports consist of 16 volumes, and are described as “a best-seller of the secret list,” so great has been the demand for copies.
1
Conduct Tests Three Years
The tests have been going on for three years at the most northerly testing stations in the empire.
Aircraft tested during the past winter included the Lincoln and Lancaster bombers, the North Star transport (a Canadian adaptation of the DC-4, equipped with Rolls Royce Engines), the Dakota, the Sea Fury and the Sea Hornet fighters, the Meteor and Vampire jet fighters, the Firefly, the Mustang, and the Proctor Prentice trainer.
In addition to tests on these aircraft under arctic conditions, general research was carried out on instruments and electrical equipment, ground handling, radio equipment, armament, emergency equipment and clothing.
Group Capt. C. W. Crossland, one of the Canadian officers directing “wee flight”— winter experimental establishment—said the main problems are maintaining the aircraft on the ground in arctic conditions, and getting the aircraft started. “In this respect,” he said, “we have found the Meteor and Vampire jets easier to work with than any other aircraft. They start beautifully in the coldest weather we have been able to find even after they have been left out all night, unsheltered.”
The Watson lake experimenters last winter made available to United States army air force testers in Alaska details of a
British designed gasoline filter for jet planes to prevent moisture formation in fuel tanks.
Training Flight to Singapore
London Times, April 23.—-Next Wednesday an R.A.F. squadron will leave this country as a completely self-contained unit on a training mission to Singapore. The aircrews will travel in their Lincoln II bombers, and the ground crews and stores will be carried in York aircraft of R.A.F. Transport Command. The operation is part of the R.A.F. training to make squadrons so mobile that they can be transferred to the other side of the globe as a striking force at short notice. No. 97 (Straits Settlements) Squadron has been selected for the exercise.
De Havilland DH 108 Speed Record
Engineering, April 23.—The de Havilland Aircraft Company have announced that, subject to confirmation by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the international speed record around a closed circuit of 100 km. was raised to 605.23 miles an hour on Monday, April 12, by a de Havilland DH 108 aircraft. The speed attained is more than 40 miles an hour faster than that set up recently by the Vicker’s Supermarine Attacker aircraft which, in turn, obtained the record from a Gloster Meteor. The aircraft was entered jointly by the Ministry of Supply and the de Havilland Aircraft Company, Limited, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and was piloted by Mr. John Derry, D.F.C., an experimental pilot of the de Havilland team. An interesting feature is that the DH 108 is not a machine designed specially for record breaking,' but is an aircraft of relatively light wing loading which has been designed for development work in connection with the DH 106, a projected pure-jet transport machine. Actually, the wing loading of the DH 108 is lower than that for the Vampire fighter, a machine of comparable size and fitted with the same type of engine, namely, the Goblin. The engine fitted to the recordbreaking machine, however, is of the latest mark; unfortunately the output of this engine may not be disclosed, but it can be stated that it is considerably more than the 3,300 lb. static thrust developed by the
Mark 3 Goblin, now in production. The DH 108 aircraft which achieved the record is one of three tailless machines which have been built for research purposes, primarily the investigation of control characteristics of the swept-back wing at high and low speeds. The span and length are 39 ft. and 24 ft. 6 in., respectively. The course used for the flight was an irregular pentagon and was chosen for the distinctiveness of the landmarks. The turns ranged from 65 to 90 degrees and were taken at approximately 3^ g, so that inevitably some distance was lost at each turn.
Training of Air- and Ground-Crews for Civil Airlines
Engineering, April 16.—Airways Training, Limited, at Aldermaston Aerodrome, Berkshire, is the organization which was set up by British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways to provide advanced training for prospective civil aircrews and ground staff. Since its formation in 1945, it has been mainly responsible for training selected Royal Air Force personnel, and over 1,000 captains and first officers have already passed through its various schools, and attained the standards demanded by B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. These two corporations having recruited most of the trained operational staff they need for their present commitments, it is now possible to offer the facilities at Aldermaston to other airline operators, and to consider training courses which will suit their special requirements.
The facilities at Aldermaston are well adapted for the needs of foreign and Dominion airline operators as well as those of this country. There is a three-runway airfield with a primary runway 2,000 yards long, and the latest blind-flying approach-aids are installed. These include ground control approach, standard beam approach, and high- frequency direction-finding systems. Instruction in the use of these is given by the radio and radar sections, which contain link trainers, signal briefing rooms, and equipment arranged for demonstration and testing. The navigation section has a wide range of instruments such as automatic pilots, distant reading compasses, and deviascopes
together with working models and rigs designed to show their operation and performance in practice. The engineering department gives instruction in the maintenance of various types of civil aircraft, including the engines, propellers, and the accessory electrical and hydraulic gear. Various types of aircraft are also stationed at the aerodrome to give the necessary flying experience; and maintenance work, including minor repairs, is carried out on aircraft brought in for servicing.
MERCHANT MARINE Federal Yard Sold to Navy
Marine Progress, May 1948.—The sale of the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company yard at Kearny to the U. S. Navy for the nominal sum of $2,375,000 was announced by the U. S. Steel Corporation, parent company of Federal.
With the sale the shipyard organized in 1917 and active in ship construction in two wars, passed out of the commercial picture. The Navy has some millions of dollars invested in facilities at the yard and it is planned to keep the plant in reserve for future needs.
The company is making arrangements to provide jobs for the employees who will be out of work because of the sale. There will be enough detail attending the transfer to keep a fairly large staff at work for some time before the last Federal employee leaves.
The Navy, it is understood, will lease the facilities to any industrial user provided that ways and other shipbuilding equipment be kept in a state of readiness.
Navy to Retain Drydocks
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 10.—The Maritime Commission has virtually abandoned plans to use Navy drydocks for work at merchant marine reserve ship fleet sites as a result of information from Vice Admiral Earle W. Mills, chief of the Navy Bureau of Ships, that the drydocks are not surplus.
The commission was contemplating a program of using drydocks built for the Navy during the war to accomplish bottom inspection and preservation of vessels in permanent reserve at the fleet sites. This was opposed by the ship-repair industry which
asserted that cost of installing the drydocks and men to work them at the sites would wipe out any savings that might be effected.
Admiral Mills, in testimony at an open hearing on Wednesday in Washington, indicated that the drydocks might not be available. He was testifying on proposals to use a site in Astoria, Ore., as a permanent reserve fleet site.
Admiral Mills’ office later reported that the five drydocks in question never were declared surplus although there have been several conferences between the Navy and the Maritime Commission on their disposition. The Navy is reviewing its strategical dry-docking needs in light of the stepped-up defense program. The disposition of the dry- docks will not be decided until completion of the review, it was said.
New Liner Plans
Marine Progress, April 1948.—A new ship is in that indefinite stage between the original idea and the hard fact of keel plates on the building ways. United States Lines announced its being on April 5 at the offices of Gibbs & Cox, naval architects and present at the preview of the model and for a discussion of plans were Vice Admiral W. W. Smith, chairman of the Maritime Commission and two of his colleagues, Commissioners Raymond McKeough and Joseph Carson. Also there were General John M. Franklin, president of U. S. Lines and William F. Gibbs, vice president of the naval architects’ company. The center of attraction was, however, a sleek, bright model of the proposed liner.
The idea for the ship has long been developing and shortly after the war ended U. S. Lines commissioned Gibbs & Cox to prepare the plans.
What resulted was a fine looking vessel to be from 900 to 1,000 feet in length and have a speed so as to maintain an average of twenty-eight and a half knots, a round voyage time of two weeks.
The new ship, which will run to about 48,000 gross tons, will cost somewhere near $65,000,000 but this figure was only a quick estimate and may not have any relation to what the true cost of the vessel will be. The newness of the planning for the vessel left
The CIO Maritime Committee would like all such transports to be privately owned and civilian manned, even in wartime. We wonder what the assault troops who might have to travel aboard them will say to that!
other details in equal doubt. General Franklin said that it had not yet been decided whether the company would buy or charter the vessel and Vice Admiral Smith was non-committal on whether the money for the vessel would come from the Maritime Commission through Congress. He and his colleagues reiterated that Congress would have the final say and while the Commission was optimistic and believed the Congress was receptive, there was still the Bureau of the Budget to satisfy; and to judge from past experiences the Maritime Commission has come out second best with this group.
The Ship
The vessel is of conventional appearance, carrying two raked stacks, a single mast forward, king posts to support the cargo handling gear and long, clear decks in the passenger country, for the most part enclosed.
The ship embodies the developments of the past ten years in passenger vessel design including safety features, national defense characteristics, operating efficiency and cruising radius.
The new ship will, when built, be the largest, fastest and most efficient passenger ship ever built in the United States. Her cubic cargo capacity has been increased through the use of metals new to ship construction, such as aluminum and probably magnesium.
CIO Group Opposes Militarizing Ships
N. Y. Times, April 21.—The CIO Maritime Committee has advised Secretary of Defense Forrestal that it favors private operation and civilian manning of the merchant marine in all circumstances.
The committee, reportedly asked to state its views on militarization of all shipping in national emergencies, wrote to Mr. Forrestal that the public interest and national defense would be best served if:
“1. All merchant shipping of the armed forces was turned over to privately-owned, civilian-manned operations.
“2. Private operations and civilian manning were retained under appropriate Government direction in times of national emergency.”
The complete induction of the country’s
maritime resources into the armed forces, said the committee, “would lead not only to the destruction of the trade unions, but also to the destruction of the management organization necessary to the operation of a merchant marine.”
“Such action,” it continued, would mean the destruction of the American merchant marine.
“It must be recognized that it would be impossible for the American merchant marine to recoup itself once its organization had been so thoroughly disrupted by complete militarization. The only possible alternative left after such militarization would be nationalization of the merchant marine, which course is supported neither by the Government, management, nor maritime unions.
“It is our position that history and good judgment demonstrate the wisdom of continuing the civilian status of merchant seamen, and of private operation under public direction during periods of national emergency.”
(Editor’s Note: Sure, what did an able seaman get per month in the war zone!)
Polish Program
N. Y. Herald Tribune, May 5.—Poland has adopted a shipbuilding and ship purchasing program for this year that will add twenty-three ocean-going ships and fourteen tugboats to her merchant fleet, Captain Jerzy Panski, marine consul of the Polish Consulate in New York, reported yesterday.
The program, estimated to cost about $65,800,000, also includes improvement of Poland’s fishing industry and rehabilitation and expansion of port facilities.
Construction of six coal and ore carriers, now under way in the Gdansk yards, forms a major part of the nation’s plans. The colliers, 260 feet long and of thirty-seven-and-a-half foot beam, are designed for use in the Baltic, where they will deliver Polish coal to Scandinavian countries in exchange for iron ore. The coal and ore carriers are the first of a long-range program which is supposed to involve 500,000 tons of construction in Polish yards, according to Captain Panski.
The plans also call for acquisition of four tramp steamers, five general cargo ships for
Baltic traffic, two motor ships for the Mediterranean trade, four large cargo ships for ocean trading and two tankers. Most of these ships will be purchased and assigned to the Cydnia-America Line.
MISCELLANEOUS Peacetime Draft in Europe
U. S. News and World Report, May 21.— If the U. S. revives the draft, it will be joining all the major nations of the world in building a peacetime conscript army. Investigation shows that no major power now depends on volunteers, except the U. S. Of 54 countries with military establishments, 48 use some form of compulsory service.
U. S. plans, before Congress, are to draft nonveterans 19 to 25 for two years of service. Youths of 18 also may be called. This issue raises the question of how other countries recruit their armies.
European nations call their youths to the colors at ages generally ranging from 18 to 21. Length of service varies from four months to three years. Only countries with no draft at all are Germany and Austria, which have no armies, and Eire, which still uses volunteers.
Great Britain calls her young men at the age of 18 for 22 months of service. Progressive reductions in term of service are to be made for men drafted after June 1, so that those called up in December will serve only 18 months.
After January 1, however, new draftees will serve 12 months, followed by six years in the reserves. Not only 18-year-olds, but nonveterans up to the age of 26 will be liable for service. Temporary deferments may be granted to students, apprentices and hardship cases at the discretion of draft authorities.
Deferments also are to be granted to doctors and dentists undergoing technical training. But they must serve their terms before they reach 30. Coal miners are exempt from service now. Agricultural workers may be let off next year.
France keeps conscripts in service only 12 months, but this may soon be raised to 15 or 18 months. Youths are called up at 20, then serve in the reserves until age 48.
Deferments are granted to students up to three years before starting their training.
Some coal miners also are deferred temporarily now.
Russia drafts her young men into service mostly at the age of 19. Only enough youths are called to fill a quota set each year. These usually are the men who are most fit, physically and mentally.
Others are put into second-line reserves, subject to call within five years. Also in the second-line reserves, but subject only to wartime call, are youths with slight physical defects and those with two disabled parents, or a father over 60 and a mother over 55.
Conscripts serve from two to five years, depending on the branch of service. Infantrymen serve two years, Navy men five. Longer-term recruits usually are volunteers. Deferments generally are granted only for remediable physical defects and to permit completion of secondary-school education.
Belgium and Holland call up their youths at age 18. Belgian boys serve one year. No more than four sons are drafted from any one family, and deferments are granted liberally for completion of highschool, college and religious studies, as well as for some workers in vital trades. There is no enlisted reserve.
Dutch youths ordinarily serve one year, too. But because of the fighting in Indonesia, they now are held in service for almost two years. Conscripts get three months’ training at home, then are sent to Indonesia. Upon release, they are enrolled in the reserves until 45.
Sweden and Denmark require only 11 months^" service. Danes register at 17, may volunteer at 18 or 19 and are drafted at 20. Only enough youths are called up to fill an annual quota. Selection is on a basis of physical and mental examinations. Students are deferred while studying. Conscientious objectors are given civilian tasks.
Swedish youths usually are called up in their 20th year. But training may be deferred until the 25th year for educational or other good reasons. Those physically unfit are assigned to noncombatant duties. Women are employed in training camps for service duties. Reserves are subject to call until age 47.
Norway calls up her youth at 19 for one year’s service. Sailors and fishermen are as-
Other European | countries | draft their |
youths at the age and for the terms of service listed below: . Rp.rv.rr.p. | ||
Country | Age | (Months) |
Italy | 20-21 | 12 |
Turkey | 20 | 36 |
Poland | 21 | 18 |
Spain | 20 | 24 |
Czechoslovakia | 20 | 24 |
Greece | 21 | 24 |
Portugal | 21 | 15 |
Yugoslavia | 21 | 24 |
signed to the Navy, others to the Army or Air Force. Students are deferred until they graduate. Reserves are subject to call until age 49.
Switzerland trains its youth in a citizens’ militia, instead of in the regular Army. Most boys are called up when they finish secondary school, usually in their 19th year. Cavalrymen serve 130 days, others 116 days. But an additional 200 days of training is given all men during the next 20 years in three-week refresher courses.
After completing basic training, the recruit takes home his rifle, uniform and other equipment, including his horse or motorcycle, if a mounted soldier. This equipment is looked over at annual inspections until age 48, when it becomes the citizen’s personal property.
Outside Europe, all countries except the United States, the Dominican Republic and four British Dominions—Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand—practice conscription.
Thus, if the U. S. adopts peacetime selective service, it will be following a custom long practiced in most countries, with age and service requirements more stringent than under most systems in Europe, but more lenient than some.
Research For War is Held Essential
New York Times, May 9.—Inyokern, Calif., May 8.—Expressing the belief that the public had gotten away from the “pushbutton war” delusion, John Nicholas Brown, Under-Secretary of the Navy for Air, warned today against comparable error in underestimating the importance of scientific research.
“I hope that the swing from the extreme view that automatons and not men would defend us, to the present sound realization that armies, navies and air forces still consist primarily of men, will not go too far,” he said.
His admonition was contained in an address at the dedication today of the new §8,000,000 Michelson physics laboratory which will constitute the “heart” of the Naval Ordnance Test Station here for secret weapons.
Started during the war, the station, in the Mojave Desert 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, covers more than 1,000 square miles, an area comparable to that of the state of Rhode Island. The laboratory was named in honor of the late Albert A. Michelson, Nobel prize-winning physicist.
With an apparent eye on skepticism, of which there has been some public expression, about the reported §50,000,000 to $100,000,000 spent for the highly secret activities of the base, Mr. Brown called it “a critical segment of a great nation-wide complex of plants engaged in devising and in making the weapons with which the Army, the Navy and the Air Force will defend our country if it becomes necessary to do so.”
“The mysteries you are probing and the hidden secrets you are uncovering,” he told a large assemblage of the isolated base’s 12,000 civilian and Navy inhabitants and visiting notables, “are of such importance that it is regrettable they cannot be disclosed.”
Observing that while he deplored “the idea that war is imminent or inevitable, I believe there is a general assumption that another war may occur at any time,” Mr. Brown asserted:
“If there is to be another war, the shape of it first will be visualized here at Inyokern.”
Speaking as head of the Navy’s air arm, Mr. Brown said a particularly important aspect of the base’s work was development of “weapons, fire-control systems and other elements of ordnance,” which in the recent war tended to lag far behind progress in aerodynamics, necessitating costly airplane modification and other emergency catching- up.
Dr. L. T. E. Thompson, the station’s civilian director of research, said its most important discovery so far has been proving,
given time—were carried out to the letter. But our officials feel that most of the rest were violated by the Soviet Union, not once but many times.
This is basically why the State Department again today rejected Premier Stalin’s bid for bilateral negotiations to remove United States-Soviet differences. The real reason is not that we do not want to discuss issues affecting other countries, but that our officials frankly do not rely on agreements with the Soviet Union after they are made.
In some ways, the problem is psychological before it is political. The difficulty is not that our officials cannot get an agreement, but that they no longer believe in Soviet agreements. The first disagreement between Moscow and Washington is that they cannot concur on what an agreement is, or on what it means after they get it.
Intellectually, our officials concede that sooner or later the United States and the Soviet Union must reach at least some kind of working arrangement if there is to be any stability in the world. But emotionally, they simply cannot get over their feeling that, for the present at least, “agreements” with the Soviet Union do not mean anything.
Look, they say, at the record. Among the agreements broken by the Soviet Union— and these, they observe, are only a small part of them—are the following:
(1)The 1933 agreement regarding the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States. This stated (letter from Mr. Litvinov to President Roosevelt) that “it will be the fixed policy of the Government of the U.S.S.R. not to permit the formation or residence on its territory of any organization or group . . . which has as its aim the overthrow or the preparation for the overthrow of, or the bringing about by force of a change in, the political or social order of the whole or any part of the United States. ...”
However, the Communist International, with headquarters in Moscow, had as its avowed purpose “the struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie . . . .” That was violation No. 1.
(2) The Kellogg-Briand peace pact. Article 1 stated: “The high contracting parties solemnly declare . . . that they condemn re-
course to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy . . . .” This was violated by the Soviet attack on Finland in 1939.
(3) Lend-Lease agreement. Article 3 of the mutual aid pact provided that the Soviet Union would not transfer lend-lease supplies or items similar to lend-lease supplies to another Government without the express approval of the President of the United States.
Shortly after the liberation of Warsaw, however, the Soviet Government, without such consent, transferred 1,000 trucks, mobile power plants and several other such items to the Provisional Government of Poland.
(4)The Declaration of Teheran. This stated: “The Governments of the United States, the U.S.S.R. and the United Kingdom are of one with the Government of Iran in their desire for the maintenance of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran.”
On Nov. 29, 1945, the Soviet Government, in a note to the United States, admitted that troops of the Red Army had prevented troops of the Iranian Army from taking action to restore order in one of the provinces of northern Iran (Azerbaijan).
(5)The statutes of the Allied Control Councils of Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary obligated the Russians to consult with the United States and British Officials on political and economic questions affecting the future of these countries. Time after time, in all three countries, this obligation was violated.
(6) The Yalta Agreement. This stated that the three Governments (United States, U.S.S.R., Britain) “jointly declare their mutual agreement to concert, during the temporary period of instability in liberated Europe, the policies of their three Governments.” But again these policies were not “concerted” and on innumerable occasions, as in Andre Vishinsky’s demand for a new Government in Rumania, the United States and Britain were not even consulted.
(7) The Potsdam Agreements. These obligated the Russians, among other things, to treat Germany as an economic whole and to permit captured Japanese troops to return to their homes. Both of these clauses were violated.
(8) The United Nations Charter. This stated: (Article 2, Paragraph 4) “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. ...”
But, says the State Department, this obligation was defied by the Red Army in Iran and to a lesser extent in the countries of Eastern Europe.
(9) Nor is this anything like the total. The Marshall-Molotov agreement on the political procedure in Korea (May, 1947) was violated; so was the agreement on the control machinery for Austria; so were other agreements in Berlin and in other occupied areas, and so, says the State Department, was the intent of the San Francisco agreement about the use of the veto at Lake Success.
Official Washington cannot get over these events. The past is impinging on the present and confounding the future. Each political difference adds to the lack of confidence and the lack of confidence adds new differences, and though many officials would like to make a new start, nobody seems able to break away from the old record.
Phantom Sea Bottom
Chicago Tribune, April 25.— American scientists have stumbled upon a vast layer of life in the oceans that some day may become an important new addition to the world’s food supply.
It is a layer of water 1,000 to 2,500 feet down and averaging perhaps 500 feet thick. It swarms with unidentified living things. These creatures reflect sound waves and thus register on echo sounders used to determine ocean depths.
The Navy calls this layer “The phantom of the sea.” It is ghost-like because it disappears at night and because no one yet has been able to get a sample of it.
Found Unexpectedly
University of California and Navy scientists unexpectedly found this layer in 1942 during war time experiments.
Near Guadelupe Island off Lower California the sounder registered bottom at 1,500 feet. The scientists knew the ocean there was
12.0 feet deep.
This layer was not solid, said Dr. Carl F. Eckart, now director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, but it contained something more substantial than water. A few small fish in every cubic foot of water in the layer might account for it, he said, or even suspended silt.
In 1945 scientific curiosity led to further investigation. Dr. Martin Johnson, biologist of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was called in.
Must Be Alive
“Does it move?” Dr. Johnson asked. “If it does, it must be alive.”
It moved. Additional experiments with the depth sounder showed the thing disappeared between evening twilight and daybreak.
Did it exist anywhere else? It did. Scientists found it all over the Pacific from the Aleutians to the antarctic. The Oceanographic Institution at Woods Hole, Mass., found it in the Atlantic. It has been found practically everywhere it has been looked for in waters more than 1,500 feet deep.
Dr. Johnson’s evidence that the layer is composed of living things points to the existence of a source of protein in a space almost as large as the combined areas of the oceans, which cover three-quarters of the earth’s surface. Such a tremendous cache of potential food, efficiently utilized, could mean the difference between scarcity and plenty for all humanity.
Big Job Ahead
To solve the mysteries Dr. Johnson and colleagues are launching investigations.
The first and most important job is to bring up a good sample of the living things in the layer. This is a lot easier said than done. Some fishermen can put nets down as far as
2.0 feet but they are large-mesh affairs. A sizable net with a fine enough mesh produces so much drag that it is apt to be torn as it moves through the water.