UNITED STATES
Atomic Sub Planned
New York Herald Tribune, April 15.—The Atomic Energy Commission announced yesterday that the General Electric Company will start work immediately on a proposed new type of nuclear power plant for Navy ships.
Thus the commission is doubling efforts to develop an efficient marine engine fed by atomic fuel, since the Westinghouse Electric Company is already working on a marine plant of somewhat different type. It was disclosed March 6 that the Westinghouse engine is for use in a submarine and it was indicated that the G.E. plant would also be designed for undersea craft.
General Electric’s proposed engine is called an “intermediate ship reactor,” according to the commission, and will be designed at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, near the concern’s works at Schenectady. This laboratory was originally planned for developing industrial atomic energy, but these plans were put off March 30.
Would Increase Range
The advantages of nuclear engines for naval vessels were not elaborated yesterday but scientists have estimated that such ships could operate for periods of unprecedented length without having to refuel. An authority in the Navy Department also explained that such a plant would be particularly advantageous in an undersea craft since it does not need support from the atmosphere.
General Electric explained that the first task will be development of designs and cost estimates, both for scrutiny by the A.E.C. After their approval, the company could proceed with actual construction of the plant.
Full details of the complicated power plant were not disclosed.
Experimental Destroyer Turbine
New York Times, April 6.—The Navy is building an experimental ship that may revolutionize warship propulsion overnight, Rear Admiral David H. Clark, chief of the Bureau of Ships, asserted today.
He came here primarily to examine progress on turbines being built by the General Electric Company for the highly experimental destroyer Timmerman. Admiral Clark said that the turbines would enable the ship with a much smaller power plant to attain higher speeds than present fleet destroyers.
The size factor is very important, the Admiral stressed, because the Timmerman will have more room for fuel, and hence a longer range. And more space for weapons. A warship is just “a floating platform for weapons,” he added.
In the Timmerman, Admiral Clark said, the Navy gave designers a free hand to build in 1950 the kind of ship propulsion “we might reasonably expect two decades hence,” and “we have departed from traditional design to take a great big step forward.”
He said that the vessel would have steam turbines employing much higher temperatures and pressures than any ship now afloat.
General Electric has just about completed the main propulsion units for one of the Timmerman's propeller shafts, Admiral Clark said.
Ship Movements
New York Times, April 18.—A group of thirty-one ships left the Norfolk Naval Base today, bound for Morehead City, N. C., and Operation Crossover.
Headed by the Mount Olympus, flagship of the amphibious task force of Rear Admiral H. D. Baker, the task force commander, the ships included attack transports, cargo vessels, control ships and amphibious landing craft.
At Morehead City the task group will embark the Second Marine Division commanded by Maj. Gen. F. A. Hart. The division will land on Onslaw Beach N. C., next week, with the Second Marine Air Wing supporting it.
A total of 15,000 officers and men of the Navy and Marine Corps will take part in the operation, which is designed to test new equipment and techniques.
New York Herald Tribune, April 19.—Singapore.—Four American naval vessels will arrive here April 27 for a six-day operational visit, it was reported today. The ships are the carrier Boxer, the destroyers Floyd B. Parks and John R. Craig and the fleet oiler Guadalupe.
Chicago Tribune, April 22.—The Daniel A. Joy, a destroyer escort, will pass through the Chicago river tomorrow afternoon en route to the American Shipbuilding company dry dock in South Chicago.
The ship is the largest combat vessel to appear in the Great Lakes since 1814. It will become the flagship of a squadron to train 9th naval district reservists.
The Daniel A. Joy, stripped of her mast and radar range finder because of low bridges en route, left New Orleans April 2, manned by 108 sailors but in tow up the Mississippi river waterway. Her propellers were removed and she was nested in special pontoons to provide for shallow water navigation. She will be restored to normal appearance in dry dock.
Navy Withdraws from Midway
New York Times, March 29.—Tiny Midway Island, 1,300 miles west of Hawaii in the central Pacific, will be abandoned by United States military and civil aviation personnel in next few months.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration announced today that since the Navy planned to withdraw from the island it would be unable to continue to maintain radio navigational facilities there because the cost would be prohibitive. Pan American Airways has been using the island as a stop on its West Coast-Orient service.
The Navy now plans to pull out of the island, completely by June 30. Some 300 officers and enlisted men and their 400 dependents have been stationed on the island. Navy spokesmen gave “budgetary limitations” as the reason for closing out the activities.
Announcing its decision to discontinue its communications station, radio range and aircraft “homing” system on Midway, the C.A.A. said that the Air Coordinating Committee had approved the move.
The C.A.A. estimated that to continue the facilities without Navy assistance would cost $600,000 annually and that it would cost $695,000 to modify the facilities for civil aviation needs.
There are only about four weekly scheduled flights that stop at the island, the C.A.A. said, with “infrequent” stop-overs by other commercial aircraft. In the future, the C.A.A. asserted, commercial aircraft will have to bypass the island and land at Wake, about 2,300 miles west of Hawaii.
General maintenance of the island has been the Navy’s responsibility, the service providing runway upkeep, search and rescue facilities and also “housekeeping” operations for all stationed there.
A Navy spokesman said tonight that the Navy would offer to lease some of its facilities to the small group of employes of a commercial cable company on the island.
Air Bases in Mediterranean
New York Times, March 26.—Tripoli.—The American taxpayer has bought himself a vital interest in a big piece of the Mediterranean Sea and a string of air bases within flying distance of the Soviet Union.
This was made clear on a 7,200-mile air tour of the Mediterranean area which the United States Air Force staged for a group of correspondents.
The tour also emphasized the double problem of keeping permission to use the bases in peace time and of defending them in the event of war.
Most Bases Are Leased
Most of the bases, on which the United States has rights to establish Air Force facilities, are leased or used by agreement with native Arabs or other peoples. In some of the areas, mounting nationalism may bring demands to get rid of the Americans.
The only base that Americans actually own is the important one at Tripoli. It has three 6,000-foot runways and is within seven hours of Moscow in a B-29 Superfortress. By 1952, under a United Nations decision, Tripoli—and the rest of the former Italian colony of Libya—is to be independent, and the United States then must start negotiating all over again.
In event of hostilities, defense of these bases would raise a problem. There is not an American fighter plane in the whole area.
A force of British Royal Air Force fighters is at Gibraltar, but these planes probably would be kept busy defending Gibraltar itself.
Air Force authorities say the United States would need the bases if trouble came, but they also say the bases probably would be among Russia’s first targets.
Most of the United States Air Force’s string of establishments around the world are used for scheduled flights of the military air transport service, a joint Army, Navy, Air Force supply and passenger line. In this part of the world they are mainly foreign-owned fields, like Port Lyautey in French Morocco, Tripoli, Rome, Athens, Cairo, Cyprus, Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, and others.
Most of the bases have only small American facilities—enough to service the planes. But they give pilots an opportunity to keep in training.
They are now flying four-motored transports, leaving points like Mobile, Ala., and flying to Dhahran by way of Rome or to Wiesbaden, Germany, by way of Marrakech, or taking some one of a dozen other routes.
Fighter pilots by the squadron take off from Germany and land down here on gunnery practice flights. It’s all part of a training program that may be important some day.
Emergency War Orders
New York Herald, Tribune, April 19.—Officials of the Defense Department’s Munitions Board disclosed today that “several thousand” industrial plants now have explicit “go ahead” agreements for production of war materials the instant a national emergency should be declared. They indicated that the number will be doubled by Sept. 1.
The disclosure was made in connection with the Munitions Board’s announcement of a new “production allocation manual” for guidance of manufacturers and of military war production planning officers in the field. The first manual of this type was issued two years ago, and the munitions board has been working up production allocation agreements with the industry ever since.
A board spokesman said more than 7,800 items of war material, many of which would be produced by several different manufacturers, were included in the “first priority” phase of its program and are slated to be covered in their entirety by detailed production agreements with the industry by this fall. He added that 30 per cent of the agreements covering this phase of the board’s program had been completed on Jan. 1 and that “a great many more” have been reached since that time.
The “first priority” phase of the board’s program, he explained, covers approximately 50 per cent of the industries engaged in military production during World War II and takes in “all the most critical items that would be required in a war emergency.”
It was explained that the agreements outline exactly what each manufacturer concerned would be expected to produce and in what quantities, if war broke out. They also set a schedule for conversion from the manufacturers’ peace-time production, show what purely military materials each would turn out, what civilian-type goods they would turn out for military use and what purely civilian goods they would continue to produce.
GREAT BRITAIN
Carrier Launching
London Times, March 31.—The Queen will launch the new fleet carrier, H.M.S. Ark Royal, being built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, on May 3. Accommodation as spectators of the launch is being reserved for 100 officers and 300 men who served in the last Ark Royal, sunk in the Mediterranean by a U-Boat on November 14, 1941. The Admiralty announces that those wishing to attend, serving or retired, should apply by letter. Those who secure accommodation, which will be allotted in the order of application, will be given leave, but must go at their own expense.
Fleet Exercise in Med.
London Times, March 17 and 22.—The Admiralty has issued an outline of the scheme on which the joint exercises of the Home and Mediterranean Fleets next week near Gibraltar are to be based.
Admiral Sir Arthur Power, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, is to be the chief umpire; one side—Blue—presumably composed of ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, will be under the command of Vice-Admiral Douglas-Pennant, Second-in-Command, Mediterranean, and the other—Red—under Admiral Vian, Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet.
In such manoeuvres, for the sake of verisimilitude some circumstances have to be devised to account for the two fleets making contact. In this case, it is to be the passage of a convoy from the Mediterranean out through the Straits under the cover and protection of the Blue force, Gibraltar being Red and hostile. The Red fleet, returning to its base at Gibraltar from a foray in the Mediterranean, is given the task of destroying the convoy. Both sides possess aircraft-carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. Red also has submarines, which will be controlled by Vice-Admiral Brooking, the admiral in command at Gibraltar. Shore-based aircraft, under Air Commodore Cheshire, will also take part.
* * *
Exercise “Longreach,” in which the Home and Mediterranean Fleets have been taking part, came to a sudden and unexpected end this morning with the location of the Blue-land convoy by Redland reconnaissance units and attacks by submarines under the command of Vice-Admiral Brooking. With all naval forces of both sides fully engaged, a situation arose in which both sides claimed annihilation of the opposing forces. The chief umpire, Admiral Sir Arthur Power, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, who is at sea in Lord Mountbatten’s flagship Liverpool, ruled the exercise at an end. Who won and whether the convoy got through will not be known till Admiral Power gives a decision at a discussion ashore at Gibraltar, probably on Thursday.
To-morrow morning all 36 ships of the Home and Mediterranean Fleets which took part in the exercise will arrive at Gibraltar, to stay five days, and will engage in a full programme of inter-Fleet sporting and social events.
The Aeroplane, March 31.—From March 27 to 31, aircraft of Coastal and Bomber Commands were to co-operate with the Royal Navy in an exercise during the passage of the Home Fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir Philip L. Vian, from Gibraltar to England. The Home Fleet was to represent a carrier force—“Blue Force”—intending to attack targets in South-West England, and comprising surface vessels, carrier-borne aircraft, and some land-based aircraft operating anti-submarine patrols. In the early stages of the exercise, Lancasters and Sunderlands were to operate against submarines preparing to attack the fleet.
The defending “Red Force,” under the command of the C.-in-C. Plymouth, Admiral Sir Rhoderick McGrigor, was to operate surface units and submarines with the support of Naval aircraft and, later, with Lincolns of Bomber Command and Lancasters of Coastal Command.
Anti-Submarine Craft in Place of Destroyers
London Times, March 21.—The Admiralty announces that it has been decided to place in reserve three fleet destroyers from the Mediterranean Fleet and four from the Home Fleet during the next 12 months. They will be displaced by nine anti-submarine frigates from the Reserve, with ahead-throwing anti-submarine weapons. The change-over will provide the two fleets with additional facilities for tactical training in anti-submarine measures.
The timing of the intended changes is approximately as follows: In the Mediterranean the destroyers Chaplet and Childers will be displaced in June by the frigates Loch Scavaig and Loch Dunvegan; in November the destroyer Cheviot will be displaced by the frigate Loch Lomond, and in the middle of January, 1951, it is expected that two additional frigates, the Loch Craggie and the Loch More, will join the Mediterranean Fleet.
In the Home Fleet the destroyers Barrosa and Alamein will start reduction to reserve in April and the Aisne and the Jutland in August. The frigate Loch Alvie will join the Home Fleet in June and the Loch Insh in October. The Loch Fyne and the Loch Killisport will join the Home Fleet in February, 1951.
Defense Estimates
The Aeroplane, March 17.—No major attempt to co-ordinate the administration of the Defence Services is shown in the Statement on Defence for 1950 presented to Parliament on March 6, by the Minister of Defence. The statement follows on the lines of the Defence Statements of the past few years with the increasing importance of our commitments indicated by the total estimates which are £21 millions over those of last year, the total figures being £780.82 millions against £759.86 millions.
Divided up, the estimates for the forthcoming year are: Admiralty, £193.00 millions; War Office, £299.00 millions; Air Ministry, £223.00 millions; Ministry of Supply, £65.00 millions; Ministry of Defence, £82 millions.
The numerical strength of the Forces is to be reduced and more money is to be spent on equipment and research. The plan to reduce the uniformed strength of all arms to 750,000 by April 1, 1950, has now been altered and the strength is to be 718,800 on that date and 682,100 on April 1, 1951. This will allow £35 millions more to be spent on equipment and research during 1950-51 than in 1949-50.
The National Service intake planned for 1950-51 is Navy, 2,000; Army, 117,000; and Air Force, 49,000. This total of 168,000 is about 9,000 less than the estimated yield from registration and deferments and the surplus may be dealt with by raising the age of the call up.
Contributions by the United Kingdom to the needs of Western Union in 1949-50 include making available to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands considerable quantities of fighter aircraft and related equipment, assistance which is to be continued in 1950-51. Help will also continue to be given to other members of the Commonwealth in meeting equipment needs.
United States aid for the defence of the North Atlantic area has been approved and will take two forms: first, actual equipment; and secondly, reimbursement of the dollar costs incurred by other North Atlantic Treaty Powers as the result of increases in their own armament production. Under the first head is the equipment of some squadrons in Bomber Command with B-29’s. Under the second we may recover some of the dollar cost of raw materials used in additional armament production.
Our position must be maintained in the vital strategic area of the Middle East as well as in the occupied territories of enemy and ex-enemy countries. We have been able to withdraw our forces from Greece but have had to reinforce Hong Kong and retain forces in Malaya to deal with the bandits.
Referring to the reduction in manpower, the Statement says that the need to maintain the striking power of our Forces has been kept in mind but that maintenance and training establishments already severely pruned are being further cut. The reductions are made possible partly by the gradual return to more normal conditions and partly by the continuous process of economizing in fields of secondary importance in the interests of the strength of fighting formations.
It also says that this process has been greatly helped by a comprehensive interservice review of the future development of the Forces, and adds that this review made clear that there were no grounds for any substantial change in the relative roles of the three Services or for any drastic curtailment of the strength of any one of them.
Of the Navy, the Statement says that work will continue on existing programmes and that only small ships would be laid down. Reductions will be in manpower ashore and in base establishments. The Army will economize in manpower in headquarters, maintenance and training establishments and will increase the size of the Territorial Army, including A.A. units.
Plans for doubling the jet fighter strength of the Fighter Command will be completed and the power of Bomber Command will be increased by forming squadrons of B-29 aircraft as a result of American aid. Other Commands, except Transport, will remain broadly at their present strength. With the gradual build-up of Bomber Command there will be a reduction in the air transport force at home, but we shall retain enough transport aircraft, according to the statement, to meet essential needs and to enable us to make an important contribution to another airlift operation should that become necessary.
The research and development programme is co-ordinated and priorities are determined on the advice of the Defence Research Policy Committee. Air defence and anti-submarine research are receiving much attention.
The Government aims to reach a position of more reliance on regular personnel for peace-time defence commitments so that the primary object of national service will be to produce trained reserves. To do this recruiting must be on a scale never before attempted in time of peace and full employment. There will be a decline in 1950-51 in the number of Regulars in the Army and Navy, and only a small increase (3,000) in the Air Force.
Expenditure on major new works to provide accommodation for personnel is estimated at £9,440,000, and a start will be made on between 6,000 and 7,000 houses for married quarters in the United Kingdom. About 2,000 more new homes for service families overseas are also to be built.
Admiral Fraser Visits U. S.
New York Times, April 5.—The modern British Navy is stressing the development of anti-submarine forces and a complementary naval air arm, but is not neglecting the overall structure of the fleet, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser asserted on his arrival here yesterday on the Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary.
Britain’s First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff said he was here for an official call on Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations, and a conference with Defense Secretary Louis Johnson and Navy Secretary Francis P. Matthews. He was greeted at Pier 90, North River, by Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, commander of the Eastern Sea Frontier, and Admiral Frederick H. G. Dalrymple-Hamilton, head of the British Navy staff in Washington.
“I think for two wars people have said that the battleship is dead,” Lord Fraser said. “That has never been the case. They always talk about the Navy battleships, but in the Army they have battleship tanks and in the air force they have battleship planes and they are building them bigger and bigger.”
The admiral said that a navy must have its training techniques and balance, adding that the Royal Marines, for instance, were necessary for their special function.
He gave the personnel strength of the British Navy as about 130,000 men, which he described as a “rather small force,” but with a “certain amount of quality about it.” He added that Britain had an ample naval reserve in the veterans of the last war to man all ships laid up.
Movements of Warships
London Times, March 31.—The Admiralty announces that it is now the policy to make known future transfers of ships in commission from one station to another as soon as they have been decided, in order that officers and men may make their personal arrangements accordingly. The following movements of aircraft-carriers are now announced:
In September H.M.S. Theseus, now in the Home Fleet, will leave for the Far East; her company will be granted double the usual summer leave before departure.
In October, H.M.S. Triumph, now in the Far East, will return home and pay off.
In December, H.M.S. Glory, after being refitted at Malta, will return home, pay off, recommission with a Chatham crew, and return to the Mediterranean. It is possible that she will go on to the Far East about May, 1951, to relieve H.M.S. Theseus.
H.M.S. Newcastle, cruiser, is to be replaced in the Mediterranean Fleet by H.M.S. Gambia, formerly on the Far Eastern Station. The Gambia will sail from Plymouth tomorrow for Malta.
U.S.S.R.
Dardanelles Treaty Condemned
Chicago Tribune, April 20.—Moscow.—Russia, through its Navy newspaper Red Fleet, declared today that the 1936 Montreux convention governing navigation in the Dardanelles and Bosporus had “ceased to correspond with the interests of Black sea powers.”
Guardian of both sides of the Dardanelles is Turkey. Red Fleet said Turkey sided with Germany during the war and had now “sold her independence to the Americans.”
Red Fleet added “American squadrons are frequent guests of the marble sea [the sea of Marmora to which the Dardanelles gives access] and Turkish airdromes have been converted into landing fields for American air forces. All this compels us to still greater vigilance and unremittingly to strengthen the defenses of the Black Sea littoral.”
Industrial Plants Dispersed
New York Herald Tribune, Feb. 26.—London. The Soviet Union is speeding dispersal of industries to the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia, intelligence reports from behind the iron curtain indicate.
Plans for the expansion of industries and raw material sources in Asiatic Russia have been intensified, apparently in fear of the uranium and hydrogen bombs.
Time schedules have been advanced and production targets for the new industrial centers recently were raised above the original levels set by the five-year plan.
The changed situation in the Far East and prospects for closer cooperation with Communist China were believed to have speeded this move, which started during the war with Nazi Germany.
Oil. Expansion in East
Plans to shift half the Soviet production of steel and coal and one-third of the oil output to the “eastern industrial centers” were believed nearing completion. Under the Soviet five-year plan these targets were set for the end of 1950.
The moves were supplemented by expansion and development of transport facilities in the east.
The electrification of railway lines connecting the important industrial Kuzbas Basin in Asiatic Russia with the Urals, and the industrial center of Magnitogorsk in the South Urals with the coal basin of Karaganda, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, was reported to have reached an advanced stage.
Diesel locomotives are speeding railroad traffic in Central Asia, the reports added.
Special attention has been paid to the development of oil centers in the east, according to the reports. Soviet sources announced oil discoveries last year in the area between the Volga and the Urals, in the Bashkir, Tatar, Kazakh, Turkmen and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republics, where exploration is in progress.
Moves Part of Five-Year Plan
Soviet plans were said to aim at deriving between 30 to 40 per cent of maximum extraction from the eastern oil centers this year.
Baku, hitherto the chief source of oil, is considered “strategically exposed.”
The Russians have announced that industrial output increased three and a half times in the Urals, nearly three times in Siberia and more than three times in the Volga area before the end of the war. Under the five-year plan this trend was to be continued and developed to encourage inner colonization and for strategic reasons.
The program, now believed far advanced or even completed, includes the following main features:
The Far East, Siberia and the Trans-Caucasus to create their own sources of supply of iron ore. New iron mines with an annual capacity of 10,000,000 tons of ore to supply the iron and steel industry of West Siberia.
New coal pits in the Kuznets basin, in Karaganda, in the Urals and in Central Asia to reach production of 50,000,000 tons this year.
Four new iron and steel mills to be built in the Urals and Siberia, and the iron and steel mills in Nizhne Tagilsk and Chelyabinsk completed.
Acceleration of construction of hydroelectric stations in the Urals.
Erection of aluminum plants in the Urals.
Development of wolfram (tungsten) and molybdenum deposits in Central Asia.
Construction of heavy machine building plants in the South Urals as well as of chemical and rubber plants.
OTHER COUNTRIES
Albania Soviet Base on Saseno
Christian Science Monitor, April 20.—Rome.—Russia is building a submarine and rocket base on an Adriatic isle only 50 miles east of Italy, according to informed Albanian exiles.
This Communist “Gibraltar” is Saseno, a strategic isle off Albania’s port of Valona. It is only two square miles in size, but commands the 50-mile-wide bottleneck between the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas.
Through this narrow “Strait of Otranto” must pass all United States and British warships and other vessels bound to and from the important Anglo-American-occupied port of Trieste at the head of the Adriatic.
Factors Pieced Together
The exiles are leaders of the anti-Communist Albanian national independence bloc. From Albanians who escaped recently to Italy and Greece, the exile leaders pieced together these developments in Russia’s tiny Balkan satellite:
On Saseno, thousands of Soviet slave laborers are working day and night on huge submarine pens and launching platforms for guided missiles. German military experts and engineers, captured during the war, are on Saseno with Soviet technicians to supervise the work.
Russian secret police have damped an iron curtain around Saseno and the port of Valona. Russian supplies and other materials arrive by sea in Soviet ships or by a Soviet airlift shuttling between Budapest, Sofia, and Tirana, the land-locked capital of Albania.
From Tirana, the airlift supplies are trucked 70 miles down an Italian-built highway to Valona. A Soviet military mission has direct control over the Saseno project.
Hoxha in Tight Spot
In the meantime, Enver Hoxha, Albania’s Premier, and his Interior Minister and Vice-Premier, Mehmet Shehu, are busy trying to keep the nation’s anti-Communists in line.
Mr. Shehu, often described as Albania’s real strong man, is Moscow-trained. He has waged a number of ruthless purges since the Communists came to power in 1945.
At present, Mr. Shehu’s force of 70,000 police and regular troops is battling 24 brigades of anti-Communist partisans entrenched in virtually impregnable mountain strongholds in the north.
The rebels are armed with left-over Italian and German arms. Some 6,000 or 7,000 of them carry automatic weapons. While their numbers are insufficient to threaten the Communists’ hold on the country, they are a constant problem to Mr. Hoxha and his henchmen.
Elsewhere in Albania, thousands of citizens are passively hostile to Communist rule. The Communist Party itself claims only 27,000 members, only about 4 per cent of the nation’s population of 1,100,000. Barely 18,000 others can be called Communist “supporters.”
Walled off by a hostile Yugoslavia on the north and east and Greece on the south, Mr. Hoxha is in a tight spot. He must depend on Russian help or be starved out. There are indications that sufficient Soviet help has not been forthcoming.
Sweden
New York Times, March 8. Stockholm.—Various fishermen and newspapers today demanded naval escorts to protect Swedish fishing boats from seizure by Soviet authorities.
Foreign Minister Oesten Unden told a delegation of fishermen the Government took an “extremely serious view” of recent seizures and an apparent extension of Soviet territorial claims to the 12-mile limit in the narrow Baltic Sea.
Elof Hallstrom, head of a deep sea fishermen’s organization, called on Foreign Minister Unden about the boat seizures.
The captains of two trawlers, the Marion and the Larex, told reporters yesterday their vessels had been boarded by crew men of a Soviet minesweeper thirty miles off Russian held East Prussia and they had been forced at pistol point to go to Neukuhren harbor. They said they were held two weeks and questioned night and day on the suspicion they had been spying.
One of the captains, Ernst Persson of the Marion, said he saw six Danish ships, a German ship from the British zone, and another Swedish ship being detained in the same harbor.
The Foreign Office said it was making inquiries about two other missing Swedish fishing boats believed captured by the Russians.
A Swedish Foreign Office spokesman said “it is highly remarkable indeed, I should say shocking,” if the story was true that the Marion and Larex had been boarded thirty miles offshore.
“We have heard of the existence of a Russian decree of 1927 regarding a Russian twelve-mile limit,” he said. “This, however, has never been recognized by international law and cannot aply to the Baltic.”
AVIATION
More VPs for Hawaii
New York Times, April 17.—A nine-plane squadron of Navy Neptune bombers is slated for transfer to Hawaii to strengthen antisubmarine forces, the Navy announced today.
The aircraft are due at the Barbers Point Naval Air Station from Whidby Island, Wash., early in May. Under Cmdr. Edward W. Bridewell, the planes have operated on patrol up the Pacific Coast to Alaska, and over the Aleutians.
The announcement said that the Neptunes were the first submarine hunters of their type assigned to Hawaii. Equipped with the latest radar and sonar detection devices, they are designed especially to cope with snorkle-type undersea craft.
Direct Flying Costs of AF Planes
Aviation Week, April 3.—Direct flying cost of the Convair B-36 intercontinental bomber per hour is $1,024.17 according to USAF sources. The cost figure includes supplies, equipment, gas, oil and lubes, but does not reckon in labor costs.
Next most expensive operational combat plane in the USAF hangar, the Boeing B-50 bomber costs $421 an hour on the same basis, as compared to $386.77 for the four-jet North American B-45 light bomber, $233.32 for the Boeing B-29, and $96.97 for the B-17.
Newest and fastest jet fighter in operational status, the North American F-86 Sabre, costs $145.11 an hour as compared to hourly flight costs of $120.18 for the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, and $117 for the Republic F-84 Thunderjet fighters. Indication of the step-up in operational costs of the jet fighters over the older piston-engine fighters is seen in hourly costs of $68.95 quoted for the Republic F-47 Thunderbolt and $62.92 for the North American F-51 Mustang, and $96,49 for the North American F-82 Twin Mustang.
Highest military transport hourly flight cost shown is $272.40 for the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter. Douglas C-74 cargo plane flight cost per hour is $237.45. Other transport flight hour costs include: Douglas C-54, $97.71; Fairchild C-82, $79.27; Curtiss C-46, $57.50; Douglas C-47, $37.63; Beech C-45, $18.61.
Other direct flying cost per hour figures include: Sikorsky H-5 helicopter, $40.54; Convair L-5 liaison plane, $8.48; and North American T-6 Trainer, $13.84.
Air Defense of Northwest Increased
New York Times, March 24.—The Air Force moved today to strengthen the country’s defenses against surprise air attack in the Pacific Northwest.
Two additional fighter squadrons were ordered to the “air-defense front” guarding the defense-plant and atomic-energy works area, and fighter squadrons already on duty there received first priority on a new radar-equipped interceptor plane.
Defense planners have in recent months been paying particular attention to the radar “fence” on the most accessible approaches to the United States, to the planes that back up the detection network and to the anti-aircraft artillery stations assigned to the area. Lying within relatively easy striking distance, the Northwest is also the site of a key atomic-energy plant, that at Hanford, Wash.
Today’s move by the Air Force follows word from Sixth Army Headquarters that anti-aircraft units would be deployed in the Hanford area next month.
Scheduled to be shifted in the “near future,” the Air Force announced, were two squadrons of the Eighty-first Fighter Interceptor Wing, now based at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, N. M. The two squadrons are equipped with North American F-86 Sabre aircraft.
Other Redeployments Told
Describing other redeployments of aircraft of the Continental Air Command, the Air Force disclosed that the 325th Fighter- All-Weather Wing, which now flies North American F-82 Twin Mustangs, will become this summer the first wing to be equipped with the Lockheed F-94.
The F-94, an adaptation of the two-seater TF-80 jet, will carry a radar operator. The plane is equipped with an after-burner to add to its climbing rate and speed. The Twin Mustangs are conventionally-powered, propeller-driven planes.
Several weeks ago the Air Force promulgated flight rules that in effect put a protective aerial “wall” around three atomic-energy plants. The Air Force said it planned to ask for positive identification of any plane flying within one hundred miles at an altitude exceeding 4,000 feet. A pilot who fails to identify himself properly is likely to be intercepted by fighter craft.
Operating base for the additional planes which are being put behind the defensive radar screen now being expanded in the Northwest will be Moses Lake, Wash.
Under the shifts a second squadron of the 325th Wing will be based at McChord Air Force Base, Washington, moving there from Moses Lake.
Aerial Gunnery Tests
New York Times, March 29.—Las Vegas, Nev.—Scores of the Air Force’s finest fighter pilots met here today to fly in the armed services first publicly viewed aerial gunnery meet.
They flew in from Japan, Alaska, Germany and many parts of the United States to participate in the fiercest non-combat flying undertaken since the end of World War II. They will compete for six days, with nineteen separate teams flying closely scheduled missions beginning daily at 5 A.M. The contests include ground strafing, aerial target shooting at 20,000 feet, rocket firing and dive and skip bombing.
Col. Joe L. Mason, commanding officer of the Las Vegas Air Force Base, who spent a year preparing for the meet, when briefing the participating pilots pointed out that they would fly down close to the ground while traveling 500 to 600 miles an hour.
Turbo-Jets Compete
“There’s no artificial way for a pilot to train and prove himself,” Colonel Mason declared. “A fighter plane isn’t a means of transportation. It’s a weapon.”
The Air Force and Air National Guard pilots are competing in both piston-driven and turbo-jet fighters. The World War II planes being used are Republic F-47, Thunderbolts (Jugs), North American F-51 Mustangs and twin-fuselaged F-82’s. The turbojet teams are flying. Lockheed F-50 Shooting Stars, Republic F-84 Thunderjets and North American F-86 Sabres.
The contests are being held on a gunnery range in the desert fifty miles from the Air Force base. They are scheduled to begin early in the morning because when the desert heats up later in the day, fast flying is an ordeal for the fighter pilots.
Because jets still make flights of limited duration, concentrated flight scheduling is essential to the meet. Fighters were due to make “attaches” on the range at one minute intervals and no pilots were given zero ratings for failing to appear at their appointed time.
Although the scoring is intricate, and complete individual and team ratings were not available tonight, a study of the first scores indicated that despite the faster air-speeds of the turbo-jet fighters their pilots had generally higher scores. One of the F-84 pilots revealed that the late-model thunderjet is now cruised “almost on the mach,” or about ten miles an hour less than the speed of sound.
Dive-Bomber Admired
However, it appeared that the accurate dive-bombing of the F-86’s aroused the greatest admiration.
The F-86’s, which hold the world’s speed record at 670 miles an hour, broke through a high overcast and descending almost vertically plastered their targets seconds later.
In the strafing or air-to-ground “panel firing” on ten-foot-square objectives spectators were allowed to approach within 150 feet of the closest targets. The fighter pilots did not put all their shots “in” but they all hit in the immediate vicinity.
Rocket and ship bombing is scheduled for later in the meet.
Mobilizing the Airlines
Aviation Week, April 3.—How far should the military be permitted to go in taking over the airlines during a war time emergency?
That’s the knotty problem facing national defense planners as they ponder the air transport industry’s M-Day role. Working through its Air Coordinating Committee, the government has obtained agreement on the broad outline for airline mobilization; but civilian and military interests are still clashing over highly-important details.
Deficit in Airlift
Crux of the civilian-military conflict is the deficit in airlift which would become immediately apparent in an emergency. The Military Air Transport Service has estimated that even if it took over all the strategic aircraft (four-engine planes) of the commercial airlines it would have no more than one-third of the capacity which it requires, and possibly only one-fifth.
Airline officials concede there is a serious deficit in M-Day airlift, but they contend it is being aggravated by the military’s failure to cooperate in efforts to build up the commercial fleet. Further, the carriers believe the government will be making a major mistake if it permits the military to operate the domestic air routes in wartime.
Final decision on disposition of the commercial air fleet during an emergency rests with the National Security Resources Board, which advises the President on coordination and maximum utilization of military, industrial and civilian facilities and manpower for war. NSRB already has the Air Coordinating Committee’s general program for airline mobilization policy and now wants specific recommendations.
Sino-Soviet Airline Pact
New York Times, April 3.—Moscow.—A Russian-Chinese civil airline has been established in a ten-year agreement to operate flights between Peiping and cities in the Soviet Union, it was announced today. The announcement said the mixed company had been formed “for the purpose of assisting the development of Chinese national aviation” and in the interests of economic cooperation.
It said the new joint stock company would organize and exploit air service from Peiping to Chita, a city in Siberia near the Manchurian border; from Peiping to Alma Ata, a central Asian city near the border of Sinkiang, and from Peiping to Irkutsk, a Siberian city on Lake Baikal.
The announcement said the expenses and profits of these airlines would be divided 50-50. It said the chief posts would be divided equally between Chinese and Soviet citizens and that nationals of the two countries would alternate in the top jobs every two years.
The announcement said Foreign Minister Andrei Y. Vishinsky had signed the agreement for Russia, and Ambassador Wang Chiahsiang for China.
Western diplomatic sources here predicted new Chinese-Soviet agreements might be announced in the near future.
The announcement of the air agreement followed one several days ago that two new companies had been established jointly by China and Russia to exploit oil and nonferrous metals in Sinkiang Province.
Air Strikes in Malaya
The Aeroplane, March 17.—During the 28 days of February, the Royal Air Force based in Malaya and Singapore maintained the offensive against the bandits with 56 air-strikes. This was two fewer than the record total for the 31 days of January. Air support was given to the security forces on a number of occasions in Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Pahang and Johore.
Two particularly successful strikes were made by Spitfires and Tempests. One occurred on February 3, when a bandit hideout of six huts in a narrow valley in Selangor was attacked, with the result that three were destroyed by rockets and the remaining three left blazing. The other occurred on February 23, when a large bandit encampment, built on each side of a spur in Perak and constructed to hold 200 men, was similarly attacked and the surrounding area strafed by machine-gun fire. This was a preliminary to an advance by ground troops, who later reported the successful destruction of the camp site.
Dakotas in support of deep-penetration jungle operations dropped over 450 parapacks containing 153,000 lb. of supplies on 97 dropping zones, an increase of 9,000 lb. on the January total. The total amount of supplies dropped by R.A.F. Dakotas since the commencement of the operations now exceeds two and a half million pounds.
On February 22, a Dakota acted as an air-borne tactical headquarters for service and police commanders, reporting by radio the movements of dispersed columns of police and army units which were carrying out screening operations in the Dingkel area of Selangor.
Over 250 members of the security forces, in addition to detainees and 42,000 lb. of freight, were carried. During the month, detachments of the R.A.F. Regiment (Malaya) have been operating in the jungle with the security forces.
U.S.S.R.: Aircraft Production
Forces Aeriennes Francaises, March 1950.—In an article published in the November, 1949, number of the Swiss Interavia and entitled “Red Stars in the Sky,” an anonymous writer gave some interesting data on Soviet air forces and aviation industry. The estimates given, even without sources, appear reasonable except for the figure of 10,000 jet fighters. The aviation industry is said to employ 440,000 workers in its 37 plants: 25 plants, 350,000 workers producing planes; 12 plants, 90,000 workers producing aviation motors.
The author asks what level is production reaching in Russia. His answer is as follows: Estimates of production levels achieved by the Russian airplane industry vary greatly according to the person formulating them and the motive he has for so doing. The warning given on April 13, 1948, to the American Senate by Mr. W. Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force, that the Soviet Union was building twelve times as many military planes as the United States, was doubtless an exaggeration intended to persuade American legislators to adopt the Secretary’s recommendations for expansion of the U.S.A.F.
We do know that in each of the last two years of the war the 750,000 or so workers of the Soviet aeronautical industry put out about 40,000 planes. The types being built at the time were comparatively small and simple in design, but today the Soviet Union is building modern, complicated craft, jets and heavy bombers, that require a greater number of man-hours for production. This disadvantage is compensated for by the fact that Soviet industry is no longer hampered by the war, and that it can obtain large quantities of equipment from Russian factories as well as from the dismantled German factories. In addition, the Soviets now enjoy the services of a large number of German technicians.
On this basis the information giving the Russians credit for 25,000 planes built in 1949 seems well-founded. Soviet production may be broken down as follows:
Heavy bombers | 3,000 |
Light bombers | 5,000 |
Jet fighters | 5,000 |
Fighters, conventional type | 2,500 |
Transports | 2,500 |
Utility planes, training and sport, gliders | 7,000 |
Total for 1949 | 25,000 |
In other words, production, which had taken a sharp drop in 1946 and 1947 because the industry went in for modern types, has probably increased production by a notable percentage over 1948 (18,000 planes: 2,000 heavy bombers, 4,000 light bombers, 6,500 fighters, 1,500 transports, 4,000 misc.). It is quite possible that in 1950 the air arm will have attained the strength it desires and will then slow up production in order to liberate funds necessary for improving bases, etc.
Here again it must not be imagined that the comparatively young Soviet aeronautical industry has solved all its problems. We know, for instance, that the Russians had a lot of trouble building their jet engines. In the years immediately following the war they had considerable difficulty with their own gas turbines, which were copied from the groups Jumo 004 and B.M.W. 003, taken in Germany and which had not made all their tests. They appear to have surmounted their initial difficulties, doubtless because their constructors received an unexpected aid at a low price when the British consented to cede them 50 Rolls-Royce “Derwent” and “Nene” engines.
The short period performances of Soviet jet engines may doubtless be compared with those of engines in use elsewhere. Nevertheless, the question of periods between revisions is another matter. Despite the rapid progress of the Russians in recent years, some maintain that in the domain of gas turbines they are still about three years behind the British. Another difficulty: the manufacture of precision instruments and electronic material.
MERCHANT MARINE
Shipbuilding in Scotland
Chicago Tribune, April 13.—With big orders on their books, and the threat of nationalization shelved temporarily, Scottish shipbuilders are optimistic about the future. High costs continue to act as a brake, but material supplies, particularly steel, are improving and builders now are able to promise reasonably accurate delivery dates:
Scottish yards have orders on hand for about 1,000,000 tons of new shipping. This is more than double the immediate pre-war rate, and contracts are coming at a good pace.
Most of the new orders are for tankers. Buyers include the United States, Australia, Italy, Sweden, and Brazil. The Liberian Navigation corporation has ordered two diesel driven ore carriers, the biggest ever built in Britain. They will ply between Liberia and the United States.
In addition to new tonnage, the post-war reconditioning program still is helping to keep the yards busy. At the Barclay Curie’s yard at Elderslie, the 11,162 ton motor ship Dunera will provide work for at least six months.
Two Cunard White Star liners and the Canadian Pacific steamship Empress of Scotland are among other big repair jobs on hand, while the Empire Fowey, formerly the German vessel Potsdam, has just left the Clyde after an overhaul estimated to have cost $5,600,000.
Japanese Shipbuilding
New York Times, April 17.—Tokyo.—Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters announced today that Japanese shipyards had set a postwar shipbuilding record in an Occupation-approved drive to revive the country’s merchant fleet.
The announcement said the shipyards completed eighteen steel vessels, launched fourteen others and laid the keels of thirty more steel ships between Feb. 20 and March 20.
Official figures showed that thirteen conversion jobs on small vessels had been completed during the same thirty-day period and that conversion work had been started on thirteen other ships totaling 37,000 tons. Not all will receive international classification, however.
The new ship construction started would add 94,000 tons of shipping to the Japanese fleet.
Two of the thirty ships whose keels were laid were 12,000-ton tankers and thirteen were cargo vessels ranging from 4,000 to 7,000 gross tons each. The remainder were small barges, tugs and other miscellaneous craft.
The fourteen vessels launched aggregated 14,000 tons. One was the first tanker meeting international specifications to be added to the Japanese merchant fleet since the beginning of the Occupation.
Among the eighteen vessels completed were a 3,500-ton freighter for a Danish line and three patrol boats for the Japanese coast guard.
SCIENCE
Soil Quick-Hardened into Landing Strip
Aviation Week, March 27.—Recent development of a new chemical process for the stabilization of soil may permit, in the event of war, more rapid advance and better deployment of Air Force groups in combat theaters than was possible in World War II.
With this process, an ocean beach or some soupy, muddy area can be converted into an adequate landing strip in less than a day. Soil containing as much as 30 percent water by weight can be given a tough, rubbery surface suitable for landing operations within five hours after treatment.
Developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology under sponsorship of Engineer Research and Development Laboratory, Fort Belvoir, Va., the process uses calcium acrylate, a chemical absorbed by soil particles.
Two other compounds employed are sodium thiosulfate and ammonium persulfate. These last cause the calcium acrylate molecules to lock together, so that, in effect, the soil particles are joined as the “innocent bystanders” in a fast chemical reaction.
Tensile strength of the soil five hours after treatment is from 5-10 psi. If the surface is allowed to dry for a week, this may increase to 500 psi., with accompanying loss in elasticity. But rewetting the soil returns it to elastic and tensile strength conditions that existed five hours after treatment.
In recent M.I.T. tests, a 3-in.-thick soil block withstood, without noticeable indentation, the weight of a car moving over it 24 hr. after treatment. A 16-lb. steel ball dropped from a height of 7 ft. rebounded about 6 in. without damage to the test section.
M.I.T. is optimistic that current tests now being conducted will prove that the process is suitable for use under unusual high and low temperature conditions. Present costs of the chemicals are said to be high, but it is believed that mass production of these products would lower their cost to a reasonable level.
Television Underwater
New York Herald Tribune, March 31.—A means not only of watching deep-sea divers at their work but of preserving a permanent record of their operations was demonstrated by the Navy today with the first motion pictures ever made of an underwater television broadcast. Also included in the demonstration were the first sound motion pictures of a color television broadcast.
Navy officers explained that the development resulted from a four-year research project. They said it promised to have “great practical application” in submarine-salvage operations.
It was explained that divers working on a salvage job were unable to remain at depths of 100 feet or below for more than twenty minutes at a time so that they always work in relays. With a television receiver on which relief divers waiting their turn could see exactly what their predecessors had done, Navy spokesmen said, greatly improved continuity of salvage work could be achieved.
Divers who worked in connection with the underwater television recording experiments, the Navy said, reported unanimously that the television camera could “see” much more clearly than they could when submerged.
The television-recording equipment is equally applicable to airplane use, the Navy said, and is expected to prove of great value for reconnaissance. During the war the Navy employed television in pilotless airplanes loaded with explosives to guide them by remote control into enemy ships.
Sea Bottom Scanner
Marine Progress, April, 1950.—A New Electronic Device for shipboard use which is expected to prove of considerable value in underwater exploration as well as for navigation in narrow channels and shallow waters has been developed for the United States Navy by the Edo Corporation, College Point, L.I., N. Y.
The device is known as the Contour Bot tom Scanner or more familiarly as the CBS. Using the principle of Sonar linked to a cathode ray tube, the CBS gives observers aboard ship a detailed picture of the shape of the bottom of a harbor or even the ocean down to a depth of several hundred feet. A sunken boat, plane wreckage or even objects as small as a human body are clearly seen on the screen of this new electronic device. It is expected to aid materially in hunting for sunken objects as well as serve as an invaluable navigational aid in shallow waters.
The CBS differs from a depth sounder in that the latter gives only a reading of the depth immediately below. To plot the contour of an entire channel or harbor requires tedious cruising back and forth to get sufficient adjacent soundings to determine with accuracy the shape of the bottom. Small hidden objects can escape the eye of the depth sounder.
In contrast, this new Edo developed equipment gives a cross sectional view of a relatively wide area spanning an area about 50 degrees to port or starboard of a vertical line.
The contour readings on the cathode ray tube can either be noted visually or recorded continuously by a camera.
Here’s how the Contour Bottom Scanner works in nontechnical language. A train of short pulses of electrical energy at a supersonic frequency is generated by a transmitter and directed into the water, as sound energy, from a transducer, which combines the functions of a sound projector and receiving hydrophone. This unit is located on the bottom of the boat and operates in such a way that the sound pulses sweep the area below and to either side of the boat. The time taken for the signals to reach the bottom and return is translated into readings of depth on the cathode ray tube. Each signal makes a single dot and the rapid succession of them results in a line on the tube indicating accurately the bottom’s shape.
Following successful development of the CBS, Edo has delivered a production order of Model AN/SQN-1’s for the Navy. Knowledge of the new device has already resulted in a number of unique requests to the Navy for its use. An historian wants to use the equipment to locate sunken British ships in Lake Champlain; an urgent request came from Cape Cod to send a unit there to help locate a drowned person. In one of the CBS’ first practical applications, it was used in Baltimore harbor to search for a missing plane believed to have gone under during an instrument approach.
A wide variety of applications of the Contour Bottom Sounder is seen both as a navigational aid and in general underwater exploration and survey work.
INTERNATIONAL
Anglo-French Maneuvers
London Times, March 13.—The mixed squadron of French and British naval vessels, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lambert, of the French Navy, which is carrying out manoeuvres in the Mediterranean this week-end, spent yesterday in a counterattack against three “enemy” submarines, whose task was to attack the lines of communication between France and North Africa. The task force was composed of the French destroyer Montcalm, the British destroyer Liverpool, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the French aircraft-carrier Arromanches, with a flotilla of French and British destroyers.
Standardized Flight Training
New York Times, April 14.—London, Friday, April 14.—Flight training of Air Force pilots of four of the five Brussels alliance countries will be standardized and improved, the Brussels Treaty office said here today.
The four countries are Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The fifth member, Luxembourg, has no air force.
The announcement described the new system as “the first completely integrated international defense unit to be established in peacetime.”
The new organization is an “examining squadron” to make identical tests of training in the four air forces “to find a common level of proficiency and lay down a common doctrine in all flying techniques.”
Atlantic Nations Speed Strategic Defense Plan
Christian Science Monitor, March 27.— The Hague.—The grand scheme of western defense is emerging from a series of North Atlantic military meetings here.
Known as the “Strategic Defense Plan,” it already has been approved by staff chiefs of the United States, Britain, and France, constituting the standing groups of the Atlantic Pact Military Committee.
It now goes to the full military committee, comprising the staff chiefs of the 12 countries for clarification.
Details of the plan are being kept under wraps until final action is taken, but it is believed to cover the collective strategy and separate missions of the participating countries for the next five years.
Roles Assigned
It can be said in general that roles are assigned as follows:
Strategic bombing—United States.
Short-range bombardment and air defense—Britain and France.
Maintaining naval superiority—United States, Britain, Holland and, to some extent, France.
Ground forces—Mainly the continental members.
There is much more than that in the plan, but details are being withheld for the moment. Officials decline even to say whether it lays down the line across Europe that the Atlantic Union countries will defend.
The plan was evolved from months of work during which, it is said, there were only minor points of disagreement.
The five regional groups have been laboring since last Nov. 1. On Dec. 1, the military committee, meeting in Paris, propounded an “integrated defense concept” which laid down the guiding lines. This “concept” then was referred back to the regional committees to work out the implications.
The groups worked out programs setting forth what they considered necessary to fulfill their missions and what they could put into the collective pot. These programs now have been screened and unified at the top level, resulting in the present master plan.
This is not the first time the expression “master defense plan” has been used, but American officers say it is the first time one really existed for the whole Atlantic Union.
Standard Arms Pushed
Before the conference of the standing group—including Gen. Omar N. Bradley of the United States, Field Marshal Sir William Slim of Britain, and Gen. Charles Lecheres of France, together with their subordinates in separate services—the Military Production and Supply Board met to consider proposals for a coordinated program.
A communique noted “progress” toward such a program during the past four months and said the board had “laid down the problem areas to which the permanent staff should address its attention and efforts during the coming months.”
One of the problems, it is believed, is to speed up work on standardization of arms. Members of the alliance appear reluctant to standardize quickly where it involves scrapping of expensive stockpiles of existing equipment.
Important in this connection is the $160,000,000,000 which the United States has put aside to stimulate production of standardized arms. This resembles the “incentive fund” which Economic Cooperation Administrator, Paul G. Hoffman is proposing under the Marshall Plan to stimulate western European economic integration.
Considerable emphasis has been put on the American role in providing logistic and technical support for the European treaty members. The significance of these terms, while not being elaborated at the moment, is expected to emerge in the coming months.