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?"p?p?- ' n ? ?? ? " -? ! 1 ?7^ ?? ..-ram The Alamance Gleaner VoL LXIX GRAHAM, N. C., THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1943 No. 10 WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS U. S. Food Payments Urged for Poor; Tunisia Trap Closes on Axis Armies As Allied Air Blitz Destroys Ships; Truman Group Eyes Hoarding Charges (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions aro expressed In those eelamns, they are these of Western Newspaper Union's news analysis and net necessarily sf this newspaper.) ??_ Released by Western Newspaper Union. The toll ot German prisoners has increased steadily as British and American forces have driven in on Rommel's cornered Axis forces in Tunisia. Typical of the multitude of captives is the above group of Ger man prisoners taken in the British drive north of Gabes. NORTH AFRICA: Axis Hold Shrinks Of key importance in heralding the possibility of an earlier-than-ex pected finish of the Tunisian cam paign were reports that the harbor and shipping facilities of Gabes had been left undamaged by the Axis forces in their hasty retreat from Gen. Montgomery's onslaughts. With Gabes functioning as an Al lied supply port, the long overland haul of war materials from Tripoli or Bengazi far down the African coast in Libya could be avoided. Moreover, Allied sea and air power concentrated in Gabes could further harass the Axis forces. The all-over battle for North Af rica was not yet won, but steadily British armies from the north and south and American armies from the center were tightening the squeeze on the remaining Axis troops in Tunisia. As Marshal Rommels forces had made their last desperate effort to beat their way northward for a junc tion with Col. Gen. Von Arnim's troops in the Bizerte area, reports indicated that the Axis had flown fresh troops into Tunisia. To re lieve the pressure on Rommel, Von Arnim's forces had staged a brief counter - offensive against British forces near Bizerte. Control of the air over North Africa had appeared to be turning overwhelmingly in the Allies' favor, as raids shook the Axis lines and turned Rommel's retreat into a nightmare. Meanwhile in answer to reports that Germany had commandeered the Italian fleet and all available French merchantmen preparatory to an attempt to evacuate Italo-Ger man armies from Tunisia in an Axis "Dunkirk," the Allies staged an unprecedented raid by 100 Flying Fortresses that smashed the impor tant Axis supply base at Cagliari, Sardinia, damaging 26 merchant ships and putting 71 enemy planes out of commission. Simultaneous ly, waves of American Billy Mitch ell bombers struck at an Axis con voy in the Sicilian narrows, sinking at least three large ships and leav ing others burning and settling. INVESTIGATION: Of U. S.-Held Foods Into a maze of charges and countercharges that the government itself had become No. 1 food hoard er, the senate's Truman investigat ing committee plunged in an effort to obtain the facts. Chairman Harry S. Truman an nounced that a two-way investiga tion was in progress. One phase to to inquire into the amount of food held by government agencies. The other was to investigate the needs of the armed forces. Information from both government and private sources had been obtained, he said. Previously, members of the food trade and others had charged that the armed services are hoarding processed foods and thus forcing less than necessary civilian allowances under rationing. "Supplies of food for the armed forces must be sufficiently great to assure that there will be plenty of food for our soldiers and sailors," Truman said. "However, care must be taken to assure that the govern ment does not itself become a hoarder." FOOD SUBSIDY: Urged to Aid Poor Suggesting that the government pay persons in low income groups special allowances to enable them to buy sufficient food, Roy F. Hen drickson, head of the Food Distribu tion administration, declared he be lieved that otherwise these people would "find it tough to get food." Emphasizing that his statements were his own personal views, Hen drickson declared that the plan he advocates would aid the farmer. Declaring the problem had to be "treated from both ends," he said that the farmer had become dis couraged because food costs have gone so high while prices paid him have not risen in proportion. "We have got to see that the farm er is able to market his stuff," Hen drickson declared. Any volume of income to the purchasing class is bound to help the farmer." In addition to the low income groups, he suggested payments for the aged, the blind and otherwise handicapped. POSTWAR PLANS: Poland Speaks Up With postwar peace plans gaining increased attention in Allied chan cellories, tile Polish government-in exile served notice that Poles would resist "to the last man" any claims from any quarter aimed at the "sovereignty and integrity of Po land." Spokesman for the Poles was Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski, now a resident of London. Target of the statesman's remarks was Russia, since the Soviet government recently announced its intention of retaining the Polish Ukraine and the area bordering on White Russia which was taken from Poland un der the German-Russian partition of Poland in 1939. But even as he stoutly proclaimed his doctrines of independence, Sikor ski recommended that an Allied air force should go to the Russian front after the fighting in Tunisia is con cluded as an expression of United Nations' solidarity. He predicted a third German offensive by the Ger man armies against Russia. CIVILIAN GOODS: No Further Cuts? Taking stock of America's indus trial power, Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production board, declared that "Today we are turning out more goods for war than we ever produced for our peacetime needs, yet we have enough power left over to keep civilian standards of living at a high level." Mr. Nelson predicted in an address in Chicago that the United States this year will turn out more than 80 billion dollars worth of goods for war purposes. The WPB chiefs 1943 es timate compares with 48 billion in 1943, the first year after Pearl Har bor, 17 billion in 1941 and four billion in 1940, the year Germany smashed her way across Europe. The figures will get even bigger, Mr. Nelson said, adding "as they grow the armies and cities of the Axis will feel an ever-fiercer flame, a more terrifying blast from the guns and bombs of America." Eventual victory, he declared, al ready is being foreshadowed in the "cold hard figures of production." RUSSIA: Mud Unlimited Yards rather than miles were the measure of Russian gains on the Smolensk sector as the thaw-sod dened central front was further mired by heavy spring rains. Further to the south, however, the Red forces menaced the steadily shrinking German bridgehead in the Northwest Caucasus by the capture of Anastasevskaya, 38 miles north west of Novorossisk on the last high way link between Nazi forces north and south of the Kuban river. Elsewhere, fresh German tank as saults against the Soviet line on the Donets river east of Kharkov were rolled back by the stout Red defend ers. In the north the Germans tacit ly reported a retreat near Staraya Russa, between Moscow and Lenin grad, by admitting a "withdrawal to prepared positions." TIRES: Synthetics O. K. Two events pointed to the conclu sion that the nation's synthetic rub ber producing program was pro ceeding successfully. One was the appearance of Rub ber Director William M. Jeffers be fore a senate committee with a heavy duty synthetic truck tire and his statement that the artificial elastic had been perfected "to the point where it will very nearly meet all requirements without mixing with natural rubber." The other was the action of the rubber division and the department of agriculture in reducing the im mediate planting of guayule, a rub ber producing shrub from 53,000 acres to between 13,000 and 20,000 acres. Jeffers warned, however, that the rubber situation was still critical. SOUTH PACIFIC: Bombs Break Lull American bombs exploding on Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, Vila in the central Solomons, Kahili in the Shortlands and in Japanese hold ings north of Australia broke the lull in the Pacific war theater. While the foregoing raids had nuisance and punitive value, General MacArthur's fliers in New Guinea centered their attacks on enemy sup ply and communication lines be tween Wewak and Madang and strafed the entire Salamaua area. A communique from Allied head quarters said that low-altitude raids in the Salamaua area with bombs, cannon and machine gun fire had subjected this front to the most in tensive damage this Jap base had yet received. Allied airmen continued their raids on the airdromes at Lae and at Timika in Dutch New Guinea. 'AIR POLICE': To Insure Peace Air power as a police force pre serving world peace after the war was envisioned by former Presi dent Herbert Hoover, who proposed that the United Nations strip the HERBERT HOOVES Axis powers of their airplane fac tories as a means of stopping ambi tious militarists. The former President declared that "planes alone" could do the job of maintaining international order, thus allowing extensive land and sea armament while the world moves peacefully into an era of "freedom-of-the-air." DRAFT: Reaches War Plants As the need for military manpow er increased a nation-wide search of war factories for men of draft age who could be replaced by women or older men was undertaken. So great is the need. Selective Service of ficials revealed, that the canvass of the war plants might result in calling for military service thou sands of men now classified 2A and 2B?men actually producing tools of war or working in direct support of the war effort Next Decade to See Changes in Air Travel That Seem Fantastic to All hut Aviators ? But Most of Us Will Live To Learn Every Prophecy Has Come Truet By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. CALIFORNIA high school youngsters will spend two weeks' study - vacations in a China reached after a fast hop in a plane or a huge dirigible. The graduating classes of Hud son's Bay Eskimo elementary schools will fly to New York or Chicago for supervised study visits. Half-naked natives from the forests of Malay will fly to uni versities in California or Aus tralia and fly back to the native villages as agronomists and physicists. "Impossible!" you say ? or perhaps only: "Not likely!" As a matter of fact, it's not only ; possible but it's entirely probable. You can take the word of a man who knows! He is Harry Bruno, who grew up with American aviation and with its early heroes. If any man is quali fied to forecast iwfcathajfehead in an America {hat has always pioneered in flight and that will probably be even more depdkdent on air travel in the future than it has in the past, he is that man. So when he makes such proph ecies as those given at the beginning of this article, don't just laugh them off. Instead, read these words of his: "All this?and more?can be accom plished with the planes and airships that exist today. But the world of tomorrow will fly greater, faster, more economical flying machines and airships than now exist." You'll find those words in a new book, "Wings Over America?The Inside Story of American Aviation," written by Harry Bruno and pub lished by Robert M. McBridge and Company of New York. It's not only an interesting book because it's the "inside story" told by a man who, as one of the six original "Quiet Birdmen" and as today's foremost aviation publicist, has first-hand knowledge of every memorable and spectacular event in the develop ment of America's aerial power. It's also an important book?important right now when America is engaged in a life-and-death struggle. For, as Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky, who wrote the introduction to Mr. Bruno's book, says: "The United Nations will win this war through superior science, or they will not win it at all. We must cut loose from the past and embark upon audacious new strategies, with air power as their core. We must utilize our superior technological set up to spring intellectual surprises, in machines and strategic innova tions, on the enemy. And thus it will be that the dreamers, the pio neers of yesterday's aviation will be come the realists and leaders of to day and tomorrow. The dynamics of air power are so intensive that we must plan for tomorrow if we want to be on time today. Fortu nately America has the leadership to achieve this. Harry Bruno tells us where and why." Such being the case, let's "cut loose from the past" (so far as our ideas of the limitations of air travel are concerned) and "embark upon audacious new" voyages into the future with Mr. Bruno. You can do that by reading the last chapter in his book?"The Next Ten Years." Always Look Forward. At the outset of that chapter he says: "The gods of aviation have one rule which all must obey: al ways look forward." Then he ad monishes us to "Look ten years ahead to a post-war world In which the defeated Axis gangs are a thing of tho past, and you see one of the most powerful reasons for each and every one of us to buckle down and do our utmost to guarantee this victory. Thanks to aviation, this is > one of the most glorious ages in world history." Besides his predictions about the California high school youngsters, the Eskimo school children and the half-naked natives from tho forests of Malay, Mr. Bruno foresees also the day when: "Shepherds will fly from the crags of Tibet to universities in Vladivos tok and fly back to their native vil lages as doctors. "Plane loads of professors will take off from Madrid to train South American Indians in new universi ties established near new airfields in Colombia, in Venezuela, in Peru. "The whole world will become the oyster of any American with a two weeks' vacation?and the low cost of airplane and airship travel will i make a most enlightening vaca- i tion in Norway or India a reality < for the Detroit mechanic or the Boa- i ton librarian." < Planes of the Future. How will they be able to do all this? Here is the answer in Mr. , Bruno's words: "The big planes of the next decade will glide through the stratosphere at speeds of 800 miles an hour and more. They will enable a man to breakfast in New York and have dinner in Paris on the same day. Citizens of Detroit and Denver will ' be able to do exactly the same, even though their planes will fly non stop from their borne towns to Eu rope and South America. "Their planes will not be patterned after the huge flying boats that now cross the oceans. -The new planes of 1952 will be huge stratosphere land planes, whose sealed, oxygen equipped cabins will carry more than 200 passengers in all the luxury and comfort travelers enjoyed on luxury steamships like the Queen Mary and the Normandie. They will be powered by banks of gasoline _i_ PROPHET ? Harry Bruno, who "pew up" with American aviation, make* *ome startling?but "toe con servative," *o tap hi* friend*?pre diction* about air travel daring the next ten pear*. burning engine* of 3,000 horsepower each. Bat the use of gasoline, la aviation, will some day be as ob solete as the era of steam in auto mobiles. Electric engines of It,MS horsepower, receiving their Impulses through rays transmitted from ground stations will snpplant gaso line engines within two decades of the end of tho war. "Passengers with more time, out for a more economical ocean cross ing, will ride in the comfortable helium-Ailed dirigibles of the new world. These giant cargo and pas senger airships will cross the Atlan tic in about 3d hours, carrying fast freight and about twice as many passengers as the fast planes." If you decided to sell your auto mobile because of the inconvenience of gas rationing and wait until after the war to get a new one, don't count too much on becoming a "motorist" again. For, according to Mr. Bruno, automobiles "will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is ftred in World War n. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford's, for his helicopter will all but re place the horseless carriage as the new means of transportation. In stead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter." Why? Well, these marvelous ma chines can do everything an auto mobile can do, do it better and be sides take you up in the air, far from the gasoline fumes of the crowded highways. Look at this pic ture of s Sunday afternoon pleasure "drive," as Mr. Bruno paints it: "The family will take off in its helicopter from the backyard or the roof hangar, climb straight to the level authorized by government reg ulation, fly on to their destination, and land on earth, on a root top, or on water?as fancy dictates. In stead of wheels, the craft is mounted on rubber floats?inasmuch as it rises and descends like an elevator anywhere, wheels are not needed. These 'copters will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for 'teen age youngsters. These tiny 'copters, when school lets out, will All the skies as the bicycles of our youth filled the pre-war roads." But 'copters aren't the only ma chines that your children and their children will be driving. For, says Mr. Bruno, "the great sport of our youth will be motorless flight. Glider meets will be held all over the coun try, much like the sailing meets of other years." However, the glider won't be a machine for "pleasure driving" only. It will become an important economic factor in the transporta tion of the future. "Powerful cargo carrying sky trucks will tow trains of cargo carrying gliders?since all but the bulkiest slow freight will be carried by airplane or glider-towing, cargo-carrying dirigibles. The glider will also become the great transpor tation medium of commuting." Trains of Gliders. Which means that when you de cide to visit Aunt Emma back in Syracuse or Cousin Will out in Ore gon, here's how you'll go: "Glider trains, towed by a lead passenger-carrying plane that will fly hundreds of miles, will drop glid ers carrying local passengers at air ports all along the route. Thus, a trip from New York to Albany, for instance, would be made in a glider attached to the New York-Buffalo sky train. Passengers would board the train at the overhead station of Rockefeller Center. The sky-train, which started from LaGuardia Field, would pick up the Albany glider at Rockefeller Center (and pick it up in flight, too) and continue on toward Buffalo. Over Albany, the conductor-pilot of the Albany glider will cut his craft loose from the train and glide to earth. By the time the lead plane reaches Buffalo, he will have dropped all of his glid ers along th? route." "But all of these machines can still fall down and kill people?no, sir, I'll stick to good old Mother Earth I" you say. The aviation of the future will become increasingly safer, Mr. Bruno believes. He writes: "All aircraft will have tele vision weather survey sets, enabling them to see and hear weather con ditions along the routes that lie ahead. In this manner, they will be able to fly above or around storm areas and add* to the comfort of each flight. "All airplane factories will be en tirely underground, air-conditioned and deep enough so that no aerial bomb can ever hurt them. Airports will also go underground and what will appear to be an empty field will suddenly become active when a plane lands on it. A quick taxi to a designed spot, and down will go the underground hangar as the surface sinks under the operation of a large elevator. An international police force, armed with the newest type of air weapon, will have no trouble maintaining order and understand ing." Such is Mr. Bruno's preview of "things to come." Do you find them hard to believe? Then reflect upon these final words: "These predictions are a lot more conservative than the flat prediction, in 1900, that before the century was over man would build a machine that would really fly. If anything, most of my friends?men like Igor Sikorsky and C. M. Keys, who read this chapter, for instance?mark the predictions down as being too earth bound, too conservative. And this should tell you that most of you will nva to see them all come truel" This Glenn Martin super-passenger liner is not ? plane of the "far future"?rather it belongs in tho "near fntnre" for plans for its production already exist. Who's News This Week * Delos Wheeler Lorelece CouolhUttd rratum.-WHO ?^EW YORK.?A couple of yean x ago Cheater C. Da via would have switched 5,000,000 low-income farmers Into defense industry. He'B F?d Cmar Can* To Hit Offica Via their plows. Six of Oar State* A* f.?*d ?d" minlatrator he ought to like whatever the 5,000. 000 farmen can grow, even if it le tpinach. Fifty-six yean eld new, Davis need to be footloose. Be was born In Iowa and got bis AB at little Grinnell, bat later he picked np a law degree at Ciena son in Sooth Carolina, and his ?rat job was in Sooth Dakota. Be was editor af a pint-sised paper there and then he rolled mosslessly an to Montana. Kaab taaa always has a taw crop af girls, and ha married awe hi 1IU and SnaHy became state agricultural Mar ?specUn^whel^ p^dZewTtw* sans, but Davis rolled an te HH nois to run fast a grain aaarhsf stalks processing company. All this seems skitter-skatter, hot it turned out to be just right for a job with the Agricultural Adjust ment administration, fast as direc tor, then as administrator. And that led, by a neatly selective process, into the Federal Reserve system. He has been president of the re serve bank in St. Louis for several years and maybe in defense against people wanting money he has formed the habit of dropping his fleshy face and looking somberly from under heavy eyebrows. ?? ^OW and then the production of *? this column is interrupted by a young buck from next door who speaks the irreverent jargon of the Yellow Peril of UJn."for?? Tohyo a Gangster ample, grave To Reckon With eld" f"*? somberly of Japan's dangerous Premier Hideki Tojo he swings in with a carefree "Hi-de-ho." His is a too flippant reaction. The yellow, or tea-colored peril of Tokyo is bad medicine for people in these parts, even though he has softened his earlier promise to route con quering legions through our states. Now he will only crush our power in the Pacific. He seems to figure this won't be so difficult with those 28 new dictatorial laws, and with a new economic council to cut red tape. Te)e, according to met lately back (ram the Fat East, beads ap a band of military (Uptcn. He toek ever the foreranent of Japes, they bay, by asetheds seek as Dutch Scbalts ased to take oyer the liqaer racket to the bad eM days here. The aaaae methods will keep Mas to power antil his pif meats a tougher (U| or he Is, himself, robbed eat He is big for a Japanese, with an un trimmed mustache and a mere spatter of hair fringin# the skm stretched tightly over his hard skull. He lives in the Samurai tradition, eats lightly, rises early, and pam pers himself only in the number ot cigars he puffs to ashes in a day. He graduated from Japan's Mili tary academy and has been in the army all his life. His followers call him Razor Brains, a nickname Dutch would have envied. SH as for his wife! She says that no gent ler husband ever lived. She has never once heard him scold a servant. ? MUSSOLINI seems nearer his long-predicted final fall as the rumor hangs on that Crown Prince Humbert may be made commander Wit A Good Fu/crum H umbo it Might Tip remnants at Tailoring Maooolim f *? 1 y '? Army. Humbert has always given the Fascist salute with crossed lingers. His dissent, necessarily, has been guarded save perhaps when he balked at the Ethiopian razzia. But at M he could easily feel ready to come out in the open and tip aver a tottering dictator. He should knew, toe, hew to . ran an army. He was a gen- J era] aa active daty two years / ago. And this spring he led the ' Italians la Russia. Backward, j mainly, bet still it was export- > once. Once Humbert onto a I friend that he doubted he ever i would be king. His prmpeeto ; are brighter aew, bet even ? he ?tin feels toe same way, he has a sew. J
The Alamance Gleaner (Graham, N.C.)
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April 15, 1943, edition 1
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