Lawnmower Boy

chblogging August 1944, I: Ancient Scandals My Dearest Reggie: The trip through the Oregon country was as wonderful as ever, although somewhat trying, in that Wong Lee and I were confined in close quarters with three teen-agers with considerably less patience with sweeping coastal vistas. Nor was the impatience much lessened by the experience of the sleepy pace here in Canada. Your youngest is amazed to see the way that time has stopped since he left! Ore perhaps he merely chafes under instructions to be circumspect in looking up old friends. Word is not likely to get back to the police, never mind the FBI or Border Patrol where it is not sought, but even so, I should hate to undo the work of his "midnight rebirth," and his American life will be the easier if there is never occasion to doubt his supposed American birth. Turning to your hospitality, I can only repeat my thanks, and apologise for the burden we impose on your wife, who has retired to your summer place on Bowen Island, as I am sure she will let you know. Fortunately, a few more days (and one more newsletter), and I shall be on my way to the South Seas, while Wong Lee adopts the role of teen-ager-wrangler-in-chief and chivvies the young ones back down the coast to California. If I can ask one more favour, could you discretely seek out our friend and put some questions to him? I distinctly recall him saying, on more than one occasion, that his grandfather came to the country to work on the railroad. Nor was he above the old joke, "Ching, Chang, Chong, the Old Names make the sound of the hammers," although careful to leave his own clan off the list. While I would not put it past the Old Man to lie to us in the matter, I am confident that Grandfather would have sought his own sureties in the matter of purging the relevant records. Yet it seems certain now that our friend's employer believes that it has in its possession documentary evidence of our friend's grandfather's date of arrival in the country and racial origins. I know that you will regard this as a footling matter, but it is important to me that when discussions turn to breaking off the relationship, we have the upper hand, in the form of an offer to address their technical concerns, and not they, in the form of a breach of the morals clause of the employment contract. (If you are wondering about the fate of your "Christmas present," Bill and David have subcontracted the matter to a Santa Clara engineering student of the utmost discretion.) Speaking of investigations, and morals concerns, you are correct that the fonds that I have directed "Miss V.C." towards in the Vancouver Archives are related to Old Liu, and, of course, the Honolulu arrests cannot go unmentioned, even after 39 years, as his family's continuing attempt to ignore their ancestor would anyways suggest. Yes, these are not matters that one wishes to discuss with an eighteen-year-old girl, and, yes, her mother's opinion of me can still go lower. However, they are also not a side of life that can be practically withheld from a young lady of her generation, what with the Andrews Sisters and burlesque dancers and worse on every radio and cinema screen. Old Lieu will introduce "Miss V.C." to the specific cargo that the whalers of the old McKee "triangle trade" brought in to Nootka, and the provision that was made to place that cargo on the trail and rails to Chicago. If she does not now think of the issue of the "Prince of Maquinna," it will be because she is diverted into the larger scandal, seeing in the fonds the connection to the Chinatown arrests that the family interest so promptly suppressed. And that, apart from the delicious scandal of it all, will, I imagine, bring her back to the rails and the connection with her grandfather on another line of inquiry. I suppose. Right now, she is asking for my assistance in reaching Nootka. Naught but disappointment awaits her inquiries there, as you had the good sense to move our landings to more congenial locations in anticipation of the Volstead Act, but I can hardly tell her that! As I rather expected, we have seen more of Lieutenant A. than one might have expected. His employment in Seattle seems none too onerous, and his attendance at Pearl Harbour scarcely required, as in practice if not in strict chain of command the refitting of the new flagship's radio arrangements is in other hands. Fortunately or not, it now appears that the young man will continue his remote association with it, too. That is, he will join Nimitz's family in Honolulu, rather than that of his admiral at sea, for the forthcoming campaign, with signals responsibility. It does not appear that military service is necessarily that onerous if you choose your grandfathers adroitly. It rather makes me wonder how "Sink-Us" got his appointment! I do not ignore your inquiries about Fat Chow. We believe that he is going to reach Kashgar via Herat, and when we know more, we will let you know. Flight, 3 August 1944 Leaders “While the Iron is Hot” Germany is nearly beaten, and our bombing was never going to win the war by causing the German national morale to collapse (the idea that it might is all Germany’sfault!), but this is still the time to bomb the hell out of them, not to indiscriminately kill civilians, as the German “air torpedoes” are doing, but to “display our power in a way which all civilians can see.” This will not cause German civilian morale to collapse, because it won’t, but it will. Also, something about German war production and making Herr Goebbels work harder. Perhaps he has offended the paper by stealing its sweet papoose? Oh, no, G. Geoffrey Smith! “The Rocket-firing Typhoons” Normandy is a typical Montgomery battle, in that he draws the enemy in one flank and then strikes and breaks through on the other. (Such genius is like a candle, suddenly lit on the darkness of the night of all warfare before him.) Thus, it is to Montgomery’s credit that it is the Americans who have broken out, and the ‘rocket-firing Typhoons,’ in spite of also having little obviously to do with this breakout, which was largely accomplished by ‘.50-cal firing Thunderbolts,’ have actually been quite important. “Civil Aviation” We are talking about talking about civil aviation! In this number, the talking about talking is by the Tory Reform Committee, Dr. Edward P. Warner, and a fellow who rejoices in the title of “Inspector of the Czechoslovak Air Force.” War in the Air Today we talk about Normandy and rain, signs of German Air Force activity, the bombing of tank factories, and an attack on “Sumatra’s naval base.” I read the last first, and it sounds as though Aceh was very heavily hit. As far as I know, all of our people are lying low in Zamboanga, but with Ramadan fast approaching, I fear some may already be on the Verandah of Mecca. The lead item credits to the torrential rain in Normandy the German redeployment south of Caen, which held up a major Second Army assault in spite of a heavy commitment by ‘rocket-firing Typhoons.’ It is hoped that at least the redeployment of tanks and antitank guns had a knock on effect, holding up the delivery of flying bombs to their launching platforms. German fighters have not exploited the low ceiling, but night bombers have attacked the Caen area in some force. The paper notices the 3% death rate of American wounded in Normandy, and credits this amazing achievement to “whole blood, penicillin and the sulphanomides, and the rapid evacuation from the battle front, in part using air ambulances. Bombers continue to attack oil targets, but there is the thought that tank factories may be supplanting them as priority targets. Attacks also continue on possible “rocket shell” targets, and rumours that flying bombs are dropping incendiaries are refuted. “Slaughter in Jugoslavia” covers not one ethnicity/language/sect having its revenge on another, but the destruction of 38 locomotives from the air. More work for the foundries of the North! The paper notices that “old” Stirlings have been used in attacks on V1 and perhaps V2 bombsites, but this does not indicate a shortage of heavy bombers because of an argument too obvious and conclusive to be held up to the light of day here, any unmentioned persons who might have proposed the contrary being quite wrong, and probably unpatriotic, too. Here and There Ranger and Fairchild are now subcontracting the Merlin, because absolutely as many Detroit shops as possible should have access to British taxpayer-subsidised Derby research and development! Sir Stafford Cripps states in a written reply to a question by Mr. Granville (Independent, Eye), that the Ministry of Aircraft Production is, in fact, producing jet aircraft. U.S. experts are studying flying bomb parts, the paper greets the news that British bombers can shoot down German fighters as a welcome refutation of the idea that only “Flying Fortresses” can do this. BOA may soon fly in South America, says American Aviation, WAAFs arrive in Cyprus. The paper finds it noteworthy that a Sikorsky YR-1B helicopter was transported to a “northern airfield” for cold weather tests as cargo in a Curtiss Commando, “kangaroo”-style. Eighty fellowships to study aviation engineering, of an average value of £600/annum have been established by ICI. The Excess Profits Tax has clearly been kind to Imperial Chemical, and a good thing, considering all the benefits to modern life that chemistry will bring. Colonel Frederick MacKie, of Marks, Somerset, veteran of the Indian Medical Service and the Younghusband Expedition and long-time chief medical officer of BOAC, has died at 69. Air Vice-Marshal Stevenson, Commodore of the RCAF Pacific Coast Defences, is so bored by the lack of need for actual defending that he is doing a grand tour of the Pacific war zone with his staff and anyone else who wants to come along. They will be studying the influence of climate on strategy, and also hulu dancing. Glenn Martin has developed a method to avoid the prefreezing of perishables for air transport. It involves it being really cold in aircraft flying at high altitude, and the American Association of Waist Gunners is contesting the patent. “Canopus,” first of the Short flying boat airliners, has racked up 11,000 flying hours while covering 1,500,000 miles. It turns out that many of Britain’s small aviation firms have spent the war repairing or converting aircraft, there was a celebratory luncheon in London in honour of Bleriot’s flight, and Flight Lieutenant P. M. C. Hill, son of Air Marshal Sir Roderick Hill, was killed on a bombing mission in Italy last month at the age of 26. “Two Bells: The Bell Aircraft Corporation’s Unorthodox Jet-Propelled Aircraft and Helicopters: No Combinationof the Two –Yet.” Having developed the Airacuda and Airacrobra in the past, Laurence Bell’s firm can probably be depended upon for further novelties. Chicago-based Air Tech has published “exclusive” three-view silhouettes of the Bell jet fighter, giving the paper apparent license to reprint them. Equally vague is word of the Bell helicopter, and the “yet” is presumably an indication that the paper knows more than it is allowed to say. The one actual fact in the article is that GE has allocated space to the manufacture of the “Whittle-GEC prime mover.” “Indicator” discusses “Inefficient Efficiency: Killing Individual Enthusiasm: The Need for Personal Interest in Aircraft Manufacture and Operation: A New King of Incentive: Debunking the ‘Power-Plotters” In short, I infer that Indicator continues to be biter about what I assume was his grounding, causing to lash out at the various novelties of the age. And, actually, I should restrain my comments until I have read to the end of the number, because that is not theimplicit burden of this column. The last two paragraphs are a full-throated rant against “train ‘em young” and “paper-efficiency, even with the help of psychiatrists.” Although he does have a point, in that it is much easier to “catch ‘em” at 29 than it is at 18. The paper is appalled by the army-centric, parochial view of the fighting in Tunisia presented by the recent Tunisia, as issued by the Ministry of Information. Although the photographs are nice. It calls for campaign histories to be issued by the Ministry of Defence, so that the contributions of all three services can be weighed even-handedly, and no pernicious distortions of therecord allowed to creep in to the record. Maurice F. Allward, “Engine Mountings” Rather in the spirit of Aviation’s multipart series on, say, the load-bearing capacity of acetate or celestial navigation comes this second article on the subject of attaching engines to aircraft. I know that this is a matter of concern, but . . . Actually, while I was prepared to denounce this article on account of insufferable boredom, the further I read, the more I sense a kindred spirit. One of my great regrets about leaving London as I did was that I never got to see the shattered mountings of Belfast’s machinery. I do not think that the profession gave the least thought to the potential consequences of using cast-iron to tie down the machinery, even after all the mining incidents of the first war, until the moment when we were faced with a ship whose fine and modern propulsive plant was sitting on the shards of its former mounting in the hull of the ship. The pictures of the reconstructive work that I have seen scarcely do it justice. So mountings are a matter of import. Aircraft, of course, have used forgings rather than castings from the beginning. Did you know that a single one of the forgings that holds the engine of the Bf109F weighes 30lbs, with total mounting weight coming in at 146lbs, whereas the mounting in the Hurricane Mark IIC weighes but 68lbs? So that is to the credit of the British engineer. On the other hand, the wing mountings of the Mosquito’s engines weigh 87.8lbs each. De Havilland’s excuse of being outdone by Kingston-upon-Thames is that this but allows for welded construction, which eases mass production at the expense of considerable distortion, which the firms must carefully correct for various reasons, but not least to achieve the careful aerodynamics of the plane. Or they could just disguise the bad welds with packed-in solder until the whole thing lets go on its first contact with Arctic waters! The Airacobra is worth special comment, as the engine was notoriously at the centre of mass, requiring a 10 foot flexible shaft to be run through the structure, with a central bearing. The total assembly weighed 50.7lbs, and had to be supported to prevent fuselage flexing. This was achieved by using two massive strength girders running the length of the fuselage, which prevented flexing, but also servicing, since it is hard to imagine how a field shop could possibly repair these girders if damaged by enemy action, and the girder gets in the way of access, although the legend that it took three days and a “small army” of mechanics, engineer officers and Aircraftsmen “Plonks” to remove a broken instrument from the cockpit panel is probably just a rumour. The article ends by suggesting that research into hitching a Merlin to the extension shaft bearing is ongoing, which means that it is not complete, which explains why the Merlin has not yet been placed into the P-39, or somewhat more relevantly, the P-63. “No Helicopters for Canadian Bus Lines” Well, that is that, then. “Were They Jet Planes?” American periodical Iron Age suggests that German fighter jets have been seen in Normandy. “Studies in Recognition” This week’s number covers the HawkerHenley, the failed light bomber that became a target tug back in 1938 or so, the Boulton Paul Defiant that was so relegated after its failure in the Battle of Britain,Miles Martinet target tug that may or may not have replaced them both in the deep obscurities of the middle years of the war (flying a more expendable Bristol Mercury engine), and yet another American advanced trainer, the Beech Kansas AT-11, because the genius of American mass production lies in its ability to concentrate production on a single type of highly efficient design, thereby reaping the benefits of the assembly line. Behind the Lines German military commentator Sertorius says that planes were involved. The Rumanian air transport service has been taken over by the German General Staff. A “dispirited Reichswehr colonel” tells the driver who gave him a lift from Paris to Lisbon that the flying bomb might have been a mistake, because it diverted air force efforts form the battlefield, where the supply lines are now in such danger that the troops are running out of ammunition. The driver then ran to tell Reuters what this visitor from the ancient past had to say. General Stumpf is promoted chief of the German metropolitan air force. Hanna Reisch is said to have test flown a flying bomb. A Berlin newspaper has admitted that the Allies have air superiority. “Annular or Tandem?” Words fail me, Reggie. Correspondence E. N. Bray believes that the flying bomb should be called “the flying bomb.” “Moorhen” compares the case of railways and civil aviation to the rubber trade, somehow, in a way that proves that the railways have a place in the future of civil aviation. F. Ashley believes that RAF training will not make up the shortfall in British aviation technical training as it is too superficial, and something about the South African Air Force Association. The Economist, 5 August 1944 Leaders “An Interim Report” The Prime Minister gave a speech to the Commons which the paper sees in the way of being an interim report, inasmuch as it is about the war, and, although you may not have noticed this, Reggie, the war has not yet been won. Oh. You had noticed it? Well, there is still the matter of the flying bombs (and possibly “rocket shells”), which have so far killed 4,737; injured 14,000; destroyed 17,000 houses; rendered another 200,000 uninhabitable; with another 600,000 damaged. The paper is now prepared to concede that this is substantial, but we have still won the war, and this bombardment cannot change that. Unless it provokes a premature combined assault in the Pas de Calais . At this point this only seems likely if the Germans can restore their front, but look how long we were held on the Somme in the last! Now, I have Mr. Janeway’s assurance that the war will go on longer than expected, and since Mr. Janeway is always wrong, it follows that we will have a new “Hundred Days” this fall. But what if some strange fever struck Mr. Janeway that day, and he is right for once? How long can London hold? “Britain and Argentina” Argentines are excitable at the head of the paper, and at great length. “The Health Controversy” Doctors are critical of proposals for the National Health Service. As of course they will be, for change is always frightening. Still, I have the first-hand experience of “Cousin H.C.s’ inadvertent experiment to insulate me against taking this controversy too seriously. “Land Reform in Poland” Liberated by the Red Army, governed by a pro-Soviet rump, why of course the details are up in the air, and this is worth discussing! People have, of course, criticised collectivised agriculture at great length, but Poland’s agricultural sector is primitive and unproductive now. As the paper details at length. Perhaps there are wonder crops like kudzu in the offing! Notes of the Week Turkey is staying out of the war more. Finland is surrendering more. The Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform, in the course of condemning recent Conservative practice, recommends revolutionary changes that will transform British electoral politics forever by reducing the influence of money donations. Preventing politicians from spending or receiving money to influence the process is certainly something that strikes me as something that can work! Anything that would get the Santa Clara land commissioners out of my pocket…. Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Gandhi are meeting and agreeing, or not meeting and disagreeing. The Viceroy and British Government focus on economics, and, in general, everyone caught in the snowslide that is Indian independence is holding a detached wheel in front of them so that they can pretend to be the captain. “Post-War Wealth” The fifth Bulletin of the Tory Reform Committee is out, and seeks to find the middle ground between those who think that we cannot afford a social welfare state and those who promise the moon and the stars. The table here offered combines the official prewar numbers, the paper’s estimate for 1943, and the Committee’s projections. 1938 1943 Postwar (£ millions) Government Expenditure 837 3840 1250 Private expenditure on consumption 4138 3270 4100 Private net investment at home 305 -95 550 Public and private net investment abroad -55 -485 150 5225 6530 6050 The paper thinks that the third column seems to be on the low side. There is also the question of where the national income stands. The Committee sees a 1000 million increase over 1938 to £6,225 million, but this supposes a 10% increase in productivity and a fall in unemployment to 5%, and the paper deems this optimistic. Such remarkable numbers are for America, where they will lead to depression through over-production. The Government’s margin for manoeuvre has already been lost, and that the future will be bleak and bare, etc. Poles, Greeks and Latins (Free French) are excitable. “Bomb Damage Repairs” The paper briefly reviews the measures taken to repair bomb damage and house the displaced. A skeptical “claims” garnishes Ministerial statements that all is going as well as might be expected. Perhaps the paper has moved to taking the flying bombs seriously? It seems not. The paper appends a table to show that far more were killed and wounded in the 1940 Blitz than by the flying bomb attack (1935 killed in June ’44 compared with 22,000 in Sept-December 1940), and that the latter number is not incomparable with road fatalities –which are also up disconcertingly over the year (401 in May 1943, 632 in May 1944). Conspicuously absent are comparisons of “dehousings,” which, I thought, was the intent of the most effective bombing campaign ever? (Ours, if you had not guessed.) American Survey “Midwestern Steel Town” Our Correspondent in Indiana writes that the 36,000 steelworkers of Gary, Indiana, are “partially or wholly producing more than 80 per cent as much steel as the whole of Japan.” This is far above what the Brookings Institution estimated might be possible a few years ago, and there is no intimation that this rate can be continued indefinitely. Steel production in Gary is up 75% over WWI, but has required double the workforce, and three times the average income. That is, $31.20 for a 40 hour week, but the average workweek is 50 ½ hours, and the time-and-a-half brings in another $12.28. This, however, is the average pay, and “many” get more. I am sure that the average reader of The Economist is grateful for this explanation of the way that “averages” can work. This income has had astonishing effects. OCI notes that saving funds have grown “astonishingly,” but that there is also much evidence of “foolish spending.” “the sale of cheap things has fallen off, while the demand for high-priced apparel can hardly be met. Jewellery stores are selling amazing quantities of costume jewellery.” Some think a terrible day of reckoning is coming for those who were so extravagant as to splurge on sheets and blankets (the example being an old Coloured woman who could never have afforded such things before), and those who note that there are 43,000 paid workers in Gary, and 30,000 savings depositers in Gary banks; while the tripling of currency in circulation since 1939 points to considerable cash-hoarding, as well. OYC is impressed by the congeniality of relations between business and organised labour, but there is some tension over Coloureds moving into new neighbourhoods, especially traditional ethnic neighbourhoods occupied by Poles and Jugoslavs. The question, again, is postwar jobs. American Notes “The New South” The paper is pleased that several reactionary Southern politicians have been defeated in the Democratic primaries. It is hoped that progress in race relations will endure when the war ends and unemployment revives sectional tensions. Another politician of whom the paper disapproves, this one a Republican, is in some small difficulties. Hamilton Fish has admittedly been renominated in New York, but with a reduced majority, thanks to Dewey’s intervention against him, and the paper hopes to be rid of him yet now that he has lost some of his stronghold districts. “The Coal Deficit” 610 million tons of bitumen against 626 million tons targeted, and 60 million of anthracite against 65 is certainly a deficit, but even the paper will not call it a desperate one. (It does not notice, as Time does, that the deficit in coal is less than the deficit in firewood.) Production is up to 1500 tons per man, against 1250 in 1942, compensating for loss of labour, and no rationing will be required this winter. It is curious that this would follow on the generous wage awards of the winter strikes. “Geared to Rubber” The rubber crisis is over. It is a tyre crisis now. The Rubber Director has stated that a deficit of 6000 men is all that stands between the public having enough tyres, and none at all, and it is all the President’s fault, and certainly not that of the authorities for not giving the tyre plants sufficientn priority for capital goods. The World Overseas Our Accra Correspondent dwells on issues related to “Secondary Industries in West Africa.” Primary exports have not been the salvation of west Africa, and malnutrition remains a problem. (As opposed to a disgrace that dishonours Great Britain.) Something must be done, as long as it is on a very long time frame in order to avoid heavy expenses, and allow all substantial changes to await a miraculous change in the habits and mentality of native Africans. Or else we will continue to be criticised for being oppressive and patronising colonial masters. discussion in Canada continues over the relation between Canadian oil and US policy. Canadian politicians are appalled at the lack of American interest in the Canol oilfields, just because they are stranded on the wrong bank of the Mackenzie River and isolated by hundreds, if not thousands of miles of –well, you cannot say “trackless” anymore, precisely—wilderness. Perhaps if enough more good money is thrown after bad, they will come to be a paying play in the distant future! I briefly considered driving the new Alcan Highway back home after my flying trip to Alaska a few months ago until I had the sense to mention it to someone, who hastily disabused me of the idea that there is actually a road along the line of the highway, as opposed to the tracks of truck drivers who make the trip by force of pure will, so I can imagine the mess that was made of the "Canol pipeline" route. Germany at War “Last Ditch” Germany may or may not fight to the… The Business World “Electricity Shares” London utility shares are a bargain, as investors are staying away from them for some reason. (I am making an “explosion” sound as I write, Reggie. The paper seems to think this so irrational as not to require comment.) “The Entry into Industry” With the decline in the birth rate, juvenile labour is becoming increasingly hard to come by (fallen by half!), and industry must work harder to attract and secure their share of 14-year-old school leavers and to train them for semi-skilled or even skilled positions. I end with the paper’s introduction, which was a mention of the former plight of 18 and 19 year old workers, who in 1931 were a disproportionately high proportion of the unemployed due to being displaced by new waves of school leavers –“Too old at eighteen.” That does sound like a disgracefully callous way of treating the youth labour force, and a mentality that needs to be dispensed with in this new era of fewer youth and more “county colleges.” Business Notes “Portal Bungalows” Minister Portal’s prefab bungalows have come in for much criticism. These criticisms are dispensed with by the observation that the choice is not between good houses and prefabs, but between prefabs and no houses at all. Who would not want to move into a house whose “shell” was made by the Pressed Steel Company? It just makes me want to burrow more deeply and comfortably into chaise and robe. You have a beautiful house, Reggie, and it has not escaped me that its "shell" is not by "Pressed Steel." Though even such a house would probably go for a pretty penny in San Francisco if it had this view. Ah, well, perhaps British Columbia real estate values will recover after the war. “Equities after the War” If all things go well, equities in select classes will go up somewhat! Encouraged by this wild optimism, I manoeuvre to move money into the British market! The new Treasury Bonds sound more promising –or would if I had any confidence that the cost of living would rise more slowly than the value of the bonds. Talk of civil aviation, the cinema, the disposal of Government factories, of needful investments in roadways and farming (more science!) round out the number. Well, except for some financial data that I discuss below. Less facetiously, I do see possibilities in the British equity markets. They will, when you see them, restore the Earl’s belief that I have tiny little electrons on the brain. Perhaps I do; but, seriously, the future belongs to something, and why not little electrons? How can you go wrong with Metropolitan Vickers, STT, GEC and Marconi? (Even the paper manages to note that electrical engineering has the strongest industrial equities.) Flight, 10 August 1944 The front cover advertisement for Power Boats celebrates a fighter squadron that lost its leader in the drink on the return flight from Holland, landed, refuelled, and flew back to search for him, leading the RAF’s Rescue Launches straight to him. A little maudlin, but better than Hawker’s unfortunate ad that uses an unmistakeable silhouette of the Prime Minister, a Saunders-Roe ad that states that the future belongs to flying boats, and an ad for a British ball bearing maker that asserts that air supremacy belongs to “us.” (The inference that it belongs to Britain being an exercise in nostalgia, I am afraid.) Or is it? I notice that Blackburn celebrates its history in naval cooperation with a drawing of the Baffin, while Westland offers a drawing of the Whirlwind, and Fairey one of the Barracuda. The drift of the discussion back in the spring, if I recall correctly, is thatWestland and Blackburn have new naval cooperation types in development. These, obviously, cannot yet be the subjects of ads, hence the appearance of satisfactory old crates. So perhaps Fairey does, too? Leaders “The Official Mind” The paper has clearly had an article about the technical details of the flying bomb squelched, and is upset. “Air Power in the Offensive” Bombers bombing, rocketeers rocketing, air superiority achieved, etc. “Sublime!” The Prime Minister credits the air forces with the success of the Normandy landings. A picture of the B-24 Consolidated Liberator Vultee Liner appears. Not shown: a Lockheed Constellation taking all of its markets. War in the Air The paper notices that these “aircraft carriers” have been quite a hit in the Pacific, and that Admiral Sir BruceFraser has been one of our most successful fighting admirals. So his arrival in Trincomalee intimates that our aircraft carriers will soon be doing even more than they have already been doing “in concert with Admiral Nimitz.” the paper suggests that he is old for the role. Many natives of Gibraltar are returning to the island now that the danger has past. (And there is room for them to live.) The July summary of RAF activities shows that the air force was quite active. We lost 221 machines over Normandy, 475 in Italy, 10 in the Middle East, 12 in Southeast Asia. Field-Marshal Rommel has been wounded in action, a victim of air attack. Turkey is staying out of the war even more.Germany is running out of oil even more, our correspondent at SHAEF reports that 36 groups of fighter-bombers softened up the Germans before the St. Lo attack, followed by 1,508 heavies, 9 more groups of fighter-bombers, and “the medium bombers of 9th Air Force.” In total, 2,423 aircraft dropped 61,951 bombs of 4,30s tons. To assist in air-ground cooperation, “tanks were fitted with radio sets to enable the tanks to make direct requires to aircraft for specified targets to be attacked.” It is not surprising, given their small numbers, OSHAEFC says, that the German Air Force has not been seen often over the front. What is surprising is that reconnaissance aircraft are not the exception. It is also time to note the “Locust” airborne tanks, the thirteen US Army chaplains who parachuted with the troops on D-Day, and flying nurse orderlies such as Leading Aircraftwoman Venter, who has “been doing this work since D-Day,” and so might qualify as one of the (admittedly few) women who landed in Normandy on that day who should have been there. Also, the air defence fight over southern England is apparently a “machine war.” * “The B-29” The paper has been beaten to press by Aviation. (Not that anyone would know it in this city. Misplacing my copy, I drove out to the university in its splendid setting, albeit all too recently hacked out of the forest, and had to brow-beat the Library Staff into processing most of the last six months of technical magazines through to the reading room.) The paper’s treatment, brief as it is, is not devoid of interest. For example, Boeing pioneered a new production method (for it). The tubular spar construction of the Flying Fortress wing was replaced by a web-type made up of heavy extruded aluminum flanges. The main web spar, at 255lbs, is the largest extrusion in use in a production aircraft. The wing is heavily loaded, giving a high stalling speed and thus high takeoff and landing speed, but this is mitigated by the modern flap wizardry. Control forces are less than on the B-17 using a simple control tab system rather than “hydraulic boost,” of the kind otherwise notable in the Lockheed P-38 publicity blitz. Reading between the lines, I think it is a sore point in Seattle that they were not able to implement hydraulic power boosting in the B-29’s controls. Certainly it will make it harder for them to move into competition with the Constellation with a B-29 adaptation. The engine nacelle is as small as possible, with air inlets concentrated in a single location. Again, given that air flow is so critical to radial engine cooling, this observation may conceal some operational anxieties. (Or, since I know how much you love your gossip, Reggie, I could just talk about the “Boeing Trimotor.”) The B-29 is said to be the most heavily tested aircraft ever, this in the sense that since it was ordered “off the drawing board,” much of the work that should have been done on a preproduction series has had to be done on the early production models, instead. Here and There Mr. F. J. Mortimer, CBE, FRSA, Hon. FRPS, is reported dead “as a result of shock arising from enemy action.” The Society of Licensed Aircraft Engineers is having a meeting to discuss demanding that people respect them more, and print “F.S..L.A.E” after their names in the press, possibly with an “R.,” as soon as His Majesty be so obliging. Equal priority for airliners is demanded by someone of someone. The regular Rome-Lisbon air service is reopened. The B-29 is unique in that is the first heavy bomber designed originally with a pressure cabin to go into operational service, priority being denied the Ju-86P. Glass-plastic-balsa sandwich material is stronger than balsa-metal and balsa-plywood composites, and so might be used in aircraft fuselages. Lancaster “S for Sugar” is retired after 114 missions. The death of N. M. Polikarpov is announced. Nearly 10,000 Amereican aircraft have been supplied to the Red Air Force, approximately half having flown to Russia via Alaska and Canada. Inasmuch as many of them have been P-39s and P-63s, notice the discussion of them elsewhere in this letter. It is hilarious, think some, to imagine “doodle-bug” technology applied to road transportation, as the tails would be red-hot. The United States is to be allowed extensive use of five Canadian air bases around Hudson Bay and on Baffin Island, in the hope that so many Yankee dollars will be sprinkled around that some hardworking European sectaries will be persuaded to move there, start farming, and buy land from Canadian worthies upon which to do it. Preferably before they arrive on site. James Stewart has received the Oak Leaf Cluster to his Distinguished Flying Medal. Northrop Aircraft will convert their P-61 to a post-war transport by fitting it with a new fuselage. And if that doesn’t work, they can fit the new fuselage with new engines! “Fairey Barracuda: How Aircraft production Group Scheme has Enabled Schedule to be Met and Even Exceeded “Parent” and “Daughter” Firms” Hard as it is to be believed, this beflapped monstrosity actually flies off of warship decks, and is built in large numbers. I suppose that it is some consolation that it could have been worse. Remind me to tell you over sherry when we meet in person next about the little project that Brewster had on the go when I arrived in Buffalo last spring. Studies in Recognition Covers the Vultee Vanguard fighter, Mitsubishi OB-97 Bomber-Transport, Brewster Bermuida, and, just for the novelty of finally being the fastest and most modern aircraft in a grouping, the Blenheim IV. Behind the Lines A Hamburger newspaper predicts that the new German fighter production programme will soon eliminate our air superiority. The German Air Force has a new chief of staff, as the old one, Colonel General Gorten, tried to blow up Hitler. An air smuggler trying to fly durable goods out of Sweden to Germany was caught in Stockholm, delaying the flight. Presumably, he roused suspicions by claiming to be Napoleon and disrobing in public, or alternatively by drooling and staring vacantly. Two months and more after the flying bomb campaign began, it is either noticed that a special training course for launching crews is required, or one is begun. A Rumanian captain and two lieutenants have been court martialled and condemned to death for suggesting that Rumania surrender more. No word on whether the sentences have been carried out, however. Perhaps this is too much hypocrisy even for Bucharest? Further details of Hanna Reisch’stest flights of a V-1 are given. A woman as impervious to flying conditions as most women are to good sense. Jugoslavs talk about talking about civil aviation! C. H. Potts, “Civil Aircraft Engines; Liquid-Cooled or Air-Cooled: The claims of the Radial: Vital Importance of Long Overhaul Life” The life of a civil aeroengine entering service right now should be long enough that it does not have to be overhauled before it is replaced by a turbine engine, I should imagine. But Squadron Leader Potts (ret.) is here to press the claims of the radial engine, which he sets in a fairly self-evidently false comparison with the Merlin and Sabre. Specifically, he thinks these actually existing engines have far too short an overhaul life notwithstanding claimed long lives, as he believes that these do not take auxiliaries into account. On the other hand, the 3000hp American radial of which he has heard only the vaguest of details is self-evidently the future of British postwar civil aviation. Correspondence In this light, it is no surprise to see that “Spot Landing” thinks that Britain is not paying enough attention to the helicopter, and that “Realist” thinks that no-one has thought of “jet-driven crewless mail planes.” “Tenderfoot” writes Flight, under the misapprehension that it is the newsletter of the Friends, to say that it does not give the RAF enough publicity,. Mercifully, we end on a cartoon, which at least tries to be whimsical. (Spoiling the indistinct punchline: ) The Economist, 12 August 1944 Leaders “Terms for Germany” The paper is appalled by reports that Poland will be satisfied with East Prussia and Silesia and parts of Pomerania, while parts of western Germany are annexed to its neighbours. This amounts to a “Carthaginian Peace,” and will surely lead to another war. Everyone wants to be the new Lord Keynes, Reggie. “The Monetary Agreements” Even Lord Keynes. As I have already mentioned your daughter-out-of-law has taken up the brush to cover this subject. “The Administration of Policy” What a delightfully paperish headline! The question of how to administer such portions of the Beveridge Report as are, in fact, adopted arises. “East Prussian Bastion” It is to be supposed that the Germans will attempt to defend East Prussia against the encroaching Russians. Notes of the Week “The Battle of France” The paper manages –almost—to be excited by the way that “the Battle of France is speedily mounting to a climax.” I personally think that we are mistaking a retreat on the line of the Somme for a German military collapse, but we shall see. “Plot and Purge” In an unexpected turn of events, the Germans are punishing the unsuccessful bomb plotters. The paper supposes that in the coming weeks and months further fissures will appear between Party and Army, that “this is in reality the beginning not the end of the German plot.” “The Pace of Parliament” Is too slow? Too quick? Just right? Well, a full paragraph of empty space dealt with, and good for that! Etc. The paper seems concerned that the Planning Act will not pass. I should think that a backlog of 600,000 damaged houses might focus attention! “Story of a Rising” Warsaw has risen in rebellion, because, apparently, no-one there has read their Clausewitz (the quote to which I have been directed is to the effect that every attack eventually passes its “culminating point” and goes from being irresistible to being too feeble to hold its place, or some such. I do not see the Germans counter-attacking and advancing in the East when they are in danger of losing Paris, but even so.) The paper also covers provincial elections in Canada, the British Medical Association’s continuing engagement with the proposed National Health Service, and summarises a Letter to the Editor from the aforementioned Lord Keynes, which points out that the paper has entirely misconstrued his Bretton Woods press conference. The paper justifies its own neglect by pointing out that it would have been hard for its correspondents to travel all the way to the conference setting and cover the conference in person, so it was only natural that they would simply recopy the report of a correspondent that was there. Good show, OWC/ONYC! The paper would have been glad to have sent a correspondent to the conference had someone else only paid for it. “American and British War Efforts” United States United Kingdom $billion £billion 1939 1943 1938 1943 Government Expenditure 16 82.7 0.84 3.84 Consumption 61.7 70.8 4.14 3.27 Private Net Investment 10.9 1.8 0.59 -0.33 Gross National Product 88.6 155.3 5.57 6.78 Costs of War United States United Kingdom Resources derived from- $billion % £billion % Increased Production 66.7 100.0 1.21 40 Reduced Consumption -9.1 -13.6 0.87 29.0 Reduced provision for, or drafts on, capital 9.1 13.6 0.92 30.7 66.7 100 3.0 100 The increase in American GNP is equal to the increase in government expenditure. Capital only suffered to the extent that consumption increased. In Britain, however, reduced consumption and drafts on capital financed a very large part of the war effort. “Target for Tomorrow” It is to be regretted that the paper ignored Fortune on “194Q,” and waited for the Federal Reserve Bulletin to do its own much grayer version of the same exercise to respond. I regret it because, in the Bulletin’s version, “194Q” becomes “V+2,” or, it supposes, 1947, when with a fall in employment from wartime highs but still well above 1939, and with a ten percent gain in productivity per head, the American GNP will reach $170 billion, which will also be the benchmark for consumption. Demand must rise to this level to sustain employment. Private consumption might be $113 billion, Government $30 billion, and this leaves $27 billion to be made up in demand for private capital goods. The paper is alarmed to see an allowance for a favourable balance of trade, with a net export of $2 billion, as this will cut into British possibilities. It does notend on a theme of gloom and doom, if only because $2 billion is a small enough proportion of $27. “Inquest on Irish Exports” Rumbling from Dublin that Britain did not buy enough, and did not pay enough, for Irish farm exports out of “mixed motives,” a dangerous impression, the paper supposes. Because terrible things will happen if the Irish are mad at you! Lord Keynes’ correction follows, which is to say that he said nothing about bringing the gold standard back at the Bretton Woods conference. The technical details I leave in other hands, as I have had quite enough of attempts to explain the various kinds of gold standards to me, be “Mrs. J. C.” ever so clever in her explanations and analogies. American Survey “Post-War Rubber Supplies” There might be a shortage again by “four years after the war.” This will not help the American synthetic industry, however. American Notes “The Philadelphia Story” The Army has broken the Philadelphia transport strike with threat of draconian penalties if the strikers did not return to work. Among the matters resolved were an end to discrimination against Coloured workers, the forcing of whom into the ranks of the Philadelphia Transport Company having been the proximate grounds for the strike. The paper fears for race relations when peace returns. “The Peace President” Is how Governor Dewey is attempting to position himself. The GOP made a brief and half-hearted attempt to embrace “state’s rights,” as the Democrats are seen to have abandoned the cause, but the idea did not sit well with the Republican Governors, who prefer to be appalled by the New Deal but not inclined to alter what was done. “The Last Round-Up” Of civilian labour for war work is ongoing. Heavy guns and ammunition, trucks, tyres, tanks, bombs, radar and construction material and tentage fabric are all caught in emerging shortages. Some new regulations will hopefully avert National Service at this late hour. “They Want to be Shown” Is a play on the state motto of Missouri, from which the new President, Senator Truman, originates. Or new Vice-President, for however many years the President has in him less four. Meanwhile, the senior Senator from Missouri, Champ Clark, has also been defeated in the primary, so that both of Missouri’s new senators will be new to the chamber. The paper supposes that this shows that the voters of Missouri are coming around to the idea that the paper has been right about everything all along. Colonel McCormick, the Hearst press, and the Dies Committee think that it is the sinister influence of the CIO’s Political Action Committee that is responsible, and that they are a bunch of secret communists. “Wartime Migration” Americans have migrated where the war jobs are, notably to California, which has gained 1.6 million. That’s a great many houses… The Business World “Freedom of the Screen” I suppose that, having inadvertently backed into the penumbra of the shadow of “show business” I should care more,but I do not. My interest is confined to the tiny little electrons that make the radios (and, I suppose, projectors) go, and not to the interests of exhibitors against studios, which is the issue here. “The Future of Fish” The fishing fleet declined by about a third in the 30s, from 348,00t to 262,000, the labour force from 98,900 to 51,550. Methods went ahead while catches went down with a decline in the domestic market and attempts at self-sufficiency in Germany. It is supposed that the price of fish will be sustained in the postwar due to shortage of meat, and that landings will temporarily increase, as they did in 1919-20. In the long run, however, prosperous people eat less fish and more meat, so the industry will have to find ways to encourage consumption, perhaps by encouraging refrigeration, which will ease concerns over freshness, or by proper education of housewives. This goes for herring; the white fish trade is another matter. Here the issue is low prices due to overfishing bringing more product onto the market. Business Notes Talk of civil aviation and of oil, the market showing some lift on events in Normandy, worries about the threshold at which the banks (and West African gold producers) will pay the Excess Profits Tax impacting on their share prices, price management in the Lancashire cotton trade talked of. A detailed breakdown of the British diet shows that considerably more was spent to buy considerably less in 1943 than in 1939, that spam and powdered eggs have made solid inroads into the British diet, that milk consumption is up and dairy down, mainly on the strength of declining cheese consumption. At least British eaters are better off than in occupied Europe, where starvation comes ever closer. An increase in the women engineer’s wage rate has been negotiated. Aviation, August 1944 Down the Years in Aviation’s Log In 1919, the paper celebrated the three year anniversary of the New York-Washington air mail route, which carried an astonishing 15,643lbs of mail every month. The Cleveland-Chicago route had just flown its 75th consecutive non-stop flight ; R-34 flies from Scotland to New York and back in 4 ½ days coming and 3 ¼ going. Fifteen years ago, German liner Bremen catapults Heinkel K2 sea-mail-plane to expedite delivery to New York. The Army takes delivery of 40 Douglas observation planes and orders another 20. Chicago Municipal Airport handles 1,429 arrivals in one week. Ten years ago, PAA’s brand new S-42 Brazilian Clipper takes off in 18 seconds with 17 tons, climbs above 15,000ft in 47 minutes. General Foulois presents a plan for a 1000 a/c purchaes in 1934, while Westbound airmail averages 42hr 32 minutes coast-to-coast. Line Editorial Junior’s topic for the month is “The NATIONAL DEBT and your Postwar Job.” He reminds us that victory in this war has depended on our ability to produce (fortunately, not our ability to design). “The stark reality of war finally shocked us out of our economic lethargy.” Now, however, our national debt is astronomical and growing, and the “depression years’ fear of insecurity that all but paralyzed our spirit of enterprise, our inventive genius, and our natural instinct for expansion” will reappear if we do the slightest thing ever so slightly wrong. What wrong thing might we do? Junior tells us, although it is a little difficult to tell since the pages were cut off the square and I have to guess the line-ending words in the outboard paragraphs. (Very professional work, paper!) First, the debt is huge, equal to 4% of the national income. If spread evenly, interest payments would take “at least $80 of every workers’ income per year, the equivalent of $1.60 out of each and every weekly pay check.” This doesn’t seem as frightening to me as it must be supposed to be to someone Junior must now convince that the debt does not matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” What is this legerdemain? Well, Junior points out that one person’s debt is another man’s saving, or something like that, and that Britain has enjoyed prosperity coming out of wars in which it incurred vast national debts. Postwar, much will depend on the way in which the debt is distributed, and government expenses are met from taxation. Taxes on corporate profits will check investment. This would be bad. Surtaxes on people “who do a considerable amount of saving” will require that the debt be distributed in large part among small savers. This will balance the damage done to demand for goods as between the large savers with less, and the small savers with more. If tax revenues are drawn from sales taxes and income taxes on the poorer classes, there will be a heavy impact on demand, reducing the return from investments and so discouraging them, and producing a net transfer of wealth from poor to rich. This would be bad. (Junior appears to agree with Fortune and the Federal Reserve that maintaining demand is crucial.) If the national debt is widely distributed, and the expenses of government largely met by taxes on individuals, with stiff surtaxes on the wealthy, with substantial exemptions for investments and offsets for losses, then the wealthy will invest rather than sitting on their cash, the poorer classes will have the security of substantial savings, investment will be high because demand will be high, and, in short, the ship of state will sail securely into a golden future. Are we there yet? No, Junior wants to see reforms of taxation policy, and a commitment to gradually pay down the national debt during “boom” years, when people and businesses will wish to redeem government bonds to buy, respectively, capital goods and durable consumer goods. Moreoever, the era of technological expansion is not over, indeed, has scarcely begun. Junior takes this as proxy for increasing productivity, hence national income. In the Twenties, purchasing power increased 50%, in 1929—39, by less than 6%. Supposing that national income grows more slowly than in the Twenties, more quickly than in the Thirties, say by 33% from whenever the fighting stops (hopefully 1945), then by 20% a decade, the national income (in current prices) will be $175 billion in 1955, 216 billion in 1965, $275 billion in 1975. The burden of the national debt will have fallen in half, even if none of it were to be repaid! But we have to tax the wealth-producing entrepeneurs less to see this golden future. Aviation Editorial Leslie Neville thinks that we have to be realistic about the postwar personal plane market. This doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, as no-one has told me to be unrealistic about it. (Except for “Cousin H.C.,” with his “municipal aerodrome on every flat surface.”) C. L. “Les” Morris, “Teaching the First Helicopter Pilots” It turns out that flying a triple-coupled gyroscope is hard. Put that way, I am mildly surprised that it is not impossible. Frederic Flader, “The Economic Future of Aviation Technology” Mr. Flader imagines three airlines, one with 1935—45 technology, one with “immediate postwar” technology, and one with Future technology. Based on these numbers, he proposes that in the Future, air traffic volume will increase 54 times. Design Analysis Number 8 Hall L. Hibbard, “The Lockheed P-38 ‘Lightning’” One of the most controversial and successful fighters of ever is given an objective analysis by the engineer who is still hurt by its withdrawal from service in Europe on account of its inability to compete against less controversial but more successfuller fighters. Lockheed really has got its old plane into all the papers. I hope that all of this effort pays off for the firm, somehow. You will notice above that I finally wrapped my head around one important innovation buried in here, the hydaulically-boosted automatic "manoeuvring flaps" are the one thing that Lockheed has that Boeing has not. So notwithstanding the defensiveness of this series, I would have bought more Lockheed shares had the Constellation not made this an obvious move, such that I suspect overpricing. Wellwood E. Beale, “Boeing’s new Wind Tunnel Accelerates Research” It does, you know. It even has a spruce fan blade, made by Boeing people. (Who else would make it? Also, spruce?) Mr. Beale, one suspects, is finding counting all his money a bit boring and so puts pen to paper, but not so boring that he actually works on his article. Ernest G. Stout, “Takeoff Analysis for Flying Boats and Seaplanes” Stay tuned for further entries in this number, “Hydrodynamics of China Clippers,” and “The Veterinary Science of Oxcarts!” John B. Scalzi, Structural Weight Engineer, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, “A Method for Calculating Weights of New Flaps” Take the weight of the competitor’s flaps, multiply by 20%. This will tell you how much money you have to pay in bribes tdo the chief of Materiel Command to get him to buy Curtiss-Wright junk. Er, I am sorry. The article is actually some classic engineering statics, and by “classic” I mean that it is curiously absent calculus given that it features things that move. Far be it from me to point the finger –I very well remember how much I deplored the intrusion of dots and dashes into my statics, so long ago, but the taint of corporate failure really does hang over this, and I hope that Mr. Scalzi is auditioning for a better job. Kenneth Campbell, Wright Aeronautical Corp, “Fan Cooling ‘Ups’ Performance, Part II” Here at the other extreme is quite a sophisticated analysis of a complicated effect, delivered self-deprecatingly on the basis that the estimates are likely to be as much as 20% out, and that the point here is to avoid preliminary analyses that are “several hundred percent out,” which I imagine to be a pointed dig at someone who seriously mistook the case. (Presumably, given the absence of any such fans on American planes as opposed to German, to the pessimistic side.) It does appear, however, that Wright was experimenting with fans before the first FW190 was captured, so that it was not entirely a response to that panic. Experiments in 1932, 1935, 1937, 1939 and 1941 are cited. I note that the Curtiss-Wright shop abandoned the aerodynamic shaping of the fan blades as “unnecessary.” Taking this to be code for “too hard,” I am getting out of Curtiss-Wright stock. Ed. C. Powers, Combustion Engineering, “This Aircraft Heater Won’t Blow Out” We have had a solid relationship with Combustion Engineer of Toledo, and I did not even realise that they were into aircraft heaters. It is a good news that they are in the business, not because aircraft heaters are a big business to be in, but because the first cold day in August caught us out for a scenic drive on Mount Baker, and I am acutely reminded that cars can get very cold, very quickly, in spite of the hot engine ahead. That Combustion Engineering is miniaturising its expertise from ships and locomotives to airplanes promises a further step downwards to a potentially very lucrative market. Herbert Chase, “Hole Piercing Proves Faster –And Cheaper” Mr. Chase is arguing with someone about something less than fascinating, but the burden of the argument suggests that Erco putting-things-through-things machines are the best ones that Glenn L. Martin uses. William N. Findley, “Load Characteristics of Cellulose Acetate Plastic, Part III” Today, he looks at stress and creep. Edward E. Thorp, “Looking after those Aerols” Aerols are a brand of landing shocks which need periodic maintenance. “AAF Devises All-Purpose LooseningTool” It seems to be a socket screwdriver with a rachet that allows it to convert a hammer blow on the handle into torque. I almost did not mention it here so as not to spoil the surprise –I have obtained one for you and it is coming by sea, hopefully to arrive in your hands before the war is over—but I am searching for the chosen vessel that will manfacture the thing for the Army in order to invest as much in it as I am allowed. J. A. Wahle and Hugh Gourdin, Pan American Airways“. . . It Takes a Flight Engineer” Flight engineers beat pilot and automatic control of complicated power plants because they have the “human touch.” This is not a fight you can win, gentlemen. There are plenty of power systems for you to control on the ground and at sea. B. Mattson Compton, “Addendum to Graphic Solutions to Celestial Avigation” it was just a few months ago that we were promised an introduction to air navigation, and now we have an appendix, admittedly to a particular method. It seems as though plenty of people are thinking about this, but relatively few want to write about it at any length. Robert I. Colin, “Robot Engine-Tutor Talks Back” No word on whether it abducts the scientist’s beautiful daughter, though. Raymond L. Hoadley, “What Price Stocks Now that Cutbacks are Here” The aviation firms, which managed to be on death’s door in spite of massive profits during the peak of war production due to the excess profits tax, will do just fine in the period of contract cancellation, and Wall Street should not dump their stocks. Perhaps they’ll get business making prefabricated housing or something, and, anyway, they are very liquid. Aviation News The lead story is that the Civil Pilots Training programme has been extended. The second is that Robert H. Hinckley has been named director of Contract Settlement at the WPB. The F7F is in testing. Something called the “China Aircraft Corporation,” an all-Chinese manned and owned organisation, has opened shop in San Francisco. My eyes are rolling, but I will leave this to the Benevolent Association –for now. America at War Communique No. 32 Aircraft are involved everywhere. The Navy, it is announced, has added 22 fleet carriers to its line up since the beginning of the war, and the Army Air Force’s B-29 is the most significant military development of the war, so far, says General Arnold. (The fall of France? D-Day? Pearl Harbor? Pff. It is the fact that we can now bomb countries “everywhere,” something that militarists (at least militarists without a home defence air force) must now take into account, since “any country can be invaded, bombed, and shot up within two days.” Washington Windsock The paper’s Washington correspondent reports that B-29s give the capability to call anywhere in the world within 48 hours with heavy bombardment, aerial gunnery and parachute ground forces. B-29 bombing from China will intensify as gasoline deliveries there increase, which Stubblefield seems to imagine, or at least reports, is going to happen. Remember when the submarines were sinking all those ships, and the Navy came within a whisker of giving trans-Atlantic air transport the number one priority? Stubblefield does, but we’re probably too young to recall those long gone days. Anyway, it would have been a mistake, it turns out. Stubblefield thinks that Wilson, Donald Nelson, Ted Wright, General Arnold, Admiral Ramsey, Charles S. Gorrell and others not mentioned are wonderful. Bombing helped make the invasion possible by blowing up Germany’s things. Mr. Stubblefield cannot possibly be long for his job. Aviation Manufacturing Since it cannot be avoided further, the lead number takes notice of the monthly aircraft production figures for May. The total is down to 8,049 in June, a drop of 9% on May, and we can no longer point to weight growth as consolation, as it is static. Navy fighters, trainers and C-46s are down in particular. Harvard Business School offers a plan to the Government for disposal of military transport assets. Essentially, if the airlines have to pay enough for them, the industry won’t collapse. Transport Aviation Talking about talking about international civil aviation continues. Wichita proposes a plan to have 6 air parks. The War Department will return another 15 DC-3s to the airlines, bringing the total up to 257 in civil operation, compared with 324 in May 1943. About 80% of airmail is now moving by air, alleviating the winter bottleneck. (The paper says "scheduled routes," because the fact that airmail does not always go by air is one of the Great Secrets of American aviation.) Aviation Finance Curtiss-Wright’s 1943 sales are up 65% over 1942, which sounds impressive until you note that Grumman is up 94%, Pan American 95%, Sperry “double,” and that both Lockheed and McDonnell have declared special dividends. Aviation Abroad Robot bombs are destructive but inaccurate. You don’t say! Sir Roy Fedden is reported in The Aeroplane as believing that Britons are indifferent to technological progress, civil aviation, proper technical and managerial training. The solution is to be super-enormous landplanes and flying boats, plus possibly flying wings. I am pretty sure that I have read this novel before, although there is some small progress, in that the Established Church is no longer blamed. The only part I cannot script is the ironic ending, in which Fedden gives up his place in the lifeboat so that some bright young thing, played by Veronica Lake, can be saved, while he is tragically lost along with his creation to the iceberg, playing the part of "Thinly Veiled Allusion." Flying icebergs, perhaps? Or, more likely, flying boats that cannot take off. “Sideslips” saw a prospectus of a postwar flying wing transport with an outdoor swimming pool, is amused, as also by the American Airplanes pilot who wasn’t concerned about a 250 foot ceiling because his plane wouldn’t go that high, and the USAAF sergeant hitching a ride on a B-29 who thought that its flap was falling off. (Silly man. They burn off.) If this seems inconsequential, a third of the column is devoted to the question of “Superfortress” versus “Super Fortress.” In other hilarity, a meteorologist is a man who can look a girl in the eye and tell whether, and is amused by a “companion reporter,” who, in a visit to a high-altitude research laboratory, spent his entire time chatting up the nurse. Fortune, August 1944 This month’s cover illustrates “Reconversion in Typewriters.” Letters Professor Charles A. Dice, who teaches Business Organization at Ohio State University, is unimpressed with Baron Keynes. The Job Before Us John Chamberlain, “The Five Years After 1918” Were terrible. Let’s not do that again. “Liberation: An Agenda” This story has been seen elsewhere lately. Belgium has plans for after Liberation! John Davenport, “Mr. Jean Monnet of Cognac” Mr. Monnet is expected to be a man of account in postwar France. Mr. Monnet is already a man of account, and not above getting his name into the papers, if the right paper comes along, and that would be the Luce press. “A Dream of Reconversion” The L. C. Smith & Corona typewriter factory of Syracuse, New York, struggles to meet military orders with resources left over from wartime production of percussion primers and rifles, dreams of peacetime prosperity. It will, however, need many machine tools for reconversion back to typewriter production. “Science Comes to Langages” Apparently, languages can be studied scientifically, thereby increasing the supply of military translators. Two pictures illustrate, neither with a single woman in them. My experience suggests complete humbug on that score alone, but Doctor William S. Cornyn of Yale is shown teaching an interested class how to pronounce Burmese. The same methods have been used to teach Italian, Persian, Turkish, Thai, Chinese, Hausa. Then I turn over and hear that Franz Boas and Edward Sapir are mentioned as founding members of this Linguistic Society of America. They both struck me as first-class men when I knew them (though I vaguely gather that Doctor Sapir’s methods have been said to be unsound), so I suppose that should withhold judgement. Pursuing the matter, I am almost tempted not to tell you that the young man we remember (although in truth only four years younger than we) died in 1939! I hope that this does not depress you as much as I. The point that comes up here and elsewhere is that there are not nearly enough Americans with foreign language skills to meet the demand for translators. Which makes me wonder about our society. The paper tells us that there were only 50 men in American universities studying Chinese literature, making it all the harder to train enough enlisted men as Chinese interpreters. Certainly no-one is denying that this is a persistent problem, but perhaps those who see the problem could also explore the reason why it is not a sufficiently pressing problem as to require a peacetime solution. The answer, of course, is to be found no further than Chinatown, and the unspoken inference is that the problem is that there are not enough of the right kind of Chinese speakers. With that kind of attitude, there will continue to be this deficit, it seems to me. “Venture Dimes” Toronto’s gold mining stock promoters are vaguely criminal, although there is considerable gold mining going on. “High Vacuum” Making vacuums was apparently an old technique (stills are instanced) that was refined for war needs to make electron tubes. This even though “high vacuum physics” was “a dominating force in the laboratory.” The nature of vacuum is explained, and the reason why it is so important –becacuse electron tubes “bottle” vacuum, as it were. Though there are many other uses, and the war such much investment on the other side of matters, vacuum pumps to make all the vacuum. As is often the case in the paper’s little vignettes, there is a starring firm, National Research, about which we have heard in connection with penicillin manufacture. It will be interesting to see who, besides electron tube makers, need vacuum pumps in peacetime. John Dewey, “A Challenge to Liberal Thought” Mr. Dewey is 84 and consumed with an argument that confronts him with the accusation of being hostile to “liberal” thought. “The Elegant Era” As rendered ion nostalgic watercolours, old-time railroad cars were very elegant. Apart from the noise and drafts, that is. Page over, and the question is “Passengers: Profit or Loss” Modern railway cars are homey rather than elegant, and may or may not make money depending on how fares are priced in relation to peoples’s willingness to pay. Aviation would have someone pull out dubious numbers to prove that passenger miles will increase 54 times exactly, while this paper prefers pretty pictures of ways in which trains might go faster (streamlining and smoothing out curves.) Remember “Cousin H.C.'s” old argument, that if the road is to run down one side of the field where the railway already runs down the other, there was precious little point in the roadbuilder buying all the field? Finally he is wrong! Given all this, perhaps 100mph passenger trains will be possible, and that will be grand. Fourteen hours New York-Chicago! But then what would be the overhead? The paper is taking so much time to make traction and go ahead in this number that I am beginning to wonder if it is practicing to be The Economist, until I am finally reminded that passenger fares are set by the ICC. Smoke is being blown –just not at me. The Farm Column Ladd Haystead notes the ongoing “agricultural twilight” of the Northeast, abandoned first by wheat, then vinyards and orchards and cheesemaking. In the 1940 Census, 1 of 20 Northeastern farms counted as abandoned, compared with 1.3 of a hundred for the country as a whole. Livestock now dominates Northeastern farming by value, mostly from dairying and poultry. Haystead supposes that “mining the soil” contributed heavily to this, or the unsuitability of weather, or the application of unsuitable foreign techniques from England, or competition from other regions, or, really, anything but the cause obvious from the development of farming in other heavily populated regions. Farmers close to cities produce milk, eggs, truck vegetables, fruit and flowers because that is where the money is. Or they sell to developers. This is how urbanisation works, I feel like yelling at Mr. Haystead, largely because I have not had the dread conversation with Michael. Having set off down the wrong path, he arrives at the same answer as always, although since he is dealing with the Northeast, there is no long list of exotic arables ideal for soil-rehabilitation, only good old fashioned alfalfa, timothy, clover, orchard and broom grasses, with a bright new future of exotic legumes perhaps a glimmer of laboratory promise. When he turns to a particular operation, the large Seabrook farm in New Jersey, he at least notices truck gardening. The Seabrooks also believe that the demand from frozen foods will increase dramatically, giving the vegetable grower a more national range –although that means competing with other regions of the country, the one thing that gives truck gardeners near New York, or London, or Paris there competitive advantage. Other scientific advances he specifically notes (obviously not covering New Jersey farmers) include dehydrated orange juice. Yes, well, I do not know about that one, Reggie. It’s been a good wartime staple, but, when you get right down to it, they don’t really need to put oranges as such in the product. A little limonene for flavour and a great deal of sugar will do quite as well. Business at War Mr. Janeway’s byline is missing in this number. We cover the unexpected boom in surgical instruments, which require a particularly high grade of steel, and which were supplied largely from Germany before the war, and the music that plays in modern factories, which is supplied by the Muzak Corporation and RCA Victor. I have been exposed to this in some industrial settings, and while there is inevitably grousing about selections, it is pleasant enough where ambient sound allows it. Survey This survey tries to assess American attitudes towards “full employment.” Given unlimited opportunities to work, most expect far more to work than did even before the crash in ’29. Given constraints, 36% think that married women with working husbands should not be employed, or other constraints on working time, while 44.3% prefer the development of new products and new markets. 27.3% are significantly and disproportionately worried about the national debt. Although the question seems to have been formulated as an opportunity to lecture, or hector, as the paper points out that while on the one hand that the debt is no great problem and easily repaid, a “shockingly” high proportion of respondents did not know this. People tend to underestimate the taxes that others pay overestimate the number of trade union members, have no idea what “Little Steel” is, and in general know about some things (the farm population is small) but not other things (prewar exports were small). The general point seems to be that if Depression returns, there will be great pressure on women and probably Coloureds to withdraw from the waged work force. I tend to think that will not happen for a few years, however. That is, "V+2" or "194Q" may well be as rosy as they are pictured as being by the Luce press. The concern comes after that, when the average American has made up for the deprivations of war. Given a radio, a car, a house, a refrigerator, perhaps a television, conceivably air conditioning or a private plane, what else could he possibly want? At that point, will his concerns not turn to the future, and making up any inroads on his wartime savings against an uncertain future? And without demand, how will we maintain employment? And if employment begins to fall, will the prophecies of the scare-mongers not become self-fulfilling?

I, for one, welcome our new, decadent, golden-skinned overlords.

Let's say that you want to pull the journal "Aviation" out of automated storage at the libarry. This is hard. There are millions of items down there. You do a limited search for "Aviation" under serials, limit it to the storage llbrary. You pull up... "The Convention Journal," of Capetown, South Africa as top search item. "Aviation Psychology" is next ...closer, followed by the "Journal of Aviation Management," the "Monthly Aviation Accident Report," and "Vestnik." I won't go on, because I would have to list 161 items, including Canadian Aviation and Aviation's old rival, Aero Digest, (but not Aeroplane, Aircraft Engineering, or Flight, all down there in storage) before I finally get to Aviation. Their internet holdings come up higher in search priority than the physical holdings --and remember that I specifically limited the search to the library location. Awesome work, database guys. Have you considered just using Google?

That is bad and wrong and bad, and you should feel ashamed of yourself.

5. Ming Wei --the only member of the Demon Doctor's crew who really appeals to me, maybe because I have a hard time seeing Dr. Fang as a villain. 4. Geistkapitan. Submarine pirate? I am so there. 3. Iron Claw. Hamilton Fish as supervillain? I am so there. 2. The Volcano Master. Because pulps. 1. The Skymaster. I love the "man of mystery" thing, and then there's the aviation angle. I'd personally be tempted to both tone down the pulpy side of the character and take it up to 11 at the same time. Who needs a dirigible base when you can have a tramp freighter that's actually a hydrofoil operating from a whaling base on Kerguelen Land that is actually the Skymaster's secret base. (Naturally, the colony of sheep farmers on the island is actually made up of a cult of devoted followers). Why a hydrofoil, you ask? Because it gives the ship the speed to catapult-launch a giant flying boat with diesel engines built to the Skymaster's secret design, etc, etc. And if you're wondering how a sea-launched flying boat can appear over Chicago, ask yourself who really was the first through the Northwest Passage from the North Pacific to Hudson's Bay....

So I'm getting that #Gamergate is an argument about putting Zoloft in the water supply?

Awesome! There it is, down around your ankles, perfect for a good solid kick, which drives the reinforced metal rim into your enemy's shins. While he's hopping around on one foot, holding his shin and swearing up a blue streak, you have both hands free to grab your battle scythe and slice through his other ankle in one clean blow!

Techblogging July 1944, II: Hereditary Jaundice My Dearest Reggie: Again I find myself breaking the rules of war correspondence, though not with news of fear and danger, but rather of business. Matters financial I leave to the bottom, where your daughter-out-of-law kindly appends a thorough precis of the "Bretton Woods" system. In short, she thinks it solid, for at least this generation. As far as I can make out, this is just female intuition, but it is ostensibly not unsupported by political arithmetic, and I cannot argue my case. The business, then, is concerned with more irregular matters. First, Wong Lee has been to Los Angeles, and has established that the "Section 60" clause is no boilerplate. It was inserted into our friend's contract two years ago, in response to some marital issues which have apparently been resolved as far as they can be. Unfortunately, before he appealed to us, our friend took the rather desperate step of burning his own house down. This seems to have confirmed his employer in his suspicions at the same time that it apparently removed any evidence. Even more unfortunately, it now appears that his employer has been offered independent confirmation. Although it seems absurd that a morals clause would be triggered by such a barbaric law, our friend has relations who will not wish to see the facts emerge. The point here being not to humiliate someone in public, but leverage contract negotiations. Our friend wants his freedom --but at what cost? Second, after diffident sniffing about submarine tours and various grandiose andimplausible aerial projects, Fat Chow is going homewards the way he came. His pan-Turanian friends may be both mad and pro-German, but the bomb plot has soured them on Berlin, and they are willing to extract him. He has the precious medium, and a device for "reading it," which the Gestapo, for its own reasons, has manufactured entirely of components removed from American aircraft --which should help if his belongings are searched. He will not, of course, proceed to the Panchen Lama and make broadcasts to set Central Asia aflame --he doubts even his Gestapo handler takes this project seriously any more, never mind the Foreign Office girl assisting him. They just want to cultivate us, Fat Chow intimates. Well, we shall return the favour, however ambiguous. The girl and the man's family, anyway. I doubt that anyone will care very much if someone with that much innocent blood on his hands slips into the black waters instead of being delivered to Buenos Aires safe and hale. As for the Pan-Turanians, they get one last chance to bleed us. Fat Chow has been evasive about his route, but if they really do send him through Tashkent, I shall be quite cross. Considering its reputation, the NKVD is surprisingly inept, but I do not trust Russian slackness anywhere near that far. However, whether via the Pansheer or the Vale of Fergana, Fat Chow will not be returning to California directly. You will have heard of the fall of Nomura. Now comes word from Nagasaki of a willingness to exchange yen-for-Hawaii dollars-for-US at a mostfavourable return. Or, indeed, for promissory notes on the right conditions. Some money is better than no money, it is thought, an American investment even better under the circumstances. I have word that our Hawaiian counter-parties are pleased by the idea of silent partners of such distinction. Moreover, though I have misgivings about dealing with the old enemy, the exchange will be done at the old house in Alicia, giving us the means to reward old retainers. Fat Chow will need to be conducted thence, and Nagasaki's assistance will greatly ease the trip from Kashgar to Zamboanga. If the matter does not disintegrate into a mutual massacre of Moros and Satsuma men, Fat Chow will then make his way to New Guinea and join me on Sparrow, and we shall see to the freight from there. Speaking of Sparrow, I am definitely taking a temporary leave of "Cousin H.C.'s" employ to drive to Vancouver to join my ship. I will be accompanied by your youngest, "Miss V.C.," my housekeeper, and one other. I have taken your counsel, and will not chance having someone with "Miss V.C.'s name register at the Provincial Archives. Rather than ask her to use forged papers, it proved a simple matter to arrange the accession of certain papers to the city's holdings. I get the sense that while the money is not unwelcome, ancestral memory weighs heavily on a house trying to forget its past. Whether the father or the mother more, I do not know. I could tell them that those days could be hard for an orphan girl, that not all who "gave honey for money" had their heart in the old trade. But I expect they would misunderstand, and my disapproval of their lack of filial piety might come through. I may not approve of the lack of filial piety, but that just causes "Miss V.C.'s" inquiries to warm my heart the more. I do not think her lessons advanced enough yet to read the old papers, so I have asked that Miss Wong accompany us as translator. I imagine that your youngest could read them, but he has so far kept his oath of silence remarkably well. Young Lieutenant A. will be joining us in Vancouver from Bremerton at what I expect will be all-too frequent occasions. I gather that his admiral has chosen to fly his flag from the New Jersey battleship, notwithstanding its dubious suitability. She will be returning to Pearl to make up its most serious deficiencies with some equipment to be assembled in Seattle under the young man's supervision. That is the admiral for you. Have I mentioned that I met Lierutenant A.'s grandfather in Palo Alto? A younger sibling is in prospect of being sent to the college, and inasmuch as the father is serving in the Pacific, it is left to the grandfather to see libraries and sororities and be jollied by his old chief. The Engineer is as uncomfortable in the role of college booster as you would expect, and I managed to restrain the temptation to grab the old admiral by the lapels and yell, "Where are my ships?" For I gather that it was really all no-one's fault, or possibly that of the Admiralty, or of Stark, or King, or the President, or perhaps even tourism boosters who would not black out the coast. Heaven forbid that we should trouble the old man in his retirement! Time, 17 July 1944 Foreign Ribbentrop was in Finland to promise that there will be a negotiated peace in the end. Apparently, Germany will remain the dominant power in Central Europe, and the Anglo-Americans will end up arming it against Russia. Yes, you read that right, Reggie. We will arm Germany. Remarkably enough, all the picked troops whom the paper’s correspondent saw in Helsinki were in good spirits and well turned out! In other news related to God-awfullyboring German operas with fat ladies singing andspears waving at the end oftime, but not soon enough for you and me (at least I had you there, Reggie, joking on a mile a minute), one Count Knyphausen has shown up in Sweden to spin tales of the horrible things that will happen in Germany if we do not see the error of our ways and negotiate a peace. I would provide details of alpine redoubtsand mass guerrilla movements, as if you had not heard them elsewhere, if I did not know a pitch when I see it. “The Damnable Thing” The paper’s correspondent apparently got lost in Westminster and made the mistake of following Flight’s correspondent rather than the Economoist’s.Let that be a lesson about trusting the pessimist more than the optimist. Except this time, he has imbibed the pessimistic view from the fake Prime Minister’s speech. Perhaps I should stop belabouring this one. I doubt that it was funny the first time I trotted it out. The upshot is that the paper agrees that the flying bomb, or, as it still calls the thing, the “robot bomb,” is a new weapon of terrible power. The paper says that the flying bomb blitz is more terrifying than the Great Blitz. It may have killed only 2,752, wounded 8000 in the first four weeks of the campaign, but its power of disruption is terrible. New deep shelters are being opened, and special trains are evacuating 15,000 children a day. Twenty-four shows have closed in the West End. Our correspondent seems especially shaken by the death if his Ministry of Information handler, Kay Garland. Will there be bigger, more powerful, more accurate flying bombs? Time will tell. “Don’t Touch” “Doc Salomon, the studio manager for Warner Brothers in England who scooped the world with a recording of a sound of a flying bomb, was killed by another one last week while out in his sound recording van looking to record another. “The Ladies of Woodbridge” The paper is trying to tell us something. It begins with a vice patrol of Voluntary Vigilantes (“busy little Miss Wilby” and “Mrs. Juby, the Methodist minister’s wife”) patrolling a lover’s lane in the London suburb to prevent things from “going too far,” and continues with “Voices from the Poorhouse,” specifically Ernest Bevin and Lord Woolton saying that Britain has liquidated its foreign investments in this war, and with noble intent. The wallet is empty, the cupboard is bare, economy will be the word. Well, the investments people were, er, patriotic enough to declare, anyway.I would choose another word, but I must salve my conscience with the thought that our black money was invested in making American guns. Rumania is surrendering more. Czechs and Slovaks and Yugoslavs and Argentines are excitable. In the interest of making ending the war as difficult as possible, a German detachment massacres a village in Italy. “Rhapsody in Red” The Soviet government having tightened up divorce laws and “otherwise encouraged the production of more babies,” the Moscow press rhapsodises the wonders of motherhood. Motherhood is “an inexhaustible source of human rapture,”Pravda says, quoting some Russian novelist. “And that’s why more women should be forced to do it,” the paper did not go on to add, as that would have muddled the story. Well, more people means a better choice of tenants, so I support the effort. I just doubt that it will work. “The Girls” Speaking of the flight and plight of the masterless woman, American troops in Cherbourg decline to shelter 23 girls who prostituted themselves with Germans, send them into the demimonde instead. Of such people, Koxinga made a kingdom anddreamed of more. “Common Sense in Normandy” The Allied policy for running Normandy has shaken out as “Let the French do it.” Without telling anyone in advance, de Gaulle simply appointed a Regional Commissioner and a Military Representative on his first visit, then told Eisenhower that he had done it on his return. “At that moment, one of the great decisions of the war was made. General Eisenhower smiled and said that it was a splendid idea.” “Germany Then and Now” Germans are living in one-room shacks due to bombing and building shortages, which is not what the Labor Minister promised in 1941, so let us all mock him, because he is an enemy politician who promised more than he could deliver, something never seen over here. “Enough for My Family” Nicaragua dictator Anastasio Somoza speaks English well. married even better (the Debayle family), “liquidated” his main rival, Augusto Sandino, and secured office in a rigged election, and is now corrupt. Perhaps he will be troubled by unrest soon. Central American countries are like that, you know. “The Face of Disaster” The Germans face disaster in the East. Is it because their eastern army is “sicker” than the western in some way, or is it because the Russians have a better grip on their enemy, and so take more chances than some other generals the paper might name but chooses not, who happen to command the Allied armies In the west? (I’ve the cat! Now where are the pigeons?) “Fifth Column” It turns out that the French “Fifth Column” actually exists. “Nazi Shakeup” The paper notices Marshal von Rundstedt’s relief. It is thought that his replacement by Marshal v. Kluge, an officer of much less prestige, will give Rommel a freer hand. “Pursuit’s End” The Germans have almost finished falling back into the Gothic Line, after which they will probably hold in place through the Italian winter, especially after the Allies launch their amphibious invasion of the southern coast of some unknown country whose name starts with “France.” “Target: Oil” The Combined Bombing Offensive is back to attacking oil targets. Storage tanks near the front were attacked by fighters and medium bombers, while the 15th Air Force attacked synthetic oil plants in Germany and Poland. The paper continues to be impressed by “shuttle bombing” from Russian bases. “Gone to Earth” Robert Sherrod’s report on mopping up operations on Saipan make war sound ugly and cruel. And here I thought the entrails of a poor sailor wrapping around the terrified ears of a twelve year-old boy was romantic and glorious. You bore up so well that day, though, Reggie, never crying until we had to face our return in defeat. I have never understood how you do it. “To the Victor: The Bases” A massive construction effort is underway on Saipan to prepare it for B-29 operations against the Japanese mainland. Too bad that bombs cannot give the kind of personal attention paid to Nanking. Meanwhile, MacArthur’s forces took Noemfoor Island off northwestern new Guinea, and are now 800 miles by air from Mindanao. Now if only Mindanao were not the Moor-infested back end of creation. Ahem. That’s rather ungracious to the memory of Subadar Haji Ali, especially under the circumstances. The point is that we shall certainly be bypassing Mindanao on our way north. “The Unpredictables” The defence of Henyang by Tenth Army under Marshal Fang is going unexpectedly well. “High Guns” Colonel Francis Gabreski gained a kill last week, raising his total to 28, first among American aces, while Wing Commander “Johnny” Johnston raised his to 35 and Alexander Pokryshkin’s bag increased to 53. “Pick’s Pike” Once Stilwell’s troops clear the Japanese out of at least one route through northern Burma to Yunnan Province, “straight-backed, six-footer . . . . dambuilder”Brigadier General Lewis A. Pick can get on with building the Ledo Road. With 9000 American engineer troops, a regiment of Chinese engineers, and 10,000 native labourers, he has already finished 167 miles of “twisting” road and six airfields over the rain-sodden, hills. Already, the rain has washed out some of the 700 bridges. Pike, former District Engineer of the Missouri River Basin, came to the effort from “Pick’s Plan,” a system of dams and reservoirs to tame the Missouri. “The Cost Goes Up” After 31 months, the U.S. has suffered more casualties than in the 19 months of World War I: 262,179 killed, wounded and prisoners. Notably, the Philippine theatre still leads all others in casualties, at 31,285 to Europe’s 30,095. Rather brings home the scale of the Philippine fiasco, does it not? “King of the Cans” Captain Arleigh Burke has been made chief of staff to Vice-Admiral Marc Mitscher, who will command “superpowerful” Task Force 58. Which is to say, all of Halsey’s carriers. I know what you are thinking, Reggie. A destroyer man? But it turns out that Burke was gunnery at the Academy. His destroyer background consists of having only held command of a destroyer on sea time back in 1931, then of a division in the Solomons, where he actually won sea fights against the Japanese, uncommon enough for living American admirals that I am surprised that he was not beached for embarrassing the side. I suppose being two aviators’ brains will have to be punishment enough. “I Did What I Could” ‘Atabrine-yellowed’ Lieutenant Mitch Paige, USMC, a field-commissioned peacetime volunteer and Guadalcanal war hero, is back home in Versailles, Pennsylvania to show off his Medal of Honor. The paper is pleased to see that he is, quiet, private and self-effacing. Sounds like a good man, even if he has stolen our favourite excuse. Or perhaps making it “atrabrine” instead of “hereditary jaundice” makes all the difference. Domestic “Midsummer Mood” Ed Massey, a barber on Main Street in Kansas City, says that a number of his customers think that the war will end any day now. Perhaps by Labor Day, or Christmas. Meanwhile, war production is winding down and everyone has money to spend, while the shelves are full. Most books on the best seller list have nothing to do with the war, and the top song hits, “Swingin’ on a Star,” “I’ll be Seeing You,” and “I’ll Get By,” while the weather is good, and “the American woman, the slim prototype of world fashion, appeared in fewer clothes than ever before, with fashion, even in the office, running to bare backs, bare legs, bare knees, bare idriffs, to the lowcut, short-skirted, off-the-shoulder dinner dress.” The first hint of autumn includes advanced notice that Town & Country’s July number will have more fur advertising than any American magazine has ever had before. Politics is “normal,” but terrible accidents include the fire in the Ringling Bros. circustent at Hartford, Conn., several train derailments, the loss of 64 coal miners, and an explosion at a dynamite plant, fortunately evacuated in time. Detroit weathered the first anniversary of its race riot, while the South and border cities were “pricked by the thorn of ‘nigger trouble.’” The hundredth Medal of Honor of World War II was awarded to the mother of an Eighth Air Force navigator, Walter Treumper. In conclusion, it is hard to fill out the paper in July. “The President and the General” General de Gaulle was in Washington last week. He met with the President, saw various people. His longest and most revealing conversation (before the press) was with General Pershing, at the Walter J. Reed Hospital. De Gaulle: “Mahomet once said that without war the world would be in a condition of stagnation.” Pershing: “We have never had peace long enough to know.” I wonder what de Gaulle’s France will look like? “Six Minutes” The paper’s coverage of the disaster in Connecticut is heart-wrenching. “If the People Command Me” President Roosevelt intimated his willingness to serve a fourth term. “Half-Free, Half Open” The Democratic Convention will be free to nominate a Vice-Presidential candidate other than Henry Wallace. This is the greatest change in the way that party conventions has been done ever. “The Well-Tailored Farmer” Governor Dewey dresses well. And he has a farm hear Albany! And he is running for President! All good Republicans everywhere agree with everything the Governor says about everything. “White Primary” In order to avoid “violence” only a select few Coloureds turned out for the ostensibly open Georgia Democratic primaries, so as to create court cases. The paper notes that its contemporaries see signs of progress in said lack of violence, and notices that the Atlanta Constitution ran an editorial calling for Coloureds to be allowed to vote. If this is progress, than compared with the repeal of the Exclusion Act, it is pretty slow progress. “The McSheehy” Mayor McSheehy is dead. We have become old, Reggie, without noticing. “Van Doos at the Vatican” The 22ndRegiment of Canada, which traces its regimental lineage from the Papal Zouaves, paraded for His Holiness this week in Rome. “First Foot Forward” The CCF cabinet in Saskatchewan was unveiled. I cannot tell if the paper actually cares about a socialist provincial government in Canada, or if this is part of its obligation to provide a quota of Canadian coverage. Science, etc. “Fungus Fighter” Professor Elvin C.Stakman, famed University of Minnesota palnt pathologist, warns that wheat rust is rising to epidemic proportions, and intimates that further funding for his $300,000 laboratory is money well spent. The paper agrees. “End of Infantile Paralysis?” Chicago researchers have found a way to make immunizing vaccines by exposing live germs to ultraviolet light. This has led to a promising polio vaccine, and promise for a number of other diseases as well, including salmonella, the staphs, one type of pneumonia, a strep, St. Louis encephalitis and rabies. “Females in Factories” There are now 16 million U.S. women with jobs, 3,500,000 of them in factories. Women can be quite productive in jobs where strength is not required, but they are difficult to keep content. “So prone are they to complain, get sick, ache, stay home, quite. That many a factory supervisor will be glad when his women are paid off for good.” But Lockheed Aircraft has the answer, of course. Doctor Marion Janet Dakin, who spent four months incognito at their Burbank plant and concludes that riveting really is not that wearing on women. They are just mentally maladjusted to industry, and need a Woman’s Clinic, run by Dr. Dakin, of course, to look after their special needs.As a “Lockheed has a solution” article, I give this a solid second. The presence of a self-aggrandising doctor saves it from the Gentleman’s C, but the absence of punch cards in the solution keeps it from being first class work. “Eureka” Doctor Samuel George Barker has become obsessed with the high standard of diet and oral hygiene of his dental assistant, Miss Lois Price, and has shown her to the clinic at the Iowa State Dental Meeting. Does Miss Price not have a responsible guardian? “The Pursuit of Knowledge” The University of Chicago has dropped its requirement of high school graduation in favour of ostensibly rigorous entrance exams, and now enjoys the presence of 20-year-old “Sunny Ainsworth, thrice-married seventh wife of PlayboyThomas (“Tommy”) Franklyn Manville, Jr. The paper finds Mrs. Manville(?) amusing. I suspect that the alumni of the University find her less so. Press, etc. “Ernie Pyle’s War” A movie is being made of Pyle’s reportage. Like all coverage of Mr. Pyle, this ends by pointing out his increasing exhaustion and persistent premonitions of death. Someone has to get this man out of the war, but I fear that the problems run deeper than combat fatigue. “Thought Control” The paper deems the U.S. Army too diligent in its suppression of political news. Pity the poor soldier, deprived of coverage of last month’s “Anyone but Dewey” landslide at the GOP convention, or the nail biting suspense over whether the President will run for a fourth term, without or without Wallace as his running mate! The paper was amused by a hoax on Australian literary periodical Angry Penguins by two Australian army subalterns who made up poems from random phrases taken from a dictionary and created a properly modernistic-sounding poem out of them, thereby proving that modern art is bunk. I am sure I have heard this story before, Reggie. A Pekinese doing paintings? Composers who cannot tell the difference between a symphony and a bag of cans going down the stairs? It also quite liked Since You Went Away, with, among others, the intriguing ingenue Jennifer Jones. Religion The paper runs four articles under this heading this week. When there is no real news, notes on the pulpit will apparently serve. We are falling short of Heaven's expectations, Reggie. Well, I don't know about you, but I am. Business “Washington War” War Production Board Boss Donald Nelson (“WPBoss,”) is fighting the colleagues over his reconversion order. In the paper’s formulation, the order is all to the good. Idle manufacturers would be allowed to “utilize the great masses of surplus aluminum and magnesium.” Also two-and-a-half million tons of steel in odd lots, shapes and sizes that has no use. Square in opposition to this are the army and navy, plus the majority of WPB members, who argue that the “U.S. soldiers had much better have too much and too soon than too little and too late.” The paper replies that at the moment we have a logistics, not oversupply problem. Yet it can be argued that the more peacetime manufacture builds up, the more likely that manpower will desert the war program for the long-time security of peace-plant jobs. Realistic American workers are skeptical of the idea that the war will continue much longer, and do not want to be the last to jump. There are critical labor shortages in steel, on the rails, on the farm in canneries and in lumbering, and steel production has slumped to 94.3% of capacity. I know that I covered the numbers on the production side in my last, from The Economist, but I am struck by the paper’s lapidary explanation: “Individual Americans, in short, are cannily doing their own reconverting right now.” “1,300 Men with a Mission” “When the Great Chief of the White House called the tribes of men together for a conference on wampum in the forest of New Hampshire, came the prophets of the nations, foremost in their craft and wisdom . . . .Keynes urged, “Be not slave to wampum, throw away the truss of wampum, start a fund for prudent lending, that all tribes of men may borrow, each get credit from the other, using anything for wampum, Sterling, beads or even fishbones.” Morgenthau, the Chief of Wall street, tighter strapped the belt of wampum. “My world bank for reconstruction must be ona wampum basis.” So they reasons as they wrestled, whilte they both exclaimed together, “Let us order world finances, let us keep away inflation, let us stabilize exchanges, for the profit of the people. . . .” This is rather too clever for the paper, and turns out to be the work of “Sagittarius,” of theNew Statesman & Nation. The paper thinks that funny doggerel is more likely to sustain the reader’s attention than the vital details of the proposals that might make up a whole postwar Bretton Woods System. I am not sure that I agree, but feel a little helpless in the face of the complexities of the proposals. Some more lucid summary seems needed. Fortunately, your daughter-out-of-law has acquired one of those queer feminine obsessions with the details, and promises you a lucid and short account with examples when it is finalised. “Top Prices” Having sustained egg prices in face of what turned out to be an egg boom instead of an egg deficit, the War Food Administration has stepped in on the bumper billion bushel wheat crop to buy at the top of the market. Commodities brokers are disgusted at the fact that they will be unable to make proper returns on futures trading, and bread prices will be too high, but at least farmers will make the expected return. Meanwhile, all of the alarmists who predicted famine in the winter are lining up at a press conference in Chicago to admit their errors and recant. Kidding, Reggie! “From Shadow to Substance” Detroit’s dream of the biggest peacetime boom in all autmotive industry history came closer to realization last week with … see Fortune for the details. “Rock Bottom” Although another way of saying it is that the U.S. is almost out of new automobiles. Flight, 20 July 1944 Leaders “From the Horse’s Mouth” German officer Freiherr v. Imhorn suggests that the problems the Germans are having in Normandy stem from the fact that aircraft are involved. Which is more than good enough for the paper to run with as first leading article. “Air and Sea in the Baltic” Also Russia! Night and Day” Bomber Command has operated by day over Normandy, while the medium bombers of IXth Air Force have attacked by night. That will confuse those dastardly Germans! “War in the Air” We are bombing Axis communications! American day bombers have been attacking Munich and Berlin. What is less clear is whether British night bombers have been doing the same, or whether the German night air defences are still the master. Our attempt to shoot down “air torpedoes” is meeting with mixed success, and bombing of French communications is said to be causing a food shortage in Paris. One can reportedly tell from the fact that Parisian women are all so thin. Here and There Canadian made Douglas DC-4s will get Merlin engines. Blackpool wants a Trans-Atlantic airport after the war. An American source wants to remind us that they were the ones who actually invented the flying bomb, back in the 1920s. A patent has been produced in a Kentucky courtroom, and word has it that rather than litigate in America, Verflugen Gebomben GmbH of Germany will concede American priority of art and take out a licence, paying the American rights-holders a fixed fee for every crater blown out of New York and points adjacent. The paper commemorates the anniversary of Britain retiring the Schneider Cup by virtue of no-one else wanting to compete in the delightful sport of diving under-engineered aircraft within five hundred feet of the ground at speeds in excess of 300mph. Prestwick wants a trans-Atlantic air port. De Havilland is launching a contest to name its next plane. I suggest settling for “Typical DeHavilland junk,” so as to get Australian sales through a claim to “truth-in-advertising.” (It is amazing how much higher the firm’s reputation stands in Canada than in Australia. Perhaps it is the lack of opportunity for floatplanes in Australia?) “Invasion Closeup” The weather was terrible last week, so the paper’s correspondent visited an air-sea rescue station to see how men are saved from the drink. Their crates are old Power Boats machines powered by three Napier Sea Lions, which is pretty remarkable longevity, considering how long the monsters have been out of production. He also visited a press conference given by Group Captain P. G. Wykeham-Barnes, at which was described the “communications-interrupting” work done by his Mosquito wing, and the existence of new jet fighters other than the much-publicised American crate is intimated. “Indicator” discusses “Making Our Own Futures” Indicator thinks that overblown claims about present and future aircraft are a mistake, that we need to make a virtue of the necessity of honesty. Twenty medium-sized types might be wanted for every Brabazon, and, indeed, existing types are nipping on the heels of the predicted performance of monsters like the Super-Constellation, Brabazon and Mars. The U.S.T.A.A.F. headquarters reports staggering figures of bombs dropped and sorties flown on an ever-increasing curve over the last six months. Soon we shall drop infinite bombs in just slightly-less-than-infinite numbers of sorties. “Studies in Recognition” Helps us tell the Curtis Caravan C-76 from –the Whitley? And the Ju 52/3M? As if this parade of antiques is not enough, and the evidence of the complete inanity of this series suggests that it is not, we end with a new plane, the Go 244, which given that it flies with French engines, is not likely to be around very long unless the war goes very badly for us. But while we are not likely to need to “recognise” it, it is at least quite novel in appearance, and it has a better chance of being seen than the C-76, which was cancelled before series production began a year ago! S. W. G. Foster, “Fire Risk in Aircraft” The Henderson Safety Tank Company has made the risk of in-flight fires and in crashes much less by its “Hencorite” technology. Various innovations in piping and valving reduce the risk of ruptures at these points. Electrical equipment can be carried adjacent to fuel systems if sufficient care against fires caused by shorts is taken. Fireproof fabrics are practicable, which would be a boon far beyond flying, I would think. Behind the Lines The German News Agency releases a public claim that the V-1 is not just a “political” weapon, aimed more-or-less at London and left to work its will by a vague reduction of civilian morale or whatever the euphemism is, but is rather capable of taking much more accurate targeting, so that the places attacked bear some relevance to a policy of retaliation in kind for Allied attacks. Word of the He 219 heavy fighter reaches us. Again, if I recall correctly. Ah, well, I suppose that if I want to check this I need only ask your boy. “Fighting an Implacable Foe: Engine Life Prolonged by Filtration: A Vokes Exhibition” Buy Vokes! “Rotol Cabin Supercharger” Buy Rotol! In the absence of turbosupercharger, British experiments in cabin pressurisation have taken the form of this supercharger. As it is driven directly off the motor, extraordinary measures must be taken to keep the oil in the drive train and not get it into the air being compressed. All of this sealing turns out to have a little more relevance to the previous article than I thought it might have, but only a little. My basic position is still that American firms are likely to dominate the “stratospheric” air transport field because they have more practical experience, but perhaps Rotol is keeping up via whatever top secret strospheric experiments the RAF might be doing. (I need to seek your eldest out and see if I can raise an eyebrow. Unfortunately, he is off to Honolulu for the weekend to dowse some flames raised over torpedoes and check the pipes of a cruiser just returned from the Marianas for signs of the dreaded graphitisation.) “Budd Conestoga” That one reader not tired of hearing of a plane that will not be built is in for a treat here! See how stainless steel can be used to make an aircraft, only provided that it does not have to fly! Correspondence Apart from more people correcting other people about jet engines, letters on the impracticality of the wider use of exhaust-driven turbines and the redundancy of great new ground engineering schools suggest that the brigades of the old and worldly, pessimistic and resigned, have recovered from whatever was distracting them earlier in the summer, giving them time to dash cold water on all and sundry. Time, 24 July 1944 “Report from Mme. Chideu” Madame Chideu runs a little grocery store near the Cherbourg waterfront, where the housewives come to buy necessities and gossip. Last week, the paper’s correspondent, William Walton, dropped in to talk to her about money. She reports that at first she kept and deposited invasion money separately from the old Bank of France notes. People suspected it, and unexpected reserves of old banknotes appeared on the market. (Walton reports that they were dug up from the vaults of a ruined bank, but I am inherently suspicious.) Prices might have ballooned out of sight at the shop had the Allies dumped all of their invasion money at once, but they did not, supposedly because the GIs were out in the country and only parted with their money for cognac and “amour,” because all their needs were met by the quartermaster. (Who does not provide amour or cognac in the American administrative system.) Thus, prices have not risen, and the Liberation Committee is recognised, and all is well, except perhaps for Mrs. Walton, whose husband does not seem to understand how speculating on money works. In all seriousness, I take this as a good omen for China, even if I am perhaps clutching at straws. The French see a government with the mandate of history, and so are enthusiastic about getting their country back up and running. This means that they are willing to treat the new money with respect. The Italians are not, and so do not. A proper Chinese government will have the same good fortune. “Exit Asmahan” Sultry Arabic torch singer Amal el Atrash has died in a motor vehicle accident. In Sudan, the heir of the Mahdi has stepped in to break the marriage market among his followers, because the bride price has risen to $400. When a good will not clear the market, the state, there is a coordination failure, and the state (or, in this case God’s Anointed) must step in, Sir Sayed Abdel Rahman el Mahdi Pasha seems to believe. As you can see, Reggie, I have benefitted a bit from trying to make heads or tails of the Bretton Woods system. At least I can talk like an economist. (Shoot me the day that I talk like the Economist.) “The New Morality” Not only is Russia becoming more serious about marriage and family, but Eisenstein is making a movie about Ivan the Terrible, portraying him as a national hero. Which is highly moral, I gather. Perhaps related, the Russians are disappointed by the damage done to the Pushkin shrine at Sviatoger Monastery by the retreating Germans. “Miracle in the East” Four U.S. correspondents, including the paper’s Richard Lauterbach, were allowed to accompany Eric Johnston on his junket to Siberia where he saw that all the factories that made all the Russian war materiel actually exist, surprisingly enough. The works director at Magnitogorsk promises that it will grow up to be a real city at some point. We learn that Omsk is a very nice place, albeit afflicted with a an awful housing shortage because the brick works cannot keep up. (Because of course houses should be made of brick in a town carved out of a forest.) Novosibirsk “is becoming one of the world’s great cities, the Chicago of Russia.” Samarkand is “like southern California,” and Alma Ata is, oh, say, the Boise of Russia. Tashkent is promised in the title of the article, but does not appear in the body. I imagine that it is the Sacramento of Russia. “Resurrection” Gandhi appears to accept partition. “What Now?” Italy’s government holds its first cabinet meeting in Rome, spends it pointing out that the administrative situation in Italy is hopeless. Meanwhile, the leader of the Italian Communist Party attends mass in Naples and confers with the Papal Secretary of State. The Vatican signals not-complete-disapproval-of-all-Marxists-everywhere. Surely a grand compromise is in the wind! “Sit-Down!” In the paper’s version of the town planning bill, it is a devious scheme to wrong-foot Labour. “How Dare You!” Colonel Diogenes Gil launches an attempted coup against Liberal President Pumarejo of Colombia. The paper finds the incident to be full of anecdote-worthy Latin American moments. Moral: Latins are excitable. “Gloom in the Reich” Newsflash from the paper: Germany is losing. This must have some impact in Germany, the paper supposes, and, oh, look, here are some tealeaves. The paper reads them. “Ace German military commentator” Lieutenant General Kurt Diettmar points out on the radio that the enemy was at the gates. Ace war commentators are those who have shot down at least five enemy prognostications. Christof von Imhorn, war correspondent in Normandy, notices that the Allies have air superiority. An anonymous correspondent notes that German army truck drivers behind the front are living on nerves. A joke supposedly going the rounds in Germany and leaking out through Switzerland: “What is the only secret weapon that can save Germany? A long pole with a white flag on top.” “The Germans Squealed” Reports suggest that the Germans are discomfited by the fact that Russian attacks are making gains in many directions that require endless hours of pouring over maps to make out. Takeaway points include that there is a sea in there somewhere (the “Baltic;” that the Russians have thoughtfully named towns “Minsk,” and “Pinsk;” that you have to go through a marsh to capture the latter; and that Germany has a province that is so far east that they named it “East” Prussia, and it might well soon be invaded by Russian troops who have been issued German phrasebooks: “Please point us to the loose women and alcohol, and give us your watches or we shall shoot you even more.” “To the Line” The Allies are closing up on the Germans’ selected defensive position in Italy. “War and Weather” The Germans are cheating in Normandy by enjoying bad weather. The result is something of a stalemate, which cannot be allowed to go on. Since the Germans have 20 to 25 divisions in Normandy in good defensive terrain, a breakthrough may well be impossible. Marshal Kluge claims that the Allies planned on being in Paris on D+40, or D+60 against heavy resistance. They have, therefore, in his view, been stalled. In which case, the Allies must almost certainly launch another major invasion. Given Mr. Janeway’s prediction of a long war in Europe, I confidently predict that the invasion of the south of France will break the situation open before summer's end. “Last Charge” The heavy casualties of the Battle of Saipan ended with “the strange little men . . .[sweeping]. . . forward in alast, hopeless, noisy assault.” It was pointless and futile. You can tell that it was futile and had no chance of success from the way that the artillery had to defend themselves at the muzzle of their guns with captured rifles and the death of several battalion commanders in last ditch close combat. “Death at Home” The paper waxes blue about the state of London, spared for the last few nights of any nocturnal flying bomb attack, although plenty came over by day. The Germans promise more, and heavier bombardment. “Jap in a Trap” Futile fighting continues in New Guinea. “Saipan’s Conquerors” The names of the ground commanders on Saipan have been released. Careful examination indicates that the commander of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division was relieved during the fighting, and the paper reports a rumour that he was removed by the Marine commander. Congratulations, General. A U.S. Marine thinks you’re incompetent. Words fail me, Reggie. The Marine commander, by the way, is nicknamed “Howling Mad.” “Murder at Oradour” Disappointed that their colleagues in Italy and the East were getting to commit all the pointless massacres, some SS men of the Das Reich Division massacred the citizens of Oradour-sur-Glane last week. A Swiss newspaper reports that even the German occupation authorities were appalled, as the massacre was planned for the neighbouring village of Oradour-sur-Vayres. “Combat Report” The Marines have been taking Coloured recruits since June 1942, breaking with a 167-year tradition of not giving the time of the day to persons of pigmented hue unless they had a good line about atabrine. The corps has no “public race troubles,” the paper reports. It has no Coloured officers, either, but it does have “16,000 strapping Negro enlisted men.” Some have reached as high as sergeant major, but the real responsibility enjoyed by a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant is right out. Most of these are in service companies, but, in Saipan, Coloured Marines finally saw action in the line. Lieutenant Joe Grimes, a white Texan, thinks that they did well in combat, but really excel in their normal duties, being the hardest working men on Saipan. They were also surprisingly gentle with the White wounded, continued the Lieutenant, letting not a hint of irony escape. “Mr. Smith Goes to Town” Have you heard that Jimmy Stewart is in the Air Force? He is! Fortunately, all involved eschew all publicity, which is why you are not reading this. “After Four Years” After four years as head of Army Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Lesley James McNair is going overseas. Although his new appointment has not been announced, it is suspected that he will have the command of an American army group somewhere in Europe. Domestic The Struggle” There is to be a struggle at the Democratic National Convention over the renomination of Vice-President Henry Wallace. It will pit Mr. Wallace against everyone else. I wonder who will win? Probably the one who gets the most votes. Let me see: one person versus more than one person. Hmm. I think I might be able to venture a prediction here, Reggie. In fact, I might go so far as to suggest that this is not much of struggle! This goes to show that I am no political journalist. Also, the President informs the Convention that he will accept the nomination if offered. “Wheat Dunes in Texas” Due to shortage of elevator space and labor, the Texas wheat harvest is piled in heaps on the ground, and farmers are worried that rain will spoil the crop. Worse, 4800 loaded cars are stalled in Kansas City, preventing clearing. Or being prevented from clearing by the “wheat dunes?” This bit is confusing. “The Score” The score is being set for the next few months. War production will be cut back 50% as soon as Germany is beaten per Nelson’s plan, 35% per the Army/Navy plan. Even this will provide almost as much manpower, material and facilities for civilian production as before the war. Colour me skeptical on this one. Are we not predicting that many reluctant workers will leave the workforce? One thing that has not happened in the last six years is a significant increase in the American population. Ratiioning will continue until after the first peacetime harvest in Europe, probably until the fall of 1945. Meat will soon be rationed again, but canned goods will be more available. Sugar rationing will not be relaxed, as the supply has fallen 25% below 1941. Used cars will be rationed by year’s end, clothes not. “Shoemen” fear an end to shoe rationing.” Coal production is better than originally forecast (how extraordinary, after all those concessions to the coal miners!), but the Eastern Seaboard will still get only 87 1/2% of its normal supply. “No talk is heard of rationing wood, the nation’s No. 2 fuel supply, although the U.S. will be eleven million cords short of its needs.” Demobilization is likely to be only 250,000/month, and the Army expects to keep 2 million troops in Europe. Civilian good production will begin with simple necessities such as cocktail shakers, teakettles, washtubs, tableware, pots and pans, hairpins, safety pins, etc. After that will come things made in quantity but currently absorbed by the army, such as radios. The radio industry has expanded about twelve times; even an 8% cutback would take care of prewar civilian demands, but Army and navy demands for radio-radar (not secret this week) equipment is going up. (I have a suggestion: build more electrical engineering factories!) Third in line are goods with many or rotating parts, such as wife-savers like washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, irons, cooking equipment. Last in line will be articles using materials in which there will still be shortages even after Germany’s defeat, such as lumber, paper, textiles. The wage freeze will not be lifted before war’s end. No real tax cuts are expected until 1946. “Ozark Rescue” The end of a ten-day saga that gripped the nation came this week, as the national press documented the greeting of a freed Drive the Coon Dog, liberated from a cave in Sugar Camp Hollow by 25 Ozark farmers blasting through a 30ft limestone wall. “66% on Roosevelt” I have mixed feelings about the man myself, but this headline is well worth taking up to the club just to see some peoples’ reaction. Or Palo Alto, if I dare. (the joy of twitting that man curdles in the chest in the face of his fish-eyed stare. Your daughter-out-of-law has taken to warning me not to do it, as he must have something in the works, but she is just taking the counsel of feminine fears.) “The New Force” Sidney Hillman of the CIO was at the Democratic Convention this week, throwing his weight around, even though the old axiom is that no one can deliver the U.S. labor vote. “Hot Blueblood” Most Massachusetts politicians toe the party line, but not Robert Fiske Bradford, a well-born Harvard graduate who is stirring things up. The paper is excited about his future. Teddy Roosevelt’s son, a brigadier-general recently promoted to divisional command, died at 56 of a heart attack near Cherbourg. See? This is why armies need a retirement policy. Imagine if, say, Halsey had a heart attack in the middle of a battle! Actually, never mind. “Scrap” The American troops seconded to build the Alaska Highway are allegedly burning and scrapping the supplies sent north with them as they pull out of their grand construction job. The short-sighted see this as a grand boondoggle, but in reality we now have a delightful1700 mile highway to show for it. Now the American taxpayer can drive to Fairbanks, and all of the interesting places between, whenever they want! * So, really, there is no cause for complaint if we happen to burn a few tens of thousands of winter coats rather than go to the trouble of removing them from northern Canada. “Beef for Beefeaters” Britain has made a deal to take all the Canadian beef that can be shipped in 1944-45. I hope this works out better than the egg shortage. Will cows eat beef? In other Canadian news, all Canadian debt to Britain is now liquidated. All declareddebt. I know that I should not be so smugly self-satisfied, but it would do our interests well if you could remind the Earl about how right I was about that, and how much we have profited from my decision of August of 1939. In southern Alberta, the paper is amused to report that the Duke of Windsor has joined the oil-drilling craze on his ranch.The dispute over sending Canadian conscripts overseas heats up. How much good are a prospective 35,000 casualty replacements really doing in Jamaica and Prince Rupert? Science, etc. Genius at Home” Albert Einstein is a genius, and like all geniuses, an amiable eccentric. Also, I notice that he has top-level security, suggesting that atomic physics has military implications. I mention this to your eldest, and he just rolls his eyes at me, as if to ask whether I could possibly be so naïve. I am not, of course, but I was hoping he would spill some “gen” without prodding. He did not, which at least suggests to me that the details of any atomic explosive are not technically interesting to him. “No Shrink, No Shine, No Runs” Monsanto held a presser last week to announce chemicals that produce silk and nylon stockings that do not run, wool that does not shrink, blue serge suits that do not get shiny, wool pants that keep a sharp crease, even in the rain. Donald Howard Powers, the 43-year-old Princeton graduate who achieved these homely miracles, shrugged them off as only a beginning. “He is also working on a method of water proofing and flame-proofing circus tents.” Which seems like a tastelessly indiscreet way of framing that research this week. We can draw the conclusion if you only say “flameproofing canvas.” Anyway, Monsanto promises that eventually the bottled chemicals will be available for home application. “Cures for Childlessness” Two books on sale by Lippincot this week offer useful checklists of factors inhibiting fertility in men and women. The former, with a blue bookjacket, is by Lieutenant Commander Robert Sherman Hotchkiss of Manhattan, while the latter has a pink bookjacket, and is by Dr. Samuel Lewis Siegler of Brooklyn. Infertility is far more common than is believed. From 1910 to 1930, for all reasons, 17% of native white U.S. marriages were childless, while 5 to 8% resulted in only one child. About half of all cases of infertility can be treated by diet, rest, abstinence from alcohol, relief of “nervousness” and general good health. And all that some “sterile” couples need is sex instruction. “This is true of many highly educated people who seek medical advice.” I know: I heard that joke at the club too, the other day. You say that it is not meant to be a joke? I was pretty sure that the blue and pink furniture gave it away, but I could be wrong. “In the Shadows” Back in London after a trip to Normandy, the paper’s female correspondent, Mary Welsh, reports on the field hospitals, which are achieving miraculous rates of survival amongst the wounded, in particular thanks to blood and plasma infusions. Press, etc. “Snafu” Senator Taft’s provision to the Soldier Vote Act, which was to prevent political propaganda from reaching the soldiers, has proved unworkable, because it turns out that all American journalism contains politics! Vote Warren in 48. “Cissie Fuss” Eleanor Medill (“Cissie”) Patterson’s Washington Times-Herald published a bitterly anti-Roosevelt editorial that is generally deemed to have gone too far. I would not mention this were it not headlined by a note identifying the publisher of the New YorkDaily News as her brother, and Colonel McCormick as her cousin. This is the kind of thing that makes mad ranters mad. At least in our family we have the good grace to keep our conspiracies secret! “17,000 Book Reviews” Lisle Bell has done 17,000 “brief, unsigned booknotes” in the last 26 years, as a sideline while working as a newspaperman, advertising copywriter and script writer. He is a master of the art form. Not bad for the son of a “real-estate developer who did not believe in education.” Given that he attended Ohio State, I wonder. There are some very large estates in Ohio, and I should think that an education that distracted the next generation of developer only so far as Ohio State and on to a career in freelance writing in New York so idle that he had time to read 17,000 bookswas a bit of a waste. I further note that the point of the story is that Bell has just broken his leg, which will, as happened last time, apparently curtail his output for some time. To break a leg once may seem an accident. To do it twice begins to sound like drunkenness. “The Only One of Its Kind” The paper likes Passage to India so much that it reviews it, again, I assume, for the current second edition. It could be worse. The paper could spend more time reviewing Time For Decision and Candlelight in Algeria, although at least the latter has pretty people and exciting car-chase scenes. Which is why, I suspect, that I was dragged to see it. Business Sumner M. Slichter warns of a postwar shortage of consumer goods due to a boom that will overtax productive capacity. Senator Taft has foolish and uninformed opinions about the new international monetary fund, the paper says. Harold Laski predicts a postwar American depression as a result of the inability of the American free enterprise system to achieve full employment. The paper imples that Geoffrey Crowther, editor of The Economist, agrees. While I do not put anything I hear about The Economist’s down-at-the-mouth styles past that paper, what he said was that he is more frightened of an American depression than a British, and this is not saying that he thinks it more likely.This paper clearly falls in with Slichter’s boom, but Laski’s worry about a failure to achieve full employment causing a decline in demand leading to lower employment, etc, is not really address by Slichter, as far as I can tell. Also of the opinion that the transition to peace can be managed is Abraham David Hannath Kaplan, an economist from the University of Denver, who has a book out on the subject form McGraw-Hill. “Houses to Live In” The paper notices the boom in suburban real estate. Few experts see the ‘boom’ going ‘bust’ any time soon, either. An exception, however, is Federal Home Loan Bank Administration Commissioner John H. Faley, who believes that too many reckless loans have been made, and that the “unsound wartime realty boom” must lead to a postwar wave of foreclosures worse than the last depression. Against this, it is pointed out that loans made so far are being amortised very quickly, that second mortgages have virtually disappeared, that modern mortgages, instead of running 3 to 5 years, are now going to easy 25-year terms comparable to rent. Nor is the buying really profligate speculation. ON the contrary, people are buying homes to live in, or as a hedge against inflation, or both. Prices are up: a Los Angeles home that sold in 1942 for $7,850 brought in $15,500 last winter. A home in Pittsburgh is up from $10,000 to $11.900 over six months. The big boom, however, has not yet even started. Washington planners are counting on new residential building to support postwar employment. Estimates of building in the first full postwar year range from 560,000 to 1 million, and for 2 billion dollars expected to be spent on new building in the first postwar year, $3 billion will be spent on renovations and repairs. I, for one, am hoping to get a roof on the old house before the rain goes through the foundations. It is a race against time, and I dread what we might have to do with the phoenix floor and the Whale Man. “Victory Over the Phone” Don Nelson has won the backing of Jimmy Byrnes in a phone call. Workers will not be forced to relocate to work industries, will be allowed to be released to make consumption goods of surplus aluminum. Also, Bob Hinckley, fresh from Sperry, is to be Director of Contract Settlement. “Paper and Steel” The automobile industry is declining to avail itself of the War Production Board’s Blue Order, intended to allow phased resumption of production. The order’s future allocations of raw materials are too contingent, and the idea that the companies can start work on experimental models is mistaken, for they are shorter of engineer and designer labor than anything else. What the industry really needs is machine tools, and reconversion cannot really get started until the Government releases those. People I am not sure that you care for me wasting your time with this section of the paper, Reggie, but my eye is caught by the death of Betty Compton (Mrs. Theodore Knappen), 38, of an illness following the birth of her first child. It seems as though one does not read as many of these melancholy notices any more. More normal is the news of Nancy Coleman (26), giving birth to twins. Or, regrettably, of John Rippey Morris’s (43) suicide and the death by heart attack of 48-year-old Captain Frederic John Walker. The worst, though, seem to be enduring the stress. Mussolini wants us to know that he lost 50lbs and got ulcers in his last months in Rome, while Madam Chiang has arrived in Washington for an extended rest to relieve nervous exhaustion. On the other hand, the sad news of the death of Archbishop Hanna, in the same month in which we have lost Mayor McSheehy, at least tells us that good people who keep an even keel may hope to live long and prosperous lives. Their loss leaves me feeling sad and old. The paper may be having the same kind of reflections, because it sub-heads “Knighthood’s Flower” to cover Margherita Clement’s damage suit against “former soldier socialite Sidney B. Dunn, Junior,” who attacked her with a paring knife and liquor bottle when she refused his suit, and the assault on Jeannette MacDonald, who got a black eye and facial cuts struggling with a 14-year-old bellboy who trespassed in her Santa Barbara hotel cottage, supposedly looking for souvenirs. Flight, 27 July 1944 Leaders “The Tactics of Fusing” The paper is impressed by the way that the RAF has learned to adjust bomb fusing to give the maximum amount of useful support to the Army in the great bombardments now being used to advance our troops. “Superfluity in the Air” We have enough aircrew now, and the RAF is transferring men to the Army, in particular. Who could have imagined, six years ago? “The Stars in Their Courses” Those who complain that the weather is on the enemy’s side should remember that it was perfect for us in the Dunkeque evacuation. Bad weather assists the weak. “War in the Air” The air attack on Caen preparatory to the last operation, in which 1000 RAF heavies were followed by 600 Americans, was too remarkable to describe in words. However, the paper notes an additional important fact, which is that the explosives dropped by planes did not have to be shipped to Normadny, and so did not count against the administrative backlog there. The paper is impressed by the “break-through into new country across the river Orne,” the fall of Ancona and Leghorn, and Russian victories. Forgetting to end on more than a nominal note of aircraft being involved (bombs, factories, oil shortage), the paper here breathes the hope that this war cannot go on much longer. Ultimately, the thought is inspired by the Hitler bomb plot, in which it cannot be concealed that aircraft were not involved. Not even a Luftwaffe general, it seems! Although the paper is pleased that the direction of Germany’s war effort did not fall into more competent professional hands. The same cautionary does not, of course, apply to the fall of Tojo, who might be good or bad, as who knows with Japanese statesmen. Here and There Captain C. Eric Smith has been elected chairman of Rolls-Royce in place of the late Lt. Col. Lord HerbertScott. The R.Ae.C. will close for nine days to give the staff a short holiday. Members sleeping at the club will have to fend for themselves for lunch and dinner. The daughter of Roy Chadwick has married Radio Officer John Dove. Manyprominent Cheshire people, sensing the way the future was going, attended. People are still talking about talking about civil aviation. Talk out of Stockholm is of a new type of flying bomb that weighes 10 tons, flies at 750 mph, can fly at 20,000ft, and can reach New York. The explosive is said to be 30 times more powerful than the ordinary. If the Germans have an atomic explosive, I am told, it is unlikely that they have so many that they can waste it in “flying bomb” attacks. Though, to be fair, “30 times more powerful” is such an underestimate that this might not be a sly intimation of same. “Invasion Close-up” Our correspondent visits a reconnaissance squadron, which flies Mustangs equipped with Williamson F24 cameras, Spitfire XIs with F52 and F8 cameras. The F52 has a 36 inch lens! (Would this be the place to ask if you can obtain a supply of pancake makeup from a store of my acquaintance in London? Thick as lard, that stuff, and it might make even me presentable under such nightmarish conditions. But, of course, you will be long since familiar with such things.) The first Australian-built Mosquitoes have been delivered to the RAAF. Australian woods were used “to a great extent” in its production. DeHavilland is to have an apprentice shool. Maurice F. Allward, “Engine Mountings” Mounting engines is quite difficult due to all the stresses the mounting must absorb. Obviously the traditional engineering solution of adding more weight and hoping for more strength is out of the question in aircraft. Allward notices the possibility of improvements in radial engines in particular, given that, in spite of the success found with forged mountings in inline engines, it is strange that there are none for radials. This might be in part, I suspect, because American makers, who cover the majority of radial makers, are a bit behind hand in metal work in their shops. However, Bristol is an eminently British firm. But, however again, Bristol is leading the world with its interchangeable “power eggs,” and this kind of thing would be much easier on a machined-down casting than forged down to exacting dimensions. “Indicator” supposes that we are “Asking Too Much of Adaptability” It has been a long time since Indicator has talked about flying. Has he been grounded? Father Time does catch up. The point of the column is to ask for more standardisation in utility aircraft. Studies in Recognition This week we feature the Blohm and Voss Bv 222, the colossal German six-engined flying boat, The not-so colossal Grumman Gosling, the Dornier Do 24, and the Boeing B 314-A. No new jokes on the subject of flying antiquities occur to your humble correspondent, Reggie. I could swear that this is not even the first time some of these have appeared in this feature! Behind the Lines A German ace, Eugen Zweigert, has been lost on the Western Front. The Germans are short on planes in Norway, a breathless report from Norway confirms. The Germans have not enough new aircrew coming up, and so rely on their old ones. Japan is mobilising its scientific community to do science for the war effort. This might turn out to have been a bit late in the doing. It is reported (again) that the Germans are using the Fokker G.1 “operationally.” F. E. Burger, “Aircraft Suspension Systems” In our March 30th, number, we published an article by Mr. R. H. Bound, who argued in favour of the levered suspension. Mr. Burger, assistant chief engineer of Sir George Godfrey and Partners, responds by putting the case for telescopic cantilever undercarriages and makes the case for a new bearing that will address “sticking” trouble. Qantas’ D.H. 86 have now flown 1.5 million miles, most of it by Aussie pilots who wish they were DC-3s. “In Northern Waters” Our carriers attacked a coastal convoy off Norway with more Corsairs than I would expect the convoy was worth. (Two 6000 GRT, one 3000 GRT “supply ship,” four(!) AA ships.) The convoy was “virtually” annihilated. “Airfield Roads and Runways” Are being made with Somerfeld Flexboard tracking. We are shown a picture of the wonder material being used to “debogg” a Stirling, so presumably Stirlings are being used as transports into and out of Normandy. It is good that they have finally found a use to which that low aspect-ratio, deep wing is actually adapted! The flexboard sounds as though it might be useful in rough country, unless it is too expensive, in which case old-fashioned corduroy will do as well. Correspondence More sour notes on the hapless optimism of the young, from back in the days of late June, when they ruled the correspondence columns. One visionary, Major J. R. Gould, does make the case for diesel-powered flight, but only in the context of poo-pooing the idea that the current generation of petrol engines will ever be commercially practicable, given the exorbitant inspection and fuel costs. I am more struck by the gentle ridicule of the bad thermodynamics of an earlier correspondent writing in favour of gunpowder-burning aeroengines. It is a little late to get “in” on the joke, which envisions flying bombs, once launched, gliding gently backwards into the launching crew on the basis of the correspondent’s efficiency calculation, but I do notice that he is late in replying because of “some minor disturbance to my personal property caused by the Hun’s jet-propelled aerial torpedo.” Somewhere in England, one A. R. Ogston has capitalised a good understanding of thermodynamics into a sufficiently comfortable living that we should seek him out and repair his domicile for him on Government-guaranteed profits! Time, 31 July 1944 Foreign “New Front” The paper suggests that the new front is the domestic one in Germany, as a result of the bomb plot against Hitler, a statement given to the press by Lieutenant General Edumund Hofmeister, captured with 41st Armoured Corps in White Russia two weeks ago, and rumours of divisions mutinying in East Prussia, and the arrest and sometimes execution of 5500 Army officers, including 34 generals. “Five Miles More” The paper is discouraged by the week’s end communique from Normandy that opened with “There is nothing new to report.” The late drive on Caen is the subject of this disappointment. Given the great air and artillery barrage, and the massive drive, with Montgomery putting his tanks ahead of his infantry for the first time since Alamein, greater things were hoped. Then, five miles in, they stalled against a “murderous screen of German 88-mm guns, mortars, cleverly emplaced tanks firing like mobile pillboxes.” Isn’t the point of a pillbox that it is not mobile? The paper suggests that Montgomery might have been “over-economical” of loss. Reggie, I might have spent my world war trying to cure condensoritis (it does not sound very courageous in retrospect, but I think that it beat being bombarded by Japanese Quick-Firers, or sniped at by Boer commandoes, as much as I recall you differing at the time), but I remember the war news quite well enough to appreciate how much the men at the Flanders or Somme front would have treasured a man who gained five miles while “over-economising” on their lives! Well, the Germans are predicting an offensive on the American front to follow the one against Caen. Let us hope it meets the paper's expectations. “Fragments” The paper dismisses the German forces in the East as such and hopes for the fall of Koenigsburg, while admitting that its natural and human-built defences are strong, also for the fall of Riga. The loss of Brest-Litvosk may be expected, and that of Pskov is imminent. “Joseph Stalin and company would no doubt find a saturnine pleasure in dictating peace terms in Brest-Litovsk.” Let us hope that the Red Army does not have to fight its way into Paris before peace returns! “Close to Earth” The Red Army is victorious, and aircraft were involved! No, I am not reading the wrong paper. “Novikov, Chief of the Red Air Force” is on the cover of this number. That is, Marshal Alexandr Alexandrovich Novikov. The Russians like “tactical” planes, by which is meant small fighters and single-engined and twin-engined bombers lacking high altitude performance. As for some reason the “Hun in the Sun” does not exist in the East. Russian pilots do not get combat fatigue, for reasons that we shall omit for long enough after the end of the war against the Nazis as to make it permissible again to imply things about the basic humanity or lack therefore of Tatar stock. I like the explanation that the Germans do not have enough planes rather better. “Next to the Gothic Line” We are advancing in Italy. To the Gothic Line. Ancona and Leghorn have fallen. “The Worst, and Worse to Come” The worst week of “robot bombing” has ended in London, but, you guessed it, worse is to come. “The explosions sometimes thundered seconds apart as the bombs arrived in groups, like artillery salvos. Some of the things sputtered in power drives, but many drove silently for whatever was in their paths. Londoners did not know what to expect. They were warned to expect worse.” Specifically, the larger, longer-ranged V-2. One bomb fell near a US headquarters, slightly wonded four WACs. Another flew by the paper’s office window. “All We Had to Tell” Theodore White accompanies a failed attempt by 151st Division to relieve Henyang. The division had no artillery. Under Ch’ien-lung Ti, a Chinese army would never lack artillery. “Under New Management” Saipan, that is. (Guam and Tinian as well, the latter being better suited for airfields.) The paper broadly implies other changes. Perhaps General MacArthur will command the land forces in the invasion of the Philippines, and not some lunatic Marine? Professional lunatics beat amateurs! “First at St. Lo,” American troops have penetrated as far as St. Lo. Good news, except that the story frames the incident as another Pickett’s charge. I do not think we are there to stay. “Crack of Doom” The paper covers the German press coverage of the bomb plot against Hitler. Various rumours involve flung grenades, Teller mines, the death of Hitler’s double, the shooting of a thousand German officers at a Bavarian concentration camp, the arrest of Field-Marshal Kesselring, the execution of General Fromm, the suicide of four hundred German officers, a naval revolt at Kiel, SS fighting pitched battles with the Army in France, 10,000 people in hiding from Gestapo retaliation. That’s a lot of hiding. “Gauntlet of Hate” 57,000 German prisoners were marched through Moscow on their way to internment while Russians did their best to be correct, the crowd hushing hecklers and Pravda warning, “No heckling.” The Germans, on the other hand, marched 2000 Allied prisoners through Paris and into a picked crowd of hecklers. Or so, at least, the paper tells us. “Back to the Desert” The Grand Senussi has returned to Libya after twenty years of exile. The dawning of a bright new day for Libya is well indicated by the fact that Idris visited Tobruk and el Mrassas. “The Bear’s Paw” The paper is upset that the Russian press characterised Chiang’s government in negative terms. Poles and Japanese are excitable. “No Problem” Segregated Japanese-American combat units have excellent records. “Last of the Line” The 5,396th and last Dauntless rolled off the line in the El Segundo Aircraft plant this week, was promptly trundled over to a time machine and sent back to 1940, where it would find some use against time-travelling Japanese attackers. The paper notes that it has set a new record. Of the 95 U.S. planes lost in the battle of the Philippine Sea (of which we will say no more, lest it be noticed that we sacked the victor), “there was not one Dauntless.” I do not believe the paper intended this the way it sounded, as it goes on to suggest that the Dauntless has had a very good loss ratio since it was withdrawn from active combat and relegated to antisubmarine patrols and training. “The Spearhead Sharpened” General Holland Smith is given command of Fleet Marine Forces in the Pacific. Which is to say, a command has been found for a Marine of lieutenant general’s rank that does not involve an Army tasked with taking the Philippines (or, to give the possibility of misdirection its moment, Formosa.) General William Signius Knudsen is made chief of Army Air Force Service and Materiel Command, with the shepherd of the B-29 programme, Brigadier General Kenneth B. Wolfe, as deputy. Either this means that he is not going to go back to GM, or that we should watch out for a GM-built jet turbine. If I am not too cynical. “New Margins” The Army is 150,000 beyond its planned 7.7 million strength, although this will not affect Selective Service callups. In fact, the Navy is asking for 194,000 men to speed up the Pacific War. Domestic “The Man Who Wasn’t There” Is Roosevelt, who did not attend the Democratic Convention, for fear that Little Orphan Annie would shoot him, or perhaps because he wanted to disassociate himself with the addition of Senator Truman to the ticket in place of Henry Wallace. The Convention did at least establish that it will be running against Herbert Hoover in the upcoming election. I suspect that the Engineer would have been pleased to have received the nomination, but, in an as astonishing a turn of events as the removal of Wallace from the Democratic ticket, Dewey carried the day instead. Perhaps someone should let the Democrats know this? At the convention, keynote speaker Bob Kerr rejected the idea that nominating a man who is obviously at death’s door was a mistake, because “Shall we discard as a ‘tired old man’ 59-year-old Admiral Nimitz . . . 62-year-old Admiral Halsey. . .64 year-old General MacArthur . . . 66-year-old Admiral King . . . 64 year-old General Marshall?” So there you have it, Reggie. America has given birth to no competent soldiers or politicians since 1885. As to the new Vice-President, he is one of the President’s favorites. Not as favorite as James Byrne, but the latter’s record of filibustering anti-lynching bills was fatal, especially with Wallace making an idiot of himself by fighting for the nomination on the grounds of being the last hope for liberalism within the Democratic Party, instead of retiring gracefully. That is, Sidney Hillman of the CIO was the Convention (vice-) kingmaker, at least in the world of the Chicago Tribune, which may lie not unadjacent to our own. “Light Him Up” “Block gangs” of “adolescent negroes,” armed with “’switchblade’ knives and crude, home-made pistols” are terrorising the law-abiding folk of Harlem, who can no longer “walk home from a dish of ‘rice & ribs’ at the restaurant.” “Gangs with names like Ebony Dukes, Imperial Huns, Pals of Satan, Slicksters, the Mysterious Five” engage in battle. A recent affray led to a boy being shot to death –by the police, which seems ridiculously tame compared to the old Tong wars, and look at how those boys turned out. (At least the ones who refrained from jumping into the bottle.) Not that anyone ever follows the average young “gangster” into middle-aged domesticity. Where’s the newscopy in that? “Strange Cargo” The shocking explosion at the munitions-handling wharf at Port Chicago, which killed 321 and left “scores of buildings” damaged, and which could very definitely be heard from here, although not by me, as I was in Portland, gets a single page of coverage. I am sure that it will all turn out to be due to feckless Coloured stevedores. “Dewey Week” The Governor sees Eric Johnston, back from Russia, and is noncommittal about seeing John L. Lewis at some point. Given that the United Mineworkers have endorsed him, this might seem churlish. The problem is that theTribune has, as well. Governor Bricker suggests that no-one has heard of Senator Truman. Science, etc. “Glimpses of the Moon” The word for your youngest is apparently ‘astronaut,” which describes people who dream of traveling through interstellar space. I rushed to tell him this, and he corrected me crossly. In no way is the Moon in ‘interstellar’ space, he tells me. Rockets, such as the ones described in the following article, can get us to the Moon, he says, but not to another star, which is thousands, if not millions of years away at the crucial number of twelve miles per second, which is the "solar escape velocity." We apparently only need 7 to get to the Moon, as the paper notes, and your youngest assures me that this is in sight, notwithstanding the fact that American pioneer Professor Goddard has not reached 700mph. Your son points out that nothing has been heard of Goddard since the war began, and happily predicts the imminent appearance of a proper “rocket ship.” Though your eldest throws cold water with abandon, pointing out that the ‘bazooka’ is more than enough explanation for Goddard’s silence. The boy takes ill of being corrected by his half-brother, vanishes to pitch futile woo at “Miss V.C.” I cannot decide which moon he is more likely to see. I'm sorry, Reggie. But your son, in despite of superficial appearances, does not follow after you in these matters, and I count that a good thing. He will be the happier for not being the Lothario he imagines himself to be, and will find happiness far younger than you did. “DDT news” The wonder insecticide, which I neglected to wonder at by reason of neglecting the 12 June number of Time entirely, is credited with clearing out the gypsy-moth plague in a 20 acre woodlot in the eastern U.S. when applied at five pound per acre. It also, the entomologists report, got rid of all the other insect pests. “More Casual Confinements” Dr. Morris L. Rotstein, taking a bit of a leaf from the “hardy jungle mother who stops by the path a few moments to have her child, then catches up with the rest of the child,” now lets healthy new mothers get up on the third or fourth day after delivery and sends them home on the sixth to eighth day, thus relieving ward crowding compared with the old stay of ten to twelve. “Many other doctors, convinced that civilized women, like many highly bred animals, is usually physiologically knocked out by the birth process,” disagree.” For future reference, Reggie, do not discuss this article, or any like it, with your daughter-out-of-law, be your tone ever so reasonable and detached. Speaking of unaccountably awkward conversations, William James Sidis died this month. Press Senator Taft demands that more magazines be allowed to circulate at the front under the terms of his own legislation. Senator Taft is looking like a complete fool here, although admittedly this is the paper’s take on things, and Taft is no favourite of the Luces, I understand. Also, the Neosho Mo., Miner and Mechanic will from now on charge 10 cents/line for all poetry published in its pages. “We trust that readers sending in poetry will keep this in mind.” I hope that the charge for aimless political prognostication is set commensurately. The story of the papers’ correspondent Stoyan Pribichevich’s adventures in Jugoslavia are continued in this number. Business “The Hot Jobs” The war-production slump continues unabated, and the War Department is thoroughly alarmed. Artillery, heavy ammunition, electronics, heavy tires, steel plates, tanks, tank destroyers, dry cell batteries, cotton textiles, TNT and other explosives are all short. Manpower in US foundries and forges are below minimum need, “there is not a single bomber tire in the Army’s inventory,” whatever that means. There is a need for 300% more heavy shells than anticipated, there is shortage of tents in the southwest Pacific and hospital tents in Normandy. Nelson has changed tack slightly, and wants to enlist 200,000 war-industry workers, and the War Department makes it clear that “workers’ failure to sweat it out in the toughest, most thankless war-production jobs may ultimately be measured in lost American lives.” Good thing that it is not the War Department’s fault for underestimating the requirement for heavy shells! (And, really, who ever heardof such a thing before?) “Harvest Brigade” U.S. farmers only agreed to plant an additional 13.8 million acres in wheat when they were guaranteed that machinery would be made to harvest it. This ws done, and now a “brigade” of self-propelled combines is far ahead of schedule. As to how the brigade works in practice, we are given the example of A. C. Ruthenbeck, “a tall, ruddy farmer from Tracy, Minnesota,” who took delivery of his combine in Enid, Oklahoma last month, began cutting 200 acre of wheat for “Farmer Fred Ash.” Cutting 5 acres an hour at 30 bushels an acre, Ruthenbeck figured that he would cut 5000 acres in a summer-long northward trek to Minnesota, ending by harvesting his own fields, I think, though the paper does not say so. In any case, given that he charges $2 to $3/ acre he stands to earn $10—15,0000 on his trek, never mind his own fields. The combine cost only $2700. It is not all profit, but let me again laugh derisively at the thought of $5000 homes. “Tire Trouble” It turns out that the tire shortage is not the result of lack of rubber, but of workers and equipment to produce heavy-duty tires. One by one, the nation’s essential trucks and busses are limping into garages to find no tires to reshoe them. The civilian sector will get only 25% of the second quarter allocation in the fourth, at best. Art, etc. “Hudnut versus Moses” Given that talk of city planning just might end up being important to real estate developers (imagine tones of heavy sarcasm, Reggie), I am pleased to report that the fight between New York City Park Commissioner Robert Moses and assorted city planning theorists continues in an elevated sprit of alternating, polysyllabic temper tantrums. G.I.s, it turns out, like musical comedies, not “tinhorn war and home-front heroics.” They prefer Betty Grable over all other women, but also strongly favour Rita Hayworth, Ginver Rogers, Lena Horne, Alice Faye, Ginny Sinims, Betty Hutton, Ingrid Bergman, Greer Garson, Bette Davis. In Britain, where they can actually see women, Hope, Crosby, tracy, Cagney, Gable, Bobart, Abbott & Costello, Rooney, Grant and Kaye also rate mention in popularity contests. “In Iceland, oddly enough, five males vie with Miss Grable.” Apparently, Washington has discovered an effective means of reducing fraternisation with our Icelandic allies. For troops in the Indian theatre, recent favourites include all-Negro musicals, while Casablanca is preferred in the Southwest Pacific,Cover Girl in Normandy. Documentaries are not appreciated, newsreels are. It is reported that radio now beats the papers for news scoops, and that a collection of the famed Alexander Woollcott’s letters has been published, as well as a book by John Dos Passos, which is described as a picture of a wartime America too tired by its own exertions of production and learning to appreciate the miracle that it had accomplished, but also ugly, unfinished, and in some respects fearful of the future. That is, Dos Passos tells a story about a man who once kept a hundred Coloured on his plantation but who had sold it, so that while his former tenants were currently making $4/day on construction jobs, when the boom ended, there would be no-one to take care of them. Thank you, anonymous Alabamian, but the lesson here ought to be that when a good tenant is ready to be buy, you should be ready to sell. Speaking of the inadvertently patronising, the movie version of Pearl S. Buck’s Dragon Seed is out, and should be showing in Britain soon. I suppose that I cannot criticise Sai Wai Yuan for providing for her future, but“by one of Hollywood’s curious conventions, the Japanese in this film are, as usual, played by Chinese, while the Chinese are played by the Caucasians with their eyes painfully plastered into an Oriental oblique. The result suggests Dr. Fu Manchu and an epidemic of pinkeye.” Grandfather, were he still able to read this and insist on his status as the inspiration for the “Devil Doctor” would demand that dacoits be sent to avenge the implication that he is Japanese. Okay, well, a bitJapanese, but that was long ago, and we (almost) all share that blood.

Not me. I commute.

The National Resources Mobilization Act did not receive Royal assent until 21 June 1940, and although it authorised conscription for home defence, your Canadian will not be receiving his questionnaire for some months yet. Canadian conscripts will not be sent overseas until the late fall of 1944. Just FYI, Canadians are not going to get "draft notices" in 1940. They may get a National Resource Mobilization Act questionnaire in the fall, but no Canadian conscripts will go overseas before the late fall of 1944. (Except to the Aleutians, because why shouldn't it be complicated?)

Some more Babylon facts: -A river runs through it. The River of Babylon, of course. (It flows into the harbour. It's said that with a good chart and when the stars are right, a ship can sail out of the port of Babylon to anywhere in the multiverse. It's also said that shipowners will tell their insurers anything.) -On the Rivertown side of the River, a massive bund runs along it, with a street on top and a red light district of straggly, shaggy buidlings. On the far side is a massive esplanade, above which rises the Forbidden City, where if you don't feel like you belong, you don't. It includes a greenlit paradise of towers of domes, the emperor's palace, called the Chrysophase. There is a bustling City Hall, and the Polytechnic University of Babylon, where its next generation of High Programmers, architects, city planners, and general-purpose technocrats are educated. Plus some really swanky shopping. Watch out, though, because while the Esplanade is usually the setting of mannered public art performances, sometimes a mime (always dangerous) will step into the midst of the tony actors doing a Shakespeare scene, and a giant pig balloon will come floating down, and it will turn into Carnivale, and suddenly the Forbidden City will be forbidden to the high and mighty instead... -It's truly said that the Library of Babylon is the greatest library in the (human) multiverse. And it's true that it is the greatest library in Bablyon, but on the streets of Babylon, you want a map of Bablyon. For that, you want to go to the nearest 7-11 (because, yes, there are 7-11s in Babylon). In front of the checkout is a little rack of yellow-covered books. They're street maps of Babylon, and they're the only ones you can trust. And don't forget to pick up a Slurpee and one or two of those hot dogs.

Please henceforth desist from otiose rhetorical appeals and accept my fiscal patronage!

Junk?

Old names for ships not previously considered: Argosies; brigs; caravels; doggers; (e) feluccas; galleases; hulks; (i) junks; knorrs; llighters; merchants; navs; oilers; pinnaces; quinquereme; Ragusas; ships; trawlers/trollers; (u); vessels; windjammers; xebecs; yawls; (z) Rather than go all Scrabble-player, I've left out the letters I couldn't match to a ship/boat name right away. There are a lot of other options, of course. Frigates and corvettes, carriers and tugs, water taxis and drifters, seiners and turret ships, protected cruisers and destroyers, rams and penteconters, triremes and Landing Ship Tanks and Ro-Ros. I had trouble with coming up with something for "q" until I asked myself what a pretentious toff would do and remembered Masefield's "Cargos." I guess the point here is that the romance of the sea is conjured up by the variety of names. Notice that TSR focusses on what makes its setting different (spells!) and then attaching that to a particularly well-known ship type (the windjammers that used to make the long voyages around the world in the Roaring Forties) in a way that implies the missing "wind." Now take it in a different direction: wind is romantic, but so is space opera. What about that recently past future-that-has-not-yet-been, when adventurers lifted off on the thundering jet for canalled Mars and jungled Venus, the canyons of Mercury, and the icy micro-planets of the Belt? A Wand of Fireballs should be quite enough to get you and your cargo out of the gravity well and on your way to where the Towers of Truth still soar along Mar's Grand Canal. Magecraft?

Sunday, August 17, 2014 Postblogging Technology, July 1944, I: Victory Comes Late My Dearest Reggie: I see that I have once more broken the first rule of home front correspondents. I have worried you. No need for you to worry any longer. Firstly, Wong Lee and I have returned home, and there is no tong war in the offing. It turns out that even east coast "men of respect" have their limits. Our friend was delegated to break the news to his acquaintance that even his closest relatives had no time for malingering. There was a war on, and all he was being asked to do was tour and sing, something which he had taken on as an amazingly lucrative career, and he should get on with it. Regrettably, men of respect only respect strength. Someone had to be seen to pay for encouraging the young man's selfishness, which is why I arranged an arrest even before D-Day brought this to a head. You will, I am sure, have heard of that. What you may not have heard is that the case is quite thin. The arrested fellow has been an irritation for so many reasons that I do not feel the least guilty about moving forward, even though it is likely that this will degenerate and require even more extreme measures. Well, that was a terrible attempt to lighten the mood! You may have heard that with school out, "Miss V.C.'s" research trip to Monterrey went ahead. Certain papers were seen that supplement the annals of old Monterrey, and I had an interesting conversation with the young lady on her return. She confirmed in the Santa Clara university library that Maquinna's daughter, Maria Jesus de Nutka, arrived in the old town in 1794, attended school in Santa Clara, married into an old Californian family, and had descendants. The portfolio at Monterrey added information about the "prince of Nootka" who accompanied her, of which of course I need tell you nothing, and led her to a family name (besides, obviously, her own, as she would have to be dense not to see the similarity) --and so, of course, back to the county records and to a reference to that old map in the family papers from the 1871 lawsuit. "Do we still have it?" She asked. I did not see the point in denying it. It is not outside the realm of possibility that she will still need it. So I produced it from Grandfather's papers, seeing much else that I had forgotten for years, and waxing nostalgic. "1820 is awfully old for a house in these parts, especially such an Oriental-looking one," she observed from the date on the map. I shrugged. Even in those days there were wealthy sea captains in the Bay, involved in the tallow and coastal fur trades, I pointed out. And Chinese styles were in fashion in those days. "Why is the name written in Chinese?" She asked. I shrugged again. I pointed out that the building was erected by Chinese artisans, and that this version of the property map had been drawn by one of them. "It means 'Arcadia,'" I said. No point in bringing up the awful Hilton book. Did you know that the Lady wanted to complete the estate with a pagoda on the south ridge? Imagine what our neighbours would think if we completed the bequest! "Et in Arcadia Ego," "Miss V. C." said. I started, and had difficulty controlling my expression. I had had no intention of feeding that clue to her. But it turns out that she was just quoting some snatch of popular writing. "It's an odd place to find Chinese carpenters," she continued. There were not many other places to find them around the Pacific in those days, I observed. Arcadia was quite a sight. I am just glad that it was never reported by someone whose reminiscences went into print --at least, not into print in a fashion that the good fathers of the Mission were not as eager to see suppressed as was Grandfather. So many things were lost in the Earthquake.... "Is that why Meares brought Chinese carpenters to Nootka? And no-one ever says what happened to them." You would be so proud of the artful way that I let my face slip at this point. What can I say? I shall be in Vancouver inspecting the refit, and it is a beautiful summer, I have a line on good tyres, Vancouver Island is beautiful at this time of year. and I can probably find an elder who is willing to lead her down the next step on this little journey of discovery of hers. The Economist, 1 July 1944 Leaders “Work and Wealth” The paper is disappointed with the quality of the Commons debate on the employment White Paper. The left should stop talking about public ownership. It was not part of the commission of the white paper, and will never happen anyway and wouldn't work if it did. The conversation that was not about this thing that should not be talked about (which will never happen) was about the size of the slice of pie that everyone gets, and not how big it will be. The paper is concerned about foreign trade, and dismisses talk of how higher productivity leads to higher incomes, as it, for example, is much more productive than it was in 1939. That just means that a smaller staff is “working very hard,” and would actually like to work less hard in the future, thank you. (Interestingly, just the line of thinking it projects on workers, whose demand for a 40 hour work week without reduction in earnings is rejected out of hand, and without so much as a glance at the mirror, either.) “Leadership in Europe” Not only are Latins excitable, but, really, all Europeans except Britons are, and that is why they should be a great deal more grateful for British leadership than they are. Voltaire and Montesquieu, who from the names must be French, liked us. We must be nice! Gladstone and Palmerston and Canning were nice –an Opium War or another aside—so we are even nicer! “Books in Distress” A shortage of paper is damaging the publishing trade. It should be realised that publishing is special –is that a plea for more paper? No, because the paper draws no conclusions and leaves the reader to draw only such conclusions as the reader might draw from the unvarnished facts plus adjectives in garnishment. “Control of Land Use” The issue here is a White Paper on the way in which land under local authorities might be apportioned for various uses postwar, such as agriculture and land use. Fortune has a rather better-illustrated article on the same subject, and I have clipped and attached some of the artwork from my proof copies at the end of the newsletter, below. It is, of course, of interest mainly if you go against my advice and favour the younger generation’s hopelessly optimistic and romantic belief that the birds and the bees shall spring over a postwar Britain of cooing lovers and babbling babes. That is, if the Earl follows your daughter-out-of-law’s advice and get into private housing. There are, I notice at the end of the week, good reasons for not doing that, even if demand for housing in England is more robust than the doomsayers think. Notes of the Week “After the Fall of Cherbourg” The taking of the port ends the first phase of the Normandy operation in its third week. It will soon be brought into use, and the focus of the fighting turns to outflanking Caen, where five major roads and four railways converge. The alternative to a stern test of strength there is a drive south in the Contentin towards St. Lo and Constance to gain more elbow room. “Blows in the East” The powerful Russian offensive in the centre of the front ends a pause of many months which allowed the Russians to “recruit their strength,” as it used to be said. Heavy lossesof German manpower overshadow even the loss of ground. It is asked whether the Germans will really follow through on their promises of reinforcements for the Finns at the expense, it must seem, of Warsaw. “Nazis at Bay” The vengeance robots are evidence of how sorely pressed Hitler is. Mr. Morison’s assurances that the bombing is ineffective compared with conventional bombing, so far documented only in astonishing figures shown to the fortunate few, should be given wider distribution so that the Manchester Guardian can stop panicking. (I assume that this is who is meant by “our more imaginative friends to the north,” although you will know better than I, Reggie, as I stopped the Guardian after Pearl Harbour because it was becoming too irregular in delivery.) “Soldiers of Europe” Partisans are fighting, too. “Far Eastern Success” The Japanese offensive against the Imphal-Kohima road is now officially at an end. Fears of another Bengal famine are now greatly eased, and Stilwell might finally take Myitkyina and advance the Ledo Road. “Education in the Lords” “Homecraft, cookery and technical subjects” may be taught to boys and girls over the age of16 at the new Butler schools. Only a few years ago, Reggie, I would have had vast difficulty conceiving of the class of person who goes to school past the age of 16 as needing to know how to cook. That was before the best domestic I could get was an admittedly wonderful neighbourhood girl available for two hours after school. “Young Persons” Speaking of, further coverage of the part-time schools for boys and girls between 16 and 18. They might be called “county colleges,” it is proposed. The paper suggests that their success will depend more heavily on what is taught than what they are called. “Teachers Wanted” As the paper suggests, given the previous two items, not surprising. The paper again suggests that we must not lose sight of the need to improve the quality, as well as quantity of teachers. At least this time the wandering train of thought does not alight from that to the need to keep the burden of faculty salaries down. Indeed, the next item (on the McNair Report) even goes so far as to imply that “remuneration be equalised,” which would surely lead to higher pay. “No Finnish Armistice” Finland has not yet finished surrendering. “Where to Shop” The Plymouth Plan, which the paper has already reference with respect to land use control, is also interested in the development of shopping districts, whose location might also be controlled. “Listener Research” The BBC is following American practice and making an effort to tailor programming to the desires of listeners. “The Murders at Gorlitz” The summary execution of escapees from Stalag Luft III is an appalling crime. “War and the Daily Worker” Sir James Grigg continues to deny the Daily Worker a war correspondent, which the paper deems to be little more than Red-baiting at this point. American Survey “Nominations at Chicago” “The National Convention of the Republican Party, meeting at Chicago, has done what was universally expected of it,” and nominated Governor Dewey on the first ballot. To be sure, the paper would have rather died than admitted that this was the “universally expected” result last week. How would it have excused itself to some poor child who believed that the Convention might somehow end by nominating Bricker or Taft? It is a game, to be sure, but one that wastes a great deal of everyone’s time, and puffs up people like the Engineer, back from Chicago in the highest of spirits, which I would at least excuse as putting the passing of his late wife behind him, if that had affected him very much. Regrettably, Governor Warren refused the Vice-Presidential nomination, which went to Bricker instead. (I have no idea if the offer was serious or a publicity stunt.) Taft, as head of the platform committee, apparently produced something more to the liking of the “machine politicians” than Dewey himself, who offends by being at once popular and platitudinous. Or so says the paper, anyway. American Notes “Preparation for Peace” The paper covers Nelson’s announcement that beginning 1 July, manufacturers will be allowed to place orders for machine tools for reconversion. Does this mean, to pick an example possibly not from thin air, the paper says, that Henry Kaiser will be allowed to go into automobile production while Ford and GM are still committed to war production? Yes, Nelson says, it would be unfair to hold back everyone until all industries are ready to move. The paper is here barking up the wrong tree. Assembly line car production requires vast tooling, and young E. has hardly even begun the work. His chances of breaking into the market are pretty slim, and Nelson must be aware of that. I am scarcely the best qualified automotive person to have said it to his face in my hearing! Returning to the paper, it gets in a last, snide comment to the effect that the firms which have been lavishing their advertising budget on ads extolling “free enterprise” are disconcerted by having it taken so literally on this front! “Another Year of the OPA” The Office of Price Adminstration is extended for another year of inflation fighting. Although its pathetically-limited powers are further reduced. “Hartzel vs United States” Mr. Hartzel cannot be convicted under the Espionage Act for merely writing and circulating horrible pamphlets denouncing the international Jewish plot to get America into the war. He has to actually do something more than offend, and the government failed to prove Hartzel’s intent to discourage enlistment. “The Unauthorised Programme” The paper, struck by a reminiscence of the splendid Mr. Willkie (I question the paper’s taste, for Mr. Willkie is no Mr. G. Geoffrey Smith), is carried off in a swoon, and awakens to find itself prostrate on the settee. Or to put it another way, Mr. Willkie offers the GOP a platform of his own writing, to replace that offered by Governor Bricker. “GI Bill of Rights” The paper notices the President’s proposal, more fully discussed byFortune, below. World Overseas Poles, Lithuanians and Ukrainians are especially excitable. As are the Irish, in a missive from Our Dublin Correspondent, which describes the Irish public as “waiting daily for news of the invasion.” I hope no-one is waiting for daily news of Ireland from the paper. “Banking under Nazi Control” Quite the most serious issue facing Germany right now is the governance of its banks, which, of course, will in no way be changed after unconditional surrender. In other words, if despatches from Ireland are coming out a month late, why is this rubbish even printed? The Business World “Co-operation: The Second Century” The paper celebrates the inauguration of the second century of the co-operative movement with the same restrained joy it has shown throughout its first. “Rubber Prospect –I” The supply of natural rubber increased from 628 million tons annually in 1920 to 1390 million tons in 1940. When Ceylon alone produces 89 million tons, and all of Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific together count as “other countries” producing 224 million tons, one can see little prospect for artificial rubber unless it is cheaper, better or both. As it is neither, the industry has only niche prospects producing special rubbers for special purposes. So do not invest in synthetic rubber unless you have better information about the specific stock’s prospects. Very helpful, paper. Business Notes “Money Conference Opens” The international monetary conference at Bretton Woods is due to be formally opened on July 1st. As a legitimate businessman, I wish it luck. As the comprador of a pirate clan, I can only say that our bets remain hedged. In a perfect world, there will be a solution that makes room for both ledgers to show a profit! As to the details of the matter, I am working on a summary, but there is little point in putting it to paper until the conference closes. “Reconstruction Loans” The New International Monetary Fund might offer loans for reconstruction. The Polish Government-in-Exile has already put in for one. The Earl presumably does not need my opinions on the proposed reform of the London Stock Exchange, talks on the reform of rent control, and the related question of the shortage of houses to let, much less talk of building society mergers. I do notice the publication of the report on War Damage Repairs, which notes that over 2 million buildings in the country require repair. The Committee on War Damage Repair now puts forward its plan for financing these repairs. Unsurprisingly, strict financial control is likely to be impossible. Hmm. I know that if I were a shady contractor, this is where my money would go. To put it more clearly, the returns on reconstruction work are likely to be considerably better than the returns on new building for the foreseeable future. “Status of Statisticians” The stature of statisticians may be affected by their station in life, which will determine how many status seekers rise to the status of statisticians, a question of the greatest statistical relevance. To be less(!) amusing, the Royal Society of Statisticians is concerned with these matters, as pretty much every professional society in Britain always is. “Cable & Wireless” The returns of this company show that it has flourished remarkably in the war. Details to follow in twenty-five, fifty and seventy-five years, Official Secrets Act allowing. “Dock Labour” The National Dock Labour Corporation has had a very good year. In spite of turnover of 1500 men in the last quarter, it has maintained a creditably low level of job action and absenteeism (3.7%), while employing up to 7000 more men on casual labour on peak days. Much war work, including training of soldiers to do the work in France, has gone on. Flight, 6 July 1944 Leaders “Cobblers and Lasts” The paper indulges its favourite pastime of reshuffling the Service decks. Army Cooperation should go to the Army, anti-aircraft to the RAF, as usual. In the spirit of modern times, and because it cannot complain about air force control of the Fleet Air Arm any more, it adds that the Commandoes should go to the Marines. The question of control of the Met. Office can be deferred until the county cricket boards pull themselves together. “Blasting a Way” Word that aircraft are involved in the Normandy fighting pleases the paper. It is especially pleased that Typhoons fire the “equivalent” of a six-inch cruiser broadside at obnoxiously non-dead Germans, and hopes to hear more about this. “Flexibility” It is also pleased to hear about the heavy bombers attacking a concentration of German armour at Villers-Bocage, and hopes to hear more about that, as well. War in the Air The Germans have lost a great many men lately. The paper hopes that they cannot keep on indefinitely. (The Economist, if it stopped to think about this,would by now be speculating that German science was busy inventing mitosis.) Bad weather has meant that aeroplanes were less involved than might have been. The paper notices that German reinforcements have been arriving and have been thrown into the fight. Once the Germans are fully committed, the paper hopes that a landing in the Pas de Calais will overrun the vengeance robot launching facilities. In the meantime, they are bombed day and night, and hopefully fighter interception will be more effective now that good weather has returned. A lucky hit on a French railway station in Orleans killed 120 German soldiers and wounded another 300 of a full battalion having a meal there. According to a German paper which promised, darkly, that the commander, had he not been killed, would have been executed for risking his men this way. “Night Precision Bombing” We used to say that we could do this, and then the claim was “silently abandoned.” Now we say that we can do it again, using Pathfinder tactics. This is how we blew up the communications targets whose destruction delayed German reinforcements. Japanese air forces have abandoned New Guinea, and therefore MacArthur has reorganised his forces. Here and There Pravda proposes that the “flying bomb” has been introduced to reduce German pilot losses. The paper notices that another Indian Air Force fighter squadron has joined the fighting in Burma. Sir Samuel Hoare is to be a Viscount for his services as ambassador to Madrid, but the paper celebrates because of his long tenure as Secretary of State for Air. All tumult and controversy past, it does look like he did good work there! Some airwomen of ADGB are soon to go over to Normandy. Group Captain JohnPowell, one of the stars of “Target for Tonight” has been awarded an American DFC. Master Sergeant John Mayer, Communications Chief with a Fighter Control squadron of Eighth Air Force, has been awarded a Legion of Merit for devising a new radio equipment. No less than 100 tons of priority cargo are being flown to Normandy daily. Evacuations of wounded will soon rise to between 1000 and 1200 a day. Juan Trippe of Pan-American thinks that America would be best served by a single American international carrier. The RAF is creating a special Locust Flight to “dust” swarms from the air in the Middle East. The expansion ofVokes business means promotions for all in the managerial suite! “Invasion Close-Up” Our correspondent went to an airfield in Kent to get the story of RAF Mitchell squadrons which had recently made a major attack on the steelworks at Caen, dropping 800 tons of bombs less than 1000 yards from our front lines. While there, he also had discussions with fighter pilots who chased “doodlebugs” and flew Typhoons to attack German armour, and even a German army corps headquarters. Wing Commander J. R.Baldwin, well-known for some daring low flying passes around te Eiffel Tower, is still alive, bless him, and led the attack. (My late and excessive association with highbinders brings me to suspect that the “young and daring” I knew years ago might well, with a more mature eye, be seen more accurately as queer in the head.) Indicator discusses the “Retreat to Rationalism,” which he understands as a retreat from very expensive efficiency towards lower cost and less complicated solutions. The modern aeroengine, he points out, requires 70-odd gears! The carburetor, a hive of pressure aneroids, piston valves, pumps and mechanical and other compensating devices is another example. “Any carburetor which works satisfactorily is a monument to the ingenuity and persistence of the human race.” Ironically, at this very moment I have only to walk across the room to look down through the bay window at your youngest, who has some kind of disassembled apparatus from his Lincoln dismantled on a table on the garden patio. I do not know that it is a carburettor, but that is the way to bet from the language that floats up this Santa Clara August. Function must be perfect for the long trip to Canada, so that he can show up Lieutenant A, at last. Ah, well, perhaps he will have a turbineunder his hood soon. I just hope that he does not succumb to temptation and start cleaning things with gas out in the garden, as Judith will have his hide. “Ubiquitous W.A.A.F.s.” The Women’s service of the RAF has had its fifth birthday. “Passing of a Famous Biplane” Swordfish production is being “tailed off.” It will be recalled that when the Fairey Barracuda was delayed in early 1940, then-Captain (A) M. S. Slattery, of the Admiralty, approached Blackburn with a proposal that it take over the management of a manufacturing group in the Yorkshire and Lancashire areas that would take on a Swordfish production extension. A start was made on the new factory on 1 January 1940, and less than 11 months after work began, it delivered its first planes. The Barracuda, however, is steadily replacing the Swordfish in production. “Idlewild Airport” Quite a long paper on the new New York municipal airfield being built on reclaimed ground at the head of Jamaica Bay. It says much about my state of mind last month that I went the better part of a week confusing this project with La Guardia. New Fighter in Nine Weeks” the paper is very impressed with the Miles M. 20, an all-wooden fighter produced in just nine weeks during the Battle of Britain, when there was some concern that we were running out of fighters. Behind the Lines A special anti-tank bomb was used for the first time by the Germans against the invasion fleet. Japanese newspapers are appealing for grater aircraft production of “first-class” types. Germany is taking measures to secure its silk supply. German optimism is fed by reports that London has lost 23 million work hours so far to the vengeance robot offensive, that London fire-watchers have been in a state of alert for almost 200 hours, and that the strain is showing; and that seven million Londoners are camping out, “and this is only the beginning.” But the German press also cautions that effective Allied countermeasures may be in train. A single weapon is rarely decisive. It might, however, lead to something more. It would be a pity if all of those defences along the Pas de Calais went unblooded. F. J. Wingfield-Digby, “Fuselage Shells: Technical Comparison of Thick and Thin Skin Monocoque Construction” The Westland Whirlwind, an ephemeral fighter that went into and out of service in the mid-war years, was subject to extensive strain testing to show that its innovative, thin-skin magnesium rear fuselage was actually an amazing example of technological progress. It turns out that it was, and all concerns about the use of magnesium alloys in this role were misplaced. Studies in Recognition Covers the Dornier Do 26K, and Siebel Si 204. I am somewhat skeptical as to the practical value of this edition of the series. Correspondence Blackburn Aircraft, Ltd, reminds us that random people named “Blackburn” writing to the paper are not related to the firm. Smith Aircraft, Ltd, must get this all the time. An anonymous author writes to ask why racing engines are not used in service, since they are so much more powerful than service types. A correspondent disputes claims for efficiency improvements from thrust augmentors, and the very optimistic F. C. Brown writes to ask whether exhaust-driven turbines might take over the entirety of aircraft auxiliary services. He thinks that this would allow the elimination of hydraulics, which, I am sure, he has had unpleasant practical experience. The question is whether routing tubes of high-pressure exhaust gas about the plane would be any improvement. The Economist, 8 July 1944 Leaders “The Low Countries” The people of the Low Countries are not excitable at all. Which is to say, they are the Englishmen of continental Europe, and entirely admirable. (Belgians, actually, are somewhat excitable.) The dastardly Germans have flooded their seaward defences against invasion, but liberation will more likely come through France, and soon, and it will find the affairs of the formerly-occupied countries on a thoroughly unexcited footing. “Five Year Plans for All?” The successes of the Red Army against the Nazis suggest that there might be something to this “Five Year Plan” thing, after all. The paper imagines numbers which show that other countries would not benefit from a Five Year Plan. Wasn’t the old concern with the Five Year Plan that its numbers were imaginary? A fitting bookend of an article, then. “The Trumpet Blowers” The paper is quite pleased by the way that the Ministry of Information has come along, but supposes that strict censorship and domestic spying will be needed less, or not at all, after the peace, depending on this and that. I have to say that a forthright “abolish the lot” would be a great deal more comforting, and wonder how all of the hardline anti-Nazi controversialists it has recruited actually feel about the prospects of a peacetime propaganda arm of the British government. Notes of the Week “The Russian Offensive” Pleases the paper. The paper hopes that the Red Army’s “conveyor belt” system of supply will keep it attacking all summer. This seems to me a little callous with Russian lives. In 1917--19, no western army attacked relentlessly, because they were out of men. Does Russia have an unlimited supply of men? Do “Tatars” reproduce by mitosis? I should imagine that after this effort the Red Army will wait for next year's class to make its final effort, and meanwhile be content to pin German troops down with local offensives -which, of course, may go far if the Germans strip the East. And there you are, Reggie: your cousin, the armchair strategist. I also cannot help a little snort when I see the Russian services of supply praised as efficient. “A Somewhat Lengthy Affair” The Prime Minister laid out the history of the “flying bomb” in the Commons this week. I am glad that it finally has a name –“vengeance robot” belongs in the pulps. The reference in the title is to the premier’s rueful admission that the offensive may go on for a while, and the paper’s bright claim that it is of little weight strikes me as already a retreat from the optimism of last week. Danes are not excitable. “To Balance or Not” Looking through our ancestor’s hoary correspondence, I am struck that if we replaced “National Debt” with the old “Sinking Fund,” politicians would not even need to give speeches any more, just, in the spirit of the lapidary Latin tag of yesteryear, a lazy wave in the air and a reference to “Spectator,06/1752, 46” would suffice. I wonder whether apoplexy would have struck him down sooner had he not had the outlet of the packets he sent to his Eastern Pearl, or did his indulgence of his splenetic rage against his critics in them hasten his end? “Resettlement” Lord Nathan believes that the Government should begin work on a resettlement policy now. The paper believes that the best resettlement policy is no policy. I exaggerate, but the point is that everyone should stick to their place and their work until they are officially released after due consideration that will take as long as is needed, or as long as it takes to trace the paper’s twisting line of through extended passages, whichever is the longer. I am facetious because I cannot help comparing "resettlement" with the “G. I. Bill of Rights.” That $4000 mortgage guarantee is bold, but the boldness will be rewarding to us, and perhaps even the whole United States. “They” and “We” There are to be “Resettlement Officers”, and they are to be properly trained and not distinguish between ‘they’ and ‘we.’ “The Monetary Conference” Continues. “The White and Keynes Commission” The paper’s attention is, understandably, on the two wise men of the national delegations, who must deliver the postwar financial order. “The Place of Silver” Mexico is interested in the place of silver in the postwar financial order, the Chiang government pretends not to be. Or that may be unfair. The Chiang government does not care because gold passes in the United States. As to what passes in China, what care Chiang and his cronies of that? Finland is surrendering more. Poles are excitable. “Brake on Planning?” The more amenities are planned for in reconstruction, the less profit local authorities will earn as they face the movement of homes and amenities to outlying districts, which should also be controlled, at least more than they are. These are, again, matters that press the Earl so closely that, on the one hand, I feel remiss in not covering them in more detail, and inadequate in my ability to give them their proper due. “An Ambassador Recalled” Argentines are excitable. “Herring Bill” The decline of the industry is to be addressed with a subvention of 2-and-a-half million. “Scottish Agriculture” The amount of land in cultivation will not increase, may actually decline, but it is hoped that Scottish farmers will raise more livestock. As a fellow mutton producer, I feel the pain, even if tempered by the fact that it looks like I am going to be able to sell pasture land for houses. American Survey “His Own Man” Governor Dewey is very grateful to the Convention for writing this nice platform for him, and will give it all the consideration it deserves, which is not very much. If Taft wants to run for President, let him win some primaries. “The Republican Governors” If Governor Dewey tacks left, he will find there some Republican Governors, but not others. The others are aging old guard and will soon go. “Service Warning” The news that war production was down 8% in May occasions a warning from Generals Marshall and Arnold, and Admiral King, that any slackening will extend the war. It is supposed that the reduction in May, especially in the lorry progamme, was due to a shortage of skilled workers, especially in the foundries, and that the new labour prioritisation scheme came not a moment too soon. The paper remains appalled, however, that the National Service Act remains stalled. “Income for Full Employment” The Federal Reserve provides some guidance on the future. On the basis of available information, there will be 60 million workers. Maintaining full employment will require “an unprecedented volume of production” due to natural population increase and because of expected continued increases in the level of productivity. Thus, a gross national income of $170 billion will be required to maintain full employment. This will be down from $200 billion in 1943, allowable on the strength of reductions in the work force. Were national income to stabilise at 1939’s $108 billion, there would be 20 to 25 million unemployed, a crisis on a par with the Great Depression. No wonder the public has postwar jitters, says the paper. (Meanwhile, Fortune's version of the public is ready for a boom. The American public needs to stay away from Doctor Jekyll's serum!) “Publicity for Reverse Lend-Lease” The paper thinks that there should be more. The paper seems to have a bit of a guilty conscience about cadging munitions from its rich cousin, and wants us to know that it, too, helps out with the family finances when it can. “The Free Philippines” The Philippines will be at least as free after the war as they were before. World Overseas Poles are excitable. “The Canadian Indian” Conditions on reserves and in residential schools are unfortunate, and the latter in particular are failing to provide the looked-for assimilation of Indians into Canadian life. This should change. Or home truths about how "assimilation" actually works should be pronounced to those whose shell-like ears could scarcely bear them. “Price Control in India” Inflation has abated, further measures are proposed, rationing in the supply side and, on the demand side, a 25% increase in rail tolls to deflate the economy and the issue of smaller gold bars so that the less-rich can enjoy the privilege of hoarding gold hitherto restricted to the very-rich. The Business World “The Rubber Prospect –II” Summarising last week’s article, I lamented the lack of guidance. This number goes no better. What if there is a rubber supply cartel? Might there then be room for the American artificial rubber industry? What if Buna-S actually does have promise in automobile tyres? Then our confident prediction that the artificial rubber plants will soon shut down looks less certain! I do not, dear paper, think so.\ “Post-War Building in America” From Our New York Correspondent. Ah. How I have missed ONYC. I assume, recalling his habitual temper across the distance of a half-decade, that the fall of Cherbourg has finally relieved him of the fear of an imminent German landing on Manhattan, and he has emerged from under the bed to resume where he left off. So! Back in the light of day, he has opinions. He notices Mr. Churchill’s speech, which lays out the British planning for postwar housing. Nothing so definitive, ONYC laments, has emerged over here. ONYC, not often an enthusiast for state planning, has developed a taste for it in housing --not surprisingly, because he thinks that Everything is Going Awry. First, to review the facts from six years ago, he notices that the 1925 construction peak was 937,00 units, never subsequently equalled. A drop in building during the Depression led to a decline in the available housing stock, not made up by a tepid boom in 1935—6. By 1939, 29 million units, almost 29% of the urban housing supply, was below standard. The Federal Housing Administration’s long-term, risk-classified, standardised mortgage has developed and stabilised the mortgage market, and naturally led to more building, with 1940 seeing a rise to two-thirds of the 1925 volume. Up to 80% was single-family residences, and the building tended to move out into the suburbs. (You will recall that our Fort Vancouver development closed in 1940, although construction did not actually begin until after Pearl Harbour.) The peak of 613,000 single family residences built in 1941 is an interesting comparison with the mere 60% of building as single family residences in the 1920s. Due to various factors, mainly price but also location and the character of the would-be renters (that is code for race, Reggie, if you had not noticed), single family housing remained inaccessible to the bulk of the population earning less than $1500/year. The war years have seen Government-led building, much of it of a temporary nature, even as existing housing stock continues to deteriorate in spite of attempts to liberalise financing –even as control on materials restricts us! Population has continued to shift into the Pacific slope (and the south Atlantic states). For the future, ONYC asks whether low-income housing needs will be better met by private builders or by the state, whether a focus on private home ownership really suits a highly mobile population, and whether investment should follow migration. His concern is that we are getting the balance between ownership and rental wrong. Given his track record, I am tempted to run out and cancel all our apartment building projects right now. Business Notes “Monetary Agreement with France” It is about time. “Reconstruction Equities” The volume of business is slackening, but reading the tea leaves suggests that in spite of anticipated further price increases, the market believes that the government will be able to keep interest rates down. The rentier must therefore needs invest in industrial stocks, and this explains the weakness in long-run government securities. Electrical engineering! “To Let or to Buy” Given an expectation of gradually declining prices, prospective tenants will prefer to rent than to buy. This is likely to be the case after the war, as it was in the 1930s, and therefore it is foreseen that there will be a shortage of rentals. Something should be done. “Home and Colonial Changes” Lipton has been hit by the rising cost of tea due to Indian inflation. “John Brown Re-financing” John Brown opens its war coffers to refinance its debt. The future might not be as bright as the past for this maker of big guns and big ships, but there is nothing like money in the bank. And having once begun with steel, the paper moves on to coal and railways, neither very consequentially, as we only worry about these in the winter, when it is cold, and we wonder why something definitive was not done when there was still time, last summer. Flight, 13 July 1944 Leaders “Brutally Frank” The paper attended the Commons on the date of the Prime Minister’s Speech on the flying bomb, but apparently mistakenly sat in the wrong chamber, hearing a music hall comedian’s impression rather than the speech given before the correspondent of The Economist. In this speech, the flying bombs are quite effective and even horrifying, and the situation is unpleasant. Only the overrunning of the launching facilities can bring relief. There will not be reprisals. We will just keep on area bombing German cities, which are not at all reprisals. On a more morally honest note, the premier admits that the problem with reprisals is that they keep escalating. “The Plight of the Luftwaffe” is pathetic. In the east, for example, the main defence of German forces against Russia aeroplanes is that the Russian spearheads have penetrated beyond the range of the Red Air Force, even though some squadrons are shifting air fields twice a day to keep up. One might almost suggest that this is an argument for longer ranged bombers. “Caen Taken” The paper takes the same line as The Economist here, at least. It must by now have occurred to the Axis that they are losing the war. The paper also notices the use of 400 Bomber Command heavy bombers in the attack on Caen. The paper wonders if there was a special need, given that shells are usually more efficient than bombs for targets within their range. War in the Air Operations now often take the form of battles for airfields. This is not new. What is new is word that the fighting for Caen has devolved, or evolved, into a fight for Carpiquet Airfield on its southern outskirts. “The Versatile Mosquito” Mosquitoes are being used to lay mines in German navigation canals now. The Swordfish is going out of production, it is announced again. Hitler has relieved Marshal v. Rundstedt, and relief from the “European monsoon” has made air action more effective this week. It is no coincidence, perhaps, that we have made major gains on land, then. The paper praises a particularly clever attack on a flying bomb depot in France, and the third B-29 raid on the Japanese home islands. Here and There Australia is looking into giving the United States airbase rights. The RAF’s Mark XIV bombsight is announced. This, of course, means that it has been supplanted. I asked your eldest, and a moment later regretted it, as those cursed partial differential equations of “stability” were trotted out again. Is there nothing in this world that cannot be described by an “x=[something] times cos x+ alphabetic monstrosity? Having little else to say (Air Marshal Hill sometimes flies a fighter in active operations! Pan American has bought Bahama Airways! Roy Chadwick has received an honourary degree from Manchester! Eventually, British airliners will have jet engines! F. A. Oddie, of Oddie Fasteners, has died! Edward G. Robinson is to be in a Hollywood film about RAF aircrew!) the paper looks to an American contemporary which claims that America has five fighters capable of speeds over 400mph, while England has 3, Germany 2, and Japan no score. The paper makes fun, for Americans are hilarious. Invasion Closeup This week, our correspondent visits the Fleet Air Arm and US Navy units flying artillery reconnaissance for the fleet in Spitfires. He notices that the bumpy grass forward airfields in Normandy are quite dangerous for high-powered Spitfire Vs, which cannot put the airmen in good sorts about slow progress at Carpiquet. This is a very substantial effort. 435 sorties were flown in the first 24 hours. 710 hours were flown in the first three days, with 85% serviceability maintained. The paper notices that communication with the ships is by W/T, which seems a great deal to ask of a single pilot in charge of a hot ship in hostile skies, but perhaps the process of encoding a Morse message has got a great deal simpler since our day. Certainly radio reception has, for all of these planes to be doodling about in such a small area calling shots! “Indicator” takes on the “Retreat to Rationalism” again. His point here is that variable lift devices are inevitable. He describes auxiliary lift surfaces that can be retracted flush with the plane’s surface or angled to work as spoilers. Has he seen the Barracuda? How many more of those contraptions can they put on a plane? “RAF Maintenance Unit’s Record” An unnamed RAF maintenance unit of unspecified size, working in western Italy, turned out 26 overhauled planes, mostly P-40s, in five days. This is a very creditable record for a unit of this unspecified size, working in this location on planes of unspecified type. Aviation would have just called this the world record for aircraft overhauls and left it at that, and, for a change, I would have agreed with their editorial approach. “Team Spirit in Industry” Sir Stafford Cripps toasted the aircraft industry, American and British, in a 4th July banquet put on by the Worshipful company of Coachmakers and Coach Harnessmakers. Replying for the industry, Sir Frederick Handley-Page said that the industry was pleased that he was pleased, everyone was pleased, and a bumper all around, and, oh, by the way, if workers want higher pay, they should show “a willingness to shoulder greater responsibilities.” Having spent my first week back in California trying to find new second shift foremen, I see his point. A new edition of G. Geoffrey Smith’s Gas Turbines and Jet Propulsion in Aircraft is announced. It features a frontispiece of G. Geoffrey Smith in a cardigan, with his tweeds thrown over his manly shoulder in a delightfully relaxed posture, his hair pleasingly tousled by the exhaust of a screaming jet. “Countering the Air Torpedo” Anti-aircraft and fighters require careful coordination to work together pursuing high-speed targets flitting across the Kent countryside just higher than the crests of the Weald at high speeds. “Mr. Churchill’s Statement” Persisting in refusing to admit that it was fooled, the paper gives us the music hall speech in full detail. We have dropped 50,000 tons of bombs on flying bomb sites. Imagine how many Germans this much high explosive could have “dehoused!” Behind the Lines Strong Luftwaffe detachments have been sent to the Eastern Front. A little late, don’t you think? German aeroengines are being redesigned with sleeve rather than ball-bearings due to the general shortage. That this includes the BMW Bramo Fafnir 9-cylinder, a low-powered training engine, tempers my jubilation. A German newspaper reports that the most important effect of the flying bomb is the jubilation it gives the German people. Jubilation all around this summer of our heart’s happiness. Another winter is coming. Suggestions that a German flying base bomb is being prepared in Tallin, Finland, to bombard St. Petersburg is met with fear, as it might be used to bombard Helsinki instead. Also, Southern senators might refuse to certify the Electoral College returns if an insufficiently white supremacist President is elected, throwing the election on the House, and tiny little exhaust turbosuperchargers, fed a trickle of exhaust gas from the engines, might soon be raising and lowering undercarriages. Pull the other one, in other words. Another Henschel high altitude aircraft, the Hs 130, is bruited. The paper indicates that it would have three engines, one running the supercharger, as in the proposed French design of 1940. Japan is evacuating its cities on nonessential population in anticipation of a major strategic bombing offensive. Studies in Recognition Today we cover the Noorduyn Norseman, Stinson Reliant and De Havilland DH 86 Dominie, which is not going to be easily confused with any plane but itself. The really remarkable thing here is that the paper still has not run out of American preliminary trainers to profile! Many people, on the other hand, will be pleased when we run out of Dominies to fly in… R. H. P. Nott, “The Opposed Piston Engine: Limitations Which Preclude its Use in Aircraft” It is nice to have thatcleared up. “United Nations Petrol Programme” As a result of a vast building programme, the Allies now have “approximately” 450 refineries and natural petrol plants engaged in making 100-octane fuel or its components. Which seems a rather vague and artful formulation intended to produce a more impressive number. I suppose the real question is how much 100 octane we shall need after the war. “Consolidated ’39:’ New U.S. 48-seater Air Liner to Cruise at 240m.p.h.” Very nice pictures rather belied by the fact that it does not actually exist yet, whereas the Lockheed does. I should be very surprised, as I suggest below, if there is not a Boeing entry into the market soon, as well. Even the paper is unimpressed by intimations that there is no running water in the “water closets.” Correspondence A sad letter from the father of a man killed serving in France in 1940 moves your daughter-out-of-law to tears after I passed her the paper. The correspondence-provoking power of the combination of ability and boredom is quite clearly striking the great anti-flying bomb encampment in Kent. The Economist, 15 July 1944 Leaders “Planning Criticisms” Yet more discussion of the Town and Country Planning Act, an important matter on which the Earl ought not be trusting my summary judgement! “Will UNRRA Work?” It will be recalled that this is the relief and rehabilitation agency, which has a vast remit. I can hear the Engineer ranting on. Even the paper notices that so far the agency only has half the funding available to him after the last war. This, it strikes me, more plausibly suggests that the funds available will be topped up than that starvation and unemployment will be allowed to stalk the continent of Europe after the war, in contrast to the aftermath of the last. But there are many pages for the paper to fill, and it is July, and it is this paper, so we must conjure with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and no-one will be able to say that the paper did not warn them. “Mother Russia” After the tour de force of review of the literature carried out by the younger generation, it seems almost too much to return to the subject, but I only summarise the paper. The point here is that current projections of the future of the Russian population are here compared with that of various Western European countries which can only look on with envy at Soviet Russia’s high birth-rate. “The uncanny vitality of the steppes seems to mock the ‘decaying vitality of the West.” With France, Britain and Czechoslovakia’s fertility all about 5% below replacement level, and Russia’s at 1.6, giving a 60% increase over a generation, is Europe doomed to be overshadowed by a Slavic colossus? Maybe, maybe not, because things could change. Here the paper takes its characteristic tone. Things might be looking bright for Russia, and this must be wrong. Casting around for evidence (and material to eek out another half-page), the paper moves on to Russia's various pro-birth policies, which suggest that the Russians do not believe the projections, and that this means that they might be wrong. (As a newspaper, the paper also needs to cover the changes in Russia's pro-birth policies, announced this month, so the above is in the way of setting the scene, as well.) So what are these measures? A modest monthly subsidy for for each child in excess of 3, with the fourth as of the recent announcement earning for the mother 6100 rubles/month, all the way up to 23,000 for the eleventh. Children of large families are furthermore to receive a 50% reduction on kindergarten fees, will receive larger rations, medals, and will be restricted from overnight shifts and given a confinement leave to be increased from 9 to 11 weeks. Even children born out of wedlock are to benefit! Although this is balanced by the removal of the right to press paternity suits. Unregistered marriages are no longer to be recognised, divorces made more difficult to get, as a means of promoting family stability. In all, the paper concludes, the policy is the most radical of its kind in the world, and seems intended to remove all material embarrassment from the parents of children. (This is especially important, the paper notes, when women made up 40% of the industrial work force even before the war.) Italics mine, Reggie. Notes of the Week “Victory Week” Caen and La Haye de Puit have fallen. The advance on Arezzo continues. The Russians have taken Vilnius. Japanese resistance on Saipan has ended. The air offensive on Germany has resumed with a massive attack on Munich. London has had three nights respite from the flying bombs. Yet casualties have been heavy (15,000 on Saipan alone), and the way ahead remains hard. The paper has never yet heard of, nor met, this “Pollyanna” of whom some talk. “De Gaulle and Washington” General de Gaulle went to Washington, negotiated successfully, and did not throw a single titanic tantrum. The paper is amazed. “Russia over the Bug” It is. Amusing things might be said. “Hitler’s Generals” The Wehrmacht has lost more than twenty generals in the last three weeks. This has sparked dark rumours about political differences between the Nazi Party and the general officer corps, and some see the dark hand of Himmler’s thugs. This is an unnecessary hypothesis, although the paper does wonder if the relationship between the two is strained in the light of Rundstedt’s dismissal. Still, the younger officers are all good Nazis, and rumours of differences are greatly exaggerated. The paper, after balancing on the fence, comes gently down on the “no rift” side. This, I suppose, means no military coup, and that the country will instead continue to leak its vital fluids through Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. What some call treason, others will call diversifying one’s portfolio for long-run prosperity. “Capital Reconstruction” the strongest incentive to industrial efficiency is full employment. A tight labour market is the best thing for this, as it promotes labour-saving and time-saving appliances but this will in turn require investment in capital goods. British industry was undercapitalised before the war, and will be so at its end. Therefore, second best incentives for capital investment should be considered. Tax policy and investment strategies might be changed, and “Efficiency depends not only on capital equipment but on successful collaboration, the abolition of restrictive practices the elimination of the worker’s fear of unemployment and reduced piece-rates.” And so a paragraph that begins with a labour shortage ends with unemployment. The paper is the paper is the paper, Reggie. “An Orderly Unwinding” Wartime controls are to unwound in an orderly fashion. “Education in the Lords” The paper has reservations about attempts in the legislation to supervise religious instruction and tell students what to think about things. That sort of thing is better left to the free press. Bretton Woods continues. “Gandhi and Pakistan” This is the question of partition. Not much to be done about it, just watch and wait to see if India follows Ireland down the path of partition, Canada that of federation, or America in civil war. That British departure leads to such things might almost lead… No, we shall not think such things! Though perhaps we could learn something as regards places yet to be left in Africa. Jugoslavs, Greeks, Argentines are excitable. “War Pensions” In a spirit of charity, the Minister of Pensions rises to defend himself against the notion that current policy ostensibly restricting pensions to those in need was in fact too generous. Further in the matter of disgraceful, spendthrift generosity to those merely dying in battle, the increases in services salaries and benefits announced in March go into effect this week, and will surely silence all critics. It is not as though soldiers and officers really need to be paid, when they’re just going to be fighting over in France, with nothing to spend their money on save soldierly amusements! And what is that? Send money home to their family? Oh, don't be silly. They are the ones who administer the family trust fund in the first place! American Survey “Democratic Tug-of-War” The Convention is expected to be even less exciting than the Republican, since after all even the press can’t invent reasons to suddenly believe that anyone but Mr. Roosevelt will be nominated. The Southern states will continue their fight against Mr. Wallace, but the paper seems to think that just because the President has effectively thrown him to the wolves is no reason to suppose that someone else, such as Senators Truman or Barkley, or Secretary Byrne, might actually be nominated. Pressed to find a reason for thinking this, the paper comes up with the point that Mr. Wallace is pro-Negro, while Governor Dewey actually appointed a Negro politician to an important position. Thus, appointing one of the esteemed Southerners noted will finally lead to the break between the Coloured voter and the Democratic Party, leading to the Coloured vote flocking back to the GOP in those states where it left the standard in the first place.. “Primary in Oregon” It is thought that Wayne Morris will unseat Senator Holman in the GOP primary and go on to defeat the Democratic nominee, an itinerant butterfly collector who lives in a hollow stump. The paper seems to care because it does not like Mr. Holman. “War Priorities” A smooth transition from wartime to peacetime production is in the balance as the War Production Board duels the services, which, revising their want list on Normandy experience, want more heavy shells, tanks, trucks, and ships. Heavy trucks now share top priority with landing craft and heavy artillery. Munitions output, which totalled 1.8 billion in May, must rise to $2.2 by autumn if the 1944 goals are to be met. Yet the steel industry has been losing ground steadily, from 99% of rateable capacity in May to 94.3% this month. It has been announced by Mr. Batt that Britain will export 100,000 tons of steel to the United States, and the industry needs another 50,000 men. This will test the new labour controls in the face of the recent trend to “labour evapouration” which seems best explained by an undetected movement of labour from war to civilian production. “Flying Bomb Isolation” It is thought that in some way the flying bomb is reducing American isolationism. “Surplus Aircraft” The War Department might sell surplus aircraft after the war. The industry is upset. There is reference to sales of supposed surplus hunting rifles that turned out to in fact be “very deadly weapons” that were snapped up by unknown buyers on the West Coast lately. Given how well armed the American hunter is, this does not make a great deal of sense, unless one bears in mind that many of the Army's automatic carbines were made with folding stocks, which would be very easy to conceal underneath a winter coat. Not that I know anything about this. World Overseas “Saskatchewan Election” The election of a socialistic party in Saskatchewan is a clear indication of imminent apocalypse The paper agreeably quotes the Winnipeg Free Pressto the effect that it is all a pipe dream, and that tears must surely follow. “Power Shortage in Switzerland” is happening. “The Middle East in 1962” Dr. A. Bonne, of the Jewish Relief Agency, concludes that the Middle East is underpopulated, not over-, that the problem is the low standard of living of its population, that a proper development of its agricultural potential could support a population of 30 millions, of whom 3.6 million will live in Palestine, comprising 1.5 million Arabs and 2.1 million Jews. (Turkey is to have 17.5 million and Egypt 24.) Though there are admittedly some political obstacles to be overcome. Letters to the Editor “The Cost of Service” A department-store professional writes to rebuke the paper for supposing that various such retail service fripperies as escalators and tea-rooms were unnecessary and being paid for out of the paper’s pocket (harrumph.) The secretary of the Co-operative Union responds to the paper’s birthday felicitations by pointing out that the taxation advantages enjoyed by cooperative undertakings ensure the movement’s bright future. The Business World “Debenture or Equity” Which to buy? Two pages of prose in which the paper drags us to a conclusion that I share in the technical matter at the end. “Inquest on Coal” I twitted last week’s number for ignoring coal in the summer and then announcing the end of the world in February. Not everyone is so neglectful. Here is a major report, which the paper calls “one of the most illuminating documents of the war.” The paper is appalled by the small amount of coal lifted from the ground during the war, and the White Paper on Coal Statistics” provides the explanation. It is the miners fault for getting old,tired, dying on the job too much, and getting too much black lung. The problem needs to be solved by Government control, national service, and also mechanisation where appropriate. The paper remains at a loss at how one could possibly encourage young people to enter a wage-earning industry, or remain in it when other industries pay more. What could possibly be done? It is racking its brains, Reggie! Racking them! It will probably turn out to have something to do with rationalisation, consolidation, national cooperation and coordination. For these are the obvious solutions. In other news, open cast coal mining is not working out as well as expected. Business Notes Bretton Woods continues, with talk of Keynes’s view on gold standards. (He is against them.) In related news, the abatement of inflation in Iraq has led the government there to cease gold sales. A rise in the official cost of living will lead to wage increases in various industries according to the various schedules there existing. I suppose that it beats sorting it out through labour action, but it carries the risk of emptying vital trades of labour, as I snidely point out concerning coal, above, Reggie. Union Castle’s official books show a slight increase in profits. I hope they are not so naïve as that. Good Lord, we practically had official permission to exceed the Lloyd’s Register tonnage on incoming ships in 1943! Harland & Wolf follows John Brown’s lead, with its own twist (a preferred stock issue.) Work hours lost to labour action was down again in April and May, year over year. The resources of the building industry are to be concentrated in the London area due to the flying bomb menace. Naval ratings, marines and airmen will assist with construction work. They will be billeted with private families. Aviation, July 1944 Down the Years in Aviation’s Log 25 years ago, the London Daily Express offered a $50,000 prize for a flight from England to India with a one ton payload, and American Handley-Page, Ltd, registered as an air carrier at Ogdensburg, New York. Fifteen years ago, Frank Hawks flew twice across America in 36hr 49 minutes elapsed time, Amelia Earhart was appointed assistant traffic manager with Trans-American, Curtiss and Wright merged. Ten years ago, the air mail scandal’s aftermath continued, Cleveland Airport handled almost 12,000 passengers a month,Ranger was commissioned, James Wedell was killed while giving flight instruction, UAL ordered thirty de-icers for its Boeings, De Havilland bought British Empire rights for the Hamilton propeller, Admiral Reeves became the first pilot admiral, Hisso produced a 1140hp radial, New England Lobster buys a plane to “contact fishing fleet.” A quick check of the Navy List reveals that Admiral Reeves in fact qualified as a naval observer, but a bit of exaggeration is par for the course in this paper. Of an 1100hp Hisso radial engine, history appears to show no more. It is almost as though some people "hype" new technologies. Line Editorial Junior is back! “Free Enterprise: The obligation of Management and Labor to Cooperate . . . in War . . . in Peace” D-Day is not just about fighting. It is about production! I, for one, am glad that we have James H. W. McGraw, Junior to assert these controversial and little-known truths. More substantively, there must be no strikes now, because American troops are fighting in France! But there were strikes! Nine thousand men were idled at Chrysler Detroit for six days, 25,000 lumber workers in the Pacific Northwest, etc. “By the end of the third week of May, 70,000 workers in 26 plants in Detroit were idle because of strikes.” D-Day seems to have happened rather earlier than I thought. Anyway, as usual, there is a curve in Junior’s pitch. Union leadership is doing its best to curb strikes, and deserves the support of management in promptly resolving grievances. Labor Boards, too, should hear grievances more quickly. Disputes are inevitable, strikes are not, and most unionised factories, at most times, run smoothly, and perhaps even more smoothly because they are unionised. Better labor-management relations will prepare the way to reabsorbing returning servicemen. Aviation Editorial “Invasion has Spotlighted Our Need: To Stay Armed” In the future, America should keep on buying warplanes at a high rate even in peacetime, because it will make us safer. Or help us win wars. Or we can build a giant ladder of airplanes to the Moon. The important thing is that Aviation says that we should spend a lot on aviation. Herb Powell, Associate Editor, Aviation, “Boeing B-29 Superfortress: Biggest, Fastest Highest Flying Bomber Carries Largest Bomb Load Greatest Range” New details emerge. The wing section has been seen previously on the Sea Ranger, but to get the necessary strength at the stipulated wing length, sweepback and dihedral, the thickest Alclad section ever (3/16ths of an inch) have had to be used. The cabin pressurisation is maintained from the superchargers, regulated by two AirResearch controllers. The structure is made piecewise of tubular sections on jigs, then assembled, a method that proved disastrous at Willow Run but which presumably works well at Renton. It probably did not hurt that flush rivets were used throughout, and that Boeing took great care standardising fasteners and settings. Very large wing flaps give the B-29 the same landing speed as the B-17. (So there, Martin!) The plane is virtually all-electric, with 150 motors, although the landing gear is hydraulic. The B-29 has a dual nosewheel, “the first such ever devised,” which, given German experiments with very large aircraft , strikes me as unlikely. The difference is, of course, that Boeing’s installation actually works! Thee foot tyres were chosen, while those of the main undercarriage are 56”. 16-ply Nylon S.C. synthetic tread is used. The total weight of the landing gear is 7000lbs. Construction was so fast that “in numerous instances” production of parts of the plane were underway before the parts were blueprinted. It is to the credit of Boeing that the plane is actually a good one –experience counts, I suppose, although rumours of trouble with the Wright engines suggest that not all experience counts equally. Firms contributing range from Chrysler Dodge, brought in to supplement Wright engine production, Bendix, supplying the ‘super generator,” Minneapolis-Honeywell, of course, Libby-Owen-Ford, doing the plastic glass, and so forth. In the spirit of throwing together the longest and most interesting technical paper possible without giving any classified material, Powell ends by directly pasting in (even the print font changes!) a description of the tortuous path of a new wing spar chord through various millers, straighteners, grinders and anodising baths and on to assembly shops. It gives one something of a sense of where all that money spent on capital goods has gone! If British industry really is as undercapitalised as The Economist thinks, it will have a very great deal of difficulty competing with Boeing. That is, if "mass production" aircraft become a significant thing. On the same page, “Quality plus Quantity Made D-Day Air Power Possible” “Ten-tenths air cover which featured great land-sea operations against Fortress Europe gives final proof of American manufacturers’ formidable smash-the-Axis doctrine.” Though the picture then provided is of C-47s, so “quality” here includes the plane that the Army wishes would go away so that it could get more C-53s! It would seem more accurate to say that the ability to land an entire corps of parachutists behind enemy lines is sufficient apology for keeping the C-47 in production, and in defence of the article writer, that is what he eventually gets around to saying. Vice Admiral John S. McCain, “The Blitzkrieg Goes to Sea,” Let us here remind ourselves that a man from the bottom tier of the Academy has arrived one “star” back from Raymond Spruance by virtue of becoming an aviator. (Or perhaps by being the son of Mississippi plantation aristocracy. Whichever.) The Deputy Chief of Naval Operations tells us that the United States Navy can “duplicate today, from the decks of carriers –in numbers of planes, at least—the ‘thousand plane raids’ that caused so much excitement in Europe a few months ago.” This, he says, would involve using only half of the Navy’s carriers. Really, Admiral? Assuming that half the aircraft are bombers, and that each carrier has 90 planes, are we saying that the Navy has the equivalent of 45 fleet carriers? Or are we, gasp, exaggerating? In Aviation? In the future, super-carriers with super-decks and more armour and better subdivision will still further increase the fighting strength of the carrier fleet. In conclusion, our carrier arm is a terrible juggernaut of the sea that can level whole island fortresses in a single strike and defeat the Japanese “Maginot Line” of the Pacific and win every war ever single-handedly. And we desperately need new supercarriers because the existing ones are so small and puny and useless. I take my earlier sneer back, Reggie. Low grades or not, Admiral McCain has this whole “admiraling” thing down as completely as any Admiral Lord Vaguely Nelsonian-Sounding Name, Ret., writing to the Times of London. All that is missing is a call to keelhaul the engineers for being so d—d greasy. “How Women Flyers Fight Russia’s Air War” I do not think that I need to review anything so blatantly cooked up, do I? “Here Are Your Markets, Part III –Mountain and Pacific Regions and Conclusions” California will buy more things than Montana, because it has more families! And more money! Mr. Potter is very aggressively avoiding saying anything useful here. Even when he stumbles into something that looks like an insight –his maps strongly suggest that population density in the west is related to average family income, suggesting just how mobile populations in the West are—he aggressively flees in the direction of recapitulating the Census yet again. William E. Nelson, West Coast Editor, Aviation, “Design Analysis No. 7: The North American P-51 “Mustang” Hyperbole seems to be the disease of the week. Apparently, the P-51 is “officially credited” with being the fastest fighter with the highest ceiling, which I am pretty sure that the Air Ministry has never done. As Nelson notes, this is done in an aircraft that is not actually aerodynamically innovative to any great degree. Most of the article is therefore spent on details of construction. I know more than I ever wanted to know about what parts of the P-51 are made with 24ST, which with 24O. He briefly describes the Merlin engine, suggesting that is much more innovative. (I am looking through my notes to see if I had registered before that the two-stage supercharger has an aftercooler served by its own heat exchanger.) But there is little more detail than that, and no hint of how the P-51 achieves its range. (Large quantities of fuel are noted, though.) Although Powell also says that “second degree curves, calculated as mathematical expressions, are employed on the external lines of fuselage, fillets, ducting and air scoops.” Your eldest has an explanation of this that will go into a mere three pages of foolscap of closely-argued mathematical expressions, or "algorithms," as it is now the fashion to call them down on the water, where your son is involved pretty much full time in making the MIT miracle machine work on a boat. Or he would, if he did not keep getting himself lost about two and a half pages and then wandering off to talk to his wife about something. Kenneth Campbell, “Fan Cooling ‘Ups’ Engine Performance” Quite a nice little bit of engineering here analyses the actual performance loss due to cooling effects of air-cooled engines (very high for high performance engines, so rather telling of the reasons for their failure in cold climates and successes in warm and humid ones, and th tradeoff between the not-insignificant power loss of running the fans against the gain in heat rejection. The conclusion is exactly the proof of what needed to be proved, that the fan pays for itself. Leland A. Bryant, Vultee, “Tooling Dock Technique Saves Time, Speeds Accuracy” There is a right and a righter way to use a tooling dock. Charles W. Morris, AirResearch Mfg. Co., “So You’re Going to Pressurize?” Unlike some writing in this number, the representative of the company that solved the problem in the B-29 deserves a chance to swagger around the room. In short, it is harder than it looks. Apart from air circulation, it must be appreciated that there will be leakage. Given this, we can work out the air supply per passenger, hence the necessary volume at the blower. Now we have to deal with pressure differentials for elevation and with variations in outside temperatures and resulting variations in volume at specified circulation weights. It appears that cabin air will be quite dry at high altitudes, and that keeping cabins from being stuffy in tropical conditions will be a challenge. AirResearch, of course has something of a lead in developing solutions to these difficult issues. With that I draw my main conclusion. I cannot buy AirResearch, as it is not being traded, but the cumulative burden of this number is that it is going to be hard to beat Boeing into the “stratosphere” club, and I will be taking a heavier position in Boeing. This is one aviation stock with a postwar future. Herbert Chase, “Hole Piercing Proves Faster –And Cheaper Part 1” We have discussed whether rivets are best sunk in holes drilled by the operators, through holes drilled by the rivet driver itself, and by through predrilled holes. Martin Aircraft believes the latter, though Mr. Chase needs at least two numbers to prove this. William Findley continues with his vital and timely series on the load characteristics of cellulose acetate plastic. An editor continues on methods for forming sheet aluminum, with scrap allowances and punch and die clearances for various alloys provided in this number for blanking and piercing operations. “Electronics Smooth Supercharging” We are told –again—that Minneapolis Honeywell makes electronic automatic controls for turbosuperchargers. H. L. Wheeler, Chief Group Engineer, Armament, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, Fort Worth, Texas, “Convair Classes Broaden the Specialists.” We haven’t heard for several months about how Consolidated Vultee, as it is now, trains engineers in “the latest developments in the other man’s department.” Wheeler’s point is that the programme he spearheaded at Fort Worth has now been adopted in San Diego, and he is quite pleased with himself. “How to Get Top Efficiency from your Vacuum Pumps” Pesco explains how to maintain their products. Aeroprop propellers and Eisemann magnetos get similar coverage. Various improvised maintenance equipment from airline shops across the nation are shown. “Rebuilding the Clippers” An unsigned review article describes the work that Pan American’s Atlantic Division does in maintaining the Boeing 314s. Did you know that refurbishing these monsters, which have only been in service five years, required the replacement of 20 wing web members and 23 hull bulkhead numbers in each plane? That all tail surfacesm, propellers, hydrostabilisers, wingtips and outer wing panels had to be removed, and hoisted into an out-of-the-way corner, at which point the main hull and parts were put up in jigs, that skin was removed by drilling out rivets, and that every exposed piece was carefully polished with steel wool on each side before being reprimered to avoid trapping any corrosion, which would apparently migrate through the hull, otherwise? I should like to clip this article and send it to Flight, although it also occurs to me to wonder how all of this maintenance is done on shipboard. (Your son snorts. They just dump old planes over the side and take on new ones. Not surprisingly, this is not exactly advertised in Congress. You can certainly see why the Admiralty likes its covered hangars!) A. A. Hartsinck contributes this number’s contribution to talking about talking about civil aviation. Raymond L. Hoadley, “Industry’s Sales Soar …But Not Profits” To briefly summarise without bothering to read the article, the colossal revenue numbers returned by aviation industry firms have no bearing on profits, which are so meagre that even the slightest increase in the tax burden will cause the industry’s collapse. Also, the aviation industry is an excellent investment, and everyone should buy shares. To be fair to Mr. Hoadley, he does actually summarise the financials of the largest 14 aircraft manufacturers, including preliminary results for 1943. That those results are preliminary, and so can be presented in any way he chooses, is entirely accidental. Aviation News “Twentieth Air Force Formed: New Global Bomber Fleet Poised to Strike Anywhere in the World” Twentieth Air Force will operate B-29s, and perhaps even use them against Germany as well as Japan under its remit as an “independent” force, not tied to any particular theatre. Various persons authorise Americans to use the new words “airpark” and “flightstop.” Ferry Command uses a temporary spray finish to protect planes on the crossing from seawater corrosion. “Cousin H.C..’s brainstorm to build community airfields for private fliers gets satisfyingly little coverage. Hopefully the lack of attention will permit him to rein himself in and focus on the Hawaii project. America at War: Aviation’s Communique No. 31” “Germnany’s war machine took three staggering blows in one week: (1) when the USAAF completed its over-Europe shuttle terminus in Russia; (2) when Allied forces knocked Rome out form under Nazi Italy; and (3) when –finally and most emphatically—Anglo-American invaders poured into Europe paced by the power of 11,000 planes.” The writing of she English, it is a strangeness to the communique be-proser. I suppose that it is fitting that this page is illustrated with a picture of the Miles 35. One strange duck goes with another. The communique suggests that heavy, strategic bombing contributed to the success of the invasion by undermining German preparations. The Mosquito victory in the ongoing Blue Riband is noted here again. So is a decrease in labour at Boeing Vancouver from 10,000 to 9000, presumably as demand for Catalina flying boats and Jacobs trainers declines. Washington Windsock Blaine Stubblefield notes, again, that during the Battle of the Atlantic, some cargo was flown for safety reasons, and marvels, again. Stubblefield also notes that it is hard to get everyone to agree on just what is the world’s fastest plane, that sometimes aeronautical developments are oversold to the public, and that people sure are talking a lot about civil aviation. For example, those people down at the end of the bar, talking so loud that the bartender can’t even hear Blaine ask for another bourbon, now that he’s done his column for another month. Aviation Manufacturing “President reports 170,000 Planes Built; May Total was 8,902; Cutbacks are now in Sight” Actually, it looks like cutbacks are placing themselves in sight. Presumably we can look forward to even greater reductions at the end of the year, though not necessarily in number of types. General Arnold thinks it would be ideal if the Air Force could cut down to just two production fighter models, but standardisation is difficult in a competitive environment. Various Chambers, people, boards, parliaments on about contract cancellation and reconversion. Still no decision on Fontana, of course. It would be nice to have some sense of how long the war with Japan will last. Perhaps the President could meet with the Emperor and set a schedule? It would make financial planning so much easier. The Navy has officially cancelled the Conestoga. The world’s biggest wind tunnel, at the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Moffett Field, California, is now in operation. People talk about civil aviation on a page illustrated by the “bomber-size” Hamilcar glider. Aviation Abroad The paper reports British 12 month aircraft production of 27,273 planes, that the Atlantic has been flown 15,000 times since the war began, that the Tempest exists even more, that a new FW-190 with a 2000hp inline engine, and the He 219 also exist. Pictures of a Warwick illustrate. Those are very long wings! Aviation Finance Hoadley reports that the airlines are very happy about the mass release of transport planes to the airlines, and that this will lead to a great increase in 1944 traffic –but, of course, to no increase in profits whatsoever. He also notes that “It has becoming a generally accepted fact that that provision for released war workers is the responsibility of government.” Apparently, the spirit of free enterprise generously extends to recognising the need for government in such areas of American life as might cost manufacturers money! Side Slips I would clip the Maguire cartoon if I could bear it. Here is last month's, instead. Some of my London friends would probably detect subtle nuances, and invoke Doctor Freud. Sideslip's jokes are at least as hilarious. “We never thought the science of aeronautics would change the methods of raising babies, but it has. Friend of ours mentioned taking care of his year-old heart-breaker and we asked (naively it now appears) if he was good at changing three-corned pants. “They’re four-corned pants now,” he replied in a superior tone, “wing area is much greater and boundary layer control is much better.” Fortune, July 1944 The Fifth Victory Savings Bond Drive is on, and Fortune celebrates its illustrators with the publication of Richard Ede Harrison’s Look at the World. The Fortune Survey Americans are broadly in favour of peacetime conscription. They also think that veterans should have first call for jobs after the war by a two-to-one margin. Letters Four correspondents, three Californians and one private writing from a post in Alabama, write to say that they are appalled by the paper’s gentle treatment of interned Japanese. One writes in favour of the article. The paper replies to the mistaken facts of the first three correspondents. As usual, it is argued that Japanese truck gardeners undersell Caucasian by losing money, and are reimbursed by a vast and shadowy conspiracy. Hmm. Not to dictate policy to other shadowy conspiracists, but it would seem more economical to just buy liquor for the kind of Caucasian who uses conspiracies as an excuse for his inability to compete. The Job Before Us After the war, we should have some kind of league of nations. General Marshall says so, and there is now even an international food board, with all sorts of countries represented, even quite unimportant ones. Various other boards and staffs exist, and are poised to do a better job than the often improvised arrangements of 1919, when a single man like Hoover might hold the strings of relief. “Management in the Transition: A Bill of Particulars for those Who Prefer to be Ready for Peace When it Comes” A detailed study of Firestone, which seems scarcely fair considering that the shortage of tyres in this country makes their transition to peace production all but assured. The real issue is whether there will be enough firms like Firestone to absorb peacetime unemployment, or whether the country will spiral into a depression. It is naïve to think, as some do, that government can maintain demand, and that it will suffice for industry to do the producing. The real question is the postwar balance of real to synthetic rubber, and this article gives me little more confidence in my ability to judge rival claims about their relative share of the market than I had coming in. I am fairly confident that the American synthetic industry will collapse, but, at the same time, some formulations will continue to be important, perhaps including in tyres. The paper seems to think that well-managed Firestone has a better chance than most to flourish. “Doctors of Management” Firms which make a business out of advising management are on the upswing. The “management consultant” has been around since the 1880s, and now the ‘industry’ books $20 million/year. I notice, however, that the category includes firms which I recognise as credit investigators and business investment newsletters. This is a very diverse business. “America and the Future: For More Profitable Debate” The paper modestly proposes that since modern business cannot exist without modern government, that there be less talk of “laissez faire,” which never really existed in the first place. Private enterprise cannot cope with a multitude of social-economic problems, and, postwar, management of the business cycle will be a public-private affair prominently involving the Federal Reserve system. …And there follows a four-page “biography” of North Woods tall-tale Paul Bunyan, and, no, Reggie, I am in no way joking. Fortune has not managed to get D-Day coverage in to the number, but it does have something to tell us about “Babe, the Blue Ox.” “Security in the Antipodes” New Zealand has a generous social insurance system and millions more sheep and cattle than people. Its generous social arrangements are attributed to its “homogeneity.” Page over, and we are told that it is a dominion “created by British newcomers,” and that “The Maoris are now a small but amicably treated minority.” I am sure that if you asked a Maori in his cups, this is exactly what he would say. “As small as we are in numbers, here in our ancestral land due to the influx of British immigrants, nevertheless we are quite amicably treated. Amicably, I say!” The paper does, however, manage to note that New Zealanders behave in various ways surprisingly differently from Britons, considering the small gap of time and distance. “They wear no jackets, and un-English like hats.” That they have socialistic medicine, and a surprisingly low infant mortality, save in the Maori population, might be stipulated as a futher difference. To stimulated recovery from the Depression, the government offered interest free housing loans that resulted in the building of 15,000 rental units. “Needed: Nine Million New Cars” Another sector of American industry that will be selling into a high-demand market. The nine million is the actual cumulative deficit against projected sales had the years 1941—45 been peace years with demand at established trends –established in a depression! The actual total expected to be made in the first five years after the war is 20 to 25 million! Fortune believes that there will be as much as $100 billion in savings in the hands of a public which has virtually abolished installment and individual demand. Broadly, this implies that if employment can be maintained, the real problem will be ramping up production to soak up the money without causing inflation! The matter is, however, clouded by the war plants. All the big car companies, save Nash, Willys and Hudson, are operating war plants. There is, therefore, a surplus of plant –but, at the same time, lost tooling for peacetime production. Willys proposes that the “Jeep” can be sold to farmers as a combined tractor/transport. Ford, the other major “Jeep” maker, thinks that this is ridiculous, that the Jeep transmission is not up to ploughing. Willys and Crossley are looking at smaller, cheaper cars; GM, Ford and Chrysler are aiming at larger cars. I cannot help noting which companies were deemed efficient enough to run war plants, and which ones were not. Smaller cars might not be on the horizon, but lighter ones are. The 2000lb car is perhaps five to six years away, and will come about due to improvements in materials. So is the high-compression gasoline engine that will propel it with 90 octane gasoline, saving 20 to 25% on the fuel bill. A rear-engine car is a remote possibility. Price will be up. The wholesale price of a postwar Chevrolet, Plymouth or Ford may be $1200, a 60% increase over 1942. The industry anticipatorily blames labour, while labour complains that it will not be at fault, since wages will be up only 14%, and that productivity gains of 2%/year, accumulating over 5 years, more than justify this increase. The higher future prices therefore will have been caused by grasping future management. Farm Column Some Southerners are tired of being treated as the nation’s No. 1 economic problem. True, farm acreage and employment is highest in the country in the states of the inner South and wages lowest, but at least they have diversified out of cotton (down from 21,600 acres in 1926 to 11,400,00 in 1943) to kudzu, lespedeza, blue lupine and crimson clover, which I think that Ladd Haystead has picked out of a list for their colourful names. They are just fodder crops. More fodder crops, in rotation with cotton, can maintain the soil and crop productivity, plus perennials such as scuppernong grape, domestic blueberries and blackberries, all perennials which can greatly increase farm profitability. The example of “Negro farmer” Andrew Wilson, who once “mined” the soil the old way, and who is now being induced to plant long rotation fodder and perennial crops is conjured up. How, exactly, scientific rotation schemes differ from leaving the land to rest under rough grazing and berry picking is left up in the air a bit; I suspect that the “Negro farmer” bit covers it to some extent. Finally, there is the matter of poultry, which would add to Mr. Wilson, and other’ profitability, if there weren’t a bit of an excess on the market. Business at War This month’s example is W. H. Nichols, of Waltham, Massachusetts, a firm of machinists. Nichols impresses the paper’s correspondent with his homespunness. He dresses plainly, shows him a modest, clapboard house near the mill, opens his mail with a jackknife on the floor, as he needs no office, and tells a tale of building his own bicycle as a boy in Hamilton, Ontario, on which he “set a world quarter mile record by his own telling,” then ran away to the United States when his father ordered him to a divinity school. He has been making precision pumps for the rayon and latterly nylon industries since 1932 and sells a very large number of his “Gerotors” every month. He runs a “one man show” of 750 employees, although in spite of having no office or support on management somehow manages to spend most of his time tinkering with a model locomotive. He thinks that the future is exciting and hopes to retain 500 employees under peace conditions. “$275 million in Snacks” “US cheese eaters will get a little less cheese this year than they got in the depression year of 1932 –a mere 540 million lbs.” This is because their record production is largely taken up by the Army, Red Cross, etc. After the war, cheese will go from a dietary supplement (Americans ate no more than 6lbs/year per capita) to something rather more than that, if production totals hold. Moreoever, only 20% of the population ate 80% of the cheese, so broadening the base of consumpdtion also promises an expanded market. As a broad guideline, some Europeans eat four times that much; so could Americans. This is of course, unlikely. The business is not expanding on the basis of cheese becoming a staple, just a more important snack than it is now. “Idaho’s Henry Kaiser” dehydrates a lot of potatoes, mostly for the Army, but, postwar, etc, etc.

I think Massey gets at the core of it by pointing out that the first set of rules you need are for fielding a smaller team. How big is your superacademy? I can't think of any that are conceptually large enough to field a single-sex football team with a full roster, even taking two classes. Moving on, power disallowances strike me as a bad idea as making many power sets all but useless. Characters built on 250 points ought to be able to counter each other within the rules. (Desolid and other Extra-dimensional powers, for example, cannot carry the ball through the plane of the goal line or the uprights for touchdown/field goal/extra point, nor ground the ball in the end zone for a touchback or rouge. The ball has to go solid, and that's when the opposing team has to have a plan to take control of the ball and run it out. I'm a bit on the fence with respect to the brick/speedster QB, but that goes to the problem of contact, anyway. This would work better with flag football, although I know that's not "real" football. If you are going to go with full-contact, my suspicion is that you're going to have to relax the rules on contact in order to allow the "brawlers" to counter the bricks. Perhaps not so far as to allow Stab Girl to stab people with her stabbing stuff, but certainly to allow Entangles, Trips, Martial Throws. Heretical, I know, but the easiest way around this is to make the Teen Super Academy play a non-contact sport --not something made up, mind you. Baseball should do perfectly well.

It's obligatory in any discussion of the Luddites to assert that they wanted to stop technological progress because it was stealing their jobs, and that they were wrong because technology doesn't steal jobs in the long run, and that what they were really upset about is that they were starving in the streets, and that's wrong too. So let us segue into a discussion of what really matters, the Reform Acts! Because if only somewhat-less-poor people can vote, all will be well!! That'd be what your Karl Marx would call "ideology," an excuse to avoid talking about what really matters. So instead of having that particular discussion, I just thought I'd throw in another angle, intimately familiar to me from having had "expert systems" fail to replace my skills in the grocery-ordering area. Which is that often "technological change" is an excuse for deskilling. Or, to put it more baldly here (I'm going to get even balder below), it's an excuse to cut wages. Now, as to the future of autonomous cars: I think that it's so bright that they have to wear shades. At the right cost point. Since "the right cost point" is extremely unlikely to be met by the average driver, or, for that matter, society, I think we can rule out the rise of the intelligent car in the near future. It's just not where our economy is going. I then move on to suggest that their rise in the long run future depends very much on the idea that technological progress will continue on its own, as autonomous in its way as a gloriously Googled car. And I say that this not the case, that we have a serious social problem to deal with, and that this talk of autonomous cars gets the nature of that problem wrong, and that we should address that problem urgently. It's all about demand, which we are cutting away at as a society as vigorously as the harshest stocking frame putter-outer of Regency England, Here's where I get balder: The level of technological praxis in a society depends on its population; population is at best static, at worse falling if you take working population as the metric. Therefore, technological praxis is, or soon will, decline. Death rates will rise. Infant mortality rates will rise. Average life expectancy will decline. Our houses will get dirtier, our vacations less wide-ranging. We will experience epidemics again, then famines, then localised extinctions. We will put down our handaxes and climb back into the trees. Or, more likely, the basal cause of the trend --the lower than replacement birth rate-- will reverse itself, and we will go back to technological progress. Call me crazy if you will, but I just happen to think that this is a problem that will fix itself if we can move into a "high pressure economy" again, and that it would be nice if this happened before the next famine.

I think the current research tends to show that the Luddites weren't upset about losing their jobs to machines so much as they were upset about not being paid to do things that the machines being installed also couldn't do. It's a scarcely uncommon development in the history of technology that really does leave you wanting to scream: "You have no idea what you're doing. Eventually, you're going to come crawling back to us, but by that time we'll have lost our houses." I've been through that myself, with a disastrous attempt to implement automated grocery resupply at my company in the middle of the last decade. Not only did we lost a lot of money, we also lost a great deal of "expert system" order-writing capability which existed in the system before the experiment and which could not be restored, because of money. I did not see failures of the new machinery being written off as due to sabotage, as in the case of the Luddites, but during the experiment, one at least saw frustrations leading in that direction, until the delivery of mass quantities of Christmas dinner and baking supplies in the December 27th resupply finally woke higher management up to the fact that they had been sold a pig in a poke. In the case of Google Car, the news release I quoted pretty explicitly admits that the things can't parallel park, even if the admission is being given a more human-friendly face by characterising it as an inability to "avoid squirrels." Google explicitly admits that a new technology of "close in sensing" is needed so that the things don't burk the curb, each other, or some broken glass in the stalll. Given that automatic parking is about the only coherent selling point I've ever heard made for the Google Car (and other high end cars with expensive automatic driving aids, such as the new Audis), you can see the issue. It's worth pointing out here that people don't parallel park with special powers of "close in sensing," either. They look at the parking area, achieve an experiential three-dimensional model of the space, and trial-and-error their way to a good fit. There's nothing there that a computer can't do. It's the trouble of programming it to work, and the number of computing operations required, hence the size, power and cooling requirements of the CPU, that get in the way. Google more-or-less admits the impracticality of the CPU-led solution when it calls for "close in sensing." No need for all of those three-dimensional flops when you can have a tiny, cute little Hello Kitty lidar on each bumper telling you how close you are to the curb! Except, of course, that festooning a car with all of that stuff puts it out of the financial reach of a driver just as certainly as installing a mainframe in the driver's seat. We now have almost ninety years of experience with autonomous cars. You might look back at experiments in the 1920s as hopelessly premature, but this was the period when the railways were making rapid strides towards driverless trains, with incredibly primitive technology even by the standards of the 1920s. (For example, central dispatch offices did not have real time information about where trains were.) The reason for that is pretty simple: rails are, more or less, railroading devices. So developers said to themselves, "Hey, lanes are like that!" and off they went, only to run right into the fuzzy boundaries and off the road. Or, worse, into oncoming traffic. And that's pretty much where we've been ever since. The Wiki article linked to above has a nice picture of the "M-1 Car Detector" marketed in 1959 as a key component of our autopiloted car of 1965. It turned out to be easy to detect oncoming cars, hard to reason out a way to not hit them. Google currently touts 300,000 accident-free miles driven by supervised autonomous cars over 8 years, but the current fatal accident rate in the United States is 1 in 5.2 billion vehicle-kilometers on major roads, which is where the cars are being tested, twice that on "non-motorways," where Google Cars cannot yet operate at all. The "non-motorway" statistic tells us what happens to vehicle safety in chaotic situations, nothing about how a computer, vice a human, would handle these circumstances. Quite well, I would imagine --for a sufficiently capable installation. To step back for a moment, the human brain is, from one perspective, a very inefficient computer. From another, the point of view of power consumption, and therefore cooling, it's far beyond anything that can be accomplished with our existing machinery. Case by case, most of what the human brain can do can be automated. There are very few instances in which an existing computer installation actually can perform every case that can arise in a situation, especially a complex one such as driving in traffic, but such installations do exist. Above I noticed that parallel parking is something that autonomous cars cannot do; yet parking in stalls is something that Audi expects to implement in its first generation of semi-autonomous cars. The difference, of course, is the number of cases that the computer can handle, vice humans. The objection to using new installations that can parallel park in cahortic situations, and designing new ones, is that they are not cost effective, and not likely to be in the near future. As for the distant future, even if you do not buy in full Esther Boserup's argument that technology is an epiphenomena of population (think of Adam Smith's "division of labour" here, in which specialisation allows people to get better at more narrowly focussed skills), it strikes me that the weak response to the 2008 recession justifies at least a weak Boseruppian position, in which economic progress is not ineluctable, and that therefore to the extent that the progress of technology is linked to economic progress, we are more likely to see it slow and falter in the current era than accelerate towards some post-human future. (Also.)

"Automation has been going on for two million years, counting down from the original replace-two-punches-with-one-stone-smash. It has never worked this way. Real soon now, it will." Pull the other one. The rate of technological progress, as measured by productivity gains, has sensibly slowed over the last two decades. If Esther Boserup is right, it will continue to slow, and, in the not-too-far-distant future, reverse. Now let's move to the particular scary innovation that's going to fire everyone tomorrow, the Google car. How's that going, Google? Somewhere between Google Barge and Google Glass, as it turns out. Google says it has gone as far as it can with the current customised vehicles and that a new platform is needed to take the project and technology to the next step and closer to a product people can actually use. For instance, the previous generation Lexus vehicle had blind spots right up against the car where the sensors couldn’t see, something that needs to be eliminated in any vehicle open to the public. The cars will first be used to test the software driving the car and push its capabilities. Google says at some point, when it deems its software safe, it will start putting real people into the cars beyond Google engineers. It will use the cars in a similar manner to the company’s Google Glass explorer programme, analysing how people use them and what works and what doesn’t Translation: "We have a technology that does a little bit of what a human-driven car does, and we have no real idea how to move on from that in an economical fashion, but, oh, isn't this thing cute?"

The weather turned in Vancouver on Monday. Sprinkles and clouds have gradually given way to a gentle summer rain today, with a slight breeze. Fall has come to call, letting us know that it is going to move into the neighbourhood next month. It's a workday, as much as it can be in high summer, when vacation competes with work to empty neighbourhoods like this. It is quiet, except for a man working on his truck in the alley across from my window. He's playing weird old '70s music into the wet air. (Convoy, anyone?) I need to get to work, but I expect that it will be like this at work --still, expectant, the air full of anticipatory rain of autumn/ I just wonder if it will continue tomorrow, on my day off.

It's kind of a long article, so let me summarise: Some guy said (or did? Maybe?) to some other guy, and then that other guy did (said?) something to the first guy, and then everyone who like the first guy were, like, "This is sickening, we're all, like, outraged, and we'll, like, totally do something about it." And then the other guy was, like, "Whatevs," and so the everyone totally did stuff, and it was in Masssachusetts. Or Maine? Possibly New Hampshire? And stuff.

So I;m getting on my bike at work, ready to ride home, and I joke to myself that I'm getting ready to survive the zombie apocalypse, because, you know, why don't people in zombie apocalypses have bikes, or wear motorcycle leathers for hand-to-hand protection, or have slings so that they can bust zombie skulls with everyday rocks, etc, etc.... When it occurs to me that they do. It's just that zombie apocalypse fiction focusses on the morons who haven't figured this stuff out yet. They make for better stories. They're trying to kill zombie hordes (and each other) with katanas. That's drama. All the sane people over in Bike Town ever do is plant stuff, harvest stuff, make stuff, build stuff all day every day. Bo-oring.

You know what the problem with politics is these days? We have a solid wing of engaged supporters for a party that doesn't dare call itself by its name! That's why I bring you --The Bipolar Tweaker Party! Slogan: Get back at everyone who is holding you back in 2016! (I'll leave the rest of the pitch 'till after you go check to see if someone is trying to steal your car.) I, uhm, I, I'm sure I had that thing in my bag. That's why I've been standing here rummaging through it all the time you were gone. How long was that again? Wow. Is it 1 already? Wow. Just let me-- it's for allergies. So. Anyway. OMG. I'vegotthepoliticalpartyOMGnomorepartisanthingbipartisanOMGitsalltheJewstryingtogetustosupportPutinISISIslamicpressurecookerbomb911insideNealBushOMG Anyway. Breathe. It's gotta be inhere. The thing. My wallet. Oh? You'll pay for my espresso?Awesome.Okayhere'stheelevatorpitchOMG. Breathe. Are you sure no-one's trying to steal your car? Someone tried to steal my car the other day. Got in somehow, but couldn't start it. I could tell. They rearranged my glove compartment. Now I can't even find it! That's why I wear these tinfoil gloves. So the NSA can't tell what I'm typing. Sopitch. "Get back at everyone who ever tried to hold you back." Wait? I said that? Sookaythepoint Breathe. I'll slow down. The longer pitch? The world is a scary place because people are plotting against you. Yes, you. Even members of your family. Do they tell you that you need to cut back, that you've been talking crazy, that it's possible for you to be on time for work and school every day? They're crazy. They're all crazy. That's why they say that you're crazy. They do, you know. Behind your back. Well, vote for the Bipolar Tweaker Party, and you can get back at them. You see on TV theawesomeexplodyjetswooshyArmyNavyAirForceSealTeam6? Awesome. China's gonna get that stuff when we're in charge. So hard so fast rush rush shock and awe like anonymous sex in the washroom at the club. Oh, you bet they are. Them and the North Koreans. That's for stealing our good job that we had back before we had to go on Ritalin for our ADHD and then the doctor said we couldn't be on it any more because of heart murmurs and now we have to score it in the back of the club every Wednesday night and what do you mean we have to be in class on Thursday morning, too? So the point is, after we 'splode China, we'll 'splode Mr. Areshat principal and that stupid boss and Dad with his, "Oh, I think you've had enough for tonight" crap. And we'll get that ex of ours. We'll get everyone. Then everything will be awesome. Vote Bipolar Tweaker Party 2016! Or whenever you have elections in your country. (Or city. I hear you, Ford Nation!) If the JewsArabsRussiansIlluminatiChinese1%percentersmoochersKoreans let you. Have elections, I mean. If not, there's always pressure cooker bombs. Gottarun. Very important text message. Meeting a guy in the park. For reasons. Not because he's got oxycontin and I've got these teeth whitening strips I just lifted. Nope. Not because of that.

Get a room, fun boys!