Lawnmower Boy

I give Yelp a six out of five. The forward stock guidance is to die for!

It helps, I think, to put the colour back in. My basic take is that the Turakian Age took place on the Eurasian continent in the immediate pre-modern glacial, which we think happened around 70,000BC. In that case, Takofanes is either holding back the ice, or, possibly, accelerating it. Speaking of colour and the big guy, instead of thinking of the Turakian Age in terms of a generic AD&D-like setting, think of it as a golden age brought to a close by Takofanes, in much the same way that Tolkien looks back at the "Third Age." Have characters who were alive in those days (time travellers, suspended animation, immortal Empyreans...) refuse to use the cursed name. Instead, they might refer to "The King of Ivory," and describe it as"The Old Red Eon." ("Eon" is an actual geological term for a group of ages, and the Turakian period lasted several ages, and the Red Gods won in the end.) Also, there's no reason why this stuff has to be completely mysterious. Australians know that their continent has an ancient sword & sorcery past, and there's even an archaeological theme park in Melbourne dedicated to a Valdorian Age dig. Why, that's the very place that the Melbourne Redshirts were murdered by Taipan, coincidentally enough. Similarly, although the Valdorian Age is even harder to fit on a map than Ambrethel, I have plumped for setting it in Australasia. The Drindrish fled a long way at the end of the Old Red Eon, and had a long time to stew in their own juices before the ancestors of the Aborigines arrived on the continent. That means that you have to imagine the characters of Valdorian Age as ancient Australians, but the line needs more diversity, anyway, and it gives Valdorian Age a ready-made symbolic palette. The Atlantean Age is, IMHO, the worst cartographic misstep in the line, because I was brought up on "Swords and Planets" SF where ancient Atlantis has flying cars --or triremes, at least-- and colonies amongst the Neanderthals of Europe and dinosaurs of Yucatan, and an ancient Atlantean colony becomes Tarzan's lost city of Ophir. Especially with shadowy Lemuria as Atlantis' counterpart, it should have been possible to write Atlantean Age in a very different way. Oh, well, water under the bridge and all of that. With Tuala Morn and the Legendary Age, I've really got nothing, so I tend to ignore it, I'm afraid. Moving forward into the future, we do have a Champions 3000 setting, which I quite like, glass cannon cosmic entities aside. The idea that superpowers come and go is at least intermittently present in the source material, and reflects extent of superpowered manifestation, not their existence entirely. It seems to me that you ought to be able to run Alien Wars and Terran Empire without reference to superpowers, or, alternatively, as a high psionics setting as you prefer, not by defining the universe's metaphysics to suit your preferences. Superscience Malvans and creepy Thanes may not work if you're determined to use Striker as a model for your RPG and turn a science fiction roleplaying game into a replay of the Rhodesian insurgency, but you don't have to put them in!

So, yeah. June and July have been a lot of work.

Saturday, August 2, 2014 Postblogging Technology, June 1944, II: The Storm is Coming Wing Commander R_. C_, D.F.C. L_. House, Isle of Axholme, Lincs., U.K. My Dear Father: Time seems to have gotten away from us here in California, which is my way of apologising that this is so late. It would be later still if it were left to your cousin, who has been in New York for several weeks now, lately avoiding the telephone and telegraph, so that we are behind on news here. (Although it appears from the entertainment news that his main mission has been successful.) We are expecting him, and Wong Lee, in company with the westbound courier, who will turn around for Montreal without so much as a night's rest with this package, and so on to you. You will no doubt be amused by the latest steps in Uncle's campaign for financial freedom of maneuver. You know your cousin's stubbornness and pride! Needless to say, the recent gains on the NYSE are a problem for him as Uncle's main objective is to remain free to buy what he wants to buy, although I beg you not to be so frank with the Earl. With Timetrumpeting the success of Wilys-Overland, Uncle has to argue that it is all froth. Who in their right mind would put their money behind Sorensen at this point in his career? On the other hand, IBM and Honeywell are up nicely since his purchase. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all of that. You will be pleased to know that Uncle has set his best people to work on answering the question put by the Earl. (Or, rather, that he tasked the household. But good people are we!) We came up with a curve of the discount on expected returns on housing units per year that I append. Now I have to explain why it is nonsense and should be disregarded, even though to complete it I ended up in that library in Palo Alto where one is pretty much obligated to call upon the Engineer. I must say that the more that I see of him socially, the more I fancy that I detect the man that the electorate rejected twelve years ago, matters not being eased by a lunch date with his eldest, at which fulsome were the complaints about the injustice of the Engineer's illegitimate son being to all appearances his "true" heir. What can I say? Once his grandfather decided to divert investor's money into the subterranean stream that is his little college, it could hardly emerge into the sun except to bubble up and water hidden roots, and that is all. As for favoritism, what counts for the Engineer is politics, and all of his sons, on whichever side of the blanket (how me must have struggled to do his duty!) are disappointments on that score. Imagine an actor in that office! Especially one who likes to tattle to the Feds about his enemies. You will be pleased to heart hat I held my tongue. So: the research. "Miss V.C.," has had some practice in this matter, and was willing to be persuaded to divert herself from her little family history. (Especially as she realizes that her trip to Monterrey can only be authorized by wheedling an indulgent Uncle, and he is not around right now.) To reinforce the troops, your youngest offered his eager assistance, and we also got something out of Uncle's housekeeper, and rather more from Lieutenant A., who turns out to have some grip on staff work. (I was beginning to wonder.) More usefully, Suzie Wong is available, now that school is out. In short, we compiled what poor numbers we have, both on housing stocks and the science of "demography," put our best statistical acumen to work, and came up with a curve of discounts on expected returns on housing investments in the United Kingdom 1944--1975, although James likens it to reinforcing concrete with rust-flavored gelatin. (Because rust is iron; never mind, it is funnier when James delivers it with his best BBC pronunciation.) Now I have to tell you why it is all rubbish, and that the Earl should disregard it and go all in for housing. The long and the short of it is that while a more careful reader would no doubt deliver more nuance, it seems to me that demographers are absolutely mad! Some of the finer details of the lunacy are rather indelicate for a letter from a daughter-in-law. I asked James to append something about "neo-Malthusianism," but he seems scarcely more comfortable talking about it with you than I! The argument, as I synthesize it, is that for a very long time, the human population of the Earth scarcely grew at all. Then, in the Great Prosperity of Ch'ien Lung-Ti, and in England as well, population began to grow quite quickly. The gentlemen scholars explained that in terms of proper rulership unlocking the fecundity of the Earth, but in England a clergyman named Malthus pronounced that it was "scientific," and a bad thing, since unchecked population growth must eventually overrun the Earth. by scientific, he vaguely meant a fedback process, although he perceived strictly negative feedback, and distinguished two kinds. These were "positive checks" by which Protestants restricted population growth through late marriages from the "negative checks" of poverty that afflicted themselves upon the superstitious poor of various places. The latter not actually being checks, as they did not work. The Reverend Malthus was no great engineer, although he is more highly regarded as an economist, and his point about "positive checks" was prescient. Then, in the course of the Nineteenth Century, while population growth slowed under the late and vicious Ch'ing, that of England redoubled, to be followed in its turn by other Protestant nations such as Germany, but not, conspicuously, France and Ireland. So a new explanation was needed, which was generally given in terms of a fall in the death rate due to improving health. Then, about 1890, population growth in England and America began to fall, and yet a new one was required. Civilization had advanced, there had been a "demographic transition," and Malthus' positive checks were in general practice. A farrago of arguments followed that seemed to evade this obvious point, mainly by pointing at other countries where population expansion continued, such as Germany, Italy and Japan. Population expansion happened on its own, and caused war, or migration, or poverty, or checked itself by the sufficient cause of population density itself. Races might or might not flourish in various parts of the world, and some races might be committing "racial suicide" by reducing their birth rate below the death rate. Mr. Thompson, whom Uncle ridicules, somehow came up with the argument that the Japanese were entitled to the lands of Manchuria, or of New Guinea on the other hand. (His views of whether the Japanese are best suited to Siberian or jungle airs have developed, much like civilization, over time.) The rather more obvious resort of California was ruled out by the fact that California, with thrice the land mass of Britain, was full up by his calculation of "optimum population density" at less than 6 million people! An English socialist and scientist calculated that the English are on their way to racial extinction. This is the view, refracted through the Luce press, which panicked Uncle. This reading allows that the solution is socialism. Australians think that Australia is underpopulated and needs vastly more people, but for some reason these must be only White persons. Their solution is "neo-natalist" policies to promote the native birth rate. Mr. Thompson whimsically offers the Chinese Australia, or Australia the Chinese, and an Indian replies by offering them British Columbia and California. Is it unfair to notice that while we as a family like to complain about how unfair the Exclusion Act was, it has been a source of great profit to us? Continuing, my eyes began to roll even before I discovered the Icelandic Canadian explorer who thinks the high islands of the Arctic to be an unexploited frontier destined for populations in the millions. Source and Boookings I am sometimes inclined to roll my eyes at Uncle's belief that racial passing is the secret key to American public life. He is so smug sometimes! But when I stare into the eyes ofVijhalmur Stefansson, I ask myself, "Mad? Or insecure?" Vijhalmur Stefansson: Wait, sorry. That was from my "Neo-Malthusians and eugenicists make me uncomfortable" file. Here is Mr. Stefansson. 100% Nordic. Spitsbergen is the size of Ireland, Wrangel larger than Delaware. There is plenty of room for the White Race! So what do I discover in the end? Ecology, which is the study of living systems and their environment in their totality, and, in particular, the best explanation for what happened in the two centuries before modernity. These are, in short, a decline in the death rate and a rise in the birth rate. The former continues today, while the latter came to an end, as I say, in the 1890s. Why? Ecology speaks of the recovery of depressed populations through "storm breeding," which occurs when high mortality opens up resources for them. Applied to humans, science recapitulates the statecraft of the ancient masters. Prosperity and good rule unleashes human fecundity. I would not be so bold as to speak of a heavenly mandate in this modern world of ours, but prosperity there certainly is. Thus, James predicts, a storm is coming. Build houses and more houses!* GRACE. Santa Clara, 1944. Time, 19 June 1944 Here is the problem with a weekly. The last issue of Time is cover dated 12 June, and has no invasion coverage because it covers the next week. But, looking back from this vantage, I have trouble remembering this, and when I turn to the June 19th issue, it is well on. I could clip and summarize the Chronicle, but surely they have newspapers in the north of England! International “Allied Force’s Second Enemy: The Weather” Time notes that due to rough weather, unloadings, and the invasion, have fallen behind schedule. So, too, has the expansion of the beachhead. The paper notes the general problem of the slow rate of expansion of only three miles a day, and more specifically the failure to take Cherbourg quickly. Once it is taken, there is no doubt that it will be put to work quickly, but first it must be taken. With a half-million acres of the Carentan flooded in a gigantic defensive moat, this would be hard. Meanwhile, the British and Canadian forces were to guard the American flanks by driving inland quickly to Bayeux and Caen, taking them and setting up an “immovable roadblock” against Nazi counterrattack. It is thrilling to hear that the first tank battles of the campaign have already been fought. It is all so different from the narrow bridgehead of Anzio that Uncle feared so! Unfortunately, those battles involved 21st Panzer Division holding Caen by counterattack. Times quotes “Nazi spokesmen” as saying that more would have been accomplished, but troops must be held against further Allied invasions. It also supposes that the German Air Force will finally be seen when the German counterattack begins seriously. “Battle of the Pacific: Curtain-Raiser” “Chester W. Nimitiz’s Pacific Fleet” struck at the Marianas this week. Domei expects a major effort in the Pacific to coincide with the invasion. Major-General Willis H. Hale’s heavy bombers have been attacking the Mariannas from the Marshalls –a distance of a thousand miles! So is this the signal that the next offensive will come in on Saipan, Guam and Tinian, or is it another feint? Meanwhile, in the south, the Japanese garrison of Bougainville has settled in to farm, provoking a 13th Air Force raid on the vegetable gardens, which seems a little cruel to me, especially as, after all, many of these men are actually Koreans and Formosans. On the other hand, it makes a nice punctuation to my report! Mr. Thompson is right. All of those east Asians can hardly wait to migrate to the South Pacific and raise sweet potatoes. “Shuttle” Time is impressed that 15th Air Force is using Russian bases. Could this be a sign of things to come? “Up the Boot” Defeated around Rome, the Germans are retreating! Am I wrong, or isn’t that how it is supposed to work? Various Latinly famous places are mentioned, to please those who studied Latin in school. (Latin tags bad! Confucian tags good!) “Battle of Russia: Summer Opening” “Bursting rockerst told of the reopening of the Russian front.” 8-inch guns roar in Karelia. The Swedes predict that the next three months will be crucial to Finland. “The Other Front” An amusing cartoon is described in which a British capitalist in striped pants and a tail coat scrawls a sign on a factory wall reading, “Open a front in the East at once!” This doesn’t seem as devastating a jab to me as it must to the cartoonist. “Summer Warmth” Moscow is currently not awful. Our correspondent is struck by racing shells and canoes on the Moscow River, but also the way that workers hurry home from the factories to “spade their victory gardens,” which strikes me as slightly ominous, all things considered. Businessman Eric Johnston continues his tour of the Soviet Union. Now, really, Mr. Johnston! “Snubbed Again” “Touchy” French leader General Charles de Gaulle “was being most difficult when he was right.” General de Gaulle is touchy. “The Unliberated” The French seem remarkably unenthusiastic about their German conquerors and Vichy, and appallingly happy about the prospect of being liberated. Germany and Vichy seek a solution to massive sabotage and resistance. Marshal Petain finds “occasional doses of benezedrine” a fine remedy. Berlin radio hints that raisingJacques Doriot to the presidency might be a better one. In spite of the benefits of having a million in German prisons and one and-a-half million in German labour service, accompanied by debt and inflation, the French remain unimpressed. Clearly, the solution to getting occupied France working again is arresting more people. In liberated France, a touching story of cure and schoolmaster embracing with tears of joy on the steps of the liberated cathedral of Bayeux. “Pure of Fascism” The new Premier of Italy is Socialist Ivanoe Bonomi, 71. Various persons, including a communist and a philosopher(!) are in the cabinet. Badoglio is out. “Sunshine and Scars” Rome has been liberated. New York Times correspondent, Herbert Matthews, looks up an old friend, and “barelegged young women in summer prints and sportswear promenaded the Corso Umberto.” U. S. correspondents were annoyed that they had to pay $1.13 for two boiled eggs and a cup of weak tea at the Hotel Majestic, while thousands of Romans and refugees went hungry. Sugar is $10/lb, string beans $5.50/lb, rice $5/lb. (Which I think suggests that the sugar is being pilfered.) No-one has worked in months, and the scenes of atrocities are shown to correspondents. “A Note for Voters” It is suggested that General Montgomery might run for the Liberals after the war. This seems a little silly. “Each Man to ‘is Post” Because Britons drop their “hs!” The paper’s correspondent attents the Royal Horticultural Society’s flower show at Westminster, the debate in the Lords over the Education Bill (Lord Buckmaster wants more whippings in public schools). In other news, the Zoological Society of London is to build a new elephant house, R. W. Sorenson, M.P. (Lab.) is concerned that the new prefabs have no bomb shelters, the milk ration has been cut, boiling fowls are 25 shillings on the black market, virtually unobtainable at the controlled price, and the correspondent’s dustman is worried about his son-in-law, who is in the Royal Navy. He is also the fellow who drops his "Hs.". “In this Fateful Hour” Germany is having rallies. We are told that the first German reaction to the invasion was elation, because a rapid victory was expected that would free the Wehrmacht to “teach the Russians the futility of further efforts to advance,” followed by a negotiated peace. “Next day, a fear began to gnaw.” General Kurt Dittmar, ‘No. 1 military commentator,’ came on air to allow that the Atlantic Wall was never meant to be impenetrable and discourage excessive optimism. Some paper whose name I am supposed to recognize informs us that if the invasion succeeds it will be the end for the Furhrer, and men 65 to 80 are now to register for emergency labor service. But the counterattack is still confidently awaited. An escaped prisoner declares that there is no vestige of a German underground, and through Switzerland word that Hitler “still ranked first in German affections.” The paper’s detailed Normandy coverage begins with a brief overview, continues with a kicks off with a detailed story about Eisenhower (this week’s cover) and his staff and their decision to launch the invasion, extends with a brief interview with Indians in the pathfinder sections of the Parachute divisions, continues with General Montgomery’s address to thetroops and a brief account of Time correspondent William Walton’s battle jump interviews with paratroopers, ends with an amusing story of a Landing Craft (Kitchen) on its way to the beaches. Incidental is word of the promotions of Colonels Richard Saunders and Clinton Vincent to general officer’s rank, giving the Army Air Force a distinct edge on youth over the Army, never mind the Navy. (Felix likes to joke about “General Issue Earhorn, M-2, and then grimly says that it is no joke, and seems to be getting worse, not better. I had this of him a few months ago, perhaps when he had the first word of the news to come, as we shall see.) The next story, which features Ninth Air Force service chiefHenry J. F. Miller’s quiet relief, demotion, and subsequent relegation to a hospital in Florida from “serious physical ailments not connected with his overseas service” makes the point even more strongly. The Army is now releasing details of Miller’s discipline for spilling crucial details of invasion timing, and of Ernest J. Dawley’s demotion, and Timenotes that the Navy is solicitious with its admirals and. “Not one has been broken.” Not even the grandfather of Lieutenant A., who let so many of our ships be torpedoed. (Though honestly it sometimes seems that that is a recommendation to the family in the Engineer’s eyes.) Which reminds me that the Top of theMark has been put out of bounds to home-stationed “Army & Navy officials” because “in the dim light bartenders had sold drinks to servicemen under 21.” “Common Pool” From now on, Selective Service draftees will go to a common pool to be selected randomly for Army, Navy or Marines. You can either see this as long-overdue common sense, or a direct blow at the heart of the Marine Corps. Or both! Domestic “Look at the World” The American press is quite taken with war news. It is publishing many maps in novel perspectives (notice that Fortune’s arch-cartographer, Richard Ede Harrison, has just published an atlas by this title), and also a recipe from the Pacific, a palm heart salad in vinegar. Sherri Lynn Woodsey, 1971 Swamp Cabbage Queen of Labelle, Florida; source, with suggested heart-of-palm salad featuring a topping of pistachio ice cream Various Americans have taken an apartment in Naples, enjoyed a nice, Italian-style dinner in Tripoli, bought silk stockings in stores in Panama, found the South Pacific’s weather worse than Louisiana. And, “for all U.S. soldiers everywhere, the invasion spelt HOME in big, bright letters, like the neon signs in the corner saloons.” To which they will escape the moment that they have been HOME long enough, but I suppose I shall take things one step at a time. “In Stride” Like 135 million other Americans, the President took news of the invasion in stride. Because he is perfectly healthy. Just ask his personal physician, who has insisted four times in the last four months that the President is hale and hearty, but must stick to his new, lighter schedule, including no lunch meetings. I would be very sick indeed, sir, before I gave up lunch “meetings.” “Prophet of Gloom” Young, curly-haired Leo Cherne, boss of the ‘Manhattan-famed’ Research Institute of America, predicts that the post war will see a depression, 19 million unemployed, big business getting bigger, small business shrinking, high taxes for the “plain citizen,” “Labor in full retreat,” greater political dissension, more pressure groups, more “government by bloc,” dangerous social cleavages between ‘ex-servicemen and civilians, white and black, Jew and gentile, business and labor,” more wars. Yes, people have saved quite a bit, but they will go on saving because of unemployment, falling incomes, high prices, and lack of demand, since everyone already has everything they need. (“Everyone-will-buy-a-helicopter” talk is nonsense.) Cassandra Cherne is particularly concerned that one fifth of American land belongs to the Federal Government, as this will lead to the end of freedom. Though, after that, when everything is fixed, we shall reach “new levels of production.” “Big Jim Goes” Jim Farley has broken with the President., denied any future plnas, gone off on a three-week business trip in his role as chairman of the board of Coca-Cola. Politics has been good to Mr Farley. “Blackmail, Southern Style” If the President runs again, and keeps on advising the South on the “Negro Problem,” and nominates Henry Wallace as Vice-Presidential candidate, perhaps Southern Democratic politicians will do something drastic that will set the election on its ears! “Eighteenth Year” Speaking of things that might happen, “North Dakota’s slick Gerald Prentice Nye” might face a real race for his seat in the Senate from various Republican alternatives. Usher Lloyd Burdick is a candidate whose weakness is that he “goes poorly in cities.” Fortunately, the CIO and the Daily Worker support him. This is all deemed to be a plot by his North Dakota colleague, William Langer, so others of Nye’s enemies in the state are backing one Lynn U. Stambaugh, a successful Fargo lawyer, thus deemed a city slicker by the average North Dakotan. I just quote what I read, here. “Waiting on the Sky” To the disappointment of everyone who has actually talked about the subject , it looks like a bumper grain crop of 30 bushels an acre in Kansas, but they keep their hopes up with dreams of a summer deluge or 100 degree heat wave or hail. Meanwhile, actual farmers offer $7-12 per day plus room and board, and appeal for more prisoners of war to work the fields, plus day labour from the towns. Women and teen-age kids will man the roaring tractors and drive the heavy grain trucks to the elevators, even operate the combines. A “harvest army” moves north across the plains from Texas towards Kansas. “The Avery Problem” Reading the fair copy, I see that Uncle was in “day care” form talking about the D-Day debate on the education bill in the Lords. (You may roll your eyes at your cousin’s confabulations, sir, but the children in the day care below his office stare in bafflement, then charge him with questions when he plays the same game, and his smile can be seen across the yard.) My excuse for that memory is this story about Avery Sewell’s testimony before Congress, also on D-Day. Time says that Mr. Avery put on a show as bizarre as Uncle’s imaginings, and that this is a problem for those who want to press the takeover at Montgomery-Ward as an election issue. “Why?” Congress has extended the deadline for filing court-martial charges against Kimmel and Short. Mississippi’s Dewey Short wants immediate action, while the Administration relies on their old “military secrecy” defence. The House finds this tiresome. What military secrets could be important to “Japs huddled under bombs at Truk?” James peers over my shoulder to speculate that we have broken the Japanese codes, which would presumably be a door into the German codes. Wild speculation, he admits, because when has such a thing ever happened before? Apart from World War One and the Midway campaign? Of course, Congress knows as much about any of this as anyone. The real concern is that there will not be a court martial before November, and our last chance of winning World War II under the leadership of someone not named “Roosevelt.” “The Vanishing Negro” Mississippi, which produces 7% of the nation’s cotton crop, is seeing “Southern whites” working in the fields, because while the state has the nation’s second largest Coloured population (the paper, of course, does not say “Coloured”) it is running short of them. In 1940, Mississippi saw whites outnumber Coloureds for the first time in a century, and an estimated half million of them have left the state since. “Many are in well-paid war jobs; some have quite domestic work to live on their dependency benefits.” A Negro paper claims hat “scores are moving away daily” because of Southern racial bigotry. Time then notes that Mississippi whites continue to “tack up bigger and bolder Jim Crow signs.” The Luce pressrelishes the situation. I am more curious about the human story behind the decline in the nation’s Coloured population shown in the 1940 census. Perhaps it is just our family’s proud record of smuggling hard-working Chinese into America’s white paradise –smuggled in so many ways— Science Yale’s Professor Petrunkevitch is retiring after 34 years. He liked spiders, wrote poetry, was unpleasant about women, and is for this reason obviously national news. Chemists at North Carolina State College think that milk should be kept in the dark. U.S. plants made 100 billion units of penicillin in May, up one third from April, this is still far short of promises that all needs for penicillin would be met by January, but still enough to ship to a thousand hospitals around the country. In fact, the main reason that demand still outstrips supply is that new uses are being discovered. A story about frontline medical care notes that in WWI, 61% of those not killed outright eventually returned to duty, 64% in Africa, in about 90 days, that 70% of Russia’s wounded return to the front, and that the Army hopes to hit this mark in Normandy. I am amazed to hear that we have adopted many of the Red Army’s practices! Two researchers (John Henry Foulger and Paul E. Smith, Jr.) insist that they can detect borderline illnesses such as incipient colds with microphones strapped to the chest to record the sounds of the heart, and save sickness hours in the factories. Healthy people have heartbeats that go “bong,” while sick people have hearts that go “slush.” James comments crossly that there is a reason that these people are not saving lives at the Front. Press “Little and Late” Plans for detailed press coverage of the invasion broke down because it proved hard to file stories. The courier pigeons got lost! Bert Brandt of Acme got the best story by hitching a ride back to England with his negatives. Ernie Pyle’s first filing, on the other hand, only made it back four days later. Life, on the other hand, just did a panoramic picture patching together cut-outs of ships and planes against various possible invasion beaches, and then ran the one that turned out to be right. A story about the Pope’s post-liberation press conference chivalrously notices U.P.’s “hefty Eleanor (“Pee Bee”) Packard bulging in army slacks.” Someone’s mother will have words with him when he gets back Stateside. This actually appears under “Religion.” Some have more than others. Business “Candy, Tea and Vodka” “Handsome, granny Eric Jounston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and No. 1 evangelist for free enterprise, last week continued to baffle (and please) the Russian people.” Johnston is in Russia, it is the highlight of his career so far, and he shakes hands “like a polished Wendell Willkie.” “At a luncheon on a collective fur farm he drank toasts in vodka, an hour later began yelling ‘Whoo-hoo!’” EitherTimes was moved to unironically compare Johnston to Willkie, and the rest of the story was written by someone else, or I can guess just who it is who is behind the ‘Johnston for President’ craze. Just a hint, dear Father-in-Law –I think it is Mr. Johnston. I know that Uncle thinks that time passed has erased the Johnstons’ debt to us for passage and his “midnight rebirth,” but I am beginning to have my doubts. This ridiculous presumption is bringing the cat out. “By a Damsite” A story about FrankCrowe, the boss of the Shasta Dam project, who is getting rich building dams with Federal money but still hates the Administration and the “socialistic” cheap power they will produce. I am not sure what he thinks that the dam is supposed to do, but at least he hasn’t condemned irrigation and flood control in the San Joaquin Valley. Turning sheep pasture into market garden seems like a good enough idea to me! “Argentine Corn” The United States finally acted to bridge the shortage of feed corn pending the harvest, buying 150,000 tons of Argentine corn and allocating shipping to deliver it to U.S. dairymen on the eastern seaboard. “Colt Mystery” Somehow Colt Firearms has managed to have a losing year in the midst of the greatest ar in history. The old CEO, Samuel M. Stone, is out, and a new one, Graham H. Anthony is in amidst much poisonous finger-pointing. “Nate the Painter” “Vat-shaped (200lb, 5’ 3”)” Nathan Schriber has a new $310,000 job, painting the new Sunflower Ordnance Plant in Kansas City, which will make a “highly explosive and highly secret new gunpowder.” Because this is the kind of work that his firm does. “Henry’s Boy Gets a Job” Charles E. Sorensen is in at Willys-Overland. I hope I shall not have to call back any dacoits. “Elementary Aesthetics” From a windowless suite of “ill-ventilated cubbyholes deep in the basement recesses of the massive Ministry of Information in London” came the all-night broadcasting of the invasion. Sponsored shows were cancelled (NBC carried nothing but D-Day coverage) and studio broadcasters talked their throats dry while CBS chief Paul White “plugged in his teletypewriter-lined news room to let listeners hear the buzz and bells that filled it.” Manhattan newscaster Bob Trout “was a marvel of glibness and endurance.” William Brooks of Times was a marvel of accuracy on the Blue. Portable magnetic wire records and the Navy’s film recorder brought back war reporting with a vividness never seen before. “A BBC recording caught a bargeload of British Tommies singing ‘For Me and My Gal,’ and a correspondent caught the “fateful clicks” as paratroopers did up their release belts. There was a beachhead interview with a sailor from Brooklyn, and live account of a Nazi bomber attacking a flagship in the Channel. It is hard to reproduce what we all heard in our living rooms over here for you, Sir, since I know that you were overwhelmed with strip to “fix. “ Books “Gloomy Debate” Harold Laski has just published Faith, Reason and Civilization, while Ludwig von Mises has written Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. Both men think the world faces total breakdown. Mr. Laski thinks that the solution is a Marxist state that takes ove the means of production, while Mr. von Mises thinks the opposite. So, in sum, the world is on its way in a handbasket, both agree, but one man’s solution is the other man’s wide and curving path. Mr. Huxley publishes in support of Mr. Laski, and Markoosha Fisher in support of Mr. von Mises (approximately.)S. J. Perelman has a collection of columns out, often inspired by the absurdities of the magazines he reads. I suspect that he is the only one to get luncheon invitations, excepting Mrs. Fisher, who sounds amusing in small doses. People Charlie Chaplin is terrible. The sons of Eisenhower and Admiral King have both graduated from the academies and joined their fathers’ services. Charles Lindburgh, ”consulting engineer for United Aircraft ans since March 1942 a Ford special consultant with somewhat mysterious duties) at Willow Run, turned up in the Gilbert Islands, as a Navy instructor in high-altitude flying.” (I quoted the line to James to see if it sounded as fishy to him as it did to me, but he just put on a Midwestern accent and said, “Your ships can’t do it, so don’t try. Next class, please.” Aimee McPherson is recovering from tropical fever. Jeff Davis, “King of the Hobboes,” is amusing. Lana Turner threw a public temper tantrum when caught dancing at a night spot with Peter Lawford. Do not cross this woman Flight, 22 June 1944 Thrilling news of science! Leaders “Jettery Lords” The Lords are jittery about the takeover of PowerJets, continuing the theme of “Government versus free enterprise.” Lord Strabolgi, who greets the takeover as a remedy to the problems of the old “Ring,” which occasions a scolding from Flight, which thinks that it was a fine thing. It also seems a bit more confused about how the “vengeance” robot bombs work than is Time, but is still sure that they are wasted effort. War in the Air The paper thinks that Germans must be feeling some despair, at least, over this latest setback of the whole invasion thing. Especially since the air raid on Gelsenkirchen met strong resistance, and the RAF is getting very tired of this nonsense, which cost 17 bombers to deluge 1400 tons of bombs on the synthetic oil plants, as well as on diversionary minelaying operations and an attack on Cologne. There is a lot of flying to be done, and it must be wearing, even without active German fighters. Here and There One of the first emergency air deliveries to the Normandy beachhead was more ether. The Air League of the British Empire has put on a thrilling show in the Bristol Aeroplane Showroom in Piccadilly. Rotol shows off its new cooling fan for radial air-cooled engines. It is not just the Japanese who can imitate foreign technology now! Australia cannot begin making Lancasters until production of BEaufighters is “well under way.” Douglas has announced the DC-7. The Robin Line is the latest to apply for an air route to go with its shipping route. Petrol-engined model aeroplanes may now be flown in the north of England. “Invasion Closeup” The paper’s correspondent can now sit back and reflect in more dertail. He thinks that the dropping of 5600 tons of bombs in 80000 sorties (TAAF and AEAF) and 7000 tons in 3000 sorties (8th Air Force) to isolate the Normandy battlefield is the principal contribution made by air power. The result was a “rail desert west of Paris.” 5,737 tons of bombs were dropped to break bridges. 4000 tons were dropped on coastal strong points, and 1700 sorties flown against “radio installations.” (As Uncle would say, radar is a secret this week.) The correspondent regrets that he cannot describe the large number of Tempests on show, and goes off to see forward maintenance and modification centres. Regrettably (tough he does not say so), a thousand hours must be put into making Canadian-built Lancasters ready for front line operations, though a good part of that is installing turrets, which are too draggy to be flown across the Atlantic. Behind the Lines The main aim of Japanese operations in China, Tokyo says, is “the destruction of the Chungking regime.” The Japanese continue to imagine themselves in the place of the Ch’ing. The German army says that artillery, not aircraft, will answer Allied air power. The fall of the Atlantic Wall is due to overwhelming Allied parachute and glider assault. Studies in Aircraft Recognition Today, a Kawasaki, Kawanishi T-97, Mitsubishi. None are particularly modern looking. Uncle would probably be sarcastic, but Flight is stuck with the material it has, and the actual planes seen at the front are probably older than the brand-new planes just shown at the factory. C. B. B. W., “Lockheed Lightning (P-38/J): A Review of the Unorthodox Single-Seat American Fighter” And then there are articles that fairly announce that a plane’s day is done. It is a very long and detailed article, with many illustrations. It is just that it is so old! It is certainly not devoid of technical interest. The final incarnation of the P-38 was an extraordinary machine, packed with automatic machinery. It James is cynical in suggesting that much of it was added to remedy the deficiencies of the original design, but as Uncle has pointed out, it is a miracle of automatic interaction that will have enormous implications in industry as machines come to do things at speeds and with precision far exceeding human performance. But we have heard it all before! J. Elliot, “The Case for the Railways” Railway Air Services thinks that Railway Air Services used to be wonderful, and could be again. Time, 26 June 1944 International “Facts from Normandy” The Normans sold a vast quantity of provisions to the Germans, and have mixed feelings about the invasion with its attendant destruction. It is Paris that is going mad under repression. In a separate filing, Time sings a familiar refrain. This war is looking less and less like a crusade all the time. The men just want to win and go home. IN a separate filing, at the end of the first eleven days of fighting, American casualties are 3,283 dead, 12,600 wounded, no mention of missing or prisoners. Meanwhile, back from Normandy poured “15,000 prisoners wearing the Reichswehr green.” A surprising number were not even Germans. Some, strange stories related, were women, female snipers. Washington’s position on the administration of France continues to be that something will turn up, and hopefully it won’t look like de Gaulle. Everyone else’s position is that France, and most places, don’t want to be run(?) like Washington. Where the President’s Press Secretary walked out on the White House porch to find the correspondents rocking beside the wooden Indian chief, nursing their sarsaparillas, and handed them a mimeographed sheet which revealed the President’s plan for a post war world order: something like the League of Nations, only different. More might be said after the Conventions. Or not. Depending. Uncle would say something about Turks (and Icelanders and Belgians) being excitable at this point, following a cabinet shuffle to keep Turkey out of the war again. We have a line on the Hump, so it looks like we shan’t need the Pan-Turks much longer, and I am fine with this. “Death to Life” The shocking case of Coloured Corporal Leroy Henry, sentenced to death by an Army court-martial in Britain for a “somewhat dubious case of rape” has been defused by General Eisenhower, who has ordered a reduction in sentence. (There is more coverage in the June 12th issue sir. Very tawdry all around. ) “Heat on a Tyrant” Time does not like Guatemala’s president, who admittedly sounds awful. “Snafu” “London” has told Premier Bonomi has been told to put Marshal Badoglio back in his cabinet. This seems to give credibility to the Italian Communist Party, which is also buoyed up by former partisans in recently liberated areas and Allied mishandling. A “Catholic Communist” paper has sprung up in Rome. Time thinks this is amusing. Or dangerous. George Santayana gave a press conference in his rooms at Rome’s Convent of the Little Company of Mary. No-one remembers the details, but many have made this joke. “Battle of Japan: The Beginning” B-29 Superfortresses bombed the Japanese home islands from bases in China this week. Given that all the gas and ammunition has to be flown over the Himalayas, I do not suppose that this is much more than a beginning. Father says that what the planes should really be flying is silver, so that the farmers will hoard something besides rice. This is the kind of thing that makes him pessimistic about Chiang’s chances in the long run. “Where it Hurts” The next step in the Pacific is revealed to be Saipan, as Uncle guessed, as it is in B-29 range of the Home Islands and the Philippines. “Mechanical Man” Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance, this week’s cover, is commander of the Fifth Fleet and of the invasion of Saipan, is a “cold, calculating, mechanical man.” No drinker, he is gunnery branch, studied electrical engineering and had dockyard assignments leading to his command assignment and victory at Midway. Even more damning than his poor taste in leading the American fleet air arm to victory in spite of not being a flyer, he did not letter at the academy! And, if you listen to some, he is far too cold to be a real leader. Because real leaders say things like “kill all Japs,” and go out with (understandable, all things considered, but still) skin ailments when they are given a chance to actually command in a real fight. “The Admiral Shoves Off” Speaking of, Admiral Halsey has left the South Pacific to take over Third Fleet, “Which will operate the same way that the Fifth Fleet is operating under the command of Admiral Spruance.” Rumour parses this as cover for the relief of Spruance, who will be relegated to the beach on the argument that he (and his staff) will be charged with planning future operations, for which they will then be reassigned to the sea and “Third Fleet” reactivated in place of “Fifth Fleet.” By clever timing, Third Fleet will not be active until after the next campaign, and will go inactive before the tide of war reaches the Home Islands. “Things That Go Bump” Time covers the “Vengeance Offensive.” The long-predicted self-propelled robot bombs began to fall on London this week. The gyrocompass, it is noted, can only maintain heading, and will not deal with head or side winds. A gruesome picture of two robot-bombed hospitals is provided. I suppose that this means that there are a great many hospitals around London, which is sad but unsurprising. “An Excellent Airplane” Is the B-29. Various concrete details are provided, or repeated, and Boeing is praised for incidentals like finely-balanced controls and an “uncluttered” instrument panel. James perks up at the thought of a plane that the pilot can actually manage. So do I, for obvious reasons. I was so happy last month, when they found time to take the train to Seattle together instead of flying. Although it is not as though the trains are that much safer, these days. “The Return” General de Gaulle returned to France last week. Elsewhere the paper attempts to present his appearance in Bayeux as being met with a muted enthusiasm. This dispatch tells a different story and adds one telling note. He set up Francois Coulet and Colonel Pierre de Chevigne as administrators of liberated Normandy. No-one protested, so I suppose that that is our occupied France policy. A strange way to run a war, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir. Domestic “X-Day is Coming” Has the nation finally reached its wartime production peak? Various signs (I imagine the editorial board of Time hovering over an Ouija board) suggest that the answer might be “yes.” The Navy is cutting back on Wildcats and small landing craft, an alumina plant is closing, as is the plant erected to make Budd planes, plus the Brewster shutdown. Manufacturing employment has been declining since November, hitting a reduction of a million workers over six months last month. Nevertheless, the peak of war production is not predicted for another three months. Bernard Baruch and Jimmy Byrnes warn of mass unemployment if Germany collapses in the fall, if Congress does not act on various plans for reconversion. “The Shadow” Many people would vote for a Republican candidate for President if the GOP were to nominated someone “better.” The problem, of course, is that they cannot agree on what “better” looks like, but the Luce press is inclined to note the “22.7%” who want a more liberal candidate, concluding that the GOP’s problem is that voters think that they are not progressive. “E is For Egg” A drive to increase egg production has overfulfilled, and now tractors will have to drop wagon loads of eggs into the Hudson if a press-radio campaign to persuade housewives to buy more eggs fails. Eggs not fit for human consumption are being sold to feed plants. Isn’t that going to run into a chicken-and-egg problem? I was very short with the neo-Malthusian "overpopulation" people in my header discussion, sir, and well you may wonder about the concern that "we are running out of food." It is, after all, a bit of a theme in these newsletters! Well, after this story, I am closing the book on the subject. Inlast week's number we read about the emergency purchase of Argentina's grain surplus precisely to provide emergency feed for East Coast farmers. This week we hear of eggs being fed right back to chickens! Is there a "food crisis?" There may well (eventually) be, but you cannot trust farm writers on the subject! “An American Attitude” Senators CarlHatch of New Mexico and Styles Bridges have an amusing exchange about who wrecked the League of Nations, and when. Which is national news for some reason. “Eleventh Hour” “Dapper governor Tom Dewey” is a “country squire.” That is, he is supervising work at his 300 acre farm in Pawling, New York and, to all appearances, ignoring the upcoming GOP Convention, where anything could happen! I know that I am treading on Uncle’s brand of world-weary cyncisms here. What I find interesting in this story is the description of the former New York prosecutor turned “Boy Wonder” turned Governor turned, soon, into Presidential candidate as a “country squire. “ How does a country prosecutor, even in New York, come to own a 300 acre farm in eastern New York? Shouldn’t there be at least a shadow of discretion cast over it? It’s like talking about your salary! “I.O.U. to G.I.s” Uncle is of course deeply interested in anything to do with housing in this proposed “G.I. Bill,” which the President dusted off this week. A Government guaranteed of 50% of any loan of up to $4000 made for the purchase of a home, farm or business property, or for renovation of a property already owned! Now that is something! And there is more. A year of unemployment insurance at $20/week and a year of free college tuition, plus living expensed for the veteran and dependents, extendable to three on good grades! There is also a disability and hospital settlement, of course, and apprenticeship and vocational assistance. You can see how James comes to his “storm breeding” conclusion! I admit that these are things happening in America, not Britain. The "storm" will no doubt wax stronger over here; but on the other hand our housing stock is not being blown up. “Lost Majority” The Democrats have lost their majority in the House for the first time since 1931 as a result of the replacement of a Democrat in Illinois’s 19th District by an unopposed Republican, Rolla C. McMillen. Meanwhile, Mr. Willkie published his own recommended platform for the GOP. He thinks that the GOP should run to the left of Mr. Roosevelt, then presumably govern to his right? Mr. Willkie, agree with him or not, has a lot of cheek! Science “Food Freezers” This does not update the Fortune story, just covers “propagandist”Boyden Sparkes, who thinks that tomorrow belongs to the home freezer. That is, he is arguing for home freezers as opposed to the community walk-ins. I have to admit that the idea is attractive, and he (and Time) are perfectly correct to point to the high price of second-hand ice cream freezers. Frozen spinach might be good, too. “Cure for Germans?” Professor Norman Maier of the University of Michigan, who, Timepoints out, has made his name by torturing rats into neurosis, suggests that the best cure for Germans is to not torture them with war crime proceedings, but to just keep them under the benevolent rule of military administration for ten years or so, keeping them working while waiting for the wounds to heal. This is good science, apparently, because rats do things and people fail to pick up hints consciously. Or unconsciously, if it is "H." ranting away in the Faculty Club and me, squirming and peaking at my watch. The annual AMA convention is against socialized medicine, in favour of penicillin. Radicalsplanchnicectomy is becoming safer and more routine. Fertility medicine is improving. Malaria treatments are improving under the impetus of military requirements. A paper about jaundiced canaries suggests that doctors have a sense of humour. “Honour in Death” Time reports with approval the Archdiocese of Missouri’s declaration of interdict against parishioners who participate in the use of Japanese remains as military souvenirs, notably the letter-opener made of a Japanese soldier’s forearm, presented to the President by a Pennsylvania Representative. “Take a Trip to Berlin..” The CAB published its plans for postwar international air routes. Uncle would characterise this as “more talking about talking about civil aviation.” I can see why he has grown so tired of the endless talking, but at some point, all of this will sort itself out into an enormously important peacetime industry, and some of these stories will turn out to be relevant to developments. The wearying part is that, as with the Presidential campaign, we won’t know which until it is all over, so that to be “informed,” we must read them all. Oh, well, I suppose it sells cigarettes. “A Geologist Gets a Job” EugeneHolman, onetime Texas geologist, is to be the first geologist to be chairman of Standard Oil (NJ). He is the man who contradicted Icke’s warnings of an oil famine, saing that the nation’s oil should “last for 1000 years or more.” He will earn $100,000/year, but doesn’t think that that is much, as “you keep so little of it.” The paper notes that he will get to keep $37,000 of it, and that of his $20,000 raise, he will receive but $4000 clear. Only enough to buy a smallhouse every year, and certainly not enough to raise him into the American peerage! “Ring-Around-a-Morgenthau” To avoid credit inflation, not a nickel of the $16 billion Fifth War Loan is permitted to be sold to commercial banks. But since about a fifth of the purchases of the last Loan were financed with bank credit, while private investors sell Treasuries to buy war bonds, with the same effect. The effect is that instead of soaking up excess buying power, the loans act in part to inflate credit. The complicating factor is that people are holding onto the money they saved by taking loans to buy Victory Bonds instead of spending it. Since the prospect of inflation is as exciting as the prospect of crop failures, Time goes on to darkly intimate that this behaviour will cease very soon now, leading to (more) inflation. “Here to Stay” Sikorsky is making helicopters! Helicopter bus lines are coming! “Bull Market” The invasion has succeeded and there is a buying spree of “peace stocks” on Wall Street, notably of IT&T, Packard and Wilys-Overland. James says that it is as exciting as railway stocks in the roaring forties. I think that if I knew more business history, I would be sure that my husband is saying that we should stay out of this, instead of just assuming it. Press, Books, Film The men of Marshall Field’s Chicago Sun are appalled at the way that other publishers get in the way of freedom of the press. “Lili Marline” is not a very impressive British documentary. A life of John Severn, “Keat’s forgotten friend” tickles Time’s fancy with the subject’s domesticity compared with his friend’s larger-than-life, well, life. (Have I mentioned that I notice a theme?) Several novels by “proletarian” authors. Peter Domanig,Victor White; The Day is Coming, William Cameron. In striking contrast, 69 year old chairman of National Steel Corporation Ernest Tener Weir celebrates the birth to his third wife, 28-year old Mary Hayward Weir, of their first son; and Mimi Chandler, starlet and daughter of Kentucky Senator A. B. “Happy” Chandler celebrates her marriage to Army Ferry Comamnd Major John Cabell, 27, cousin to novelist James Branch Cabell. Letters to Time, this time from its correspondents at the front: A third is from Charles Wertenbaker (see FOREIGN NEWS), chief of the TIME & LIFE staff on the beachhead in Normandy:"Your invasion team is all present or accounted for. Walton and Capa are with me, Landry is down the road. Scherschel is somewhere on the beach and Ragsdale, I hope, is on the way back to London. Byron Thomas and Bohrod are also said to be beachcombing somewhere. Reports from the second batch of correspondents arriving yesterday are that Belden and White are still held up in England."Walton, who landed with the paratroopers, is with the 82nd Airborne, which is probably the best spot here, and will stick with them. I will try to keep you covered on overall American action and am now proceeding with Capa for a closer look at the currently most active sector."Walton wants a pair of OD pants; and I want a pair of OD pants, one of my heavy shirts, some saddlesoap, a bottle of Vitamin C and a bottle of whiskey. We have plenty of brandy and Calvados."So far we have no direct word from Bob Sherrod on Saipan. Here's hoping he is not having as tough a time as he did on the beaches of Tarawa. Flight, 29 June 1944 Is it just me, or has Flight taken on a somewhat nostalgic air of late? Leaders Flight thinks that the vengeance rockets are a “pitiful expedient.” Something about protesting too much? Flight actually seems disappointed that the sea-fight off the Marianas was resolved by the aircraft carrriers and did not lead to a gunnery clash. At least it makes palatable the cashiering of the only American admiral to win (and win two!) air-sea battles in favour of the only one to lose two, as Uncle would say. Of course, Raymond was not, technically, cashiered. Felix says that he will just not get another chance to fight the Japanese fleet. War in the Air Tempests, we are allowed to say, are taking the lead in the fight against the vengeance robots. Flight explains that shooting them down in the sky is not that useful, however. It is much more productive to attack the factories, if possible, and the trains bringing them up to the front. Best of all would be to take the launching areas in the Pas de Calais. Is this why there is so much talk of another landing in that area? Never mind. The last thing we want is for your mail to be intercepted and read. I have no way of knowing how you would render "Pas de Calais" into Hakka pirate writing, but James says that it would help a reader unravel our little code. Flight thinks that the Russians are less impressed by experiments in shuttle bombing than by the Second Front, It is impressed by the attack on Cherbourg, and disappointed with the pro-Hitler weather, which slowed down supply landings. (Tommy Wong’s long-awaited V-Mail, if not passed on to you, has quite a tale to tell about that.) Flight suggests that a landing in southern France is coming. Here and There A picture of the new Northrop P-61, a muscled-up twin of the P-38, is shown. Itis hinted that B-29s may soon fly from England. Mr. Bowyer writes to thank Flight for its attempted support in the last number but gently correct it with the observation that there was never an aeroengine production “Ring.” The Society of British Aircraft Constructors is the only thing that looks like a “Ring,” and it is not. It is just a closed circle of private manufacturers that cooperates with the Air Force via the AID. Any firm the SBAC admits can be a member of the SBAC! Free enterprise! P-38s are now being used as high-alttiude bombers against Germany, which suggests that there might not be a better use for them. More than 1000 aircraft have been committed to the Cross-Channel Ferry. “Invasion Close-Up” Our correspondent flies with an RCAF Wellington squadron of Coastal Command tasked with anti E-boat work. He notes being fed twice on eggs and bacon and chips, once at the main base, once at the satellite, where the plane is bombed and gassed up for along night patrol. There are stiff winds and an icing altitude of 6000 feet, never mind that it is June, and he is provided with a pair of sheepskin-lined flying boots. The airplane must be a verynew Wellington,because it is loaded down to almost 30,000lbs and flies with Hercules XVI operating Rotol adjustable props Photo by Martin Waligorski, link above. . After all the preparation and all the English food, regrettably no E-boats are found. They have not been seen very much since the big raid on Boulogne. To add action to this number, the paper throws in the 6th Airborne Divisions’s report of its assault. Short pieces note that Switzerland has an aviation industry now, and that there have been experiments with “picking up” gliders in Normandy for a return tow to Britain. “The Air Torpedo” Is a very full description of the vengeance robot plane. It is very definitely engineered for mass production, notably with compressed air services replacing hydraulic. Behind the Lines “Tin Foil” The Germans release an official statement that the aluminised foil strips used by the British to fox German radar is no longer effective because their radar has been improved. Except that it uses such loose and vague terminology that no-one who reads this number (but not others) will understand how it works. This brilliant bit of censorship will certainly keep the British from knowing how the weapon they are using works! The Germans have built a very big airfield in Norway, in case. “Comfort in the Avro York” A portfolio of pictures reveal that the York is quite luxurious. Throw rugs over each seat suggest that “comfort” is still somewhat relative. Studies in Aircraft Recognition The He115 large floatplane and Arado Ar 240 twin-engined fighter bomber look quite different. L. G. Fairhurst, “Wooden Blades: A Preview of Airscrew Requirements for Post-war Civil Air Transport” I am sure that Mr. Fairhurst means well, but any man of my household who flies on a plane with wooden airscrews had better be ready to sleep on the sofa for a very long time. W. Nichols, “Aircraft Laminated Plastics: Development of Low-pressure Laminates:Fabric Fairings: Reinforced Floors for Transports” Low pressure laminates are cotton or paper sheets impregnated with plastic and then put into deflated molds, which are then inflated with steam. General Electric’s laboratory has been playing with these, and thinks that they can be used for all sorts of things, including low-stress components of civil aircraft. Given that use in aircraft is strictly hypothetical at this point, this is a remarkably long article for Flight. Perhaps a design analysis of the Tempest is being spiked from issue to issue? That would also account for the P-38 article in the last one. Correspondence Norman Philips thinks that the vengeance robots should be called “aerial torpedoes.” Kenneth S. Othick thinks that they are very inferior machines compared to what he would design. B. Bernard thinks that he is a very important person who can afford to write five paragraph letters that people will read to get to his point, which is that the RAF technical schools have trained “ many thousands of ” engineers in this war, and can continue to train them afterwards, whereas a proposed SBAC school cannot. My thought is that unless we find better work for them, we shall quite an excess of engineers after the war, in that case. E. C. Ferguson writes to remind us that in 1940, there was an “Air Component of the BEF” in France with four fighter sqaudrons at the beginning of hostilities, as well s the two squadrons of the Advanced Striking Force, which gets all of the press. R. Davenport will not let the idea that gunpowder, or at least “modern gunpowders” might be a better propellant than regular gasoline. Monthlies Uncle usually summarises Aero Digest here. This is, I suspect, because he finds political news amusing, and the paper tends to be hysterically anti-New Deal, which he finds even more amusing. I tend to think that that is playing with fire in our situation, that he needs to be reminded of 1919. Aero Digest is the voice of industry, and industry has nothing to say. Or, rather, there are trainers who are tired of repeating themselves and send a piece to Aero Digest, people who are too giddy with fatigue to realise that something is a silly idea Advertisers of the strange and arcane Source; details. and garrulous twits set to fill out copy with denunciations of bureaucrats and praise for American planes,presumably tasks set to them so that they will not interfere with important work.

aturday, July 26, 2014 Techblogging June, 1944, I: Come the Day! Dear Suzie: Sorry about the blotting paper again. Mom and Dad will get a proper V-Mail in a few days, now that the segregation's lifted. Right now, though I should say some things the censor shouldn't hear, and maybe Mom and Dad, too. At least, not in my words. You're the only person I can trust to dress it up right, Sis, honest injun. Does that sound curious enough? Well, my LCT has been going so fast I hardly have time to collect my wits. You might hear from Douggie's brother that my boat's ramp wouldn't lower, so we couldn't launch our tanks, and so we ran up on the beach under fire to do it. I don't think Mom needs to hear any more about that, whatever Douggie says. Then, soon as we were back off the shingle, it was back to Jolly Old to pick up our next load. First, though, I had to go on the carpet with the Admiral. He knows that the reason my ramp wouldn't lower was because of a sledge hammer in the bilge of my boat called "The Assistant Bo'sun." I had to, Suzie! It was choppy as all heck. The tanks obviously weren't going to get to shore. So the Admiral lays it out for me. Harry gets the credit, as I don't go on the list as boat commander until the 7th. He gets a "Mention in Despatches" with no mention of the 510th and its officers I get my boat. "That's way we did it in Manila," the Admiral says. Dad should hear that, I think. What I can't figure out how to tell them is that I somehow ended up taking Queenie to the midnight promenade the other night. Well, not quite midnight, as she had to be home by 11. Me in my officer's cap(!), her in a broad hat, in case some wise guy started something, dancing at the edge of the crowd to some nice jazz. We kissed, Sis, and now I can't think of anything else but Queenie. Not even the war. Love, Your Brother, Tommy. Dearest Reggie: Just a short note this time. I know that I am supposed to share warm pictures of the home front and not my troubles, but I've flown across continent three times in the last week, and the last was particularly awful, though at least I got my reading done. I was summoned to see our friend's young acquaintance, still feigning tonsilitis. He wouldn't see me, and I flew back to San Francisco, and was on the plane when the Invasion was announced. When I landed, Wong Lee was waiting for me to tell me that our friend had called "Mrs. J. C." to say that we should make another press, now that it was obvious why the USO tour had been booked. So back I went. This time we're not talking with that little thug at all. We are talking with a big thug, a fellow named Mr. Gambino. Wong Lee went out the back window of the hotel an hour ago (Hoover's boys have their eye on Gambino) and is meeting with him to see if the "men of respect" have a more reasonable take on the tour than their protege. If not.... Oh, Reggie. Whatever will I say to Amy, Tommy and Suzie if Wong Lee does not come back? The Economist, 3 June 1944 Leaders “Employment Policy” The publication of the Government White Paper on employment is epochal! The Government acts on the developing logic of the last quarter century. It will take responsibility for maintaining full employment. From the White Paper, I see that the Tories have not gone all-in for the old ideas of “outdoor relief.” It talks, instead, of an “expansionist economy.” That is, the economic policy of the Government will be to maintain a steady growth of the economy, however that is measured (as it is my impression that we have moved beyond just toting up the “national income?”). This, the paper agrees with the Government, is a bold departure. Full employment has twice been achieved in this country during wartime. But in peace? “It is true that some other industrial countries ---Russia and Germany, notably—have attained it in peacetime . . . .”, but we shall attempt to achieve it in peace without the kind of measures required in Germany and Russia. “Under free criticism and without conscription.” No country has ever done this, the paper says. The paper, and the White Paper then move on to, first, international trade. Everyone in the world must buy British, details to follow. Second, location of industry. Means are to be found to make people build factories in Lancashire instead of London. Even so, “labour should be mobile. "Mobility” inferentially being in some danger of mutating in the labour being less choosy. Third, there must be “stabilisation of private investment,” an arcane concept because it is three concepts, “the weapon of the interest rate,” “government-owned industry,” and tax measures. The paper perhaps gives away its thinking on the first heading with the word ‘weapon,’ thinks the second a no-go, and perks its ears at the third, winding down with an arcane reference to inventory management that, I suppose, would point a more acute mind in the direction of the particular nation-saving tax measure it has in mind. The question of how much is to be spent on public works during downturns, accepting that it will be, is left unclear. There is the question of “maintenance of consumer purchasing power,” which is entangled with social insurance, as the best way of keeping a consumer consuming is to give him money when he has no income. Then there is talk of price and wage stabilisation. Full employment does not have to mean inflation, but that does not mean that no measures against inflation are necessary. And “restrictive practices” should be subject to “appropriate measures.” After reading this through, I find that even I have been lead so far through the labyrinth of the paper's thinking that I have lost the chain of the thought I had at the header. Thanks to reviewing my earlier newsletters from 1939, I know that Britain twice achieved full employment in peacetime in the late 1930s, with a free press and without conscription. Has the paper forgotten this? My cynical suspicion is that forgetting is easy when events seem to contradict the paper's policy preferences. Knowing the paper, it is the suspicion that the Defence Loan had a positive impact on the economy that is to be strenuously forgotten. “Colonial Progress” Not enough is being spent, therefore progress is less than it should be, something about Newfoundland, notable as a colony made up of White people, I suppose. Newfoundlanders do not want self-government, it appears. Perhaps all the dark people can be persuaded to be so complacent? “Reflections on Philadelphia” The International Labour Conference had a conference! It issued a manifesto! Perhaps it will be set to music stirring enough to make we wade through threepages of minutiae at some future date. Greeks are excitable. “Employment: the White Paper” the leading section requires a summary as well as a summary of the summary. I shall not follow. Notes of the Week “Peace Plans” The new United Nations Organisation is to have police powers. A critic in the Commons thinks that it is unlikely that this will work as intended. “To Rome” Although there is now no doubt that Rome will fall, the paper is disappointed that the chance to bag Kesselring’s army was missed. Latins, Americans and British farmers are excitable. General de Gaulle is coming to London! Apparently, he will not concede to political direction from Whitehall and Washington. The question of paying Allied soldiers in occupied France is acute. The Italian experience shows the catastrophe that can be unleashed on a domestic economy by liberal military spending. The thought is that they will be paid in Occupation Francs, which will be bought from the Provisional Government with pounds and dollars. Though since for this to work there must be a Provisional Government, Washington in particular will have to descend from the stick that it is comfortably sitting on and do something. “Indian Reconstruction” Bombay industrialists, the Moslem League and the National Congress have embraced three approaches to reconstruction. By putting them together in a small room, Wavell aims to achieve compromise and consensus. Or a locked room murder mystery, whichever will do. The paper notes 10,947 road casualties in April, an increase of 1743 over last April, with 567 deaths vice 396, the number of children being killed rising to 5 per day. American Survey “Is Isolationism Dead?” No, says Our Correspondent in Ohio. Why, just last week, a twelve-foot-tall, two-headed Colonel McCormick wandered through town, devouring damsels and breathing fire upon the thatched roofs of the cottages of Ohio cottagers. To what extent the recent Republican upsurge is evidence of the revival that a passage ago required no evidence “is impossible to say.” OCH goes on to point out that is obviouslyevidence of same. American Notes “Remote Control” Governor Bricker will be the Republican candidate, Reggie! You heard it here, first. Or perhaps, not to spoil the next number, Senator Taft. The point is, it will not be Dewey, even though it will obviously be Dewey. I suppose that political correspondents have to justify their expense accounts somehow. “Full Employment” At the National Industrial Conference Board last week, Mr. David Beck, Vice-President of the Teamsters, and Mr. Ralph Flanders, President of Jones and Lamson MachineCompany, united to give a paper showing that for full employment at a 40 hour week, between 50 and 55 million jobs would be necessary, with a “net national output of $130 to $140 million,” an “admittedly high total.” Moreover, as high as the total is, it is assuming that most of the wartime labour force (62 million) increment will dissipate with peace. Mr. Clarence Long, the actual author of the study, who is apparently not eminent enough to present it to the august Board, points out that most of the increment was of school age, and will be likely to resume their studies, especially given indications of generous Congressional provisions for this purpose. Many women, a quarter of the increment, will drop out, and so will many of the workers over 54. Mr. Long points out that the surprisingly low proportion of Americans enrolled in war work compared with Britain is largely explained by the larger number of younger women with children in America compared with Britain, as opposed to the favoured British explanation of lack of American self-discipline, character, spine, etc. “The Hog at the Door” The current high threshold ration price for meat is encouraging American hog-and-corn farmers to feed their corn to their hogs. The result is record high levels of livestock holdings and an alarmingly small amount of grain on hand. Short of lowering the meat price threshold (which, recall, acts as kind of a subsidy on the farmer) or confiscating grain (it is hard to tell whether the paper is floating this or presenting it as an absurdity), the current meat holiday is the much preferred half-measure. “Political Action” Unlike the AFL, the CIO has gone all in with lobbying. Governor Bricker is upset about the $5 millions with which it is reputed to be backing Roosevelt, while others speak of a “Red kiss of death.” Although by “others” one means the Dies Committee, and the recent defeat of three of its members suggests that the erstwhile paragons of “Un-American activities” investigations are a spent force, that rural America is becoming more unionised and so more Democratic. Letters to the Editor “Hire Purchase and Employment” The paper has been sitting on this interesting leter fromG. D.Rokeling since last fall, so it responds to no current story, but Mr. Rokeling’s point is that since we now understand business downturns to be responses to attempts to save money faster than savings can be spent, so hire-purchase is not just some frivolous show of lack of discipline, but a burgeoning channel for alleviating this press of savings by diverting it into the purchase of consumer goods, thereby using up savings (to subsidise the purchase) and encouraging capital investment in the production of goods to buy. If I understand him rightly. Would this not apply even more strongly for houses? I wonder how his calculations take into account new technologies such as "gyproc?" “Swedish Credit Policy” Sweden’s recent inflation is not due to German buying. Germans have been paying for their imports on a cash-clearance basis. It is “principally” due to Swedish shipping earnings on the high seas. I rather appreciate the “principally,” given the obvious subtext. Rich Germans get their money to Stockholm, where it must be cleansed of the stink of death, and what better way to "wash" it than through investment in Allied shipping? I am glad that Fat Chow is leaving Berlin soon. It will remove my temptation to engage in that kind of business myself. The Business World “Anglo-Indian Finance” India used to be in debt to London, as is only right and proper. Now we are in debt to Delhi. The total shift has been over a billion pounds, and in the postwar era Britons shall have to work to pay Indian dividends and interest! The paper is appalled. All India has done to earn this is fight our war for us. (Although the paper sees this as Britain subsidisingIndia's war!) There is a bow in the direction of India in the form of a concession that it is all being balanced by inflation in India, with likely more to follow. Business Notes “Full Employment of Capital” If tawdry paupers are to be paid some subvention to keep living, then surely the fortunes of the rich should also be “fully employed.” While not objecting to the sentiment, I see an important distinction between not standing two percent, and not standing not having enough to feed your children. “Equalising Returns” Government needs to make sure that certain industries reach the highest pitch of efficiency to secure overseas markets. These include coal, steel, engineering and shipbuilding, to which the paper helpfully suggests the addition of cotton. It is supposed that something can be done to make coal as profitable as electrical engineering? I would like to see just what, and as a landlord and a man of sense, I like not this “checking inflationary tendencies” talk. Manchester industrialists might like to hold operative wages down, but they are cutting off their noses, etc., the moment they think through the implications for the domestic market of which more. . . Below. “Lord Portal’sHouses” Speaking of renting out hovels to penniless labourers, the recent display of the “temporary factory-made houses” has led to “substantial improvements and alterations.” The height of the ceiling is to be raised from 7 feet to 7 feet 6 inches. The storage shed is to be detached. The W.C. is to be “adequately screened.” An improved version, with three bedrooms instead of two, is to be hoped for, for persons of greater means. Costs are now pegged at £550, including £100 for fittings. “Scientific Instruments” This vital, if small industry has risen from employing 18,000 to 50,000 persons, and made up much of the ground lost to German competition between the wars. Nevertheless, the paper denounces the preferential tariff of 1921 and calls for efficiency and research to sustain the industry in the future. It is probably only after the last bit of reading that I morbidly associate “efficiency” with “wage cuts.” It does seem a little unreasonable that any but the most obvious "efficiencies" not impact "research." “Science in Industry” There should be more research. “Dunlop’s Record Profit” Is a record. Who would have thought that tyres would be so profitable? I would, Reggie, I would. I wonder if the Board has ever considered cutting out the middle man and just selling to the black market? “National Debt Milestone” £20 billion, less than six years after the paper conceded that it needed the word “billion.” “Netherlands Indies Guilder” American soldiers in Dutch colonial areas will be paid in guilders bought from the Dutch, continuing arrangements already made with the Australians. The exchange rate probably predicts what will be paid in the Netherlands after liberation, for those interested in such things –or for the eventual settling of accounts with Dutch ships under charter! (See my earlier comments about the Swedes!) Flight, 8 June 1944 Invasion stripes in an 8 June ad! Quck work by Dowty, and the rest of the paper has not quite caught up, with the result that in this week of all weeks, it is a “civil flying” number. I barely have patience for it, except for the note in the leading articles about the need for pressure cabins in commercial airliners. Hear, hear! Someone can. I can’t, three days after landing at Idlewild. Leaders Apart from that, there’s a bit about the Cripps statement on aircraft production. Nothing here to dissuade me that this industry is a war growth. The investor may or may not nose around it in case stocks have priced in the postwar setback, but I am not. There’s far too much talk of postwar civil aviation, and far too little memory of how fair rail stocks benefitted promoters over investors. War in the Air We lead off with talk of the battle for Rome and a blow-by-blow of, sigh, the Times printing tags from some Latin writer orthe other. Pre-invasion bombing, we are told, focussed on the bridges of the Seine, which may have special significance, as they can be repaired quickly. Of course the paper probably has the gen, and knows that this will probably be out after the invasion, so no harm in saying so. It is noted that Typhoons also fire rockets at land targets. The Chindits have been driven off their positions by the Japanese. General MacArthur might be striking at Timor next, or the Philippines, one or the other. The paper also notices that Admiral Halsey is wandering about giving speeches, and that Somerville might, at some point, do something. No notice of Spruance, whose doings, one might think, are of rather more significance, givne that he has all of the carriers and the Marines. Here and There A Constellation has just set a 7 hour, 3 minute record for flying across the Continent. Notice that that is more than 18 hours, seventeen minutes, and, by my stopwatch, 55 seconds, taxicab to taxicab. Also setting records were the Ninth Air Force, which dropped more bombs in May than ever before, and Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, the first American Coloured Colonel. Typically, instead of noting an all-Negro air unit, some of my acquaintances focus on rumours that they are not as good a fighter group as some others. Some Spanish officers were quite impressed by the aircraft that carried Samuel Hoare away from them, with many fond and lingering looks. Mr. Stimson notices that the USAAF is now the largest air force in the world. Had you heard, Reggie? It was news to me, too! The RCAF has reached 47 combatant squadrons, but half its manpower is still enrolled in other, mainly RAF units. This ratio will be corrected towards more Canadian units as quickly as the puppy grows into its feet. A Kellet autogiro is shown in Army colours, giving the no doubt quite unintended impression that it has been bought for routine service. I hope no investors make that mistake! It would be tragic, though not for Kellet. The Poles have WAAFs, the United States has fighter rockets, The “stay-in” strike at Brewsters is noticed. “Britain’s Overseas Airways” More Bowyer. Bowyer observes that foreign parts have a strange phenomena called “weather,” which ought to be taken better account of in British civil aircraft design. For example, Canada is quite cold, and Africa is quite hot! Sometimes, parts of Africa can be cold and then hot! (And, perhaps, Canada, too.) Whereas all of the United States is quite temperate(!), so that American domestic civil aviation has quite an unfair advantage which we Britons must overcome with attention to better quality rubber, pressure cabins, heating arrangements, and so forth. The paper publishes the obituary of Lt. Colonel Outram, a former Royal Engineer and former head of the Air Inspectorate Division. A sadder loss to the aviation world than many a high flying stunt pilot, I should think. Behind the Lines Gnome-Rhone’s three-speed supercharger, giving 2200hp in an 18 cylinder two-row radial, is shown. An older machine from the same shop, the 14N is to go into a six-engined Zeppelin ship, the ZSO-523, with a gross weight of 90 tons, which, I understand, will fly a direct service between Cloud Cuckoo Land and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We are told that the German Army will now have National Socialist political officers, that the German Air Force garrison in Finland will play its part in preventing that country from surrendering more, and that Martin Hallensleben, chief military correspondent of the German News Agency, notices that Allied air bombing in advance of the invasion is intended to impair German mobility and reduce the advantages of their interior lines. A hilarious joke compares Herr Goebbels with a parrot. I wish that I had thought of that one, Reggie. Oh, wait, I know, perhaps I could suggest that Hitler is lacking a manly appendage! Aircraft in Recognition The Lycoming PT-25, Piper PT Trainer, Aeronca Defender and Interstate L-6 are told apart. Isn’t the genius of American mass production the consolidation of multiple, minimally different types into a single production line of colossal proportions? Or am I the victim of Mr. Ford’s publicity organisation again? “Power-Plant: Past and Future” This is the second part of Mr. Fedden’s talk, where he explains why Bristol was wrong to fire him. It turns out that the sleeve valve is the best of all choices for piston engines. As to whether air-cooled or liquid-cooled is best in the long run, Mr. Fedden is, surprisingly enough, agnostic. He notices that after many years of development, cooling fin development may have reached a plateau, with modern fin-cutting lathes able to turn out “52 fins with 104 tools and removing 20lb of metal in the process.” I quote the numbers, in spite of total absence of context, to illustrate the fact that whereas a layman like me might assume that the progress in air cooling might have been limited by aerodynamical science or such, it turns out to have been very much a tooling problem! Fedden dismisses the turbojet as not a practical alternative for the next dozen years, and thus that internal combustion has an interim future. While this is certainly arguable, he goes on to predict 200hp per cylinder –and then goes onto predict a 28 cylinder, 6000hp, and a 42 cylinder, 8000hp engine, which strike me as quite fantastic. Who would invest in developing these when they will just be pipped at the post by jets and turboprops? “Anglo-American Aircraft Production” Cripps again. Leaving the American numbers alone, the Minister notices that in the last twelve months, the industry has produced over 27,000 machine and done major repairs on 18,000. Spare part production amounts to an additional 50 to 60 aircraft for every 100 built. Mr. Handley-Page also refreshed himself and gave a statement to the press on the theme of Free Enterprise, and the paper mourns the death of Major A. J. Palmer without explaining why, precisely, he was a “colleague.” He was in the Navy, than the RNAS’s Motor Machine Gun detachment, then the Tank Corps, then the “Upper Thames River Patrol” in the current war. He has lost a son in the RAF, has another on active duty, and a third with Short Brothers, tasked to replenish the family’s trust fund by any means necessary. I added that last bit. “Coastal Command’s Share” The command shoots at any German freighter, submarine or E-boat as might appear on the Narrow Seas, and quite often hits. Correspondence Correspondent “Z.Q.,” a medical student, makes a joke about castor oil that sails right by me, although the drift may be inferred as the paper being a man’s paper. A. R. Ogston writes in with elementary chemistry to show that gasoline has 26 times the “piston pushing power” of an equivalent amount of gunpowder, and 15 times the energy. W. S. Shackleton amplifies the point. A correspondent writes that there should not be a “costly battle for aerial supremacy” in the field of large and luxurious airliners. His point escapes me, rather as the argument for higher property taxes escapes me. Only more urgently, because while pain in the wallet is abstract, my ears are still ringing! The Economist, 10 June 1944 I should mention that, in spite of the date, this and my proofs of Fortune were the first things that I read for this letter. Which is to say, that I wrote them before emplaning, and so before the earrache and Wong Lee's departure, which together leave me more irritable than usual. It may show. Leaders As a reader, I can only be grateful for the channels through which I receive my papers. The University library, "Miss V. C." informs me, just received its first of May number. "Miss V.C." has proven far too good a researcher for my tastes, having found the accounts of old Monterey. She brings me a certain entry for 1794 with wide eyes, and notes to me the similarities of "McKee" and "Maquinna." What do we call a red herring that draws the pack closer to the fox? A trip to Monterey is now proposed, and Lieutenant A. eagerly offered the hospitality of the Naval Air Station until "Mrs. J. C." put her foot down. “June the Sixth” “Four years almost to the day after the last man was taken of the beaches of Dunkirk. . .” The paper notes that the victory on the beaches is to Churchill’s credit and to America and to Russia. It warns of dangerous days ahead, against premature uprisings in the occupied lands, and of the need for prompt measures to feed the liberated. “Yet when all the thanks are made and all the contributions measured, here still remain the final artificers of victory, the men, who, in the King’s words, “man the ships, storm the beaches and fill the skies.” Although the first advances have been secured with surprisingly little loss of life, the hardest fighting lies ahead. In the weeks to come, thousands of men will lay down their lives or suffer disablement, will endure pain and hardship and strain, will throw everything they have into the balance of victory without particularly asking why or counting the cost. For them at the moment there is not very much that people who stay behind can do. They can keep vigil, as the King has asked. They can face anxiety steadfastly. The can accept the losses when they come; but the real effort of gratitude will only be needed later on, when the men come hone.They will not have been given victory, they will have toiled and sweated for it from Alameins to Bizerta, from Sicily to Rome, in the jungles of Burma, on the landing beaches of France. They have been active agents of every military success. It is to their courage and initiative and adaptibility and common sense that have completed the historical reversal of the last four years. It will not be enough for their elders to give them “food, work and homes” –for the essentials of a decent post-war society. They must be allowed their place in that society they must be given scope and opportunity and responsibility to run it for themselves.” I confess that I teared up when I read that, Reggie. It is all well and good for us to scheme and plot to get our share of the money that Washington and London and Ottawa (and Berlin!) are spending on this war on the authorisation of the great and good who say that we who have money must be allowed to earn more, lest we choose not to use it in the service of this great war. But when I look at my often self-satisfied gloating at the way that I scheme to make even more money from selling the returning veterans places in which to live, and refrigerators and radios and high-fidelity recordings to put into them, I am a little ashamed of myself after reading. We owe boys like Tommy Wong, Reggie. We really do. A “home fit for heroes.” And I know the irony of writing this to a man in the King’s uniform at your age, and that I am sounding uncharacteristically sentimental. I suppose that it is the emotion of the moment. Moving on, then… “Capital and Employment” Three pages that I can boil down to it all being in the details of execution. “Russia and the Balkans” A Russian summer campaign in the Balkans is expected. Bulgaria is expected to surrender more, which would seem to require Roumania surrendering more as well. This would seem more problematic, as surely Roumanian landlords and clergy will obdurately demand that the country hold onto its gains at the expense of Russia. Russia is the friend and elder brother of Balkan Slavs, and surely this will bear some fruit in the near future. “Electoral Reform” The Sixth Reform Bill, as put forward, will …the paper inserts a short piece that it did not run eighty years ago due to pressing news from Crimea. Notes of the Week I would look more than ordinarily self-indulgent and silly if I were to explain to you what the paper, or, indeed, any paper thinks is going on in Normandy right now, not when you are doing your part to make sense of it for the Supreme Command every day. Interestingly, the paper takes it as necessary to prepare us for “lulls” in the action. We all remember lulls that lasted the better part of four years the last time something like this enterprise was attempted. I hope not! “An Administration for France” We really should settle who the Provisional French Government is at some point soon. (Hint: it is de Gaulle.) “The Fall of Rome” managed to happen before the landings. What a remarkable coincidence! “Weatherwise” Perhaps weather reporting can cease to be banned, now? “Location of Industry” Should be planned, but not too planned. “Colonial Development” We should do that, and probably more than we already do. “Education in the Lords” The bill on education was heard on June 6th. Lord Woolton spoke for the Government whilst riding a unicycle in bright yellow Wellingtons with a toucan on his shoulder, all while juggling three kittens and a short-sighted, flatulent Pekinese. Something about the children being the future of the nation? The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester had a fine time directing discussion at what really mattered, an obligatory hour a week (or whatever) of CofE instruction on the Higher Things. Bulgaria is surrendering more. Jugoslavs, Tynesiders, Poles and Portuguese are excitable. Wolfram! “Prosperous Countryside” Pace some comments from a farming advocate, this highly desirable goal will be achieved by a prosperous agriculture with a small labour force, producing the cheapest possible food and industrial raw material. American Survey “The South and the Fourth Term” Our Correspondent in Virginia believes that if the President is nominated, he will carry the South. The notion that he would not, current a year ago, had much to do with overestimating the importance of the especially vehement Roosevelt-haters of the South, says OCV, who are “small coteries of manufacturers and business men” who loathe the President’s policies on labour and race. The Supreme Court’s recent decision that participation on state Democratic parties cannot be confined to Whites is deemed particularly offensive, yet the great masses of Southern Democrats appreciate what the President has done for them, such as high cotton and tobacco prices and high wages. It is suggested that anti-Roosevelt Southern Democrats will seek to have Senator Harry Byrd of West Virginia nominated instead. This will not happen, of course, but the notion gives OCV a chance to discuss Senator Byrd, who manages, by some miraculous alchemy, to be both a direct descendant of William Byrd and a self-made man. Only in America. American Notes Polish Americans are excitable. Texas is to have two Democratic conventions, due to a schism between those who accept the Court ruling requiring Coloured participation in the primaries, and those who do not. Secretary of State Hull and Senators LaFollette and Vandenburg have a bit of a tiff over how often it is necessary for Americans to assert that they love liberty and freedom. “Wolf, Wolf” The War Manpower Commission has been so optimistic for so long that the new controls to go into effect on July 1st are viewed with suspicion. The paper seems more enamored of schemes to use threat of conscription into the army to coerce essential labour. “Guaranteed Wage” Something about stabilising the market for steel? “Enfranchising the War Worker” Due to the aging population and decline in the birth rate, there has been a surprising gain in the proportion of voters in the population, hence the gain of 8 milllion voters since the last Presidential election. These then all moved from state to state seeking war work, and are now settled down, meaning that they can vote, meaning that the President’s party’s prospects next year are brighter than hitherto thought. The World Overseas There should be credits for Canadian industry; a federated university for west Africa, and something should be done to secure the prospects of the postwar Egyptian cotton industry. Germany at War “Fight to the End” The Germans continue to hope for a stalemate. The Business World “Liberated Currencies” The question of putting the currencies of the occupied countries back into good order is, of course, a very delicate one. Business Notes “Invasion Currency” Incredibly, American forces headed for France have gone into battle with “Invasion Francs” in their wallets printed by the United States Government and issued by it without regard for which government will redeem them. (British forces have been issued old Bank of France notes, but the supply will soon run short.) It seems that 80,000 million francs have been printed, compared with a Bank of France circulation of 500,000 million. A rate of exchange with regards to the metropolitan franc has been agreed at 50 to the dollar, 200 to the £, and this is the basis of payment in francs. It is likely that military notes will be redeemed in dollars and sterling, and credited to the French National Government. So we will have to have one, and it will have to be persuaded to do any such thing. “Second Front Markets” It is expected that gains in the market in recent months cannot be sustained unless victory is quick and sure. “Future of Engineering” Professor Postan, an economic historian, has given a paper to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on “the conditions that are likely to affect the future of the British engineering industry.” The professor deems the industry an important asset, and hopes to see wartime gains maintained. At the same time, he thinks this unlikely in shipbuilding, railways, textiles, likely in motors, aircraft, electrical engineering. But what of mechanical engineering? The Professor holds that it has been held back by the conservatism of British industry which has been slow to buy the most modern, American-style machine tools. We should do something about that. Although it is challenging, as the profit margins on machine tool exports are quite low. “Aircraft Industry” Sir Stafford Cripps says that Britain has built an enormous number of increasingly large aircraft. Mr. Cripps estimates that a tenth of the industry’s capacity will be required after the war, Postan one quarter. “Plaster Board Fusion” The paper disapproves of the merger of two producers of “Gyproc” gypsum plaster boards as undermining free competition. It deplores the way that monopoly is taking hold in an industry that has only existed since 1933! “Institutional Savings” The Treasury Secretary is quite pleased by the share taken by insurance companies and building societies in the “Salute the Soldier” bonds-sale drive. This is quite interesting. I know that I have discouraged the Earl from investing in housing in the postwar on account of population trends, but this raises the point that the number of small savers has risen from 7 to 17 ½ millions during the war, and the number of savings account holders from 14 to 21 ½ millions, with savings instruments purchases of £272 million under “Salute the Soldier.” The structure of British small savings being what it is, much of that money is nominally aimed at funding homebuilding. What is it going to do in the absence of a demand for houses? Build them anyway? (Presumably of modern, scientific materials?) Probably not, I suppose. I still think that farming is a better use of good farm land…. “Wool Textile Problems” No workers, no production, no exports. This is rather like that one about the tree falling in the forest, isn’t it? “The Syncrophone” “A combination of radiogram and pictorial charts, on which illustrations light up as the recorded talk proceeds.” The idea here is that the syncrophone has been used to train over a million RAF men, and is in wide use in industry now, and might serve to make up the gap in postwar training needs. Truly a revolution in training methods, etc, etc. “The Bombay Disaster” London insurers have given much attention to the matter of the exploding of Bombay. In the interest of preventing distress to Indian interests, the Indian Government has negotiated a summary settlement ahead of investigation. Flight, 15 June 1944 Leaders –Oh, the paper cannot be serious! “A Notable Anniversary” Why, it is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first air crossing of the Atlantic! It is surely no coincidence that it occurs “within ten days or so” of the “Anglo-American invasion of ‘Hitler’s Europe.’” The most important of these coincidences being, it appears, that the paper cannot reset the number that comes out the week after the invasion, which makes it into the press as the third leading article. The paper speculates that the Hamilcar glider was a surprise, which suggests a regrettable pessimism about the Germans’ willingness to read the paper! Also, the invasion is relevant to the Hawker Tempest, which the paper is now allowed to admit to not only exist, but be in production. This is illustrated with a picture of a Spitfire, one of a number of squadrons operating from airfields in Normandy “within four days of the invasion.” War in the Air The paper, perhaps wisely, does not go into many details of the invasion, probably covered better by the dailies. Various impressive numbers are repeated (more than a thousand transport planes and gliders; 20,000 tons of bombs dropped in preparation here and there in northern France, etc.) The American bombing offensive from Russian bases is stepping up, and neither the German nor Japanese air forces are inclined to come up to the Allied challenge. The monsoon will make transport flying in the China-Burma-India theatre dangerous, the implication being that the monsoon will not stop it –progress, indeed! Here and There Ellison Insulations is changing its name to Tufnol, Ltd.! Mr. Handley-Page’s remarks are more fully reported, to the effect that instead of “super-gigantic”airliners, we should aim for 50 seaters. If that is the level of business thought at Handley-Page, this is one aviation stock I am not investing in. Lord Brabazon is concerned with the PM’s disturbing statement suggesting that America might supply Britain with airliners after the war. Various persons are promoted at Westlands as a Petter is on the outs. No doubt a story there. Trans-Canada is to buy the latest version of DC-4. “Invasion Close-Up” the paper’s correspondent with the invasion reports. Now here the paper can acquit itself well. Having been summoned from their beds urgently in the morning hours, the correspondent pool was held in a special room at headquarters by white-gloved US military police. Then came the electrifying news. “In exactly five seconds, the firs invasion communique will be released to the world. Gentlemen, you may leave.” The paper not requiring urgent filing, its correspondent made his way to a friendly Spitfire IX squadron, which served as his home on the day. Two hundred fighters were over the invasion at any one time, and virtually no German activity was seen. Our correspondent notes how quickly the invasion stripes begin to wear. The moral is that they were applied in haste and with regular paint, and comparing wear to them with wear to the regular paint job reveals just how far “aircraft dope” has advanced in the last few years. We are told that Typhoon pilots can put 70% of their rockets in a nine foot square, which sounds quite impressive to me, although this is, obviously, not under combat conditions. The Typhoons were apparently hunting German armour far afield of the invasion day action, and struck tanks of the 21st Panzer Division, of North African fame. Rather lamely, the correspondent closes with word pictures of the photographs that he should have taken while overflying the glider landings in the evening, and at the airfield a little later. As a consolation, the article is illustrated with some Ministry photographs and the papers’ exclusives of Spitfire pilots sitting around listening to briefings. “The First Direct Trans-Atlantic Flight” reprints Lieutenant-Colonel Brown's account of the famed flight. As the navigator, he has some eye-opening insights on the extent of progress in flight instruments and radio navigation from 1919 to today. There is no direct insight into the decision to let down in the first Irish bog to come into sight through the ground fog as they homed in on the Marconi station, but any veteran flyer can intuit Alcock and Brown’s condition after more than 20 hours in the air! Studies in Aircraft Recognition Armstrong-Whitworth Ensign, Douglas B-19 heavy bomber, De Havilland Albatross, Douglas Dakota. I can only conclude that the paper is doing it deliberately at this point. Behind the Lines The Germans are recruiting Russian minorities such as “Tartars” for police and AA units with the promise of farms, jobs, or, for exceptional cases, free education after the war. German youth are targeted for the Luftwaffe, while the Japanese are to make aircraft production their number one economic priority. The master races to the air, the subject races to the farms, with the technical high schools the racial bridge. (Calculus changes your bloodlines, unless they are African.) Commenting on the invasion, the occupied press suggests at some times that the opposing air efforts were about equal, that weather interfered with German air operations, that the Allied air effort was not as a great as it seemed; or that since Britain is one great “aircraft carrier,” there is little to be done. TheFokker G.1 is said by “a neutral source” to be in German service. Edward C. Bowyer, “Britain’s Overseas Air Services” Mr. Bowyer deems maintenance and good flight stewards to be important, long runways less so. The paper notices that the rate of US Army student pilots being killed in training has risen from 1.3% before the war to 2% since, mainly in the operational training phase. Correspondence C. Rupert Moore would like to know how he is to paint his models of the three famous Gladiators of Hal Far. Mr. R. Fulljames has useful suggestions about how the staff of an envisioned supra-national air force should be organised. One L. Shelford Bidwellcomments on how jets work, and one R. Hudson is upset that we are blowing up rail bridges in France, Belgium and Holland which our advancing forces will need later. He supposes that the rapid advance of the Germans in 1940 is accounted for by the fact that the Germans did not blow up bridges from the air. He suggests that the Germans will not blow up the bridges in their retreat, as they will be disorganised, in much the same way that French did not, as they were disorganised. This would be a fair point, were it not completelywrong! “Indicator” continues his letter column war with Mr. Blackburn on the subject of whether indicators have made test pilots as unnecessary luxury. Mr. Izard thinks we need to use our night bombers for day tactical bombing, and someone has strong opinions about the NASC. I turn to the monthlies. Fortune, June 1944 Letters to the Editor “Imports or Else” Anthony Vickers, of Hydraulic Couplings, Ltd., points out to the paper that if America wants big exports, it must accept big imports. Lieutenant Name Withheld writes to say that “You’ll Never Get Rich” He is disgusted and appalled by this talk of a war bonus. After all, in peacetime, soldiers would never save a penny, whereas when they’re out on the frontlines, they save lots of money, and will end the war practically rich, so why should they get a bonus at all? Good point, Lieutenant Scrooge! The Fortune Survey The Republicans may well win the Presidency and achieve a majority in one or both houses of Congress. It is complicated, because the majority of voters describe themselves as “mugwumps,” that is, as being independent of either of the two major parties. So the question is who the “mugwumps” will vote for. The electorate is also cynical about its actual influence on party regulars, believing that the pressuring voices of labour unions and corporations are more significant, as they donate money. Or, rather, more money, or more effective money, than regular people. I note, in way of nothing at all, an ad by a tyre rubber company proclaiming that “pent up consumer demand” will produce “capacity business all ‘round. That means employment for all who wish to work, wage money aplenty for all who wish to buy, more sales, more manufacturing, more employment.” It does seem to me like the old fallacy of lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps, Reggie, but certainly tyre makers are going to feel that way! I include it, however, because I have just perused another ad, by an earthmover maker, which claims to be getting ready for an inevitable building boom. It is really getting hard to sort out whether we shall have a business boom or a business depression after the war. If the former, I almost think that I should rethink my opposition to the Fontana investment. The earthmover’s ad sees the “boom” in terms of viaducts and other grand reinforced concrete structures, and I must say that Los Angeles good use a few road viaducts, “cloverleafs” and suchlike. That would absorb quite a few girders! On the other hand, my portfolio of Fortune ads also calls for an “automatic world” tomorrow, a television in every home, and an RCA electron tube-in-an-IBM-card-sorting-machine in every factory. I begin to recover my nerve. I have not, in the past, given much consideration of IBM shares, and those of its rivals. (I have bought Honeywell, however.) For all of its recent growth, it seems like another war baby. These gigantic card-sorting machines clearly have their place, but the use seems so limited that it is hard to see why anyone would buy a new one; and, one imagines, old ones will be on the market after demobilisation. The company can eke out sales from cards, of course, but new machines is another matter. Everything changes the moment that a significant new market for the machines opens up, however. And then there is Monsanto Chemicals, proposing a future eight-place dinner party served up with vacuum-dried beef, potatoes , fruit and tomato soup. That seems a little unrealistic, if I am to draw from experience with powdered milk and eggs. “Mr. Ickes’ Arabian Nights,” Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes’ elaborate plan for giving three big American oil companies access to Saudi Arabian oil seems to becoming unstuck. Eliot Janeway, “The Republican Race” Last month, the revelation that Dewey would face off against Roosevelt justified printing a month old Janeway column speculating about –I forget what was he speculating about? Something about California going Democratic, unless Connecticut went Republican? In any event, this number requires an entire article, illustrated with political cartoons from the 1840s. Allow me to sum up this and the pre-Convention article in The Economist. Unnamed senior party officials do not like Dewey, and hope that Calvin Coolidge will return from the dead to run. Failing that, they like Willkie, who would also have to return from the dead. Failing that, they hope that someone else will turn up to stop Mr. Dewey, the “Boy Wonder.” Even though “[f]or the class of people who live midway between the station-wagon set and the slums, he is everything he ought to be. Dewey is the favorite son of the suburbs.” So everyone likes Dewey, he is the strongest candidate and has the most delegates, and therefore Stassen MacArthur Bricker Taft Harold Burton Eric Johnston Earl Warren. “France: The American Stake.” So, apparently, we can’t have France as a colony after the war. They should be completely independent, and completely subordinate to American interests, part of a “united states of Europe,” and of an Atlantic Community. “The Ford Heritage” Henry Ford is 82, and the paper went to interview him. He is still healthy, and quite certain that control of the company will pass down through the family, in the immediate future to his grandsons. He has evidently heard rumours about turmoil in the upper ranks of the company, and may relish it for publicity reasons. He is, after all, a publicist, and the paper takes his more controversial public stances as evidence as his taste for publicitiy. This being so, it is noteworthy that he has a poster on his wall with pictures of General Short and Admiral Kimmell, captioned, THE MYSTERY OF PEARL HARBOR. The alleged mystery of Pearl Harbor is, of course, how the President managed to get the Japanese to bomb it, so as to force war on Germany and Japan. The paper supposes that Harry Bennett may be the next business manager at Ford, since his grandsons are young and feckless, and diplomatically notes his alleged underworld ties. At least until Henry Ford II is ready to take the helm. “Henry Ford II believes that the second car in the American garage is not an impossible hope.” It might have to be a small car, in which case the company will have to overcome America’s aversion to the small car, but it is not an impossible hope. Of course, he also believes that his new V-8 will sell like the Model T. I suppose that is why the second car will be small. And since Ford is family held, however old Henry mismanages the company, the family won’t be hurt. Though, frankly, the plan to flog off so much of the Rouge to “Cousin H.C.” shows at least more acumen than the same! Ah, well, I have tried to convince our cousin-in-law to get out of aircraft, as I have tried to convince him to get out of steel, but he will have none of this idea of retreating back to his comfort zone of construction, nor of my notion of investing in electrical engineering –there is nothing on the horizon that seems as grand and dramatic as transport planes in matters electrical. Though you would think that television. . . . “Air Passage to England” The paper’s reporter flew to England and back. The way there was quite nice, a summer flight in still air. The flight back, in February, was a hardship run. The 1942—3 winter was so foul that they almost couldn’t keep the route open. There were only 176 crossings. Remember the submarine war crisis at the same time? Putting this in perspective, the three year total is 800, with only two planes lost. I should go through my papers to see how many of those had our gold on board. Quite a few, I should think. I hope that the effort will finally buy some forgiveness in certain quarters over guiding money into the Southern Pacific. . . Westbound Liberators take off with 3100 gallons of gas, enough for 17 hours of still-air flying. As Mr. Bowyer points out elsewhere, taking off with that much gas itself implies a very long flight, or very long runways to divert to if something goes wrong. If Goose Bay orGander is open, pilots do not mind taking off into a 48 knot headwind. If they are shut down, a thirty knot headwind means a difficult calculation, since if the flight plan is over 15 hours, the pilots will not take off. The only escape then is to take a detour via Iceland, which puts the plane at full tanks another 738 miles closer to the American coast. However, the mere mention of Iceland puts shivers into experienced passengers, since a shift of the winds may strand them there for weeks at a time. Planes have to fly above icing altitude –20,000ft or more, under oxygen. Differences in pressure make it hard to pass water, and the cabins, although heated, fall to 21 below. “The Farm Bureau” is a highly effective Washington lobby group. It is very concerned with soil conditions. America and the Future has articles about William Penn, who was a hero and a man of conscience, the new British relationship with Russia (baffled but hopeful), and the Gas Turbine, about which I would know more were I not transfixed by the Apollonian beauty of Mr. Geoffrey Smith. Oh, and some airy-fairy bit of German philosophy by another of the academic emigres, Ernst Cassirer on “The Myth of the State.” Dr. Cassirer is apparently uniquely qualified by vast education to explicate the notion that the state is a myth. I do not know. A cruise or two as a pirate is, in my experience, also a good qualification, but I suppose that that is why the word “unique” is in there. Certainly most pirates do not have Ph.Ds. Though that might change if there were ever a surplus of unemployed young PhDs, one imagines. Business at War “The railroads of the country are headed for a manpower crisis,” warned the late Joseph Eastman last September. It hasn’t gotten any better. High seniority men, and low-paid maintenance workers with homes along the tracks have stayed on the job, but more junior people have jumped into war work. There is a 100,000 man shortage on the rails. It has been suggested that the railroads could do more. Some junior employees do not even get overtime, housing and lunchrooms have been neglected, training programmes are weak, and race and sex prejudice have dictated hiring. While Coloureds are only hired for certain jobs, the railroads are in the process of hiring 40,000 Mexicans. And labour, especially senior labour, is not employed enough due to featherbedding. So, essentially, the industry’s problems are not as bad as they say, because the paper thinks that it can work the men who have stayed with the industry harder. Although at least the paper has the sense to see that they must be paid more if asked to do more, which puts it over The Economist! A domestic American essential oils and aromatic chemicals industry, weak before the war, has flourished during it. A continuing demand for scents and flavours across many industries may make it a good investment, because even men will prefer perfume in their soap if they are not asked. Beatrice Tank Company, a firm which makes sheet metal tanks and bins, has done quite well from the war, and hopes to continue to do quite well. It was unionised by the AFL, and the sky did not fall. Heres hoping that it continues in peace time, in which case this was the kind of company you should have been investing in. Whereas if it fails, it will have been the kind you oughtn’t. Aviation, June 1944 Down the Years in AVIATION’s Log Twenty-five years ago, navy airship C-5 cruised 1100 miles nonstop under adverse air conditions …and then was wrecked by high winds in its moorings. So, not much has changed there. Fifteen years ago, Robbins and Kelly set a refuelling endurance record of 172 hours, flying circles around Wright Field, if I recall correctly, and actually flying alongside a racing auto to pick up fuel cans. The Curtiss Marine Trophy is won by Lt. W. C. Tomlinson at a speed of 173mph. Pitcairn-Cierva builds a $100,000 autogiro factory. (In honour of the anniversary, remind me to taunt the investors they fleeced, Reggie.) Goodyear-Zeppelin announces a training course for prospective trans-Pacific pilots. Night airmail starts between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Ten years ago, the Chinese built “the first floating hangar,” and the Air Corps announced that the turbosupercharged Curtiss P-30 was….coming soon. AVIATION Editorial (Note that for some reason there is no line editorial this month) Leslie Neville is impressed by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce’s blueprint for America’s future of the air. (A big air force, large civil aviation, much money, lots of advertising, lots of research and development, free enterprise.) Rear-Admiral Dewitt C. Ramsay, “America’s Prime Weapon: Carrier-Based Aviation” America has many aircraft carriers. Their planes shoot down six Japanese for every American lost. They blew up Truk. Soon, they will blow up other places. Flying planes from aircraft carriers is harder than it looks, but moving air fields have their advantages, such as there always being wind over the decks. Which, first, seems like cheating when comparing land planes to sea planes, and, second, is fairly obviously not an advantage you can count upon in a sea fight! “An American Air Power Policy” By a remarkable bit of prescience, I was able to summarise this article without even reading it! (Above.) (My housing policy, Reggie: All Americans should live in large houses on large, suburban lots in Pacific Slope states. It’s for the good of the country!) Johnn Foster, Junior, “Here are Your Markets,, Part II --East and West North Central, East and West South Central Regions” In the postwar era, states with large populations of wealthy individuals will buy more aeroplanes than small, lightly populated ones. Therefore, Ohio will be a more important market for you than North Dakota. Also, statistics, which might actually make this article useful. For example, did you know that Louisiana has 1.7% of the nation’s buying power, but only 1.2% of its registered private aeroplanes? Perhaps it will be a worse market than Oklahoma, with 1.8 and 2.0, respectively! Unless there is a reason for this apparent discrepancy. Upon which matter Mr. Foster is silent. To think that someone paid for this "research." Frederic Flader, “The Economic Future of Aviation Technology,” In the future, there will be money in flying mail, passengers and expensive goods. How expensive? Less and less expensive as ton-mile costs fall! For example, a decline from 51 cents per ton mile to 15 will increase traffic (Mr. Flader lays a ruler on a chart and measures off a set distance into dreamland) 300 times! Chester S. Ricker, “Design Analysis No. 6: DeHavilland Mosquito” Here is part two of the very long design analysis promised. “Construction of these stabilizer brackets is very interesting….” Never a truer word spoken, Mr. Ricker! This number is devoted to control mechanisms and control surfaces (this is the right jargon for ailerons and rudders, is it not?). Ricker successfully establishes that these are very complex in order to do their job well, and reinforces the point made earlier, that the plywood used is carefully chosen and of high quality. Jean H. Hamelet, “Let’s Make Instrument Flying Easier” I have seen a great many articles like these, but I am sure that Mr. Hamelet’s views are useful and can make a contribution. Stephen J. Zand, “Automatic Flight and Airplane Stability” The drawback to leaving my papers around is that when your eldest gets hold of one that interests him, it develops annotations in a spidery pencil script. I see that he was very interested in this one. Or someone was, as the hand seems a little different. Perhaps your youngest? Or perhaps your son had a cramp, as it his favourite word --“stability” --which is heavily underlined. Since Mr. Zand is the director of the Vose Memorial Laboratory at Sperry Gyroscope Company, the very bastion of evil to your son’s mind, I suppose that the article is either an example of bad practice, or an extended guilty plea, and the check marks and a curt “It’s about time!” suggest the latter. Sperry has come to accept the need for the careful mathematical analysis of autopilots, and their individual design for specific aircraft. Or, at least, Mr. Zand has. “Forged Cylinder Heads Require New Technique." Wright wants you to know that the reason that the Cyclone, announced 18 months ago, is not yet in trouble-free service is not because the announcement was hopelessly ambitious, but because of the New Techniques. Which had to be implemented. And which were hopelessly optimistically predicted. Many machine tools are used, and an outrageous amount of scrap metal is generated. Fortunately, the new techniques will have many applications in the fut—is that a jet engine I see? William N. Findley, “Load Characteristics of Cellulose Acetate Plastic,” Given that it is so widely used, perhaps we should measure its load bearing characteristics? And publish a paper? H. S. Golden, Assistant Chief Engineer, Buick Motors, General Motors, “Design Craftsmanship Cuts Engine Production Costs,” Originally, Buick was instructed to make new Pratt & Whitney engines with no design changes. But, later, they made design changes that reduced engine production costs! From the sounds of things, this is the kind of article that every chief engineer of a contracting firm in America could write, Reggie. As production went on, the organisation learned to do it better. The products came out better, and not just because of the redesign of fine details such as the radius of the chamfer of the oil control rings, either. “Convair Machine Sorts 50,000 Rivets Hourly,” Saving significant labour hours, Convair designed and built this automatic sorting machine, which it now markets to other interested manufacturers, with the assurance that, yes, it really does work.. The inventor, Mr. H. O. "Bud" Mills, might want to rethink having his photograph shot in profile, however. Or at least get new haircut and a shave. Though, to be fair, Mr. Mills is making me rethink my IBM embargo, noted above. Rivets are, obviously, not punch cards, but the news that even some middle-aged Walter Mitty-type can design and build a new (rivet) sorter for his business's needs makes me think that while the company's machine business is surely saturated, there is probably a future in its punch-card trade. “Methods for Forming Sheet Aluminum, Part II: Spinning of Aluminum” I think that one might guess from seeing complicated, radially-symmetric aluminum pieces that this is being done somewhere. And it is! T. J. Kearney, Dexter Corporation, “New System Simplifies Engine Cleaning” I was all set to mock this until I noticed that your daughter-out-of-law has been at the number, writing, “I want one of these –G.,” underneath –in ink, yet! I am not sure why she would want a device for spray-cleaning small engine parts,however. “Operation of Zero-Lash Valve Lifter” I have no idea what this means, but Franklin Engines thinks it worth advertising. “Steps in Servicing Champion Sparkplugs” And now your youngest is clipping photos. I swear that I am going to get a second subscription at this rate. “Progressive Line Methods Expedite Engine Overhaul” My comments on the Buick article above will hold here. The next article has been clipped entirely. I shall be having a talk with your youngest, although I assume that it is another routine maintenance article, and so of little interest to me. Two finance articles, on “Fly-Yourself Businesses,” and whether airline stocks are over-valued. (Probably.) The paper has an article about the Budd steel cargo aircraft. Aviation News The lead article is on the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce plan. Etc, etc. Two P-51s set a new trans-continental record (6 hours, 31 ½ minutes.) The April aircraft production total is below obituaries, although at the head of the “Aircraft Manufacturing” section. 8,343 a/c, if you were wondering. Old news, of course, so the only interest lies in wondering whether it is pushed so low out of embarrassment. It is surely not as surprise, after all. Washington Windsock Blaine Stubblefield notices that jet aircraft will last longer than prop, and present challenges to aircraft manufacturers. Also, the bombing of Germany has been less effective because while he bombs did “all of the expected damage,” they have a lower velocity of contact, and so penetrate less! I do not see what difference that would make, if the bombs are doing all the “expected damage,” but I am not a Washington insider! America at War As the paper falls ever further behind events, so this feature becomes ever less interesting. In the news: we are bombing Gemany! Aviation Manufacturing As already noted, aircraft production hit a new low not seen since October, although structure weight, although also falling, is off the record weight set in March. Boeing, the P&W plant in Kansas City, and the Packard Merlin production line are all worthy of notice. Convair’s projected six-engine mid-wing monoplane, the “mammoth Model 37 transport” might carry 400 passengers on two decks, and feature various new features, of which the only one that sounds as though it would support these ambitions, as opposed to being perennial good ideas never yet quite achieved, such as reversible propellers, is a mention that it will be fabricated of a new alloy. Perhaps his classified new alloy is why we no longer hear that the future belongs to magnesium or stainless steel? “Transport Aviation” is mostly concerned with the air law battle and prospects of traffic gains, although at least one messianic vision is touted, an airfield for “private flyers only” for St. Louis that, as far as I can tell is expected to form a modern Forbidden City of the aeronautical in the midst of the downtown. Aviation Abroad On the one hand, talks about talking about civil aviation continue. On the other, talk of a KLM buy of Avro Tudors has the American industry in a tizzy. It’s poaching, because KLM belongs to us. Well, the Dutch, technically. Aviation Finance Ray Hoadley notes that stocks have been on a declining trend since 1940, and price in more”postwar prosperity” than wartime boom. This is true of aviation stocks as well. I think the point here, combined with his earlier, longer piece, is that there is a safe “bottom” on aviation stocks. He notes a Harvard Business School study which uses the Lockheed case to show that high corporate income taxes would be bad for small business, that the Canadian excess profits tax is bad for business, and that Congress’s refusal to pass a bill allowing termination loans before adjourning until after the election could have disastrous consequences if the Germans fold before November. Which you have to wonder why they would conceivably do, given that a sharp victory followed by a GOP election on a “rethinking this whole war thing” platform is about their only hope. Surrender the day after the election, if the harvest looks that bad.

What I've got so far. -Queen's Hill: The "Hey, Look, it's Sherlock Holmes"neighbourhood. The butler's contract says that he has to arrange two locked-room murder mysteries before breakfast. Which is devilled kidney, if you were wondering. -Rivertown: It's grey, it's seedy, and it's always rainy. Long, open street vistas let you see the checkpoints along the Wall. -The Understate: A system of underground divided-lane expressways. (You've seen them in Lego Racers.) Just don't take one of the service exits. There's migdalor down there. -The Library Cafeteria: high school students from across the multiverse. Every fashion you've ever imagined, and some you wish you hadn't. -Food trucks. Better believe there are food trucks. -The 'Burbs. Because Norma Jean has to be from somewhere.

LL's Valley of Night was awesome. And it focussed on a part of the world that he was particularly interested in. That's how you do it when you have a whole world to work with. Personally, I would really like to see Babylon developed. More problematically, I'd like to see it developed as a Cynosure-style city of adventure, something that doesn' t always come through in other peoples' vision of it, where it seems more like a dreamscape. Also, out here on the Pacific Rim, or eyes are drawn west across the Pacific towards Tiger Squad and the Indian Super Division. What's up with them? I would say more about the space setting, except that I haven't been able to convince people that the things I want to see there --West World, a cosmopolitan port city-- should be in the setting at all. We've had a decent start at the Solar System, though, with a criminally underused Ancient Mars (in my fanfic, I've got Mandaarian archaeologists there, because I think that just makes sense) and a blown-up asteroid planet, so there's that.

That's one small step for an organisation, one giant leap for an... Hold on. I'll come in again.

So it's still only illegal in Massachusetts, right? Asking for a friend.

Someone accidentally put this link to a post from the most evil, soul-crushing, dream-destroying company on Earth up in the wrong thread. So, fixed.

...For reasons which will become apparent in an olfactory context.

I don't think that this is precisely the issue. Just to be helpful, let me frame it with medicalising. Nothing helps a conversation like tellingn participants that they're crazy and need professional help! The issue, as I see it, is that attention-seeking is free-standing behaviour, a common aspect of the well-recognised etiology of bipolar disorder, specifically bipolar mania. Since it co-occurs with paranoia, in its correctly used sense of an elevated sense of salience, this attention-seeking is associated with outrage and a perception of being oppressed and held back in life by others. All of this we should understand to be free of ideological content. A paranoid will interpret other's actions as hostile, see conspiracies everywhere, and develop a morbid fear of, for example, additives in their food even while happily abusing drugs and alcohol. Take this particular fear a step further. Does it sound like the actions of a "hippy?" Of course it does. Not because the victim is ideologically committed to a comprehensive programme of counter-cultural leftism, but rather because the hippy lifestyle is the easiest way of enacting their paranoia. In the example, I am just picking on the counter-culture, It should be apparent that there are multiple agendas that will support paranoia. Feminism, which starts from the obvious fact that our society has many patriarchal elements that hold women back, is an obvious one. (But so is Dominionism! And old-line, patriarchal Marxism! And many other social commitments.) The problem, when you get right down to it, is excruciatingly simple. There are people out there who are what the old, judgmental language would have called "raving maniacs." They are ill, and because they lack insight into their condition, are unaware of it. Instead, in a desperate search for peace and acceptance, they thrust their paranoia into the public sphere by attention-seeking behaviour. You can either avoid this kind of behaviour, retreating from the public sphere to "cultivate your own garden," or accept it as part of the human condition and approach it therapeutically. The latter approach might seem a great deal more humane, but it will lead to unpleasant conversations and many accusations of being patronising, Professional therapists have a hard enough time being therapists! Amateurs like you or me will put our foot in it one foot at a time, step by step. The former approach sounds cruel, but every time you see a homeless person, you see a person from whom life has gently withdrawn in hapless resignation. There are a lot of them, and many, many stories of gradual social isolation hiding behind them. In general, people ask for help, in their misguided way, and we offer them alcohol and tobacco, because that's all we can get them to take; and if they're falling down drunk all the time, they won't be much trouble for the rest of us. Mostly. (They won't ask for amphetamines, because that urge comes with paranoia.)

A Foundation For Any Possible Metaphysics Basic Introduction to Ontological Translations in a Four Element Manifold Elementary Pneumatological Induction Vector Magic An Introduction to the Use of Tensors and Quaternions in Necromantics Some Partial Differential Hexes

I wish more kids would do that. If only they would apply so that we can hire them and then ignore them, and not give them any shifts for a month and then call them in for four hours on a Saturday night on an hour's notice. I think the problem is that the younger generation lacks the work ethic.

Absolutely magic-users shouldn't be able to wear armour. Stands to reason. Also, thieves should be limited to something called "banded leather armour," clerics should only be able to use blunt-force weapons; druids should have to master swords with sickle-shaped blades; barbarians shouldn't wear armour, but should get cheap Combat Luck levels; Dark Elves should be able to wield scimitars in both hands simultaneously; assassins should have the unique ability to kill people with a single dice roll; two percent of very smart people should have extra, balance-destroying magic-like powers; experience points earned by monk-class characters should be useless; cavaliers must take a Total Commitment-level "Berserk versus All Evil characters;" bard-class characters should be able to take more physical damage than huge, ancient dragons... Look, we have to be logical here, and extrapolate our premises to the obvious and reasonable conclusions.

I'd throw in an AK: [some place] to account for the students who are cyborgs from the year 3000, air pirates from an alternate dimension, martial artists from celestial cities, gorilla princes of lost underground realms, magic girls from the other side of time and space... You know, superhero everyman knowledge skills.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014 Postblogging Technology, May, II: Overdue Dear Mother and Father: Please forgive this poor letter. I know how hard it must be for Sister to read, but we are confined to our camps and all outgoing mail is being impounded. So I write it on this stuff and out it goes in the laundry, just like a Republic serial! Mother's aunt's grand-daughter is going to take it up to the Wing Commander, and, from him, America. Queenie is one swell girl! She and her mother even took me around the town last week to see the sights! Keyham is a very small place, all English and sad. Not at all what I pictured. If Sister has to give up on this, I hope it sets your heart at ease that since it was made from a ditto, there is a fair copy in the Wing Commander's papers. If anything happens, you will have it after the war. Since my letter before this was all about my afternoon out with the Chungs, I shan't repeat myself, as the English say, although you may not have received that letter yet, so I am not really repeating myself! Instead, Father will surely want to know that I shall have my own ship for the Invasion! Well, not really a ship, an LCT, and it will not carry my name on D-Day, though, I hope, soon after. It happened this way. Commander Stump of the 510th Port Battalion, who I mentioned, has been staffing his unit by the old-fashioned method. White officers are no good for Coloured troops, but the Navy gets upset about commissioned Coloureds, so the Commander arranges Mess Chiefs to be transferred to the Battalion, then has a friend in Washington lose their jackets. No fuss, no muss, another "White" Officer who is good with Coloureds --at least until he gets it in his head that he can be promoted. Well, now that we're shut down, it is hard to play this game, so he has been looking further afield, since Admiral Hall is desperate to get some decent management on the ground. I mentioned Harry Sullivan, the Ojibway highliner from Grand Island? I set up an LCI whose ramp won't drop with some radios and one of the new LORAN sets, and he'll be a breach guide, talking boats through the obstacles and mines and marshalling the rear echelon landings. I'll take over his LCT. From the look the flag gave me in the minute he spent approving it, I have a feeling that Hall's minded to wink at something a little irregular. (I knew I would make it into a frat some day, Sis!) The scuttlebut around the fleet is that the swimming tanks are useless. The Admiralty Instructions say that there's a cross-current off the beach, and the tank drivers have no idea how to keep from being swamped by it, but the Army major who is in charge won't hear of any changes. Well, Dad, I hope that the next you hear of me won't be court-martial charges! Mom, once again, I can't thank you enough for introducing me to Gracie. She just knocks my socks off. Can't wait to see you guys again, even you Sis, and you see I didn't mention Douggie? Hah! Did you read that aloud? With All My Love, Tommy My Dearest Reggie: Not much of a note for you this time around. I should love to fill you in on the hijinks of the young and careless ("Miss V.C." has now conceived the idea that the university archives will reveal the secret of her "McKees." I cannot help but think that someone is pulling her leg. It is close enough to the story of Judith's people that I have actually mentioned it to her, but she denies it.) Well, that is already more than I intended to write. I really need to be going, and I think I linger at home because of the unpleasantness of my task, which is to somehow chivvy our mutual friend's young associate out of hospital, where he has booked in on pretext of tonsilitis in an attempt to escape a European tour. If I can. I fear that I have no leverage on him at all! In all likelihood, any chivvying to be done will be of our mutual friend, who is spooked of talk about "Section 60" in his contract, with much ominous shading to suggest that it will be the death of him if he breaks his contract. I hope that I am not flying between equally awful outposts on the continental lines when the invasion is announced. Time, 15 May 1944 International The Marquess of Hartington marries an American heiress. The paper reports breathlessly. After what was reported as a six year courtship, I should hope so. Your youngest has known “Miss V.C.” for less than a year, and the sighs and distracted looks and moody poetry. A least he can bestir himself to tinker with his car and the dispatch motorcycle, so there is hope. The paper also informs us that the controversy between Poland and Russia is nearing its end. As with the Cavendish romance, it took long enough, but all’s well that ends well. The omens are good in Naples, and Gandhi has malaria. Icelanders are excitable. I infer from the paper’s tone that it is appalled by the US Embassy’s behaviour in the recent attempted coup in El Salvador. Latin Americans are excitable, as the 6’7” Mistress of School Lunches in Guatemala, who stalks the street with a “ready pistol,” lest any dare to laugh at her mannish jackets and flowing skirts. If the paper applies the same vivid imagination to the Presidential race over the summer, I might even read it! I gather that MacArthur likes flowing skirts… “Where?” The paper reviews possible invasion sites. St. Nazaire has a good port and beaches on either side. Lorient, also. Brest is a major port, but heavily fortified on a rocky coastline. Nevertheless, there are ports across the bay, although an attack from Lorient would be more feasible. Cherbourg is a major port on a minor peninsula, but it is guarded by the Channel Islands, while the beaches are limited by cliffs. Le Havre has a great port and excellent beaches. Dieppe has good beaches, blocked by a formidable cliff, but we tried that. Boulogne is a small port with many beaches studded with dunes, and with cliffs. Calais, the port nearest England, has many fine beaches. Dunkirk is a fine port, but canals are hazards, defensive flooding possible. The ports of Belgium and the Netherlands have special flood defences, and reports from Belgium say that the Germans have already inundated defensive zones, but “low moats are not impassable to modern armies.” The Germans have been building fortifications, which the paper chooses to describe as “kolossal,” but, like the inundations, they can be overcome. A “comforting thing to remember.” Let me know if you ever need a copy of the letter you sent me after Dieppe, Reggie, or the enclosures. I will never forget your anger. In my mind, I saw again the boy volunteer, the day we steamed back into Lu-shun. Anyway, enough of painful memories; the article is promoting Le Havre so hard that I come around to Calais as the invasion destination. The paper adds new adjectives to the Bevin-Bevan fight. And implies that Bevin is a drunken brawler. Occupied Germany is to be divided into three parts, once we win the war. Bad news for Mars-Men, as it sets a precedent for Helium to come under Cossack rule once we conquer it. Anthony Eden finally spelled out in the Commons that the French Committee of National Liberation will administer liberated France, which presumably commits Washington, which has declined to be committed, and puts de Gaulle’s wooing of Russia on the back burner, perhaps. (The idea is that Roosevelt is so conservative that he will make an accommodation with Vichy as readily as he will with some Latin American strong man. I shall have to remember this line the next time business takes me to the club. “Roosevelt is a conservative” is always good for a laugh.) “The Long Wait” The invasion. What’s keeping it? “The Wehrmacht” The invasion. What’s keeping it? Forty divisions in France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark, five to seven armoured divisions, Rommel, and “frosty, amoral beau ideal of Prussian militarism Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt” want to know in France, a Falkenhausen in Belgium, and a Falkenhorst in Norway. (Biographies so short that they have no adjectives). The assumption is that Allies are landing at Calais, which is not that close to Belgium, and quite far from Norway.) “Paper is Very Flammable: The paper is reminded of last month’s low-level attack on the Gestapo headquarters in the Hague by six Mosquitoes by the award of a DSO. Secretary Stettinus has returned to Washingto from London. He held a news conference. Various newsmen amused themselves by trying to get him to say something controversial. He didn’t. It is confidently reported that “in England, he outtweeded the tweediest Britons.” “Better Farther South” The paper tells an amusing anecdote about that idiot A.B.C. looking up a WREN’’s skirts. (Or perhaps some other “crusty sea lord,” but I prefer to imagine Randy Andy in the role. “Again: Twin Aces” Bong, Foss and now Captain Robert S. Johnston, flying a P-47, are tied at 27 kills. The paper needs to look up “twin” in the dictionary. “Koga’s End” The paper reports on Admiral Koga’s state funeral, and speculates on the cause of death. It also notes the appointment of a new CinC, of the Fleet, Soemu Toyoda, a “bitter-end jingo” who had hitherto succeeded in sitting the war out. “Some Give Up” The paper finds it remarkable that Japanese troops will surrender if given a chance. It notices that these were rear-echelon troops, but not, explicitly that they gave up to US Army Services of Supply troops near Hollandia, and not to Marines. “Design for Defence” The paper notices the Japanese offensive in Honan Province, directed against the Peking (the paper uses the current “Peiping”)-Hankow railway, inferring a Japanese intent to capture the full line of internal communications down to Kuan-tung Province, presumably to shift troops against an American landing on the coast. The paper also notes that the Eastern Capital is aflame. For the good of my stomach, I am going to pretend that that is hyperbole. “Delivered for D-Day” “Lank, dandified General Somervell” reports that 79 of 100 stores to be stockpiled for the invasion are now in their required quantity, and that “the mad supply rush was easing up.” 21,000 boxcars, 91,000 bazookas, 1,270,000 microphones, 9,000,000 gas masks, 17,000,000 neckties, 21,000,000 rifle grenades, 36,000,000 pairs of goggles, 52,000,000lbs soap, 98,000,000 chemical warfare defensive agents, 13,500,000,000 rounds rifle and .50 cal ammunition, 109,200,000 rolls of gause bandages, 617,000,000 sufadiziane tablets, 20,000 75mm tank guns. The general notes recent rushes, for example a hurry-up order for 7000 big truck tractor and semitrailer vehicles, which required taking 800 from army units in the States, rounding up 200 from “here and there,” and cutting back production of six other kinds of motor vehicles to give them priority so that they could be built and sent off. The army also required 30,000 rounds of a special kind of artillery ammunition. The factory that made it was out of production, so it was put back into it. A last minute requirement for 2000 medical kits was filled from a freight train “cached” in Kansas City. (Technically, the paper says that the kits were cached, not the boxcars. But you can’t have one without the other, and see my earlier comments about the rail system being overstrained.) “Whimsical, sometimes irascible Bill Somervell” has been criticised for many things, many times. (The paper helpfully summarises), but has accomplished what he set out to do, which, apparently, is to get a great many neckties to supply dumps in Britain. I am sorry, I know that the paper dangled the neckties in front of me, but I could not resist pulling on them. “Mummy” Major Mary Bell, formerly dean of women at Coe College in Iowa, has been made the first female instructor at the Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. “Into Hell Harbour” When the Allies landed at Anzio, the original plan was to not be there very long. Instead, here they are, and they require supplies. Consequently, Landing Craft, Tanks and Landing Ship, Tanks, have been delivering 8000 tons of stores across the beaches every 24 hours. Much credit goes to flotilla commander Lieutenant Commander John B. Freese, formerly a bond salesman and public works commissioner in Framingham, Massachusetts. “.45 shotguns” Chrysler Corporation is making a scattershot shell to fit the regulation .45 pistol so that castaway sailors can hunt small game on Pacific islands. It does not sound like the worst way to spend one’s overseas service, at least until the ammunition runs out. One wonders why Chrysler is required for the work. Surely my boyhood memories are not deceiving me, and we did fire regular shotgun shells in from the .44s the Chief gave us for our birthdays that golden summer between Keyham and Greenwich? “Tact” General Patton has ruined public speaking for the rest of the American general officer corps in Britain. “Final Fling” The paper turns into Aviation. That is, planes were involved, and air marshals are disappointed that they will have to wait to the next war to win it from the air. Also, the Germans have flooded the Pontine Marshes, a trend that I hope does not spread. I take panic about imminent famine with a grain of salt, but this sort of thing will not help. A thousand acres flooded through the harvest might be less devastation than ten acres of city levelled by bombs, but the consequences of the former, unlike the latter, cannot be made up, however uncomfortably, by a winter under canvas. Or, more likely, corrugated iron, these days. Domestic Rumours which had the President everywhere from the Mayo Clinic to London were dispelled when Roosevelt returned from an extended vacation at the Hobcaw Barony, Bernard Baruch’s 23,000 acre South Carolina plantation. He either did “no paperwork,” or some, and kept up to date on all current affairs, having no comment on Sewell Avery, nor on the replacement for the Secretary of the Navy. The President is well-tanned, and has shaken off his winter sniffles and bronchitis. This all calls Harding and Wilson –and perhaps Coolidge-- to mind. The Presidency so often kills the men who work hardest and most conscientiously in office. Is that a swipe at the Engineer? I believe that it is! Jim Forrestal is working hard as acting Secretary of the Navy. The paper says that the landing-craft programme is his biggest worry, and that he has personally visited eight shipyards to “exhort bosses and workers to speed up production.” We do not need exhortations, Reggie. We need more reliable labour and timely deliveries of steel, and it is not hard to apply a little imagination and see that the two problems are related. Good workers for the shipyards have to come from somewhere else, and the inland waterways and railways are obvious candidates. I hope that Mr. Forrestal has more to offer than exhortations, but the paper’s pocket biography does not fill me with confidence. Born a neighbour of the President in Duchess County, attended Princeton, served in the Navy in the World War, emerged as a lieutenant (j.g.) of 26, went to work as a bond salesman at a prominent firm, married an Ogden, became a registered Democrat, stood at the right hand of his firm’s president from about the moment that the Democrats entered power, made friends amongst the Preident’s circile of would-be securities regulators, entered the government in 1940, rose to the high eminence of assistant secretary of the navy, remained there until death cleared his path to an acting secretaryship. It is not that such a mediocre trajectory leads me to eye his marriage more closely. It’s that it is so mediocre that I wonder if he married a first-classheiress! A go-slow in Detroit is inspired by arguments about whether foremen should be union members or not. “Cousin H.C.” held forth in a rare rant on the folly of simultaneously putting more pressure on foremen and, at the minimum, appearing to deny them higher pay. “Plenty for How Long?” A ration holiday has been declared on meats except beef steaks and beef roasts. Stocks are on the increase, cold storage space critically short.(Having just shared my frustration at delays in steel deliveries due to rail congestion, I thought I would bring out this evidence of further trouble “down the line.”) The War Department has relaxed deferrments on 600,000 agricultural labourers. War Food Czar Marvin Jones says that food production is above schedule “all along the production front,” and promises ice cream in May and June. But this plenty might not last long, depending on the invasion and the harvest. A poor feed crop harvest will bring back meat rationing on an even stricter basis than before. It has also been suggested that there might be some commercial alcohol manufacture at some point in the near future, perhaps in three or four months. Thank Heavens. “Naziphile” George Viereck, on trial in New York for public indecency of the Nazi-loving kind, was coldly told by his wife that his oldest son had died in action in Italy, just as she had been coldly told by the War Department. It is noted that his younger son is also in the army, and furthermore is a Nazi-hater. “Still Solid South.” The race-baiting anti-New Deal insurrection in the South is failing to happen. “Insurance” The Army has signed a contract for sixty million barrels of oil at $1.25/barrel from the Canol field on the middle Mackenzie, so as to justify its pipeline-and-refinery investment. It will be interesting to learn whether there are 60 million barrels of oil down there. “Colliding Colonels” Colonel JamesCanella, air force commander at Santa Ana, California, has been convicted of corruption. Apparently, public sympathies were with Canella, as the prosecution was instigated by the army commandant, Colonel Robertson, an upper class swell who like to “play polo with cinema people and rich orange growers.” As a rich orange grower, may I be permitted to suggest that polo is a dreadful waste of a perfectly good ride? (I have that joke from a golfing fiend.) It turns out that Colonel Canella was selling jobs, taking kickbacks on the base’s milk contract and arranged the assignment of someone’s cousin as cook at the base on his being called up. He also sold concessions in the base PX. Rather naively, he put his money in the bank and spent lavishly. “The Navy’s Ladies” More than half the Navy Department’s staff in Washington is now distaff. I am amazed anything gets done there. On a more authentically feminine note, the paper registers new summer uniforms for the Marine Women’s Reserve Officers (a neat white Palm Beach suit), enlisted WACs (tropical khaki, with a new garrison cap by Hatter Knox), WAVES and Spars in slate-grey seersucker with fitted jacket with four pockets, one real, three false. Somewhere in the middle, I hope they make time for running the war. “Biddle’s Battle” Attorney General Francis Biddle is on the hotseat over the Federal takeover of Montgomery Ward (a management-union thing, you will recall, Reggie), a trial of eight laides of the evening from Washington’s Hopkins Institute that has turned from a prosecution of a “million-dollar call house” into a typically sordid prostitution case (who could have guessed that real-life prostitutes would turn out to be drab and troubled women?), and a trial of 29 alleged seditionists that is collapsing from the government’s found disinclination to prosecute the kind of people who get their amusement from saying outrageous things in public. (See above: “drab and troubled.”) The point of the story, buried at the bottom, is that Congress is going to investigate Biddle’s handling of the Montgomery Ward affair. Science, Medicine, Education Dr. Robert Burns Woodward (27), and William von Eggers Doering, also 27, both of Harvard, announced the artificial synthesis of quinine from coal tar this week. I note that if this the project of 27 year olds, then while the effort to synthesise quinine has gone on for 90 years, it has been aggressively pressed at Harvard for only four or five –since the occupation of the East Indies, in other words. Polaroid, sponsor of the research, is working to develop licensing for mass production, as US troops in the Pacific are in dire need of two-and-a-half billion tablets annually, twice the prewar output. It is hoped the further work on the “15 stepping stones to quinine” will uncover a permanent malaria cure. “Elementary Murder” Dr. Le MoyneSnyder, medico-legal director of the Michigan State Police believes that in the future, many murders that currently go undetected will be solved by advanced scientific techniques of investigation, such as lie detectors and gunpowder residue tests. “That’s Not My Baby” Mistaken baby identifications may or may not be rife at Los Angeles-area hospitals. Or possibly just the South Hoover Hospital. I shall take the high road, Reggie. “Twentieth Century Seer” Large quantities of penicillin will be available for the invasion, and it is all thanks to the work of Dr. Fleming. Although deep in the article it is noted that others pressed the development of a manufacturing method, and the paper underlines the eight year delay between the development of the first practical penicillin treatment in 1933 and the beginning of factory production in the late war. Is there no form of progress, be it ever so purely beneficial, that was not delayed by the late Depression? “Umbilicose” North Carolina Congressman Carl Thomas Durham and his House Military Affairs subcommittee has attacked a pamphlet distributed by the Army as communist. The paper jokes that it is because it represents Adam and Eve as having navels, which is heretical, and Communists might be heretical when they are not being atheistical. However, this is the “Races of Mankind” pamphlet of recent notoriety, and the Congressman might be more upset about its allegations of racial equality. “For Negro Colleges” Yale spent seven and a half million dollars last year to educate 3,112 students. The United Negro College Fund Campaign aims to raise $1.5 million to be shared among 27 U.S. Negro colleges. With exquisite discretion, keynote speaker, Fisk University’s White President, Thomas Elsa Jones, suggests that given the advantage conferred by their skin pigment, the slogan for the Coloured graduate should be “Go south, east and west.” Because they suffer less from sunburn, you see, Reggie. So they should go away. To somewhere were their skin colour is an advantage. But not here. Thank, you, Dr. Fisk. You have been a real help to the cause. “Jitters Recur” The colleges will not get their full allocation of tuition-paying profit units –I mean, students—from the Army’s Specialized Training Reserve Program. Some small men’s colleges may have to close for the duration. “Berrer Veterans” The paper is amused by the prospect that discharged veterans will make better students in college, and so will learn to write ‘better.’ Business “Good First-Quarter” We were warned in advane that earnings would show anticipation of the postwar slowdown. This did not happen. Sales are up 23%, profits very much less, due to renegotiation, which is still underway at many firms. Some firms did unexpectedly well (Libby-Owens-Ford Glass Co, Texas Co., GM). Others, notably the rail companies, did poorly, while steel was unable to make good on its alarmist predictions, disappointingly ending up on profits. But it surely all shall end in tears due to cutbacks, cancellations, and the like. After all, last year, the first-quarter numbers were among the year’s poorest, and the paper reads the auguries to discover that this proves that this year’s first quarter earnings will be the best. People are talking about talking about oil; MGM is expanding in Britain’ farm earnings are up, debt down. “The Big Drive” “To help him [move 45 million feet of lumber down river to the Van Buren Madawaska Lumber Mill in Keegan, Maine], Gardner has hired 150 0f the toughest woodsmen he could find. Most of them come from New Brunswick –hard-muscled, catfooted lumberjacks who like to wear the loudest mackinaw shirts that money can buy. They work in crews of six, travel in bateaux (over-sized row-boats)….[and] will seldom be dry until the logs reach Keegan late in June.” Etc, etc, romance of the woods, eat minced meat pies, baked beans and mashed potatoes, etc. There are a great many US dollars to be carried up the Restigouche to rustic cabins in the wood if the national target of 34 billion board feet is to be met. “Big Steel Tries Prefabrication” US Steel has bought Gunnison Housing Corporation of New Albany, Indiana, which are prefabricated houses built in sections and quickly assembled. Attention, Big Steel: America already has a prefabricated modular home construction material that can be easily moved and quickly assembled on site. It is called “wood.” Or perhaps that is the voice of special interest, and this will turn out to be a roaring success. Whatever: I am not putting any of our money in it. “Furs: Chinchilla comeback?” It could happen. Arts, etc. The Hayes Code, which has recently banned sweaters in movies, now adds garters. “Hollywood publicity cameramen have taken to shooting backsides, which are still within the law.” Or perhaps Hollywood is beginning to depend on cameramen who have resorted to a certain morals disqualification to avoid call-up. “On Sir Osbert’s Tail” The paper spends three pages on Sir Osbert Sitwell, who has written a book. Well, at least it makes a change from articles about comings and goings from great orchestras, art books, and the recently published memoirs of Washington PostShanghai correspondent Mark Gayn. Gayn predicts that the Pacific War will continue through 1948. since he also thinks Chiang can save China, he at least gives me a concrete date for future planning. If Gayn says it will continue through 1948, that is when it will have ended by. It is the Janeway effect. “Bruce Barton, advertising tycoon, onetime GOP Congressman,” told 370 New Jersey socialites in a speech this week that Franklin Roosevelt was on the same low moral level as Robin Hood. Both justified their thefts on the grounds that they took from the rich to give to the poor. Now that’s the way to win an election, Mr. Barton! Professor Nicholas John Spykman’s last book, a treatise on geopolitics called America’s Strategy in World Politics reveals that Eurasia encircles America, which is thus under unfathomable threat by assorted Eurasians, and calls for a foreign policy that makes it impossible for any one power to dominate Eurasia and thus surround America. I think with that in mind, before I plot my Eurasian ill upon America, I will dispose of the whiskey in front of me. It has me encircled, you see. Flight, 18 May 1944 …And a pleasant evening was had by all. At least after your eldest was persuaded by his children to desist from talking about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its miracle machine, and melt into fatherhood. I will be there when you meet your grandchildren, Reggie. Leaders “Our New Transports” The paper is enormously pleased with the Short Shetland, and also all the other planes that have not actually flown yet, but mainly the Shetland. “The Lords Debate” of civil aviation did not contribute much. Though it is noticed that rail companies are trying to move in on the civil aviation business. One wants to smack their noses. That is our business to invade! More seriously, I find aviation a more than lucrative business to be in covertly. I have my doubts about whether we should involve ourselves overtly. It is not like shipping, for planes can only land where they land, and even that freedom is being taken away by radar. War in the Air Crimea falls! Aircraft were involved! We are bombing the “back areas” of Hitler’s Europe. Sounds rather naughty, Reggie. “Tank busters” are in operation in Burma, where a story is told of planes chasing two Japanese tanks a mile down the road before destroying them. Left unanswered is the question of how the Japanese got tanks into the Imphal valley. Hard work and ingenuity, I know, but these virtues are not to be attributed to the Japanese. For reasons perhaps relating to Captain Brown doing something, the paper revives the controversy over the death of Manfred v. Richthofen. Offensive in Italy! Aircraft were nvolved. Further to this summer’s project of flooding every acre of convertible land in Europe, bombers breached the Pescara dam to inundate the flanks of 8th Army and allow it to concentrate its attack. A. L. Wykes, managing director of Taylorcraft Aeroplanes, died this week in an ill-judged aerobatics display during a “Salute the Soldiers” event in Leicester. He leaves a widow, a young son, and an unintended example to the soldiers being saluted. A Mosquito of RAF Transport Command just bettered the Liberator-set record for a flight between Labrador and Britain by 2h, 10 minutes, to 5h, 40 minutes. Here and There France (the Fighting kind) now has a civil air plan. Sir Richard Fairey was in Vancouver last week Source (better for everyone’s sakes than at Stockport), where he gave a speech to the Board of Trade about how at current rates of production, the industry could supply the world’s needs for aircraft in about three days. So build better aircraft more slowly! North American wants you to know that part of the armament of the B-25H Mitchell is in the form of “package guns,” and we are to be as amazed by this innovation as every other time it has been announced in the last five years or more. (I am thinking of the Blenheim Fighter, but doubt that it was original, either.) The American fighter jet is to be known as the P-59. The paper is pleased to announced that the USAAF now uses the Avro Anson as a trainer. Some of the wonderful anaglyphs of aerial devastation of Germany exhibited in Parliament by the Prime minister are now on show. It is suggested by a speaker to the Post Office Controlling Officers’ Association that after the war, mail might be flown about. I presume that the paper is subtly mocking. General Arnold says that the average life of a B-17 in the European Theatre of Operations is 231 days, or 21 operations. “Postwar Civil Aviation” Is talked about . Norman Hall Warren, “Rhombic Ruminations: The Designer of the Warren-Young Tandem Explains Why the Machine Should be Viceless” The invasion. What’s keeping it? Oh, well, let us run this publicity hound’s bit, instead. The number can’t just be ads all the way through. The readers might feel cheated. “Studies in Aircraft Recognition” Explain how to tell the Vought-Sikorsky Kingfisher, Arado AR-196 and Vickers-Armstrong (Supermarine) Walrus II apart. Something that I would have thought would not have required explaining, since apart from the fact that all three are catapulted from battleships to correct naval gunnery, they look nothing alike. I think the moral of the story is that if you see any of the three, they are likely to be accompanied by one-ton shells flying about at 2000 feet per second, and you probably have more immediate worries. Behind the Lines The performance of the Japanese MitsubishiOB-01 bomber is announced. The N.C.T.1 announced by Hispano-Suiza at the 1938 Paris show, basically two Hispano-Suiza 12Yscoupled to a common driveshaft, has had its final drive appropriated for the He 177. Junkers is trying to recruit labour for its new plant in Milan. The Germans have a new fighter. A Berlin resident recently arrived in Switzerland reports that seventy to eighty percent of Berlin’s war factories have been put out of action by bombing. This would be good news, were it not so pessimistically refuted by Fat Chow, who will be out of the capital in less than two months, it looks, and is happy about it, but not because all the factories are levelled. I still cannot quite imagine him flying across Asia in a small aircraft cabin with a Japanese colonel, but Fat Chow is nothing if not cool. James Barlow, “Bombing Policy: Why I Believe in the Night Offensive” Editorial copy is like the chaperones at a high school dance for advertisments. Needful to keep the ads from touching each other, but a drag on the proceedings when it takes itself too seriously. Case in point. “Camera Recorder: New Hawker Instrument Writes Time Histories of Acceleration, Control Movements and Stick Forces” The idea is that photographic film serves as the medium for recording the instrument outputs. Ingenious, in that the medium is rather a sticking point for all kinds of motor-driven recording. Wax cylinders work well enough, at least on land, but cannot be splices. With all due respect to your present, chemical paper is fragile and cannot be reused, unlike magnetic wire, which has its own limitations, but also the near-miraculous advantage of being able to replay sound. Film paper has many of the disadvantages of chemical paper, as you will know perhaps better than anyone, but can potentially record much more information. “Aircraft Engineer Training: Recommendations of the S.B.A.C. Committee” SBAC prefers an apprenticeship scheme in which boys are enrolled beginning at 16, and graduated at 21. Only exception candidates will be enrolled above the age of 18, with the option of transferring to an aeronautical engineer programme. Premiums are to be abolished. Apprentice aeronautical engineers should have satisfactory grades in appropriate School Certificates, and graduates of Junior Technical Schools may be favoured. The firms will be in charge of the apprentice’s industrial training, while local technical schools will be used to further the apprentice’s theoretical studies, unless a works school is necessary due to distance. Your eldest fears that this programme is rather at risk of slighting young engineers’ mathematical training. In a practical sense, it is likely to keep the empyrean realms of upper management for University graduates of good birth and connections. Then he blushes. It is good to see that he is aware of the privilege that wealth and family have brought him. “Air Transport: viscount Knollys tells Empire Society What it Will Mean in the Future” In the future, you will be able to fly to New Zealand or India. Very nice for the man in a hurry to go to New Zealand. (Why?) W. S. Farren, “Research” Farren’s Seventh Wright Brothers Lecture to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences was too full of encomiums to research to confine to a single number of the paper. In the future, planes will fly higher and faster, but not faster than 70% of the speed of sound, and not higher than perhaps 40,00ft, except with difficulties in both cases. Correspondence ATC officers should be allowed to wear caps, and ROC officers have not been giving away more precious “gen” than others. Gunpowder is so too a good aircraft fuel, ducted radiators are not well understood by people who write about them in letters to the paper, and the paper has received a very nice drawing of a “mail” heli-gyrocopter. In sum: letters to Flight are once again being written by people for whom time weighs heavy. Time, 22 May 1944 This number of the paper has General Smuts on the cover, so it should be a rare treat. International Assorted Prime Ministers are in London to talk about talking. Curtin and Mackenzie King disagreed about where and when they should in the future talk about talking. Other premiers had other opinions, including the one from New Zealand, a country that I should have thought too small to be able to fit an opinion. General Smuts was there, but was too wonderful to contain to only a single article, so there is another one. Quite a long one. And perhaps more. I get a little vague when I am falling asleep. Eire was not there, as all the Eirish politicians were in Eireland squabbling about money, public contracts and elections. And also because this Commonwealth thing was never more than an excuse to get the British out of Ireland, even if some dullards still seem unaware of it. “Fire in Bombay” A Canadian-built Liberty ship (so, actually, “Victory ship, dear paper) caught fire while unloading in Bombay. Being loaded with 300 tons of high explosive and 708 bales of cotton, the dockers understandably abandoned their work ahead of the fire brigade. The fire spread, causing 350 dead, 1815 injured. “Probably cause: spontaneous combustion. There was no sign of sabotage.” That is, the ship was loaded with $4,293,500 in gold bullion, and, apart from one 28 oz bar which fell on the verandah of a house a mile away, there is no word what happened to it. I hope that it was all recovered, but my cynical side suggests that it was not. “Tito’s Yugoslavia” The Marshal had a press day. “Theosophist’s End” The dictator of El Salvador, who so offended the paper some weeks ago, has resigned office and fled the country in the wake of a successful civil disobedience campaign. His Minister of War has assumed the governance of the country. All are pardoned, all is forgiven. Soon, democracy will sweep the isthmus. “Muttering Left” Labour’s failure to discipline Aneurin Bevan means that the Tories will lose the next election, says the paper. People suspect hidden reserves of reaction. Lacandone Indians of Chiapas State in southern Mexico are rustic, primitive, untouched by the corrupting ills of modern society. Etc. “First Blow” The Invasion. What’s keeping it? “Air Harvest” The invasion. What’s keeping it? Aircraft were involved. “To Destroy the German Armies” Is the answer to the question put to General Alexander: Why are you attacking towards Rome? The paper notices that there are 20 divisions to be destroyed, and that right now they are cut off from supplies by the breaching of the Avisio rail duct in the Brenner Pass. “Into the Mountains” Further in this line, the French under General Juin stepped off into the Italian nmountains this week. It turns out that French colonial alpine troops are quite good at mountain warfare, to the surprise of someone, somewhere. “Landsale’s End” A short piece about the loss of the USS Landsale destroyerends with the information that the executive officer, Lietenant Robert M.Morgenthau, son of the Treasury Secretary, was amongst the vast majority of the crew saved. “Off the Beam” A German pilotless, rocket-driven, bomb-carrying German aircraft crashed in south Sweden recently. “The Light Goes Out” In the Crimea, where the last German resistance came to an end this week. “The Calm Before” It was a quiet week in the Pacific as we wait for the next operation against an undisclosed location. The paper closes by noting that “the Navy’s three four-star top dogs, Admirals King, Nimitz and Halsey” met in San Francisco last week to touch up their plans for it. You will notice the conspicuous inclusion of Halsey rather than Spruance. Of course, as a theatre commander, Halsey has a right to be there. But as Lieutenant A. keeps brashly reminding me, the only American admiral ever to have lost two air-sea naval battles really ought to replace the only American admiral to have won one. For the good of the country, you see. “Catastrophe in Asia” In Honan, the Japanese advance. In Burma, the Chinese do. The difference? General Stillwell has seen to the training and equipping of the Chinese force in Burma from American resources, and allocated U.S. trained officers to command. Perhaps they even take the time to pat Chinese soldiers on the head and tell them that they are good boys. And pay them; good pay being one of those things uniformly and coincidentally related to victories in the field. “Fortunes of War” Gruesome, hopeful and tragic stories of the war in the air over Europe. “No Stone Unturned” German troops garrisoning the Atlantic Wall were instructed to kill their 300,000 tame rabbits this week, lest they get loose in the bombardment and trigger mines. Oh, for the love of... They're just making these stories up, Reggie. “Cannons and Guns” Were you wondering what kinds of cannons the US Army has? The paper explains, and does not quite say (only heavily implies) that cannons were invented in the Civil War. American version. Given that anyone actually interested can learn these things in Popular Mechanics –as I should know, as I tripped over a pile of the same on the stairs on my way up a moment ago- I would prefer to file this story under “waiting for the invasion.” Domestic The President’s health, the paper tells us, is not failing after all. But the details in text (wrinkles, spreading bald spot, inability to “overwork,” bad temper) go against the summary. The President’s ill-temper does seem justified, however. Montgomery-Ward cannot ignore the War Labour Board. There are laws. You do not defy them; you sneak around them. Though it should be noted that the company was returned to Mr. Avery a few hours after the press conference. “Who Should Ratify the Peace?” A Gallup poll finds that the two-thirds requirement for Senate ratification of treaties is not approved by the American public. “The Poll Tax Peril” A bill to abolish the poll tax in eight Southern States draws a dramatic performance from Senator Connally of Texas, even though the Senate had already arranged that the bill would not come to vote. It was just a painless way for southern Senators to demonstrate their fidelity to white supremacy in an election year. “Indian Buyers” 10.9% of the E-bonds ($2,379,000,000) have been redeemed in the last three months, equal to a month’s sales by the rate of the latest drive. Given the ferocious sales campaigns, the paper should really not be surprised. Honestly, what do you expect when quotas are handed down from on high? “Lessons of History” Former US Ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, has his second fawning piece in the paper of no discernable content in two weeks. Make of that what you will. “Baby Shortage” The nation’s wartime birth rate is declining froom its peak of 3.2 million in 1943. The Census Bureau expects the number to remain stable at 2.1 million per year for the remaining war years, to go through a temporary “birth boom” in the postwar years, and then to slump again, with the US population beginning to slump again within 50 years. “Winners and Losers” Tea Leaves! The paper has them! “What We Don’t Know” A Gallup poll finds that many Americans are unaware of some remarkably commonplace facts. “Western Dewey” “Blue-eyed, baby-faced Byron Hirst, 31, the new county attorney” of Cheyenne, Wyoming, has been prosecuting vice and corruption, prominently involving the families of Coloured troops at the nearby base, just like Tom Dewey used to do in New York. No doubt he will be President someday. Cracking down on men mistreating the families of 2nd Cavalry Division should be just the ticket! In other vice-related news, a brothel owner from Minnesota who took two of his employees with him on vacation with him to Salt Lake City has been acquitted on appeal to the Supreme Court of violating the Mann Act. “Maybe Later” Shall America have a Secretary of Defence? Not if the Navy has anything to say about it. Richard Bong has been rotated off the front lines. “Fourth Gear” The paper notices that Mr. Roosevelt will be the Democratic Party’s candidate for President in 1944. The Dies Committee on Un-AmericanAffairs may expire now that its former chair, a Texas Congressman, is not running in November. Other members of the Committee hope that it will be made a permanent House Committee. “Mild and Bitter” A Martin Marauder B-26 of that name has just completed its hundredth mission, a rare accomplishment for a modern warplane. This proves that i) the B-26 is not as bad as people make it out to be, and that ii) Blaine Stubblefield is not the only man getting Martin money to push that line. Science “Too Many People?” Warren Simpson Thompson of Miami University (the one in Oxford, Ohio, of course) points out that there are Plenty of People in his recent book. Western Europe’s population has risen from 115 million in 1800 to 435 million in 1940, or, counting all of Europe, because GErmany kept growing, and if it is part of Germany it must be Western Europe, I suppose, to 542. Which, if these numbers are anywhere near correct, and the 225 is intended to be the 1975 number, implies a staggering, even catastrophic, rate of decline in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps my scornful attitude towards temporary housing was misplaced. Not only are prefabricated modular buildings a better temporary solution, but aging backs and shoulders will have an easier time clearing them away so that they can dig graves for each other, there in the silence of the moody oakwoods that will replace them. The US will rise to 160 million in 1975 and then begin to decline. “Eastern Europe, Russia and Japan, chiefly agriculatural nations, will increae in population for some time to come.” The Soviet Union, for example, will reach 251 million in 1970. India may grow from 389 to 500, China from 500 to 600. At which point he pivots from what I would suggest is the obvious conclusion –that, overall, it is a wash with a negative trend (390 million gained in India, China and the Soviet Union, 311 in lost in Europe), to taking about birth control. The Earth cannot withstand this burgeoning population, this pressure on resources, all that science and industry can do will not suffice, political explosions… Oh, I understand. Fewer Whites, more Asiatics. Actually, this perplexed me so much that I seen Wong Lee out to obtain a copy from a bookseller. It turns out that "Northwest and Central Europe" expect a decline from 237 to 225 millions in 1970. I notice, however, that no projection for 1975 is made, however. The question for the builder is, at what point does dilapidation fall below the rate of abandoment: that is, when it is no longer a question of not replacing housing stock, but of giving up still-livable housing for lack of tenants? Houses lacking tenants of less than twenty years life will begin to be built in Britain in, what, 1950? 1955? 1960? The water here is murky, and I should like, if demographers are to frighten us so, for a bit more confidence in stating their conjectures. Science and Medicine Opthamologist Hedwig Stieglitz Kuhn, daughter and niece of assorted famous Stieglitzes, and Dr. Joseph Tiffin, Purdue psychologist, promise to revolutionise industry with revolutionary new vision tests. Because that is a reasonable thing to expect to happen. “Magnetic Current?” Dr. Felix Ehrenhaft is irritated that no-one takes his theory that “magnetism, like water, flows in currents and can decompose water” seriously. Results of a confirming test of his decomposing apparatus were given to the annual session of the American Physical Association. Two scientists attending, Jacob Goldman of Westinghouse and James T. Kendall, over from the Metropolitan-Vickers laboratory in Britain for various reasons(!) gently pointed out that this was nonsense, hopefully without scattering Hamilton’s horrid quaternions all over the table, as your son did, when I asked for clarification. (Fortunately, his attention was soon distracted from his hapless victim by his wife, who apparently had opinions of her own in the matter. Much reference to Gibbs and that bizarre old crank, Heaviside, followed.) “Docs Flock” Also conventioneering this week, notwithstanding the ODT’s beseeching reminders that there was a war on, assorted medical associations. “Tuberculosis Progress” There has been considerable. A drug treatment is eventually hoped for, but, in the mean time, mass x-ray methods are improving, and the survival rate from whole lung pnuemonectomy is rising from the old 35% fatality rate, and so can be considered much earlier in the progress of the disease than hitherto. “Penicillin Echoes” New studies suggest that penicillin might be effective in late stage syphilis. “Medicine: One Every Year?” Planned Parenthood has long advocated having children at a rate of one evey two years. Now Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Nicholson Joseph Eastman says that there is no reason to wait for a year, and good reason to get on with it and have babies every year. Planned Parenthood admits that they have been completely wrong, although “new research is needed.” What is happening in this country, Reggie? Has all of our traditional belligerence been shipped to camps in the south of England? Even Planned Parenthood has turned meek and mild, and the Dies Committee has disintegrated before our eyes. What hope other professional controversialists if Southern Congressmen and those "more deadly than the male" turn inward? Although,of course, it may have something to do with the coming of summer. Or that everyone is waiting to write about the invasion. “Ringside in the Solomons” Lunga beach is bloody again, this time with weekly amateur boxing matches. Winners get $5 in war stamps, losers $2.50. The beach is packed with spectators for huge cards. The promoter has a stable of 150 fighters, and one Saturday “popular card” saw Hawaiian soldiers against Marines, with the Marines taking 6 of 9. “MPs ruled no decision on five fist fights in the audience. Between you and me, Reggie, I think boredom is at risk of breaking out down there. I would also have liked to be there to see the three of nine. In various government-related news, a debate was held last week between proponents of freedom and economic planning; a wealthy California businessman was fined for ignoring the FAA, establishing its right to regulate private aviation; Ford recognised that foremen were labourers entitled to union representation over the anguished protests of the Automotic Council for War Production. “New Boss, More Goods” The War Production Board’s Office of Civilian Requirements has a new boss, Wiliam Yandell Elliot, replacing “shy, gnome-like Arthur Dare Whiteside,” who went back to run Dun & Bradstreet. Various limits on production for the civilian market were relaxed or lifted. A “small bonanza” of farm equipment, household goods such as irons and baby carriages and textiles, such as children’s and infants’ clothes is expected. The WPB “has at last taken a firm stand against the Army & Navy’s demand for “everything of everything.” Art “Another Biddle, Another Show” Attorney General Francis Biddle produced “the picture of the decade” by having two U.S. soldiers carry Sewell Avery out of his own office. Now his brother has an exhibition of his war pictures! It’s not a stretch! Why is everyone forgetting about Montgomery-Ward already? Troops stationed around Manhattan are going to be treated to a free ballet. But it will be a vigorous, lively ballet. Look, gentle paper: put your average, red-blooded American boy in the same room as a ballerina and he will spontaneously promise her fealty onto death. . Put him in a room with her, dancing, and he will melt to the ground in a puddle. Put him in the audience of a ballet in which she stars, and he will get bored. It is that simple. The Radio intelligence Division of the FCC reports that it has suppressed all pirate radios and German radio-controlled spy networks in the Western Hemisphere. The Germans cannot be very good at this. “Look Homeward Fighter” DuncanNorton-Taylor’s With My Heart in my Mouth is the TIME correspondent’s report of his southwest Pacific tour. By the time he got his ride to Kula Gulf, he was convinced that action had passed his tour by; then his squadron fell in with the Japanese at Kula Gulf, and he found himself in the middle of a sea fight. I can sympathise, as I well remember the experience –even if we were only twelve in our first, and Norton-Taylor won his. But I digress. Needless to say, the paper loved it, but the story is further evidence of the feminisation of the home front, or at least the paper, becacuse what it loved is the portrait of what “the warrior truly wants,” which is to “get back home and stay there,” the reviewer says. Norton-Taylor’s favourite acquaintance along the way was Red Quigley, who “became a father at sea” and proudly showed his baby daughter’s red ringlet to Norton-Taylor. Karl Kawa, a married machinist from Buffalo, made a little model of the house he planned to build back home. And, finally, Duncan Norton-Taylor “got home to give a finis to his book which every fighter wants as a finis to his war:” his wife and his daughters “standing on the sidewalk in the dim light which fell from the windows of the Red Star bus station.” I don’t know, Reggie, but I think that I detect a unifying theme in this review. Caroline Gordon’s Come Die Along with Me is about assorted members of the distaff of a decaying family of Tennessee gentry in a decaying house who decay, have horses and black servants who also decay, and sometimes murder people. Mrs. Gordon’s prose lingers over the possibility that the Civil War was won by the wrong side. Letters to the Paper: Get an English Girl Sirs:Elizabeth Gellhorn [TIME, April 13] and other jealous Yankee gals appear perturbed about so many soldiers being in England this spring. Elizabeth expresses her jealousy by denouncing the English mother of an American soldier's illegitimate quads. A friend of mine in a letter last week expressed it in classic parody: "Oh to be in England now that the Army's there." British females, given good girdles and such, silk stockings, high heels, a permanent wave and a good set of cosmetics, could easily come up to American standards of beauty. After five years of war they aren't doing bad now.The startling thing I find about English girls though is their helpful and cooperative nature. Gladly will they darn your socks, wash your clothes, share their limited food rations with you, . . . listen to your bragging about central heating and then apologize for what five years of war have done to what appears to me a beautiful little island after the flat dry desolation of Texas and the stinking swamps of Louisiana.Yes, indeed, the girls back home should worry, or else learn to ... darn socks or something else besides play bridge and sip cocktails all afternoon. The English say we spoil our women. After seeing and going out with a number of both I'm convinced we certainly do. My advice to any bewildered bachelor back home: send to England for a wife. The initial investment may be large but she will save you two thousand bucks a year in upkeep. (PFC.) JOHN M. STEVENS c/o Postmaster New York City Flight, 25 May 1944 Cover: In the future, your daughter-out-of-law explains, when British girls fly home to Mother because their husbands have brought them one more sock to be darned, they will need to take the train to some dock dredged out to take a battleship. Or we can measure our words, and buy flowers when we don’t. Chances are, the latter will be cheaper, the former easier. Leaders “Weapons and Tactics” Dive bombers and tanks used to be thought of as the wave of the future. Then it was fighter-bombers and infantry. Perhaps in the future, it will be something else again. “Unfortunate Misunderstandings” The Civil Aviation Debate in the Lords has led to them in the United States and Canada. “War in the Air” The paper is pleased with the capture of Myitkyina. Or, rather, of Myityina's airfield. Myitkyina is a big place. It is also pleased with the carrier raid off Norway. French colonial troops, “led by French officers,” the paper adds, have distinguished themselves in Italy. I seem to recall something about the Rif War that suggests that they would probably distinguish themselves even more under their own chiefs. Although considering the language barrier, one imagines that that is, effectively, what is happening anyway. I know that it is what is happening in Myitkyina. The paper notes that with the heavy monsoon rains coming, the main requirement on that front is permanent quarters to maintain the health of the troops. For this, Myityina, not its airfield, is necessary, and hopefully it will fall soon. The paper notes that Hellcats were used as fighter bombers in the Norway attack for the first time, and that 5th Indian division was moved by air from Arakan to Imphal. Not, of course, with all of its stores and weapons. Certainly “Long Toms” cannot yet be moved by air, but it is a pointer towards the future. Last Saturday, a record 5000 Allied aircraft took off from Great Britain for the Continent. Here and There The RCAF is now 191,500 strong, plus 15,000 “Waafs.” Perhaps the English should make an effort to feed them better? Keith Shackleton, who has done amusing illustrations for his father’s “Horace Says…” articles in this paper (which in my experience really are amusing, unlike much which passes for funny here and elsewhere) has had an exhibit. May there be many more. The paper prints a picture showing a vast armada of gliders being prepared. The reduction in US Navy fighter deliveries is noted. I am amused that news of the Budd Conestoga follows that. The largest stainless-steel aircraft ever constructed also got generous federal money on the strength of a willingness to play the President’s game. Very entertaining Wiki. RAAF Bristol Beauforts have a very low loss rate, attesting to their toughness, or reliability, or perhaps that there are no Japanese fighters left in the Southwest Pacific. Sir Oliver Simmonds, he of Simmonds Aerocessories, was most uncomplimentary about BOAC and the “chosen instrument” approach to international civil aviation in the House. F. A. de V. Robertson, “The Prevention of Wars” What, my bar tab is due? And Flight has space to fill? Oh happy coincidence! The idea is that if the Axis ever plans to attack us again, we will make them not have planes, and, so, war is prevented! Add another dash of gin to that, would you, my good man? Edward C. Bowyer, “Britain’s Overseas Air Services: Diary of a 26,000 Mile Wartime Tour: R.A.F. Transport Command and B.O.A.C. in Four Continents” The General Director of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors flew the world on a Warwick, C-54, Empire Boat, C-47, Hudson, Liberator and assorted De Havilland crates. I am a pretty seasoned air traveller, Reggie. I have flown to Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle and Vancouver, to Los Angeles several times, across the continent five times, Paris and Berlin any number of times in the old days, and once, before the war, to the East. But I cannot even conceive of 26,000 miles in 30 days. Apparently, the C-54 is fast, the Warwick is faster, the C-47 is a crate, the Atlantic services are tests of endurance, flying in January is cold, even in Mesopotamia, wakeup calls for aircraft boarding are far too early, and flying boats take forever to dock and disembark. “Studies in Recognition” The difference between the Civil Lancaster, Lockheed Lodestar, and Curtiss Commando is explored. This is a better attempt at being thematic than most, I think to myself as my eyes glaze over at the thought of flying on any of them. I have the money. It will not be spent on anything less than the Constellation. Leave these reconditioned warbirds to younger bones. Behind the Lines Spanish sources report that there is now a version of the Me. 210 that actually flies, the Me. 210R. German air force transports will no longer land in Sweden. St. Gallen’s local paper reports that German aircraft production does not exceed 1500/month. It goes on to add that aircraft are the new number one priority, ahead of other number one priorities such as tanks and U-boats. Problems in the air include the fact that Messerschmitt and Heinkel are feuding, the curtailment of Luftwaffe ground engineer training back in 1942, and lack of fuel. Massed formations of German rocket guns are appearing on the front. They are terrifying. The Slovak army has raised a battalion of parachutists, which is not. “Horace Says” In celebration of his son’s first exhibit, W. S. Shackleton returns to the pages of Flight for the first time in, I think, years. He seems less amusing than I remember. One or the other of us is growing old faster. Z. Ciolkosz, “The Claims for Fair Participation by European Nations in Future Air Traffic.” If you want to fly over Poland, Poland gets a slice of the gravy. (This image of gelid gravy is brought to you by the fact that our housekeeper is out on the town tonight to see a film with Lieutenant A. I do not know how he makes time for her when his Admiral is in town, and it is not just for the sake of my diet of a late night back from the office that I continue to pray that a use will be found for the young man in New Caledonia. Although I urge the powers concerned not to let him fly to the South Pacific, as I can just imagine the boy in the vicinity of cockpit controls.) Where was I? Oh, yes, a an actual reason to have countries. They get you a slice of what would otherwise all go to London or Washington. The Air Transport Association and Society of Licensed Aircraft Engineers are going posh, with coats of arms and meetings, and, perhaps, chains of office and ceremonial hats. A Rotol ad reminds us that a pound of weight is £11/annum of savings in operating expenses. So every pound we smuggle is £11 lost to BOAC or the RAF? I almost feel guilty. Correspondence Persons believe that dispatch riders should learn to fly; that the Home Guard are idiots; that the ATC are young and callow. Turn the page over, and all the silliness is put in the shade by a letter from an expert who wants to explain, once and for all, how jet propulsion works. There are even footnotes, but he gives away the game by signing himself “E. Burke, M. Sc. (Eng.) Lond., A.C.G.I., D.I.C., A.M.I.C.E., F.P.S.” Need a job, due you, Mr. Burke? Then be more careful about the impression you make, because this makes you look like a would-be social climber. Time, 29 May 1944 Another number, another gentleman on the cover in a khaki cap. This time, it is General de Gaulle. “Partners for Peace” An invasion of Europe is planned, it says here. In anticipation Greeks, Poles and Yugoslavs have apparently been told to stop being so excitable. “Sooner or Later” Spaniards, on the other hand, are free to continue to run about talking loudly, gesturing wildly and being Catholic. “Coptic Quarrel” Ethiopians also. Except not Catholic. “The Symbol” Who is General de Gaulle? I mean, really? Who is he? What kind of underwear does he like? Long socks, short socks? Also, is he a Fascist? Communist? Remarkably tedious questions like that. As for ideologies, it should be obvious that the General will have whatever will be required for him to be important. “Thirteenth Month” Germany is getting ready to collapse at some point in the next six months or so. “Inside the Fortress” You know who is wonderful, Reggie? Tito. Marshal Tito is wonderful. “Dictator Under Cover” But President Vargas of Brazil is not. “I Lament” Rather like the former President of El Salvador. The paper now notices that Ambassador Wright made up for upsetting the paper by having a stern word with the former President. This led to his overthrow, and the coming of a new dawn to El Salvador, where from henceforth democracy and progress will reign. “Fighting Hearts” a roundup of news from Norway, where the Germans abandon investment plants but not their occupation, includes a note from the “Essener National Zeitung,” which is concerned that the British are teaching Norwegian saboteurs the jujitsu touch of death. “Unconditional Terms” Anthony Eden denied that this government is revisiting Unconditional Surrender this week. If the Germans want conditions, let them repel the invasion first. “Inner Hunger” The invasion. What’s keeping it? “Death at Stalag Luft III” the delayed revelation of the death of 47 Allied prisoners in a mass escape from that prison upsets the paper, and the Foreign Office. “The Gathering Storm” The invasion –Never mind, Reggie. I notice that the press in occupied Europe believes there to be 40—50 Empire divisions in Britain, 40 American, 80,000 airborne troops, 10,000 aicraft, 10 million tons of shipping. That is quite the armada. (Last weeks, number had a review of a scholarly biography of the Eighteenth Century Spanish statesman, Cardinal Alberoni, I noticed it as out of the paper’s usual line, but didn’t think it worth mentioning. Now I read the paper’s inadvertent reference to the Invasion as a “great storm,” and remember the review’s comment that Alberoni attempted his own Spanish Armada, only to have it wrecked by a storm. Suddenly I do not feel quite like mocking others for being so palpably anxious about the invasion. “Reflex” B-24 “Sweating it Out” is returning from Germany, damaged by flak, with bombs jammed up and unable to drop. Fearing a crash landing, bombardier Lieutenant Edward M. Gibbens, of Mountain Home, Idaho (a tenant?) takes a crash axe, removes his parachute, balances on the narrow catwalk of the bomb bay, cuts them free, only to slip on leaking hydraulic fluid. Catching a bomb rack, he pulls himself to safety to discover that he never let go of the axe. Heaven above, Reggie. The young men… “Artillery, Frenchmen, Etc.” The paper is pleased by the progress in Italy. Poles, Indians, Americans, were all attacking, but it was Juin's Moroccan Goums, Senegalese infantrymen and Algerian riflemen who distinguished themselves. The paper cannot help adding that they are “serving under French officers and noncoms,” however. German prisoners complained of the effectiveness of Allied artillery, CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid reports. “Here and There” Allied air attacks on the Kuriles, Wake, Truk, Palau, Marcus Island, even old Surabaya to force the Japanese to disperse their garrisons, I suppose. “Before the Monsoon” The paper thinks that Stilwell may capture Myitkyina soon. That would be good, because the Ledo Road cannot be completed until the town falls. Of course, since the road cannot be completed during this war, it might be argued that the attack is a waste of effort. On the other hand, it keeps General Stilwell’s name in the news, which is nice for General Stilwell. “Enemy’s Men” The paper notices that Rundstedt, Blaskowitz, Rommel and Sperrle are to command in the west. It supposes that Blaskowitz’s appointment is evidence that Hitler’s position is weakening. “Aces” The paper supposes that the Germans inflate their aces’ scores. The paper also notices that Cassino has fallen, rather uncharitably noticing that there were German troops and equipment in it when it fell, implying that this means that they were there in February, too. And Eisenhower had lunch at the “Willow Run” officer’s cafeteria at Grosvenor House, and was unable to finish his lunch until prompted. The paper makes excuses, but would hardly have run the story had the obvious conclusion not already been drawn. Poor man. I am amazed that he can eat at all. (A footnote notices that Ernie Pyle has lost his appetite. Pyle is under as much pressure as Eisenhower, but is much more likely to be killed in action than is the General. Though, admittedly, Eisenhower, like poor old Jellie, can lose the war in an afternoon. Domestic “Prayer” The invasion. What’s keeping it? “Anna’s Back” The President’s daughter, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, has moved into the White House to supervise her father’s day and keep him from overstrain. This is a perfectly normal thing for a 62-year-old executive and should cause no concern whatsoever about the President’s health. “Roger Lapham’s Triumph” The paper notes that Mayor Lapham’s recent successes on the public transportation front have caused his critics to reverse their low opinion of him to the extent that they now talk about him for the Senate in place of Hiram Johnson. Obviously Governor Warren would like to appoint a 62-year-old junior senator, but Lapham is too cagey to go for it. It will go to Joseph Knowland, I hear, unless Johnson makes it to '48. “Government by Default” The Governor of New Jersey, and the paper, are sad about low voter turnout in the primaries. “Home is the Hoosier” The death of Indiana humorist George Ade is big enough news to warrant a bylined story instead of an obituary. Fair enough, as it has only been 30 years since he penned his last bit of side-splitting mirth, at the retirement-worthy age of 48, after an arduous writing career of 24 years that enriched him to the point of being able to live as a squire. The imposter! You need to be born into that kind of money before you can deserve to live in a nice house and be treated with the greatest deference by all about. Not earn it, however agreeably! “His work constitutes a vast comedy of Midwestern manners,” says the paper. “Unnecessary and Undesirable” General Arnold was up before Congress defending his WASP pilot-and-flight-crew training programme, which is apparently deemed an expensive luxury. Female pilots and aircrew are no longer needed. There is no mention of whether anyone particularly wanted t fly with female pilots! “The Separated” Since Pearl Harbor, 1,163,000 men and women have separated from the army. 24,000 by death in combat; 34,00 by accidental death; 56,000 by capture by the enemy; 903,000 by honourable discharge. It is an interesting number that suggests just how many veterans are already out there working. Although later comments in the paper about the "neuropsychiatric" discharge are interesting. “Assurance” The paper notices the $16 billion cut in army and navy procurement. Men are being laid off, and the Navy has told planemakers not to exceed production schedules. Nevertheless, Nelson, Forrestal and Robert Patterson were before Congress to ask for some kind of national labour registration. Secretary Forrestal noted the 60% annual turnover at the Navy Yards to make his case. Rather badly, if the Committee pressed for details, I expect. Though since only 3 of 18 Senators on the committee bothered to show up, that is not very likely. The paper is skeptical. “Citizens wondered how on earth the Navy had been able to get its ships.” Somehow, the paper says, public opinion has not been able to work up “any real rage over the latest wave of strikes.” For some reason, the paper proceeds to ask “Rear Admiral Thomas L. Gatch” his opinion, which was that without a national service act, the fighting men at the front will resent the soft life of workers on the home front. Apparently, a man can get promoted in spite of being unable to keep his ship in action in the face of a blown fuse. And his opinions are worth soliciting. I imagine, had he been pressed for honesty, it would have been that “It is not what you know, but who you know." His intuition is probably already intuited by all, and that intuition stands at the base of reluctance to embrace national service. “Labor at the Polls” Representative John M. Costello (D, California) was defeated in this week’s primaries. He is the third member of the Dies Committee to go down this primary season, and the CIO is pleased at the success of their campaign. Enemies of “Un-American activities” may be less so. “Men Around Dewey” The paper notices that Governor Dewey will be the Republican candidate, and devotes two pages to his brain trust of advisors, who are, the paper thinks, very brainy indeed. “The Bin Runs Low” There is a grain shortage in Canada! Medicine The paper notes: a study showing that rich men have worse teeth than poor, due to rich diet; that “hormone” treatment, generally by injecting people with horse urine extract (stallions for “male hormones,” pregnant mares for “female”) is showing promise in the treatment of acne, terminal cancer. The services have discharged or rejected 1.1 million men as “meuropsychiatric” cases since Pearl Harbor, but there is no treatment for them, the American Pyschological Association reports. It is also concerned about the effects of battle on the mind and even body. One commenter rather crassly noted that psychosomatic conditions are even on the rise amongst Coloureds, “Who are not, as a rule, great fighters.” It is not clear to me how not being a great figher is supposed to immunise you against nervous breakdowns, on or off the battlefield. Press “America Firster” The New York Daily News has done an investigation to explain why it is so popular, and concluded that it is because of its isolationist, anti-New Deal editorial policies. “Frederick Faust, et al.” Frederick Schiller Faust, 51, was killed by a shellburst in Italy last week while serving as a war correspondent for Harpers. Author of westerns, roamnces, whodunits and cinema stories, in total 30 million words, including 115 published books, under pseudonyms as diverse as Max Brand and Frederick Frost, he might have been the most famous American no-one had ever heard of, and now he is the 17th U.S. war reporter killed on duty. Business Management’s right to fire is confirmed. Harry Sinclair, the slippery customer who got out from under the Teapot Dome, is back in the thick of it, buying back shares from the company ahead of his announcement of a dividend increase that made him millions on appreciation in the shares. It is not illegal because rich people do it. The War Production Board is facing off with SKF Bearings, Ltd., in an attempt to put pressure on its Swedish parent firm to stop selling bearings to Germany. SKF responded with a production slowdown, suggesting that two can play the blackmail game. Brewster’s contract for Corsairs was cancelled almost as soon as we got out. It’s good to have friends, and “Cousin H.C.” can now posture about, complaining about the 10,000 imminent layoffs on three days notice in Brewster’s Long Island plants. “Invasion Special” Radio Station RGBS, of Harlingen, Texas is offering to phone all listeners personally the moment that the invasion is announced. Some 400 customers have requested the service. I hope they have not paid, as it is extremely unlikely that the invasion will be announced in the small hours, given the six hour time difference. This week, Paulette Goddard and AnnCorio got married; while Captain Levi Plesner and Grandfather's old friend, Eugene Chen, has died. (I would be surprised indeed if that were news to you.) This is the world we live in as we turn back the plate, stomachs heavy and anxious, hoping for the best, fearing for the worst. Aero Digest, 1 May 1944 The semi-monthly publication schedule seems to be cutting at the meagre flesh of editorial. Fortunately, the paper has not obviously resorted to political opinionating to make up the space. Kidding, Reggie! President Roosevelt is an incipiently totalitarian tyrant, in case you were wondering. Albert Lodwick, “On the Threshold of the Invasion,” is a summary of things that this “Special Correspondent to the War Department” saw. Which is to say, fog. Not the fog of war, but the fog of Merrie Olde England, which kept his planes mostly grounded. The War Department photographs are provided, which illustrate the fact that bombs, once dropped, hit the ground. The stronger point, that the aircraft are over the places they are supposed to be bombing, is more difficult to show from the photographs, though I would be willing to concede it. On cloudless, beautiful days over Germany, the USAAF is doing a good job of blowing up the factories that it thinks are important. “Hangar Roof Runway Terminal Airport” In the near future, when we are flitting cross-continent by rocket belt, these outmoded structures will be a quaint curiosity of the distant past. Wait! Page over, there is a costing estimate! A hangar big enough and long enough to support a runway will cost $700,000! And, apart from the crisscross of such hangars at the aerodrome of the very near future, there will be a flying boat and seaplane ramp. (Not an underwater city with a mooring station in its roof? I am disappointed.) Washington In Formation Richard E. Saunders summarises the discussion over the failure of the national service bill in a reasonably sane way (I say that in contrast to his passion over the Lea and McCarren bills, following.) He makes the point that servicemen overseas will be more impressed with the efforts of the homefront if they are told more about the “miracles of production” achieved at home. No worries on that score, Mr. Saunders! He Also reviews continuing talks about the winding down of government contracts. Some in Congress are fighting a rear-guard action for careful accounting of the contracts, but this is not likely to happen, as it would slow reconversiosn down too much. He also adds the interesting point, of which I was unaware (I hang my head!), that there is an allocation for advertising in Government cost-plus contracts. No wonder there is so much of it! Editorial “Damn the Experts: Go Ahead!” If we really, really want it, there will so be helicopters in every yard, in ten years, or perhaps five. The experts were wrong about man flying, back in the old days, and they will be proven wrong about every pessimistic prediction they make now. I think that underneath the blather is some kind of push for private flying. If the paper thinks that the taxpayer will subsidise the hobbyhorses of wealthy businessmen, doctors and lawyers, it has another think coming. (Ranchers, on the other hand, need aircraft to do their business, and should get some kind of tax writeoff.) Aeronautical Engineering The chief engineer of Aeromatics Propellers thinks that Aeromatic’s linen of propellers is wonderful. Albert E. Arnnhym, writing in “The ‘Forgotten Miracle’ of the All-Electric Airplane’,” thinks that everything would be all-electric everywhere if there were sufficiently efficient batteries, but there are not, so they aren’t. “Consolidated’s Model 39 Transport” Is a 48-seater that the company has cooked up for the postwar market. Lieutenant Commander R. E. White, USNR, “Field Maintenance of Warplanes” Interesting problems include moisture getting into the oil; carburettor diaphragms being eroded by aromatic fuels; corrosion damaging undercarriages. Electrics require constant work, and fighter engines more frequent overhauls. In other news, GM is making Wildcats, Ranger is researching new engines, the Tubular Alloy and Steel Plant in Cox, Indiana, just reopened, working three eight-hour shifts with an almost half-female workforce, used oil is being reclaimed, du Pont Nemours is afraid that you have forgotten that they are doing wood-impregnation and want to remind you, Lockheed has a radio-testing station, an engineer at Ventnor thinks that swarthy foreigners might buy gliders after the war for ….gliding things,and C. J. Reese, President and General Manager of Continental Aviation and Engineering Corp, shares his view of “Requisites of the Mass-Flight Age.” You could start by not appearing to refer tp potential customers as “the masses,” Mr. Reese. “Vacuum Forming Speeds Plastic Sheet Formation” is news to me. I have dilated before about the future possibilities of high-efficiency evacuation pumps, Reggie, so there is no need to remind you again about the potential for a “cold chain” providing refrigerated goods, motivating consumer sales of refrigerators and a nice boom –or however the chain of supply and demand might work--. The point here is that yet another industry that I had not even thought of before is buying evacuation pumps. “The Allen Memorial Wind Tunnel” Is a new air tunnel going into service at Boeing’s Seattle works. It is the largest in private use. And, after thumbing through pages of ads for ball bearings, control cables and even a “chart [which] will help Simplify ordering gages,” the prize for most boring ad of the number goes to Waldes Koh-i-Noor Inc.’s Truac Retaining Ring. It is, however, a much prettier ad than the David Brown one in Flight for “20 degree helical gears,” although that one sounded more impressively technical. It is the "degrees" and the "helical" which do the trick. Actually, I lied, as I should have waited to page through “Digest of the News” to find thereally boring ones.Shenango-Penn has centrifugal castings! Digest of the News The Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce met in Los Angeles and agreed that more money should be spent on planes after the war. New planes, thank you. Others agree. One aircraft manufacturer thought that a “standing air force” was a good idea, while the association of feeder airlines think –but you are getting ahead of me, Reggie. Manufacturers are making enormous amounts of money, but their profits are meager, and will be threatened by the least Government move to tax them. Of more interest to me, Westinghouse Electrical manages $714 million in sales, net income being 3%, distributed as four $1 dividends in 1943. 115,000 people were employed at year’s end 1943, compared with 97,000 the year before, and 48,000 in 1939. Unlike four-engined bombers, I foresee a vigorous market for electrical engineering thingies --Again, I imagine you are ahead of me, Reggie. Aero Digest, 15 May 1944 General Features The indefatigable Mr. Bowyer has “A Message from England.” Which seems to be that England makes aeroplanes. Also, Scotland. Tappan Collins, “Grondwork for a New Interprertation of the Problem of Air Navigation, Part One” The ‘Part One’ is especially deadly, Mr. Tappan. Your daughter-out-of-law likes to read books with titles that start with ‘Groundwork,’ usually rendered out of especially deadly German, but no-one else does. “Let us construe air navigation as a problem of rotation about a spinning Earth’ Yes, let us do, Mr. Collins. “The Shape of Post-War Personal Flight” “It won’t be just wealthy men hobbying about, but I really cannot explain why I think that way, other than that there would be a great deal of money for me if that proved to be the case.” Frank Herrus, (‘lifelong specialist in shipping and foreign trade’) “Wanted – A Bold Merchant Marine Plan” I think most of the summary above will serve. A. D. Caddell, “Safety on the Production Line” The problem with sanity is that it is boring. Nelson E. Metcalf, “Better Production Methods” Deadly boring. Editorial The paper wants a Department of Defence, and thinks that the President is carrying water for the Navy in forestalling it. The President is bad, Montgomery Ward, totalitarianism at home, the President broke the Constitution once, John L. Lewis a traitor. Can’t we have more articles about better production methods, instead? Washington In Formation Aircraft production is down, but that’s a good thing. Something about contract renegotiation, and then on to the question of a Department of Defence, which is linked to an independent air force. Dr. Michael Watter, “”Introducing the Budd RB-1 ‘Conestoga’ Cargo Carrier and Troop Transport.’” Here is an interesting plane that will never be built in numbers! “The Aeromatic Propeller Makes its Debut, Part 2” Part 2. Oh, good Heavens. “Cooling Fan Raises Power Output of Engines” Is an article squarely aimed at anyone in America who is interested in this but who has never heard of the Focke-Wulf 190. Hello, Eugene Farmingham of Coeburn, New York! “Calibration of Air Speed Meters” and “The Vose Memorial Altitude Test Chamber “ show that things that you never thought about are hard, and require a great deal of math and hardware. “Post-War Versions of the Mars” Are a fantasy. “The Percival Proctor IV Communications Plane” No-one cares about it in Britain, either. “Adjustable Frequency for Model Plane Testing” Is actually about using airplane models in wind tunnel testst. To run their propellers at the necessary speed, quite extraordinary electrical motors are needed. “Plywood Masts Expedite Field Radio Installation” As eager as I am to see plywood in more general use, making masts of it seems like a blind alley. “Effects of Altitude on Electrical Insulation, Part 2” Part 2. Though, to be fair, those who care about electrical insulation in aircraft clearly are doing important work for the rest of us. I had no idea that the task of preventing "flashovers" was so complicated at higher altitudes, although, when you think about it, the rarefaction of air does put an extra load on the insulators, as electrons neither know nor care what is producing the uncrossable dielectric barrier, be it rubber or air. Lighter insulation, of course, will play its part in the future development of ground-level --tah dah!-- electrical engineering. Franklin M. Reck, Detroit Editor, “Double Wasp Engine Now Mass Produced at Kansas City,” The plant has an output of 3 million horsepower a month (I assune that we are being invited to divide by 2000hp and come up with 1500 engines), and 641 parts are made in the plant. C. J. Rigdon, “Analysis of Progress Trends in Aircraft Production” Charts prove that factories get better at making planes as they go along. With math! I think that the thought is that a logarithmic chart could be created to guide management in planning future aircraft production programmes, which strikes me as a bit of a leap of faith about the quality of data to hand. “Highlights of Automatic Pilot Manufacture at Auto-Lite” I am not terribly comfortable with the idea of exacting precision manufacture at a place where they cannot spell ‘light,” but the picture does not lie. The young ladies assemblilng the machines are wearing laboratory coats and everything! As with many other firms which publish advertising editorial material here, the company is proud of its specially-built testing equipment and the exacting cleanliness standards of its work rooms. It is remarkable how much the ladies making "electrical brains" here look like seamstresses. And a good thing for the employer, who can see if he can get away with paying them like seamstresses! (It is just as well that I see the family's future in selling houses to the young ladies, or my heart would be in danger of hardening to the cynicism I affect.) Digest of the News Talking about talking about civil aviation policy is a rousing success! New speed records set by Mustangs and Mosquitoes! “83443 Aircraft built in April as WPB Emphasizes Change to Combat Types.” “A(viation)W(riters)A(ssociation) Convention an Odyssey!” At what point are we allowed to call conventioneering the official craze of the (pre-invasion) summer? “Navy’s 1945 Program Calls for 37, 355 Planes.” And that, Reggie, is as much news as I have time to share. Rather a lot though you may think it, I find myself coming to a halt on time rather than on content, as my deprecating comments about the contents of Aero Digest might suggest. I do not relish yet another flight across continent, or the prospect of an entirely pointless interview with my young acquaintance. I have pretty much concluded that I shall have to call on the little brothers and make a show of force, which cannot end well unless some neutral party steps in to tell the man that his business is to be in Europe this summer.

Landing a tenure-protected,upper-middle-class job with good benefits, lots of vacation time, and a defined benefits pension. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Sorry, Vondy; my intended tone didn't get across. What I should have said is that as I look at your timelline, I think about what a "realistic" observer who is completely wrong would say. (That's why I riffed off Tony Blair's 2003 address to Congress.) It's the optimists who are right. The realists are encouraging the worst trends in human and ​Vulcan society --and throwing away the potential of the NX programme.

This is fun. Now, if someone set this down in front of me, I'd --well, I guess I'd smear garbage all over Vondy's vision. But here's where I'd take it i) Tone: TOS had a spirit of youthful optimism, a wide-open Sixties feel. Because it was made in the Sixties! The remake has a 2014 tone, suitable to our Zeitgeist. It's still optimistic, if I'm reading it right, but optimistic in a 2014 kind of way. That's tough in our pessimistic age. So here is what I've got. "It is the hour between the last star at night and the first light of dawn. So they say. But realists understand that the sun has gone out. It will never rise again. Optimists babble New Age nonsense about artisanal cheese. Who do you think is right? What is the mission of the NX programme? Optimists talk about a new age of exploration and colonisation. Realists say we know what's out there. We are a population of a hundred million, all too many of them living in arcologies that will fail one day. Let's face it, Earth is too large and complex a system to be saved. It's going to be in an ice age for ten thousand years. Mars is an artificial environment and a tiny toy of a home, even if we can terraform it. Faraway colonies? Post-scarcity humans don't reproduce that quickly. Don't really reproduce at all. Humanity's future is as an auxiliary to a powerful ally, Vulcan. Vulcans may be alien, but, as a wise former prime minister of the United Kingdom on Earth said in an address to the Vulcan High Command eleven years ago That statesman was calling Vulcan to a sacred mission, to extend its progressive, rational, human politics to a troubled galactic sector. This is humanity's goal, too. Only when the local community is united can we eexpect to stave off Klingon expansionism. And remember that it is imminent. When the Klingons develop Warp 7 ships, they will bring us into their Empire. Unless we can stand on our own feet here in the local neighbourhood. Right now, obstreperous neighbours stand in the way: Andorra, Telluria, Orion, other, lesser powers. Together, Vulcan and Earth can end this chaos. Then you can embrace your passion for exploration. In the meantime, the need for a much more rapid naval buildup requires that we take stern, unpopular measures. This Council must move to shut down funding for further expansion of the arcology programme and the grandiose, futile "geoengineering" that goes with it. We have killed the Earth, and we are sorry. At least we can refrain from molesting her corpse.

Vancouver Island is not small, but 12,079 square miles is a great deal short of 88,000.

France's core problem is that it has a population of 46 million, while Germany has a population of --crap, would you stop annexing your neighbours long enough for us to take a reading? So France can't fight Germany without allies, which means the British Empire, and mobilisation is kind of like a race, with Britain starting on the wrong side of an ocean at best. (Canada, for example, is going to have to make an army before it can play. "Hold on, guys, don't start anything, we're almost ready!") So you mobilise, and you --well, the devil is in the details. Jean and Heinz and a few Maries report to the headquarters, full of patriotic vim and vigour, a training distinctly in need of a refresher, and a start on a middle-aged spread. Some time later, they are at wherever the armies ended up meeting and sitting down and digging trenches --in the French case, trenches that are linked to peace-built fortifications that are the crucial force multipliers that let the French hold out until their allies get there. It's this meeting-and-settling-down that's tricky. In military terms, we are talking about a meeting engagement, a situation of maximum chaos in which Germany has some major advantages. (More horses in 1870, more planes in 1940.) So French doctrine places very heavy emphasis on the couverture, the screening and covering of the mobilisation process. Forces of couverture are mobile, in time or in space. The first infantry to mobilise are couverture units, because they are in the field first. So is the horse cavalry, because it marches faster. (Though it is fashionable in modern popular military history for people to open their mouths and make claims to the contrary come out, it is also possible to look at actual march tables.) ....And then there's the armour. Here we have a whole set of problems. For one, it is not possible yet to create armour reserve units, because reasons. Second, armour isn't necessarily fast on its feet, because the vehicles might be heavy and slow and require lots of trucks and fuel tankers and rail cars to move any distance. Because what is the point of having tanks in the first place if you don't have heavily armoured, heavily armed tanks with good transmissions that allow them to move around a contested battlefield? (I put the bit about transmission in to take account of the Cletrac transmission of the Char B1, which is part of the explanation for its weird looks.) The French started World War II with three divisions with heavy tanks like this. They are not very good at couverture. So now you're making your tanks light and mobile. They're fast enough to perform the mission of couverture, but what do they do afterwards? You do not have the manpower luxury of committing entire units to just one mission. So you create a tank that is heavy and light. Which, as you suspect, is not actually possible. The French had, by 1940, three divisions equipped with tanks like this. You will notice that this makes 6 armoured divisions --they were on their way to, I think, 8. The Germans, of course, had 10: so the unit ratio for French versus German armoured divisions is not that far off the overall comparison by numbers of divisions. The Germans like to lump in the French army's other armoured fighting vehicles to prove that they were outnumbered in 1940. This in turn leads to the conclusion that the French were dispersing their armour. The problem is that we're talking about a machine with basically the same capability and role as a Bren gun carrier. Unfortunately, the French dropped a turret on theirs, with the result that everyone's, like, "You tots don't understand armoured warfare doctrine, losers!" What happened is that the French put their three actual armoured divisions into the Low Countries as couverture for the most dangerous movement at the start of hostilities, and, incidentally, for the BEF. (So some gratitude would be nice, British dudes.) The pivot of their movement also required a screen of couverture entering the Ardennes. Because it was moving ahead of an actually-existing secure defence line along the Meuse river, and because of the exigencies of the alliance, the French opted to use their horse cavalry for this mission. There was just not enough armour to go around to give the hay burners more than a brigade of attached "cavalry tanks." As we know, they encountered 7 of 10 German armoured divisions (and their one cavalry unit), all advancing towards the Meuse as the German main effort. The French horsed cavalry, and the Belgian mechanised brigade, retreated before them. The French fell back behind the Meuse, and were resting their horses on May 13, when the Germans broke the Meuse line, mostly at Sedan, and mostly with infantry fighting infantry. At this point, the Germans were less than 120 miles from the estuary of the Somme at Abbeville, and this proved to be not enough time-and-space for the French to restore a defensive position. There should have been a counterattack across the shoulder of the penetration, but there wasn't, mainly because the French and Belgians had to fall back on conformance with a panicky British retreat from the Escaut/Scheldt line. For which we have Lord Gort to thanks, and, by the way, Gort was besties with a certain British military historian/well-placed political advisor named Basil Liddell Hart, a man whose grip on the need to get your nose seriously brown in life had already led him to an intimate connection with an up-and-coming officer named Bernard Montgomery. (Monty had married the widowed sister of one Percy Hobart, Hart's original bestie, and adopted his nephews.) If you're wondering who else might have been in charge of the British army in May of 1940, before he got the sack, in no small part at Hart's advice, look up one General Sir Hugh Elles, WWI era head of the Tank Corps, and by 1937 the second-highest-ranking member of the Army staff. Before Neville Chamberlain decided that the army wouldn't get a slice of the rearmament pie, and started looking for a good excuse to get rid of all the guys who were likely to say, "But we need it, because tanks LOL!" If you're wondering why I go from doctrine to gossip in the last paragraph, meditate on who wrote the history of World War II, and made sure that we remember 1940 as being all down to the Brits (and French) not being tank-curious enough. 'Cuz he had an agenda, is what I'm saying. Just in case you're wondering

Fusil-mitrailleur Modèle 1924 M29: Notice that it was actually made in a factory, which the French do have, and can run.(Although they call them "Royales," because they're on the metric system.)

And the French were getting ready to go over to a semi-automatic rifle in 1914. (Shh! It's a birthday surprise for Germany!) Unfortunately, like most of the new rifles of 1914, it bet on magnum cartridges and proved to be a mistake. But you know what? It doesn't matter, because I am not criticising the United States Army for what it did do. I am criticising it for what it didn't do. The Garand was a good rifle, but comparing the aggregate rate of fire of the infantry section from one country to the next just shows the same failure to take the point that victimised American infantry in WWII. The LMG, as Cassandra pointed out, was established (as I correct, by the the French Army Law of 1926) as the base of manoeuvre of the infantry equipe. The peloton attacks by manoeuvring its LMGs forward, not its musketeers. That day is done. That's why the French abandoned their experiments with the "automatic rifle." Demanding that the individual musketeer be the base of fire was demanding too much. They replaced the Lebel with a perfectly satisfactory bolt-action rifle, and an excellent LMG, and that simply made for a better fire team than the much larger American squad, M1s and shoulder-fired(!) BARs nothwithstanding. Nor is anyone saying that the BAR was a bad design taken on its own terms. Your argument is faulty in the sense that all LMGs can be used to give "walking fire," that is, fired from the hip, but that's by the by. The complaint against the BAR is that it is a poor LMG in its ability to develop a base of fire. That is, in giving sustained rate of fire from the bipod. At this point, it is as well for someone who thinks about these things a great deal to step back and apply a guiding heuristic: Which army/navy/air force is likely to have done a better job of assimilating the experiences of WWI: one that was in the thick of the fighting and made an effort to adequately fund its armed forces afterwards? Or one that had less than a year of battlefield experience to draw on, and let its armed forces waste away in the interwar years?

This movie is dead to me!