The Journal Times from Racine, Wisconsin • 21

THE RACINE JOURNAL-TIMES, JHow Lend-Lease Aided Rod Army's Great Drive Warplane Fleet Is U.S. Miracle Press All Set For Expert Job I AP ftatvrtt NAZI home- front problems are highlighted in these recent cartoons from the KoU nische Wustrierte Zeitung of Cologne. f' E.v I -nnrnrTfl-in 1 11 Otfe" odd'tio to motenolSi indicoted here, Russia has received 1,450,000 tons of steel ond hundreds of thousonds tons of aiunnirturh nickel, copper, brass ond zinc; vast shipments of munitions and other supplies, 2,600,000 tons American ood ond olmosr 1 3.000 tons of seed to replant the devastated Ukraine "To Red navy went relo-' tively 5molle' amounts of equipmentlargely marine engines, mine sweepers and sub-chasers Lend-Lease shipments to Russio Oct 1941 to March 1, 1944. totalled 9,500,000 tons. I msER i I r.

1 i "No, she is nof pretty, but her parents hove a home in the country!" "Of all the stars in the heavens, there are three stars -I would like best!" wsnsm nwmm coal's all gone you warm!" "for 21 subway and I thought yr 1- k- iU.S.1v,;.lta-.Uii;if.t.f 'jmm l' 1 stations he stood on my foot his intentions were serious!" War News in British Isles Has Its Lighter Side, Too Lending Craft Infantry (Large) Ad as Spearheads for Invasions LONDON. 0J.PJ Military authorities and war correspondents arranged in advance of the western front invasion what should be the best news coverage of any campaign in history. This front was covered from the moment the first doughboy or tommy set foot on the first landing barge. Press arrangements are as much a subject of security as operational plans, and to give the number of correspondents, radioman and photographers involved might tip the scale, of the undertaking. It can be said, however, thatplans drawn by public relations officers of the British, Canadian and American forces overshadow any similar organization in the past.

Minimum of Delay. Correspondents familiar with war coverage arrangements since the "Little BEF" went to France in October, 1939, believe that the program will operate with a minimum of delay and difficulty. 1 Most of the correspondents assigned to the, invasion have had front-line experience. Some have covered five or six jwars. Field conditioning', courses including such courses as map reading have been available to others.

Newsmen have gone ashore with' every American or Allied landing since offensive warfare "went amphibious" at Guadalcanal. Similar arrangements obtain this time. It is planned that during the first phase of the consolidation of beach-heads all copy will be pooled. Elaborate arrangements have been made to insure good transmission. This has been notoriously bad at the start of the early campaigns but.

was excellent in the recent Italian operations. Eventually, it is planned that these facilities include air, sea- and land couriers, radio, cable and voice transmission. Censorship Centralized. Correspondents found voice transmission facilities set. up by the.

U. S. army signal corps at Algiers during the north African campaign were of immeasurable assistance when other channels often were erratic or overloaded with official business. Similar facilities at Naples have "been 'helpful to news agencies and newspapers. Censorship, which Will be centralized for all phases of the operation, is under the direction of men who know the problems of field censorship or wrjo have been doing censorship in London for a long time.

Illinois School Sets High War Bond Mark ELIZABETH. 111. (U.R) The combined grade and high school students here, numbering less than 200, have purchased $6,300 worffH of war bonds during the- winter campaign. For their unusually good work the federal government has issued them a permit to purchase a "minute man flag" for their school. Don Clikeman, high school superintendent, said that students had bought enough bonds to buy a jeep at $1,165, a flying jeep or "grasshopper" at $3,000, and an amphibian jeep at $2,090, besides several smaller war weapons.

Naval Lieutenant Has Extra Busy Day BOSTON. (U.R) While stationed iij New Guinea, Navy Lt. John Kewer of Jamaica Plain served as godfather at" the baptismal ceremony of a native child. When the ceremdhy was completed, the father and mother revealed that they never had been formally married, so Kewer changed into his dress uniform and acted as best man at the wedding. JACK FROST LEFT TOWN JEFFERSON.

BARRACKS, Mo. (U.R) On the warmest March day in this area since 1875, the 29th training group discovered it had shipped, among other soldiers, one Pvt. Jack Frost. World War i 1 4 1. I 1111 patiently explained to her that censorship deletes purely for reasons of security, not of morality.

"You mean I can put in as many swear words as I Like?" Censor: "That's right" WAC: "Oh, boy!" Unfortunately or maybe for-' tunately) the WAC. mailed her letter somewhere else. The censor is still wondering what 'she wrote. In an editorial entitled "Near NEAR BEER? who have shed bitter tears in the dregs of Britain's tasteless found that the Americans are not alone in believing that the current local bi-ew leaves something to be desired. Water Wagon," London's Daily Mirror 'iThe increase in the consumption of beer need cause no alarm.

Indeed it may be said. to constitute a joint triumph for teetotalism the revenue. Never in the history of human convivality has so much water in fancy dress been absorbed at so high a price by so many." GIRL-CRAZY. Maybe it's because more boys than girls are born in Wartime. Maybe there's some other reasbn.

Anyway, adoption-minded British couples have recently shownf a marked preference for girl baies. So strong did the trend becomjs that the National Adoption socifly 10 per cent of whose children jjre boys-was last month reported have announced that it intendeJ to put a three-month "boycott on the adoption of girls. I HITLER'S QUJEUE. Of all wartime irritations i Britain, none is You've got to jSand in line for busses, trains, jjood, drinkr, and entertainment. With this in mind, last month "Stars, and Stripes" contributed what many believe to be the best guess to date oh Hitler's secret weapon: the queue.

Mail From Five Sons All on Same. Day NOWATA, Okla. (U.R) Mr. and Mrs. S.

A. Boatman of Nowata have four sons and a son-in-law in the armed services. One day re-cently the postman, brought five letters to the Boatmans. Yes they were from each of the five servicemen. The letters had been mailed from points scattered from England to "somewhere in the South Seas." Different tit War the British fastened a blockade on Heligoland, German naval stronghold.

Aerial patrols watched for signs of the German fleet. U-boats so brash as to stick their noses into the channel were shelled to the bottom. In May, June and July of 1918, while French and British flotillas patrolled the Dover straits and American men-o-war prowled the Atlantic, the United States convoyed 600,000 men safely to France. There was even time to train them behind the lines before they were sent into the trenches. New to trench warfare, the Americans had to be taught how to fight.

"T' By JAMES J. STREBIG Associated Press Aviation Editor America built in about two years the winged fury has now been flung into support of the Allied, invasion. i The speed in assembling such a vast force rivals in awesomeness the aerial might itself, an air force the like of which had not been dreamed before Munich or since, except in the United States. Hitler smashed into Pjoland with about 1,500 planes, executed the Norway campaign with fewer than 1,000, and pushed through the lowlands with something over 3,000. came Hitler's turn to defend, those figures were dwarfed by the Allied armada a flying force which counted plasnes by the tens of thousands, planes which rnulrl flv fastpr a nH hit hardpr than anything the riazis ever built, planes which earnest? om 40,000 factories' and many millions of workers.

The United States entered the war, as Gen. H. H. Arnold, commander of the army air forces, said, "with plans but io planes." Of the 3,000 'army airplanes available -oh Dec. 6, J941, only 1,157 were suited to combat service.

Actually, none of them could stay in the air against 1944 moaeis. First Blow Catastrophe. In a matter of boursjon Dec. 7, '1341, the Japanese reduced our combat-suited aircraft! total to 800, and for some timej thereafter whittled it down still further be- fore American production begaa to swing up. The" army's only fighter then in mass production was.

the P-40 Warhawk, a sturdy plaine lacking In performance but Which, then carriedand, in improved models, still carries a sizable responsibil ity. was, done principally by the and models the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-25 Mitchell and the A-20 Havoc. Also in service in small numbers! were the B-24 Liberator, the B-26 Marau der arid the A-24 Dauntless The; B-17 "had, first been flown six years earlier, at iabout the, time work was started on the B-24. Being readied 'if or action at the time of Pearl 'Harbor were the P-38 Lightning, anf extremely versatile, hfgh performance fighter: the P-39 Airacobra, which yielded two years later ito a much improved versipn; the P-47 Thunderbolt, high flying slugger which did not get into the airiuntil after the war began, and, the iP-51 Mus tang, rated by many the world's beat single-engined fighter. Most In Planning Stage.

Literally dozens of tfther war craft were, on- drafting boards, but few of them have passed the army's rigid requirements. Variety in fras sacri ficpd to nrodUctiOn." About 19,000 airplanes were built in 1941. The 1943 total was 85,948, and the weight of each plane was nearly double that of the pre-war model. The early 1944 rate of produc tion was around 110,000 a year with a still greater average weight. The army's plans called for pilots and other crewmen to fly those airplanes.

Only 696 pilots were graduated in 1941 the total for 1943 was 65,000. In 1941 the army turned out 601 navigators and 310 bombardiers, but no aerial gunners or ground technicians The air. forces training command graduated u.bj navigators, S98 bombardiers, 81,398 aerial eunners. 513.333 technicians and 18,850 others in various classifica tions in 1943. 1 Those figures are a simple story 'of how.

America built for war while fighting one. Duping those two years, newly produced planes and air crews were rushed to battle in the Pacific, in Africa and Europe. In Air War by 1942. The first American fliers in American planes to enter the war over Europe flew in six A-zo Havocs with a British formation on April 7. 1942, Six weeks later (came the first all-American raid an attack on the Rouen rail yards by a dozen unescorted B-17's.

The Fortresses flew nine such missions before plane. losing a Less than a year later Ithe United States Eighth Air Forc was able to send over a flight of 100 heavy bombers, and in another nine months the offensives! were 10 times that large. A few months more and the bombers 'and their escorting fighters totaled 2,000. The pre-invasion airj war had, in addition to production and personnel, another major phase-logistics. This was in Itwo parts, the bulk supply problem), on which all hopes for final triumph rested, and the speed problem, j- Airplanes solved both.

Land and carrier-based; air patrols drove the submarine out of lanes jammed with cargo' vessels. The army air transport com-, mand and the navy air transport service covered some 200,000 miles of routes, building airways as they went, flying with the regularity of domestic airlines and the daring of pioneers. They delivered millions of pounds of vital materials on schedules figured in hours instead of weeks. Mighty Expansion. The Eighth Bomber command went into business on Aug.

17, 1942.. United States participation in the air war.over Europe had been little more than a token up to that time, and even thereafter it grew but slowly. Not until Jan. 27, By TOM WOLF LONDON NEA Most Americans here in London got their first personal taste of air raids during one or another of the luftwaffe's attempts to set the -capital afire a la blitz days. The Jerrys scattered thousands of incendiaries over several sections of town frequented by O.

Red Cross clubs, etc. The- bombs didn't do much damage, but they did give the soldiers something to talk about for the next couple of weeks. On mornings after the" raids, London sounded, according to old inhabitants, like bygone this time it was1 the Americans who were telling the British about "the one that missed." DESCRIPTION Bomb-story-of-the-month comes from BBC announcer Robin Duff. During one visit of the luf twaffe to. London, Duff stood on a roof and broadcast a play-by-play account of the goings-on.

High point in his broadcast was a description of a particularly spectacular flash as an HE (high explosive bomb) landed comparatively nearby. His prose doubtless would have contained less unruffled drama had he known then what he found out a few hours later: The bomb causing that dra matic flash landed almost on top of Duff's apartm'ept rendering it uninhabitable, as the British would say. SWELL LEGS. A new medical discovery put feminine Britain on something of a spot. The medics were reported to have discovered a new jnalady shelter leg.

It seems that sitting or sleeping for long periods in a chair, in a damp shelter can affect circulation in such a way that legs swell permanently. Many a British damsel subsequently has been! reported lying awake nights pondering the relative desirability of: Sitting in a shelter, and losing a leg's shapeliness; or not sitting in a shelter, and maybe losing a leg. A skinny-shanked girl, on the other hand, might benefit from the shelter treatement. CENSORED. A certain U.

S. army mail censor, here is going half-mad with frustrated curiosity. A WAC came to him one day and inquired how. many swear words one might put in a letter without their being censor. The censor I Invasion7 Was MM ijL 1 Y.

'Don't complain because the You still have me to keep 1943, did an American force strike at a target in Germany proper WilhelmVhaven and not until more than a year later, Feb. 3, 1944, were American planes seen over Berlin. The two years of preparation were fallowed by a mighty expansion 'in activity. The December, 1943, volume of bombs droPP by the Eighth air force was 12,000 tons a third as much a.t had dropped in the preceding 16 months. Thereafter the totals piraled upward.

If Berlin had not seen Yankee planes, Ijthey were familiar in plenty bf other cities Bremen, Emden, i Wilhelmshaveh, Kiel, Vegesack, Schweinfurt, Hanover, Paris, Antwerp, Trondheirrt, St Nazaire, and even Gdynia in the Polish corridor. The objective of the American air forces, stated officially after the Casablanca conference, was: "To accomplish the progressive destruction of the German military, industrial and economic systems to a point where the capa city for armed resistance is- fa tally weakenedS. Luftwaffe 'a -Target. The plan, for reaching the ob jective tas: First, 'jhit vulnerable targets to slow the nazi fighter plane production program, then as momentum gathered to beat down- the German sair force itself and thus lay open the whole of German war production, transportation and i i Standing in the way of objective were the German air force itself, a formidable though not too numerous force; athighly developed i system of ground defenses and detection devices, the size of the undertaking, and the distances to targets. Added to the skill of nazi pilots and the speed and power of nazi planes Was an unending string of new and.

strange devices aerial bombs, rocket guns, robot -planes The American air force, work ing in close co-ordination with the British, met every new Ger man threat, and by the late win ter of 1943-44 appeared to have made a Jgreat stride in reducing Germany's ability to wage war. Meanwhile, in what was clearly a step toward invasion, the United States Ninth Air 'Force was moved from the Middle East and Asia to Britain, where it was reorganized and expanded. It' was assigned the task of knocking down the German defending air forces in the early stagesof invasion. Course Is Planned For WAC Recruiters FORT SHERIDAN, IH. (U.R) A corps of specially trained army men and women will lay down a barrage motion pictures, lectures and literature on prospective WACs in a recruitment drive.

Col. John T. post commander, said that five officers and five enlisted men of the army air forces, 20 women of the army service forces and 10 air-WACs have taken a four-day course in the use of these' recruitment "weapons" and two weeks training in the field under WAC recruiting specialists. U. S.

Army Handles Large Laundry Quota FORT llfoUGLAS, Utah U.PJ Over a quarter-billion pieces of laundry ere handled by the Ninth Service command army ser vice forces quartermaster laundries during 1943. Exact figures show thart 250,469,361 pieces were laundered during the year. Enlisted men's laundry is done first. They may have any amount done for a fee5; of $1.50 per month. The commissioned officers' laundry comes They have to pay, by the piece.

I Florida Air School Moves! to Oklahoma NORMAN, Okla. fU.PJ The transfer the Hollywood, naval, air navigation i school to Shawnee; was announced recently by Capt. W. 'N. Upde-graff.

commanding officer of the naval air station here. Transfer of the Florida's -school personnel will be completed as-soon as feasible, said Capt Updegraff. The Shawnee school will consist of sev eral hundred aerial navigation trainees In addition to about 100 administrative officers, be said. French History Full of Strife AP Features THE history of France Europe's natural battleground has been written in the blood of battles stretching back beyond the dawn of civilization. The Gauls were the first known conquerors in' the age-Old battle of France.

Then came the Romans in 154 B. C. following the avenue of the Rhone. Invaded by Norsemen. Four-centuries later" the Visigoths Burgundians and Franks overran France.

Norsemen -repeatedly invaded from the north. Even the Arabs, from the south, once occupied parts of southern France. In the One Hundred Years war, the British ravaged the channel coast and the northern provinces. English and Spanish invaded repeatedly in the sixteenth century while the country was rent by civil and religious wars. 1 A Spanish army laid siege to Dunkerque in 1652.

In 1792-93, an alliance which included Prussia crossed the northern frontier. Paris Taken in 1870. Even Narvilpnrr mu1-I nof 1rn v. out the invader, for eventually he was Dressed back 1tv th FncrHsh Russians and Germans to Paris, which was Paris once more echoed to the tramp of conquerors in the War ua joiu, wnen- rjismarcK dictated at Versailles the terms of a peace that cost France Alsace and one fifth of Lorraine. Germany took the hichwav to Paris again in World War but did not quite reach the capital.

In World War II Germany was more successful. Her armies swept into Paris and 'France collapsed. Teamwork Saves 'Fort' FORTRESS England (U.R) The -Fortress "Carolina Queen" circled the landing field agajn and again, her lahding gear i 1 jdiimieu a iiigni over Germany. She started to crath land, but Pilot 2nd Lt. Lesle A Bond, Chickasha, decided the plane might be smashed to bits on its own ball The crew re ported the plane lacked tools to drop the turret.

Lt. Col. Conway H. North, Little Rock, took off in another Fortress with the tools and a rope to dron thpm intn th hatri the circling The first try failed because the rope was too Sgt. Neal V.

Clayman, Bloomfield, Iowa? got hold of it once but it nearly jerked him out of "Carolina Queen." The next time, North used a 300-foot' rope and weighted the tools with a sandbag. Clayman, tying him self, hooked the tools while another gunner cut the rope with a knife. Bond then flew the plane out over the North sea and dropped the ball turret "Snagging those tools was just like threading a needle in midair," his crew agreed after a successful crash landing. 'V-Film'. Developed For Packaging Gifts AKRON, Ohio (U.R) A new packaging material, utilizing.

.9. base of plastic resin and named "V-Film" has been developed by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. research The" company says the new "V-Film" is not a substitute for pre-war Pb'ofilm, though it is described as superior" in tear resistance. V-Film, it! said, is not as moistureproof as Pliofilm. Reveals PX Sellers Heavy at Camp CAMP ELLIS, I1L (U.R) Ralph C.

T.Ianuel, officer in charge of post exchanges, said that during the first 10 months of post ex change operations here 83,533,043 cigarets and 2,518,432 candy, bars, were sold to soldiers. load of 200 fully equipped'infantry-men, transported without escort from a home base, or ferried from an offshore; transport, can be discharged in a' matter of minutes. The story of these new landing ships, dating back to April, 1942, has been released, with navy approval, for the first time. Lines of a Yacht. The LCI(L), a 157-foot, all-steel, all-welded ship of modified Hacker type, has a 23 foot 3l inch beam and displaces 246 tons, according to the Todd Shipyards whose New Jersey Shipbuilding Corp.

yards are turning put the craft on an assembly-line basis. Trim as a yacht, her bow rides high, her stern low in the water. Just aft of midships a combined pilot house and signal tower gives the appearance of a large funnel. Divided into two decks, this "bridge" holds a wheelhouse and chartroom below the open signal and observation tower. Below decks, an emergency steering gear is ready for use should enemy action incapacitate thev topside wheelhouse.

leeping quarters for the 27-r navy crewana tneir-soitner passengers are insulated for comfort able rest in arJic or tropic climes Troop quarters are amidships, where motion is slightest, and fitted With four-decker bunks. Solid Armor Rail. The large crew and troop mess forward is supplied from a galley in the after section of the deck house. Ship stores, including wa ter, are sufficient for an ocean voy age. In the center section is an of ficers' wardroom.

The main deck forward is pro tected with a solid armor rail cover for disembarking troops. Strategic heed for the new craft was outlined in a dispatch from Britain in April, 1942, the Todd Corp. revealed. Preliminary de signs' were completed and contracts let within a month. The New Jersey Shipbuilding Corp.

was formed under Todd management to build the craft. The problem was where. Neither time nof materials were available for an expensivjblant. Nor was there a vacant waterfront site within the New York supply area At Barber, N. surveyors found an asphalt plant, shut down by wartime shortages, spread over 34 unpromising looking acres.

It had no convertible plant, no tools or machinery whicrr could be turned to shipbuilding. AssemblyLIne Set Up. Within three months the asphalt pits had vanished and a shipyard was building, planned to use for the first time the assembly-line technique fathered in the automobile plants and turned by war to plane production. Jfour months later, two ships were off the ways. On rolling flatcars, the LCI(L)'s are put together from the fabricated parts of 23 subcontractors and the yard itself.

Hull sections are lifted by crane to cradle on the way inched into perfect union for the welders. Deck fabricated in the yard, are hoisted aboard the assembly jSosition No. 2 At No. 3 the pilot house is lowered aboard. Welders, machinists, electricians and other craftsmen take over at the next stop, and from position 5, the LCI (L) Js ready for 160 "Built in 1943.

From the end of the way, the ship Is pulled into a launching dock and towed into the stream. The dock's valves are opened. At, the fitting out basin, navy equipment is installed. In less than two weeks, its crew aboard, its flag the "ship is ready for a new invasion. More than 160 of the craft went down the New Jersey Shipbuilding Corp.

ways before the end of 1B43. Off newer beach-heads, the LCI(L)'s, working together, will discharge the infantry. As one noses into the beach, a sister ship offshore will make fast its cable to the stern of shore-wedged ship. Her troops discharged, the craft will be towed seaward until she floats, to return for another NEW Off the icy shores of Kiska, the coral reefs of Tarawa, the shell-raked sands, of Nettuno, a flotilla of sleek, graceful, little ships spearheaded the landings of American troopsTon the hostile beach-heads. They also had a major role in the current invasion of Europe.

Looking more like corvettes than landing craft, the LCI(L)'s Landing Craft" Infantry (Large) are, in truth, complete ships, long in cruising range and power, maheuv-erable and able to fight. Down their twim ramps, a ship- Airport Built Under Fire NORTHERN BURMA, De-layedfofSecurity Reasons) UP) An 'American crew wrote one of the most thrilling chapters in engineering history recently when it built an airport in northern Burma shellf ire in on 14 hours' working time and two men from Wisconsin and Michigan were members. The site for the airport was a series of old Kachin paddy fields which had to -be, smoothed and widened. Commanded by Maj. Verley Lewis, 45, of Phoenix, the crew started on the job while they were only a few hun dred feet from the enemy, and the racket made by three bulldozers and one grader attracted the attention of the Japanese.

The enemy cut loose with a salvo of artillery shells, but the Americans kept on working. Shell fragments "hit the bulldozers and the grader, but miraculously none of the men was "Some shells hit near us," Lewis said. "Once the shelling became so heavy that I decided we had better find a- hole if we wanted to stay healthy. Technicians fn the crew included Stanley Townsend, Montfort, and James Mack inac Island, Mich. Major Gets 'Delivery7 Job ANZIO BEACH-HEAD.

(U.R) Major George Evashwick has brought a lot of babies into the world since he left Turtle Creek, for medical school, but never with a cheering section until he delivered two boys and three girls on the Anzio beach-head. Evashwick is medical officer of a regiment which had been trading light patrol blows with the Germans on the beach-head. Casualties have been few and he finds he has come all the way to Italy to do the job he trained for family doctor. Every day there is a line of Italians at the gate of the farmhouse his-regiment uses as headquarters, waiting for hini. "They are sick in a lot of dif ferent Evashwick said.

but their favorite is pregnancy, delivered the first girl baby to a 19-year-old Italian girl whose husband is a German pris'oner. It was the darndest thing I ever saw. "All the women in the 'neigh borhood gathered around the bedside, screaming 'Courage' to the suffering young mother. Old crones screamed advice at me and I thought for a minute they were going to kick, me out and do it themselves. Then, when the baby was born, everybody laughed and cried, and hugged and kissed me and the mother." NAZIS IN DUTCH LONDON.

(JP) Nazis are 'ad- divising the Dutch people that a blanket soaked in water and wrapped around the body will offer protection in escaping hrough flames caused by Allied bombing raids. But all blankets in Holland were reauistioned a long time ago. THUNDER OFj GUNS Invasion landing? of World War like this one in Italy, must be 'made In the face of enemy defenses. TIIUNDER-OF CHEERS Americans in Franc in World War I jot a friendly re-ception and did not lose a man. toward Paris, the British ordered their shipping away from the channel ports and moved far down around the hump of France to St.

Nazaire for a port of debarkation. But when the German drive was spent, and the western front settled down to trench warfare, the charyiel ports again buzzed with the commerce of war. Never did the Germans move farther along the channal coast than to within artillery range of "Dunquerque, scene of the remarkable British evacuation in World War II that ended the. debacle of France. When a big troop movement was ready to cross the channel in World (AP Features) The first American expedition ary force moved into France to the' thunder of cheers.

-It landed fearing no more formidable pro jectile than a bququet flowers. Yes; World War I was different. Early in that war, a thin British line buckled and held against the German swarm at Ypres, and the channel ports wrere saved. Under the muzzles of French and British fleets, English troops poured across the channel. Before a month of World War I was over the British had moved four divisions across without losing a man.

Once, when the Germans surged.