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Show 'When Will War End?' Nation's No. 1 Question Ruhr Valley Bombings Seen as Concrete Evidence of Germany's Inevitable Defeat; Aviation Expert Revises Estimate. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. i WNU Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. Today Washington, deep as it is in the problems of the moment on the borne front and along the seething globe-scattered sectors where our men are fighting is more deeply conscious of the future than ever before in history. And that feeling is clearly reflected in every town, city and cross-roads in the country. The letters I receive express this Interest in tomorrow, the many polls on post-war problems and the plans to solve them echo that interest, the comment of leaders, the organization organiza-tion of clubs and forums and committees com-mittees to discuss them, add up distances such as from New York to Chicago. "By 1946, it is expected that 70 per cent of the passenger travel, now relying on railroad pullmans, will go by air about 20,000,000 passengers pas-sengers a year. "Exclusive of certain military airdromes, air-dromes, there will be about 865 major airports in the United States by the end of this year, all with paved runways of 3,500 feet or more, capable of handling the largest planes, where fewer than 100 existed exist-ed in 1940. In addition to these, there are well over 2,000 smaller fields. "To operate these planes and air-Dorts air-Dorts after the war. there orill he the 3,000,000 air-minded and trained pilots, navigators, radiomen, airport engineers, traffic controllers and others oth-ers who will be In the air forces by the end of this year." The OWI predicts post-war flights of 11 hours from Washington to Paris and London; 7 hours from Washington to Mexico City; 16 from Washington to Moscow; 18 from Washington to Cairo or Buenos Aires and 22 hours from Washington to Tokyo (if Tokyo is still on the map). I quote these statements to show how tremendously the world we are living in today differs from the world we lived in before Pearl Harbora Har-bora change which must affect all phases of life tomorrow. Already, as far as the military go, the earth has shrunk from the comparative size of an orange to the size of a marble. When the war is over and we have had time to adapt what we have learned in the field of aviation to peaceful transportation, it will shrink to the size of a pea. When we shift our war effort to peacetime peace-time production, it will shrink still further. Utopian Plan Aviation is only one phase of the achievement the war has forced upon us; there are great plans bursting burst-ing to become realities, many that seem so Utopian that the cynics scoff a world organization to enforce en-force peace and achieve freedom from fear; world co-operation which will increase production and facilitate facili-tate distribution to the point where there will be at least an approximation approxi-mation of freedom from want to tick off only two of the four freedoms free-doms for which we are supposed to be fighting. Discouraged at our inability to realize within our own vast borders bor-ders all of the dreams of our founding found-ing fathers, we cannot believe that the high aims for unity embracing the whole world can be anything but pure fantasy. But if we can shrink the globe from orange to marble, a feat that would have been considered utterly incredible to our own grandfathers, must we say that we cannot build a world unity and a world understanding greater than anything heretofore conceived? It took a dreamer to put the first wings on man the laboratory and the machine shop did the rest. With the widespread will to a better bet-ter future providing the psychological psychologi-cal inspiration, who knows but that the energy which has made the prosecution of global war possible can be transmuted into a framework upon which global peace can be built? w me largest ana neaiwiesi curiosity curi-osity that the nation has ever seen. The political parties recognize this and the Republicans are busy working work-ing on a constructive foreign-policy plank for their 1944 platform to meet the administration's post-war plans. As the people look toward tomorrow, tomor-row, the first thing they ask is: "When will the war end?" You can't get an official prognostication on that subject and, personally, I would hesitate even to make a guess. But this week, there came to my notice two remarks, one from the German propaganda minister and one from the president of an American aviation avia-tion corporation which I want to place figuratively in parallel columns col-umns not only side by side with each other but in balance with previous pre-vious remarks of both men. GoebbeW Viewpoint Some time ago, Herr Goebbels poke of "the Ruhr," that little industrial in-dustrial area including the historic center of Germany's munitions manufacture, the Krupp works of Essen. Goebbels was on record as saying say-ing that the destiny of the Ruhr was the destiny of Germany itself. And then only a few days ago, a broadcaster from Berlin admitted that ihe "havoc" wrought by the Allied bombers in that area was "incredible." "in-credible." , The other gentleman whom I wish to quote is R. S. Damon, president of the Republic Aviation corporation, corpora-tion, which builds those famous P-47 Thunderbolts," the fighters which have done such an efficient job of protecting our bombers over Europe. Eu-rope. Some time ago Damon predicted that Germany would be knocked out of the war by 1944. But Mr. Damon has now revised that estimate. He ays: "Unpreparedness may have cost us many early rounds but now it appears possible that Germany will have been removed from the lists by the end of 1943. I believe this to be true because no nation, not even Hitler's Germany, can suffer ' the rate of attrition which is now being inflicted on the Nazis and survive sur-vive for long. The aerial combat box scores are now so definitely in our favor and our constantly increasing in-creasing production of fine aircraft and well-trained airmen precludes any possibility of those scores being reduced unless by a miracle, and the days of Hitler's miracles have ceased to be. Our air forces are now systematically and liberally pulverizing pulver-izing the industrial centers of Germany Ger-many and without her industries, Germany cannot fight or even ex-ut It's a smaller globe, after alL As we begin to think in global terms, we have to adjust our views of geography. For Instance, suppose sup-pose someone should tell you that the important port of Siberia, for which the Japs yearn but do not dare attack, the port of Vladivostok, were a hundred and fifty miles south of the poetic city of Venice with its streets of water? Of course, you would know better but could you say how much better? Or if someone said flatly to you: "You can't tell me what South American countries a line running straight south from Savannah, Ga., would pass through," you would feel you could at least guess and get one right No. No. Naples Is 150 miles north of Vladivostok. You can't name any South American Ameri-can country south of Savannah, Ga., because the western coastline of South America is east of such a point Guess again. Mind you, I do not underwrite this prophecy but I think it is worth recording re-cording because both men have revised re-vised their views in the direction of a shorter war Goebbels would never nev-er have dwelt on the importance of the Ruhr In the beginning if he knew he would have to admit the degree of its destruction Damon, after similar consideration, reduces the time he believes it will take to knock Germany out Aviation' t Growth In both cases, we have a tribute to the tremendous growth of American Ameri-can combatant airpower. Now let us look 'at the parallel growth in non-combatant airpower. We turn to no less an authority than the Office of War Information: "By 1945, it is expected that transport trans-port planes in the 100,000-120,000-pound class will be flying in quantity, quan-tity, carrying loads of 15 tons at a speed of 250 miles per hour over |