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Show MJ JTrfV W PEARSON 'iiiimmuitnun Washington, D. C. BRITISH BOMBERS The long-discussed transport of . American-made bombers to England Eng-land by flying them across the Atlantic At-lantic finally will get under way in j a couple of weeks. The exact date, route and number of ships is a secret. But the planes will be two-motor Lockheeds, known in England as Hudson middle-weight bombers, and they will depart from the big airport at Botswood, Newfoundland, New-foundland, which was enlarged ex- j pressly for this purpose. Also, the first flights will be made by British crews who already are in Canada. These 'men are crack transport pilots and navigators trained in celestial navigation. American flyers, accustomed to piloting pi-loting on radio beams, will not be used until later, possibly not before be-fore spring. They will have to undergo un-dergo training on the route. England is seriously deficient in long-range bombers, as it has had to concentrate wholly on fighting planes, pursuits, interceptors and divers, in order to keep control of the air over its islands. This lack of powerful offensive planes has handicapped Britain both in smashing smash-ing at vital German areas and in crippling Italy, the weak sister of the Axis. One factor aiding the British is the lengthening of the night. This made possible the re-, cent raids on northern Italy's industrial indus-trial centers, and as the nights grow still longer these attacks will be in- " creased. YOUTH TRAINING With the conscription bill undergoing under-going heavy attack on Capitol Hill, the President himself is under fire on another phase of national de- fense. ' In this case the criticism comes from his own advisers, who demand that he act. They want him to put through the non-combative phase of defense which he outlined last May. The program, as described by Roosevelt himself, consists of two parts, one devoted to training mechanics, cooks, and other non-combative non-combative craftsmen; the second to training fighting men for planes, tanks and guns. To date all efforts have been concentrated con-centrated on the second part of the program. Nothing tangible has yet been done about the first, the non-combative non-combative part. The U. S. office of education, CCC and National Youth administration have prepared complete blueprints for training hundreds of thousands of youths in the many crafts needed by a modern army. The three agencies agen-cies are ready to swing into action at once on these programs. All they need is the money. But although members of congress repeatedly re-peatedly have urged Roosevelt to get busy, nothing has happened. In conferences he has readily agreed to the necessity for this training, but beyond that zero.' Insiders blame the deadlock on two men, Harold D. Smith, penny-pinching penny-pinching budget director, and Sidney Sid-ney Hillman, labor member of the national defense commission. Roosevelt instructed Smith to prepare pre-pare budget estimates and Hillman to submit plans. " But neither has complied. Smith, whose functions are wholly administrative, has raised policy objections thatarenone of his affair; while Hillman, timid about possible A. F. of L. and C. I. O. protests, has backed and filled. Congressional leaders, under fire over the conscription bill, are sore at the delay on the non-combative training plan. They feel that if it had been submitted simultaneously it would have considerably eased the way for the military program. Note CCC, NYA, and Education office chiefs estimate the cost of the non-combative program at around $500,000,000. This would train 250,000 youths in the CCC, 300,-000 300,-000 in the NYA, and 225,000 in vocational voca-tional schools supervised by the office of-fice of education, during an entire year. FIR CONE Sen. Charles McNary's plane trip to Oregon, for his vice presidential acceptance ceremonies, will be the first time he has traveled by air. Also it will be the first time in nearly near-ly a year that he has visited his beloved ancestral home. Located a few miles from Salem, on the Mission Bottom road, the McNary farm was homesteaded by his pioneering New England grandfather, James McNary, 95 years ago. At that time it was a dense primeval forest and many of the giant old trees still remain. WILLKIE BITS Two outstanding oddities about Wendell Willkie are that he doesn't drive a car, does not own a car, and doesn't carry a watch . . . Everybody knows he went to Indiana Indi-ana university; few know he also attended Oberlin college in Ohio (1916). He still thinks the Democrat platform plat-form of 1932, w'hich he supported, is one of the best ever written. Salary which Russell Davenport of Fortune sacrificed to join Willk-ie was $75,000. |