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Show GWiip .... - --- Washington, D. C. HOW BRITISH MEET RAIDS FDR got a first-hand account of how British morale is maintained during the blitz when Surgeon General Gen-eral Thomas Parran, head of the Civil Defense mission, reported at , the White House. Dr. Parran's mission spent a month in England studying the people peo-ple living under constant aerial bombardment, and reported that one secret of Britain's splendid morale is immediate government relief for bombed victims. As soon as "all clear" sounds over a beleaguered city, rescue workers are on the scene with hot food, medical med-ical care, arrangements for shelter and ready cash. Repairs on damaged dwellings are begun immediately. Furniture is salvaged and stored. Families whose homes were destroyed are billeted bil-leted at government expense. Compensation Com-pensation is paid for injuries. Pensions Pen-sions are given dependents of killed civilians and rescue workers. The mere fact that ready cash is paid promptly has tremendous psychological psy-chological effect. Upon application and without red tape, bomb victims can get a cash grant to buy clothing, cloth-ing, new furniture, and workmen's tools. Small shopkeepers can obtain up to 50 pounds to buy new stocks. Disguised Plants. Dr. Parran's mission was particularly particu-larly impressed by the ingenuity of British civil defenses. One scheme for protecting vital industries is an elaborate system of dummy factories to mislead Nazi bombers. These plants are duplicated duplicat-ed even to position, color and markings. mark-ings. Old cars are towed to the yard of the fake plants to simulate workers' work-ers' autos. Some industrial centers even use great smudge pots, emitting huge billows of black smoke completely blanketing an area. Industry has been completely dispersed dis-persed into hundreds of small plants in Britain, each making separate parts for the war machine. Duplicate Dupli-cate plants are ready to take over production of vital products. The American observers declared that the famed balloon barrage has been highly developed and forces raiders to fly at great heights. Long steel cables dangling from the balloons bal-loons are death traps for planes. British confidence in their defense is reflected in the big drop in the number who go to bomb shelters. Fifty per cent of Londoners stayed in the shelters during the blitz attacks last fall, but only 5 per cent wenH to public shelters in January and about 20 per cent to private and communal com-munal shelters. GREEKS ARE AIDED Anything can happen in the tempestuous tem-pestuous Balkans, but it seems certain cer-tain that Roosevelt diplomacy and the lease-lend bill were responsible for delaying the Nazi attack on Greece for at least 10 days. The big thing which the lend-lease bill did for the British was to permit per-mit tanks, anti-tank guns, and antiaircraft anti-aircraft guns to be landed at Salonika Saloni-ka immediately. The British had only limited supplies of these, and had to keep some in reserve for use around Suez and other vital Mediterranean Medi-terranean areas. However, with passage of the lend-lease bill, they knew they could get reserves later from the United States, therefore threw all their present reserves onto the Greek front. This type of munitions is what the Jugoslav army and the Turks have especially needed. They have plenty of rifles, machine guns and a reasonable rea-sonable amount of artillery; but few anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns tc stop the advance of modern mechanized mech-anized forces. Note The Balkans has been getting get-ting its American news chiefly from the official German DNB news agency, agen-cy, which had played up all the Wheeler-Nye speeches, gave the impression im-pression that the United States was against Roosevelt and that the bill could not pass. Final passage, however, how-ever, could not be suppressed in the news dispatches and had a tremendous tremen-dous eflect upon Balkan public opinion, opin-ion, which recalled how American entrance into the last war had turned the tables. NO LAP.OR I'F.ACE It was expected that John L. Lewis' retirement from the C.I.O. would bring peace to the war-torn ranks of labor. But this has not been the case. A. F. of L. and C.I.O. leaders are working effectively together in the defense administration, but otherwise other-wise they are still poles apart. CAPITAL CHAFF At the left on his desk, Vice President Presi-dent Henry Wallace has a telephone which communicates directly with the White House. No less than three secretaries a light blonde, a rnerliurn blonde, arid a brunette take stenographic notes of every word said at Steve Early'fc daily press conference. Many a government clerk knowp the Supreme court ciiielly us an eat Irig place. Its cafeteria, below the court room, icrvea 7,000 persona a month. |