OCR Text |
Show I P :ur:; Rocir. el:, informed ; C..i. -.s he had ordered a Navy , Io.'.e to lL--l:-.nd to "loretuU ar.y , ;;:.: ts movem.-::t ... by Ger-j Ger-j lutu.y avatar the Wts'.cn Hem-i Hem-i isphere." He said German oc-I oc-I cupatioa of that country would threaten the North American continent, cont-inent, shipping in the North Atlantic; At-lantic; and the flow of munitions to Britain. The President said the Navy had been ordered to take "all necessary steps" to insure safety of communications" in the approaches between Iceland and the United States, as well as on the seas between the. TJ. S. and all other strategic outposts." - The President later told his press conference that whether Iceland lies outside the Western Hemisphere Hemis-phere is an academic question. He said there are points outside the commonly accepted Hemisphere Hemis-phere limits which are of importance im-portance to U. S. defense, and that in occupying Iceland he acted to forestall a hostile move which strategists considered logical or likely. SELECTIVE SERVICE Selective Service headquarters announced that 21-year-olds who registered July 1 will be given draft numbers so they will be called in proportion to previous ' The War Department annornctci contracts of nearly Stl30.000.OOJ for new airplane manufacturing fa-I fa-I duties and ordered all Air Corps ' Reserve officers except those in key civilian positions to active duty by August 1. The army i air force established its own air : staff to form air force plans and ' decide on equipment and other ' matters without the approal of ! the general staff as heretofore. NAVY The President asked Congress for $1,625,000,000 in appropriations and contract authority for the Navy for additional ordnance, yard equipment, planes, and repairs, in-; in-; eluding $400,000,000 for defense installations on naval and private ! ships anti-mine equipment, ar- mor, etc., but, the President emphasized, em-phasized, not for guns to arm merchants ships. Rear Admiral Robinson, chief of the navy's Bureau of Ships, announced an-nounced the navy shipbuilding program pro-gram is proceeding so rapidly that "every single combat ship Is ahead of schedule." He said the problem of labor supply has been I solved and the rate of expansion is limited chiefly by the ability to I obtain materials. SHIPS Hie President asked Congress for $1,698,000,000 for the U. S. Maritime Commission, including $698,000,000 in cash for new ships and $1,296,000,000 in contract authorizations. au-thorizations. The U. S. Maritime commission announed a saving of more than 500,000 tons of steel in the building build-ing of 705 commission-designed ships by construction methods not known in the first World War. The commission said the greatest single weight saving measure was the introduction of welding to replace re-place riveting so that entire ships are now built without a single rivet. registrants rather than ahead of or after older men. Order numbers will be determined by national lottery lot-tery on July 17. Headquarters advised local boards to defer men who have volunteered for civilian or military duty with Canadian or British forces. The House passed legislation to permit per-mit deferment of all men who were 28 on July 1. ALIEN EDUCATION The President allocated $14,000,-000 $14,000,-000 of WPA funds for a program to educate 1,000,000 aliens in the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. cit-izenship. More than 11,000 teachers tea-chers on WPA rolls will conduct classes for aliens who wish to , become citizens. REGISTERED CIVILIIAN ORGANIZATIONS WPA announed that mot e than , 200,000 national, state and local civilian organizations with 50.000-000 50.000-000 members will be catalogued within the next 60 days to determine deter-mine the parts the organizations and individuals can play in home defense so the Office of Civilian Defense can find qualified persons for new programs. All except purely pure-ly social clubs will be indexed. CIVILIAN SUPPLY OPM conservation oficials announced an-nounced that "our purchases, our habits, our daily lives, perhaps even our styles, will be controlled by the requirements of national defense." de-fense." Some of the changes facing the public, acording to OPM: No corks in bottle tops; beverages in bottles rather than cans; silk used in parachutes will make silk stockings stock-ings more scarce; women will have fewer permanent waves, cosmetics, and facial creams; it will not be patriotic to buy two automobiles; farmers will choose from 300 Instead In-stead of 1,400 types of plows; chrome, copper, aluminum and woods such as mahogany will probably prob-ably not be available to the furniture fur-niture industry, and many designs will be eliminated. BUY COAL NOW The Federal Bituminous Coal Consumers' Counsel appealed to the nation to buy coal now so it can be moved from the mines before growing defense production burdens bur-dens the country's transportation system. There is an ample supply of the coal, the Counsel said, but by September 15 shortages in some places may develop unless coal is stored for the winter before then PRICES Price Administrator Henderson announced that price ceilings on rubber tubes and other rubber products will be deferred for several sev-eral months to allow the inudstry time to work out price problems voluntarily. He announced, however, how-ever, the ceiling prices will be placed within a few days on cottonseed cot-tonseed oil and certain grades of West coast lumber used by the Government. Mr. Henderson also stated that recent action to check rises in hide prices does not mean the OPACS expects to freeze livestock live-stock or meat prices. ARMY The President asked Congress for an additional $4,700,000,000, for the Army, most of it for pur- chase of heavy guns, $400,000,000 for clothing and other equipment $200,000,000 for the Air Force and $350,000,000 for the Signal Corps, and $1,000,000 for horses. The War Department announced formation of a completely motorized, motor-ized, and heavily armed experiment al division, strengthened with tanks" with 50 percent more fire power , than a present armored division I although with 14.000 instead of I 15.550 men. The Department also I announced that to bolster anti-i tank defenses, anti-tank specialists will be assigned to every army large unit to work cut methods of defeating armored force aaeks AIR OPM announced that during June 1.476 military planes were delivered de-livered to the Army. Tfavy, and Great Britain 142 more than the previous month and a new record. I |