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Show Mj fltfi DREW PEARSON an .-. - - - - - - r rrt Washington, D. C. PLENTY OF TRAINED PILOTS General Arnold did not say so in his report to the secretary of war, but the tremendous job of expanding expand-ing air forces personnel is almost finished. He might have penned a little footnote, saying, "We have pilots pi-lots running out of our ears." No cadet training bases have been I closed as yet, but the army will close approximately one dozen schools for training pilots between now and April. Air forces officials find that the elaborate program has now produced enough competent navigators and pilots to finish the job in both theaters of war. The tip-off to this is found in recent re-cent changes in policy of the transport trans-port command. Army transport command, which does non-combat flying all over the world, has always preferred to take pilots from the open market, usually usu-ally from the airlines. These pilots are specially trained in safe, efficient effi-cient transport flying, as distinguished distin-guished from the combat type of training in the army air forces. Recently, however, transport command com-mand has been forbidden to take on civilian pilots, and has been forced to accept combat - trained pilots from the air forces. MIRACLE WORKERS Miracles happen, even in Washington. Wash-ington. Farm Security administration, administra-tion, heir to all the grief of Rex Tugwell, and long confined to the Capitol Hill dog house, is now emerging into the warm sunlight of congressional favor. A simple matter mat-ter of southern friendship did it. The miracle resulted from the fact that Frank Hancock and Harold Cooley were a couple of congressmen congress-men from North Carolina. Hancock, now out of congress, has just been appointed head of Farm Security. Hence, Congressman Cooley, formerly for-merly FSA's deadliest critic, is now a supporter and friend. All during the past year, FSA operated on a shoestring. Its funds were cut, and congress frowned on almost everything it tried to do. But now, a report of a house agriculture agri-culture subcommittee which Cooley heads is about to give FSA a clean bill of health and recommend that it be continued as a permanent agency. The report will not whitewash Mr. Tugwell or any of his works. In fact, it will sharply criticize all the old resettlement projects (already in process of liquidation). But it will give strong approval to two other FSA programs rehabilitation and tenant purchase. Also, there will be a proposal for combining the lending programs of Farm Security with two types of Farm Credit administration loans, with a new corporation to handle the joint lending activity. EXIT BOMBSIGHT There is every indication that the U. S. bombing to which the Japs will be subjected in 1944 will be without benefit of bombsight. The Norden bombsight has been publicized as the great secret appliance ap-pliance which will help us win the war. It has been highly successful in the European theater, but in the Pacific it has actually become excess ex-cess baggage. Supply officers in Washington are still assigning bombsights to planes for Pacific action, but fliers are urging urg-ing that the device be left at home. They have found that the most successful suc-cessful air attack in the Pacific is the low-level tree-top bombing, in which medium bombers sweep in on the target and let the bombs drop when they are so close they can't miss. This is better than' any precision pre-cision instrument ever invented. Also, it is less dangerous than high-altitude bombing. Coming in low, the planes avoid detection by the enemy, whereas the high-altitude planes are caught both by instruments in-struments and vision. ) The tree-top flying requires great-er great-er pilot skill, also the use of delayed-action bombs so that the plane can get away from the target before it blows up under the plane. I This is the kind of work that was done in the famous battle of the Bismarck sea, in which every Jap ship was destroyed. It was also how the Nazis sneaked up on Bori and i wreaked havoc with Allied shipping. I MERKY-GO-ROUND C The budget bureau several times has offered Cordell Hull all the money he needs for the state department de-partment if he will only clean house and get in some good men. C. The A. F. L. executive committee commit-tee will finally vote John L. Lewis' mine workers into the A. F. L. at this month's meeting in Florida. C-Harold Ickes and Henry Wallace, who didn't love each other too much when Wallace was secretary of agriculture, agri-culture, have made up. Jesse Jones (not love for him) brought them together. to-gether. C Instead of cutting down red tape, the war department is increasing it. It opened the new year by requiring reception clerks at all entrances of the giant Pentagon building to ask no less than 14 questions of each visitor, vis-itor, and write down all answers on a pink, blue or yellow filing card. Guess the army thinks we are losing j the war, not winning it. |
