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Show 35 slates between "April 9 and 17 to acquaint educators with the Navy Officer Procurement program under which 80.000 ce-1-! lege freshmen and sophomores j will recruited annually. The' students will be enlisted as ap-prentica ap-prentica seamen and allowed to remain in schticl at leas; "to the end of the secend year.. About 35.000 will be selected each j year for further train-jig lead- j tag to commissions as Ensigns in -the Navy Reserve. j The House pasesd and sent to j the Sena:e an $18 billion war ap-j prcpriation bill, providing almost , S7 billion for military air-, planes. The Senate passed and j sent to the House a Naval Pub-; lie Works bill to provide a bil- lion dollars ' tor expansion in aircraft and storage faculties. J The War department ruled officers of-ficers and enlisted men, except those of the regular army, may ' campaign for and hold political office, if such activity does not' interfere with military duties.' Selective Service headquarters ' instructed local boards to start classification of February 16 reg-! i.strants and to prepare to fill the Army's June call and possibly pos-sibly the May call from these men and the earlier registrants. SS headquarters also issued instructions in-structions to all local boards for registration of an estimated 13,500,000 men between 45 and 64 on April 27. THE WAR FRONT The Navy reported as of April 4 total Japanese losses inflicted by U. S. Naval forces included 21 warships sunk, 13 possibly sunk and 22 damaged; 43 non-combatant non-combatant ships sunk, 14 pos- , sibly sunk and 14 damaged. The 1 Army and Navy said Axis submarines sub-marines sunk or presumed sunk by the Navy total 24, and those by the Army number four. Assistant As-sistant Secretary of War for Air Lovett said U. S. pilots in the Far East are shooting down five Japanese planes for every plane lost. The forces of Lieut. General Mainwright in the Philippines repelled several enemy attacks by land, sea and air on B.taan P:nincula and Corregidor Island with heavy Japanese losses. Japanese Jap-anese bombers sank the U. S. aircraft tender Langley. the Destroyer Peary and the Xavy tanker l'ecos in the Southwest Pacific, with an estimated loss of 700 men. The Navy reported the torpedoing of 15 more United Unit-ed Nations merchant vesseLs in the Atlantic. SHIPPING The Maritime commission reported re-ported all contracts have been awarded for the 23 million deadweight dead-weight tons of merchant shipping nearly 2.300 cargo ships and tankers which the President has set as the 1942-43 goal. The Senate Sen-ate passed and returned to the House a bill enlarging the war risk provisions of the Merchant Marine Act to allow insurance of foreign as well as domestic ships. AGRICULTURE The Department of Agriculture said it had purchased more than $800 million worth of farm commodities; com-modities; totaling more than 7,500 million pounds, during the first year of the department's expanded purchase program-March program-March 15, 1941. to March 15. 1942. More than half of all purchases were for meat, dairy and poultry poul-try products. Most purchases were for Lend-Lease shipment. The Agriculture department reported re-ported prices of all farm products combined were 99 per cent of parity on March 15, 1942, and 46 per cent above the 1909-14 average. aver-age. The Commodity Credit corporation cor-poration reported it has contracted con-tracted for the sale, during the period ending April 30 of about 5.500.00a "bushels o! 'cc(:n and about 240.000 bushels of wheat to be processed into industrial alcohol. A Week of the War . . 1 War Production Director Nelson, Nel-son, speaking in New York City, said "America's industrial plant is really beginning to roll" He said airplane production schedules sched-ules for the first three months ' of this year have been mat or j exceeded, and production of tanks is ahead of schedule. Mr, Nelson said production of merchant ships is "rising rapidly" rapid-ly" and this year's schedule should be met. A Garand rifle is now available for "Every one of our combat soldiers who is supposed sup-posed to have one " he said. Production Pro-duction schedules for anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns also are being met. However, "This is no time for easy optimism." He stated, because the production of war goods is so huge a job "we can break every record we ever ance with priority orders have been undertaken since last June. Reports have been completed on 3,500 firms the board said, and of these 1,600 showed no viola- tions while approximately the ' same number reported minor I j violations through misunder-' I standings. The reports resulted in 35 suspension orders, affecting' 46 firms and one individual." Thirteen federal agencies and more than 3,500 investigators are cooperating with the board in, the surveys. ' . j PRICES 1 I The Office Of Price administra-1 tion froze manufacturers', whole-1 whole-1 sale and retail prices of plumb- j ing fixtures and of 44 common , 'household electrical appliances,! ' all of March 30 levels. Ceilings I were also set on wholesale! made and still fall short of the ; need.'' I The Senate passed and sent to j the House legislation to set up a $100 million smaller war plants corporation under the War Production Pro-duction Board. The corporation would obtain contracts from government gov-ernment procurement agencies and re-award them to small enterprises, en-terprises, breaking the orders into subcontracts where necessary. neces-sary. CIVILIAN SUPPLY The WPB ruled persons buying buy-ing toothpaste or shaving cream in tubes must turn in to the retailers some kind of tin or tin-coated tin-coated tube for each, new one purchased. The Board froze sales and deliveries fo all new bicycles bicyc-les for adults, including those already ordered and paid for. Red Cross local chapters began collection of the extra cloth made available by the elimination elimina-tion of cuffs from approximately 50 million pairs of trousers now on hand in stores. The salvage clip will make about 300,000 new suits. The Board ordered production of cover cups of tinplate or terne-plate, terne-plate, used as closures for catsup, cat-sup, jelly, etc., stopped immediate imme-diate and of crown caps for bottled' beer and soft drinks stopped stop-ped April 30. Production of flur-oscent flur-oscent lighting fixtures was also ordered ended immediately; of vacuum cleaners, April 30; and toys and games made of metal, plastic and other essential materials, ma-terials, June 30. The board curtailed cur-tailed use of crude rubber and Latex in 50 articles, including fire and mill hose, storage batteries, bat-teries, etc. PRIORITY ORDER COMPLIANCE The WPB reported investigation investiga-tion of 14,000 firms for compli- prices of bond, ledger, book and plain and fancy cover paper and bristols, and on producers' quotations quo-tations for Pennsylvania anthra-j cite coal. The Agriculture de-! partment said the retail cost of food is now 15 per cent above the 1935-39 average but is still below the 1929 level. CIVILIAN DEFENSE Civilian Defense Director Lan-dis Lan-dis said Axis air raids on American Amer-ican war industries this spring are "entirely possible." He said "It's worth a dozen bombers to the Germans to wreck vital industries, in-dustries, even in the heart of the country." Mr. Landis said $20 million of OCD funds have been transferred to build facilities for manufacture of civilian gas masks. First shipments of helmets, helm-ets, arm bands and other equipment equip-ment for air raid wardens and auxiliary firemen and police were sent to more than 40 Atlantic At-lantic and Pacific coast cities. THE ARMED FORCES The Senate passed and sent to the House a bill granting pay increases from $30 a month to $42 for privates and apprentice seamen, and providing proportional propor-tional increases for other classes of enlisted men in the armed forces. The Post Office department issued regulations for granting of free first-class mailing privileges priv-ileges for ' all ranks of the Armer forces. The Senate passed and sent to the House a bill eliminating restrictions on marriage mar-riage of Army and Navy officers during the war. The President signed legislation to permit the War department to recruit American Amer-ican technicians serving in foreign for-eign armed forces and to pay them more, than $21 a month during the first four months. The Navy department sadi meetings have been arranged in |