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Show M.-r .... . I-SttT Washington, D. C. 'INSIDE' ON ALEUTIANS The inside story can now be told of why the Japs were able to land in the Aleutian islands and bomb the U. S. naval base at Dutch Harbor with so little opposition. As with most things in this war, the problem goes back to lack of foresight, and also, to some extent, lack of army-navy army-navy co-operation. Not generally known is the fact that the navy in September, 1941, some two months before Pearl Harbor, Har-bor, refused to let the army build an air base on Umnak island to guard the navy's Dutch Harbor base. What happened was that Senator Brewster of Maine, a member of the Truman committee and of the naval affairs committee, flew to Alaska last September with Brig. Gen. Arthur Wilson to ascertain whether Alaska needed further fortifications. for-tifications. At Kodiak they met Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, commander of the army's forces, whose father, a famous Civil war commander, once helped to pay Ulysses S. Grant's way home from West Point and later surrendered to Grant in Tennessee. General Buckner wanted to go on from Kodiak to Dutch Harbor with Senator Brewster, and although the navy was willing to supply an amphibian am-phibian plane to the senator, they balked at having General Buckner go along, referred to him as a "hitch-hiker." Finally, however, the party, including in-cluding General Buckner, went on to Dutch Harbor and located an excellent ex-cellent site for a flying field on Umnak Um-nak island.. Immediately upon their return, Senator Brewster arranged for a senate appropriation to build an air base at Umnak, while the war department prepared to proceed. pro-ceed. Navy Says No. The war department also notified the flavy of its move, since the army is charged with protecting the shore establishments of the navy. A few weeks later, however, word came back from the navy that it did not want the army to build an air base on Umnak island to protect Dutch Harbor. When senators asked Vice Admiral Frederick J. Home why, he replied: "The navy can protect Dutch Harbor." Har-bor." This was in late September. Two months later, after Pearl Harbor, the navy frantically demanded an air base to protect Dutch Harbor, but it had to be started during the snow and ice of an Alaskan winter. . Therefore the date of completion was July, 1942. Probably the Japs knew this date. They have had fishing vessels cruising cruis-ing through the Aleutians off and on for some time. At any rate it was the first week in June, one month before the Umnak air base was finished, that the Japs struck. And when they bombed Dutch Harbor, the navy's flying patrol boats there were helpless. Heavy and slow, they lacked protection from the army's fast pursuit planes, so speedy Jap Zero fighters made mincemeat of them. Lack of a nearby army air base from which fighters and bombers could protect the rest of the Aleutians Aleu-tians undoubtedly contributed also to the ease with which the Japs took Kiska harbor and the western Aleutians. Aleu-tians. PERSISTENT LEON The army doesn't seem to think that hard-hitting Leon Henderson, price-fixing boss of the OPA, is lethargic about wanting to put price ceilings on tanks, guns trucks and other army material for which it is now paying top prices. In a knock-down, drag-out session in the office of mild-mannered Undersecretary Un-dersecretary of War Patterson, Henderson Hen-derson banged on the table, told Patterson the army was paying too much, that he demanded the power to put price ceilings on army supplies. sup-plies. "I'm going to keep after you on this till I get it," Henderson stormed. "When I was younger and I was courting a girl, I kept after her until I got her. And that's what's going to happen now." CAPITAL CHAFF CI, Frank Grillo, president of the United Rubber Workers, is one man who doesn't believe that labor leaders lead-ers at home are more necessary than fighters at the front. He has resigned from the Rubber Workers and asked for his old job back in the army not a cellophane commission commis-sion (you can see through it but it protects from the draft). He wants to be a sergeant. C. The navy has wisely drafted some of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI sleuths to help train naval intelligence officers. of-ficers. They are doing a bang-up job. C. The Truman committee has persuaded per-suaded the army to lend it Brig. Gen. Frank Lowe, a Maine Republican, Repub-lican, as its executive olTicer. C On her way from Hollywood to Washington to participate in the treasury's big bond show, demure Ann Rutherford sold several hundred hun-dred dollars worth of bonds at each station stop. At Albuquerque one man handed her $1,000 in cash. |
