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Show " - - ' ' - - - Wtt . . ITT Washington, D. C. SUPPLY OF V. S. PLANES WASHINGTON. Army Air Chief General "Hap" Arnold was called before a closed-door meeting of the senate Truman committee the other day to explain, among other things, why more planes weren't reaching the fighting fronts. Arnold, while being cross-examined by the committee's number one aviation expert, Sen. Mon Wallgren of Washington, admitted one significant signifi-cant fact: That the number of planes of all descriptions on our Pacific and European Eu-ropean fighting fronts is lower than most people realize and lower than he desires, despite the fact that we are producing combat planes bombers and fighters at the rate of 8,000 a month. For a while, the cross-examination of Arnold made the sparks fly. "I'm amazed to learn that the British have more combat planes in action than we have," grilled Senator Sena-tor Wallgren, "though we are producing pro-ducing more planes than the British. Brit-ish. Why is that?" "We're doing the best we can," retorted Arnold angrily. "You can't expect us to send planes to combat areas unless we have trained crews to operate them. However, I can tell you that we have many more planes on the way, and ready for shipment, that will soon give us a great numerical advantage." "That's fine," said Wallgren, "but why has it taken so long? It seems to me that we should have more than the number of planes you mention men-tion on the battle fronts when we are producing at the rate of 96,000 a year." Arnold replied that some planes had been cracked up or damaged in training accidents In the United States, though trainer crashes were being reduced considerably. Also, many planes coming off assembly lines have to undergo "modification." "modifica-tion." For instance, planes slated for Alaskan duty have to be "winterized." "win-terized." Also, it takes longer than most people realize to deliver planes to combat areas. "I'm not trying to Interfere In your business, general," said the Washington senator, "but it seems to me that a pitifully small number of planes have been delivered to the fronts, considering our rate of production." . "I don't agree with you," responded respond-ed Arnold hotly. "I think we've done very well under the circumstances." circum-stances." The air chief went on to explain that most American pilots have a training course of 500 flying hours, compared to 150 hours for German pilots. One reason the Nazis have shortened their pilot-training courses is because they are running low on aviation gas reserves, Arnold said. However, he did not entirely convince con-vince the committee that the ratio of planes delivered to the fighting fronts could not be considerably increased. in-creased. ' SYNTHETIC TIRES Early next year, the American public will get its first real test of synthetic tires. These will not be passenger, but bus and truck tires, which will begin to come out of tire factories some time in January. They will be hurried to the wheels of buses and trucks, now limping along on sharply reduced rations. Even in September, the allocation of 550,000 civilian bus and truck tires was inadequate. But now the figure has been reduced still further to 335,000 for November and December. De-cember. Operators of trucks and buses are worried about the new tires, knowing that early tests have shown they do not stand up under heavy loads. This in spite of the fact that they are only 70 per cent synthetic, with an admixture of 30 per cent natural nat-ural rubber. Result will be that truck and bus loads will have to be reduced all 1 over the country. Since they are already al-ready operating above normal capacity, ca-pacity, reduction of loads will mean reduction in the total performance of trucks and buses. Of course, the synthetics may prove to be better than tests have shown, but the trucking industry has its fingers crossed. BLOOD DONORS Red Cross officials estimate that Americans are giving their blood for transfusions at the rate of one every two seconds. "We are bleeding bleed-ing 100,000 people a week." But donations might be much larger if donors could be reached all over the country. Actually, there are only 33 cities where centers have been established. MERRY-GO-ROUND C. One of the prized show-pieces in a private collection of old guns and other knick-knacks belonging to Rep. Frank Boykin of Alabama are the spurs Jesse James was wearing wear-ing when he died, ft One out of every ten members i of congress has been a newspaper j man in the past. Working newsmen news-men every day hear from some member, "I used to be an old newspaper news-paper man myself." This has earned , the gag line: "Until you found there j was no money in old newspapers." |