Show ECONOMIC highlights industrial news review I 1 cecil brown the well known foreign correspondent recently made a speaking tour of this country in a radio broadcast from los angeles he said that he had been enormously impressed by the incredible strides american industry is making in producing for war at the same time he added he was disturbed by the excessive degree of optimism held by many of us in short too large a proportion of the american people are not yet convinced that this will be a long and hard war that kind of optimism is not held in informed circles most of the experts still think that another new years day will come before the united nations will be able to engage in major continued offensive drives against the enemy in 1943 they forecast a gigantic effort to knock hiter out of the war will be made then in 1944 the united nations will be able to turn their full and undivided attention to japan and so by that years end the war may be over other experts consider that timetable too optimistic they argue that both Germi germany Iny and japan have immense armies and resources and that it will take another year or two to wear them down and bring them to their knees in any event no informed commentator subscribes to the current rumors that the war is likely to be ended before 1942 passes and none of them make the popular mistake of thinking that minor united nations victr 1 con major disasters for tie t e L nemy in ie ic mc meantime antime this country has r son on to oe immensely proud OL 01 a clua quality lity and character of its lighting fighting forces after the debacle t pearl harbor it took us months to get organized for a long time there was lack of accurate coordination between the various branch ts LS t s of the military services now apparently parent ly conditions have undergone a great change for the better the gigantic japanese Ta Amie american rican sea engagement around midway island is an example the japanese after their feint at du dutch harbor with a few bombers and pursuit planes apparently expected the american commanders would hysterically teri cally disperse their forces n all probability they definitely expected to take both midway and oahu bahu but the american command ers working on extremely accurate information provided by the intelligence A services were ready the navy the army and marines worked in perfect harmony the result was the most serious setback japan has yet taken in the pacific war that battle coming on top of the coral sea engagement must be causing plenty of headaches among the moguls in tokyo they caught our forces asleep at pearl harbor but our forces are per cent awake and on their toes now this latest pacific battle is important for the beating handed japanese military power its greatest importance lies in the fact that it may have tipped the scales of pacific naval power in our favor after pearl harbor the japanese fleet was supreme in in the pacific japan also had air supremacy now american war vessels which were damaged a ed at pearl harbor are back in service new ships have been sent to join the fleet and our air power has been tremendously increased our production capacity is many tunes times that of japan in all fields the mikado in brief look as big and tough as he once did when wo we finally take the offen sive in the pacific we may expect hard going for a considerable time it is obvious that japan has developed the mandated islands as well as her own islands to a very high degree so far as military power is concerned she may have literally hundreds of air n naval aval and submarine ine bases and her plan has been to I 1 create a ring of steel about her own part of the pacific it will be a real job to destroy these position sand we cant do it overnight we must expect losses as well as victories but no one with any knowledge of american war production and american fighting spirit can doubt that the job will be done the united nations commanders will not be satisfied with a partial victory this time they intend to take the war straight to berlin and tokyo and give the axis powers a full taste of the kind of treatment dealt out to the countries they have subjugated |