| Show all out industrial effort bolsters americas front lines by WILLARD HOLMES washington D C twenty tour four hours a day seven days a week the lob job for or american industry to play its part winning the war against the axis powers speed now is of the essence just as much in turning 0 out ut things in plants as 88 it is amon among g the fighting forces said president roosevelt to the recent war labor conference where representatives of both labor and capital had gathered to work ways of speeding production considered by many to be the most momentous meeting between these two groups in recent history the conference was headed by william H davis chairman of the national defense mediation board as moderator representing labor were both william green A F of L president and philip murray head of CIO leading industrialists represented the interests of capital these leaders heard the president issue a must assignment for truly this is a war of production the assembly line then becomes an important line of the fight while these battle lines are strengthening how does america stack up on the front lines what did we have when the war started and how fast are we getting what we need how well prepared because war came to us so violently just as we were hitting our 0 tride stride in defense materials production and because the future schedules look so much higher than whit what we actually have produced the impression was felt in many quarters that we are not at all prepared while there are some gaps to in many things between what we have haie and what we would like the country is i far from defenseless the knox report on the disaster at pearl harbor was bad but it as bed bad as most people expected we lost six warships and a large number of planes As far as the planes are concerned the aviation industry is 10 30 geared that much of this loss has haa already been replaced by new pro duct lon with respect to the warships the fact is that to in every category 90 ry except cruisers on hand band the th navy shows a superiority over japan being the industrial nation that we are this margin can be expected to increase over the period of a long war fot for we have the materials material and means for or production something japan have in the same degree stepped up production while the ratio of 0 expansion in american sea and air power is a military secret we can safely assume that it is much larger than anticipated over a year or eve even six IX months ago coupled with the drastic controls that come with war and with wars resultant national unity this expansion should really boom while it is too easy to torget forget that we are at war also with germany and italy in addition to japan sea power at present does seem to be the most important phase of the fighting true one day a land army may somewhere have to face the power of the axis mechanized military machine but the even more immediate job is keeping the sea lanes of both atlantic and pacific oceans open before the pearl harbor attack the united states had 17 battleships with 17 building and due tor for launching in the next three years twelve aircraft air craft carriers were being built and six were in use thirty sev en cruisers were in service and 48 were on the way in lighter vessels the lineup line up was this destroyers being used being built s submarines u abma in fighting trim and 82 under construction subtract from this the battleship arizona the target ship utah three destroyers and a mine layer lost at pearl harbor and you have hake the front line of defense this force was buttres buttressed sid by about navy planes with about more more oh on the way though the army air corps has not released ft figures 9 on the number of planes it has in use the numbers are being increased each week especially in heavy bombers medium bombers and dive bombers pos possibly the deciding factors in this war ardys strength what of the army in addition to its is flying force As 1942 dawns there is a personnel of about officers and men roughly half ot of these are tees are national guardsmen guardsman Guards men and the rest regulars but this is just the beginning already selective service has a pool of about class A men available tor for immediate call enlistments boomed it at a terrific pace following the declarations declaration of war with the extension of the age limits tor for draftees another three or tour four million men will be immediately available without lowering physical or dependency standards plans for tapping this huge supply of manpower are already worked out just as important as a good reserve of manpower in modem warfare is the organization of strong striking units the army is known to have five divisions comprising its armored force this unit is composed of tanks and men who know how to handle them fifty hat battalions of tank destroyers parachute troops and other specialized units to meet panzer and hUtz blitzkrieg krieg tactics have been and are being trained in great numbers even this will be speeded up under the impetus of war doubling and even tripling of schedule is anticipated |
