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Show WASHINGTON NE4WS VnI FROM OUR CONGRESSMAN W. K. GRANGER War Production I The President told his press conference that lessons learned in actual combat had led the Government to lower its volume schedules for tanks and planes, in order to concentrate on heavier and more effective types of these war machines. While the number of tanks and airplanes produced will be smaller than scheduled-a scheduled-a year ago, the amount of steel used in their construction will be essentially the same as planned originally. The program for tanks a year ago called for a large scheduled production of M-3 M-3 tanks, but the experience of warfare, particularly in the Libyan Lib-yan desert, has made it advisable to change over to the M-4 tanks. The present program calls for fewer actual planes than planned plan-ned a year ago, but the decrease will be translated into more gun power, longer range and generally gen-erally greater combat effectiveness. effective-ness. "onov Action The Navy has transported 600,-000 600,-000 American soldiers to overseas over-seas stations "without the loss of a single man," according to the War Department's Bureau of Public Relations. Army War Secretary Stimson has announced an-nounced that the Alaskan Highway High-way is now open to trucks carrying car-rying munitions and materials Lo troops in AlasKa for its entire length of 1,671 miles. Ten thou-! rand soldiers divided into 7 Army -".gineer regiments and 2,000 civ-:l;an civ-:l;an workmen under direction of the Public Road Administration completed the job in slightly over 6 months. The preliminary furlough period pe-riod of two weeks now given newly-inducted soldiers will be reduced to one week beginning November 1. Soldiers overseas may send Christmas gifts to their families and friends back home through the Army Exchange Service. The soldier selects his gift from a catalog of several hundred gift suggestions and the Post Exchange Ex-change Officer then sends the order blank and a check covering cover-ing the amount of the order to the Purchasing Division in New York City. From there, the orders are sent to the manfacturers of the articles, who have agreed to package, wrap and deliver prepaid pre-paid these items to any part of the United States. . To insure receipt re-ceipt by the recipients of these eifts by Christmas, a dealme for receipt of orders and remittances has been set for December 1. Navy The Navy announced that workers in vital industries-men in Selective Service classifications classifica-tions 2A, 2B, and 3B-will be re-, re-, ected for enlistment in the Navy unless they present a release form their local draft boards. The Navy has already taken steps to place into effect the new manpower policy out lined by the WMC. The Navy Department said casualties of U. S. Naval forces Marine Corps and Navy reported report-ed from October 1 to October 15, inclusive 194 dead, 142 wounded and 72 missing. Although most of the casualties resulted from direct action with the enemy, names of those lost in accidents at sea and in the air on duty directly connected with war operations op-erations are also included. This list brings the total of Navy, Marine Ma-rine Corps, and Coast Guard casualties reported from December Decem-ber 7, 1941, to October 15 to 15-8144,453 15-8144,453 dead, 1,593 wounded, and 9,768 missing. Selective Service The Senate approved and sent to Conference legislation providing pro-viding for the drafting of 18 and 19-year-olds, but prohibiting their assignment to combat duty until they have completed one years' training in this country. The Senate bill also provides that educational deferments would be limited to high school students in the last half of their academic year; farmers and farm labor would be deferred from military service wherever their induction would curtail agricultural production, pro-duction, until replacements could be found; and men would be exempted from Selective Service induction after they have passed their 45th Birthday. Rationing Secretary of Agriculture Wick-a-d announced that all new farm machinery and equipment, except ex-cept repair parts, will be frozen November 1 pending establishment establish-ment of formal rationing. No date was set for rationing to begin. be-gin. The order freezes in the hands of dealers, distributors and manufacturers all farm machinery machin-ery of 144 specific types in their pessession on that date, including includ-ing most of the heavier labor-saving labor-saving machines. A second provision pro-vision of the order freezes on November No-vember 1 miscellaneous items in the hands of distributors and manufacturers, but dealers will he allowed to continue sales of items now in stock. The Agriculture Department and State War Boards will establish estab-lish State and County quotas in 'order to obtain the most effective use of the limited amount of new farm machinery and equipment I provided under a WPB production concentration order October 19. I Dealers, distributors and manufacturers manu-facturers must reporot inventories inven-tories of farm machinery and e-quipment e-quipment on hand October 31. Distribution of the forms which 27,000,000 U. S. motorists will use in applying for basic rations under un-der nationwide mileage rationing was begun October 27. Blanks will be available to the public through service stations, garages, ! tire shops and other conveniently located places designated by local boards throughout the country as soon as distribution is completed. The blanks include a tire record and an application for a basic A or D mileage ration. Farm Labor Supply In order to alleviate a shortage of essential from workers which is therating the diary, livestock and poultry production necessary to full presecution of the war, all "necessary" workers on these three types of farms will be frozen in their present occupations. occupa-tions. The Selective Service System Sys-tem will request local boards to classify in 3-B dairy, livestock and poultry workers deferred on grounds of dependency. Local boards will be instructed to grant occupational deferment to all otiier such workers, however, would be subject to immediate induction into the armed forces as soon as they ceased to perform the necessary work for which they had been granted deferment. defer-ment. The Agriculture Separt-ment Separt-ment wil act toward stabilizing wages of such workers and will act to reduce sales of dairy cows for slaughter, which is being uone by many farmers who are unable to obtain dairy workers. An "essential" farm according to WMP Chairman McNutt, is one which has at least 12 cows, with a minimum annual production of 45,000 pounds of milk, or the equivalent in livestock or poultry, poul-try, or a combination of animals units which meets this standard. Forms where workers are allowed allow-ed to remain must meet those requirements; re-quirements; however, workers on smaller farms must or will be transferred or the Government will take steps to increase the size of these smaller farms. Local draft boards will not defer automatically auto-matically all workers connected with essential farms but will consider whether their leaving would materially impair production produc-tion of the farm. |
