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United States.................................................................................................................. • •
Chinese Training Center—Ships Converted for Arctic Admiral Conolly Visits Far East—Manus to Australia—Research in Pacific Islands—24 Overseas Bases Closed—Long Range Plans—Point Mugu—El Centro—Budget Cuts—U-boats Off East Coast- Oaks Dedicated.
Great Britain...................................................................................................................
Exercise Thunderbolt—Sabotage—Australian Defense—Secret
Weapon—Rocket Range—Uranium—Research—Various Notes.
1008
U.S.S.R..........................................
Soviet Subs—Military Training
Other Countries.............................................................................................................
Japan—Sweden.
Aviation..............................................................................................................................
All Jet Air Force—P-80 Makes Record—Refuelling in Flight— Wind Tunnel—Banshee—Gun Blister—Air Mail by Helicopter— Pan American Girdles Globe—Swiss Airforce—Wright Tests Jet— Jet Bombers
Merchant Marine................................................................................................... • ■ • •
Advisory Committee—New and Reconverted Ships—Various Notes—Floating Mines
Miscellaneous................ .... ...........................................................................................
Liquids for Rocket Power—Corporal E Rocket—A.M.A. War Service Plan—National War College.
UNITED STATES Naval Training Center for Chinese
New York Times, June 1. (From Tsingtao) —The United States Navy’s training program for China’s future navy here at Tsingtao is one of the few examples of close working cooperation between Chinese and Americans in this land today.
Visitors to the Chinese Naval Training Center here sense a note of mutual and friendly respect that comes in refreshing contrast to the increasing disillusionment so generally expressed by Americans everywhere else in North China.
The C.N.T.C. was set up under joint Chinese-American naval administration in December, 1945, at the request of Chiang Kai-shek’s Government. Approval of Congress in Washington followed. Funds were provided in July, 1946, under a measure that authorized the United States Navy to transfer to China 271 surplus amphibious and coastal craft and to train Chinese crews to operate the craft.
To date thirty-six amphibious vessels and a floating drydock have been given to China. Two hundred and fifty-six Chinese officers and 2,024 enlisted men have been graduated from the center after successful completion of one or more courses for boatswain’s mates, gunner’s mates, quartermasters, signalmen, fire-control men, radiomen, electronic and sonar (anti-submarine) operators, shipfitters, machinist’s mates, motor machinist’s mates and electrician’s mates.
Chinese Now Instructors
At the start of the program United States officers and petty officers gave all the instruction, working through interpreters. As time passed, the best students of each class were retained and assigned as instructors, until today all the teaching is done by the Chinese themselves. The American staff retains close and constant supervision over the entire schedule and its recommendations are carried out.
The graduation of students from shore training is integrated with the arrival of ships for transfer to China. Newly graduated classes are assigned to various vessels as understudy crews to Americans. In three- months’ training afloat the Chinese naval men learn operating and maintenance techniques from their American counterparts.
After three months at sea, vessels are formally turned over to the Chinese crews; then they put back to sea for a two-weeks’ “shakedown” cruise, this time with only a skeleton crew of Americans aboard, for possible emergency. After this final check-out, the Chinese are, theoretically, on their own.
Members of the United States instructing group of fifteen officers and fifty enlisted men from Admiral Charles M. Cooke’s Seventh Fleet staff say that their Chinese trainees show interest in their work, apply themselves diligently, and graduate well able to handle the type of craft assigned to them.
So far, the Americans say, Chinese from Shanghai area have shown the quickest grasp and general aptitude of all students, but currently a group of sixty-five Formosans, who had some previous Japanese naval training, are proving to be the best students in the center’s history.
Lack of Basic Education
Lack of elementary education—noted in about 75 per cent of all students—is a chief factor in holding back the Chinese, instructors state. This is especially noticeable in study in specialized fields involving theory, such as electronics. In the more mechanical courses such as seamanship, gunnery and fire control, where the Chinese can use their hands, the Americans say the Chinese learn quickly and retain the skills.
Morale, discipline and the appearance of the cadets—after a rather discouraging start —have improved steadily, say the United States officers. For this they give much credit to Capt. C. M. Wei, the Chinese commandant.
It is even now proposed that next autumn a National Naval Academy to train future Chinese naval officers over a five-year period be opened here.
In one major respect, however, the American staff reports that its work is disheartening. The Chinese Government’s rates of pay for the naval service are so low that, following graduation, many Chinese officers and men abandon naval service for employment with commercial shippers, who pay far better.
This situation has been repeatedly emphasized to the Naval Ministry at Nanking, say the Americans, without any tangible result. Unless early remedial steps are taken, they feel the morale and efficiency of China’s Navy, as well as maintenance and operating standards of the ships, will decline seriously.
Conversion of 7 Ships for Arctic
New York Herald Tribune, May 27.—The Navy asked Congress today for permission to equip four submarines and three ships for Polar operations, and to convert nine big destroyers into special anti-submarine vessels.
The program was outlined to a House armed services subcommittee by ViceAdmiral Earle W. Mills, chief of the Bureau of Ships.
Admiral Mills told the committee that two submarines will be converted into troop- carriers equipped to transport 100 fighting men each as far as 3,000 miles under seas. A third submarine will become a cargo carrier, if Congress approves, and another will be equipped as a “Polar picket craft.”
The conversion program, he said, also contemplates refitting two dock-landing ships and one attack cargo vessel for operation in Polar waters. .
All the ships earmarked for conversion, he said, are new types less than five years old.
Vice-Admiral R. B. Carney, assistant chief of naval operations for logistics, told the committee the Japanese had transported troops by submarine during the war and the United States had used the vessels for limited transport operations.
Funds for the conversion work are available, but specific authorization is needed from Congress before the work can be started.
C. in C., U.S.N.F.E.A.A.M. visits Far East
London Times, May 20.—Teheran. May 19.—Admiral Conolly, commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, left Teheran by air to-day after a visit in which he was received in special audience by the Shah. Admiral Conolly, who was accompanied by Rear-Admiral Glover and the American Ambassador to Persia, Mr. George Allen, also saw the Prime Minister, Qawam-es- Sultani, and the Minister for War, General Ahmad Ahmadi. Mr. Clyde Dunn, chief of Persian affairs at the United States State Department, who arrived with the admirals, is staying in Persia for another month.
The Soviet Ambassador to Persia, Mr. Sadchikov, has left Teheran by air for Moscow for a month’s leave.
London Times, May 22—Istanbul, May 21.—The American naval mission headed by Admiral Conolly, Commander-in-Chief, American naval forces in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, which arrived in Ankara from Teheran three days ago, left here to-day for Malta. Admiral Conolly called on the Turkish Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of National Defense, and the Chief of the General Staff.
Official circles in Ankara state that his visit has no connection whatever with American assistance to Turkey; Admiral Conolly is making an informative tour within the area under his command, and is paying courtesy visits to the capitals of the countries he is visiting.
(Editor’s Note:—U.S. NFEAAM means U. S. Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.)
Australia Takes over S.W. Pacific
New York Herald Tribune, June 8.—The United States has decided to make no claim to joint sovereignty with Australia over strategic Manus Island, north of New Guinea, nor to take any part in the upkeep of naval or air bases there, it was learned today.
The island, one of the Australian-mandated Admiralty Islands, was a major air and naval base during the war. Its harbor is one of the best in that section of the Pacific.
The American decision will be conveyed to the Australian government by Robert Butler, Ambassador to Australia, who arrived in Canberra today by air from Honolulu. He was accompanied by Admiral Louis Denfeld, commander in chief, Pacific Fleet.
For some time the question whether the United States might ask for unrestricted use of the island, joint control with Australia or joint use of facilities has been in the air. This nation spent $250,000,000 on naval and air facilities there during the war.
New York Times, June 15.—The United States Navy plans to leave operational control of the south-west Pacific area to Australia, which will strengthen its naval program, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Navy Commander in Chief of the Pacific, said yesterday on his return from a week’s conferences in Australia.
He cited reduced naval appropriations and changed views on Pacific strategy as the principal reasons for the shift of responsibility in the area. He will leave here tomorrow for Washington, where he is expected to report results of his conferences to Navy officials.
“I told Australian leaders that although we spent $131,000,000 on our Manus base alone, the Pacific Fleet would have to abandon its southwest Pacific bases and concentrate elsewhere,” he said. “We just haven’t the money.”
The Admiral said that Australia’s Navy which now consists of a small number of cruisers and destroyers, would be strengthened by two aircraft carriers and perhaps other vessels to be acquired from Britain.
He said his Australian conferences covered defense and security of the Pacific Ocean, for which he is responsible, but added that he made no commitments.
(Editor’s Note:—See note under Great Britain.)
Research Planned in Pacific Islands
New York Times, May 20.—American scientists will begin late this month on research through the former mandated Japanese islands of Micronesia, to end a scientific blackout dating from 1910.
Announcement of the project to send forty-four anthropologists, linguists and geographers through the 1,400 islands and atolls of the Marshalls, Carolines and Marianas was made by the Navy Department today.
One Australian and twenty American institutions are cooperating with the Pacific Science Board of the National Research Council and the Navy Department in the comprehensive investigation of the islands’ life and resources.
With the Japanese iron curtain rolled back, the scientists will work from three months to a year on many projects. Their aim is to fill a wide gap in the annals of science.
Western scientists have been barred from the mandated islands since the Japanese took over after World War I. But the Navy Department pointed out that no fundamental research had been done on the islands’ inhabitants since the German Thilenius expedition of 1908-1910.
Another objective of the project is to obtain basic data needed in the administration of the former enemy islands. Particular attention will be paid to problems of rehabilitation, health and welfare.
Expenses are being met through joint financial agreements being negotiated by the individual institutions through the Pacific Science Board. The board is being assisted in its own financing by grants from the Office of Naval Research and the Viking Fund.
Knowledge will be sought in four major fields, as follows:
1. Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology—Native technology, social, economic and political organization, religious and magical beliefs and practices and other aspects of culture and social life which are essential in adjusting administration to local conditions.
2. Linguistic Science—Phonetic, phonemic, lexical and grammatical analysis, needed for the production of dictionaries, grammars and valid systems of orthography, which are deemed indispensable for educational programs in the native languages.
Sttjdy to Cover Land Use
3. Human and Economic Geography—A survey of human and natural resources, the extent and methods of their utilization, and the system of land use and tenure.
4. Physical Anthropology—Studies of the anatomy, physiology, growth and nutrition of the inhabitants which would contribute to a program of public health.
With the exception of Guam, the Archipelago of Micronesia has been in the past fifty years under the successive rule of Spain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Although they are scattered over nearly 5,000,000 square miles of ocean, the 1,400 islands and atolls rolled together would be smaller than the State of Rhode Island.
Navy Closing 24 Oversea Bases
Chicago Tribune, May 28.—The Navy will close 24 of its 48 overseas air bases by July 1, under a retrenchment program dictated by economic as well as strategic policies, Navy Bureau of Aeronautics officials disclosed today.
Among the air stations being lopped off the navy active list are many which played important roles in the war—such as Eni- wetok, Majuro, Tinian, Wake Island, Samoa, Peleliu, and Palmyra—but which are no longer vital to navy strategic plans, aviation experts said.
The rollup of navy air bases was interpreted in the Navy as a trend toward the theory of having a comparatively small number of large naval bases capable of supplying fast moving carrier task forces. The mobile task forces are considered more effective than stationary bases and less vulnerable to atomic bomb assault.
Keep 24 Key Bases
The 24 air bases being retained are considered key points in the Navy’s global air defense system. Less than half of these bases will be operated at full strength. The rest will be kept in a maintenance or caretaker status, and some of these may be shut down later if operating funds are reduced.
The following 24 air stations or facilities are being shut down:
Hilo, Puunene, and Kahului in Hawaii; Eniwetok and Majuro in the Marshall Islands; Marpi Point in Saipan; Tinian; Palmyra; Puerto Princessa, Mactan, and Samar in the Philippines; Yonabaru and Katchin Hanto, Okinawa, Truk, Wake Island, Samoa, Peleliu in the Palaus, Es- sequibo in British Guiana, Dutch Harbor, Alaska; Jamaica, Antigua, and St. Lucia, British West Indies; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and Great Ezuma, Bahamas.
Base Too Costly
Navy officials said the Majuro seaplane base used by the four motor Mars flying boats will be closed because its operation is too costly. The flying boats will operate between the west coast and Hawaii, or they will use water landing facilities at Kwajalein.
Eniwetok, once an important stopping place for trans-Pacific flights, is no longer considered necessary. Johnston Island and Kwajalein are capable of handling the air traffic in the area.
The 24 active air bases being retained follow:
Kodiak, Adak, and Attu in Alaska; Pearl Harbor, Kaneohe Bay, Honolulu, Barbers Point, and Ewa in Hawaii; Agana and Orote on Guam; Kobler and Tanapag, Saipan; Johnston Island; Port Lyautey, Morocco; Greenland; Midway Island; Sangley Point, Philippine Islands; Kwajalein; Argentina; Bermuda; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Trinidad, British West Indies; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Roosevelt Roads.
The Navy has estimated that operations of the 24 overseas air bases in the year beginning July 1 will cost 22\ million dollars.
Navy Reveals Long Range Plans
New York Times, June 1.—The Navy is going to devote its time to long range research in radically new arms rather than to minor refinements of existing weapons, it disclosed tonight.
The Secretary’s annual report for the 1946-47 fiscal year, released tonight, made it plain that the weapons of any future war must be new ones. The War Department recently reported a similar point of view.
The Navy considers it a waste of time, energy and money to content itself with refinements of existing weapons, the report said. Among other things, the long range research program will deal with revolutionary concepts of underwater warfare.
Also under study are guided missiles, rockets, high-velocity guns, and radar fire control systems. Many possible uses for atomic energy will be examined.
An important part of the program, the report stated, will be dedicated to “free research.” It said:
“Instead of being pointed toward direct solution of some practical problem, its intention is to explore and understand more fully the laws of nature, both animate and inanimate.
“From free research new and powerful ideas spring. These ideas in turn lead to applied research and finally to development.”
Major research will be carried out in the upper atmosphere. Navy scientists already are studying cosmic rays and exploring the earth’s atmosphere with V-2 rockets and a specially-equipped B-29.
The report also stresses development of special devices for training personnel in new weapons with the aim “to have training devices manufactured concurrently with, or in advance of, new combat weapons so that new material can be used with maximum efficiency.”
“Not only does this method make possible the design of equipment around the man who uses it, but also it provides means of testing synthetically a variety of new tactics or new weapons even before the weapons are constructed,” the report added.
Regarding the design of new ship types, the report said:
“Rapid progress in the field of guided missiles, submarine propulsion systems, the advent of the atomic bomb, and other scientific achievements have necessitated a reexamination of characteristics of existing types of warships and exploratory studies of entirely new types of vessels.
“Just as the forward thinking of 1933 permitted us to build the greatest navy of all time, so must the present period see the development of advanced and new concepts in naval design.”
Tests at Point Mugu
New York Times, June 14. By H. W. Baldwin.—American-made copies of the German V-l buzz bombs launched from shore catapults, launching ramps, and surfaced submarines have been guided successfully by radio to area targets at this naval air missile test center.
Unlike the German original, which has no guidance mechanism and could not be controlled after launching, the American buzz bombs have been equipped experimentally
with radio control devices which permit greater accuracy.
The most significant advance, however, is the launching of the little pulse-jet pilotless aircraft from the constricted area of a submarine’s deck. No one at this naval station will admit that such a launching has taken place, but it has been seen by hundreds of Californians and the experiments are a matter of common knowledge.
The launchings mark the first time at least in this country that a missile of such range—- well over 100 miles—has been projected from a ship’s deck and the experiments mark the beginning of the transition of the Navy from a gun and plane fleet to a missile and robot fleet.
But Point Mugu and its tests make it clear that this transition will not be fast or easy, and may never be wholly complete, for the tasks of developing satisfactory guided missiles, as this test center has found out, are legion and only a beginning has been made.
Tests all Types of Missiles
Unlike Inyokern, which undertakes considerable missile development work, Point Mugu is solely a test center. It works closely with Inyokern and some of the projects are virtually interchangeable. Mugu is concerned with testing all types of missiles, including some turbo-jets, pulse-jets, ramjets and rockets of many types.
The V-l, known to the Navy as “the Loon,” is admittedly outmoded and obsolescent as a missile and serves only as a vehicle for testing missile components, radio guidance mechanisms and new theories. The Loon is launched here by two means, from an inclined ramp with the aid of rockets, or from a split tube powder catapult 162 feet long.
The powder catapult could be fitted on a large ship’s deck, but it gives such a rapid though smooth acceleration that considerable difficulty has been encountered in insuring successful launchings. The Loon, too, shows great variations in speed from 350 to 500 miles an hour.
New radio controlled jet drones for target work, built by Curtiss Wright and equipped with an aero pulse motor, are also to be tested out here, and a smaller Globe drone capable of 250 miles an hour is now under test. Rocket motors for the Gorgon, war built missile are on trial here.
Jato units are also tested for thrust, and nearly any and every type of jet engines for missiles, though not for planes, will sooner or later arrive at Point Mugu. Mugu must also test the components of the new missiles.
Mugu to Have Target Boats
As explained by Capt. Robert S. Hatcher, the commanding officer at Point Mugu, the tests are divided into two phases. The first test is conducted with naval facilities under the direction of the contractor, and phase B by the Government itself.
Any and all missiles may come within Mugu’s purview, depending upon assignments made by the Navy Department, but the station is right on the coast, with observation points available from the coastal peaks and from offshore islands, so that Point Mugu will be primarily concerned with missiles launched from ships and against ships.
The station is to have three PT boats, radio controlled, to act as targets, and it has a variety of planes, including two PB4Y-2’s equipped with loud-speakers to warn fishermen from the firing ranges.
Today Mugu is a collection of temporary structures on a 4,000-acre tract staffed by 1,724 persons, more than 950 of them civilians. It has well-developed plans for improvement and expansion to a 7,230-acre area at a cost in the next two fiscal years of $33,000,000.
The officers and men who work here, though their housing and living conditions are unsatisfactory, are enthusiastic about their work and believe Mugu performs a function of major importance to the nation, the testing of the robots and missiles of tomorrow.
El Centro for Rocket Tests
New York Times, June 2.—A great new test center and proving ground for long- range missiles probably will be established at El Centro, Calif., it was learned today, if the unanimous recommendation of a service committee is approved in Washington.
If the Joint Research and Development Board and the War and Navy Departments
endorse the recommendation of the site committee El Centro will become the “incubator” for the technique of “intercontinental war.”
From its vast and semi-arid ranges giant rockets and other missiles will be fired, probably down the Gulf of California into the open Pacific, first over distances measured in hundreds of miles, perhaps eventually at ranges measured in four figures.
The development of El Centro into what may eventually become a $50,000,000 project comparable to the great British “empire testing range,” now being established in the deserts of Australia, depends on final Washington approval.
But a joint committee of Army, Navy and Air Force officers, which has been studying sites in various parts of the country for many months, has decided that El Centro has more desirable characteristics than any other area.
A Former Marine Station
Air Force opinion formerly had favored Cape Flattery, near Seattle, Wash., and the Navy had advocated Point Mugu, near Santa Barbara, Calif., where test launchings of ground and ship-fired missiles have been conducted. Point Mugu and Cape Flattery still have their advocates, but both these locations have the disadvantage of being near rather thickly inhabited areas. El Centro’s decisive advantage is the fact that missiles fired there could be tracked for hundreds of miles by land radar, theodolite, doppler and telemetering stations, an advantage which no other location possesses.
Appeal Budget Cuts
New York Times, June 11.—Pleas for restoration of a cut of $377,519,200 were made by Mr. Forrestal and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, before the naval subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Secretary States
“Since the Congress first commenced its hearings on this naval appropriations bill in the early part of this year the international situation has not improved. The Moscow conference has been held and was adjourned without the minimum accomplishments of a
treaty with Austria for which we had hoped.
“The recent change of the Government of Hungary serves to make manifest the instability of the international situation which we cannot ignore.
“While I do not interpret these events to mean that a way to peace and harmony among nations cannot be found, or that the United Nations will not find strength eventually to cope with these dangerous situations, yet for today at least it remains true that the peace-loving nations of the world look largely to the military and naval power and economic strength of the United States to bring about world peace and stability.”
Nimitz Sums up Position
Admiral Nimitz pointed out that “as yet there were no functioning peace treaties,” that there is no evidence of disarmament by other nations; that there had been only limited implementation of the United Nations Charter and that no control of atomic weapons had been agreed upon. He went on:
“On the other hand, the recent expression of United States policy to aid free nations in resisting encroachment of Communism has made even more imperative, in the absence of other sufficient safeguards, the maintaining of adequate naval power.”
Navy Tardy in Driving Off U-Boats
Chicago Tribune, June 7.—The United States Navy took longer to lick the U-boat menace along the Atlantic coast in the dark days of 1942 than the Nazis themselves expected.
Defense of the shallow American coastal waters was “very easy,” in the opinion of the Germans’ submarine chief, who outlined for Hitler how the U-boat attacks that spread oil and bodies and wreckage along 1,000 miles of United States beaches could be stopped.
The details were disclosed tonight with the publication of Hitler’s naval conferences for 1942—the German submarine’s year of triumph.
The documents, captured in the German naval archives, were translated by the United States office of naval intelligence and made public simultaneously in London and Washington.
8 Million Tons Sunk
More than 8 million tons of allied shipping were sunk during 1942, but Adm. Karl Doenitz, Hitler’s submarine leader, predicted in May that the spring’s easy killings would not last.
“One of these days the situation in the American zone will change,” he reported to Hitler. “The Americans are making strenuous efforts to prevent the large number of sinkings.”
He criticized professionally the inexperienced crews of the United States air-sea patrol:
“The American flyers see nothing. The destroyers and patrol vessels are traveling too fast most of the time even to locate the submarines, or they are not persistent enough in their pursuit with depth charges.”
Guesses as to U. S. Defense
He expounded two methods by which the Americans might make his U-boat operations “unprofitable.”
One would have provided a barrier of nets and mines along the coast, behind which coastwise shipping would be safe. The cost of this method would be too high for the Americans to try, he believed.
The other, which was being set up by the United States Navy even as he was discussing it, would have put all shipping into convoys protected by warships.
“This method will probably be chosen,” he predicted accurately, “and our chances of success become fewer. However, as long as their escorts are inexperienced, I believe we will be able to attack the convoys in the usual manner, even in shallow waters.”
The U-boats made their last “bitter stand” off Trinidad that fall, United States Admiral Ernest G. King, war time chief of naval operations, reported later, and thereafter became a “problem” rather than a “menace.”
Tells Change in System
Doenitz reported in August to Hitler, “The enemy transportation system in American waters underwent great changes, as the naval staff predicted and expected even sooner.”
Hitler told his navy chiefs that the “submarine war will in the end decide the outcome of the war.”
He was sure that new ships could not come off the ways fast enough to replace the torpedoed vessels and said United States production schedules were “impossible.”
He suggested obliquely that the submarine commanders kill allied crews as well as sink the ships.
“It is very much to our disadvantage,” he hinted to a conference of top admirals, “if a large percentage of the crews of sunken ships is able to go to sea again on new ships.”
According to the documents, Nazi grand strategy in 1942 was singly to defeat Russia and then defend “blockade-proof” Europe until America and Britain wearied of the sea war.
The next year, however, the allies sank more than 200 of his U-boats and Germany had lost the submarine war.
(Editor’s Note:—For your next “Be Prepared” Speech!)
Oaks Dedicated in Central Park to Naval Battles
New York Herald, Tribune, May 25.— Officers of the Navy, Marine Corps and Civilian Naval Reserve Committee dedicated yesterday twenty-four pin oak trees to commemorate significant naval and marine battles of World War II. The trees are planted alongside and in the vicinity of two semi-circular walks leading from Bethesda Fountain to steps connecting with the Seventy-second Street cross street in Central Park.
The naval battles commemorated were Pearl Harbor, Leyte Gulf, Java Sea, Midway, Coral Sea, Savo Island, Cape Esper- ance, Casablanca, Komandorski, Kula Gulf, the Philippine Sea, and Macassar Strait. The marine battles were Iwo Jima, Saipan, Guam, Tarawa, Peleliu, Okinawa, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Guadalcanal, the Makin Island raid, Kwajalein, and Bougainville.
GREAT BRITAIN Exercise on Future Strategy
London Times, May 5.—The Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the R.A.F. Lord Tedder, is to hold a conference with R.A.F. com-
manders-in-chief at Old Sarum airfield, near Salisbury, on August 11 and 12. This will be followed by an exercise, to be called “Thunderbolt,” with the object of applying to future strategy the lessons learned from the combined Anglo-American bomber offensive between January, 1943, and the end of the war in Europe.
Senior officers of the R.A.F., of the Dominion Air Forces, and of other services, and officials of the Ministry of Defence will be invited to attend the exercise, which will be the first to be held by the R.A.F. since the war. Since the implications of new weapons cannot yet be fully appraised, the exercise will be confined mainly to a study of existing weapons. Some of the lessons which emerge may have to be modified in the light of new developments; these aspects will be studied in future exercises.
The exercise will begin with a “reconstruction” of the events from January, 1943, onwards. Our own position and that of the enemy at that date will be reviewed, and a joint planning conference will be simulated to explain the various factors which led at the first Casablanca conference to the directive which thenceforth governed the joint operation of the Anglo-American strategic bomber forces.
A meeting of the Combined Strategic Targets Committee will also be “reconstructed” so as to show the diversion of air power from its selected aim by other calls for air help, and to illustrate how wider interests must be taken into consideration in selecting strategic objectives. The course of the air battle over Germany and its effect on the other services will also be retraced.
Sabotage Attempts in Warships
London Times, May 9.—Two deliberate attempts to sabotage the engines of a new British sloop, H.M.S. Snipe, only a month after she had been completed last September were disclosed at a naval court-martial at Devonport yesterday. Some powder, it was stated, had been found in the thermometer pocket in a bearing of the star-board turbine. On charges of negligence in failing to report this and of making a false report to his commanding officer, commissioned engineer Frank Albert Luck, of East Peckham,
Kent, was found Guilty and was sentenced to be severely reprimanded. The court was told that Luck’s actions had “prejudiced investigators in trying to bring the saboteur to book.” Luck had pleaded “Not Guilty” to both charges, but did not give evidence and called no witnesses.
Australian Defense Plans
New York Times, June 5.—A five-year defense program, in which emphasis will be put on naval building, was outlined in the House of Representatives at Canberra today by Defense Minister John J. Dedman.
The program envisages the expenditure of £250,000,000 [Australian] over the period [the Australian pound is quoted at $3.23] with £75,000,000 allotted to the Navy.
Mr. Dedman said that one phase of the naval plan was the establishment of a base at Manus Island in the Admiralty group to replace the present New Guinea base at Dredger Harbor.
He said the Government would welcome arrangements with the United States for joint use of the new base on the principle of reciprocity.
Explaining why the sum allocated to the Navy was larger than that to any other service—Army and Air Force are each to receive £62,500,000—Mr. Dedman said that despite all changes in weapons the British Commonwealth remained a maritime empire dependent on seapower. Australia’s experience in World War II, he said, fully demonstrated the fundamental importance of sea- power for her defense.
2 Aircraft Carriers
The main feature of the naval program is the provision of two light aircraft carriers, each with a wartime complement of thirty- six aircraft. Mr. Dedman said that authoritative opinion was satisfied that there would be no rapid developments making carriers, cruisers and destroyers obsolete in the near future.
Among other allocations is one for £33,500,000 for research and development, including work on the guided missile range in central Australia.
Mr. Dedman said that the United King-
dom and Commonwealth Governments were in the closest consultation on the best way in which Australia could help with scientific developments affecting defense.
The full program, he said, gives practical effect to Prime Minister Joseph B. Chifley’s promise that Australia would take a greater share of the burden of empire defense, so long carried by the United Kingdom.
According to Mr. Dedman, Australia’s five-year defense plan includes:
An army of 69,000—19,000 permanent forces and 50,000 militia, all voluntarily recruited;
A navy of 14,753 men, with two light aircraft carriers, each carrying thirty-six planes;
An air force of sixteen squadrons, comprising 144 aircraft, backed by 439 reserve aircraft and 698 aircraft for training and miscellaneous duties, with a total personnel of 12,625.
New Zealander Worked on Secret Weapon
New York Times, June 14.—Prof. T. D. J. Leech of Auckland University, who received yesterday the award of the order of Commander of the British Empire from King George VI, was disclosed today to be the leading figure in development of an Ameri- can-British weapon said to be as terrible as the atomic bomb.
There was no hint of the nature of the weapon, and it was doubted that it ever would be revealed unless some nation started a war.
Work on the weapon originally began in Florida, but, because of espionage danger, research was transferred to New Zealand. Here Professor Leech was aided by American, British and New Zealand scientists, engineers and high naval authorities. The coordination of the work involved the highest commands in the United States and United Kingdom.
As in the case of the atomic bomb, work on the weapon was split into phases, and only a handful of the men involved knew what the idea was. This was said still to be true.
But the weapon was never used in the war. Scientists working on the atomic bomb achieved success, and it was chosen as the
weapon to administer the coup de grace to Japan.
Professor Leech, who is head of the engineering department at Auckland university, was chairman of the Munitions Advisory Panel during the war. In that post, he assisted in determining design and production of arms for New Zealand’s armed forces. He left the post to take charge of the scientific team that developed the secret weapon.
Australian Rocket Range
London Times, May 5.—The airfields construction squadron at present with the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan is to be flown back to Australia to assist in the construction of the rocket range in South Australia.
The range will extend for more than 1,100 miles on the mainland north-westerly from the vicinity of Tarcoola, South Australia, towards Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The course of the guided missiles and supersonic aircraft will carry across the ocean 1,900 miles to Christmas Island.
About 600 specialist tradesmen will be engaged in the construction of the range, which has already been plotted by Mosquito photographic aircraft. A new township to be erected near Tarcoola will be equipped with the largest airfield in Australia, easily capable of taking the largest aircraft in the world.
London Times, May 16.-—Dr. Evatt, the Attorney-General, speaking to-day in the House of Representatives on an Opposition motion demanding a public inquiry into the activities and objectives of the Communist Party, said that if the threatened trade union boycott of the rocket-range in central Australia were implemented when labour was needed for the range it would constitute a breach of the law, and the law would be enforced.
The basis of the proposed boycott, he continued, was the belief that the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia were preparing for war against Russia. Far from preparing for war against their ally, these countries had submitted to the United Nations a plan for the elimination of certain weapons. A public inquiry into the activities of the Communists would jeopardize the work of the Commonwealth investigation and intelligence branches by disclosing information which ought not to be disclosed, it would impair the prospect of future collection of information, and it could not elicit more than the investigation branch already knew. The only way to deal with the situation was by public criticism and condemnation. It might safely be left in the hands of the Government.
Uranium Deposits in Australia
London Times, May 17.—Mr. Playford, Premier of South Australia, has announced that the British Ministry of Supply has accepted his Government’s invitation to send two geologists to report on the value of the uranium deposits on Mount Painter recently examined by Professor Oliphant. Mr. C. F. Davidson and Mr. J. Cameron, of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, are arriving here in a few days. It will be a heavy task, as the field embraces 160 square miles of the Flinders range and the area is wild in the extreme; in most of it organized transport is impossible.
Referring to the Australian Government’s pronouncement that it should in the national interest assume control of the uranium fields, Mr. Playford said that while South Australia would give every assistance to meet defence requirements, it must not be overlooked that these were Government-owned mines and therefore the property of the people. The Government was not prepared to hand over these rights to anyone.
Naval Research and Development
The Aeroplane, May 16.—More than six million pounds is the estimated expenditure by the Admiralty on Naval research and development during the present year. While much of the fundamental research is undertaken by members of the R.N. Scientific Service, recruited from the Universities and from among industrial specialists of proved reputation, a large contribution is made by members of old-established departments, such as the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, the Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet, and the Director of Electrical Equipment. These technical departments are co-ordinated by the Controller of the Navy, the
Third Sea Lord, who is responsible for the supply of all material to the Navy. A most important feature of the organization is the employment ashore, for periods of two or more years, of Naval officers who have served afloat in both the executive and technical branches of the Royal Navy. The Ordnance Department now has experiments with rocket missiles added to its commitments. To the large variety of propulsion devices and warheads in torpedo work, come the additional problem of homing devices. Magnetic and acoustic mines, mines laid from the sea, and the air, widen the range both offensive and defensive of this once simple method of waging war.
Various Notes
The Aeroplane, May 30.—Admiral Sir Algernon Willis, K.C.B., K.B.E., D.S.O., the C.-in C. Mediterranean, with units of the Mediterranean fleet, will visit Istanbul during July, after which he will visit Sevas- topo .
We are not sure at this stage what air contribution there will be, but the Naval staff know, as well as the U.S.N. staff, that a squadron of Fleet fighters or strike aircraft flying overhead constitutes a more convincing expression of modern military strength than the statically picturesque demonstration of cruisers at anchor in a foreign port.
(Editor’s Note:—Copycats!)
London Times, May 15.—In the House of Commons yesterday,
Major D. W. T. Bruce (Lab.—Portsmouth N.) asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention had been drawn to the speech of Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth Command, on May 8, in which he stated that the Royal Navy did not like conscription, but it was the Government of the day that ordered it. As that speech was not in conformity with the subsection (2) of paragraph 17 of King’s Regulations for the Naval Forces, what action did he propose to take?
Mr. J. Dugdale replied that Admiral Layton had informed the Admiralty that the main point he desired to make was that the National Service system involved the entry into the Navy of a certain number of men who, because of the shortness of their service, had not the same interest in naval life as the long-service men and did not settle down so well. For those reasons special efforts were required of officers and men to fit those people into the general scheme.
Admiral Layton did not intend to criticize the Admiralty, the Government’s policy, and the continuance of National Service as being essential under present-day conditions, and he made it clear that it was incumbent on all concerned to carry out the policy.
“The First Lord has accepted Admiral Layton’s explanation, though he considered it correct to explain to him that his statement was unfortunate and it would have been better had it not been made. He does not regard the action as one calling for disciplinary action under paragraph 17 (2) of King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions.”
Major Bruce said he would raise the question on the adjournment (Government cheers).
London Times, May 24.—The summer cruise of the Home Fleet will start on Saturday, May 31, when most units of the Fleet will sail from Portland under the command of Admiral Sir Neville Syfret, flying his flag in the Duke of York.
Visits by various ships will be made during June, July, and August to ports in the United Kingdom and to continental ports, and exercises will take place after the visit of the Fleet to the Clyde and at other times.
The Fleet will be in the Clyde from July 18 to 27. The object of the visit is an expression of appreciation for the help the Navy received from Clydeside during the war. The King, who will be in Scotland, will pay a visit to the Clyde.
London Times, June 6.—The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Cunningham, came to Oslo to-day on board the aircraft-carrier Vengeance, accompanied by the destroyers Sluys and Cadiz, and was met out at sea by three Norwegian destroyers and an M.T.B. group under the command of Commodore Jacobsen. Aftenposten writes in a leading article: “The visit is not the greatest we in Oslo have seen, but is beyond comparison the most significant. In form it is a courtesy
visit after the usual international pattern. In reality we look upon it as a notable expression of the close friendship between Norway and Great Britain.”
The Norwegian Government is giving a dinner to-night in honour of the visit, and tomorrow the British officers will be King Haakon’s guests at Bydoey Kongsgaard.
The Aeroplane, May 16.—Two new appointments are announced by the Admiralty. Vice-Admiral Sir Philip L. Vian, K.C.B. K.B.E., D.S.O., is to be Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Fifth Sea Lord, and also Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Air). The separate appointment of D.C.N.S. has now lapsed, and Vice-Admiral Vian has assumed the additional duties in so far as they affect Naval Aviation.
The remaining duties of D.C.N.S. are vested in the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, Rear-Admiral G. N. Oliver, who has been A.C.N.S. since he returned from the Far East, where he commanded the 1st Cruiser Squadron. He gained his D.S.O. in October, 1940, for courage and resolution, then serving in the rank of Captain in Mediterranean operations. He received a bar to his D.S.O. in 1943 during the North Africa Campaign.
* * *
Rear-Admiral R. H. Portal, C.B., D.S.O., D.S.C., was promoted to Vice-Admiral on May 3. He was transferred to the Naval Air Service in 1916 and six months later was awarded the D.S.C. for gallantry in air combat during the Dardanelles campaign. During World War II, Rear-Admiral Portal became Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Air), and in this position was responsible for coordinating the aerial activities of the Navy, Fleet Air Arm and the R.A.F. He later served as Flag Officer, Naval Air Stations (Australia).
U.S.S.R.
Soviet Subs in Pacific
New York Times, June 21.—Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Pacific Fleet commander, said today that Russia was operating a “considerable” number of submarines in the North Pacific.
At a news conference Admiral Denfeld declined to estimate the size of Russia’s Pacific navy. He expressed the opinion that it included a “considerable number of submarines and some destroyers,” but no aircraft carriers.
Admiral Denfeld recently returned from a flight to Australia.
Russian Military Training
Revue de Defense Nationale, April.—Soviet military training is spread out over three academies:1 the Frunze Academy; the Voroshilov Academy; and the Stalin Academy- The Frunze Academy is a general staff school comparable to our war school destined for higher officers of all arms; the course lasts three years. Since 1946 a faculty for correspondence study has been organized. The diploma conferred on officers following the correspondence courses is the same as that earned by those in residence.
The Voroshilov Academy is likewise a general staff school: its instruction is on a higher level than that of the Frunze Academy. It has two different courses. One, a ten- month course, is a course in strategy destined for generals of the Corps, Division, and Brigade. The other is a three-year course in strategy for senior officers.
The Stalin Academy is an academy of panzer forces, and comprises, besides the “command Faculty,” a technical Faculty in which “tank engineers” are trained.
The instruction given in these three academies has a strongly practical trend. Military history, particularly that of the wars preceding the last world war, and political indoctrination have a high place.
The latter plays a first class role in the training of troops. During the general meeting of editors of military newspapers last December in Moscow, General of Army Corps Shikin, head of the political guidance of the armed forces, indicated the educative role of the military press. He said particularly: “The central committee of our party and Comrade Stalin personally have always attributed and still attribute a great importance to our bolshevik press. The party is
1 The academy in Russian is a postgraduate or learned institution. Basic courses at the midshipman level are given in a number of schools from Leningrad to Baku.
deeply concerned with the improvement of the part newspapers play in the military and Political2 instruction of soldiers and sailors. It is necessary that, just as it did during the war, our military press fulfill its obligations concerning the political, military, and cultural education of Soviet soldiers, the reinforcing of the military power of the army and navy, the accomplishment of missions entrusted to the armed forces by Comrade Stalin.”
General Shikin pointed out, moreover, the principal gaps in the Soviet military press: weakness of the articles on political and military education; insufficient propaganda in favor of the party, in favor of the five- year plan . . . and the urgency of corresponding reforms. “It must be remembered that each article should go towards making our men brave soldiers, believers in the triumph of our work, ready to surmount any difficulties. It is indispensable that each team of editors take stock of its responsibility in the accomplishment of the important task of educating military personnel.”
Military training overflows the cadre of the army and touches the peoples of the Soviet Army as a whole. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Ossoaviakim (Society for the Promotion of Self-Defense and Aero-Chemical Industry), an article published under the signature of General Antoniouk, associate of the president of the central Council of the Ossoaviakim, indicates the principal activities of that organization.
Formed by the union of the Association of Collaboration in the Defense of the Country, the Friends of the Air Fleet, the Friends of Defense and of Chemical Industry, the Ossoaviakim proposes to interest large masses of workers in military studies. Before the war, instruction dealt with certain military specialties and with the elementary rules of passive defense and close-range defense: 36 million citizens received this training at that time. During the year 1940, several hundred thousand specialists were trained. The opening of hostilities modified the orientation of instruction given by the Ossoaviakim. While continuing to prepare infantrymen, cavalrymen, machine-gunners, sharp-shooters,r&dio-
2 (Editor’s Note: It is well to note the broad meaning of the word “political” in Soviet jargon.) men, sailors, chauffeurs, and tractor drivers, it began to train operators of mortars, submachine guns, tank destroyers, and other specialists. The organization of the Ossoaviakim took an active part in the formation and instruction of units of the popular militia, detachments of self-defense, and “battalions of destruction.” During hostilities, the Ossoaviakim contributed to the defense of the large cities, to guerrilla warfare and to passive defense; the association includes over 200 heroes of the Soviet Union. Since the end of hostilities it has turned its attention to de-mining liberated areas.
Such is the general mission of the Ossoaviakim. It should be noted how concrete is the training given by this organization and its suppleness in meeting new circumstances. In a germaine field of ideas entailing research rather than training the masses, we note the recent creation of an academy of sciences of artillery. The war which has just ended confirmed the judgment of Stalin on artillery as “the principal shock force of the Soviet army.” Hence it was considered necessary to create a center, combining the representatives of various fields, scientific and technical, which interest artillery in order to establish a closer cooperation between scientists specialized in the field of artillery and those in other branches of science. The principal questions to be studied immediately in the new academy are: the use of artillery radar, the equipping of pieces, increasing power; and from the tactical point of view, the working out of new types of fire, in the light of experiences in the recent conflicts. General of Artillery Anatole Blagoravov, a specialist in armament construction and a member of the Academy of Sciences, was called to head the new Academy.
This information gives an idea of some of the efforts now in progress within the Soviet Army. Since the close of hostilities, the army has taken inventory; thirty classes have been demobilized. Only the young men from 19 to 24 are now under arms, part of whom have been in the campaign, and the rest new recruits. This army, streamlined and youthful, is working intensively in all fields. Although Marshal Stalin, burdened with labors, has decided to pass the functions of Minister of National Defense to General
Boulganin, one cannot say that the army is resting on its laurels.
OTHER COUNTRIES Japan
Yokosuka as a Commerce Port
Chicago Tribune, May 25.—Japan’s greatest naval base, veiled in military secrecy before the war, is now rapidly becoming a commercial harbor for trade with the United States.
Similar work is underway at the former naval bases of Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru, and Ominato, but the hopeful Japansese seem to have made the most progress here, under the eye of the United States Navy.
Saru Island, once a bristling fort, is being converted into a recreation area equipped with a swimming pool, fishing area, outdoor theater, underground hotel, clubs, and dance halls.
Now Commercial Harbor
The Nagaura area of the harbor, once a base for small warships, has already become a commercial harbor for the Tokyo-Yoko- hama zone. Supplies of food from the United States are unloaded here.
Facilities will be expanded in the hope of making Yokosuka, with its excellent harbor, a rival of prewar Yokohama and Kobe.
Property of the defunct Japanese navy is being turned over to other agencies. The Yokosuka submarine base has become a police training school. A 24§ acre military area has become a seaside park with a music hall. From a near-by pier ferryboats leave for Kisarazu and Misaki.
SWEDEN
Atomic Energy Plans
Manchester Guardian, April 28.—Atomic Energy Ltd. will be the name of the company to be formed in Sweden with the task of building a uranium pile for the production of atomic energy for scientific and industrial use. According to the proposal submitted by the Government’s Atomic Commission, the initial capital will be 3,500,000 kronor, of which the Government will contribute 2,000,000 kronor and private industry will be invited to subscribe the remainder.
The Atomic Commission will be reformed into a Permanent Council of Research, entrusted with the task of directing the work of the new atomic energy company. The chairman of the commission, Governor Malte Jacobsson, points out that its activities will embrace a great amount of physical, chemical and technical research, and that the company will soon be the owner of large quantities of uranium, graphite, heavy water, and similar material. Therefore it is considered more advantageous to form a company than an institution of scientific research.
Sweden has great resources of uranium, but it is difficult to make use of them economically. Recent experiments, however, have given promising results on a laboratory scale and various methods are now being tested in order to find the cheapest and most efficient method for the production of greater quantities.
The building of an atomic energy pile entails the solving of numerous difficult physical, chemical, metallurgical, and technical problems, and to begin with there will be experiments on a smaller scale only. These experiments, however, may be of great scientific value and will include such activi- tiesas theproduction of radio-active isotopes.
AVIATION
Jet Propelled Navy Air Force
Chicago Tribune, May 31.—The navy’s air force will be entirely jet propelled by 1957, Rear Adm. Leslie C. Stevens, Navy director of aeronautical research and development, said today.
“It will take the Navy about 10 years to build up an all jet air force,” Adm. Stevens said in an interview. “We are no longer thinking in the future about conventional type planes which were used in the war.
“For the last two years or more all the experimental planes which the Navy has worked on have had some form of jet propulsion. The reason is that the jet planes outclass the older types.”
Jets Still in Infancy
He said jet aircraft development still is in its infancy and will require many years of patient research, experimentation, tryouts, and refinements. He said two to ten years may elapse from the time a jet engine is drawn on a drafting board until it goes into a plane operating from an aircraft carrier.
Adm. Stevens asserted American engineers and the aircraft engine industry will provide the Navy with jet engines which will compare favorably with those of any country. He ridiculed recent published reports that England and Russia are ahead of the United States in jet engine development.
“It’s impossible to compare the jet engine developments of various countries because they may be working on engines with different features and for different performance goals,” he said. “It’s like trying to compare apples and oranges.”
United States Leads with Type
“The British, for example, have been working for some time on centrifugal type jet engines in which the air is blown radially from the center outward. That results in a short, bulging engine that resembles a pill box. On the other hand, this country has concentrated on the axial type jet engine in which the air flows longitudinally, permitting a streamlined torpedo shape to the engine.”
Stevens said the United States is further ahead in the development of axial type jet engines, while England leads in the centrifugal jet field. He said the British have had longer experience with their jet engines than American industry because the latter was preoccupied during the war with mass production of conventional gasoline engines and could not turn their research staffs into the new field.
“The British got into the jet field before
the war and were able to keep their aircraft engineers working on jet research during the war,” Stevens said. “Although they developed experimental jet planes during the war, they never had any operational planes for combat service.”
Germans Aid Russia
Stevens said the Russians are advancing German jet engine designs with the help of German engineers and jet experts. He said the Germans had “excellent jet techniques” and the Russians are trying to copy and improve them.
Navy aviation officials said the Navy plans to include 172 jet planes in 579 new planes which will be obtained in the fiscal year starting July 1. A recent report on the Navy’s air force showed that last February of 6,130 Navy and Marine Corps operational planes, only 24 were jet propelled.
The officials said the Navy air force will be composed for the next few years of 40 or 50 per cent all jet planes, with the rest powered by gasoline turbine engines or combination of jets and turbines. They explained present engines are not reliable and foolproof.
Navy Moves Cautiously
High fuel consumption of jet engines, their resulting shorter range, and their unsatisfactory control at low speeds have caused the Navy to move cautiously in buying jet engines until further development work has been done in improving the jet engines, the experts said.
The Navy’s stockpile of approximately
4,0 airplanes built or ordered during the war is fast becoming obsolete, Navy officials said. These planes are in “interim storage” and are being used for replacements and training, they said.
“These war vintage planes are so outclassed in military performance that they never would be used in combat except under the most desperate circumstances,” an air officer said.
P-80 Returns Speed Record to U. S.
New York Herald Tribune, June 20.— An Army Air Forces jet-propelled P-80 Shooting Star returned the world speed record to the United States for the first time in twenty-four years today when it whistled
over the Muroc Army Air Base in California at 623.8 miles an hour. _
Colonel Albert Boyd, chief of the Air Materiel Command’s flight test division at Wright Field, Ohio, piloted the specially built plane to a speed mark exceeding by 7.8 miles an hour the world record set on Sept- 7,1946, by Group Captain Edward Mortlock Donaldson in a British Gloster Meteor IV-
The Lockheed Aircraft Corporation fighter, known as the P-80R, was clocked by officials of the National Aeronautics Association, who will report the speed to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in Paris.
Plane Refuelled in Flight
Manchester Guardian, June 2.—Refuelling in flight may transform the economics of long-range British air transport. A full programme of trials is to be pushed forward following the remarkable success of the nonstop flight completed on Saturday.
It was the first non-stop flight to Bermuda. A return non-stop flight was also made. The distance was 4,000 miles. The first flight was completed in 20 hours. In the course of it 1,800 gallons of fuel were taken on board, the time for the operation being 19 minutes, and the flight finished within two minutes of schedule. The return flight took 15J hours and 1,600 gallons were taken on board.
British South American Airways proposes to undertake 22 of these proving flights to South America, and then, between November 21 and May 21, 1948, refuelled flights across the North Atlantic will be made at the rate of two or three a fortnight, both by day and by night.
The success of fuelling in flight is largely the result of the work of Sir Alan Cobham, who is managing director of the company which has developed the modern system, and an Air Vice-Marshal, D. C. T. Bennett, head of British South American Airways, and also one of the world’s most experienced long-distance pilots.
The air liner does not alter course at any time. It is traced by radar in the tanker aircraft, which makes connection by shooting a line across another line trailed by the air liner. The hose is then drawn in on the line. With this system the paying load of a plane may be doubled.
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Wind Tunnel for 4,000 MPH
New York, Herald Tribune, June 8.—A wind tunnel which will be able to reproduce flight conditions of speeds from 1,100 to
4,0 miles an hour and altitudes from sea level to 200,000 feet is now under construction by Princeton University, Professor Daniel Sayre, chairman of Princeton’s department of aeronautical engineering, announced today.
Professor Sayre said that the tunnel, which is expected to be in operation by the end of the year, has been designed to solve many basic problems dealing with supersonic flight which have defied solution. The tunnel differs from others, Professor Sayre said, in the use of high air pressures in the neighborhood of 3,500 pounds a square inch.
The new tunnel is part of the university’s participation in “Project Squid,” a program of research on liquid rocket and pulse-jet propulsion sponsored at five Eastern universities by the Bureau of Aeronautics and the Office of Naval Research of the United States Navy.
McDonnell Banshee for Navy
New York Herald Tribune, May 25.— Successful flight tests of America’s newest and most powerful fighter plane, the 600- mile-an-hour McDonnell Banshee, were announced here today by Navy Department officials, who said the twin-jet propulsion monoplane was slated to become standard aircraft carrier equipment. They said the Banshee had “unusually long range” for a jet-propelled plane and climbs at the phenomenal rate of 9,000 feet a minute.
Equipped with two Westinghouse twenty- four-inch diameter axial flow turbo-jet engines neatly streamlined into the wing roots at either side of the fuselage, the new craft is a sleek successor to the McDonnell Phantom, first Navy shipboard fighter exclusively driven by jet propulsion.
The Phantom made its initial flight in January, 1945, and received official approval as a satisfactory carrier-borne fighter a year later following a series of exhaustive tests. Navy officers said the Phantom, a production order of which is now being delivered by the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, already had been made obsolescent by the Banshee’s
performance and relegated to the jet pilot “training” category.
This, they explained, was due both to design refinements in the Phantom’s successor and to the fact that each of the Banshee’s engines develops 3,000 pounds thrust compared to 1,700 pounds developed by the nineteen-inch diameter Westinghouse turbines that power the Phantom. Both airplanes, they said, have the highly desirable characteristic of twin-engine safety for overwater flying, since they will operate on either of their two power plants and, as a matter of fact, will cruise more economically at low altitudes on one engine than on two.
The Banshee’s total available thrust of
6,0 pounds—50 per cent more than that of any single-engine jet fighter yet developed in the United States—gives it the fast acceleration needed for short take-offs and emergency “wave-offs” without loss of flight control when coming in for carrier landings.
Earlier efforts to solve these two problems by equipping shipboard fighters, such as the Ryan Fireball, with both a jet propulsion unit and a conventional engine-propeller combination have now been abandoned, the Navy said, because the Phantom and the Banshee’s take-off performance “compares very favorably” with that of piston engine and propeller-equipped fighters while their top speed “is in a class by itself.”
Announcement that the Banshee had received the Navy’s final stamp of approval and that negotiations were under way for a production order of the new fighters followed a Navy-McDonnell flight demonstration of both the Banshee and the Phantom earlier this week for avaition writers assembled here from all parts of the country.
As an added attraction, the Banshee was put through its “kneeling” exercises on the ground—a performance during which the nose-wheel portion of the electrically operated landing gear is slowly retracted so that the plane bows down on a tiny nose dolly and its tail rises high in the air. This makes it possible to store 30 per cent more Banshees on a carrier’s hangar deck than otherwise could be accommodated, even though the craft—like all shipboard planes—is equipped with conventional folding wing- tips for storage space conservation.
k
Self-Sealing Gun ‘Blister’
New York Herald Tribune, June 3.—Research engineers of the Boeing Airplane Company and the Air Materiel Command of the Army Air Forces, it was learned today, have succeeded in developing a post-war transparent plastic for the gunners’ “blisters” on high-altitude bombers that is both shatter-proof and self-sealing against .50- caliber machine-gun fire.
The new material is designed for use in the bulbous gun-emplacement and lookout posts of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and its more formidable 1948 successor, the B-50, to prevent loss of life-sustaining cabin pressurization in the sub-stratosphere under possible enemy fighter attack.
The same group of high-altitude experimenters and researchers, who make almost daily flights to 40,000 feet, with a B-29 assigned to their project, also has developed a laminated plastic windshield for the pilots’ cockpit. The insulated middle layer of the windshield is electrically conductive and heats to any desired temperature at the turn of a rheostat, keeping the windshield ice-free and guaranteeing the pilots unobstructed vision. This eliminates the necessity for either hollow windshields, heated by the constant circulation of hot air, or wire grid electric heaters, neither of which has proved highly satisfactory.
The secret, self-sealing plastic is said to be a highly cohesive compound whose semisolid fluidity is unaffected by extreme temperature ranges, so that its texture remains unchanged even in the sub-zero cold of high-altitude bombing. When pierced by a bullet it simply flows in from all sides to close the puncture, without any tendency to leak, or to bubble out from the internal cabin pressure.
In certain respects the new material is comparable to the synthetic rubber used during the war in self-sealing aircraft fuel tanks, except, of course, that it is as transparent as window glass and requires no reaction from gasoline or any other agent to start its sealing effect.
Helicopters for Air Mail
New York Herald Tribune, June 2.—The Civil Aeronautics Board today opened the air-mail and freight field to helicopters on an experimental basis, authorizing use of the craft as mail carriers on three shuttle routes between the Los Angeles Municipal Airport and thirty near-by postoffices.
The first helicopter mail-operating certificate in American aviation was issued to Los Angeles Airways, Inc., which will use the “flying windmills” to speed up airmail deliveries from the airport to the postoffices—■ all within a fifty-mile radius of the center of Los Angeles.
U. S. Airline Wins Race to Ring Globe
New York Times. June 3.—The American flag will be first around the world in commercial air transportation. Juan T. Trippe, president of Pan American Airways, announced here yesterday that on June 17 a Constellation of his line would leave New York for Europe with a party of publishers, to return after leisurely stops at important news centers a day short of two weeks later.
Seven days afterward, Pan American will begin regular twice-weekly services around the world in both directions at a total fare of $1,700.
This covers all air fares, including the single gap across the United States, which Pan American itself does not fly commercially. Mr. Trippe expressed the hope that the Civil Aeronautics Board would soon permit his line to add this link.
The trip marks a victory for Pan American over the British and over a combination of Trans World Airline and Northwest Airlines, both of which have been striving to be first to establish global service. TWA flies from New York to Bombay, sending its passengers on to Calcutta by Indian Airlines. Northwest already is flying from New York to Shanghai and Manila on special flights. Croil Hunter, Northwest president, yesterday announced that regular passenger service over the Great Circle route to Manila would start on July 15.
Political Difficulties
Political difficulties, it was learned last night, are preventing TWA from flying its route through India and through Mandalay, Burma, and Hanoi in French Indo-China to Shanghai where it is to hook up with Northwestern. TWA officials would set no date for
the solution of its political difficulties. Mr. Hunter announced that Northwest would use seventy-five passenger Boeing Strato- cruisers on its route “early in 1948.”
Mr. Trippe said that competition from foreign lines, with cheap labor and government subsidies, was still to be feared. While it is now possible to fly around the world on airlines under the British flag, the service is uncoordinated among British Overseas Airways, British European Airways, Trans- Canada Airlines and the Australian-New Zealand lines.
The head of Pan American announced that when regular service is started it will be possible for a passenger to circumnavigate the globe on this one airline in about seven days. He expects some passengers thus to imitate the record globe girdlers from Magellan’s galleon Victoria, which took three years, and Jules Verne’s fictitious Phineas Fogg in 1872, who was said to have made it in eighty days, down to Wiley Post, Howard Hughes, Leo Kieran, the Air Transport Command’s Globe-master, who all did it in days, and the Reynolds Bombshell which did it in a little under seventy-nine hours in April. He mentioned all these records in his statement.
Modern Air Force for Switzerland
London Times, May 23.—It is announced to-day that Switzerland is to maintain a peacetime air force of at least 500 aircraft of the latest type. An order from Britain for 75 De Havilland Vampire jet aircraft, at a cost of £3,088,235, was only a first step in the formation of this force, it was stated.
Plans are under consideration for the
manufacture in Switzerland of Vampire jet aircraft under licence.
Explaining the need of an efficient force, the Swiss Federal Council said that if the country became involved in war the task of defense would devolve “on our own tactical air force.” Any allied tactical air force could only be effective if its airfields were within easy range, for its use of our own airfields would entail considerable difficulties.
These difficulties were described as the comparatively small size of Swiss airfield’s, and the necessity of training foreign pilots for the flying conditions in the Alps.
The Government decided to purchase Vampires because of their great manoeuvrability. “It became evident that a gigantic revolution was taking place in the method of aircraft propulsion, and especially great progress has been made in Britain,” it was stated officially. It also turned out that Britain is already employing in her air force types which require only a few hundred yards’ starting and landing run, and that although these aircraft were capable of horizontal speeds of 530 to 560 miles an hour, they could also be flown safely at less than 125 miles an hour.
Wright Will Test Huge Jet Engines
New York Times, June 12.-—Woodridge, N. J.—The Wright Aeronautical Corporation put into full operation here today a laboratory for the testing of the largest turbine- type aircraft engines known to be under practical development anywhere in the world.
Guy W. Vaughan, president of the Curtiss- Wright Corporation, which controls Wright Aeronautical, said the new laboratory is a $3,500,000 project and the largest Federal Government research program now under private operation in the aviation industry. Some components of the plant have been in operation for the last ten days, but it was not until today that the full plant swung into action as a complete unit.
“The Wright turbine laboratory was designed with one specific end in view,” Mr. Vaughan declared, “and that is to expedite the development of the most advanced engine types of the highest attainable horsepower to bolster America’s world air power.”
He added that the advanced design of the laboratory would cut down both the time and cost of pre-production testing, which he called the most serious bottleneck in present production of aircraft power plants.
The new laboratory has been equipped with machines and tools supplied by both General Electric and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. It is capable, Wright engineers said, of developing gas turbine engines that would have as much horsepower as all four of the piston- type engines now used in the new type Lockheed Constellation. This would mean single gas turbine units of 10,000 horsepower. One pound of thrust in a jet is equal to one horsepower at a speed of 375 miles an hour.
Several months ago the Wright Aeronautical Corporation announced that it had acquired under a long-term agreement exclusive rights in the aircraft field in the United States to certain gas turbine system patents and application of the Aktiebolaget Ljungstroms Angturbin (Lungstroms Steam Turbine Company) of Sweden.
Jet Bombers
Model Airplane News, July.—Midst constant reports of British superiority in jet aircraft design and construction and tacit approval of these claims on this side of the Atlantic, the U. S. Aircraft industry and AAF have quietly gone about pushing America some 5 years ahead in the field of multi-jet bomber design. First to be announced was the North American XB-45, which flew successfully in March, first of its type in history. It was followed in April by the first test flight of the sleek Consolidated Vultee XB-46 4-jet bomber. Latest to join the parade is the giant Martin XB-48 powered by 6 jet engines. This huge, high-speed bomber is unique in its use of a “bicycle” landing gear in which the two main gear units are mounted tandem in the fuselage with two small outrigger wheels in the wings.
The new craft has a span of 108 ft. 4 in., is 85 ft. 9 in. long, 27 ft. 6 in. high. The jet engines are suspended 3 on each side of the fuselage below the wing and will produce an aggregate of nearly 25,000 hp, the largest power ever built into an airplane. Remaining to be announced are the Boeing XB-47 and another jet bomber which has not yet
been revealed. It is known that the Boeing design incorporates wing sweepback and is powered by 6 jet units, mounted in pairs in wing nacelles plus a jet unit at each wing tip! The XB-45, 46 and48 are in the “better than 500 mph” class, and the Boeing is quoted as being in the “better than 600 mph” category. Extent of the overall jet bomber program was revealed recently as a joint industry-AAF-NACA project, with the NACA processing a special “high speed bomber research program” in a period of 9 months during the closing months of the war. The special program was evolved after numerous individual projects were occupying vital NACA wind-tunnels, all of which were of similar design and on which similar data was being requested. NACA suggested a joint program and, with AAF approval, developed fundamental data on wings, tails, nacelles and smooth-skin construction applicable to the entire series of bombers. This program was broadened in summer of 1945 to include the Navy and the series of highspeed research airplanes now being developed.
MERCHANT MARINE Advisory Committee at Work
Marine Progress, May.—Two forces are moving toward the rehabilitation of the American shipbuilding industry and the creation of a balanced American Merchant Marine.
The first of these forces is the newly created Advisory Committee on the Merchant Marine which held its first meetings late in April. The other force is the Maritime Commission itself, which, while working closely with the Advisory Committee is also assembling machinery with which to secure legislation permitting the use of funds received from sales of ships overseas to building vessels sorely needed by the United States. Should this plan be adopted there would be a fund approximating $700,000,000 available for this purpose.
Advisory Committee
Appearing before the committee were Maritime Commission Chairman Vice Admiral W. W. Smith, Commissioner Mellen and Commissioner Carson. The committee had already received considerable information from the Maritime Commission which put a solid foundation of understanding of maritime problems under them. Other government agencies also supplied data to the group.
Acting chairman Folsom reviewed briefly the scope of the committee’s deliberations and stressed the fact that the committee has no set views but is seeking to obtain a picture of the problems and the views of government agencies concerned as well as those of the industries and labor.
Admiral Cochrane, the only member of the committee qualified to speak with authority on shipbuilding, pointed out that if the committee is to be recognized it must be known to the entire country as one which “carries weight” and which is acting on involved and important problems.
Admiral Smith told the committee that the Maritime Commission had brought out a long-range program for the American Merchant Marine, a program that called for the construction of passenger ships, cargo ships and combination vessels and tankers over a twenty-five year period. This program is not a static or a fixed program, the Commission Chairman said.
The plan will provide for the construction of one hundred and sixteen vessels, thirty- one of them passenger ships and the balance dry cargo vessels. The broad division was not clarified as to specific types falling in each category. It was said that eighty-five of the 116 ships would operate in foreign trade.
A supplemental report which the Commission has not yet adopted called for the building of fifty-nine passenger-cargo ships by 1954 and at a cost of $635,000,000. The passenger ship program which President Truman vetoed last year would be revived and a half dozen thirty-knot liners would be built.
Prospective Fleet
Admiral Smith reviewed for the committee the proposed size of the American merchant fleet as the Commission saw it. There is needed a fleet of 491 modern vessels of twelve types totalling 5,100,000 deadweight tons to adequately service the thirty-one
international trade routes which the United States requires if its economy and its defense needs are to be met at sea. Added to this must be the tonnages required for domestic services in dry cargo ships and also the total tanker tonnage needed for American flag operation all over the world. The grand total stands at 11,400,000 deadweight tons, exclusive of Great Lakes shipping.
The Commission Chairman said that the United States is without an adequate merchant marine despite the fact that we came out of the war with more than 5,000 vessels.
The need is for fast, modern, specially designed ships with which to meet foreign competition on world trade routes, the need being particularly felt in the passenger field. This international competition which Admiral Smith mentioned is not as apparent to the American people as it might be. In our large ports, with huge pier structures barring much of the berthing area from view, there is little evidence of the number of foreign ships calling at American ports and in any case they are far outnumbered by domestic shipping and dwarfed by the immensity of waterfront activity at the large ports like New York and San Francisco.
Where the competition is really seen is in the foreign ports where waterfronts are open and ships moor side by side in clear view of the people. In the Mediterranean where mooring stern-to at the mole is the rule, there will f>e seen the flags of all the maritime nations of the world, side by side, a veritable spectrum of national flags, all competing with each other. This is competition with a vengeance and it is here that the American ships, fast, modern vessels, show up their superiority. Whenever a brightly lighted ship is seen in many world ports it can safely be said that it is an American ship, no matter how far away it might be seen. Other vessels shut down their steam plants at night, use oil lamps for illumination. Not our ships. We maintain power and light in the ship continuously and the costs of this are measurable costs, counting up when the strength of competition is calculated.
Competition is much more evident away from American home ports and it is this long distance view which must be projected, to the Congress particularly, when plans for a modern American Merchant Marine are up for approval.
After mehtioning all the factors concerned with a balanced fleet, including national defense, foreign trade, etc., Admiral Smith then concluded his testimony by saying:
“All of these considerations, from the standpoints of both national defense and national economy, indicate the need for a long range program for American merchant shipbuilding and shipping. Because of the need fpr an adequate merchant marine for security and trade, and because in these times the United States cannot depend on foreign bottoms to carry its goods and people in peace or in war, the Maritime Commission believes it is imperative to undertake now a balanced long range program, even if some of the phases may prove to be financially unprofitable. We trust that Congress will understand and accept this view and that it will provide the authority and the funds for the construction and operation of an adequate merchant marine through construction and operation differential subsidies as provided in the Merchant Marine Act, 1936. We admit that in the case of the domestic fleet in the coastal, intercoastal and noncontiguous trades, we have a problem calling for new Congressional action if our recommendations are to be met. While we believe these services are necessary to the overall economy of the country, we realize that under present circumstances private capital cannot accept their operation. In our opinion it is therefore imperative that Congress provide the necessary assistance, either through subsidies or in some other manner.”
Ship Sales Money
The Maritime Commission, in its efforts to get a ship construction program moving, again has asked Congress for permission to use money obtained from the sale of ships to foreigners to build passenger ships and fast cargo carriers for American flag operation. The request has been made in connection with proposed amendments to the Ships Sales Act of 1946.
A fund of $700,000,000 will be realized from sales abroad. This money must be turned over to the general fund of the Treasury Department rather than have it go into
the revolving fund of the Maritime Commission.
New and Reconverted Ships—S.S. President Cleveland
New York Times, May 31.—The new American President liner President Cleveland now is receiving her finishing touches at the Bethlehem-Alameda shipyard, Alameda, Calif., and is scheduled to make her maiden voyage from San Francisco and Los Angeles on or about Aug. 15, according to latest word from the steamship company.
The new vessel’s itinerary will include calls at Honolulu, Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai, Hongkong, and Manila for the capacity load of 550 passengers expected to make the trip. Launched on June 23, 1946, her outfitting will have required more than a year when she starts her sea career.
Approximately 610 feet from raked stem to cruiser stern, the new liner has a glistening white superstructure topped by two rakishly inclined stacks. Huge 20,000 horsepower turbo-electric motors will drive her at a service speed of 21 knots, with a cruising range of 17,600 miles. Her 23,000 tons make her the largest American passenger liner built since the beginning of World War II.
The ship has many modern features, in eluding the machinery to manufacture her own “weather.” This is accomplished by the most advanced type of air-conditioning for all cabins and public rooms. Each first-class cabin will have a thermostat by which passengers can regulate the temperature of their rooms to suit individual tastes.
The American President Lines takes great pride in the ship’s safety factor, which is said to be very high. All interior partitions are of either fireproof Marinite or soundproof steel, enclosing two inches of tightly packed fiberglass. Firescreen doors, which separate the ship into zones, can be instantly closed by a system of electric magnets controlled both locally and from a master switch.
Thirty-five sliding steel water-tight doors, operated either electrically or by hand, will prevent flooding of compartments in case of emergency.
Besides her 550 passengers, the ship will have space for 4,500 tons of express cargo. Of this, more than 600 tons can be carried in specially insulated compartments capable of being chilled tp ten degrees below zero. The balance of the cargo space will have Cargocaire humidity control to insure delivery of all types of cargo free of damage caused by “sweat” or other temperature changes.
5.5. Ancon
New York Times, June 13.—The 10,000- ton liner Ancon, famous as a command and communication ship in the war, arrived in New York last night after a complete rebuilding and reconversion for peace time trade.
The Ancon has been so completely refurbished that in interior design the Panama and Cristobal are no longer sister ships. The latter two vessels have received an “interim” reconversion, and are now in service. The company plans to give them the complete rebuilding as soon as it can release them, one at a time, long enough for a visit to the shipyard.
Shipping and travel experts who have seen the Ancon pronounce her the most modern passenger liner under the American flag. Her interior design was done by Raymond Loewy Associates, and represent a departure from the traditional American design and outfitting.
5.5. Argentina
Marine Progress, June.—Another notable ship is soon to return to her private run. This is the S. S. Argentina, of the American Republics Line, operated by Moore, McCormack Lines, Inc. July 25 has been set as the date for resumption of service to the east coast of South America by the first of the three ships in the trade. Later the S. S. Uruguay and S. S. Brazil will join the Argentina in the service to completely reestablish the trade in which these ships operated before the war.
5.5. Corinthic and Athenic
Nautical Magazine, May.—Fewer ships than ever can afford to run nowadays without a careful balance of the demands of passengers and cargo, but it is usually a question as to whether the designer turns out a cargo ship with passengers or a passenger ship with
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cargo. Whichever is done there are usually complaints. In the new Shaw, Savill & Albion liners Corinthic and Athenic, the former of which is now on her maiden voyage, the problem of proportions appears to have been settled in an eminently satisfactory manner, for the sixty odd first-class passengers which she carries have the best of quarters, yet it is certain that the demands of the meat trade, on which her owners principally depend, have not been neglected in any way and they are first-class ships for that.
They have aroused attention ever since the orders were first announced, for after making a great name for itself as one of the pioneers of the fast motor meat ship the Company turned to geared turbines and high pressure steam although, it is interesting to note, the two ships just ordered will revert to the Diesel. The next time attention was centred on the Corinthic was not so happy, for she had a very serious fire while fitting out at Cammell, Lairds, and the Merseyside shipbuilders have certainly done a wonderful job in getting her fit for sea so quickly. The original contract price for each ship, with the inevitable possibilities of increase nowadays, is understood to be about one million pounds sterling.
The Corinthic is a 17-knot ship of about 15,000 tons gross with normal accommodation for 68 passengers, which can be increased to about 85 during the rush season by the use of Pullman berths. In addition she has stowage for over 7,000 tons of refrigerated produce and 4,000 tons of general cargo, nearly a quarter of the insulated holds being specifically fitted for chilled cargo in which the Shaw, Savill Line has made a great reputation. Like all meat ships her cargo handling gear is very complete, with numerous derricks of 5, 7 and 12 tons capacity and one of 50 tons. The total shaft horse power of her turbines is 18,400, steam at 800 degrees Fahrenheit being supplied by two very compact oil-fired Foster-Wheeler water-tube boilers. The capacity of her fuel tanks is well over 4,000 tons.
S.S. Istanbul
New York Times, May 30—The 5,236-ton liner Istanbul, purchased by the Turkish States Shipping Lines last December and reconverted from her wartime troopship status at the Todd shipyards, Hoboken, N. J., will sail today to enter the company’s Mediterranean service between Istanbul and Alexandria.
The Istanbul, formerly the Mexico of the Agwi Lines, will call at Havana, where she will pick up passengers en route to Turkey. She has accommodations for 110 persons in first class and 50 in second class.
Acquisition of the Istanbul, which was built in 1932 and originally named the Colombia, is part of Turkey’s program to expand her 125-ship merchant fleet. At her purchase last December, the Turkish Purchasing Commission announced it was planning to acquire six freighters and to construct twenty combination passenger-cargo ships.
Operations of the Turkish States Lines is confined chiefly to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and the company, it was said, is not considering a large-scale service to the United States. Only one vessel, the Bakir, is operating to this country.
Various Notes
Weekly News Reporter, May 21.—The largest fleet of vessels operating under the American flag is that of the Waterman Steamship Corporation. The company operates 140 vessels, 42 of them privately owned, 77 chartered, 8 allocated for charter, and 13 under general agency agreement. Close behind, with 137 ships, is Lykes Brothers. Their fleet is made up of 37 owned, 83 chartered, 12 general agency, and 5 allocated for charter.
New York Times, June 15.—San Pedro, Calif.—The first five ships of a twelve- tanker Russian fleet have arrived in this area to load Diesel fuel and aviation gasoline for Vladivostok, the Marine Exchange said tonight.
The remainder of the fleet, each vessel of which is capable of carrying 50,000 gallons, is expected to reach harbor before the end of the month.
Tankers in the harbor are the Emba, Krasnia Armia, Elbras, Maikop, and Belgorod. The latter three have been undergoing extensive repairs.
Floating Mines
New York Times, June 15.—Floating mines, the most stealthy and among the most deadly of wartime weapons, still are sinking ships throughout the world.
Nearly two years after the war’s end, the United States Maritime Commission reports that ships of American and foreign registry are either being sunk or damaged by mines at the rate of at least six a month.
In the period since V-J Day American minesweepers alone have swept up a total of 12,014 mines. More than 300 men in ten Navy ships still are engaged in the task of searching mine-infested Pacific waters.
So extensive is this hunt for mines that at one time the United States Navy had as many as 32,000 men and 500 ships scouting the Pacific for mines. The job is expected to be completed soon, but probably not before the end of the year.
While the Navy considers most of the commonly traveled shipping lanes now relatively free of mines, mopping-up operations are proceeding around various Pacific atolls. Some of these areas still are considered unsafe for merchant shipping.
The extent to which mines can be a danger to unsuspecting ships is indicated by Navy figures on wartime sinkings due to mines. According to Capt. Howard W. Fitch, head of the Navy’s mine warfare section, more than 400,000 tons of enemy shipping were sunk and 800,000 tons were severely damaged by mines. _ _
These figures take on even greater significance, says Captain Fitch, when it is realized that most of the mine-sowing wartime operations were concentrated in Japanese waters in the 140 days preceding V-J Day.
The Navy now is using Japanese crews manning Japanese vessels and American minesweepers in tracking down mines sown by both Americans and Japanese during the war.
Fishing boats and trawlers, most of them too small to show up on official records, are considered by Maritime Commission officials as the greatest post-war casualties of floating mines. The estimate of the number of these sunk sjnoe the war runs into hundreds.
The major merchant vessels lost since the end of the war include nine America ships and twenty other foreign vessels. All these were in the over-1,000 ton class. Their loss is described as “total” and due directly to mines.
New York Times, June 8.—A new type of floating mine has appeared in the Baltic and is believed to be responsible for the loss of four Swedish fishing smacks so far. The new mines, chained together in dozens like a string of pearls, must have been recently planted experimentally by some power having access to this inland sea, Swedish naval authorities believe. They recall last year s equally mysterious buzz-bombs over Sweden.
Swedish naval patrols have been unable to bring in a specimen of the mine, which explodes with a light thud resembling a rifle report. One mystery of the “oranges” is that as presently rigged they are too small to damage anything but mosquito craft.
New York Times, May 26. 4 he French
tanker St. Yves sank today outside the port of La Rochelle, France, with 4,500 tons of gasoline after striking a mine. The crew was rescued by another vessel, which was near by when the accident occurred. No casualties were reported.
The 2,215-ton Norwegian steamer Bestum struck a mine off Terschelling in the Frisian Islands early today. There were no casualties. The explosion wrecked the Bestum's engine and Dutch tugs are towing her to Rotterdam. The ship was carrying coal from Oslo. Drifting ice and gales, which wrenched adrift or wrecked many buoys marking the swept channel, were reported to be the main cause of these accidents.
MISCELLANEOUS
Rocket Power Hunt Centers on Liquids
New York Times, June 13.—New rocket fuels or propellants much more powerful than any now in use are being developed by the California Institute of Technology here.
“Caltech” took a leading part in rocket development during the war and the Government-owned jet propulsion laboratory here under Dr. Louis Dunn is being operated
under contract by the Institute to continue basic rocket research.
Transition from war to peacetime status is still continuing and Caltech, which undertook development as well as research during the war, is completing its developmental work in connection with the famed Wac Corporal series of rockets. The latest of these—the first completely American-made and designed guided rocket, the so-called Corporal E was tested recently at White Sands with success. I his rocket, still on the classified list, has been dubbed the Secret Sergeant. It is much larger than the Wac Corporal sounding rocket and is comparable in weight to a fighter plane but is not as large as the German V-2, though, unlike the V-2, it does have a guidance mechanism.
When the jet propulsion laboratory completes its developmental work with the Wac Corporal series in six to eight months, its approximately 500 scientists and technicians will devote all their energies to basic research. Some work is still being done on solid, or powder propellants for rocket motors, but the most promising field of research is in liquid propellants to replace or supplement the acid aniline, or liquid oxygen alcohol combination which are the standard fuels used today.
This research involves painstaking care and some hazard since the chemicals under test are often explosive, corrosive, toxic and volatile. The problem is a chemical, not a mechanical one, and it involves great difficulties but the Institute sees many hopeful possibilities.
The problem of heat transfer or combustion chamber temperature is another one under study. I his involves not only investigation into fuels but a study of metallurgy, ceramics and cooling systems. In present or contemplated rockets combustion chamber temperatures are never above 6,000 degrees if that, but in the years ahead fuels may be developed which will raise the “working temperatures” to 15,000 to 20,000 degrees.
No metal and no known substance or combination of substances wifi withstand such heat, which means that the eventual solution lies in developing cooling systems. The kinetics of combustion, aerodynamics and ramjets—a specialized form of jet propulsion—
are also subjects of investigation at the jet propulsion laboratory.
Plans call for expansion of present facilities in time by the addition of a supersonic wind tunnel.
The Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory at the institute is continuing other researches and Caltech is maintaining its liaison and retaining its friendly relations with—though it no longer operates—the Navy’s Pasadena branch of the naval ordnanpe test station at Inyokern. In addition some eighty Army, Navy and Air Forces officer students are taking courses in aerodynamics or other specialized technical fields.
Pasadena, long world famous because of some of its researchers and teachers, continues, therefore, to be one of the most important American centers for rocket and guided missile research.
Corporal E Rocket
New York Herald Tribune, June 3.—Firing tests have begun on a new high-altitude rocket developed by the Army Ordnance Corps and known as the Corporal E, it was learned today.
The first of the type has been fired successfully at the proving grounds at White Sands, N. M., and the results of this test are now being studied. The press and other outside observers were not invited to view the first appearance, and the secrecy with whicji it is surrounded suggests that it is intended as much as a weapon as a strictly research vehicle.
The rocket has no mechanism for guidance and is described as “not very flexible.” It has been under development for more than two years by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Its range is considerably smaller than the recently announced Navy Neptune, which has an estimated ceiling of 235 miles.
It is understood that the Corporal E can carry a payload of 500 pounds to a maximum altitude of seventy-eight miles—as compared with a load of 2,000 pounds to eighty-four miles for which the Neptune is rated. If the load is reduced to 100 pounds the Corporal E can get it up to ninety-three miles.
Ten of the new missiles have been ordered and will be fired on a regular program of high- altitude investigation. They occupy a place
intermediate between the very high-altitude Neptunes and the high-load German V-2’s, the supply of which is running short.
A.M.A. Doctors Outline War Service Plan
New York Times, June 10.—-Plans for the rapid mobilization of our medical forces, both civilian and military, for defense against possible attacks with atomic bombs and bacteriological agents were discussed here today at the opening of the annual meeting of the house of delegates of the American Medical Association. The group is celebrating its centennial this year with the largest meeting in its history.
Recommendations Made
The report makes the following recommendations :
I. That the President of the United States of America and the Congress be respectfully urged:
A. That in war and in peace the Surgeons General of the armed forces have the authority and responsibility for participation, with commensurate rank and at the level of the Chiefs of Staff of Naval Operations of the armed forces, in all military and naval planning, organization and operations as these relate to medical, health, sanitary and welfare services; and for the assignment and utilization of medical and allied personnel at home and abroad.
B. To require that the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy and such other Cabinet officers as may be charged with responsibility for our national defense give consideration to possible civilian requirements in a total war in the planning, location and construction of military hospitals; that they re-examine their organizational tables and other procedures used during World War II in order to avoid
(1) The Medical overstaffing of units,
(2) The wasting of the time of doctors of medicine in the performance of non-professional duties;
(3) The removal of an excessive number of doctors of medicine from civilian hospitals and from civilian practice and
(4) A rather widespread failure to make assignments, determine rank and provide for the rotation of doctors of medicine on the basis of their professional qualifications, experience and age.
II.That the American Medical Association go on record as favoring the creation of a national emergency medical service administration as a continuing function of government: such administration to consist of representatives of the advisory board for medical specialties, American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons, American Dental Association, American Hospital Association, the Catholic Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Veterinary Medical Association and Association of Medical Colleges.
Responsibilities Listed
The administration shall be charged with the responsibility at all times:
(1) For effecting plans for total mobilization of the medical and allied resources of the nation.
(2) For the procurement and allotment of medical and allied personnel in case of national emergency.
(3) For the coordination of civil and military medical and allied services in times of threatened or actual national emergency, provided that in the exercise of this function there shall be added to the administration the following members: The Surgeon General, United States Army; the Surgeon General, United States Navy; the Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service; the Air Surgeon; the medical director, Veterans Administration; a representative of the National Research Council; a representative of the American Red Cross.
III.The experience of the American medical profession in the armed forces during the recent conflict and an examination of the effect of total war on civilian populations require that we participate in continuous study, planning and supervision of the adequacy of medical, health and sanitary services for the civilian population during emergencies, and the adequacy of medical, health and sanitary services in the armed forces.
The survival of the United States can hinge upon this section. Scientific knowledge
has accelerated warfare to the point that a nation cannot wait until disaster is approaching to prepare for such horrible events, This responsibility, therefore, demands that the American Medical Association establish forthwith a permanent and authoritative body to deal with this problem.
The committee recommends that the board of trustees of the American Medical Association be authorized by the house of delegates to create and appoint a standing committee to be designated as the council on national emergency medical service.
(Editor’s Note:—And $100 per month extra for all?)
National War College Graduates First Class
New York Herald Tribune, June 22.— The National War College completed its first year of life this week and turned back into the State, War and Navy Departments 100 of their most promising officers trained to study policy nationally rather than departmentally.
The project was suggested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and adopted enthusiastically by George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, who was then chief of staff. It is more his baby than any one else’s and this was fittingly recognized when he was asked to make the first graduation address.
The purpose of the college is to break down the compartmentalism of American policy. To insure that there shall never be another Pearl Harbor, and to bring the coming leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Forces and diplomatic service to know each other and each other’s problems. And, not least, to get them to know their public, to expose them to civilian influences; and conversely to show civilians what the services are doing to study their problems.
85 Out op 90 Are Civilians
There is a heavy accent on civilian professors, civilian lecturers and civilian reading. The year is divided into two semesters: the fall semester is devoted to the problem of keeping out of war, the spring semester to the problem of winning the war if we do get in.
Eighty-five out of ninety lecturers last year were civilians. They included such figures as Dr. J. D. Conant, president of Harvard; Dr. Karl T. Compton, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court; James B. Carey, secretary-treasurer of the Congress of Industrial Organizations; George H. Gallup, public opinion statistician, and Joseph Barnes, foreign editor of the New York Herald Tribune. Each lecturer speaks fifty minutes, and answers questions for another forty.
“The quality of the questions rose tremendously in the course of the year,” Major General Alfred M. Gruenther, deputy commandant, said. General Gruenther was chief of staff to General Mark Clark, following, and to a very considerable extent determining, the fortunes first of the 5th Army and later of the 15th Army group from Algiers to Austria.
Mixed From the First
To balance General Gruenther, the commandant selected was Vice-Admiral H. W. Hill, whose war experience was in the Pacific, and as alternate deputy, Brigadier General T. H. Landon, of the Army Air Forces, whose experience was also in the Pacific.
From the very first the three services and the State Department men are mixed in together. Study groups are organized in committees of six. These committees are assigned problems, discuss them in round-table session and then select one of their number to report their findings to the student body.
For instance, the day President Truman announced the Truman doctrine of aid to nations threatened by totalitarianism, a whole series of problems suggested by the new doctrine was assigned to the committees.
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As an example of the practical effect, one may take Dr. Conant’s suggestion in the course of a lecture on the needs of a small group to study the most extreme possibilities of war of the future. General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower took it up at once and set up three young colonels as the “advanced study group” with orders to report only to him and to think up the worst about future
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war that they could.
The college instills the idea of national security rather than security from the Army, Navy or Air Forces view. The average age of officers is 42.5 years. Their average rank is Army colonel or Navy captain. Thirty were drawn from each service and ten from the State Department.
Competition is keen. It is the course which every ambitious officer hankers for. The Ground Forces last year had twenty- five places. They had to select them from 700 candidates of first-rate qualifications. “It was a back-breaking job,” General Gruenther said. “Took them three months to do it.”
With the idea that five years of war did not allow most officers much time to keep up with their reading, the N.W.C. got out a list of suggested reading, with a request that each officer work through at least seven of them by next September, including one work on general United States foreign policy, one on economics and one each on Germany, Russia, the Near East, the Far East, and Latin America.
List of Reading
The list includes Walter Lippmann’s “U. S. Foreign Policy,” Carl L. Becker’s “How New Will the Better World Be,” Keith Hutchinson’s “Rival Partners” and Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon.”
The first seminar for last year was divided thus: 1. Basic factors in international relations; 2. Objectives and capabilities of principal power; 3. United States foreign policy problems. These topics were worked out in committees under the heads “Security in the Atomic Age,” “War Potential of Selected Nations,” and “Problems in Formulation of United States Foreign Policy.” Considerable attention is given to the national characteristics of other peoples. As one observer said: “If this college had existed before the war, it would have been waged differently. We should have known our allies better.”
As the courses progressed it seemed desirable to make the civilian emphasis even stronger, and a whole series of lectures on scientific topics was introduced. Typical was the opening lecture by Dr. George E. Kin- ball: “How the Scientist Works.”