DEFENSE WEEK: Politics v. Progress

Silly stuff last week muddied up the serious business of U. S. defense, for the U. S. was after all in the midst of a Presidential campaign as well as defense program.

>Candidate Roosevelt made out the best possible case for aircraft procurement 10,015 aircraft “in the process of pro duction”) and his critics, using the same facts, made out the worst possible case (only 343 combat planes ordered since May 16).

>Defense Commissioner William S. Knudsen and the Army’s Chief of Air Corps Henry H. Arnold, who had plenty to do in Washington, had to go on a pretty tour of western aircraft factories to make it look as though defense was getting ahead.

>Candidate Willkie got excited about industrial conscription (see p. 13), timed his observations more for political effect than for contribution to defense.

>Harry F. Guggenheim (see p. 54}, chairman of the “Wings for Willkie” com mittee, achieved a low point in defense debate, confusing the civilian CAB’s apprentice-pilot-training program with the wholly separate advanced training of com bat pilots and calling it “mass murder.” The week’s actual defense progress :

Engines. United Aircraft Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney division agreed to expand its plant at East Hartford, Conn., take a $180,000,000 order for 17,000 airplane engines (500 to 2,000 h.p.), expects to begin turning them out (with Navy-owned tools) within eight months. Curtiss-Wright Corp. accepted a $323,000,000 order for 20,000 more engines, 14,000 propellers, will be in production nn the order by next July. -Said Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, announcing the Pratt & Whitney order: “These fellows, as good sportsmen, are willing to take a chance even before Congress votes the funds.”

Aircraft. The unvarnished fact, up to last week, was that about one-third of Mr. Roosevelt’s planes “in the process of production” had been ordered with money appropriated last year, that orders for another third had not been closed, that most of the rest were trainers which Army & Navy must have before they can use combat planes. Last week the Army ordered 850 more trainers (from Ryan Aeronautical Co., Beech Aircraft Corp., Vultee Aircraft, Inc.), placed its first big orders for combat aircraft out of 1940 appropriations. The orders: 277 heavy bombers from Boeing Aircraft Co., 410 pursuit interceptors from Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Still unordered were most of the 25,674 Army & Navy planes for which Congress had appropriated since May.

Coordination of the defense program was still sorely lacking. But Secretary Knox disclosed a promising advance: the pooling of Army-Navy procurement facilities, so that only one service dickers with each of the major aircraft and engine companies.

Money. Congress last week completed all but the final details of action on a $5,133,628,277 defense bill, upping to $10,200,000,000 the total voted for U. S. defense since May. Major items in this total:

Aircraft (Army & Navy): $2,577,000,000. Ship construction, alteration, conversion: $900,400,000. Ordnance (guns, tanks, powder, etc.) : $3,430,000,000. Land, Housing (for new bases, barracks, etc.): $554,000,000. New plants (for guns, powder, etc., to be Government-built and privately operated): $541,250,000. Maintenance (pay, food, etc.): $1,546,000,000.