WAR FRONT: Smokeout

The U.S. Steel Corp. and the U.S. Army last week tested the first smoke blackout in U.S. history. Stage for the show was the huge Carnegie-Illinois mill (U.S. Steel subsidiary) in Gary, Ind. As Army engineers and civilians watched, a black smoke belched from 20 furnace stacks and from 20 locomotives crisscrossing the mill yard. Soon the plant was hidden under a black smoke umbrella (see cut).

Although it looked good from the ground, the half-hour test was called only “25% successful” because a breeze came up and blew the smoke away. Gary itself was about as clean afterward as before, but citizens of Michigan City—25 miles to leeward—called it a “dirty day.”