Work Begins

Last week the U. S. rearmament program was still largely in the blueprint stage. But up & down the economy, certain factories, from steel to handkerchiefs, were beginning to stir to the increasing drum roll of orders, real and promised.

Airplanes. Ever since he told reporters that he could build 1,000 airplanes a day, Henry Ford's return to the aircraft business (he stopped making Ford tri-motors in 1932) has been waited for. Last week he and his production chief, tough, profane Charles E. Sorensen, were stroking their chins over a variety of projects-- high-powered Rolls-Royce engines, shot-welded Duralumin fuselages, even plastics. From London, Lord Beaverbrook, Minister for Air, announced that Ford would make 6,000 Rolls-Royces for Britain; from Washington, Defense Advisory Commissioner William S. Knudsen announced that Ford would make 3,000 for the U. S.

But by week's end no such orders had arrived in Dearborn. Henry Ford sternly asserted that he was "not doing business with the British Government or any other foreign government," proceeded on the as sumption that U. S. orders will follow.

Probable status of Ford's vast productive capacity: it will stand by until Coordinator Knudsen crystallizes an engineering schedule from the present confusion, gives him a real order for something to make and deliver.

Meanwhile, obscure Jacobs Aircraft Engine Co. of Pottstown, Pa. got an actual order last week. Amount: $6,500,000, from the Canadian Government, for 2,000 little 330-h.p. engines for training planes.

Meanwhile, also, U. S. Rubber Co. announced a new kind of airplane armor plate (for pilot seats, bombardier and gunner protection, etc.). Its materials: steel and rubber. Its merit, according to U. S.

Rubber: bullet resistance equal to that of all-steel armor plate weighing 20% more.

U. S. Rubber kept details of its invention under wraps.

Tanks. Tom Girdler's Republic Steel Corp. last week prepared to make armor plate for tanks. Marmon-Herrington Co., truck & tractor maker, is doubling the capacity of its Indianapolis plant, had an order to build light combat tanks for the U. S. Army.

Parachutes. Promising to end U. S. dependence on silk (and Japan) for chutes, Buffalo's Irving Air Chute Co. last week delivered an experimental order of chutes made from Du Font's synthetic nylon.

Textiles. For its growing family of soldiers, the U. S. Army began buying fabrics for uniforms. Lame old American Woolen Co. and other smaller weavers got orders for some 13,000,000 yd. of serge, overcoatings, shirtings, odds & ends. Cotton mills got orders for 930,000 yd. of khaki cotton cloth. Also placed were orders for 176,350 yd. of "army cottons by Treasury Procurement Chief Donald Marr Nelson (lately of Sears, Roebuck), past master in dealing with hundreds of small-time textile companies. Expectation was that Don Nelson might soon be doing more buying for both Army & Navy, as Ed Stettinius' late, great father, Edward R. Stettinius, did on a broader scale from shorts to siege guns in World War I.

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