Facts without Fooling

The Army Ordnance Association is an organization of civilian engineers and executives whose companies make military supplies. Last week A. O. A. members, who know too much to be fooled, heard a progress report on U. S. preparedness from Defense Commissioner William S. Knudsen; from the Army's Chief of Ordnance, Major General Charles M. Wesson; from Assistant Secretary of War Robert Porter Patterson :

> Plane production is behind schedule. Mr. Knudsen had expected 1,133 planes in October, now hopes to get 900 to 950 (be cause, said he, manufacturers have had to concentrate on plant expansion at the expense of current deliveries). His future schedule: 1,250 a month by Jan. 1; 1,500 by next July 1 ; 3,000 a month by early 1942. Production last month: 800.

> Contracts for 70% of the Army's $2,000,000,000 ordnance program have been placed, but bulk production is at least 15 months away. Light-tank production now amounts to 100 a month; medium and heavy tanks will not roll from the plants before next May.

> Aircraft-engine makers in September turned out some 1,500 combat engines, 900 training-plane engines. Many of these were for export (mainly to the British). Even with automakers like Ford, Packard, Studebaker, General Motors going into the aircraft-engine business, output will be no where near enough before mid-1941.

> The Commission has arranged to build eleven new plants to make powder, high explosives, ammonia, and to load shell cases. Five more are planned. Said Mr. Knudsen: "I need not tell you gentlemen that the powder question was awfully late in getting started. . . ." Last week Army men murmured that Franklin Roosevelt caused some of the delay by holding up contracts for new munitions plants. The Navy meantime allotted $96,000,000 to 15 ship and naval armor makers, to expand their production facilities.

> Contracts have been let for the bulk (more than $9,000,000,000) of a little over $12,000,000,000 in Army-Navy funds. Said Mr. Knudsen: ". . . Some time late next spring or early summer we will have something to show." "Miles ahead, miles behind." Last week the business-minded McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.'s Factory Management & Maintenance examined U. S. defense, printed these conclusions:

> "We are miles ahead of 1916-17 in many ways -- miles behind in others."

> "We have not even begun a real defense effort as such things are understood in Europe."

> "We have made decided progress but we have lost most of three precious months during which Congress wrangled and harangued over tax laws. . . . The real bottle-neck has thus been centred not in the Army, not in the Navy, not in industry, but in a certain faction of Congress itself. The delay is the fault of the very men who blame it on industry."

> "The public and most Congressmen simply do not understand the time element in industrial production of munitions. They must be told again and again until they do understand why it takes time to build tanks, guns and planes. They must realize that wars are won in factories years before the conflict in the field."

> "The whole defense job cries aloud for strong central leadership. The elements of a smooth, effective program are right there in Washington, waiting for one man with the ability and authority to pull them together. . . . The very existence of the National Advisory Defense Commission is perhaps the most encouraging feature of all. But the commission is. . . an advisory board, and nothing more. . . . The commission. . . is supposed to report to President Roosevelt. . . . But many of the commission members feel privately that it would be better if they had a boss of their own who would in turn report directly to the White House."

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