Engineers' Mirrors

Last week the Army's capable Corps of Engineers proudly showed newsmen that it had broken a bottleneck in one of the odds & ends of national defense. The bottleneck was critical: there was a shortage of 60-in. reflectors for anti-aircraft searchlights. So the Engineers turned to and built their own reflector plant.

The Engineers' plant was in full production last week, turning out enough reflectors to equip the searchlights being manufactured by Sperry Corp. and General Electric. To visiting newsmen the plant, a long, one-story brick building in Cincinnati's suburban Mariemont, looked like the home of a military secret. It is. Behind its windowless walls, under fluorescent lights, its workmen are busy at a reflector-making process about which the Engineers have not even told their pals the British, who buy U.S. searchlights.

When World War II turned the heat on U.S. production, the Engineers built a small reflector factory at Fort Belvoir, Va., well knew that if production were ever stepped up, the Army would have to do it, because there is no commercial use for the big mirrors. When the call came they were ready, quietly went to work. The $600,000 Mariemont plant was started last September, six months later was completed. Without fuss or feathers red-faced Captain Frank H. Forney put it into production, soon had it turning out reflectors fast enough to forget the bottleneck.

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