Facts

In a big Army-Navy facts-of-life rally, held last week in Los Angeles, some 650 West Coast bigwigs were told:

P:By Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson: in more than two years of fighting, U.S. troops have captured 170,000 Italian prisoners and 110,000 Germans, but only 377 Japs. (In Washington, Navy Secretary Knox added: "It is unwholesome to assume that the Japanese fleet is afraid to come out. It just does not suit them to come out right now. They have fanatical courage.")

P:By General Thomas Holcomb, U.S. Marines: "island-hopping" has been a necessary part of "the grand squeeze play on Tokyo." But the United Nations have no intention of "going methodically from island to island" until they reach Japan.

P:By Vice Admiral John S. McCain: the number of U.S. aircraft carriers (now over 40) will be "approximately doubled" in the next few months. By Under Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal: the U.S. will build twice as many cruisers this year as last, but major emphasis will be on landing craft and submarines.

P:By Admiral William F. ("Bull") Halsey, home on leave from his South Pacific command: "The only good Jap is one that's been dead six months. The only thing to do is kill all of them."

Prime impression carried away by the conferees: the war is a long way from being over.

The dawning Army-Navy realization that the American people will act all right about the war if they are given the facts was signalized on the East Coast when, for the first time, reporters and photographers were permitted to cover the arrival of a hospital ship. The Acadia, bringing home 776 men wounded in Italy and North Africa, reminded home folks that thus far in the war U.S. fighting men have been killed, wounded or captured at a rate of one every eight minutes since Dec. 7, 1941 --and that soon that rate may be measured in seconds.

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