The Hot Jobs

The U.S. was in the grip of a war-production slump last week that had the War Department thoroughly alarmed.

Once again the brass hats considered ask ing Congress for a National Service Act to compel men to work in vital industries.

Lieut. General Brehon Somervell, chief of the Army Service Forces, said he was getting urgent requests from Generals Eisenhower, Clark and MacArthur for more & more weapons and equipment. He said he could not begin to fill some of the orders. Reason : the manpower trouble had brought acute shortages in eleven vital production fields--foundries and forges, artillery, heavy ammunition, electronics, heavy tires, steel plates, tanks, tank destroyers, dry cell batteries, cotton textiles, TNT and other explosives.

The Army, always nervous over the re conversion of war plants to civilian goods, and often accused of crying wolf about manpower, this time had some sound argu ments against "premature" reconversion.

P: There was less manpower in U.S. found ries and forges than there had been on May i, when manpower was already below minimum needs.

P: There was not a single bomber tire in the Army's inventory.

P: There was a need for 300% more heavy shells than anticipated--due to the in creasing use of massed firepower.

P: General MacArthur needed tents badly, because the Pacific advance was so fast that wooden barracks were left behind.

P: General Eisenhower needed big quantities of hospital tents, because the German scorched-earth policy was effectively wiping out billeting facilities.

There was no easy solution to this slump. The major shortages were in the backbreaking, body-toasting, low-wage industries, where production usually falls off in hot weather. This summer it has dropped even more sharply, as good war news has sent workers scurrying into more attractive, more secure civilian jobs.

Confronted with this evidence, even reconversion-minded WPBoss Donald Nelson got worried. Promptly he set aside his squabble with the War Department over the slow return to civilian production (TIME, July 24) and joined hands with the Services and the War Manpower Commission in a nationwide drive to enlist 200,000 war-industry workers. With his frequent opponent, General Somervell, Nel son planned to go on the air early this week to appeal to the people. So did War Secretary Stimson, just back from Normandy.

With no law to back it up, the War Department can only make it plain that workers' failure to sweat it out in the toughest, most thankless war-production jobs may ultimately be measured in lost American lives.

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